The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emeka Omeihe

  • Semantics of Boko Haram ‘defeat’

    Semantics of Boko Haram ‘defeat’

    It is difficult to ignore the narrative of Senator Baba Garbai (Borno Central) on the current state of the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State. For one, he represents an important segment of the state’s senatorial districts which places him in a vantage position to monitor the facts on the ground and feelings of his constituents on the progress of the war.

    For another, he recently visited that constituency to commiserate with and share relief materials to those displaced by the murderous attacks of the insurgents which left 85 people dead with thousands displaced. When in the course of that visit, he cried out that insurgents are still present in more than 20 local government areas of the state, it was difficult to dismiss him with a wave of the hand.

    This is more so as he is not known to harbour any ulterior or political motive to have spoken the way he did. He must have spoken out of frustration due to the wide disparity between what he had previously been fed with and the stark realities on the ground.

    But he shocked the nation when he claimed that only the three local government areas of Maiduguri metropolis, Kwaya Kusar and Bayo are safe from Boko Haram menace due to strong presence of the military and police; while three others- Mobbar, Kala Balge and Abaddam are 100 per cent held by the insurgents.

    Apparently rattled by this, the Director of Defence Information Brig-Gen Rabe Abubakar and Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima made spirited efforts to clarify the state of the war. Before then, President Buhari had in an interview with the BBC restated that Boko Haram insurgency has been “technically defeated”. He had also towards the end of last year, declared that Nigeria “has technically won the war” against Boko Haram.

    When prodded further by the BBC on the claim given recent attacks on Dalori and others, he said: “My own description is that they can no longer mobilize enough forces to attack police and army barracks and destroy aircraft like they used to do. But they can regroup and go after soft targets”.

    For Shettima, “in the past Boko Haram used to come in commando style to attack, seize and occupy communities and hold residents hostage and administer territories; that is occupation. We no longer have that in Borno”.

    Abubakar on his part said “attacks on soft targets do not translate to occupation of territories or some parts of Borno state or the North-East”.

    We shall examine the interpretations given by President Buhari, Shettima and Abubakar on progress in the war vis-à-vis what Garbai actually said. The senator’s view was that Boko Haram is still present in 20 local governments of Borno State. He mentioned the three local government areas that are in the full hands of the murderous sect. But Shettima and Abubakar want us to draw a line between Boko Haram seizing and occupying territories and Boko Haram attacking communities (soft targets). By their logic, the group no longer occupies communities, hold residents hostage and administer such territories. But they attack communities.

    The key terms here are occupation, administration of territories and holding residents hostage. And we are being made to believe the absence of all these constitute both the necessary and sufficient conditions to declare the war against insurgency in the North-East won. That is where the problem lies.

    Even if we admit this account of the story, how correct will it be to claim as the authorities have severally done that Boko Haram has been totally decimated? To what extent can we sustain the claim that the war has been technically won on account of these claims? Or, are those who attack communities without occupying and administering them as used to be the case; operating from the moon? Would it have been possible for a decimated rag-tag insurgent group to wreck the huge havoc that left Dalori and other communities, a former ghost of themselves if they do not occupy some space in that state?

    If these posers do not sufficiently shed light on the inherent contradictions in the verdict that the war on Boko Haram has been won, or the claim that the sect does not occupy any territory in Borno, the statement by the Nigerian Army last week in which they catalogued the successes they made in the fight speaks for itself. They gave a detailed account of the various Boko Haram camps they cleared and hundreds of civilian hostages they freed. At the terrorists’ camp in Bulagana, troops rescued 40 civilians held hostage there while at another in Bubumri village they killed 25 terrorists, captured eight and freed 103 hostages among others. There would have been no hostages to free or camps to clear, if the sect does not occupy any territory. That is the contradiction that has been laid bare.

    When you pair the above with the attacks the insurgents mounted in the last couple of weeks, the contention that they no longer occupy territories and therefore cannot mount serious attacks, breaks down irretrievably. So also is the conclusion that the war has been won since the assumptions on which it was premised, cannot stand empirical test.

    As evident from the account of the army, Boko Haram still has camps and harbours hostages in the state. If they do not control parts of the state, they would not have been in a position to detain the hostages freed by the army. That is just commonsensical. Even then, administering territories; attacking military and police barracks and holding residents’ hostage is not all there is to the war.

    The next issue copiously canvassed to support the alleged defeat is that they have been so decimated that they now take resort to attacking soft targets. By this, the impression is created that the so-called soft targets are of no serious consequence in the overall calculations of the war. Its corollary is that once it has come to attacking soft targets, then we can safely presume that the war has been largely or technically won.

    This cannot also stand especially given that the so-called soft targets were the main objects of attack by the insurgents at the budding stages of their campaign. Churches and other places of worship bore the brunt. The objective was to create maximum impact and instill fear in the people and they succeeded. Attacks on soft targets cannot be consigned to the realm of insignificance in the overall assessment of the progress of the war. Ipso facto, that war cannot be said to have been won when soft targets are again under unrestrained assault.

    Those who canvass this view seem to have lost sight of the reality that we are concerned with an asymmetrical warfare. Given the fact of the above, the argument that the war has been won because the insurgents are no longer in a position to attack police and military barracks or bring down aircrafts cannot fly. Of much concern in the overall assessment of the progress of the war is the relative ease with which the insurgents destroy, raze down, kill or abduct these soft targets.

    Beyond this, the problem that has brought the government to this pass is the issue of deadline and the attempt to make political capital of the fight. Had they not been a hurry to set a tenuous deadline for such a non conventional war as terrorism, perhaps they would not have found themselves in the current position of speaking from both sides of the mouth.

    For now, the advice of US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Ms. Linda Thomas-Greenfield should suffice. She had while addressing US House of Representatives at the Capitol Visitor Center last week said “There are no overnight solutions. The challenge of defeating Boko Haram is going to require long term dedication to this effort”. I hope somebody is listening!

  • Mbaka’s transfer fuss

    Recent transfer of controversial priest of the Catholic Church, Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka to another parish should ordinarily have passed as a routine exercise. Bishops, from whom Catholic priests take orders, do regular posting of priests depending on the needs of their respective dioceses.

    Sometimes, priests are changed at quick intervals depending on the discretion of their superiors. Instances abound where priests have been deployed to new parishes or sent for further studies even before they have hardly settled down in their new places of work. That has been the pattern.

    But the posting of Fr. Mbaka from Christ the King parish, Enugu where he had established a flourishing ministry for over 15 years to nearby Our Lady’s parish, Emene seemed to have turned to something else. Not only have motives been imputed into the posting, the authority of the Catholic Church has been questioned by quarters that should ordinarily, not have any business with how it runs its domestic affairs.

    Mbaka did not help matters by the way he reacted to his posting. Not only was he overtly emotional, he gave the impression that he was being punished for whatever reasons. And that largely accounted for the controversy that enveloped his transfer. For the fiery priest who is not new to controversy, the transfer was ‘a calculated move to make him suffer’.

    He said, “I know I will suffer within now and a few months to come. I am going to suffer and suffer. I know that I am going to suffer because I have no place to put my head. I am going to suffer because I have no place to keep the Adoration Ministry’s assets”. These lamentations, signposting helplessness, have tended to convey the impression that there was something punitive in the transfer and that transfer of priests is not a routine thing within the Catholic Church.

    Apparently taking a cue from Mbaka’s emotional outburst, the South-east spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu faulted the transfer, attributing it as punishment for his prophesy during the last elections that Buhari was going to win, which has come true. Not only did he attribute the transfer to external influences that brought pressure to bear on the bishop, he questioned the authority of the Catholic Church in the transfer which he curiously claimed will put Mbaka’s life and that of his flock at risk.

    “We do not wholly accept a situation where the church allows external forces to influence transfers as the Mbaka’s case suggests. We frown at anything which will put Fr. Mbaka in harm’s way or deny his flock healing”, Okechukwu said adding that his party was in solidarity with him.

    On account of these allegations, the Catholic Secretariat came out and clarified the transfer as a “normal church procedure”. Secretary General of the Secretariat, Rev. Fr. Ralph Madu said such ‘frivolities’ (accusations) have nothing to do with the posting. He said his posting should have been a privilege, and not a punishment and that the bishop has the right to post a priest wherever he feels his services will be more useful to the church.  And that says it all.

    The issue of punishment, security of the lives of Mbaka and his flock which Okechukwu sought to dramatize should not have arisen at all. Not from a quarter that has nothing to do with how priests and other worshippers live their lives. Beyond that, Okechukwu obviously crossed the line of his duty to have questioned the authority of the bishop to transfer a priest under him to where he feels his services will be most needed. Here, we are talking of other peoples religion; their faith. These are very sensitive and emotional issues that should not be mixed with politics.

    It would seem to me given the sensitivity of the matter, that the opinion expressed by Okechukwu should rather be seen as his personal views. Associating his party with such very sensitive and controversial statements that question the authority of the bishop is bound to offend the sensibilities of the Catholic faithful. Nobody needs to be told how volatile and fragile our society can be when it comes to the personal faith of some people.

    It is also curious he even embarked on the hazardous voyage of pontificating on the safety of the priest, that of his followers and the seeming hardship they are bound to face in seeking spiritual healing and assistance at Mbaka’s new place of posting. And if one may ask, on whose authority is Okechukwu dabbling into issues he knows little or nothing about; issues that fall within the purview of the church leadership?

    Before now, the distinction has been made between the ecclesiastical and corporeal realms. That was the major concern of early philosophers and their opinions have come to shape the relationship between modern states and the church. That relationship characterized by separation of the affairs of the church from that of the state was aptly captured by St Augustine in his famous allegory of the two cities- the city of God and earthly city.

    This pristine philosophical perspective came under assault in the hands of Okechukwu when he questioned the powers of the church to transfer one of its priests; to promote or demote priests.  At any rate, who is in a better position to assess the performances of a priest- his supervisor or some other interloper intent to score cheap political point?  Even at that, he has not helped the case of the fiery priest by associating his transfer with partisan politics.

    Beyond all this, Mbaka should take responsibility for the controversy that has trailed his transfer. It was indeed curious hearing a Catholic priest, a missionary for that matter, lamenting that he was going to suffer as he will not have a place to lay his head. It was strange to hear him talk about the problems he will encounter in preserving the property of his ministry which the Catholic Secretariat has described as his private affair.

    If one may ask, what remains of a Catholic priest or any priest for that matter if he is afraid of suffering? What is hardship, suffering or self-mortification to priests who have laid down their lives for the sake of the gospel? Did Our Lord Jesus Christ who they intercede on his behalf not pay the supreme sacrifice for the sake of humanity? For priests that take many vows including obedience, poverty and chastity; priests that abandon their parents, relations and all earthly things, what is there again in suffering that they should be afraid of? A priest that left all the things of the world to serve God better has no need to talk about or entertain any iota of fear about suffering. And what suffering is there in moving to another parish to re-enact that which endeared him to worshippers in his former place of assignment? These are some of the puzzles thrown up by Mbaka’s reaction to the posting.

    There are missionaries all over the world facing untold hardship including threat to their lives for the sake of spreading the word of God. And we talk of suffering in a routine transfer within the vicinity of the same Enugu metropolis. He should take his posting in good faith even if he does not feel good about it. The people of Emene would be very eager to receive and take care of his needs and he may find the place better than what he had imagined.

    But he must come to terms with the line that should exist between the Church and the State. He must begin to sieve the revelations and prophesies that come his way. It is obvious that his recent widely publicized prophesy that many people are planning to kill Buhari so that corruption and embezzlement will continue, is loaded with the frightening prospects of creating more problems for this country than it is intended to solve. He needs to apply more caution on how he conveys such sensitive revelations or prophesies in the future.

  • A minister’s tirade on media

    Two top officials of the Buhari regime had cause last week to appraise the role of the media in the current war against corruption. The leadership of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, which visited Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir David Lawal, was told of the major role of the media in ensuring the success of the war against corruption even as he urged them not to be used as a tool to discredit the campaign.

    At a different forum, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed who had been holding interactive sessions with a broad spectrum of the media to solicit support for the graft war, must have shocked his audience when he said corruption was fighting back through the media. Hear him: “Well I can tell you that corruption is already fighting back and it is fighting dirty. Sponsored articles have started to appear in the newspapers and in the social media. ‘Talking Heads’ have started making the rounds in the electronic media, all deriding the fight against corruption and the government”

    The minister further underscored the seriousness of the allegation when he vowed that no amount of media or other attacks by pseudo-analysts or hack writers will stop the train of the anti-corruption fight.

    Mohammed is entitled to his views on the motive and driving objective of the articles and comments which he considers inimical to the corruption crusade. It is not out of place for the accused, some other vested interests and all those scared that the war could still get at their doorsteps to take measures including the most ignoble to weaken the momentum of the fight. It is also within the run of events that those accused will have their own perspectives of the matter which they are entitled to push forth through any means available to them including the media.

    No doubt, a campaign against corruption of the magnitude that has been embarked upon by the government is bound to stir up controversy. It cannot be expected to do any less. Opinions and perceptions are also bound to differ depending on how the public sees the prosecution of the war. All these are irreducible decimals in a democracy that guarantees the fundamental rights of the citizens.

    It is therefore vital that in the fight against corruption, the inalienable rights of the citizens to freedom of expression are neither trampled upon nor abridged under the guise of specious allegations. Those who harbour contrary views on the direction of the campaign must not be blackmailed into abandoning them by a government that just rode to power through opposition. One only hopes this is not another attempt to muzzle dissent. But, it is one thing to allege that vested interests are fighting back to scuttle the overall success of the war and a different kettle of fish to find in the media, a willing tool for such unpatriotic undertaking.

    There are fundamental flaws in such a mindset. The first is the assumption that the media can easily be corrupted to scuttle the war against graft. Its corollary is that any or every article or opinion which in the views of the minister is critical of the war, is sponsored and therefore an evidence of corruption fighting back. If this point is stretched further, it could be misconstrued that all those who express reservations on the direction of the current war are motivated by pecuniary considerations.

    That would amount to a sweeping and uncharitable allegation; a big insult on the credibility of writers. For, it conveys the annoying impression that commentators and writers are that cheap; not propelled by their conscience when they express opinions on some of the deficits of the corruption campaign.

    There is also the inherently faulty assumption that the media is the only institution that can be so compromised and deployed by corruption to fight back. This is not borne out by extant realities. In verity, there is a surfeit of other institutional mechanisms that could be deployed to compromise the war. It is not the media that are responsible for the long delays in prosecuting offenders (some of them former governors) for about eight years now. Neither are they liable for the corruption that is still going on now in high and low places nor responsible for the fight corruption staged during the last governorship election in Bayelsa State.  So why single them out for selective attack even when they are being cajoled by the same government for support in the fight? One finds in this, a contradiction of sorts. Or is the allegation meant to intimidate the media to do the bidding of the government in convicting the accused outside the laws of the land or cover up allegations of bias?

     The other assumption is that any and every article that does not tally with what the government considers favourable to the corruption war is an evidence of corruption fighting back. If it is that easy to corner the media to do the bidding of the highest payer, the minister would have been in a better position to achieve that after his series of interactions with a broad spectrum of key media men and women. After all, the government’s financial chest is much larger than that of all those who are being prosecuted for one infraction or the other put together.

    If after such interactions we still find a residue of opinions on what needed to be fine tuned for the war to command wider acceptability, the inevitable conclusion is that there are more to such opinions than corruption seeking to fight back. That is the reality the minister has to face and very squarely too. We now face the danger of reducing the media to a victim in the chessboard of the war against corruption more so, given the deleterious consequences such banal profiling will impose in the performance of their duties of keeping the government in check. We may inadvertently be clearing the way for anarchy or the dictatorship the minister alluded to.

    There is the more grave risk of such labelling blackmailing writers to the point of inability to comment freely. If you argue that it is wrong to fight the corruption war outside the laws of the country, you stand accused of aiding corruption to fight back. Corruption is fighting back when the inherent dangers of convicting the accused in the court of public opinion or issues of double standards are raised.

    It is also corruption at war when you question why some of the accused were allowed to go home after refunding some money while others who were granted bail by the courts are being denied freedom. And the government comes out boldly to endorse such. I guess it was corruption spoiling for skirmish when the minister had the effrontery to ask “What are we even talking about. Is the human rights of the 55 persons more important than the human rights of 170 million Nigerians”, in answer to reporter’s question on the alleged looting of N1.34 trillion between 2006-2013. Yet, it is a legal principle that it is better to set free 100 accused persons than convict one innocent person.

    One would have been recruited to scuttle the corruption war if you pointed out that the current war as desirable as it is, is limited in scope and therefore its overall success ratio is bound to be circumscribed. It is constrained by the fact that it targets the symptoms and not the roots of corruption. It fights corruption after the offence has been committed to the neglect of the systemic dysfunctions that propel, sustain and reinforce the malfeasance. We may succeed in jailing some corrupt people, recover some funds and send fear to future offenders. But all this would still fall below what is required to holistically and permanently wrestle the endemic cankerworm to the ground.

    Fighting the manifestations of corruption rather than its root causes will have no answer to the moral dissonance between the civic public and the primordial realm. It will prove inherently deficient in explaining why those who leave public offices poor are derided by members of their primordial attachment while the smart ones who helped themselves are hailed. It will neither account for, nor sufficiently address the do- or-die politics that has become part of our political culture. Nor will it provide permanent remedy to that which activates bitter competition among the dominant groups to control the resources at the centre. These are the real issues. The appropriate therapeutic response to corruption will be one that is multi-dimensional; targeting attitudinal and value change through a total overhaul of this country structurally.

  • Corruption war: Legal vs. moral issues

    The nexus between law and morality was a major concern of medieval philosophers. Natural law theorists held that there is an essential connection between law and morality. St Thomas Aquinas called laws (without moral content) a “perversion of law”, thus, the maxim that an unjust law is not a true law.

    But the positivists emphasized separation between the two. For them, law is man-made or posited by the legislature and until duly enacted laws are changed, they remain law and should be obeyed. Hans Kelsen captured the main thesis of this school succinctly when he posited that there is no necessary connection between law and morals, and that law does not require moral validation to be legitimate.

    There are other variants of these arguments. But suffice it to say that every piece of legislation is based on society’s idea of what is good or bad. Because law springs from a system of beliefs, mores and values, every law is an instance of legislating morality.

    This distinction is relevant in handling some of the complications thrown up by the current fight against corruption in the country. This is more so, given some of the issues raised by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed regarding public response to the war. In his attempt to further drum up public support for the war, the minister had revealed a shocking figure of N1.34 trillion allegedly stolen by 55 Nigerians within a period of just eight years (2006-2013).

    A cursory breakdown of this figure showed some former governors made away with N146.84 billion while 12 former public servants (state and federal) siphoned N14 billion. But a huge chunk of this sum, N524 billion was allegedly carted away by eight people in the banking sector even as 11 businessmen made away with N653 billion. Mohammed, in an effort to stir up and garner public sympathy, went further to show how much progress (development wise) the nation would have recorded were these monies deployed for public good.

    He was however disappointed that instead of the “national outrage” which such looting spree should have attracted, “all we hear are these nonsensical statements that the government is fighting only the opposition or that the government is engaging in vendetta”. He wants Nigerians to “own” the war because if they fail to cooperate with Buhari in the fight, corruption will kill the country.

    Apart from the huge amount alleged to have been looted, one other significant fact from the data breakdown is that a huge percentage of the looted fund was in the private sector. Eleven businessmen and eight people in the banking sector allegedly cornered N653 billion and N524 billion respectively. Its logical corollary is the pervasiveness of corruption in our national life. And this is fundamental to the overall success or lack of it in the fight against the malfeasance.

    Mohammed is within his rights to seek the support and cooperation of Nigerians in the fight against corruption. No doubt, one of the greatest problems standing against the development of this country has been the unbridled looting of our collective patrimony by sundry buccaneers disguised as leaders. The rancorous and deadly politics we have seen on these shores bears positive correlation with this.

    The damage corruption has wrought on the national economy has long been recognized. That the social malaise must be stamped out before this country can record any meaningful progress has also not been in doubt. What has been lacking has been the matching political will on the part of the leadership to wrestle the cankerworm to the ground. In effect, it is the governments that have overtime, failed to show the lead in this delicate but very crucial war.

    Given the foregoing, any government that is seen to be on the right path to tackling this social malaise, should ordinarily, take the support of ordinary citizens for granted. This is because the burden of the looting spree to service the gluttonous predilections of a few is largely borne by the poor. So the minister was within his rights to sensitize the public to the monumental corruption that goes on in our public life. That much can be conceded him.

    But the way he spoke, gave him out as someone in panic. He could not hide his frustrations on the waning public support for the war which the current regime has declared against corruption. That he felt so disappointed and had to lampoon the public for not rising up in utter outrage against the mindboggling looting revelations of the past are indicative of one or two things.

    It is either the public is not enthused by the direction of the war; not sure it will achieve the desired objective or nurses the feeling that its underlining goals are less than ennobling. Whichever the case, it is certain there is public skepticism and ambivalence to the overall objective of the war. That may account for why Mohammed is not witnessing the kind of public outrage which in his calculations, the bandied figures would have elicited.

    In its stead, public temperament weighs in the direction that the war is largely targeted against political foes and therefore aimed at settling scores. They want it to cut across party lines because they know our leaders are corrupt despite whatever political party banner they now fly. That is the real issue which only those prosecuting the war can redress.

    If that is the feedback the government gets from the war, the right approach is to take corrective measures to shore up public confidence in its course of action. The war must be seen to be targeted at all those who put their hands in the public till. And they cut across party lines, ethnicity and religion. The crusade must also be in keeping with extant laws of this country. Under the nation’s criminal justice system, an accused is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

    It is this cardinal principle of criminal justice that is bound to suffer irretrievably if the public buys into the unrestrained outrage Mohammed is soliciting even when the accused persons are yet to be tried and convicted. Public interest or morals have already been captured by the framers of our criminal laws when they presumed the accused innocent until proven guilty. Simulating public outrage or asking the public to own the war is nothing but an invitation to mob justice and mass hysteria which consequences nobody can guarantee. It would amount to an invitation to self help or going outside the ambit of the law all in the name of fighting corruption. These are not permissible in a democratic setting replete with extant rules on the matter. It is important that this regime succeeds in the fight against corruption. But that success cannot be procured at the expense of the laws of the nation irrespective of the frustrations of the likes of Mohammed. It is an invitation to anarchy for the government or its agencies to embark on the hazardous trip of demonizing or convicting those in their custody in the bar of public opinion as the minister would want the public to do.

    The laws of the land under which the government and its agencies derive their powers to prosecute alleged offenders, also confer some protection on the accused and this must be respected. Those who blame the public for not rising in utter outrage against the accused or query why lawyers should stand in their defence are being hypocritical and should not be taken seriously.

    Beyond these however, the frustrations of the government are self inflicted. The overall success of the war hinges on their actions and inactions. If they have noticed waning public confidence in the fight, it is left to them to drive the battle in such a manner as to shore up public support for it. This can hardly be achieved when different rules are set for the accused persons. It cannot be helped by the festering impression that only in the cupboards of the opposition, there are skeletons of corruption.

  • Human trafficking

    In the last couple of weeks, I have had cause to be attracted to some of the experiences shared by victims of human trafficking. Going through such harrowing encounters that nearly led to the death of the victims, the impression one got is that they will serve as a sufficient deterrent to those who may still be nursing the feeling of embarking on such hazardous trips.

    One of such chilling accounts that should ordinarily frighten even the most uncaring was captured by Citizen Osita Osemene who was deceived into fleeing this country due to frustration and the promise of all the goodies of life that abound in the foreign lands of Europe. In a recent interview in a national daily, Osemene who had been led by his deadly encounter to establish a Non Governmental Organization to fight human trafficking gave a detailed account of the numerous risks associated with such trips.

    He spoke on the harsh economic realities in the country after graduating from the university, the lure of better prospects outside the shores of this country as presented by his guides as some of the issues that made him to embark on such a hazardous trip. But all the prospects painted for him were to become a mirage shortly after. The journey, which was supposed to be by air turned out its direct opposite. He was later ferried to Kano from where a very tortuous journey by road to Niger and Libya was to commence.

    Osemene gave a detailed but scary account of the numerous life-threatening encounters he had on the way; how many of his colleagues were duped, died on the way due to hunger, starvation and dehydration and how they had to drink their own urine to stay alive. It was a tale of man’s inhumanity to man; a verity of the hobbesian state of nature where life had at once become nasty, short and brutish.

    His story also gave an insight into the kind of job women who were part of the trip were into. At a point in the tortuous journey to Libya, the surviving women were sold into prostitution slavery at the price of $3,000 and the y would have to pay their buyers $9,000 to regain their freedom. Of course, the only way to this is through prostitution with all the associated health risks.

    It was an experience that would scare even the most daring. At the end, he took consolation on the fact that he was one of the lucky ones not eaten up by the beasts of the desert as he managed to return home without reaching his promised Eldorado. That was the story of a Nigerian graduate who was lured to flee the country for supposedly greener pastures in Europe.

    With such tales which have become regular features of the print and electronic media, the expectation is that the penchant with which hapless Nigerians are lured into foreign lands by sundry syndicates would have been on the decrease. This is more so given the plethora of sensitization programmes regularly mounted by various agencies of the government to drum home the risks associated with such trips and discourage them. There have also been mounting efforts to make it difficult for the trade to thrive through surveillance leading to the arrest and prosecution of offenders.

    But even with these renewed efforts at stemming the phenomenon, it would appear much progress is yet to be made. Not only are there recurring attempts by sundry syndicates to smuggle young men and women out of this country in search of non-existing greener pastures, it would appear that efforts to discourage Nigerians from such dangerous trips are yet to be fully internalized.

    If anything, the confessions of one of the four women, Cecelia Bankole, saved last week from being trafficked to Libya, illustrates how little such messages have permeated the grassroots. It was a shocking tale of how Cecelia, a 26-year old hairdresser had to dump her two children on her husband for the botched trip despite her (husband’s) disapproval of it.

    Cecelia’s mother’s account of the circumstances leading to her approval of the trip did not help matters. According to her, she had to accompany the four to the point they were arrested because she wanted to know one Ganiat Ajilola who was taking them on the trip. Hear her “I was informed that one big madam whom Ganiat Ajilola was working for in Libya needs hair dressers to help her manage her shop. Upon hearing that people will be going abroad, I volunteered my daughter because she is a hairdresser. I begged her husband but he declined to allow her go on the trip. But I have prayed about it and God said she should go. That is why I am encouraging her”, the prophetess stated.

    This singular case in more ways than one, underscores the difficulties in the current fight against human trafficking. It does not only betray the high level of ignorance that pervade the entire landscape in respect of the dangers associated with such trips, but exposes the vulnerability of the average family to the deceptive but enticing stories of those in the human trafficking ring. Above all, it illustrates most poignantly, the desperation of our people for money at the slightest offer of some opportunity without giving deep thought to what such tales offer.

    Here was a married woman with two kids. All of a sudden, someone came around to float a story that one big madam in Libya needed hairdressers to manage her shop. Her mother who should be more circumspect in handling such stories immediately fell for it to the extent she had to persuade her son in-law to allow her go on the trip. Apparently attracted by the promise that her daughter, an apprentice hairdresser would be managing a shop in far away Libya, the woman threw all decorum to the dogs and was prepared to stake the fate of her two grandchildren for the trip to be.

    This woman who claimed to be a prophetess said she prayed over the matter and God revealed to her that her daughter should embark on the journey. That could as well be. Now the reality of the journey has dawned on her, it might be interesting to know her feelings on the encounter she claimed to have had with God regarding the trip. If God really spoke to her, she would have been told that the journey which she persuaded her daughter to embark on and for which she had to dump her grandchildren was a colossal disaster waiting to happen.

    With the experience shared by Osemene, the fate that awaited Cecelia and her colleagues was quite predictable. They were going to be sold into prostitution slavery if they were lucky to survive the vicissitudes of the desert journey. They should thank their God and the police from saving them from the claws of death. And it should serve as a lesson to all.

    The encounter of the four women is a tip of the iceberg on the human trafficking index in this country. As I write, people elsewhere are perfecting plans to flee the country even when they had been told of the risks associated with such illegal trips. Many would even prefer to be out there under any condition than remain in this country. So it not just a matter of ignorance on the dangers associated with such journeys. The desperation can be located in greed and the debilitating living conditions of a majority of our citizens due largely to poverty and a very high level of unemployment.

    In as much as sensitization programmes are relevant to discourage the likes of Bankole, not much will be achieved if the rising poverty in the land due to unemployment is not checked by the government. We have been told of the quantum of jobs the government intends to create. It must now go beyond promises and put the jobs on the table such that the teeming army of the unemployed will feel the impact.

    Above all, the time has come for our leaders to deploy the enormous resources of this country to develop it such that citizens will have less attraction in fleeing at the slightest offer of elusive job opportunities in foreign lands. That is the issue that has been elevated to the public domain by the persisting incidence of human trafficking on these shores.

  • Conflicting judicial verdicts

    When Chief Justice Mahmud Mohammed recently cried out on conflicting judicial pronouncements from the Court of Appeal, he was apparently moved by the need to restore some sanity in judicial judgments and shore up public confidence in that institution.

    In an address at the Annual Conference of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, he told the justices that “the overriding objective of every legal system in the world is to do justice. However this cannot be achieved where there is confusion as to the state of the law as pronounced by the courts”. In apparent reference to these irreconcilable rulings, he told the justices they were not allowed to continue to shift the goalpost while the game was on.

    The admonitions of Justice Mohammed are timely given events in the nation’s judiciary since the conclusion of the last general elections. Following its outcome, candidates who had issues approached the various state election petitions tribunals to seek redress. But the way some of these petitions have been handled have left much to be desired. Not unexpectedly, allegations of miscarriage of justice, bias and other influences have been copiously canvassed against the judiciary.

    The impression one gets from these sometimes conflicting verdicts is either that the laws are imprecise; some of the officers charged with their interpretation are not competent or some other unwholesome considerations were at play. Or, how do we explain the wide disparity in the legal and constitutional grounds that have been cited to justify some of these decisions?  What of the issue of conflicts Justice Mohammed publicly complained about? Where do we fit in legal precedent when identical cases are curiously resolved very differently? Or did the justices not drink from the same fountain of legal knowledge? These moot questions are at the heart of the waning public confidence in the capacity of the judiciary to do justice to cases brought before them.

    Perhaps, issues raised here will be driven home most poignantly by the Abia and Taraba states’ governorship election petitions. In the case of Abia, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA, Alex Otti had challenged the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP.

    The crux of the petition is non-compliance with the electoral act through the cancellation of the results of Obingwa, Osisioma and Isiala Ngwa north local governments by the returning officer. The Abia State Election Petitions Tribunal had ruled that the PDP validly won the election as Otti failed to prove his case “beyond doubt”. The tribunal failed to grant his request to uphold the cancellation of the results in the three local governments as the state returning officer was not allowed under the law to cancel the said results, hence his subsequent reversal of same had no effect.

    But the Appeal Court in Owerri, declared Otti as the winner of the election having scored 164,444 valid votes against Ikpeazu’s 114, 444 votes after cancelling the elections in the three local governments. It further ruled that there was no need for a re-run because the results present Otti as the genuine winner even as it asked the INEC to swear him in as the governor of Abia State.

    The Appeal Court may be within its rights to differ with the tribunal in its ruling in respect of the results from three local governments. But the real issue is what it makes of that decision. In this regard, even as it decided to cancel the results of those local governments, there are issues regarding its conclusions that there is no need for a re-run. This is more so when it is reported that the total voting strength of the three local governments stands at above 300,000 people.

    The purport is that this huge number of the electorate would be disenfranchised in the choice of the governor of their state. But then, the universally accepted ratio of voters’ turnout vis-à-vis the total number of registered voters is put at about one third. What this implies is that about 100,000 valid votes were not put into reckoning in determining the winner of that election. And when the margin of votes with which the Appeal Court ruled in favour of Otti is taken into account, the flaw in that decision becomes more glaring.

    It is a slap on representative democracy for the Court of Appeal to have ignored the sovereignty of the electorate by awarding victory to the APGA candidate without putting the voting rights of such a huge number of registered voters into reckoning. The right thing to do is to order a re-run in the three local governments which are said to be part of the constituency of the PDP candidate. This is not only in tandem with the Electoral Act but will erase any suspicion of deliberate attempt to rob Ikpeazu of victory through the instrumentality of the judiciary.

    There are also issues in the decision of the court asking the INEC to issue Certificate of Return and swear in Otti as the governor of the state. The riot that erupted in the state following the ruling has direct bearing with the perception that the Appeal Court was bent on having the APGA candidate sworn in even before the case runs its full course. It must have been seen as a deliberate ploy to award the governorship election to Otti at all costs when the right to appeal is still open to Ikpeazu.  The hurry to get Otti sworn in is at the root of the criticisms that have trailed the Appeal Court ruling.

    If the Appeal Court’s handling of the Abia case shows some bias and inconsistency, that of Taraba state exposes how shoddily the election petitions tribunal handled the case before it. The grounds on which the Appeal Court upturned the verdict of the tribunal have put the competences of the tribunal judges in doubt. Legal and constitutional issues which ordinarily should have been at the disposal of the tribunal were flagrantly ignored in arriving at the decision to disqualify Darius Ishaku as the duly elected governor of the state. The ruling of the Appeal Court that the disqualification of the PDP candidate, Darius Ishaku is a pre-election matter which the tribunal has no jurisdiction, speaks volumes.

    The judges ruled that the constitution clearly states that unless a candidate has been indicted by a court of law or is known to have criminal record or certain degree of health conditions, such a candidate cannot be determined by a tribunal as not being qualified as a candidate.

    Why these grounds were not availed or totally ignored by the tribunal is part of the reasons for public disenchantment with some of the verdicts emanating from our judiciary. Above all, they raise questions as to the competences of some of our judges. Ordinarily, one would have expected those who occupy such elated offices to be people of high competence and integrity in the call of their duty. They are also supposed to be well groomed in the intricacies of legal arguments, extant laws of this country and logic such that they are not easily faulted by their colleagues.

    The credibility of the judiciary is tainted each time judges who are supposed to be very competent in the interpretation of our laws are easily faulted by their colleagues. It is true that an appellate court can overrule a lower court. But in such situations, it is not envisaged that the grounds would be rudimentary points of law that ordinarily should be at disposal of even the man on the street.

    It remains curious how the ruling of the Appeal Court in the case of Abia State that clearly disenfranchised over 300,000 voters can satisfy the true test of free, fair and credible election. The right thing is for a re-run to be conducted to allow the people of the three local governments exercise their franchise in the choice of their governor. Nothing should be done either to abridge or circumvent this inalienable right. Anything to the contrary will amount to procuring the peoples mandate through the back door. That is where the Supreme Court should come in to avert judgments which Justice Mohammed said “cast your lordships in an unfavorable light and leave the judiciary at the mercy of innuendos, crass publications and editorials”

  • Drunk policemen, others

    Recent report that a police sergeant, Stephen James shot dead three people in the Ketu area of Lagos for failing to buy him beer exposes all that is wrong with the Nigerian Police Force. The offending policeman said to be under the influence of alcohol had gone to the bar of the hotel where he was deployed and threatened to shoot some of the customers unless they bought him drinks.

    His conduct did not go down well with some of the customers who cautioned him to behave responsibly in view of his call of duty. Apparently unhappy with the response of the customers, he laid ambush for them outside the hotel killing three as they made to leave. Among those he killed were two brothers who were the only surviving offspring of their parents. The policeman subsequently shot and killed himself after discovering the gravity of his offence.

    And in Enugu State within the same week, another policeman was reported to have shot and killed three people in circumstances that have remained largely untidy. The two incidents are a tip of the iceberg. They also mirror very vividly the sad fate of our citizens in the hands of those paid with the taxpayers’ money to protect them. The list of such unprovoked and senseless killings by trigger happy policemen is endless.

    Before now, our people have had to contend with the so-called accidental discharges from policemen at checkpoints. It was largely on account of killings arising from such occurrences that the police hierarchy had to do away with checkpoints along the nation’s highways and major roads.

    But whatever gains recorded in human lives as a result of this measure, appear to have come under serious threat from the increasing recourse of policemen to cut down the lives of innocent and defenseless citizens under sundry guises. The rising incidence of policemen killing innocent citizens without provocation has raised questions as to the mental suitability of some of those we place the protection of the society in their care. Take the case of Sergeant James who was deployed to give protection to customers at a hotel. Instead of doing that for which he was engaged, he turned out a calamity to that business premises.

    His killing of the two brothers and their friend, as unconscionable and dastardly as it was, also highlights the inadequacies of character checks in the recruitment of policemen. This calls to question the efficacy of the supervisory role of senior police officers under whose command such highly temperamental and seemingly mentally demented policemen function. This conclusion is supported by reports that the said policeman was in the habit of Indian hemp and alcoholism.

    Why this man was able to operate that long without his supervisors taking note of his embarrassing conduct has remained largely sloppy. It is also curious that the hotel authorities kept quiet while the policeman carried on with his madness until the worst happened? These issues have been raised to underscore the point that had the hotel done the needful, the lives of those that fell prey to this obviously mentally unstable policeman would have been saved.

    This is not the first time the mental balance and suitability of policemen will come under public scrutiny. During the regime of Mike Okiro as the Inspector General of Police, he shocked the nation when he disclosed that 24 top police officers had doubtful mental stability for the job. In this number were two deputy commissioners and one assistant commissioner among others. We were then told that they had been referred to the Police Medical Board for the determination of their suitability. Nothing was heard of the outcome of the investigations by the medical board again.

    Some years back also, the Police College in Kaduna had sacked 234 recruits for various offences. Commandant of the college Sanusi Rufai said while some of those sacked were lepers, others had sight problems. There were also those who stabbed their colleagues with knives and habitual hemp smokers as well. These disclosures were a huge shock given that certificate of metal and physical fitness is an irreducible requirement in the recruitment and continued retention of policemen especially given the sensitivity of their jobs.

    It became a huge puzzle why such a large number of senior police officers and recruits found themselves into the police without their mental and physical inadequacies detected at the point of entry.  That people with such contagious diseases as leprosy could find their ways into the force despite the obvious health risks they pose to others is a sad commentary on police recruitment procedure. Little wonder the rising indiscriminate cases of the killing of helpless citizens by sundry policemen without provocation and under very annoying circumstances.

    It is an irony of sorts that Sergeant James killed the only two sons of their parents and their friend for failing to buy him beer in a hotel he is supposed to be maintaining security. Why will he not take laws into his hands when he is in the habit of drinking alcohol and smoking Indian hemp even while in uniform? Someone should have noticed the looming disaster which such conduct posed in the performance of his duty.

    It would seem there was dereliction of duty on the part of those under whose command he worked. It is a big puzzle that he was able to carry on that way without either the hotel authorities or his supervisors having some knowledge of the disaster he had become.

    More than any other thing else, the incident has brought to the fore the conduct of policemen deployed to individuals and private places for their primary assignment. It is increasingly obvious that the way such policemen conduct themselves has become a big embarrassment to the nation’s security system. Not only do some of them drink while on duty, they shoot indiscriminately at sundry social functions in a way that suggests they can deploy the guns at their disposal to their whims and caprices. Yet, we do know that the bullets they dispense are bought with public funds and ought to be accounted for.

    From what we see daily, the procedure for the deployment of policemen to private individuals has been serially abused. At a time the police service does not have enough personnel to carry out its statutory functions, it smacks of monumental abuse for some inconsequential persons to be parading the roads with a retinue of police escorts ostensibly for personal protection. In some parts of the country, the use of police escorts has assumed the character of a status symbol. The fad now is to apply for police protection under sundry reasons. Immediately that is granted, you follow it up by acquiring at least one Toyota Hilux or similar vans fitted with siren. The next day, you hit the roads blowing siren at the sight of which policemen at the check points clear the road for you for quick passage. Once such vehicles are on the roads, nobody bothers whether those blowing the siren are even criminals who use such cover to evade detection.

    In a clime replete with the criminally-minded and such sophisticated crimes as armed robbery, kidnapping and terrorism, it is a huge risk to subject the use of the siren to the kind of abuse it has been subjected in some parts of the country. These are some of the areas the authorities should take proactive measures to stem the abuse. If such checks are regularly instituted, the sad fate of the two brothers in the hands of Sergeant James would have been averted.

    There are still many of such characters in the police force. The authorities must come out with fool-proof measures to ensure that those on whose shoulders we place the security of our citizens are not only mentally and physically fit, but carry themselves in such a way that command public confidence.

  • Rising costs and the poor

    John Hembe works in one of the service providing companies in Lagos. He recently rented an apartment in the suburb and was gradually sourcing furniture and other household appliances to make it comfortable for living.

    In the course of this, he had visited some electronic showrooms to window shop in the hope that as soon as he received his next salary, he will make up his mind as to whether to purchase a television set or not. In some of the places he visited, he was attracted by the price tags on some of the plasma television sets such that he had concluded that his dream for one will become a reality at the end of the month.

    And as soon as he received his pay, he did not waste time to rush to that showroom with the hope of returning home the same day with one. But that hope turned out a mirage. He was taken aback that prices of the items he had seen the previous week had been jerked up by as much as 30 per cent. Unable to believe what he had seen, he approached one of the showroom managers and the following conversation ensued.

    “Sir, I was here last week to look at the prices of your plasma television sets. But now, I just discovered they have gone up. It looks like it is because of the Christmas that you have just suddenly hiked the prices”

    Manager, “Sorry sir, it is true our prices have gone up but they have nothing to do with the yuletide. I am sure you know of the exchange rate situation. We import these items and their prices depend on what the dollar sells”

    “But there has not been any significant change in the exchange rate in the last one week retorted Hembe in utter disappointment. Well I have to leave since the amount I have can no longer buy the type of plasma television I want”

    With a sorry for the inconvenience from the manager, Hembe eventually left the showroom without purchasing a television set.

    The above captures very vividly the lot of many Nigerians in the last one month or so. The price of everything has substantially increased making life a lot more difficult for many. Not only are jobs being lost on virtually regular basis, state governors have threatened to cut salaries and allowances or in the alternative reduce their workforce. Before now, the rate of unemployment has been at an all time high.

    When you juxtapose the high rate of extant unemployment; the job losses that are now on the increase against the rising cost of goods and services, you can figure out the debilitating economic situation in which many Nigerians have inevitably been entangled. The matter is not remedied given that for every Nigerian that is gainfully employed, he has about five other mouths that feed from his meager salary. The current pass has been largely blamed on two factors.

    The first is the fall in oil price to an all time low. For the first time in so many years, oil price in the international market has fallen below S40 per barrel. And since our governments depend on a mono cultural economy to funds their activities, the drop has resulted in serious policy dislocations on account of their inability to provide public goods and services. The state governments were so mired in a seemingly irretrievable mess a few months back that the federal government had to lend them money to offset salaries and allowances. Despite this, the situation is far from being over.

    The next factor fingered is the alleged mismanagement of the economy by the regime of President Jonathan. The revelation of billions of Naira that were alleged to have gone out of our common till illegally is said to be part of the unwholesome practices that put this country into the current predicament. The argument is that if those monies had been meaningfully deployed to service the people of this country, some substantial progress would have been recorded. This argument is plausible since development is all about availability of resources and their effective utilization and deployment.

    There is little doubt that one of the issues that have held this country down over the years has been the mismanagement of our common patrimony by some rampaging buccaneers masquerading as leaders. For so many years, this country was in plenty in terms of the monies that accrued to it from oil sales. For many years, this country was yearning for visionary and purposeful leadership to husband its resources and guarantee the future. But for those numbers of years, the locusts were really on rampage. What we witnessed instead was the unbridled looting of those resources by the ruling elite such that has prevented any meaningful development from taking root. Our leaders reveled in mindless ostentation and insatiable acquisition for wealth.

    They have had to carry on as if the oil in our shores is inexhaustible. But suddenly, the tea party is over. We now hear of threats to cut down on the minimum wage, reduction of the labour force and all that. We also hear new tunes on the issue of fuel subsidy removal. We are now being plainly told that the so-called subsidy will have to go and Nigerians will have to pay more. They are already paying as much as N150 per litre of fuel in many parts of the country including parts of Lagos. Even those who had been in strident opposition to fuel subsidy removal are now singing a different song. And one begins to wonder what has suddenly gone awry.

    There is also the issue of electricity tariff. The last time I checked, the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC was protesting the hike in electricity tariff which it put at 45 per cent. Though the regulatory body had indicated its intention to adjust the tariff, it made so much noise convincing the people it has abolished the fixed charge of N750 per month. It spoke so much on the abrogation of the fixed charge that many electricity consumers did not realize they were going to pay as much as 45 per cent more.

    Given the prime role fuel and electricity play in every economy, a hike in their prices will lead to a corresponding increase in the prices of goods and services. Governments are also talking of raising their internally generated revenue to stay afloat. This is okay provided they are not such that will lead to strangulating taxes on the people. For now, it is difficult to fathom which other public goods and services will be affected by price increase. Every indication points to harder times ahead.

    The new regime promised change. It has said it loud and clear that it intends to turn around the economy to deliver on its mandate to the people. It has moved on to get all those alleged to have fleeced this country dry to face the wrath of the law. It also intends to engage 500, 000 teachers nationwide and pay some allowance to unemployed post NYSC members. Ostensibly, all these are targeted at ameliorating the debilitating hardship ravaging the country.

    But the soothing effect of these measures will pale into insignificance in the face of the biting inflation and the jerking up of the prices of the goods and services provided by the government. It would appear Buhari is in a hurry to get efficient pricing for goods and services provided by the governments. That may well be. But in doing this, it will amount to a monumental risk to put the lives of the toiling masses at great jeopardy.

    If this economy has been mismanaged, the common man is not the cause. There is a tolerable limit the common man can be stretched all in the effort to have a quick fix to years of mindless plundering, misrule and looting by those Vilfredo Pareto called circulating elite. In verity, this country needs to part way with its decadent past. It needs to gets things alright so that the future of this country can be guaranteed. We need change. But change can be both negative and positive. The kind of change we desire is not one that comes with the notion that we can pay for all the sins of the past in one day. Those for whom the change is designed must be alive to savor its benefits. It must go with a human face.

     

  • Junaid Mohammed’s tribal rant

    Junaid Mohammed, self acclaimed convener of the coalition of northern politicians, academics, professionals and businessmen is fast acquiring notoriety for reckless and incendiary statements against the Igbo race. Because his provocative rant has somehow, been largely ignored, he comes up often, talking down on the entire Igbo race as if he would want them disappear from the face of the earth.

    What he thinks of himself, what it is that prompts him or those he purports to represent may not be of much relevance here.  The objective of such irrational and sectional diatribe and what they portend for the overall peace of this country are issues we can continue to ignore at great peril. At each point he gets media mention, he is either hauling invectives on the Igbo or displaying crass preference for war as a quick-fix to festering national challenges.

    His inordinate urge for war, conjures the impression that either the military will always act in the direction of his mindset, he is certain about what they will do in each circumstance or both. Often, he speaks with such a certainty that leads to the conclusion that those on whose behest he speaks, are in control of the military and capable of using them to achieve their goals. That was the essence of his classifying non-violent agitations for self-determination by pro-Biafra movements as terrorism. Yet, when the real terrorists were on rampage in the North-east, he was ambivalent in condemning their murderous escapades. That is Junaid for you.

    In 2013 when agitations for a sovereign national conference were on high gear, he had said that its supporters were asking for civil war. Again, following complaints against non-inclusion of the South-east in Buhari’s appointments, he said, “If the Igbo don’t like it, they can attempt secession again. If they do it, they must be prepared to live with the consequences”.

    And in a recent interview in a national daily, he not only spoke of the Igbo race in disparaging and irreverent manner but even averred with certainty that Obasanjo would have been “overthrown if he was caught in the tribal thing” during his last regime. It is not clear if he speaks for himself, the nebulous northern amalgam he purports to lead, or some other unseen hands. But he speaks with such arrogance and finality that suggests this country is the personal fiefdom of whatever interest he purports to represent.

    That was my reading when he recklessly averred that the Igbo have always misbehaved and shown open nepotism each time they are given certain positions and that nepotism in whatever they do is their stock in trade. He cited the tenure of former Chief of Army Staff, General Azubuike Ihejirika and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim to support his weird logic.

    Accusing Ihejirika of introducing tribalism in recruitment, training and promotions in the Nigerian Army, he labeled him the most corrupt army chief this country has ever had. His grouse with Anyim is that each time there was vacancy in parastatals under his office, he made sure an Igbo man occupied it. He singled out the case of the National Population Commission.

    His allegation against Ihejirika bears the imprimatur of the blackmail from fifth columnists sometime in his tenure especially when intense heat was brought to wrestle the Boko Haram insurgents to the ground.

    A faceless group had circulated documents alleging that at the recruitment in the Nigerian Army Depot in Zaria, Kaduna state; Abia state with a population of 2.8 million people had 450 recruits while Ebonyi with 2.2 million people had 377 recruits. In contrast, Kano, Kaduna and Lagos states that have populations of 9.3million, 9 million and 9 million respectively only got 258, 382 and 255. According to his traducers, this represented part of the plan to “Igbonize” the Nigerian army. The activities of this group may have had a direct link with the embarrassing indiscipline within the army at that time.

    As this writer contended then, the group simply bandied figures that were lacking in real statistical value for their failure to show the entire staff disposition of the Nigerian army. Singling out one recruitment and promotion exercise to sustain the allegation of ‘Igbonization’ of Nigerian army is not only guilty of the fallacy of hasty generalization but exposes the mindset of its peddlers as a bunch of ethnic bigots unable to come to terms with the reality of an Igbo man occupying that position for the first time since after the civil war. It will not be surprising if Junaid is part and parcel of the waning tribe of these ethnic jingoists. Had they availed the public the staff disposition of the entire armed forces, state by state, they may have discovered that if Abia and Ebonyi states had an edge in that singular recruitment, it may have been part of efforts to redress the inequities of past recruitments under the supervision of Junaid’s kinsmen.

    This point finds ample credence in events during the tenure of Lt Gen. Abdulraman Bello Dambazzau as Chief of Army Staff. Insider Weekly Magazine had in its June 2009 edition, reported that soldiers were grumbling over “parochial and unbalanced’ deployment in the army, wondering whether he “is building a Nigerian army, a Kano army or a northern army”. The magazine alleged that of the 32 key appointments, Dambazzau gave 27 to the north, the south-east three, south-west two and none to south-south. Yet, the tribal warlords saw nothing wrong with it and said nothing because “fouling the air is only good when it comes from the proverbial tortoise”.

    The same jaundiced perceptions that smack of pathological hatred for the Igbo led Junaid in another occasion to assert that the Igbo “have also grabbed most of the land especially for estates in Abuja where they do not have any historical claims or other logical claim to even one square foot of land”.

    This assertion is astonishing. It impliedly seeks to deny the Igbo or any other group, their rights to acquire legitimate property in any place of their choice including foreign countries. Grabbing most of the land in Abuja for estates connotes the impression that the lands in question were dispossessed from their rightful owners through unwholesome means.

    If most of the lands in Abuja have been acquired by Igbo developers, it is by dint of their hard work, industry and enterprise.  What right has anybody to deny them the fruit of their labour? Or when has it become a crime for any Nigerian or foreigner to invest his money in any part of the country?  Perhaps, he would also need the all powerful Nigerian state to decree quota system in private land acquisition for those he represents to have fair share in Abuja.

    The same parochialism blindfolded him to the point of asserting that without Nigeria, the Igbo presently living in neighbouring African countries will not be allowed to be there. The simple answer to this is that the Igbo nation predates the Nigerian nation. Nigeria came into being through the amalgamation of subsisting ethnic units.

    If these units existed before Nigeria, there is nothing to suggest that without this political contraption, they will disappear from the face of the earth. Practically nothing! Moreover, some of the countries where he said the Igbo are living courtesy of their Nigerian citizenship are of little economic and political significance in comparison with the states where the Igbo are presently domiciled. It does not take a genius to work out the logical dynamics of this analogy.

    We can go on to demonstrate the calamity which the views of Junaid have been to efforts at nation-building. Suffice it to say that the Igbo do not owe their existence to anybody. They are also not begging anybody for any favour. They only ask for their rights and equal opportunities as a key member of this unity in diversity. They have suffered and continue to suffer monumental losses in lives and property from the part of the country where Junaid comes. They need to be saved from the atavism of the likes of Junaid.

  • Kogi, Bayelsa elections

    Given that the governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states marked the first set under President Buhari and the new INEC chairman, their outcome was bound to attract considerable public interest. This is more so with the peaceful transition of the last general election. Before that election, fears were high that its outcome could dismember this country as sharp cleavages with religious and ethnic tinge dominated the language of political discourse.

    But that gloomy political atmosphere was to peter out when the election (though not without its shortfalls) came out largely successful culminating in the epochal defeat of a sitting president. The significance of that landmark event for democracy in Nigeria has since been chronicled by world leaders. With that success, expectations have been high that free and fair electoral conduct which had been the albatross of this country is beginning to take root.

    As both elections approached early in the life of the Buhari regime, public expectations were high that the mileage gained from the last general election would lead to a seamless outcome. Ironically, that expectation has failed to materialize as events from both polls have unmistakably shown. Both were declared inconclusiveness on account of electoral violence and sundry malpractices which prevented voting in some of the areas.

    In Kogi, elections did not hold in 91 polling units of 18 local government areas due to electoral infractions ranging from vandalism, snatching of electoral materials and outright violence. Though the APC was clearly leading the PDP with a margin of 41,253 votes, INEC declared the election inconclusive on the ground that the total number of registered voters in those polling units which stood at 49,953 was higher than that with which the APC led its rival. In its calculations, the remaining votes could still alter the pattern of electoral victory. It was for this reason which is in keeping with aspects of the electoral law that saw to the declaration of the election inconclusive.

    Opinions were sharply divided on the position of the electoral body. This is more so given that the universally accepted ratio of the actual votes cast vis-à-vis the total number of registered voters is put at about one third. What this implies is that the remaining votes may not substantially alter the winning pattern. And this came to pass when the final results of the re-run were put together. The APC had 6,885 of the votes while the PDP garnered 5,365. This figure is even less than one third of the remaining votes for which the election was declared inconclusive.

    The issue here is, had the election proceeded without hitches, the results would have been announced as a clear winner had emerged. By the same extrapolation, the complications and litigations that arose even within the APC fold, would have been staved off, the death of its governorship candidate, Abubakar Audu notwithstanding.

    Events of the botched elections in those polling units were to become the albatross of the Kogi election. INEC has been blamed for the pass in the Kogi polls on two fronts. It takes liability for observed shoddy preparations and for not declaring the result of the election when it was clear that the remaining votes cannot substantially turn the tide against the winning party.

    Even then, it would also appear the electoral body was playing safe given the penchant by our politicians to take advantage of any error of omission or commission to accuse it of skewing the process to the advantage of the ruling party. It is obvious it ordered the re-run to fulfill all righteousness. This point cannot also be discounted as there is precedence to back it up.

    But the violence and bad management of the election in Kogi is just a child’s play when paired with events of the governorship election in Bayelsa State. Reports spoke of sporadic shooting by armed militias in some areas especially in the southern Ijaw local government resulting in the killing of about five people. As a result, elections could not hold there. Curiously despite informed advice not to hold the election the following day because of the level of violence of the previous day, INEC went ahead with the election.

    The outcome of that error of judgment turned out disastrous. The electoral body had to cancel the election much later on the ground that it was substantially marred by violence, ballot snatching, intimidation and other irregularities. But that was after protests had erupted in the state capital accusing it of trying to manipulate the exercise taking advantage of the high level of insecurity in the area. How the electoral body and the security agencies came to the conclusion that free and fair elections were possible under that high level of insecurity in a state notorious for deadly militants, remains curious. But events have proved their decision futile.

    Not unexpectedly, that judgmental error has been largely responsible for the recrimination going on between the APC and the PDP with each seemingly claiming victory. The PDP said, having won in six out of the seven local governments where results have been declared, it has satisfied the requirements for electoral victory. The APC on its own says it has also obtained 25 per cent of the votes in two thirds of the local governments and wants the results of southern Ijaw which it expects to turn the tide in its favour to be declared.

    What the position of the APC implies is that if the result of the southern Ijaw council was declared, it would have garnered substantial votes to turn electoral victory in its favour. We shall demonstrate the possibility of this claim by critically appraising the pattern of votes scored by the parties in the seven local governments that have been so far declared.

    In Brass, APC had 21,755 votes against 6,516 by the PDP while in Sagbama PDP had 28,934 as against 5,382 by the APC.  In Yenegoa, PDP scored 24,258 while the APC had 14,563. These three local governments recorded the highest number of votes in the election. In the remaining four local governments, the margin was narrow even as the PDP led in all of them.

    But the wide margin of votes in Brass and Sagbama can be understood. The APC candidate hails from Brass while that of PDP is from Sagbama. Going by the votes in the two local governments of the candidates, whereas the PDP got nearly one third of the votes in Brass, the APC could not secure that in Sagbama.

    If this statistics does not clearly underscore the relative strengths of the parties, the case of Yenagoa where the cumulative votes of the two parties stood at 39,821 despite its voting strength of 132,025 says it all. The total score of the two parties represents barely one third of the total number of registered voters.

    Southern Ijaw which has a voting strength of 120,827 comes second after Yenagoa.  With barely one third of the total voting strength taking part in the Yenagoa poll and the margin of votes recorded in the other local governments, it stands to be imagined the kind of difference the southern Ijaw poll will make in the overall calculations of the final results. It will be a huge surprise if it turns the tide of the election outcome.

    So it is not just a matter of bandying claims to electoral victory. The facts on the ground speak for themselves. INEC should move fast and set a new date for election to be held in southern Ijaw after adequate security to guarantee free and fair polls have been put in place.

    Beyond these, INEC has disappointed the nation in its handling of the two elections. If it could perform so abysmally in two isolated elections, we shudder at what the situation will turn out during general elections. But the role of security agencies during elections and the desperation of politicians to win at all costs have become serious issues that will make or mar our attempts to institutionalize democracy on these shores.