The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

  • Fubara’s flight into fantasy

    Fubara’s flight into fantasy

    The legislature does not exist at the behest of the executive. Any person who thinks it does is only deluding himself. Politicians, as we all know, like to live in the world of illusion. They arrogate to themselves the power that they do not have. By do doing, they become big and important in the eyes of the beholder.

    Politicians like to hear words, such as: ‘that man is important’, ‘our governor is powerful’, ‘the President is very, very powerful and can do and undo’. These are mere words that people utter to massage the egos of leaders, but which gets into their heads. It is easy to make the heads of the President, a governor and leaders in other fields swell by singing their praise. Hangers-on are good at that.

    They know what the leader wants to hear and they say it to his face. It takes the grace of God for a man of position and means not to fall for the fawning of such people, who only come around in good times. When things are otherwise, they speak with their feet. By virtue of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the legislature is the second arm of government, but that does not make it a second fiddle to the executive.

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    Though, it is number two in the hierarchy, the legislature is the most important arm of government because of its functions, which are clearly spelt out in the Constitution. Some of its duties are to make laws for the good governance of the country; the welfare and safety of the citizenry and the control of public funds. As the custodian of the public good, much is expected from the legislature. Painfully, it has not lived up to expectations. Oftentimes, it toes the line of the executive to the chagrin of the people.

    The only time it asserts itself is when its interests are affected. Then, the legislature comes out blazing and firing on all cylinders, as we are now witnessing in Rivers State where it is at loggerheads with Governor Siminalayi Fubara. It is because the legislature has overtime sold its birthright for a mess of porridge that it has become the play thing of the executive. Can you imagine Fubara saying that the House of Assembly owes its existence to him? His statement shows the level of his contempt for the legislators.

    But, I do not blame him; I blame the lawmakers who have always been in bed with any governor in power rather than be on the side of the people, who are their constituents. By virtue of this relationship, they have failed to discharge their constitutional duty without fear or favour; affection and illwill. Fubara and the lawmakers have been in a running battle since the governor fell out with his predecessor and godfather, Nyesom Wike, who is now Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister. Majority of the lawmakers are with Wike. The remaining five or so that are for Fubara have been shut out of the assembly’s activities.

    So, Fubara has no voice, so to say, in the assembly. Experienced politicians know what to do in such circumstance. They reach out to the opponent and fashion something out for the government to run smoothly. Fubara is not ready to play the politics of give-and-take. He prefers to burn bridges instead of riding on them to achieve the results for which he was elected. You never say never in politics the way Fubara is doing, otherwise you will end up the loser.

    Perhaps, Fubara is getting carried away by those solidarity visits to the Government House. We have seen all that before. The visits will fizzle out in no time when power changes hands. He should note that he cannot cut the lawmakers to size by denying them funding, which is their legitimate right anyway, and the use of the assembly complex, which has since been wittingly destroyed, for their sittings.

    He had an opportunity to turn things to his own good when President Bola Tinubu intervened and brokered peace between him and the lawmakers. He flunked it by listening to the ‘august visitors’ who cannot help him when the chips are down. All what these visitors are after is what they can get from him as the sitting ‘Your Excellency’. These people will switch allegiance without batting an eyelid if he loses out at the end of the day.

    How can Fubara say that the lawmakers are in office because he allowed it? Even if he is coming from the angle that they have defected from Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressives Congress (APC), he still does not have the power to pronounce on the legitimacy of the retention of their seats. Only the judiciary, which is the third arm of government can do that. That the Constitution gives him as a governor the power to proclaim the convening of the inaugural session of the House of Assembly does not give him a hold over the legislature.

    This is purely an exercise of administrative power that cannot be used by Fubara to determine the legality or otherwise of the House of Assembly. The President as father of the nation haa done all that is expected of him to ensure peace in Rivers. It is left for Fubara and the lawmakers to make the peace accord, whether constitutional or political brokered by the President, work. Fubara should stop taking the President’s name when it suits him to do so to justify his actions that negate the peace accord, all because according to him, it is a political and not constitutional solution.

    If that is so, is his claim that the House of Assembly exists at his pleasure constitutional? Our politicians should be mindful of what they say in the heat of the moment because of the consequences. It is because the Rivers crisis can be resolved that the President settled for political option, which is the amicable way to lay it to rest. But are the parties ready for settlement? If it is their wish to fight to the finish, it is left to them. One thing is sure: both sides will be left battered, bloodied and bruised. As they make their bed, so they will lie on it.

  • Fuel crisis: No rhyme and reason

    Fuel crisis: No rhyme and reason

    When it started in Abuja a few weeks ago, I knew that it was just a matter of time before it got to Lagos and other parts of the Southwest. The fear really was for Lagos because of the grave economic implications of petrol scarcity on the mega metropolis. If the state, the commercial nerve centre of the country, is grounded by petrol scarcity, the tottering economy was bound to suffer more.

    This is already happening. Lagos has been under the throes of a biting petrol shortage for over a week now. It may linger as every promise to redeem the situation has failed. What really is the cause of the scarcity, which should be a thing of the past with the removal of petrol subsidy a year ago, this month? The belief was and still is, with the removal of subsidy, petrol will be flowing like water. Is water even flowing anywhere?

    It is erroneous to have compared the potential steady availability of petrol with the free-flow of water, when indeed it is something hard to come by in any part of the country. The removal of subsidy was to be a game-changer, so to say, as petrol will sell at market price, without any need to hoard the product by sellers. One year after, nothing has changed under a much-vaunted game-changing policy.

      With the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) still solely in charge of petrol importation because of the non-functioning of our four refineries, the steady availability of the product, at all times, could not be guaranteed, but this important factor was overlooked for the inherent gain of the policy. Reality is now dawning on everybody. NNPCL is constrained in the discharge of its onerous duty as the sole importer servicing all the other marketers.

    It has been one complaint or the other against the NNPCL by other marketers, the majors especially, which feel that they have been made to hold the short end of the stick under an arrangement which did not consider their own capacity to discharge that function too.

    The prevailing scarcity has disrupted many things just as the ‘logistics disruptions’ which NNPCL blames for the shortage. Logistic is logistic. There are no two words for it, even though it is an amorphous term always employed by individuals and organisations that have something to hide. What kind of logistics is NNPCL talking about here?

    The public has been made to know, from other sources, that it has to do with the discharge of product from the mother vessel to the daughter vessel. The mother vessel brings in the imported product, which is discharged into the daughter vessel before being transported to the depots. This is not the first time we are hearing about this mother-daughter vessels’ thing, but should it be a problem too hard to solve that it will be recurring to disrupt supply? The answer is NO.

    NNPCL’s excuse for this scarcity is untenable. It said the issue will be resolved within five days. Those five days have since passed without respite for motorists, many of who now sleep at filling stations in order to get petrol, which is being sold at cutthroat prices by some independent marketers. On Sunday morning, I unknowingly bought at N800 per litre at an outlet in Lagos.

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    Unknowingly because I had already paid with my debit card before I looked up at the meter and found that it was computed at N800 per litre. I asked and the attendant said it was N800 per litre, an amount which was not displayed on the outlet’s price board at its entrance. In fact, the board was blank. I was caught unawares, like many other motorists who would not have patronised the outlet if they knew the price beforehand.

    This is no time to tell motorists and other users to follow strictly the dictum: buyer beware (caveat emptor) before heading into any outlet to get petrol when the product is not readily available, despite again, NNPCL’s assurance that it has enough stock to last 30 days. Where is the product, if I may ask. Motorists are wasting precious manhours at filling stations queuing for petrol which they are not sure to get.

    In some outlets, the product now sells for as high as N1000 per litre – in an unwilling buyer, but willing seller market. The suffering is too much. Independent marketers have said it would take two weeks for the queues to disappear. Why then did NNPCL tell us five days? It is disheartening that petrol scarcity is still the nation’s lot despite the removal of subsidy which is supposed to ensure a steady and sustainable availability of the product all-year round.

    We are in May, the fifth month of the year in which we returned to democracy in 1999 on its 29th day. It is sad that we are going to mark the first year of both this administration and the removal of petrol subsidy, this way, in the month.

  • Holy anger

    Holy anger

    Holing up in your bedroom or toilet to evade arrest by law enforcement agencies is not new in this political dispensation. It is not the copyright of former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello aka White Lion whose face-off with operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Abuja last week shook the federal capital.

    The patent belongs to the late Senator Buruji Kashamu, who hid in his toilet for five days in 2015 in his Lekki, Lagos home to evade arrest by officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). We thought we had seen the last of such dramas until Bello’s theatrics last Thursday in Abuja. Benghazi Street, Wuse Zone 4, where he lives was for the better part of the day a no-go area.

    The EFCC men laid siege to House 9, the White Lion’s den, daring him to come out. He refused and remained indoors until help came from his boy and successor, Usman Ododo, who abused the powers of his office as a sitting governor to help a suspect evade arrest. Ododo will sooner than later realise the gravity of his action.

    By ferrying Bello to safety, with his official clout, the governor obstructed the EFCC men in the course of duty, thereby making him an accessory-to-the-fact. It was a needless show by Bello. His recourse to hiding and running from pillar to post will not help him. Since fleeing his Abuja home with his tail between his legs, he has found solace in Lokoja where he held sway for eight years.

    Now, come and give account of your stewardship, you are running all over the place. Why? Does it imply that he has something to hide? Bello’s action leaves much to be desired. There is nothing wrong in any person being invited for questioning by security agents on any matter. Bello can resort to this kind of action because he has what it takes to do so. How many poor people can try this?

    But, what is the White Lion afraid of? If his hands are clean, he should answer EFCC’s summons and let the case begin. The nation cannot wait to see the matter start. Often times, political giants see themselves to be above the law. This is the card Bello is playing. He wants to dictate his terms of engagement with EFCC.

    How is that possible? Going by what EFCC Chair Ola Olukoyede said on Tuesday, the agency bent backwards to accommodate Bello, something which it does not normally do, but the White Lion rejected the kind gesture. Instead of coming and passing through the chairman’s gate unnoticed, he asked that EFCC men should come and quiz him in his village! His request has no basis in law, the same law which he is waving in the face of EFCC that it cannot arrest and charge him to court.

    The court order that Bello is quoting never said so. It okayed his request to enforce his fundamental rights with a caveat. According to the Lokoja High Court, EFCC can only arrest and charge Bello with an offence based on the order of the Federal High Court. EFCC has since obtained a valid Federal High Court order to arrest and prosecute Bello, but with the aid of his lawyers he wants to play the big man who can defy the law.

    No matter how long it takes, Bello will have his day in court. Let him be running up and down, the long arms of the law will catch up with him. He should perish the thought of never being arraigned in court to account for his acts of omission and commission while in office. If he had done well, he would not be afraid of stepping out for his trial. What lion, whether in human or in whichever form, cowers in the face of prosecution? A White Lion like Bello should have the courage of his name and conviction.

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    So far, Olukoyede has discharged his duty dispassionately. Thus, I will urge him not to allow the Bello case to get to him. It is human for him to be annoyed with Bello’s antics, but he should restrain himself from descending into the arena. He should allow the EFCC prosecutors and witnesses to do their job in court. What should interest Olukoyede is getting justice. He can get it without saying too much about the case in public. He should keep his gunpowder dry for when he really needs it.

    Right now, no matter what he says in public about the case, the evidence that he produces in court is what matters most. If Olukoyede cannot convince the court, no matter how strong EFCC’s case may be in the bar of public opinion, he won’t get Bello convicted and sentenced accordingly. It is as simple as that. He knows this too as a lawyer. I rest my case.

  • Impeachment as game plan

    Impeachment as game plan

    Impeachment is one word that some executive members of government do not like to hear because of its implications, even though it is provided for in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) for a reason. There is nowhere the word, impeachment, is specifically mentioned in the Constitution. The Constitution talks about removal from office of the President or vice president and a governor or a deputy governor for gross misconduct vide Sections 143 and 188. So, how did the word creep into our political lexicon?

    It is a term borrowed from the American presidential system of government which we copied in 1979 during our first missionary return to democratic rule. It is a tool to check the excesses of the President or the vice president and a governor or a deputy governor. Much of these days, however, deputy governors have been falling under the impeachment hammer because their governors cannot tolerate them.

    The governors want their deputies to be lackeys taking instructions from them and acting like zombies and when this is not the case, they resort to impeachment. Impeachment is not a vendetta tool. The President is not supposed to use it via the National Assembly to bring down the vice president and a governor is not expected to deploy it too against his deputy through the House of Assembly.

    Since impeachment is a serious business which ends the tenure of a president or vice president;  and a governor or a deputy governor abruptly once carried out, it is, therefore, an instrument to be used responsibly and only when necessary. It is not to be thrown at the President or the vice president; a governor or a deputy governor as it catches the legislature’s fancy.

    It should also not be brandished by the lawmakers at the instance of the President or of a governor against the vice president or a deputy governor whenever there is a disagreement between occupants of the executive mansion.

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    The framers of the Constitution never envisaged the way impeachment is being used today. The Constitution clearly states how and when the President or the vice president and a governor or a deputy governor can be removed from office.

    It does not include using the tool to settle personal scores between the President and vice president or a governor and his deputy. Unfortunately, this most important tool which should be used as a weapon of last resort has been reduced to that. The framers of the Constitution never meant that it should be abused the way it is being done these days by some governors. Any little misunderstanding, they get their Houses of Assembly, which are beholden to them to impeach their deputies.

    The end-result of any dispute between a governor and his deputy is predictable, if not resolved amicably. The deputy governor is impeached by the lawmakers. A governor and his deputy are not supposed to be sworn enemies; they were conjoined right from when they entered the race. The governorship ticket is incomplete without a running mate who eventually becomes deputy governor if they are elected.

    What happens after election, in most cases, is a different ball game. The joint ticket becomes single and the duo stop acting jointly, leaving room for outsiders to see through the crevices and cause further damage. People who started out as friends will no longer see eye to eye as the public saw in the case of Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki and his former deputy, Philip Shaibu. Obaseki and Shaibu joined forces to defeat their political leader, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, at the Edo governorship polls four years ago.

    This should have strengthened their bond, but unfortunately what united them then has now divided them. You cannot build a political alliance on quicksand and expect it to stand. The impeachment of Shaibu on Monday marked the climax of the rift between him and the man he fondly called ‘my governor’ when the going was good. As witnessed in past related cases, Shaibu’s impeachment was hurriedly done to pave the way for the coming of the new man, Omobayo Godwins, in whom Obaseki is well pleased, for now..

    There is no dispute about the power of the national and state legislatures to impeach the president or the vice president; a governor or a deputy governor. What one is saying is that the legislature should not lend itself out to be used by either the President or the governor to deal with their deputies during a feud. To some pundits, a deputy governor is a spare tyre, but the Constitution which created the office never intended it as such.

    The political class, the governors especially, reduced the stature of deputy governors so that it would become a sinecure office. Their deputies must kowtow to them or be impeached. Since they have the Houses of Assembly in their pockets, nothing can save a troublesome deputy, except their lordships, the governors change their minds and allow the deputy to “go and sin no more”. We cannot continue to run our democracy on the whims and caprices of some power-sottish governors.

    The Houses of Assembly must rise above the kind of pettiness that some governors have introduced into our politics. It is their job to check the governors and ensure that things are done properly. The impeachment of a deputy governor, if necessary, must follow strictly the constitutional process and should be done without the governor’s influence. Even though I weep not for Shaibu, it is a shame to the Edo State House of Assembly that his impeachment bears Obaseki’s imprimatur. The lawmakers will deny this, but nobody will believe them. They know the truth too.

    Shaibu may be gone for good, but what happens to the integrity of the House of Assembly, which shamelessly did the bidding of the governor? Our Houses of Assembly must retrace their steps and face squarely the task of making laws for the good governance of their states instead of taking sides in political duels between a governor and his deputy. They should remember that what goes around, comes around.

    • EID MUBARAK, DEAR READERS

  • 288 hours in a dungeon

    288 hours in a dungeon

    Hooded and armed to the teeth, they stormed the Lagos residence of Segun Olatunji, editor of FirstNews, an online publication. Even with their uniform, you cannot be too sure that they are really who they claimed to be. But Segun had no choice. He had to follow the soldiers all the same.

    To have refused to go with them would have been tragic. In such a situation, it is good to err on the side of caution. Be calm and allow the other party to have its way. A living dog, it is said, is better than a dead lion. Segun gently sought to know why they came for him. “Just dress up and follow us”, the leader of the team barked at him, in the presence of his seven-year-old son.

    His wife and one-year-old son also witnessed the drama, right there in their living room where Segun and his seven-year-old boy were watching television before the soldiers marched in the woman and the baby in her arms. It could not have been a sight to behold. How do you explain the open display of guns and other weapons of war around kids and a woman, who the military knows are shielded from such ugly sights?

    Anyway, they were less bothered by such niceties of treating women and children politely. They were on a mission to fetch the head of the family and they were ready to discharge it without respect for their rules of engagement. They took Segun away with them, pushing his wife and son out of their way, as the woman asked no one in particular where they were taking him to.

    On the street, the neighbours had gathered to watch the unfolding drama in the Olatunjis’ apartment. They discussed in hushed tones as they wondered what the editor might have done to warrant the invasion of their neighbourhood. Nobody could challenge the invading team. As Zik once said only a mad man would confront the person with a gun. The crowd yielded way as the invaders zoomed off with Segun in their convoy of vehicles. A convoy just to pick an harmless citizen! It makes no sense at all to go to any citizen’s home in that manner when he is not a security risk.

    Even, if he is, is that the way to arrest him? Will such a person leave his flanks open, knowing full well that security agents can come for him at anytime? This is why our security operatives must always apply wisdom and be rational in their dealings with others, especially those considered ‘security risks’ so as to avoid bloodbath at the point of arrest. If Segun were to be a security risk, do they think he would have left himself susceptible to easy arrest like that?

    Why did they come for Segun? What did he do? Who complained against him? Should the invading team have gone to his home in that manner? Should state power be deployed against any citizen that way, even if he is a known security risk? I do not know the information that the invaders had at their disposal before that mission, but whatever it is, it does not call for the deployment of such force to effect an arrest. Intelligence officers do not act that way.

    Intelligence officers are circumspect and calculating. They keep watch over their target and close in on him as soon as the person is entrapped. They do not go about noisily announcing their arrival in a neighbourhood that they are about to make an arrest. They come in quietly and leave the same way without anybody knowing about their mission. In this instant case, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), from reports so far, does not have any cogent reason for arresting and detaining Segun incommunicado for 12 days.

    What is more. It initially denied having the editor in its custody until it was confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that he was there. Why did DIA lie? What does it have to hide over this matter? Is it now an offence for the media to report about security operations or the activities of the heads of those outfits? That FirstNews did a story on the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), Maj Gen. Emmanuel Undiandeye, is not enough reason to arrest Segun, even if the report is inaccurate.

    There are remedies in law for the CDI or any other person for that matter who feels offended by any publication. The CDI cannot by virtue of his position use the weight of his office to  clamp down on people that he feels have offended him. Doing so, as he did in this instant case, is an abuse of power. He cannot use his power to settle personal scores or to stifle free speech and freedom of the press. We are in a democracy and the CDI and others like him should learn to subjugate themselves to civil authority. The defence and civil authorities must work together to strengthen our democracy. In the nation’s interest, security agencies should cease from actions capable of undermining democracy.

    Segun was arrested in Lagos on March 15 and driven blindfolded to Abuja where he was held till March 27. His release did not come easy. It came after a long and tortuous search for him as the DIA, which took him away from Lagos vehemently denied having him in its custody.

    Even with the interventions of the Presidency, Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA), Defence Headquarters (DHQ), Nigerian Police, Nigerian Army, Directorate of State Service (DSS), Ministries of Interior and Information, among others, the agency insisted that it did not have Segun in its custody. Whereas, it did, as it eventually turned out.

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    If not for the persistence of the International Press Institute (IPI), Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), nobody knows what would have happened to Segun, who was held against his will for almost two weeks in a dungeon. What did he do to deserve such treatment? DIA has refused to say. One of its operatives that handed Segun over to NGE secretary Iyobosa Uwugiaren and Deputy Editor (Abuja) of this paper, Yomi Odunuga, under a bridge in Abuja on March 27, reportedly said he was held for ‘terrorism’ in response to a question.

    ‘Terrorism’? How? Where is the evidence that Segun engaged in ‘terrorism’? The DIA should not in a bid to cover up its illegal act give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. It should provide evidence, if any, of Segun’s involvement in terrorism. Otherwise, DIA and Undandieye should apologise publicly to Segun and pay him compensation for defaming and illegally arresting and detaining him for 288 hours, which is 240 hours more than the 48 hours constitutionally allowed for holding a suspect, without charge.

    By calling him a ‘terrorist’, Segun has been defamed by the DIA  and his right to freedom breached by his arrest and detention. With what the country is going through now, our security agencies should be careful not to compound things for the government. The DIA is not above the law. Its job is to execute the law and not to flout it. When it flouts the law, it must pay the price. It is high time the DIA and other related agencies learnt to work within the ambits of the law in a democracy.

    I agree with NUJ, NGE and IPI that Segun’s release should not be “the end of this matter”. They should hasten work on their ongoing consultations and see what can be done to right the wrong done to Segun. If they keep quiet now, we do not know what the DIA or any other related agency will be up to in future. It is Segun today, it may be any other editor tomorrow. As the saying goes: a stitch in time saves nine.

  • A fugitive economic offender

    A fugitive economic offender

    His escape is at once shocking, annoying and inexplicable. How did it happen? This was the question that first crossed my mind. My early responses to the sad development were understandably bewildering; I am still bewildered. I do not understand why any Nigerian will help a crook and a foreigner, to boot, to escape justice. Why will any Nigerian do that?

    I know your answer: money. But must we reduce everything to money, especially at a time like this when things are topsy-turvy and all hands should be on deck to return the country to the right path. It is a shame, a big shame, for any Nigerian to have aided the escape of the detained Binance chief, Nadeem Anjarwalla, from house arrest last Friday. He was said to have been kept in a safe house. We now know how ‘safe’ the well-furnished safe guest house is.

    Anjarwalla, a Kenyan-British, whose name sounds Indian fled from the mosque he was said to have been taken to for prayers after the breaking of his fast that day. This is the month of Ramadan and it is obligatory for every Muslim faithful to fast during the month. But nowhere is it written, whether in the Quran or in the Book of Hadiths (the sayings of Prophet Muhammed, PBOH), that a detained person observing the fast must be taking to the mosque to join the congregational prayer. He prays in his detention room as detainees are known to do, no matter their status.

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    As important as congregational prayers are in Islam, allowance is made for individuals to pray alone under certain circumstances, and detention must be one of them. There was no need to take Anjarwalla out for congregational prayers on the day of his escape. I daresay he was granted that privilege as part of a premeditated plan to aid his escape. But why?

    Are his helpers saying that they are happy with what he and his firm, Binance, a global cryptocurrency trading outfit, are doing to contribute to the volatility of the foreign exchange (forex) market? Binance is not into genuine business; it is more into money laundering than bitcoins trading. Its trading activities are a window-dressing, a cover-up for its illegal dealings in helping crooks to siphon money out of their countries.

    If Binance was into licit business, it would not have run into trouble in many countries. Anjarwalla’s well coordinated and executed escape plan has shown that Binance is a fraud. It is not a firm with the interest of any nation at heart. Binance’s main interest is in wrecking nations, using the unscrupulous elements of those countries to achieve its cloaked criminal tendencies.

     I am sure that many of Binance’s powerful customers were uncomfortable with the detention of Anjarwalla and his colleague, Tigran Gambaryan. These powerful Nigerians, who are feasting on the forex market, would prefer that the value of naira continues to fall in exchange for the dollar. They will do anything to get him out of the country to ensure that they are not unmasked.

    Remember that a court ordered Binance to furnish the government with the details of its customers – their names, addresses and other account indicators? Binance has refused to comply with the order till this day. What is Binance afraid of, if it is not into illicit business? Its continued disobedience of the court’s order shows that it has something to hide. Its operations are shrouded in secrecy, and this is something not allowed in the financial services sector.

    How did Binance get its licence in the first place? Binance may have found its way into Nigeria as it did in many other countries because there are always criminals both highly- and lowly-placed ready to help such firms because of the mutually beneficial enormous filthy lucre from the venture. These criminals will readily tell you: nothing ventured, nothing gained to justify what they are doing. What kind of venture or gain is there in an illicit business?

    Anjarwalla may have beaten the dragnet around him to escape, but he can only run, he cannot hide. Sooner than later, he will be rearrested and brought back to Nigeria to answer for his crime. Now that he has turned himself to an economic fugitive from the law, he should know that no country is safe for him. He will be worsening his case if he runs to India which has a stiff law against this kind of crime.

    As he carries the tag of a fugitive economic offender, as India labels such crooks, around his neck, the government should look inwards to determine how this shame befell us. His keepers cannot be absolved in this matter. They know how he escaped and they should be made to tell the nation those, no matter how powerful these people are, who asked them to do it.

    The National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, must sit up too. Security matters are no child’s play. He should know the operatives to entrust with such sensitive assignments in future. That Anjarwalla escaped under his watch as NSA is not good at all.

    It should be a cause of concern to him that there are many within the system who are ready to buck it and damn the consequence as long as they achieve their aim of undermining the government. Something like this should not happen again. Never.

  • Army 17: Black Thursday in Okuama

    Army 17: Black Thursday in Okuama

    I was tempted to title this piece: The Okuama massacre, but stopped from doing so for reasons best known to me. But make no mistakes about it. What happened in Okuama, a riverine community in Ughelli South Local Government of Delta State, on Thursday, March 14, was a massacre. What makes it a massacre?

    A massacre, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of many people. Were those four officers and 13 soldiers indiscriminately and brutally slaughtered? Yes they were. Were they many. The answer is again: Yes. If 17 persons cannot be classified as many, I wonder which number will.

    I wanted to give this article that title to show the hypocrisy of many of our so-called activists, social critics and politicians, who usually shout to high heavens when incidents like these happen. In this instance, they have lost their voices or better still are playing the ostrich, by burying their heads in the sands, pretending that all is well as well as trying to rationalise the incident.

    There is nothing to rationalise about it. What is wrong is wrong and should be condemned by all right-thinking people. To be candid, what happened in Okuama that fateful Thursday was nothing short of a massacre – the gruesome murder and butchering of 17 soldiers, comprising a Lieutenant Colonel, two Majors, one Captain and 13 rank and file. Our well known noise-makers are not shouting themselves hoarse because the victims are Servicemen. This is where they miss it.

    Are Servicemen not human beings like us? Are the deceased not the relatives, sons, husbands, fathers, uncles, nephews and friends of some people? Do they not have blood flowing in their veins too? It is disheartening when through acts of omission and commission, we unwittingly draw a line between one life and the other. The life of a soldier is as precious as that of a civilian. No life is cheap because nobody, no matter how powerful they are, can create or recreate it, when taking.

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    If things had been the other way round, the noise-makers would have been threatening fire and brimstone, giving the government a deadline to fish out the killers or they will go to the World Court to enforce the villagers’ right to life. None of them is talking now about the slain soldiers’ right to life. Should a soldier be killed and butchered in such manner just because he is a Service personnel and the human rights world’s main concern would be that the army does not respond in kind?.

    So, what should the army do? Keep quiet and pretend that nothing happened to its personnel in Okuama on March 14. To me, what the soldiers went there for is secondary. They are constitutionally empowered to assist the civil authority to restore law and order in any restive part of the country, even though their major task is to defend it against external aggressions. The Constitution does not preclude them from engaging in internal operations when the need arises. There is nothing new in what the soldiers did by going to Okuama.

    Those who were bellowing massacre! massacre!! massacre!!! over the Lekki Toll Gate incident during the 2020 EndSARS Protest, without any proof to back their claim, are tongue-tied at what happened in Okuama despite the ample evidence of the slaughtering that took place there. What happened in Lekki about four years ago pales into insignificance compared to the Okuama incident. There is nowhere in the world that soldiers are butchered and the dastardly act is swept under the carpet. The perpetrators are made to pay heavily for the bestial act.

    This instant case cannot be different. None of us can really say what happened in Okuama, except members of the community, who witnessed it all. These people are more than likely to colour the story to make the soldiers look like villains. They have started already. But they inadvertently gave themselves away in an audio clip now trending in the social media. In the clip, the narrators claimed that the ‘well-received’ soldiers, insisted on taking some of the community’s leaders with them, after a meeting in the town hall.

    This might have been the stage where things went awry as the people kicked against the request. What happened next? Was there a scuffle which led to the overpowering of the soldiers and their eventual slaughtering? The narrators must be fished out to tell the rest of the story. The clip does not help the Okuama people’s case. It is an afterthought and it was hurriedly made to give a false narrative of what transpired.

    Who can challenge the clip’s content now that the other party has been slaughtered? We will never get the other side of the story because the soldiers that can tell it have been butchered. The Okuama community has a choice. It is to admit the mistake of what happened, fish out the murderers, and apologise to the bereaved families, the army and the entire nation. The slaughtering of those soldiers is a declaration of war on the army in that community.

    Those who butchered the Army 17 have murdered sleep and they shall sleep no more. Whatever happens to them, when caught, and their community is of their own making. Adieu, our gallant soldiers and heroes. May your killers not know rest until they are brought to justice. May they get their just deserts.

  • Oh no, not again!

    Oh no, not again!

    The day was still young when news broke about the incident. Before noon, the news had spread like wildfire about the abduction of hundreds of pupils in two schools in Kaduna State. The first question someone asked on hearing about it was: “again?”. The man in question could not fathom what happened as he muttered under his breath: “I thought we had gone past this as a  country”.

    We have not. The kidnapping of pupils from their schools still happens and it occurred about two times or more in the past week, even after the Kaduna incident. With what happened in the past in Chibok, Borno State (2014) and Dapchi, Yobe State (2018), it was thought that the country had learnt a lesson and would do something to plug the loopholes that give rise to such incidents.

    Lightning, it is said, does not strike the same place twice. But this kidnapping lightning has struck schools more than twice, not only in the north, but also in some parts of the south. Remember, the Babington Macauley Anglican Secondary School in Ikorodu, Lagos incident in 2016? As a nation, the people live in constant fear. Parents’ minds are not at rest when their children go to school. They go on their knees praying for their safe return home.

    Even at home, the family’s safety is not guaranteed.  But, they are sure of one thing. Whatever is going to happen will be in the presence of all. At least, there will be no person at the door bearing the kind of news which no family wishes to hear especially when a member of the household is not in. An unknown face at the door most times means bad news and every family knows that and gets agitated when they see one at anytime of the day.

    What happened at the two-in-one school (secondary and primary) in Kuriga, Chikun Local Government of Kaduna State, where 287 pupils were kidnapped last Thursday was preventable. How can there be a school in such a remote place without the appropriate security measures in these days of uncertainty and danger lurking in every corner? The school is in a bush, wide open and exposed, without a fence. It could even be a thoroughfare which the villagers and every other person take unhindered.

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    I have not stopped imagining how the government left those pupils and their handlers exposed to danger like that. They were left to their own devices. There is no Nigerian alive today who does not know how bad the security situation is and how kidnappers take advantage of it to abduct pupils from their schools.

    So, why did the authority not take the prevailing situation into account and ensure the safety and security of those pupils? Why are those in power  always wiser after the fact? There is no gainsaying the fact that leaving the school exposed like that was a disaster waiting to happen. Can any of our leaders send their own children to such school which lacked basic facilities, such as a security post and perimeter fencing, to stop intruders from getting in at will?

    It is a sad commentary that incidents like these still happen despite our bitter experiences in the past. It means that we have learnt nothing from Chibok, Dapchi, Ikorodu and those other places where kidnappers overran schools and went away with pupils. What then is the purpose of the Safe School Initiative Project (SSIP), which was conceived in the wake of the Chibok abduction during which 276 schoolgirls were seized? Many of them, including Leah Sharibu, are still in captivity. 

    Should the nation continue to waste money on SSIP when it has failed woefully in the discharge of its duty? There is an urgent need to revamp it to become more alive to its responsibility of stopping school kidnapping. This kind of incident must not happen again under the watch of all our security agencies. It is high time the President read the riot act to their heads to shape up or ship out. Enough is enough!

  • Ningi’s faux pas

    Ningi’s faux pas

    Senator Abdul Ningi was put on the spot at plenary on Tuesday over his claim in a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa Service programme that the Senate inserted over N3 trillion into the 2024 budget aka padding. The senator spoke boldly and unequivocally on that programme. But his courage failed him before his colleagues on Tuesday. Did the Senate insert over N3 trillion into the budget? As a veteran lawmaker, he should know how the legislature works in budget matters. From all indications, he seems not to know. If he does, he would not have made that wild claim.

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    Wild? Yes, wild. Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Lekan Solomon, debunked Ningi’s claim of padding. What Ningi called padded figures, Solomon said, were the first line charges of some agencies which are not normally reflected in the budget. He referred his colleagues to the 2021, 2022 and 2023 budgets where the Senate applied the same rule of thumb of not inserting the details of the budget of certain institutions like the judiciary and the National Assembly, itself, in the Appropriations Act.

    Ningi looked like a rain-beaten fowl as Solomom tore his claim to shreds and instead of taking the honourable way out, he sought to raise other issues. He can do that later, but for now in this budget matter, he misfired and he is guilty as charged. Ningi should stop playing to the gallery. Since he has decided not to apologise for his misconduct, he should serve his three-month punishment in silence and sin no more on his return. How I wished he was suspended for 12 months as proposed by Senator Jimoh Ibrahim.

  • Going back to the roots

    Going back to the roots

    Yoruba rulers, elders and leaders are worried. They have reasons to be. What has been happening in Yorubaland in recent times is nothing to be happy about. Ko se so (something not to talk about), as the elders will say when a problem becomes overwhelming. There is a huge problem in the region, which seems to defy logic, but not solution.

    It is this need for solution that made the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the foremost Yoruba monarch, to convene a summit of the region’s rulers, elders and leaders in Ile Ife, the cradle of Yoruba, to chart the way out. Yorubaland is troubled. As they say, elders cannot be around and allow things to go wrong. The duty of an elder is to ensure that things are in order all the time.

    The Yoruba believe that it is an agbaya (a good for nothing elder) that does not intervene when things are going wrong. At the Ife gathering, the Ooni spoke from the heart. He wondered what has become of the race, which is known for its esoteric powers to address issues, such as insecurity, protection and safety of life and property. Ironically, the land appears to have lost its powers to fortify itself against any form of danger.

    What is more. The custodians of these powers themselves are in danger and need help. How did this happen that birds could no longer chirp as birds nor rats cry as rats? How did it happen? Some of the abominable things witnessed in the land really call for concerns. Who dare look at the face of a baale, a lowly communjty chief, not to talk of the oba, who holds sway in the domain? These days, obas are being kidnapped two for one kobo! Did I hear you shout Eewo (abomination)? But it happened and three or more were even killed.

    So, you can understand where Oba Ogunwusi was coming from in convening the summit on security in the Southwest. According to him, the security challenges in Yorubaland can be tackled with ‘measures’ and ‘approaches’ capable of ending the scourge. “We are concerned about the prevailing security challenges in Yorubaland. All Yoruba obas are united on this and I am sure we will salvage the situation in no time”, he added.

    No fewer than 200 traditional rulers including major and minor royals were at the summit where former Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, who is now Police Service Commission (PSC) chairman delivered the keynote address. Arase’s stand on community policing is well known. He believes that communities must play major roles in security matters in collaboration with the police.

    But like many Nigerians, his position on creating state police under the prevailing  circumstance cannot be faulted. This may be the way to go eventually, but the process must be thought through first and not rushed in order to serve a yearning and pressing need. To Arase, the first step towards addressing insecurity in the region and other places is ‘proper surveillance’. As an expert, he must know what he is talking about. Indeed, what is security without surveillance and intelligence. It is like trying to make omellete without breaking eggs.

    A community cannot be secured without proper surveillance. It is through surveillance that data is gathered about who’s who in the community, where they work and live, their family members and friends. Through surveillance too, the community is able to know about new arrivals in town; where they stay and who they are putting  up with. In one word, surveillance is all about being aware of things around you. It is an indicator to Know Your Neighbour (KYN) and what they do.

    In a situation like this, it is easy to raise the alarm; know who to call and where to go in an emergency. Under the present set up, the security agencies are far removed from the people, thereby creating room for doubts, mistrust and antagonism whenever there are issues. If the Ooni initiative can address these issues, the region may be getting closer to solving its security challenges.

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    Aare-Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, who spoke on Kidnapping and banditry: overcoming the twin menace and the Yoruba legacy of African Science – Yesterday, today and tomorrow stressed the need for local security groups in the fight against bandits, kidnappers and terrorists in all forests in the Southwest. He listed some of the groups as the three Agbekoyas, Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and Egbe Obirin Oodua Agbaye, saying they were ready to secure the region and free it from the grips of criminals.

    To the Deji of Akure, Oba Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi, traditional rulers must protect themselves and their subjects by traditional means. Renowned Ifa Priest, Chief Yemi Elebuibon, said obas must observe the necessary traditional rites before ascending the throne. Those who cannot do that, he added, have no business been on the throne. In essence, there is still traditional balm in Yorubaland for tackling insecurity which obas must apply so as to remove the shame and stigma of being kidnapped or killed cheaply by the uninitiated (ogberi).

    As fathers of the people, the security of their domains should be their topmost priority, just as it was in the past under their ancestors, thereby earning their forebears the people’s respect and loyalty.