The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Financing development in Nigeria

    Since the discovery of oil in large quantities, particularly since 1970, the question of taxation has not always been in the front burner of discussion but with the inevitable decline in oil and gas receipts, we must begin to discuss alternative sources of revenue in this country. First of all, it is not healthy to depend on what amounts to collection of commission from oil companies by the national government and sharing it down the line to the states and local governments. This comprador capitalism is not healthy. The side effect of this mode of financing development is the rampant corruption in the country because the ordinary people are not feeling the pinch of taxation. Oil and gas money apparently do not come from people’s pocket so they are not in a position to protest against embezzlement at all levels. The inevitability of decline in national revenue arising from stealing of crude oil and under-declaring of production by multinationals as well as sabotage of gas and oil pipelines by criminals parading themselves as militants and finally the development of shale gas in the United States and Canada and possibly in Europe and Asia will no doubt have serious consequences on national revenue in Nigeria. This may save us from the curse of oil which has ruined the mentality of our leaders and the psyche of our people. The days of cheap money may be coming to an end. This should not be a cause of worry for the ordinary people; in fact we should look forward to it. Since 1956 when oil was discovered in Oloibiri, the present day Bayelsa State, we have not really exploited to the full, the use of oil for our national development but now that the days of cheap money is coming to an end and we have still not industrialised our economy or developed necessary infrastructure for an industrial take-off, we have now to begin to look at alternative sources of financing for development. Apart from a few people who are employed in the private and public sectors and who have taxes deducted at source from their salaries, most people in Nigeria do not pay taxes. This may sound unbelievable that there are billionaires in Nigeria who are in self-employment who pay no taxes. Taxing these people is a veritable source of revenue for development if government is serious about its responsibilities.

    There are two ways by which taxes can be collected – this could be in direct or poll taxes on income but since this is going to be difficult because of our poor statistics and limited commercial intelligence and the unfairness of levying uniform taxes on all. It may be wiser to rely on consumer taxes as well as property taxes.

    Consumer taxes can be imposed on everything that we buy especially in shops, restaurants, pharmacies, and other such organised places. Property taxes can be levied as the name implies on all landed properties in the country. Lagos state calls this land use levy. It is not a popular way of taxes but it is necessary, I applaud Lagos state for this innovation which if I must say comes directly from Canada. I also recommend this land use taxes to all states of the federation and the federal capital territory in Abuja. The caveat is that this is a state tax and not a federal tax and on no account should the federal government meddle in raising property taxes. In any case, any sensible person knows that the federal government in Nigeria is the most powerful federal government in the world and our president enjoys untrammelled power that is not comparable to any president in any place in the world and we do not want to increase this power. One hopes that the discussion on the constitution would severely devolve power from the centre to the states and the regions.

    Other taxes that should be raised are excise duties on industrial products manufactured in the country and my suggestion is that these excise duties should no longer belong in the province of the federal government. They should be state taxes in order to boost the revenue of the state so that development can be local rather than being sucked into the Aegean stable of the corruption at the centre. The federal government of course will continue to collect custom duties as well as mineral taxes and in this regard, it may be useful to have a profound discussion on mineral rights including oil and gas. The time may already have come to find a way out of the stealing going on in the oil-producing areas by resolving the question of ownership in favour of the oil and gas and mineral producing areas of the country. The federal government will therefore be in a position to impose any percentage of tax ranging from 0-100% on mineral production.

    Nobody likes to pay taxes and this is not a unique foible of Nigerians, it is universal but payment of taxes is necessary. There can be no democratic representation without taxes. We cannot have government of the people, for the people, by the people without the responsibilities that go with it in terms of sustaining the government through taxes and there can be no room for the people as stakeholders unless they pay taxes and the only way by which the people can take possession and own the government and be observant about what is going on is if they pay taxes to sustain the government. Hence, payment of taxes is good for the people because this is the only way they can rein in corruption through their oversight of government expenditure. All our cry of corruption will remain futile cry unless we are involved in funding the government but as of now, only a few taxpayers can legitimately shout foul when corruption is exposed. The others feel that government money is nobody’s money and can be stolen at will. In the 1960s, during the height of the Agbekoya rebellion in the old western region, the reason why the rebellion was widespread was because people were called upon to pay taxes particularly in the rural areas. The people were not opposed to paying taxes, what Tafa Adeoye and his people complained about was that money was being collected without commensurate development. In order to stop this bush fire from spreading, the government in the western region had to suspend the poll tax. This may not be the experience in the north where Jangali or cattle tax has been paid from time immemorial. What the history of taxation teaches us in Nigeria is that government must respond to the developmental needs of the people if there is going to be peace and the reason why we still have peace in spite of apparent lack of development and positive government response to our developmental need is because by and large, most Nigerians are not paying taxes. I call on our governments at the local, state and federal government levels to begin to educate our people about the need to pay taxes if we want development. This is the time to do this so that it is a gradual process rather than wait until the hydrocarbon market collapses before we embark on fire brigade method of levying taxes that will be needed to fund government operations. A stitch in time saves nine, if we do nothing now, we may not be able to do it when the time comes.

  • Boko Haram: A Maiduguri resident’s first – hand account

    I had always looked forward to meeting someone from Maiduguri, the epicentre of the activities of Boko Haram in Borno State. What will the person look like? Will he look terrified? Will he bear visible scars (not necessarily from personal attacks) of the Boko Haram insurgency? And most importantly, will he be willing to relive his experience in the sect’s enclave. Yes, whether we like it or not, Maiduguri has become Boko Haram’s enclave because it holds sway there.

    For many of us down South, Maiduguri or any of those places where Boko Haram rules are not where we want to visit even when the opportunity arises to do so, with little or no cost to us. As journalists, we literally run away when we are told to come and go to Maduguri on assignment. With mouths wide open, we look at the person talking to us with eyes that that say : old boy na now I know say you no like me.

    It is as if the person suggesting that we should go to Maiduguri wants us dead. On such occasion, we tend to forget that there are people living, schooling or working in the town. This is why I had been anxious to meet someone from there. The good Lord answered my prayer a few weeks ago when I met a female student from the beleaguered city. If I had not been told that she is from Maiduguri, I wouldn’t have known that she is from there because there were no telltale signs of the trouble over there on her.

    She looked every bit like any of the girls you run into on the streets of Lagos daily. With a shiny, ebony black skin, Jennifer, let’s just call her that, did not carry the burden of coming from a place like Maiduguri on her face at all. Instead, she smiled knowingly as Adeniyi Adesina, the Deputy Editor (News) of this paper, and I chatted with her. She pardoned our benign ignorance as we regaled her with how we believe that Maiduguri must be looking like now with Boko Haram ruling the place.

    Jennifer laughed and laughed, saying in between her laughter that things are not like that at all. Maiduguri, she told us is ‘’peaceful’’. ‘’Peaceful’’, Niyi and I shouted, adding : ‘’With all that we have been hearing that place cannot be peaceful’’. ‘’In fact, the peace of Maiduguri had long been shattered’’, I added for effect. The girl looked at me and laughed, wondering what could be wrong with this man who, as the Yoruba would say, ‘’wants to know a child more than the mother’’

    Our encounter with Jennifer was an eye – opener of sorts for Niyi and I about how little we know of what is really happening in Maiduguri besides the Boko Haram insurgency, which has been dominating reports from there in the past four years. Is Maiduguri that safe for habitation that a girl like Jennifer could come from there and be bold enough to engage Niyi and I in discussion about her much beloved town. Even though, Jennifer says she is from Biu, on the outskirts of Maiduguri, she stays more in the Borno State capital than in her home town.

    As a reporter, my mind kept going back to that encounter with Jennifer. Is it that Maiduguri is safe and we are painting a different picture of a ravaged town in Lagos? How do we get her to put this in writing? The reporter in me wanted a story as told by her in order to put a human face to the Maiduguri conundrum. But I could not do that without her permission. To use her story without her consent will be a breach of trust and confidence. Because of the confidence Jennifer has in this paper, she has agreed to tell her story herself soon. Niyi and I were able to convince her that it would take people like her to come out and talk for Nigerians to know that things are not as bad as they believe in Maiduguri. ‘’If you don’t talk, we, like most Nigerians, will continue to believe that Maiduguri is a no go area. But you have just come from the place, looking good, well kept and healthy. There cannot be a better poster child for Maiduguri, at least for now, than you’’, we told her. This was all Jennifer needed to open up during our private discussion later. “Before the death of Moham

    med Yusuf, the sect’s

    founder, in 2009, Maiduguri was peaceful’’, she bagan. ‘’There was cordial relationship between Muslims and Christians. Life went on smoothly. People went about their businesses without being molested. There were no fears of any attack. Things changed after the death of Mohammed Yusuf. His followers wanted to avenge his death because they believe that he was killed by security men. That was when this problem started. People started staying away from the streets to avoid being attacked or caught in the crossfire of attacks.

    ‘’In the heat of this, the government imposed curfew on Maiduguri. Even before the curfew, by 6 p.m., you won’t find people on the streets. Many would have returned home. I attend the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), The campus is peaceful. We go for our lectures regularly without any cause for alarm. Students are in school; even those from the South are among us. We relate very well. We don’t have any reason to fear for Boko Haram. You can’t even know a Boko Haram member. You may even be living with a member of Boko Haram without knowing. There is nothing to distinguish a Boko Haram member from other people.

    ‘’Before Mohammed Yusuf’s death, you could know a Boko Haram member by his dressing. Then, they wore long beards and their trousers were not full length. I don’t remember the kind of dress they wore. The university is on Maiduguri – Bama road, but there is no problem on campus. Lectures are going on. It s difficult to know who a Boko Haram member is. Even, they can be among soldiers and policemen. If you inform the police or the army about any Boko Haram member, you may be looking for trouble because you will be found out and killed. Now, they don’t dress like they used to do while Mohammed Yusuf was alive. So, you cannot tell who is a Boko Haram member or not. But the town is generally peaceful. Women go to the market; children go to school. If Boko Haram attacks anywhere there must be reason for it’’.

    ‘’Is it then safe for me to visit Maiduguri?’’ I asked. ‘’Yes’’, she answered, ‘’as long as you don’t go and report any Boko Haram member to the police’’, and we burst into laughter. You will soon meet Jennifer, mind you, not that Jennifer, in this paper.

    Wild, wild Wike

    They call him Nyesom Wike and he is the Minister of State for Education, a position he got, courtesy of Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi when the going was good between them. In their party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), nobody can become minister in a state without the governor’s nod. So, it amounts to empty boast, today, by Wike that Amaechi had no input in how he became minister. He can tell that to the Marines. Wike spoke like that because of the rift between him and Amaechi. We can understand that. Shouldn’t he have limited himself to that statement instead of pouring invectives on Amaechi? You don’t address a governor like that no matter your grievances. What reconciliation are we then talking about if Wike can be allowed to shoot his mouth in public like that? His masters had better call him to order.

  • President Jonathan Sagamu road-show

    President Jonathan Sagamu road-show

    The image of President Jonathan behind the wheel of land-mover to mark the kick off of work on the long abandoned Lagos-Ibadan expressway was not only insensitive but equally an assault on the sensibilities of Nigerians who had been at one time or the other marooned on that road for hours, sometimes days or have lost loved ones in the harvest of deaths occasioned by PDP 14 years of misrule, of corruption and of abandoned projects spread across the nation. That the collapsed Lagos-Ibadan expressway has been the most visible is because of its impact on our overall socio-economic development. It is only in this part of the world that politicians behave as if they are doing those who elected them a favour.

    Tragically, PDP that should be apologizing to Nigerians, victims of the party’s inept leadership, has been celebrating what was nothing but a ‘Sagamu charade’, as another manifestation of President Jonathan transformation agenda. The party has now said, through Caesar Okeke, its acting secretary, that the flag-off was a demonstration of President Jonathan’s love for the people of South-west as the exercise has ‘‘put the lie’ to the insinuation of marginalization against South-west by the Jonathan administration’. But PDP forgets that the people of South-west, like their true representatives, the ACN governors that snubbed the Sagamu charade, have the capacity to interpret even the motive behind greetings. These are highly principled and proud people who at the height of intimidation and oppression by federal government backed Akintola NNDP’s ‘Ijoba Tulasi’ (government by force) loudly proclaimed ‘if you see my hand, you cannot see my heart’. They can differentiate between those who treat them with contempt and those who treat them with respect.

    Not even the Works Minister, Mike Onolememen’s statement that federal government renewed interest on the road was informed by the fact that “It is a major artery that connects Lagos, major Nigerian seaports, to other states of the federation and forms not only a part of the Trans-Saharan Highway that links Lagos on the Atlantic Ocean to Algiers on the Mediterranean Sea but also part of the Trans-African Highway”, has stopped the celebration of the absurd by PDP buccaneers who assumed the abandonment of this all important road for 14 years hurt the South-west more. But the truth of the matter is that the South-west that has many alternative inter-state roads through Agege, Ota, Ikorodu, Epe, Sagamu, Ijebu-Ode to Ibadan, Abeokuta and Ilaro; is not the greatest victim of federal government 14 years of insensitivity. Those hit most are other Nigerians from South-south, South-east, North-central and North-west that have no alternative to traversing through the road to ferry their goods from the country’s major port and the nation’s economic nerve centre.

    Governor Fashola of Lagos recently observed that ‘all manner of things happen in an election season’. But let us pretend we don’t know the president is a veteran of politics of subterfuge, politics of trade-off, that the flag off of work was motivated by politics of 2015, and that the acting PDP scribe was right about the president’s new found love for South-west. The problem however is that judging from PDP antecedents and the numerous abandoned projects all over the country; successful completion of the road in spite of the flag-off with fanfare is not assured. Indeed the only thing that appears certain in spite of PDP fraudulent celebration of yet to be implemented transformation agenda is that relief for motorists that ply Lagos-Ibadan expressway is a forlorn hope. The reasons are apparent.

    First, we have passed through this same road before. Obasanjo, Jonathan’s godfather once embarked on similar road show when he flagged off with fanfare, the Ibadan-Ilorin expressway in 2001. Last week, after 13 years of politics of ‘motion without movement’, the current PDP minister of works assured Nigerians that efforts ‘are being made to complete the Oyo-Ogbomosho portion of the road.’

    There were other road shows by successive PDP work ministers. Adeseye Ogunlewe flagged off the rehabilitation and reconstruction of this same Lagos-Ibadan expressway shortly before the 2003 election. Under Tony Anenih currently the chairman of Nigeria Ports Authority and chairman of PDP (BOT) as Minister of Works, over N300b budgetary allocation for roads construction, brought little relief to road users. There was also the road show by the current minster of petroleum that had, as minister of works, wept and sobbed like a baby while supervising the suffering of motorists on the collapsed Sagamu-Ore Benin expressway. The revered Oba of Benin who did not want his palace desecrated was said to have barred one PDP minister of works from entering his palace.

    One other reason to assume the whole flag off was a political gimmick or a publicity stunt that is not likely to end the nightmares of motorists plying the Lagos-Ibadan expressway anytime soon can be deduced from the candor of the president who has already indirectly hinted that the funds to construct the road are not readily available. The president is more cautious than his PDP riotous merchants and celebrants.

    This is understandable. He already has his cup full. The Presidential Projects Assessment Committee (PPAC) he set up in March 2011, to look into cases of abandoned federal government projects claimed that there were 11,886 abandoned projects that will cost an estimated N7.78 trillion to complete. The Institute of Project Management of Nigeria (IPMN) and the president’s Special Assistant on Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, Professor Sylvester Monye have given the breakdown and the spread of some of the projects to the public. They include the 400 metre long Utor bridge along Asaba-Ebu-Uromi road awarded in 2006 but abandoned in 2009, Ikorodu-Sagamu road and Lagos-Otta road project awarded in 2001 but abandoned by both Impresit Bakolori PLC and Julius Berger because of ‘inadequate funding,’; the 36 kilometres Bodo-Bonny road in Rivers awarded in 2002; the abandoned 285 NNDC projects and 1,994 rural electrification projects among many others spread around the various geo-political zones of the country.

    Experts have claimed that ‘it will take more than five years budgeting about N1.5trillion annually to complete these abandoned projects’, if government does not add new ones. But , as recently argued by Nasir El Rufai, ex minister for Abuja federal territory, “rather than these figures compelling the government to accelerate… the government would rather continue the weekly charade of awarding new contracts or re-awarding old ones at higher prices during its weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings.”

    To many cynics and government critics, it is only logical to assume the Lagos-Ibadan expressway flag-off perfectly fits into this charade conceived in the main to raise money for 2015 which has already taken on the character of ‘do or die election’ as evidenced by the on-going PDP’s vicious intra-party battles.

    Government’s failure to give sufficient information on the contract is further fueling this suspicion. For instance the public would like to be assured that N1.3b rate for a kilometre of road is competitive. And if according to the minister of works, “government concession agreement with Messrs Bi-Courtney to develop …, a distance of approximately 105 kilometres under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement” was at a cost of N98.5b in 2009, they want to know why 127 kilometres is now costing N167 billion. Although the money is not even there to start with, but a gloomier prospect is the project getting stagnated after the election, to be followed by an upward review of cost by a 100 percent as recently witnessed by the stagnated vice president’s official mansion and the abandoned Lagos-Otta road.

  • Allah-De: A master’s passage

    Allah-De: A master’s passage

    FIRST, a confession. I am the least qualified to write the obituary of this great man, whose departure was as quiet and graceful as the life he led. His voice was loud, not in physical terms, but in the literary sense, as expressed in the evergreen column he wrote to whip indolent leaders, keep the ordinary man in high spirits and illuminate the dark alley of a political scene that we had.

    The late Hadj Alade Idowu Odunewu passed on without drama in Lagos on July 25. He was 85. There was a rain of tributes –from the President, governors and many eminent citizens, including frontline journalists who knew him intimately as I never did.

    But, thanks to Mr Lanre Idowu, one of the few remaining links between the old and the new schools of Nigerian journalism, I had an opportunity to contribute to “Nigerian columnists and their art”, a collection of articles he edited to mark the late Hadj Odunewu’s 80th birthday in 2009. Here are excerpts from my contribution, which I reproduce as a mark of my admiration for one of journalism’s greats:

    The columnist’s agenda

    For the Nigerian journalist, working could be like warring. Everyday could be like going to battle. It is not enough to be a good reporter, writer or editor; one must also be blessed with sharp instincts to know what to do at any time.

    But the journalist is only experiencing what others in the society are also feeling. The slight difference, however, is that for the journalist, the shoe pinches more because of the peculiarity of the trade.

    Practising journalism under the military was, at best, a dangerous pastime and, at worst, a suicide mission. What else was to be expected? The military were not responsible to anybody. They ruled like lords, by orders and decrees, not by law and constitutionalism. In fact, every time a new military regime mounted the throne, the Constitution became the first casualty. Then, decrees were spawned like mushrooms in the rains.

    It is, however, noteworthy to say that even as the risks mount, the courage to go on thickens. So, Nigerian journalists have not been found wanting in the discharge of their duties. They were there at the vanguard of the battle for Independence. They were there in those heady days of military rule; even in the days of Sani Abacha, the despot who seized the nation by the throat and turned Nigeria into a leper among decent countries. Many journalists fled into exile; the unlucky ones got clamped into jail without trial. The more the world rose to condemn the flagrant abuse of rights in Nigeria, the tougher the General became. He entertained no intellectual discourse. He rarely spoke –when he did, it was in an opaque manner that betrayed neither rhyme nor reason –.

    To escape the Abacha plague, journalists – as creative as ever – unleashed a new genre. Welcome guerilla journalism! Many publications sprang from underground, their addresses unknown by the authorities; their writers faceless but fiery fellows whose pens dripped with a deep passion for a great country. Anyway, Abacha died on June 8, 1998 – mysteriously.

    With the return of democracy, the atmosphere lost most of its smudge. This is not to say, however, that all is well. No.

    The Obasanjo presidency was always being nudged to perform. The criticisms, the administration believed, were harsh. The cat-and-mouse relationship got to a crescendo when it was clear that former President Olusegun Obasanjo might not call it a day on May 29, 2007 at the end of his two-term eight-year tenure. The third term scheme collapsed –thanks to a vigilant press which saw far ahead what the plot meant for the country’s future.

    Most Nigerian newspapers do not interpret the news. They are satisfied with a simple presentation of events which form the ingredients of the meal that the columnist brings to the table. So, many look up to the columnist’s analyses and interpretation of news as it breaks.

    A good column should be like a soothing balm, giving hope where there seems to be despair. In it must be found the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It must be exciting. It must be humorous, with a sting in the tail. And it must give the reader something to remember.

    Most Nigerian columnists are gripped by politics, which is in all areas of our national life. One cannot blame them. Why? The political scene is a vast canvass of all that is good and bad, hot and cold, fair and foul. It is a kingdom of light and darkness, both rolled into one. Therefore, no matter how insulated from politics a public commentator may want to be, the environment gets him entangled in it. Politics shapes our lives.

    Many columns have made remarkable impacts on their readers. Consider Olatunji Dare’s Matters Arising, one of the longest running columns in The Guardian. Many years after it stopped running, many are still enamoured of the column’s style – witty, breezy, yet deep and, sometimes, downright hilarious, full of friendly punches that evoked tears and laughter at the same time. The articles have been compiled into a book of the same title, Matters Arising. Happily for the reader, Olatunji Dare has started writing again; every Tuesday in The Nation.

    Columns are not ordinarily expected to sell newspapers. Not so for Matters Arising. It helped to boost the sale of The Guardian on Tuesdays.

    The Gbolabo Ogunsanwo column in The Sunday Times was, also, a crowd puller. Femi Ogunsanwo (1978) describes it as “by far the most popular column ever written by a Nigerian journalist”. The column was so popular that when the writer went on leave, readers demanded his return.

    Life with Gbolabo Ogunsanwo resurrected in The Comet. It retained its huge appeal, though it was not regular. Then, it disappeared and never returned. The paper itself was rested about one year ago. Even now, many are still talking about the column. Several attempts to bring it back remain unsuccessful .

    Gbolabo Ogunsanwo’s column was only one of the many the Sunday Times was proud and lucky to have. There were other first class writers. In fact, in Femi Ogunsanwo’s Sunday Times (The first 25 years), they occupy the fifth chapter where they are referred to as “The five powerful columnists”.

    Here they are: Ebenezer Williams (Abiodun Aloba), who is described as “the first great” columnist of the Sunday Times. His column ran continuously from December 23, 1953, to October 1, 1960, according to the book, which states: “In terms of longevity and popularity, four other writers qualify for the Sunday Times hall of fame of great columnists: Peter Pan (Peter Enahoro), Alla-de (Alade Odunewu), Sad Sam (Sam Amuka) and Gbolabo Ogunsanwo). All these columnists were also editors of the Sunday Times.”

    Several new columnists have since mounted the stage, plying their trade in a no less engaging manner. Unlike in those days, many editors do not write columns, apparently believing that this area of journalism should be left for editorial writers and others who belong to the academic community, but not necessarily journalists. Among the new columnists are the youthful writers in Thisday: Simon Kolawole, Kayode “The Marxist’ Komolafe and Ijeoma Nwogwugu. There are in The Sun Louis Odion (Bottomline), Amanze Obi (Broken Tongues), Funke Egbemode and Femi Adesina. The Punch has Azubuike Ishiekwene’s Viewpoint. There are in The Nation on Sunday Palladium, deep and punchy, written by Idowu Akinlotan. Tatalo Alamu, scholarly, witty, hilarious and dramatic, also appears on Sunday.

    Dan Agbese’s column in Newswatch is delightful for its incisiveness and humour. So are Yakubu Mohammed’s (Newswatch) and Ray Ekpu’s (Newswatch). In fact, many knew Ekpu, Agbese and Mohammed more as columnists than as directors of the magazine.

    There is also Muhammed Haruna, the former editor of New Nigerian whose column is run by The Nation and Daily Trust. His is easily the most recognisable voice from the North. In fact, many call him the “star of the North”. The Candido column ran for years in New Nigerian. An incisive comment on people and events, the column appeared for more than 30 years.

    There is a striking difference between today’s columnists and the old hands. Unlike the new kids on the block, the old-timers did not only inform and educate, they entertained as well, and went beyond that to make clinical predictions that came to pass. I recall how Allah-de, writing in The Comet, predicted that the newly appointed Eagles coach, Dutchman Bonfere Jo, would not last. A few days after, the coach was fired. Talk about the columnist as an oracle! Besides, there was humour. You read the late Aig-Imokhuede’s Notebook in Vanguard and laughed all day. Such columnists are hard to come by now.

    To the charge that columnists do not see anything good in government, my response is that since they are part of the society, their thoughts and actions are not insulated from the experience of the society. They, through their writings, embark on an idealistic battle for the utopian. They never achieve this, but along the line, society is enriched and the future has a past to refer to – thanks to the columnists.

  • Charity’s conversion: The scapegoating of an emir

    Charity’s conversion: The scapegoating of an emir

    In the last five years, Bida, my home town, has attracted bad press and public attention nationwide. The source of this attraction, it seems, has been the apparently well-intentioned but grossly misrepresented actions of its paramount ruler, the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, on the emotive issues of sex and religion.

    Five years ago, the story was about a randy 84-year-old man, Mohammed Bello Abubakar, alias Masaba, with his harem of 86 wives, some of them young enough to be his daughters and even granddaughters. The man’s lifestyle was a clear breach of the Penal Code of the old North and a violation of the norms and traditions of the Islamic society he lived in.

    One fine morning, the Etsu, as descendant of Malam Dendo, the flag bearer of Shehu Usman Danfodiyo in Nupeland during his 19th century jihad, and therefore the modern day custodian of Islam in his territory, decided to put a stop to Masaba’s impunity. Accordingly, the Etsu summoned the heretic to the palace to defend his conduct before the town’s clerics and community leaders. He couldn’t. So he was asked to choose between Islam, which he professed, and his 86 wives, since the religion forbade a man to have more than four. He accepted to choose his religion.

    Or so it seemed; on the day he was to inform the palace of his choice of the four wives he was to live with, the man simply disappeared. Next thing, he sued the palace before the state high court for the violation of his fundamental right to live as he chose. And before you could say harem all manner of human rights organisations, with the press in tow, were falling over themselves to defend the man.

    Since then the man has, for all practical purposes, become an (untouchable) media celebrity. This was five years ago.

    Nearly five years on last month the big story has been about a beautiful 25 year-old student of Federal Polytechnic, Bida, who converted to Islam in February. Charity, the daughter of a pastor of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) – one of the country’s leading Pentecostal churches – Raymond Uzoechina, sought and eventually got the audience of the Etsu to ask for his protection from her father who she claimed could harm her because of her conversion.

    From all accounts, including that of her father, the palace did not readily oblige Aisha, her adopted Islamic name. First, the Etsu asked her if her father knew of her decision. When she said no he asked for her father’s telephone number and called him to come to Bida. He sent for him twice, first on March 1 and then the following day. “Overwhelmed by the call on March 2,” Pastor Uzoechina told the press, “I had to travel to Bida to ascertain what was wrong.”

    Predictably, the palace encounter was not a pleasant one for both parties. According to one account, the Etsu first asked the father if his daughter had ever suffered any mental problems and he said no. The Etsu then confirmed to his invitee that his daughter had converted to Islam. The pastor was then given a room to talk things over privately with his daughter. The talk did not end happily.

    Since then Pastor Uzoechina has accused the Etsu of kidnapping his daughter and forcibly converting her into Islam. Naturally the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has rallied to his support. “The Emir of Bida(meaning, of course, the Etsu Nupe),” its president, the combative Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, said last week, “ must understand that Christianity and Islam must stand side by side. So we are using this occasion to say: ‘Release our daughter to us.’”

    Interestingly but even more worryingly, it seems President Goodluck Jonathan too has weighed in on the pastor’s side; on separate occasions he had asked first the Etsu and then the Niger State governor, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, in not so many words, to find a way of releasing Aisha Charity to her father.

    Apparently the logic seems lost on the CAN leadership that Aisha Charity’s case is even more symbolic of fundamental human rights than that of the recent Senate’s so-called approval of marriage below 18 for girls over which it has threatened to ask its flock to take to the streets if the Senate does not reverse itself.

    Aisha Charity is 25 and is therefore more than old enough to decide things for herself. She has consistently said she converted of her own free will. Certainly, the Etsu Nupe’s invitation to Pastor Uzoechina to his palace to talk things over with his daughter is not the action of someone who is a kidnapper intent on forcing his belief on another.

    Even more certainly scapegoating him for the predicament of Aisha’s father and, by extension, that of CAN, will not solve the problem for anyone who thinks he has one with her conversion, even if it were induced.

    So far, the most sensible and sober thing anyone has said about this controversy is the eloquent piece written on it by Bitrus Gwadah, a Kaduna based senior lawyer, in last Saturday’s Weekly Trust. It is an article that anyone interested in stopping the episode from getting out of hand must go back and read.

     

    Abubakar Idris Usman: all’s well that ends well?

     

    It’s now thirteen weeks since I first wrote on May 8 about the plight of my youth corper “son” Abubakar Idris Usman, on these pages in an open letter to the Director General of the National Youth Service Corps, Brigadier-General Okorie Affiah.

    The reader will recall that he got into trouble with the NYSC authorities in Kaduna State over an article he had written in The Nation (November 22, 2012) which was critical of the facilities at the state’s orientation camp. The article, the authorities said, was sheer malice and breached the service rules against talking to the press.

    As penalty for his alleged offense he was initially denied posting for his primary assignment until he retracted the story. When he and his real father, a childhood friend, brought his predicament to my attention I rebuked him, as an uncle should, for breaching his service regulations but told him to stand by his story so long as he was sure of his facts. He said he was even though he had apologised to the authorities for the embarrassment he had caused them following his father’s and another uncle’s intervention with the authorities.

    Apart from refusing him his primary posting until he retracted his story, his camera and handset were seized. He was also threatened with a month’s extension without pay and, worst of all, he was interrogated by the State Security Service on allegation that he was Boko Haram.

    After several weeks of stalemate the local NYSC relented and posted him to a remote village in the state in March. He had barely settled down when he was reposted to Delta State. The reposting letter said this was at his own request. When, however, he pointed out that he never made any such request, he was issued another letter which said this was punishment for his alleged offence.

    At this point, I got a senior lawyer friend, Yahaya Mahmud, SAN, to intervene by sending a petition to the service Director General, and the Minister of Youth, Inuwa Abdulkadir, Esq. My friend did so gratis.

    Not long after the petition the DG, I was made to understand, instructed Kaduna to rescind the Delta posting. For weeks, Kaduna did not carry out the instructions. However, it did so finally last week after our lawyer sent a reminder.

    Penultimate Monday, Usman was called to the head office and given a letter, dated June 31, posting him to Katsina State. He has since reported there and has been posted to Government Technical College, Funtua, for his primary assignment.

    Hopefully, this is the end of an episode that needed not to have occurred at all – never mind dragging on for months – but for the thin skin of your typical government official.

     

    Re: Aregbesola’s real transformation

     

    Sir,

    We have indeed known your mindset. No non-Muslim can ever go right, and no Muslim can ever go wrong even if he is secretly – expletive deleted – your mother. Now, even if you’ve sworn never to see anything right about the president, because he is your sworn enemy, being a non-Muslim, what is the purpose of trying to drag him in the mud before commencing on praise singing on Aregbesola? Is it a gimmick to win the trust of the Yorubas? Mind you Haruna the Yorubas are very wise people. They are not fools like you and so you cannot fool them in order to win their support.

    +2347054795500

     

    Sir,

    Thanks for your article on “Aregbesola’s real Transformation’. Please advise Abia State Governor to learn from Aregbesola and stop his unpopular media campaign.

    +2348036735682

     

     

  • An ominous sign

    Recently, a new report titled Nigerian Unity in the Balance, which was authored for the United States Army War College, warned Nigerian leaders to beware of another civil war or an outright break-up following what it called on-going divisive trends in the country. The report was written by two former American servicemen – Gerald McLaughlin and Clarence J. Bouchat and released by the Strategic Studies Institute of War College.

    The report observed that divisive forces were becoming far stronger than uniting forces in Nigeria. It then warned that unless this debilitating trend was reversed, Nigeria’s existence could be jeopardised. According to the report, “Parochial interests created by religious, cultural, ethnic, economic, regional, and political secessionist tendencies are endemic in Nigeria.” The report warned that, “under such stresses, Nigerian unity may fail.” The report stressed further: “Should Nigeria’s leaders mismanage the political economy and reinforce centrifugal forces in Nigeria, the breaks to create autonomous regions or independent countries would likely occur along its previously identified fault lines.” The report observed that, “having already experienced one brutal civil war, Nigeria is at risk for a recurrence of conflict or dissolution, especially since some of the underpinning motivations of the war remain unresolved.”

    While detailing many fault lines speeding up disintegrative tendencies in the country, the report said: “Indeed, East Timor, Eritrea, Croatia and Somaliland indicate that the weakest point of failing states is along colonial borders. Of more interest for Nigerian unity is that this may also occur between regions separately administered by a common colonial power, as occurred between Malaysia and Singapore, and North and South Sudan, where differences proved irreconcilable after the departure of British administration”. The report projected that “at least, some of the resulting regions and states of a possible Nigerian devolution may divide along such internal lines.”

    While conceding that Nigeria’s fate is primarily in the hands of Nigerians, the report noted that such could be positively affected by actions of the US, adding that “Nigeria’s future is hanging precariously on the balance and the United States should help tip the scales.” Furthermore, the report particularly warned that religious differences were taking the centre stage in the emerging conflict situation in the country, disputing repeated reports that economic reasons were to blame for the insurgency and other conflicts in the country.

    There is every reason why Nigeria cannot afford to dump this report in the trashcan. SSI is part of USAWC and is the strategic-level study agent for issues related to national security and military strategy with emphasis on geo-strategic analysis. It would be recalled that a former US ambassador to Nigeria had, last year, warned of a possible break-up of the country, if the growing trend of disaffection is not curtailed. The government’s reaction to this advice was in the least shocking and disappointing. Rather than view the opinion with the seriousness it deserved, the government merely threw unprintable expletives at the ambassador. Since then, everything has been done to disparage the report.

    However, going through the SSI report, one could perceive its genuineness in view of recent happenings and events. Our so-called politicians, whose patriotism is ever in doubt because they look more like fortune seekers, have largely been toying with the security and stability of the country. It is as if they have zoned the entire country to themselves as things are done within them at their whims. To them, the people are secondary whenever issues bordering on the unity and stability of the country come up for discussion.

    The country was almost stripped bare at the demise of former President Umaru Yar’Adua. Throughout his sick period, various pranks, I mean, ‘official pranks’, came to play. At a time, a cleverly conceived dummy was sold to the public; at another time, the greatest hoax was foisted on the people. That was the time many of us really sat back to think whether the country belonged to Nigerians or only the politicians who were ever so meticulous with their lies and fairy tales.

    When eventually the former President gave up the ghost, attempts were made from many quarters to ‘rewrite’ the Constitution. We all know what it took the nation to arrive at the “doctrine of necessity” before an acting President emerged. We can also remember, too, the various schemes and shenanigans brought to the fore to make sure that the new President, when he inevitably emerged, could not function.

    By and large, like some Nigerians are wont to say “we are individually successful but collectively a failure”. What this means is that Nigerians, as a people, are very dynamic, industrious, except that selfishness rules them most, if not, all the time. While we all crave for individual, family, tribe and clannish excellence, we are the least patriotic when it comes to the issue of national question. Take for instance, the build-up to the 2015 elections, which has started in earnest. Everybody, every section of the country, is angling for the coveted number one seat: the Presidency. It is no longer what the Constitution says but the unwritten doctrine of “turn-by-turn”. In this new craze, brothers have become enemies overnight in the mad race to undo one another.

    Now, let us take the issue of Rivers State. Today, that once peaceful state is in turmoil. And many people believe the problem with Rivers has many things to do with 2015. The sitting governor, Rotimi Amaechi is believed to have incurred the wrath of Abuja because he is suspected to be nursing an ambition to become the Vice-President of the country under the rulership of a candidate presented by the North. Many permutations have come up to the effect that Amaechi might pair up with Sule Lamido, his counterpart in the north-west state of Jigawa, to wrestle power from President Goodluck Jonathan.

    At a point, the posters of a Lamido-Amaechi presidential ticket flooded Abuja, the nation’s capital. It is strongly believed it was the handiwork of fifth columnists bent on wrecking that ticket if at all it exists. The next thing was that the war was taken to the Nigeria Governor’s Forum whose election was truncated after the votes were counted. Amaechi is believed to have emerged as the winner of that keenly contested election, but the powers that be are not favourably disposed to that. The belief is that the number one spot at the forum for Amaechi will give him an undue advantage over the incumbent president.

    To stop this, the Presidency threw up a puppet in the name of Jonah Jang, the confused governor of Plateau State. Since then, logic has been made to stand on its head. Or what do you call a situation where 16 could be adjudged to be greater than 19? Amaechi scored 19 votes out of 35, while Jang scored 16 votes. Today, Jang enjoys the undue privilege of getting the President’s ears as he has been officially recognised as the chairman of the Governors’ Forum to the chagrin of the Amaechi camp and many right-thinking Nigerians. And where do we go from here?

    The other day, the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly became a battle zone when elected parliamentarians and leaders of the various communities in the state, who were elected to serve the people, turned the whole place upside down. Again, there was a mathematical infraction in which five was adjudged to be greater than 23. In a melodramatic move, five members of the House met and purportedly impeached the Speaker. The bedlam that followed speaks volumes of how much we cherish the unity and stability of the country.

    As it stands, the issue of Rivers State is largely unresolved because certain egos have refused to be massaged. And from what several commentators have said, this protracted issue that has been allowed to fester for too long might as well be the beginning of the end for the country’s fledgling democracy or even the country itself. The ominous signs are there for all to see!

     

  • No ‘Resit’ for politicians who failed electric power exam; Berger: Emergency Repairs now pls!

    We sit in the national disgrace of darkness from a 30 years power grid failure, victims of PHCN’s TOS, ‘Temporarily Out of Service’ with the power switch in PHCN offices nationwide. We are deafened and stifled by the noxious, noisy generator polluting the atmosphere and draining our pockets. Many families and offices could easily afford a new car monthly; forget Tokunbo, with the money wasted on ‘power substitution. But let us not be too hasty to celebrate this or any government for any slight improvement. Government is making a poor showing at doing what it should have done throughout its tenure- provide power, emergency and long term and not just long term. During the last 30 years successive governments should have added 1,000Mw/year to the grid or gotten that needed emergency power from generator ships etcetera like the Fujiyama nuclear plant was substituted within three months. All our governments have done over the 30 years is to use and abuse government taxes and budgets, to selfishly substitute the government-induced power failure in their offices and homes. They have abandoned the 99.5% of the population which is non-government who have to substitute on their own.

    In fact do you know that governments and political leaders have subjects and examinations just like secondary school students? This power is a subject they tackle for four years. Electricity is a combined physics and commercial subject exam and all governments have failed. Of course they also failed almost all other subjects from environment, sanitation, health, agriculture et cetera. The one subject they think they passed is ‘Politics and Social Studies’ but they failed that too.

    So all past leaders failed woefully their leadership practical exams. Unfortunately some political parties are recruiting an army of failed political octogenarians, and some politicians of odoriferous history in an ‘Exam Resit’. Anenih@80, Bamanga Tukur and Umaru Dikko of the ‘crate’ infamy spring to mind. Imagine the national horror when our new governors are trying to offer old military political leaders like Babangida and Abdulsalami a ‘Resit Exam’ to launder their tattered image. Some images cannot be washed clean and some exams will always be failed by certain students. We shouted about the Benin-Ore road while the Lagos-Ibadan road decayed and collapsed under the weight of our trucks and poor maintenance while our trains were killed ‘on’ their tracks – all by government neglect too busy carting money from contractors for their multi-billion naira election war chests.

    We are on a slow coach to nowhere. It is a month of heavy suffering since the multi-billion dollar contracts for Lagos-Ibadan road were signed and there is still no Julius Berger, JB or RCC ‘Emergency Pothole and Road Edges Teams’ working on the worst potholes and stretches. Where is the love and the ‘Best Practices? The most atrocious sections of the road at Ibafo and Redeem cause 4-5 hour delays and 25-50km traffic jams. But who cares? FRSC cannot even save lives by controlling the speed of commercial vehicles or the side on which trailers drive. Giant contractors, Julius Berger and RCC, have new contracts with and for human beings –Nigerians- in need of saving from government neglect. Government signs on behalf of the citizens but the contracts save lives. JB, urgently fill these potholes! RCC, urgently make smooth our path, now, not in four years’ time! Government has failed, you must pass the exam!

    But who is government? People, not buildings, people not institutions. I am insulted when those seeking solutions to Nigeria’s myriad infrastructural and political problems have the naivety, short-sightedness and effrontery to visit Babangida and Abdulsalami, the midwives of our problems who helped deliver a nearly stillborn baby called ‘Nigeria’ bereft of any civilised infrastructural amenity for ‘miracle cure’. It is time to put these people in their place, in the retirement home, on the sidelines. It is too late for them to ‘Resit’. We have not heard them lamenting any action of theirs. Only the people lament their rule. Could their business empires, built during the time of Nigeria’s maximum corruption, destabilise Nigeria? Can they reverse what they did and failed to do for Nigeria? No, and would they undo their bad deeds if they could rewind the clock? I doubt it.  Power supply is not nuclear physics; the countries with power have good governance, not criminal politicians with two heads.

    Check the web for the Wikipedia list of countries by electricity consumption. You should know where Nigeria stands or stoops. Top countries with 500-1,700 watts per person include all G-8 countries, most EU and Middle and Far East countries. Top African countries include Libya 460, South Africa 457, India 90, Namibia 213, Egypt 147, Ghana 29, Cameroon 29, , Kenya 25, Senegal 16, Republic of Congo 14, Sudan 14, the Gambia 13,  , Lesotho 13, Nigeria has 12 watts /person boastfully above Malawi 11, Guinea 10, Democratic Republic of Congo 9, Burma 9, Mali 9, Benin 8 East Timor 7, Comoros 7, Uganda 6, Equatorial Guinea 6, Guinea –Bissau 5, Madagascar 5, Burkina Faso 5, Ethiopia 4, Niger 4, Haiti 4, Burundi 4, Eritrea 4, Central African Republic 4, Somalia 3, Rwanda 2, Afghanistan 1, Chad 1.

    It is a criminally culpable admission of government that 10,000Mw will have to wait till Dec 2014 to be achieved. Enough of power supply corruption. Emergency power substitution for the 100,000MW needed is the only way forward.

  • Neither Jonathan nor the North

    If you ran away from a death for donkey years, yet you came back to die the same death, then you have lost your care – Igbo saying, courtesy Chinua Achebe.

     

    The opposition column of Nigerian politics is flush with triumph – and the reason is clear: the formal registration, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the first in the country’s political history, is well and truly epochal.

    The victory whoop is understandable: at last, an alternative platform to face the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) behemoth in fierce, face-to-face electoral contest.

    Conversely, the ruling partisan camp is muffled with apparent worry, though Doyin Okupe, presidential spokesman has, as usual, essayed rich bluff and bluster, laced with Okupe-istic cant, claiming it was President Goodluck Jonathan’s democratic credentials – not the laws of the land – that ensured APC’s registration.

    That, as usual, was an empty bluff. The law that created the Presidency created INEC. The same grundnorm set out strict conditions for merging political parties. Creations of the law cannot, therefore, claim discretions in how their Creator works. It is entirely out of their hands, except of course, they want to criminalise their office which, it must be conceded, past office holders had done and got away with.

    This time, however, the forces behind APC were smart enough to follow, to the letter, the law on merging political parties. The Jonathan Presidency too was smart enough to know when it was licked, despite earlier childish manoeuvres on the APC acronym, from whatever camp. INEC too was smart enough to be strictly guarded by the law and nothing else. Over all, it is a triangular victory for the democratic republic.

    But victory hoop from the opposition?

    Yes, in the sense of a loyal opposition pushing for a partisan environment conducive to free and fair contests for political power, without the government of the day rigging the system in its favour.

    But no, in the sense of unbridled jubilation that suggests mere coming together of disparate opposition parties, into a single more powerful column, is the beginning of the end for PDP and its infamous power mismanagement. That does not necessarily follow.

    Even if that were so, the end of PDP does not necessarily translate into the end of power mismanagement in the polity. The PDP is no saint any more than the new APC are sinners!

    That brings the discourse to Nigeria’s latest troubling tendencies, symbolised by President Jonathan and his emotive Ijaw crowd, digging in for 2015; and the opposing “core North”, almost hell-bent on uprooting the “minority upstarts” and allies.

    It is a classic: power delinquency versus power senility.

    The APC must give these two pernicious tendencies rigorous thinking, if it hopes to be part of the solution to Nigeria’s power problems; and not the latest addition to it.

    Indeed, if the new party fulfils its potentials as agent of positive change, fortune-seeking stragglers from both camps would smarm it. If APC doesn’t have a ready formula to sort them out, it would go down with them, like the giffen theory in basic economics, where worthless goods drive out the good ones.

    Power delinquency comes from a sitting president with his minority backers who, just some four years in power, have developed the overlord complex so irritatingly common in the Nigerian power chamber. Though Jonathan’s South-South lacks the vote to propel him to a second term (even if his performance has been inspiring – and it definitely is not), his emotive supporters yammer as if just occupying Aso Rock is open sesame for a win in 2015.

    Some of these excitable fellows (just like the delusion that gripped the polity that APC would not be registered even if it met all the legal requirements), even darkly hint at something suggestive of rigging, even if they didn’t exactly spill it out. But pray: if 2nd Republic President Shehu Shagari, from a northern majority bloc could not hold on to his stolen electoral booty in 1983, what makes a minority bloc think they can in 2015, if they make the same mistake?

    Ranged against this power delinquency is the apparent power senility of the old North, as espoused the other day, ironically by Ango Abdullahi, an agronomy professor, and former vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University.

    Prof. Abdullahi said based on a North-South rotation pact, the North ought to take power in 2015; and that President Jonathan lacks the moral right to run, since he allegedly signed the reported pact as no. 37; same pact former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Jonathan’s estranged political godfather, allegedly signed as no. 1.

    This column has always held – still does and will always do – that the North was cheated on the zoning formula, on which Prof. Abdullahi based his argument. For that, blame Obasanjo’s perfidy and Jonathan’s crass opportunism, after the death in office of President Umaru Yar’Adua, in the run up to the 2011 election. It is the Nigerian elite penchant for short-term selfish gain, leading to long-term collective pain!

    Still, what was that professorial crap about the North having the democratic number to rule in perpetuity? The question is which North? What number? And for what purpose?

    Prof. Abdullahi easily forgets it was exactly this same “born-to-rule” mindset that led to the criminal annulment of Moshood Abiola’s presidential mandate in 1993, which marked the beginning of the end of the North’s power hegemony.

    Tragically, as Yerima would appear the brazen face of paedophilia for whatever justifications, Prof. Abdullahi would appear the unfazed face of northern hegemony, no matter the collective cost to the Nigerian state. Thus, when power delinquency confronts power senility, the sure result is avoidable national catastrophe.

    The APC must, therefore, note these destructive power tendencies and navigate a third but saner way of equity, justice and fair play. To do these however, it must think less of power and think more of service.

    Target: it must pare down the present parasitic presidency, which though gobbles the country’s wealth, is not an asset but a terrible liability: as Obasanjo’s tenure showed; and as Jonathan’s tenure is showing. That two extremely opposite personalities are delivering similar bungling shows it is a structural problem.

    “What does APC want?” (June 18) already, on this page, suggests how best APC can go about its arduous task, working on a six-region format; and turning felt needs of those six regions into a franchise of service to be implemented with despatch if it gains power, pending the country’s constitutional restructuring into productive federalism from the present parasitic unitary state in federal guise.

    APC must get real. After all its registration euphoria, the party cannot behave like the Achebe man who died the same death, even after running away from it for eons.

    That would be more than the death of a party. It could well be the death of a country, given the cliff to which the present powers-that-be have pushed this polity.

     

  • Still on the deportation saga

    I have read with some concern comments from certain sections of Ndigbo on the controversial deportation of some destitute to Anambra State by the Lagos State government. I have read the reaction of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, and a more detailed reaction from his Special Adviser on Youths and Social Development, Dolapo Enitan Badru, and I am yet to see any such detailed response from the Anambra State Government. What it did was to send a “strongly-worded” protest letter to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. The president is yet to respond to the letter. According to Governor Fashola, who spoke to the media on the issue, “it is unfortunate that my colleague governor has made this a media issue. As I speak to you, I haven’t received any telephone call or letter from him, complaining over the issue and I don’t think that is the way government works. The relationship between Lagos and Anambra has always remained cordial. I remember that on less important matters, he had called me before and we discussed at length.

    I know that this is a political season and Anambra will be up for contest. In a political season, unusual things happen and perhaps, we are living in an interesting time”. Speaking on the matter, Badru said: “We (Lagos State Government) wrote letters to Anambra State Government through its Lagos Liaison Office. It is not just Anambra we wrote a letter to. We wrote to Kano State. We wrote to Ondo State. We wrote to Jigawa State. We wrote to Katsina State. Every state has its own file. In the same way, we wrote to Anambra that we got some destitute on the streets that claimed to be indigenes of your state.

    “We asked the Anambra State Government to send people from their Liaison Office to come and interview the destitute to ascertain if they are actually from Anambra so that we know who is lying and who is not. Some will come. Some will ignore us. If you go to our rehabilitation facility in Majidun, we have more than 1,500 destitute there. The number keeps going up. We keep and feed (them) three times daily. In a place designed for 1,200 people, there are about 2,000 there. That is a recipe for chaos. When we treat them, we try to teach them a trade before we relocate them to their states. But they prefer to go back to the street and beg.

    “Anambra State Government wrote us back. The state government asked us to detail the status of those under our care and protection local government by local government. We did it as directed and then wrote the state government back, indicating the status of destitute who claimed to be from Anambra. Since April we have done that, there is no response from the state. We also put through series of phone calls to them, there was no response. We then decided we could not continue to keep these people under our care and protection. We thus took them to their place so that their state government can find a way to re-unite them with their parents.

    “We did not forcefully relocate any person to Onitsha; neither did we deport. We are not immigration; neither are we a country that we should deport. What happened is that we actually traced their families one after the other. We went through the Department of Social Welfare of Anambra State.

    May I then ask, is it true that Lagos State Government wrote to some states government asking them to come forward and take those identified as their people away from the streets of Lagos? Is it true that that these states came and carried away their own “destitute”? Did Anambra State Government get such a request? Did they make any effort to ascertain if these “destitute” were their people, were truly destitute? Did anybody make any effort to talk to the Governor of Lagos over the issue before the deportation was carried out? Is it true that there was an arrangement between Lagos and Anambra states to meet at Onitsha Head Bridge for the purposes of taking over and taking care of these “destitute” and that when they got to the place there was nobody from the state to meet them?

    I ask these questions because they have been thrown up by the so-called wide-spread anger over the deportation. I have seen the letter from Lagos State Government, the acknowledgement from the Anambra State Liaison officer in Lagos, who went further to request a list of the destitute involved. If the arrangement to transfer them to the state was bungled from that end, do we now blame Lagos for our own inefficiency?

    To worsen the matter, Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, rather than call his Lagos counterpart to discuss the matter, chose to write a protest letter to President Jonathan, threatening in the process to retaliate. And I ask, retaliate against whom? How many destitute of Yoruba ethnic group do you have in the whole of Igbo land? By writing Jonathan was Governor Obi expecting the President to call Fashola and flog him? Or order him to take back the destitute?

    My point is: we ought to be realistic and weigh our actions before we take them. The way some of us have reacted to the development leaves much to be desired.

    A lot of folks are being emotional about the issue and are hence guilty of poor judgment. Yet others see it from political angle and hope to score some cheap political point from the unfortunate development. My advice to all Ndigbo, who feel hurt by the development, is to ask questions and get answers before jumping to conclusions.

    I am neither saying what Lagos did is correct nor am I saying it was right to deny any Nigerian the right to freely live, move in any part of the federation. But we must also admit that Lagos has the right to clear its streets of any form of social menace. I also look forward to the day they would stop area boys from harassing and extorting money from people, who buy machines and other private stuffs, and rein in on them to save people like us from constant harassment. My only worry, though, is that these area boys include Igbos too. So, what am I saying? Let us not rush to judgments. Of the 36 states of the federation, Lagos still remains the most Igbo-friendly. And I mean every word of it. It is the only state where an Igbo man is a commissioner; and it is not because his kind is in short supply in the state. Rather they are in abundance not just in the state but all through the South-west geo-political zone. Does this count? Yes. It does.

    It’s better to deport me to my state than to continue to murder me and burn, loot my property at the slightest provocation. This has been going on in some parts of the country for years, but definitely not Lagos.

    Most importantly, it is not only Igbo destitute that have been removed from the streets of Lagos; only recently destitute from Ondo State were equally moved to their state of origin. These are Yoruba people. So why are Ndigbo reacting as if we are being systematically targeted? Why are we making it look as if everybody is against us?

    Having said that, let our government go and interview those “deported”, sieve innocent ones among them and return them to Lagos where they have every right to live according to the laws of the federation and that of the state. Then let them rehabilitate the destitute among them in Anambra. Anything short of this would amount to naked politicking and shadow chasing in the face of bare facts.

    • Chukwuelobe wrote from Lagos

     

  • Orji’s harvest of laurels

    One of the supreme ironies of freedom and comfort is the tendency to quickly forget the unbearable conditions and the ugly past that hitherto pervaded the socio-political landscape; which necessitated and triggered emancipation struggles. At the time Governor T.A. Orji took over the reins of governance, Abia was on the bottom rung of the ladder of nation’s politics. The run-of-the-mill performance of his predecessor equally complicated matters.

    A major challenge that faced his administration was the issue of insecurity. Abia’s ugly experience and the fine sense of operational strategies adopted to stem the tide became a cloud with a silver lining. At the peak of the first tenure of Governor T.A. Orji, kidnappings and other violent crimes shook the state to its foundation. Abia hit the headlines as hotbed of heinous crimes.  In fact, well-to-do individuals and top government officials became ready targets for kidnappings. Banks were shut down during the peak of business hours especially in Aba, the commercial nerve-centre. Ostentatious living became a liability. Those who had the means relocated from Aba and Ukwa-Ngwa axis, where the hydra-headed monster loomed large and appeared intractable. Security agencies lost some of their field men who were confronted with assorted and sophisticated weapons of the bandits.

    But the nasty scenario reached a climax when a group of school children were kidnapped on their way to the school in a school bus. As would be expected, the already battered image of the state got messier nationally and internationally. The water-boarding of Abia security apparatus by the bare-faced test of government might occasioned by the abduction of innocent school children prompted a re-jig of security measures.

    Governor Orji acquired over 100 patrol vehicles with modern security and information gadgets, and distributed them to all security formations in the state. In an unprecedented manner, security officials were provided with logistics and mouth-watering motivational packages that boosted their morale in tackling the menace of kidnapping.

    The healthy working relationship between Abia State government and the Federal Government played a key role in restoring normalcy in the troubled zone. The military was drafted to clean up the Augean stables. The barracks long abandoned in Ohafia, a sub-urban area of the state, was renovated by the state government and this brought about a restoration of the military base with a full complement of artillery brigade. The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Onyeabor Ihejirika, who is a son of the soil, collaborated finely with Governor Orji in mobilizing the military to flush out the kidnapping gangsters.

    The flashpoints were cordoned off while the thick forests that served as temporary abode for the kidnappers were ransacked by the courageous men of Nigerian Army. Peace automatically returned to the besieged area as the perpetrators took to their heels. Not leaving anything to chances, strategic points in the state have since been manned with Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) and combat-ready soldiers and policemen, to contain any threat of resurgence of the violent crimes. Abia has since acquired the status of investors’ haven as its security architecture in now a model.

    The main lesson from Abia State security experience is that with right leadership, agility, rationality, political will and striking of healthy alliances with appropriate institutions, no socio-economic nay political challenge can remain insurmountable. Abia is today showered with encomiums on account of her feat in security tending. It was therefore not surprising that the Security Watch Africa in Ghana festooned Governor Orji with the award of the Best Governor on Security Matters in Nigeria in 2012.

    Interestingly enough, the management of two reputable national media houses, Daily Champion and Daily Independent Newspapers considered and festooned Governor Orji with the awards of Icon of Democracy in 2012 and Man of the Year Award in 2013 respectively.

    The state government runs a tuition-free primary and secondary schools to enable the poor and the vulnerable groups to have access to formal education. The moribund State Scholarship Scheme was also reactivated by Governor Orji to assist brilliant but indigent students in the tertiary institutions at home and abroad. Through the State Youth Empowerment Scheme, Ochendo has equally provided job opportunities for hundreds of idle youths in the transport sector. Hundreds of vehicles (buses and cars) and tricycles are periodically given to the youths across the LGAs without any strings attached. This is besides the monthly payment of N15,000 stipends to about 4500 youths  in the state to cushion the harsh economic challenges of apprenticeship and studentship. In workers friendliness, it is needless to belabour the fact that Governor Orji, at the inception of his government promoted all cadres of workers to the next salary Grade Level and it is on record that Abia State pays the highest minimum wage in the country. But the greatest of these accomplishments is Governor Orji’s rare courage in yanking off the affairs of the state from a tiny cabal that held her by the jugular. Top government officials and political appointees are no longer emasculated with demonic oath-taking to extract subservience needed to service the over-bloated ego of a pocket tyrant with vaulting ambitions.

    Good governance indeed has no borders. Of course, with the sophistication of modern telecommunications that has shrunk our world to a global village, peoples across nations can access information from far places on a shoestring with just a click. Even the Ndigbo in Diaspora (USA) is not left in appreciating the giant strides of the present administration in the State. They gave Governor Orji an Excellence Award in Governance as a result of his pacesetting efforts at rebuilding Abia from the scratch and the preponderance of legacy projects. Abia is today a huge construction site: new office complexes, new government house, gigantic international conference centre, new court halls, e-library complex, new classroom blocks, network of roads, new modern markets and industrial clusters for SMEs and a robust policy of tackling youth unemployment.

    In appraising the modest efforts of the administration in building solid road infrastructure, the Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Works, Hon. Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi and his team declared during their oversight visit to Abia that the only standard federal roads in Abia are the ones rehabilitated by Governor Orji. Both the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark and the Speaker of House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal had equally commended Ochendo’s visionary leadership when they commissioned the new Amokwe Housing Estate and new office complex for the State Environmental Protection Agency respectively.

    Recently, the National Association of Optometrists gave Governor Orji the award of the Prime Ambassador of Health Care. His policies on health matters attracted the newest honour which include but not limited to the building of 250 primary health centres across the State, the building of Abia State Specialist and Diagnostic Centre with seven dialysis machines in Umuahia and Aba, renovation and upgrading of Amachara Specialist Hospital with new structures and doctors quarters; and the erection of nine 100-bed capacity hospitals at strategic locations in the three senatorial zones of the state. The Honourable Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu capped these endeavours by commissioning the new dialysis centre on July 22. The dialysis centre will drastically reduce the huge amount of money spent by Nigerians on medical tourism to India.

    It is indeed the wish of Abians that this momentum of good governance would be sustained to leapfrog the state from the pangs of underdevelopment.

    • Uche, a public affairs analyst wrote in from Isuochi, Abia State.