The Nation Newspaper

Category: Gbenga Omotoso

  • What went wrong in Dapchi?

    What went wrong in Dapchi?

    Many women were sobbing, their hands on their heads. Some just sat there on the bare ground, dejected and disillusioned. Others were just gazing at nothing in particular, their arms clasped around their waists in total resignation to the fate that had befallen them. The men were also crying and yelling, even as they tried to console their distraught women. The full picture of the communal tragedy was unfolding.

    It was a day of agony in Dapchi, the Yobe State town where Boko Haram snatched off more than 100 girls in a night raid on February 19. Governor Ibrahim Gaidam was visiting to console the parents and offer them a shoulder to cry on. What a calamitous way for a humble town to hit global prominence!

    In Abuja, the President described the abduction as a national disaster. It is that and more – an assault on national pride and innocence of childhood. Abuja sent a delegation to the grief-stricken town to find out what went wrong. Just then the blame game began.

    Gaidam said the military’s sudden withdrawal from the town paved the way for the abduction. If the military had been there, the governor said, such a brazen attack would not have been possible.

    The army said it had driven the insurgents out of the area, handed over a peaceful town to the police and moved on to other operations. The police would not carry the can. It denied that it was ever handed the town to keep and guard against any assault.

    So, what went wrong? Who was in charge? Was Dapchi left to its own devices?

    The security agencies have set up a panel to answer this billion Naira question, which may linger for some time, even after our innocent girls have been brought – or bought – back. Again, what went wrong?

    What happened to good old community intelligence hands who would inform the authorities about such a looming tragedy before it landed at the door? The  goons were said to have come in about 11 trucks. How did such a convoy of evil roll all the way from Sambisa – sorry for that slip; we conquered that place a long time ago – or wherever into Dapchi without anybody raising the alarm?

    Is it true that the Defence Headquarters had warned about an impending attack before the terrorists struck? In other words, can we just rule out failure of intelligence? Was the army’s response to the abduction swift? Or did we just try to shut the stable after the horse had escaped?

    Who ordered the withdrawal of troops? On what basis? Was Dapchi actually out of harm’s way? Is the Area Commander still convinced that he took the right decision? Was there a deliberate action to embarrass the Muhammadu Buhari administration that has been touting security as one of its achievements, with Boko Haram’s defeat as its glittering trophy?

    Are there saboteurs in the military? Who are the facilitators of those ambushes against federal troops?  Did Dapchi result from sheer complacency? Incompetence? Fatigue? An error of judgment? Indiscretion? The devil-may-care attitude of our men?  (material here expendable).

    Winning a few battles is no indication that the war is over. In fact, there is also the peace to be won. We have heard that Boko Haram has been “defeated”, “decimated” and “vanquished”. Yes. Nevertheless, the war is not over. The group’s fiendish leaders are alive and kicking. So long as they remain on their feet, it will be premature and unhelpful to declare that Boko Haram has been crushed.

    President Buhari has promised that the girls will be back in the loving arms of their parents. When? Soon? Later? One month? One year? Years? We can’t really say. What seems clear is that the government is willing to pay any price for the girls’ freedom. Department of State  Services (DSS) chief Lawal Daura told the President while presenting some freed Boko Haram victims, including the University of Maiduguri teachers abducted while searching for oil in the Lake Chad Basin, that the agency negotiated the release of the abductees, because any attempt to get them out by force could endanger their lives.

    We have been inadvertently shelling out part of the cash that keeps the terror machine roaring.  Will Boko Haram stop now that it knows how lucrative its evil trade is?  (Material bordering on national security taken out)

    Is this an admission of the fact that force won’t work? If so, why don’t we set up talks with the terrorists, grant them a general amnesty and end it all? Will they agree to a ceasefire? What future for these enemies of peace who have sold their souls to Satan? Will they and their foot soldiers be normal again?

    Just as Nigeria was ruing the abduction of her girls, a woman was telling the CNN how she urged the police to do something about the gunman who mowed down 17 pupils in a Florida, United States school. The police told her nothing could be done since Nicholas Cruz,19, had not committed any offence. The police were caught in a dilemma.

    If they grabbed Cruz, they would be criticized for gross human rights abuse. If they did nothing and Cruz struck – as he eventually did – they would be accused of doing nothing. They erred on the side of caution.  The society paid dearly for that.

    Again, did we get any intelligence report on Dapchi? Was such a report ignored?

    To the PDP and the Dr Goodluck Jonathan crowd of merrymakers, it is time to gloat; isn’t it? Not so fast.  What did the Jonathan presidency do when the news of the Chibok girls’ abduction was broken? It responded with a roaring silence. By the time it decided to move, it thrust the former First Lady forward. She launched an inquisition that became the subject of a sickening but popular comic relief amid the unprecedented tragedy.

    Besides, the Jonathan administration plunked down millions for the Chibok girls to be freed. The cash went down the drain. It was duped.

    I was moved by the plea of Hajia Alkali Wakil (aka Mama Boko Haram) to the Abu Musab Al-Barnawi-led faction of the terror sect. She urged the terrorists to free the girls and surrender their arms.

    “I will go after them even if it will take my life to save these girls. They call me mummy but they don’t listen to me… Dear Habib, Nuru and others,” she said.                          “I was told you may be the ones responsible for the kidnap of these girls. I beg you to release the girls to their mothers. What kind of children will continue letting their mother to continue crying. Dear Habib, I pray Allah touches your heart and that of your colleagues to stop what you are doing.”

    Do terrorists surrender to emotions? Are their hearts not too clogged with evil designs? Do they have any space left for the plea of a woman they call “mummy”? Where are their biological mothers?

    When all else fails, what do we do?

    Just pray, like Hajia Wakil.

  • Rev King and his diehard flock

    Rev King and his diehard flock

    If there is an award for group gullibility, the followers of the condemned murderer Rev. King of the Christian Praying Assembly Worldwide should have the trophy.

    The Supreme Court on February 27, 2016 affirmed the death sentence passed on King for killing one of his followers, Ann King (all members of this strange church bear his name). He had doused her with petrol and set her on fire for alleged infidelity. Ann died on August 2, 2006 a painful death that sparked an outrage.

    Rev King lived like a strange god. Women must be naked while serving him food. Members must be on their knees whenever he walked by.  Erring congregants were routinely flogged like kids. All that collapsed at the prison where he is awaiting the hangman – the queue is said to be long for shortage of hands for this delicate job.

    To his fervent followers, it’s long live the king! On his birthday last Monday, they bought many pages in a newspaper and splashed his photographs – big suits, mullah beard and all – on them. The praises were effusive. “Daddy, thank you for your love, protection, provisions …open doors. You are the great I am, the ancient of days.”

    And this: “The man of the moment and every moment. The last preacher of the truthful gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ… You thought (sic?) us how to live a holy life. You are unchangeable and unstoppable God. You shall continue to live and reign forever… .”

    Is there no limit to imbecility?

  • A governor at work

    A governor at work

    It was an operation conceived in utmost secrecy and executed at dawn when many were still snoring in bed. By the time they woke up, the huge storey building had been levelled, flattened.

    The building used to be the home of a faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna. It was the symbol of the defiance of some party men, who are opposed to Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s style. His Excellency was alleged to have personally led the operation. This may not be far from the truth, considering the clinical manner in which it was executed and the delicate nature of the assignment.

    A few days ago, the Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi- led faction suspended El-Rufai and some of his aides. It was the climax of many months of bitter bickering between the factions.  Famous for his reticence, El-Rufai was calm. But, can a ship  have two captains? Will any governor worthy of the Executive Mansion tolerate such insubordination and calculated insult?

    Just as the Hunkuyi faction began to gloat over its success, the governor deployed an old strategy of his that has never failed. The bulldozer moved in. Now, Hunkuyi and his men are grumbling like a child stopped from sucking on his thumb.

    So incensed at the action was Senator Shehu Sani that he told the Senate: “Governor El-Rufai is an affliction on Kaduna State. He is a curse to us. We want to call on Buhari to caution his son. If this crisis is not nipped in the bud, it will grow into something bigger. We in Kaduna State cannot accommodate somebody who has the tendencies of Adolf Hitler, Mobutu Sese Seko and Nebuchadnezzar.”

    The Senator recalled that, exactly one year ago, His Excellency’s bulldozer smashed  APC Vice Chairman (Northwest) Inuwa Abdukadir’s house.

    Sani is not alone. Also complaining are those who know nothing about governance, state policy and power. They are crying like hired mourners who must outdo the bereaved. They say El-Rufai is inhumane, wicked and destructive.

    Does El-Rufai deserve the name calling and abuses? Why won’t anybody consider the peace that has suddenly descended on Kaduna since this demolition and many others? Why won’t anybody praise his mastery of this strategy as the final solution to stubborn problems? Or the governor’s inventive ability.  Instead, they talk about “his huge capacity for mischief, his unbridled ambition, his tempestuous and abrasive mannerism”.

    This is not the first time His Excellency has been excoriated for demolishing a property. He was harassed and cursed in Abuja when he was minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). So bad was the situation that he had to face an inquiry after his tenure. He was accused of grabbing other people’s land and allocating choice plots to his wife, concubines, girlfriends, friends and babies. Not a word did he deny. In fact, he told his inquisitors that he acted in the public interest and dared his critics to go to court. That was the end of the matter.

    When the Shiites ignited a bloody clash by blocking the Chief of Army Staff’s convoy, many were convinced that what they had seen as an age-long problem needed to be resolved immediately. But, they did not know what to do. El-Rufai’s  bulldozers simply rumbled through the place and knocked down the Shiites’ enclave. Hasn’t there been peace ever since?

    For a cleaner city, the government demolished many houses and threatened to remove beggars from the street. Now, Kaduna ranks as one of the world’s cleanest cities – to the envy of others.

    The only situation in which the demolition formula was not applied was that of the Fulani herdsmen, probably because the nomadic cattle men had no fixed property worth demolishing.  El-Rufai simply plunked down a fortune to buy their commitment to peace.

    The government explained that Hunkuyi had not paid ground rent for eight years. In these days of aggressive revenue drive, will any responsible government tolerate that? Besides, to demonstrate that it was all in the public interest, the governor directed that the land should be turned into a public park. A less magnanimous governor would have built public toilets on it.

    Now, according to a Government House source, all the landlords who are yet to pay their ground rent will have their buildings demolished. Watch out, company executives who have failed in remitting VAT and other statutory obligations, your buildings may soon host El-Ruafai’s bulldozers.

    As I was saying, His Excellency has been scorned by many for deploying  demolition as a state policy. To such busybodies, the fact that it has always worked wonders does not count.  They ask in an attempt to deride the formula: Is demolition of a building the same as the demolition of people’s resolve? What manner of governor is this? Was he elected to build or to pull down?

    Going personal, some of his critics have asserted without any scientific proof that diminutive people, among whom I’m proud to number, are prone to sudden anger. How true is this? Is it the fear of domination that drives us to strike first and so fatally? Or just the “I’m in charge here” syndrome?

    Whatever anybody may say about the El-Rufai formula, it is arguably one of those effective policies of this era. It is in the class of stomach infrastructure, the vote harvesting formula that has seen every Ekiti resident sporting a round tummy and chubby cheeks – all in less than four years. Or the Imo formula that professes erection of statues as a recipe for peace and general well-being of residents. Like the El-Rufai formula, the Imo solution continues to be derided, particularly the Jacob Zuma statue after the former South African president threw in the towel. Many now look at it contemptuously and hiss: “what a wrong erection”.

    The Government House source aforementioned has just told me that the demolition formula was being considered for restive communities. The residents will just wake up someday to discover that their homes are gone. There will be nothing to fight over or somewhere to launch attacks from.

    From many states and neighbouring countries, I am told, inquiries have been pouring in on how to acquire the ABC of the El-Rufai formula. Some of the governor’s aides are said to be packaging a working document on how to set up a centre where the legion of people who want to be well grounded in this formula can be trained. At a price.

     

    Obj’s adventures in Ijawland

    It was thought to be a rumour. Then, the pictures hit the social media. Former President Goodluck Jonathan was hosting former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Otuoke, his Bayelsa State home. “Editorial Notebook” has approached many sources in a desperate bid to report the details of their discussion. Here is an account of the meeting, according to an unconfirmed source, who claimed to be close to a cousin of the sister of one of the cleaners in the sprawling compound:

    (Obasanjo, decked in an Ijaw dress- sparkling buttons and dangling chain – walks in briskly. He is surrounded by a retinue of guards. Jonathan meets him at the door). Welcome sir; you do well Baba. Very courteous of you to visit us here.

    Obasanjo: You see, I don’t dwell on the past. All is forgotten; all is forgiven. You are my son. Even the prodigal son in the Bible got a warm embrace after his repentance. So, let’s leave politics for politicians. I’m now a statesman.

    “But Baba (Jonathan laughs heartily) everybody is talking about your special statement on Buhari and your Coalition for Nigeria Movement, CNM. You even told Buhari not to run.”

    “Yes. Why should he run again? Please, please, I don’t want to discuss politics. Why should he run? I concede to him that he has been fighting the insurgency, but I need to warn that other areas are crying for attention. The economy is not doing well. If people now think that CNM and all that na politics; dat na dem toro.”

    “Even the so-called anti-corruption war; is that how to fight it; going after key opposition figures? Look at my wife. Nobody has complained that his money is missing, yet Magu and his people won’t let her rest. I don’t understand. Perhaps,  all this would not have happened if you had backed me.”

    Obasanjo chuckles, his lips pursed.  He raises his right hand.”My dear, forget the past. Even me, one yeye boy who said he was a governor and now a senator was saying I should face trial for corruption; Halliburton and all that. And I said, ‘okay o. I dey my house. Come catch Obasanjo. He was so disrespectful and I was wondering the kind of senators we now have. Senator my foot!

    “Where is Mama Peace? Where is my pounded yam? Wey fisherman soup? ”

    Jonathan signals to an aide to fetch the former First Lady who had earlier joined him to receive Obasanjo. She walks in fast, beaming.

    “Baba, na like this una go dey look me? All my money, they say it is money laundering. How can I carry money to a laundry; is it cloth? And I say, ‘okay, make we settle. They refused. Is that not persecution? Am I a launderer?”

    Obasanjo, smiling, moves to the dining table, sits. “My dear, don’t worry. We will soon know who owns this country. Just then, the light goes off (for a few minutes and Obasanjo, frowning, speaks. “They even said I, Aremu Olusegun Okikiolakan Obasanjo, chopped $16 billion for light. Me? We shall see o.”

    Lunch over, Obasanjo stands up and the former First Family sees him off to the car.

  • In defence of snakes

    In defence of snakes

    THE incident remains fresh in my memory. It was an early harmattan morning in 1974, my first year in secondary school. I had finished the morning duties – fetching water for my college father and sweeping the Form Three classroom before braving the biting cold to shower near the school dam. It was time to dress up and get set for the assembly.

    My uniform of a green pair of shorts and a white shirt was lying there, neatly arranged behind my seat in the classroom. I pulled off the dirty shirt with which I did the early morning chores, pulled out the white shirt, put it on and buttoned up. I was already running late. Chief Guy Gargiulo (GG), a born teacher and humanist of the finest kind, never tolerated late coming to the assembly- one of those dreaded routines at Ajuwa Grammar School, Okeagbe – Akoko, Ondo State.

    It was for prayers, Bible reading and singing of soul-lifting hymns. But it could all turn sour if GG got angry and needed to use the cane. He would be screaming and swearing, “Bloody hell.” Ah. What a terrifying experience for us the junior boys who had to strain our ears to make out why theoyinbo was angry. He would be talking so fast, fuming and vibrating like a huge boom box working at full capacity.

    I grabbed my shorts and jumped into them. Then, I noticed that the right pocket was unusually heavy. I pushed my right hand into it to find out why. The object in there was soft and slimy, like a nylon bag. As I pulled it, I discovered that it was long. I looked down to find out what it was. I saw the tail of what looked like a long snake and began to scream. I couldn’t pull off my shorts. Neither could I grab the snake and fling it out of my pocket. What if it decided to bite me? My mates were laughing. To them, it was fun. To me, it was hell. I was yelling. One of the boys displayed some courage, moved close, a stick in his hand, and flogged out the snake. It fell gently on the floor, immobile. It was a dead snake with which somebody had decided to pull a fast one on me.

    My subsequent encounters with snakes at Ajuwa were full of fun. GG ensured that none of us feared snakes- the only thing he said he ever feared. The day he got bitten by one was the end of the fear, he told us. We had in the school library several books on snakes. GG kept some as pets, but he warned us never to go near a cobra. “It is deadly. If it bites you, you’re finished; o pa ri,” he would advise us. The green snake we went after and caught alive any time.

    I felt good recently with one of GG’s snakes playing on my neck when I visited his The Plaedi home on a massive rock in Okeagbe.

    You can therefore imagine my disgust and anger with what is fast becoming a grand design to demonise snakes, following the confession of an official of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) that a mysterious snake swallowed N35m cash belonging to the agency. JAMB has suddenly become a testimony to the claim that the anti-corruption war is on, with Prof Isha-q Oloyede leading the battle.

    Where are our animal rights activists? Here is another crude attempt to blackmail an innocent animal and nobody seems to be raising a finger in anger over these attacks. When President Muhammadu Buhari returned from his medical trip, he could not resume work in his office. We were told that rats had seized the place. Construction giant Julius Berger was called in to flush them out.

    Even before the President’s return, his wife Aisha had been talking about hyenas and jackals who would be kicked off the corridors of power upon the arrival of the lion.

    “Some criminals have also blackmailed cows, using the poor beasts of burden to destroy farmlands that represent many years of sweating and toiling. Should the landowners complain, they pounce on them with AK-47 rifles, killing, maiming and burning. Everything is blamed on the poor cows for whom the marauders claim they are fighting.”

    In the heat of  Nnamdi Kanu ‘s Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) whirlwind of protests, the military launched Operation Python Dance I to fight criminals in the Southeast. Many wondered how a python was going to dance. Before the early sounds of the drums that would herald the dancing python, Kanu had engaged his feet. He fled. To date, his whereabouts remain a subject of serious contestation.

    That was when I suspected that a grand conspiracy against snakes was in the offing. Monkeys seem to be lucky. They are accused of causing monkey pox. Ebola is associated with some animals, none in particular but those that are of special delicacy, popularly called bushmeat. There are also chicken pox, bird flu and others associated with animals.

    Never in the history of ethology has it been proven that snakes could devour cash. Now, a court is set to hear how this happened. Many zoology giants and renowned criminologists are said to be on their way to Nigeria to witness the landmark case; Federal Government versus Philomina Chieshe, who claimed that a snake swallowed N36m she kept in her office.

    I am told by sources who claim to have seen the charges, that Chieshe will tell the court the denomination of the cash – was it in N1,000 or N500 notes?  Or N200 or N10 or N50? How long did it take the snake to swallow the cash – one hour? One day? Three days? Are there witnesses? Why did Chieshe not raise the alarm? Was the snake induced to do it?

    What kind of snake was involved in this mysterious venture? Python? Corn snake? Viper? Cobra? Rattlesnake? Carpet Viper? Male or female?

    JAMB  has meanwhile suspended Chieshe – apparently to enable her assemble her legal team. Lawyers, by the trainload, I gather, are said to be warming up to join her defence. They will, according to sources, submit that the court has no jurisdiction to hear the matter as it borders on mysticism. If the court refuses to listen, they will ask that the snake be subpoenaed.

    As the court clerk searches for the snake to serve the summons, the legal giants will counter-sue JAMB, claiming N1b damages for making public a piece of information Chieshe gave its officials in strict confidence, thereby trampling on her right to hold  and protect such esoteric confidentialities.

    Should the court insist on the trial, Chieshe will simply be advised to check into a hospital, live well and return home when the dust must have settled and the term would have been served out doing the case. Everybody will go in peace; justice is served.

    Snakes have now become an-endangered species. Fortune-hunters are killing them in a desperate bid to extract the N36m. Yet, our animal rights activists are sleeping. A politician was saying the other day that if the incident had happened in Ekiti State, Governor Ayo Fayose would have assembled all the master hunters –dane guns, headlamps, amulets, charms and all – to retrieve the cash up to the last kobo. Anyway, can we force anybody to emulate Ekiti?

    Besides, snakes have become the subject of offensive jokes. I chanced upon a video yesterday. A woman comes out of the bathroom to find his son on all fours in the living room. Crawling, like a baby. Shocked, she screams: “Blood of Nebuchadnezzar. Dami, what are you doing?”

    “I’m practising for my new job to be a snake.” The woman grabs a bottle of holy oil and cries: “Blood of Jesus. You’ll never be a snake. I anoint you in the name of the father.”

    Unyielding, the boy replies: “Mummy, that’s the new hot job in Nigeria o. Snakes are swallowing things all over the place and they say you keep whatever you swallow. One has just swallowed N36m. That’s $100,000. Let me do my snake o.”

    The mum screams, “N36m!”  She drops the bottle of holy oil and begins to crawl. “Mummy what are you doing?” the bewildered boy asks his mum. She replies excitedly: “We are a snake family.”

    And this, just in from a friend: “I’m just leaving the bank now. I went to drop bitter kola around the premises because of snakes. I no wan hear say anything do my money.”

    The situation is not without a redeeming feature, however, nevertheless, Senator Shehu Sani (APC Kaduna …) was reported to have led some snake charmers from his constituency to the JAMB office in Abuja to help should there be more snakes trying to swallow what does not belong to them. Now snake charmers can no longer complain that there is no work.

    Many unemployed youths are now training to become snake charmers.  Some pubic-spirited lawyers are encouraging them to incorporate an association so that untrained hands do not hijack the trade in this age of quackery.

    The rich are said to be thinking of how to get some snakes as pests. The bright idea is that if they keep their cash in the bellies of snakes, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) detectives will never get them.

     

     

     

  • Senators, etiquette and protocol

    Senators, etiquette and protocol

    HOW that the heat generated by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “special statement” seems to have subsided and the follow-up by former military president Gen. Ibrahim Babangida has caused  a civil war in the Hilltop mansion, it is fitting and proper to move on to other matters that are no less important.

    Obasanjo, you may recall, has since launched a Coalition – some call it  Commotion – for Nigeria Movement (CN) after advising President Muhammadu Buhari not to pick up the gauntlet in 2019. Babangida and his media aide Kassim Afegbua are battling the wages of shiftiness, an attribute many will not hesitate to decorate the former military leader with.

    As I was saying, it is time we moved on to other matters. Among such weighty issues is the unnecessary contempt with which our senators are held, even among those who, by virtue of their standing, should be custodians of protocol and etiquette.

    Nobody considers the intellectual and physical exertions that go into lawmaking and oversight duties which keep them burning the midnight oil. All we talk about is their fat pay packet as if we knew what they actually earn.

    The other day Senator Dino Jonah Melaye took some time off his new video making venture – he has just released one in which he excoriated Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello; in the earlier one he was on the street hawking groundnuts and many thought he had gone nuts. He led the Ad Hoc Committee on Economic Wastage in the Nigerian Customs Service to the Customs Headquarters in Abuja. Comptroller- General Hameed Ali did not go downstairs from his office to receive the Very Important Visitors (VIV). He simply waited in his office until they were seated in the conference room before showing up.

    Melaye, the distinguished senator representing the good people of Kogi West, immediately charged him with a breach of protocols, a rather serious offence in official circles.  “Mr CG, rather than meeting us here at the conference room by way of courtesy, you’re supposed to have met us at the ground floor on arrival into the premises. That has been the practice of statutory bodies headed by Chief Executive Officers like you,” he told Col. Ali.

    The Senator banged the table with a gavel he had brought with him. The Senate was in session, Melaye – yes, Melaye – presiding. Oh; what a session.

    But Ali, a veteran of such battle of wits, would not be bullied. “I don’t need to come downstairs to receive you, just as nobody in the Senate or House of Representatives has ever come out to receive us anytime we visit the National Assembly,” he replied.  “So, there is no breach of protocol for not coming down to welcome you since appropriate officers have been assigned to do so. Our protocol is our protocol and should be allowed to be. In fact, by way of etiquette, it is the committee that is supposed to come to my office first on arrival and not just come straight to the conference room.”

    Needless to say, the meeting ended on a stormy note. No photographs. Nor handshakes. Nor tea and other niceties to which Customs is said to be accustomed.

    If Ali is summoned to appear in uniform and explain the “economic wastage in Customs”, we should not be surprised. A little courtesy to lawmakers surely goes a long way.

    Perhaps the CG did not understand all this talk about protocol, etiquette and such elements of officialese. Such ignorance could someday cause a dutiful senator to move a motion for the abolition of the Customs Service.  The “ayes” will have it and, just like that, our Customs will cease to exist. But, to be candid, these are compassionate people; I do not see them doing that.

    The Melaye-Ali row reminded a friend of mine of an encounter with a Senate committee last year. Some fertiliser suppliers had been summoned to, as they say, shed light on their bids for the yearly contracts. The planting season was on. It was that time of the year when all hands must be on the plough to avert a devastating food shortage.

    The company’s spokesman told the lawmakers that it was being owed for supplies it had delivered in the past and that in the new scheme it had supplied  about 85 per cent. With payment, it would be able to supply the remaining 15 per cent, the gentleman said.

    “But you don’t have the capacity for this job,” a member of the committee said.

    “We have. We have already done 85 per cent. We have the capacity for this job and more,” the company chief insisted.

    The argument went on and on. All about “capacity”. Flustered, the company chief kept quiet. The distinguished senator – all senators are distinguished – who led the committee looked straight into the eyes of the now subdued company chief and said: “We  say you don’t have capacity; you keep screaming that you have capacity. I put it to you on behalf of this distinguished committee that you don’t have capacity. Listen. You went to the Villa and showed them capacity. You went to the Ministry of Agric and showed them capacity. Now, show us capacity.”

    He was all smiles. Obviously showing some understanding of the word “capacity”, the company chief  smiled in return and promised to be back – apparently to show his “capacity”.

    The story is told of how the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was being summoned last year to explain one thing or the other. So frequent were the summons that many thought the CBN had moved its offices to the National Assembly.

    On one of such occasions, said a source close to a lawmaker whose colleague is a friend of one of the uncles of a member of the panel that met with the bankers, one of the senator could barely conceal his indignation.

    “Every time we read in the papers that the CBN has injected $200m into the forex market to prop up the Naira; who is getting the contracts?” he demanded.

    “Nigerians want to know and this committee will do everything within its power to let Nigerians know who is getting the contracts; $200m today; $250m tomorrow. Haba! The contractor must appear. Who signed the contract? Was there due process? Was it competitive? Is that the best we can do? Why were we not carried along? You award contracts without telling us and when Nigerians demand an answer, they want us to come up with one. Enough. Henceforth, the CBN must not intervene in the forex market or any market – Gerin Kasua, Ariaria, Oba Market, Oyingbo, Balogun; any market at all without the express permission of this committee.”

    However, of all the hazards of lawmaking, none seems to be more of immediate danger than the continued stay in office of the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu. A court has said the Senate has the power to confirm the appointment of a chairman for the agency. Based on this, the lawmakers are asking the Executive to nominate another person for the job. The Presidency does not appear to be ready to do this; it would rather swim or sink with Magu.

    How do we resolve this logjam? Simple. Let’s just pick a senator for the job. Won’t that save us all the rigmarole of background investigation, security report, and formal Senate interview?

     

    A curious (and dubious?) amnesty

    IMO State Governor Rochas Okorocha has ignited another controversy. He has not created a new Ministry. Nor has he erected any new statue. The fresh row is about the amnesty His Excellency has granted some seemingly repentant lawbreakers, including Emenike Agamu (aka General Red Scorpion).

    Red Scorpion is said to be number four in the hierarchy of leaders of the late Don Waney’s gang, which reportedly killed 23 people on New Year’s Day in Omoku, Rivers State. Some other members of the gang, including Waney’s brother, have met a bloody end.

    Okorocha and Wike
    Okorocha and Wike

    With the security agencies in hot pursuit of other members of the collapsing criminal empire, it is curious that Owelle Okorocha will suddenly announce an amnesty for the group. Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike is angry. He has said that the amnesty is not binding on the  state. He believes it is a desperate step by some suspected criminals to evade justice.

    Is the amnesty not preposterous? Isn’t the timing curious and dubious? How are we sure that Red Scorpion will not, like his late boss, go back to running a criminal enterprise?

    Don Waney was once pardoned by the government of Rivers State. He even got a chieftaincy title to the bargain. Yet, he would not forsake crime, until his sensational life of crimes collapsed under a hail of bullets fired by patriotic security agents. Will the killing and abduction of innocent people stop now? Will the destruction of oil pipelines end?

    Let’s hope Okorocha has not got it all wrong this time.

  • Obasanjo on his latest move

    Obasanjo on his latest move

    SINCE former President Olusegun Obasanjo issued his “special statement” in which he spanked the Muhammadu Buhari administration, nothing has been heard from him.

    He showed up the other day in Addis Ababa at the African Union Summit. A video of his encounter with President Buhari has been rocking the Internet. Obasanjo is seen in the footage with Buhari and former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar. They throw banters and laugh heartily.

    To many, it was incredible that Obasanjo could be that warm to Buhari after firing off that excoriating statement, which sent panic into the Buhari political camp and ignited a renewed excitement on the political landscape.

    Is it true that the Generals who have held the power levers since 1966 may have sworn to a secret oath to remain one even when they seem to disagree in public, to go only so far and no farther? Do they speak a special language the rest of the country cannot understand? What is Obasanjo thinking now? Is he just trying to rock the boat and put Buhari under pressure?  What does he want to do with his Coalition for Nigeria (CN)? Who is beating the drum to which the wily old fox is dancing?

    These are some of the questions Nigerians have been asking since that video surfaced and newspapers splashed the pictures of the Addis Ababa show on their front pages. Nobody can claim for sure that he knows where Obasanjo is heading.

    Considering the avalanche of questions, permutations and postulations, “Editorial Notebook” has taken up the task of finding out what is on the former president’s mind, through a hypothethical encounter with reporters at the Lagos airport upon his return from Addis Ababa. Here we go:

    Reporters are rushing after Obasanjo as he walks briskly to the lounge. He stops suddenly, looks at the small crowd, frowns a bit and beckons to the reporter  ahead of the pack. He moves close. Obasanjo grabs him by the shoulder and pulls his head under his armpit. He knocks his head twice, releases him and says softly:

    “Oya, two questions. I won’t take more than that today; otherwise, you get more knocks.”

    “Since your special statement was released, some people have been making comments. Now, they say you were posing for photographs with Buhari and cracking jokes with him. Are you sincere?”

    Huuum! Huuuum!Huuum!Obasanjo clears his throat and smiles like a baby.

    “You see, I mean no harm. Don’t forget, it was advisory. I only advised Buhari to let go and join us to rebuild Nigeria. My brother Buhari knows it is not personal – and that is the hallmark of a statesman; the ability to speak out when others are merely grumbling. You know I fear nobody. I speak my mind.”

    “They say you’re selfish and opportunistic, hitting the government because you think it is vulnerable.”

    “If that is your opinion, keep it; I don’t care. What kind of reasoning is that? Do I want Buhari’s job? How many presidents do you want to make of me? You people should grow up o. I have said my own. Chikena. He who has ears, let him listen. Before it is too late.

    “The other time, they said I wrote a letter to that boy…eeem, eeeem… Jonathan  or wetin call. Yes, I did. This is not a letter; it is a special statement, which is as clear as day in its meaning and objectives. Please.”

    “They say you danced with the late Okadigbo’s wife and ate pounded yam in his house. The next day, the man was fighting a losing battle for his political life. They speak about a tinge of savagery or do-or-die in your politics.”

    “Please, you should know how to talk. What did I do wrong there? I am a statesman; I’m not a politician. My politics is Nigeria and anybody who says Nigeria will not move, I’m ready to go konkobilo with him, no matter how highly placed. Is playing my role as a statesman politics? If you can’t differentiate between politics and statesmanship, then you are a fool. Politics my foot!”

    “The critics say you sold the late Umaru Yar’Adua to Nigerians and later condemned him, asking him to step down. In short, they say you have a megalomaniac tendency and a false messianic orientation which is fast leading to  a Samsonian affliction.”

    Obasanjo raises his left hand, brings it down slowly as the reporter’s  comments continue. He raises his hand again and frowns his face,

    “Wait. Wait.Oga reporter or whatever they call you. Let me talk. You see, it is true that I spoke about Umoru. I stand by what I said. If you take up a job – appointed, selected, elected or whatever. And you discover that your health can no longer carry on, you should know what to do. If you don’t, then you don’t know anything. I said so. Is that too much? Samson ko, Delilah ni. “

    “They say you condemned Atiku Abubakar, who played a major role in your administration and that you think you are the only good man in town, Mr Clean.”

    “They say so? Hmmm. You see, it’s true they told me that he was preparing, that he wanted to be president. I recall saying nothing. I only replied, ‘Atiku? I dey laugh o.’ How has that become anybody’s problem? If that one dey pain you, that na your toro. As for me o, I dey kampe.

    “I remember that when we were leaving office, I was singing and dancing when you people came to me. I said, Aremu a maa lo s’Ota, awon kan a maa lo s’ewon (Aremu will be going to Ota, some people will be going to jail).(He begins to dance in short,slow steps, murmuring a song and smiling).One of the reporters cuts in, ‘that was a python dance, Your Excellency’. Obasanjo frowns and hisses.”

    “The June 12,1993 election was adjudged to be Nigeria’s fairest and freest ever, but the winner, your kinsman MKO Abiola, was denied the prize  and you rubbed it in by saying he wasn’t the messiah Nigeria needed and…”

    “Stop it! Please, please, please. Don’t annoy me. If you don’t know how to ask a question, you keep quiet. If I said Abiola wasn’t the messiah, don’t I have a right to my opinion? If he was my kinsman nko? I don’t operate that way. I’m a detribalised Nigerian. How many of you can tell me that your best friend is not from your tribe? You people are the one killing this country.”

    “In your statement, you said Buhari hasn’t done well in the economy, but the government says you may have been travelling too much to notice its scorecard in this and other areas.

    “Foreign reserve is climbing up, rice importation is down, manufacturers have access to funds, the stock market is among the world’s best in performance and foreign investors are coming back.”

    “Look young man. It is true that I said the economy does not obey military order. Besides, if I travel, is it anybody’s business? I have said it again and again; I’m a citizen of the world. I’m a statesman. I have so much to do overseas.I must travel, but wherever I go, Nigeria remains on top of my mind.”

    “It is being said that the coalition you are pushing is a conclave of PDP renegades and looters as well as their disgruntled cousins in APC who would want the days of old back.”

    “Well, I don’t care. Anybody who is not happy should form his own coalition and when coalition jams coalition, there will be collusion and we will step in to curb the commotion. No be so?”

    “Some people are saying you issued that statement because you are still breathing fire over your inability to get a third term.”

    “Those saying that are foolish. Don’t annoy me, please. I have said it before and open your ears now (Obasanjo holds his right ear firmly).I never wanted a third term. If I had wanted a third term, I would have asked God and he would have given it to me. He has never refused me anything. Is that clear?”

    “Some of your critics say your own home has always be in turmoil and that yours is a pretence to moral rectitude.”

    “Moral rectitude, attitude or altitude or magnitude or whatever you call it, I know where you’re going. Dem send you? Go and tell whoever is sending you that I, Olusegun Aremu Okikiolakan Matthew Obasanjo, I cannot be embarrassed. Nobody can embarrass me. Nobody, I repeat. Let them come out; I’m not afraid to fight.”

    “Thank you so much Dr Obasanjo.”

    “Excuse me; point of correction. I remain Olusegun Obasanjo; chief –if you like. And have a good day.”

    He hops into his car, smiling as the vehicle zooms off.

  • A whimpering movement

    A whimpering movement

    FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo no doubt had it in mind when he suggested a movement to save Nigeria. Just a few days after his “special statement”, the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) berthed yesterday in Abuja.

    Its promoters promise that it will be youth-driven. Leading the way are former Osun State Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, an ex-PDP chief who played a major role in the internecine war that hobbled the party, former Cross River State Governor Donald Duke, another ex-PDP chief who has recently showed us more  fluidity on the sax than in politics, Otunba Oyewole Fasawe, Obasanjo’s man Friday and Atiku Abubakar’s pal as well as Abduljalil Tafawa Balewa, son of the former Prime Minister, he of exciting memory.

    Where are the frontline youths in the professions, the arts, sports, science, business, politics, academia and others?

    If you think rallying the hip hop generation is a walk in the park, you’d better think again. Those who expected the CNM to come out with a bang must have been disappointed, indeed; it came out with a whimper.

  • Obasanjo’s ‘open statement’ revisited

    Obasanjo’s ‘open statement’ revisited

    FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo has grabbed the headlines again. He has just bagged a doctorate degree in Theology at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

    By the way, have you seen the video of a party to mark the award? Obasanjo shows his dancing skills as he holds his wife’s hands, twisting his waist and spinning round to face her again and again. Of course, there is applause. And then, he suddenly leaves madam on the dancing floor and walks away. What a spectacle.

    Now Obasanjo has ignited a big debate on President Muhammadu Buhari’s political future that has generated so much sentiment and emotion. Internet warriors are up in arms. Newsrooms, staffrooms and restrooms are buzzing with comments on the latest bulletin from the Presidential Library, Abeokuta.

    The former president has advised Buhari not to run in 2019. He should go home and have a deserved rest, after which he should join the league of statesmen to find a way out of the Nigerian malaise.

    After a long time – of facts and figures, fun and fury – in the newsroom, I decided to feel the mood of the ordinary man on this matter. So, off to the barber shop I went yesterday for a rather belated haircut. You never get it wrong here. Everybody has an opinion. Two men in white shirts and ties – they are teachers from the nearby model college, I learnt – were slugging it out in a fierce debate; noisy.

    The barber, a rotund, fairly old, half-bald fellow, seems to be disturbed by the noise of the debaters. “Order, gentlemen; order! I need to concentrate; this is a new customer,” he shouted at the duo locked in a noisy argument.

    For a while all is quiet. Then, an old man, a big brownish leather bag slung on his right shoulder, appears. An excited kid announces his presence, screaming: “Papi D is here. Paaaapi!”  A small crowd gathers. Papi D shakes hands with everybody and sinks into a chair.

    “I’m sorry I’ve been away for some time. I have been out there on the mountain to seek answers to some of our common problems. These times call for spiritual hibernation, for ethereal sanctification and not for sanctimonious exhibitionism. So, pardon my rather long absence,” he says and begins to lick his lower lip.

    A long silence. “We don’t understand you sir,” one of the teachers said.

    “Even you; an educated fellow,” says the old man as he rumbles through his bag from which he whips out a small bottle of a popular gin. The cover creaks as he battles to open it. He pours the content into his mouth, frowns his wrinkled face and gulps the drink. A broad smile lights up his face.

    “Young man, it is simple; I’m in high spirits. These are spiritual times. When big men are throwing blows, bombs and bangers, you should ask if it is a New Year party all over again. We must remain sober and constantly be in the spirit. Okay?”

    “Papi, Obasanjo has issued a special statement asking Buhari to go home and rest instead of running in 2019. He is advocating a coalition. Obasanjo said and I quote, sir:’ President Buhari needs a dignified and honourable dismount from the horse. He needs to have time to reflect, refurbish physically and recoup and after appropriate rest, once again, join the stock of Nigerian leaders whose experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the sideline for the good of the country.’ What do you think sir?”

    Papi D smiles broadly, strokes his beard and says slowly: “Thank you, young man. I’ve also read the special statement. You know me, I always look at the literary stylistics and lexical gymnastics of any writer. My fear is that before the anarchy some of us are scared of, we may ignite a huge protest of animals the way we court the animal imagery.

    “And I’ll explain shortly. The other day it was hyenas and jackals. We were assured they would be ejected upon the lion’s arrival. The lion arrived actually, but some rats conspired and barred him from his office. We found a way round it. Then cows got angry. We paid with blood in Benue and some other places. Now Obasanjo is invoking the spirit of lice and horses and all that. I’m following the drama closely o.”

    “Papi, what Obasanjo is saying is that Buhari should not run again. He should retire into statesmanship like him.”

    “Look, boy. I understand the statesman and his statement. But, let me ask you, when did Obasanjo become a premiership team owner, announcing the striker to buy and the one to transfer? Is the transfer window open? Is it time to buy and sell players? Who is to do that; Nigerians or a conclave of former leaders with their own business and political interests? How do you offload a player? Has the referee blown the whistle for the game to start?

    “Don’t get me wrong o. Obasanjo has a right to author an epistle, a special press statement or letter to his countrymen and people of like minds among who many men of no-distinct-position are counted, but we have a duty to reflect on it – the motive, the timing and all that. Many people feel he is a terrible interloper and unrepentant opportunist, who feels Buhari is vulnerable and it is time to deliver the killer blow.

    “Yar’Adua was not good, you forced Jonathan off the horse and Buhari now is bad because ‘the economy does not obey military order’, APC is bad and PDP is bad. Will Buhari surrender? I doubt it; no General can intimidate another General.”

    “Sir, he says the President should not overstretch his luck concerning his health.”

    “My dear, it is only the manager who is at a boxer’s corner who knows when to throw in the towel. If the pummeling is so much and your man is bleeding badly and he collapses on the canvass, you know it is time to throw in the towel. Not when he is on his feet, even if his footwork is not that fast and his punches seem not to be hitting the target well. You don’t give up. A good coach must know the essence of endurance.

    “Besides, young man, these are spiritual matters. Only God knows who is tired and who is as fit as a fiddle. It is a marathon; it is not a 100 metres dash for speedsters.”

    “Papi D, Baba Obasanjo seems to be speaking the minds of many Nigerians o.”

    Gbauu! Gbauuu! Huumm! Papi D coughs, his red eyes blinking with tears.”You see, Obasanjo spoke for many; you’re right. I read the statement o. Why the preamble of effusive praise of his himself, his peregrinations and how he is the poster boy of all that is good? Is he telling us that he alone has the answer to Nigeria’s problem and, ipso facto, must pick the surgeon who will perform the operation that will save Nigeria? He wants a Coalition for Nigeria Movement in which he will obviously play a major role. When the movement begins to dabble in politics, he says, he will step back. Subterfuge, obfuscation and sheer chicanery. It’s an old military strategy of ambush and attack. Come off it.”

    “But, Papi, even the media are celebrating Obasanjo’s statement.”

    “Wait a minute. The media are only doing their job – reporting. I saw some of the headlines at a newsstand yesterday. Leadership said, ‘3rd Term Godfather, OBJ, Opposes 2nd Term for PMB’. How about that?

    “I believe Obasanjo must have contacted some  former leaders before delivering this punch of a statement; he is also speaking for them. The herdsmen crisis is being mismanaged, there is cronyism and all that, but can we say for sure that Buharii has failed on all fronts? No. I have also heard people say statesmanship demands soberness. Was Obasanjo not joining the hysteria of the moment and, by that, helping to heat up the polity? He has a right to his freedom of speech, but was a public statement the right tool to deploy here ?”

    “Sir, what do you think about the coalition Obasanjo is pushing?”

    Papi D smiles derisively. He dips his hand into his bag and brings out the bottle. He gulps what is left of the content, holding the bottle in a way to ensure that all liquid content has been drained.  He tugs at his beards. “You see, coalition is different from collation and collusion. When you mix them up, you get commotion.

    “It is all settled in the ethereal realm. What will be will be. Nobody, no matter his self-glorification, has all the answers. Nigerians will decide. “

     

    Cattle colony row settled – at last

    Many states have rejected the idea of cattle colonies – the Federal Government’s antidote to the herdsmen/farmers clashes that have claimed many lives. The difference between human life and a cow’s seems blurred by the crises.

    I am pleased to announce that Nigerians, ever inventive, have found an imaginative solution to this monster of a problem. A source close to the intellectuals who have been involved in this mental exertion sent me the result of their work. Here he goes: “

    “Sambisa Forest – 686 square kilometers, 8 million hectares and 68 million plots of 100 feet by 100 feet. At five cows per plot, it can take 340 million cows; 340 million cows is 18 times the number of cows in Nigeria.

    “There are 19 million herds of cattle in Nigeria, 72 million goats and sheep. Let the colony be built in Sambisa. With space for 340 million, Sambisa can accommodate all donkeys, cattle, goats, sheep and there would still be enough space.”

    What remains is to demarcate that vast expanse into cattle colonies, with exclusive, unfettered grazing rights in perpetuity.

  • Better life for cows

    Better life for cows

    NOBODY saw it coming. Not the army of necromancers parading themselves as guardians of human destiny. Nor the soothsayers predicting all that lies in the belly of this interesting year. Nor the men of God who have issued predictions to guide the faithful. Nor the village fortune tellers on whose doors many knock before making any major move. Nor the elders who are the custodians of our collective wisdom. None.

    In fact, if anybody had predicted that this day would come, he would have been scorned and derided as a fool seeking attention. He would have been dusnissed as a drunken motor park tout stricken by a strange fever.

    After years of a bloody campaign – broken heads, devastated farms and shattered home (on both sides) – the trophy is here. Colonies for cows.

    When Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh broke the news the other day, he attracted an avalanche of verbal assaults.

    Suddenly, a cow’s life has become the envy of many, among them those who claim to have cried when the Federal Government missed its much-trumpeted goal of housing for all by the year 2000.

    Ogbeh says the colonies for which no fewer than 16 governors have provided land will have all the facilities that herdsmen will need for their cattle – “water, grass, training for herdsmen, cattle breeding and insemination”. No more will these prized animals be forced to walk several kilometers on sometimes unfriendly terrain in search of green, lush pasture.

    No more canes to whip them into line whenever their minders feel it is time to move on. No more broken hooves as a result of the long trekking everywhere and nowhere in particular. No more rage from farmers whose farmlands have been destroyed. No more rustling by desperate thieves who disappear with cows in hundreds as if they are some pins or needles.

    It is a new life completely. A better life.

    Now there will be an army of vet doctors and nurses to ensure that no calf gets sick. Cleaners will keep the environment spick and span. Gardeners will ensure that luxuriant fresh grasses are never in short supply. There will be no mad cow disease and other ailments that trouble this sacred animal.

    No drinking from streams and dark, dirty and murky ponds with the attendant danger of contracting water-borne diseases. It is now clean, cold, fresh, pipe-borne water straight from the reservoir. Cow dung will no longer be scattered all over the place; instead, it will be gathered for some waste-to-wealth materials, such as manure.

    Also likely on the cards is a subsidy for the cow as it is done in Europe, according to the honourable minister. Talk about the deification of cows. And the herdsman, who will no longer be a mere “daran daran” (herdsman) living in huts, but the proud owner of a colony, the envy of farmers who detest his movements as ruinous seasonal exercises.

    Where are our animal rights activists? Where are those who claim – without any proof whatsoever – that we lack thinkers in government? Won’t they, for once,  swallow their pride and hail this magical move?

    The Yoruba who say contemptuously that a o le tori wipe a fe je’ran ka pe malu ni bu’oda (we can’t say just because we want beef we should revere the cow as an elder brother) may have to do some reframing of that common saying. By state policy, the cow’s status has changed – just like that.

    Suddenly, cows have become the envy of all. A reliable source has just told me that grass cutter breeders have formed an association, which they hope will team up with piggery farmers, to demand their own colonies with all the appurtenances that go with such privileged facilities. They have hired an Abuja human rights lawyer, I am told, who is to file a writ at the high court to compel the Federal Government, its agents, privies, officers, servants, appointees, etc., etc., to  accord them  and their animals full recognition.

    The breeders, according to a legal source, will be relying on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to which Nigeria is, thankfully, a signatory.

    Members of the Poultry Association, I have just learnt, are also contemplating a legal action to compel the government to give them colonies so as to be free from unruly neighbours who claim that the smell from their poultries  poses some health hazards even as breakfast tables are never complete without their products. They are demanding equity and justice for themselves and their trade.

    Rabbit and snail farmers, claiming that “all animals are equal”, are said to be  waiting and watching how the courts will handle some of the matters that have been filed before launching their own legal battle. What’s good for the goose is sauce for the gander, they insist.

    An intelligence source has told my friend’s cousin’s mum of a long meeting of security chiefs held somewhere in Isale Igangan in the heart of the great city of Lagos. Top on the agenda, he swore, was how to pacify dog breeders who have suddenly formed an association, which will fight for their right to colonies of theirs after so many years of neglect. The source, who pleaded not to be named because of the security implication of the matter, said the breeders thought it was time to call the bluff of neighbours who claim to have been disturbed by the barking of dogs.

    Should the government turn a deaf ear to their demand, the source went on, the dog breeders will issue a seven-day ultimatum after which they will sack their vets and compound the unemployment we are all battling. Should the government remain adamant, they will then fix a date on which they will unleash their ferocious pets on our cities and towns. Should the government fail to act, they will then mount a national protest day. Their members will hit the street in their thousands. Their battle cry: “Colony-for-one, colony-for-all”.

    Even before the cattle colonies open, those armchair critics who have no knowledge of the workings of a government or how such lofty policies are formulated have started raising eyebrows. Where will the land for the colonies come from? Will the owners pay tax? Why should a man come from Gorom-Gorom or Ngaoundere to Abafakyai or Apeinumbu to set up a colony in Yakoyo or Gumel or Ikot Abasi or Patani or Abudu?

    How will the resulting clash of cultures be contained?  Hasn’t nature put everybody in his own place? Is it not man’s disruption of natural arrangements that has landed us all in many troubles?

    There seems to be so much ignorance of the ABC of a cattle colony. Benue State Governor Samuel Loraer Ortom has confessed that he doesn’t understand it. He insists that ranching is the antidote to the crises that have claimed many lives. “Does it mean that herdsmen will colonise Nigeria as Britain once did?” one fellow was quoted as saying at a newsstand.

    Those who are ignorant of what a cattle colony means should not panic. The government is said to be planning a seminar to be addressed by renowned pastoralists. But it is not yet clear if there are plans to bring back nomadic education – the highly successful Gen. Ibrahim Babangida era’s scheme under which herders were to get western education.

    After consuming billions of Naira, the programme collapsed under the weight of its many contradictions and sheer envy. Itinerant drummers were also yearning for their own schools. So were itinerant shoe makers, tailors, sugar cane vendors, water vendors, “suya” hawkers and all sorts of hustlers.

    Is there no end to their envy?

     

    Senators at work

    Some senators have proposed an answer to what they described as the grave security situation in the land. Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki should be appointed president, they said yesterday. Their logic is that since, in their view, the executive has failed to rise up to the challenge, the Senate president should step in.

    Not so fast gentlemen – and women.

    Presidents are elected; not appointed like primary school class monitors or janitors. Those making this repulsive suggestion, including Shehu Sani – what a disappointment – and Ben Murray-Bruce – common sense, indeed – seem to have two goals.

    First, to hide under legislative immunity and incite Nigerians against the Executive by contriving a major constitutional crisis in which Dr Saraki will become a pawn in a lethal game of political barracudas.

    Two, to simply set up the Senate leadership for ridicule and odium.

    The suggestion has no place in the Constitution. Besides, it is immoral, self -serving and roguish. Even motor park chiefs are now elected as against the old order when the man with the strongest thugs carried the day.

    The likes of Murray-Bruce, the beauty pageant/music shows organiser-turned senator to whom everything seems to be showmanship are the ones that have made the Senate an object of derision, denounced by all as a conclave of men and women of little minds.

    We face serious security challenges. We should all tackle them. This is no time for empty histrionics and grandstanding. This time demands deep thinking, creativity and imagination. Senators should sincerely join the battle.

  • Don Waney: Death of a gangster

    Don Waney: Death of a gangster

    He was a law unto himself. He had his own army – well kitted and well armed. He was loved by few, loathed by many and dreaded by all. He ran an underworld ring of kidnappers, pirates, pipeline vandals, armed robbers, cultists and thugs that troubled many parts of the Niger Delta.

    It all ended last Saturday – the sensational life of Igwedibia ‘Don Waney’ Johnson, self-styled “General” of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, Rivers State. The military said he was gunned down as he and two members of his deadly gang tried to flee when security agents came for them somewhere in Enugu.

    Troops stormed his palatial home in Omoku, Rivers State, demolished it and destroyed all the fruits of his criminal exploits.

    After embracing Governor Nyesom Wike’s amnesty, Waney was in December 2016 rewarded with the chieftaincy title of  Oyirimiba I of Ogbaland. Apparently, he wasn’t fulfilled. He went back to his old ways, but his cup was full when on New Year’s Day 22 worshippers were killed in cold blood. He was the prime suspect.

    Nobody is mourning Waney and his men. Such men do not deserve anybody’s sympathy; they had none for anybody. They were mean, brutal and wicked. That they were eventually vanquished is a lesson to all wayward men –and women. Crime does not pay. The end is always sad and bitter for criminals.

    Let’s hope that Omoku residents will now have peace.