The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Smoking out Yahaya Bello

    Smoking out Yahaya Bello

    Dramatically, the immediate past governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, is still playing hide-and-seek four months after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared him wanted. EFCC had on April 18 launched a manhunt for him in connection with a case of alleged money laundering involving over N80b. The agency is charged with the responsibility of enforcing all economic and financial crimes laws in Nigeria.

    He had earned the status of a fugitive following his mysterious escape from EFCC operatives who wanted to arrest him at his Abuja residence, on April 17, after obtaining an arrest warrant from the Federal High Court, Abuja.  Three other suspects, Ali Bello, Dauda Suliman, and Abdulsalam Hudu, are involved in the case.

     His escape was reported to have been facilitated by a group of armed men identified as ‘Special Forces’ and some policemen, as well as the current governor of Kogi State, Usman Ododo. He remains at large.

    Curiously, he spoke from his hiding place during the nationwide so-called hunger protests that turned violent in parts of the country.  His media office issued a statement, on August 7, saying, “We have uncovered a high-wired plan by some disgruntled enemies of the nation and persons on the ‘Project Bring Down Yahaya Bello,’ to frame him up as one of the sponsors of the #Endbadgovernance protests across the country.”

    The statement said Bello was on President Bola Tinubu’s side, adding that he “mobilised the youth of the nation as the APC Youth Mobilisation Committee Chairman, because of his faith in the leadership capacity of Mr President.”

    In June, he was reported to have written to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, through his lawyers, arguing that his trial should be moved from Abuja to “the Lokoja Division of the Federal High Court which is the Division with the Territorial Jurisdiction to try the case.”

    Read Also: Yahaya Bello not behind #EndBadGovernance protests, says media office

    According to the letter, all the funds alleged to have been laundered by Bello “are monies of the Government of Kogi State whose State Capital is in Lokoja”; all bank accounts from which the said monies are stated to be laundered from “are domiciled with the branches of the respective Banks in Lokoja, Kogi State”; and Bello is accused of “criminal breach of trust, criminal misappropriation and money laundering in respect of the statutory funds of Kogi State.”

    The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, rejected his request that his case be transferred to Kogi State. He stated that “The main complaint in the case borders on the alleged conversion and transfer of funds of Kogi State to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, to purchase property through acts of concealment.”  He also said: “The law permits the filing of the charge either in Abuja, FCT or in Lokoja, Kogi State, the offence(s) having been allegedly partly committed in both places.”

    Last month, the Federal High Court, Abuja rejected Bello’s application to halt his arraignment for money laundering. He has refused to appear in court. Apart from his non-appearance in July, he failed to show up on five previous occasions, April 18, April 23, May 10, June 13 and June 27.

    His lawyer was said to have told the judge he would try to bring him to court at the next sitting. EFCC’s lawyer, Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), told the court that the anti-graft agency was collaborating with security agencies to “extract the defendant from the Kogi State Government House where he is hibernating.”

    The House of Representatives candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Dekina/Bassa Federal Constituency, Kogi State, in the 2023 elections, Austin Okai, had claimed that he was hiding in Government House in Lokoja. There were also claims that the former governor had been smuggled out of the country.

    His latest statement denying any connection with the anti-Tinubu protests demonstrated that going into hiding does not mean falling into silence. After serving as a two-term governor of Kogi State from 2016 to 2024, he should make himself available for questioning concerning his years in power. Is he afraid? Why is he afraid? Should he be afraid?

    Bello, 49, was the youngest governor in Nigeria throughout his tenure.  He unsuccessfully participated in the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary to choose the ruling party’s presidential candidate ahead of the 2023 elections.  He studied accounting and business administration at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

    In 2021, a Kogi-based group, the Anti-Corruption Network, notably released a report accusing him of monumental corruption. The report alleged that the Bello administration had committed large-scale fraud, in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, by awarding state contracts improperly, irregularities and conflicts of interest in awarding contracts, awarding contracts without due process, and money laundering. The administration said the allegations were politically motivated.

    Regarding his N80b money laundering case, the judge adjourned the matter till September 25 for arraignment. It remains to be seen whether he will be in court.

     It is unclear what effort the EFCC is making to locate him, arrest him, and prosecute him. Indeed, there are suggestions that the agency may no longer be in pursuit of the fugitive.

    The Executive Director, Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre, Okechukwu Nwanguma, was reported saying, “It is surprising that despite all the hot waves and drama of the EFCC, including the vow of the chairman that he would resign if he couldn’t arrest Yahaya Bello, the man is still out there more than three months after he was declared wanted.

    “If they truly wanted to arrest Yahaya Bello, they would have arrested him. If this was a case of a poor man, they would have easily arrested him.”

    Predictably, EFCC spokesperson Dele Oyewale was reported to have declared that he “remains wanted.”  But this declaration is not enough.  There are questions:  Does the agency know his whereabouts? What is delaying his arrest? EFCC has a lot of explaining to do.

    Bello has refused to give himself up. But he must not be allowed to give the impression that he is above the law. Or that he can escape the long arm of the law.

  • The real protesters

    The real protesters

    You can understand a society by the quality of its protests. When you looked at the talakawa anger in Kano, you could muse on the paradox of boys who could not read and write, but stormed a library. Like rodents in a cathedral, they were not craving a sacrament.

    They did not look for a book by Che Guevera, or Amilcar Cabral or even Lenin. In fact, they saw everything but books. It was Boko Haram on display. They forbade the books but did violence to them by ignoring them. To touch is to read. But the books had a great escape: a bonfire. That would have been a bigger violence. Thank God for book mercies.

    Their eyes played host to more immediate exigencies: material temptations, like chairs, tables, toilet accessories, computers – they can’t operate them but they can sell them. So, you can call it an illiterate uprising. It is in this way we can put the bubble in perspective. Reading would have chastened them like the drunk in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby who turned sober inside a library. The Bible says, much reading is the weariness of the flesh. These boys were not weary. They do not understand anything about the value of the naira against the dollar because they never buy or sell. They carry bowls all day, and it does not matter to them what the value of naira is or the pangs of inflation. When they thrust their bowls, they get their food. It was so yesterday; it was so the day after their street riot and it was so 50 years ago. The hunger they know today is the same hunger that almajiris knew two or three generations before them. Why did they not go to the streets to protest hunger? They are immune to the economy. They are only beholden to those who feed them. Those who they wake up to and in whose shelters they pass the night. They don’t buy food in the market. They don’t pay school fees or rent or live with their parents. They don’t go on vacation or worry about fashion or their threadbare clothing.

    So, when they carry flags, you wonder how a boy who has no money and who has not heard of the name Putin would hoist his flag. They only answer to those who feed them. Feeding is their outlet to life, and the man who shuts the door and opens it is their feeding bottle. So, when they call for military coup, it is not they that speak but their sponsors. You began to understand this when we heard from two key figures in the north. The first is the Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, who made the point that the boys did not act alone, but they were marionettes of predators in high places. He, an activist, invoked his familiar rhetoric as a man who has fought them in the past.

    The other fellow is the Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed. He addressed protesters as an opportunity to put the world on notice that he wants to run for president in 2027. But the man attacked the president for his wrong policies. What wrong policy? The removal of oil subsidy? This man, Bala Mohammed, is on record in videos circulating on how he condemned the oil subsidy and berated former President Buhari for not removing it outright. He said he was in the committee that x-rayed the hemorrhage of a policy that leeched the economy. He even revealed that one of the beneficiaries had asked the president to stop it because he was tired of cheating the country. So, why is he now complaining? Bala Mohammed is just a pharisee and irresponsible governor who has had his monthly revenue balloon in the past year. If the crowd were literate, they would have stormed him out of his cocky podium. Former House Speaker Yakubu Dogara lashed back, asking him to itemise what he had done for his state in his over five years of stewardship.

    We can glean a perversity of malice from men like Mohammed that the boys were on the streets on behalf of men who have been shut out of their entitled decadence in the centre. They are at war by proxy, the boys being their fronts in this fog of war over the spoils of the country. Somebody up north told me that those fighting are also in cahoots with disgruntled men in the south who are still embittered by an election loss. They have lots of money, he told me, and they are richer than government.

    We should not see the northern imbroglio as just a hunger protest.  It is not the almajiri that are hungry. It is not about those who are hungry but about those who are angry. They are angry not because they can’t eat but because they can’t steal and eat alone anymore.

    Read Also: NAF strikes destroy 13 illegal refineries, 10 overhead tanks in Rivers

    So, those who are theorizing about IMF policies and about the strangulation of policy should understand that it is about the frustration of a primitive class that has seen its privileges of rapine and false splendour snatched from their palaces. The context of IMF policies has been misdiagnosed by many analysts in historical errancy and this essayist will address it in due course as it pertains to Tinubu’s policies. But be it known that these so-called protests, especially in the north, are protests but not by those who are shouting. The technicolour of marches with anger on the streets is an optical illusion. The real protesters did not cry, did not walk, were not maimed or injured and did not die. Nor did they hoist flags or signs. They were in their luxury ambience, lush in their plush palaces.

    It is a paradox that the same forces hijacked the protests from those who wanted to turn it into a “righteous” matter. Righteous in the pharisaic sense. These disgruntled big men instrumentalised boys of rage. The others became spectators in their own game. So, we can say pharisee beat pharisee in a game of phonies. Nonetheless, we know that they are exploiting the pain in the land but not because they love the masses. They are like what Jesus told Judas who urged the ornament be for the poor and should not be on the Lord’s body. The great thing that can come out of this is for the president to tap an elixir out of this disarray. He may recourse to the line of the Poet Homer: “We can give the enemy glory or win it for ourselves.”

  • No Abiku syndrome in Lagos

    No Abiku syndrome in Lagos

    Lagos is where the action is. But the beat did not go on for mischief makers this time. Something quieted their quests. It reminds me of a day in my teenage years when I visited the WAEC office in Yaba to pick up past questions ahead of the almighty WASCE. A much older fellow had demanded deference after I insisted it was my turn to sign a register. He received not deference but defiance. Not in words but through a silence and the disdain of a smirk. My eyes were on him after I had registered. He registered after me, and his eyes were on me. I leaned on a wall overlooking a stairwell. I pretended not to see him looming towards me like a bush cat shadowing a quarry. He was within inches and raised his hand to strike and I ducked. His swing swished the air. Within seconds, he flailed and stumbled through the stairs and landed on his face. It was a comic spectacle if it was not ominous.

    The man invoked age and accused me of throwing an older man. I was not the only fellow there. A police officer saw the humpty-dumpty crash. The fallen fellow, his nose broken and colored with blood and dust, did not have his way when he wanted me arrested. To placate him, the officer asked me to write a statement and dismissed me, not before I grabbed my past questions.

    That is what happened to the #Endgovernance folks.  They thought, like my failed assailant, that they were striking. In the end, they fell flat. But the injury was in the north. The Governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the BOS of Lagos, handled it with both subtlety and panache. He gave a broadcast. He ensured that it was not going to  happen on his watch again. He did not mobilize people to counter the so-called men of the days of rage. He demobilized the citizenry. No need for grenades on the street. He executed a charm offensive and lobbed bombs of dove. He was a parody of Christ who said, in the world, you have tribulation. But peace I live with you. What we saw on the streets were fragments of the city, disgruntled young men, one of whom was asking the Tinubu government not to give loans to students. He wanted grants. He belongs to the ilk who we must tag “aje butter by fiat.” A poor man who wants to be a rich student. Ask anywhere where people get scholarship on the cheap. Like in the Olympics, you must excel before you exhale with the prize.

    Read Also: Hunger protest: North tolerated too much poverty, corruption – Shettima

    They bayed for blood. The BOS of Lagos forbade the Abiku syndrome. They were not, like the #EndSars imbrogolio, going to proclaim themselves like in Soyinka’s poem when the elusive character snorted: “I am Abiku, calling for the first and repeated time.” The BOS of Lagos saw that they were looming on the street trying to breach his pavement, or as Soyinka puts it, “I’ll be the/ suppliant snake coiled on the doorstep/Yours the killing cry.” For the BOS of Lagos, J.P. Clark’s Abiku rendition will do as the bard croons, “Do stay out on the baobab tree…if indoors is not enough for you.” Many heard and stayed indoors and carnage was set at bay.

    So, Abiku has a political resonance, as we saw last week when the group only saw the stirrings of an imbroglio up north to understand that it had careened out of their hands just as this essayist warned. They could not guarantee safety. Ben Okri’s Famished Road made the Abiku into a sanguine spirit who would not foment a cycle of tragedy, his Azaro loving their parents too much to let affliction fall on the family a second time. It was a testament to BOS leadership. He did not stop the freedom of expression, but he triumphed over the blood spill. He was not like Metternich, the Austrian despot that poet Lord Byron mocked with the following lines, “He had no objection to true liberty except that it would set them free.” The BOS would rather go with Cicero who wrote, “to stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.”

    As we say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. He averted shame in our iconic city.

  • Interrogating Nigeria’s UK travel advisory

    Interrogating Nigeria’s UK travel advisory

    It does appear we are in a season of travel warning alerts. This time, it is not just the usual case of one advanced country or the other warning their citizens of the danger travelling or visiting certain areas of interest in developing countries. Neither is the heightened frequency propelled by the developmental disparities that regulate relations between the advanced and developing nations. But one thing central to all these, has been the metastasising insecurity across the world in recent times.

    Events seem to be turning the table in seemingly unexpected directions. Countries hitherto considered largely immune to the social and political upheavals that compel these alerts are suddenly and ironically, finding themselves at the receiving end.

    Nothing bears this out most poignantly than the violent anti-immigration unrest in the United Kingdom, UK. Violent riots and unrest broke out in Southport, northwest England following a knife attack at a children’s dance class resulting to the death of three girls and injuring of 10 others. The incident sparked off wide protests arising in the main, from misinformation that the attacker was an immigrant and radical Muslim.

    These sentiments spurred anti-immigration violent attacks on at least, two hotels housing asylum seekers. But, the violence quickly spread to more than 10 cities leading to looting and confrontation with security agencies.

    The police was later to confirm that the suspect was born in Britain and his case is not being profiled as that of a terrorist.

    That was after the harm had been done. The UK security agencies had a daunting challenge containing the orgy of lawlessness from the violent unrest.

    In the wake of the violence, Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and India issued travel warnings to their citizens living in or intending to travel to the UK. That may be the first time in recent times that these countries issued such advisories warning their citizens of danger in the UK. Of particular interest was the travel alert by the Nigerian government to its citizens residing in the UK.

    The statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs read: “there is an increased risk of violence and disorder occasioned by recent riots in the UK, stemming from the killing of three young girls at a concert. The violence has assumed dangerous proportions as evidenced by reported attacks on law enforcement agents and damage to infrastructure”.

    Read Also: NAF strikes destroy 13 illegal refineries, 10 overhead tanks in Rivers

    Nigerians living or intending to travel to that country were advised to be extra vigilant, avoid political processions and rallies, crowded areas and gatherings. Generally, travel advisories are official warning statements by government agencies providing information on the relative safety of travelling to or visiting one or more specific countries or destinations.

    The objective is to aid travellers make informed decisions on their proposed travel plans so as to prepare adequately for any eventualities. These may relate to potential threats as inclement weather, security, civil/political unrest or epidemic.

    Apparently, because of the wide disparities in developmental levels among nations, our experience here has been in the form of such advisories regularly and disproportionately coming from the advanced nations forewarning their citizens on what awaits them in the more volatile and insecure developing countries.

     Not unexpectedly, the frequency of the warning alerts and their tone has often led to official rebuttal from some of the developing countries. Nigeria has featured prominently in this regard. 

    In the last few years of multi-dimensional insecurity, Nigeria has been at the receiving end of all manner of travel advisories forewarning foreigners on the dangers they face living or visiting the country. During the last administration, the alerts came too often, sometimes with questionable evidence prompting the government to raise eyebrows.

    One of such was the updated advisory by the US government in 2022 authorising the evacuation of its “non-emergency’ employees from Abuja “due to heightened risk of terrorist attacks”. This did not go down well with the Nigerian authorities.

    The then Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed had faulted the advisory arguing on the contrary that the country was safe. He contended that every country has its own security challenge.

    “Look how many school shootings happen in the US? How many senseless killings happen in the US? So have they been able to predict what’s going to happen next”, the former minister slammed back at the US authorities. That was not the only instance the former regime picked holes with travel alerts from the US and UK.

    And just in November last year, the current regime had cause to take serious exceptions to a security advisory by the US warning its citizens of serious threats to major hotels in Nigeria. “The US government is aware of credible information that there is an elevated threat to major hotels in Nigeria’s major cities”, the statement read.

    Though the US noted that security agencies were working diligently to counter the threats, they proceeded to warn their citizens to be vigilant at major hotels, be alert to their surroundings and review travel plans to Nigeria before checking into any hotel.  

    Again, the Nigerian authorities did not take kindly to this advisory faulting it for hasty generalisation. “What we have seen is that such advisories do not achieve anything other than needless panic and they can have severe adverse economic impact, not to talk of what they do to undermine the government’s efforts to attract investments”, Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information had said.

    Given these, recent advisory by the Nigerian government warning her citizens of possible dangers visiting the UK cannot escape interrogation. For one, the warning seems to align with the arguments of Lai Mohammed that every country has her own fair share of insecurity. The violent unrest in the UK, illustrates that point clearly.  

    And for another, the alert questions the previous position of Mohammed Idris who had argued that such advisories achieve nothing rather create panic, act as disincentive to foreign investments with adverse economic consequences. How do we now situate such contention in view of the recent alert by the federal government to its citizens in the UK? Will the advisory not produce the same touted outcomes? That is the contradiction.

    Ironically, as Nigeria was issuing the advisory, it also had the hunger protests that led to loss of lives and destruction of properties to contend with.

    Or was the alert just issued to get even with our former colonial masters to drive home the point that the insecurity propelling travel warnings is neither limited by boundaries nor developmental disparities?

    The argument that travel alerts do not achieve anything except to create panic and stifle investments is largely flawed. It did not only contradict the principles behind such alerts, but makes it more difficult for Nigeria to justify its current position in respect of the violence in the UK. Nigeria is entitled to her position. But does our national environment enjoy the stability to tilt the balance of travel alerts in our favour going forward?

    There are lessons in there both for the UK and Nigeria. And the authorities in the UK have been reassuring residents of their safety irrespective of religion, ethnic or other primordial considerations.

    At issue is the mortal dangers disinformation and the fanning of sentiments of ethnic and religious hue could wrought on societal wellbeing. Such sentiments have since the last elections resonated to dimensions that threaten the corporate existence of this country. The tendency has to be watched especially given its new dimension.

    The government may have found an opportunity to pay back the UK in their own coins given the seeming indecent haste they relish in such alerts. But that is not all there is to it.

    For a country assailed by assortment of security and existential challenges driving its citizens into the desperation of seeking greener pastures in foreign lands under any guise, such alerts pale into insignificance.

     Many of our citizens residing outside our shores or seeking to do so, prefer any condition (including the violence in the UK) to the uncertainties of staying back home. That is the uncanny irony. So such alerts add up to nothing until the home front is re-engineered, secured and developed to serve the greatest good of the greatest number of our suffering people.

  • Faceless terrorism convicts

    Faceless terrorism convicts

    Update on Nigeria’s reported prosecution of terrorism-related suspects further exposed serious minuses in the fight against terrorism-related crime in the country and punishment of perpetrators.

    The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Communication & Publicity, office of the AGF, Kamarudeen Ogundele, said: “The courts convicted 85 persons for terrorism financing, 22 for International Criminal Court (ICC) related crimes while others were convicted for terrorism. They were sentenced to various jail terms.”

    According to the AGF, the trials were held on July 23 and 24, under Giwa Project Kanji Phase Five, before five Federal High Court judges led by Justice Binta Nyako, including Justices Joyce Abdulmalik, Emeka Nwite, Obiora Egwuatu, and Mobolaji Olajuwon. The trials were said to have been observed by the National Human Rights Commission, the Nigerian Bar Association, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, among others.

    In November 2023, Fagbemi had said efforts were on to resume the trial of those categories of people. The latest information on the prosecution and punishment of those involved came about eight months after his announcement at the 40th Technical Commission/Plenary Meeting of the Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), in Abuja. GIABA is an organ of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), responsible for facilitating the adoption and implementation of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT) strategies in West Africa.

    It is, obviously, never enough to make such an announcement. Failure to arrest, prosecute and punish terrorism enablers cannot encourage public confidence in the fight against terrorism. Ironically, it even suggests that the authorities are enabling terrorism.

     A major minus in the country’s fight against terrorism is the unjustifiable delay in prosecuting arrested suspects. Clearly, terrorism sponsors fuel the activities of terrorists, and disabling them is as important as crippling terrorists. Terrorism financiers and terrorists should not only be identified but arrested and prosecuted without delay. Failure to do so amounts to enabling terrorism.

    For instance, in April 2021, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration announced that it had arrested 400 alleged Boko Haram sponsors. The claimed arrests suggested a new level of seriousness in the fight against terrorism.

    The arrested alleged financiers of the Islamic terrorist group were said to be businessmen, including bureau de change operators. They were said to have been arrested in Kano, Borno, Lagos, Sokoto, Adamawa, Kaduna and Zamfara states, and Abuja.

    The arrests were said to have been carried out following investigations involving the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Department of State Services (DSS), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    The unnamed suspects were expected to be prosecuted without delay.  There was no evidence that they were prosecuted before Buhari left office in May 2023. Is that how to fight terrorism? 

    Also, in 2022, army authorities in charge of the Northeast Joint Operation announced that “A total of 886 detainees are awaiting transfer to Giwa Project in Kainji for prosecution.” The Giwa Project is in Kainji, Niger State. They said there were 1,893 suspects in custody at the Giwa Centre. There was no evidence of prosecution. Without prosecution, how can it be proved that arrested terrorism suspects are guilty and deserve to be punished?  Can deterrent effect be achieved without punishing the guilty?

    Read Also: Protests: Police blast Amnesty over inaccurate casualty figures

    The Terrorism (Prohibition and Prevention) bill, 2022 signed into law by ex-president Buhari, stipulates a range of sanctions, including life imprisonment and death sentence, for anyone convicted of terrorism-related activity.

    The legislation, which came after previous ones in 2011 and 2013, sought to “provide for an effective, unified and comprehensive legal, regulatory and institutional framework for the detection, prevention, prohibition, prosecution and punishment of acts of terrorism, terrorism financing, proliferation and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Nigeria; and for related matters.”

    Fighting terrorism and its sponsors demands prosecution of arrested suspects based on existing law, without which stipulated sanctions cannot be applied. There are available lessons on how to fight terrorism effectively. The question is whether the country’s authorities are teachable.

     For instance, in 2021, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added the names of six Nigerians to “the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons… for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Boko Haram.”

    It accused the Nigeria-based terrorist group of “numerous attacks in the northern and northeastern regions of the country as well as in the Lake Chad Basin in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger that have killed thousands of people since 2009.”

    The six Nigerians were: Abdurrahman Ado Musa, Salihu Yusuf Adamu, Bashir Ali Yusuf, Muhammed Ibrahim Isa, Ibrahim Ali Alhassan, and Surajo Abubakar Muhammad. 

    The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Federal Court of Appeals in Abu Dhabi had convicted them of transferring $782,000 from Dubai to Boko Haram in Nigeria.  Adamu and Muhammad were sentenced to life imprisonment for violations of UAE anti-terrorism laws; Musa, Yusuf, Isa and Alhassan were sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by deportation.

    The US sanction against them, the agency said in a statement, “will prevent these individuals’ funds from being used further to support terrorism.”

    In these cases, in the US and in UAE, the identified Nigerian terrorism sponsors were not only named; their names were also publicised. In Nigeria, terrorism enablers and terrorists reported to have been arrested, or even prosecuted, are usually faceless because their identities are unpublicised.

    The identities of the 85 persons said to have been recently convicted of terrorism financing in the country, for instance, are not in the public domain. If they are real persons, why are they publicly unnamed? Not naming them may well suggest that the authorities are trying to hide something. Or, to be charitable, it does not make the authorities believable. 

    The facelessness of suspects arrested and prosecuted for terrorism-related crimes, which is a result of the government’s silence, is another major minus in the country’s fight against terrorism.

  • Two states

    Two states

    Governor Abba Yusuf is a farce born in Government House in Kano. Before him a man named Barkin Zuwo anointed stealing government money so long as you kept “government money in government house.” Another governor thought Zuwo too local, so he internationalised the tradition. To internationalise is to dollarize. The governor loaded dollar bundle after greenback bundle into his babaringa on the right and left pockets and he might have lamented there were no more pockets and that one could only wear one babaringa at a time. He performed it before anyone saw him. It might have been poor theatre if the whole world didn’t see him since it was a great act because he was not acting. Thanks to an unkind camera man, it was a reality show surpassing the prurient routine of Big Brother Naija. This big brother governor even afforded us the charity worthy of immortality for having his name changed for posterity to signpost that moment of pecuniary extravagance.

    Governor Yusuf opted to be original. If both dramatic predecessors performed inside the government house, his had to be a public theatre. Since he is no hypocrite, he would do his acts for all to see. His first name was Bulldozer, when he didn’t see any building he would not raze down. You could not say his name without hearing a crane roar on a street near you. Then he became a monarchist or anti-monarchist, he would accept whichever you call. If a monarchist, because he thought he was saving the throne. An anti-monarchist because he was flushing out an impostor. Interesting none of these governors ever evoke their ancestor Aminu Kano because they love Aminu’s talakawa but not his ideology. They are reaping where they cannot sow.

    So we saw it last week as Yusuf wanted to pretend to be a democrat and lover of free expression. He urged his people to go to the streets and protest, and even promised to receive and congratulate them in government House. That house again? Except that, true to his style of staying in public, that incident never happened. Rather the streets burned, and hecklers and fighters replaced the so-called peaceful protest. He became a metaphor of the elite, especially in the north, who encouraged anarchy by stealth. A staff of this newspaper was robbed dry, but happily escaped with his life. The same who asked them to protest is now cleaning up after them. Vandals.

    The protests, especially in the north, showcased two types of leaders. Those who have turned a disgruntled feeling into a revenge and those who saw through the chicanery. In states like Borno, Yobe and Gombe, we saw political elites who did nothing as their states erupted into chaos. And we saw Kaduna under Governor Uba Sani contain the rabble . The potentially most volatile state in the north was tranquil, and the others – other than Borno – went berserk. Yet we must admit, in spite of the furore, that the north was quiet for most parts. No chaos in Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, Adamawa. Niger State was unfortunate in spite of Bago’s efforts. Evil sometimes must have its way. My tears for the dead.

    The infamy goes to those who wanted violence but hid under a democratic ethos. Last week I warned the so-called take it Back leaders if they could guarantee peace. They couldn’t. Reports reaching this essayist show that some highfliers in politics and business who fattened on the loose system of official brigandage and corruption feel alienated. They saw their opportunity with this protest.

    Governor Sani said last week that in the north there are so many of them who had bloodlust against the Tinubu administration. His state was a target but they were disappointed. They did some harm, but minimal by comparison to their fantasy of insurrection. Two groups wanted to bring down the state as the most pivotal in the north. One was a group led by an angry fellow who lost out and is being hunted. The other isthe Shiite Group. These two were kindred spirits who wanted to mow down the state. Another group belonging to Sowore were anticipated by the security forces ahead of the day, it was neutered. What was left were miscreants, as the Kaduna State Governor described them.

    Read Also: Tinubu: Govt won’t allow those with clear political agenda tear nation apart

    Who would not believe him should consider the following. Some boys moved past an intersection near former President Muhammadu Buhari’s home in Daura and asked the soldiers to come back to power. Now, what does a 10-year-old or 16-year-old who was not born when the army was in power and who cannot utter an English word known  about military rule? Nothing. It shows that they were sponsored, and whoever sponsored them is very naïve, and lacks tact and subtlety. They youth without guidance and thought. As novelist Anthony Burgess writes, “Youths think themselves wise as drunk men think themselves sober.”

    It is obvious that we have an indolent group who have lost power and who can no longer wield influence because of the subsidy removal, collapse of exchange rates and their inability to manipulate the president. They hated him before he became president and the malice deepens. These people ought to be investigated and made to face the law. They are happy in their ominous languor and believe they hurt the government because no reckoning is afoot. The president last year hinted at corruption fighting back and smugglers and rent seekers . Nothing serious has been done to pursue this even as we have seen the effect in the economy and social fabric. Laying down and allow them  to fester betokens danger for this republic. They are the Samsons who would pull down the nation with them. Unlike Samson, though, they have their resources outside the country with their families. The talakawas will suffer as their foot soldiers. These are the vermin and parasites in high places.

    Nor shall we say some of the problems are not self-inflicted. Some of the ministers in late hours began to call for calm. But as this essayist wrote last week, the ministers and agency heads owe President Tinubu the responsibility as his messengers and evangelists. For instance, what has the agriculture minister done to track and let us know who is getting the truckloads of rice? Where are they? Do they have names? How did it affect their communities? It is just inefficiency and official imbecility. Enemies exploit this. It is a factor of the digital age, and we are seeing this in Britain after the Southport knifing tragedy when a 17-year-old killed three children. Rightwing forces, including UKIP leader Nigel Farage, sparked violent protests when they spread false news and gave the guy an Arab name, and tagged the incident a terrorist act, whereas the culprit is from Rwanda, a predominantly Christian country. Information in this age is too important to be left to a spokesman and information minister alone. We cannot rely on one-off press releases and occasional television cameos. As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

    So, Governor Sani’s caution should be heeded and the Tinubu government, for its own sake and nation’s, should confront the bacilli in high places.                       

  • Free for all

    Free for all

    The so-called #Endbadgovernance protests were a great example of freedom of expression. Just as philosopher Isaiah Berlin argued, everyone tries to be  free to express themselves just as a rapist tries his libido on a fragile nubile, a terrorist on a free-standing building, a robber who stopped The Nation Staff during the protest in Kano and denuded him of all his money. Isn’t free expression a democratic canon, or is it cannon? is it not freedom of expression that made a group not to identify itself, its stakeholders and its source of funding when it names itself Take It Back Movement? Freedom to be opaque, not to be accountable. One of them led a presidential campaign in freedom and expressed his freedom not to account for how he spent their money. Is hypocrisy not a cardinal part of freedom of expression? You can call for Revolution Now, and the revelation is that it is revolution without accountability. They expressed themselves freely when they promised it was going to be peaceful. They were free to lie that no hoodlum would have a field day. Which meant they were free to loot, maim, and the organisers did not care much of another freedom: freedom to be maimed and freedom to die. Pity! They were free to block traffic in Lagos, defy court order in Abuja or detonate an IED in Maiduguri. No innocent citizen had a freedom of expression to drive or move freely, because protesters had a better freedom. Freedom for one and not for another. An Orwellian freedom. Freedom of course comes in hierarchies. Never mind Machiavelli when he said when everyone is free no one is free. The Italian, after all, said the end justifies the means. We saw that last week when they torched tyres and inflamed government buildings. With their tongues, some of them said they wanted the army back.

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    They were wise children of 16 years and younger who were free not to know that they did not know what it was to experience army rule. Maybe they knew. They were in the spirit realm before they were born, some of them born when Yar Adua was president who was joining them in the spirit realm. Some during Jonathan and a few during Obj. They were free to be ignorant. A governor like Abba Yusuf or Habba Yusuf was free to ask them to protest and free to spend government money to issue contract to restore places that were damaged. More security vote to spend after declaring curfew. What a way to spend money and be free. Free to think about what to spend the money on. After all, Henry James wrote, “ I call people rich who can meet the requirements of their imaginations.” What a time to imagine what to do with security vote. Nobel winner Garcia Marquez urged, “freedom to the imagination.” Freedom to Yusuf and cohorts. In Osun, the protesters were free to attack Tinubu but when someone mounted a podium and attacked Adeleke, the crowd exercised its freedom to yank the mic from his hand, and it was because the opposition was free to organize the protests and disguise it and pretend it was only because of hunger pangs on the streets.

  • NIN for foreigners

    NIN for foreigners

    The senate recently passed for a second reading, a bill which seeks to allow all persons residing in Nigeria, the right to obtain the National Identity Number NIN. But the move failed to take into account the guiding principles for the issuance of such identity numbers across the world. 

    Titled, “National Identity Management Commission (Repeal and enactment) Bill 2024 (SB.472), the amendment seeks to “expand the scope of registrable persons by broadening the eligibility criteria for registration under the Nigerian ID system to ensure inclusivity and universal coverage”. If it scales through, the bill will allow all persons resident in Nigeria to obtain the NIN and utilise it as a recognised form of identification.

    When its sponsor, deputy senate president, Barau Jibrin tabled his lead arguments, his colleagues shared his views after which the bill was passed for a second reading. Nobody saw anything wrong with some of the clauses in the bill. Neither was any objection raised on inherent loopholes that may render the whole essence of NIN registration worthless.

    Specifically, part V1(17) of the bill provides that, “Every citizen and resident of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be entitled to obtain the National Identification Number by undergoing the process of enrolment in accordance with the Act”.

     Part V1 (18) further complicated matters when it stated that “the commission shall take special measures to enrol, and issue National Identification Numbers to such persons who do not have any permanent place of residence and such other categories of individuals as may be specified by regulations”.

    These clauses are utterly at variance with section 16 of the NIMC Act No.23 of 2007 which defined registrable persons as Nigerian citizens, permanent residents and foreigners legally resident in the country for a period of two years or more. The clash of the two clauses with the stipulations of the Act establishing the NIMC on those qualified for registration raises suspicion on the real motive the bill is meant to serve. A cloud of doubt now surrounds the real intent of that amendment bill.

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    A piece of legislation that throws open the doors of this country to all manners of residents to obtain the NIN is an open invitation to anarchy. Curiously, the senate would also want the NIN to serve as national identity. That amounts to a contradiction of sorts.

     Why issue national identity numbers to people with no legal status to stay in the country?  How national is an identity number that does not discriminate between citizens; those legally permitted to reside in the country on the one hand and illegal immigrants on the other? It would seem that piece of legislation was either put together in a hurry or meant to serve some hidden agenda.

    It will entail the issuance of the NIN to just any person who finds himself within the shores of this country. No country does that. It remains to be imagined why Jibrin thinks unrestrained access to the NIN by all manner of persons will best serve our national interest especially now.

    The absurdity of the two clauses is further illustrated by the provision requiring NIMC to issue NIN to people who do not have any permanent place of residence in the country. That would entail arming people with no fixed addresses with the NIN. Really?

     It is either such people are ghosts, live inside the forests or some other obscure criminal hideouts. Every law abiding citizen or foreigner should have a place of residence to be identified with. A country grappling with multidimensional insecurity that has stretched the energies of the security agencies to elastic limits, can only allow that at its peril.

    Within the last decade or so, Nigeria has come to confront the insurgency of the Boko Haram and ISWAP, an arm of IS. It is also at battle with the terrorism of the herdsmen, constantly placed at the doorsteps of foreign herders from the Sahel region.

    The arms and ammunitions used in these terrorists’ onslaughts are usually blamed on the influx of foreign nationals aided by the porosity of our borders. There is also the phenomenon of banditry which has become difficult to separate from the terrorism of the herdsmen or Boko Haram insurgency. These are extant debilitating challenges to national security. This reality should inform strict adherence to NIN registration ensuring that only people allowed residence by the laws establishing the NIMC get registered.

    Unfortunately, that is not the signals we get from the proposed amendment to the NIMC Act of 2007. The amendment bill in part, seeks to throw open access to NIN registration to people who have no business with that piece of document. And if one may ask, of what value is the proposal to empower all residents including the illegal ones; ones that have no identifiable places of abode with the NIN? Does such a measure not amount to a clear invitation to danger?

    These questions are raised because of the peculiar place of the country within the sub-region. Nigeria shares borders with other African countries. It does not only share cultural affinity and language with these neighbours, there are common traces of family and blood relationships across borders. There is high level of mobility and influx of people from these countries into our shores. The large size of the country and the economic advantages it offers, make it attractive to its neighbours.

    The scenario is bound to be catastrophic when every, and, anybody that finds his way into the shores of this country is easily armed with the NIN. Then also, the NIN would have become a worthless piece of document. That is the manifest danger thrown up by sections of the bill that recommend unrestrained access to NIN registration by foreigners.

    Those contentious clauses miserably mock the general rules guiding the establishment of National Identification Numbers or Social Security numbers. According to Wikipedia, a national identity number, or national insurance number is issued by the governments of many countries as a means of tracking their citizens, permanent residents and temporary residents for the purposes of work, taxation governments benefits etc.

    In the United States of America US, the Social Security Number (SSN) is a nine- digit number issued to its citizens, permanent residents and temporary (working) residents. It identifies individuals for the purpose of social security but it is now used to track individuals for taxation. It is also required for the opening of bank accounts and applying for drivers’ licence. The SSN has become a de facto national identification number despite the fact that it was not originally meant for that purpose.

    There is no legal requirement in the United Kingdom, UK to obtain or carry any identification document. But some form of identification is required for many things like renting an apartment. A national insurance number is used to administer state benefits.

    South African national identity card is known as a Smart ID Card. It is issued to South African citizens or permanent residence permit holders who are 16 years or older. People, including spouses and children who are working for the South African government or one of its statutory bodies outside South Africa also qualify to receive that country’s identity document.

    In effect, the general principle is for national identification numbers to be issued to citizens, permanent resident permit holders and others legally permitted to reside within a country. The senate will be hard put to show evidence of countries that issue national identity numbers just to any foreigner who happens to set foot within their shores.  

    Even then, what is the urgency in amending the Act setting up the NIMC especially when the proposed amendment deviates substantially from the norms guiding the issuance of national identity numbers? For a country contending with existential socio-economic and security challenges, the least expected of its lawmakers is the enactment of legislations with prospects of drifting the county further to the precipice.

    The amendment bill should not be allowed to see the light of the day. Not only does it deviate from the standard norms guiding the issuance of national identity numbers, it is loaded with frightening prospects of compromising the security of this country.

    It will be counterproductive to issue the NIN to the band of marauders, terrorists and faceless foreign criminals taking advantage of the forests to levy war on the rest of us. People living within our shores without traceable places of residence or addresses should be profiled for what they are-security risks.

  • Between protest and insurrection

    Between protest and insurrection

    Some of them are coming out of the woodwork. For instance, Ebun Adegboruwa has written to the IGP on behalf of a shadowy group, Take it back Movement. The other guy nestling in the United States, Sowore, swore from the comfort of his precinct. Adegboruwa wants the protest. He wants it so bad because of an injured ego. He is hurting, and has been hurting for a long time, especially after his own EndSars debacle when he saw shadows and called them deaths, and he wanted to turn apocrypha into fact, and he loathes the fact that he has been in silence ever since.

    So, for him and others like him, it is about revenge. He is trying to pose, just like Sowore who swore, that they are the real organisers. They are opportunists trying to be the face of an anonymous rabble squirming in the social media, most of them outside the country and hustling in the underside and nether class of western societies and some African countries. Adegboruwa should tell us if Take It Back Movement is legal, and who are the people behind it? What has happened to their bank account? Is it still frozen? Who funded it during the EndSars and who is funding it now? One call for freedom of expression demands another.  We need to know. This is the quid pro quo of democracy. That movement does not bode well for sanity on the streets.

    Men like Adegboruwa and Sowore are also naïve because they think they own a good measure of the threats we see on the internet. They see their own part as constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression. If they are clever enough to know that most of the triggers are anarchists, then they may serve as conscious decoys. This makes them lawful citizens while providing an atmosphere for a tranquil protest to fall into the hands of hoodlums.

    Hence, the IGP needs to extract a guarantee from him and his group that their so-called protests will not careen into chaos. Of course, he cannot guarantee. Endsars began in innocence and ended as tragedy. The IGP also should investigate Take it Back Movement, and go back to its history.

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    We are still suffering the scars today, especially those of us who reside in Lagos. We don’t want that again. As Marcus Cicero wrote, “To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.” Go to Oyingbo and see the many buses now prostrate. Ask the police officer whose eyes were gouged. Ask TVC who has not reclaimed their torched newsroom. Ask investors who have limped out of business. Ask any of the EndSars organisers if they anticipated a fellow now in detention would be bullying his men to burn down the zoo, which he calls Lagos. So, let us not pretend we don’t know how these unfold.

    Because I called the organisers cowards for being faceless, men like Sowore swore and Adegboruwa roared to validate a seething mob. Adegboruwa, as a lawyer and sometimes brilliant SAN, knows the difference between what is constitutional and what is subversion. Let him address the demands, like the call for the end of the 1999 constitution, if that is not anarchy. Or the #endtinubu, if that is not a potential death knell of the Fourth Republic. Many of the protesters are not angry about hunger but have hunger for another nourishment: anarchy.

    There is a protest and there is an insurrection. Both are not necessarily the same. What happened on January 6 in Washington was not a protest but an insurrection. The widespread use of the term misses the tenor and intent of the organisers. January 6 started as a protest but exploded into an insurrection with wild men gunning for the head of the vice president and speaker of the House of Representatives. Before that, Donald Trump fired out his damnable rhetoric: “fight like hell.” And the rabble obeyed.

    People forget that a fragile democracy bears the fruits of its own suicide. History has shown that democracies have destroyed themselves, dating back to the Ancient Greece. In north Africa, an election overthrew a democracy. Before that, we witnessed it in the 20th century in Spain, Italy and Germany. Hitler was elected and galvanized it into a totalitarian sweep dissected and lamented by Hannah Arendt in her great tome, The Origins of Totalitarianism, voted by some of 20th century’s best work.

    Protests have done good for the world, even in societies weighted down by tyrannies. It was protest that brought democracies to many societies, that led to women suffrage, gave us Luther King Jnr and his fight for black equality. We see Luther’s efforts even now in the Olympics, like Simon Biles exploits and acclaim, that led the world to recognise Soyinka’s genius and reward him with the world’s top prize, that emboldened Ghandi to flush out the British in spite of Churchill’s ache.

    Many who call revolution ought to know that revolutions, especially of the sudden types have done the world no good from the beginning of time. The best societies are those that thrive on incremental reforms. The French Revolution started with all the great eclat and fortitude of youth. Even poet Wordsworth from England crooned, “Bliss it was that dawn to be alive/ to be young was very heaven.” Heaven was the last thing on their minds when slaughter and the guillotine swept the French capital. As great conservative Edmund Burke predicted, a despot would take over, and pin-sized soldier named Napoleon bestrode not only France but the whole of Europe with his authoritarian ethos. Russian Revolution sterilized the country and several others for generations until the epiphany of Gorbachev. It made the soviet empire a first-class military but a third world economy. Cuba had theirs with Castro but the country still wobbles in the twilight of the 1960’s. Perhaps the most telling was the year 1848 when across Europe boiled with revolutions, especially against monarchies. All of them failed. An observer remarked that it was a “turning point that did not turn.” It was an anticlimax for liberal minds. They wrought destructions but no progress. Such revolutions lead countries to start over and re-enact as, Hegel feared, the class conflicts that ignited that battle in the first place. It is like Shakespeare’s play, All Labour’s lost. What we see is that specialists become madmen and madmen become specialists, apologies to Wole Soyinka. In that play, Madmen and Specialists, Soyinka warns against the self-congratulations of men and cliques who mistake their views for the views of everyone and seize their rights by pretending to act on their behalf.

    In Britain, 1848 only witnessed mild protests. Yet, as Fareed Zakaria writes in his perceptive new book, Age of Revolutions, Britain remains a model for all nations as a democracy without revolutions. It learned from the years of Cromwell and the savageries of the beheadings that led to wars and no progress. When it chose reforms, it saw progress and it has enjoyed this since the 1680’s.

    I have no objection to protests. After all, countries like Spain, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Austria learned from 1848 that if they had protests and not revolutions, they could have grown to the same perch with Britain.

    The problem with the moment is that a section of the opposition has little value for democracy and would elevate malice over peace. The Adegboruwas concern us but only to the extent that they want to give, by default or willfulness, a gloss of legitimacy to imbecilities in the name of protests. We can parade ourselves as urbane but capsize our urban areas. We cannot be in bed with goons but breed bedlam.

    If you want to overthrow a democracy, does that make you a democrat? If you say #Endbadgovernance, it is fair enough. You can end bad governance by calling for specific rights and amends. But when it involves throwing out the constitution, then it is not protest but subversion. When you say #EndTinubu, you are calling for the overthrow of democracy that some so-called Obidients did when they yelled for the army. They are the Samsons of this era who would pull down the house with them.

    Yet, the Tinubu administration must learn some lessons. The season is not all negative. The pains of the moment can yield good in the end. As Samuel Johnson noted, “the equity of providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.”

    One, if President Bola Tinubu’s message of reforms is not getting through, it is for two reasons. First, that there are persons who are incorrigible. Like Paul said, “if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.” Nothing to do about that. The second is that some of his storytellers, especially the ministers and department heads, are mute and acting like mere bureaucrats while they should serve as the evangelists of Tinubu’s policies. Most of them are failing and partly responsible for the gulf between policy and appreciation.

    Two, the grassroots policies like student loans credit schemes and local government reforms should be calibrated with transparency. Day by day reports of benefits and beneficiaries ought to be in the eyes and ears of the people.

    The fight for freedom is not piecemeal, it is a sustained struggle. As Russian writer Maxim Gorky wrote, “the only people who deserve freedom are those who are prepared to fight for it every day.”

    We are a feisty society, and we cannot be governed by being blasé about what we are doing. I expect the whole so-called protests thing to be an anticlimax, but vigilance is the biggest asset the government needs to make it so.

  • Kidnaps and silences

    Kidnaps and silences

    Oddly, the two kidnapped Nigerian journalists who regained their freedom after a week in captivity said nothing publicly about the identities of their abductors, and their experience as abductees.  

    Their silence was striking because freed abductees usually had stories to tell about their abductors, and their ordeal in captivity. As journalists, they were, perhaps understandably, expected to provide insight into the incident. 

    Suspected bandits abducted Abdulgafar Alabelewe of The Nation and AbdulRaheem Aodu of Blueprint from their homes in Kaduna, on July 7.  Alabelewe is the chairman of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna State Council. Reports said his wife and two of his children were also kidnapped in that incident. 

     A statement by Rabiu Ibrahim, Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, quoted Alabelewe as saying “I never thought that within a week of our kidnap, we could get out. We are grateful that the government swung into action and ensured that we were released.” The question is: What happened within that week?

    When the minister received the two journalists from the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, he observed that “The security agencies under the coordination of the NSA are working tirelessly to ensure that all those who have been taken into unlawful custody are freed without paying any ransom.” The NSA was reported saying the victims were rescued following a search and rescue operation by security agencies.

    Curiously, neither the minister nor the NSA said anything about those who kidnapped the journalists.  Also, they gave no information about how the so-called rescue operation was carried out.

     To say the victims were “rescued” suggests that they were taken from their abductors. If that was the case, what happened to the abductors?  A rescue suggests physical action on the part of the rescuers.  If the abductors released the captives, possibly after the payment of ransom, that can’t be described as a rescue.

    It’s a familiar picture. In March, for instance, the schoolchildren abducted from LEA Primary School and Government Secondary School, Kuriga, Kaduna State, regained their freedom after more than two weeks in captivity. The authorities said nothing about the kidnappers.

    Initially, 287 schoolchildren were said to have been taken away by kidnappers.  But the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 1 Division of the Nigerian Army, Maj. Gen. Mayirenso Saraso, who handed the freed children over to Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, on March 25, said “there were 137 children and one staff member, making 138 persons altogether that were abducted from the co-located schools.” According to him, the abducted schoolchildren were 76 females and 61 males, “making the total of 137.” Sadly, he said the kidnapped teacher died in captivity.

    He also said the abducted Kuriga schoolchildren were “safely rescued,” adding that “it was through the sustained and coordinated application of both kinetic and non-kinetic efforts by the security agencies under the strategic guidance of…President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, through the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).”

    Governor Sani was reported saying, “What is more important today is that our children are back home. Most of those permutations are not necessary. If your child is kidnapped, will you be sitting down and talking about how he was released? For me, what is more important is that those children are back home.”  But it was also important to clarify how the Kuriga abductees became free.  That never happened. 

    The Federal Government is opposed to ransom payment, and insisted that ransom was not paid in that case. Idris asserted that the official position was that “ransom will not be tolerated. Ransom will not be encouraged; ransom will not be paid by the government.” He said the country’s security agencies would not reveal “their modus operandi,” adding that they were “evolving new strategies of getting out these criminal elements and ensuring that our children or anybody who is kidnapped for that matter, is brought back safely.”

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    In January, two conflicting accounts further highlighted the question of ransom payment to kidnappers in Nigeria, and the question of rescue of kidnappees in the country. These issues came up yet again following the kidnapping of 23 persons, including five daughters and a niece of a civil servant, Mansur Al-Kadriyar, on January 2, in the Bwari area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). 

    Bandits who invaded Al-Kadriyar’s residence, and abducted him and the girls, got away after an exchange of gunfire with the police. They later released him to look for money to get the girls released. They demanded N60m ransom. Impatient to receive the money, they killed one of the girls after about two weeks in captivity, and threatened to kill the others too if the ransom was not paid. The girl’s killing gave a troubling insight into the murderous desperation that drives desperadoes who kidnap for ransom. She was Nabeeha, 21, a final -year Biological Science student at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

    News of the girls’ ordeal on social media triggered a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for their release. The move to raise funds for ransom payment from the public through an online platform was unusual in the history of kidnapping in the country. The pathetic story of the Al-Kadriyar girls encouraged the option.

    After the girls regained their freedom, the police gave the impression that ransom payment did not happen, attributing it to “a concerted effort” involving the Federal Capital Territory Police Command Anti-Kidnapping Squad and the Nigerian Army. “The operatives successfully rescued the victims around Kajuru forest in Kaduna State at about 11:30 pm on Saturday, January 20, 2024,” the police said in a statement.

    But it turned out that the police had misrepresented what happened. The girls’ uncle, Abbas Al-Kadriyar, was reported saying, “We paid a ransom for the release of our girls. A ransom was paid, and the police were not involved.” His account: “The children called me, and I went to pick them up… The children were not rescued by anyone, the soldiers only assisted me in locating where they were and they provided cover for us.”

    The police did not discredit this account from the Al-Kadriyar family.  Ransom payment by the family to get the girls freed contradicted the claim by the police that they were rescued from the kidnappers. Sadly, the bandits had killed four abductees, including Nabeeha, before 19 others regained freedom. It was unclear whether others also paid ransom, apart from the girls.

    The case of the two journalists remains remarkable for their silence as well as the silence of the authorities. When the authorities are silent about kidnappers in kidnap cases in which kidnappees regain their freedom after the intervention of security agencies, it suggests that the kidnappers are at large, and may well strike again. That’s dangerous.