The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emeka Omeihe

  • Ethnic hate bill

    THERE appears to be some misconception on the implications of the National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speech Bill which passed its first reading at the senate last week. That perhaps explains why, much of the concerns have been on the effects of the bill on the rights of citizens to freedom of speech and expression.

    Even as these fears are not out of order, it does appear the real intentions and mortal dangers inherent in the bill are yet to be placed within their proper contexts. For, most of the issues the bill intends to address relate to ethnic hate speeches rather than individual to individual infractions. Though the bill categorized as an offender any person who, uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays and distributes any material written or oral capable of causing threat or involves abusive words or behaviour, its main concerns are with ethnic strife.

    But, attention on the proposed piece of legislation has been on its effects on the rights of citizens to freedom of expression. This has led to conclusions that it targets to muzzle freedom of speech which has had unfettered ventilation through the new media. This view is further fuelled by the coincidence of the bill with the avowal of the federal authorities to press on with the regulation of social media practice in the country.

    A careful perusal on details of the said bill shows it is heavily skewed to checkmate ethnic hatred, ostensibly to forge a common sense of national belonging. It has serious sanctions against any infringement capable of eliciting ethnic hatred and rivalry within and among the estimated 250 nationalities in the country.

    It is in this wise that an individual is deemed to have committed an offence if he intended to stir up ethnic hatred, or having regard to all circumstances; ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up against any person or persons from such an ethnic group in Nigeria. “Any person who commits an offence under this section shall be liable to life imprisonment and where the act causes any loss of life, the person shall be punished with death by hanging”.

    The proposed law also further stipulates that “Any person who knowingly utters words to incite feelings of contempt, hatred, hostility, violence or discrimination against any person, group or community on the basis of ethnicity or race commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment to a term not less than five years, or a fine of not less than N10million or both.

    The overall target of the bill for which the setting up of a commission is being proposed is to whittle down ethnic strife, facilitate and promote peaceful co-existence among all ethnic groups indigenous to Nigeria. Through the instrumentality of draconian punishments including death penalty by hanging; the bill seeks to secure citizens’ compliance to national re-orientation and nation building.

    But that is where everything went wrong. The senator who proposed the bill, Sabi Abdullahi must have been moved by the reality that hate speech is a major problem in Nigeria adversely affecting co-habitation and things got so bad with the advent of the social media. He was also right in his recognition that Nigerians are torn along ethnic and religious lines more than ever before in its history with ethnic hatred at an all-time high. The need for some form of intervention to steer consciousness away from these destabilizing tendencies may have been the raison d’être for the bill.

    He however, veered off tangent in his recommendations as to the appropriate therapies to remedy the identified societal ills. Yes, we have been contending with ethnic hatred and hostilities in this country. Our leaders have not fared any better as some are clear purveyors of these divisive tendencies. Their inability to rise above these predilections is clear from the rising competition between the central authority and primordial cleavages for citizens’ loyalty.

    The concerns of the bill on nation building can be understood. It is however, a different ball game whether inculcating a sense of national consciousness and identity can be procured through the harsh penalties contained in the proposed bill. National re-orientation and re-awakening being psychological constructs cannot be procured by force. Neither does compliance depend on draconian and vey unrealistic laws. What is required to get the right responses is moral suasion and real commitment from the government to the overall wellbeing of citizens irrespective of ethnicity and creed.

    A leadership imbued with national purpose and commitment; one that places the collective interests of the citizens above primordial considerations is vital to securing the loyalty of the distinct ethnic nationalities in the country. That has been the missing link. The proposed bill is defective and incompetent given that it sets out to address the manifestations of ethnic strife and rivalry rather than the conditions that nurture and sustain them.

    Not surprisingly, these conditions can be located in the defective federal structure we operate, an arrangement that places disproportionate powers and resources at the centre. It is in the competition for the control of these powers and resources that ethnicity springs up together with its destabilizing manifestations. It is difficult to fathom how these systemic dysfunctions can be addressed through the hate speech bill. The solution lies in whittling down the awesome powers of the federal arm through devolution, fiscal federalism or restructuring.

    The real task is to make Nigerians out of the various nationalities that inhabit this political space such that they begin to see themselves first, as Nigerians rather than members of their inclusive units. The success of this will depend on how the government of the day is perceived in terms of its commitment to building bridges of unity and understanding among the disparate peoples. That is the key issue.

    Against all pretences, our politics is still ethnically directed. Ethnicity has remained the major language of political discourse and action even as recruitment within the nation’s highest political offices including the security agencies has miserably followed the same trend. It remains to be conjectured the fate of the proposed legislation in an ethnically fragmented and divided country; a country where citizens see themselves from the narrow prism of their ethnic nationalities with a leadership that is yet to rise above these predilections.

    It would seem the proposed bill is dead on arrival given that it is entangled in an intricate web of contradictions. Given that the bill seeks to procure citizens’ loyalty compliance through the wrong channels, it will definitely produce counterproductive outcomes even if it finally scales through. While our laws have copious provisions on some of the issues the legislation is targeted at, there are others that are not susceptible to ease of handle or clear interpretation.

    The imprecise nature of the infractions the bill is supposed to address may lend it a tool in the hands of the government to intimidate and harass political opponents. Even then, there is real worry as to the propriety of a bill on ethnic hatred or hate speech for a democratic government inundated by a surfeit of more pressing national challenges.

    Insinuations are high that the intention is to muzzle public opinion in preparation for some dubious agenda. We do not require another commission to promote and facilitate harmony and peaceful co-existence. Neither is the enactment of draconian laws all that is required to exorcise the ghost of hate speeches and ethnic hatred from the language of political discourse on these shores.

    But the government can still make the difference in the way it carries along the disparate groups by giving them a sense of belonging. A government that cares for the overall welfare of it citizens; adheres to inclusiveness in all its policies and actions sets the right tone for all the ethnic groups to fall behind it. Such a government will have no reason to seek the procurement of citizens’ loyalty through harsh and draconian legislations.

  • Sanwo-Olu’s new theory

    By Emeka Omeihe

    Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu delved beyond the ordinary when he interrogated certain features of citizen-government relations he considered impediments to genuine expression of the democratic spirit and the sovereignty of the people.

    In a terse presentation that deviated substantially from the stereotypes we are accustomed to, he fingered the appellation, ‘Your Excellency’ as one of those features that obfuscate the understanding of the real relationship that should exist between governors and the governed in a true democratic setting. He raised issues with the title ‘Your Excellency’ contending that it appears to confer on the office of the governor the toga of an epitome of excellence; a temple of perfection and a throne of purity- attributes he ascribes only to the almighty God.

    Apparently not satisfied with that appellation which he says spreads a demi-god aura across the entire machinery of the executive arm of the government;symbolizing an authoritarian disposition on the governed, he said he would not have anything to do with the title henceforth.

    Sanwo-Olu also adduced religious reasons for his action. For him, since only the almighty God, our creator is the Most Excellent, no man or woman can share that attribute with him. For this reason, he divested himself of Your Excellency title and wants to be simply addressed as Mr. Governor. The new appellation in his view, will constantly remind him that he has been chosen out of so many to serve humanity without losing sight of our imperfections and mortality.

    The issues canvassed by the governor are as weighty as they are thought provoking. It is good a thing he took out sometime to interrogate some of theconcepts and precepts we take for granted; precepts designed to enthrone highermoral values but constantly abused and debased by leaders. Such inquisition iseven more relevant in our clime because of the gulf between precepts and exemplary conduct. We are good at appropriating any and every symbol or perquisites of public office. We are also good at flaunting and celebrating titles and honors without giving a thought to the sacrifice and high moral demands they oftenentail. The governor must have seen through the incongruity between the concept of Your Excellency, the conduct and the activities of those so addressed that he feltsufficiently challenged to put the concept on the scale.

    And what is the sense in adorning a title its bearers constantly devalue through acts of omission and commission? Had our elected leaders been living up to the high moral values envisaged in the conferment of such titles on them, Sanwo-Olu maynot have found himself in the current frustrations that compelled him to strip himself of that title. His action should therefore serve as a challenge to those who parade such titles without giving a thought to the huge responsibilities they bestow on them.

    Yet, there are issues with some of the conclusions of the governor. YourExcellency which is a universally accepted honorific title is given to certain high level officials of a sovereign state, officials of international organizations or members of an aristocracy. There is little literature on how it evolved overtime but it equates with cardinal virtue, distinction, excellence, virtue etc.

    Conceived this way, it is a clarion call for excellence, distinction and higher valueson all those the title is conferred. When a governor is addressed as His Excellency, he is being called upon to show distinction, to strive for excellence in both his private and public conducts. He is being called upon to strive for perfection since only the almighty is perfect and excellent. It is a reminder to the sacrifice such a leader has to make to justify the arduous responsibilities entrusted on him by virtue of his office. There is nothing inherently wrong raising the moral and performancebar expected of occupiers of such offices.

    It is an admission that such officials are not infallible and only by striving for perfection will society take full advantage of their mandate. It is neither intended to confer the toga of a thin-god on them nor authoritarian disposition which at any rate is a negation of democratic ethos. Where you find leaders with anti-democraticor authoritarian dispositions, it is doubtful if its root can be located in that appellation.

    Yes, there is ample evidence of scant regard by public office holders for the high expectations their offices entail. The conduct of some of our governors (past and present) has continued to question the propriety in their continued retention of such titles. We have seen governors arrested and convicted for looting the public treasury. Such misdemeanors are patently inconsistent with the vision embodied in the concept of your Excellency.

    Governors have been caught taking bribe and indulging in such dirty activities that make mockery of their continued retention of such appellations. There is neither anything excellent about the conduct of some of these leaders to deserve the appellation nor do they make conscious efforts to strive for perfection. Sanwo-Olu has good reasons to quarrel with the continued retention of that title by our present tribe of leaders.

    Yet, it is incorrect to posit that the title ipso facto, impedes genuine expression of the democratic spirit and the exercise of the sovereignty of the people. Neither can it be reasonably argued that its disposition negates the sovereignty of the people and equates with authoritarianism. We can argue that that title has become a misnomer given the serial inability of our leaders to live up to the high expectations of their offices. We may as well root for its abrogation given the gap between what it is expected to make of our leaders and what they usually turn out to be.

    But it remains inappropriate to blame the fault-lines of our democratic engagementon the disorientation arising from either the purported celebration of the office of the governor as a paragon of excellence or the demi-god mystique surrounding that office. Issues that impede the genuine expression of the democratic spirit in our society and meaningful exercise of the sovereignty of our people have little to do with the way the office or power of the governor is perceived.

    The social contract account of the theory of state does not also corroborate that linkage. Man in the state of nature got so fed up with the atavism of that order thathe had to give up some of his rights to a sovereign who will in turn protect him. But he also retained some rights to keep the sovereign at check as ultimate sovereignty remains with him.

    This relationship adduced as the origin of modern states involves rights, duties and obligations- citizenship reciprocity. Overtime, this relationship evolved into the democratic order with the powers to effect leadership change devolving on the people through the instrumentality of periodic elections. Through the periodicity of free, fair and credible elections, the people regularly make a choice as to those who will preside over their affairs.

    It is the serial sabotage of this cardinal principle of democratic engagement through rigging, falsification of results and sundry unwholesome conducts that impede genuine expression of the democratic spirit and meaningful exercise of the sovereignty of the people. It has nothing to do with the appellation of Your Excellency and the high moral bar it imposes on leaders. At any rate, our leaders striving for excellence and perfection will lead to outcomes that will serve public good. We are better off with higher benchmarks of conduct than lowering the bar just because many are not living up to expectations.

    Even as Sanwo-Olu has divested himself of that title, he should not lose sight of the fact that the new title may not make any difference without serious personal commitment to public good. Democracy is not intended to make saints out of leaders. It admits that leaders are very fallible. That is why it sets standards and provides for periodic elections for incompetent and corrupt leaders to be shown the way out. It is leadership perpetuation against the collective will of the electorate that negates the democratic spirit, democratic engagement and sovereignty of the people.

  • Federal roads’ dilemma

    Emeka OMEIHE

    President Buhari stirred the hornet’s nest when recently he barred state governors from fixing federal roads if they will eventually ask for compensation.

    Minister of works, Babatunde Fashola told House of Representatives’ ad hoc committee on abandoned federal government’s projects (works) 1999 till date that the order became necessary because of the humongous amounts of money claimed by governors after repairing such roads.

    His account of the actual words of the president was: “Tell them not to fix my roads again if they’re going to claim compensation. If you want to fix it and not ask for compensation, send me what you want to do. But if you want compensation, go and mind your business while I mind my business because I have inherited enough debts”.

    If the directive is followed to its letters, states will no longer be allowed to fix federal roads without the approval of the federal government. And even when such approval has been received, whatever monies they spend will not be refunded them. But that is where the problem lies. It is inconceivable that after the necessary approvals have been received for the reconstruction of such roads, state governments will still have to bear the -cost.

    The intervention of the states in the reconstruction of federal roads arose due to the serial neglect and outright abandonment of such roads throughout the length and breadth of the country. Even where contracts have been severally awarded for the construction of the roads, the fact on the ground is that most of the roads have remained in very deplorable states. Notwithstanding that some of those roads were provided for in yearly appropriations, there is little or nothing on ground to justify such allocations.

    In the face of the decrepit conditions of federal roads and excruciating sufferings and complaints from citizens, some states have had to embark on reconstruction and remedial action to ameliorate the plight of their people. Ordinarily, such governors should be given a pat at the back for rising to the needs of their citizens by filling the gaps created by federal inaction and lethargy. But the situation has not been all that tidy given some challenges thrown up by the activities of some of the governors.

    And as evident from the directive of the president, state governors hitherto, jumped into the reconstruction of federal roads without input from the relevant authorities only to submit bills that are considered outlandish. That is the point the federal authorities seem to be making and they are not out of place in this. Even then, there are other challenges bordering on quality and poor job execution that often arise when state governors take up such projects without input from the arm of government with the statutory mandate to superintend over them.

    The fix the federal government found itself was illustrated most poignantly by the case of Imo State under its immediate past governor, Rochas Okorocha.  He had embarked on the dualization of the Owerri-Orlu-Akokwa federal road linking Anambra State ostensibly to uplift the state of that road. He built two bridges along that highway which the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, (COREN) described as disasters waiting to happen because they were done without engineering designs.

    Today, one of the bridges has completely collapsed while the other will soon give way even as the poorly constructed road went into a state of disrepair barely three months that regime wounded up. It is on good authority that the federal government is not willing to pay anything to the state government because of the shoddy job done.

    If that is the grouse of the federal government for barring state governors from fixing federal roads, they have a point. But it will mount to throwing away the baby with the bathwater if the directive is executed the way it has been presented. The right approach is to find a common ground between the observations of the federal government and the antics of the state governments such that will still enable willing and seriously minded governors to reconstruct the roads and lighten the burden of their people without losing the funds invested in those projects.

    This is especially so because the people stand as ultimate losers when succor neither comes from the federal authorities nor the state governments. That is the uncanny dilemma brought to the fore by the order of the president. The directive is very defective as it will compound the plight of commuters who have been groaning under the yoke of abandoned and dilapidated federal roads that often provide veritable grounds for all manner of criminal activities to thrive.

    President Buhari seemed to have inched towards mutual understanding when he requested governors who wished to fix such roads without compensation to write him on what they intend doing. But the president spoilt the game by insisting that those who wish to write him on what they wanted to do should not seek compensation. That is quite improper. It will only lead to counterproductive outcomes. The right approach is for the states to comprehensively and in keeping with extant regulations for the award of contracts to write the federal authorities specifying the job they intend doing with costs attached.

    It is then left to the authorities to vet whatever documents they submit with a view to ensuring quality, standards and at reasonable cost. Asking governors not to expect compensation even when the federal government is satisfied with what they intended to do makes no sense at all. That will amount to sentencing a lot of Nigerians to early death in view of the excruciating hardship they experience due to the inability of the federal government to maintain those roads.

    But the tepid bureaucracy that left such roads in their current pass is also likely to rear up its ugly head. Letters written to the federal authorities seeking permission for remedial action on such roads may stay months and years without action. When this happens, we will be left with the same situation that led some governors to embark on the reconstruction of the roads without federal approval. So it is really a vicious cycle that only the federal authorities can disentangle through proactive responses and action that will deliver all year round durable roads.

    A recent survey on federal roads in the Southeast by this newspaper came out with the verdict that most of the federal roads in that zone have become death traps. A striking case was the Enugu-Awka-Onitsha road for which a sum of N45 billion allocations had been made from 2005 to 2019, yet no work appears to be going on there now even as it is rated the worst federal road in the country. Southeast is not alone in this as many  others are equally affected adversely, though in varying degrees.

    But more fundamentally, the order by the president has exposed the inherent contradictions in the federal contraption the nation currently operates; a defective system that vested overbearing powers on the central authority. We are contending with the contradictions posed by the reality of the federal government virtually controlling the powers of life and death. That is why it is still in charge of most of the roads in the country even as the conditions of such roads have continued to interrogate their continued retention within the exclusive legislative list.

    That is the issue at the heart of agitations for devolution of powers, true federalism and restructuring. The point in these agitations is that the concentration of huge powers on the central authority does make for effective performance, hence the imperative to dilute the power base of the central government to quicken the delivery of public goods and services. The solution lies in divesting the federal authority of the huge powers that seem to confer the status of unitarism on our governance framework.

  • A minister’s gaffe

    By Emeka OMEIHE

    What point was the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono really driving at when he averred there is no hunger in Nigeria? That has been the question agitating the minds of discerning people since the minister bandied the claim at a press briefing to mark the 2019 World Food Day in Abuja.

    Tagged: “Our Actions are our Future, Healthy Diets for a #Zero Hunger World”, this year’s event called for action across sectors to make healthy and sustainable diets affordable and accessible to everyone. The essence is to promote worldwide effective action to end hunger, malnutrition and poverty and ensure that people at all times and places have physical and economic access to nutritional food.

    Given the ambitious and visionary goals of this year’s World Food Day celebrations, we had expected the minister to furnish the nation with efforts of the government to comply with the aims and objectives of the event. But we never heard any of such measures or assurances from the government on interventions to end hunger, malnutrition and poverty and make healthy diet accessible and affordable to all Nigerians.

    Rather and curiously too, the message we got from the minister was sweeping statements to the effect that “I think we are producing enough to feed ourselves. I think there is no hunger in Nigeria, there could be inconveniences. When people talk about hunger in this country, I just laugh. In this country it is fairly cheap to buy food”. He also claimed that food is very cheap in Nigeria compared to other countries.

    Those conversant with recent statistics on the poverty index of this country would shudder at the minister’s claims. This is more so given the link between the level of poverty prevalent in a country and the ability of citizens to access basic food needs. Just last week, the World Poverty Clock put the number of Nigerians who live below extreme poverty line at no fewer than 94,470, 535. This represented an increase of about three million people in the extreme poverty index from the figure captured in April this year.

    Within the same week, President Buhari came out to inform the nation that the wealth of the country is concentrated in the hands of a few people living in four or five states including the Federal Capital Territory FCT while about 150 million others are languishing in poverty in the remaining 31 states.

    In view of these chilling statistics on the extreme poverty level into which a huge majority of our people have been enmeshed, it is very confounding that a minister could come public with scandalous claims that there is no hunger in this country. The purport of his claims is that Nigerians are well fed and have easy access to their food needs both in terms of quantity and quality. If this assumption holds water, how come we have a humongous proportion of Nigerians in the extreme poverty line? And can a nation said to be the poverty capital of the world when it has achieved food security for its citizens?

    These questions are germane given that the ability of a country to provide the basic human needs of shelter, food and clothing to its citizens is a critical ingredient in the measurement of the poverty index. And these bear positive correlation with income per capita, unemployment rate and other human development indicators that determine the standing of a country within the development matrix. It is only within the realm of absurdity that a country with about half of its population in the extreme poverty line can be said to have wiped out hunger within its fold. Things cannot add up that way.

    What do we find here? The scenario is that of: Low per capita income, spiraling unemployment and underemployment, high inflationary trend and debilitating poverty that have earned Nigeria the tag of the poverty capital of the world. It is difficult to figure out how a country battling with multifarious developmental challenges could be laying claims to having wiped out hunger within. That is the inevitable contradiction elevated to the front burner by Nanono’s unguarded claims.

    But we can excuse Nanono on the grounds that the claims are mere figments of his imagination that bear no semblance with extant realities. At best, his conclusion can be consigned to the realm of educated guess. But we all know that educated guess is of questionable empirical value. He said he thinks Nigerians are producing enough food to feed themselves; he thinks there is no hunger in Nigeria and he laughs when he hears people say that Nigerians are hungry.

    These represent what the minister thinks. Unfortunately, his thoughts are personal to him and totally out of sync with the reality on the ground. He is free to think the way it pleases him. He is also free to make conjectures the way it suits his whims and caprices. But a minister whose thoughts are at utter variance with extant facts and realities on a given subject matter or one that gives scant heed to facts, figures and details on critical issues of governance, has lost the basis for his continued stay in that office.

    That is the reality of the outlandish and amateurish claims that are being forced down our throats by the minister. The impression we get is that either the minister made those false claims with the intent of impressing his employers, scoring cheap political points or he did not do his homework before addressing the press on that momentous occasion. None of these possibilities is a credit to him since he ended up embarrassing the office he holds and his employer who only last week reeled out chilling figures on Nigeria’s current poverty standing.

    More seriously, Nanono’s outing exposes the cavalier approach to serious policies issues that has been the bane of our policy planning and implementation processes. With the false mindset that there is no hunger in the land and that Nigerians are producing enough food to feed themselves, it remains to be conjectured what impact he will make in confronting the reality that Nigerians are really hungry and that we are not producing enough food to fed ourselves. He is also seriously encumbered and can hardly make meaningful impact in the urgent need to better the living standards of very poor Nigerians if he is fixed to the idea that prices of food items are cheaper in Nigeria than other countries.

    Facts on the ground are at variance with these claims. Moreover, in computing such figures; relevant social indices as income per capita; the number of citizens gainfully employed, social intervention measures for vulnerable groups and underemployment are factored in. Nigeria is not known to have fared well in the rungs of the ladder of these indicators.

    The minister ought to have gone further with details of food output in a country that hardly has accurate knowledge of its population. And with the prevalence of subsistence agriculture, computing such information would amount to a tall order. He also needed to address the nation on why smuggling of food items has refused to abate despite the shutting down of our borders and its effect on the prices of those food items that are prone to smuggling. Of relevance also is the imperative to provide additional information on the components of the food produced and consumed by a majority of our citizens and how they conform to the objectives of this year’s World Food Day of making healthy diets accessible and affordable by everybody.

    In sum, the minister should not be taken serious in the statements credited to him as they bear no semblance with realities of the excruciating living conditions of our people as hewers of wood and fetchers of water. Such sweeping conclusions failed to factor in the embarrassing high number of the down trodden loitering around the streets, waiting to savor from remnants of foods served in kiosks and sundry eateries. They not only glossed over the high number of able bodied people and destitutes on the streets begging for a living, but failed to bring into account the reasons for the mass exodus of our people through risky routes to other countries where they are made to suffer all manner of humiliation.

    These cannot stand for a profile of a country where there is no hunger; a country that produces enough food to feed its population and a country with the least cost of food items. Nanono’s claims should be discountenanced in their entirety for lacking in credibility.

  • Widening poverty

    By Emeka OMEIHE

    A number of events last week again, elevated to the public domain, the debilitating poverty ravaging the country. The verdict from them all, miserably evokes a picture of Nigerians as hewers of wood and fetchers of water due to leadership failure to convert to advantage, the huge natural and human capital this country is bountifully endowed . The narrative is in sync with the disturbing image of the country as the world’s poverty capital.

    OXFAM International, quoting World Poverty Clock’s latest findings said no fewer than 94,470,535 people in Nigeria live below extreme poverty line. Last April, the same body had put the number at 91,501,377 people. What this means is that 2,969,158 people entered the extreme poverty index within a six-month time frame. That should be something to seriously worry about.

    President Buhari added another dimension to the galloping poverty index within the same week when he disclosed that Nigeria’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few people living in four or five states including the Federal Capital Territory, while about 150 million other citizens are languishing in poverty in the remaining 31 states. He neither named the source of his data nor the states with the largest concentration of the nation’s wealth but noted that this lopsidedness “drives the migratory and security trends we are seeing today both in Nigeria and across the region”.

    And since the diagnosis of an ailment is half way to its cure, the president told his audience at the 25th session of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group that policies are being put in place to deliver prosperity to all Nigerians through enhancing security and eliminating corruption in the public service. In effect, his therapeutic response to this social malady is to enhance the security of the citizens and eliminate corruption in our public life. But that is not all there is to eliminating the extreme poverty in which a majority of our citizens have since been entrapped. We shall return to this shortly.

    As mindboggling as these statistics are, not a few Nigerians would be surprised that they largely represent the level of abject poverty ravaging the country. They live with it; feel its pangs in their daily lives and do not require copious statistics from agencies of government (local and international) to come to term with its reality.

    Read Also: Driving poverty alleviation, inclusivity through technology

    But the figures denote an uncanny irony for a country that is largely endowed by Mother Nature but which has serially failed to convert these humongous resources to promote the greatest good of the greatest number of its citizens. It is also a statement on the dialectics confronting a country that was at the same level of ‘underdevelopment’ at independence with China, India and Singapore among others but which has since been left far behind by the trio in the development matrix.

    The embarrassing verdict is also a pointer to the visionless and rogue leadership that has had the ill-luck of superintending over the affairs of this country overtime. Definitely, solution does not lie in dramatizing the level of abject poverty in the country. Neither is the matter remedied by platitudes, political rhetoric and empty promises. What the situation requires is quick action by a purposeful and visionary leadership, one that commands the confidence of the citizenry that it has the entire country as its constituency. It requires leadership that understands what it takes to make this country great and has the political will to embark on fundamental re-engineering and restructuring processes to free the creative energies of our people for quantum leap within the development ladder.

    Corruption which is at the root of this serial retardation has a positive correlation with the defective federal contraption and a number of systemic deficits that aggregate to stultify nation building and meaningful development. And as long as the inefficient structures and attitudinal issues that encourage bitter competition between the central authority and the component units for the loyalty of the citizens persists, so long will the cankerworm continue to defy solutions.

    So it not enough to rehash the widening poverty level in the country. Neither will promises do the magic of reversing the trend. The government must match these figures with concrete actions and measures capable of reversing the ugly trend. And as can be gleaned from the World Poverty Clock records, almost three million people were added into the extreme poverty index within a period of six months. This figure is very startling. A responsible government must embark on a combination of policies responses to check the geometric slide to the extreme poverty line.

    Sadly, indications from other policy initiatives of the current government do not leave one in comfort that the situation will not get worse in the days ahead. If certain measures in the 2020 appropriation bill the president presented to the National Assembly are anything to go by, the extreme poverty rating we are confronted with stands to worsen in the days ahead.

    That budget is primed on the increase of Value Added Tax VAT from the current five per cent to 7.5 per cent. The federal government premised the increase on the need to put more funds in the hands of the state governments given that only 15 per cent of VAT is taken by it while 85 per cent goes to state governments. By their calculation, this will aid the states to effectively carry out their obligations to their constituents including the controversial minimum wage increase.

    But these assumptions are not foolproof. There is no guarantee that the monies will be gainfully deployed. The profligacy of some of the governors and their penchant to divert monies earmarked for projects as seen in the Paris Club refund, do not imbue confidence that funds derived from VAT will not suffer the same miserable fate. The common man is better off with the current VAT regime than taxing him and expecting that he will reap the benefits of the tax in the same measure. Things do not work that way.

    Even then, the burden of VAT is borne by the consumer in which class we have the extreme poor put at 94 million people by World Poverty Clock as well as the 150 million others Buhari said are languishing in poverty. The overall impact of such a policy targeted largely on the vulnerable groups in the society is bound to be very devastating. It is therefore a contradiction of sorts that we are increasing VAT and still purporting to fight poverty. The two cannot go together without dire repercussions for the down trodden.

    It was in apparent recognition of the incongruity in increasing VAT and purporting to be fighting poverty that the government delisted some food items from that consumers’ tax. But even with that, VAT on the remaining items will still worsen the living conditions of the vulnerable groups that need protection from the government. They are not going to fare any better with a multiplicity of taxes especially given other hidden tax issues in the budget proposal.

    At another level, the same government is also gearing to reintroduce toll fees along the federal highways. There are speculations of a disproportionate distribution of the toll points with the southeast having allocations that exceed that of three other zones put together. Even as these remain at the realm of speculations, it is hoped that there is no attempt to make life miserable for a zone that is still reeling under the pangs of a multiplicity of police check-points that exist largely to extort travelers.

    Re-introduction of toll fees will no doubt, come as an additional burden to the citizens. It will lead to increase in fares and prices of all commodities including food items since the road remains the lynchpin of the nation’s transport system. So, it remains to be conjectured how meaningfully we can make substantial progress in reducing extreme poverty in the land when some of the current policies will produce direct opposite results.

    That is the contradiction the government has to come to terms with especially given the controversy surrounding the N30, 000 minimum wage approved earlier this year. The way it is seen in resolving this puzzle will be a veritable measure of its sincerity in extricating the vast majority of our citizens from the scorching poverty that has left them former ghosts of themselves.

  • Kill ideology, kill terrorism!

    Whose calling for the head of the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai over his recent advocacy of spiritual warfare as the most potent strategy for ending the war against terrorism should hold it. This is because much of those criticisms do not appear to detach his person from the wider context of the issues he sought to promote.

    Apparently due to public cynicism and dissatisfaction with the prosecution and progress of the war against terrorism; leading to calls for a change in military leadership, we now run the fatal risk of losing the heuristic value of the thematic issues arising from last week’s seminar organized by the army in Abuja. In that seminar titled “Countering insurgency and violent extremism in Nigeria through spiritual warfare”, Buratai had sought to establish a positive correlation between the nurturing of weird religious ideologies and the growth and thriving of terrorist activities.

    The thesis of his presentation was that military might alone is not sufficient to wipe out terrorism and that since weird religious ideology is the incubator for terrorism, a more enduring handle is also to eliminate that source of oxygen. For him, terrorism and terrorist groups cannot be eliminated by military action alone unless religious bodies and organizations come to the forefront of this ‘spiritual battle’.

    Hear him, “it is a well known fact that terrorism or terrorist groups cannot be totally eliminated by mainly military actions. The need to defeat the ideologies of Boko Haram and ISWAP is based on the awareness that it is the ideologies that enhance their resources and help to recruit new fighters to their fold and as such, kill their ideology and terrorist movement withers and dies”.

    Reactions to this postulation have rather been on the negative side. Some of those who volunteered opinion, read meanings ranging from admission of failure by the army in the war against terrorism, buck-passing and a vote of no-confidence on the part of Buratai in the continued prosecution of the war. They saw the argument as good evidence for the long expected overhaul of the nation’s security leadership.

    But these would seem a limited perspective of the wider issues thrown up by the army chief. Acquiescing to such calls would lend us guilty of leaving out the issue and attacking the person- a fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. And we run the risk of throwing away the baby with the bath water if we do not separate the person of Buratai from the fundamental issues of the fight against terrorism that seem to have emerged from that seminar.

    And what are they? He says weird ideologies are the source of oxygen for terrorism and terrorist activities; that negative ideologies breed terrorism and no matter the strength of military arsenal deployed to wipe out terrorism, it will continue to resonate as long as the source of its life is not terminated. The thing to consider is the veracity or lack of it in that proposition.  Is it true that weird ideology- religious, ethnic or economic is the incubating house for terrorism? And can we finger elements of wrong ideological promptings as the driving force for the Boko Haram insurgency and ISWAP? Those are the questions begging for answers.

    If we can detect the role played by ideology in sustaining these terrorist organizations, then, the diatribe on Buratai for recognizing that link would have been patently misplaced. And what is the ideology of the Boko Haram insurgents and their ally ISWAP?  It can be summed up as Jihadism. At inception, Boko Haram was non-violent as their main aim was to ‘purify Islam in parts of the north’.  But they have since aligned with the Islamic state of Iraq and that says it all.

    Even then, the name Boko Haram translated as ‘education is evil’ speaks volumes about the doctrinaire battle the group sprang up to champion. They are against anything western and their intention is to establish a theocratic state. It is in the denial of this reality before now, that the leadership of the country including Buratai would deserve some harsh words. We shall return to this shortly.

    Within the context Buratai spoke, he was only drawing attention to the difficulty in conclusively prosecuting the war against Boko Haram insurgency and ISWAP without commensurate efforts to diminish the negative religious indoctrination that blinds followers into that perilous activity. His contention is that religious indoctrination is the source of the oxygen that nurtures and sustains Boko Haram and ISWAP and they can only be effectively neutralized by reversing that indoctrination. He is not alone in this view.

    For him, because ideology helps the groups to recruit new entrants into their fold, reversing those negative teachings (if it is possible) will deny the groups new entrants and ultimately lead to the end of terrorism. That goes without saying. And when this is combined with the efforts of the military to degrade terrorism, the nation would surely be on the right path to terminating the insurgency that has held parts of this country down for some years now.  That is why he wants religious bodies and organizations that interface with the grassroots to be at the forefront of this spiritual battle by stepping up their roles.

    The call for a spiritual angle to the battle is by no means, a vote of no confidence on the military option and it is not intended to be so. It is just an admission of the limitations in prosecuting the war against terrorism without commensurate efforts to diminish the source of negative teachings that lure prospective recruits into the fold of the insurgents.

    When it is realized that terrorism is propelled by wrong doctrines and cannot endure without new recruits, the potency of Buratai’s postulation becomes self evident. And what is left of terrorism without indoctrination. Indoctrination sustains terrorism; suicide bombers and all manner of high impact and atrocious activities for which it is highly dreaded. It is only logical that when this dimension is substantially and realistically tackled, we would have gotten to the root of that which nurtures and sustains terrorism.

    It is good a thing Buratai has now admitted the impact and role of negative religious ideology in stultifying military campaigns against Boko Haram insurgency. Before now, our leaders have been living in denial of the real factors that propel, nurture and sustain Boko Haram insurgency.  Not surprisingly, dubious attempts have been made to detach religion as the prime motivating force of the insurgents. The killing of Muslims and Christians alike is often and dubiously rationalized as evidence that theocracy is not at the centre of the Boko Haram insurgency. Yet, we are all living witnesses to how Boko Haram emerged on the Nigerian scene, the initial targets of their attacks and their professed agenda. It would appear Buratai has been compelled by hard circumstances to put a lie to all that by recognizing that re-orientation by religious leaders is compelling for ending the fight against terrorism.

    But there is also the economic dimension to the war. Abject poverty, illiteracy, unemployment are also at issue. Terrorism is nurtured and reinforced by the mindless squandering of the collective resources of the country by rapacious and rogue leadership that is often propelled by the lure of the pocket. Terrorism will wither away and die when these systemic deficits are addressed with the Nigeria state in a position to convey public goods and services to the greatest number of its citizens.

    Beyond all this, the seeming impatience of the Nigerian public with the prosecution of the war on terrorism is inflicted by the double speak and exaggerated claims on the actual state of progress of that war by the government. Having been told four years ago that the war had been technically won and terrorists can no longer to muster sufficient capacity to mount organized attacks on our military, it is not surprising Burarai’s call for spiritual warfare now is being viewed with utmost cynicism and scorn.

    These are some of the monsters we create which in the fullness of time, turn around to haunt us. That is the burden Buratai has to bear for the misreading of the germane issues in his advocacy.

  • Pupil Abubakar El-Rufai

    The media was awash last week with stories and photographs of the enrolment of Abubakar, the six year-old son of Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai in one of the state’s public primary schools.

    Some of the photographs showed El-Rufai, his wife and some security aides taking the little boy to school to have him formally enrolled. El-Rufai was also seen in one other picture sitting in front of the headmaster with his son on his laps. There was another picture showing Abubakar in the classroom sitting on the front seat with one other pupil presumably to clear doubts, as to the authenticity of the enrolment exercise.

    A very excited El-Rufai said the move was informed by on-going reforms to revamp public schools in the state and make them more competitive.

    “We are determined to fix public education and raise their standards so that private education will become a luxury. As we make progress we will require our senior officials to enrol their children in public schools”.

    He further explained the exercise was in fulfilment of a promise he made two years ago that his son who will be turning six years in 2019 would be enrolled in a public school as a mark of personal example. The enrolment was therefore to fulfil that promise and bolster confidence in our public schools.

    Ostensibly, the overall objective is to bring up public schools to offer quality education comparable with what obtains in private schools. And when this is achieved, the lure to have children in private schools even in the face of prohibitive costs would have been substantially stymied. The society will be better for it.

    Given the scandalous neglect our public education system has suffered over the years with parents preferring private schools with accompanying exorbitant fees, El-Rufai’s example would seem a step in the right direction. For one, it is an admission of the inherent dangers in the continued neglect of our public education system resulting in the lowering of standards. For another, it is a veritable statement to the effect that the poor quality of education offered in public schools would have been substantially reversed were our leaders to be sending their children to such schools. Again, he seems to be sending out signals that the quickest approach to reversing the criminal neglect of public education is for leaders to begin sending their children to such schools. With that, they will see the need to pay adequate attention to the debilitating challenges that have reduced our public education system to former ghosts of themselves.

    The scenario is that of vicious cycle of neglect-dilapidated buildings; lack of teaching and learning materials, lack of seats with pupils sitting on the floor in some states and poorly motivated teachers. All these accentuate general loss of confidence in the quality of services emanating from such poorly organized schools. If any modicum of public confidence is to be restored to the public education system especially at the primary level, the starting point is to substantially address these systemic deficits.

    That appears the point El-Rufai was underscoring. And he is not alone in this. He is making a very bold statement that public schools can be trusted to offer quality education. He is saying that public schools can be substantially upgraded to offer educational services that compare very favourably with what obtains in private schools. He is saying that the comatose state of public education system is consequent upon its neglect by governments and once that is reversed, standards will substantially improve. That goes without saying.

    Incidentally, this rot is not peculiar to the education sector as the same malfeasance permeates the entire fabric of our national life. The health sector where our leaders prefer medical tourism abroad to fixing our hospitals is a serious case in point. The discrimination, profiling and stigmatization of our citizens abroad in search of elusive greener pastures are also on account of the squandering of our collective patrimony and wrong priority setting by visionless and rogue leadership.

    If much of the resources this country is bountifully endowed is gainfully deployed to productive engagement, the nation would have been high up in the rungs of the ladder of development. And its domino effect would have been evident in all sectors of the national economy. So the deficit El-Rufai seeks to remedy in his state’s public education system is a general cankerworm afflicting all spheres of our national life. And it will require the right dose of therapy, commitment and visionary leadership to have them substantially redressed.

    El-Rufai has dramatized that rot in public schools in Kaduna and seeks to shore up public confidence in it by enrolling his son in the system. If he considers that school good enough for his son, there is no reason other citizens of the state cannot have confidence in the quality of education it offers. He wants us to believe in the capacity of that school to offer quality education. We have no reason to nurse the feeling that the school is not in a position to offer quality education. For it is inconceivable that the governor would just send his son to that school as a ‘guinea pig’ just to score some point.

    Yet, we have not been told how many of such schools exist presently in the state, the state of facilities provided to ensure quality education and whether the school is just a prototype the governor intends to replicate in other parts of the state. He should have gone further to provide additional information on other children of his; where they are currently pursuing their education careers. All these would have been helpful in the overall assessment of the outing especially given the media blitz and fanfare associated with his son’s school enrolment.

    Opinions differ as to whether El-Rufai should have made a public show of the enrolment or have it done privately. There are also issues with the retinue of officials that accompanied him to the event including his wife, its psychological effect on the pupils and whether cheap political point is not at the centre of it all. It would have made better sense for the mother of the child to have privately enrolled him in the school without the fanfare and drama we were treated to. All these tend to cast serious doubt on the purpose the outing was intended to achieve.

    Even then, disclosures that the governor spent N195 million to upgrade that school which had before now, been the choice of the affluent including a former governor of the state detracts substantially from whatever point El-Rufai intended to score. What seemed to have emerged from this is that Kaduna Capital School where the child was enrolled had even before now been considered somewhat elitist. That school is severely handicapped in serving as a gauge for the quality of education offered in Kaduna public schools. And that raises the question of the indecent haste in making public show of the enrolment when no substantial improvement seems to have been recorded in upgrading the standard and quality of teaching and learning in the state’s public schools system. It would have made better sense if the governor had come up with a list schools upgraded and revamped to offer comparable education with the one in which his son is enrolled.

    It is possible to contend that this is the first phase of the upgrading and that subsequent efforts would be made to bring all public schools in the state to the standard of the one under focus. Then, he should have waited for substantial improvement to be recorded in the entire education system before going to town the way he was seen last week.  And with mounting criticisms from the state against the dramatized enrolment, we are left with the inevitable conclusion that there is more to that enrolment than ordinarily meets the eyes.

    It is not just coincidental that the drama is coming on the heels of the flooding of the streets of Kaduna and Abuja with campaign posters of El-Rufai for the far-flung 2023 presidential elections. Suspicion is high that vaulting political ambition is at the centre of the attempt by the controversial governor to portray himself as a man of the people.

    He has not dissociated himself from the posters. And that gives further fillip to the suspicion that vaulting partisan political ambition is at the heart of all that drama. We will live to see how that ambition will serve the collective interest of our federal contraption.

  • Evacuating Nigerians!

    Even with copious assurances from South African authorities to halt xenophobic uprisings, it is good a thing steps have been taken to evacuate our citizens who feel seriously threatened by their continued stay in that country.

    In an uncommon display of corporate citizenship, a Nigerian airline, Air Peace has made two trips to that country repatriating 178 and 319 Nigerians craving to leave by all means. The number of evacuees would have been higher but for immigration hiccups introduced at the last minutes of the first airlifting operations. The airline had to fly back half empty after several hours of delay. Air Peace Chairman, Allen Onyema said the exercise would cost the company about N300 million.

    But as a mark of recognition of the rare corporate responsibility displayed by the airline, the House of Representatives has commended it with a recommendation to President Buhari to confer national honor on its chairman. That gesture spoke much of the level of uncommon patriotism displayed by the airline in time of serious national emergency. That is the type of proactive responses governments owe their citizens. Yet, here we find a corporate organization that is largely driven by profit taking the initiative. No amount of commendation given the airline can be considered too much given the enormity of the sacrifice it committed to the airlifting operations at its own cost.

    This column shares in the sentiments expressed by the House of Representatives and urges President Buhari not to waste time in appreciating the patriotism displayed by the airline. These days of increasing recline to primordial and parochial tendencies; celebrating that airline will spur people in other fields to emulate the good example.

    But there are others registered and ready to leave the country but not accommodated in the two flights. Their fate remains largely unclear. It is uncertain whether the airline is still prepared given the huge capital outlay to make another trip or some form of intervention will come from some other quarters. Even with the relative peace that has returned to that country, it is important that the federal government seizes the initiative from Air Peace and ensure that all those registered and ready for evacuation are assisted to leave the country without much delay.

    The narrative we get is that while many of those wishing to return had their means of livelihood either destroyed or burnt together with their travel documents, others had been stranded in that country for many years as the authorities refused to renew their work permit. Many do not even have the fare to ferry them back home. Such people constitute national embarrassment and should be brought back else their nuisance value re-enacts the same circumstances that breed irredentism.

    Read Also: Xenophobia: Nigerian Union in S/Africa lauds Air Peace boss for benevolence

    Yes, there are assurances from the South African authorities to stem xenophobic attacks and all such infractions. We have also been treated with some re-assuring diplomatic exchanges from the delegation to Nigerian that those incidents are at variance with what South Africa stands for as ‘a constitutional democracy’. Nigeria’s huge contributions to liberate that country from the strangulating chains of apartheid have also been cited as reasons our citizens should be entitled to fair treatment. All these can be admitted.

    Yet, they are not the real issues to the conflict.  Neither is there anything to indicate that the South African government deliberately engineered all the attacks and frequent killing of foreigners. At issue are allegations of criminal undertakings by foreigners; dealings in illicit drugs, grabbing jobs meant for citizens, ostentatious lifestyle, arrogance and having the best of their women.

    These are the issues to contend with. Attacking South African interests in Nigeria or evacuating citizens as desirable as it is; does not hold solutions to the issues that fuel rancor and animosities. The starting point will be to address and find resolution to all the complaints and grievances that breed distrust and precipitate violent attacks from South African citizens. Even then, it is estimated there are about 100, 000 Nigerians living in that country. Many of them have good businesses to their credit and will not be in a haste to leave. That the number of those evacuated so for is less than 0.6 per cent of our citizens living in that country says it all.

    When we compare that population with South Africans living in Nigeria, you will discover to your chagrin that their representation in this country is very negligible. You can also decipher that from the number of their companies in this country and their citizens both in the formal and informal sectors of our economy. The import of this is not hard to fathom. And it is that our citizens need that country more than theirs need ours. We should rather be more circumspect in giving in to mass hysteria and mob violence in our reactions to developments in that country.

    Reprisals as some had wanted to good us into will definitely prove rather counterproductive. What the situation requires is constructive engagement such that guarantees the rights of all law abiding people to their legitimate undertakings without fear of attack or molestation. That seems to be the message we can glean from the apologies from the South African delegation to Nigeria. Even with these assurances, there is still everything to suspect that the government of that country will tighten the noose around the activities of foreigners.

    There are speculations of ten years travel ban on Nigerians who made themselves available for evacuation in the on-going crises. The delays erected by that country’s immigration at the last minute were cited as part of the evidence of their discomfort with the development. We also hear of plans to refuse renewal of visas and work permits. All these are within the purview of the authorities of that country. There is practically little we can do here to change the situation should that country make good these speculations.

    But do we have their citizens in that number struggling desperately to live in this country? Are we in a position to extend equal measures to South African citizens without our citizens suffering immeasurable inconveniences in their country? Perhaps, answers to these posers will come handy when examined against recent statements credited to Blade Nzimande, South Africa’s minister of higher education, science and technology while addressing workers’ unions.

    Hear him: “we cannot absorb the results of all the problems that are made by leaders who want to loot their counties, who do not care about their own people. African leaders themselves must get their acts together, such that they do not destroy their country and people have to leave. It is time we ask those leaders in our continent, what are you doing to make your countries better places to live in”

    These are weighty statements. Issues raised by Nzimande, as blunt as they seem, are undoubtedly at the core of the constant skirmishes between South African citizens and other Africans who migrate to that country and other parts of the world in search of greener pastures. The high number of our citizens found in that country is on account of the better living opportunities there. And with high influx of foreigners (some of them without any genuine business) citizens of that country have had to contend with all that comes with the presence of such people.

    Given the recent experiences of the black South African population with the obnoxious apartheid regime, there is little doubt they are at some disadvantage when faced with competition from outsiders. Such discomfort manifests in the serial attacks and killings we have so for seen. The point Nzimande made is clear. And it is that the crises in South Africa have their roots in the influx of citizens of other African countries in search of better living conditions due to the mismanagement of their resources by rapacious and rogue leadership.

    The corollary is that its permanent resolution will hinge on the determination and capacity of African leaders to make their countries a better place for their citizens. He has said it all. African leaders aggrieved by Nzimande’s posturing should hide their faces in shame.

    For us in Nigeria, the message is unambiguous given the huge exodus of our citizens in the face huge natural endowments that are easily squandered by the privileged class.

  • Bandits’ swap

    Two closely related events in Katsina State last week illustrate vividly the predicament of that government in the festering armed banditry that has reduced life to a miserable lot for many of its citizens.

    First, was the publication in many national newspapers and the social media of a group photograph in which Governor Aminu Masari posed with the leader of the so-called bandits clutching an AK-47 assault rifle. The picture which was taken after the governor ostensibly held an amnesty meeting with the bandits also featured an unarmed Nigerian Army officer among other personalities.

    This was followed a few days later by an announcement from Masari of the swapping of six arrested bandits for 20 kidnapped citizens of the state in the detention cells of the gang. By the terms of the agreement, the bandits are to throw open farmlands with a promise not to harass or attack farmers and guarantee women unfettered access to markets to sell their dairy products. Masari rationalized the deal as part of on-going dialogue and negotiations between the state government and commanders of the various bandits’ groups terrorizing citizens in eight frontline local government areas of the state.

    There is the temptation to sympathize with the decision of the Katsina State government to swap six arrested bandits for 20 of its citizens kidnapped by the murderous group. The plight of the innocent citizens must have moved the state government into accepting the arrangement at least, to mitigate their sufferings. This is especially so, given the inability of the law enforcement agencies to get an enduring handle to armed banditry that has reduced life in parts of that state to a verity of the state of nature.

    By the calculations of that government, the exchange will ensure sustainable peace in the affected communities that have been held prostrate by the unending devious escapades of the bandits. If the swap succeeds in reining in the bandits, Katsina State would have recorded a great feat in successfully taming the monster. We may have to live with this optimism at least for now.

    Yet, it remains largely probable that bandits’ swap is all that is required to comprehensively and realistically identify and address both the immediate and remote causes of the recurring insurgency of that group. Even then, from the attestations of the state government, what the exchange is meant to achieve is largely of very limited value. All the same, it is good the so-called bandits’ commanders have pledged not to attack farmers and women going to the markets. They may also refrain from their regime of extortions and ancillary criminalities.

    If these happen, relative peace would have returned to that troubled state. That would be something to cheer. But this conclusion would amount to a very simplistic perspective of the matter. First, it is based on the underlying assumption that the commanders involved in the negotiations represent all the tendencies in the banditry business and that any agreement entered into with them would be binding on all. This may not be exactly so.

    There is also the other assumption that swapping the bandits for the kidnapped victims is all that is needed for the cessation of armed hostilities in that troubled state. It is unlikely to be so. There is the further presumption that the exchange and the promises extracted from the bandits’ leaders are the real issues to the reign of terror in the state. They are not the issues that gave rise to armed banditry in the first instance.  We may soon discover to our utter consternation that we have been treated to a public relations stunt that only scratched the surface of the matter.

    If anything, our experience in negotiations with the Boko Haram insurgents does not imbue much confidence that the Katsina bandits’ swap would immediately herald an end to armed banditry in that state. We are all living witnesses to the devious and whimsical conduct of Shuibu Moni, one of the five Boko Haram commanders freed in the swap that lead to the freeing of 82 Chibok Girls.

    After his release in which Wall Street Journal reported two million British pounds exchanged hands, Moni soon made his way back into Sambisa forest from where he issued new threats against the government. In a video footage, Moni and members of his team displayed awesome military might insisting that they remained very firm in that forest contrary to claims by the government.

    If the conduct of Moni and his team could be dismissed for any reason, the fact that Boko Haram insurgency has persisted years after that deal facilitated by the Swiss government cannot give much hope that the Katsina experiment will bring to a conclusive end armed banditry in that region. The state government will have to contend with the propriety of freeing and granting amnesty to bandits some of whom we have been told are foreign nationals. It would appear, we are yet to understand all there is to the insurgency of the bandits.

    More seriously, it made a mockery of the nation’s security architecture that a so-called armed bandit was allowed to enter the negotiation table with Governor Masari and his team and they saw nothing untoward in posing in a group picture with him in the manner it was published. It speaks volumes on the double standards that characterize the enforcement of the ban on such weapons. And if one may ask, what message was that photograph meant to serve?

    Without prejudice to the rights of the Katsina State government to find local solutions to the festering law of the jungle; bandits’ swap being limited in nature, is severely impaired in offering enduring therapy to all there is to that malfeasance. This is so because the state government is just targeting the manifestations of banditry rather than the conditions that nurture and sustain such activities.

    It does appear serious efforts are yet to be deployed in identifying the core of the banditry that has held parts of the northwest on the ground for some years now. Even then, discordant views from government circles do not seem to help matters. Nobody seems to know for certain, the real causes of armed banditry for which Zamfara and Katsina states have carved unenviable notoriety in.

    In the absence of concrete efforts to get at the root of the matter, various theories were bandied at different times to account for the phenomenon. Initially, cattle rustling was said to be at issue. That speculation faded away when bandits began to raid villages, killing innocent people and looting their properties. There was also the narrative of infiltration by foreign nationals; effects of climate change and the decrease in arable lands as contributory factors.  The federal government introduced another dimension to the Zamfara banditry when it claimed that illegal mining of gold was at the center of it all. It went ahead to ban all mining activities in that state on the grounds that a link existed between mining activities and banditry in that state. There is also the economic condition that force people into one form of criminality or the other.

    The Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai upped the ante when he added partisan political dimension to the lingering banditry. He had said: “There are myriads of security challenges we are facing right now in the north-west, north-central and other part of the country. I want to believe and rightly so, that with the fallout of the just concluded general elections, there are politicians who saw their defeat as a means of revenge, sponsoring these criminal activities and even banditry and clashes between farmers and herders”.

    From the foregoing, it is obvious that there is yet any consensus on the factors or a combination of them that are at the root of the festering armed banditry in parts of the country. And in the absence of such consensus, evolving durable therapies would at best, remain a tall order. And that exposes the limitations of the measures taken by Katsina State to address armed banditry.

    It remains to be conjectured how bandits’ swap could possibly address all the complex issues associated with such uprisings. The government must first undertake a critical appraisal of all the factors that predispose people in the affected states to armed banditry. It is after such assessment that it will be in a better stead to evolve lasting solutions to the problem. Anything to the contrary will at best, remain cosmetic.

    But utmost caution must be exercised in the way the bandits are handled; else we may have Frankenstein monsters to contend with sooner or later. The Boko Haram insurgency offers a lesson to all.

  • Tribeless crimes

    Are crimes and criminal activities ethnically domiciled? What is the tribe of stealing, armed robbery, kidnapping, banditry, murder, internet fraud and ancillary criminal tendencies organized societies have been contending with?

    These posers are germane following events in the country in the last two weeks or so. The inquisition is further reinforced by the ruinous penchant of Nigerians and foreigners alike to trivialize and view serious social maladies from very narrow confines. It is however, a sad reflection of how divided and fragmented along ethnic, religious and sectional lines Nigerians have become in the last few years that every crime and criminal activity is profiled along tribal and ethnic lines.

    The predilection to confer ethnic interpretation to any and every misdemeanour appears to have gotten to a head since the Federal Bureau of Investigations FBI of the United States of America published a list of 77 Nigerians for alleged culpability in internet fraud and cybercrimes. With a preponderance of names of suspects coming from one of the six geo-political zones in the country, ethnic chauvinists went to town with the erroneous suggestions that most of those from that zone or ethnic group are into internet fraud.

    Soon, things got awry and insinuations began to make the rounds especially in the social media that people from that zone are into one form of criminal activity or the other. The impression conveyed and miserably too was that internet fraud, cybercrime and related criminal engagements are the exclusive engagements of that ethnic group.

    As an apparent counterpoise, a list of 23 Nigerians convicted for drug peddling in Saudi Arabia and awaiting the hangman’s noose began to make the rounds. The list which was first made public last April showed a preponderance of convicts from another geo-political zone in the south. Some other zones except those that do not participate in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina had a share of the convicts.

    The message the drug convicts’ list was meant to pass across was not in doubt. It was to checkmate ethnic profiling and insinuations arising from the list made public by the FBI. This is more so, when it is realized that those facing death penalty in Saudi Arabia had gone there to perform their annual religious obligations. By extrapolation, the message is that crime knows no boundaries, ethnic or religious affiliation. But even with this reality, not much seemed to have changed in our profiling of crimes and criminal activity.

    We are still stuck to stereotypes even when it is clear that crimes neither have ethnic groups nor boundaries. Armed robbery, internet fraud, oil bunkering, slave trade, armed banditry and kidnapping are all English words. They are well known to the western world as they are home to all their manifestations. Though these crimes may have their local variants, some of them were copied from outside our shores. It is thus inappropriate to seek to ascribe any of these crimes to any Nigerian tribe or ethnic group as some mischievous persons are currently wont to.

    A reader, who apparently was not satisfied with one of the conclusions in my article titled, “Beyond Ekweremadu’s ordeal” sent this text message: “So Federal government is incompetent? And your Igbo brothers that are competent 77 of them in America doing legitimate business? With that single sentence, the author dismissed all the issues raised in that half-page article.

    But then, the article in question had nothing to do with cybercrimes or criminal activities. As the headline clearly shows, it was essentially on the travails of Ekweremadu in the hands of some unruly Nigerians purporting to represent the proscribed IPOB. Apparently because of my name, the contributor had little difficulty in identifying my ethnic affiliation and wasted no time in ‘criminalizing’ me. So, I should not do my legitimate job just because some people from my ethnic group were fingered in cybercrimes in faraway US?

    So, one could be termed a criminal because some people from his ethnic group appeared in the list of suspects released by the FBI. If that is so, then all of us are criminals because all ethnic groups, tribes and races have their fair share of all manner of criminals.  Then, and only then did it dawn on me that those who released the list of Nigerians awaiting execution in Saudi for drug related offences had a point.

    Even then, the pattern of arrests by the EFCC of internet and cybercrime fraudsters bears out the fact that these crimes are not the exclusive engagement of any single tribe or ethnic group. Figures released by the anti-graft agency from across the country showed the arrest of 113 suspects in Benin, Edo State, seven suspected fraudsters in Kaduna, 280 suspects in Kano over an eight-month period for cybercrimes and sundry criminal activities and 105 suspects in Port Harcourt.

    Others include six suspects in Uyo, 20 in Imo, train ticket racketeers in Abuja and Kaduna and 113 others in Edo, Delta and Ondo states. Early this year and following the freeing of one Zainab Aliyu by the Saudi authorities, the nation was informed of a syndicate at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano that specialized in injecting banned drug substances in the luggage of travellers. We were told that the arrest of Zainab followed the devious activity of that syndicate. She was released when arrested syndicate members confessed to the crime.

    Early 2017, the EFCC had published a list of 86 suspects wanted for various crimes. Top of the 10 wanted suspects included a former governor of Jigawa State for alleged misappropriation of public funds to the tune of N36 billion, an ex-militant for illegal diversion of N45.9million, a former national coordinator, federal civil service staff with disabilities multipurpose cooperative society for collecting N1.7 billion under false pretence and former chairman, Pensions Reform Task Team Abdulrasheed Maina for alleged procurement fraud and obtaining by false pretence of amounts totalling N2billion.

    Of the 10 in order of the weight assigned to their offences by the EFCC, only number nine, a former Director General, National Task Force on the importation of goods, small arms, ammunitions and light weapons charged for criminal conspiracy and impersonation has names that suggest he is from the same ethnic group with those preponderantly in the FBI list. The rest of the names belong to other ethnic groups.

    Even then, a perusal of the list of all those being prosecuted as well as illegally acquired properties recovered from former public office holders by the Buhari administration does not bear out the skewed profiling arising from the FBI list. What you find is that a disproportionate number of the suspects hail from ethnic groups other than that which dominated the FBI list. It may well have to do with the domination of critical institutions of governance by other groups just like those who dominated the FBI list may have had higher representation in the US.

    But that is beside the point. The key issue is to get at the root of the internal contradictions that predispose Nigerians both in public offices and elsewhere to crimes and all manner of criminality. There is the need to re-examine the systemic and orientation dysfunctions that influence the looting of that which belongs to the public realm. We need to unravel the source of the bitter competition and rivalry between the primordial realm and the civic public for the soul and loyalty of the citizens. In them, we may locate the crux of that which accounts for the high level of corruption in public offices.

    Until we get at the core of these and provide realistic therapeutic responses to them, crime profiling and stigmatization as was the case with the FBI list, will amount to mere distraction in the overall fight against corruption.  And for our citizens who are regularly stigmatized and hounded in foreign lands, we need to ask ourselves the basic question of what accounts for their exodus even with all the resources Mother Nature bountifully endowed this country.

    These are the real issues to contend with and not that lazy talk as to which ethnic groups are made of saints and devils. You can find a mix in all ethnic groups and races. Crime has neither tribe nor boundaries. The way out is to holistically address the systemic, developmental and sociological deficits that predispose all tribes to embarrassing criminality.