The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ogochukwu Ikeje

  • Make emergency rule count

    Make emergency rule count

    There are reasons why emergency rule declared in three Northern states is not a bad thing. On Tuesday, an unusually tough-talking President Goodluck Jonathan provided the grounds for troops to move into Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states and do everything within the law to rescue them from the grip of Boko Haram.

    It is easy to understand why. For every single strategy adopted to stop the killings and keep the peace in the North has failed to produce result. Initial closing of the eyes and wishing the violence would not continue did not help. The President’s appeals that enough was enough, was not enough to impress the insurgents. Nor did the region-wide rounds made by National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. Occasional military clashes with members of the sect did not yield much fruit either. Even the arrest of several alleged members of the sect has not stemmed the blood flow in the land.

    A peace offer named amnesty just about blew up in the President’s face as soon as he announced it, with the sect appearing to seize the initiative and declaring that it needed no forgiveness. Jonathan has gone on to constitute the amnesty committee anyway, but there is no evidence that dialogue is taking place or that members of Boko Haram are laying down their arms. They have increased in stature, in reach, in tactics and in courage. They have gone on from shooting or bombing street crowds to targeting public institutions and international organisations, even kidnapping. They also seem to be inspiring some local cult groups, a recent example being the killing of scores of policemen in Nasarawa State.

    When the sect threatened back in 2011 that its fighters would “hunt down” Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda and his former counterpart in Gombe, Senator Danjuma Goje, the two gentlemen promptly  begged. Yuguda apologised “for perceived injustices caused” the group. Goje “hereby tender my public apology to the organisation for any wrong done to it in the course of performing my duty as the then governor of Gombe Sate.”

    You cannot blame the pair. It was wise considering the might of Boko Haram.

    The Jonathan administration, having also appealed for peace, amnesty-wise, and was yet to get any promising response, seems to have resorted to emergency rule almost as a last-ditch effort but also because of the continuing killings and unending public criticism.

    Emergency rule may do the trick but only if it is made to count. Already, the decision not to tamper with the democratic structures on the ground in the three states is a splendid idea. But the operation must be comprehensive, the methods and strategies clearly thought-out. The emergency rule must be comprehensive enough to achieve its aim, which is stopping the violence and restoring peace. Its methods and strategies must conform to accepted standards. The troops must be professional on duty, never losing sight of the conventions guiding their activities.

    It is pertinent to recall the Baga massacre of last month. The killings and other atrocities in the community have left questions hanging over the military, with the international community keeping a keen eye on developments. Professionals deployed to keep the peace must not be accused or found guilty of criminal behaviour.

    The entire military and law enforcement community must also ensure that while the emergency rule subsists, the violence they are trying to halt does not spread to other parts of the country. Borno, Yobe and Adamawa are clearly not the only stomping grounds of Boko Haram. They are also quite active in Kano and have caused no small havoc in Bauchi, Plateau and several other places. While the emergency beam focuses on the three focal states, will there also be enough attention on other areas presumed to be Boko Haram-free?

    While the emergency rule lasts, will the Jonathan administration come to grips with the root causes of the insurgency and begin to fix them? It will be naive to simply say the enemies of the President are at work. Not everyone will like a president, any president, but when war is levied against a nation by some of its citizens, as the President himself conceded in his Tuesday broadcast, the finger of accusation should not merely point to political enemies. There are clear societal dislocations and inequities that should be addressed. There are terrorist vibrations in the South from where the President hails.

    Hear the President: “It has become necessary for me to address you on the recent spate of terrorist activities and protracted security challenges in some parts of the country, particularly in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi, Kano, Plateau and, most recently, Bayelsa, Taraba, Benue and Nasarawa states.”

    The emergency rule should offer him the opportunity to reflect on the spread of violence in the country and stamp it out for good. Jonathan should make the military option in the three Northern states count for the whole country.

    It may sound like a tall order but is that not why he is in government and in power?

  • Wild, wild country, still

    What happens when killers and other violent criminals strike in Nigeria?

    Simple: Nigerians talk about it for a few minutes. Relatives grieve. The authorities mouth some ineffectual words. The security family promises the world. Then, everything goes quiet. We move on.

    In January, to recall a few recent incidents, Anambra people saw corpses floating on their river. In March, a police commissioner, Chinwike Asadu, was killed outside his home in Enugu. Last month, Baga popped up with a massacre of nearly 200 of its residents while their houses were burnt. Last Friday, a 92-year-old ex-minister in the Gowon era  was kidnapped. This week, scores of policemen were cut down in Nasarawa.

    I reproduce a piece I wrote entitled “Wild, wild country”. It is still a wild, wild country.

    The piece: The two killing incidents, set apart by just four days, were as horrifying as the word can be. The one took place in the night when the day’s work was done and many had retired to bed; the other happened in broad daylight. On Independence Day, in Mubi, the second biggest town in Adamawa State, and its commercial nerve, students of the Federal Polytechnic sited there were in their hostel when guns began to boom. They sounded near at first, said one student; soon the gunmen drew nearer, still shooting. Panic gripped the hostel community. Everyone hurried into their rooms and locked their doors. But the visitors were on a mission they must accomplish. They kicked the doors open, shot and killed one student after another. At the end of the operation, over 40 students, according to some accounts, lay dead. The incident threw the polytechnic community into imaginable trauma. Friends and families of the dead were left in the deepest grief. The nation was in a daze, while the entire world stood stupefied.

    That was one wild night in the Northeast of the country.

    Four days later, and down south in Aluu, where the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, is located, four students of the institution faced the grimmest ordeal of their lives, none of them surviving to relive it. They were stripped naked and beaten until there was no life left in them. Finally, their bodies were burnt.

    That was another wild outing.

    Some reports blamed the Mubi attack on fundamentalists, while in Aluu, residents were said to have done the job.

    Both incidents, not forgetting the killings in a Kano school within the same period, have sharpened up a whole new, horrifying angle in the country’s insecurity challenges. Schools have been attacked before, only now, there seems to be more boldness in taking on larger numbers of Nigeria’s young people secluded for the purpose of study. We must worry about the ease with which assailants invade our schools and kill young people being groomed for leadership. Our educational profile may not lift our spirits but we must worry when students are wasted. More fundamentally, we must worry when lives are wasted by people who neither have the sanction of the creator to do so nor the authority of the law of man. We must worry when mobs become accusers, prosecutors, judges and executioners in one fell swoop, as in the case of the Uniport Four, who were reportedly accused of stealing laptop computers and mobile phones.

    Reports said a crowd watched with interest, even applauding, as the four, all below 22, were tortured to death and their corpses set ablaze. What do you make of such a scene and such an act? Such brutalities attack every claim we make to civility, and rebrand us a wild, wild nation.

    Mob action or jungle justice did not start in Aluu, to be sure. All over the country, people have faced instant death at the hands of streetwalkers and bystanders, and for even the pettiest of offences. But for me, one nasty thing about such brand of justice is that the people dispensing it may be woefully unqualified for the job. Some who clobber mob victims to death may actually be thieves themselves. We can tell from the mob which was eager to slay a certain adulteress caught in the act.

    But there are weightier concerns about jungle justice. It questions the character and professionalism of the police, the outfit whose responsibility it is to sort out civil disorders. How was it that a mob tortured and killed four undergraduates, then set their corpses on fire, an operation that must have lasted hours, without the police getting any wind of it? What do you make of such police? Again, why are people better disposed to taking the law into their own hands rather than reporting their concerns to law enforcers? Why has confidence in the police waned?

    It is perhaps naive to conclude that the Aluu executioners were inspired by the assailants in Mubi simply because of the short space of time between them, but it is safe to say that unlawful killings, of which Nigeria has quite a pile, if not punished, pave the way for more of such barbaric illegalities. Heaps of files of unsolved murders are still with the police, as are bunches of reports on bloody communal and sectarian crises with government. Hope may have died out on those files being reopened or the murderers being brought to justice, and it is just this sort of profile that helps to reduce the value for life in the populace. In time, people with propensity to kill, begin to do so knowing that, as in the past, there is little or no chance of ever being caught and punished. Such scenarios make life seem worthless.

    Everyone has a role to make things better, but people in authority have a bigger responsibility. You can tell if life matters in a local council if the chairman defends one threatened resident with all his soul. It is easy to see if a state or federal government cares for its people if a small endangered community is given the best possible attention.

    We are just one wild, wild bunch.

     

    •First published October 14, 2012

  • Is the end near?

    These are bizarre days. On Tuesday a woman heard a gunshot from her kitchen.

    Stepping out to the porch, she saw her two-year-old daughter lying in a pool of blood. She was shot by her brother just three years older. She did not make it. The boy’s gun was a rifle made for children and given to him by his father.

    I fancy that strange. But that may be because I’m African and Nigerian. In our culture no man buys such a lethal weapon and presents it to his five-year-old, say, on his birthday. In some parts of the United States where that “accident” happened, guns are presented to kids even before they start primary school, though, it must be said, the weapons are not intended for crime, only shooting animals and such sport. Even then, some Americans are aghast, asking what maturity can be expected of a pre-school boy armed with a real gun. It is a rhetorical question. Strange.

    On Wednesday an African-American man did not seem to understand why jurors convicted him for capital murder after he shot and killed a 79-year-old woman. He said the bullet was not meant for the septuagenarian, but his own daughter who testified against him in a sexual assault case in which the daughter was the alleged victim. I find that strange and I figure you might consider it strange too.

    In Nigeria questions are still being asked as to what happened last month in Baga, an otherwise quiet fishing community in Borno State. A joint military team had engaged the notorious Boko Haram sect members in a gun battle after it was reported that the insurgents attacked a patrol team killing a soldier in the community. The next thing we heard was that much of the town was burnt down, well over 2000 buildings up in smoke, while no fewer than 187 persons were killed, according to a report. The question is, who burnt Baga, Boko Haram or the military? The military said the fire was the handiwork of a rocket-propelled grenade; Human Rights Watch, a rights advocacy group, said the fire was too extensive to be caused by a rocket grenade.

    I find that strange, even more so considering that ours is a country whose soil is soaked with the blood of people cut down so violently, especially in the North.    There is no greater danger to security and Nigeria’s nationhood now than the fundamentalist group running riot in the North. Its members have been consistent in their mission to cause maximum damage, leaving the Presidency and security community’s approach to tackling them with flip-flop strategies and inconsistent spirits. Neither tough talk today nor appeals tomorrow has tempered the militant sect. Nor too has the latest strategy: amnesty overtures. It appears the thirst for blood is even getting stronger and insatiable. The hometown of a former inspector-general of police has been attacked, as have several other locales.

    It is a strange world. What will quench the thirst for blood in the land? When or how will the killings stop? Is the end of the country near or that of the world, for that matter? The Bible paints a bleak picture of the end-time. It builds up, like a taxiing airplane, before it takes off, but unlike the plane, the end of the world is not a pleasure flight. There will be so much discomfort, even agony, so much violence, and not a little disagreement in high and low places. I picture the falcon not hearing the falconer, things falling apart in families, parents being unloving, children being unruly. Love waxing cold, or when it picks up, it is strange love indeed. Men will go after their kind, women after women.

    In fact, you do not have to picture it. It is already here with us.

    Earlier in the week, the international media was awash with the public admission of a top US basketball player that he was gay. He was applauded by celebrities for coming out of the closet. One of those who applauded him was another basketball great, John Amaechi, an ex-National Basketball Association (NBA) star, of Nigerian-British parentage. A public speaker, role model and sport analyst, Amaechi was the first former NBA player to reveal publicly that he was gay.

    It is becoming increasingly politically correct to endorse homosexuality and lesbianism. Many countries across the world have given men and women the all-clear to enter into sexual relationships with, and marry their kind. It doesn’t matter who you love, was how Obama put it during his campaign for second term. Several states in the US have legalised same-sex marriage. It seems to be of little or no consequence that two biblical cities were wiped out for such indulgences.

    In South Africa a boy unsettled the authorities of his school when he told them he had two mothers, his parents being legally married lesbians.

    In Nigeria the campaign for same-sex unions has been mounting, the only stumbling block being the David Mark-led Senate, which has continued to shoot it down.

    In Syria and Iraq, blood is flowing, as it is in Afghanistan and India. Israelis and Palestinians have no love lost between them. Between North and South Korea, there is tension, as there is between the former and the United States. The Chadian government smelt a coup recently, accusing neighbouring Libya of helping ‘rebels’.

    Is the end not near?

     

  • War and peace

    War and peace

    Terrorism is a tricky affair. It upsets everything. It triggers war, but war of a different sort. It is unconventional, a hit-and-run kind of thing, without pitched locations, with the enemy largely unknown.

    After the shoe and crotch bombers, the United States of America is now grappling with what is turning out to be the pressure cooker bomber. Since the week, Americans have been asking questions as a popular marathon race turned bloody on the finish line. Three people, among them a child, died while about 200 were injured, some terribly so, as two bombs went off in Boston, Massachusetts. Who did this? Why?

    Security agents have been doing overtime, turning up every scrap they can find at the scene, examining every clue. So far, as this piece took shape, they would not say anyone had been arrested, only that two people were suspects. They think some progress is being made.

    But that is thousands of miles away. Here, we have been battling with terror, even more requently. We have been at war, but war at peacetime, war with ourselves. While the Americans in the latest terror attack are unsure whether foreigners built explosive devices into pressure cookers and set them off in Boston, or fellow Americans did the job, we in Nigeria are certain that fellow countrymen are behind the insurgency before us, even though we are not ignorant of the possibilities of foreign backing.

    It remains messy, tragic and hopeless. The casualties are in excess of 1,000 since the insurgency began. Even that is conservative. At this point, no one can underestimate the capacity or capabilities of Boko Haram, the fundamentalist sect that will, at the least, be happy to Islamise the North. Its fighters have reduced churches to rubble and blown worshippers to pieces. They have spilled the blood of policemen, even rattling their headquarters in a most daring fashion. They have taken the fight to the military. They have introduced fighters who blow themselves up in order to blow up many others. The world knows this set as suicide bombers.

    Containing such a group is, in all fairness, difficult. They hit and melt away, then hit again, leaving you in horror and asking questions. Yet, the most difficult challenge in tackling the group is not its facelessness. Nor its unconventional tactics. Nor even its sophisticated weapons. It is the indecision and ambivalence of the Jonathan administration.

    As a Nigerian and as President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is deeply saddened by the blood tide occasioned by the insurgents. He wants peace. But as the commander-in-chief, how has he responded to the violence and flight of peace and unity in the country? That response has been anything but coordinated or cohesive. When the terror began, we heard the President say something that suggested his administration knew who the terrorists were. Then we started to hear that the perpetrators of violence would be fished out, and then again that the bad guys were even in government.

    The most remarkable discordance is the love-hate disposition of the President towards Boko Haram. We have heard our leader say he would not dialogue with faceless people. At some other point, we heard the administration was ready to talk even before the masks were taken off. A mediator was named, a location mentioned. On a tour last month of Borno and Yobe states, regarded as the strongholds of the sect, the President surprised many when he said again that dialogue was out of the question. Now, we have heard that the administration is ready to grant amnesty, considered to be several steps above dialogue. Dialogue is talk. Amnesty is pardon; it is forgiveness. The small worry is that Boko Haram is having none of it. It considers itself the aggrieved party, not the aggressor. Boko Haram does not want to be forgiven, arguing rather that it has the prerogative of forgiveness, if at all there should be any.

    In all of this, the voices of the victims are never heard, nor those of their relatives.

    The latest twist, we hear, has left the Jonathan administration stumped, halted in its tracks, some of his officers even wearing long faces.

    They should cheer up. Boko Haram has seized the bargaining power and the initiative. Now the government will beg its leaders to reconsider.

    It is an uncomfortable position for a president of a federal government. Even if concessions are made to insurgents, they should not be seen to be calling the shots. But guess what, the government should swallow its pride, go ahead and beg. If begging will stem the blood tide, why not? If begging will win the war and usher peace, by all means, let us beg.

  • Mourning Achebe

    Mourning Achebe

    The world has been united in celebrating Chinua Achebe since his passing last week. Commentators have hailed his contributions to learning, for he was a teacher. Essayists have applauded his impeccable literary effort, some of which earned him universal respect and prized awards to boot. Some too have chronicled his life and times, tracing the journey of a boy-child born in Ogidi in present-day Anambra State, who would forge an early pact with the academia, virtually living in the library, churning out a masterpiece at age 28 before passing on at 82 in the United States. Mention was made of his stint in the media, of his involvement in the Civil War, and of his flight overseas where he spent a good part of his memorable life. In the end, everyone seemed agreed that there, encased in a casket in America lies a great man, indeed one of the greatest Africa has produced.

    All of that fills me with a sense of personal gratitude. I feel like saying thank you to all of you for doing your bit in immortalising the great Achebe who, without knowing me helped in shaping my life the way fathers do. I never got closer to him than several metres at an event way back in time, and to this point I will return shortly, but the man had made an indelible impression on me even before that august occasion.

    Yet, for all the outpouring of encomiums, it hurts to note that much cynicism overlay or underlay some of the comments on Achebe. You could pick out the snicker when commentators mentioned his last literary effort “There was a country”. The cynicism was accentuated when analysts tended to minimise him as a tribalist or even credit him with little love for his country.

    If Achebe seemed disenchanted with Nigeria, it should be noted that it really was not about the country but about its leadership. Twice he turned down national honours not because he personally hated Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who first offered it when he was president, or President Goodluck Jonathan who also included the celebrated author on his award list. Achebe never hid his disenchantment with what he perceived as a drift in leadership. Neither was he alone in this grief. Nigerians of different stripes are just as unhappy. Clerics bemoan the state of things. Writers and commentators continuously clamour for a better country. Even some who have accepted national honours have from time to time expressed worry at the profile of a potentially rich country hosting a mass of poor people.

    If Achebe was indeed a tribalist, he was no more than anyone else. Perhaps, his brand of tribalism was of the healthy sort, without poison or blood, machetes or bombs. He was a great man in every sense of the word.

    His Things Fall Apart helped to educate me more than some of my teachers tried. His simple yet profound narrative gripped me as a boy. It held me spellbound as a young man in the university. It reinforced what my HOD, Francis Ngwaba, once said that there is sophistication in simplicity. I found Achebe approachable. He encouraged me to study. But there was more to his works than simple language and unforced plot. He fictionalised the African reality but above that, did his best to correct a warped Western view of the continent and its people. Achebe gave back pride to the African, reminding the world that his history is not one long nightmare.

    For this, accomplished writers continue to praise him, some calling him a trailblazer, some father of modern African literature. Some regret that the Nobel authorities somewhat conspiratorially robbed Achebe of their prized honour. I do too. But I do not bemoan that. For the Nobel would not have made him a more profound writer, only a prize for what he had written. Besides, if he was deliberately ignored, other accomplished literary figures were likewise overlooked. The spite did not detract from their works nor from their worth; it only cast a shadow of doubt on the integrity of the awarding authorities. What indeed can you write to get the Nobel prize?

    Over a decade ago, Achebe delivered one of the Ahajiokwu Lectures in Owerri. I was there and there he was in his wheelchair doing his best wake up the Igbo and work towards a better future. He said Echi di ime, ma taa bu gbo, literally meaning the future may be unknown but you can start today. I cherish that distant meeting.

    There may be a point of disagreement with Achebe, though. He said in his greatest novel that the white man put a knife on the things that held us together and we fell apart. He blamed the white man’s cunning and his religion. I do not know how much of those words frozen in his fiction he lived out in his eventful life. If he really believed the white man erred by knocking down our gods and our shrines and planting his religion on the African soil, I do not. I also believe that this new religion in itself and true form is not injurious to us. Neither does it undermine us as a people. It is the false pretenders to the faith that are the problem.

    Still, I celebrate Achebe’s genius and his impact on the world.

  • I beg your pardon!

    When a native English speaker exclaims: “I beg your pardon!” he is seeking clarification on what he heard, or expressing one of two possible emotions. An example is: “Where did you say you were going?” One of the emotions which the phrase conveys is surprise. Another is anger.

    As news broke last week that former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha had been pardoned for his corruption offences, I found myself seeking clarification. As the matter developed first from rumour to denial and finally to certainty, I shuddered with surprise and then anger. A Nigerian, though, I felt justified to explode: I beg your pardon!

    In mid 2000s, DSP Alamieseigha was the news. If it wasn’t of his arrest in London for fraud allegations, it was certainly of his mysterious escape and appearance in Nigeria allegedly disguised as a woman, an allegation he has repeatedly denied. And if the media were not awash with news of his arrest in the country and prosecution by then Mallam Nuhu Ribadu-led EFCC, everyone was talking about his swift release from jail after being in detention for two years.

    In those days, Alamieyeseigha was the lead story. The allegations against him were weighty. He was, and perhaps, still is, a very influential figure in the Ijaw nation and was generally hailed the Governor-General of the ethnic group. Again, not everyone lost sight of the fact that he was at odds with then President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and for that reason, many thought his troubles were essentially political persecution. For these reasons, DSP was a big item on the news desk.

    Still, his state pardon was shocking and distressing. Reports said the National Council of State, a group of ex-presidents, state governors and other bigwigs headed by the President, approved Alamieseigha’s amnesty. A former bank chief convicted of fraud was also pardoned, as were several ex-military officers, a few posthumously.

    Many are shocked and distressed, from the opposition to legal circles to students to civil society to even the ruling party, the PDP, of which President Goodluck Jonathan is national leader. A PDP leader who reportedly spoke anonymously expressed his surprise at the state pardon, wondering what message it would send to the corrupt or to those fighting them. Some lawyers even question the legality of the Council of State granting such pardons, wondering if the council’s role is not essentially advisory.

    Alamieseigha’s pardon surprises and angers me for some other reasons? One of them is the manner the President’s spokesmen have defended it. One of those aides, Dr Doyin Okupe, said the pardon was proper because Alamieseigha was remorseful. Okupe also waxed philosophical, reaching deep into Yoruba adages to point out the futility of further punishing a surrendered thief. After chasing down a rogue and forcing him to give up what he stole, why continue the chase? he asked. Okupe also sought to tarnish the image of anyone who disapproved of the pardon, saying the President is like a parent whose decisions and actions should not be questioned by the children even if those decisions and actions may not always favour the children.

    Okupe does not say what he means by Alamieseigha’s remorse or to whom he expressed it, whether to President Jonathan or the Ijaw nation or the Nigerian people. In one breath, this medical doctor who speaks for the President tries to rationalise his principal’s action; in another, he labours to absolve him of blame, saying the pardon was indeed granted by the Council of State, not the President per se. When Okupe suggests that Nigerians should accept everything the President says and does without flinching, he does not say by what democratic standards or precedence his postulation is based. He is even insinuating that every critic is an enemy.

    I am also disturbed by the report that members of the Council of State were not thoroughly briefed on the agenda of the penultimate Tuesday session and that many of them got the memo at the meeting, not before. What will people make of that, if it is true?

    I am equally disturbed by the report that the real reason Alamieseigha was pardoned was to enhance Jonathan’s rumoured 2015 ambition. The President’s approval rating among ex-militants in his home state, Bayelsa, is said to be low and that he intends to improve it using the immense clout of the Governor-General who is reckoned to be quite close to the former combatants. Such reports, if true, do the President little good, not because it is unlawful for him to run but because people will perceive him as scheming for power.

    Okupe, who has been busy speaking to foreign and local media since the pardon, said Nigerians should respect national institutions, referring to the Council of State. But he seems to have forgotten that critics of the pardon are worried because national institutions are also being undermined. Take the EFCC which tried and jailed Alamieseigha. Like the National Council of State, it too was created by our laws.

    The Presidency, itself a creation of the law, should not be perceived or seen to be undermining the spirit and letter of the nation’s institutions. Like plea bargain, this state pardon emboldens fraudsters. They get the idea that if caught, they will be pardoned sooner or later. It hurts and makes you wonder if you heard aright.

  • Governor Orji politically transforming housing policy in Abia State

    Since the beginning of the administration of Governor Theodore Orji he has never relented in the provision of the infrastructure for the people of the state especially in the area of housing as he set out to ensure that there are houses for all categories of people in the state irrespective of where they are from or living.

    Orji started from the renovation of all general hospitals scattered across the state, then he moved to the building off 250 health centres in all nooks and crannies of the state, which are now being equipped.

    The governor worried over the development that many workers are still coming to work from outside the state capital, he set out to commence the building of housing estates in the state capital with the hope of making houses cheaper for everyone in the state.

    The special adviser to the governor on housing, Engr Nwabueze Onwuneme said that the governor has been worried over the lack of houses for the workers of the state most of who come from Aba, Owerri and other neighbouring state capitals and cities around the state. Onwuneme said that this made the governor to start the massive building of estates across the state.

    He said that the estate at Adelabu Street was started and completed in record time and the houses have been sold to the beneficiaries, stressing that other estates have been moving on simultaneously, thereby making the state one big construction site, where people of all shades and sizes have been coming to work and earn their living.

    Onwuneme said that the government of Abia state is set to commence the sale of 1000 housing units at Ochendo Liberation estate at Amauba and Isieke housing estate before the end of the year and has asked interested would be owners to collect the forms for the allocation.

    The Special Adviser to Abia state governor on Housing, Engr. Nwabueze Onwuneme said that the housing policy of the present administration has gone above 80% in the revolution aimed at providing housing for all before 2015, with the addition of more houses at the commissioner’s quarters. The governor believes that the state has the capacity to increase its executive council which caused the need for more houses at the estate.

    Onwuneme said that the state government under the present administration is determined to deliver over 1000 units of different categories of houses across the state by the end of the second quarter of this year apart from others earlier delivered.

    The housing adviser said that from inception, Governor Theodore Orji’s administration set out to ensure that housing problems will be a thing of the past, as the governor directed that a road map to housing revolution be produced and followed to the end.

    Onwuneme said that after looking at the United Nations data on housing in the state, “Which gave the state a deficit of 300,000 houses, we decided to change the situation by starting what we called mass housing so that there will be affordable houses for all”.

    He said that this made the governor to start the building of several housing estates like Amauba, Isieke, Amauba 2 for civil servants called Ochendo Liberation estates, adding that government is also developing a cluster business area apart from the housing estates.

    The adviser on housing said that the governor has directed that a new housing estate be established in all the three senatorial zones in the state, stressing that the aim is for housing pressure to be reduced in both Aba and Umuahia respectively.

    Onwuneme regretted that former governments did little or nothing in the area of mass housing and laying solid foundation for the growth of the state, “This why the governor is in a hurry to develop the state by doing the basic foundation after 21 years the state was created”.

    He noted that the governor’s housing projects have cut across all sectors of the society, “The governor has built 256 health centres, 2 diagnostic centres in both Aba and Umuahia, dialysis centre, new structures at the school of midwifery Amachara and the building of doctor’s quarters.

    We have also not allowed the judiciary to suffer as all old court houses have been renovated, new ones built; the legislature has not been left behind as new office complex has been built for them and the new government house.

    We are not going to forget the new state secretariat, international conference centre, four new additional blocks at the commissioners’ quarters, ASEPA building, the new markets for both relief and industrial and the administrative block for workers of the state radio/television among many others”.

    Onwuneme assured that the government of Theodore Orji will not have any uncompleted building by the time it will be leaving office in the next few years, “We know what we are doing as they are well thought out, which is why all our projects are moving at a lighting speed”.

  • Why Kwara police commissioner’s killing matters

    Since our soil has become used to receiving so many souls cut down so violently, why should the killing last week of a police commissioner Chinwike Asadu matter? 

    Asadu, until that Saturday, Kwara State Commissioner of Police, was visiting his home state Enugu. He had just dropped off a lawyer friend and was driving into his personal house when four gunmen fatally shot him, according to reports. His orderly and another policeman said to have been directed to give him further protection, were critically wounded in the attack, though they are reported to be responding to treatment in hospital.

    From this point, everything about the incident has been predictable. Police authorities in Abuja said the police commissioner’s killers have “murdered sleep” and will not find rest. That Shakespearean expression is a little fresh in these parts even though it is only another way to tell us what we usually hear when violent crimes are committed. Police traditionally say they are “on top of the situation” and that they will “leave no stone unturned” until they have found and dealt with the perpetrators of the “dastardly act”. That is what we are always told.

    In Enugu where the dastardly act took place, the command has assured the public that arrests have been made, though they will neither say how many suspects are held nor reveal their identities in order “not to jeopardise investigations”.

    Kwara State is reportedly mourning. The 82 Division of the Nigerian Army in Enugu has promised to help in catching Asadu’s killers. Amidst tears, the late CP’s widow, Oby, has resigned to fate, praying God to, in His own way and probably in His own time, deal with those who murdered her husband.

    Her clear pessimism typifies the larger Nigerian disposition in such circumstances. Over the years, we have seen the profile of violent crimes worsen so alarmingly and rarely have the criminals been brought to book, to borrow another favourite police phrase. Here, we are not just talking about robberies, however bloody they may be; we are also talking about carefully plotted assassinations and outright killing sprees. We are talking about the bloody and violent transformation of once serene and adorable Nigerian towns and cities, Jos being a classic example. We are talking about sudden bursts of gunfire and explosion silencing a large number of people and damaging property of inestimable value. And we are talking about the perpetrators vanishing into the proverbial thin air. It is needless here to recall unsolved high-profile murders or neglected reports of sundry investigations into large-scale killings in our communities. But in January, to mention a not-too-distant case, a community in Anambra State suddenly found no fewer than 19 corpses of young men floating on their river. In spite of the best efforts of the state government, the police have yet to explain how those bodies ended up on the river.

    Pessimism and aloofness are therefore justifiable. Gradually, the Asadu murder is being forgotten. It should not. The murder of a policeman is a serious matter. Whatever we have against the police, whatever their shortcomings, the killing of cop is a serious issue anywhere in the world. And for obvious reasons.

    The police carry with them the authority of the country. They are on national assignment and are orientated to keep the nation and it’s people safe. How they interpret their brief is a different matter.

    I did and still criticise Odi invasion not because the killing of the policemen there by youths did not matter but because the federal reaction was ill-advised and because a whole community paid for the crime of a few misguided youths.

    Asadu was not just a policeman. He was the number one law officer in Kwara before his murder. The state government and the people turned to him for answers to their security challenges. He moved around with armed security details of his own. If he had any safety worries, you did not expect them to be personal. He should worry about logistics and support to solve crimes, not to fear for his own safety. Even when he travelled out of Kwara, where he held a command position, he did not have to fear the worst.

    January 2 was a sad day not just for the Asadu family but also for the entire nation. The police should find his killers. No nation should get used to its police commissioners being cut down so violently.

  • The pope and African dinosaurs

    The pope and African dinosaurs

    What was going through the minds of Africa’s political dinosaurs as Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on February 11? What were the Mugabes of Africa thinking as the Catholic pontiff said he was stepping down from his exalted office?

    Many are honoured to kiss his papal gold ring. Multitudes struggle to touch him.  Amongst Catholics, there is a strong feeling of being lifted upon being blessed by the Pope. Yet, a great deal of that gave way as Pope Benedict ceased to be the head of the Catholic Church on Thursday.

    There was more he left behind. His sovereignty was chief of them. Although the Vatican is essentially a city, making it the world’s smallest nation, yet it is self-governing all the same, and the pope is its head. He answers to no council chairman or city mayor. There is no state governor to dictate to him, and no president or prime minister to sanction him. The pope is sovereign. When he travels the world, presidents receive him warmly and listen when he speaks. Millions across the world hold him dear as their spiritual father.

    What were Africa’s long-reigning despots thinking that Monday morning as Pope Benedict shocked the Catholic world and much of humanity with his decision to give up all the power and privileges?

    I can bet some of them may have concluded the Pope has lost his mind. Some within the Catholic fold have asked the Pope to rescind his decision, saying the head of the church does not traditionally resign. Indeed, no Pope stepped down in 600 years, which is why the Catholic world has been grappling with unusual challenges for two odd weeks now. One of those challenges is what Pope Benedict shall be called since Catholics are not used to a living ex-pontiff. Will he revert to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger? After some thinking, they have decided to call him Pope emeritus. The man himself has pledged “unconditional obedience” to his successor, forestalling another possible problem of loyalty.

    But I am certain that on February 11, the issues of post-Benedict XVI in the church were not on the minds of expired African leaders who have sworn to die in office rather than leave the scene.

    Pope Benedict XVI stepped down on account of old age and frailty which come in the way of effective discharge of duties. At 85, he is well aware that he lacks the energy of travel, of regular church supervision and of such other demanding responsibilities with which popes are saddled. He reckons that his office demands more than he can give. I also believe he places his health above the perks of office. More crucially, I think Pope Benedict was persuaded to let the whole world know that someone else can also do the job.

    All of that is nonsense to our sit-tight leaders whose time elapsed decades ago though they have chosen to hang on till death part them and the office they hold. At 70 they believe life has just started and that they can outrun a cheetah. At 80 they think there is none wiser who can lead the country better.  When they leave the plane of self-deceit, they descend into mindless corruption schemes. They design self-perpetuation plots to secure their ill-gotten wealth. These are the people who have made the continent a laughingstock among the nations and continents of the world. These walking relics of bygone ages have made a mockery of Africa and its people.

    By 2009 when he died in office, Omar Bongo was 74, more than half of which he spent in Gabon’s Government House as president. Within that time he had  changed the name of his hometown from Lewai to Bongoville and combined the office of president with those of defence, information, planning and prime minister, among others. He also managed to secure choice properties and assets in the sweetest parts of Europe. France was a favourite ground to show off his many acquisitions and his well-tailored trousers. He knew where to source high-heeled shoes to disguise his vertical challenge. Till his death, the official word was that he was fit as a fiddle.

    Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 71, has been ruling Equatorial Guinea since 1979 and is clearly Africa’s longest-serving president. His country is among the world’s biggest oil producers but his people are ranked among the poorest, while he is reckoned to be in the league of the richest. If he does not die in office, he is very likely to hand over to his son.

    Robert Mugabe, 89 last month, is easily Africa’s oldest non-monarch leader, though neither his country, Zimbabwe, nor the rest of the continent is proud of that. He looks destined to die in office. Paul Biya, 80 in February, has been in power since 1975, first as prime minister and then president.

    These are the dinosaurs of Africa, who, between them, have inspired other Africans to seek power and hold on to it until death do them part. We have seen enough of that reckless ambition in Nigeria, through the military days down to what we call democracy now.

    I have no experience of Catholicism but I believe the pope has left a good legacy. He preferred to shock his two billion congregation with the suddenness of his resignation rather than grieve them and himself with incapacitation. Our African dinosaurs know that they are unloved but do not care whether we weep or rejoice when they die in office. All they care about is themselves.

     

  • Chime’s hide and seek

    Chime’s hide and seek

    ON  Thursday, Enugu State Governor Sullivan Chime flew back to the country as quietly as he jetted out last September. His return brought relief on the one hand, and profound grief on the other.

    I explain. Chime’s departure was on medical grounds, as everyone later came to know; so his return is good news. In fact, as this piece shaped up, part of the story was that he was eager to pick up from where he left off. I rejoice in the governor’s recovery, knowing that life, even for the rich and privileged, is in the hands of God. But I am deeply troubled by the fact that Chime and his managers failed to use the opportunity of his return to correct the grave mistakes surrounding his departure over four months ago. One reason for this is that neither the governor nor his handlers realised they were in error in the first place.

    Leaving Enugu in the third week of September, the governor divulged little information beyond the fact that he was proceeding on his annual leave and that his deputy would govern the state in his absence. There was no indication of where he was headed. There was no word on how long he would be away. Neither was anything said about his real mission, his health. That was wrong and it brought Enugu people no joy, neither did it do Chime himself any good whether as governor or politician. Such executive silence was in utter disregard and disrespect of the people who voted him into power. Enugu people and the entire country were clueless as to the state of their governor’s well-being, just as they had no idea when he would be back home. Such behaviour of leaders suggests that the people they lead count for little and are not qualified to know their leaders’ health status. This is in spite of the fact that those neglected people provide the money with which the leaders feed and fund their privileges. It smacks of downright disregard.

    Chime’s silence created a vacuum filled only by rumours and speculation, both unhealthy for the people, their governor and their state.

    It was a grave error his administration failed to correct upon his return. The blunder of silence at departure would have been corrected on his return with full disclosure and a heart-felt apology. Such humility would have appeased the people and rallied them behind him with prayers and thanksgiving. Also, such humble dispositions have a way of not just winning the people over but also helping the leader to realise his immortality. For sometimes, leaders fall into error thinking they may possess some superhuman qualities. They imagine they cannot fall ill, but when they do, they think it best not to let lesser mortals know.

    This is erroneous and harmful, for we all have a headache or flu now and then. Our economic strengths may vary, as may also our options of where to seek remedy, but ailment is no respecter of persons or status. The sooner our leaders came to grips with this fact, the less secretive they would be about their state of well-being.

    “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease… At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done…I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you.”

    President Ronald Reagan wrote those words in August 1994 as doctors diagnosed a disease without cure. Goodwill messages flooded his California home. He was aged 83 then, but lived for 10 more years before succumbing to pneumonia. Were Reagan a Nigerian, perhaps only his wife Nancy and one or two other people would have known what ailed one of America’s most memorable commanders-in-chief.

    All over the world, the health status of national leaders is not such top secret, except in old Communist and totalitarian regimes. Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health challenges are public knowledge. She has spoken of her concussion and blood clot near her brain. Chelsea, her daughter, has not held anything back. Neither has her father, President Bill Clinton who, himself, has well-known health issues of his own.

    On these shores, things are remarkably different but Chime’s health secrets are nothing new. They only conform to an ugly standard set by even more powerful forces.

    On November 23, 2009, then President Umaru Yar’Adua was flown out of the country and did not return until February 24, 2010. In the period, everything that should not happen to a country, happened to Nigeria. Amid concerns over his well-being, there were agitations as to the direction of the country, considering that no handover instructions were left. In fact, Yar’Adua’s aides made such capital of the fact that the ailing president could run the country from anywhere in the world. When his condition was very bad, his minders said it was splendid.

    Late last year, the whole country was enveloped in a cloud of needless controversies surrounding the health and whereabouts of First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan.

    When will our leaders demystify themselves and learn to value the people they lead?