The Nation Newspaper

Category: Barometer

  • Cruel mockery of policing in Kogi

    THE Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, makes policing more and more curious.  On March 28, he ordered the removal of the Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Ali Janga, for failing in his duties. Mr Janga was blamed for the escape from custody of six suspects early that Wednesday, March 28. The suspects had allegedly implicated Dino Melaye (Senate–Kogi West) as a sponsor of political violence and assassination, and particularly as the one who armed and financed them. They were to be charged in court when they allegedly fled detention. The public had hoped that at the arraignment, they would perhaps be given the list of those Sen Melaye ordered the suspects to assassinate or muscle.

    Here is how the Force spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, informed the public of the sanction meted out to Mr Janga immediately after the escape of the six suspects: 1. The Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim K. Idris, NPM, mni, dissatisfied with the circumstances surrounding the escape of six (6) suspects including two (2) Principal Suspects (Kabiru Seidu A.K.A Osama, Nuhu Salisu A.K.A small) who indicted Senator Dino Melaye and Mohammed Audu in a case of Conspiracy and Unlawful possession of Prohibited Firearm already filed at the Federal High Court, Lokoja which came up in court today, 28thMarch, 2018, has ordered the immediate removal of Commissioner of Police, Kogi State Command, CP Ali Janga.

    1. The Commander FSARS in the State, the Divisional Police Officer ‘A’ Division, Lokoja and other Police officers implicated in the escape for negligence, dereliction of duty and gross misconduct in the escape of the six (6) suspects have also been transferred out of the State and are facing serious disciplinary action. Thirteen (13) other Police officers are currently being detained and investigated for their roles in the escape.
    2. CP Esa Sunday Ogbu, Commissioner of Police, Federal Operations, Force Headquarters, Abuja has been directed by the IGP to immediately proceed and take over as the new Commissioner of Police, Kogi State Police Command.
    3. Furthermore, on the order of the IGP, the IGP’s Intelligence Response Team and Special Tactical Squad, Personnel of the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department have already arrived in Kogi State to work with the Police personnel in the State for immediate rearrest of the escaped suspects. They are to also carry out detail investigation into the escape and bring all those involved to justice…

    Some six days later, however, Mr Janga was reinstated. This time, the media were addressed by the Kogi State Police Command spokesman, William Ayah, instead of the Force spokesman who announced his earlier redeployment. According to him, Mr Janga had met the one-week ultimatum given him by the IGP to rearrest the escaped suspects. Since that order was met, he implied, there was apparently no reason not to reinstate him. But in the original statement issued by the police, except the media did not fully report it, there was no indication that Mr Janga was given a one-week ultimatum. Nor does it seem sensitive to police duties and common sense that a redeployed police officer would still continue in office to carry remedy a failed assignment for which he was disciplined in the first instance. More importantly, he was supposedly disciplined for dereliction of duty, which seems sensible. So, how does the rearrest of the suspects by a special team of officers from Abuja mitigate the weight of the original offence? Have the other officers disciplined by the IGP also returned to Kogi?

    Both the police authorities and the Kogi State government have continued to diminish the value of governance in Nigeria. The posting of Mr Ogbu to Kogi and the suspected conceited aversion of Governor Yahaya Bello to his presence in the state were widely discussed in the state. Though the IGP ordered him to assume duty in Lokoja immediately, he was unable to do so because the governor allegedly frowned at the posting. Having become so powerful in Abuja, the governor, it is said, has finally had his way with the return of Mr Janga.

    Even more curiously is the nature and circumstances of the escape of the suspects, the politicisation of the case itself, the rebuff to the police authorities by INTERPOL which declined to be used for political purposes, and the suspicious alacrity with which the suspects were rearrested. Most curiously, however, is the allegation by Sen Melaye, the governor’s nemesis, that one or two of the suspects had previously been arrested for attacking him, and were charge in court, and paraded publicly by Force spokesman, Mr Moshood. No Nigerian can be proud of what is happening in Kogi State, especially regarding the now convoluted and obviously politicised case. It is demeaning and dangerous. The callous misuse of power and office in Nigeria is apparently proceeding apace. No one is checking it, and there will be no end to it in the short run.

    But meanwhile, could the government, if they still have any conscience left, please investigate the Sen Melaye claim that the identity of the suspects is, well, suspect, and then of course give Nigerians explanation as to why Mr Ogbu could not assume office when the IGP deployed him? Perhaps after the explanations have been given in full and all the grey areas clarified, Nigerians would know who is in charge of their police force. They will hope their police have not been outsourced in an unprincipled manner to powerful interests.

  • Oluwo of Iwo’s comical reign

    THE Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale Akanbi, is a restless, feisty and controversial monarch. His ascendancy in 2015 was not without more than its fair share of drama, signposting the uncertain future and levity of his reign. Either by design or coincidence, since he took the staff of office, he has ruled quite irreverently and controversially with all the reprehensible iconoclasm he can muster. He gruffly takes on fellow obas, whimsically assails the Iwo elite who supported his ascendancy with benumbing ferocity, and has infused and tormented his town’s rich tradition with the inconsequentiality and exuberance of youth. Perhaps all he does, all his every action, is designed to enable him gain and hold public attention, regardless of whether that attention turns into notoriety.

    It was thus not surprising that last weekend, when he turbaned an Islamic scholar, Sheikh Yahkuub Abdul-Baaqi Mohamed, as the ‘first Waziri of Yoruba land’ — an extremely redundant and self-indulgent title — he decided to also confer on himself the title of emir. Henceforth, he said boastfully and trivially, he would like to be addressed as Emir of Iwoland. The change of title, he crooned, was because Nigerian emirs did not begrudge one another and seldom plotted against one another, unlike the Yoruba whom he holds in contempt. Where he got that fallacy is not clear. But a few days later he tried to backtrack, only for him, in his accustomed whirligig of emotions, to subsequently stand his ground, arguing that the new title agreed with what he inexpertly described as his multicultural disposition.

    If Iwoland does not already fear they’d been had by his clumsy and controversial ascendancy, and the state appears too perplexed and bemused by his buffoonery to caution him, surely the Yoruba people to whom he has begun to cravenly dish his flimsy and ignoble manners must find a way to scorn and spurn him. Royalty demands so much more than Oba Akanbi is capable of giving. More, for a man whose manners and talents are best suited to jesting, it is a travesty that royal circumstances and the dictates of tradition make him hold court over his betters.

  • Gen Danjuma’s angst

    PREDICTABLY, Gen T.Y. Danjuma’s fiery statement two Saturdays ago rousing those afflicted by herdsmen attacks to defend themselves has drawn flak. In an impassioned speech at the convocation ceremony of the Taraba State University (TSU), Jalingo, the former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) dispensed with niceties and spoke with admirable but unsettling candour about herdsmen attacks on his state and other parts of Nigeria. “When I arrived here,” he groaned,  “I watched the cultural display by the theatre and cultural department. It was fascinating to see the rich diversity of cultural heritage. Taraba State is a mini Nigeria where we have many ethnic groups living together peacefully.”

    His prefatory remarks were followed hard by incendiary stuff.  “But the peace in this State is under assault,” he deadpanned. “There is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in this State, and of course all the riverine states of Nigeria. We must resist it. We must stop it. Every one of us must rise up. The armed forces are not neutral. They collude; they collude; they collude with the armed bandits that kill people and kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement. They cover them. If you are depending on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one. This ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba State. It must stop in all the states of Nigeria. Otherwise Somalia would be a child’s play. I ask every one of you Nigerians, to be alert to defend your country; defend your territories, because you have nowhere to go. Thousands have been displaced from their homes which have been destroyed. Many, injured, are still hospitalised. Farmlands have been lost. Hunger is looming. God bless our country.”

    The general’s critics barely focused on the logic of his short but explosive remarks, which he made moments after he was conferred an honorary degree. Instead, after characterising him as a cruel mocker of the same army he once led, they abandoned the issues he raised, praised the futile efforts of the government in combating the herdsmen, and then savaged his person, drawing upon the lessons of history and the role he played in one of Nigeria’s most dramatic and sanguinary moments, the first coup d’etat, especially the countercoup.

    Yet, none of his traducers could refute his portrayal of both the afflicted victims of herders or the suspect role being played by the military. They didn’t care that for the retired general to take on his first constituency with such corrosiveness, he must be in possession of certain information probably not available to the public, and must have grown tired of waiting for the government’s impartial and substantial response. The bloodfest in the Middle Belt in particular is undeniably gruesome and definitely not abating. For the retired general, a son of the Middle Belt, it was unacceptable that his state and its neighbours were witnessing not just an episodic or isolated scorched earth policy but possibly the more frightening corollary of ethnic cleansing.

    A few months earlier, the international human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, had complained bitterly about the Nigerian government’s pussyfooting in respect of herdsmen who viciously attack many farming communities, sometimes deliberately and incomprehensibly sacking them under the guise of desertification and shrunken grazing routes and fields.

    Gen Danjuma has not relied on extraneous facts to substantiate his observations. His views may be unfiltered and provocative, but they accurately represent the feelings of most of the Middle Belt. Those feelings are accentuated by despair at the government’s seemingly lackadaisical response to the attacks. Worse, that whole region can still not live down the provocative statements by some of President Muhammadu Buhari’s leading security aides, particularly the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, and the Defence minister, Mansur Dan Ali, both of whom seemed to insensitively justify the attacks, citing either restricted grazing areas as casus belli for the attacks or equating the attacks with nothing more than communal misunderstanding. It is, therefore, not surprising that a feeling of hopelessness has enveloped the Middle Belt, beclouding the crisis and causing many observers to question the government’s sincerity.

    Gen Danjuma’s fierce rebuke is not the problem, nor his past. His remarks are a shrill and urgent cry of desperation to which a sensible and patriotic government must pay heed. The real problem in that bloodied region is the government’s lack of urgency and coherent strategy. If the people see their government demonstrating seriousness and fervency in tackling the problem, they will repose trust and confidence in the professionalism and patriotism of their security forces. Until then, both Gen Danjuma’s critics and sulking government spokesmen will just be tilting at windmills.

  • APC/PDP: Battle of the spokesmen

    FINALLY, after many months of indelicate and fanciful verbal jousting, the spokesmen of Nigeria’s two leading political parties, Lai Mohammed of the APC government, not the party, and Kola Ologbondiyan of the PDP, have crossed swords. First to draw blood was Mr Ologbondiyan, PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, who took umbrage at Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s brief but trenchant remarks about PDP’s unbridled corruption during their years in office. On the same day Prof Osinbajo made the remarks during the 10th birthday colloquium of APC leader Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the PDP’s spokesman challenged the ruling party to name names or keep quiet. It is not clear whether he meant the threat.

    But one day after, Mr Mohammed responded acerbically, and named names. According to him, “The national chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, on February 19, 2015 received N200 million from the office of former National Security Adviser (NSA). Then PDP Financial Secretary, on the 24th of October 2014, took N600 million only from the office of then NSA. Then National Publicity Secretary Olisah Metuh is on trial for collecting N1.4 billion from the office of then NSA…Raymond Dokpesi, the Chairman of DAAR Communications is also on trial for receiving N2.1 billion from the office of then NSA. Former SSA to President Jonathan, Dudafa Waripamo-Owei, is also on trial for N830 million kept in accounts of four different companies.”

    Miffed, Mr Ologbondiyan responded in equally harsh tones, with dark hints of the jousting ending up in the courts. As he put it, “The APC Federal Government has manifested its frenzy by going after matters that are in court and in which none of the persons have been convicted…This is a government that is yet to account for $26 billion (N9 trillion) stolen through corrupt oil contracts in the NNPC, N1.1 trillion worth of crude diverted to service APC interests, N18 billion Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) intervention fund stolen by APC officials. This includes the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, the N10 billion National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) for which members of the Buhari cabal were indicted. This includes the Mainagate, where the APC government recalled and reinstated an individual indicted for scam running into billions of naira.”

    Ah, at last, the battle is joined, many months before the next general elections. The fight is likely to get bloodier, cruelly revelatory, probably very damaging to reputations, and ending eventually and entirely in Pyrrhic victory. The public can only wish them more power to their elbows, as the media take ringside seats.

  • How does one politicise security matters?

    WHEN he received the released Dapchi schoolgirls on Friday at Aso Villa, President Buhari warned those tempted to politicise security situations in the country to desist or face the wrath of security agencies. Old habits die hard. Assuming it is clear what politicising security situations means, which the All Progressives Congress (APC) could pretend not to have done in its years in the opposition, should the offenders face the wrath of security agencies or the wrath of the law, even if the law is to be executed by the same security agencies?

    Here is how the president put it: “Government would not tolerate any attempt by any person or group to trivialise or politicise security issues for politically motivated ends…Accordingly, security agencies would not hesitate to decisively deal with such unscrupulous characters.” There is no other way to interpret this statement but to conclude that the same soldierly language the president was accustomed to in his first tour of duty as military head of state is yet to be exorcised.

    But much worse, the president’s statement, or threat, is laden with unexplained intentions. After subverting the rule of law serially in the name of fighting corruption, painting those who insist on the rule of law as aiding and abetting corruption or helping corruption fight back, the Buhari presidency is finally but not so surreptitiously inching towards an illiberal political environment. How does a person politicise security situations? By questioning the methods and modes by which the negotiations with the Boko Haram faction were conducted? By asking for more transparency? The president’s language is unflattering of democracy, replete with anti-democratic emotions, and easily shows that democracy has simply not taken root.

    Nigerian democrats must begin to recognise that their job is not yet done. More perilous times lie ahead, and the road is fraught with great dangers. The opposition parties must not be discouraged from questioning the government’s actions and methods, for the government must at all times be held to account. The opposition in Britain and the United States questioned in tough language the war efforts of the ruling governments of the day in the opening decade of the 21st century. The exchanges were brutal, frank and testy, but the critics were never charged with politicising security. How does questioning both the negotiations over abducted schoolgirls and the inefficiency of the security agencies amount to politicising security situations?

  • Obasanjo hangs sword of Damocles

    THERE was no doubt from the beginning that one letter/special statement from ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, no matter how penetrating, deeply wounding and vitriolic, would be insufficient to unhorse the gangling but solid aurochs, President Muhammadu Buhari. One letter, too, would not be enough to galvanise an anti-Buhari hysteria nor trigger the political avalanche needed to destroy the dominance of Nigeria’s informal two-party system, the unseemly relay race between the preachy and phlegmatic Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the inefficient but feisty upstart, the All Progressives Congress (APC). It was also clear that one letter or special press release from the redoubtable former president was never going to measure high enough on the Richter scale to damage the reputation of the president among his trusting and unquestioning supporters in parts of the North.

    As a result, a second special statement from Dr Obasanjo, and possibly a third, and a fourth, might be needed to deliver the required payload to shunt President Buhari from the complacent orbit where he and his aides seem to think he is destined for another dead-stick landing at Aso Villa. The former president wrapped his new intention in very tentative but cryptic tones. “After my last letter, it will take some time before I write another one,” he had said noncommitally at the 14th annual lecture on Women in Business in Lagos last Thursday. Every newspaper that reported Dr Obasanjo’s remarks suggested he would write again, based on his use of words. Assuming his use of words was deliberate, and going by his antecedents, especially his implacability and emotional coldness, Dr Obasanjo can be trusted to lash out a few more times at his quarry. For him, there is usually no turning back until the enemy is captured or neutralised.

    In his interaction with the media, Dr Obasanjo disclosed that the movement he inspired, the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), had chalked up some three million members, an indication to him that some steady progress was being made. But whether the CNM eventually flags because of low momentum, or gets an adrenalin shot, the former president will doubtless be encouraged to fire a few more vicious broadsides at the president. It will not matter whether he is right or justified. What will matter is that in many respects President Buhari is deemed in parts of the country to be both underperforming and prejudiced. Dr Obasanjo may be the least morally qualified to launch his customised attacks, but his logic and exploitation of facts, not to say his prolixity, will find listening ears.

    Under President Buhari, the economy has lumbered through thickets of bad and misjudged policies, attesting to Dr Obasanjo’s dismissive characterisation of President Buhari as an economic ignoramus, while insecurity has burgeoned dramatically, belying the president’s vaunted expertise in that explosive and unpredictable field. With the economy underperforming and insecurity worsening, thus exposing the country to contradictions and other anarchical spinoffs, President Buhari has become a sitting duck. Dr Obasanjo and other opportunistic attackers will take potshots at him. Since the president is also naturally apolitical, and is shorn of the charisma and effervescence that easily attracts the discerning and intellectual public to him, every attack against him, particularly from notable personalities like Dr Obasanjo, is bound to have some telling effect.

    Is there anything the president can do to forestall the searing epistolary attacks, or weaken them when they come? Little or nothing. Since he cannot change or mend his ways, rid himself of the gaffes that dog his outings, or worm his way into the cockles of the people’s hearts through endearing and empathetic words, he will remain exposed to vicious attacks, whether those attacks end up accomplishing the objectives of their authors or not. In short, with bated breath, and every time he thinks of the likes of Dr Obasanjo, the president will wait for the other shoe to drop.

  • Kogi, unlawful importation and Customs

    THE Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) recently confiscated some security items allegedly imported by Kogi State government and flown in through the Abuja International Airport. No end-user certificate accompanied the consignment, though the clearing agent insisted he had one in his possession. Having identified the importer through the clearing agent, the Service gave them a one-month ultimatum to produce the end-user certificate from the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA). Should it take so long to produce a document they claimed was in their possession? Kogi State will naturally hope that by their fawning relationship with the presidency, that certificate would be procured within the time frame given them by the generous Customs. But whether the ultimatum and the claims of the agent explain and justify the importation of restricted security items without the requisite end-user certificate in the first instance is not clear. In addition, both the Customs and the NSA will have to convince themselves that by their lenient handling of this delicate matter, other importers with a predilection for skirting the boundaries and confines of the law would not take to deliberate and affronting racketeering.

    According to the Customs, the agent claimed to be in possession of the end-user certificate, and in addition alleged that the Kogi State government was the client/importer. The state has not officially reacted. The items unlawfully imported, according to reports, include military camouflage, camouflage jungle boots, plastic knives, black bullet proof vests, black boxing gloves, arctic hunter bags, training mats, black batons, black T-shirts, protective glasses, black sunglasses and black uniform belts. Against the background of fears that the state government might be trying to raise a squad of militant enforcers for the next elections, the importation of security items in flagrant contravention of importation rules may indicate the terrible dangers the state is being exposed to.

    The Kogi State government knows nothing about the law or democracy, and it cares nothing for the great values and virtues that underpin decent and civilised society. Its legislature has become a rubber stamp, the labour unions are overwhelmed, and civil society hardly exists. Both the ruling party and the federal government have turned a blind eye to the state government’s repeated infractions and constitutional illegalities, with the governor himself a product of brazen affront to the law and constitution. By yielding continually to the state’s chicaneries, the federal government, not to say the misdirected All Progressives Congress (APC), may unwittingly be laying the foundation for lawlessness and arbitrariness in Kogi.

    The Customs assert that investigations into the unlawful importation of the security items are progressing. (But another government agency, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), last May promised to prosecute Governor Yahaya Bello for double voter card registration only to turn round to perfect his registration and issue him a temporary voter card in February. In Nigeria, black is not always black). Meanwhile, the Customs declined to arrest the agent, and the importer is reportedly making strenuous efforts to procure the end-user certificate. No one knows what the bright minds in Abuja are capable of, or how cynically they regard and respond to the rule of law. But if both the Customs and the NSA validate Kogi’s alleged importation of security items, considering that the state has become reckless, lawless and anti-democratic, they must not look for other explanations if democracy and the Fourth Republic wobble very badly.

    The Customs may not be best placed to investigate why Kogi State allegedly needs those security items. But the NSA and the Department of State Service (DSS) should feel obligated to find out why those items were imported and for what purpose. They must take care to get to the bottom of the matter, for Kogi State officials are accomplished liars who treat truth and facts contemptuously. The situation in Kogi is dire, for its government is leading that state to collapse. Consider, for instance, its approach to the cattle grazing controversy, especially its forwardness and abominable lack of proaction. Now with the attacks on Dekina and Omala Local Government Areas of the state by herdsmen, during which some 25 people were said to have been killed and many villages sacked, the state is reaping the fruits of the governor’s brashness.

    It is not certain that the House of Representatives’ probe of the illegal importation of security items allegedly by Kogi will be accomplished with the urgency it demands, but all things considered, the state appears to be primed in the coming months for violence and sundry crises. The ruling party of course specialises in fomenting discord; just as it it has no talent in managing it. Meanwhile, the presidency has not shown the neutrality expected of it. On its own, the Customs have done well to bring the issue into the open, even though they have not taken far-reaching steps to handle the matter with the aplomb that is consistent with their powers. Hopefully, instead of waffling, the NSA will not only decline to issue the end-user certificate, he will, together with other security agencies, find out whether the law had not been flouted and by whom.

  • Her Majesty’s Royal Prisons, Kirikiri

    JUDGING from the tame response of Francis Enobore, spokesman of the Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS), to the news that the United Kingdom government would be adding a $973,000, 112-bed wing to the Kirikiri Maximum Prison in Lagos, it is probably a welcome relief to beleaguered officials struggling to cope with extreme poor funding and overcrowding.

    According to Mr Enobore: “No such building can be built without a synergy between the UK and the Nigerian government; the UK cannot do that. There is no way the UK can just jump into Kirikiri and start to build anything. Officially, we are not aware of such move. No formal document has reached the service. As far as I know, I have not seen any document showing a formal move by the United Kingdom to build a prison wing in Kirikiri. I read about the plan. It is a proposal still being considered in the UK. There is no place where it is mentioned that any formal invitation was given to the Nigerian government…”

    The idea itself is not new, having been whispered many years ago. It was at the time suggested that the new wing would serve the dual purpose of decongesting British detention facilities and also transporting convicted Nigerian offenders back to their own country through guided and lawful deportation. It is strange that it has still not gone beyond a statement of intent. Facilities in Nigerian prisons have undoubtedly become an eyesore, and officials have grown tired of complaining about low funding, overcrowding, and old and dilapidated buildings susceptible to jailbreaks. Thus to have a modern, United Nations-standard prison wing would be an eye-opener.

    But apart from the absence of national pride in welcoming a prison wing to be constructed by a foreign government on Nigerian soil, it is shameful that Nigeria has for many decades not paid attention to the structures as well as the aims and objectives of the prison system. That gross dereliction has consistently undermined the objective of reforming offenders. Indeed, in many cases, prisoners come out of jail in Nigeria hardened.

    By all means, let the UK government build a new wing at Kirikiri. Perhaps, it will serve to inspire the Nigerian government into embracing the responsibilities they have shirked for decades.

  • Obsession with death sentence

    Obsession with death sentence

    SENATOR Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi (APC-Niger) probably thinks his sponsorship of the hate speech bill is a demonstration of his patriotism and altruism. It is nothing of such. Hate speech is an indication of intolerance, a vice that sometimes draws strength from stereotyping. It can end in terrible destruction and scar a society for generations. Consequently, hate speech should be deprecated, and even legislated on, assuming existing legislations are neither wide-ranging enough nor offer sufficient deterrence. But to ask for the death penalty — the latest Nigerian obsession — for hate speech is both very facile and dangerous.

    Here is Sen Sabi-Abdullahi’s justification: “I looked at the rate at which people say things anyhow just to get at another person. Yes, somebody will tell you that there is law on defamation, but you may not even say a word to defame a character. What we are saying here is that today, the various divisions within our country, from religious to ethnic and other societal strata, try to differentiate themselves from others. Arising from what you represent, somebody may come out and be saying things that are very hurtful. There are things you say to somebody that hurts them deeply. It was hate speech that led to the genocide in Rwanda. The biggest challenge with hate speech is the fact that it is usually along two prominent lines. And Nigeria is so prominent with them: religion and ethnicity.”

    Apart from the weakness of his argument, the senator can of course not guarantee that the provisions of the bill would not be twisted to achieve predetermined ends, or be deployed against opponents and the opposition, or against anyone politically and hurtfully designated. More importantly, going by the provisions of that bill itself, it is too amorphous to lend itself to unambiguous definition and determination. Here is how the bill describes hate speech: “A person who uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays, provides, distributes and/or directs the performance of any material, written and/or visual, which is threatening, abusive or insulting or involves the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, commits an offence, if such person intends thereby to stir up ethnic hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances, ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up against any person or person from such an ethnic group in Nigeria.”

    How for instance would Nigerians, going by the country’s cultural and religious divisions, have categorised Ms Isioma Daniel’s commentary in This Day newspaper on the 2002 Miss World pageant which was to be hosted by Nigeria, considering that it led to the death of more than 200 innocent people? Under the superfluous bill, it would have been considered hate speech. The Sen Sabi-Abdullahi bill is not only an overkill, it is a thoughtless and imprecise legislation incapable of addressing the problems it purports to fight. In any case, has the death penalty curbed armed robbery, kidnapping and murder?

  • El-Rufai, publicity and common sense

    El-Rufai, publicity and common sense

    FEW people can say exactly what drives Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai’s insatiable thirst for the limelight: plain desire for publicity, or his gaudy show of not tolerating fools gladly. Whatever it is, the enfant terrible of Kaduna politics is as irrepressible as they come, and always has something to say on everything, even if he ends up putting his foot in his mouth. Last Thursday was another opportunity for Mallam el-Rufai to serve his extravagant dish in the public, this time in Abuja during a ‘Governance Matters’ roundtable organized by the Development Alternative Incorporation (DAI) where, as usual, he talked nineteen to the dozen.

    Reports of his special offering last week were sketchy, but it was substantial enough to determine whether he talked sense or not, and whether he played to the gallery, as he is wont, or made commonsensical analysis about some of the salient issues that grieve the country. Two of his comments stood out: one was on trade unions, which he trashed; and the undoubtedly ancillary issue of unionised university teachers and doctors, against whom he fulminated robustly. And the second was on minimum wage which he spoke about with incredible and insensitive condescension.

    On trade unions, he was as peevishly incautious as he was smouldering. According to him: “Trade Unions have never served the country well. They have been selfish and everything is about their narrow interests. In general, in Nigeria, trade unions have been a danger to our progress and I think they should be curtailed. The mistake we made as a country was placing trade unions in the Exclusive Legislative List. If the Academic Staff Unions of Universities (ASUU) has an issue with the Federal Government, the state universities will go on strike too. We need to take labour matters out from the exclusive list so that the principle of no work, no pay could be effectively used to stop labour arrogance of unnecessary demands from government which has helped to kill our educational system and health sector. In Kaduna, I warned the Kaduna State University, that if you ever go on strike again because of somebody else, I will fire all of you. I think the health unions have been the most irresponsible because only an irresponsible doctor will abandon his patients even after swearing to the Hippocratic Oath. I think Nigerian doctors are the only ones on the planet that go on strike.”

    Even if you downplay his hyperbole, his remarks would still be found , in large part, to be misplaced, inaccurate and disparaging. Trade unions may not always fight the right causes, nor be unimpeachable in their arguments and style, but it is an exaggeration to dismiss them as waging only selfish causes. Mallam el-Rufai is entitled to argue about where to place trade unions in the constitution, and may even be right in suggesting that indiscriminate industrial unrest has unhinged the educational and health sectors. But no one, not in any government, except perhaps that of Mallam el-Rufai, will suggest that trade unions, whatever their faults, have not fought great causes, both under colonial rule and after independence. The Kaduna governor is apparently not master of his emotions; this is why he often pollutes his more sensible arguments with atrocious self-importance and unseemly cocksureness.

    Perhaps the most offensive remark he made last Thursday was to advocate a reduction in minimum wage while hiding under the sensible caveat that the 36 states, administered under different economic and social regimes, should not be condemned to a unified national minimum. This is a striking remark from the unprincipled Mallam el-Rufai who in the first few months of the federalism controversy sneered that the concept had been hijacked by nefarious politicians. Hear him: “…First, take labour matters out of the Exclusive List because many of us are victims of agreements reached with ASUU by the federal government. The states were never part of such agreements. Second, is the issue of minimum wage; except we set a very low minimum wage, there will continue be issues especially with states that do not have wide tax net. You cannot set the same minimum wage for Lagos and Jigawa.” His lack of profundity should have struck him had he indicated just how much lower than the current implausibly low N18,500 he wants the government to come down to. Or perhaps he was talking in anticipation of the newly proposed minimum wage. The current and even proposed minimum wage are indefensibly low. Workers can neither survive on the new minimum nor hope for a bright future from it. Differentiation can, however, be defended. But to suggest a lower figure as national minimum wage is not only cruel and unfeeling, it is foolish and counterproductive. Mallam el-Rufai does not, however, entertain contrary views with the liberalism and intellectualism he pretends to. No one will be able to persuade him, except of course he sees political capital in fighting a cause. And who can tell, maybe the Kaduna governor is not just about his inflammatory views, but also about hugging the limelight and staying garishly on the front pages of newspapers.