The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

  • Violence unlimited

    THE hallowed Senate Chamber trembled on April 25 amid debate on the prevailing security situation. It was time for soul searching and the senators were frank in their assessment. Our country is going through a rough patch and it appears those in power do not have an answer to the problem. The people are at the mercy of hoodlums who have virtually taken over some parts of the country.

    From Lagos to Lokoja; Kaduna to Katsina; Benin to Birnin Gwari; Abuja to Akure; Makurdi to Minna; Ibadan to Ilorin; Gusau to Geregu; Jalingo to Jos;  and Yenagoa to Yola, Nigerians no longer sleep with their eyes closed. Whether on the road or at home, they are not safe. They live in fear of hoodlums who strike at will with venom. It is as if they have something against their victims. Going by what they say when some of them are caught, they do not. These hoodlums are only angry with the system, which has conferred undue privileges on rogues at the expense of  the deserving.

    It is this social imbalance that is at the root of our problems. The irony of it  is that some of the beneficiaries of this rot were the ones engaged in the April 25 debate. They knew that it was in their enlightened self interest that a solution be found to the problem before it became too late. As a senator rightly observed, the hoodlums no longer discriminate in their choice of victims. ‘’The problem used to be for only poor people. Now, it has moved to the upper class of people…’’, said Senator Shehu Sani, who with 108 others, sponsored a motion on ‘’Senseless killing of a Briton and the abduction of three others in a holiday resort in Kaduna State by bandits’’.

    Almost everywhere in the north today, the story is the same : ‘’bandits’’ have taken over. Who are these ‘’bandits’’? Are they the same as members of Boko Haram, the Islamic sect which has since 2009 turned the Northeast into its fiefdom? These bandits could not have dropped from heaven. They must be from somewhere and may have been living in their state of operation – Zamfara – long before they started wreaking havoc on the place.

    Rather than confront the problem headlong, the government has reduced it to what it called the illegal gold mining going on in Zamfara.  It consequently banned the illicit trade, but that did not solve the problem. That, in essence, should tell the government that the problem goes beyond illegal gold mining. Hear Senator Kabiru Marafa, who is from the state, at the April 25 debate: “There might be no Zamfara State in the next two years if something is not done about the insecurity in the state…there are over 3,000 kidnapped victims in the dens of bandits. Banditry is not reducing; it has become a business. There is technically no business in the north, except kidnapping’’.

    The situation is dire and it is reflected in what has been happening since the Senate’s deliberation. On that same April 25, two Chinese nationals working on a road project were kidnapped in Ebonyi State, lending credence to the claim of Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu that such abductions were responsible for the high cost of some contracts. Why? According to him, construction firms  were now factoring ransom payment into the contract cost.

    Banditry, kidnapping, killings and cattle rustling remain the ugly face of our country.  On Monday,  kidnappers struck in Plateau, Osun, Borno and Ondo states, taking away five persons. Their victims were the sister of the registrar of Plateau State Polytechnic, a professor at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member and a man and his daughter. These are the ones reported by the media. There are many unreported cases, which we do not know about. It is a huge problem, which requires drastic solution.

    A society where violence thrives cannot attain its potential. Nigeria has a lot of potential and all it requires is peace for it to turn this into greatness. Where there is peace, there will be development and a boost in economic activities. Investors will never come to a country where they are not safe. We must make Nigeria safe for our own good. Our population keeps growing by the day and as a nation we lack what it takes to build our economy on our own without external help.

    For this external help to come,  our country must be conducive for investors to stay. This onerous task falls on the police. I do not envy Acting Inspector-General  (IG) Mohammed Adamu. A time like this calls for policing with intelligence in order to beat the bandits in their game. We have laws and we have men who can enforce these laws. The police and other law enforcement agencies should not yield the turf to these bandits. The wages of sin, the Bible says, is death.

    A criminal is a sinner; so he deserves to be punished to deter others. The only way to make these bandits and their ilk know that violence does not pay is to bring them to justice. If the police fail to do this, these hoodlums will continue to sprout and torment the people.

     

    The title chasers

    THE 2018/19 Premier League is something else. It started with 20 teams fighting for the Cup. Now, the title chase is between Liverpool and Manchester City, that are head and shoulder above the other teams.  City is topping the table with 95 points, followed by Liverpool at 94. Next to them is Chelsea, which stands at far third with 71 points.  The season ends on Sunday, with both teams playing their last game that day to determine who wins the title.  The leadership of the table has interchangeably rotated between them 32 times in the last 37 weeks. For both teams, Sunday’s game is do-or-die. Liverpool is at home to Wolverhampton; City plays Brighton on away soil. My brother Ade, a jolly good fellow,  is a die-hard Liverpool fan and for his sake, I hope that Liverpool wins the title at the expense of City. No matter who wins, it will be a league to remember for a long time to come. I do not think English football has ever witnessed this kind of soccer battle before. But will it be a season double for Liverpool, which came from three goals down to demolish Barcelona 4 – 0 on Tuesday to reach the Champions League final for the second year running?

  • The drug mafia

    THE mention of the name – mafia – anywhere in the world sends a chill down the spine of people. With its origin in Sicily, Italy, the mafia spread to the United States (US) and it remains as powerful today as it was in the 19th century when it started operation. The mafia was involved in everything evil and at times, it tried to hide its evil deeds under some worthy causes (?).

    Since the world worships money, the mafia uses its influence, connection and stupendous wealth to install puppets in power. In return, these puppets do everything to favour their benefactor. This is why the mafia has its hands in almost every pie in the countries they operate. You can only mess with them at your own peril. The mafia is evil through and through, no matter some of the humanitarian causes it dabbles into now and then in order to deceive the people.

    Drug trafficking, contract killing, protection racketeering, brokering and enforcing illegal agreements and transactions, and resolving disputes among criminals; you name it, the mafia is involved. It is not dreaded for nothing. It is feared because of its capacity for evil. It sounds far off when the mafia is mentioned because that evil does not stalk our land. That was then. Things have changed now.

    Even in the days when contract killing seemed to be the fad, it was never connected  with the arrival of the mafia here. The dastardly act was seen more as a way of settling disputes between feuding business partners and/or squabbling relatives. Times have changed and the people with it. Drug barons have adopted the mafia style of doing things. Gone are the days of using couriers or mule to traffic drugs. Innocent people are now being used without their knowledge to carry drugs to countries where the penalty for the offence is death.

    How the cartel got into our airports to pick victims whose tags appear on luggage they never packed is mind boggling. The mafia is indeed at work here. Some airport workers, are no doubt, in cahoots with these barons to do in unsuspecting passengers. The admonition we get in order not to fall victim of unscrupulous elements while travelling is do not help others with their luggage and do not leave your luggage with an unknown face. This is no longer the case. Whether or not you help someone with his luggage or you do not leave your luggage just with anybody is no guarantee that you may not fall victim of these heartless fellows.

    All they are after is money and they do not care how they get it. Whether or not someone ends up being killed in the country of his destination does not matter to them. But how does this cartel work? This is what the security agencies must find out. I will not be surprised though, if they are part of this horrendous business. It took the case of Zainab Aliyu, who was arrested in Saudi Arabia last December to bring to light the atrocious activities of these wolves in human skin.

    Last December 18, Zainab left for Saudi Arabia with her mother and sister to perform the lesser hajj. They had their luggage and nothing incriminating was in them.  Unknown to them, some monsters had packed another luggage and stuffed it with tramadol, a banned drug in Saudi Arabia. Even kolanut, which is commonly eaten here, is banned there. Zainab travelled with two luggage which she packed herself. Along the line, the third luggage containing tramadol, which was packed by the mafia at the Mallam Amimu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), surfaced.

    That third bag put her in trouble when she got to Saudi Arabia. She was arrested and taken into custody. Her family stoutly defended her, with her father, Habibu Aliyu, working assiduously back home to get her off the hook. It was a long and torturous battle. It is good to trust your child and that showed in the spirited defence of Zainab by her parents. Their belief in their daughter was total. They swore by their faith that she could not carry drugs and insisted on investigation of the case back home.

    Her case throws up the issue of safety and security at our airports. How is it possible for some people to stuff a bag with drugs and tag it with the name of a passenger? How did the mafia get the passenger’s name? Were they availed of the manifest? Who made the manifest available to them? There are all sorts of security agencies at the airports busy doing nothing there. All they are after is easy money. They have now found a convenient and  easy way of making fast buck. They are making blood money by stuffing their compatriots’ luggage with drugs and getting them to carry the illicit substances, unknowingly, to countries like Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Dubai and Hong Kong, where death awaits the passengers, if caught.

    By their training, security agents are to watch out for those under their protection. Rather than discharge their duty with the highest sense of responsibility, our security men are sending their charge, who are their compatriots to their early graves in countries that show no mercy to drug carriers. Should we be merciful to such people who investigations have shown are behind the travails of Zainab, who was lucky to have escaped the hangman’s noose on Tuesday, following her release from five months detention?

    They should be made to face the law and given a dose of their own medicine to deter others. The blood of those not as lucky as Zainab,  who were executed unjustly,  is crying for justice. That justice can only be served if these people are made to go through what they did to others. May God save us from the hands of these greedy villains.

  • The fuel subsidy game

    IT remains a touchy issue. Should fuel subsidy be removed or not? This is the question that has been asked for ages. Yet, there has been no answer because of the divergent of opinions on the issue.   Advocates of subsidy believe that it will bring succour to the common man; provide him relief from the harsh economic climate where prices are always going up and never coming down. They believe that as long as subsidy remains, the hoi polloi will not suffer. But is that really the case today?

    We all know the answer. There is subsidy, yet commoners are suffering. They are suffering because the gains of subsidy do not get to them.  Marketers and their ilk in government are the ones reaping the benefits of subsidy. Marketers are getting paid for fuel not imported in connivance with top oil officials. The subsidy thing is a huge racket in which the masses are made to hold the short end of the stick.

    Yet, its champions want subsidy retained despite the underhand game associated with it. Those against subsidy want it removed in order to free money for development. The money wasted on subsidy, they reasoned, could be parlayed into providing social amenities. Subsidy was introduced with the best of intentions to protect the poor whose purchasing power is low. The essence is to ensure that the price of fuel is within the reach of the poor. Today, with the pump price of fuel at N145 per litre, it is certain that the poor cannot afford it. Those affected most are the small traders who need fuel to run their businesses. We are talking of the barbers, hairdressers, welders and fashion designers, who make little or nothing, but still require a lot of money to fuel their generators.

    How can they cope in an economy where business is dull because of irregular power supply? Yet, they have to deliver as customers will not hear that ‘’I could not finish your job because there was no light’’. Our stifling business environment does not help the poor who are struggling to make ends meet.  Subsidy is meant to help them but the oil cartel has hijacked everything, leaving nothing for the envisaged beneficiaries. The government tried to remove subsidy in the past and burnt its hands. It was blackmailed into restoring the regime by the sharks in the oil and gas world.

    How these people became so powerful that they can hold the government to ransom is baffling. Whenever talks centre round the removal of subsidy, they come out fiery and smoky, giving a thousand and one reasons why it should be retained.  At N145 per litre, how many litres can the poor buy to meet their needs? It is crystal clear that the subsidy regime is not being properly managed because the money is ending up in the pockets of some people, thereby defeating the purpose for its introduction.

    At the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washingtion, United States,  IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde advised that subsidy be removed so that the money can be ploughed into other important sectors. Whenever Nigerians hear IMF, we cringe because of our experience with the Bretton Wood institution during the Babangida regime. At the behest of IMF, Nigeria adopted the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 under which it reformed its foreign exchange/trade policies, business and agriculture regulations. But it was at a huge cost to the people, who virtually went through hell as the government rammed SAP down their throats because, as it claimed then, there was ‘’no alternative to SAP’’, and IMF supported it all the way in this warped thinking.

    IMF’s call for subsidy removal does not sit well with the people who still remember its role in the SAP debacle. There is a lot of difference between SAP and subsidy, but the huge economic crisis wrought by SAP might have brought us to where we are today and resulted in the introduction of subsidy.

    IMF saw through the subsidy fraud. This is why it urged the government to establish a social protection safety net to meet the people’s needs after subsidy is removed. The argument for subsidy removal is the same. It is hinged on the premise that the regime has no trickle-down effect. How can it when the high and mighty have cornered it? According to IMF, Nigeria should remove subsidy and use the money to build hospitals, roads and schools as well as support education and health for the people.

    The government reacted swiftly, describing the advice as ‘’good counsel”. But seeing that the advice did not go down well with the people, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed quickly beat a retreat, saying: ‘’In principle, this is a good suggestion. But in Nigeria, we don’t have any plans to remove subsidy at this time because we have not yet designed buffers that will enable us (to) remove the subsidy and provide cushion for our people’’. Meaning, at the appropriate time, subsidy will be removed. When will that be?

    Removing subsidy is certainly not going to be easy. We saw this in the past. I do not know how the government is going to sell the removal to the people.  Marketers can fret all they want and threaten that they will not import fuel for all I care. We will suffer if they do that no doubt, but we will eventually get over it. We cannot continue to enrich a few through a bogus subsidy regime, while the people and infrastructure suffer.

    Some are likely to see IMF’s call for subsidy removal as dubious because of its perceived negative role in the economic affairs of Africa. It is either of these two things – we retain subsidy and ensure that fuel price is affordable by all or we remove it and use the money for developmental projects. Will the removal not bring the people pain, some would ask? Of course, it will. But has its retention brought them relief?

    I do not see the removal of subsidy as an IMF agenda. It is a matter which affects us as a nation and the government attempted to do the needful about it a few years ago. It removed subsidy but lacked the nerve to carry its action through. Fuel subsidy has become a free meal ticket for marketers. Whether or not they import fuel, they know how to benefit from the regime. If that is not the essence of subsidy, why then is it still being retained?

  • Voice of reason

    BY its nature, the legal profession is close-knit. Its members bond together. Be they lawyers or judges, they do not allow intruders into their midst. Even though, judges are first and foremost lawyers, once they cross to the bench, they become something else. Unwittingly, they turn themselves into a cult, living in their own world.

    Truly, judges are expected to be above the rest of society in order to do their work freely and fairly. They should not be seen mixing with unscrupulous people so that their integrity will not be called to question. Judges are expected to maintain a moral high ground for them to command the people’s respect. What is a judge if his honour is not intact? Judges are not called honourable for the sake of it, they are so called because they earned the title.

    A judge cherishes his honour as a woman her chastity. A judge without honour does not deserve the respect of others. More importantly, he is not worthy of being on the bench. The best of the best is expected to be on the bench. This is why the Constitution provides that only men of impeccable character should be appointed judges.

    In some cases, black sheep have found their way on to the bench. These judges have brought ridicule to the institution through their unseemly conduct, thereby eroding public confidence. The court, the saying goes, is the last hope of the common man. But how can that be where the judge is corrupt? We have seen over the years, how some judges brought shame to themselves and what successive governments did to cleanse the Augean stable. The exercise, it seemed, was not far reaching; and the result is the kind of judiciary we have today.

    Despite the efforts of the anti-graft agencies, a lot still has to be done to sanitise the judiciary, which in the last four months, has been in the limelight because of the ongoing trial of the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen for alleged false declaration of assets and non-declaration of some assets. He will know his fate today at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. As expected, many lawyers as well as the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) have shown solidarity with him. They want the charge against him dropped. The National Judicial Council (NJC), which looked into a petition brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has recommended that he be retired with benefits.

    The council added that he should be allowed to maintain his seat on the Council of State (CoS) like other former CJNs. But a group, the Justice Reform Project (JRP), comprising 20 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), believes that the Onnoghen case provides opportunity for an holistic rejigging of the judiciary. In its first intervention on February 2, JRP deplored what it called the rot in the judiciary. It noted, among others, that there is widespread perception of corruption in the judiciary and this perception is supported by anecdotal evidence; and unscrupulous litigants and some complicit lawyers, including some senior advocates, procure judgments and orders by corrupt means. The group consequently called for the reformation of NJC, which is headed by the CJN; NBA national executive committee and the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee (LPPC), among others.

    On Tuesday, it came out with its second intervention titled: An open letter on judiciary reform, in which it stated that Onnoghen’s resignation, which was made known shortly after the NJC’s recommendation, was not enough because of the grave allegations against him. It said extending the anti-graft campaign to other judges would erase the impression that Onnoghen is being victimised. JRP said : ‘’His resignation/voluntary retirement is not an answer to these allegations and the JRP expects that justice, which is no respecter of persons or position, will be allowed to take its course. Beyond Justice Onnoghen, however, the JRP believes that the revelations that have been made in the course of this affair necessitate that urgent steps be taken to identify and sanction all other judicial officers who are found to possess inexplicable wealth that cannot be reconciled with their legitimate income or their asset declarations, two of the allegations made against Justice Onnoghen.

    ”These steps are necessary … to restore public confidence in the judiciary and disabuse the notion that all judicial officers in Nigeria are corrupt and that justice is for sale; to disabuse the notion that Justice Onnoghen’s travails are a mere witch-hunt motivated by ethnic and political interests rather than the result of a genuine concern for sanitising and reforming the judiciary…”

    The JRP said Onnoghen’s response to the EFCC’s allegations against him raises questions about how heads of courts manage funds entrusted in their care, adding: “If the profession does not regulate itself effectively, incidents such as those involving Justice Onnoghen will remain a fixture in our judicial system’’. The group could not have put it better. For the judiciary to keep its pride of place, our judges should be above board. There cannot be one set of rules for them and another set of rules for the people. Why?

    Former CJN Muhammadu Lawal answers the question succinctly: “A corrupt judge is more harmful to the society than a man who runs amok with a dagger in a crowded street. The latter can be restrained physically. But a corrupt judge deliberately destroys the moral foundation of society and causes incalculable distress to individuals though abusing his office while still being referred to as honourable”. What is honourable about a tainted judge? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

  • The fall of Onnoghen

    Since the news of the non-declaration of some of his assets broke, it has been one allegation after the other against the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen. The contention is that his action amounted to a violation of the Code of Conduct for public officers. Justice Onnoghen’s ready made answer was that he forgot to do so. Many never expected the custodian of our law, the nation’s  number one  judicial officer, for that matter,  to say such a thing. But he did.

    From then, things moved at a dizzying speed, with the Federal Government seeing in it a way to make a scapegoat of Onnoghen under its anti-graft crusade. From the outset, Onnoghen was a marked man. The government knew he has such a baggage, but still appointed him as CJN in March 2017. The appointment was a subtle way of telling him that “look, you must behave yourself as long as you remain in office, or we will expose you”.

    His resignation last week may have brought closure to this sordid episode, but it calls to question the integrity of our judiciary. Onnoghen, who is standing trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), was ready to fight to the end until he read the handwriting on the wall and threw in the towel last Friday. The National Judicial Council (NJC), which he headed until his travail began, might have done him in with its report following its investigation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) petition against him. The council recommended that he should be retired with full benefits.  His exit should be an opportunity to beam the searchlight on the judiciary and do all that can be done to cleanse this critical institution.

    I have a lot of respect for judges because they are society’s conscience. They are men and women who have sworn to uphold the scale of justice to ensure that no man is cheated nor deprived of his right. Painfully, the society’s conscience has, in the course of time, lost its moral and legal bearing, to judge others. Justice, the saying goes, must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done. How then can a corrupt judge live up to this age-long maxim when justice is for sale?

    In an October 6, 2016 piece titled : Justice for sale (see bromide), which was prompted by the NJC’s sanction of some corrupt judges then, this writer warned against creating room for  judicial officers to turn the bench into their public limited company (PLC). We did not know then that even the council, which should be an holy sanctuary, could be as rotten as some of those it probes. Onnoghen’s case has shown that we must rejig the membership of the almighty NJC. If as NJC chair, he could forget to declare some of his assets, how are we sure that such misdemeanour does not run down the line?

    Read Also: The Onnoghen dilemma

    Honestly, if we desire a council, which will be the pride of our nation, and not one that will shield its members who soil their reputation and bring opprobrium to it, we must overhaul it. A stain on NJC is a dent on the nation’s image, so we cannot treat lightly any allegation of corruption against its members. Are there still other Onnoghen in the council? There may be because since as the head, he had such a baggage, it is likely that he would tolerate others who tread the same path with him.

    The nation does not deserve a tainted judiciary. This is why the government must weed out judges who perceive the bench as the place to amass wealth at the expense of their judicial duty and the time to do that is now, no matter how some people feel. We cannot build a just society with a cash and carry judiciary.

     

    Will Buhari act?

    IN 2015, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) settled for Senator Ahmad Lawan as Senate president, but the action did not go down with outgoing Senate President Bukola Saraki, who joined forces with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators,  to snatch the plum job. Four years after, APC seems not to have learnt anything from that bitter enterprise. It has tipped Lawan again for the coveted seat in the incoming Ninth Senate, which will be inaugurated in June. Senators Ali Ndume and Danjuma Goje are not comfortable with his choice. Ndume, especially, is fighting tooth and nail for the job. He is accusing the party of not carrying him and other aspirants along before settling for Lawan.

    Ndume may have a point. But where there is discipline, members are expected to fall in line with whatever decision their party takes. After all, as they say, the party is supreme. Having been anointed by the party, Ndume and others must rally round Lawan to get the job so that they do not play into the hands of PDP as they did four years ago. PDP is waiting in the wings to reap from APC’s internal strife as it did in 2015 and ran away with the deputy Senate president. APC should be firm on this matter. It should stand by its decision and ensure that it is complied with by its senators, no matter how powerful and connected some of them may think they are. President Muhammadu Buhari should not keep quiet too. If he is backing Lawan, he should say so unequivocally and let the other aspirants know. This is not a time for ‘’you can go and vote for whoever you like’’. It is a time for him to take charge and let the APC senators know where he stands. To start with, what about inviting Lawan, Ndume and Goje over to the Villa to knock some senses into their heads? Doing that will douse the tension over this matter. APC, beware, so that 2015 does not repeat itself.

    The party must show that it has balls by sticking to its choice and doing all it can to make him Senate president. It must not allow the PDP to seize the initiative again as it did four years ago. If PDP could be in power for 16 years and ran the show the way it liked in the National Assembly, I do not see why APC cannot do the same now that it is ruling the roost. What is power if you do not know how to use it?

  • Letter to IGP

    POLICING is a tough job. It is not made easy by the fact that people like to cover up things. In doing so, they tell lies. Our elders are wont to say that he who lies will steal.  If lying is the root of stealing what that means is that we are all criminals because there is hardly anyone who has not told one lie or the other before. To get a liar may be difficult because it is not written on the face. But the police try all the same to decipher the truth in a case.

    In some cases, they hit the bull’s eye, in others, they are wide of the mark. But the margin of error is expected to be minus zero. This is to say that they are not expected to make any mistake at all because it could be costly when that happens. As Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Abubakar Mohammed Adamu bears the whole weight of the organisation on his shoulders. The first question you should ask yourself, sir, is how you can discharge your responsibility and leave a worthy legacy behind.

    The killing of innocent people through the stray bullets of your men has become worrisome. The police, more than any other arm bearing organisation, are expected to be more careful with their guns. Unfortunately, the reverse is  the case. Policemen seem to take delight in shooting people at the least provocation.

    Last Sunday, it happened again in Lagos when Citizen Kolade Johnson, who left his home to watch a football match at a nearby viewing centre, was hit by stray bullet. His family says he was shot dead. Some operatives of the Special Anti-Cultism Squad (SACS) were said to have stormed Olu Aboderin Street, Onipetesi near Ikeja to arrest a suspected cultist. On their way out, they saw a man in dreadlocks with a woman and stopped.

    They reportedly accosted the man and ordered him to join enter their vehicle. Being a known face in the neighbourhood, people immediately gathered to stop the police from taking him away. It will be easy to accuse those people of obstructing the police from doing their job. Is that really the case? Since they are not zombies, it will not be right for the citizens to keep quiet when they see the police trampling on others’ right.

    The danger in keeping silent in such a situation is that nobody will be safe in the face of police tyranny. You must stop police impunity in your own time. I am not against the police arresting offenders, but it must be done in accordance with the law. What happened in Onipetesi on Sunday was barbaric. It was the height of abuse of power. Is it an offence to wear dreadlocks? Which law says that those who wear dreadlocks are cultists? Can a cultist be identified by the make of his hair? We should not forget that there are people born with dreadlocks. They are referred to as Dada in some culture. There are also prophets who wear dreadlocks. Will these people be tagged cultists and arrested by your men on the road?

    By their training, the police should not be hasty in judging people, but the SACS operatives did not follow this age-long practice on Sunday. Seeing the bind they put themselves, they resorted to shooting their way out and in the process, the late Johnson, who was watching the scene from afar, was hit. The culprits – Inspector Olalekan Ogunyemi and Sergeant Godwin Orji – have faced internal disciplinary action, we are told. They are likely to be prosecuted too.

    But, that will not be the first time that policemen who killed people will be made to face orderly room trial or be charged to court.  Some were tried and sentenced to death in the past. Yet, these measures have not served as deterrence. As IGP, the solution to this problem lies in your hands. What is it that makes our policemen bay for blood when soldiers who are trained to kill do not misuse their weapons? If you can identify that, you will be on your way to solving the problem.

    May God grant the Johnson family the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.

    The cursed road

    THOSE living around the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway corridor dread one thing most – the gridlock which grounds traffic on both sides of the road every now and then. It happened again on Tuesday when a fuel tanker spilled its content at Ibafo around 9.30 am. From then till early yesterday (5.28 am) when I started writing this, the gridlock still stretched all the way from Ibafo to the Long Bridge and beyond for outbound Lagos motorists. It was the same on the other side of the road as inbound Lagos motorists were caught in the traffic jam from the Sagamu Interchange to Ibafo. A motorist, who called Lagos Traffic Radio around 5.10 am, said it took him three hours to drive from the interchange to Lotto, which is around the Redemption Camp, a journey which ordinarily should not take 10 minutes. Many, who slept in their offices, like me, were calling the station that early to find out if they could dash home, change and return to work. I immediately perished that thought  when the duty announcer advised against such move – at least as at that hour.

    The traffic situation became compounded about three years ago when Julius Berger started the rehabilitation of the road. All pleas to Julius Berger to provide an alternative route have, so far, fallen on deaf ears. Motorists have been suffering as it continues to waste time in diligently executing the job. The cheek of it is that, the authorities do not see anything wrong in what Julius Berger is doing. Can the firm act like this in its home country? It cannot. For how long will motorists suffer for the tardiness of Julius Berger? Reynolds Construction Company (RCC), which is handling the Sagamu – Ibadan end of the road, has been up and doing, giving motorists no stress at all in its area of operation. Why can’t Julius Berger just do the same?

  • Once bitten…

    ‘Buhari cannot be aloof over this matter as he was in 2015, if he truly desires a Senate that will help him in implementing his party’s programmes’

    IT IS 2015 all over again. As it was then, so it seems now. Four years ago, shortly after the 2015 polls, some All Progressives Congress (APC) elected lawmakers clashed over the National Assembly leadership. It was a fight over the Senate presidency and Speakership of the House of Representatives. There was political horse trading, as the front runners sought their colleagues’ support for the exalted jobs.

    With its 60 senators-elect to the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) 49,  APC had a slim majority in the Upper Chamber before its proclamation on June 9, 2015. The presiding officers’ job was conventionally its, but the party did not  handle the issue well and it was shortchanged in the process. Its senators perceived that the party wanted to shut out some people from the race. Prominent ranking senators like Bukola Saraki and Ahmad Lawan indicated interest in being Senate president. The odds favoured Lawan who is from the Northeast to which the top job was zoned.

    The party publicly named him its candidate, but Saraki would have none of that. His insistence on having the job polarised the party and its senators. Some APC senators supported him in defiance of their party. By then its number of senators had shrunk to 59 following the death of Senator Ahmed Zanna some weeks to the Senate’s inauguration. With the 49 PDP senators backing Saraki, who was a member of the party before his defection to APC, the coast was clear for him to become Senate president, if he could get just only nine senators from APC – should the whole house sit during its proclamation. At the end of the day, he emerged unopposed because those who could challenge him for the job were elsewhere when the Senate was being inaugurated.

    The Senate never got over the crisis which trailed that inauguration where the minority party, for the first time in the life of the Upper Chamber since 1999, produced the deputy president – Senator Ike Ekweremadu. History, if care is not taken, may repeat itself when the incoming Ninth Senate  elects its principal officers. Lawan, who has been a lawmaker since 1999 starting with the House of Representatives (HoR),  is again in the race for Senate president. In fact, he is the one to beat. The party has chosen him as its candidate for the top job in which Senators Ali Ndume, Abdullahi Adamu and Danjuma Goje, among others, at least from the APC,  are also interested.

    Ndume, who Lawan replaced as Leader of the outgoing Eighth  Senate, has been a lawmaker since 2003 when he was elected a member of the HoR. He has condemned the way the party picked Lawan without allowing input from others interested in the Senate presidency. According to him, ‘’the party’s decision to settle for an individual instead of zoning the position to a particular geopolitical region and also consulting the senators from that zone to decide who among them they prefer as Senate president is a surprise.

    “We were surprised on Monday when the national chairman of our party told us a decision has been taken to adopt Ahmad Lawan as candidate from the Northeast for the position of Senate president. The reason why I am shocked and I am sure that is the feeling of my colleagues, is that the constitutional provision for the emergence of the leadership of the Senate is clearly spelt out”.

    He was talking about Section 50 (1)  (a) of the Constitution which stipulates that senators shall elect their president and deputy president ‘‘from among themselves’’. By citing the Constitution, Ndume is telling his party that it has no business telling the senators who should be their president. This was the same argument that Saraki put forth in 2015 when he kicked against the party’s choice of Lawan. With APC’s 65 senators-elect to PDP’s 42, all he needs do if he wishes to play the spoiler as Saraki did in 2015 is to get all the PDP senators behind him. Once he does that and he is able to get 15 senators from APC, he may clinch the job – if the whole house sits on inauguration day.

    Will 2015 repeat itself in the election of the incoming Ninth Senate leadership? It all depends on how the party handles the matter. If it handles it with tact, all may go well, but if it does not, the will of the senators, that is the election of  a president and deputy president of their choice without the majority party’s input may prevail. President Muhammadu Buhari cannot be aloof over this matter as he was in 2015, if he truly desires a Senate that will help him in implementing his party’s programmes. Today, he has nothing good to say about the outgoing Eighth Senate, which he claimed did not work in sync with his administration, because he was not instrumental to the emergence of its leaders. If the President wanted a cooperative, and not a malleable Senate, he should have shown interest in who became its leader back then. Since he did not, he probably got the Senate leadership he deserved.

    It is early days yet for the incoming Senate. So, it is left for the President and his party to show substantial interest in who emerges Senate president, if they want an Upper Chamber that will be on the same page with them in the running of government. If not, 2015 may be a child’s play compared to what may happen when the senators converge in June to elect their president.

  • The polls in words

    BY NOW, the nation should have forgotten about the governorship elections that were held in 29 states on March 9. Unfortunately, this is not so because of the tardiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Up till now, the commission has not been able to sort things out in seven states. It declared the elections inconclusive in Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto and suspended the process in Rivers.

    But all of a sudden, INEC reversed itself, in Bauchi,  saying it would continue with the process as the “duplicate and original registration area results are available”. That was on Friday. On Tuesday, it made a dramatic U’ turn again, as it returned to its earlier position of conducting  supplementary elections in the state. Did I hear you say, why is INEC dillydallying? We will come to that shortly.

    The other side of the elections, which will be remembered for the upset in some states where the mighty fell to those hitherto seen as small fries, are also quite interesting. But the polls will be remembered more for the new lexicon they threw up. These words have developed a life of their own even after the elections. It all started in Kwara long before the polls when some people in the state came together under the O To Ge banner to wrest power from the Saraki dynasty. Senate President Bukola Saraki, the head of the dynasty, did not know what hit him at the polls. He lost his bid to return to the Senate and was also unable to facilitate the election of those who relied on him to win.

    The O To Ge Movement has  been likened to the Arab Spring which spread through the Middle East in late 2010. Many regimes were toppled by the Arab Springers, just as O To Ge swept away Saraki and his men in Kwara. O To Ge was the beginning of things to come. Some mischief makers wanted to try it in Lagos. They tried all tricks in the book to rally the people round a cause which was bound to fail ab initio. The reason being that the champions wanted to fight a personal war.  Their aim was to get at former Lagos State governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Never one to run away from battle, Tinubu gave it back to them during the March 9 election. “This is not Kwara”, he reminded them. “There is no O To Ge here, it is O To Pe in Lagos”.

    In Ogun, the outgoing Governor Ibikunle Amosun, contrary to his wish, will not be leaving in a blaze of glory. He is leaving with his tails between his legs following the defeat of his anointed candidate Abdulkabir Akinlade by Governor-elect Dapo Abiodun. The people waved him bye after the election with the slogan: O Tan E. His followers will miss his sky-bound cap after his exit in May. His comrade-in-arm, the outgoing Imo Governor Rochas Okorocha suffered the same fate. Okorocha wanted to perpetuate himself in office through his son-in-law Uche Nwosu. His Ibeberism philosophy crashed even before it could be adopted. Former House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha got the better of him and his candidate at the poll. Today, he is waging a bitter war against Ihedioha for cautioning him against going on a spending spree before his exit. With Ibeberism, he might have erected statues in honour of some undeserving people, but the philosophy sure has its limit when it comes to election.

    In Oyo, Governor-elect Seyi Makinde is being heralded into office with the slogan: Won Tun De, to remind him of the years that his party spent in office in the state with little or nothing to show for it. Will he make a difference?   INEC took the term ‘’inconclusive polls’’ to a ridiculous height this time around. It has reversed itself twice on Bauchi in five days, throwing its actions  open to suspicion. Is the commission sure of what it is doing? Why did it declare the election inconclusive when it has not concluded its findings on the exercise? Inconclusive! Ongoing!! Inconclusive!!! What will INEC do next in Bauchi? Reverse itself again before the Saturday supplementary polls? You cannot put that beyond this commission which seems confused about its task. INEC should just round off the elections and let us put the exercise behind us. How long does it take to conduct elections paapa?

    From 4 + 4 to Next Level in Abuja to 4 + 4…Loading in Edo, we were not short of slogans. The slogans did not just start today. In the Second Republic, we had 122/3; Accord Concordiale; Politics without bitterness; Political juggernaut; When the come comes to become and shortly after the beginning of this dispensation in 1999, the late Chuba Okadigbo came up with the “banana peel’’ under the Senate president’s seat following his ouster. Slogans are the munition with which political battles are waged.

  • A time for everything

    THE elections are over, but the fallout will linger. For some, the elections went as expected, for others, things did not quite go their way. Before the elections, the contenders and the pretenders had high hopes. They spoke confidently of winning, even where the pretenders knew they stood no chance. Elections are an open contest – where freely contested. Where they are not, anything can happen

    Where they are open and transparent, the strong stand the risk of losing and this was what happened in some places. Did giants fall in these elections? They fell flatly on their faces. The election lived up to its name in many villages, towns and cities where the people turned against those hitherto seen as their benefactors.

    The elections were a contest between the strong and the weak. The weak were those who got to power with the help of some so-called godfathers, the strong men of politics in their areas of influence. In a state or two, the godfathers knew that they were up against the people who had served them for years. Three states typify the fall of some political titans during these elections.

    Kwara, Benue and Akwa Ibom were states under the control of three strong political figures – Senate President Bukola Saraki  and former Senate Minority leaders George Akume and Godswill Akpabio. The Saraki family held Kwara in its palm for over 40 years. The Saraki political dynasty was built by the late Dr Olusola Saraki, the Senate leader in the Second Republic. He made and unmade governors in the state until he died in 2012. He handed over the political baton to two of his children Bukola and Gbemisola.

    But the siblings have been at war since Bukola kicked against their father’s decision to make his sister a governor in 2011. They have yet to settle that rift, eight years after the 2011 governorship election. So, when the O To Ge (Enough is enough) Movement started few months ago, Gbemi saw it as an opportunity to pay his elder brother back in his own coin. Make no mistake about it, the O To Ge Movement is not about Bukola as a person, it is about the Saraki political dynasty that he heads. The dynasty which many Kwarans today claimed has further pauperised them instead of taking them out of poverty.  The movement is a campaign against what its proponents call their enslavement by the Sarakis for 41 years.

    They claimed to have served the Sarakis diligently for years, without anything to show for it. With the help of Gbemi and Information Minister Alhaji Lai Mohammed, among others, the people ended  the Sarakis’ reign in Kwara. What analysts do not understand is why Gbemi teamed up with his brothers opponents to break the Saraki dynasty when she is a Saraki herself.

    Gbemi may not be the face of the O To Ge Movement, but she played a prominent role in the fall of the Saraki dynasty. Is that what she really wants? I do not think so. What Gbemi wants is to cut his brother to size and she has succeeded by helping to dethrone him as the strong man of Kwara politics, a position their father held until he died seven years ago.

    Can Gbemi ride on the back of the movement to political power herself? For now, nobody can say.

    In Benue and Akwa Ibom, Akume and Akpabio were the lords of the manor until their political fortunes changed.  As governors of their respective states at different times, they worked tirelessly for the development of Benue and Akwa Ibom. The people compensated them by sending them to the Senate after their tenure. Then came their defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), also at different times. Akume’s defection went down well with his people in 2014. But that of Akpabio scared many in Akwa Ibom who saw his defection as bad omen for the governor. Akume installed Governor Samuel Ortom in 2015, but they fell apart before the March 9 poll. Akpabio also made Governor Udom Emmanuel his successor in 2015, but his defection last year, raised fears about the governor’s reelection bid. But the elections have put a lie to these men’s acclaimed political clout. They lost their bid to return to the Senate and failed to win the governorship for APC in their states. Will they bounce back or have Emmanuel and Ortom become the new strong men of Akwa Ibom and Benue politics? Time will tell.

     

    He flew away too soon

    HIS kind is rare to come by. Young, sharp and unassuming, Pius Adesanmi was a Nigerian that made other Nigerians proud in any part of the world. He held his ground among his peers and his elders. He spoke with candour and his brilliance shone. This brilliant young man, as you must be aware, died on Sunday in the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crash. He was going on another intellectual mission when he died. Adesanmi’s literary mind was something else. It was simply out of this world A teacher and scholar, he wrote and spoke with his eyes on the future. He was not a seer, but he had the gift of one. His writings mirrored his thinking. It was as if he knew his time was short on earth. Even before he boarded the ill-fated plane, he wrote about being held in the right hand of God if he flew away, quoting Psalms 139 : 8 – 9.

    •The late Adesanmi

    About six years ago, he wrote in that uncanny manner of his how he would like to be remembered after his passage. “Here lies Pius Adesanmi who tried as much as he could to put his talent in the service of humanity and flew away home one bright morning when his work was done”. True to his prediction, he flew away in the morning at about 08.44 Ethiopian time, which was 01.44  Nigerian time. But was his work done? Methinks, he still had much to offer. But we cannot query God. May he find rest in the Lord’s bosom.

  • A governor for all

    OGUN is one of the states where the governorship and House of Assembly elections will hold on Saturday. Ogun is the closest state to Lagos and their boundary at the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway tells a lot about both states. As you exit Lagos to enter Ogun after leaving Berger you get this sinking feeling. You are gripped by a sense of foreboding. You are heading home, but you feel like staying back in town or at work in Lagos where things work.

    I have lived in Ogun, Arepo, specifically, in the past 10 years. Arepo was a virgin land when it was discovered by the Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) under the able leadership of Deaconess Funke Fadugba some 16 years ago. Arepo then was a mangrove of sorts, save for its rustic village which stands till today in the midst of the modernisation going on around it. There was no road, except for a dusty, undulating path which led to the forest that NUJ acquired for its estate.

    The Journalists’ Estate, the precursor of the many estates now dotting the Arepo landscape, was a product of toil, sweat and perseverance. Nobody, not even the journalists themselves, in their wildest dreams, gave the estate a chance. To them, it was a long shot. ‘’Why put money in a venture that will yield nothing?’’ many asked those who bought into the project.  Though it took long, the estate has come to stay, with many moving in as far back as 2006/2007. At least for opening up Arepo, the Journalists’ Estate has helped in facilitating the development of this otherwise forgotten community.

    It was and still is a community at the mercy of pipeline vandals who use the beach that separates it from Ikorodu for their illicit trade. Part of that beach is today home to Beachland Estate. Even at that, the vandals are not deterred. They still come through the beach to break pipes and siphon fuel at enormous risk to their lives. Residents now enjoy some respite, with the deployment of troops to keep the vandals at bay. This is what development can bring about. But the development is not moving as fast as the residents want. For instance, the only road leading into Arepo from the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway is nothing to write home about.

    Former Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel’s administration hurriedly cobbled the road together when journalists started moving into the estate. We had hoped that the government would do the road and drainage before leaving in 2011. It did not. But it did not deceive us by purportedly awarding the project to a contractor who will put up a sign that work will soon begin. When he assumed office in 2011, the community had high hopes in outgoing Governor Ibikunle Amosun fixing the road. Our hopes were buoyed when in 2012 a contractor put up a sign that work will soon begin on the road. Till today, the contractor has done nothing on the road. Yet, the signpost is still by the gate into our estate, serving as a reminder of our helplessness to get the government, which we voted for, to fix our bad road.

    The signpost is also mocking us, especially the journalists, day and night as we move in and out. It is telling us that despite being journalists, we could not get the government to fix our road. We have come together as a community to do the road, but because of the huge financial outlay, the residents cannot do much. In 2015, Amosun, at the commissioning of the Arepo-based WFM 91.7, the only woman radio station in the country, promised that he would do the road. He later reneged on his promise on the grounds that ‘‘how many votes does Arepo have’’. It is time to pay him back and show him that Arepo’s votes matter in determining who governs the state. The choice before us now as the governorship election holds on Saturday is to go with the candidate who we can count on to help in the greater development of Arepo, in particular, and Ogun, in general. And who is the candidate? Since Amosun has failed us, I will not be comfortable going with his candidate – Abdulkabir Akinlade of the All Peoples Movement (APM).

    There are three other serious contenders – Dapo Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Buruji Kashamu, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Gboyega Isiaka, African Democratic Congress (ADC). Of the lot, I am tipping Abiodun for the job. Before you say, what do you expect of a writer from this stable, let me state right away that I am supporting Abiodun  out of my free will and not under the influence of anybody. Abiodun has a track record in business. With his business acumen, he has what it takes to run Ogun. I have heard him campaign and studied his manifesto in which he distilled his plan for the state. Abiodun will be a listening governor. He will not get into office and turn himself into tin god overnight.

    With former Governor Olusegun Osoba backing him for the job, Abiodun knows that the stakes are high and that he cannot afford to fail when he gets to office. He is the governor that Ogun needs for a time like this. I am supporting him for a selfish reason and that is that he does the Arepo road if he wins. That is not to say that he should neglect other parts of the state. Is it too early to say, congrats, the governor-elect? I do not think so. Omo Ogun, ibo ya!