Author: The Nation

By Dele Adeoluwa

Three students, a male and two females, lay on a sparse grassy terrain. Viewing the scene from some reasonable distance, they looked serene. You would think they were just taking a nap or simply sunbathing after a tiring picnic. But that was a facade. They were actually stone dead!

They were the latest and quite unfortunate victims of the theatre of the absurd, a bizarre piece of drama, playing out in the land today. They were among the undisclosed number of students of the Greenfield University, Kaduna, who were kidnapped by suspected bandits penultimate Tuesday at their campus, located at Kasarami village off the Kaduna-Abuja highway.

The students’ bodies were discovered last Friday at Kwanan Bature village close to their campus, four days after they were abducted. Moments after the students were seized and taken to the den of terror, the gunmen, who appear to be enjoying their big, bloody business, established contacts with the students’ parents and demanded a total of N800 million (imagine!) ransom.

Negotiations were still going on between the abductors and the victims’ parents when the bodies of the three abductees were discovered, sending waves of outbursts and rage across the land.

This is the scarily unnerving level to which the challenge of insecurity has degenerated. Before our eyes, a once relatively peaceful nation has suddenly come under the burst of gunfire, spewing out death, sorrow and tears all over. It is a ghoulish experience. The demon of death let loose from its cage now prowls at will. The entire landscape is now tinged in a pall of gloom and terror. The fear of the unknown rules the waves, as our otherwise gallant security forces have been unable to tame the prowling demon.

One shudders at the ease with which blood is now being spilled without a modicum of remorse.  Ordinarily, the sight and smell of human blood, considered sacred, should stir a rivulet of morbid dread in any sane person. But some people, sadly enough, have a queer fascination for spilling it.

It is hard to imagine the bestial instincts that rule some people, who could just snuff lives out of— and in some cases even decapitate— fellow human beings, including hapless, innocent children, as in the case of the slain Greenfield University students. You will think it is water, not blood, that runs in their veins.

The bandits’ onslaught is particularly more ferocious in three Northwest states— Kaduna, Zamfara and Katsina, where they now bury the dead almost on a daily basis. So relentless and endemic are the attacks that about 131 lives were wasted in those states within a week! Eighty of those absurd killings were recorded in Zamfara alone in a day!

Another Northwest state where the bandits’ mindless rage has been felt strongly is Sokoto. According to His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, His Royal Majesty, Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar, some 85 persons were mown down by the implacable bandits in a day some months back in some Sokoto villages.

The bodies of the Kaduna University students were discovered barely a few days after President Muhammadu Buhari had served the rampaging goons an ‘enough is enough’ red card. He warned them to “stop pushing their luck too far by believing that the government lacks the capacity to crush them”.

In a strongly worded statement, issued on his behalf by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, the General’s fire in the commander-in-chief appeared to have been stoked, as he (Buhari) matter-of-factly vowed that “such wanton disregard for life will be brought to an end sooner than later.”

Tough presidential talk! Let Mr President walk the talk by showing those serial killers, who have literally been assaulting our sovereignty, why we are called the “giant of Africa.” That epithet did not come only from our size as a nation; it also evolved from our military might as well, especially the exploits of our infantry. This has had to be demonstrated in many peace-keeping operations in which our troops had participated within the continent and even beyond.

This is precisely why a lot of people have been wondering aloud and in private discussions what is the matter with our otherwise strong military. The answer may not be far-fetched. Let Mr President show a more than cursory interest in the consistent allegation that our otherwise gallant and patriotic troops lack the essential and modern weapons to adequately fight our well-armed enemies, whose war machine is being oiled by well-heeled sources . He should dig into and frontally tackle the allegation of the diversion of much of the humongous funds voted to purchase arms.

In the meantime, just as the rampaging gunmen, including insurgents, have also been despoiling other parts of the North, murderous herders are also holding the South by the jugular. However, military campaign against the marauders has largely been concentrated in the North.

Down South, where killer-herders have helmed in the regions, most especially Southwest, kidnapping, raping and killing at will, the people are largely left to their fate. Only the governors have, within their limited powers over the security forces, even with their constitutional status as their states’ chief security officers, have put up a semblance of security arrangement.  Most of them have constituted alternative security apparatus, made up mostly of local hunters and other vigilantes, supervised by the already over-burdened central police, to tackle the sophisticatedly armed band of killers. Military operational presence that could, to a certain extent, deter the vicious  marauders, is totally absent, allowing the quite bilious killer-kidnappers a free rein.

Let the military, which is the only institution that has the might to adequately tackle the killers, also spread its mighty tentacles down South. Let the Federal Government, going forward, loose the shackles that may have chained down our military, preventing it from displaying its might. Our people, from the South to the North, must be rescued from the siege of terror and our already battered pride and sovereignty as a nation restored.

By Bishop Ovwigho

Occurrence of the harmattan towards the end of January this year in the southern and little earlier in the northern parts of the country instead of the usual November/December brings to fore the perennial debate on the reality of time and climate/seasonal changes. The questions are – what actually changes? Is it the time or climate?

To give direction to this thought, it is important to discuss the inherent lack of reality in the concept of time. Time is an artificial configuration by man to denote apparent atmospheric changes often measured in hours, minutes, seconds, days, weeks, months, and years. It is an abstract phenomena because it cannot be confined, seen, held or pin down to the same value throughout the universe. Differences in time are observed from country to country, continent to continent and even within the same country.

Records have it that between Abuja and London, there is minus one hour difference; Abuja and Washington (-6 hours); Abuja and Abidjan (-1 hour); Abuja and Ottawa Canada (-6 hours) while between Abuja and Australia is + 10 hours difference and so on. Nigeria and Algiers appear to be the only countries with the same time zone.

The concept and realisation of time varies among individuals. When one is sleeping one does not have a realisation of time. When a man is enjoying a piece of good music he perceives the duration of the time to be short. In such a situation the person may even ask for replay of the music while another might feel bored by the same music at the same time. The common saying that, ‘time flies’ is relative and applicable to a situation when one is busy.

Time changes in nature without our knowing the minute details. As a continuum it is difficult to establish the actual transition of time between day and night in different parts of the world by use of the senses. The time scale developed by man is used for artificial measurement of time. However, with all the available gadgets and technologies man has not been able to establish a veritable link between natural and artificial times especially with regards to cyclical events of nature.

As mortals we often ask, ’why now?, why so soon?, why the delay?’ whenever any phenomenon related to cyclical event occur at a time we do not expect. The occurrences of the seasons at various times are among the cyclical events of nature that man is sometimes curious about.

In the tropics we have the wet and dry season which occurs around March and November respectively. In the temperate region, there are four transitory seasons namely spring, summer, autumn or fall, and winter. These seasons are the same yesterday and today, and shall remain the same tomorrow except by man’s continuous attempts of deriding the aestheticism of nature.

Any variation in time and intensity of the elements of climate (rainfall, temperature, sunshine/solar radiation snow, dews, ice and relative humidity) in a given year usually invokes arbitrary conclusion of climate change among peoples and organisations. Annual relative change(s) in any of the climate elements is not enough for one to draw inference that the climate has changed. Climate is the average weather condition of a place recorded over a period of 30 years. If this definition meets our approbation, then, ‘why the hoaxes about climate change every year? As the name implies weather variables are bound to vary every year but the parameters must be established for a long duration to justify the nomenclature of climate change. It is a misnomer, therefore, to proclaim climate change because of seasonal changes in artificial time of occurrence and intensity of the climate elements.

Seasonal cycles follow the natural law of cycles and change. By that, seasonal cycles do not follow the same periodicity with man-made scale of measuring time. For instance natural cycles such as hydrological cycles, insect population cycles, life cycles and swarm do not follow exact artificial circles of dates or time each year. Man’s attempts to equate natural cycles with ratio scale remains part of the confusion about climate change. We can add, subtract, divide and carry out ratio comparison with the artificial time scale but cannot perform the same operations with seasonal cycles. The beginning of the seasons does not usually occur at the same artificial time every year. Any time the season(s) begin is the right time decreed by the Creator of the seasons. To enhance the validity of climate change in all its ramifications geographers and climate change experts have to convince the world that artificial time is equal to natural time.

No wonder Donald Trump the erstwhile President of the US in 2018 affirmed that climate change and climate change studies were mere fallacies. To him the climate change studies do not justify the huge budgetary expenditures. He referred to the climate change report by 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading scientists as a nebulous contraption by the Chinese, certain individuals and agencies to defraud the government.

The antagonists of the so-called climate change contend that the perceived changes in climate were man-made exploitative activities which often result in environmental pollution and depletion of the ozone layer. It is hereby predicted that the weather conditions and time of occurrence of the seasons will continue to change significantly if man’s carelessness about the environment is not stopped by deliberate policies and programmes.

Apparently the earth environment gives back what you give to her. If we treat the earth (water, air, trees/flowers, animals and soils) with kindness it will in turn give us the love of a mother. Environmental deterioration and weather hazards can be reduced to the barest minimum when citizens the world over learn to be committed to conserving the environment instead of degrading it. People fell trees daily without intention of replacing them. People defecate, throw refuse and pour kitchen waste on the roads without thinking of the negative effects on the environment. Studies have shown that even the sachet pure water paper dropped carelessly on the ground takes over a period of 22 years to decay.

A clean environment gives rise to healthy living while a dirty environment breeds diseases. Findings reveal that people of old and many who dwelt in the villages lived longer life than their urban counterparts ostensibly for the fact that they live closer to nature and eat natural foods. Incidences of pollution and diseases are less in the typical rural areas. Paradoxically man cannot live without polluting the environment. To exist is to pollute. The admonition, therefore, is that man should be conscious of preserving the environment and mitigating effects of climate variability.

The foregoing juxtaposes that national governments and citizens should invest and lay more emphasis on mitigation and adaptation measures rather than climate change studies and reports. Thus annual government budgets should be directed towards mitigation and adaptation measures. Climate mitigation and adaptation measures are age-old practices common to people of a given socio-political and ecological environment. The indigenous peoples are often less apprehensive of weather ravages because they usually prepare for it in advance as an immutable consequence of seasonal cycles.

It is gratifying that many state governments, corporate bodies and NGOs do carry out campaigns and practical measures for protecting the environment, and ensuring good health and safety for all. Clearing water ways and gutters as well as construction of drainages are recurrent mitigation and adaptation measures in parts of the country especially in south-south, south-east and south-west where the incidence of flood has remained a major debacle to life and properties. In the north-east, north central and north-west the planting of trees is an annual ritual aimed at improving ambience temperature and reducing wind hazards.

Adaptation and mitigation measures are synergistic to natural inclinations of survival in man, animals, birds, fishes, plants and lower organisms in their habitats. Climate disasters have always evoke fears among people hence the various techniques of protecting the environment, lives and properties. Well planned reduction in greenhouse gas emission and pollution, tree planting, flood control and environmental sanitation should be incorporated into the policy framework of climate mitigation and adaptation measures by governments.

Unfortunately, the campaigns about the ever increasing debilitative effects of climate elements have been directed towards climate change debates, symposia, conferences and seminars at the expense of mitigation and adaptation measures. Though, climate elements change every year it does not connote climate change. What matters most are the measures put in place for checking the disruptive effects of the annual changes in the climate. The practical approach to solving the problems posed by extreme weather should revolve around pollution control, climate mitigation and adaptation measures.

• Ovwigho is a Professor of Agric Programme Evaluation and Rural Sociology with the Delta State University, Asaba Campus.