The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

  • Corruption’s ugly face

    IN this age and time, journalists need not look far for information. Stories are there for the picking on the social media. Because of the Internet, many have become emergency reporters. They are commonly referred to as Citizen Journalists. They are so-called because they report happenings with the speed of light, without  waiting to ascertain the truth.

    To them, the hotter and the more damaging the story, the better for them and their millions of followers, who can swear by them, while telling you that since it is trending it must be true. The social media has become so powerful that it is today a big threat to the mainstream media.

    But, those who know the worth of true journalism, like my friend and brother Kolade Roberts will always revert to the traditional media for real news and analysis. Whenever he sees anything in the social media that catches his fancy, he is always quick to draw my attention to it, with the caveat, “I will sincerely appreciate your comment”. Few days before I received his latest message, same had been posted to me on another WhatsApp platform to which I belong.

    The message centres on corruption and how the malaise has destroyed the social fabric over the years. Roberts is passionate about Nigeria and its growth. The article painted vividly how some of our past leaders allowed corruption to fester under them. Rather than attack the problem frontally, they turned a blind eye to it in order to save those found to have soiled their hands. How do you explain it that a top politician put in charge of his town union’s scholarship funds diverted the money into his own use and nothing was done to him by the powers-that-be until the court stepped in?

    He was tried and jailed for seven years after concerted efforts by those in power to save him failed. What the judge said before sending him to prison is instructive. “This court is not a department under the government and it is not subject to any political party”. If only our courts can still maintain such integrity, we would have been better off today.

    Another, a doctor, went about with a fake doctoral certificate from a Canadian university. He used the certificate to get a top job at the premier university and then the bubble burst when a scholar from the university he claimed to have attended visited Nigeria. The scholar was shocked that the Nigerian was parading a doctoral degree and he blew the whistle. Again, the powers-that-be did not allow the law to take its course. They saw the scandal as ‘’persecution’’ of their man and stood by him even when his partner in crime, his mistress, had owned up back in Canada and was fired from her job. Corruption is not a Nigerian word, but unfortunately, we have made it so. We have unwittingly been sending across a message that corruption pays by allowing the corrupt to go unpunished.

    A foremost nationalist was also found in the same mess when he was caught diverting public land into his personal use. He was jailed for forgery and perjury and he was barred from holding office. The colonial leaders rebuffed all entreaties for his pardon. But when Nigeria became independent in 1960, the convicts of yesterday became those who decided the fate of others.

    Through the making of our leaders, corruption has become our bane. As it was then, so it is today. Our past leaders fought corruption merely with words. So also do today’s leaders. Everybody, except them and their acolytes, is corrupt.

    President Muhammadu Buhari has shown uncommon courage in fighting the malaise. No matter what some may say, his administration has been tackling the problem frontally. There may be one or two cases where the government did not get it right, but that cannot rubbish what it has been doing in the past three years. If past governments had done a fraction of what the Buhari administration is doing today, we may not be this neck deep in corruption.

    As the president noted on Tuesday while opening the new headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), “fighting corruption is not easy because the corrupt will fight back”. With what he has started, we cannot afford to look back in the fight against corruption. He has shone the light for us to find the way out of this malaise. Will we take that path?

     

    For Omofade at 72

    Years after he retired as a permanent secretary in Lagos State, Dr Adelaja Omofade is still strong and active. I got to know Dr Omofade in January when he called me up on the assignment given to us by the Anwar-ul Islam College Agege Old Students Association (ACAOSA). The college turned 70 on April 5. To mark the anniversary, ACAOSA has lined up a lot of activities, including a book launch, for between August 30 and September 2. Dr Omofade chairs the Book Review Committee of which I am a member. He was calling  to know when I would be chanced for us to hold our inaugural meeting. I quickly replied ‘anytime sir’, to which he said ‘’as an editor, I know that you will be very busy; just tell me when you will be available for us to meet’’. To me, that was humbling. For a while, I was tongue-tied and when I found my voice, I said ‘Wednesday, January 24 sir’ and he endorsed it. The committee held its inaugural meeting that day and since then we have been meeting at his church, the St Paul African Church at Ilupeju, which is close to my office. He deliberately chose that venue because of me. Dr Omofade is older than me by far. He was at Anwar-ul Islam College, formerly Ahmadiyya College, Agege, between 1960 and 1964. I was there between 1973 and 1977/78. As he turns 72 tomorrow, we continue to pray for good health for him. From Mr Sikiru Idowu Lawal (1965/68 set), Hadji Olajide Tairu (1968-74), Abubakar Adenle (1979/80), Abdulhazeem Olajide (1991/92),  Tajudeen Ishola (1992-98) and myself, we wish you a happy birthday.

  • Evans’ crocodile tears

    MANY strong men are only as strong as they look. Some of them are cowards, who will take to their heels at the shout of eh! But they put up a tough mien when they are armed. With guns in their hands, they are as dangerous as a rattlesnake. They will not think twice before snuffing life out of anyone who confronts them. Take the gun away from them and they become  jellies.

    A gun in itself is frightening enough; that cold metal sends a chill down the spine by merely looking at it, not to talk of when it is pointed at one. It becomes a wicked combination when a guy with bloodshot eyes is wielding the cold metal. Before he says freeze, you are already frozen and at the same time pleading for your life. Some of them listen to such plea and spare their victims; others do not. They kill and steal from their victims.

    Strong men are strong only when they have the upper hand. When the table turns, they are like any other man, who will give way to the other on the street. Whether as an armed robber, a kidnapper, a militant or an insurgent, strong men have something in common and that is to scare the daylight out of their victims before dealing with them.

    Who is the man that will see a gun pointed at him and will not do as ordered him? As the late Zik said only a mad person will argue with a man with a gun. With a gun, a hoodlum can do and undo. You are at his mercy. He barks orders at you and you comply for the fear of your life. Snatch the gun away from him and he becomes another Anini (remember him? The robber, who shook Benin to its foundation between 1985 and 1986, but urinated on himself when he was caught). We have seen other hoodlums turn sissy when the law caught up with them. They will never cease to amaze us with their acts of cowardice when they are before the law.

    Suspected kidnap kingpin Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike aka Evans is not a stranger to us all. We have heard about his escapades. Long before he was captured last year, he had written himself into the book of infamy as a dreaded person in the world of kidnapping. He was said to have gone after the affluent. His victims were the rich and mighty from whom he collected dollars, euros and pounds. He did not deal in chicken feeds. He went for the big bucks and it is either you pay up or you were killed. He employed fear as a tactic to unlock the wallets of the rich. His victims were kept in captivity until they paid to the last kobo. How they got the money never bothered him. All he was after was the money.

    Evans made money through this illicit trade and he lived big. He had wine, women, money and all the other luxury of life. You could not access his home except he allowed you in. To get him, the police employed some tactics in order to beat his state of the art security at the gate. For Evans, the end of the road came last June,  after years of being hunted by the police. A man, who collected ransom in foreign currencies, must surely know how to cover his tracks. He did that quite well.

    His luck ran out after the kidnapping of a pharmaceutical chief, who was kept in a bungalow in Igando. The businessman escaped and that opened the way for the busting of Evans’ gang. Evans kept his victims incommunicado, without food and water. His victims were only fed to enable them pay the ransom. He was ruthless in dealing with his victims through his foot soldiers. He had no pity for them. If they paid, they lived, if they did not, they were killed. That was his philosophy. He shunned those who begged for food, water and life. His stock reply to their request, we were told, was : ‘’go and pay up”.

    His love for money and the good life made him feel larger than life. Now in police net, he is crying like a baby whose lollypop was taken by an elder. In court on Monday, Evans wept! Why did he cry? He claimed that he was being maltreated in prison. But, how did he treat his own victims? If we may ask. Clad in shorts and  a green T – shirt , said to be torn on the right shoulder, Evans told the court after being allowed to speak : “I have an explanation to make. Since I have been in maximum prison, they have been maltreating me; no visit; they don’t feed me well; I have eye problems and I cannot see far”. In tears, he added : “What have I done to you people, they have been beating me? No good food. I have been locked up in one place since August 30. Why are they taken my case personal? Let me face my trial alive. Why do you people want to kill me?”

    Many will say serves him right. Evans is reaping what he sowed. He who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind, so we are told. This is a lesson to other Evans still out there. Mend your ways now before it is too late.

     

    What a primary!

    THE Ekiti State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary was a disaster foretold. Before the shadow election, analysts warned that the exercise would end in chaos if nothing was done to manage the crowd of contenders. To avoid disenfranchising any of the aspirants, the race was thrown open. Thirty-three contestants were fighting for one ticket and none was ready to step down for the other. The beauty of democracy is to allow a thousand thoughts contend; so the 33 were allowed to slug it out. But some of the aspirants and their supporters had their plans. They came to disrupt the exercise because they knew they cannot win. Election, whether at the party or national level, should be seen as a game and the contestants, sportsmen. Last Saturday, these spoilers virtually turned the congress venue to a battleground as they snatched ballot boxes and papers.

    It was a show of shame not befitting of the ruling APC. The party should show example with the way it conducts its affairs. It must show that it encourages internal democracy because that is the only way it can promote national democracy as the ruling party. What happened last Saturday in Ado Ekiti should not  repeat itself at the rescheduled primary coming up tomorrow. Otherwise, the party will turn itself to the laughing stock of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which conducted a hitch free primary on Tuesday.

  • The broken trough

    SINCE the beginning of the year, Benue State, the nation’s food basket, has been in the news for the wrong reasons. It has been killings upon killings right from the first day of the year. When the world was ushering in the new year on January 1, with shouts of joy and merry making, the people of Benue were in tears. They were mourning their dead on new year’s day. What a way to start a new year. Since then, there has been no let up in the killings.

    The people are not fighting themselves in Benue. No, brothers are not at war there, as the Inspector-General of Police (IG) Ibrahim Idris wants us to believe. Following the new year’s killings in which over 70 persons died, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the IG to move to the state to restore law and order. The IG went there, held a town hall meeting where the people of the state told him pointblank that his police have failed them.

    They told the IG that they no longer have faith in him, adding that they were ready to defend themselves, henceforth. They protested his earlier statement that the killings were as a result of communal clashes. The police chief apologised for the statement, but despite that apology, he has consistently reduced what is happening in Benue to communal clashes. If that is so, which are the communities fighting? As the nation’s number one law enforcement officer, he should have that information at his disposal.

    Wherever there are clashes in the country, the police, which he oversees should be able to tell us those fighting, the immediate and remote causes and why they are fighting. Anything short of this, the police chief will not be helping his case that what the country has on its hands in Benue is a communal clash. The Benue people have been speaking with one voice on what is happening in their domain. They have said it times without number that herdsmen are behind the killings.

    The herdsmen have not denied this. All they said was that the killings were in retaliation for the killing and rustling of their cows. What is at the root of the matter is the anti-grazing law, which is in operation in the state. The herdsmen are not happy with the law, which forbids them from the open grazing of their cattle. As a way out, the Federal Government proposed to set up cattle colonies across the country, with states expected to give out land for the project.

    Many states are not in support of the proposal, compelling the government to reconsider ranching, which is favoured by many states. Ever before what has today come to be known as herdsmen killings, farmers and herders have always clashed across the country over this issue of grazing. The farmers whether in the north, south, east or west have always accused herdsmen of destroying their farms during cattle grazing. Truly, the cattle destroy crops, especially cassava, maize and yam when grazing, leaving the farmers wringing their hands.

    But the matter has always been settled by the councils of chiefs which call the farmers and herders to a meeting. It seems the problem can no longer be settled at that level. Why? That is the trillion naira question. If the issue could be handled at that level in the past, why is it no longer possible to do so now? There can be only one answer to this question and that is that those now going about as herdsmen may not really be herdsmen. They are killers in herdsmen skin. The President, in London a few days ago, shed light on who the killer-herdsmen are.

    According to him, the herdsmen are gunmen trained by the late Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. The gunmen, he said, escaped into Nigeria and other West African countries after Gaddafi’s death. “Herdsmen that we used to know carried only sticks and may be a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons…’’ Indeed, the herdsmen that we used to know were not ruthless and vicious. As they moved about with their cattle, they waved to, and joked with, little children, who ran after them, singing , malu kongo, lababa kongo… With their staff held with both hands across their necks and a straw hat on their heads, the like of which some of us wore when the sun is hot, the herdsmen looked harmless as they moved from one point to the other.

    Today, those herdsmen with whom most of us related in the past, have become the enemy that we dread. Yes, I believe the President that these are no herdsmen, but killers. No true herdsman will storm a church early in the morning and kill two priests and 11 worshippers. No herdsman will ever do that. The invasion of the St Ignatius Quasi Parish in Ukpor Mbalon in Gwer Local Government Area of Benue State on Tuesday during which Rev Fathers Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha and the others were killed was a premeditated case of murder.

    The herdsmen or whoever they are went there to kill harmless people who woke up early in the morning to seek the face of God. What will they say is the offence of their victims? If they have any grouse against the anti-grazing law, is it by these killings that they will make their grievance known? The government and the security agencies have for long treated this matter with kid gloves. Now that the government has identified who the killer-herdsmen are, it should waste no time in moving against them.

    The killer-herdsmen, no mat
    ter how powerful they may
    be, cannot be stronger than the government. Since they have declared war against some sections of the country, the government should pay them back in kind. The only language these killers understand is force and as long as the government keeps talking without any concrete action, they will continue to kill people, disappear and return to do more havoc. This is the time to draw a line in the sand for them, which they should not cross. And if they cross it, they do so at their peril.

    Will the government take them head on or keep on watching while they continue to kill and maim in Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba, among other states?

  • Buhari and the 2019 race

    WHEN President Muhammadu Buhari walked into the venue of the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on April 9, no other person, except himself knew what was on his mind. Nobody knew that the President had something of great importance to say. They thought it was going to be the usual NEC meeting, where the President would come, give some pieces of advice and leave. He did that last March 27 when he opposed tenure extension for the Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, and other members of the National Working Committee (NWC).

    On that occasion, he said having received legal advice, it would be politically suicidal for the party to extend the tenure of it’s  NWC members in view of the forthcoming elections. He explained that if the party wins, its opponents might use that against it to get its election annulled. Those who sought tenure extension for Oyegun and others never looked at it from that perspective. They were only after their own interest. The party could go down the drain for all they care.

    Although they rode on APC’s back  to power, their plan to remain in office at all costs seems to have blindfolded them to the fact that they have to protect it to enable it continue to serve them. The APC is a coalition of forces. Welding these centrifugal forces together is truly not easy, but the political actors should bear this in mind –  any break up will adversely affect each group that makes up the mega party. The Congress of Progressive Change (CPC), the  Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), among others, know what they went through to form APC in order to wrest power from PDP.

    Having come this far, is it now that they would allow internal wrangling to put them asunder? Buhari’s intervention in the tenure elongation brouhaha has saved APC from hoisting itself on its petard. Though the tenure elongation palaver may have been resolved, the fact is that many are still not satisfied with how it all ended.

    The President is seen by many party members as a father figure. They believe in his integrity and not in his political acumen. They do not see the President as a politician in the strict sense of the word because, according to them, he does not play the game the way the typical Nigerian politician does. The President, they say, is too direct and open. The typical Nigerian politician is not cut in that cloth. He lies, lies and lies through his teeth in order to get his way. Some APC members will tell anybody who cares to listen that if the President had played his politics well certain things would not have happened in the life of this administration. They are quick to cite the emergence of Dr Bukola Saraki as Senate president;  the delay in the appointment of ministers and the constitution of boards.

    With his declaration to seek reelection in 2019, the President may have swept the carpet off the feet of other aspirants. Will anybody in APC challenge him for the presidential ticket? That is not likely to happen. The ticket is as good as his even before the convention. Ever before his declaration, the issue of whether he would run again or not, had generated heat. Does he deserve a second term? To many, the answer is yes and to many again, it is no. Yet many are undecided. But the elite do not want him to come back. When I say the elite, I am using former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former military leader Gen Ibrahim Babangida as the yardstick.

    While Obasanjo advised the President not to seek a second term, Babangida is asking for a “digital leader” in 2019. Although they may have put it differently, it is crystal clear that they do not want Buhari to seek reelection. The President said he would be seeking reelection because of Nigerians’ clamour for him to run again. When he began his ongoing visit to Britain, he said he declared before travelling because Nigerians were ‘’talking too much’’ about whether or not he would contest. Now that the President has declared, things are bound to move at dizzying speed. Already, he has set out to work. His campaign organisation headed by Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi has swung into action. The organisation on Tuesday named Festus Keyamo (SAN) as its spokesman.

    Who will challenge Buhari in next year’s election in the other parties? Can they get candidates to match him in integrity? Will it be smooth sailing for the President at the polls just as it was in 2015? How far can his integrity carry him in the election? In 2015, Nigerians voted against the PDP-led government in protest because they were fed up with happenings in the country then. Have things changed? How have the citizenry fared between then and now? Are their lot better? On the performance index, how will they rate the President? Does his rating merit a reelection?

    The power to choose belongs to the electorate. The choice they make will determine where the country will be in the comity of nations. What will the people’s choice be in 2019? Will they heed the admonition that other aspirants should just disappear because the President has thrown his hat in the ring and vote him again? Or will they try a new hand? The answer is in the womb of time.

     

    Who stole the mace?

    IT was like a movie scene. The Senate was in session when some tough looking guys stormed its hallowed chamber yesterday. They knew what they were after and they wasted no time in executing their plan. They came for the mace – the Senate’s symbol of authority. The ceremonial staff was in its place close to the Senate President’s seat. The guys knew the implication of their action. Without the mace, the Senate cannot sit and that was all they wanted – to truncate  proceedings. They succeeded.  They snatched the mace, ran through the chamber and fled out of the National Assembly complex. How did they achieve all that in a twinkling of an eye? And for few minutes, the Senate broke up to consider what happened in an executive session.

    The operation did not last more than 10 minutes, but it was clinically executed. The sergeant-at-arms and his men, who keep order in the place, were caught flatfooted. They looked nonplussed as the thugs stormed in and out of the Senate. How did those guys invade the Senate without being stopped? How did they get out of the highly fortified National Assembly with the mace?

    The boys were said to have gained access into the Senate because they came in with suspended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, who is being linked with the incident One thing is clear though, the stealing of the mace does not augur well for our democracy. Again, the security agencies, especially, the police have failed us. They could not act when the highest legislative body in the land was invaded. What a shame.

  • ACA : 70 and counting

    TODAY, Anwar-ul Islam College (formerly Ahmadiyya College) Agege (ACA)  turns 70. Its story is not different from that of other mission schools. It was founded by men who believed in education and in the development of the mind  through  qualitative learning. The road to the founding of ACA in 1948 was rough. It was a period when Christian secondary schools dotted the landscape. There were no Muslim secondary schools then. It was a big challenge for the fathers of the Islamic faith who witnessed what was going on.

    They watched as their children were either denied places in the Christian schools or forced to change their names and embrace Christianity in order to enter those schools. To them, it was the height of humiliation for a man to be made to denounce his faith just because he wanted to go to school. The belief back then was that Muslims were not at home with Western education. The thinking was once they have gone to primary school and spiced it with Arabic education, that was the end of the matter.

    This profiling of Muslims as no-good when it comes to Western education did not go down well with leading members of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam , the forerunner of the Anwar-ul Islam Movement in Nigeria. They believed that Muslim kids would hold their own against their Christian counterparts if provided a level playing field. These men started thinking about establishing the first Muslim secondary school not only in the country but in West Africa. It was a daunting task, but they gave it their all. Although these men are no more with us today, the seed they sowed 70 years ago have continued to grow.

    These great men were Alhaji Saka Tinubu, Alhaji Jubril Martins, Alhaji Issa Akangbe Williams, Alhaji Nurudeen Bakre Kenku, Alhaji Bakare Disu Oshodi, Alhaji K. D. Oshodi, Alhaji Y. P. O. Shodeinde, Justice Lateef Dosunmu,  Alhaji Fanimokun and Alhaji Allison, among others. They built ACA with their sweat and blood. They turned virtually everything they had over to the school. ACA owes whatever it is today to these eminent men. If not for them, the idea would have remained a dream. They made the dream come true by pooling resources to establish the school.

    Seventy years on, their dream of a great school remains undying because of the steadfastness of many who came after them. My own set was particularly lucky as we entered the school in January, 1973, three months to the celebration of its 25th anniversary on April 5 of the same year. The silver anniversary was celebrated with pomp and ceremony. As bright-eyed kids we had fun like we never did before.

    To ensure that the school took off on a sound footing, Alhaji Martins and Alhaji Bakare Oshodi went on an educational tour of the Middle East and some Muslim countries in 1946. It was a fruitful tour as they got some scholarships for the training of teachers. The Principal of principals, Alhaji Jimoh Adisa Gbadamosi under whose wings many generations of students were groomed, was one of the  beneficiaries of the scholarships. In a piece titled: My stewardship with the college, Alhaji Gbadamosi recalled: “In September, 1949, I proceeded to the British Isles to pursue, on full scholarship of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, a degree course in Arts and Diploma in Education. With gratitude to God, I returned home in October, 1954 as a qualified graduate teacher with my colleagues, Alhaji R. A. Folami and Alhaji R. A. Balogun, who also completed their academic and professional courses successfully’’.

    The three played great roles in the life of Ahmadiyya College, which name was changed to Anwar-ul Islam College in 1976 shortly before Alhaji Gbadamosi was redeployed to Jubril Martins Memorial Secondary School at Iponri as principal. He swapped places with Alhaji Balogun, who was brought to Agege. Alhaji Gbadamosi had succeeded Alhaji Folami at Agege in 1960. Of the trio, only Alhaji Gbadamosi aka Oga is still alive today. He was 91 on March 18. The story of ACA is one of struggle and determination. It started off at 4, 6 and 8, Olushi Street, Lagos Island, on April 5, 1948. Houses 4 and 6 were donated to the school by Alhaji Martins and Alhaji Kenku; House 8 belonged to the Movement.

    The school came to be because of the commitment of these men and other like minds who came after them like Alhaji Babatunde Jose, who also led the Movement in the late 60s and early 70s. Olushi was too small for the kind of school the founding fathers had in mind. So, in 1942, the Movement acquired 87 acres of land in Oniwaya,  Agege, where the school stands till today. Its take-off at Olushi was almost marred because it could not get a graduate to head it as principal as required by law. Eventually, the Movement’s ‘’tortuous search’’ for a graduate ended when it got a Ghanaian, Mr J. I. Thompson Hagan, for the job.

    To mark the 70th anniversary,  a public lecture titled : ‘’Child education : A lasting legacy’’ will be delivered today at the school hall by Dr Abaniwonda of the Lagos State University (LASU). The lecture will be preceded by a press conference. There is cause for the college to celebrate because it holds a pride of place among secondary schools in the country. Though 70, it has achieved what many colleges which are older than it have not achieved. In academics and extra-curricula activities, the school is not a push over.

    Where will the school be in the next 30 years? By then, it will be 100, an age, which many of the schools it rubs shoulders with, have since attained. At 100, ACA will not be less the school it is today. The school remains standing because of the solid foundation laid by its founders. It has had its ups and downs, especially following the acquisition of mission schools by the government in 1978. Things have since turned around for it for good following the return of the schools to their owners. The school can only go higher and higher in order to keep the dream of its founding fathers alive. And that is the only way it can continue to live up to its motto, which is  Aut Optimum Aut Nihil (Either the best or nothing).

  • Danjuma’s bombshell

    GETTING him to talk is a big problem. Many times reporters go after him hoping to get a word  or two from him on burning issues, but he never obliged them. To him, a general’s actions, not words, should speak for him. Gen Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, popularly known as TY,  former Chief of Army Staff, former Minister of Defence and a civil war hero, is as taciturn as they come.

    Danjuma brooks no nonsense and he has been like that since his army days. As a soldier, he knows the consequences of yielding ground to your opponent when you have the opportunity to finish him off. The soldier in Danjuma has been awakened by the killings in the Northeast, Northcentral and the riverine areas. The soldier in Danjuma was never dead. What infuriates him is that in a country with soldiers, some herdsmen are going about killing and maiming. The soldier in Danjuma cannot stand that and the man of steel lashed out at the military for not doing anything to stop the killings. Since the man, who hardly speaks,  spoke, the nation has known no rest.

    He was blunt as he assessed the herdsmen killings in Benue, Adamawa, Nasarawa and his home state of Taraba. “Taraba State”, he began, “is a mini Nigeria where we have many ethnic groups living together peacefully. But the peace in this state is under assault. There is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in this state, and of course, all the riverine states of Nigeria. We must resist it…every one of us must rise up. The armed forces are not neutral. They collude; they collude; they collude with the armed bandits that kill people and kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement. They cover them.”

    Even though he spoke in anger, he made his point clear. “This ethnic cleansing”, he warned, must stop, otherwise we will go the Somalia way. We all know what has been happening in Somalia since 1991. The government cannot dismiss what Danjuma said because he is not known to be flippant. He must have seen and heard certain things before he spoke the way he did. But he has access to the President, some would say. Why didn’t he meet with the President on the issue before going public? Others would ask. Do those talking like this know whether he tried to explore that avenue but made no head way? Anyway, the matter is now in the public domain.

    Since it is Danjuma that spoke, the government will be compelled to listen. If it had been another inconsequential person, he would have been cooling his heels in detention by now. Danjuma’s outburst came at the right time. Look at what is happening in Benue. Ever since 73 people were killed there by herdsmen on January 1, the killings have not stopped. So, also in Plateau, Adamawa, Nasarawa. It is the duty of the armed forces to defend not only the territorial integrity of our country, but to also maintain internal security. Criticising or abusing Danjuma for  what he said is not the way out. The way out is for the military to do a soul searching. Has it done what it should do to stop these killings?

    If the military cannot stop  killer- herdsmen or their ilk from wreaking havoc on the land, who will? Danjuma knew what he was saying when he accused the military of “colluding with armed bandits to kill Nigerians”. As a former army chief, he must have his own way of gathering intelligence about goings-on in the country, especially in his home state of Taraba. As a son of the soil, Danjuma must be concerned about what is going on in Taraba. He cannot watch his people being killed and keep quiet. With what two local government chairmen in the state said, which corroborates Danjuma’s statement, the military has some questions to answer. Takum Local Government Chairman Shiban Tikari and his Ussa local government counterpart Rimamsikwe Karma claimed that troops have been aiding killer-herdsmen. They claimed that Governor Darius Ishaku as the chief security officer of the state does not know what the military and other security agencies are doing because he is not being carried along.

    In one word, the governor has been sidelined in security matters concerning his state. What is the military’s response? The military said it is neutral, contrary to Danjuma’s claim. It, also for the first time on Monday, said it got reports of soldiers’ misconduct in some states, but none from Taraba. What did it do about those reports? It claimed to have put those soldiers through “disciplinary procedures”. Well, it is good to hear that. What kind of “disciplinary procedures” did they go through? Who and who were found culpable? How were they punished? These are some of the things the military should tell us and not that vague statement of some soldiers being put through “disciplinary procedures”. For all we know, it may not be doing anything at all. This may just be a face saving statement in reaction to Danjuma’s outburst. All because Danjuma sneezed, the military caught cold. That is good enough. If it took Danjuma’s comment to get the military to wake up, may he continue to speak every day on vexed issues. May his tribe increase.

     

    The man died

    BEFORE his death on Monday, MMM Pyramid founder  Sergei Mavrodi, a Russian, caused the death and bankruptcy of many who were looking for quick money. I do not understand his Ponzi scheme under which you are expected to make your money grow by the number of other investors you bring on board. To me, it was too good to be true. But in a society like ours where poverty is rampant, people embraced it with all they have – and ended up losing all. Yet, many did not learn any lesson. They stuck to the scheme and were waiting for its return after it was shut down some months ago to tie up some loose ends. That was not to be. Mavrodi died of heart attack on Monday – killing also the dreams of many to become millionaires. Hope many will also not die of heart attack because of his death?

  • The North’s headache

    IT is a big challenge for which the north must find a way out soonest. The problem has lingered because of the region’s lukewarm attitude. Until now, the north perceived itself as monolithic. Its leaders believe that they have control over their people – the proletariat, call them the talakawa,  if you like – who they could use at will.  And those people were ever willing to follow them – even to war blind.

    But something snapped and the talakawa rebelled. Their rebellion has  turned the north into a killing field of sorts. The leaders no longer have control over the boys who hitherto did their bidding, no matter how difficult the task is. In the days of the late Sultan Ahmadu Bello, the north spoke with one voice. Just as the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe dominated the west and the east, the Sultan held sway in the north.

    All the regions have the same problems but that of the north seems to be getting out of hand. Every day dawns with fresh trouble. It is as if the region is at war with itself. Killings, kidnappings, herders – farmers clashes and related violence have become the order of the day. The Boko Haram insurgency started like child’s play in 2009, but today it has become something else. When it started, the leaders maintained sealed lips; they did not come out to condemn the atrocious acts of the late Muhammed Yusuf-led sect. Today, Boko Haram has broken into factions, with each group as deadly as the other.

    Now, it no longer rains, it pours. Killer-herdsmen have taken to the Boko Haram path, killing, maiming, looting and burning. What has been coming out of the region in the last few years is bad, really bad. Will things have become that bad if the region’s leaders had moved fast to stop the rot? Perhaps, what they now call ‘’negative narratives” would not have been if they had risen up before now to do the needful. The needful would have been going all out to condemn Boko Haram’s activities and helping the government to bring the insurgents to book. But then, they saw the sect as fighting for their region and so tacitly backed it. This has since backfired.

    Unfortunately today, we are no longer talking about Boko Haram alone. The herdsmen, who have been killing and maiming in Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba and Enugu, among other states, are now in the picture. Worried by these developments, the region’s apex socio-cultural group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), cried out on Tuesday that it was time the ‘’negative narratives’’ became ‘’positive’’. That same day, the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), which is led by Sultan Abubakar Sa’ad of Sokoto, implored the government to wake up to its responsibility of ‘’protecting lives and properties’’ because of the killings in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State.

    Referring to the killing of women and children; the abduction of  hundreds of Chibok and Dapchi schoolgirls, ACF Chairman and former police chief Ibrahim Coomassie said the north could not continue to be on the ‘’negative footage at all times as it has been the case since the return to democracy in 1999. Chibok girls are still missing. Now, it has gone to Dapchi in Yobe State, what happened? Are we always going to be the victims? Boko Haram, see what they did to the Northeast. They have spread to the Northcentral and even to the Southern part of the country. Should we continue to be regarded in the negative side? No. We are leaders in our own right and we must exercise this responsibility for our people”.

    “Whenever there is a crisis, women and children are always the major victims. Enough is enough. Enough of the killing of our women and children; enough of kidnapping of our daughters and enough of the destruction of our properties…’’ Coomassie told the leading northern women socio-cultural organisation, Jam’iyya Matan Arewa (JMA). Whatever might have happened in the region is all the fault of its leaders, many of  who kept quiet in the face of the Boko Haram insurgency. See where their silence  has led not only the north, but the entire country.

    They cannot absolve themselves from blame. Coomassie’s lamentations will not solve anything except he and his ilk are ready to take the bull by the horns and let the Boko Haram insurgents know that there will be no hiding place for them anywhere in the north. As for his claim that Nigeria cannot survive without the north, I beg to submit that it can only be the other way round. It is the north that cannot survive without Nigeria.

     

    Dapchi girls: Free at last

    FREEDOM came for  some of the 110 abducted Dapchi schoolgirls early yesterday. They were dropped off in their school, the same way they were snatched on February 19, by Boko Haram. Ninety-one of them were freed. Earlier in  a statement, Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed put the figure at 76.

    The figure has risen to 104, with  the 105th girl said to be a Christian, still being held. Five are said to have died. T The circumstances of their release are shrouded in secrecy as their captors were allowed free passage into Dapchi to drop them off. Their parents are happy. Who won’t if he was in their shoes. The government has lived up to his word to bring back the girls. My heart goes out to the parents of the dead girls and I pray that we do not witness this sort of thing again. Never again should we expose our schoolgirls to harm whether in Dapchi, Chibok or anywhere else in the country.

  • Much ado about nothing

    IT IS NOT a matter to lose sleep over, but to the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC), it is a big deal. The order in which the 2019 elections should be held is assuming a life and death dimension among the party’s stalwarts. Ordinarily, the party caucus should have ironed out the matter, but from the look of things, the falcon can no longer hear the falconer. The party leadership and its members who dominate the National Assembly have been working at cross purposes since 2015.

    In all honesty, a simple matter like this should not cause a rift between the executive and the legislature considering that APC is the party in power. As the majority in the National Assembly, the party should be using its number to get its way. Unfortunately, it is not doing that. Rather than work as a team, the executive and the legislature have been at each other’s throat. Since the party came to power in 2015, it has been one problem or the other between both arms of government.

    No one can really pinpoint the cause of the problem, but some suggest that it has its root in those who emerged as principal officers of the National Assembly contrary to the wish of the party. It has been about three years since then. So, isn’t that enough time for the party to forget the past and move forward? President Muhammadu Buhari was so concerned with the problem that he raised a panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to see how the relationship between the two arms of government could become smooth. One year after the panel came into being, nothing seems to have changed.

    Did the panel achieve results? It didn’t. If it did, the President won’t have complained last month that the frosty relationship between the executive and the legislature was slowing down government. If care is not taking, it may affect next year’s elections. In the not too distant past, the order of elections was nothing to worry about. Until a few years ago, the presidential election had always been held last, without anybody raising an eyebrow. Constitutionally, the electoral umpire fixes the dates of the elections and decides in which order they would come.

    But because of the cold relationship between  the National Assembly and the Presidency, the lawmakers have changed the order of elections by amending Section 25 (i) of the Electoral Act. Under the amendment, the National Assembly poll is billed to come first in the new sequence. Before the amendment, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had fixed dates for the 2019 polls, with the Presidential and National Assembly coming up on February 16 and  the Governorship and Houses of Assembly,  March 2.

    Is the National Assembly right to have altered the order of elections? Has it not overreached itself in taking this action? The National Assembly, without doubt, can amend the electoral law, but it cannot fix dates for, nor organise,  elections. These are jobs within the purview of INEC. Having said this, then why the noise over the amendment of Section 25 (i) of the electoral law? It is all because of fear and suspicion that some people may want to stop some National Assembly members  from contesting the 2019 elections. And where those who are not favoured manage to get their party’s ticket, it is believed, everything will be done to make them lose the election. Who loses in that situation? The party or the contestant?

    Ever before the amended bill got to the President, some had said he would not assent to it. Truly, he has vetoed the bill. Giving the reasons for his action in a letter to Senate President Bukola Saraki and House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, Buhari said the lawmakers might have infringed on the “constitutionally guaranteed discretion of INEC to organise, undertake and supervise all elections provided for in Section 15 (a) of the Third Schedule to the Constitution’’. ‘’The amendment to Section 138 of the principal act to delete two crucial grounds upon which an election may be challenged by candidates unduly limits the rights of candidates in elections to a free and fair electoral review process’’, the President added.

    He went on : ‘’The amendments to Section 152 (3 – 5) of the principal act may raise constitutional issue over the competence of the National Assembly to legislate over local government elections’’. The National Assembly has not formally reacted to the President’s veto, but it is certain that it will pay him back in kind. The President took his action under Section 58 (4) of the Constitution,which states: Where a bill is presented to the President for assent, he shall within 30 days thereof signify that he assents or he withholds assent. The lawmakers have shown that they feel strongly about this matter, with the way the Senate, especially, has dealt with those against the bill.  It is therefore as sure as daylight that they will not allow this matter to end like this. I see them overriding the President’s veto, coming under Section 58 (5) of the Constitution, which stipulates :

    Where the President withholds his assent and the bill is again passed by each House by two-third majority, the bill shall become law and the assent of the President shall not be required. It is just a matter of time before the National Assembly uses its power under the Constitution to get its way on this matter. At a time like this, we do not need this kind of feud. There are many governance issues contending for the attention of the executive and the legislature. The nation does not need this fight over the order of elections, which is borne out of the fear that there are plans to stop some people from returning to the National Assembly in 2019.

    Is their personal interest more important than the national interest? They should put themselves in the position of the people they say they represent. How will they feel if the shoe was on the other foot? Governance is not about one’s self but the ability to do the people’s will. If it is true they represent us,  they should show it in their deed.

  • Better late than never

    Better late than never

    THERE is no gainsaying the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari is  popular in the north. People can swear by him there and anybody who dares to contest against him in an election does so at his own peril. He has shown consistently that he has the region in his pocket election wise. The hoi polloi rever him; he is their god. They run after his motorcade like ants swarming around sugar. So, any party worth its name will court such a person because of his electoral value.

    As a politician, Buhari has what the typical Nigerian politician does not have – integrity. Because of this attribute, he enjoyed enormous goodwill, which saw him  elected as president in 2015 after his third try. Goodwill is one thing, governance is another as we have come to see in the almost three years of his administration. By voting Buhari in 2015, Nigerians reposed trust in him to lead them away from the rot of the past. For 16 years under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigerians virtually went through hell. They were years of the locust represented by government of the PDP by the PDP for the PDP.

    No one puts the people’s frustrations with the government better than the Catholic bishops, who visited the President at the Villa on February 8. ‘’There is no doubt that when you came into office, you had an enormous goodwill…since people saw you as a person of integrity who would be able to bring sanity into a system that was nearly crippled by endemic corruption. Nearly three years later, however, one has the feeling that this goodwill is being fast depleted by some glaring failures of government…”

    Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), promised us change and we embraced them with both hands. Our country needed change in every facet of life. It required change from poor leadership, change from corruption, change from nepotism, change from kidnappings and killings, change from terrorism, militancy and insurgency, change from armed robberies and change from cultism. The people wanted a leader that would lead the way in building infrastructure, revamping the economy through diversification, improving security, creating jobs and an enabling environment for businesses to thrive and eradicating corruption, which is the bane of our country

    The President was expected to do all these and more, but in the last three years we have been regaled with stories on why he seems to be handicapped. Sixteen years of rot, we were told, cannot be cleared in four years. Didn’t they know that before they took office in 2015? The truth is Nigerians are tired of excuses and of hearing the immediate past administration being blamed for everything under the sun. We were happy when we were told that Boko Haram had been “technically defeated”. Its capacity for evil, we were told, had been “downgraded”. But Boko Haram showed that it could still bite when it abducted 110 schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State, on February 19.

    Before then, herdsmen had seized the land, killing from one state to the other. On January 1, they struck in Benue State, killing 73 people. During their mass burial in Makurdi, the state capital,  on January 11, it was business as usual in Abuja. The Presidency did not mourn with Benue. In other parts of the country too where such dastardly acts were carried out, Abuja did not deem it fit to visit to see things firsthand. To add salt upon the Benue injury, barely 24 hours after the funeral of the 73, some governors led by Kaduna’s Nasir El-Rufai (who else?) were in Abuja to ask the President to run for a second term. At such a time, it was the most insensitive thing for anybody to do. But  El-Rufai, who sees himself as  the only righteous Nigerian, did it puffing and huffing and “without apology”.

    Last Saturday, he was again in the forefront when the children of Governors Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano) and Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo) got married in Kano. The President also played a prominent role at the wedding at a time when all hands should be on deck in bringing back the Dapchi girls. The message they sent across to the nation is that they do not care about what happens to other Nigerians  as long as they are not touched by the vicissitudes of life. Should the President have been there or not? Many believe he should not have attended the ceremony to show his empathy for families whose children were abducted in Dapchi.

    As the President, Buhari carries the nation’s enormous burden on his shoulders and he cannot afford to do things that will make people accuse him of not being fair and equitable to all. He is the father of the nation and he must be seen to act as such at all times. His visit to Taraba, which has also been rocked by herders-farmers clashes,   though belated is most welcome. And as we look forward to his visit to Benue, Nasarawa, Rivers and other troubled spots, we pray that he weans himself off those (especially second term seeking governors) surrounding him who do not wish him well, but are only thinking of using him to win election in 2019.

  • Tony Ezimakor and DSS

    FOR Tony Ezimakor, the  Abuja Bureau Chief of the Independent, his six-day ordeal with the almighty Department of State Service (DSS) ended on Tuesday night. He was released following the public outrage over his arrest, which many believed was uncalled for. Why was Tony arrested? As usual, the DSS kept mum over the matter as it always does when it acts arbitrarily. All we know is that Tony did a story on how $2million was paid to secure the release of some of the Chibok girls, who were abducted in their school in April 2014. The DSS did not like the story, just as it took exception to the statement issued on behalf of former military president Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) by his media aide Kassim Afegbua few weeks ago. Tony got a scoop and ran it. The DSS wants him to disclose the source of his story, a thing journalists are forbidden from doing worldwide. What is the DSS’ grouse with the story? Is that what the agency should be interested in at a time it should be seen working  with other law enforcement agencies in locating the over 100 girls who were abducted in their school in Dapchi, Yobe State, on February 19. Come to think of, why  did the DSS not gather intelligence on the girls’ abduction before it happened? That is its primary duty, but rather than face that, it is always looking for journalists to torment for no just reason. Releasing Tony is not enough, the DSS should be made to apologise to him publicly for detaining him illegally. May be that way, the department will realise that it is not above the law in the discharge of its duty.