The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Where are we from?

    Olukorede Yishau

    Lola Akande, a lecturer in the English Language Department of the University of Lagos, pricks our conscience with Where are you from?, her novel from which she read excerpts at the just-concluded Lagos Book and Arts Festival (LABAF). At the heart of Dr. Akande’s book is an issue I consider one of the major problems with Nigeria: state of origin.

    Reading Dr. Akande’s book reminds me of an incident in the newsroom of Tell magazine over a decade ago. A Caucasian, who joined us as an intern, and I discussed where her parents hailed from. She told me her parents were Britons. I added quickly that she was a Briton too but she insisted she was Canadian. I told her that in Nigeria, you are from where your parents are from but she would have none of it.

    “I was born in Canada and I am Canadian,” she stressed.

    Nigeria seems to be the only place where the area or state where you are born has absolutely nothing to do with where you are allowed to legally claim. A panelist at one of the sessions at LABAF recounted an experience while trying to obtain the National Identity card. He was born and bred in Lagos but his parents are from Edo. When he filled the registration form for the ID card, he wrote Edo as his parents’ state of origin but wrote Lagos as his state of origin. The officials of the agency responsible for the issuance of the card would have none of it. They insisted he was from where his parents were from. His attempt to educate them that the Constitution gave him the right to choose his place of birth as his origin fell on deaf ears.

    The severity of the where-are-you-from challenge has seen politicians returning to their states of origin to seek elective offices only to be reminded by home-based politicians that they are ‘imported’. They are not accepted where they reside and pay taxes and seen as lepers by people in their home towns. Double jeopardy!

    Instructively, at a time in the United States, two Bush brothers were governors in two different states. If it were Nigeria, they would have been confined to Texas where their father was from. It matters not that they were born in different states and had contributed to its growth through tax payment and other means.

    Save states such as Lagos, Kaduna and a few others, indigenes of other states have no place in their civil service. Whether you were born and bred in those states mean nothing. You are from where your father comes from. Your mother’s state is irrelevant. Our problem is so compounded that some people will not even agree to sell landed properties to non-indigenes. The most ridiculous is when love affairs are put asunder because parents will not allow their son or daughter to marry from outside their state or tribe.

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    There is also a very sad one that Dr. Akande pointed out in her novel. Even within the same state, the part of the state where you come from also matters. It is not alone for you to be from Kwara or Lagos or Ogun. In some instances, what part of these states you come from also counts.

    Over the years I have also been troubled by another variant of this problem, and that is the one that involves even people within the same ethnic group, say the Yoruba, for instance. Among the Yoruba are Ijebu, Egba, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo and so on. Some people, though Yoruba, will not allow their children to marry from the Ijebu stock. The myth is that the Ijebu are fetish and can do anything for money. So for this ridiculous reason, love has been sacrificed. There is also the myth that Egba women are quick to abandon their husbands when things are tough. As a result of these, an Egba woman is no go area for some Yoruba. I understand that in the Southeast, some parts believe that they are the ‘superior’ Igbo. Dr. Akande alluded to this in her novel. This is another angle to the where-are-you-from challenge.

    What do we make of discrimination within the same town? Some towns are divided culturally into two, a situation which leads to what I once referred to as “one town, two people”. Loyalists of the two traditional rulers in such towns clash regularly and blood is shed. Yet, these are supposed to be one people. They have been made two by tradition, which someone describes as “peer pressure from dead people”. The hatred dates back to ancestors who are long dead but their evil is living after them.

    Nigeria is one country which needs all. We are in trouble and everybody is needed to run and help the area they are born or where they reside. If I have lived in an area from over ten years I should be free to aspire to anything there, including the governorship of the state.

    Go to our health institutions, things are in a shambles. Our education is in crutches. Our roads are death traps. There is almost no sector of our national life that we have been able to get right. We remain work in progress close to sixty years after Independence and over 100 years after amalgamation.

    The tight corner that the challenge of state of origin has pushed us into has seen people committing perjury to claim a state that will help them get the best of every situation. Not a few have been known to claim Lagos today and shift to Ogun the next day. A sizeable number of students in our universities have had to pay a bribe to get documents showing that they are from a catchment area. This would not have been the case if you are allowed to claim where you reside or were born, instead of where your ancestors hailed from. In states where governments pay bursaries to indigenes, forged documents are used by students to be eligible.

    Where are we all from? We are from God. And that should be what matters most. Every state or town or village begins with people coming from some other places to occupy it.

    My final take: A country like Nigeria cannot continue to allow the where-are-you-from challenge to deny it of the goodness in all its citizens. We have been sold selfish interests as national interests. The good of one is hawked as the good of all and we have all gladly patronised this retrogressive market. The time to stop is now but we are certainly not ready, and years to come, we will still not be ready!

  • Bridging micro-finance schemes to tackle poverty

    By Abou Dieng

    From 2018, Nigeria has gained the unenviable first position worldwide as the country with the largest number of extreme poor, surpassing India’s 73 million people according to projections from Brookings Institution. Local data compilation from National Bureau of Statistics revealed in the beginning of this decade a much higher number of extreme poverty to well over 100 million. Over time, all the reports converge though to the same conclusion that rural, agrarian areas are disproportionately affected with isolated institutions in terms of education and financial services.

    International NGOs, local financial institutions and the domestic government in federal and state level have started executing several poverty policy programmes. Education initiatives to improve school participation and performance were quickly combined with financial solutions against the poverty. Small-scale micro-lending schemes were launched for the local population with limited access to formal funding channels, where the regular use of bank loans and transactions is not a prevalent norm at all.

    The Microfinance Policy, Regulatory and Supervisory Framework of 2005 was introduced as a means of formalizing microfinance institutions towards financial accessibility and sustainability. However, the final effectiveness of this improved approachability closer to unbanked population remains ambiguous.

    Fragmentation and minimized impact of microfinance

    Microfinance banks were developed considerably in number, with 1064 licensed banks in Nigeria as of the end of June 2018. Overall, 10 million previously unbanked depositors have now access to financial services, while they have current pool of four million borrowers. However, their combined asset base according to the Central Bank of Nigeria is still minimal, just around 1% of total assets of all the banks (e.g. referred as deposit money banks). A great majority (nearly 900) of these licensed institutions are local-based, unit players in communities. A “critical mass” of larger banks has been established, but their significant performance variability is detrimental for their internal lack of transparency and reliability.

    Despite the initial misconception that microfinance is primarily served by non-conventional big banks, the largest, national banks remain main drivers of this force. Even though a holistic approach is needed to reach geographically dispersed, decentralized micro and small-scale enterprises, there is an industrial concentration in few players. Eight largest national microfinance banks possess almost half (44%) of the total assets and 38% of total deposits.

    The boom of formalized microfinance services of the previous years has been moderately stabilized in an effort for stricter financial control and monitoring from authorities, particularly for smaller regional players.

    Read also: NIRSAL Micro Finance Bank takes off nationwide

     

    Reformation of credit facilities and supervision

    These so-called soft credit facilities were given sporadically to smaller farmers and rural dwellers, but their impact historically remained marginal. Until today, major microfinance banks are blamed to squeeze deliberately large proportions out of the credit line availability, activities justified in association to higher risk exposure.

    This type of banking seems to be constrained by its own scope of activities under a constant fear of the prospects of future repayments by people from the bottom of the income pyramid. On the other hand, vulnerable local institutions with low, inadequate levels of capital can be potentially transformed as instruments for illicit activities, such as money laundering or financing illegal, criminal activities.

    Based on that, stricter supervisory enforcement of licensing agreements is fundamental for the consolidation of this sector, since the proliferation of local, unit microfinance banks seems to create financially unsustainable strategies and excessive volatility in an already unstable environment full of diverse threats.

    As a result, higher capital requirements are necessary for a transition period that aims to promote a clear vision and transparency via the final consolidation of the numerous, very small institutions into larger entities with major resources and growth by harnessing economies of scale.

    Local engagement and expansion of opportunities

    Micro-credit programs by NGOs or government authorities should be structured in such a way that all the economic agents involved are provided with incentives and opportunities to behave in a manner conducive to the final success.

    Nevertheless, the current concept of microfinance is defined itself in a very limited way in Nigeria with minor scope of attention and inadequate business opportunities. Apart from basic financial services (loans, deposits, savings), a broader spectrum of activities can be offered by integrating education, healthcare and social services (e.g. insurance) into a common framework.

    As usually observed, corporations in Nigeria tend to treat each market as a generic whole, falsely unifying different customer segments. That’s why there is one single model to follow in each region and community to create a sustainable market for microfinancing with a societal purpose to alleviate poverty.

    Collaboration of not-for-profit institutions with major financial institutions could be a major, initial step to bridge microfinancing projects from different perspectives, in terms of both social inclusion and entrepreneurial investments. All the actors should coordinate their actions together as early as possible.

    Individuals, like Nikos Toumaras with many similar initiatives in Nigeria and mainly in Angola and the wider Central-Southern Africa region, may be an added value, crucial factors for final local engagement and social support. The vast expansion of microfinance in Asian countries and particularly in the Indian subcontinent with similarly high rates of extreme poverty could give some positive examples for future local development in Sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, cases of unsuccessful penetration, such as in South Africa, with quick and chaotic microcredit plans at the expense of the most vulnerable part of population are useful lessons to avoid similar mistakes in this process.

    Organizations and individuals from the non-financial sector that can facilitate this connection should be at the forefront of this revolution.

     

    • Dr. Dieng is a Nigeria-based research economist and investment banking analyst.

  • Funding the police is no joke

    By Tosin Osasona

    The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is the most visible symbol of the Nigerian state, and without doubt the most important and accessible institution of social control in Nigeria. With around 370,000 officers (plus or minus ghost officers), it is the biggest agency in terms of number. NPF’s national spread is starkly unrivalled by any other policing actor- with a combined number of more than 6,000 police stations, police posts and village police posts, NPF is represented across all communities in Nigeria, from the inhabited creeks at the tip of the lagoon to settlements in the Savanah, there is a police station. Like them-hate them, the police are the backbone of Nigeria’s security and public safety architecture and the natural first point of contact for many Nigerians in distress.

    Understanding that an effective and efficient policing system is central to building a stable and prosperous state, and that like in most things- what you pay for is what you get- it then behoves countries to invest appropriately in their respective police services. Across the world, policing is a very expensive enterprise, and every component of the society pay for that essential service.

    But here, we the good and exceptional people of the great country Nigeria have made conscious political and fiscal decisions to grossly underfund the police, while we expect our police officers to be super patriotic by personally fuelling their operational vehicles, paying for uniforms and other operational exigencies, print bail bonds, individually handles work-related trauma and yet bear the burden of providing security-a public good that every Nigerian supposedly enjoys. And yet we all complain about how travelling on our roads have now become a game of odds with death? Why do we impose a different standard on our police officers from the one we impose on our doctors, teachers and other essential service providers?

    It does not require Einstein level of to draw a link between Nigeria’s worsening state of insecurity and the poor state of our national police force, and this raises fundamental questions with grave implications on public safety and security in Nigeria. Some of the most important question we must ask ourselves as citizens all whom will be impacted by insecurity is how best can we fund the police? Can we really get out of this security mess without proper, well-structured and all-inclusive template for funding of the police?

    One of the awkward realities of policing in Nigeria is that the federal government bears the major responsibility of financing the force despite the fact that the responsibility of the police is more consequential at state and local government levels, as indicated by successive crime data in Nigeria. The very tiers of government who mostly need very efficient police services contribute little or nothing for the services. But come to think of it, how can states and local governments be expected to pay for a police force that they neither control nor have any input into its operations? Can it be said that states don’t adequately fund the police because they do not own it, and it is in turn incapable of addressing local security challenges because of being poorly resourced?

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    The Lagos State Security Trust Fund established in 2007 is a public-private intervention planned to provide equipment and logistics supports to security agencies operating in Lagos State. This is the first and the most innovative and structured attempt at funding the police in Nigeria, although alongside other security apparatus. Even at that, it falls short of the intended mark for sustainability of joint financing of the police institution. A funding model based on the voluntary and generous willingness of a few is not sustainable in a permanently growing megacity, and what happens when there is an economic dip and the cohort of current funders cannot afford to contribute? Why is it difficult in a city of more than 20 million residents to raise funds annually through taxation to provide security?

    As deficient as the Lagos State Security Trust Fund is, it is still far better than the parodies that we have in other states- Kano, Ekiti, Enugu- and the Nigeria Police Trust Fund Act that the president recently assented to. Apart from being a poor imitation of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund, these laws fail to put in proper context the economic realities of each state. How can an Ekiti or Enugu State design a security trust fund in the mould of Lagos, when there are better local alternatives? Why are states and also local governments shying away from levying security/police taxes?

    While it must be stated that almost every police service across the world derive a percentage of their operational costs from grants, and donations from businesses and foundations, it is however impracticable for states in the face of acute underfunding of the Nigeria Police Force from the federal government to hinge the functioning of the police services that is solely responsible for local security on donations. Why can’t states be innovative?

    Aside direct government funding, countries across the world finance their various policing actors through council/county tax, tax on gambling and sports betting, fines from traffic infractions, taxes on open air events among others, why can’t we innovate along these lines to fund the police’s broad functional lines- logistics, capacity building, remuneration, and infrastructure? The argument that states cannot do much for the police because it is not owned by them is insincere, when factually the security of the governors and chairmen to that of a new born baby in all of our 36 states and local governments, depends primarily on the police.

    The bigger question is why should a city like Kano with its bustling informal economic life not creatively legislate a sustainable funding source for the police? Imagine what a daily-hundred-naira-tax on the hundreds of thousands of tricycles in Kano metropolis would raise to provide the required security? Or a security trust fund that is based on nominal rate   of two hundred naira daily or even weekly that is imposed on danfos, okada riders and other operators in the informal sector?

    Across the world, security is an expensive public good that is funded by governments through taxation and other means backed by a state authority. However, in Nigeria, less than 12% of eligible citizens pay tax, and oil that accounts for 80% of government revenue has been inconsistently volatile to determine maintenance of regular financing scheme of a very critical sector of an economy like a security institution, thus reducing the government’s ability to finance its obligations. When you put in perspective the issue of Nigeria’s population growth, estimated to reach 200 million by 2020, and the pressure this creates as one of the drivers of insecurity in Nigeria and by extension on the police then states must create other sustainable avenues to fund the police.

    Perhaps, the key to proper funding of the police is how innovatively states can tax Nigeria’s very large and growing informal sector; however that imposes a task on states and the police to be accountable and responsible- two rare animals that are seldom seen in our democratic forest.

     

    • Osasona, is Lagos State intervention lead of the Nigeria Policing Program.

  • Tribute to HRM Okuku (Dr) Ime Inyang at 75

    Sir: The people of Ibiono Ibom, a proud and historical community in the north east of Akwa Ibom state, will today, November 22, roll out their drums, cymbals and all to celebrate their monarch, His Royal Majesty, Okuku Ime Udousoro Inyang as he clocks 75 years. They will use the auspicious occasion to take stock on how far they have come and the milestones which they have attained since this cerebral royal father mounted the throne of his forefathers, first as the Okuku Utit Obio in 1989 and the first Paramount Ruler of Ibiono Ibom in 2003 and which staff of office was presented to him by then civilian governor of Akwa Ibom State, His Excellency, Architect, (Obong) Victor Attah

    In a community which has produced, in February 1954, Dominic Ignatius Ekanem, first Bishop of the Catholic church in all of Anglophone West Africa, only second in Africa, to Don Affonso of Congo who was ordained under the reign of Pope Leo X (Florentine Medici)(1513-1521) and who later became known as Dominic Ignatius Cardinal Ekanem, having been elevated to the position of the first Catholic Cardinal in Nigeria; a community which birthed General Philip Effiong, the second in command in the hierarchy of the short-lived Biafra republic; a community which boasts of a plethora of professors in universities in Nigeria and across the world; a community which harbored the venerable Mary Slessor, the Scottish missionary who made tremendous impact in the stoppage of the killing of twins in eastern Nigeria;  a community with the best brains in commerce and industry owing to their early contact with ‘white’ men; it can be deduced that choosing Dr Ime Inyang as a paramount ruler was well thought out.

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    Born in November 22, 1942 in Ikot Udom, Utit Obio, Ibiono Ibom, Edidem Ime Inyang started his elementary school at Lutheran Mission School at Ikot Essiet, Ibiono Ibom in 1949, proceeded to St. Paul School, Aba (present Abia State) and completed in 1959 and later attended the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is a chartered accountant and fellow of public finance who has held various Accounting positions traversing various public services, retiring as Deputy Director of Finance and Account in 1994 in the Akwa Ibom civil service. He was, at some point, in his life trajectory, equally drafted into the Biafran war where he rose to the rank of Major!

    This epitome of the culture and traditions of the Ibiono Ibom people, a community founded in 2500 BC  and known to have migrated from Asphina in Palestine and dispersed during the biblical Tower of Babel, who came to the present location through Sudan (BANTU) to settle first at Ibom in Arochukwu in present Abia State, with a landmass estimated at 2763 square meters and over 700,000 inhabitants crowded into 333 gazetted villages, (with about 118 villages not captured), with nine distinct but not contiguous clans and only two officially recognized by government, has bequeathed himself well by reinventing the cultural, social, political and economic life of Ibiono Ibom people.

    Today, Ibiono Ibom people are proud to have a paramount ruler who has built back their confidence. Indigenes of Ibiono Ibom at home and in the diaspora are very proud of this enigma. He has not only reengineered the socio-cultural and economic life of the people but is a very strong voice in Akwa Ibom State, and Nigeria as a whole. He is a regular face in many national and international fora where issues of finance, governance structure and due process are discussed. He has presented various informed academic papers on tax reforms, revenue mobilization and economic management. And when he became the chairman of Akwa Ibom State Traditional Rulers Council in 2011, he introduced various reforms which were to help government to attain socio-cultural, economic and political stability.

    The greatest attribute of this polyglot, who speaks all the major languages in Nigeria fluently, is his passion for the promotion and elevation of indigenous languages and the preservation of the heritage of not only Akwa Ibom people but Nigeria at large. He believes in the development of people and a personal philosophy which has shaped his thinking. It goes “I have seen the true meaning of One in All; All for One; and One for All. I have come to appreciate the ever present bridge between times as well as between geographies, the bridge between the ancient and the modern and that between the east and the west or the north and the south. I have known, not believed, that the only thing that transcends time and space is the one Almighty God”

    Happy birthday, Edidem!

     

    • Uwem-Obong Ankak,

    Lagos.

  • Kingdoms of Kogi and Bayelsa suffered violence

    By Oludayo Tade

    Despite the huge investment into securing democracy and ensuring that the electorates are able to speak with their votes freely and fairly without fear, threat or intimidation, the kingdoms of Kogi and Bayelsa hosted demons in hooded attires on November 16, during which the integrity of the gubernatorial elections was undermined.

    The hooded demons came to intimidate, steal, kill and destroy. They moved around despite the restriction of movement and the deployment of 66, 240 policemen (35,200 for Kogi and 31,040 for Bayelsa) complemented by counter-terrorism unit, special protection unit and police mobile force.

    When we add the army and other security agencies to the figure, we should cry that stakeholders’ compromise continue to undermine true representation, and thereby block the genuine road to growth and development.

    Through the instrumentality of violence, there is enthronement of unconcerned and anti-democratic characters holding the levers of power. Of course, the consequence of this is the sustained recession being witnessed in all areas of our national life.

    As soon as I read of the happenings, I went back to get inspiration from late Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s song entitled “Teacher don’t teach me nonsense”.

    In this song, Baba 70 characterised our type of democratic practise as pure demonstration of ‘craze’ or crazy demonstration. If we mobilised all state resources and the ideological state apparatuses for just two out of the 36 states and this is the best we could get, then the situation has worsened.

    In Fela’s words, ‘Babanla nonsense’ aptly describes the elections’ which lacks the global accepted standards of free, fair and credible polls. Just like Baba 70, ‘as time dey go, things just dey bad, dey bad more and more. Poor man dey cry, rich man dey mess….demonstration of craze, crazy demonstration….democracy!”

     

    ‘While the citizens who sold their votes in Kogi and Bayelsa for short term gain should be ready to suffer long term pains and join the millions of Nigerians who populate the poverty clan in Nigeria, the security agents who look the other way as bandits ruled failed in their primary responsibility’

     

    It is sad to hear the Police Service Commission say that security agents were overwhelmed by hooded demons that unleashed terror on peaceful voters.

    While violence is not limited to Nigeria, the crass display of superior aggression by APC and PDP call into question their genuine development agenda for the country beyond the instrumentalisation of violence on the polity.

    Violence has become a political strategy in Nigeria where the unpopular anti-democratic elements impose themselves on the people by force. Consequently, Nigeria’s brand of democracy has become government of the rich, through the manipulation of the poor for the service of the few and exploitation of the majority.

    Violence is dysfunctional to representative government and draws back the hand of development. How can a person who mounts the leadership rostrum by violence and bloodshed listen to the yearnings of the people?

    Violence is used to attack the strongholds of opponents, intimidate electorates from coming out to cast their votes in order to reduce the chances of a more popular opponent. As in the cases in point, violence has resulted in bloodshed, burning and destruction of properties and casts doubt on the legitimacy of those pronounced winners at the polls. This is because violence undermines electoral integrity.

    In his 2019 convocation lecture at the University of Ibadan, former INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega noted that “deeply embedded unwholesome practices such as use of money, violence, incumbency powers and a range of electoral malpractices and fraudulent activities in the electoral process grossly undermine its utility as a vehicle for democratic development”.

    Violence is embraced by dominant political classes to access power for self-actualisation rather than for the betterment of their states and Nigeria. Jega averred that “ritualised elections which lack integrity merely serve to legalize, if not legitimize, access and control of power into executive or legislative arms of government by people unconcerned with or indifferent to, the requirements of sustainable democratic development”.

    The implications are that such elections do not produce responsive and representative leadership.

    While the citizens who sold their votes in Kogi and Bayelsa for short term gain should be ready to suffer long term pains and join the millions of Nigerians who populate the poverty clan in Nigeria, the security agents who look the other way as bandits ruled failed in their primary responsibility.

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    The implications of allowing hoodlums to enthrone monsters are grievous only for the discerning mind. The crime statistics of kidnapping, armed robbery and other forms of violent crimes in the two states might have gone down because the criminals have been contracted by political actors.

    Now that the elections are over, and the boys have been adequately equipped, it will be difficult not to see such crimes grow. It means the security agents who failed to arrest criminals in the convoy during campaign may themselves be killed by the same bandits later.

    It also means that the politicians who used and dumped them after elections would become victims of kidnapping. If they are recruited from campuses, try out of new weapons in cult clashes should be expected.

    Then, the same government that enthroned violence will be claiming to fight the seed of violence it sowed. According to Fela, Babanla nonsense (Utter nonsense)!

    Moving forward, it is important for the government of the day to review elections conducted under their reign and see how much we have progressed or regressed.

    It is important to analyse if there is a relationship between heavy deployment of security agents and enthronement of violence which undermines electoral integrity.

    If we consider how much we continue to budget for security in Nigeria, we would see that it will be wise for a government not to allow violent characters reign for a moment.

    If we continue to allow violence as a national culture, we would see its spiral effects in all sectors and that is showing with the growing incidence of insurgent citizenships. Bayelsa and Kogi states have shown how superior aggression and social network of manipulation dethrones and enthrones.

    Security agents must be true with their security threat assessment and ensure that future elections meet security standards devoid of loyalty to the manipulative power of influential people.

    The tragedy is that the poor (vote traders and thugs) is used to undermine the future of the masses for the benefit of the few exploiters in the corridors of power. The poor kills the poor to the benefit of the rich. They unleash violence on themselves and kill one another for those who care less about them.

    If the violent takes the mantle of leadership by force; then repressive and oppressive administration should be expected.

     

    • Dr Tade, a sociologist sent in this piece via dotad2003@yahoo.com

  • Sowore, human rights and the rule of law

    Sir: It should become abundantly clear by now that Civil Society organisations, committed to the entrenchment of the Rule of Law and the defence of fundamental human rights must come together. This is not a new cry. They must meet, debate, and embark on a binding pact of tactical responses whenever these two pillars of civilized society are besieged by the demolition engines of state security agencies.

    The sporadic, uncoordinated responses as in the case of Omoyele Sowore, the absence of a solid strategy, ready to be activated against any threat — these continue to enable these agencies in their mission to enthrone a pattern of conduct that openly scoffs at the role of the judiciary in national life. Result? A steady entrenchment of the cult of impunity in the dealings of state with the citizenry – both individuals and organizations. The level of arrogance has crossed even the most permissive thresholds.

    It is heart-warming to witness the determined efforts of “Concerned Nigerians” in defence of these rights. Predictably, the ham-fisted response of the Directorate of State Security (DSS) continues to defy the rulings of the court. The weaponry of lies having been exploded in their faces, they resort to what else? Violence! Violence, including, as now reported, the firing of live bullets. Why the desperation?

    There answer is straightforward: the government never imagined that the bail conditions for Sowore would ever be met. Even Sowore’s supporters despaired. The bail test was clearly set to fail! It took a while for the projection to be reversed, and it left the DSS floundering. That agency then resorted to childish, cynical lies. It claimed that the ordered release was no longer in their hands, but in Sowore’s end of the transfer. The lie being exploded, what next? Bullets of course.

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    Such a development is not only callous and inhuman, it is criminal. It escalates an already untenable defiance by the state. As I remarked from the onset, this is an act of government insecurity and paranoia that merely defeats its real purpose.

    And now – bullets? This is no longer comical. Perhaps it is necessary to remind this government of precedents in other lands where, even years after the event, those who trampled on established human rights that generate homicidal impunity are called to account for abuse of power and crimes against humanity.

    The protests for Sowore’s release go beyond only acts of solidarity; they are manifestations of the judgment and authority of courts of law, under which this nation is supposedly governed. Either it is, or it isn’t. The answer stares us all in the face. The principles that now fall under threat implicate more than one individual under travail. They involve the very entitlement of a nation to lay claim to membership of any democratic, humanized union.

    Enough of this charade, nothing more than a display of crude, naked power. Release Omoyele Sowore and save us further embarrassment in the regard of the world. An apology to the nation by the DSS and the judiciary would also not be out of place. It would go some distance in redeeming the image of an increasingly fascistic agency and reduce the swelling tide of public disillusionment.

    Let the rule of law reign. Failing that, have the honesty to proclaim the death of ordered society. Then we’ll all know just where we stand.

     

    • Wole Soyinka,

    Abeokuta, Ogun State.

     

  • Kehinde Lijadu (1948 – 2019)

    Kehinde Lijadu’s death in New York, USA, on November 9, at the age of 71, brought back memories of her stellar musical years alongside her identical twin sister, Taiwo. Known as the Lijadu Sisters, they were not only musically active from the 1960s to the 1980s, when female lead singers were rare in Nigerian pop music, they also made music that was distinctively theirs.

    Kehinde was one half of a popular act whose death ended a musical partnership that hadn’t ended, despite a long lull. According to a music writer who interviewed them in 2014, “They had told me about their plans to release an album of new music, on their own label, and that their socio-political agenda hadn’t diminished one iota.”  The dream died when Kehinde died. Taiwo described her as “my soul mate.”

    In their heyday, the sisters had released the albums IyaMiJowo (1969), Danger (1976), Mother Africa (1977), Sunshine (1978), Horizon Unlimited (1979) and Double Trouble (1984).  Their music was eclectic and had features of jazz, afrobeat, raggae, disco, soul and waka.  Their popular track, OrereElejigbo, for instance, in which they sing about “trouble in the streets,” demonstrates their social consciousness. They were quoted as saying:  “Music teaches us to reach out and do something about what is going on, socially, morally, financially, spiritually and politically.”

    The Lijadus benefited from the rise of radio and television in Nigeria as their music enjoyed airplay on radio, and the sisters appeared on television shows, which contributed to their popularity.

    They achieved stardom in Nigeria, and attracted attention abroad, which was testimony to the quality and appeal of their music as well as their effort to succeed as musicians. They reflected a sense of independence that was in tune with modern thinking about women.

    Kehinde was quoted as saying that being a female musician in their active days was “a big struggle.”  “After we made our record, we tried to find a way of having our own band but at the time we had a lot of obstacles from men,” the sisters said.

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    Their performance with drummer Ginger Baker’s band Salt at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in Germany was a significant stage in their musical career. In the UK, they were featured in English director Jeremy Marre’s 1979 documentary Konkombé: The Nigerian Pop Music Scene.  Also, their music was featured in a 14-episode world music TV series entitled Beats of the Heart in the late 1980s.

    The sisters moved to America in the 1980s, possibly to enhance their musical career. They performed at various places, notably backed by African Beats, popular Nigerian juju musician King Sunny Ade’s band. Kehinde’s spinal injury in 1996, however, affected their growth.

    The Lijadus were out of the spotlight for many years until the 2000s. Four of their albums were rereleased in 2012 and a compilation of their recordings, The Lijadu Sisters: Afro-Beat Soul Sisters. In April 2014, they performed at an all-star event at the Barbican Centre in London. The following month, they were on stage in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

    Their resurgence showed the enduring quality of their music. They were quoted as saying: “Mum told us, don’t write any kind of music that is just for today, because two years later, nobody will want to hear it. She said, ‘Write the type of music that people will always hear hundreds of thousands of years later and still [be able to] relate to.’”

    The immortality of their music compensates for Kehinde’s death.  She was more than a singer and songwriter. The Lijadus were cultural stars who projected the power and possibilities of music.

  • Processed foods: Medicine or toxin?

    Sir: Most times we are compelled to take a closer look at what we consume only when we are ill or when the body begins to show strange symptoms. Sometimes, we adhere strictly to taking some special kinds of foods when we are medically advised to do so. However, we may be doing our bodies a huge disservice if we fail to monitor what we take in as food on regular basis. Our daily diet can either be medicine or toxin to our bodies; it all depends on the composition of that food we take.

    Any food product that is chemically treated in order to stay preserved is regarded as a processed food item. It becomes processed when preserved with chemicals so as to increase its shelf-life.

    Food and health specialists world over have strongly and unequivocally advocated the consumption of fewer processed food if it cannot be totally avoided. Sometimes, even foods labeled as ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ must have been processed. So, it may, in reality, not be possible to completely eliminate processed food from our diets, but we can minimize how much of it we consume. Reason is not far-fetched, it is because the freshness and nutrients of some food items are locked and retained only when preserved. Consuming ultra-processed foods leads to serious health issues like obesity, heart diseases, diabetes and high blood pressure.  Also, preservatives, chemical additives and other artificial ingredients present in processed foods alter the functional activities of that food in the body.

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    Although processed foods are easier and quicker to digest than the unprocessed ones due to lower calories in the former, nutritionists still recommend natural fresh meals as our diets. Processing of foods may improve or preserve the nutritional values that could be lost during storage, but it may at the same time damage the nutrients too. However, these benefits are no justifications to settle for processed foods in one’s diet because the health risks and disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

    We all can lead a healthy lifestyle and keep medical ailments at bay if the body is fed with more of unprocessed, natural or fresh foods. Consumption of highly processed foods denies the body of some vitamins and sensitive nutrients needed for proper body functioning and good health. Precautionary or anticipatory measures taken now to regulate the intake of processed foods will go a long way to prevent us from health risks that may arise from consuming these foods.

    Consumption of diets high in processed contents may lead to life-threatening health consequences and will ultimately hasten one’s journey to the grave. When we religiously and consciously monitor what we consume, we make our diets work for us and not against us.

     

    Kayode Ojewale,

    kayodeojewale@gmail.com.

  • Burnt alive

    Formally the word barbarism tends to look back in time, to an age of stones and machetes and Dane guns and persons whose faces are coloured with images of scarecrow. It is characterised as an epoch of the savages.

    Such presumptions take for granted that human beings are consigned to progress, that the past is always worse than the present. That was not what happened in Kogi State in the course of last week’s polls. It was macabre enough that we saw evidence of mob actions, of hoodlums harassing the weak, of ballot snatching and voter intimidation. Gunshots silenced whole communities and a devilry of thugs instilled fear and trembling.

    But one act of fire simplified the primitive weekend. It was what happened to Salome Abuh, the women leader of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi State. It was in her home in Ochamadu Ward under the Ofu Local Government Area of Kogi State. She was burned alive.

    The painful thing is that her party, to all intents and purposes, was on its way to losing the governorship election between Governor Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Musa Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). She was not seen around the ballot boxes or polling station when the tragedy occurred. She thought she was safe in her home. She was not even awake. She was in her bed in the illusion of peace and tranquility. It happened not at night but in broad daylight.

    They poured petrol on her building, and watched as it caught fire. There was a sadistic delight in the moment as they knew who was inside. They knew Abuh was in danger. They knew it was a human being. They knew she was going to burn. More tragic, they heard her voice. They heard her cry for help. Her voice was a play and evidence of helplessness. They heard the philter of her cry weaken from heat, and die. They knew she was dying. They knew they could help. They did not help. Their eyes witnessed the silence after she had no more voice to cry, no more defence against the fire. They knew she had died and they left.

    Read Also: APC condemns post-election violence, killing in Kogi

     

    They showed no remorse. They did not consider they committed murder. They committed arson. They had, with one act of fire, extinguished a life, a family matriarch, a wife, a human being. For them, it was victory of one party, the APC, over the opponent. They could dispense with human blood for this victory. They did. They won in that fight against Abuh and that was no fight. It was thug action.

    They disappeared, so did the life of Abuh. What happened to Abuh was primitive cruelty on a high scale. APC may have won but it must understand that the sort of savagery that took Abuh’s life has no place in a civilised community, and it ought to be investigated.

    Governor Bello has kept a criminal silence on this matter, and until he takes decisive steps to hunt down and subject the suspects to the full weight and wrath of the law, the murder of Abuh will haunt him, his party and his government forever.

    The excuse being bandied about that it was a revenge attack against the stabbing to death of an APC supporter, a male, does not excuse burning a woman whose helpless cry could not restrain the thugs or call their conscience back from the crypt.

    The national secretariat of the APC ought to look into the open shame of barbarity, and rally what is left of the conscience and compassion in this country to justice for a woman, who, whatever her partisan bent, ought not to have died like a hunted rodent.

  • DrugStoc makes debut at Africa Investment Forum

    By Adekunle Yusuf

    DrugStoc, Nigeria’s premier anti-counterfeit drug procurement platform, made its debut at the just-concluded Africa Investment Forum 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

    The forum, Africa’s investment market place, is a multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary platform dedicated to accelerating the economic and social development of the continent. It is an exclusively transactional event, organised annually by the African Development Bank.

    It offers investors, deal sponsors, policy makers and delegates’ access to a structured platform and enabling environment to advance projects to bankable stages, raise capital and accelerate financial closure of deals.

    ‘We are excited to have been selected as a delegate to attend the Africa Investment Forum 2019, which held in South Africa. It was a memorable experience, but more importantly a major milestone for us at DrugStoc. As Nigeria’s largest anti-counterfeit drug procurement platform for health professionals, we are glad to have attended the forum with other change makers to discuss and take action on ways to attract investment and reshape the fortunes of our continent, Africa. Our presentation at AIF was well received and we are certainly looking forward to further empowering healthcare providers to fulfill the mandate of a healthier Africa,” Adham Yehia, co-founder DrugStoc, said.

    DrugStoc is a cloud-based pharmaceutical IT and logistics platform focused on eliminating counterfeit drugs, expanding access to pharmaceutical products and improving transparency in pricing for healthcare providers and the product supply chain. The platform is reputable for being internationally accredited with zero tolerance for fake drugs. It also seeks to provide all licensed health workers in Nigeria a hassle-free procurement channel to source all the medications, consumables, and small medical devices they need for their patients or practice.

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    Earlier this year, DrugStoc was recognized by the Nigerian Healthcare Excellence Awards for its innovative use of technology to improve access to anti-counterfeit drugs. The startup also recently emerged one of the top 10 finalists for the Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative, a Jack Ma’s flagship entrepreneur program.

    The 2019 forum, which had in attendance heads of states/government, including H.E Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa, H.E Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana, H.E Paul Kageme, President of the Republic of Rwanda and H.E Carlos Agostinho do Rosário, Prime Minister Republic of Mozambique. The event also had in attendance business leaders, industry captains, hundreds of select delegates and participants with over $40.1 billion dollars in investment secured from 25 countries including Nigeria.