The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • Ekiti: a dress rehearsal?

    Ekiti: a dress rehearsal?

    Perhaps nothing best signposts the times we are in as a nation than the assault on some judges in Ekiti State between September 22 and 24, apparently by some political bandits, led, according to the state chief judge, by Governor-elect Ayo Fayose himself. I thought I was too young to cite if ever there was any such precedent in the annals of Nigeria’s history, but I was reassured by some people who have seen it all, I mean older citizens who have spent more than seven decades plus on earth, that never in our country’s history have we witnessed such assault on judges. It then dawned on me that the incident may be one of the unusual lows we have witnessed under the Goodluck Jonathan administration and could jolly well be one of the end-time signs that we would be seeing as a nation.

    Even the police that should protect the judges happened to be the spectators-in-chief. Maybe the police realised their powerlessness in the matter, hence their lukewarm attitude while the assault lasted. So, the judges who did not were taught a lesson to be able to read the body language at the top, I mean the very top!

    No one is saying that people cannot be aggrieved over any matter. But the most civilised way to go is to get the law courts to decide on whatever the contentions are. However, when we now put the fear of hoodlums in judges, the cause of justice cannot be well served and the citizens are the ultimate losers.

    Anyway, in the lighter mood, since nobody gets angry at a dog for barking, just as no one kills rams for fighting. (I am not chanting incantations), please. These animals are only doing what their creator made them to do. So, no one should be surprised at what is happening in Ekiti State. We were told before that the ruling party pushed some people forward in the southwest not necessarily because the people have anything to offer but because they have an infinite capacity to cause mayhem. What is happening in Ekiti could jolly well be a precursor to what to expect in the ‘Fountain of knowledge’ in subsequent weeks, months or even years. The good thing is that whoever had any doubt about Ekiti being a ‘Fountain of knowledge’ must have realised after the June 14 governorship election that he or she was mistaken. Ekiti has lived up to its billing in that wise by adding to our political lexicon what we now famously know as ‘Stomach infrastructure’, which has significantly contributed to our knowledge. Many of us have had such thing in mind before but we never knew what name to call it until Ekiti people came up with that ingenious concept. Even Western journalists now famously refer to it in analysing elections in Nigeria. The beauty of it all is that the concept might soon be internationalised. We should therefore not be surprised if the Americans and the British, etc. start putting ‘Stomach infrastructure’ on their political menu! That would have been a contribution that would put Ekiti on the global map and if it is already there, it would boost its standing in the league of states with uncommon knack for inventions.

    Still in the lighter mood, the Ekiti incident reminded me of a drama by Moses Olaiya, better known as Baba Sala many years ago. He said that given the calibre of people behind him: mo le gba eegun loju; mo le fo olopa leti; ma tun wa so’ko lu adajo’ (I can slap a masquerade; I can also slap a policeman and as well stone the judge!) These are possibilities when you have our kind of federal might solidly behind you. Who is a judge? As one of them in the ruling party said a few months ago, “Ta lo nje ode aperin niwaju ode apeeyan?” (who is an elephant hunter where a human hunter is? }

    It remains to be seen whether their Lordships will be able to do “as their Lordships please”. Court!

  • Nigeria’s torture chambers

    Nigeria’s torture chambers

    Again, Amnesty International exposes serious abuses in police custody as well as the military

    Nigeria’s public officials have a seemingly infinite capacity to deny the undeniable, no matter how ridiculous that denial may be. They deny virtually everything under the sun, including those that are visible even to the blind. It is getting to an embarrassing level that we should begin to wonder if it is not better to make amends concerning things that we cannot own up to in public instead of making ourselves and the country look stupid in the eyes of right-thinking members, not just of the country, but also of the international community.

    The latest of such denials has to do with the 2014 Amnesty International (AI) Report alleging that the police and the military habitually torture men, women and even children – some as old as 12, sometimes by beating, shooting and even raping them. The report, appropriately titled “Welcome to hell fire: Torture and other ill-treatment in Nigeria,” alleged that about 5,000 persons had been detained over terrorism since 2009 when military operations began against Boko Haram. The AI Research and Advocacy Director, Netsatmet Belay, who presented the report, urged the Federal Government to criminalise the use of torture for investigations by the police and the military.

    This is not the first time AI will be issuing such damning report on Nigeria. For example, it had, in a 2012 report entitled: ‘The State of the World’s Human Rights’ equally said that Nigeria’s human rights situation has continued to deteriorate. ”There were consistent reports of police routinely torturing suspects to extract information. Confessions extracted under torture were used as evidence in court, in violation of national and international laws” it said adding that: “Hundreds of people were unlawfully killed, often before or during arrests on the street. Others were tortured to death in police detention. Many such unlawful killings may have constituted extrajudicial executions. Many people disappeared from police custody. Few police officers were held accountable, leaving relatives of those killed or disappeared without justice.”

    Expectedly, the police have denied the allegations. Commissioner of Police Emmanuel Ojukwu, Force Public Relations Officer, Force Headquarters, said torture is NOT an official policy of the Nigeria Police. Virtually everything he said in the statement is far from the truth.  “Since the dawn of democracy in 1999, the Nigeria Police Force has significantly improved on its human rights records, owing largely to training and re-training, community policing, attitudinal change and structural transformation.

    “Of a truth, torture or ill-treatment is not, repeat, NOT an official policy of the Nigeria Police. The Code of Conduct of Officers, as well as our Regulations prohibit torture and incivility to members of the public. We are versed with international best practices, and the dictates of the Nigerian Constitution as regards human rights. So the police do not routinely torture suspects. It is not systemic or endemic”, he said, among other spurious claims.

    Torture may not be an official policy of the police, but it cannot be denied that it is an unofficial policy. And it manifests in the various ways that Amnesty has listed. At any rate, of what use is denying a thing we all see and hear of almost daily, with some of the victims who were lucky to be alive to regret their experiences giving testimonies of the hell they went through in police cells. As a matter of fact, the state of many police cells is enough torture.

    A victim once narrated how she was asked to strip by a female police officer at a police station after which she was asked to stretch her laps apart. She then had tear-gas pumped into her genitals! According to her, she is yet to recover from the mental and physical injuries she suffered as a result of the experience, years after. Another victim, Justice Nwanwko, a hotel manager, who was arrested in Onitsha, on July 31, last year, over the discovery of two human skulls and an AK 47 rifle in a room in the hotel, said he was beaten and hanged “on a rope like a barbecue” by men of the Special Anti-robbery Squad, Akwuzu, Anambra State. Nwanwko said he was detained in a dark cell for 36 days along with a director of the hotel and was subsequently arraigned in court for the murder of one Nnamdi Okafor, who he said was killed in police custody. Many have gone like that unannounced in police custody. Many who escaped with their lives have one sordid tale or the other to tell of their experience there.

    So, how can anyone deny that torture is rampant in a country where some policemen routinely tell those with the misfortune of encountering them that they would “simply waste them”? Or in situations where they tell their victims that they (victims) were lucky it was not dark yet; they would simply have disappeared without trace?  No doubt it is difficult for the police force to admit the allegations. But it is clear too that the force is merely playing the ostrich by denying them. Perhaps one would have been more comfortable if the police authorities had said they sanction those of their officers caught in the act; even though this is not in all cases. In many instances too, the police try to shield them.

    Amnesty believes that merely criminalising torture is enough to deter those involved. This is where the human rights organisation missed the point on the Nigerian situation. The problem with Nigeria is not about lack of laws but lack of the will to punish those who infringe them. It requires restructuring the gamut of our criminal and legal systems to effectively check those who use torture to extract confessions or who commit other crimes.

    One thing we should not lose sight of though is the circumstances under which the officers trained, live and work. Just last year, Channels TV came up with an expose on the sordid state of affairs in our police training colleges. We were treated to disgusting stories of how as many as 50 trainees share not a fish, but a fish head. President Goodluck Jonathan, rather than express shock and sadness at the story wondered how the journalists penetrated the place to bring out the embarrassing report. This clearly tells how much concern successive governments have for the police. It has always been reported how prospective police recruits pay to secure admission into the police training colleges. We see the sorry conditions of the police barracks, many of which could be taken for pigsties. Some, according to reports, have started collapsing; others are dangers waiting to happen.

    Just last week, the Lagos State government raised the alarm on some of these dilapidating structures apparently to avert another round of criticisms as in the case of the collapse of the Synagogue guest house under construction which came down on September 12. We have always been regaled with stories of how the police are poorly paid, poorly kitted, with little or no attention to their general welfare.

    The truth of the matter is that only a few persons could pass through these harrowing experiences and still have any milk of human kindness in them. We can argue that since they know the conditions under which the police operate, those who cannot cope with such need not apply to join the force. This could be partly right. But in a situation of chronic unemployment, some of those in the police force see their stay there as a stop-gap measure, pending when better things surface. So, we have to do more to improve the lot of the police if we want efficiency.

    We do not have to wait until when some policemen or other security agents would put the entire country in a peculiar mess like the Synagogue incident before our governments wake up to their responsibility of checking the excesses in the police and other security agencies. The Jonathan government might have completely lost its sense of shame, having attracted so much disgrace to the country, the latest being its exportation of $9.3m to South Africa ostensibly to buy arms, in gross violation of that country’s laws, only to mumble some mumbo-jumbo that appeals to itself and itself alone. Nigerians do not have to lose their own sense of shame. So, they must rise in unison to condemn these gross violations of human rights and dignity by the very people who should be their friends, the police. A country can only get the kind of police it deserves.

  • The Synagogue tragedy

    The Synagogue tragedy

    With 80 people dead in a single incident, maybe govt will now do something on building collapse

    Prophet T.B. Joshua of The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN), is many things to many people. To some, particularly his faithful abroad, he is a powerful man of God. The rate at which people troop to his church from all parts of the world, including the civilised world, has made some people to liken him to a prophet who is without honour in his own country. This conclusion derives from the fact that many Nigerians do not see Prophet Joshua as a spectacular man of God; that is if they even believe he is one at all. Even many Christian leaders avoid him like the plague, whether they are of the orthodox churches or the Pentecostal ones. So, in a sense, Prophet Joshua is in a world of his own.

    A good example of this is the seizure of Nigeria’s $9.3m in South Africa, meant for an arms deal which the Federal Government claimed was genuine transaction. While the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has been vocal in defending its president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who owns the plane in which the arms money was transported to South Africa, its voice is yet to be heard on the Synagogue tragedy. I guess this is because Prophet Joshua is not a CAN member. But what happened transcends membership of association; it was all about human lives, a reason for which I thought CAN should have at least commiserated with the families of the departed. I guess that, in spite of their professed Christianity, they would be saying in their hearts, ‘serves him right. Why didn’t he foresee the disaster or avert it’? This should not be the spirit. Anyway, it is for this reason of ‘my Christianity is holier than yours’ that I have always shied away from writing about Prophet Joshua and his Synagogue. For me, faith is a personal thing and people should have the right to believe what they want to believe.

    That was my position, at least until Friday, September 12, when the guest house that was under construction for the church’s foreign guests collapsed in Lagos. With the kind of casualties recorded from the disaster, about 80 people dead and over a hundred injured, it would amount to criminal silence not to comment on the way some of our religious houses do things . Quite expectedly, when such disasters occur, people blame them on everything and everyone else, but themselves. That was why Prophet Joshua missed the point when he blamed the collapse of the guest house on a strange aircraft that had hovered over the place shortly before the building collapsed. Even if we are to believe his theory, that would not be the starting point to address the issue. It is not even a question of whether the materials used on the site were of good quality, or sub-standard. The most appropriate place to start is whether he had permission to build the kind of edifice he was constructing before disaster struck.

    Perhaps the first time I would have commented on The Synagogue was a few weeks back when it was reported that some Ebola victims from outside the country might be considering going there for healing. As a matter of fact, some accounts had it that Patrick Sawyer, the man who brought the disease into Nigeria on July 20, had Prophet Joshua on his mind for healing and was probably Synagogue-bound. It was good that the Lagos State government saw the looming catastrophe if such visits had been encouraged and promptly intervened to persuade Prophet Joshua against receiving such visitors. Mercifully, the prophet saw reason with the government and announced to Ebola victims who might be contemplating visiting The Synagogue that he would rather come to their respective countries to pray for, or with them. I am ready to work with you. I love my country and I will be ready to work with you. Even if it is a rumour, there is need to secure our environment to ensure that it is safe, he had told the government delegation. What a big relief to those of us with little faith and of this perverse generation! Isn’t our generation perverse indeed?

    But Prophet Joshua’s Synagogue is not alone in this impunity of building without permit. Many of the Pentecostal churches are probably culpable of the same lawlessness, or some other kinds. Last year, some of the workers in a Pentecostal church attacked some Ogun State tax officials who had gone to the premises of a nursery school located within their church premises to demand that the school pay its tax obligation of less than N2million. The school is a commercial venture but, rather than pay the tax, which was years in arrears, some of the overzealous workers pounced on the tax officials, beat them black and blue and even detained some of them. The matter was apparently swept under the carpet when the founder and leader of the church apologised to the state government.

    One does not know where these church leaders got their example from. Jesus Christ, our model as Christians even paid tax. “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s”, he had preached. But most of these churches, in spite of their being stupendously rich, do not want to pay anything into government’s coffers. And many governments do not want to confront them apparently for fear of political or whatever backlash. The same reason Prophet Joshua’s church was still opened for service the Sunday after the incident, in spite of the calamity caused by a building he never obtained permission to build. It is surprising that most of these church leaders see themselves as being above the law. Otherwise, why would men of God embark on construction works without relevant permit? Prophet Joshua even tried; at least he got approval to build a three-storey building, the problem was that he unilaterally changed his mind to make it six! Some of his colleagues would not even tell government that they are embarking on any building project, not to talk of obtaining the requisite papers for it.

    Unfortunately for us, The Synagogue disaster has been internationalised because many South Africans were victims and that country, quite unlike Nigeria, cares for its citizens. As a matter of fact, in spite of the cordial relations between both countries, there is disagreement on the number of South Africans killed in that tragedy. The belated claim by the Lagos State government about the collapsed building, and even the main church auditorium not having the requisite papers would be a big embarrassment to the outside world that in Nigeria, anything goes. This is the same government that would mark for demolition kiosks and small buildings not having the requisite papers, even in the remotest parts of the state, such that one would be wondering whether the state’s officials are omnipresent. So, no official of the state government saw that Prophet Joshua was biting more than he was legally permitted to chew until tragedy struck on September 12?

    Obviously, the matter boils down to the point I have consistently made in the last three or so weeks, that we do so many wrong things for political expediency. It’s like many of our governments are ready to stoop to the base standards of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for political reasons. An ordinary phone call to Nigeria from South Africa if the story of the $9.3million arms deal had been otherwise, was enough to kill the matter. Afterall, how many arms deals had been swept under the carpet in the country? This would be difficult in South Africa because of the relatively high level of development of structures in that country. It is therefore good news that Zuma, in spite of our fears that he is not any shade better than our own rulers here, did not allow his country’s laws to be trampled upon by a lawless ‘giant’. Even if the South Africans release the money eventually, the point has been made and Nigeria has been sufficiently embarrassed as a lawless country. This would not be new to the outside world though; but it would have reinforced that belief.

    All said, buildings have been collapsing in the country killing one person, 10 or 16 people, etc. After the initial threats by the governments, the matter dies down only for the same process to repeat itself when the next building comes down. Maybe now that at least 80 have died in a singular incident, 80 lives gone would spur our governments to view the matter with the seriousness that it deserves. My heart goes out to the relatives of the dead. I wish the injured quick recovery and pray that the dead rest in peace.

    Nigeria sure needs martyrs, but those who died in a collapsed building that did not have a valid building plan cannot qualify for martyrs as The Synagogue and Prophet Joshua would want us to believe. That is akin to Boko Haram insurgents committing murder and encouraging others to do same in order to make Al-Jannah.

  • Presidential counterfeit

    Presidential counterfeit

    #BringBackOurGirls #BringBackGoodluck2015. We can do with more creative lying

    But for the fact that President Goodluck Jonathan has a doctorate, one might have been tempted to believe that some people that he thinks are his friends are enemies who, unknown to him do not mean well for his administration. But, given at least his academic attainments, one cannot say that. For me therefore, the president knows perfectly well what he is doing. And that is why it baffles me that some Nigerians have not understood the Jonathan administration more than three years after it came on board, and barely a few months to another general election.

    Last week, specifically on September 10, the government shocked not just Nigerians but the international community as well, when it disowned the #BringBackGoodluck 2015 billboards and those behind them. The president’s special assistant on media, Dr. Reuben Abati, said President Jonathan was not aware of the highly insensitive posters, which were a clear parody of the #BringBackOurGirls hash tag. Abati said they ‘were put up without his knowledge or approval.’ He added that “The President assures all Nigerians and the international community that his administration remains fully engaged with efforts to rescue the abducted girls and that he will not knowingly promote any actions that will fly in the face of the seriousness of their plight and the anguish of their families”.

    Apparently this repudiation was informed by last week’s Washington Post editorial which was highly critical of the offensive posters.  This is the second time that the president would be moved to act by external forces on the Chibok girls. The first time was when Malala Yousafzai made him to invite the parents of the girls to Aso Rock.

    One should be worried that a president who has the retinue of staff that President Jonathan has, that must have had cause to traverse the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) many times before the Washington Post editorial, would claim not to have seen those billboards. This newspaper, lest we forget, published the picture of the billboard sometime ago. Let’s even admit that the president did not see the posters, what of his numerous aides? None of them saw the billboards too, despite that they had been there for more than two weeks before the presidential order to dismantle them?  Lying could not have been more disingenuous. Our consolation however lies in the fact that two people cannot lose from lying: if the person being told lies does not know he is being lied to, at least the liar sure knows that he is lying.

    However, those who are rejoicing over the president’s order for the dismantling of the billboards nationwide should wait until they are removed. The same president ordered that his supporters behind the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) should suspend rallies in his honour on account of the outbreak of Ebola in the country. They did not heed the order. As a matter of fact, some of his ministers almost danced themselves lame at the rallies while they were heavily protected by security agents. Is the president not aware of that defiance of his order too?

    It is gratifying however that some Nigerians saw through the half truth, at best, and regarded the president’s order for the dismantling of the billboards as an afterthought. Regrettably, some others commended him for ordering their removal. I wonder why we are always eager to commend anything in this country. Here was a thing no one should ever have contemplated in the first place, given the sad episode that the abduction of the Chibok school girls represents in our history. Why on earth would anyone make a pun on that? The fact that such a costly pun was made on behalf of the country’s First Citizen makes matters worse.

    Without doubt, the many years of military interregnum have done a lot to our psyche such that many of us do not even seem to know that some things are bad and that what is bad can never have any other name; it is bad. #BringBackOurGirls; #BringBackGoodluck2015, how are they related?

    The matter becomes the more nauseating when it is realised that it was the president’s senior special assistant on public affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, who came up with the #BringBackGoodluck2015, in a tweet in August. He was immediately criticised. But this did not deter those who wanted to perpetually look good in the eyes of the president from adopting it as, again, on August 30, a group campaigning for his reelection tweeted: “There is no vacancy in Aso Rock [the president’s residence] we want Goodluck Jonathan again #NigeriansDemand #BringBackJonathan2015 … for continuity.” The message was re-tweeted several times without any objection from President Jonathan.

    Against the backdrop of my arguments so far, can the president sincerely swear that he never saw those billboards? And that none of his aides did? Can he swear that in their cocktail circuits they never lauded the imitation over the clinking of glasses and while exchanging banters, as one of his highly imaginative campaign slogans? And talking about imaginativeness or creativity, this is something that has always been lacking in our governments, particularly successive central governments, despite our heavy investments in feeding, accommodating and pampering the officials. They always bore us by making us travel the same road again and again.

    Thank God for the discerning in the country, the real thorns in President Jonathan’s government’s flesh. But for them, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains could have turned all of us into morons the way they reduce everything to wall clock joke. I have had cause to caution a few weeks back that if we are not careful, the PDP would reduce the country to its base standards by its words and deeds. Have Nigerians realised that neither the party nor its government is talking about removal of fuel subsidy again. Just a few months back, they gave the impression that the country would have collapsed by now if fuel subsidy was not removed. But any Nigerian who thinks the party has dropped the idea must be a big fool. At worst, it would wait till after the election before removing the so-called subsidy. If it took the government about six months to attempt to remove subsidy in 2012, it would take it less than half that period to do it this time again, after the elections, considering the huge resources that would be committed to the 2015 polls. It is a pain that the government is keeping in the cooler for Nigerians till after the elections when, at least President Jonathan would have had nothing to lose again. That, for me, is one of the consequences we would face if we make the mistake of bringing back Jonathan or the PDP.

    Anyway, if indeed President Jonathan never saw the billboards, only God knows how many potentially damaging things would have been shielded from him. I am aware that many of Nigeria’s rulers are usually held captive by their aides. But I have always maintained that they (rulers) apparently want it so because after shielding them from reality, the aides then feed them with lies and at best, half truths, singing their praise when what they deserve at the point in time are knocks and carpeting.

    All said, President Jonathan and his supporters should understand that if there is anything Nigerians want brought back now, it is the Chibok girls. If it is not #BringBackOurGirls, it cannot be the same as #BringBackOurGirls. The counterfeit can only attract our indignation, which is what #BringBackGoodluck 2015 has done. It is a big irritant. Nigerians sure know the difference between good luck and Goodluck.

  • Ebola’s other victims

    Ebola’s other victims

    Unless care is taken, we may record more deaths from the fear of the disease than from the disease itself

    Knowing our country very well, more people may eventually die from Ebolaphobia than the number that would be killed by the virus or the disease proper. So far, Ebola has killed seven people in the country. And, in just one week, at least three people had reportedly died because those who should have treated them or given them First Aid were scared stiff to go near them for fear that the patients might be having Ebola. It could not have been otherwise in a country where many people want to go to heaven but not many want to die.

    The most prominent of these unfortunate casualties was the British diplomat who slumped and died on Tuesday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMA), Lagos, at about 3.00 p.m. The envoy, Peter Leslie Carter, the British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, arrived aboard a United Airlines flight and died at the arrival hall shortly after disembarking from the plane.

    A top security operative at the airport said “He was shouting, help! Help! And then slumped. People did not want to go near initially because of the Ebola scare that has been in town”. Although the airport authorities tried to give the impression that there was prompt response to the emergency, we all know the response might have come too late.

    There is also the story of another victim of Ebolaphobia; that of an unnamed man who was taken to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, by health officials from the MMA. According to a doctor who was around when the man was brought to the hospital, “They rushed him to the Accident and Emergency Unit, and since he was vomiting and purging and he also had high fever, we quickly took his temperature, it was very high. We were all scared to take his blood sample because we were not wearing any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)”. To cut a long story shut, the man eventually died. Here, it would be difficult to know where to lay the blame because the doctor was not specific as to whether the hospital did not provide the PPE or whether they had but were not putting it on. In Nigeria, the two are possibilities.

    Then the third case, that of a woman that was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, and rushed to the Federal Medical Centre there. Rather than start treating her immediately, she was abandoned until she died the following morning. A senior hospital official was quoted as saying: “The victim was brought into the casualty ward by two Good Samaritans. She was reported to have been hit by a hit-and-run driver along the Sani Abacha Way in the Yenagoa metropolis. Instead of treating her due to the bruises and cuts in her body, the doctors refused, fearing it might be Ebola case. They refused even when the pictures of the scene of the accident were shown to them. The woman was brought into the casualty section by 2pm on Monday. She was abandoned and she died about 11a.m. on Tuesday. Even when the mortuary attendants were asked to take the body to the morgue by some doctors, they refused. They only took the body after the intervention of the Head of Administration. It is a shame.” It is indeed a shame, especially if the doctors had protective gears. The hospital has threatened to investigate the matter and punish the culprits; one can only hope that won’t be one of the usual empty threats common in the country.

    Now, the Federal Government has reconsidered its earlier decision postponing resumption in our primary and secondary schools till October 13. Apparently this is due to the pressure by private schools’ proprietors who said the decision would impact negatively on their revenue. I appreciate this concern and in fact empathise with them, but I do not think the matter should be about money alone. Ebola, as we all know, is no respecter of person. The October 13 date was one of the best decisions taken by the government to curb Ebola and it should not be reversed simply for pecuniary gains. The other argument by the proprietors about disruption of school calendar is weak because, God forbids, an outbreak of Ebola in any such school would spell doom for the country. The loss would be far more colossal than whatever the school owners might lose now. So, anyone with the interest of our children at heart should not be making such demand because of the vulnerability of the children to the disease.

    One of the proprietors’ points which I consider germane however is that despite the Ebola outbreak, the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), one of the campaign organs of President Goodluck Jonathan has unilaterally lifted the ban on political campaigns by holding rallies for the president despite the president’s reported non-sanctioning of such rallies! They have even been to Port Harcourt where Ebola cases have also been detected. This is bad enough. The school proprietors’ point is that since it is easy to be infected with the Ebola virus at such gatherings, the organisers ought to have shelved the campaigns until such a time when the risk would have been minimised or eliminated. The sad aspect is that if it had been the opposition parties that were involved in such rallies, the security agents would have swooped on them. But now that it is the president’s group, they are even protecting the organisers, including top govermment functionaries, at the rallies.

    Nonetheless, we still have to be careful because two wrongs will never make a right; indeed not even a million wrongs would. When the government postponed schools’ resumption, things were not as serious as they are today concerning Ebola. We have recorded fresh cases in a few other places. So, rather than start reconsidering whether to allow innocent pupils resume when we are still unsure of the state of Ebola in the country just for political or pecuniary expediency, or both,, the school owners should have insisted that government fulfilled its promises to the schools before the earlier October resumption date was fixed.

    It is clear though that it is guilty conscience, rather than any rational reasoning that is behind the decision to change the date again to September 22., which is regrettable. What we would have on our hands would not be a child’s play should a few pupils contract the Ebola virus. As for the adults, they can still find a way round it because many of them are sufficiently aware of what the disease entails. This is my assumption, though. Our school proprietors should not have behaved like Dr. Iyke Enemuo, who, for the sake of money agreed to treat an Ebola patient in secret. Today, he is no more. He did not even have the privilege of living to regret that decision. I am sure we do not want such fate to befall our children.

    In the same vein, the proprietors should not behave like the government and its agencies that do not care whether people catch Ebola at their campaign rallies, provided the rallies are in support of the president. This is only one of the many crude impunities of the Jonathan administration. For me, a president that has been in power for about six years should have his works speaking for him by now; he sure does not need any wild campaigns to remind Nigerians about what he has done for them so far. As the saying goes, a king does not have to remind his subjects that he is still their king; when that happens, it is an indication that there is a problem.

    My point is that we should not all be held hostage to the anything-goes politics of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that is ready to do anything to retain its non-performing government. The only regret in this matter is the state governments that also fell for such cheap political popularity. We should do everything to keep our children out of harm’s way so that they do not add to the numbers of the other Ebola victims that we have already recorded. The PDP can play politics with anything and everything, and grant concession no matter how unreasonable such might be provided it sees some political votes from the decision, but we should please leave our children out of this. They are our future; our hope. Don’t let’s eat up their tomorrow today on the altar of crass and primitive politics.

  • From Boko Haram to Ebola

    From Boko Haram to Ebola

    Even if millions die, should that stop the President’s campaign train? Go on, TAN

    Just as we were celebrating our containment of Ebola, and as if to make nonsense of that celebration, a fresh Ebola case was detected in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Thursday. I had wanted to caution that we should not dance ourselves lame on Ebola yet when our health minister, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, said last week that we had contained the disease. But then, one could have been branded as unpatriotic. With the Port Harcourt discovery, it simply means we still have a lot to do to keep Ebola at bay.

    Indeed, Nigeria has not been at ease since Mr. Patrick Sawyer, the American-Liberian imported the disease into the country on July 20. In fairness to the Federal Government, its response and collaboration with the Lagos State government since July 20 have been impressive. This has, as it were, almost obliterated the fact that its agencies at the airport had been lax in their duties, hence Mr. Sawyer’s ability to beat the security checks there.

    Well, as some would argue, such collaboration is the most sensible thing to do where Ebola is concerned. This is a different ballgame from the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Yes, Ebola, like AIDS does not respect party affiliation. It is no respecter of whether you are progressive or conservative. It does not recognise boundary, be it religious, social, economic or geographical. Like AIDS, Ebola has no known cure. With AIDS, one can take all the precautionary measures: buy your barbing kits to avoid using general clippers, avoid using the same injection or syringe with someone carrying the AIDS virus; don’t take blood transfusion indiscriminately, above all, avoid the ‘danger down below’, zip up.

    Even where all these fail, AIDS could still be somewhat managed. But not so with Ebola. So far, there is no known cure for it. Anyone struck by it could jolly well start singing the Nunc Dimittis, or its other version, ‘Oh Lord, I am coming home’. That is how bad things are. So, even when one is crying, he should still be clear-headed as to keep his eyes wide open. Even where political party or ideology differs, that should not preclude collaboration to ward off the Ebola.

    It seems to me that with Ebola, God does not need to take any trouble of using either fire or flood to bring the world to an end again if He so desires today. Some 5,000 Ebola patients would do the job. Imagine what would have been our fate in Nigeria had Sawyer been allowed to escape into thin air as he had wanted to, even after having been taken to First Consultants Hospital in the Obalende area of Lagos? Not even Donatus could have been as generous as he would have generously distributed the virus in the country, such that even the Boko Haram terrorists would have seen how little their bombs and other armaments that they had hitherto relied on as weapons of mass destruction could be.

    Nigeria had been dealing with a seemingly intractable blood-letting unleashed by the Boko Haram insurgents before Ebola came. Indeed, since 2009 when Boko Haram began its onslaught on the country, there has been no respite. The insurgents have attacked virtually everywhere one could imagine and even never have imagined, including police and military formations. It has sacked entire townships and presently has its flag hoisted in Gwoza, Borno State, where it has also proclaimed a caliphate. More than 12, 000 lives had been lost to the senseless attacks by the terrorists and they do not appear to be done yet. The way they slaughter their victims that they did not bomb suggests they are being propelled by some blood-sucking demons.

    As things stand, the terrorists are still holding captive more than 100 secondary school girls that they abducted in their hostel in Chibok in April. At least twice they have rubbished the ultimatums given by top military chiefs even as they seem on a systematic mission of demystifying the Nigerian military, given the ease with which they stroll into parts of the country, abducting people at will.

    In all of these, one person I do not envy is President Goodluck Jonathan. Indeed, if any man is sitting on a hot seat, President Jonathan is it. So hot is the seat that one would think he should be in a hurry to get out of it. But the most surprising thing is that he is not in a hurry to complete his term and leave. He has been to churches to pray for peace and apparently to seek God’s nod for more years in the rock. And, just in case that fails, he also invited some Senegalese clerics to Aso Rock, in what many have interpreted as a spiritual angle to the current war against Boko Haram. The 10 clerics were led to the State House, Abuja, by Khalifah Sheikh Ahmad Tijani Inyass, the grandson of Late Shehu Tijani Ibrahim Inyass, the founder of the Tijjaniya sect. They met for about an hour with the President at the First Lady’s Conference Room and offered prayers for an end to the security challenges facing Nigeria, as well as for peace and stability in the country.

    Jonathan is not alone in this. As the spokesman of the group, Ahmed Tijani Sanni Alwalu said, “It is a historic visit because it has been done by his father with the then President, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi. So, history is repeating itself and we come for the Moulude of Ibrahim Inyass Gombe and on his way going home, the President requested for a courtesy visit and Shehu granted that.”

    But President Jonathan is yet to complete the ‘tripod’ as he has not called in the African Traditional Religion people for similar prayer. In this wise, one would have thought he would cultivate Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State whose government has embraced the ‘three-in-one’. But he appears to have made Aregbesola a sworn enemy because it was only in Aregbesola’s Osun State that the president did not do well at all in the south west in the 2011 presidential election.  With Aregbe’s election for a second term, that history is set to repeat itself in the state in next year’s general elections, a thing President Jonathan had wished he could nip in the bud, by militarising the state to scare voters in the August 9 governorship election.

    Interestingly, to date, President Jonathan has not indicated his intention to stand for reelection, but his campaign train is already on the track. The most visible one is the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) that has been holding rallies on his behalf, I suspect very much against his will, reminding one of the late General Sani Abacha who never said he wanted to transmute from military to civilian president but everything, including his body language and all, pointed in that direction. With TAN having flagged off the president’s reelection campaign, Nigeria has moved on. What this implies is that that is the end of the search for the Chibok girls; that is if Nigeria ever searched for them. Apparently those who came to help us had to abandon us to our fate when they saw how unserious and unprepared we are in looking for the poor girls. Not many serious countries would want to have anything to do with a country whose soldiers, in the course of ‘tactical manoeuvre’, would stray 80 kilometres into another country in battle! But, wouldn’t it have been better for our military authorities to tell us that in this season of defections, our soldiers merely took a cue from our politicians and defected to Cameroon, instead of  saying they were on ‘tactical manoeuvre’?

    But whatever the degree of blood-letting or blood-shedding, the president’s campaign train must start. If he wins reelection, President Jonathan would still have a large part of the country under his control. And if he loses, his successor may have to negotiate with the rebels for a return of the Gwoza caliphate to Nigeria.

  • Begging for bread

    Begging for bread

    Horrible plight of Nigerian students on FG scholarship in Russia

    Me I no go suffer,

    I no go beg for bread (2ce);

    God of miracles na my Papa o (4 times),

    Me I no go suffer, I no go beg for bread.

    This is a popular song that many Christians sing in churches on Sundays. But it is doubtful if the song will have meaning to Nigerian students on Federal Government scholarship in Russia. Why? They are already suffering and have started to beg for bread! Again, why? Because the Federal Government has characteristically failed woefully to provide for them. So, the students are not just exposed to the vagaries of an unknown land, they are also at the mercy of Good Samaritans from some less endowed African countries. The students, 322 in all, are beneficiaries of the scholarship under the Federal Government’s Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) Scholarship Awards.

    Under the (BEA) arrangement for undergraduate and post-graduate studies that Nigeria has with Russia, Cuba, Morocco, Algeria, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Japan, Serbia, Macedonia, China, and Mexico, the Federal Government pays for the upkeep of the students, while the countries where the scholarship award is tenable provides the tuition. Each of the students in Russia is entitled to a monthly stipend of $500 for feeding and $450 annual allowance for medicals and clothing. The Nigerian government has not sent money to any of them in the last eight months.

    One of them, David Ikenna, a final year Medicine and Surgery student of the Russian National Research Medical University, Moscow, says “We have been finding a way to survive by circumventing the laws, but it is at great risk to our personal safety and academic pursuits in Russia. Our situation is frustrating … The Nigerian government has failed us miserably”. He is not done yet: “Even with the illegal jobs we do, we still find it hard to make ends meet. It is shameful that we have got no alternatives but to beg for food and money from Ghanaians, Namibians, Ugandans and Sierra Leoneans who are on the same bilateral educational scholarships like us.”

    And these are some of the best the country has produced because they emerged through some rigorous and competitive processes. The case of 20-year-old Moyosore Ojuri, tells the story better. But first, her impression of their ordeal: “We are not private students. We came to Russia on the bill of the Federal Government. Why haven’t the authorities paid our stipends and other allowances for eight months now? For how long shall we continue to borrow money?”  Ojuri adds, “On many occasions, I have had cause to go to class on an empty stomach. Getting money for transportation from my hostel to school has become very problematic. More worrisome is the fact that I will soon be homeless as my hostel fees will expire at the end of August. We are grateful to the Federal Government for the scholarship opportunity, but there is no sense in leaving us here to starve to death in a foreign land.” The government’s failure to send money to the students has made them run into debts; and with the huge debt overhang on their necks, the lenders are becoming uncomfortable to continue to be their brother or sister’s keeper because they are beginning to doubt their ability to repay. This is quite natural.

    Ojuri is an exceptionally brilliant lady who had challenges too much for her age too early in her life. True to her surname, Ojuri (eyes have seen), her eyes have seen a lot in life. At 11, her father who had promised her the best of education suddenly died. The authorities of the secondary school she was attending saw the talent in her and gave her mother the concession of paying her school fees in installments. So, somehow, Ojuri managed to complete her secondary education. She had six distinctions and two credits in the 2010 West African Senior School Certificate Examination. She would have been stranded despite her brilliance but luckily for her, she came across the BEA and applied. She passed all the qualifying tests and was offered admission to study Metallurgical Engineering at the Volgograd State Technical University, Russia.

    Another student, Akinola Akindamola, a first class Mechanical Engineering graduate pursuing his Master’s degree at the Volgograd State Technical University, explains that they engage in all kinds of odd jobs to survive. Expectedly, the pressure is more on his female colleagues. “It is unfortunate that girls with exceptional academic brilliance are now forced to indulge in all manner of indecent lifestyles. These girls now go to clubs and dance semi nude for a fee that could be as low as $20. For the boys, employers use us for odd jobs, such as clearing of snow and as labourers on construction sites. Even as we do that, there is this perpetual fear that the police will arrest us.”  The police come in here because the students do not have work permit; the country is unlike Nigeria where people, including foreigners can do as they like without anyone asking questions. Concerning the ladies, the picture definitely could not have been as simple as Akindamola painted it. He probably did not want to add that some of these girls eventually end up underneath some ruffling sheets to boost their income!  God forbids, if any of them contracts the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) virus, does the government not know it is culpable?

    These are horrible experiences for students who must have regarded their suffering as over when they touched down at the airport in Moscow. But here they are, barely 15 months after for some of them, the government appears fed up with them. And, given the Nigerian factor, their suffering might just have begun because those who sent them to Russia are now thinking about nothing but the 2015 elections.

    But it is nonetheless interesting that while Nigeria is defaulting in its own part of the bargain to its own citizens, Russia promptly fulfills its own side despite the fact that the beneficiaries are not Russians. How else do you know serious countries? Meanwhile, the same defaulting Federal Government had the temerity to complain to Russia what it felt it (Russia) was not doing right to the students. The Director, Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Olu Lipede, in his effort to prove that the government cares about the students said: “We do care about their welfare. Last year (2013), we went to visit them in Russia and we inspected where they sleep and we made known to the Russian Government those things we were not satisfied with …” Does this kind of statement lie in the Federal Government’s mouth?

    Meanwhile, the same government will be blaming the country’s negative perception on everyone else but itself. It would waste a lot of tax payers’ money on meaningless image laundering when it would have achieved by far more mileage by doing the proper thing at the proper time.

    Now, besides welfare, some of the students who are to return to Nigeria for their mandatory internship programmes are also stuck in Russia, due to lack of funds. I keep wondering why the changing never changes irrespective of who is in power in this country. In the 1970s when Nigeria was still keen on the steel industry, some of our youths were sent abroad to learn about iron and steel technology. I remember how we used to envy the lucky few selected for the training then. Just a few years after, they became jobless almost as they were settling down to enjoy the fruits of their training abroad.

    As usual in the country, the stranded students’ matter is like the proverbial missing knife that no one would admit having used to peel yam. We do not know who to hold responsible.  Lipede blamed the students’ travails on the “budgeting process” and problems associated with “banking transfers.” What does this mean? How does this translate to stipends for our stranded students? Sometime later, some people who have fed fat from the system unproductively would be talking about patriotism, how can students abandoned by their country sing Nigeria’s song in a strange land? How many countries will abandon their own the way the Federal Government has done to these promising youths? Would those responsible for this inhuman treatment have treated their own children like this? How much would the scholarship have cost the government that it now finds it difficult to pay, considering the huge amounts that are either being mismanaged or stolen daily from the government’s coffers? No one should be surprised though. There is a systematic discouragement for people who thirst for education in the country, no thanks to ‘stomach infrastructure’.

    Anyway, since the god of Jonathan has failed the students, to that same God of miracles they must turn or return.

  • Beyond Aregbe’s victory

    Beyond Aregbe’s victory

    For the progressives, it’s time for introspection

    Two weeks before, I had made a case for the reelection of Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State in the (then) forthcoming governorship election in the state billed for August 9. I mentioned some of Aregbesola’s many achievements in less than four years, and in spite of financial limitations. As I said then,  such campaign would have been unnecessary as Aregbesola’s achievements should have spoken for him. But we have entered a dangerous era in our political development where achievements alone no longer speak. That much was learnt from the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State in which the incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) lost to his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenger, Ayo Fayose.

    Mercifully, the Osun election result was different. Although Osun people took ‘political notice’ of the nuisance value in Aregbesola’s challenger, they rewarded performance by retaining Aregbe (APC) as governor with 394, 684 votes against Iyiola Omisore’s (PDP) 292,747. It would have been tragic to have allowed unserious people and impostors to take over another state in a pace-setter region like the south-west. It was not that they did not try; they did, but the people’s eternal vigilance and God made it impossible for them to carry out their satanic desire. This is why I find it so ridiculous to laud President Goodluck Jonathan for deploying troops to Osun as he did in Ekiti. Only that in the former, we saw not only genuine soldiers but also suspected fakes; both hooded and hoodless.

    Moreover, the motive for sending the soldiers was not altruistic. An account had it that at a point, the soldiers were reminded of the ‘patriotic duty’ not to disappoint their C-in-C in Osun. But everyone who should know ought to have realised that Nigeria is one of the very few places where President Goodluck Jonathan could be a political asset. A situation where the president would have thrown his hat into the ring should have been avoided instead of allowing him to do that only to start looking for security agents to ensure his party was rigged in. More importantly, soldiers would have had no business in elections if the ruling party had done what was required in the police force all these years. Why should soldiers take up police duties while duty calls at Sambisa Forest?

    It baffles me that despite what happened in the Western Region in the ‘60s and ‘80s, some people still had the effrontery to want to rig election in the region so barefacedly like the PDP tried even in Osun on August 9. But, as we all know, if history is always to repeat itself, there must be people to make that happen. Renegades there always will be. They were there even in Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s time. With every 12 disciples, there must be a Judas. I mean sons of perdition will always be sons of perdition, no matter what.

    But, it is good we continue to remind such people that they rig election, especially in the south-west, at their own risk. This is not a clarion call to arms. And even if it is, it is nothing to be apologetic about. After all, John Kennedy in 1962, it was who said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” This is forever true, whether in Kennedy’s America or anywhere for that matter. America will not experience violent revolution today simply because politicians there would not attempt to subvert the will of the people blatantly as our politicians do at the polls. Elections are supposed to be sacred and those who desecrate that sacredness are like people who cause rain to fall. Unfortunately, they did not reckon that when the rain starts, the possibility of its being accompanied by thunderstorm is high. Yet, they do not want thunderstorm.

    One of the reasons why Africa is in a shambles today is because people who do not deserve to lead have forced their way into positions of authority in many African countries. And they always want to stay put even when it is clear that they have outlived their usefulness. When undeserving people sit tight in power, it has implications not only for today but also for tomorrow. It is people’s future; people lives and people’s progress that such usurpers arrest for every minute that they stay in power.

    Anyway, having driven away those who wanted to reap where they did not sow in Osun, it is time to tell the progressives some home truths. Posterity would not be kind to them if they give people who have nothing to offer the opportunity to fish for ridiculous excuses why politicians who perform cannot be reelected, thus throwing the people into perpetual lamentation. All over the democratic world, performance is key. We should resist the attempt by non-performers and vagabonds who are lurking around, waiting to exploit minor weaknesses of some of the region’s performing politicians. We have passed that stage in our political evolution where achievements would take the back seat; we should not allow the PDP to reduce the region to its base standards.

    I say this because if truly Omisore scored the 292,747 votes that INEC said he scored in the August 9 election, then, the value system that we used to hold dear in the south west is being gradually eroded. And this is dangerous. In the past, no one in Yorubaland would touch Omisore, not even with a long pole, given his antecedents. His acquittal over the murder of Chief Bola Ige might have had the force of law, but it would have lacked the force of votes in the south west because the people’s court too used to count. Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, in one of his evergreens it was who sang that ‘ka to fi’yan j’oye larin Egba, o ni lati je’ni rere’ (before anyone is given chieftaincy title by the Egba people, such a person must be worthy of it). Ekiti people say their land is ile iyi; (land of honour); but this is not true of the Ekitis alone, it used to be like that all over Yorubaland.

    Yes, the PDP might have fielded Omisore, not necessarily because of what he has to offer, but, as a source put it, because it wanted people who have an infinite capacity to cause trouble; still, the Yoruba people would have rejected him resoundingly at the polls. I hear the ruling party also sponsored another candidate in the region because, again, as the source said, ‘he get craze for head’! These are, trying times for the south west; indeed trying times for Nigeria!

    But, the point is, if the Yoruba people were ready to insist that their votes count in the 1960s, breaking their rediffusion sets which they saw then as the roguish government’s tool of propaganda in the process; and if they were ready to do same even in 1983, then there must be a reason why they think such struggle is no longer worth it today when robbed of their votes, even in broad daylight. Agreed, as Hans J. Morgenthau argued ‘… all politics is a struggle for power’ but not all struggles for power are struggles for people’s development. If politicians in Nigeria devote only 30 percent of the energy they give seeking power into governance, things would never have been this bad. Indeed, as we saw in the First and Second Republics, and as we must have seen so far after more than 15 years of PDP rule, the struggle for power has largely been a struggle for personal aggrandisement. “If someone spent eight years in power, I should be able to beat that record”. “If someone who entered the Government House in bathroom slippers is able to come out in golden shoes barely a week after, I should be able to do same in two days”. This may seem more of exaggeration, but that is the spirit among many of our public office holders now.

    Without doubt, the PDP would not mind allowing people who want to ride Okada from Lagos to Ibadan on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway kill themselves if that would fetch it votes. It is ready to return Nigeria to the Stone Age, provided that would bring in votes. Such is its desperation. And it is understandable; that is the only way it can get gullible people to still reckon with it in spite of its monumental failure since 1999, especially at the centre. I am not arguing that the south west should fall to such base standards, because the region has always been a pace-setter, but the political leaders in the region have to learn to sell their programmes to the electorate instead of putting up a ‘know-all’ posture or being arrogant or messianic in doing things. And, when like all mortals, they find they are wrong, they should not hesitate to reverse themselves. That is one sure way to keep the predators at bay.

    All said, the progressives family has to call a meeting where they have to tell themselves the bitter truth. As I argued earlier, if the Yoruba people were ready to go the whole hog like they did in 1966 and 1983 when roguish politicians subverted their electoral choice, then something is missing if they cannot take a similar risk today in the face of a rampaging ruling party that has nothing to offer and yet wants to ‘capture’ more states in the country, particularly in the south-west. Like the biblical missing axe, it is that missing link that the progressives must find to make the difference in 2015.

  • How they bleed Nigeria

    How they bleed Nigeria

    248 power containers abandoned for 11 years!

    Perhaps nothing better exemplifies the shambolic manner this country is run than the reported abandonment of 248 containers of power equipment at the various bonded terminals in Lagos for as long as between seven to 11 years. The equipment were ordered by the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) for various power projects in the country. An obviously elated power minister Chinedu Nebo who eventually took delivery of the items on July 24 said: “It is a day of joy and gladness as we flag off this very critical event of release of 248 containers of electrical equipment and power installations. The equipment had been abandoned at various bonded terminals in Lagos since 2003 and 2007, which is between 11 and seven years ago”. Mind you, if they dare tell us how much is involved, many of us (like that former boss of the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO), Ovie Whiskey of blessed memory once said) would simply faint. So, they are keeping the figure to their chests.

    We should weep for this country when we realise that this is not the first time such cargoes would be abandoned.  On November 1, 2011, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said about 500 containers belonging to various federal and state government agencies had been abandoned at the ports. Customs spokesman, Mr. Wale Adeniyi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) then that about 250 of the containers were laden with PHCN power generation equipment. One hundred and forty of the power equipment containers were abandoned at the Ports and Cargo Terminal in Tin Can Island port, while the remaining 110 containers were moved to Ikorodu Terminal as overtime cargoes.

    The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources similarly abandoned 59 containers while the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had 25 containers of imports. Delta Steel Company abandoned six containers, Federal Ministry of Power and Steel (15 containers); Federal Ministry of Works (10 containers). Other abandoned containers belonged to the governments of Lagos, Rivers, Ondo and Delta states. Adeniyi added that some of the containers arrived the country as far back as 2006. It is not clear whether the power equipment containers that Adeniyi mentioned were the ones that Nebo took delivery of last month.

    It is the height of man’s inhumanity to man to have abandoned  such vital power equipment for years. It is even worse that no one has been asking questions ever since, about the abandoned equipment. And that is in a country where everyone is groaning under the darkness that has refused to yield way to light despite the billions already sunk into the power sector. So, what are the auditors doing? Where is the Presidential Monitoring Team in all of these? It means the National Executive Council just approves money for projects; no one bothers about whether such are delivered or not. Indeed, I was told that it is only foolish contractors that bother to deliver here; the wise ones know how to circumvent the system (if any) by seeing those necessary, with whom they share the contract money.

    So far, President Goodluck Jonathan has not made any comment on the unfortunate incident. It is even doubtful if he is in any way bothered about it. What matters to him now is ‘capturing’ more states (in spite of his poor performance), to buoy his chances in the 2015 election. And to achieve that near impossible task, he has unleashed soldiers on states where elections are due this year, in the build-up to governorship elections. In the past, we have always seen police do such dirty jobs. In Jonathan’s time, soldiers have taken over. One therefore wonders what the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been doing to improve the efficiency of the police force since 1999 that it has been in power at the centre.

    Given the level of corruption, sorry stealing in the country (our president has said there is no corruption in Nigeria, so, I am sorry for that slip of the pen!), we can almost be sure that what was taken delivery of may not be all that was imported. Perhaps what Minister Nebo took delivery of was what was left after the people who needed some of the items had stolen theirs. They know it is Nigeria’s money, our money; and our money, really, is no one’s money. As Chinua Achebe noted in one of his books, this thing is mine is different from this thing is ours. I know this because if you import ordinary cars, port rats (you see, we have all manner of ways to shield thieves; the president said what we have is mere stealing, not corruption; now those in the ports call the thieves there port rats instead of thieves) would have tampered with them before they are cleared at the ports, in spite of the presence of all kinds of security men there. This is aside the fact that those who imported the power equipment had probably creamed off their own share of the contract cost. We may also need to be sure if the items are not even used ones that were bought as new from where they were imported. I hear a lot of such purchases happened in the days of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and PHCN.

    Moreover, how are we even sure that orders had not been placed again (and again) for the same items? If we did not know that such large consignments were wasting away at the ports for over a decade, the possibility of this duplication of purchases is very high. Then we can be sure that some of the equipment would have gone bad or even become obsolete; in which case they are useless. But for the fact that PHCN has now been privatised, it is even  possible that some of them would still rot way wherever they are taken to because they still would have been abandoned there, with no one remembering to look for them after the initial shock has died down. We are so used to such waste in government that we can hardly be shocked by such abandonment again.

    In countries where the government is serious, those responsible for the irresponsibility would by now have known that they are already in soup. They are economic saboteurs, pure and simple. But in Nigeria, they know the way out of their crimes: join the ruling party. Anyway, the government must be seen to be concerned and doing something on the matter. So, in line with the Jonathan administration’s characteristic threats, Nebo had threatened to probe the abandonment of the equipment and bring culprits (if any), to book. So, it is possible no one is responsible for the abandonment! Anyway, he may be right. We have heard such empty threats from the Jonathan presidency many times. For instance, since March when at least 18 Nigerians died on Nigeria Immigration Service job queues and the administration promised to probe the unfortunate incident, we are yet to hear from the government again. Those who die that way in Nigeria, especially under the PDP, have always died in vain as all those involved in such criminal neglect need do is identify with the ruling party and their sins, be it corruption or mere stealing, or manslaughter or even murder, are forgiven. As a matter of fact, ability to commit crimes seems an added advantage where the desperate ruling party is concerned. At least four of the people suspected to be connected with the murder of the late attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, Chief Bola Ige, are now something, either in the Jonathan presidency or in the ruling party itself.

    Anyway, in all of these, it is Nigeria that has been shortchanged. Apart from being denied electricity that could have improved if the power equipment had been utilised for the purpose that they were imported, they (Nigerians) have also been denied the revenue that should have accrued to the Customs. The question now is whether the new owners of the electricity firms were aware of the existence of these abandoned items. If they were, then they should have taken them as part of their inventory, in which case they would have had to calculate the demurrage and pay for them. Just imagine the congestion that would have been caused by the abandonment of almost 250 containers for that long! Show me any other country where such would happen without heads already rolling or the people trooping to the streets to demand that heads must roll. Show me a country that is run in such rudderless manner!

  • Let Aregbe do it again

    Let Aregbe do it again

    Osun August 9 election on my mind

    Only the uninitiated will attempt to compare the state of affairs in Ekiti with that of Osun State, particularly with regard to the June 21 governorship election in the former, and the fast approaching August 9 gubernatorial election in the latter. One undeniable fact about Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State is that he is a grassroots man to the core. Indeed, the impressive crowds that have been attending his rallies since his campaign for reelection started have been confounding the opposition, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whose members have been alleging that the crowds are rented. But they know deep down their hearts that they are lying. Such is the allure of the man, Rauf Aregbesola: downright factual; no pretence.

    Aregbe, as he is fondly called, understands the language of the grassroots as he knows the lines on his palms. He knows his people just as his people know him. This is one major hurdle that those who might want to repeat what they see as the ‘Ekiti feat’ in Osun State have to contend with, come August 9.

    Aregbesola’s mission statement is encapsulated in the six-point integral action plan of his administration. One is ‘Promotion of functional education’, under which the decayed educational infrastructure in the state is being gradually replaced while at the same time ensuring quality control. His government has reclassified schools into elementary school (five years); middle school (four years) and high school (three years), against the national policy of 6-3-3. This radical departure was informed by the government’s belief that pupils need more time at the middle school so as to prepare them for maturity into high school.  The state has had to build 25 mega schools in order to bring children from diverse backgrounds together to learn in a conducive atmosphere. However, political jobbers have criticised this policy on the alleged ground that it constitutes an erasure of religious lines, especially in schools with bias for religion. Mercifully, the tension that initially attended this policy has since given way, with the government’s explanation of how it came about, i.e. that it was the idea of Prof Wole Soyinka’s team, designed as a way out of the education decay that the state was in when Aregbe took over.

    Of course, other aspects of the Aregbesola government’s educational programme include the one nutritious meal given free to 254,000 primary school kids daily under the state’s O-MEAL Programme. This is to help develop their brains as well as serve as incentive for them to go to school. In addition, it is a way of getting ready markets for farmers in the state to sell their farm produce that is used in preparing the meals. Then the Opon Imo or ‘tablets of knowledge’ that have been distributed to about 150,000 secondary school pupils in the state. The tablet has 56 e-books, 10 years of past West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examinations Council (NECO) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) questions, as well as the Holy Bible, Holy Quran and traditional religion content. This is saving the government huge sums of money under its free education programme.

    The other legs of Aregbesola’s action plan are banishment of hunger/unemployment, enhanced security/welfare, restoration of healthy living and promotion of communal peace, etc.

    Aregbesola knows the importance of the agricultural sector and has done so much in so short a time that farmers would not forget him in a hurry. He has liberalised access by farmers to soft loans to improve their yield and lessen their burden; he has also complemented this with good roads to enable the farmers transport their produce with ease to the market. Indeed, it is in the area of road network that the governor, an engineer, has brought professionalism and ingenuity to bear. All over the state, the administration is building durable roads and rehabilitating dilapidated ones. And, in order to ensure that the state gets value for its money from the contractors, some of whom are notorious for disappearing after collecting mobilisation fees, the Aregbesola administration insists on delivery of the roads before paying the contractors. The benefit here is that roads are constructed to specification since the contractors know that they would not be paid if they deviated from the terms of the contract.

    In like manner, new hospitals are being built all over the state even as old ones are being renovated and all equipped to enhance the free health treatment for a section of the people. The government has also taken away from the streets a lot of youths who otherwise would have been jobless and thus constitute social menace to law-abiding citizens. Although there is still work to be done in this regard as it is impossible to mop up the huge number of jobless youths that the government inherited, the fact is that through its O-YES Scheme, the government has reduced their numbers significantly by about 40,000.

    The security agencies could not have had it better as the Aregbesola government has done a lot for them by way of empowerment, to ensure peace and reduce criminality in the state. The government has assisted the security agencies with some 125 patrol vans, among other things.

    Of course, like most other performers and change agents, Aregbesola has had his own unfair share of criticisms. Like the typical woman who, for lack of what to say, says it is in her husband’s house that she would sleep tonight! Where else could she have slept? Even if she would sleep in a place where she is not supposed to, could she have made that a public service announcement?  For lack of what to say, the few but vocal critics of the Aregbesola administration say he is a religious bigot. One would ordinarily have ignored such idle criticism but for the fact that those who want to succeed the governor are so desperate that they can cook up anything. In a situation where people celebrate the replacement of an administration, not for non-performance, but on the flimsiest of excuses, it is good to put all the cards on the table to enable the electorate, who should be the ultimate deciders in the August 9 governorship election in the state sift the wheat from the chaff. The truth is, the composition of Aregbesola’s cabinet does not support this claim. In the 34-member cabinet, only 12 are Muslims just as we have only 12 Muslim permanent secretaries of the 32 in the state. With regard to the state house of assembly with 26 members, only nine are Muslims.

    Through his robust management of the economy, the state internally generated revenue (IGR) has grown from N300million that the administration inherited in 2010 to about N1.5 billion monthly. Thus, the government has been able to steer the economy from its near-bankruptcy in 2010 and is still doing the ‘balancing act’ in a predominantly civil servant state despite the drop of its revenue from the federation account from N5billion to about N2.5billion monthly. The oversubscription of the Sukuk Bond from its envisaged N10billion to N11billion is a measure of investors’ confidence in the state economy; so is the other N60billion bond out of which N30billion had been drawn.

    This is only a fraction of what the man, Rauf Aregbesola, has done in Osun in less than four years. He has literally breathed life into virtually all sectors of the state that were dead when he took over the reins of government after a protracted legal battle to reclaim his mandate from the PDP usurpers. What makes these achievements particularly praiseworthy is the fact that Osun is not a rich state. It is a predominantly civil servant state, one in which few resources are being chased by overwhelming demands. Yet, Aregbe has been making sense in spite of the financial limitations. Positive developments that hitherto were thought to be unimaginable have become possible in the state.

    So, “a good turn”, as they say, “deserves another”. It is time for Osun people to tell those who have nothing to offer to steer clear of governance in the state. What the state deserves now is the continuation of the streak of successes that it has been witnessing since Aregbe’s administration took over. It is only unfortunate that people who should be in jail in decent climes are some of those now seeking to rule a progressive and pace-setter region like Nigeria’s south-west. That tells us something about the depth to which the country has sunk, especially under the PDP.