The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Remembering Harriman

    Remembering Harriman

    Today marks a decade since the earth ate up a noble soul, the ebullient Chief Hope Harriman. He was a sort of avuncular figure in my life since I first met him  in Denver when he attended the Ugbajo Itsekiri (National conference of Itsekiri in U.S.). He called me often from Nigeria until I returned home in 2006, and we met often to discuss Nigeria. I accompanied him and his wife to Ghana for a birthday party, and when we sat together at the hotel lounge or at a meal, he always paid tribute to me when he had any call. “I am here in Ghana at the La Palm Beach Hotel with Sam Omatseye, the chairman editorial board of The Nation.” He said it over a hundred times, and when he did not mention The Nation, he would say “Chairman editorial board of the new newspaper.”

    Read Also: 2023: Between Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope’ and Atiku’s ‘Covenant’

    His conversations dispensed wit and rigour, and he loved to joke, even at his own expense. Each time he travelled, he would call and say, “I am in Port harcourt..I am in Abuja..I am in London.” He was absorbed in American politics, and I hear that one of the last piece of news he heard on his death bed in Washington DC. was to know that Obama won his second term bid. He had the satisfaction of knowing that before he breathed his last.

    He was a great fan of In Touch and an evangelist of this newspaper. He worked hard as a real estate agent, a pioneer. During an Oxbridge reunion, he introduced a European. Hear him: “I met him at the Waldorf Astoria lobby and he said, ‘Mister Harriman, I am going to make you a rich man.’ I replied him, ‘How can you make me a rich man. I am already a rich man. Didn’t you see that I came here in a Rolls-Royce!’” Once, I was having lunch with him. He yelled out to one of the stewards. “Get a plate of eba and vegetable soup with plenty of meat for Sam’s driver, so he knows that he is in a big man’s house.” His memory outlasts his bones.

     

     

  • Enemies of journalism

    Enemies of journalism

    Media Rights Agenda (MRA) gave an insight into how journalists continue to suffer at the hands of lawless entities in the country, particularly law enforcement agents. It is a thought-provoking irony that those who should be protectors are usually the main attackers.

    The civil society group said “in the last one year alone” it documented over 47 attacks on media workers and media houses. According to its programme director, Ayode Longe, “Our records show that the men and officers of the Nigeria Police are the major perpetrators of these attacks as MRA documented over 15 incidents in which they were the perpetrators.”  He added: “Thugs and unknown gunmen followed closely the police in the number of attacks against journalists and media houses.”

    The group observed that in the course of their work, journalists are arrested and detained, assaulted and beaten, abducted, have their equipment and gadgets confiscated and, in some cases, destroyed, and also have their operations disrupted.

    Longe gave the disturbing information at a press conference to mark the 2022 International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on November 2. It was a two-in-one celebration. The United Nations (UN) Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity was 10 years old.

    He also said the police were frequently used to harass and intimidate journalists by the rich and powerful who are uncomfortable with the media beaming the searchlight on them and their activities.

    Notably, MRA recorded at least six such incidents in the last six months where journalists were accused of criminal defamation, cyberstalking or similar offences by law enforcement agencies allegedly prompted by politicians.

    Interestingly, the group noted that the police continued to charge journalists and other Nigerians with cyberstalking using the provisions of Section 24 of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act, 2015, and stated that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice had declared the provisions to be a violation of the right to freedom of expression.  Longe described the continued use of the Cybercrimes Act to harass journalists and other citizens as a brazen disregard for the decision of the ECOWAS Court, a violation of Nigeria’s treaty obligations and an unjustifiable disrespect for the court.

    A striking case in 2020 illustrates MRA’s point about how the Cybercrimes Act is used to harass journalists and others. The police had arrested Rotimi Jolayemi, a journalist and oral poet, also known as Oba Akewi, in May of that year, and detained him in Abuja.

    ” His wife, Dorcas, and his brothers – John Jolayemi and Joseph Jolayemi – were all detained in Kwara State,” and “were kept in detention for eight days, nine days and two days respectively as hostages, while the journalist was being sought,” according to a statement by the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR).

    After Jolayemi surrendered to the police in Ilorin, Kwara State, it took the police more than two weeks to come up with a charge against him. According to the charge, Jolayemi,  then aged 43,  on or about the 14th day of April 2020 at Osolo Compound Ekan Nla, Kwara State, “did send audio message through your Android phone device to a group WhatsApp platform known as ‘Ekan Sons and Daughters’ and which went viral immediately after it was posted for the purpose of causing annoyance, insult, hatred and ill will toward the current Minister of Information and Culture, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,  and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 24(1)(b) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc.) Act 2015.”

    Read Also: Journalism’s future in focus at Global Media Forum conference

    Section 24(1) of the Act made it an offence for any person to “knowingly or intentionally send a message or other matter by means of computer systems of network that (b) he knows to be false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another or causes such a message to be sent.” The sentence on conviction for such an offence is a fine of up to N7, 000,000 or imprisonment for up to three years or both.

    The said “audio message” was critical oral poetry by Jolayemi, who was also Vice-Chairman, Freelance and Independent Broadcasters Association of Nigeria, Osun State chapter.  Was the poet’s criticism based on falsehood?

    The minister’s spokesman, Segun Adeyemi, had said his boss should not be blamed for Jolayemi’s trouble with the police.  Who complained to the police?  Why did the police desperately arrest and detain the journalist’s wife and siblings?

    Jolayemi’s wife said his family had tried to get Mohammed to drop the case.  “According to my brothers-in-law,” she said, “they sent representatives to plead with Lai Mohammed to drop the case. They said the Oba of Ilala in Kwara State and some other traditional rulers had gone to the minister to plead with him, but he has refused to respond. Some even went to the minister’s hometown in Oro to plead with elders in his community, but there has been no positive response.”  These efforts to placate Mohammed suggested that the journalist’s family was certain about his role in the affair.  Jolayemi was later released on bail after 45 days in detention, and nothing was heard of the matter afterwards.

    Such an incident encourages attacks on journalists. Such attacks should be discouraged. The UN states that “Ending impunity for crimes against journalists is one of the most pressing issues to guarantee freedom of expression and access to information for all citizens.”

    Significantly, the main event to celebrate the 2022 International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists was a high-level multi-stakeholder conference on the safety of journalists with the theme ‘Protecting Media to Protect Democracy’ on November 3 and 4 in Vienna, Austria.

    The International Press Institute (IPI) reported that 15 journalists were attacked in May in Nigeria, and many of the cases were related to the coverage of political primary elections. The International Press Centre (IPC), a Nigerian journalism watchdog, has recorded more than 40 other attacks on journalists in the country this year.

    The problem is complicated when the perpetrators are those who should be protectors and people in power. MRA said governments at all levels in the country should ensure the safety of journalists by investigating all attacks against them as well as prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators of such attacks. This will give journalists the confidence to carry out their functions without fear.

    Longe observed that the present situation gives the impression that “it is okay to harm journalists in Nigeria and that whoever does so, will get away with it because there will be no serious investigation into their actions and nothing will be done to them.”

    Those who attack journalists and those who encourage such attacks can be described as enemies of journalism. There should be no room for attacks on journalists.

  • Fraudulent INEC staff

    Fraudulent INEC staff

    The third quarterly meeting of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and political parties threw up issues with profound implications for representative democracy. First was the disclosure by INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu that Nigeria’s voting strength now stood at 93.5 million. The figure was arrived at after successful registration of 12.29 million Nigerians in the recently concluded continuous voter registration exercise.

    Its breakdown showed that of the 12.29 million newly registered voters, about 8.7 million representing 71 per cent are youths between 18 and 34 years of age. The statistics also showed that about 2.4 million of those successfully registered are between the ages of 35 and 49 while the number of women was higher than that of men.

    The new voters’ strength is as interesting as it is a veritable statement on the perception of Nigerians of what the coming elections hold for their future. For one, it shows increased civic awareness and determination by youths to have greater say in the affair of the country.

    They may have come to terms with the reality that the surest way to enthrone good governance is to exercise this basic civic right during elections. This is particularly so for the younger population to whom the future largely belongs. And given the events of the recent past, it is little surprising that the youths posted a very impressive record of 8.7 million voters in the last continuous voters’ registration exercise.

    It does not only denote increased interest by the youths to influence the direction of affairs in their country but also an expression of dissatisfaction with the way the ship of the nation had hitherto been piloted by leaders past and present. The serial squandering of vast opportunities and huge resources of this country has had the net effect of alienating the youthful population while sowing seeds of serious resentment and frustration.

    They seem determined more than ever before to take their collective destinies in their hands. If this enthusiasm is a measure of their burning desire for genuine change, then there is hope for the future.

    For this optimism to be fully realized, the youths must rise above primordial predilections by focusing on developmental issues with higher prospects of extricating the burgeoning population from debilitating poverty and hopelessness. This enthusiasm should reflect in the choices they make of the policies and programmes of political parties that offer the greatest prospects of promoting common good.

    But for them do this, their votes must count. And that takes us to the other key issue raised by Mahmood during the session with the leadership of the political parties. He had told his audience that after a rigorous clean-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System, ABIS, that more than 2.78 million names were identified and removed as ineligible registrants.

    He said the commission identified 23 of its registration officers for sanctions for engaging in multiple registrations. Some of them were said to have even made more than 40 attempts to enrol a single ineligible registrant. That is how far some officials went to compromise the voters’ register.

    Read Also: 2023: INEC strategises, finetunes modalities amidst concerns

    It is good a thing INEC was able to clean up a whopping 2.78 million fake names from the last registration exercise. This figure consists of double/multiple registration, underage persons and outright fake registrations.

    Given the high number of the names delisted, it would appear somewhat curious that only 23 officers were identified for such infractions. It is highly improbable that only 23 staff members could register 2.78 million of the removed names. INEC may have other reasons for this ambiguity.

    It is also amazing that INEC remained silent on the motive of the offending officials. Were they acting for themselves or induced to do what they did for pecuniary promptings? That brings in the issue of collaboration. Since the said officials are not contesting elections and may not be from the areas they sought to bloat the voters’ register, it is safe to conclude that they did it at the behest of some interests.

    Identifying those interests and what purposes they intended to put the fake registrations to are equally important in getting at the substance of the matter. Definitely, the officers were not acting alone. INEC should get at the root of those who influenced and financed the fake registrations.

    Before INEC came out with its findings on fictitious registrations, the spokesman of the Coalition of United Political Parties CUPP, Ikenga Ugochinyere had alerted that the national voters’ register is filled with fake, fictitious and foreign names. He had said at a press conference that some of the names were sourced from foreign countries while some registrants were captured from passport photographs and other event-related pictures in the public space.

    He had fingered Imo State as a typical case of states where fake registrations took place. Imo State government denied the accusation and called for the arrest of the CUPP spokesman. But the reaction of INEC was somewhat different.

    INEC spokesman, Festus Okoye commended the group for their concern but cautioned against such interventions being done in a manner to create doubts and diminish the integrity of the electoral process. Okoye clarified that INEC will only add new names to the register after conducting ABIS clean-up  of the registration data which it was yet to do at the time CUPP spoke.

    So when the commission later came up with the high figures removed from the register, identifying 23 of its compromising officials for sanctions, it became obvious that the CUPP was not just crying wolf. It was on a voyage on whistle-blowing for which it should be commended.

    The electoral law also mandates the commission to publish the register for public viewing; identification of errors and corrections. So the voters’ register is a public document that should ordinarily be available to all and sundry.

    Curiously, Ugochinyere is now alleging an attempt to arrest him for speaking out on the monumental infractions in the voters’ register. In a trending video, he alleged a plot by the police in Imo State to arrest and arraign him for the source of his information on fake registrations before INEC cleaned up the register. He is piqued that the police are more interested in probing the source of the information rather than those who perpetrated the fraud.

    If it is true that the law enforcement agencies are more interested in unravelling the source of the information leak rather than the perpetrators of the fraud, then there is something to worry about.

    And we ask: when has credible whistle blowing become an offence? The essence of the intervention of the CUPP was to sanitize the voters’ register by ensuring that duplicitous manoeuvres are kept off it. That task is a patriotic one as its overall goal is to enhance the credibility and integrity of elections. Turning around to hound those who volunteered credible information sends wrong signals of official compromise.

    It is important that we get at the root of the fictitious names and their sponsors given that politicians go at lengths to compromise the outcome of elections. INEC has serious work to do to ensure the overall credibility of the coming elections given the high interest it has generated. The sanctity of the voters register is vital but not the only source of election compromise.

    Much would still depend on logistics-the deployment of voting materials and conduct of security officials on the day of election. Even with the enthusiasm in the capacity of technology and direct transmission of election results to enhance outcome, all will still depend on the adequacy, timely deployment of materials and the functionality of the BVAS during elections. Nothing should be done to compromise the collective will of the electorate to determine leaders of their choice this time around.

     

  • A Passage north

    A Passage north

    NO word or concept captures a political season like love. Yet, no word is more ignored. We brandish such nuggets as “connect,” “grassroots,” “network,” “structure,” “empower,” et al. But they all disguise what the Bible levitates as the queen of all virtues.

    Apostle Paul describes it as the fulfilling of the law. Jesus says it is the one quality by which others can know his disciples. For the politician, it is why they wake up and go to sleep, or do not go to sleep. They crave the peoples upraised hands, the hurrahs and firestorm of cheers. Crowd is power. In the multitude of the people is the king’s honour.

    It is time for love rhetoric and embraces and handshakes. It is time to don the other’s sartorial pride and taste their cuisines. It is time to ascend their accents, to soak in their tunes and tunic, to accept their tones as tonic, and say they are all one. It is an act of generosity, and what is more generous than to listen to you, hear you, be here with you, acknowledge you, shed tears and smile with you, cheer you and for you. As French philosopher Simone Weil notes, “Attention is the purest and rarest generosity.”

    So, the political season must be welcome. It makes us whole, or seeks it. That is of course to those who want it that way. Not those, in this era, who see it as a binary course, a time to divide in order to kill. We have seen a lack of love in this age, from Trump’s race-baiting to Putin’s bile at Ukraine to the xenophobia of the new leaders of Italy and Sweden. Here, Atiku Abubakar has keyed into that poison by disavowing love for Igbo and Yoruba. The optics poison, even his party has now parted ways with its nationalistic credo because of Atiku’s ethnocentric register. Atiku is showing love the wrong way or when it no longer stirs the heart. Atiku is like Shakespeare’s words in Antony and Cleopatra about a man who “never loved until never worth the love.”

    That is why the visit to Kano by Bola Tinubu in the past week must attract contexts. In the past decades, it has been argued that Yoruba could never find common cause with the north. This has been traced to the age of the Yoruba Wars and the Battle of Osogbo in 1840.

    When colonialism took its toll, Awolowo became the vertebral bone of the race, and historians like Richard Sklar and political theorists like Dudley described his Action Group as tarred with the regional brush.

    Awo tried in vain to extend his appeal. Rather, the now south-south and southeast found traction up north. When the First Republic election polls reached a deadlock, with the north’s NPC unable to form a government, Awo asked Zik to coalesce his NCNC with his AG. He would cede the nation’s top office of prime minister to Zik while he (Awo) would be content to serve under him as finance minister. Zik pooh-poohed him and aligned  with the NPC. Zik became a ceremonial leader rather than a substantive one as prime minister. He soared to bow, on the tower without power. It was a similar story with what the inimitable K.O. Mbadiwe called “accord concordia,” in the Second Republic.

    In all these narratives, the west was always in the adversarial porch of the north. The civil war is often traced to the collapse of the Nzeogwu coup but it had its roots in the ambush of the west. The first person to inspire northern trust was M.K.O. Abiola, but it was a false start, if significant for having happened. The June 12 annulment turned out a northern remorse. Yet, we cannot play it down as a seed bed for a coming together of north and southwest. Obasanjo became a mea culpa. He failed but it was a necessary failure. While the southwest did not embrace him, the Yoruba acknowledged the north’s olive branch as it was nursing the June 12 wound. OBJ’s time gave the Yoruba a time to heal and reengineer its relationship with the north.

    This incidentally began with Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari. Yet the beginning was like the meeting of lovers. Like the opening line of Achebe’s short story, Girls At War: “The first time their paths crossed, nothing happened.” Essentially, it was Buhari’s third try at the nation’s top post.

    But they came together again, and the APC was born. Tinubu was able to give Buhari the friendship he lacked in his three attempts: the arms of the Yoruba. That was the clincher. The former allies of the north, the south-south and southeast, had retreated from the north.

    So, when Tinubu visited last week, it was also to emphasise what he had, on personal basis, been doing for most of his political life. He has been building bridges with the north, south-south and south east, reinforcing the credo of a love among our people. Love is the best of all virtues but it is not the easiest to muster. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare called it “fiend angelical, wolvish-ravening lamb…” If it works no ill against a neighbour, it calls for all other virtues to come to play. It calls for courage, but the most important other virtue that helps love is patience. Chaucer says “Patience is a conquering virtue.” Jesus says “By your patience possess you your soul.”

    So, Tinubu has worked in building alliances and friendships, and his most onomatopoeic title, Jagaban, comes from the north. It is not for nothing that when the APC primaries came and the northern governors ceded the presidency to the south, the bulk of his delegates came from the northern states.

    His visit to Kano and his interaction with the north, for this essayist, was, one, an act of gratitude; two, a fruit of love; three, a cementing of a once fraught and fragile tie; and four, a coalition for future. Two telling anecdotes stood out. One, his visit to the tomb of the Sardauna of Sokoto. Two, the story of his mother and her trade alliances of trust with Kano merchants when he – Tinubu- was a little boy. It was that context that informed Governor Badaru of Jigawa State’s contention. Hear him: “Tinubu is the only friend of the north. He supported five different northern presidential candidates, including Shehu Shagari, Umar Musa Yar’adua, Atiku Abubakar, Nuhu Ribadu and Muhammadu Buhari.” He therefore says it is payback time. This essayist sees it as the fruit of love.

    It is perhaps what disturbs Atiku and led to his tribal outburst. Two novels about doubts and healing bear reference. One is A Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, perhaps the best Arab novel ever written. The second is Booker Prize nominee, A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam, a tale of a trip north after the scars and combustions of a civil war.

    Tinubu’s northern saga is a metaphor of his own journey of love.

  • Sunak than later

    Sunak than later

    I just hope that Rishi Sunak is not just a photo-op. Many have raved about him being the first leader of colour as prime minister, and a youthful one at that. I only recall when a certain black man emerged in the United States and all swooned over how sweet it was that dawn. America, they purred, had crossed the racial line. In the slavery era though, blacks who crossed the famous Missouri line had stepped into freedom. Later, they discovered how steep it was. In Obama’s case, it was the Democratic Party, a party of liberals and colour. But his triumph chastened the American white with a racial remorse. They coagulated in a Tea Party so that Obama should crack rather than bask in his victory. In Sunak’s, it was conservative party. It was the same party that spearheaded the squelching of his home country, India. Their hero, Mahatma Ghandi, endured a racial taunt from a British hero with the soul of a bard. Winston Churchill described Ghandi as “a half-naked kafir.” Churchill’s father was one of the policy makers of India. The other consequential non-caucasian person, Benjamin Disraeli, was also a conservative. He, sometimes a proud Jew, theorised that votes should not be counted but weighed. Sunak would love that because if the votes are counted today, Labour might win. He mounts the throne not from popular count, but on an insular wave.

    We can muse on the British remorse as well. They cheated Sunak and gave it to one of their own, Liz Truss, who failed. It is like the lines in the Book of Ezekiel, “I will overturn, overturn and overturn it; and it shall be no more until he whose right it is; and I will give it to him.” It is British emilokan moment. The world watches if some cranky whites will not erupt in a racist reflex like their cousins across the pond.

    Again, let us not forget that Sunak neither says amen nor Allah, yet neither the church mensch nor the Muslim avatar is crying over the God he worships. A lesson for us who would rather know the faith than the fate of a child in school or the value of their pocketbooks. That is why Britain is a developed country.

  • Oil thieves: Are they invisible and invincible?

    Oil thieves: Are they invisible and invincible?

    Ironically, the private company that recently exposed mind-boggling crude oil theft in the country seems to be showing more enthusiasm on the issue than the federal government which contracted it and is expected to arrest the thieves and punish them.

    What can be said about the scale of crude oil theft in the country? It beggars belief. News of the discovery of an illegal four-kilometre pipeline in Forcados, Delta State, said to have been used to steal humongous quantities of oil for nine years undetected, sounded like fiction.

    Crude oil is Nigeria’s main export, and the country is bleeding terribly from the effect of this scandalous stealing. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, through his representative, said at an event at the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, Delta State, on October 29: “Oil theft has denied the country of an estimated 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The adverse effect of this is the drop in the production of crude oil and decline in the national income.’’ It is estimated that more than $3.3bn (£2.9bn) has been lost to crude oil theft since last year.

    An unbelievable number of oil-theft points have been discovered since August when the government controversially awarded a pipeline surveillance contract worth N48bn per annum to a company, Tantita Security Services, linked to Government Ekpemupolo, popularly called Tompolo, to check the massive oil theft in the Niger Delta.

    The former leader of the militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, was reported saying: “I think we have found over 58 points that have been tapped in both Delta and Bayelsa states.” It’s unimaginable how many more oil-theft points will be discovered as the operation continues.

    No arrests have been made. This is not just intriguing; it is also alarming. The identities of the thieves who built these theft points and ran them have not been revealed. Are they unknown? Are they unknowable?

    “Since it is a breach against the law, whether on pipelines or not, the law will certainly take its course. But it is not NNPC that will handle that aspect,” the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Garba-Deen Muhammad, was reported saying.

    He added: “The GCEO (Group Chief Executive Officer) said it on site when he visited the areas. He said when these people are found the law will take its course.”

    Does this mean none of the criminals has been caught? If that is so, why is it so?  Tompolo has said his firm is “only providing intelligence for the security people to assist to do the work.”  The discovery of oil-theft spots should lead to the arrest of the thieves.

    The authorities should not give the impression that the oil thieves are ghosts and the illegal facilities for oil theft were built by spirits. That can’t be true.

    ”It was a professional job,” said NNPC Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, after he saw the oil-theft facilities. This observation underlines why those responsible for building and operating them should not be at large. He lamented that thieves had been stealing the country’s crude oil for more than 22 years but the theft had escalated to today’s staggering levels.

    Interestingly, according to Tompolo, “Many of the security people are involved because there is no way you can load a vessel without ‘settling’ (bribing) the security people in that region.”

    Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Lucky Irabor, who visited the crime scene with the NNPC chief, said it was an “eye-opener,” adding that the authorities would “ensure an extensive investigation into the whole revelation to get to the roots.”

    Chief Executive of Tantita Security Services, Chief Keston Pondi, observed that “It is obvious that a lot of people are complicit in these illegal oil activities,” and suggested that people in the security sector, host communities, and even in the oil industry, were involved.

    It was bad enough that the federal government contracted a private security company to monitor the country’s oil pipelines. The action amounted to an abdication of responsibility and an admission of incapacity. It is worse that the authorities have also demonstrated weakness by failing to promptly identify and arrest the thieves, and prosecute them.

    This obvious tardiness suggests that the authorities did not expect the exposure done by the company, and were unprepared for the logical next step after the discovery, which should be identifying and arresting those implicated in the crime. The detection of the oil-theft facilities is not necessarily a plus for the company because it merely highlighted the government’s minus.

    It was suspicious that government agents swiftly burnt an 87-metre-long vessel apprehended recently in Delta State, which was said to have been carrying 650,000 litres of stolen crude oil. Who owned the vessel? What about the seven people allegedly found on the vessel when it was caught?  Who are they? What happened to them after the vessel was seized?

    It is disappointing that President Muhammadu Buhari, who controversially doubles as Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister, has failed to deal with oil theft despite his administration’s noisy campaign against corruption.  He leaves office next year after two four-year terms. From all indications, part of his legacy may well be a flourishing oil-theft system, which he encouraged by inaction.

    Nigeria can learn from Saudi Arabia’s effective oil monitoring system. In a 2008 documentary, ex-CEO of Saudi Aramco, the oil giant’s equivalent of NNPC, Abdullah Juma’ah, gave an insight into the organisation’s command centre.

    In a room with a 220-ft digital screen, which he described as the nerve centre of its operations, he explained: “Every facility in the Kingdom, every drop of oil that comes from the ground is monitored in real-time in this room, and we have control of each and every facility, each and every pipeline, each and every valve in the pipeline. And therefore, we know exactly what is happening in the system from A to Z.”

    This shows the importance of technology in fighting oil theft. It is unclear to what extent the country relies on technology to monitor its crude oil.

    If the country’s oil thieves are not caught and punished, it simply means the authorities are fuelling oil theft.

  • Danjuma’s alarm

    Danjuma’s alarm

    It will be grave national risk to ignore the alarm by former defence minister, Theophilus Danjuma of a possible re-colonization of Nigeria by rampaging bandits.  Danjuma’s latest allegation fits into a similar one he raised in 2018, accusing the military of bias and harbouring an agenda in ethnic cleansing.

    He had then alleged: “Our armed forces are not neutral. They collude with the armed bandits to kill people, kill Nigerians. The armed forces guide their movements. They cover them. If you are depending on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one”. He called on those facing such attacks to defend themselves.

    The ministry of defence took the allegations seriously with a promise to investigate and bring to book any personnel found culpable. But it accused the Taraba State government (Danjuma’s home state) of not writing it on the alleged infractions by security personnel.

    Taraba State government was to deny the claim when it came up with documented instances the federal government and the military were informed of security breaches and soldiers’ misconduct but were utterly ignored.

    The issue has lingered such that compelled Danjuma last week to reinforce his earlier position. In his latest outing at an installation ceremony in Wukari, Taraba State, he recalled that when he warned a few years ago that the armed forces are either not capable or unwilling to protect the citizens and called for self-defence, the ministry of defence denied there was anything of such. Then also, the same defence ministry had accused him of lying as there was no evidence to support the allegation. But now, ‘there is evidence’ he said.

    “The whole country now is being overrun and one very clear thing happening now is that these foreign invaders are destroying everything and our government allowed them to come into the country. They are trying to re-colonize us and take over our land. This country with the largest population of black men is being brought to ruin by absolutely useless criminals”, he lamented.

    These are no doubt, very weighty and serious statements. Their weight is further reinforced given that Danjuma now seeks to deploy them as evidence that the alarm he raised a few years ago, were after all, not a hoax. He is entitled to that view given the realities on the ground.

    Danjuma is a very influential and respected Nigerian who rarely comments on national affairs. As a former chief of army staff and defence minister, he is no doubt, deep rooted in the dynamics of the country’s security operations. So, he is in a familiar turf to draw attention to events within the country’s security architecture. He deserves to be taken seriously. 

    When he spoke in 2018, the insurgency of the herdsmen was only very pronounced in the few states of Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Kaduna. That was the period farmers in those states alleged that even when reports of impending attacks were made at military posts around them, such attacks eventually take place without the military coming to their aid.

    ‘Operation Cat Race’ designed to halt wanton killings in the north central arrived with a barrage of criticisms. Benue and Taraba states openly alleged that herdsmen who fled after the killings in some of their communities, made triumphant return with their cows when the military exercise began and have since resumed attacks on vulnerable communities. They cited continuing killings in the face of the military exercise as evidence of its failure. That was the subsisting environment Danjuma spoke in 2018.

    Four years thereon, he now has cause to say that the alarm he raised then was after all, not a wild goose chase. He says there is now ample evidence to countermand claims by the military that he had no evidence for what he said then. He has even upped the ante by assigning motive to the killings and why they have festered.

    For him, the motive is to take over the lands of vulnerable communities and re-colonize them. And he holds the federal government liable for allowing foreign invaders to come in and destroy the country. These are very serious allegations coming from no less a personality than Danjuma.

    There is yet no reaction from the federal government on this dimension to the unceasing insecurity in the country. But if the seeming desperation of the current regime to press on with such policies as grazing areas, grazing routes, Ruga and the national livestock transformation plan are anything to go by, the issues raised by Danjuma can only be wished away at our collective peril.

    When he spoke of re-colonization, it was not a reference to the return of the British imperial masters. No! Neither had he in mind its new manifestation in neo-colonialism which Kwame Nkrumah characterized as the last stage of imperialism. He had none of such in mind.

    Rather, he is concerned with the displacement of local populations by well-armed bandits and herdsmen both local and foreign in the face of the inability of the government to tame the monster. The issue is quite well spread now across the country contrary to what obtained when Danjuma spoke some years back. So he has serious grounds to be unhappy with government’s handling of the deteriorating security situation in the country.

    It is the same apprehension that accounts for stiff resistance to all attempts by the federal regime to force down controversial polices on herders’ resettlement on lands that belong to other people. And that agenda will remain explosive and controversial.

    The north central zone has tasted the pudding of settler occupation and they are in a better stead to say whether it is sweet or sour. So when Danjuma spoke of re-colonization, he should know what he is talking about. It is difficult not to agree with him on the motive and agenda of rampaging bandits/ herdsmen and terrorists across the country in the face of the inability of the Buhari government to rise to the challenge.

    As Danjuma spoke, the US and UK governments sent out warning advisory on terror attacks at the country’s capital city, Abuja. Even as the federal government attempted to downplay the warning, the US went ahead to evacuate some of its staff from the Abuja embassy. Is that not a big statement on the dire security situation in the country?

  • Who poisoned the communion?

    Who poisoned the communion?

    Some say they can’t vote for him because he is ill. But it’s because he makes them ill at ease. They tremble at the compass of his mind and the stature of his legacy. With affectionate defiance on Saturday night, he asked the Kano business community, “Do I look like someone who is sick to you?” He then pointed his finger to his skull, and quipped, “It’s because I am smarter than all of them.” He permitted himself a little swagger.

    Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was still floating on the after-waves of ideas at the Arewa Consultative Forum. All who attended attested to his magisterial performance. Not the hegemonic effluvia of Atiku or the incantatory void of Obi. Asiwaju left the place with food for the Nigerian thought when he tackled the question of climate change.

    The images of “church rat” and “poisoned holy communion” ruffled quite a few cassocks and their political hangers-on. They mistook it for a cannon against the canon. They claimed he had breached the holy of holies. He was turning the scriptures upside down. How could the holy communion be poisoned? It is holy, and so Tinubu had touched the unclean thing.

    They were invoking Christ where he did not invite them. But Christ told them, “I never knew you.” They saw visions without eyes of understanding. The blind leading the blind.

    For those who know the Bible, even the holy communion can kill. Hence Apostle Paul said, those who are not worthy should not take it or they will die. So, if we look at what the Catholics call the Eucharist, it is like poison to a defiled soul. The sinner who goes to the bowl with malice takes a poisoned chalice, ditto the adulterous appetite. They may swallow sweet poison. It is a holy death.

    The communion then can also stand for purity, including the men of the altar. If prophets can lie and sully the word of God, so can they dispense a poisoned holy communion. It is all within us as humans, whether pastor or laity, to abide by the word. A pure holy communion is no guarantee. It depends on both laity and pastor. A compromised pulpit poisons the communion. A sinful laity courts damnation. Hence Jesus said, when the blind leads the blind, BOTH shall fall into the ditch. Jesus knew this, so he warned of the distinction between his bread and wine and the manna in the wilderness. Those who ate manna in the wilderness later died. His own will give eternal life. So, it is not about the holy communion but who poisoned it and who agreed to eat it. Tinubu says it is the west who added the killing vial. The church rat should not die for the sins of a wayward priest. The west is the priest.

    Partisans who know little scripture aped the lead of these vain ecclesiastics. Beware of false prophets.

    But what Tinubu was doing had nothing to do with holy matters. But he is asking if we are ready for the manna of the wilderness or the bread of life. He borrowed them as metaphors to show that we are stewards of God’s earth, but we are not subjects but sovereigns as Nigerians. The metaphor of poison is not new. We have the metaphor of poisoned chalice, poison mercury, poison oak, or Poison Ivy. Some are biological and they can, with imagination, become metaphors that picture human experience.

    The poisoned holy communion here is the compromised climate or earth. We are the church rat, the innocents who would live but are confronted by the prospect of poison. But what shall we do? We are not compelled, according to Tinubu, to eat the white man’s poison. The world was pristine before the whites began pillaging it. But in doing so, they became rich.

    Now, they are affecting climate remorse, and want the whole world, including us, to save the earth from the devastation of industrial man.

    Read Also: I won’t govern Nigeria from Dubai – Tinubu

    But in making their prosperity, they created an unequal world. They enjoy, we toil. Now, says Tinubu, we need to develop and go through the path they followed, so we too can enjoy. But they say no. The world is fragile. It faces apocalypse. No problem, says Tinubu, we can see it ourselves. We want to be rich, too. If they want us not to follow their path, if they don’t want us to burn fuel as they did, attack the ozone layer as they did, let flood wreck us and our rivers and ponds run dry as we are experiencing, let them pay us.  If not, we shall, as church rats, do what we shall and allow the holy communion – the earth – remain a poison. The earth is ours and we all can either perish together or save it together. Know that the church rat is there when the congregation is at home. On Sundays, the poisoned holy communion can kill the whole church with all of them dressed in fancy clothes and stuffed with billionaire offerings. All, both church rat and cassock man, will die. It’s like a terrorist that lobs in a bomb during mass.

    Tinubu was exposing western hypocrisy. They have, in the words of poet Alexander Pope, raped the lock. It cannot easily be restored to its original beauty. This is not the first time Tinubu has mused on this issue. It is a call to climate and environmental nationalism. What the west is doing is climate imperialism.

    We all want a good earth. But let us enjoy it equally. The west has been at odds with China over this. Premier Xi is saying what Tinubu is saying. Let us all be rich. They wasted our earth to make them rich. Tinubu knows the value of saving the earth. Before this era of flood fury, Lagos had it decades ago, and Tinubu, as Lagos State governor, confronted the Obj administration that splurged N4 billion a year to pour sands on the Bar Beach. It was a patchwork, not a solution. The thing was eating up Victoria Island like termites. Tinubu developed an idea to turn disaster into prosperity. Today, that swath of earth known as Eko Atlantic makes more money than many states put together. Even the United States is building its biggest embassy on the Eko Atlantic.

    But the west must allow us do it on our own terms. This is no colonial era. When the west started with the industrial revolution, they did not prioritise saving the planet. William Wordsworth, known as the high priest of nature, wrote: “The world is too much with us; late and soon,/

    Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;/Little we see in Nature that is ours;/We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”

    What Tinubu has done is to stake an idea for economic prosperity and diplomatic tour de force in one phrase. Shakespeare says, “brevity is the soul of wit.”

    This is the third lie of the west. The first was what is known as the Treaty of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years War. It was the genesis of international rule of law. The agreement was to recognize all nations as equal and no one should invade another without cause. It is still a fraught issue as Henry Kissinger tackles the subject in his book, World Order. The same Europe did not even recognize other continents, like African kingdoms, as sovereign. It led to the second lie: they invaded African kingdoms, and raided for slaves to build the prosperity of the west. They couched us as savages and societies without civilization. It justified the invasion. Even the Church of England said we had no soul. Yet they sent us the Mary Slessors.

    What they are doing now by asking us to abide by climate change is the same they did when they started industrialism. It was then they knew slavery was inhuman. They stopped it for cynical reasons. To quote again my late teacher, Professor Tunji Oloruntimehin: “The abolition of slave trade was an act of enlightened self-interest by the Europeans to give the Africans a new role in the international economic system.” Again, they decided to give us our nations, according to their lights. They jumbled peoples together without symmetry of culture and history. Yet, there was no concept of Europe until about the 5th century as the Roman Empire began its decline, and savage tribes invade each other like the Germanic tribes. The west is like the gang leader who becomes a priest because he needs quiet to enjoy his loot.

    Climate change is their new apology. They can pay us if we insist, says Tinubu. In the US today, farmers are paid not to farm. The food will waste, so they get paid to do nothing beyond the nation’s capacity. They did not hurt the American farmer. But they hurt us for centuries and this may be Asiwaju’s way of asking for reparations while we heal the earth. As Shakespeare wrote in his play of international intrigue, Antony and Cleopatra, we can make “fancy outwork nature.”

    That is Tinubu’s conundrum, a laconic riddle that we expect only from the lips of a genius. He is financial expert but he has used language that turns professors of literature into their altar.

        We can see why they fear Tinubu, and so hate him. He is the one asking the right questions.

  • Nnamdi Kanu’s matter

    Nnamdi Kanu’s matter

    Federal government’s appeal at the Supreme Court challenging the judgment of the Court of Appeal which ordered the release of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB did not come as a surprise. But it holds questionable value for enduring resolution of all issues to the matter.

    Before now, the posturing of officials of the government did not leave anyone in doubt about the discomfort of the government with the Appeal Court ruling.

    The way the appeal was discretely filed, detracted substantially from promises by officials of the government that they will inform the public on what they intend doing with the appeal court ruling. That promise was not kept until scanty information crept in that the attorney general of the federation Abubakar Malami filed an appeal at the apex court challenging the discharge of Kanu by the Court of Appeal.

    Malami is asking the Supreme Court to stay the execution of the judgment of the appellate court. He argued among others that the court of appeal erred when it struck out the pending charge against Kanu on the ground that the trial court no longer possessed the requisite jurisdiction to continue the trial because of the manner Kanu was returned to the country upon jumping bail.

    The Court of Appeal had in its judgment discharged Kanu from the 15-count terrorism charge brought against him by the federal government. In a unanimous judgment, the appellate court faulted the process by which Kanu was brought before a federal high court to answer a 15-count terrorism charge.

    The appellate court held that the federal government violated international convention on terrorism which it is signatory to when it illegally arrested Kanu in Kenya and extraordinarily brought him to Nigeria for trial. It further held that the warrant of arrest issued against him was not enough reason or excuse for the government to violate international convention and charters.

    “Having resolved issue one in favour of the appellant, which deals with jurisdiction, the appeal succeeds, the order of Justice Binta Nyako which ordered appellant to answer to counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 15 is set aside, terminated and dismissed. Appellant is accordingly discharged”, the appellant court held.

    But soon after the judgment, Malami in a statement said Kanu was only discharged and not acquitted-that appropriate legal options before the authorities will be exploited and communicated to the public accordingly.

    Read Also: Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyer, 23 others held by security agencies – Relatives allege

    His position was supported by the National Security Council which met thereafter. The minister of police affairs, Mohammed Dingyadi who briefed the media, said it was noted that Kanu was discharged but not acquitted. He said that the government is considering the appropriate action to be taken on the matter and that Nigerians will be notified of the position taken in due course.

    So the decision of the government to appeal the ruling of the Court of Appeal was quite predictable. But the stance of the government came with mixed feelings given the undertone that it is only committed to the legal option in resolving the Kanu matter. This runs contrary to expectations especially from leaders of the southeast who saw the decision of the court of appeal as a veritable window for the government to explore the political option to a lasting resolution to all issues to the Kanu matter. 

    The Southeast Council of Traditional Rulers, Archbishops and bishops had viewed the appeal court judgment as timely and unprecedented opportunity to overcome the challenges of trust that had obstructed the path to peace, and opens the window to winning the hearts and minds of the people.

    They called for the unconditional release of Kanu to douse the current tension across the southeast and create an atmosphere of collaboration towards a constructive resolution of the issues.

     But events have shown scant regard for the cherished opinions of leaders of that zone. When it is recalled President Buhari had told a delegation led by elder statesman, Mbazulike Amechi who had asked him to release Kanu that he left that decision to the court, one is amazed that he failed to capitalize on this opportunity to demonstrate statesmanship and leadership.

    The government has squandered another opportunity to demonstrate that it is genuinely committed to enduring solutions to all issues to the crisis in the southeast. But that is not entirely surprising as it bears the trade mark posturing of the current regime to affairs that concern that region.

    The allure of the legal option is even more confounding given the report of the United Nations’ Working Group on arbitrary detention which in July described Kanu’s extraordinary rendition from Kenya as “illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional extradition”.

    The UN group had also called for the immediate release of the IPOB leader and compensation by the Nigerian and Kenyan governments for the way he was treated. This dimension appeared lost on the government with the continued trial and detention of Kanu.

    The case may have to run its full course thus foreclosing political solution to the matter. But does the court process really hold the solution to all there is to the Kanu case? It is very doubtful. It is doubtful that continued detention of Kanu or even his conviction holds the solution. It is difficult to wish away political resolution of the issues either now or thereafter. So why has Buhari continued to shy away from that dimension in contrast with his policies in crises areas in other zones?

     The Supreme Court is at liberty to grant or refuse the appeal for a stay of execution of the appeal court ruling. If it grants the request, then Kanu would have to continue staying in detention against the UN advisory and appeals from well-meaning people. Its import on Nigeria’s human rights record is better imagined

    The apex court could also refuse the request for a stay of execution on the discharge of Kanu. Then, the federal government would be left with no other option than to release him. Then also, the government would have lost the opportunity to benefit from patriotic and genuine initiatives required to usher in lasting peace in the region. Does that say something?

  • Gbaja’s score

    Gbaja’s score

    At last, ASUU folds its tail. The end of another tale of woe. In Shakespeare’s words, it is all labours lost. But much kudos goes to the speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila who entered the stable to restore peace. The speaker is an example of a person who deserves a national honour. It is not because of the virtue of the office but the virtue he brings to the office. He summoned the power of his responsibility to the good of society. In him, merit met industry. Merit met accolade.

    Read Also: Femi Gbajabiamila’s uncommon capacity

    ASUU and the federal government had been locked in what I call a Kafkaesque dialogue where both parties speak but neither hears. Both growled like dogs from parallel cages. The time lost cannot come back. “You can’t kill time without injuring eternity,” said Henry David Thoreau.

    We hope the students can now go back and read and learn. But the great classroom of the past eight months is that of character, and that, sadly, is rare in the masters who let the class paralyse for eight months. The other factor here is CONUA, which came in to shake ASUU out of its ideological straitjacket. It is time ASUU reckoned with the thought of the day. It still lives on Karl Marx’s diet of the 1980’s, of Aluta and totalitarian bluff. It’s time to say away to aluta. It is time to continua without aluta.