The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • A pilot’s encounter with bandits

    A pilot’s encounter with bandits

    By Emeka OMEIHE

     

    The Nigerian Air Force and indeed the Nigerian Armed Forces had cause to celebrate last week. It was not one of those diary events. They were moved by high emotion to rejoice over the escape from the dungeon of murderous bandits of one of their own, Flight Lieutenant Abayomi Dairo.

    Dairo’s encounter and dramatic escape from bandits’ den, must have so excited the military that the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor and the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Oladayo Amao were on hand in Kaduna to receive the lucky officer and share in the joy. It was a case of ‘your gallantry has done us proud’

    The narrative by the Nigerian Air Force spokesman, Edward Gabkwet, was that: a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Alpha jet aircraft returning from a successful interdiction mission between the boundaries of Zamfara and Kaduna states came under intense enemy (bandits) fire leading to its crash in Zamfara State. As luck would have it, the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Abayomi Dairo successfully ejected from the aircraft.

    He recounted how the officer deployed his survival instincts to evade the bandits when he came under intense ground fire. Gabkwet gave a vivid account of Dairo’s maneuvering through the cover of the darkness deploying his phone set for navigation to elude several bandits’ strongholds until he was able to escape to a nearby army unit.

    It was really a close shave with death. Dairo in a social media post also gave lucid details of his travails in the forest; how the bandits trailed him as he ran, stumbled and trekked for over 30 kilometres under the cover of the darkness. He fell down many times from exhaustion and the injury he nursed both from his leg and neck. He had to contend with the harsh forest environment not knowing whether wild animals, dangerous beasts or pythons would complete the assignment for which the bandits were after him.  But each time he got weak and exhausted, his survival instincts and his faith in our creator spurred him on until he was able to enter a village where he met a ‘good Samaritan’ who gave him shelter, food and pain relieving medicine.

    His host was to organize a bike very early in the morning to take him to the palace of one traditional ruler who then arranged for the military to take over from there. In all, Dairo owes his successful return to divine intervention. That was the feat the military were celebrating. They were celebrating the gallantry of the air force pilot, his skills in ejecting from the Alpha jet aircraft and deploying technology through his phone to ace his way and evade the bandits. They had genuine cause to rejoice irrespective of the loss one jet aircraft.

    Before this incident, the air force had recorded three crashes in six months in which 20 officers were estimated to have lost their lives. Seven personnel of the air force died in February this year after a Beechcraft King Air B350i crashed on the way to Minna, Niger State. The crash occurred around the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

    An Alpha fighter of the unit also crashed in April in the war-ravaged Borno State while on interdiction mission while a passenger jet belonging to the air force also crashed last May, killing eleven military personnel including the former Chief of Army Staff, General Ibrahim Attahiru.

    For a unit that has had such ugly experience, the survival of Dairo especially in the very dangerous circumstance he found himself was not a mean feat. That could in part, explain the excitement of the armed forces. I share in the joy of his survival and wish him quick recovery. It was a very moving encounter that sounded like a fairy tale; but a real life situation.

    But, there are pertinent issues thrown up by the incident. This is the first time, the security agencies have come up to admit that bandits were actually responsible for the shooting down of an air force fighter jet. In previous incidents where there were suspicions to that effect, the military high command was quick to deny them. But not in this one! Happily, the pilot is alive with graphic account of how those bandits made to capture him alive and his final escape to safety.

    The first thing thrown up is the reality that bandits have grown in sophistication to acquire military hardware and capacity to shoot down aircrafts. That is the clear message. Gabkwet spoke of the fighter jet coming under intense fire power from the bandits leading to its demobilization. There were also accounts of efforts by the bandits to capture the escaping pilot but for the air and land support provided him by the military through their platforms. All attest to the sophistication the bandits have grown in assortment of weaponry. That changes preconceptions as to what the bandits are really up to.

    Now bandits have acquired anti-aircraft batteries with capacities to square up to the military, is anyone still in doubt that they are waging a war against the sovereignty of this country? Does it give a clue as to where the billions of Naira they get from ransom go? Is there still a difference between them and the Boko Haram terrorists? Or does that not inflict collateral damage on the claim by some of their veiled defenders that they are propelled by the desire to make money from kidnapping?

    Of recent, Kaduna State governor, Nasir El, Rufai and Islamic preacher Sheikh Ahmad Gumi had sought draw parallels between the bandits and groups agitating for self-determination in a manner that diminished the grave and potent danger which bandits pose to the corporate existence of the country.

    In response to a question by the BBC pidgin as to whether Boko Haram and bandits should be treated with the same swiftness that led to the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, El-Rufai said No!, No!, No! People are comparing apples to oranges. He contended that Kanu, the leader of the IPOB is identifiable; in constant communication and everybody knows where he is.

    But Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, he said, has been hiding for the past 10 years and not sitting in a particular place twitting about the break-up of Nigeria. He rationalized why bandits should not be treated with the same swiftness as IPOB on the puerile and laughable ground that they have no centralized leadership. He asked: who is the head of the bandits? “It is a business for them. It is not a case of Nigeria must break up” the Kaduna State governor asserted.

    El-Rufai’s analogy cannot stands on many grounds. First, the argument that Shekau is in hiding while Kanu is identifiable says little about the serious threat to the sovereignty of the country the Boko Haram terrorist group poses. Boko Haram went into direct war against the Nigerian state for the past 10 years to enthrone an Islamic regime and has no time for the luxury of twitting. They have continued to occupy territories despite denials and collecting taxes. Of recent, they appointed administrators for these territories. We have not seen anything near these in the case of the IPOB. Yet, El-Rufai would want them handled extra-judicially. But not Boko Haram, bandits or the killer herdsmen.

    His rationalization on banditry is even more troubling. The absence of a centralized leadership for the bandits does not in any way diminish the mortal threat they pose as the air force jet incident has shown. What is the business of the bandits in acquiring anti-aircraft missiles if they are not waging a war against the government? Maybe the aircraft was carrying billions of cash for them to loot.

    For a state that has shut down many schools including the withdrawal of the governors’ sons from schools for fear of the bandits; a state notorious for serial kidnapping and killing of students with ease, El-Rufai’s playing down of the serious threat bandits pose to the country is the height of hypocrisy and barefaced deceit. But his position is not entirely surprising.

    It is in harmony with the body language of the Buhari regime where two sets of laws seem to be governing the handling of Boko Haram, killer herdsmen and bandits on the one hand and self-determination agitators on the other. The near state of anarchy in the country is a logical consequence of this double standard or is it selective justice.

  • The Igboho cat

    The Igboho cat

    By Sam Omatseye

    It may not surprise historians that when the story of Sunday Igboho is told it may not be about humans. Not about a rustic upstart rewriting his hubris to muster a tribal pride. Not about herdsmen as barbarians, or the torching of palaces, or the slaughter of red-blooded hunters and the defiling of nubiles.

    It may be a legacy of a cat. Hence, I wonder when the case of Igboho against the federal government in the international court kicks into earnest, will the cat be summoned in evidence? Many things have been said about the night cat, but nothing about its identity. Was it a fat cat, nourished in the rats and droppings of the home? Was it a lean cat straying into a human staccato of action just as a cartoon now trending has suggested? Was it a bold male, a sly kitten? Was it on the run, in a half-daze? Did it meow or growl, or squint? Was it a black cat, now invisible in the night, now visible, its eyes bright and defiant, stabbing the night? We are left to fill in the void, a vast tapestry of colours and sounds in that night of augury and blood.

    The men and women of the DSS and the Nigerian army who rallied into the compound without warrants, may have shot few persons dead, slurped away Igboho’s wife and the guards and others in a triumph of a cat fighting a rat, but it was the cat that won the night. The fuzzy creature became in their eyes not an animal but a transformation act.

    It became an escape artist, like the goat Djali who helped the stunning damsel Esmerelda outwit her foes in Victor Hugo’s classic, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. So, they thought Igboho was the cat, and what did they think they could do to it or him? Could they force it to rehumanise? To turn into human again? Could they have handled it or would they have fled, gun and all, in a commotion of cowardice? The little creature transformed from a low, small fur into the mammalian hulk, eye turning human, fore legs turning to hands, hind legs elongating into a full stretch of a homo sapien, feet unfurling and his voice shouting in strange bass, “Yoruba nation.”

    Even as they surveyed the cat, did they tremble? Did it occur to them at that moment that the very spectacle of the cat exposed the hollowness of the whole project that night? That it was all fiction? That they were looking for a man who was not there, and they were fighting a cause that was not there? That the man had riled up a crowd did not mean he rallied a nation? It meant the state had lost its onions. It was pursuing a fiction just as it was pursuing the chimera of Twitter. Twitter that should bring job to us, excite a community, leverage a cause, to help fight the ignorance. They were now fighting in the vanguard of ignorance.

    The cat in question has no name, it may have been a neighbourhood cat, a hungry cat, straying with the same impunity with the soldiers. Cat without warrant. Soldiers without warrant. We might say it had the guarantee of a cultural warrant. Soldiers had no legal warrant. The cat, however, came like a thief in the night, an intruder’s humility. The soldiers came like the beast in the night, barrelling in with a rat-tat-tat of gunfire. The real beast, paradoxically, was innocent. It wanted food. They wanted humans as fodder, a cannibal feast. The humans were beasts. Did I hear Fela croon, “beast of no nation…” Some said the cat was Ighoho’s pet, that helped to rid the home of rats. Reminds me of my maternal grandfather in the village of Orogun. Once in a while he would ask us to open the doors and let the cats in. The gleeful predators padded stealthily into the rooms and a few minutes later, they were growling out with mouthfuls.

    In the west, if a raid of this nature happened, the police would look for a treat for the cat. They would even play with the creature.

    That our soldiers decided to arrest the cat reflects how as a culture we have made ourselves lower than the animals. The cat cowed them, it probably meowed them into fear. They stooped. The cat conquered.  In metaphor, they were like playwright Tennessee Williams’ cat on a hot tin roof. They were intimidated by the animal because the whole incursion into Igboho’s compound was lower than humans. It was a bestial act. Rather than coddle the cat, they saw themselves as lower than it. God made us a little lower than angels. The army acted a little lower than a cat. They did not think it harmful in physical terms but spiritual. They had guns. They had bombs. But they had fear. That is the power of superstition. Rather than shoot, they shrank.

    It is the same superstition that is at work with fighting Igboho that is at work with what we now know as the fear over a free press and free expression in a democracy that led to a nationwide first-page advert in the newspapers. It is the same suppression of dissent that we are seeing with Twitter, that we have seen with NBC.

    It is not today that tales of animal superstition have pervaded military escapades and campaigns in Nigeria. I recall a visit to Black Scorpion, Brigadier Adekunle as a reporter in the late 1980’s. The small man, then old but the sparkle of his martial past undimmed, spoke without glee about the war. I asked him about stories of his disappearing acts. He laughed it off. He said there was no truth to it. The man was hardly in the battle front. But some myths said he turned to animals and disappeared. That soldiers in battle believe this only tells us how idle some of the minds of our soldiers are.

    We need not only liberation from ourselves. We need it from animals. When President Clinton was in the White House, I was one of a few guest journalists who paid a visit to the man. He was in Colorado for the G-8 then, but we saw his cat, a buxom affair named Socks. The caretaker asked us to touch the hairy creature, and I did with delight. It was the first time I had touched a cat. I would in the course of my American journey not only play with them, but feed them. I helped a colleague whose cat died perform a burial ceremony over her beloved cat, with a swoop of Shakespearean oratory while she shed tears. It was a black cat. When I was in the newsroom a month later in Denver, reporters made me feel like a superstar because I touched the nation’s first critter.

    If we remember the feline story, we can say they feared the Igboho cat the way the Europeans slaughtered medieval cats instead of rats as culprits for the plague that overwhelmed the continent, a scenario painted in Albert Camus’ novel The Plague.

    The raid at Igboho’s and the cat episode was a moment in Bubonic plague in Nigeria and the state, a plague of fear, a fear of free expression, a fear of democracy.

    It’s in the Southeast

    •Fashola

    Two weeks ago, this essayist noted that the Jonathan administration rose on the enthusiastic wave of Southeast joy, but the Otuoke man did little other than pad the elite. I noted that Buhari, for all his sectional zest, has done more for the region than anyone for the region since Gowon. A trove of protests online could have shocked me if I had not prophesied that even if Fashola paved the roads with gold some would not see it. Prejudice makes a good thing seem bad. Just as I wrote this the FEC approved MTN to assist in the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway that is a great work in progress. Or shall I say also of the Owerri-Enugu road? The Second Niger Bridge was Jonathan’s rhetorical feast without a feat on the ground or water. Even the blind will rejoice at the vista of what is going on there. When Jonathan left office, he had infrastructure vote of N18 billion. With Fashola on the seat, the budget is over N260 billion. By any fraction, this government is spending more for the southeast than Jonathan budgeted for the whole nation when the dollar was over 100 dollars per barrel. Babatunde Fashola, trojan of works, is leaving much for history to chew.

    But Buhari is his worst enemy with Igbos. He has hurt them too much to please them. But the work is on in the region. They only have to look. For instance, three out of the six-lane driveway of Onitsha-Umunya-Awkuzu-Abba/Ukpo-Amawbia-Awka section of the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway has now reduced drive-time from 1:15 to 25 minutes. So, there!

  • Kanu: Beneath the surface

    Kanu: Beneath the surface

    By Femi Macaulay

    On the surface, controversial Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu was dramatically rearrested in a foreign land and, according to Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami (SAN), “brought back to Nigeria in order to continue facing trial after disappearing while on bail regarding 11-count charge against him.” He described Kanu as a “fugitive,” saying he had been arrested on June 27 “through the collaborative efforts of Nigerian intelligence and security services.” He called the action an “interception.”

    Starting the story from the beginning, the minister said “Kanu was arrested on 14th October, 2015 on 11-count charge bordering on terrorism, treasonable felony, managing an unlawful society, publication of defamatory matter, illegal possession of firearms and improper importation of goods, among others.

    A judge at the Federal High Court, Abuja revoked Kanu’s bail that was granted him on health grounds and issued a bench warrant for his arrest on the same date, over his failure to appear in court for hearing.”

    Malami added: “He has, upon jumping bail, been accused of engaging in subversive activities that include inciting violence through television, radio and online broadcasts against Nigeria and Nigerian State and institutions.

    Kanu was also accused of instigating violence especially in Southeastern Nigeria that resulted in the loss of lives and property of civilians, military, paramilitary, police forces and destruction of civil institutions and symbols of authorities.”

    Curiously, the Federal Government’s announcement of Kanu’s “interception” did not provide important details on where and how it happened. His lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, supplied thought-provoking details on July 15 following an interaction with him about three weeks after he was brought back to the country and detained.

    According to the lawyer, “Kanu was in point of fact tortured and subjected to untold cruel and inhuman treatment in Kenya. He said his abductors disclosed to him that they abducted him at the behest of Nigerian government.

    “He was blindfolded and driven to the tarmac very close to the plane without passing through the airport immigration… Kanu was flown to Abuja in the private jet on Sunday 27th June, 2021 from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi and he was the lone passenger.”

    Beneath the surface, there may well be reasons Kanu was so desperately hunted down beyond the minister’s public explanation. President Muhammadu Buhari is unlikely to have forgotten that Kanu, after jumping bail and fleeing the country, had helped to spread the fantastic story that the president was dead and a look-alike from Sudan, Jubril Aminu Al-Sudani, was in charge at Aso Rock, the seat of federal power.

    Kanu had disappeared in September 2017 during an army exercise in the Southeast, “Operation Python Dance.”  His lawyers had argued that the Nigerian Army authorities should be made to produce him, and alleged that “rampaging soldiers” abducted or killed him after invading his house in Afara-Ukwu Ibeku, Umuahia, Abia State.

    He resurfaced with a bang after a mysterious 13-month disappearance. An October 2018 online video showed him praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.  A British Nigerian, he continued his pro-Biafra secessionist campaign outside the country.

    In December 2018, Kanu released what he called six “scientific” facts to support his absurd claim that an impersonator, a Buhari clone, was playing the role of president of Nigeria.  First, he said, “Jibril is about 50 years old and it shows in his gait, his vibrancy, and the smoother tone of his face and skin. There’s also a slight difference in earlobes between the two men.”  Second, he “appears to have a fuller mane of hair, much darker hairlines, and now permanently spots a cap that he has refused to remove despite repeatedly being dared to do so.” Third, he “does not speak Fulfulde but speaks Hausa only.”

    Fourth, “one notices a profound distance when in public between Jibril and Buhari’s family members, especially Buhari’s wife, Aisha and son Yusuf.”  Fifth, “Buhari was a very tall person, noticeably taller than other equally tall public officials such as Senate President Saraki, who now appears taller than the man claiming to be Buhari. How come?”   Sixth, since his ‘acclaimed’ recovery from his debilitating ailments and discharge from the London Hospital, the man that claims to be Buhari has not been traveling to London for mandatory follow-ups. Is it medically possible that someone who was ravaged to the point of looking skeletal and underwent complex surgeries would suddenly heal to the point that he no longer needed clinical follow-ups?”

    The controversy about the president’s real identity petered out. President Buhari was reelected in 2019. Two years after, Kanu has found himself in a situation where he may be required to shed light on the incredible narrative of the existence of a Buhari double, which he promoted.  In detention, he may reflect on the things he had said about President Buhari.

    Does he still think the man in the Presidential Villa is not Buhari but a lookalike?  Does he regret making such a ridiculous claim? Does he now accept that Buhari is not dead and has been president since 2015?

    His separatist group once described him hyperbolically as “a man that commands 50 million people with presence in over 100 countries of the world, making him only second to Pope Francis as the personality with the largest cult following on earth.”  Such a man should not have allowed his separatist struggle to separate him from reality.

    His trial promises twists and turns. The issues include how Kanu was arrested and brought back to the country, why he fled the country, his words and deeds as IPOB leader, and the group’s rebellion. The question is: Will he get a fair trial?

    It is noteworthy that the Federal Government controversially demonstrated state capacity in this striking drama. Did it have greater reasons to do so in this case? IPOB represents just one manifestation of the country’s insecurity challenges. There are various others across the country, threatening the country’s soul.  Does Kanu’s case indicate a renewed effort to deal with the agents of insecurity wherever they may be found?

  • Lauretta Onochie as a metaphor

    Lauretta Onochie as a metaphor

    By Emeka Omeihe

    There is something untidy about the reason given by the senate for rejecting the nomination of an aide to President Buhari, Lauretta Onochie as national commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. The error of judgment or cover up was so obvious that the office of the senate president had to hurriedly issue a statement as a face-saving measure.

    Kabiru Gaya, senate committee chairman on INEC had in his report stated unambiguously that Onochie’s rejection was because she did not satisfy the provisions of the federal character principle. Though he duly observed that petitions against her were against the backdrop of her involvement in politics and alleged membership of a political party, the verdict of his committee was that she responded to these “accordingly including attesting that she is not a registered member of any political party”.

    The committee cited the case of a serving national electoral commissioner, Mary Agbamuche-Mbu who hails from the same Delta State with Onochie and concluded, “based on the provision of section 14 (3) of 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) on federal character principle and in order for the committee and the senate to achieve fairness to other states and political zones in the country, the committee is unable to recommend Ms Lauretta Onochie for confirmation”.

    In effect, Gaya’s committee absolved Onochie of allegations of political partisanship and membership of a political party when it did not cite them as one of the reasons for her disqualification. For the committee, she responded to them accordingly, including attesting that she is not a member of any political party.

    But in a curious twist soon after, the office of the senate president issued a statement through his special assistant (press) Ezrel Tabiowo quoting Gaya to have said the rejection was because of ‘partisanship and breaching of the federal character principle’. What partisanship, the allegation the committee had exonerated her of? That strikes as a contradiction of sorts. How could that be when she had attested that she is not a member of a political party? Or is the senate not well schooled on the proper meaning of the word to attest?

    It is a huge surprise that the senate could turn around so soon after and include partisanship as one of the reasons for her rejection after she had proved to the committee that she is neither partisan nor a member of a political party. Something definitely is wrong with the latter attempt to rationalize her rejection on the grounds of partisanship. Clearly, the committee displayed some bias in its assessment and recommendation obviously for the same partisan political considerations.

    It is curious that the committee treated the allegation of partisanship in an offhanded manner even with the weighty constitutional infractions which nominating a partisan political person for appointment into INEC entails. The constitution specifically stated that appointees into INEC must be non-partisan and also not a card-carrying member of any political party. The nominee is a special assistant to the president on New Media.

    Her call of duty mandates her to share in and defend the policies and programs of the president and his party. She regularly engages critics of the president offering media interventions and laundering the image of her employer. As one of the image makers of the president via the New Media, she is involved in media propaganda including twisting facts to suit the whims and caprices of her employer.

    It is inconceivable how such a loyal functionary can reasonably escape allegations of political partisanship. What else is left of her office if she is not there for partisan calling? Or is it being suggested that an adversary could be entrusted with such media jobs?

    The committee woefully failed to take into account other weighty evidence that put a lie to some of the claims bandied by Onochie when she was interrogated. In the course of her interrogation, she admitted being part of the Buhari’s campaign organization in 2015 before her appointment. She also admitted swearing to an affidavit at an Abuja Federal High Court that she is a member of the APC.

    But she still denied membership of a political party claiming that she had since learnt to stand with the constitution and due process, whatever that means. Onochie strove to justify her claims of non partisanship on the guise that she did take part in the current APC membership re-validation exercise. Who is deceiving who? Her non-participation in the APC re-validation exercise is obviously on purpose given her impending screening. The fact that she was nominated to the position in October last year, long before the re-validation exercise of the APC started on February 9, exposes the duplicity of her claims. Additionally, protests against her nomination predated the re-validation exercise.

    So the excuse of non-validation of party membership collapsed irretrievably on this ground. They are all contrived excuses propelled by desperation. The folly of her embarrassing outing lies in her inability to produce a counter affidavit denouncing her membership of the APC. Why these facts totally escaped the prying eyes of the Gaya-led committee remains a huge riddle, irrespective of the eventual rejection of the nominee by the senate.

    It is curious that a committee which found it expedient to copio usly quote the 1999 constitutional provisions on federal character infringement suddenly went numb on the equally dangerous and explosive constitutional violation inherent in appointing a partisan person into INEC?  Equally noteworthy is the fact that the committee has suddenly found its voice on the serial violation of the constitution on the federal character principle by Buhari in the instant case.

    Ironically, the very institution that ensures the enforcement of that principle; the Federal Character Commission FCC is presently in breach of that principle as both its chairman and secretary are both from the northern part of the country. This goes contrary to extant practices. The senate is yet to see anything wrong with that.

    Beyond this however, Onochie’s nomination denotes a paradox of all that is wrong with Buhari’s appointments. With widespread protests that trailed the nomination, one had expected the president who swore to uphold the constitution to have acted swiftly by withdrawing it. Nothing of such happened. He looked the other way only for the senate to prove his appointment contrary to the letters and spirit of the constitution. That is a sad commentary on the disposition of the government on appointments that pay scant regard to diversities of the country. It stands a big indictment that the president could make an appointment that ran against the letters of the constitution in two fundamental ways.

    The current turn of events is not entirely surprising. This is not the first time the president would make controversial appointments and stick to them despite genuine protests. The case of the former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, Ibrahim Magu stands out distinctly. Magu had a damning verdict from the Department of State Services DSS on his ineligibility for the EFCC job but the president insisted in foisting him on the country.

    The DSS had presented Magu as one who maintains a lifestyle that portrays him as an anti-corruption czar who harbors no friend but at another level, hobnobs with corrupt people. DSS wrote that Magu, “failed the integrity test and will eventually constitute a liability to the anti-corruption drive of the present administration”

    But the president faulted the DSS and went ahead to re-present him for the confirmation of the senate which rejected him for the second time. Magu continued to act in that capacity for many years until the predictions of the DSS came through. The disgraceful manner he was shoved out of that office is now history.

    Onochie’s appointment clearly runs against the constitution both in terms of her partisanship and the dictates of the federal character principle. She is clearly a partisan political appointee-an unmitigated liability to the electoral umpire. Her confirmation was bound to spell doom for INEC and imperil future elections.

  • Darkening cloud

    Darkening cloud

    By Emeka Omeihe

    An ominous cloud is obviously hovering around the Nigerian political atmosphere. Even with the touted patriotic claims by our leaders to peace, unity and indivisibility of the country, indications of an assailing self-fulfilling prophesy inundate the landscape.

    Diverse challenges evolve in quick succession in so many fronts that even the most incurable optimist is bound to worry whether the Nigerian state can really withstand this interminable systemic trauma? There is little in the posturing and dispositions of our elected and appointed leaders to give hope of an honest committed to building institutions and processes that will usher in a stable and enduring political order.

    What you find despite pretensions, is regular competition of cleavages of ethnic, sectional and religious hue with each constantly striving to outplay the other. Faced with this ferocious competition, the building of national ethos, values and consensus on irreducible decimals of our national existence is sadly pushed to the back seat. And we all claim commitment to the progress of the country?

    Even in issues there exist universally accepted standards and consensus on their heuristics for system stabilization, you still find our leaders pandering to self-serving and clannish predilections. Ours is a system that does not accord premium to rules, order, system survival and maintenance.

    It is a typical case of muddling tools. Such a system is primed for fatal consequences. That is the inevitable trajectory the ship of the Nigerian state is perilously sailing. Unless quick steps are taken to re-direct this ship from this tempestuous path, the prediction of some American scholars that Nigerian was primed for a failed state may become a reality even after the 2015 deadline had elapsed.

    That is the sad reality of a country that regularly grandstands on nationalism from both sides of the mouth. And the signs are quite perceptible. They are evident from the posturing of President Buhari on many of the nagging national challenges. They are discernable from the plethora of crisis assaulting the country without our leaders showing genuine commitment to their resolution. They are evident from many of Buhari’s appointments that run at cross purposes with the federal character principle and balance.  The virus has also crept into the National Assembly and about to tear its fabric. The insipient hands of enemies of progress masquerading as the conscience of Nigerian unity and indivisibility are at it again.

    Their target this time is to assault democracy, the democratic tradition and institution. They are primed to expunge direct electronic transmission of elections results from the polling units to the collation centres. Their target is to foist, perpetrate and perpetuate the decadent order of writing election results in the comfort of their homes and hotel rooms. They want to continue the military tradition of appointing administrators to states through result-fixing and assailing the sovereignty of the electorate.

    They claim theirs is a democratic organization and want to savor the appurtenances attached to it. Yet, they work assiduously to deprive it of the oxygen from which it derives life. How can such a system survive? That is the uncanny irony of devious attempts by some moles in the National Assembly to assail and rubbish the very principles that purportedly brought them into their current offices-free fair and credible elections.

    If the saboteur legislators behind the attempt to expunge clauses guaranteeing free and fair elections from the Electoral Act amendment bill came to their current positions through transparent electoral processes, they will not be found in the current shameful act. It is a big dent on the National Assembly for the plot to assail democracy to emanate from within it.

    Free, fair and transparent elections constitute the lynchpin on which the democratic wheel revolves. Representative democracy as opposed to other forms of governance framework, derives strength from its capacity to reflect the collective will of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box. What else is left of it if it cannot reflect the sovereignty of the electorate?

    That is the contradiction in the embarrassing attempt by some unpatriotic, selfish and clannish legislators and their collaborators in the corridors of power to subvert the very principles on which the democratic paradigm rests. The clear statement of those rooting to expunge electronic transmission of election results is that they prefer rigging and manipulation of election results. That strikes as clear vote of no confidence in the democratic process since it is nigh impossible to conceive of democracy in the absence of free and fair elections.

    By extrapolation, it is a preference for the dictatorship of the military-the other form of governance construct this country parted ways with since 1999. That is the next but degenerate level some of our legislators want to sink this country. Such prospects should send shivers into the spines of those who wish this country well.

    Those behind this destructive move ought to be fished out and identified as dishonorable members; a disgrace to their constituencies. Is that not retrogression; a death sentence to democracy? Election outcomes have been one of the greatest challenges assailing the Nigerian state. Elections have virtually degenerated to a matter of life and death as all manner of buccaneers and rogue politicians battle for the coercive apparatus of the state.

    With the disproportionate concentration of powers at the federal level, elections have assumed the biggest challenge to peace; progress and stability of the country. Sections, groups and individuals take advantage of poorly conducted and poorly organized elections to foist themselves on the people. The armada of litigations after each election is evidence of general dissatisfaction with their outcome. Agitations for improvement in the electoral process are primarily meant to stave off the suffocating crisis associated with flawed and rancorous elections.

    With improvement in electronic accreditation of voters and voting, manipulation shifted to the collation centres. It cannot be forgotten in a hurry the controversy INEC was mired for pulling down its website for the transmission of results of the 2019 polls. It is unfortunate that the version of the Electoral Act amendment bill now before the National Assembly is circulating without that clause. And you wonder what the intention is if not to rig and manipulate elections ahead of time. The same attempt to imperil the electoral process is evident in the current move by the president to foist one of his aides, Lauretta Onochie as a national commissioner of INEC despite clear evidence of her partisan political leaning.

    Are we now faced with the situation that compelled former governor of the old Imo State, Sam Mbakwe after the heavily rigged 1983 elections to call on the British colonial masters to come back? The scorching political temperature is also palpable from current altercations on the rotation of the presidency compelling southern governors to insist on power shift to southern Nigeria come 2023.

    Reactions from the north since after the southern governors’ communiqué’ are about to re-open old wounds. But we have treaded this path before with deleterious repercussions. It cannot be forgotten in a hurry, threats unleashed from the north on the dire consequences of any attempt to retain power in the south during the 2015 election campaigns. The allegory of baboons and donkeys soaked in blood is still fresh in mind. Though the north was on point to demand power shift then and had their way, it would be a great tragedy if after Buhari’s two terms tenure, we are again embroiled in acrimony on the desirability of power rotation.

    It does not depict a country desirous of progress; one that unites and makes sacrifice for collective good. Goalpost shifting; clear dispositions towards an unjust and inequitable system have all the trappings of a people not prepared for positive change. It is a case of perilous leaning towards learning the hard way. Where such hard lessons will take this country is anybody’s guess.

     

  • The Sacrifice

    The Sacrifice

    By Sam Omatseye

     

    Former finance minister Kemi Adeosun cannot be making a carnival over vindication alone this moment. She must be thinking many other things. She must wonder if she could have escaped any whiff of scandal if she were not a woman. Why did she uproot herself from her British roots of upper lip accents into the slimy tide of her other roots, the Nigerian roots? What was going on, a gang-up against a woman, a political equivalent of a gang rape, or a conspiracy against a principle? What principle?

    Did it have anything to do with the sudden evaporation in the money she left in the coffers? It suffered a dry run.  An account that was about $2.4 billion was, within a month of her leaving office, a paltry $750 million. Was that the reason or principle for all that witch hunt?

    Witch hunt? For sure it could not be witches going after her. In a patriarchal, male-suffused environment, we must look for a liberation of women in the rhetoric of oppression. Wizard hunt? Maybe. Men skulking in nights of stealth, muscular spirits in conspiracy.

    Did she also think politics had a hand in this? Did she get into a position that forbade anything right, including an NYSC certificate of exemption?

    The verdict of the court of Taiwo Taiwo said a few things that even her detractors had not anticipated. They did not expect that the court would say she was a British citizen when she was 30. That means she did not even have to say she was exempted. The court affirmed that no minister needed to show NYSC eligibility because a university degree is, in the eyes of the constitution, no precondition for a ministerial toga.

    The woman was born in the shadows of Queen Elizabeth’s palace. She schooled in one of their universities. She, like some Nigerians who are British born, answered the call of her kin in Ogun State, and became a commissioner, also of finance. She trained in the language of money.

    But when she resigned as finance minister, it was not money. It was not fraud in the chess game of accounts. It was not a contract mess or amiss, or an open or underhand duel over who deserved an allocation. It was about language.  Forgery?

    But she was not even supposed to offer a letter of exemption. Exemptions are for people who ordinarily should present themselves for the service.

    So why did it become a big deal in the Buhari administration? Why was she allowed to resign? Why not squelch the fury in its first flickers? What it means is that she was in a hostile ambience in her own administration. The public only fattened on what the media fed her? The media failed the woman. The facts lost public traction. The media did not unveil the facts as the courts did last week. No diligence of investigation shed light on the crevices. She might not have had to resign. She might be finance minister today. Maybe not. Maybe they would have clutched at another ballast of accusation, another excuse for her to recuse.

    She might have saved those billions of naira, and have kept on an even keel her other doings in government, including removing about 45,000 fictitious names from the federal payroll.

    Adeosun’s brother said she resigned because of an investigation on the matter in the federal government. She might not have resigned because she was not guilty. If she was, she would not have gone to court. She left because the very basis of engagement in government had left her office: trust.

    For this essayist, it is not a matter of whether she was supposed to serve a year for a fatherland, or whether she presented a certificate of exemption, it was why it became a matter at all.

    When Buhari was running for the office of president, the point was made, also in this column, that the query of his eligibility had little to do with the facts of certificate. It was politics of bitterness. I am not happy that in the case of the pivotal female in his cabinet, he did not rise in the woman’s defence. He accepted her resignation.

    Was it a case of making Adeosun a sort of Greek Iphigenia, the daughter slaughtered as sacrifice for some sort of Trojan war in the government?

    In retrospect, the government defended the former chief of army staff Buratai. They stoked the fire for Pantami. They lost their lips when another female presided over billions of feeding money for absent students, and others. When an innocent woman fell in the cauldron, they left her to boil in the juice.

    Women are an intricate species in this democracy. And they should not be left in the high noon to roast. If they should not be coddled, they should not be in the cauldron. If the law looks away from them, we should not turn the majesty of justice against them. When no law railed against her, they made her a transgressor. We should have had the attorney-general of the federation stand up for one of their own, especially if a woman, when she was in the favoured bosom of the law. But we have an attorney general who looks askance at a republic of just men. A man who is so shameless as to preface his announcement of Kanu’s arrest with an impudent swoop of his native tongue in a nation of nations, in a multi-ethic democracy! He cannot understand empathy, or even justice. He is straining at justice. Justice is supposed to be natural. Nature works on its behalf. It does not have to be popular. It has to be right. As William Penn, the Quaker and writer after whom the state of Pennsylvania in the United States was named, said, “Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.”

    What does vindication mean today? Adeosun would say she got her name back, she did no wrong, the system bastardised her image, made her a moral pariah, and she retreated into a silence of pain. But it makes her successor a technical impostor. But we must learn that justice, especially of the type that Adeosun suffered, should not be allowed to be the norm. The media should be more suspicious of authority by lending a censorious eye to every query. Or we shall incarnate a Kafkaesque world in his novel The Trial where the innocent one looks like the guilty one, and even it is not only the public who believes in the guilt of the innocent, even the innocent one believes in her own guilt.

    That is not the justice we want. That is what Adeosun fought.

     

     

    Beacon state

     

     

    Recently we have seen Lagos as a beacon. Two things happened of late. The one recently was when southern governors turned Lagos into its hub of action. They made it their secretariat after the BOS of Lagos hosted them, and they rolled out a raft of resolutions to set a wobbly federation on its feet. It is a measure of the rising stature of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu that his colleagues deferred to him. This is a political front, a conduit of action in a fraught polity. The other is moral, when the governors across the country agreed to learn how to make money by making Lagos teacher and blackboard. Lagos is revenue leader and fountainhead of money making. Gov. Sanwo-Olu has followed a trend of raising the bar of revenue as the coastal state forges ahead in these lean times.

     

  • Sweat wisely

    Sweat wisely

    By Sam Omatseye

     

    For the Nnamdi Kanu theatre, two eyes saw it in Nigeria. For one, it was a gangster act. For another, it was a sleek score for Nigerian Intelligence.

    For the Igboho saga, no one saw the attack as act of heroism. It was a forest cat nibbling a rat.

    But the matter for this essayist started before the two onslaughts.

    The intelligence forces invited the acerbic cleric Gumi over. It was not to probe or poke him. His hoary beard and whirlwind tongue remained intact. It was the show before the show-off.

    They gave Gumi a slap on the wrist. Kanu had cuffs on the wrist. For a different grist, Igboho had blood on his street.

    I wonder how a southern priest chummy with bandits would have swayed under this state? Would he have the fortitude to walk the forest aisles? Would he not be tagged a rebel leader or collaborator? Will they say he gave a baptismal fire to bandits? Or will they call him an anointer of the men of blood? Won’t they coerce him to bare the geographical details of their hideouts. Won’t they go to their bush havens, bomb and flush them out, and put paid to the narrative of mayhem and slaughter? Why the lopsided magistracy? Why is it rage here, and softness there, when all over we need the equality of official justice?

    Yet, I have no tears to shed for Kanu, or a case to make for an ethnic entrepreneur who slayed peace in his homeland he sought to save, called Yoruba clerics to be stoned to death, carried the passport of a zoo country and, by implication, making himself a zoo ambassador or a monkey or hyena in the babel of caged squealers. He consecrated cutting the ears or lopping off heads, paralysed a region for his ego for a few days. The people feared his security forces more than the official ones. He virtually committed a coup in the east, atrophied official Nigeria in the region, and installed a de facto Biafra. In spite of Operation Python Dance, the Igbo dreaded the ESN more. The snake crawled as though coy when Kanu squalled.

    The centre watched like a spectator. It recalls the rebellion under the geriatric King David in the Bible when one of his sons ogled the throne. “And now, behold, Adonijah reigneth; and now, my lord the king, thou knowest not.”

    For me, it makes little sense to speculate whether it was right to pick him up or not. How naïve Kanu was to allow kudi to lure him out of his lair. It shows how half-cooked a rebel or hero he is, and how he pined for the lush life of the flesh, as Lai Mohammed said. Lai Mohammed may be right, but he was wrong-headed. Is it not in the same government that we have seen men, like the attorney general, mint parties? He made financial excess into moral excrescence in the extravagance of Naira rain?

    We must not forget that it was Buhari, who made Kanu into a monster. Just as Mazisi Kunene in his epic poem turned Shaka the Zulu into a monster by killing his love Noliwe, Buhari made Kanu into a gradual descent into a hate machine. In the Jonathan years, he was an outlier, an irritant and, at best, an entertainer. The Jonathan administration made the Igbo the centre. His middle name was Azikiwe. He gave appointments and contracts to their elites. When oil was over $100 dollars per barrel, he did not see the bad roads in the region, or do any consequential project for the folks. But they were happy with him. Sentiment upended welfare.

    Enter Buhari. The opposite is the story. Buhari has done more work in infrastructure for the east with his trojan of works, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) than any leader since Gowon. But Buhari stirred the eastern fury. He alienated them in appointments, and tars them as pariah in his rhetoric. He has up till today not learned how to speak with them. He speaks at them.

    Even if he paves the eastern infrastructure in gold, they will not hug him. It is a lesson in leadership sanctified in the words of Oscar Wilde: sentiment is more important than reason. We may recall that Soyinka hails Amaechi for the western train and would not acknowledge Buhari. History will however restore that credit. Not now.

    History is repeating itself in the north. Buhari is doing to the north what Jonathan did to the east. He is plying the elite with appointments while neglecting the streets. Especially in security. His northern elite may like him, but their people are suffering. They are dying on the streets, their blood mixing with their farm millets and corns. Their daughters are losing their virginal flow to goons. Their wives are widowed in their teens. The talakawa politician has suddenly lost the ability to look down over his high shoulders.

    There was an obsession with Kanu, and it might have accounted for why he put off his trip for medical check-up. That can wake up his biological clock. Finding Kanu might have refuelled his haemoglobin and reengineered his heartbeat. What a health boost.

    The obsession was funny when a northern group gave a 100 million Naira bounty on Kanu’s head, not Dogo Gide or any of the forest tormentors. They were more interested in body count in the east where less than hundreds have fallen than under their very nose where thousands are falling like precious sparrows.

    The Kaduna State governor was at it again with false equivalences, saying that Kanu was worse than bandits. Was that equivalence necessary? He has withdrawn his kids from public school, but others’ kids can remain there. He just doesn’t know how to talk. He was right though about carpet bombing the bandits.

    If the security forces put as much diligence to go after the forest renegades as they did to Kanu, maybe things will be different. EL Rufai says they don’t have centralised authority as though that minimises their carnage.

    It is fear that made them lionise Kanu and Igboho. It is fear that keeps making them enlarge the duo in the people’s minds.

    Kanu has grown so big that he has bifurcated the Igbo mind. They don’t like him but they accept him. That is the dilemma. They don’t want to leave Nigeria but they are not happy inside it. It is like an estranged lover who loves the partner but is waiting and praying for the halcyon day while another rascal hovers around the window with the seduction of libido and lies. That is more exciting than the gilded oppressor at home. Kanu is not Ojukwu, who responded to pogrom and the spontaneous bonfire of nationalist separatism. Ojukwu knew that even if he relented, the market women could burn him in the street. Biafra was in the mind before the war. Kanu is mining it from the recesses of the Igbo soul and memory. He laid the firewood. Buhari is helping him light it.

    As for Igboho, he is being lionised, too. Why attack his residence? Why not charge him to court? The man has said and done enough for a clever court case? Why resort to attack. Why remove the CCTV when you want to accuse him of gathering weapons? Who will believe their story that they met charms and guns there? So, do they think those arms paraded are enough to raise an army? Can they defeat the Nigerian army from an apartment? The herdsmen have more than that. Why not go after them with the same zeal. We don’t have an equity of official indignation, and that makes the case of this government all the more baffling. Who is advising these guys? Do they really think that an enlightened race like the Yoruba can line up behind a country bumpkin who cannot weave a holy sentence and throw up a nuanced idea?

    The Yoruba are too clever for an insular mind, and Buhari and his men should know better than to make a bad case worse by doing bad things.

    When the Americans were in a ferment for revolution, Benjamin Franklin said, “the revolution was in the hearts and minds of the American people.”

    What the people want is justice, not revolution. A gangster act has a danger of turning a home cat into a bobcat. Hence we should follow the pace of peace. “The more you sweat in peace,” said Norman Schwarzkopf, “the less you bleed in war.”

    But let us sweat wisely.

     

  • Babalakin at 61: A pathfinder’s paths

    Babalakin at 61: A pathfinder’s paths

    By Femi Macaulay

     

    There is no doubt that the Murtala Muhammed Airport Domestic Terminal 2 (MMA2) in Lagos is an exemplary result of public-private partnership (PPP). It was constructed 14 years ago under a Design-Build-Operate-Transfer (DBOT) agreement with the Federal Government, the first major DBOT project of such magnitude in Nigeria.

    ”There is no airport terminal in Nigeria that has the flow of MMA2 because it was well thought out and designed,” Resort International Limited (RIL) Chairman Dr Wale Babalakin (SAN) observed at the 2019 annual lecture of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Lagos, where he spoke on “Infrastructure Development and Growth in Nigeria: Prospects and Challenges.”

    Babalakin’s company, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), is the private partner in the partnership and operator of the terminal. It is noteworthy that the company, the reserved bidder, was asked to handle the project after the preferred bidder’s failure to perform.  He said the company achieved a high design standard because the terminal was designed by Nigerian and South African architects.  He deserves credit for his contribution to the country’s infrastructure development. He turned 61 on July 1.

    “If we had been allowed to continue, phase two would have been completed 10 years ago and we would have had one of the best Airports in Africa,” he said in his lecture. It is unclear why there was discontinuity, but it is clear that the country would have benefitted from continuity.

    The country’s underdevelopment is the result of poor infrastructure development. Babalakin noted in his lecture that infrastructure development “is about serious commitment and a lot of intellectual rigour.” Sadly, it seems these essentials are in short supply in the country’s corridors of power.

    Babalakin’s MMA2 success possibly prompted the Federal Government to consider concession arrangements for other airports.  In 2016, the government announced  that it had concession plans for  all the 22 federal airports to enable them to function efficiently and profitably, beginning with the ones in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano. At the time, he had observed that his company’s “eye-opening effort” encouraged the authorities to pursue concession deals concerning the airports.  Importantly, Minister of Aviation Sirika Hadi in June said concession arrangements for the four airports would be completed by August. It remains to be seen if the standard set by Babalakin would be achieved.

    Considering his notable MMA2 achievement, it may well be that the country lost a big infrastructure development opportunity when the Federal Government controversially terminated the 2009 concession agreement with another of his companies, Bi-Courtney Highway Services Limited, for the reconstruction and modernisation of Nigeria’s busiest and most important highway, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, under a DBOT agreement. Babalakin said the government “terminated the concession for lack of performance without disclosing to the public that they had held us down for 22 months.”

    His company was the preferred bidder under the Umaru Yar’Adua administration, but the Goodluck Jonathan administration terminated the agreement in 2012 after Yar’Adua’s death. Ironically, Jonathan was vice president at the time the agreement was signed.  The public-private partnership was jettisoned and the government awarded the contract for the road project to Julius Berger Plc. and RCC Nigeria Limited.

    ”It is just a repeat resurfacing of the 1977 road,” Babalakin said in his lecture two years ago.  ”The architecture of that place has changed phenomenally since 1977 and our design accommodated all the changes… Our total cost was N112b. Now, over N350b has been spent on 40% of what we planned to build and they are still at 40%.” It is noteworthy that the road repair is ongoing.  Chairman of the House of Representatives committee on works Abubakar Kabir, in June, during an inspection of roads in Lagos and other parts of the Southwest, said the Federal Government was working towards completing the road rehabilitation project before May 2022.

    There is a significant difference between resurfacing the road and modernising it. If his company’s design had been allowed to materialise, the country would have benefitted from the difference.  He explained in an interview last year: “The project on that road included seven overhead bridges… I’m not even sure there is one overhead bridge on the one being built now. Also, our project had proper lay-bys; you didn’t have to buy petrol on the road. You had to go off the road for about one minute where you would find a restaurant, small hotel and all the facilities you would require. We had three of such on each side of the road. We also had a truck bay that could accommodate 12,000 trucks and was expandable because we counted the number of trucks on the road then and they were about 4,000. Now, we are told that they are about 6,000.”

    Another project involving Babalakin’s company that shows how the government’s actions ironically contribute to the country’s underdevelopment is the planned redevelopment of the old Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi, Lagos.

    Babalakin’s RIL  had paid N7 billion for the property in 2005 after a successful bid, and in October 2006 signed a Development Lease Agreement (DLA) for 99 years with the Federal Government to redevelop the disused Secretariat complex into 480 luxury apartments. But the property lies in ruins 16 years after the agreement because of obstacles created by the Lagos State government which said the Federal Government should have sold the complex to it.

    The company went to arbitration against the Federal Government and won. Under the agreement the Federal Government was supposed to be responsible for obtaining a no-objection approval from the Lagos State government, if necessary.  The company was awarded N50 billion as damages in a judgement delivered by the tribunal in December 2015.  The cost awarded has not been paid by the Federal Government, and the Lagos State government has not changed its obstructive position.

    Whether it’s an aviation project, a road project or a housing project, Babalakin has encountered government-driven obstacles to his infrastructure development efforts. But the seasoned lawyer-cum-businessman remains a consistent advocate of the public-private partnership approach to development.  Based on his personal experience, he listed the enemies of public-private partnership in Nigeria  at the 2016 Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, including the attitude of the government, lack of respect for sanctity of contracts and the rule of law, lack of investor security, corruption and malice.

    Notably, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, in March, at the opening ceremony of a two-day retreat of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) in Abuja, observed that Nigeria needed public-private partnership arrangements to solve its massive infrastructure deficit because the country required at least $2.3 trillion over the next 30 years to deal with the infrastructure gap which the government alone could not provide.

    So Babalakin, a vocal and active champion of public-private partnership, remains relevant to the country’s infrastructure development goals. The pathfinder is still needed to find paths.

  • Beyond Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest

    Beyond Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest

    By Emeka OMEIHE

     

    The arrest and repatriation of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, was for obvious reasons the biggest story of last week. And it will continue to dominate the media space especially given sketchy information on the circumstance, place of arrest and the agenda of the dramatis personae.

    Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami opened the gate for all manner of speculations while breaking the news when he said Kanu was ‘intercepted’ by security and intelligence agencies in collaboration with their foreign counterparts without details on where and how it happened. Not unexpectedly, the social media went into frenzy with all manner of speculations and reports purportedly issued by some organizations on the development. The nature of those conjectures and the indecent haste they emerged on the public scene could not but raise doubts as to who was behind them and what they were intended to achieve.

    One of those stories claimed Kanu was lured by a lady and arrested in a hotel room. Coming in the wake of the murder of the chief executive officer of Super TV Michael Ataga, the purport of that association was not hidden. But one thing that gave out that story was that it hit the media space even before many people got to know of the arrest proper. So when were the stories written and where did the faceless authors get their facts?

    The other was a statement purportedly issued by Ohanaeze Ndigbo on the same arrest. The issues traded as well as the timing also raised doubts as to whether that body could react in such a hurry when the situation was still hazy. And to compound the situation, the purported statement was neither attributed to any of those authorized to speak on behalf of the Ohanaeze nor was the source disclosed. They all struck as fake news designed to achieve some pre-determined agenda.

    It was not surprising that some other national media organizations came out the next day with reports that Kanu was arrested when he went to solicit support from some foreign countries. There was also the dimension that he went to collect funds promised him by an unnamed group for the prosecution of the self-determination agenda of the IPOB. But all these remain within the realm of conjecture in the face of the reluctance or refusal by the federal government to make such details public.

    Information minister, Lai Mohammed at a press conference last Thursday, made references to raging speculations on how Kanu was arrested and the country of the arrest but still left the matter hanging. The government prefers to hold the circumstances of that interception to its chest apparently to avoid stirring up another round of controversy. But the minister made it clear that security and intelligence agencies had been on the trail of the IPOB leader for more than two years.

    That says something about some of the speculations.  One thing that remains certain however is that Kanu was arrested outside the United Kingdom. It is also certain that he was captured in circumstances that were rather unconventional.

    That however, is beside the point. The issue is what to make of the arrest now Kanu is within the custody of the Nigerian government. Already, the government is beating its chest celebrating the success of the arrest. Even as Mohammed failed to avail the country with details of the arrest, he was quick to describe it as “one of the most classic operations of its type in the world”. That may as well be. He also said there would be fair trial for the IPOB leader.

    In the weeks ahead, we expect a long drawn legal battle as the government moves to prove beyond reasonable doubt many of the weighty allegations levied against the suspect. The trial which is expected to be open is bound to be very revealing and emotional given the issues in contention. And in an issue of this nature, the options are clear. It is either Kanu is convicted on some or all of the charges and sentenced or he is freed on all of them and set free.

    The judicial process will determine all the allegations against the IPOB leader and deliver judgment on all of them. That is in line with the statutory duties of the judiciary. It also goes with the assumption that diligent prosecution and conclusion of the case constitutes both the necessary and sufficient conditions for a lasting closure to all the issues to the IPOB agitation.

    The latter does not quite add up because it rests on the assumption that systemic inequity which fuels the agitation for self-determination in that part of the country is all about Kanu and the offences he allegedly committed. And his arrest, trial and possible sentence will see an end to the agitation. That is an oversimplification of a very complex issue. Not with the large following he has both outside and within the country. Not with the substance of some of his messages that strike a common chord with the existential realities of those it was meant for.

    In verity, his language of discourse, sometimes laden with insults and abuses may have alienated him from some segments of the Nigerian population. He may also strike as a bad messenger. But aspects of his message find great appeal on those they were intended for because of the systemic dysfunctions constantly assailing this country. That message will continue to find audience as long as our leaders exploit the imperfections of our federal order to serve interests of parochial and clannish hue.

    The clamour for justice, equity, a common sense of belonging and a governance framework that enables all citizens to realize their full potentials have nothing to do with the fate of Kanu and it is not tied to it. The solution lies in honest and realistic resolution of all issues that overtime accentuate centrifugal tendencies. Even then, the proscribed IPOB is just one out of the groups on the same agenda. Kanu may be commanding a larger following but he is by no means, the character that raised consciousness on the suffocating systemic injustice that serve as the oxygen for the agitations.

    Ralph Uwazuruike that originally founded the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra MASSOB has since been edged out of the organization. He now leads the Biafra Independent Movement BIM. There is also Biafra Zionist Movement BZM led by Benjamin Onwuka that was involved in a foiled attempt to hoist their flag and seize the Enugu State government. Unlike the IPOB, these three other groups are not under proscription. Sadly, in the military campaigns against the IPOB in the southeast for alleged attacks on government facilities and killing of security personnel, that reality was not factored in. The attendant stigmatization and profiling reduced every Igbo especially the youth to potential IPOB members. With that mind-set, allegations of extra-judicial killings, detention, incarceration and sundry rights abuses were freely traded.

    The fate of Kanu cannot offer solutions to the rising agitations for self-determination either in the southeast or across the country. He is not the only arrowhead of such campaigns either in the southeast or the southwest that has more than 24 of such groups according to Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu. Neither has the arrest of Kanu stopped the group from agitations and showing solidarity with the O’odua self-determination groups in the current travails of one of their leaders, Sunday Igboho.

    The judicial angle to Kanu’s case is relevant. But more relevant and more enduring is the political dimension to issues that propel groups to lose confidence in the capacity of the federal order to serve their collective interests. It should be of utmost concern that more than 60 years after independence, primordial units are still in ferocious competition with the central authority for the loyalty of the citizens.

    The thing to do is to engage the constituents and find lasting solutions to the challenges that erected a wedge on the country’s road to constructing a just and equitable federal order. Engage the agitators and the nationalities to move the country forward. Paul Robeson comes handy when he said “the answer to injustice is not to silence the critic but to end the injustice”.

  • Enugu shooting: Matters arising

    Enugu shooting: Matters arising

    By Emeka Omeihe

    There is something peculiar about last week’s killing of five people in Enugu and injuring several others by a police inspector attached to a company in that state’s capital.

    Given the weird nature of the incident, suspicions are rife that the offending policeman may have been under some toxic influence as he opened the trigger, mowing down people on sight including those he had lived with for quite some time. But that is not all there is to the matter as the conduct of the suspect would reveal.

    Reports had it that the policeman who guards a Lotto company located in the Golf Estate area of Enugu, suddenly around 9.30 am on the fateful Sunday morning began shooting indiscriminately at his neighbors without any provocation. The shooting which was principally aimed at those who lived within the vicinity of his work place, fell five people with several others critically wounded before he was taken into custody.

    The state police command has promised thorough investigations to unravel the circumstances of the incident. It has also asked residents of the area and relations of those killed and wounded to remain calm while urging those with relevant information to aid investigations to avail them.

    But eyewitness accounts including that of the widow of one of the victims have injected some complication to the possible motive of the killer police inspector. According to them, as soon as the police inspector opened his door, he started shooting indiscriminately. He broke the windows of his neighbors and shot some ladies still sleeping in their rooms. He also shot the steward of the house who was apparently doing his domestic chores and other people at sight.

    The steward who suspected the man was bent on killing him ran and hid in the toilet. Apparently presuming that the steward was dead and that he could now cover up his crime, residents said the offending policeman quickly called some of his colleagues. On arrival, he told them that the shootings were carried out by unknown gunmen and pretended to be searching for the unknown gunmen together with the police operatives that had arrived the scene. But a lie was put to his narrative when the steward, on seeing the arrival of other officers, came out from hiding only to reveal that the inspector did the shooting.

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    It was at this point that he was arrested even as he was heard telling those that arrested him, “I will confess”. In matters of this nature, the immediate task before the police is to unravel the motive of the killings. There is the temptation to narrow it down to alcohol, drug influences or depression. But these may not be all there is to the matter in view of the fact that the shooting took place early in the morning when people were just getting up from their beds.

    Even then, accounts of residents said the inspector has never been seen smoking or drinking since they have been living in the area with him. They believe he neither smokes nor drinks alcohol. They sometimes play with him and if he is known for any of such vices, they would have noticed it long before now. That is however, not to completely rule out these leads. He could be on some drugs that are beyond the prying eyes of residents. It is possible.

    But one lead that should come very handy is why the offending policeman sought to blame the incident on phony unknown gunmen. This is a very crucial question given the perilous times that part of the country is currently passing though. Why did the idea of a cover up by blaming the so-called unknown gunmen come of immediate appeal to him? Is it possible he had an agenda or he was swimming with the tide of the times to cover up his dirty tracks? And at what point did placing the blame for his action on unknown gunmen occur to him- before the killings or after them?

    These are the issues the investigation should largely focus on. Before now, suspicions have been raised about the spate of insecurity that suddenly engulfed the south East zone. Though the government had blamed the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB and its security arm the Eastern Security Network ESN for the attacks on security agencies and governmental facilities, the clinical efficiency with which some of those criminal acts were perpetrated seem beyond what could possibly be ascribed to rag-tag elements.

    With the serial denial by the IPOB that it has no hands in the criminalities attributed to it, suspicions have been high as to whether the hands of fifth columnists were in those attacks and killings just to escalate the insecurity in the zone. It is further being suggested that the aim of such insider dealing is to provide reasons for the federal government to deploy the military in the zone. The current incident reinforces such suspicions.

    It is therefore vital that all leads and clues are fully and thoroughly investigated to get at the root of the bizarre outing of that killer policeman that early Sunday morning. It is not enough that the police have promised thorough investigations. The outcome of such inquisition must be made public including recommendations on compensation to families of victims.

    We recall that in November last year, another police inspector attached to the Abonnema Wharf in Port Harcourt, Rivers State similarly shot dead a civilian security guard who worked with him in the same company- Bulk Strategic Reserve Ltd. Promises of investigations were also made. But the outcome was not availed the public. This case should not be a victim of cover-up given the times we are into.

    And in Lagos a couple of years back, a police sergeant, Stephen James shot dead two brothers and one other person for failing to buy him beer in a hotel where he was attached to provide security. The sergeant, apparently unhappy that the men cautioned him when he approached them in the bar for a drink, waylaid them as they made to leave, raining a volley of bullets that fell them instantly. He later shot and killed himself.

    These incidents fit into the embarrassing culture of extreme lawlessness occasioning mortal harm on citizens by those paid with taxpayers’ money to protect lives and property. They expose the inadequacies of character checks on potential recruits into the police force and allied security agencies. Incidentally some of these excesses were among the factors that spurred the last EndSARS protests against police operatives. And much of those excesses and human rights abuses speak a lot of the police institution, the character and temperament of those paid to maintain law and order in our society. They mirror vividly the defects in the mental and psychological balance of those paid to protect the rest of us. Before now, much had been said on the imperative of serious medical fitness assessment for all enlistments into our security forces.

    Recurring accidental discharge at check points and unprovoked killing of innocent citizens demand urgent re-assessment of officers and men of the country’s security architecture. The grim reality of the inadequacies of mental checks during police recruitments was brought to the fore during the regime of Mike Okiro as the Inspector-General of Police.

    He had shocked the country when he disclosed that 24 top police officers had doubtful mental stability for the job they were doing. This included two deputy commissioners of police and one assistant commissioner who were referred to the Police Medical Board to determine their mental suitability. That was how bad the situation was then. The Enugu shootings and the killing of a Germany-bound man at the entrance of Imo Airport, Owerri in the presence of his son and child by men by the air force personnel do not imbue confidence of any positive change in the whimsical handling of the gun by our security agents.

    These frequent and unprovoked killings are sad reminders of the little value attached to human life on these shores. It is nigh impossible to expect positive human rights posting when detention camps are tagged ‘human abattoir’ and the police leadership sees nothing wrong with it. Such designations cheapen and desecrate human life. They also influence negatively, the attitude of policemen to suspects brought in there.  And we ask, what has become of the police reforms promised in the wake of the last nationwide protests?