Take no mistake about it, the Lagos State Government faced its toughest moment in the October 20, 2020 Lekki Toll Gate (LTG) incident. Before that fateful night at LTG, it had tried to douse the fire of the #ENDSARS protest which engulfed the state, with Alausa and LTG as the epicentres. The protesters were adamant in their demands. They began with a charter of demands codenamed  five for five, which later became seven for seven, nine for nine and then the quitting of office by the government of the day.

At every point, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu tried to meet them halfway, but without any identified leader to relate with, his job was not made easy. The governor wanted dialogue, the protesters seeemd to be prefer something else. They were emboldened in their action by the Federal Government’s acceptance of their initial charter of demands before they allowed sentiments and poor judgment to derail the protest.

Youths are the future of any nation. They hold the key to the continued growth and development of their countries. So, nations value them and listen when they talk. When they are angry as we witnessed during the #ENDSARS protest, everything humanly possible is done to placate and reason with them. Sanwo-Olu did just that. He asked them to “come and let us reason together”. He took their demands to President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja. The outcome of that trip was the disbandment of the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the major demand of the protesters.

The protesters were not satisfied; they wanted more. It was in that process that things went awry at LTG on October 20, 2020. As I have repeatedly said here, there were shootings at the toll gate that night. Everybody watching on television heard guns booming and that sound was not simulated. But was there a massacre? This was the major question the Judicial Panel of Inquiry (JPI) was expected to address besides the other issues before it. It is rather unfortunate that the larger #ENDSARS protest, a laudable action which began well, was later reduced to the LTG incident.

Today, #ENDSARS is all about the so-called Lekki massacre, which many people, especially the protesters, their collaborators and civil society groups, have held on to. The JPI was charged with untying the Gordian knot of a massacre or not. With due respect, it failed woefully in that regard. It failed because it was not certain that there was a massacre, but in order to satisfy certain interests, it settled for there was a “massacre in context”. What does that mean? It failed to clear the air over the much-vaunted ‘Lekki massacre’.

I had expected the panel to state unequivocally that there was a massacre, if actually there was one, and support it with  evidence. It could not because no such evidence was produced by anybody or organisation that appeared before it during its yearlong sitting. Was the setting up of the panel, therefore, a waste of time and resources? No, it was not.

But truth be told. It did a shoddy job of the LTG incident. It pandered to unnecessary sentiments in arriving at its conclusion on what happened there on October 20, 2020. Faulting the panel’s finding on LTG, the four-man committee whose White Paper on the report was released on Tuesday said: “The state government is unable to accept the finding that nine people died of gunshot wounds at LTG on 20th October, 2020. The panel’s findings are clearly and manifestly not supported by evidence before the JPI as attested to by the JPI itself when it said there was no contrary evidence to that of Prof Obafunwa that only one person died at Lekki Toll Gate of gunshot wounds on 21st October, 2020.

Read Also: #EndSARS, Igboho as faces of unequal justice

“It follows that the irresistible conclusion to be drawn from the JPI’s acceptance of Prof Obafunwa’s testimony that only one person died of gunshot wounds at LTG on 21st October, 2020, is that there was no massacre at LTG, contextual or otherwise. The findings of JPI that nine people died at LTG on 20th October, 2020 from gunshots fired by the military are based on assumptions and speculations. The inconsistencies and contradictions in the entire JPI Report concerning the number of persons who died at LTG on 20th October, 2020, and their cause of death rendered the JPI’s finding and conclusions thereupon totally unreliable and therefore, unacceptable”.

Whether in context or out of context, according to the White Paper, there was no massacre at LTG. I bet you, we have not heard the last about this matter. Reactions will come in torrents because sympathisers of the protesters’ cause have already concluded that there was massacre at LTG. Nothing will sway them from that position. Yet, provide the proof, they cannot. They keep saying that the army went away with the evidence. Haba! How?  The army, they claimed, swept the toll gate clean and carted away bodies of victims.

Is that true? It is hard to believe that such happened in this time and age without someone (not a single person) like the daring woman disc jockey (DJ) being able to capture it on their phones. If people could come up with videos of the military ‘shooting and killing’ at the toll gate, why is it so difficult to produce one where they are sweeping the scene and carting away bodies?

He who alleges must prove, so says the law. Since those making the allegation could not prove it, the conclusion the JPI should have drawn, especially in the light of the irrefutable evidence of renowned  pathologist, Prof John Obafunwa, was to dismiss the claim. Unfortunately, for reasons best known to it, the panel did not do what is legally right. It chose to be sentimental and in law, there is no sentiment. Law deals with facts, cold hard facts. A judicial panel, like the JPI, should have followed  the law and not what people will say.

What people will say led us to where we are today. If we would rather continued to listen to what people will say and not do what is right, we will not grow as a nation. Let us live for the truth and be just and fair to all. It is heartening that the White Paper panel rose above sentiments to deal with the LTG incident. I commend its courage and charitable act in not consigning the entire JPI Report into the dust bin for misdirecting itself (JPI) on LTG. It is enough to reject the report on that ground alone. But that will amount to throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

We do not need that now. Let us learn from the #ENDSARS protest, especially the LTG incident, and move forward.  What we need right now is to soothe frayed nerves and heal our land. May the White Paper bring about the desired healing.

ILE IFE is the cradle of the Yoruba. The ancient town is not only cherished by its indigenous people, but also by all from Yorubaland and beyond. It is referenced as the Origin that even titles bestowed on deserving individuals are tagged as being from the Source. The Ife story is legendary. It was founded by Oduduwa, father of Oranyan, one of his three sons whose name is synonymous with Ife. Opa Oranyan (Oranyan Staff) stands to his memory in Ife.

Ife is revered for its custom. Its cultures are well known and celebrated by priests who have over the years preserved these traditions to make Ife retain its famed place in ancient history. Tradition played a prominent role in the search for solutions to problems in the past. We may yet have a recourse to that to unravel the mystery death of a student in his hotel room in Ife about three weeks ago.

Timothy Oluwadare Adegoke, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) student at the Obafemi Awolowo University  Distance Learning Institute at Moro, Osun State, was in town for his exams when he met his untimely death. The 37-year-old chartered accountant lodged at Hilton Hotel and Resort, Ile Ife. He checked in on November 5. His wife knew that he had arrived in Ife from Abuja, but she did not know where he stayed. It was when she could no longer reach him on phone that she raised the alarm about his whereabouts.

Adegoke had told her that he arrived in Ife safely via the Akure airport in Ondo State. The story changed between his time of arrival and when he checked into the Hilton as the hotel owned by Dr Rahman Adedoyin, who is also the founder of the popular Oduduwa University, is known. Where is my husband? Mrs Adegoke asked no one in particular as she called and called his number without reaching him. She became worried. Who will not if they were in her shoes? This was someone she spoke with in the evening of November 5 when he got to Ife and now all of a sudden he had gone off the radar.

My husband is not like that, she would have mused to herself. At that point, many things would have raced through her mind. In her distraught state, she would have noted, kole lo ko ma we yin wo, meaning “my husband cannot leave home without remembering those he left behind, especially me and the children”. For the umpteenth time, she would have asked herself, in tears, where can he be? When she could no longer bear the tension of waiting and waiting and not hearing from her husband, she did the next best thing. She informed his family and a long search began for him.

Read Also: Fresh facts in mystery death of OAU MBA student at Ile-Ife hotel

The search was, expectedly, confined to Ife, from where he spoke with his wife last. But where did he stay there? The name of the hotel, as at then, was unknown to his family. Then fate intervened and she found the receipt of the Hilton in the pocket of one of his trousers. It was for the payment of a previous visit. This meant that Adegoke had been lodging in the hotel for sometime. It is likely that he is well known there by some workers, who might have interacted with him in the past. That might have been his greatest undoing. Is it not said that the weevil that destroys the vegetable cohabits with the vegetable?

He might have taken the hotel workers as friends and treated them as such, but he forgot that a man’s heart is deep and full of evil. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”. Man has been like that since creation. Little wonder that God grieved in his heart for creating man. Despite knowing how wicked man is, God refrained from destroying the work of his own hand and postponed man’s date with Him till the Day of Judgement.

Before that day, a lot of things would have been destroyed. We are witnesses to some of these already. The lucky find of the Hilton’s receipt in Adegoke’s pocket was a major breakthrough in the search for him. Even at that, the hotel still denied that he lodged there on November 5 when he suddenly disappeared. What saved the day was the fund he transferred to the receptionist for the payment of his room. The recipient’s phone number turned out to be that of the receptionist, who had earlier denied ever seeing Adegoke.

Confronted with this fact, she changed her story. For now, what is not disputable is that Adegoke was killed in cold blood in his hotel room. His body has been exhumed from the shallow grave he was buried on the Ife-Ede road. Why was he killed? Was it an assassination? If it was, was he involved in a deal with anybody? Was it ritual killing? Are the hotel workers involved in money ritual? Are they working with  others outside the hotel? Is there a money ritual gang operating in Hilton? Is this the first case of such killing in the hotel? If it is not, how was/were past case/cases handled by the police?

Hotels are supposed to be safe places as they are temporary abode for sojourners. A traveller leaves his home on a trip, with the belief that he would get a nice hotel to stay anywhere he has no friends or family. Hotels operate under government rules and they are monitored by the police. They are supposed to maintain a register of guests for security reason. Does Hilton have such a register? Was Adegoke’s name in the register? Does the hotel have a record of its guests since inception?

Guests lodge in hotels for safety, comfort and convenience, with their hard-earned money. Let it not be said that they used their money to buy their own death. May Adegoke’s ghost haunt his killers until they are found and brought to justice.

The main issue was and still is whether there was a massacre at the Lekki Tollgate Plaza on October 20, 2020, in the heat of the #ENDSARS protests in Lagos. Alausa, Ikeja, and Lekki were the epicentres of the almost two-week protests which grounded activities in the state. The protests were against the brutality of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the police.

Thanks to the protesters, SARS has since been disbanded, but painfully, reports of police brutality still abound across the country. The anti-SARS protests came at a time that youths were being harassed and harangued across the country by the police. To ride an exotic car or carry a backpack was seen as a crime by the police which stopped and arrested virtually every youth on the road just for that reason. It still befuddles the mind why the police resorted to that tactic despite the well known fact that  some of their officers work hands in glove with some known young fraudsters for pecuniary gains.

The nation, nay Lagos State, was the greatest loser in the protests. What the state lost is unquantifiable. This is not to discountenance the loss suffered by families of those who died. No cost can be attached to human life. This is why there was uproar over whether or not there was masaacre at Lekki. Death is inevitable but painful when it happens. It is more painful and heartwrenching  when it occurs under questionable circumstances. No doubt, there were killings during the protests, especially after they were hijacked by hoodlums.

The truth is that the organisers unwittingly allowed hoodlums to seize the initiative from them. If they had listened to wise counsel and allowed reason to prevail, the protests would not have turned bloody. They listened only to themselves and could not pick a leader to represent them in the proposed talks with the government, claiming that they did not want to be bought over. That was the beginning of the problem with their otherwise good action to embark on the anti-SARS protests. There was no way a group that could not speak with one voice can be organised. This was their greatest undoing, which led to the October 20, 2020 Lekki incident.

The right to protest is not absolute and it does not confer power on any assembly of people to take the law into its hands. The protesters should have known when to pull the brakes,  especially after the government imposed a curfew on the state. Those with children among the protesters promptly called on their kids to leave in obedience to lawful orders. Those who insisted on flouting the order incurred the wrath of the authorities. At the risk of being accused of supporting the government,  I make bold to say that we are where  we are because of our penchant to lie to ourselves. We tend to blame everything on government even where the governed overreached themselves.

If the protesters had left in compliance with the curfew order, there would have been no shooting at Lekki that illfated day. That guns boomed at Lekki night was as a result of the intransigence of the youths. But the soldiers deployed there should have handled the situation differently seeing that they were unarmed. This is why the Lagos State Judicial Panel which investigated the incident concluded that there was apparent massacre at the tollgate. I used apparent in line with the panel’s finding that there was a massacre in context. Even the panel is not sure of whether there was a massacre or not.

“The atrocious maiming and killing of unarmed, helpless and unresisting protesters, while sitting on the floor and waving their Nigerian flags, while singing the National Anthem can be equated to a massacre in context”, the panel said, deepening the confusion over the cries of some people of massacre at the tollgate. A massacre in context because the protesters were peaceful and unarmed, not because a large number of them was killed as witnessed in the 1897 British Expedition to the ancient Benin Kingdom.

What happened on October 20, 2020, was avoidable. The army was high-handed in its approach. It should have changed tactic and dealt with the situation differently, seeing that the protesters were peaceful. It is not everytime that you kill and go. After all, it was not a war scene. The army is not supposed to be a killing force, but a defending one. It only kills when there is need for it and I state unequivocally that there was no need for the killings of October 20, 2020. No matter the number of those killed, the death of even one person is gruesome enough, not to talk of nine (given by the panel as the number of casualties at Lekki).

As once stated here, to ensure that these people’s death is not in vain, a memorial should be erected in their honour at the tollgate, with the epitaph: here lies the remains of those who died fighting for a better Nigeria. This is how to remove the Lekki blot for generations yet unborn to know the premium we placed on life.

The General’s general

ON November 13, Brig-Gen Dzarma Zirkusu was killed  along with 11 other officers and soldiers in an ambush by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters. He, a major, a lieutenant and nine soldiers were going as reinforcement for troops battling the insurgents around Askira Uba near the now famous Chibok in Borno State. Zirkusu died leading his men to battle. This is how you know true Generals. They lead from the front. They do not leave their men to do all the fighting; they fight along with them, so as to give them the needed confidence in battle. Zirkusu has died,  but his legacy of a fighting general lives on. My heart goes out to his family. May he and the others find rest in the Lord’s bosom.

What do you make of him? He is well loved by many, yet in some quarters they speak ill of him. He knows that he is loved and hated in equal measures, but he is not disturbed. He carries on with his job for humanity unperturbed by the noise around him. His love for people is legendary and this propels him in whatever he is doing. You may not have met him, but you will surely have heard about him.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not just happen on the nation, he worked to attain his great height, which is the envy of his detractors today. It was not an easy journey, according to those who know him. He fought for his rights; he did not just sit down, waiting for things to happen. He made things happen. When you hear him say power is not served ala carte, you know immediately that this is a man with a sense of purpose.

His mission is to help his nation and its people with his God-given talent of leadership and organisation, of empowering and building others. In the past 30 years that he has been in politics, the Jagaban of Borgu, the traditional title bestowed on him in Niger State, has worked assiduously for the common good.

Painfully, whatever he does is viewed with suspicion. Why? Could it be that he is misunderstood? Certainly, Asiwaju is misunderstood and those closest to him are more guilty of this. They are close to the lion of Bourdillon like the vein of the neck, yet they cannot read him. Is it then a case of mischief? Of pretending of not understanding the man so that they can paint him black before others?

Whatever it is, people like Jagaban are the ones the Yoruba refer to as akanda, those specially created by God, and as such, no matter what you say about them, it would not remove an hair from their heads. Tinubu is such a person and more. He is a rare breed; his tribe is small. Such people are hard to come by because God deliberately did not create many of them. The almighty might have done so because the world does not appreciate such people.

Read Also: God can give power to anyone He wishes to – Tinubu

Indeed, we don’t value what we have. If we do, we will cherish the gift of God in leaders like Asiwaju. This is not a campaign call, far from it, this is to thank God for seeing Asiwaju through a knee operation and bringing him back home safely. Only few people knew when he quietly left these shores three months ago for London to undergo the surgery. But by the time he had the operation, the news was all over the place about his sojourn in London.

A goldfish, they say, has no hiding place. Asiwaju wanted a quiet post-surgery rest but that was not to be as eminent persons started trooping in to see him. President Muhammadu Buhari and Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu visited him. Of course, many others went because it was politically expedient to do so! Trust Nigerians, they started seeing the visits in another light. They linked the visits to the 2023 elections.

The talks got wings to fly when after their visit, a member of the House of Representatives Northern Caucus said to Asiwaju: ‘Mr President, we are expecting you back in Nigeria soon’. Thank God, Asiwaju is back home, ‘hale, hearty and big’. Sanwo-Olu held a reception for him on Sunday at the Lagos House, Marina. The event was well attended. Tinubu must have deliberately returned home quietly last Friday, just as he left three months earlier, to avoid turning his movement into a political carnival. If his loyalists had been aware that he was coming back that day, Ikeja, nay the entire Lagos, would have been shut down.

I will be pretending to say that I have not heard talks about Asiwaju and the 2023 presidential election. Although, he has not publicly said that he is interested in the race, his supporters have been urging him to run. Will he run or not? That is left for him to say.

If he decides to run, many will back him. Many too will not support him. That is politics for you. No matter where you stand, one thing is certain, though, Asiwaju has what it takes to lead Nigeria. He was a senator and he was the governor of Lagos State for eight years (1999-2007). The ultimate presidential crown may yet be his.

The South West Agenda for Asiwaju (SWAGA) led by Senator Dayo Adeyeye has been going around the country drumming up support for him. All eyes are on Jagaban following his return home to shine the light for his supporters to see the way. ‘Where do we go in 2023?’ They want him to tell them. Until he throws his hat in the ring, all talks concerning his 2023 ambition remain in the realm of conjecture.

As Asiwaju said at his reception, God is the giver and the taker of life. Only God knows what will happen in future because He is Omniscient. Asiwaju is like god to his followers, who are waiting eagerly for him to direct them in the way to go. Speak, Leader, for your people are listening. Whenever Jagaban decides to speak, may he be divinely inspired on what to say and do. Wishing you speedy recovery, sir.

• This column goes on six-week break from next week.

By Lawal Ogienagbon

Nothingsells like sex, sleaze and scam in high places. People go to any length to read such stories. When the shit hits the fan, it is scattered everywhere. The odour does not bother people. They are more interested in the calibre of  those involved in this or that shady deal.

Since the Pandora Papers were released, they have gone far and wide,  with the emerging details leaving shock waves across the world. This predictable reaction never ceases to amaze me. We live in a world which we know too well. A world which the powerful and the affluent see as their own; a world which political leaders and their collaborators in the business and other worlds treat others with disdain. A world where the mighty live large at the expense of the low and downtrodden.

It is a world in which it is a sin to be poor and unconnected. A world where gold digging is appreciated and hard work despised. All these we have seen and heard about before. Yet, we are shocked by stories of graft and theft when they break. The rich will always hide money in foreign land. They will always accumulate more than what they and their generations yet unborn need. They speak against corruption in public and do exactly the opposite in secret. They do so with impudence; without a care in the world.

In connivance with those in power, they steal from the country and flaunt their ill-gotten wealth. For all they care, the people can go to hell. Who will call them to account? Who will tell them that what they are doing is wrong? Who will ask them the question: but your promise was to make things right and not add to the people’s woes? The few bold and brave ones among us, who take up this task, are called names. In many cases, they are told to mind their own business and let the leader be. Those who talk like that usually benefit from the system.

Is it now that it is our turn to make it that you are playing the spoiler? They are wont to ask. Spoiler kwa! You wonder besumed. How can insisting on the right things being done turn one into a spoiler? It is a game of mind. If you have a conscience, you will maintain your stance.  If you are blown here and there, you will join them. This is why corruption thrives and this is why it sells when published. The details are snazzy and moving. The Pandora Papers are turning heads worldwide now because of such incredible details.

Even though we have travelled this road before, things have not changed and they may not change in the near future because of the human factor. The truth is that we are all the same. We are saints when we are not part of the system. Once, we get a foot inside,  we become one of them. We become armour-bearers for those, who in the past, we shot down with our tongues.

There is nothing mythical about the Pandora Papers like its namesake, Pandora’s box. There is no mystery whatsoever surrounding how serving and former public officers use their offices to amass wealth and stash in shell companies in tax havens even in countries we believe should lead the way in the fight against such act. These countries or states therein which like to point fingers at us are as corrupt as those they run down. The leaks in the Pandora Papers are not new. We have read about them before. They were in the Panama Papers five years ago as well as the 2017 Paradise Papers.

So, do not be surprised when another report is released in future detailing similar sordid acts of corruption by leaders, some of who we thought sugar would never melt in their mouths with the way they talk. Stop looking at faces. They will not tell you who is corrupt or not corrupt. Indeed, as Shakespeare observed: ‘there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face’. How sad! Regrettably, that is the way we are.

Peddy at 60

LASHBACK: October 6, 2011. The Adeyemi Bero Auditorium at the Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, was filled. The gathering was for Lawal Pedro (SAN), who turned 50. In the audience were renowned politicians, judges, lawyers, colleagues and friends of Peddy, who retired as Permanent Secretary and Solicitor-General, Lagos State Ministry of Justice. Members of the Anwar-Ul Islam College Agege Old Students Association (ACAOSA) and our ever supportive Principal aka Oga, Alhaji J.A. Gbadamosi (94), played a prominent role at the presentation of the revised edition of his book: Jurisdiction of courts in Nigeria (materials and cases). Peddy, a member of my own 1977/78 Set of ACAOSA, which he once led is today President-General of the national body. He turned 60 on Tuesday. How time flies. Ten years have passed since we converged on the Blue Roof at LTV, Ikeja, to celebrate his golden anniversary. His Diamond birthday is being celebrated in grand style this weekend. Happy birthday, PG.

Unbroken bond

Our schools were miles apart, yet we shared the same bond. We were joined together by one umbilical cord. Ahmadiyya (now Anwar-Ul) Islam College, a boys only, was and is still around Oniwaya in the heart of Agege, while the girls only arm was and is still in Ojokoro.The Anwar-Ul Islam College Agege and Anwar-Ul Islam Girls’ High School Ojokoro Old Students Association in Nigeria have formed Anwar-Ul College and Girls’ Old Students Association UK (ACGOSA UK) to give back to the school that nurtured them. ACGOSA UK is unveiling its plan today with a hybrid (physical and virtual) conference titled: Greatness in collaboration – Power of the alumni in alma mater transformation, at the school compound in Agege. For us and our school, the motto remains: Aut Optimum Aut Nihil (Either the best or nothing).

BEFORE Plateau lost its lustre, it was the home of peace and hospitality. Its serenity and quietude were second to none. It was the place to be and many rushed there to work, to play, to rest and to catch fun generally. To be on the Plateau was to be at home and at peace with oneself.

Now, all that is gone. Plateau State, especially Jos, its capital, famed for its cool weather, has turned to a hotbed of violence. Jos is now referred to in the past tense.There was a Jos, we are told, where people from different walks of life lived together like a family. No one bothered about where the other came from. They all saw themselves as one big Nigerian family. This was in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Things changed about 11, 12 years ago when brothers started turning on brothers. It suddenly dawned on this hitherto one big family that they had been living among enemies. Who are these enemies? Painfully, they are the same people who used to share things together,  eat together, play together and go out together. Even if they are not of the same faith, they gave out food to one another during their respective religious festivals. This is not only the sad story of  Plateau today, but also of many other parts of the country where our Nigerianness, if I may use that word, no longer counts.

These days, we see ourselves more in the light of our state of origin and our religion. Nobody should blame it on Boko Haram. These signs of divisiveness were already manifesting before Boko Haram came on the scene and added fuel to the fire. When people started killing themselves and torching others’ properties on the Plateau, Boko Haram had not become so set in its ways as it is today. The Plateau problem did not start with Boko Haram, but it will not be entirely correct to say that the sect’s coming has not compounded the crisis.

Whatever happens on the Plateau these days has either  the Boko Haram or the herder-farmer imprint. The latter seems to be more the case than the former. What happened on Rukuba Road on Saturday has this colouring. Some farmers were said to have been killed at Irigwe, a community around Rukuba Road, about two weeks ago. In the course of their funeral on Saturday, the mourners descended on scores of passengers returning from a religious programme in the neighbouring Bauchi State and killed 23 of them. Just like that! Human lives have become so cheap that people are cut down at will without the perpetrators batting an eyelid.

What happened at Irigwe is despicable and condemnable. For too long, such dastardly acts have been carried out, without the perpetrators being brought to justice. What we usually get are statements from the central and state governments deploring those acts. We have never heard of people being brought to book to answer for the crime. So, why will the perpetrators not continue? It is unfortunate that the government does not see the clear and present danger in these dastardly acts. If it does, it will not be treating the perpetrators with kid gloves. How can a bunch of youths, no matter how aggrieved they are, kill 23 persons and be allowed to go scot free?

Nigeria is a nation of laws and whoever breaches those laws should go in for it. The Irigwe youths have murdered sleep and they should, like Macbeth, in Shakespeare’s tragi-comedy play, Twelfth Night, know no sleep. He who kills, so says our laws, should be killed if found guilty during his trial. These dastardly killings must stop. The only way to stop them is to bring perpetrators to book and not by issuing statements dripping with ethnic and religious sentiments.

Certain portions of the Presidency’s statement on the killings issued by Garba Shehu are in bad taste. There are certain things that should not be said by the government in order not to portray it as biased in certain matters. There was no need for these aspects of that statement: “This is rather a direct, brazen and wickedly motivated attack on members of a community exercising their rights to travel freely and to follow the faith of their choosing. With the evident preparedness of their attackers, it is clear that this was a well-conceived and pre-arranged assault on a known target, location and religious persuasion of the travellers, not an opportunist ambush”.

Haha! Since the government knew this, is it not better to turn it over to the police so as to aid their investigation rather than put it in a press release? When the government talks like this, it opens itself to accusations of ethnic and religious bias. Whereas, government is supposed to be for all and not for only some people from a certain part of the country.

This also goes for a section of the press, which reported the killings as if one region of the country was at war with the other. At times like this, we, especially in government and the media, must be extremely careful and avoid anything that will set the country on fire. In words and deeds, we must lead the way and show our compatriots that we are better off together than divided. We should not allow Afghanistan to happen here. The killing of any person, no matter where they come from, should be condemned and everything done to bring the perpetrators to justice. Those assailants must not go scot free. Bringing them to book is the duty we owe those killed.

Afghanistanism

In the eighties and early nineties, one word (who coined it?) that was popular in the media was Afghanistanism. It was deployed to taunt writers, who went on a voyage of discovery rather than comment on what was happening in Nigeria for fear of being arrested. So, it was better to play Afghanistanism and pretend that all was well in our own country, even when they were not.

The age-long crisis in Afghanistan reached a climax on Sunday, with the Taliban overrunning the capital, Kabul. The Taliban took over, following the withdrawal of American troops after a 20-year sojourn in the country. President Ashraf Ghani has since fled the country, with the citizens too, where they can, trooping to neighbouring nations, in droves.

Some fell off American planes which they clinged to in their desperation to flee the country and died. What is happening there has implications for our country. How prepared are we for the fall-out from the fall of Afghanistan? These are no longer days of Afghanistanism, but of telling truth to power, no matter how hurtful.

Lawal Ogienagbon

From what I read; from analyses, I think we are saints when compared to what is happening under

a democratic dispensation. So, who is better at   fighting corruption?  – Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.

Yes, what you read above is true. That was General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida calling himself a saint in an interview with Arise News, the television arm of This Day Media Group. He was responding to a question on how corruption thrived under his government between 1985 and 1993. Babangida, who chose to be called president, the first time any military leader would go by that title in the nation’s history, ran the country with iron fists for eight years.

His was a regime of anything goes. He courted the good, the bad and the ugly. He brought them all under the same roof in order to gain relevance. The good quickly saw through his game-plan and left his government before they could be tarred with the same brush. Those that dillydallied learnt the hard way, but by then, it was too late. IBB, as he was fondly called rose to power on the wave of popular sentiments.

He toppled the junta led by then Major-Gen., Muhammadu Buhari under whom he served as chief of army staff. As army chief, he was supposed to protect his commander-in-chief, but he chose to lead a coup against him. By doing that, Babangida read the nation’s mood correctly. Buhari had overstayed his welcome with his brutish policies. The people had become fed up with his government, which they received with open arms when it toppled the Shagari administration on December 31, 1983.

Babangida was not different from Buhari but he hoodwinked the people with his smiles. Those false smiles made many otherwise critical Nigerians to let down their guards. Those, who did not, became the junta’s enemies and they were promptly thrown into detention. One of such people was the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN). Gani was detained at various times in different parts of the country by the IBB junta under Decree 2, under which people were removed from circulation for a long period, and the courts stripped of the powers to look into the matter.

IBB did not abrogate Decree 2 as erroneously stated in the Arise interview. He kept the decree and made use of it to detain many people in far-flung parts of the country for as long as he wished since the courts had been rendered impotent. With the courts’ jurisdiction ousted, he had a field day tampering with the freedom of the critics of his regime. As he curtailed the people’s freedom, so also did he play games with the political future of the country under the longest and costliest transition project ever seen in this part of the world.

He also spoke on this programme in the interview, saying that it was designed to bring forth a democratic dispensation that would be the envy of others across the globe. The transition project was solely made by and for Babangida. He and only he understood the nuances of the programme. IBB knew from the beginning where he was heading to with the project, yet he invited his friends to join the transition train, giving them the impression that he was going to leave office. The money-guzzling scheme suited his purpose. It became a vehicle for ‘misappropriating’ (a word, which his regime was so much in love with) public funds. Other programmes were similarly designed. Billions were sunk into them without any results.

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There was the Directorate of Food, Road and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI); there was the Mass Movement for Social Mobilisation (MAMSER); there was the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC); there was the Better Life Programme (BLP), which was run by his wife, the late Maryam, there was the Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS), with Prof Omo Omoruyi at the helm. It is instructive that the erudite professor later wrote a book on the June 12 presidential election. As close as he was to IBB, his book could not provide the much-needed answers to why his friend annulled the election.

Twenty-eight years after, IBB himself is still struggling to extricate himself from the June 12 web in which he entangled himself. Omoruyi wrote that he advised him against that line of action, but the general’s mind was already made up on the annulment. Today, Babangida is still bandying the story that he did it to avoid “a violent coup”. He should say that to the marines. Coups have always been known to be violent here. Was the coup that brought in Gowon in 1966 not violent? Was the one against Murtala Mohammed in 1976, in which he, IBB, disobeyed superior orders to flush out the putschists from Radio Nigeria, Ikoyi, Lagos, not violent? Was the botched 1990 Orka coup against him not violent?

Today, IBB can call himself a saint because of the failure of  our democratic leaders since 1999 to tackle the hydra-headed problem of corruption. We have anti-corruption agencies which believe more in witch-hunting those opposed to the government in power than getting tge job done. The agencies have become tools for whipping people into line in a society where politicians see public office as an opportunity to loot.From Obasanjo to Yar’Adua to Jonathan and now Buhari, the story is the same. Corruption, as some say, is walking on all fours – that is on both hands and legs.

They may be right because the anti-graft agencies have bungled most of the cases they took to court. But it is not for Babangida, who turns 80 on August 17, to give us a lecture on corruption. Things may not have changed much since he left office in 1993, but we still remember the 1991 Gulf War oil windfall said to run into $12 billion. Some 30 years after, nobody has answered the query raised on it by the late renowned economist, Dr Pius Okigbo.

Corruption still stalks the land, no doubt. It shows how far we have sunk as a nation for IBB to remind us of that. Besides, he is also boasting that in his time he sacked a governor for misappropriating (note: not stealing) about N313,000. What happened to the governor after his sack? Of course, he was allowed to go and sin no more. That was his own antidote for corruption! We will not recommend that to any serious government.

The way to go is to try corrupt public officers and jail them when found guilty, as done in other countries. Thank you, IBB, for reminding us of successive governments’ failure to curb corruption in the last 22 years of democracy. May you age with grace as you join the octogenarian club. Happy birthday, sir.