The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Zealotry and virus of intolerance

    Zealotry and virus of intolerance

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

    One tragic example of the fall-out of cultural imperialism is the fanatical and uncompromising faith of Nigerians in Islamic and Christian religion. The zealotry of our Muslim brothers would make people of Mecca, the birthplace of Prophet Mohammed green with envy.  In the case of their Christian counterparts, they are more Catholic than the Pope. And of course, that is when they are humble enough to concede the Pope is a Christian. The Jews, adherents of Judaism that along with Islam and Christianity makes up the Abrahamic religion, recently celebrated her dominance of the world through science with Benjamin Netanyahu boasting of a technological break-through that allows Israel to practice agriculture in the skies. The Israelis think the rest of us are sick.

    And while the Pope in the belief that adherents of Abramaic religion worship the same one God, has been visiting Muslim countries across the world including Abu Dhabi, UAE which is already hosting “Mary the mother of Jesus mosque,” preaching peace and reconciliation, our Muslims zealots here are issuing fatwa to Bishop Kukah of Sokoto for criticizing government as if President Buhari and his administration are owned by Muslim fundamentalists.  As for their equally intolerant Christian counterparts without the spirit of Christ, touching or reading the Holy Quran, inspired according to Prophet Mohammed by angel Gabriel, the Christian Annunciation angel, is sacrilegious.

    And more tragic for the nation is that since the beginning of the fourth republic, many poor, ill-educated and unemployed miracle seekers have become tools in the hands of equally ill-prepared new breed politicians who, when confronted with social problems, often resort to exploitation of religious sentiments by appealing to innermost fears of Nigerians.

    The truth is that unlike our first and second republic politicians who went through some form of political socialization process, our current set of military-baked “new breed’ politicians are ill-prepared for challenges of governance. The late Ahmadu Bello who welded the multi-ethnic and multi-religious north together started his long years of political socialization at the Local Council level. Obafemi Awolowo, his counterpart in the West, started as a Local Council chairman.

    But Kwara’s AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, the son of the first northern lawyer in Nigeria was said to be a successful businessman and a philanthropist until his adventure into politics when he went straight in 2011 to contest for governorship on the platform of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), then for Kwara Central Senatorial District on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and, by 2019, he was an elected governor on the platform of APC.

    His political opponents insisted “the commitment extracted from him to singlehandedly bankroll the election in Kwara without the support of the Presidency and national leadership of the party” was what qualified him for the position.

    They alleged that unable to meet the promise “to liberate Kwara state, the state of harmony pauperized by the political rulership of Sarakis dynasty” and also “ensure all secondary and primary schools in the state, are fully equipped with standard facilities and the needed manpower… to make products of schools in Kwara State tower above their contemporaries in other states of the federation, he dabbled into religion to cover up his inadequacies.

    If he was not up to some mischief, they ask, why did he need to set up a kangaroo committee to look into an issue before the Supreme Court.? The committee’s report upholds the “the right of Muslim students to wear their head covering” and the governor went ahead to reopen the 10 closed school saying “All the schools are government-controlled and fully funded; they are not Christian schools”. And that became the battle cry of aggrieved Muslim parents.

    There was no evidence the governor tried to find out if the decision of the Muslim parents to make admittance of their wards to Hijab unfriendly Christian schools was on account of the high standard of such schools. That would have been an opportunity to upgrade the Hijab-friendly Muslim schools to prove his campaign manifesto on education was not just an empty promise.

    But he chose to settle for the usual Nigerian strategy of ‘if you cannot meet the standard of some groups in the country, truncate their progress and lower the standard for everyone” as done through federal take-over of universities, recruitment into the bureaucracy and admission into universities through JAMB.

    The response of Muslim parents who vandalised and made attempt at torching Christian schools that rejected their Hijab-wearing children only confirms the fears of Christian schools’ stakeholders. Here Solomon’s Biblical historic judgment between two women fighting over a child readily comes to mind. Muslim parents who tried to torch Christian schools are probably driven by envy.

    Unfortunately, I have searched without finding any difference between the warring Muslim and Christian parents. I think the Christian parents are Christians without the spirit of Christ. It is most unlikely that with their battle cry of “We shall not allow Hijab in our schools., we will defend our faith and defend our inheritance” which led to a clash that resulted in 20 injured, they ever sought the opinion of their children. They would have been pleasantly surprised that their children have no misgivings about their hijab-wearing colleagues. For the innocent minds, the cloak does not make the monk.

    I attended St Joseph’s Secondary School, Ondo where those of us in the Novitiate mixed freely with regular students and Muslim students who despite having opportunity to go for their Friday prayers outside the school participated in our morning masses. Some of my closest friends some 50 years after were my Muslim classmates whose main attraction back them was in their beautiful Muslim strange names such as Rafiu, Majeed, Tofeek etc which were different from our own John, James and Peter etc.

    It is true that mission schools were set up to promote Christian values and set moral standards for students. But I cannot see how wearing of Hijab undermines those objectives.

    Members of the St. Barnabas Cathedral, who, decided to hold a worship service at the entrance of the school despite the bitterness in their hearts and those who decided that a truckload of sand must be heaped at the entrance of St. Anthony’s school to prevent Hijab wearing children of their neighbours from entering probably never bothered to read about their patron saint.

    St. Barnabas, was a peacemaker and patron of Cyprus and Antioch who sold his property, and gave the proceeds to the community (Acts 4:36–37). While others were suspicious, he agreed to sponsor St. Paul’s after his incredible conversion. Barnabas, together with Paul, struggled against those who required that Gentiles first be circumcised in order to become Christian (Acts 15, 1¯2).

    And those preventing children from entering St Anthony School must be reminded that St. Anthony, born into a wealthy family, was a patron of the poor. His major aim of joining the Franciscan order in 1220 was to have an opportunity to preach to the Saracenes (Muslims) in Morocco and be martyred. He was known for his undying love and devotion to the poor.

    There is a purpose for religion in all societies.  Religion is therefore not the problem of Nigeria but the use into which political actors without vision, prosperity prophets, Muslim fundamentalists and Christians without the spirit of Christ put it.

  • Stop humongous expenditure on Port Harcourt refineries

    Stop humongous expenditure on Port Harcourt refineries

    By Jide Osuntokun

    A fool would soon part with his money especially if the fool has no advisers, says an African adage. It came to most of us in the reading public as a rude shock to learn that once again our government is going on a wild goose chase over the rehabilitations of our money-guzzling refineries. This time around the annual $100 million is not enough, it is now going to be $1.5 billion. From the international media we learn this money is going to be sourced from the international capital market.

    We don’t know what the collateral is going to be. I ask whether this is a trick or something else. But a trick that is so easily decipherable is no longer a trick but a sick joke. The project would not be completed until the Buhari regime expires. This means the succeeding regime would have to carry the debt albatross. For God’s sake how much debt will Buhari pile up for the succeeding generations to come?

    We are back to debt peonage from which Obasanjo got us out of and Jonathan and particularly Buhari have gotten us enmeshed in debt slavery where we thought we and our children have escaped from. Did this new debt undergo parliamentary scrutiny? What is the purpose of having a well-paid, in fact the highest paid parliament in the world if it cannot perform parliamentary oversight duties? What we get in return is free flowing heavily embroidered gowns and shining Japanese Jeeps to show for it. No one knows how much this government based on other people’s money has accumulated in the last six years and we have two more years of generalized insecurity, uncertainty and additional foreign loans to go.

    This particular loan is taking Nigeria and Nigerians for a ride. Any informed Nigerian knows that for almost two decades rehabilitations of the four moribund refineries have become coded words for looting and grand larceny. Realizing this, on the eve of Obasanjo’s departure, he sold these useless refineries to some Nigerians willing to take a leap in the dark. But when Umaru Yar’Adua came, his “socialist crowd” from Ahmadu Bello University prevailed on him to abrogate the sale whose negotiations were apparently inchoate. Since then, we went back to the annual ritual of awarding the rehabilitations of these refineries to what Americans will call “favorite sons” or companies fronting for them. This whole scenario began when Abacha, the byword for national looting gave the rehabilitations of the Kaduna refineries to a so-called French company for $100 million. Of course nothing seemed to have been done and the Kaduna Refineries continue to run a deficit of hundreds of billions of Naira without producing any refined petroleum while its staff are routinely promoted after attending annual jamborees and refresher courses abroad.

    The current minister in a moment of candor said he could not understand how a company not refining oil annually runs a deficit and promotes its staff without being closed down or sold to whoever may want to buy the dead dodo off the hands of a clueless and confused state. One of the last things the late Professor Tam David West, a knowledgeable person in these things said is that the refineries should all be sold to private entrepreneurs. David West was an avid supporter of the incumbent president and a man who served Nigeria well and for most of his life was a lone voice in the wilderness crying for Nigeria’s Risorgimento.

    Many of us in the academia had consistently supported Buhari, I believe since 2003 because of what we perceived was his sense of purpose, discipline and integrity. Some of us felt that having been an oil minister without dirtying his hands in what is now a curse on our country, he will be able to block the leaking basket of the national treasury.  It is either we did not think thoroughly or we were deceived or that because of Buhari‘s advanced age, people are doing things in his name of which he is unconscious of. If a huge loan was needed, should it not be for infrastructural development and electricity? Even in the case of infrastructural development, there is need for monitoring and scrutiny of what is going on so that nobody is deceived.

    The much-ballyhooed Lagos -Ibadan railway that has been officially opened is still work in progress. Out of curiosity I went to see the station at Moniya in Ibadan and I was shocked by what I found. The station is still under construction and the roads to the station are virtually impassable. It took me more hours to drive from the station to downtown Ibadan than it took me from Lagos to Ibadan. Yet Rotimi Amaechi is signing railway loans all over the place. A government that does not believe in cabinet reshuffle is by global parliamentary standards an inactive or carefree government or a government of free for all or a government in a free fall.  This is what the Buhari government of sit-tight ministers is.

    If a huge loan was needed to upgrade the universities or some of them into centres of learning and ground-breaking research in a sustainable fashion, one would understand. If people are short of ideas, shouldn’t the coronavirus pandemic bring our national shame before us that we who used to produce vaccines in places like Vom are now waiting for handouts from WHO in Geneva before we can save our country from going under the coronavirus scourge. South Africa is manufacturing the Johnson and Johnson one shot vaccines on license from the company’s owners in the United States. Yet we are told we are the biggest economy in Africa. We have the humiliation of two million vaccines being sent to us by the WHO to vaccinate a population of 200 million if we can trust our census. Why can’t we on our own take $5 billion from our foreign reserves and begin to set up a vaccine infrastructure in Nigeria to manufacture under license vaccines against coronavirus and not only supply all our needs and sell vaccines to other parts of the world including Africa but also prepare for future pandemics. Rather than this imaginative way, we go around borrowing money to put into the sink-hole of refineries’ rehabilitations when even before we begin, we know the project will not end well.

    If money is to be borrowed why sink it into petrol refineries when we know in a few years to come, perhaps 20 years when petroleum would no longer be energy of choice because of the environment, we would not have recovered our investment. If there is a need for investment in this sector, a government driven by national interest would invest such money in the high yielding NNLG which has been returning huge dividends to the national purse.

    While still on petroleum refinery, why not wait for the Dangote Refinery that would produce refined petroleum products for home consumption and for export to come on board rather than waking up moribund national refineries that should just be scrapped and save us the heart burn of annual budgetary allocation into corrupt pockets of armchair petroleum engineers hopping around in the corridors of power for their share of national cake? If there is any hurdle in the way of the Dangote refineries, government should assist the company to overcome them. If the Dangote refineries do not come on stream this year, it may be too difficult for the company to recover the almost $20 billion invested in the huge multi-purpose industrial complex because the world is moving away from hydrocarbons dependency.

    Parliament should enquire about the loan being sourced for the rehabilitations of the Port Harcourt refineries and any other refineries for that matter. Without parliamentary budgetary approval, the process of awarding contracts and or funding the rehabilitations should be stopped and if the rehabilitations contract has been awarded without parliamentary approval, then the whole process should be regarded as dead and buried. There should be no funding for any such projects from the annual budget. There are more pressing issues of infrastructure and security that should take government’s one hundred percent attention. Security should even take precedence over infrastructure because it has come to a point when travelling between two cities in Nigeria has become a perilous journey undertaken only by those who have military or police escorts or by intrepid travellers secured by the Holy Ghost or by African juju.

    Indeed, there was a country! How much my heart pants for a return to a Nigeria of yore when we slept with our two eyes closed.

  • Rape: Blaming the victims

    Rape: Blaming the victims

    By Bassey Bassey

    SIR: In a cosmopolitan city like Abuja, there are signage at major street corners rebuking women from dressing in a certain way and this is also common in many other states. In many tertiary institutions across Nigeria, school authorities have dress codes for undergraduates and postgraduate students, constantly policing and attaching fines/punishment for non-conformism; these dress codes are often times targeted at women.

    The two most practiced religion in Nigeria (Christianity and Islam) promotes modest dressing with some extremists preaching complete cladding (from head to toe).

    In all of these, the most targeted gender are women and girls; from infancy until death, girls and women are trained to wear certain kinds of clothes, walk certain kinds of way, sit in a certain way, behave in a certain kind of way. One would think that with these overwhelming body policing of the female gender, they should live in peace devoid of bodily harm but yet they are the most victims of sexual and gender-based violence.

    In retrospect, one can see that the patriarchal society promotes and accepts rape in a subtle way and that is why the solution to curbing rape isn’t targeted at the root cause rather at the victim.

    If our laws both secular and religious align that women exposing certain parts of their body is responsible for their being targeted by a rapist, how come women in Buba (wrapper) are raped, how come babies in diapers are raped, how come girls and women in long flowing hijabs are also raped?

    The continuous censoring of the female body and the kind of apparel they put on is clearly not the reason why the prevalence of rape is soaring daily in Nigeria, instead it is the trivializing of rape by men.

    We have condoned the rape culture for too long using the machinery of victim blaming; we are quick to ask; what was she wearing, where was she when it happened and some other ridiculous questions that serves only one purpose – silence the victim – instead of naming and shaming the sexual offender.

    Isn’t it worrisome that 36 years since Nigeria ratified the convention on the Elimination of Forms of Discrimination Against Women and Girls (CEDAW 1985), 25 years since we signed up to the Beijing Declaration in 1995 and most recently the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP Act) of 2015, we are still battling to adequately tackle the menace of sexual pervasion against our women and girls?

    Since the passage of the VAPP Act in 2015, only 21 states have domesticated the Act, after painstaking lobbying, advocacy, campaigns and multi-level engagements. It is a shame that a country whose supreme law (the constitution) guarantees the right to dignity of the human person is hesitant to stamp out sexual and gender based violence and is waiting to lobbied, begged and pushed to do right by its people.

    Rape should never be mentioned in the same sentence where women apparels are mentioned as a push factor for sexual abuse.

    Rape is enabled by the government at all levels else relevant laws not targeted at the victim would be enacted and implemented passionately to rid our society of these moronic behavior and make our communities, streets, schools, parks, walk-way, workplace etc. safe for women and girls.

    • Bassey Bassey, HipCity Innovation Centre, Abuja.

  • Nigeria at cross-roads

    Nigeria at cross-roads

    By Chiedu Uche Okoye

    SIR: Democracy, which originated in Athens, Greece, is believed to be the best type of government. It is said that the worst type of democratic government is better than the most benevolent military regime. That is why world leaders treat countries with military governments as pariah states. They are ostracized. Today, many different countries in the world practise different variants of democratic governments, which suit their diverse cultural practices and peculiarities.

    When Nigeria attained self-rule in 1960, Nigeria was teeming with galaxy of political stars. And they’re morally upright intellectuals and political ideologues in their own right. And, they possessed both leadership qualities and vast knowledge in many areas of human specializations with which they could have steered the country to the path of technological advancement and economic prosperity.

    Aren’t we all familiar with the stories of Singapore’s rise to economic prosperity and the transformation of Malaysia? Mao Tse Tung and other Chinese political philosophers laid the ground work and ideological framework for the development of China.

    In the case of Nigeria, we have never had a great national leader, who possessed revolutionary zeal. But Muhammadu Buhari evinced the traits and tendencies of a revolutionary and moral reformer. After suffering failed attempts at becoming the president of Nigeria, he finally won the presidential election in 2015. He was touted as the political messiah of Nigeria – the leader who would rescue Nigeria from economic ruins and technological backwardness.

    But president Buhari’s occupation of the most exalted political office in the land has led to his demystification. He has failed abysmally in the task of fixing our country’s hydra-headed national problems. But, sadly, his aides and acolyte are not helping matters. They have continued to bury their heads in the sand regarding the dangerous and pitiable political situation into which the rudderless APC – led government got Nigeria.

    Today, bandits and Boko haram insurgents have become sovereigns in some towns in the Northwest, where the rule of guns has replaced the rule of law. They do unleash terror on innocent people, killing them and taking others hostage in the process. Consequently, farmers who are displaced by insurgency have abandoned their farming occupation. Will their abandonment of farming not cause food shortage in Nigeria?

    Again, the Boko Haram insurgents’ kidnapping of school children in the north has imperiled the future of education in the area. Even before the escalation of the crime of abduction in the area, the north has dismal record in education what with millions of children of school ages not in school. Can Nigeria achieve national development what with its parlous and comatose educational system as obtains in the north?

    More so, in addition to the problems caused by bandits and Boko Haram insurgents, the resurgence of clamour for self-determination by some Yoruba groups and IPOB is unsettling and disquieting. It is an augury for trouble in the future. These centrifugal forces are polarizing our country and taking it to the precipice of another civil war and disintegration.

    In the midst of all these vexatious national problems, our mono-economy is not in fine felt with the naira weak against foreign currencies and with millions of unemployed university graduate pounding the pavement daily.

    So, the question is this: Whither goeth Nigeria, the so-called giant of Africa?

    • Chiedu Uche Okoye, Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State.
  • Rhodes-Vivour’s parting shot

    Rhodes-Vivour’s parting shot

    Editorial

    At a valedictory in his honour last week, retired Mr. Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour of the Supreme Court reaffirmed what many Nigerians already know. He said there is deep rooted corruption in Nigeria, and he urged that efforts should be made to reduce it to the barest minimum.

    We agree with the observation of the retired jurist, and hope that he bore that ugly fact in mind while dispensing justice at the Supreme Court.

    At that valedictory, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, described his former colleague in glowing terms. The CJN said: “We are all here today to felicitate with an accomplished jurisprudential iconoclast that has offered the best of his intellect to the advancement of the legal profession through his several years of inimitable adjudications.” He went on: “His Lordship is a rare gem and unblemished symbol of humility and piety. His proficiency in the dispensation of justice, which is anchored on his mastery of law, presents him as a man of honour and scholarship.”

    The CJN further said: “His judgments are not only incisive but also analytical and opulent by all standards. His robust contributions to the development of our jurisprudence are inviolable and fascinating.”

    Interestingly, Justice Rhodes-Vivour made profound suggestions at his valedictory, and we wish he had pronounced on them while at the apex court. Amongst other things, he urged that in electoral matters, the law should be amended to shift the burden of proof to the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), that it conducted a fair and reasonable election.

    Of note, retired Justice Rhodes-Vivour modified his controversial judgement in Dokubo Asari vs FRN, that where the national security is threatened, human rights can be suspended. At his valedictory, he argued that national security must be visibly threatened before the fundamental right can be suspended. He also urged the apex court not to be a slave to precedents, particularly those that are no longer reasonable.  Justice Rhodes-Vivour reiterated his judicial position that dissolving democratically elected local governments amounted to executive lawlessness.

    So, Justice Rhodes-Vivour has a strong view, in and out of the bench, and we commend him for that. But, we wish he had used his position on the bench to project those points. Again, it needs to be emphasised that the judiciary has not fought corruption with the vigour expected by the general public. In many cases, the judges rely on technicality or undue delays, to defeat the ends of justice, for the benefit of the privileged class. So, we hope that the colleagues of the retired Justice Rhodes-Vivour would take the bull by the horn, and fight corruption in our country while they are still on the bench.

    For many judges, election petition remains their waterloo. As recent events have shown, another major challenge faced by the judiciary is the cronyism associated with the appointment or promotion of judges. The recent complaint by the leader of the Nigerian bar, Mr Olumide Akpata, with regards to the appointment of Judges of the Court of Appeal, is a case in point. Where the appointment of judges is tainted, the likelihood of the appointee engaging in corrupt practices is high.

    Justice Rhodes-Vivour no doubt has a rich pedigree. His father was Justice Akinwumi Rhodes-Vivour, while his great uncle was Justice Bankole Rhodes called to the English Bar in 1923. On his part Mr. Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour JSC, CFR, Life Bencher, was called to the Nigeria Bar in 1975. At 70 years, and with 11 years at the Supreme Court in his belt, Mr. Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour deserves a rest, and we wish him well.

  • Case for fixing Port Harcourt refinery

    Case for fixing Port Harcourt refinery

    By Emeka Nwankpa

    SIR: When recently, the Federal Executive Council (FEC), approved $1.5 billion to fully fix the Port Harcourt Refinery Company Limited (PHRC) after over 20 years of dormancy, many ordinary Nigerians jubilated. But to some vested interests, it is rather the refinery is outrightly sold.

    Selling such national asset is bad news to ordinary Nigerians. Amid global oil price uncertainties, Nigeria’s case is particularly worsened by the sharp drop in the global demand for its oil due to environmental, social, climate change issues worsened by the ugly effects of COVID-19 pandemic.

    Nigeria’s tragic story is particularly appalling when considered that our dormant refineries continue to pave the way for unbridled importation of refined petroleum products steadily oiled by rapacious emergency importers and their cronies.

    This is where industry leaders such as the team at NNPC Towers led by the Group Managing Director (GMD), Mele Kolo Kyari, and the petroleum ministry, should leave no stone unturned to wrestle the nation from the vice-grip of these few but powerful anti-Nigeria interests.

    There is no better time than now to re-write Nigeria’s post-independence chequered history by unraveling the riddle of a leading oil-producing country like Nigeria that is still found among leading oil-importing nations.

    Kyari could not have put it any better when he said last year: ‘’We couldn’t fix our refineries and that’s very difficult to explain. Why can’t we fix our refineries? For all 20 years, attempts to fix the refineries failed for very simple reasons, there’s a strategy problem’’.

    This strategy tallies with the refinery rehabilitation option which a few vested interests are out to shoot down. Nigerians want NNPC to drive this strategy to a logical conclusion, pulling the refineries back on stream and to their nameplate capacities using the Operate & Maintain (O&M) model for all the sleeping refining giants to achieve, at least 90 per cent of total installed production capacity by 2023.

    This project, unlike past models, has independent external stakeholders like Ministry of Finance, NEITI, ICRC, PENGASSAN and NUPENG as stakeholders synergizing with KBR and NETCO as NNPC’s Engineers, to ensure right quality, excellent delivery and within budget to maintain plant integrity for at least 10 years.

    With $1.5 billion, there will be complete overhaul and replacement of major critical equipment to guarantee plant integrity and maintenance for at least 10 years after the initial price was diligently negotiated down from $2.5 billion.

    Nigeria is a major oil and gas producer in the world that does not refine its abundant hydrocarbon resources but heavily imports most of its PMS needs. Popular thinking is that serious countries don’t sell off their strategic national assets such as refineries even to the highest bidder when countries that don’t produce a drop of hydrocarbon still want to own refineries.

    • Emeka Nwankpa, stewardship2day@gmail.com.
  • Set them free

    Set them free

    Editorial

    The doctrine of Separation of Powers as propounded by Monsieur Montesquieu is central to the practice of presidential system of government. He had suggested that all three arms of government must operate with a high degree of autonomy to ensure that none bullies the other in the interest of the society. When, therefore, Nigeria adopted the presidential system in 1979, it was expected that the executive, legislature and judiciary would act as checks on one another, to prevent any from acquiring so much power that would corrupt the branch and the leading operators. This does not stop at the centre since distribution of powers is equally central to the federal system of national arrangement, especially in a plural society like Nigeria. As such, as it is at the centre, so it is expected in the federating states.

    However, this is hardly so in Nigeria. While the constitution has spelt out the mode of distribution of powers in the federation, this is hardly adhered to at the state level where most governors operate as emperors. They have reduced the state legislatures to mere institutions of government over which they preside. Any Speaker who attempts to assert the independence of the House of Assembly is quickly removed; otherwise, the legislature would be starved of funds.

    While the lawmakers have been quiet over this sorry state of affairs, the state legislative workers under the aegis of Parliamentary Staff Association have risen to challenge the system. To sensitise the legislators and the general public to their demands, the workers embarked on picketing the federal and state legislatures early March, warning that it was only the first step. They have since further contended that they would embark on full strike that would shut down the legislative chambers if they were ignored.

    Calling attention to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018, and the Executive Order that followed, which authorised deduction of the money due the state assemblies from source and payment directly to them from the Federation Account, the workers said they had embarked on the measure with a view to defending the constitution as grundnorm that should be inviolable. We join the parliamentary workers in calling on the relevant officials and institutions of state, including the Federal Ministry of Finance and Budget Planning, the Budget Office and Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation to immediately give effect to the constitutional provision.

    It is trite that the constitution, being the supreme law of the country, and constitutionalism being the cornerstone of running the country, anyone who violates the tenets of the document should be dragged before the courts and appropriately sanctioned. For the failure to ensure that the independence of the state legislature is respected, the federal institutions to ensure that the Executive Order 10 released to give effect to the law are as guilty as the state governors.

    We support the workers, and by extension the state legislators who are likely using them as proxy that all legitimate means of bringing the executive arm of government to extend financial autonomy to the other two branches of government should be employed in ensuring compliance. All previous attempts to give effect to the independence of the legislature that would enhance quality law making and oversight have ironically seen several state legislatures teaming up with the executive in aborting the move. This time, it should be realised that the general public is with the parliamentary workers in their bid to restore the key kernel of the presidential system.

    The state assemblies should not only be free; they should be seen to be free indeed.

  • On Kwara’s faith debacle (1)

    On Kwara’s faith debacle (1)

    By Olatunji Ololade

    Religion is the highland to viral nature, the fabled staircase to the Christian Paradise and the Muslim’s Al Jannah Firdaus. Its sacred rungs, however, descend to the filth of faith amid conflicting creeds’ earthly bowels – oftentimes. To ascend mystic nirvana, Nigerians will maul earth into a grisly hell.

    In Nigeria, religion is glyptic; faith is carved with incised edge astride mystic culture and human nature. The steely autograph of the Nigerian faithful is seen in his inclination to do right or wrong, in God’s name.

    Consider the Kwara debacle, for instance. For the second time in seven days, Muslims and Christians in the state hopped in the trenches to battle over the rights of Muslim girls to wear hijab in secondary schools. In bid to forestall total anarchy, the state government shut down 10 schools that were at the centre of the controversy after anti-and pro-hijab groups attacked each other with stones and steel chairs among other weapons.

    The incident which occurred at the Sabo-Oke parish of the Cherubim and Seraphim School was contained by the combined efforts of the Kwara State Police command, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Nigeria Army.

    Children, mostly minors, are the major casualties of this pious recklessness. The Kwara debacle confirms Nigeria’s penchant for religious hypocrisy and mayhem: from Boko Haram’s terrorism in the northeast, Kaduna’s religious wars to Plateau’s sacred scuffles, children get orphaned, displaced and sexually molested.

    Yet the Nigerian faithful celebrates treasonous pieties while afflicting our families, workplaces, and schools, among other social institutions with bigots. Little wonder we sire children into unregenerate nature.

    If there is any lesson to be learnt from Kwara’s hijab fiasco, it is that we have forgotten our duty as teachers and parents. The Nigerian adult, be he a teacher, clergyman, mullah or parent has forgotten his mission to children; that is, to teach them humaneness and help them understand that the essence of education and religion is to make them more tolerant, more compassionate, more forgiving and humane.

    Ignoring these facts, the controversial Kwara schools are saying that: “There are no warm womb-spaces within our walls for Muslim students.” By offering no safe space for compassionate nurturing and religious freedom, they maul scholarship into chaos and faith into shafts of infernal devilment.

    The schools claim that they are “mission schools” and that government merely offers them support in grants. They claim absolute right to ban the hijab and run their schools as they deem fit.

    On the flipside, government quotes a 2006 education law that allows Muslim students to exercise religious freedom in public schools including the use of hijab. All the affected schools are public schools and there are several justifications for categorising them so – these will be dealt with subsequently.

    This minute, Kwara dissembles into a war zone as its adult citizens engage in battle frenzy; like medieval crusaders in visceral herds, they mentalise war and seek to actualise it.

    Predictably, media platforms offer fosterage of dubious sophistry in patronage of the warring herds.

    Most commentators are not saying anything new, however. Like spectres of battle sound, they amplify prejudice and slaughter jazz. Ultimately, they refasten the religious war harness and enable Pyrrhic claims to victory of their favoured divides. Shame.

    As clergymen, journalists, teachers, school administrators dissociate faith from compassion and pure thought, the brilliant sheen of bias in Nigeria’s popular religions makes the eye “glide” along its shiny surface. The hardness repels vision, like medieval savagery cast unto humane civilisation.

    Beyond the arguments and counter-arguments, ‘gospel’ truths and relative truths, sophistry and arrant bigotry, a bitter truth subsists about Kwara’s hijab debacle: that several faithful practice faith without compassion, salvation without spirit.

    Does using a hijab prevent other children from effective assimilation in class? No. Does it distract the teacher and school authority from serving the interest of the children to whom they owe the duty of unsullied tutelage and care? No.

    While the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), journalists” and public commentators weaponise gall and casuistry, to justify the victimization of the hijab-loving high school girl, in more cultured, tolerant clime, the hijab is allowed in humane and mutually beneficial circumstances.

    At the Cheetham Church of England Academy in the United Kingdom, for instance, Muslim students are allowed to don the hijab without incident.

    And even though Australia, like several nations in Europe and America, flaunts her share of Islamophobia, a Baptist college in the country recently did the ‘unthinkable’ for its first hijabi Singaporean student, Sumaiyah Rahmad. Syahrom, her father, enthused that the principal of the college painstakingly prepared a praying area for Sumaiyah. And after discussing with the girl’s mother, the principal proposed to the school’s board that hijab and clothing that cover aurat (private parts) be included as part of the school uniform.

    Recognising that Islam considers hijab as an obligatory clothing and spiritual code, not a  mere religious symbol. The board members agreed on the proposal and starting 2020, modest clothing like black leggings, white long sleeve tops, and white or black hijab were included as part of the school’s uniform.

    Ironically, a Nigerian Baptist school is in the trenches fighting dirty against the use of the hijab by its female students. The womb-like walls of the high school are too tender for such acrid drama. Schools are meant to foster in the student, a sterling character,  appreciable sophistication and individuality but at Kwara’s controversial high schools, the notion is unseemly.

    Several chapters in the Muslim Holy Quran prescribe the hijab of the eyes for the Muslim male, and the use of the hijab, khimur and jilibab for the Muslim female. This connotes Islam’s culture of modesty, purity, pride and tact in clothing and deportment.

    How can anyone rebel against such, especially in an era when secondary school girls are ditching their panties and brasserie on the way to school, screaming “Marlians don’t wear undies!” in homage to a local musician’s salacious lyricism.

    Religion, as H. Richard Niebuhr said, is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people. And the faith has long been used in the wrong hands—such as Boko Haram and their sponsors hiding under the guise of Islam to perpetrate mayhem.

    In Kwara, religion is currently being used to foment trouble. The situation worsens as warring Christians stew in an Armageddon complex and their Muslim rivals declare the situation a Jihad.

    Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the controversial schools will have “absolute control of their schools and place a total ban on the hijab perhaps. But what happens after that?

    Do they run Muslim students out of the educational system or completely stamp out their right to identity and religious freedom?

    This is not about the warring adult faithful hugging marketable rage with entitlement syndrome. It is about the Muslim girl-child’s right to individuality, justice and religious freedom.

    What is faith to the administrators of Kwara’s controversial public ‘mission’ schools? What is faith to the victimised hijabi and her Christian mate? What is faith to the Nigerian bigot?

  • Pastor Oyakhilome has come again

    Pastor Oyakhilome has come again

    By Olukorede Yishau

    The founder of one of Nigeria’s most popular Pentecostal churches, Believers Love World, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, is a man that should be avoided when COVID-19 is being discussed. Long before now, the founder of the church better known as Chris Embassy shot himself in the leg by doubting the existence of the Coronavirus. Since then, he has been labouring to justify his faulty position.

    Some days back, a video of the pastor started making the rounds. In it, Pastor Oyakhilome faulted his colleagues who are promoting vaccination as a way of putting the virus at bay.

    The man of God screamed: “What happened to you? Where is the word of God in your mouth? Do you realise if you believe in the word of God the way you believe in this vaccine, there will be power in your mouth?

    “He made us healers. What’s wrong? What happened to you? When did we start making such recommendations to God’s people? For God’s sake, think again!

    “How can they send to the churches, go tell them to take the vaccines. Listen if I say to someone, you shall live but not die, that’s it to him. Isn’t that the Bible that you read? Isn’t that the scripture that you read? Where is your God of Elijah, your God of Moses, your God of Peter, James and John? What’s the matter with you?”

    In the thick of the pandemic last year, Pastor Oyakhilome told us there was a link between COVID-19 and 5G technology. This was at a time the United States recorded its biggest one-day cases with 45,242 infections. The country had had 2.5 million cases and, at that time globally, some 10 million cases had been recorded with no less than 500,000 deaths documented. Pastor Oyakhilome, in a live broadcast on his Love Word television, linked the 5G with COVID-19 and, of course, the Anti-Christ— that dreaded monster Christians like me have been prepared to look out for. With his smooth delivery, Oyakhilome laid bare the facts as his researches showed. In another video, he claimed the Federal Government ordered the closure of Abuja and Lagos so that 5G antennas could be mounted. He added clinchers: ‘Social distancing was introduced as a way of stopping people from protesting the 5G take-off, deaths are high where 5G has been installed and 5G is behind deaths in Wuhan’.

    Read Also: Oyakhilome berates Christians taking COVID-19 vaccines

    He found a way to drag in the Anti-Christ. He soon got converts who came up with all kinds of videos: One showed birds dead near an antenna and another showed trees with dead leaves. The birds were said to have died as a result of the radiation from the 5G mast or antenna. We were also told the leaves on the trees withered because of the fifth generation antennae installed near them. The blame was taken away from the fact that most trees were like that during winter and spring; they only regain their bloom in summer.

    There was also an audio note promoting the pastor’s line of thought. The voice in the voice note claimed that the new technology was launched in Wuhan, where COVID-19 started. According to his warped logic, the Chinese knew the technology would lead to so much radiation that would kill people and so decided to introduce COVID-19 using the bat. This, the self-acclaimed expert, argued was to confuse people about what was killing them. He also put forward this false claim that many people in Wuhan were suddenly shaky and subsequently fall and die before help could come.

    A ‘follower’ of Pastor Oyakhilome, Senator Dino Melaye, joined the fray posting videos after videos to prove a non-existent conspiracy. He later claimed he had received international calls threatening him to back down on his ill-advised propaganda against 5G. He claimed the callers said 5G was bigger than him and he should desist from trying to stop it. He added that he was not afraid and would keep up his foolishness.

    Pastor Oyakhilome’s colleague, Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo of the Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC), has asked the Love Word founder questions that he is yet to provide answers to. He did not mention names in his response, but the allusions showed us unambiguously where the fingers of guilt were pointed. America, he said, will not destroy its 20 trillion dollar economy to put a chip on your body, and neither will Britain destroy its own.

    “How come it (Coronavirus) got to my village where there is no 5G?”Ashimolowo wondered. He added that the Church has always suspected the Anti-Christ anytime the world is faced with a pandemic. He gave the examples of Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and how their actions made the Church assume the Anti-Christ was finally here.

    With due respect to Pastor Oyakhilome, it is unfair to the world to use one’s vantage position to campaign against vaccination for a major plague. We are not new to vaccination. I suspect Pastor Oyakhilome might at one point or the other have been inoculated against yellow fever or any other disease. Vaccination has saved many from the scourge of polio.

    I beg Pastor Oyakhilome to stop this faulty campaign. I doubt if God is against vaccination. We have a major health crisis in our hand and acting as facts custodians when all you hold on to are conjectures will not augur well for humanity. Please stop, now!

  • UCL: Lewandowski to miss PSG games

    UCL: Lewandowski to miss PSG games

    Poland and Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski will miss a month’s football, including his club’s Champions League matches against Paris Saint-Germain.

    The current Bundesliga champions and Champions League holders confirmed on Tuesday that the 32-year-old striker would be out of action for around four weeks, after suffering ligament damage while on international duty in the current break.

    Lewandowski scored a brace in Poland’s 3-0 win over Andorra in Sunday’s game and was subbed in the 63rd minute, and it was then confirmed he had suffered an injury that would prevent him from featuring in his national side’s game with England today.

    On Tuesday, Bayern announced the injury to his right knee would keep him out for a month.

    If the prognosis is correct then Lewandowski will miss both Champions League quarter-final matches against Paris Saint-Germain, the team they beat in the competition’s 2020 final.

    He would also miss five matches in the German league, with Bayern currently four points ahead of nearest challenger RB Leipzig after 26 games played.