The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

Scholars from Cotonou

It’s been happening for as long as time existed. (Pardon the hyperbole.) Only that now, it is demonstrably shown that pizza certificates are available from supposed institutions of higher learning, and those certificates could pass scrutiny test sufficiently to get accepted for institutional schemes like the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). And we know too well that once a certificate passes the youth service scheme crucible, it gets absorbed into the labour market. Actually, holders of phony certificates could find themselves more advantaged in the labour market than those with genuine certificates if they have the right ‘connections.’

We have Investigative Reporter Umar Audu of Daily Nigerian newspaper to thank for the expose that has set off a flurry of measures targeted, as it were, at shutting in horses that may already have bolted out of the stable door. In a December 30, 2023 report, the journalist revealed how, in December 2022, he contacted a syndicate that specialised in milling fake degree certificates, and how the syndicate in six weeks issued him a Bachelor of Science in Mass Communication certificate from the Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Technologies, a university in Cotonou, Benin Republic, founded in 2009. Audu took delivery of both the transcript and certificate of Ecole in February 2023 without having put in a formal application to the school or sitting any of its examinations. And when he double-checked on the institution’s website, he found that his purported academic records were officially captured. For the icing, he was able to enroll in the mandatory one-year NYSC scheme with his fake degree despite that he duly served in the same scheme some years earlier with genuine certification. Audu’s report laid bare the illegal dealings by some tertiary institutions in the West coast, and perhaps beyond, which prompted the Nigerian government to slam immediate ban on accreditation and evaluation of degrees from Benin Republic and Togo. A similar ban was in view against institutions in further-flung countries like Uganda and Kenya, as well as neighbouring Niger Republic, according to Education Minister Tahir Mamman.

Beyond the ban, Nigerian authorities instituted a rash of probes. Only last week, government raised a seven-member inter-ministerial committee to investigate degree milling by foreign and local private universities established within the last 15 years. The Education Minister mandated panel members to, among other things, review the role of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) or their officials in facilitation of recognition and procurement of fake certificates by Nigerian students. Of Nigeria’s 147 private universities, according to National Universities Commission (NUC) records, no fewer than 107 were established in the last 15 years and thus fall within the purview of the probe. Mamman said the panel should interrogate whether the private institutions under probe have in place prescribed facilities, adequate management structure, and adequate funding for programmes among other criteria. While announcing the suspension of evaluation and accreditation of Benin and Togo certificates earlier, government said it had launched an investigation involving the Foreign Affairs and Education ministries in Nigeria and their counterparts in the two Francophone countries, as well as the Department of State Services (DSS) and the NYSC to unearth perpetrators of the degree milling racket. Even the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) opened its own probe by inviting the Daily Nigerian reporter for questioning. And there are other parallel probes.

If you asked me, official response to Audu’s report has been largely knee-jerk, and one gets the feeling government is frantically hitting out to neutralise an enemy it has not even clearly profiled. Certificate racketeers have been at work, operating in cahoots with willing institutions. And they get patronised much of the time by Nigerians seeking to get around challenges encountered in the educational system at home in their quest for certification – that is, excepting Audu who engaged the racketeers purely for investigative purposes. Many of these challenges like poor funding for education, inadequate staffing seed-bedding low standards, and system instability fall within the remit of government to address; but the challenges are unaddressed and, thereby, provide a nest for racketeers out to exploit Nigerian students desperate for alternatives. Of course, that is not to deny there are Nigerians who are plainly crooked and intentional in their pursuit of dubious certification. These are the ones the Education ministry, in a statement, spoke of as deploying “nefarious means and unconscionable methods to get a degree, with the end objective of getting graduate job opportunities for which they are not qualified.”

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But degree racketeers offshore servicing Nigerian students are only symptomatic. A question to ask is why Nigerians, in throngs, opt out of their own country’s educational system to seek degree certification from other countries. In reaction to the suspension of accreditation of degree certificates from Benin and Togo, the Benin Republic chapter of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) called for restraint by government because the measure would adversely affect those legitimately pursuing their studies in that country’s tertiary institutions. Chapter president, Ugochukwu Favour, speaking on a television programme, urged that government should crack down only on those found complicit in certificate racketeering. “You cannot because it is happening in one school punish everyone, because it will involve close to 15,000 students in Benin Republic,” he said. There you have it: 15,000 Nigerian students in Benin Republic alone. That is not counting those in Togo, and much less in other countries. It has been argued by authorities, and there’s every reason to believe, that there is no country of the world you won’t find Nigerian students, including Mongolia and Iceland.

Google search revealed that there were 44,195 students from Nigeria who studied in the United Kingdom across educational levels in the 2021-22 academic year – a 107 percentage increase over the previous year. In 2017, the International Educational Exchange data released by the Institute of International Education (IIE) showed that no fewer than 11,710 Nigerian students sought the golden fleece that year in the United States – an uptick of 9.7 percent over 2016. And late in 2019, U.S. Deputy Director, Student and Exchange Visitor Program in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rachel Canty, disclosed that Nigerians led all Africans studying in her country. “There are over 36,000 students from sub-Saharan Africa studying in the U.S. As of March 2019, there are 16,039 students from Nigeria studying in the United States, with 54 percent (being) male and 46 percent female students. This is an increase of 3,342 students over 12,693 students recorded in November 2018,” she said. Mark it, those figures are far higher today.

Meanwhile, contrary to the trend of mass emigration of Nigerian students, there were less than 2,000 foreign students in total studying across 194 tertiary institutions in Nigeria, according to a survey. A panel – Committee on Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Internationalization – in a 2019 survey, found that there were just 1,856 foreign students studying in Nigerian institutions. Former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, who chaired the panel, noted that Nigeria scored low on the internationalization index. Speaking while making the survey result public in Abuja, Jega said: “In a survey in August 2019 by this committee on tertiary institutions in Nigeria, of the 194 institutions that responded, there were 1,856 foreign students out of a total of 1,132,795 students.” He added: “Foreign students make up 0.18 percent in universities, 0.29 percent in polytechnics and 0.04 percent in colleges of education.” According to him, the total percentage of foreign students in Nigeria’s tertiary education system as at the 2018/2019 session was 0.16 percent.

An inference from the foregoing is that whereas Nigerians are going offshore in droves to pursue certification, there is no commensurate attraction of foreign students by the Nigerian educational system. And it isn’t that the country fairs too badly in the number game. There are currently 52 federal universities, 63 state-owned and 147 private-owned according to NUC data. There are 40 federal polytechnics, 49 state-owned and 76 private ones according to the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE). The National Commission for Colleges of Education puts the number of colleges presently existing at 219; while there are said to be 70 federal and state-owned colleges of health, and 17 private ones. Meanwhile, lawmakers in the National Assembly (NASS) are mulling creation of at least 32 new universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

Whatever it is that makes Nigerian institutions unattractive to both citizens and foreigners is the same that fuels the allure of foreign certification, including for pizza degrees. That is what government should address.

•Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

January 15, 2024
Mefi’s 593 bank accounts

When former CBN chief Godwin Emefiele was at the acme of his powers, a group was in bed with him. We may not forget them. They were called Obidients. They were his cheerleaders when he gave money a new sort of power. The power to disappear.

Their leader said it was a “little inconvenience.” The so-called Atikulates did not possess the roar of that crowd, but were happy to be the enabling whispers, the woodchips fueling a wild fire. They were suffering, and in Fela’s satire, they were smiling at their own tragedy. Pepper was scarce. They smiled. Ogbono soup out of the kitchen? They guffawed. Yam and bananas rotted into market stenches. They jubilated.

They wanted one man to fall while they starved. They were instituting a fast to bring down a stronghold. After all, some of them prayed, and cast out demons. They wanted power by abrogating the power to buy and sell, to eat and be merry, and ultimately to sit on the throne in Aso Villa. Money failed so they could win.

They did not ask why we had new bills and could not see them. They saw it though we did not. They had an eye of understanding. We did not have faith. They had it aplenty and could move electoral mountains. The new money was there. They materialized it; we were not spiritual enough to see. The money notes were new in the imagination. New in policy. New in Buhari’s vault. New on Emefiele’s lips. New in photos online and television. In the illusions of some commentators on teevee and newspaper columns. A few times in parties among a peacock class. Only not in our pockets.

It was a fairytale abundance. But for the poor, even many rich, it was out of reach. When some fainted in bank halls, they celebrated. They were not seeing the dead, the dying, the hungry, the stalemated economy. Afterall as playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in his The Good Woman of Setzuan, “Stomachs rumble on the emperor’s birthday.” Rather, they saw an opportunity, a demoniac fire in the eye, to spot the foe, and bring him down.

Mefi, as his folks call him, took on the picture of a folk hero. The Obidients and Tinubu’s folks saw him differently. Tinubu and his associates warned that it was a premature, tendentious folly. Where was the new note, and how much would it cost to do it? It had an implication for the economy, inflation, cost of living. The poor would suffer at last. Tinubu cried out in Abeokuta that it was not for us but for the benefit of a cabal of feline machinations who wanted to choreograph the polls to a pre-determined end.

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Rather than listen, they scoffed and even gloated at him. It was so bad that Mefi became so full of himself that he thought he could be president. Against the law and above commonsense, he rolled out the campaign drum to run for primaries. It was a delusion of grandeur. He thought himself a new superman in the mould extoled by German philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche. It was against CBN Act. It did not matter to him. He was not even a party member, but he wanted to rig it, to finagle his path to power.

This essayist needled him on it. He organized a shadowy group to reply my column with a two-page advertorial in this newspaper. He was on a roll. He brought a lugubrious moment on the nation. The Obidients and Atiku’s men cheered on, even if they knew he was not their candidate. Indeed, after his ambition ran upon the rocks, he was determined to derail the man whose destiny was unstoppable.

In the end, the act is speaking. They have met their nemesis in a man named Jim Obazee. He never speaks. Some cannot pick him out in a picture parade. But Emefiele and Buhari’s creatures are on a parade of the people’s firing line. Many of them are the same people sounding drum rolls for them only a year ago.

We must be wary who we cheer. Many of them do not understand economics. They are naïve at the working of politics. They cheered their own undoing. Now that Emefiele is turning into a pillar of salt, there is no one to save him. He is alone, his face at once moronic and defiant with his gigantic Bible. The Obi’s creatures are not sorry. They are cheering. They are just looking at the disaster they helped wreak on themselves and their country. Their leader is dead from the neck up. Nor is Atiku capable of any hour of interventionist wisdom on this matter. For their ambitions, they fired blank bullets. But the people they wanted to ride to power fell in great numbers.

The new money saga gave Mefi a platform to get away with our money. We do not know the scale yet. If they open 593 accounts, and one of them is over 500 million pounds, the imagination should rupture to contemplate the rest. So, we wonder why the Naira is mincemeat to the dollar. Inflation is mate to eagles in the sky and airports jam with japa.

Mefi was not alone. But the most tragic part is that this story should happen under Muhammadu Buhari’s watch. It is the nightmarish irony of it all. The saint who made sinners. The man voted in to clean up the mess presided over a corpse as worms peeped in and out of rotting flesh. He has said nothing. Buhari was sleeping on the wheel ahead a motorcade. It is the tragedy of leadership without supervision, of a Shagari-esque fetish for the ceremony and magnificence of power without the rigour of accounting. He was the Orpheus who could not flute the beauty from the dead. But Orpheus had passion in the Greek myth. He had love. He wept for his love. His tunes dazzled the monsters, mesmerized ghosts, defanged demons along the way to rescue the beauty. He failed only because of excess of eagerness. Buhari had no zeal except for his own hubris and material security.

He had more money to give Babatunde Fashola (SAN) – his Trojan – to work. More to fix power. More to rewrite education. But only the foreign accounts were rewritten for a cabal who are yet to be named. They plumed themselves while we fumed.

Our Buhari was a capital disaster as leader. But he was first class at one of the great vices of civilization: indifference. “The opposite of hate is not love, but indifference,” writes Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. Albert Camus, another Nobel laureate and chronicler of the absurd, calls it the “unreasonable silence of the world.”

January 8, 2024
BOS of landmarks

I call him the BOS of Lagos, but Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is turning into a governor of landmarks. He ended the last year with two important bridges, one in Oyingbo and another in Ikeja. As if to stress the value, he was validated by his governor colleagues. For Oyingbo, the calm governor of Ekiti, Biodun Oyebanji. For Ikeja, Kwara State governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq spiced the launch with his presence. He also is known to have completed the first big train that now whistled through the arteries and corridors of the city. Very soon, both blue and red lines will colour our commutes in Africa’s buzz of a city. On the Lekki corridor, he is plotting a new airport. In the shadow of all these big-ticket dreams is the Fourth Mainland bridge, whose funding seems to be in gear. In the United States, presidents are known for specific things. Same applies to governors. George H. Bush called himself the education president. Roosevelt inked his name on the Great Depression. Governor Sanwo-Olu is marking himself out as a man of big things.

January 8, 2024
Buhari’s women

Buhari is known to throw up exceptional women, home and away. When in power, his wife was exceptional for being ignored by the power vortex of his uncle, Kingibe, Malami, et al. She was the counterfoil to an iridescent tribe of grasping intriguers and fuddy-duddies. Now, we know more. We know now that the sins of his humanitarian minister had little humanity. She didn’t display the showy vanities of Jonathan’s Diezani, who is now in a picaresque saga from country to country running away from her iniquities back home. Buhari’s humanitarian minister is a dodger, too, if not artful enough for a suspenseful plot line. My view may be premature, though. When the pastor-led EFCC invited her, she first ignored him until she found the right excuse. She borrowed from former PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, who found refuge in a neck brace. Soyinka mocked him in his new play, The Wheel of Justice, staged by Tunde Awosanmi, in which a Metuh’s character materializes in court on a wheel chair in the comic and burlesque glory of a neck brace.I don’t want to imagine Sadiya Farooq in a neck brace. It would not be funny but a delinquent recast of history. The woman who was supposed to run a hospitality extravaganza for the poor already has followed the hospital line. She said she was not well enough to heed the EFCC summon. The drama is still unfolding, while another unfolds with NSIPA’s CEO Halima Shehu, who President Tinubu fired over N17 billion intercepted on its way to infamy, into unauthorized accounts. Meanwhile, about N37b fraud charge hangs over Farooq’s head. More, we hear, is coming. It was the same woman who never had rest on false charges as Buhari’s amour until the news that she disbursed two billion naira on school feeding to students who were not in school. She never got punished for that. Perhaps that is why the corn has grown into a tree. If there is no consequence, corruption festers.

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It is amazing that women should be in the news. We have rid them of their innocence. See what Farooq’s successor has done. Betta Edu cannot plead naivety. She was a commissioner in Cross River. She has just embarrassed her employer and women who see her as role model. Before we had women like Dora Akunyili and even Oby Ezekwesili, whose derailed obsession in the last polls defaced her otherwise sturdy public profile.

January 8, 2024
Policing: Beyond uniform

When the Police Service Commission (PSC), headed by Solomon Arase, recently proposed a change of uniform for members of the Special Police Constabulary to make them easily distinguishable from regular officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), it looked like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The commission, in a statement by its spokesperson, Ikechukwu Ani, painted the special constabulary black, saying there was a “need to overhaul the organisation and operations of the outfit.” According to the PSC, “There have been several reports of unprofessional conduct by officers of the outfit, a quasi-police formation created to assist in community policing. Reports of their unprofessional conduct range from highhandedness in dealing with citizens and bare-faced extortion on our roads and communities.”

This is bad for the image of the regular police, the commission observed. That is true. But interestingly, the same negatives can be observed regarding regular police officers. The NPF introduced the Special Police Constabulary in 2019. There were plans for the unit to recruit 20,000 personnel within five years. The first set of constables in the outfit were deployed to local governments in 2020, after training.

There is no doubt that the NPF had an image problem, which has not disappeared, well before it introduced the Special Police Constabulary. Indeed, the negatives highlighted by the PSC in its demand for an “overhaul” of the outfit sounded like the long-term, familiar public criticism of the regular police.

The commission proposed a solution to the image problem allegedly caused by the special constables, and called for “an entirely different set of uniforms for officers of the outfit that should be easily differentiated from that of the regular police officers.” It argued that this “will help to track appropriately the conduct of men of the outfit and that of the regular police officers and free the Nigeria Police Force from blame associated with the misconduct of men of the outfit.”

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The PSC is hypocritical. The regular police also have been accused of such misconduct allegedly associated with the special constabulary, and they need not only self-redemption but also reinvention.

The PSC’s position is possibly connected with the recent dismissal of two police constables in Oyo State following a viral video that showed their involvement in extortion of a foreign tourist. The Police Force Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said the men were not regular police officers but special constabulary personnel.

How personnel are recruited into the special constabulary may well be part of the problem. In October 2023, for instance, 50 so-called repentant thugs became members of the special constabulary in Kano State. At a ceremony, the state Commissioner of Police (CP), Usaini Gumel, announced their recruitment, saying it was “a happy day for the good people of Kano State and the Police Command.” The move towards enhancing security in the state was a worrying indication of the scale of security challenges facing the authorities, and their desperation to find solutions.

The new recruits, the CP explained, had “volunteered to work with the police and to contribute to the security and development of the state.” After a two-month training, they were kitted as “members of the Special Constabulary.” Members of the outfit are used for community policing under the police in the state.

Their recruitment was the culmination of a rehabilitation process that started about three months earlier when the police sought dialogue with some identified notorious individuals believed to be responsible for the escalation of crimes in the state. The outcome of the move was the cooperation of 222 “repentant thugs.” The CP said their details were sent to the state governor, “for them to be supported by way of engaging them in some life-changing programmes.”

According to the police chief, “All the 222 influential youths that surrendered themselves were properly profiled. The state governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf, who already gave them amnesty, directed us to profile them and find out where they can fit in for skills acquisition and human empowerment.” That was how the new recruits who had volunteered to join the special constabulary emerged.

Governor Yusuf, obviously pleased with the arrangement, was reported saying “Kano is setting the pace as the first state in the federation to use a non-kinetic approach in bringing down the wave of crime.” It remains to be seen whether the new recruits will improve security in the state. They are from Dala, Fagge, Ungogo, Municipal and Gwale Local Government Areas of the state. They were expected to be posted to their communities to boost the state government’s security efforts.

The police in the state defended the idea of recruiting “repentant thugs” for law enforcement, rejecting the description of the recruits in some quarters as “hardened criminals.” But security is a serious issue, and law enforcement is too serious for experimentation with strange ideas involving so-called repentant volunteers with a history of lawless behaviour.

The PSC’s reaction to the development, at the time, reflected its position that special constables and regular officers should not wear the same uniform. The commission stated “categorically” that the special constabulary were not police men and not recognised as such by the commission and the government. It noted, however, that the constabulary operations were covered and recognised by the Police Act, and were useful and needed, particularly in the context of rising criminal activities across the country.

Another part of the problem, which the PSC highlighted in its recent call for a review of the special constabulary, is the failure of some states to address the welfare of special constables. This is condemnable. The commission called for the disbandment of the outfit in states where they were “not salaried and taken care of,” adding that it was wrong for states to set up security outfits and not fund them. According to the PSC, “these set of men have descended on innocent Nigerians for their daily upkeep through forceful extortion and intimidation.”

Indeed, in June 2023, the Oyo State special constabulary staged a protest to draw attention to their poor welfare conditions. General Number 1, Taofeek Akinpelu, also known as Awise, was reported saying, “Out of 36 states in Nigeria, only two states pay the Police Special Constabulary in the state, Akwa Ibom and Lagos states while the Police Constabulary in Abuja were given stipends too. We therefore appeal to the federal government to remember us because we as well have families we feed.”

A change of uniform will not solve the problems of the special constabulary. The NPF changed the uniform of its personnel in the past, without solving its image problem, among others.

It’s easy and convenient to accuse the special constabulary of “unprofessional conduct” and “misconduct,” and propose a change of uniform. This is a narrow approach to policing in the country, which demands a holistic re-evaluation.

January 8, 2024
New Year cross over dilemma

There are times events happen in ways that tend to interrogate the correctness of our responses to certain beliefs and practices. This is more so in our clime where all manner of leaders including the religious and traditional capitalize on some doctrines (known and invented) to command their adherents to certain ways of conduct and behaviour.

High poverty rate, ignorance, illiteracy and disease combine to reinforce peoples’ attachment to nature, the mundane and superstition. The combined forces of all these can sometimes be very confusing even to the most discerning.

One of such is the concept of cross over to the New Year. Cross over as applied to the New Year, is a relatively new concept. Its origin and how it became a dominant paradigm to denote the movement from an outgoing year to a new one is not very clear. But it gained popularity and traction from the yearly activities invented by sundry religious bodies to mark the end of the year and the commencement of a new one.

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defined crossover as the process or result of changing from one area of activity or style of doing something to another.

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The midnight of December 31st being the last day of every year has become the bridge through which people walk across the New Year. It is characterized by a flurry of activities-midnight church services, prayers and night vigil all in preparation for the eventual movement to the New Year. Cross over has become such a big deal attracting such significance that one begins to wonder if there is any special barriers hindering people from moving from 31st December to January 1st.

Put differently, what is really special in moving over to the New Year? Apart from being the commencement of another year, what prospects does it offer that cannot be found in crossing over from any other day of our lives to the other? Or is the suggestion being made that all those who managed to cross over to the new year will have life in abundance bereft of all the vicissitudes of nature?

So why the impression that the new year will bring equal opportunities, equal favours and life in abundance to all those that managed to cross over to it? There is a story of a certain pastor who raised one of his legs across a table during a cross over church service and commanded his followers to pass through it. And his flock followed one after the other in the apparent belief that doing so will see them through in the new year where perhaps, all the problems of their lives would be solved.

That is the ridiculous extent some people can go in their dramatization and implementation of the concept of cross over and the prospects the new year holds for all those who were able to make it. But does the new year possess that magic wand to wipe out all the misfortunes of life? Apart from being the commencement of a new year, how is it different from the other 30 days in that month?

These questions are raised because the good, the bad and the ugly events we wish away in the outgoing year still find themselves in the coming year in one form or the other. The New Year may bring some favours to some people; but the misfortunes of life will also follow it.

Yet, everybody celebrates the cross over to the new year and looks up to it for the best life can offer. Even governments are not left out in this optimism on the prospects the new year offers. We saw President Tinubu in his New Year broadcast marshalling his programs to give Nigerians hope of a better future.

That is at the level of the government and it is in order. Both at the corporate and individual levels, businesses and families offer prayers and make plans for the New Year. There is also the dimension of New Year resolutions. All these can be admitted.

But it is a different thing entirely when the impression is conveyed that mere movement from an outgoing year to a new one holds the solution to all our misfortunes and challenges. It does not. As a matter of fact, it could turn out so calamitous for some very early in the New Year that you begin to wonder if the previous year was not better for those people. That is the irony in the rising tendency by some religious groups and their pastors to skew the concept of crossover to sometimes, mislead their members. That is the challenge of giving false hopes and raising expectations on the wonders of the New Year.

This dilemma was brought closer home by the unfortunate death of four people who had gone to make some purchases in a supermarket at a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja on the second day of January 2024.

Reports had it that the four persons were among many others who were in the supermarket located in One Man village, near Mararaba in the Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State when four armed gun men entered and began to shoot sporadically. The hooded men who were said to have concealed their arms in their flowing gowns opened fire immediately they entered the supermarket which saw customers scampering for safety.

They fired indiscriminately as they made quick to ransack the supermarket apparently looking for available cash. When the confusion created by the attack settled, four men were discovered lying in a pool of their blood. One of them was said to be wearing the identity tag of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The state police command confirmed the death of the four customers. Their bodies have been deposited at the hospital even as the police and other security agencies have commenced investigations which they promised to make public. That is the sad end of the four people a day after the New Year. They may have gone to the supermarket to make purchases for their families who may be waiting at home for those items.

They may have been part of the crowd that celebrated the cross over from last year to the new one. They may have been part of the people told by their religious leaders to perform some rituals as a gateway to the Eldorado the cross over offers.

They may have been part of the night vigil church services or its cross over variant. But see where they found themselves two days after the celebrated cross over. It is none of their fault. They neither committed any known offence nor are they more sinful than many of us still alive. But they have fallen to act of wickedness by some demented persons in search for quick money. May their souls rest in peace!

They are just victims of the inordinate ambition of some rogue elements bent on making money by all means. Why kill innocent people who came to shop? Why waste precious lives just because you want to steal? Since their intention is to steal, why not satisfy that vaulting urge and spare innocent lives?

Elsewhere, we have also witnessed some other unfortunate incidents since crossing over to the New Year. In Oyo State, no fewer than five people were killed on the New Year day when a man was said to have deliberately rammed his car into a group of friends in a party.

Two children died in a New Year accident that occurred along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. These are just a few of the unfortunate events of the New Year. The intention here is not to highlight calamities as the New Year would also come with its positive sides for many.

The goal is to arouse our collective consciousness and redirect our minds on the way and manner we perceive the transition from an old year to a new one. That these unfortunate incidents happened the day we celebrated the magic cross over and a day after, would suggest there is nothing really special in the fanfare and drama that accompany the movement from December 31st to January 1st.

We are free to celebrate that day – usually a public holiday in this country. But let nobody be deceived by whatever prospects cross over as a concept is touted to hold for the living. Some have successfully crossed over only to meet their untimely death. How do you explain that?

January 8, 2024
Plateau’s killing fields

Why can’t we be proactive and stop such attacks before they happen. What happened to our intelligence gathering mechanisms? Can anybody tell me that nobody knew that such attacks were coming?

These were the very strong words with which the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar 111 queried the Christmas Eve’s coordinated attacks in three local government areas of Plateau State. Sultan’s observations contained in a goodwill message to the 80th National Islamic Vacation Course in Bauchi State, captures very succinctly the dilemma in the sustained killings in that state that seem to have overwhelmed the capacities of the security agencies.

But in them can be located all that has been wrong with the handling of the orgy of violence that has left that state to the atavism of the state of nature where life has become nasty, short and brutish. We shall return to this.

In those well planned and well executed attacks penultimate Saturday, spanning through Sunday and Monday, Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Mangu local governments were invaded by armed bandits killing and maiming innocent residents, burning and destroying properties without challenge.

The terrorists launched the attacks from several fronts on about 23 communities including churches leaving in its trail shock and awe. It took about 12 hours before the security agencies could respond to distress calls from communities.

There were initial attempts to play down the casualty level because of the monumental embarrassment it was. When the real figures later emerged from the local government officials and aid agencies, the gravity of the harm gave out the attack as one of the most deadly and bloody the state had seen in recent times.

The latest figures put the death toll at 195 with even a larger number of people sustaining varying degrees of injury. Some 1, 290 houses were said to have been burnt in Bokkos alone while that of Barkin Ladi is still sketchy. More than 10, 000 residents were also reported to have been displaced from their homes and taking refuge in schools churches and any available space.

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The attack is just one in the series of killings and maiming that have come to characterize that state. A national daily reported recently that 346 people were killed in eight local governments of the state between April 17 and July 10, 2023.

In May 2023, the House of Representatives member for Mangu/Bokkos constituency, Solomon Marren had said in a statement that about 200 people had been killed in his constituency within a few months. Of this figure, more than 100 people were killed within two days. Before he spoke, the unceasing killings had sparked off protests from youths and women in the area.

Human Rights Watch estimated that more than 1,000 lives were lost in the communal ‘war’ of September 2001 in Jos. And hardly does any month pass by since the beginning of this year without reports of attacks by the so-called terrorists with serious tolls on human and material capital.

As usual, we have been treated to the ritual of official condemnations from both within and outside the shores of the country. President Bola Tinubu condemned the killings in very strong terms and tasked security agencies to comb the whole zone and fish out the masterminds. He has also promised that the envoys of death, pain and sorrow will not escape justice even as relief materials to the displaced and medical attention for the wounded will be accorded utmost attention.

But even as the president has vowed to fish out the masterminds of the killings, the invaders have threatened fresh attacks on the Pushit community in the Mangu Local Government. The police acknowledged the existence of the threat letter. But the community is not taking the matter lightly because when the terrorists issued such threats in the past, they made good their promise.

They now live in fear and would want the government to take the matter seriously to avert being taken by surprise. In the past, allegations had been made of the inability of the security agencies to act on such credible information only for the terrorists to make good their threat. This had in part, fuelled allegations of sympathy of the authorities for the invaders.

But more seriously, the threat brings to the fore the very insecure and dangerous environment in which these communities have had to live since the attacks resurged in the last couple of years. They have seen attacks after attacks. They have seen copious condemnations from the federal government, well-meaning Nigerians, foreign countries and international bodies.

But all these have not brought any respite to the people. The government has overtime empowered special military operations to stem the tide. Sadly, Plateau communities have been at the receiving end; constantly prone to the killings by the invaders who operate with a seeming air of invincibility only to disappear into the thin air after their dastardly escapades.

The communities are unlikely to be enthused by mere orders, condemnations and proclamations unless they see a remarkably different approach by the government to substantially get at the secret of the attacks that have defied the security agencies. It is very puzzling that as many as 23 communities could be contemporaneously attacked and inflicted with the high causality level seen without the security agencies getting such intelligence prior to the attack.

That was the puzzle the Sultan faced when he asked to be told why nobody knew that such attack was coming. It is a loaded question that ought to be resolved for the authorities to get the right handle to the recurring killings. For the terrorists to invade such a large number of communities from all fronts in coordinated attacks would suggests they have a standing ‘army’.

Where this striking force lives, have their training ground, acquire and conceal arms and ammunitions are issues President Tinubu has to unravel if he must make the difference. The government also has to unravel where the terrorists/bandits escape to after every attack. But answers to these puzzles are not hard to fathom if the government musters the necessary political will to tame the monster.

It is the glaring inability of the last government to decisively confront the known monster that accounts for the suspicion that it has some sympathy for the killers. The new administration must work to change that narrative. Understanding the real issues to the conflict, the warring parties, remote and immediate causes are vital to lasting resolution to the unceasing killings. When attacks are attributed to terrorists, the question of the identity of the terrorists should be resolved.

Are they the same as bandits? What is the difference between bandits and rampaging herdsmen? Are they two sides of the same coin? The way these questions are resolved will get us closer to taming the killings that have reduced the value and worth of life in that state.

Some of the issues that have fuelled the unceasing crises have been attributed to competition for land, herder-farmer conflict, ethno-religious conflict and politics. The issues are complex but not insurmountable if the government wants to do the right thing.

It must have come as a rude shock to many when Governor Caleb Mutfwang disclosed on live television programme that terrorists/bandits have been occupying some schools in some local governments for up to five years now. And yet nothing happens! He said that more than 64 communities have been displaced from the ancestral homes even as he blamed the government not arresting and prosecuting the attackers. The governor identified land acquisition by force as central to the conflict.

So the issues are known. The abode of some of the attackers is known. They occupy some schools in the state. They live in the forests under whatever guise. The forests in Plateau and neighbouring states are their planning and attacking platforms. What we do with those living in ungoverned forests and bushes with sophisticated weapons will make a whole lot of difference.

The government is not really helpless in this matter!

January 1, 2024
Musawa’s cultural correctness

As the base of the Federal Government, it can be described as a massive political theatre. But politics is never enough. The space also needs a cultural theatre, and its civilising essence.

This is why the announcement of plans to build a National Theatre and a National Museum in the Federal Capital Territory (FTC), Abuja, attracted attention. The Minister of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, unveiled her dream when she appeared before the Senate Committee on Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy concerning the 2024 Appropriation Bill.

She was reported saying the two projects were top on the list of the ministry’s priorities, observing that the ministry “has been grossly underfunded and we will be unable to achieve anything of significance without the right funding.” She added that the ministry required adequate funding and support “to achieve our vision within the roadmap, to be able to achieve the objectives of the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President.”

It is curious that the FCT lacks a National Theatre and a National Museum, more than 30 years after it replaced Lagos as Nigeria’s administrative and political capital in December 1991.

Today, the National Theatre in Iganmu, Surulere, Lagos, which was built by the Federal Government in the 1970s, when Lagos was the country’s capital, and which hosted the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, remains the country’s primary centre for the performing arts, despite the place of Abuja as its capital city.

The National Theatre, Lagos, was “established for preservation, presentation and promotion of Arts and Culture in Nigeria.” The objectives of the National Theatre include: “To be relevant to the public that it serves; to be a tourist attraction; to contribute to the economic vitality of our nation, while promoting Nigeria as a vibrant cultural destination; and to enhance the good image of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

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Following a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-led rehabilitation effort involving the public and private sectors, the National Theatre, Lagos, hosted the 2022 edition of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Global Conference.

The status of Abuja is enough justification for building a National Theatre in the space. The city is also an important capital in Africa because of Nigeria’s continental influence, and notably hosted the 2003 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and the 2014 World Economic Forum (Africa) meetings.

The National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), headquartered in Abuja, was established “to manage the collection, documentation, conservation and presentation of the National cultural properties to the public for the purposes of education, enlightenment and entertainment.” There are more than 52 National Museums across Nigeria, but, ironically, there is none in Abuja, the country’s capital city, where the NCMM has its headquarters.

Perhaps the fascinating story of the Dufuna Canoe illustrates the need for a National Museum in Abuja. In March 1998, over a decade after its discovery in May 1987, the canoe, billed as “Africa’s oldest known boat,” was eventually lifted out of the ground. An obscure Fulani herdsman, Mallam Yau, had struck the dugout canoe buried in the earth while digging a well on the outskirts of Dufuna village.

News of this discovery travelled fast and reached the government of the old Borno State, which at the time included Dufuna, now part of Yobe State in northeast Nigeria. Abubakar Garba, an academic and archaeologist, who was then based at the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, was contacted “to make a full investigation.”

Two separate tests on chips taken from different parts of the canoe, carried out on different occasions at Kiel and Cologne universities in Germany, gave similar dates of over 8,000 years. “There is no reason to doubt the broad date of the boat,” according to Peter Breunig, an archaeologist then based at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, who participated in its excavation.

The lab results redefined the prehistory of African water transport, ranking the Dufuna Canoe as the world’s third oldest known dugout. The dugouts from Pesse, Netherlands, and Noyen-sur-Seine, France, were older. But evidence of a tradition of boat building in Africa, more than 8,000 years old, threw cold water on the assumption that maritime transport developed much later there in comparison with Europe.

“It has a length of 8.40 metres and maximum breadth and height of around 0.5 metres. The sides are barely more than 5 centimetres thick,” Breunig described the canoe, adding that it even outranked European finds of similar age. To go by its stylistic sophistication, he reasoned, “It is highly probable that the Dufuna boat does not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development, and that the origins of water transport in Africa lie even further back in time.”

Not just a piece of wood, the Dufuna dugout opened a thought-provoking window not only on Africa’s history but also on Nigeria’s past. It is a remarkable piece of evidence that the knowledge and skill to produce such a boat were already available in the geographical area that became part of Nigeria more than 8,000 years ago.

Today the famous Dufuna Canoe lies at a conservation site in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital, where it cannot be viewed by the public. At one time, it was said that the Yobe State government was building a museum where the canoe would be displayed.

There was a controversy over where the canoe should be exhibited. Garba argued that since the canoe is a national heritage, “the best place for it is the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, where it will have high visibility. It will be a real tourist attraction.”

Also, another Nigerian archaeologist who was involved in the 11-year excavation project, said: “When an object assumes national importance, it is the prerogative of the Head of State, after being briefed by NCMM, to take a decision on its place of exhibition.”

Without a National Museum, Abuja cannot be considered in this case, for instance, even though the Dufuna Canoe would be very visible there.

It may well be a sad reflection of the philistinism of power that a perceptive minister has put the establishment of a National Theatre and a National Museum in Abuja on the front burner after all these years.

January 1, 2024
Brothers in arms

Just before an interview with him for TVC in one of Lagos’ highbrow hotels, I asked Governor Rotimi Akeredolu in Yoruba, “Bawo lara sir?” How is the body? We were both standing, awaiting the crew to set the stage.

His reply was wordless. A grimace, a surrender and a lighted pair of eyes. I asked again. Still wordless. I knew, before what was perhaps his last major interview, that what was afflicting this man did not signal a cheerful prognosis. He had just returned from Europe for a medical checkup. Beyond the grimace and surrender, the lighted pair of eyes indicated a warrior on a defiant march. He would not, in the words of Poet Dylan Thomas, “go gentle into that good night.”

When his health was unraveling, I imagined his lighted pair of eyes. I saw them when he announced he was traveling out for treatment. When the controversy raged over why he was in Ibadan and not in Akure. When his then deputy, Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, fought to stay alive. In the back-and-forth of recriminations. In the battle of the women, one a wife, the other a political climber, hiving a home. The concoction thickened with shadowy schemes of allies and foes. Snarls of forged signatures and denials. Two elephants were wrestling, and the Ondo grass withered. We did not hear his side of the story. We cannot bury him in unsubstantiated charges. As Sophocles notes, “A dead man cannot testify in his own funeral.”

As the theatre bustled on, Aketi’s life dropped with every heartbeat, until last week, as the year petered out, he surrendered to the way of all flesh. As David sang, “What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hands of the grave?” So Aketi goes, but what a man he was.

It is now a matter of legacy for him. After all the fight, power is transient, and the whole hoopla of who owns what has melted in tears and mourning. Our people and politicians should know as Ebenezer Obey crooned that Ile aiye o to nkan. This life is nothing. Vanity upon vanity, all is vanity. Both sides were saying, like Napoleon, “God gave me this crown. Whoever touches it should beware.” Or what John said in Revelations, “Hold thou fast which thou hast and let no man take thy crown from thee.” But it is all for nothing.

David Diop, the French-Senegalese writer, wrote in his new novel, The Door of No return, that monuments are in our stories. What story did Aketi leave behind? It was of social justice, of fierce nationalism and federalism. In my last interview, he warned those politicians who, for selfish reasons, would want to privilege law over convention in jettisoning the pact by southern governors that the presidency should come to the south. He, a lawyer and senior advocate, said the law is important but convention vitalizes the constitution. Any society so captured by law as to forget tradition will have neither law nor tradition – my words.

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He also called for justice within the realm of justice, and was worried that the Supreme Court had to open up not only to judges but also academics and lawyers. He cried about the power of the CJN, playing with the acronym. He said the CJN is now the controller of the NJC. The same alphabets.

Aku orire

The new governor may have been carried away. It was still mourning in Akure and the new governor, Aiyedatiwa, was sunny and jubilant. He purred, Aku orire, meaning, “let’s celebrate our good fortune.” He should not even have allowed himself to be sworn in so early. By such hasty swearing-in, he stepped over Aketi’s body. He should have grieved. Was he also laughing over the corpse of his benefactor? He would not want to be characterised as such but that was the optics in his smiling visage and air of buoyant joy in the room. He was already the acting governor with all the powers. He could have waited a week. The powers of acting governor are not diminished if he is not sworn-in. He could, at least, have acted rather than put up that sordid act.

He probably was not aware of his haste. He has to apologise for that lack of sensitivity over a man who held him out of the shadow, supported him to be a member of the House of Representatives, made a major enemy because he picked him for the senate and nominated him into the NDDC. While appointing him his deputy, he virtually assured him he would be his successor. So, why not exercise patience and not act as a baby on a mother’s lap jumping for a feeding bottle as though it will not come?

In his sober moments, he probably would realise his mistakes. He did not know that Aketi’s sacrifice was not a thing of pride to him. So, did Aiyedatiwa not appreciate all of Aketi sacrifices for country and even for him? The video has gone viral when Aketi gushed on the man and import of his name Lucky, and Orimisan – my head is good- and his surname that means the world is now ours. I recall the story of Lucky Igbinedion, whose brother Bright never enjoyed his good fortunes. The saying was that it is better to be lucky than bright.

He needs to address this in public so we can all move on. He owes it to Aketi’s soul, to Ondo State citizens and to all Nigerians.

January 1, 2024
Old man and the sin

Old men come in different stripes. We had the pious one who sought to depart in peace in elder Simeon as he beheld the Lord, his salvation. We have Hemmingway’s old fisherman of the sea who toiled heroically but brought home only a skeleton. Paul enjoined fathers not to provoke the children to wrath. A bumbling old man in Ferninand Oyono’s novel received a medal only as a mockery. Jacob blessed his children before he left. The father Karamazov in Dostoyevsky’s novel is a planter who bequeaths storm for a generation of his family. Prophet Samuel left a blessing. In politics, Awo called someone a son of perdition. Zik poured woe on another. In Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, an old count sheds tears of apology to his daughter on his deathbed and another enriches an almost total stranger.

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I wonder what E.K. Clark is becoming in his hoary years? He calls for Presidential intervention and, when he gets it, he cries constitutional foul. Who flouted the law if not the one who brings down a house of democracy, passes a budget with four men, withholds pay from public officers, invokes tribe in a multiethnic state? Clark wants trouble, not tranquility. His man Fubara says he wants peace, will abide by the peace pact, and they will work together. No peace is perfect. He wants war. The pact seems one-sided because Fubara acts were lopsided. Clark should learn from the words of the Latin American writer, Victor Borges that “a smile is the shortest distance between two people.” He should not fill faces with his own frown as a new crackles into being.

January 1, 2024