Category: Emeka Omeihe

The real objective of the Enugu State government in seeking to discourage compliance with Mondays’ sit-at-home orders by a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB cannot be faulted. The incalculable harm wrought on the economy of that zone and avoidable deaths the enforcement of the orders entail makes that line of action most compelling.

But the strategy to that goal is patently faulty. Not only did it present inherent contradictions, it was equally loaded with frightening prospects of undermining the very foundation on which it was premised. That was the uncanny dilemma thrown up by the decision of Governor Peter Mbah to seal off shops and other business concerns which did not open on account of last Monday’s sit-at-home.

The state government had on June 5, banned the Monday sit-at-home observance and urged citizens to go about their duties freely. It threatened to shut down any business concern that continued to obey the illegal order.

Events seemed to have turned out in favour of the state government when a coalition of civil society groups marched round the state capital in solidarity with the decision. The coalition which brandished posters with inscriptions condemning the continued observance of the sit-at-home orders urged people of the state to return to their normal business activities.

There have been appreciable improvement in compliance as more and more businesses were encouraged by the assurances of the governor to re-open. But it has not been total compliance given the security concerns that compel people to keep off the streets for fear of their lives.

Instead of the state government leveraging on the gradual return to normalcy through persuasion, re-assurances and improved security, it went for broke last Monday. It made good its threat to seal off shops and business premises that did not open that day. Altogether, 106 shops and two banks were sealed off by officials of the Enugu State Capital Development Authority. The sealed business concerns were to remain closed for one week and could only be re-viewed after their owners had presented current tax clearance certificates and other revenue documents. The shops also stood the risk of being auctioned or forfeited depending on the outcome of the review by the state government.

Read Also: IPOB: Simon Ekpa, Kanu’s lawyer fight dirty over end sit at home message

But things went sour when aggrieved traders in the state’s main market-Ogbete protested the sealing of their shops. Accounts of the immediate cause of the protests vary. But the one that quickly gained traction was that their decision not to allow any of the shops in the market to open until those sealed are unlocked and anger against the government action spurred the protests.

The traders quickly took to the adjoining streets. A trending video clip showed angry traders making a bonfire even as they questioned the propriety of the state government’s action in sealing off their private shops. A team of policemen were sighted interfacing with the traders apparently to persuade them to remain peaceful.

But events went awry when security men comprising of soldiers, policemen and their sister organizations were drafted to disperse the crowd. A young man in his twenties was sighted lying on the ground apparently felled by the bullets fired by the security agencies. Unconfirmed accounts put the number of deaths at three while an unspecified number of others sustained varying degrees of injury.

The state government has been compelled by the escalated development to shut down the main market indefinitely. Having shut down the market indefinitely, the original objective of the government in locking the shops to compel compliance to its order has been roundly defeated. And that is the contradiction in the efficacy of its policy.

Not only did the policy turn out eliciting reverse consequences, lives have also been lost in circumstances that are largely avoidable. The message that has been served by all this is that the strategy adopted by Enugu State government in seeking to get the markets re-opened was ab initio, ill-advised and not well thought out.

It failed to take into account the peculiar existential issues that compel even those who would have wished to do business on those Mondays’ to keep off the streets. Had the government factored in the complex nature of the challenge it sought to untangle, it may have realized that much of the blame for the subsisting security situation that instils fear on people should instead, be heaped on the shoulders of governments – state and federal.

The poor traders are just victims at the receiving end of the failure of the government to secure lives and property. Those who refuse to venture out do so for fear of their lives. They are concerned their lives may be put in harms’ way when they venture out during such days. They are not to blame.

Some of those who ventured out in other occasions have had sad stories to tell. Many lost their valuable lives and property in the process as there were no security agencies to their rescue. Reported cases of callous and senseless killings, the burning and looting of shops and other valuables by all manner of hoodlums and criminals hiding under the sit-at-home order enforcement have not helped matters either. In all these, the affected citizens are left to lick their wounds.

So the new government in Enugu State had a very simplistic interpretation and understanding of the issues when it reasoned that shutting down shops was a viable way out. It was a grave miscalculation. And the consequence of that error is manifest in the protests, killings and eventual indefinite shut down of Ogbete market. What a contradiction!

The state government has been forced to return to the drawing table. Force as a strategy to compel traders to open their shops should be out of the calculation. Had the government continued in subtly persuading businesses to return to normalcy with assurances of safety for those who venture out, the state may not have been entangled in the current mess.

Even then, it is puzzling that Enugu State has all this while, been unable to substantially guarantee security around the capital city to allow normalcy return. That is not the exact situation in some of the state capitals in the zone. Much of the security challenges encountered during those sit-at-home days are located in communities and towns outside state capitals. That is where the role of state governors in de-escalating insecurity arising from those orders comes in.

 Sit-at-home on Mondays was originally declared by IPOB in 2021 to press home their demand for the release of Nnamdi Kanu from detention. But it has been rested by that faction of IPOB. It may be instructive to observe that Kanu, the arrow head of the agitation hails from Abia State. Ironically, Abia has been largely more peaceful and safer than Imo, Ebonyi and Enugu states in the orgy of violence that trails sit-at-home enforcement and the general insecurity in the zone.

The reason for this is not quite clear. But it cannot be completely detached from the actions and inactions of the respective state governors. There have been copious allegations of mismanagement of the security situations by state governors. Imo State has lost more traditional rulers to faceless killers than all the states in the zone put together. The reason for this remains a puzzle.

Allegations have also been rife that some notorious militants were hired by some governors to provide security under the guise of the so-called Ebubeagu security outfit. Curiously, the membership and operational modalities of such nebulous security outfits have remained largely cloudy. That appears the issue Senate President, Godswill Akpabio raised while responding to the motion for the release of Nnamdi Kanu. He had accused southeast governors of not doing enough to curb the insecurity.

Though the senators did not endorse the request by southeast senators for the federal government to use “political solution approach” to free Nnamdi Kanu, the thesis of their presentation was that his release will defuse the insecurity in the zone. In this, the senators are with many.

So it is not just enough for the senate to hide under legal concerns. The political dimension to resolving the security challenge ought to be called into quick action. Nearly all key personages, groups and interests that matter in the zone have suggested that option as a viable way out. If releasing Kanu will defuse the tension in the zone, it should be in our collective national interest to do so.

That will not be the first time political solution will be deployed to address troubling issues of our federal order. It is not a costly sacrifice to make for the peace and security of the country if there are no extraneous interests taking undue advantage of the degenerate situation.

When former Niger Delta militants’ leader, Asari Dokubo recently claimed that 99 per cent of crude oil thefts in the country were traceable to the Nigerian Army and the Navy, many considered the allegation outlandish.

His controversial antecedents and inability to provide credible evidence may have diminished the potency of the allegation. But that may not be enough to offhandedly dismiss the issue he raised as lacking in merit.

Hear him: “The military is at the centre of oil theft, and we have to make this very clear to the Nigerian public that 99 per cent of oil theft can be traced to the Nigerian military: the army and the Navy, especially”

He spoke to State House correspondents after he had audience with President Tinubu during which meeting he said, discussions centred on oil theft and security. It is possible Dokubo raised the same weighty allegation in his discussions with the president.

 The Nigerian military has denied the allegation arguing they had conducted several successful operations to curb oil theft in the country. In separate statements, the Nigerian Army and the Navy dared Dokubo to furnish evidence to substantiate his claims. That may prove a hard nut for Dokubo to crack

But events seem to be fast according credence to the claim by the former militant leader in spite of the refutation by the military. Facts surrounding last week’s interception and subsequent destruction of an 800,000-tonne capacity vessel with stolen crude oil, point to the direction that Dokubo’s allegation may after all, not be a ruse.

Not with all the shady activities ascribed to the vessel in the last 12 years. Not with the revelation that the vessel had been caught twice in the same criminal business and handed over to the Nigerian Navy. Curiously, each time it was handed over to the Navy, the vessel resurfaced with a disguised name to continue its shady deals.

Apprehended in the wee hours of penultimate Friday, following discrete surveillance by a private security company, the vessel which was conveying the stolen crude oil to Cameroon had 11 Nigerians and one Ghanaian on board at the time of its arrest.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL gave a troubling account of the devious escapades of the vessel owned by a Nigerian registered company when it revealed that its’ original name- Ali Riza-Bey had been altered to MT Tura 11 to evade security. The NNPCL rationalized the destruction of the vessel for serially being used for crude oil stealing.

The identities of those arrested on board of the rogue vessel as well as owners of the Nigerian registered company have remained curiously cloudy. How come the rogue vessel operated for 12 years changing names after each arrest and yet gets away with such criminality?

At what point was this serial criminality discovered-before the recent arrest or thereafter? And what made it possible for the vessel to get away with its criminal escapades all through these years. What really changed now that made the arrest possible?

 Yes, the vessel has been destroyed to serve as a deterrent to future offenders. But that is just scratching the surface of the organized syndicate responsible for stealing crude oil in our territorial waters. The incident is just a tip of the iceberg on the monumental looting of the nation’s crude oil in the high seas by sundry rogue and unpatriotic elements.

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  Figures released by the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, in April this year, indicated that the country lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at N16.25 trillion to crude oil theft between 2009 and 2020.

This may be a rough projection given the difficulty in recording crude oil theft in view of the illicit nature of the business. Had the ill-fated vessel not been caught, it remained to be conjectured how the attendant loss would have been figured out by NEITI.

Nonetheless, the figures illustrate the incalculable harm wrought on the collective patrimony of the suffering citizenry by crude oil thieves. They underscore most poignantly, the enormity of the challenge and why the current incident must be methodically investigated to get at the root of all those involved in this economic sabotage.

The investigation should unveil those behind the activities of the rogue vessel, the government agencies and security officials under whose supervision the vessel had a free reign all through these years. It is important to unravel why the vessel has been operating and changing names in the last 12 year and yet nothing happened.

The Navy was fingered as taking custody of the vessel on each of the occasions it was arrested. We need to locate the officials who were handed over the vessel to explain the circumstances that brought about this odious pass. They have a very serious case to answer whether they are still in service or out of it.

Had they been handed over the vessel this time as they demanded, we may have had the vicious cycle of the scandal to contend with for a longer time.  It is possible someone high up there has been covering up the stealing by the vessel. That person or syndicate must be unmasked else the drama of the arrest and destruction of the vessel will be of little consequence.

 Beyond these, this singular arrest has miserably elevated to the fore some of the reservations for which fuel subsidy removal had in the past, received strident opposition from the citizenry. Here; the amount of revenue lost to crude oil theft in the face of frequent reminders by the government of what it loses by subsidizing domestic consumption of fuel comes into mind.

When the cost of crude oil that would have been lost to Cameroon in the ill-fated deal is paired with the figures from the NEITI, the enormity of the loss becomes more glaring. Yet, this does not include losses from unrecorded crude oil theft.

 So the real issue is not just about what the government loses by ‘subsidizing’ domestic fuel consumption. Of critical importance are losses incurred from the high volume of crude oil theft due to negligence or connivance by responsible government agencies. If a particular vessel could be arrested twice in the last 12 years, yet it continued to operate in the illegal business without let or hindrance, then the matter is that hopeless.

The country’s oil revenue losses are likely to accrue more from unrestrained crude oil theft than fuel subsidy removal. The figures given as losses from crude oil thefts strike as mere projections in view of the difficulty in getting accurate data from such illicit businesses.

We have just been told by the federal government that domestic fuel consumption has reduced by a monthly average of 18.5 million litres in June. Figures released by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) showed that average daily petrol consumption fell to 48.43 million litres in June as against a previous average of 66.9 million litres.

NMDPRA also said fuel smuggling collapsed in the neighbouring countries of Benin, Cameroon and Togo after fuel subsidy removal. These should be obvious fallouts of fuel subsidy removal.

 But reduction in domestic consumption will inescapably adversely affect government revenue projections. The situation is a bit intricate. A monthly average domestic fuel consumption drop of 18.5 million litres would imply a reduction in government revenue by that margin. When this is paired with the revenue accruals consequent upon fuel subsidy removal, one may discover that the projected revenue receipts may have substantially dropped.

So the promise of re-investing the revenue projected from fuel subsidy removal and the prospects it holds for the citizenry may be jolted by the huge drop in revenue from domestic fuel consumption. That is the emerging dialectics in the fuel subsidy debate.

Enugu State House of Assembly just approved the appointment of 50 special advisers for Governor Peter Mbah. This was sequel to a request to that effect by the governor. The governor had anchored his request on the need for the advisers to assist him drive the required agenda to achieve exponential growth of the economy of the state even as he justified the appointments on section 196 (1-3) of the 1999 Constitution.

The section among others permits a governor to appoint any person as a special adviser to assist him in the performance of his functions. The number of advisers and their remunerations shall be as prescribed by the law or by a resolution of the House of Assembly of the state.

So the constitution did not set a limit to the number of advisers a governor could appoint to assist him in the performance of his functions. It left that decision to the House of Assembly of the states. By securing the approval of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Mbah acted in line with the law. With the approval however, the total number of such aides appointed by the governor since he assumed office shot up to about 77. 

This is considered very unwieldy for a budding regime especially given the realities of the dire economic circumstances in which we live today. Before now, the trend had been in the direction of a reduction in bureaucracy to cut down the cost of governance.

For an administration that is just taking off, it would have made better sense to start with a lean cabinet such that would enable the government cut cost and save money to tackle the complex developmental challenges of his state. Sadly, this new direction that instructs prudence in the conduct of governmental affairs has been dealt a death blow by the high number of special advisers Mbah just appointed.

But the governor’s action is not entirely surprising. He appears to have followed the wrong footsteps of his predecessors elsewhere who had in the past, made a mockery of such appointments through the ridiculously high number of persons elevated to such positions.

The difference between what those governors did and the current situation presented by Mbah is that they made such appointments after they had been in office for some years. Mbah opted to start with a very high number from the first weeks fuelling feelings that the number may go much higher by the time governmental functions expand.

He has tried to rationalize the high number of appointees on the ground that they would assist him realize his vision to fast-track the development of the state. Good! But this argument did not factor in the negative effects of bloated appointments. If events in other states are anything to repose hope on, such appointments had always been at a very huge cost to them.

We have had situations where people were appointed just to create job for the boys without clearly defined functions and roles. Many did not have offices and were even unknown to the governors that appointed them. How such disorganized and disoriented crowd can be of value in driving the administration of a state save for their nuisance value, is left to be figured out.

Events during the regime of former governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade highlighted the ridiculous extent some governors went in replicating appointments of questionable hue.  He had in 2020 appointed more than 90 special advisers bringing the total to 100.

As if the bazaar of appointments was not just enough, he later followed it up with the appointment of 1,106 advisers. The so-called advisers were largely made up of 799 persons who were appointed into the boards, commissions and agencies while 307 were engaged as special advisers, senior special advisers, special assistants and personal assistants.

As usual, Ayade rationalized his crowd of appointees on the grounds of expanding government as a way of reducing poverty, increasing democratic participation and improving the value of service delivery. He is entitled to his opinion.

But one fact that should not be lost is that Cross River State did not post a high revenue profile then in comparison with its contemporaries to justify the high number of appointees. As at the time Ayade made those appointments, the state’s revenue had nosedived having lost 76 offshore oil wells to a sister state in a protracted legal battle. So, it became a big puzzle how a relatively poor state could go on replicating appointments without regard to its effects on the overall health of the state.

It may be helpful to factor in Imo and Rivers states to aid proper interrogation of some of the claims usually bandied to market the replication of positions in the name of political appointments.

 Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State had appointed liaison officers for the 305 wards of the state just as the 2023 elections drew nearer. He had in 2020 appointed 95 aides made up of 63 special advisers and 32 senior special assistants. And as usual, the purported aim is to upscale the development of the state.

The case of Rivers State presents an intriguing situation. Governor Nyesom Wike, a few months before the last general elections, appointed 50,000 special assistants.  Curiously, he did not name the advisers who were expected to resume work immediately and play ‘pivotal’ role in the administration with a few months for him to leave office.

Beyond the facade of the reasons adduced by Uzodimma and Wike, political observers saw the appointments as the beginning of another round of campaigns for the general elections. Many of the appointees were just floating without clearly defined assignment.

The danger in servicing such largely redundant and unproductive appointees can be seen from the stagnation of the economies of those states in all indices of development. It is not just a mere coincidence that the 305 ward liaison officers and 50,000 special assistants were appointed by the two governors respectively on the eve of the elections.

The driving force was to use them for all manner of odd jobs during the elections. And we saw this happen in the level of sundry electoral infractions in many states. Those appointees hold their offices at the behest of the governors and their terms of offices expire with those that appointed them. So the tenure of the 50,000 so-called special assistants appointed barely four months before the expiration of Wike’s tenure had since expired.

If those appointed by Uzodimma are all still there, the story will soon change after the coming governorship elections. Yes, there is no doubting the fact that well-structured appointments will lead to job creation, efficient delivery of public goods and services.

 But there is a limit beyond which unguarded replication of political appointments will become fatally injurious to the health of those states. Fatality will ensue from the unproductively of some of the appointees and its consequence on the finances of those states.

Such unwieldy appointments encourage the miserable feeling that politics is a profession and that people will have to depend on government patronage to earn a living. That misconception accounts for the large number of school leavers and youths who now see politics a means of livelihood- a disposition that accounts for all the ills associated with politics on these shores.

Extant realities can no longer permit of avoidable duplication of political appointments at all levels of governance. Job creation can be better approximated through infrastructural development both at the federal, state and local government levels. This should be more enduring than questionable political appointments that raise the tastes of beneficiaries and goad them into doing just anything just to remain politically relevant.

If the local government administration had not been emasculated by state governors through tampering with their funds, much of those who run to the state levels for patronage would have found accommodation at the third tier of governance. That would have obviated the need to accommodate them with appointments of spurious description. The times no longer call for bloated bureaucracies that end up depleting available resources and render governance ineffective.

The society is at great peril when public functionaries charged with the duty of maintaining law and order are in the forefront of sabotaging the very oath of their offices. Sadly, this is the foreboding signal we sometimes get from some of those charged with the duty of seeing to the proper discharge and execution of governmental functions. Hardly does a day pass by without reports of public functionaries indulging in one form of misdemeanour or the other that cast serious slur on their continued stay and relevance in those offices.

That is the uncanny dilemma this country faces each time officials of the government conduct themselves in ways that suggest they do not understand the high responsibilities that go with the offices they occupy. This quandary accounts in the main, for the wobbling institutional progress in the country despite several promises by the leadership to strengthen them to live up to their statutory mandates.

It is not that we are expecting saints in public offices. No! Neither is it an attempt to rule out isolated acts of misconduct. That would seem utterly utopian. But the regularity and bold face with which some public functionaries sabotage the very duties, for which they are paid with public funds, seem to question the basis for the existence of governments.

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Or, how do we explain the effrontery of four policemen attached to the Ogudu Police Division of Lagos State who were said to have extorted the sum of N153, 000 from a university student whose name was given as Emmanuel Nnawuihe. Reports had it that the student’s car was flagged down by the policemen for a routine search around the under-bridge area of Ojota.

They searched his car and mobile phone without finding anything incriminating. Instead of allowing him continue his journey, they took him to a very lonely spot around the under-bridge area and forced him to open his mobile bank application. Sighting he had about N2million in his bank account, the four policemen allegedly threatened to harm him unless he agreed to transfer the money into an account belonging to another person not at the scene of the incident. Nnawuihe refused their demand but they kept on pressing, threatening to harm him should he refuse to comply with their illegal demand.

Sensing danger to his life, the student had no other option than to commence negotiations with the rogue policemen. They eventually settled for N135, 000 which he transferred into an account provided by the policemen. Only then did they allow him to go.

The victim was said to have reported the matter to the Lagos State Police Command. The state Commissioner of Police CP, Idowu Owohunwa apparently piqued by the audacity of the policemen detailed another batch of policemen to track down the ‘offending four’ for serious questioning.

In the course of the subsequent investigations, Nnawuihe was taken to the Ogudu Divisional Police command where he identified the four policemen that swindled him. The stolen money has been refunded to him while the policemen were detained and are currently being probed in connection with the disgraceful conduct.

Owohunwa did not stop there. He also reportedly ordered the immediate removal of the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Ogudu for failing to effectively supervise her men linked to the odious deal.

About a week earlier, a Lagos barber had also cried out about his ordeal in the hands of another set of four policemen on routine check around the Ikoyi area of the state. They had allegedly extorted N100, 000 from him as he was returning from the Federal Registry in an Uber cab. The barber identified as @alilmoonn on Twitter said the policemen had directed the driver of Uber cab in which he was traveling to stop for a search to which the driver complied.

After searching the cab without finding anything incriminating, they asked the lone passenger to alight from the vehicle to meet their boss who was seated inside their patrol van. There and then, they accused him of being a fraudster and threatened to hand him over to operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

They manhandled him insisting he is a fraudster for using iPhone 14 Pro Max. They seized his phone and allegedly demanded N2million for him to regain his freedom. He did not have such amount of money. The leader of the rogue policemen checked the barber’s account balance and on discovering that he did not have such humongous amount of money, asked his men to collect N100, 000 from him apparently, an amount the balance he saw could cover. The barber, fearing that his life may come into harm’s way acceded to their order and transferred the said sum to an account number they provided. He attached the receipt of the transfer to the post on Twitter even as he asked the police authorities to apprehend the culprits and have his money returned to him.

It is unclear whether as in the case of the Ogudu four, any arrests were made. Neither is there any information as to whether the stolen money has been retrieved from the misfits in police uniform. But the force public relations officer, Muyiwa Adejobi had while reacting to the incident, said it was receiving the attention of the CP, Lagos State and necessary action will be taken.

The precise nature of the action taken to identify the culprits and have the money retrieved was yet to become public knowledge before, student Nnawuihe fell victim to the same tactics in the hands of the Ogudu four.

It is good a thing that the CP Lagos State reacted quickly and decisively by identifying the rogue policemen and had the stolen money refunded to the poor student. Equally heart refreshing is the news that they are now being tried for their acts of misdemeanour. It is to be expected that at the end of the routine trial exercise, the four policemen would be shown the way out of the police force.

They are a disgrace; an unmitigated disaster to the police institution and should have no business in that organization any longer. Just as we are told that they have been identified and the money they stole returned to its rightful owner, the public is eager to know the nature and severity of the punishment given to them.

But it remains a sad commentary on the police institution that none of the four policemen saw anything wrong in intimidating innocent people to the extent of threatening to send them to the underworld if they do not part with their hard earned money. Their conduct is neither a mere happenstance nor coincidental. Rather, it strikes as organized crime within the police formation.

That is why the immediate removal of the DPO, Ogudu struck the right chord. It is puzzling that such organized crime could be going on without the knowledge of the leadership in that division. But if the brazen criminality could go on without the knowledge of the DPO and her lieutenants, then much is desired of their leadership and supervisory roles in that formation.

The similarities in the mode of operation and tactics of the policemen in the two incidents, point inescapably to the fact that they are not just isolated cases. Neither is their tactics novel. It was one of the many excesses of the defunct Special Armed Robbery Squad SARS that led former Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu in 2020 to ban police men from indiscriminate searching of mobile phones and laptops.

Adamu had then ordered: “All tactical squads must desist from the invasion of the privacy of citizens particularly through indiscriminate and unauthorized search of mobile phones, laptops and other smart devices”. About the same time also, the nation erupted into disturbances and violence following what is now known as the EndSARS protests.

In the ensuing protests, police formations across the country were selectively attacked and burnt down while a good number of its operatives lost their lives. The attacks took everyone by surprise while inflicting serious damage to the morale of police operatives. For several weeks, police men and women were afraid to venture out for fear of incurring the wrath of the public.

By the accounts of the then IGP, 22 policemen were gruesomely murdered with 26 others injured by the protesters. 205 critical national security assets, corporate facilities and private property were attacked, burnt or vandalized. This is in addition to arms and ammunitions which the police said were carted away during the uprising even as many arrests were also made.

At the end of the mayhem, the SARS unit was disbanded and judicial panels of inquiry set up to examine mounting cases of human rights abuses in and around the country. There were also copious talks and promises for police reforms.

If any lesson was learnt from the sad experiences of EndSARS, it is not evident from the two incidents. Rather, we are again at the threshold of those excesses of policemen that brought about that sad pass. What has become of the order restraining policemen from invading the privacy of the citizens in the name of searching their phones for alleged incriminating materials?

Now that such searches have become avenues by rogue policemen to steal monies from innocent citizens, why allow the practice? That should be food for thought for the current IGP. The way he responds to emerging contradictions in the continued searching of phones and laptops by policemen will be a measure of his seriousness or lack of it in permanently taming this monster to redeem the waning image of the police institution.

It is heart refreshing that the contentious Water Resources Control bill has eventually met its waterloo. The senate threw away the bill last week following objections that it ought to come with details in keeping with the rule that any bill coming for concurrence must provide details. The bill came with no such details and had to be thrown out by the upper legislative chamber.

That has put paid to the bill presented to both chambers of the National Assembly by former president, Muhammad Buhari in 2017. The House of Representatives had passed the bill in 2020 in very contentious circumstances generating in its wake serious suspicion and protests.

Before the passage of the bill, the chairman of the House Committee on Water Resources, Sada Soli had claimed that the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and commissioners for justice in the 36 states were consulted and opinions received would be attached and distributed.

 Curiously the document emanating from the House of Representatives failed to furnish such details. And the senate did not waste time in appropriately throwing out the ill-fated and ill-conceived bill. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Tagged “A Bill for an Act to Establish a Regulatory Framework for Water Resources Sector in Nigeria, Provide for the Equitable and Sustainable Redevelopment, Management, Use and Conservation of Nigeria’s Surface Water and Groundwater Resources and Related Matters”, it sought to concentrate the control of water resources around rivers Niger and Benue and other waterways across the country in the hands of the federal government.

 When that Executive Bill first surfaced in the eighth National Assembly, it generated intense controversy dividing legislators along ethnic and regional lines. The senate, on account of the sharp divisions the bill created, did not waste time to throw it away when it came for second reading in May 2018.  Curiously however, the chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Abubakar Fulata re-introduced the bill in July in a manner that was not in consonance with the rules of the house.

Just like when the bill was first introduced, it again frayed nerves and generated intense suspicion. Southern, Middle Belt groups as well as other notable Nigerians including Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka in unison, expressed deep reservations and opposition to the proposed piece of legislation.

Former Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu did not help matters when he insisted that the federal government would continue to pursue the passage of the bill into law because it was the responsibility of the government. But Afenifere countered the minister: “rather than acting as though it can force its plans down the throat of the people, what the government ought to do is to listen to the people and adjust in accordance with the aspirations and feelings of the people”.

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That adjustment never came. Neither were the wishes and aspirations of the people factored in until the bill met its death at the upper chamber of the National Assembly last week. But it says something about the kind of leadership we have in this country- leadership that seems to place an agenda of sectional predilection over the collective aspirations of the constituents.

The indecent haste and surreptitious manner the bill was being pushed through had fuelled suspicion of sectional and clannish agenda especially as it sought to vest the control of water resources as well as river banks on the federal government. By extrapolation, a sizable portion of the land close to those rivers will also revert to the control of the same central authority. The implication is that the federal government will not only have absolute control of the waters and the resources in them but also lands around their vicinity.

By the same logic, communities and hamlets that solely depend on these water resources and land for their daily lives will lose them all to the all-powerful federal government. States and local governments will not only lose their rights to water resources within their domain but portions of land very close to them. It was these foreboding realities that stood the greatest challenge to the bill.

But that was not all. The motive of the federal government in seeking the passage of the bill by all means was also suspect. Allegations were that the obsession for the control of water resources and adjoining lands is a subterfuge to accelerate unfettered access to pastoral lands for herdsmen especially given the futile attempts in the past to achieve the same objective through other guises.

Many of the communities in and around the banks of those rivers depend on them for survival. They fish there, farm there and engage in sundry productive endeavours such environment engenders. It is this category of people that the federal government sought to dispossess and displace through the obnoxious bill. The bill is anti-people and cannot serve our overall national interest.

Suspicion of an odious agenda was further illustrated by Section 2(1) of the bill which states “All surface water and ground water wherever it occurs, is a resource common to all people”. It is inconceivable how the water resource at my backyard which over the years had served as a source of life can now be tagged a resource common to all people. Which people and what business do they have at my backyard?

What the bill intends to achieve is to provide cover for all manner of people including militant herdsmen whom we are told are mostly foreigners to invade the privacy of the local population. It goes with serious security repercussions. At a time this country is stretched to elastic limits by the insurgency of the herdsmen, armed banditry and kidnapping as well as the Boko Haram insurgency, the passage of such a bill will inexorably lead to catastrophic consequences.

But more seriously, current sentiments in the country are for the whittling down of the powers of the federal government through restructuring. Through restructuring or power devolution, the constituent units are to be empowered to effectively take over more of those unwieldy functions currently suffocating the federal leadership. The nagging corruption in public offices, the rancorous and deadly competition for power at the centre which accentuates amateur leadership is linked to our defective federal contraption.

It is a thing of immense worry that instead of seeking ways to align with the dictates of true federalism, the same executive depicted vaulting obsession to further expand the frontiers of central control of life and death. All this seems to reinforce the suspicion that some people nurse an agenda to dominate others by surreptitiously appropriating the resources of the constituents to serve clannish and self-serving predilections.

Or how else do we rationalize the scant heed by those entrusted with power to the sensibilities of the people they claim to rule? It is not uncommon to see leaders equate their self-serving interests to that of the collectivity they claim to serve.  It is also not out of place that people in leadership sometimes displace national interest with their own personal interests. That often leads to the erroneous notion that loyalty to the government in power is coterminous with loyalty to the country. They are two different things. We have seen leaderships that constituted unmitigated liability to the collective interests of their constituents.

The mood of the country no longer favours an omnipresent and omnipotent central authority. At a time agitations are on the upper scale for power devolution and decentralization, the thought of a bill that will now control the water at my backyard is crass insensitivity to public feelings.

That piece of legislation is an evil omen. But it did not come as a surprise because it bore the imprints of similar clannish policies pursued by the last regime fuelling feelings of division and acrimony among the constituents. That era is now history. Its repulsive vestiges must give way for all-inclusive policies- policies that unite the people and allow constituents greater control of affairs in line with true federalism.  

Dismissal of five officials of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) for sundry offences again, brings to the fore why the public sector continues to stagnate in this country.

The offences of the unnamed officials which included a deputy director, ranged from corruption to demanding and receiving bribes from suspects and their relatives.

They were also found complicit in leaking confidential information to suspects that placed the lives of their colleagues in serious danger, violation of oath of secrecy, stealing and alteration of official records.

In addition to the five dismissals, the board of the agency also approved the demotion by two ranks of two other officers for soliciting bribe from a suspect of human trafficking. Ostensibly, the measures are designed to weed out bad eggs in the system and restore the agency to the path of sanity, moral rectitude and responsibility.

The agency took a bold step in wielding the big stick against the erring officers. Some of the offences for which they were punished are as grievous and weighty as they are very scandalous. It is highly repulsive of public conscience that the officers could tread the very perilous path of disclosing to suspects, sensitive and confidential information that could put the lives of their colleagues in danger thereby violating their oaths of secrecy.

But, these are very grievous offences that should not terminate with just dismissing the unscrupulous officials. The proper thing is to hand them over to security agencies to commence their prosecution in line with extant laws.

 In a clime where insecurity has been on the upward scale with many security officials attacked in circumstances that have remained largely unresolved, it is not unlikely that such official misdemeanour could be a potent lead. This should not come as a surprise. In the early days of the Boko Haram insurgency, our soldiers complained of security information leakage to the insurgents leading to ambushing and high casualty levels on their side. Who knows the number of innocent officers of the agency that would have been exposed to unmitigated harm by the unpatriotic and wicked actions of the likes of the dismissed officers?

It is vital that the punishment by the agency goes beyond the dismissals. There could be more of such morally bankrupt and corrupt officials in the system that may not deem the punishment sufficient deterrent to their odious conduct. Prosecution will serve a more lasting deterrent to prospect offenders.

NAPTIP has enormous roles to discharge given the ever growing complexity and sophistication of challenges in its line of responsibility. It will be largely constrained and handicapped if officials charged with the duty of checking and preventing trafficking in persons and illegal adoptions are the very ones sabotaging the process. Insider deals can be very risky.

Sadly, that is the message emanating from the conduct of the dismissed officials. Illegal migration and human trafficking are serious challenges to this country. Not only are our citizens daily seeking irregular and very perilous routes to flee the country, it is estimated that for every four illegal African immigrants, one is a Nigerian.

 Nigeria is rated to be hugely affected by human trafficking both as a source country, a transit and a destination. That illustrates the enormity of the challenges the agency is confronted with. That also highlights the mortal danger in its officials getting involved in acts and practices that undermine efficient discharge of the responsibilities of the agency.

With a high population estimated at over 200 million people, the pressure is left to be imagined. Such push factors as poverty, escalating youth unemployment, insecurity, social inequity and corruption add to the frenzy of illegal migration of our citizens in search of better standards of living.

Not unexpectedly, the inordinate desire to flee through any and every means has had adverse effects on the image of this country. That we still hear of repatriation of Nigerians stranded in Iraq and Libya several years after the conflicts in those countries ended, says much about how desperate the situation has become. Many of the victims would rather take to anything else than consent to be ferried back to the country.

At other times, the public space is replete with reports of our citizens embarking on perilous journeys through the deserts or crossing the high seas with rickety ships and canoes that sometimes capsize in the high seas. At some other, the news is that of the rescue of some fortunate ones in their sinking boats and their subsequent detention in other countries under very inhuman conditions.

Despite the mortal danger in such endeavours, the push factors are ever on the increase. The agency said it rescued more than 19, 000 trafficked persons since its inception in 2003. That could be an insignificant proportion of those fleeing. Between January and May this year, it secured 32 convictions of people for various crimes related to human trafficking.

Desperation to flee the country can also be discerned from isolated records of official migration. The recent decision by the United Kingdom, UK, barring students from bringing in dependants to that country stemmed in the main, from the abuse of that window by Nigerians. Last year, that government had noted with dismay that Nigerian students brought the highest number of dependants compared to their counterparts from other countries.

Nigeria accounted for 40 per cent of all dependants who accompanied students despite Nigerian students making up just seven per cent of foreign students in that period. Some 34, 000 Nigerians were given student visa and they brought with them 31, 898 dependants.

Chinese students had 114,837 visa issued to them. But they came with only 401 dependants while 93, 049 Indian students came into that country with 24, 916 dependants. The message is clear and it bears the imprimatur of the desperation by Nigerians to flee the country through any and every available means.

 So the solution cannot just be located in combating illegal migration and trafficking in persons through enforcement. We need to address the causative factors that propel and sustain the urge to migrate. That is where the government must come in very decisively. Good governance is a key factor here as it holds the ace for the resolution of the complexity of factors that render decent and secure living a herculean task on these shores. 

Though the Buhari regime at inception promised to tackle some of these challenges, indications at the eve of its departure are that much of those ills are still with us. Corruption, escalating unemployment and insecurity are part of the challenges that have reduced life to a nightmare in this country.

Ironically also, these are at the centre of the push factors for the spate of migration-legal and illegal. The solution hinges in decisive resolution of the challenges that push our citizens to flee the country. If our citizens are provided with a decent environment to earn their living in a secure and equitable atmosphere, the urge to flee to the vicissitudes of the outside environment will wane very considerably.

Much of the blame should be heaped at the shoulders of our leaders for their serial failure to deploy the huge resources endowed the country by nature to transform the economy and uplift our people from debilitating poverty into which they have been consigned by years of misrule. That has been the missing link and the reason our citizens are exposed to degrading treatments in foreign lands.

It is imperative to frontally tackle these challenges to restore some modicum of respect to the dented image of our citizens. Addressing the multiplicity of extant developmental challenges is a better route to permanently discouraging the surge in illegal migration and trafficking in persons.