The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Youths to take centre stage at Ogidi Day Festival

    Youths to take centre stage at Ogidi Day Festival

    The youths of the Ogidi community in Ijumu Local Government Area, Kogi State will take the centre stage as the famous Ogidi Day Festival holds from June 15 to 17.

    The Director-General of the festival, Mr. Tunde Ipinmisho, who announced this in Ogidi said the community was making deliberate efforts to involve the youths in all aspects of its life.

    He said the festival, tagged Nigeria’s biggest culture event in June, would open on Thursday, June 15 with a youth carnival round the town, followed on the same day by an expedition to the peak of Oda Mountain, which served as a watch tower for the people during the Nupe War of the late 19th century.

    The Youth Connect night of dance and drama holds on Friday, June 16 featuring the Sisi Asa (Culture Queen) pageant as its climax.

    Ipinmisho said various cultural troupes, age grades, clubs and societies as well as visiting troupes from Osun, Ondo, Edo and Anambra States would entertain guests at the main event on June 17, 2023 at the Community Hall Grounds, Agegbe, Ogidi to which dignitaries from across the country have been invited.

    The festival which commemorates the arrival of the new yam in the town is also used as a platform for homecoming for the sons and daughters of the community from around the world as well as to raise funds for various development projects.

  • Southeast and IPOB’s sit-at-home order

    Southeast and IPOB’s sit-at-home order

    The Southeast is still engaged in a titanic battle with the Monday sit-at-home order first issued by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in August 2021. Few know how the battle will end, or who will win, considering how long the bloody test of wills has lasted. It is unclear to many outside the region who the backbones of the order for the self-immolating weekly protest are: IPOB or the faceless ‘unknown gunmen’; or perhaps they are just opposite side of the same coin. Both militant groups have continued to pass the buck. But giddy with the November 2021 Anambra governorship poll triumph, and being an economist who is not ignorant of the unbearable cost of the sit-at-home civil action designed to pressure the federal government to release detained IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, Charles Soludo ordered an end to the protest. He tabled before Anambrarians the enormous opportunity cost of the protest and argued that the state, nay the Southeast where the protest holds sway, could not afford the loss. Thrice between December 2021 and mid-2022, the governor tried to lift the siege but failed, for the people were more fearful of the lawless gunmen than the timid and sometimes frustrated law enforcement agencies.

    Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State is the latest to try to arrest IPOB’s civil action. Though the separatist group had sometime last year suspended the action, renegade members, including the Nigerian-Finish member of the IPOB leadership, Simon Ekpa, have done their worst to sustain it with brutal enforcement. The governor had on June 1 ordered businesses and schools and offices to open on Mondays starting from June 5 in defiance of the IPOB order. Those who defy the state’s directive would have their premises shut, the governor threatened. On June 5, the governor and his men went round Enugu to monitor compliance and later announced that they were satisfied with the people’s response. Sixty percent compliance, he enthused, was not a bad outcome. Other reports, however, disputed the governor’s measurement. The compliance level was dismal, said other sources. The governor’s order and threat were a dismal failure, they chorused. This column cannot independently verify whose report is more believable; but judging from the governor’s plaintive comment, compliance was less than satisfactory.

    There is no confusion about the relevance of the IPOB civil action. It is counterproductive. It undermines civil authority, bleeds the economy of the Southeast, and promotes dissension within the polity. Prof. Soludo computes the economic loss to the Southeast zone consequent upon the civil action to be about N19.6bn. It is not clear whether it is an exaggeration or understatement. But the loss to the region is indisputably in the billions of naira. If wealth is not being created, poverty is being fostered. So too is migration to other more peaceful zones, leading to the export of investment capital to other places. It is unlikely indigenes of the zone lack an understanding of the economic and social losses consequent upon the sit-at-home action. They understand the damage the losses occasion, but are perhaps too fearful to summon the courage to end it.

    Two reasons explain the difficulty of ending the IPOB action, and both speak to Nigeria’s constitutional weakness and the failure of the Southeast elite, perhaps in equal measure. The sit-at-home action is a terrible indictment of the regional approach to law and order as well as the failure of leadership. Take the constitution, for example. Had Nigeria been operating economic federalism, where states earn their keep and pay taxes to the central government, they would recognise that without revenue from a central pool in Abuja, their states would starve. The undue reliance on revenue allocation from federal pool has promoted economic indolence, if not profligacy, in states. More importantly, the prolongation of the IPOB action is a reflection of the laxity and outright failure of the Southeast elite to control, mediate and modulate political activities as well as disaffection and alienation in their region. IPOB militancy did not develop into a monster overnight, and there is no proof, given their perspectives on national issues, that the zone’s leaders are even convinced of the folly and illogic of the militant group. Having indirectly justified IPOB’s objectives perhaps because of the alleged unfairness of Nigeria’s constitutional arrangement, they have now found it difficult to curb the excesses of the group. If they had the wisdom to foresee the consequences of IPOB’ militancy on their economy, especially the staggering revenue losses, perhaps the elite would not be too eager to shoot themselves in the foot. They gave free rein to IPOB; they must now find the courage and the wisdom to end militancy in their region should they not receive help from Abuja in terms of constitutional rearrangement or the amicable resolution of the Kanu conundrum.

    Governors Soludo and Mbah have demonstrated their willingness to finally grapple with the Monday sit-at-home nonsense and bring to an end the region’s economic bleeding. They have solicited the cooperation of the federal government to cobble a solution. The former president Muhammadu Buhari did not lend them an ear. Perhaps the new helmsman in Abuja will. But the Southeast elite must themselves demonstrate uncommon sagacity and responsibility in tackling the crisis. Releasing Mr Kanu and bringing the case against him to an end may not be as difficult as taming the hotheaded young man who had played into the hands of the federal government by his excesses and incendiary rhetoric. Prof Soludo wishes to stand surety for Mr Kanu; but the last man who did, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, got his fingers burnt. Could Mr Kanu, upon whose release the Southeast elite anchor peace in the region and an end to the sit-at-home order, really be tamed? Indeed, has the Southeast got its politics right, as indeed Governors Soludo, Imo’s Hope Uzodinma, and former Ebonyi helmsman Dave Umahi feared?

  • NLC’s Ajaero deplores insult: what impudence!

    NLC’s Ajaero deplores insult: what impudence!

    Joe Ajaero, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NC), is shockingly unable to see the contradictions in fighting for workers’ interest and prosecuting the cause of the Labour Party (LP) in the same breath. He won’t see the contradictions until the union implodes. Reacting to accusations that NLC was fighting the cause of LP and thus politicising the union, not minding that some members of the union belong to other political parties, Mr Ajaero doubled down and dismissively described the objections against his leadership style as an insult to the NLC. Clearly, a showdown between the government and the union leadership looms sometime in the future.

    Mr Ajaero had said: “We determine what happens in the Labour Party. Who is Labour Party or its candidate that will be telling us what to do? What we are doing now, has it not been consistent with what has been done on the issue of fuel subsidy from the past?  Even when the Labour Party presidential candidate was talking about fuel subsidy removal, although the mode maybe different, we said if you do it, you will hear from us…We have an era that we are entering: era of politics, and we will not shy away. The Nigeria Labour Congress will be involved in politics. We are already involved in politics. NLC has a political party: the Labour Party, and LP participated in the recent elections… Nigeria must exist before we practise our unionism. Anybody, who emerges as the president of Nigeria will work with us, and the rights and privileges of the workers must be guaranteed. The current wage system, casualisation policy, and outsourcing are anti-worker; with such policies, we can’t be our brothers’ keepers.”

    Ignore his arrogance for a moment. It is of course not true that at the moment the NLC determines what happens in the LP. The union may have tasted power and seen what such power can do, but Mr Ajaero’s assumptions are illogical and impossible to defend. By his admission of the indistinguishability of the NLC and LP, not to talk of their incestuous relationship, he is of course inviting and taunting the federal government to treat the union as an opposition party. The NLC president is unwise. As this column has maintained, just when should the government see the demands of the NLC as strictly for the interest of workers, and when does the government see the union’s negotiational intransigence as not for the LP in its bid to undermine the ruling party and compromise its electoral misfortune? The question is not whether a showdown between the union/LP and the federal government would occur; the question is when the presumption that everyone in NLC perforce belongs to LP would end.

  • Troops neutralise six terrorists, recover arms in Kaduna – DHQ

    Troops neutralise six terrorists, recover arms in Kaduna – DHQ

    Defence Headquarters said the troops of Operation Forest Sanity in conjunction with the Defence Headquarters Special Forces have neutralised six terrorists and recovered arms and ammunition in Kaduna State.

    The Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj-Gen. Musa Danmadami, made this known in a statement in Abuja yesterday.

    Danmadami said the troops had on Friday conducted covert operation to terrorists’ enclaves at Maidaro village in Giwa Local Government Area and made contact with terrorists.

    He said the six terrorists were eliminated in the fire fight that ensued.

    According to him, five AK 47 rifles, 192 rounds of 7.62 x 39 mm Special ammunition, 74 rounds of 7.62 x 54mm Special and Nine AK 47 rifle magazines were recovered.

    “Three IEDs, three Baofeng radios, one PKM and three motorcycles were recovered, among other items.

    “The military high command commends troops and encourages the general public to avail troops with credible and timely information on terrorists and all criminal activities within their area,” he said.

  • Four kid plane crash survivors lost in jungle found alive after 40 days

    Four kid plane crash survivors lost in jungle found alive after 40 days

    • Not many people had expected them to be alive

    Not 40 days after they were lost in the dangerous jungle of the Amazon that spans much of northwestern Brazil and extending into Colombia, Peru and other South American countries.

    And they were all kids aged one, four, nine and 13, who had been passengers along with their mother on a light aircraft that crashed on May 1.

    The accident claimed the lives of all on board except the siblings, Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin who had his first birthday while he was lost in the rainforest.

    Dead were their mother Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, the pilot and an indigenous leader.

    The children were not initially found when the wreckage of the plane and the corpses of the adults were recovered by rescuers after weeks of hunting.

    Some part eaten fruit had suggested that they might be alive after all, prompting a massive hunt across kilometres of the dense rainforest.

    Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, subsequently came under severe attacks from the public when he said they were safe only to retract his statement and say there was just evidence they might still be alive.

    By the time they were eventually traced, dramatic footage shows how the four children were winched into a rescue helicopter, bitten, dehydrated and malnourished but mercifully alive, and taken to safety, the London Mail reported yesterday.

    A happy Petro tweeted: “It is a joy for the whole country.

    “They were alone. They themselves achieved an example of total survival which will remain in history.”

    Their grandmother, whose voice was played from aircraft above the jungle during the search to reassure the youngsters they were being looked for, told reporters: “I never lost hope. I was always supporting the search. I feel very happy. I thank President Petro and my ‘countrymen’ who went through so many difficulties.”

    Overnight, an army helicopter hovered above the tree canopy, hoisted the four on board and flew them to hospital for checks. The delighted soldiers had earlier posed for photographs with the children, who appeared emaciated.

    The children’s grandfather told Noticias Caracol he was very grateful to the army for helping to find them, adding: “I want to see them”.

    The survival story is all the more miraculous as the jungle is home to jaguars, pumas, snakes and other predators, as well as armed groups that smuggle drugs and terrorise local populations.

    The children and other passengers had caught a routine flight on a Cessna 206 from Araracuara in Colombia to the town of San Jose del Guaviare on the fateful day. In a country with such dense jungle, light aircraft and boats are often the only viable means of transport.

    Minutes after starting the 350km journey, the pilot reported problems with the engine and the plane disappeared from radars.

    Between May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the three adults and the debris of the plane, which was wedged vertically in the thick vegetation, its nose destroyed.

    But the children – Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin – remained missing.

    Some 200 soldiers and indigenous people with knowledge of the terrain then launched a search for them.

    The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children’s indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.

    The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military has dropped food parcels and bottled water for the children.

    Powerful searchlights were shone into the area “so that the minors can approach us”, search team member Colonel Fausto Avellaneda told the Noticias Caracol TV show.

  • Leather art fair holds in Lagos

    Leather art fair holds in Lagos

    • Omolara Akintoye

    Creativity, collaboration and commitment, among others will feature prominently at the 2023 Lagos Leather Fair. The fair in its sixth year has been at the forefront in the realization of the untapped opportunities in the Nigerian leather ecosystem and Africa as a whole.

    “The annual celebration of Lagos Leather Fair is a proof point of our unflinching commitment towards finding sustainable solutions to scale the African leather industry and ensure that the Made-in-Nigeria Project and Zero-Oil Initiative becomes a reality,” said the founder of Lagos Leather Fair, Femi Olayebi.

    “For over five years, we have created an enabling environment for key players to maximise the potential of the leather industry;we are delighted about LLF2023 and look forward to the significant impact it will make in Nigeria and across Africa.”

    The fair will bring together indigenous brands, emerging and established designers as well as international brands to showcase their products and services to the defined audience.

    During the fair, the LLF Accelerator Programme — a mentoring design and development programme where six selected leather brands – three in footwear and three in handbags, will grow and strengthen their skills and acquire critical knowledge with the help of entrepreneurs who possess the relevant industry experience.

    Themed Staying Ahead: Creativity | Collaboration | Commitment, this year’s edition is scheduled to take place from the 17th to 18th of June at the Balmoral Convention Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.

    LLF2023 will feature a series of engaging conversations and masterclasses where selected speakers will be available to share insights on relevant and key topics that affect the African leather industry while featuring a well-curated series of workshops for creatives.

    These workshops will focus on the techniques and fundamentals of shoemaking, and on growth and marketing strategies with the aid of social media using case studies. A very special workshop – Cracking Global Markets: How African Brands can go from Local to Global – is also being organised for twenty-five (25) selected brands. This workshop will be facilitated by an International fashion and retail consultancy.

    In addition, LLF2023 will feature Pitch-A-LeatherBiz, a pitching session where Individual brands will pitch their business ideas to prospective investors before an audience. Lagos Leather Fair will also be introducing LLF Awards, aimed at recognising excellence and innovation, and honouring outstanding leather designers.

    For about six years, the fair has had a significant impact on the Nigerian leather industry which is the third largest in Africa after South Africa and Ethiopia. The platform has impacted relevant stakeholders through its engaging conversations, creative workshops, product exhibitions, and runway presentations.

  • ‘How literature has redefined nationhood’

    ‘How literature has redefined nationhood’

    Professor Chijioke Uwasomba is of the English Department of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State. He has spent almost all his academic life teaching and forming young adults. Most of his former students are already making big strides in the literary world all over. In this interview with Edozie Udeze, he takes a look at the level of literary development in the society and what literature has done and can still do to improve ideas and dreams.

    As a professor of the English language and one versed in Literature, what would you say is the state of literature in Nigeria presently?

    The state of literature in Nigeria, like any other productive engagement is not as excellent as one would have joyfully expected. Given the complete inability of the ruling forces to run the country with vision and purposefulness, the Nigerian world of literature is grappling with the contradictions. But literature, being what it is, cannot but continue to assert itself in the advancement of the people’s culture. Nigerian writers and their community of critics, in spite of their bumbling leaders(rulers)have continued to wax very strong their creative and critical engagements.

    Every year winners are announced by NLNG,the custodians of Nigerian literature prize. What,in your opinion has the prize done towards the promotion of the countrys literary values?

    The NLNG Prize is a worthy exercise and its management and the pool of assessors have been commendable. The Prize has helped in the identification of budding writers in particular and the promotion of Nigerian literature written in English.

    Literature defines a nation and its many stages of statehood. Has Nigerian literature, in anyway helped redefine the many exigences that trouble the nation?

    Nigerian literature has helped in every material particular in the genuine and continuous efforts to define and redefine Nigeria’s nationhood which has been in tatters right from its benighted beginning. Every nation is in a perpetual remoulding and re-engineering for the betterment of her people. This is even more necessary and urgent in backward, dependent, neo-colonial and peripheral contraptions like Nigeria. Post-colonial hell-holes like Nigeria requires a literature that interrogates the contradictions and inanities that have hobbled them and made them unlivable environments on earth. Nigerian literature, right from its beginnings has been an active force in the building and redirection of the country.

    Has the Association of Nigerian Authors in any way pointed the way forward to help this entity called Nigeria?

    The Association of Nigerian Authors and other literature -promoting platforms have been doing their utmost best in promoting Nigerian literature in the service of the country and the global community.

    What areas of literature interest the younger ones most these days?

    Younger Nigerians are losing interest in reading because the Nigerian leaders at all levels don’t read and their distaste for reading and exhibition of crass anti-intellectualism have not been in the national interest of the country. The place of reading should be on the national agenda with specific focus on the youths because the future of the country and the world belongs to them.

    In what ways has the genre popular literature contributed to literary advancement in recent times?

    The broader field of the media and popular cultural studies and activities with detailed engagements and analysis have influenced and contributed to literary production in the country. Every literature is a form of popular culture because of the ontological nature of literature as a cultural tool for the ideologization of the people in their march for progress and full enjoyment.

  • ‘Nigerian creatives are world-class’

    ‘Nigerian creatives are world-class’

    Program Lead, Terra Academy For the Arts, TAFTA, Joseph Umoibom speaks with Samson Oti on how far the Nigeria creatives have gone in terms of quality to meet international standards.

    The creative industry in Africa and globally symbolise power bases of investments. Do you think emerging creatives in the industry are capable – skills and talents – of effectively utilizing such investments?

    I do think we have a lot of creatives who are capable and are stepping up to meet the challenges and demands of international bodies such as Netflix, Amazon, and Showmax. Their interest and investments in the Nigerian market are a result of the growth the industry has been through over the years. We also have a lot more creatives who are working to expand their knowledge and be better trained and equipped to deliver the quality standards wanted by those bodies. Their entrance is a welcome development as it will help grow the industry in terms of economics and finances, and will push both emerging and established creatives to go beyond what they are capable of.

    As an African filmmaker, why do you think it is important for organizations and individuals to support and nurture young talents?

    As the industry grows, we need to create an environment that works for both emerging and established filmmakers. This way, the younger generation will be best prepared to take over where the older generation stops. This succession process is important in order to avoid a vacuum when many of the existing filmmakers retire. By nurturing and supporting them now, they can learn directly from the established filmmakers, as well as help them adopt newer ideas and innovations. The younger generation is more savvy at new technology and these new processes will only make the industry better. The older generation will also benefit by learning new ways of making films and telling stories that will resonate with everyone, irrespective of their generation.

    You are the program lead and one of the key figures at the Terra Academy for the Arts (TAFTA). Can you share an overview of the programme and its purpose?

    Terra Academy for the Arts (TAFTA), with the support of the Mastercard Foundation, aims to train 65,000 youths between the ages of 16 and 35 in the creative and technical aspects of theatre. Under Bolanle Austen-Peters Production and Terra Kulture, the foremost theatre production outfit in Nigeria, we have been informally training many youths who discovered their talents by learning on the job with us. Through TAFTA, we are formalizing this training programme by offering relevant courses such as Stage Lightning, Sound Design, Animation which is useful in scenic and set design, and scriptwriting. We have also included business and entrepreneurial modules in each of the courses so that our students receive the most thorough education, especially those who will be setting up their own businesses afterwards. The initiative is focused on three states: Lagos, Ogun, and Kano with a particular emphasis on female participation. All that’s needed to register is a Secondary School certificate. Finally, after completion of the programme, we provide relevant internship opportunities for our students to gain practical experience.

     What would you say are the biggest barriers and challenges for emerging talents in the creative industry, and how is TAFTA working to address them?

    There are three major challenges affecting emerging and established filmmakers in the industry and they are funding, training, and access to markets. Many find it difficult to secure favourable funding for theatre productions, film productions, and other creative endeavours. We are addressing this challenge by partnering with First City Monument Bank (FCMB), supported by Mastercard Foundation, to provide soft loans with flexible terms. These loans are not only available to students or graduates from TAFTA but to anyone in the industry looking to kickstart a creative enterprise.

    What should the public be expecting from TAFTA and its students as they embark on careers in the creative academy?

    The public should expect better-trained and better-skilled experts who are transforming the creative industry and the nation at large. They should expect a significant increase in the quality of work being churned out by the industry because of this intervention by TAFTA and Mastercard Foundation. We are creating a pool of talents that the industry can tap into. We have diligently trained these talents and now they are ready for the market. In addition, these talents are not limited to us or the creative industry, they can be utilized in a variety of ways and opportunities.

    How does TAFTA plan to expand in the future, and what are its long-term goals for supporting creative youth?

    We are looking to possibly expanding the number of our intervention states and also our physical centres. Currently, we have two physical centres in Lagos, Ogun, and Kano States each that provide the necessary equipment and internet access for students who cannot afford to study on their own. We are also hoping to expand our course offerings and venture into more aspects of the creative industry as demand rises. For the students, we plan to continue to support their journey even after graduation. There are sessions with mentors offered for alumni and we are building a strong alumni community. They are always welcome to reach out to us, our faculty, and our body of experts for advice they may need. This is important as our body of experts consists of accountants, lawyers, business entrepreneurs, marketers, and so on, who have shown their willingness to offer free services to students and alumni.

  • Of poems and symbols of terrorism

    Of poems and symbols of terrorism

    Title: The Lonely Grave and other poems

    Athor: Jibrin Baba Ndace

    Published: 2020

    Reviewer: Edozie Udeze

    Poems convey thoughts in deeper and more concise forms. They are feelings of the inner mind that pierce the heart. The words are naturally chosen for proper effects and to also convey the appropriate sounds for the purpose of assimilation. The Lonely Grave and other poems, comes at a time when the Nigerian society is at a crossroads. The poet is very careful in his choice of themes and words, lines and sounds. He takes his time to synchronize and harmonize the rhymes and rhythms, their total effects on the psyche of the reader; indeed, the entire society.

    Jibrin Baba Ndace is totally involved in these poems. He tears at the heart of the matter. In very few succinct words in each lyric, he delivers the necessary messages to convey the state of anomie and angst, very chaotic in some circumstances and situations, in Nigeria where the enemy held sway for many years. If we take a cue from the book of Lamentations in the Holy Bible, we encounter the sorrows of Jerusalem replicated in Nigeria. It is clear: “How lonely lies Jerusalem once full of peoples. Once honoured by the world. She is now like a widow…”.

    Now, how Ndace handles this war of idiocy. “Like the crackling of bush fires-(the gunshots boom). We hear them around, Ahead of us, They fly in all directions. It is the sound of death. The shots from the guns…” The poems are all on the fight to uproot the menace called Boko Haram. The insurgency began slowly but steadily grew and spread like an irredeemable wildfire. Before the nation realized it the group had spread far afield to all the nook and cranny of the North East of Nigeria. Consequently, those areas -towns, villages, markets, worship places, schools, homes, farms, suddenly became endangered, marooned and cocooned by harbingers.

    Then came Lt. General Tukur Buratai as the Chief of Army Staff. Then also came Ndace as one of the embedded defence correspondents. The events unfolded fast and in quick successions. With accelerated despatch, work began; serious counter insurgency happened in which General Buratai and his men regained control while the journalists did their reporting. Ndace followed the events clinically using his curious sense of observation and jotting where necessary to safe keep information. The results are these emotion laden poems. They are poems that take you through the series of traumatic happenstances that disrupted the society. It is the story of the gunshots of men… for the enemies that lurk around….

    The poems are sorrowfully delivered. The poet does not hide anything. The feelings are genuine, mean, profound and often infectious, while the enemy is waiting in ambush, to strike. Now, it is only on the way to Sambisa, a coven of sorts, and which is now debauched and defiled in dryness. By indoctrinated rapists…  The rapists that distorted Chibok, harassing young maidens into nothingness, into eternal captivity; sex slaves in their very early years of life. The poems on Chibok , Chibok Angels are truism,  complete reminders of the early stages of the attacks by these marauders. The lines grip, dripping with memories of the things parents do not want to remember, of young school girls who have one day become slaves in very sadistic circumstances.

    And in their innocence. They began a journey/to the land unknown/an uncertain voyage, of no return, leaving despair, on their heels… Our girls ‘wifed’ by the beasts. Sexed by the vampires. Made mothers, by the monsters”. It is horrendous, harrowing and heart-rending. These lines touch on the fabrics of homes; on the role of the state to protect and provide, to safeguard and streamline. This also goes to show why the poems are divided into sections. Each section handles appropriate themes and periods in the lifespan of the matters so treated in the collection. Ndace is crafty and smart in this arrangement. And in all, the arrangement works so clearly that once you pick the book, you are compelled to read through. The simplicity of the presentation, the high sense of delivery, all come together to give added impetus and meaning to the poems.

    Apart from a rather lengthy acknowledgement, the book is divided into six chapters of sections. This makes for an easy read. The first chapter handles issues of The War of Idiocy, which inadvertently queries the senselessness of the whole episode called Boko Haram. In chapter two, named Famished land, there are problems of Safe traps, Gamboru Ngala, Vulture’s feast and more. The poems are on incidences, on homes, on locations and settlements now shadows of their former selves.

    In chapter three- Heroes in boots, individuals, soldiers, generals, all are eulogized for their uncommon roles to dismantle the enemy. The poems come out as more of tributes, eulogies, appraisals, more. In the poems you see the level of sacrifices, commitments, zeal exhibited by the people concerned to save motherland. The poet is critical in his assessment of their roles in most terrible of times to wriggle free of difficult moments for the good of all.

    In chapter four, titled Tears of Laughter, sanity has gradually begun to erupt, to surface amongst the rank and file. The Army leaders have begun somewhat to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Time to indulge in The Soldier and his lover, can now be tolerated. It shows, however, that it is not totally a hopeless struggle to freedom. The poet intones: ‘It is a love affair. Not your usual love affair… It is a love affair. Of combatants, And their riffles. Of combatants, And their horses. Of combatants, And their trenches. It is a love affair that must be. It is a combatants’ love affair”. You can now see the taste of love affair. You can now perceive how the army romances love to steady their nerves, to fight on.

    In chapter five, Of Drills and Grief, we see another sides of the Army, those unspoken sides that separate them from the rest of the people. It is time to glimpse through the Combatant press up, Combatant movement or It may be the last. All these gear towards the total build up of a soldier to face the rigours of his calling. In chapter six, we encounter Of hope, victory and triumph. It is time to really wine and dine, time to snigger at the enemy and shout loud that we have made it. Here most people come back to welcome the gallant and victorious soldiers, after all, stories of the war are only written by the victors. The villain and vanquished has no stories to tell. So Ndace tells it, General Buratai stamps it and now we have: The Lonely Grave and other poems.

  • Ex-Zamfara gov Matawalle accuses new govt of robbery

    Ex-Zamfara gov Matawalle accuses new govt of robbery

    • They looted my houses; stole cars, hijabs, stoves

    Less than 24 hours after over 40 cars were reportedly recovered from his house by the police, immediate past governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle, has accused the state government of robbing his houses and confiscating his personal belongings.

    Sulaiman Idris, spokesperson for Governor Dauda Lawal, in a statement on Friday said that the police acted on a court order, adding that a search warrant was obtained for the operation.

    The statement reads: “Recall that the Zamfara State Government has communicated officially to former Governor Bello Matawalle and his deputy to return all the missing vehicles within five working days.

    “We also lodged an official complaint with the police on overriding public interest on wasteful looting of valuables including official vehicles.

    “Consequently, the police sought a search warrant, which was duly given by the court and hence raided Matawalle’s residence in Gusau, Maradun Local Government, and another unidentified hideout.

    “Over 40 vehicles were recovered, including three bulletproof vehicles and eight SUVs. “We want to reaffirm our commitment to recover all that belongs to the people. Our common resolve is to rescue and rebuild Zamfara. Recovering the proceeds of crime and public assets is a critical part of our rescue mission.”

    Matawalle fired back at his successor yesterday in an interview with BBC Hausa. He  said that it was “stupidity” and “poverty” that caused his houses to be entered, saying that items including his wives’ hijab were stolen.

    His words: “I have never seen this kind of stupidity where someone’s house will just be entered without any permission as if we are in a lawless country.

    “I am in Abuja and nobody told me that any court gave that order or invited me and I refused to answer. The saddest thing is that, in my Gusau house, all my wives’ rooms were broken, even hijabs have been taken away. Stoves were all put in a car and taken away.

    “Instead of Dauda to face Zamfara problems, he wants to create another crisis because he knows I have my people and they will not fold their hands.

    “In my Maradun house, they took away all campaign cars that people gave us as contributions, including those I bought in United States even before becoming governor, you know I was a car seller. I will not ask them to bring the cars back, everybody knows that I have cars.

    “This is robbery, they entered everywhere in my houses, even my daughter’s wedding clothing materials (Kayan Lefe) were not spared.”