The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

  • The lone wolf

    In16 the sleepy town of Ibeshe in Ikorodu, Lagos, women have become endangered species. No woman is safe in the community. Whether young or old; married or spinster, they have become game for a man who prowls the vicinity in the dead of the night. The women go to bed every night in fear because they do not know whether they will become his next victim. And this evil of a man does his homework well before he strikes. He targets women who are alone at home. For the married ones, he seems to know when their husbands are not around.

    He knows that his potential victim will be most vulnerable when she is alone,  so he bides his time before he strikes. He strikes under the cover of darkness and he is aided by the unavailability of light. Since the nation has been thrown into darkness by the power firms unscrupulous elements now have a field day committing atrocities across the country. This man is one of such elements. He prowls the Ibeshe community, raping and maiming women. To him, raping has become a pastime. He sneaks into a house, binds his victim, rapes her, inflicts injuries on the poor woman and vanishes into thin air.

    If the victim screams, she is dead, if she does not, she suffers the same fate. It is a no win situation for her. Last June 5, he struck again. His latest escapade was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The community had become fed up with his atrocities and in no time, the dwellers rose as one to smoke him out. ‘’Is it possible for an outsider to be tormenting us like this?’’ they reasoned. Indeed, somebody cannot be coming from outside to be committing such atrocities except if he has the support of an insider or he must actually be an insider.

    They thought they had their man last Sunday, but it turned out that the fellow is not the one behind the mask. Who is the man? Where does he come from? Is it possible that he comes from outside to torment these women without the support of an insider? Who are his partners within Ibeshe? Where can he be hiding in the town? Does he have friends or family members? Who are they? To get this man, all these questions must be answered, otherwise, he will continue to strike and run.

    Only an insider will have the kind of information that the man has about the dwellers. His June 5 victim was a married woman, but her husband is not based in Ibeshe. Her husband works in Osogbo, the Osun State capital. This information was at the disposal of this evil doer, who knew that he had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted when he stole into the late Mrs Grace Jubreel’s home in the wee hours of that fateful day. The deceased was with her 14 months old daughter. Poor girl, what could she have done to save her mother? Nothing. The tot was as helpless as her mother as the beast of a man forced himself on her. The late Mrs Jubreel screamed and screamed, but no help came because of the noisy generators, which muffled her cries.

    If there had been light, things may have been different because her neighbours and the security guards might have heard her and rushed to her aid. But the community was in pitch darkness. Regular power supply is critical to crime fighting, especially at night. But what can we do when the distribution companies have resolved to subject us to perpetual darkness and endanger our lives. The public is not demanding stable power for the sake of it, but because it is essential to the people’s safety and security. A well lit place will always be a no-go area for any criminal; while a dark spot  will embolden them to attack people. We are at criminals’ mercy when there is no light and this was what happened in Ibeshe 11 days ago.

    The man had all the time in the world to harangue his victim because everywhere was dark. Even when help belatedly came, getting more people to take the late Mrs Jubreel to hospital was difficult because of, you guessed right, there was no light. Hear Mr Titilayo Ibraheem, Oke-Ota Community Development Association Chairman : ‘’Immediately, I started knocking on other tenants’ doors because none of them knew what had happened …they were all still in deep sleep. I saw that a generator was on and the sound might have prevented them from hearing. I quickly put off the generator and hit the doors hard, they later came out’’. The community’s  chief security officer, Femi Oluwaloba, also told a similar story.

    Wolves like this unknown serial rapist operate in the night because it is the safest time to do evil. The more daring among them operate in the daytime, most times to their peril. These wolves operate in a pack, relying on the strength of their number to terrorise people. But this rapist is a lone wolf, who has turned the women of Ibeshe into his play thing. God saved the man that was caught last Sunday, exactly one week after the rapist, who is at large, mauled Mrs Jubreel. The people wanted to give him jungle justice thinking that he is the man, but for the intervention of their monarch, Oba Richard Ogunsanya, the Olu of Ibeshe, who insisted on inviting the police. The rapist is on the run, but the women who he raped will never forget the trauma. He ruined their lives just to satisfy his inordinate urge.

    What will make a man rape a 87-year-old woman as he did? What is his motive? To make money? Acquire spiritual power? Whatever it is,  I pray that the law will catch up with him. I felt like weeping when I read the story of his octogenarian victim who said she has accepted her fate. What else can the old woman do? Only the law can give her succour. May the law not disappoint her.

  • Power sector lies

    In the past few months, the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) have been all over the place, trying to justify why they cannot discharge their obligations to customers. It is heartrending that instead of effective service what we are getting from the DisCos are excuses on why they cannot ensure uninterrupted power supply. The coming of the DisCos, we had thought, would end the power crisis, but unfortunately, Nigerians are today cursing the day the sector was privatised.

    The sector was privatised because the public utility running it was inefficient and ineffective. The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) like the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) before it was like any other government agency, which was managed to fail. Though set up with tax payers fund, it was not run to make profit but to service the needs of those in power.

    The affluent and the influential were also favoured. All they needed to do when they had no light was to call the power  minister or the PHCN chief executive and pronto their supply will be restored whether or not they are owing. Then, some institutions, corporate bodies and individuals used light without remembering to pay their bills. It was convenient for them not to pay because there was no mechanism to check them. The problem with our power sector was self inflicted. We preferred to run the sector on the basis of man know man and ended up destroying it.

    Power is life; it is the engine of economic development. Without regular power supply, a nation cannot but be at the bottom of the development index. This is why I am pained by the excuses the DisCos are giving for their inability to meet the people’s needs. The promoters of these DisCos are not from the moon; they have been in this country ever since the days of ECN, NEPA and PHCN. They know what we went through in the hands of these public utilities. It is not an experience worth recalling here.

    The DisCos are supposed to wipe away our tears by ensuring regular power supply, but they are compounding our problem. What we are getting from them are cock and bull stories about why they cannot do their jobs. The stories they are telling us are not new. They are the same old stories that we are aware of and which they too must have heard about before investing in the sector. Their investment was a matter of choice. They could have decided not to put their money into the business because of its many challenges. But having decided to invest in it they have no choice than to deliver because we are paying for their services. They are not supplying us light for free. They know what to do to those using light without paying.

    But in punishing those people they should sift the wheat from the chaff. What is the point in disconnecting those not owing along with the debtors? That is the height of injustice and there is nowhere in the world that such a thing will happen, except in our country. Elsewhere, creditor-customers would have sued the DisCos for breach of contract. Why should we not enjoy the service that we are paying for just because some people are owing? The people are tired of hearing them blame  gas pipelines’ vandals for their inadequacies. An advertorial by the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) says the DisCos should not be blamed for what it calls ‘’lack of electricity’’.

    Reason : vandalism of gas pipelines, according to the ANED, is equal to shortage of gas. Shortage of gas= low generation of electricity. Low generation of electricity= low distribution. ‘’We’’, it concluded, ‘’cannot give what we don’t have’’. Vandalism of pipelines did not start today; it predates the coming of the DisCos on November 1, 2013. So, it is something they knew about before buying into the power sector. Why did they take the risk when they knew that it is an endangered sector? Why did they invest in the business when they knew that vandals and militants can blow up the pipelines at any time under one guise or the other? How did they plan to handle this huge problem before investing in the sector? Or didn’t they consider such a scenario before their huge investment? If they didn’t that says a lot about them as businessmen.  Again, they should stop complaining about being owed. This too did not start today. It started long ago and they must have been aware of it before they acquired PHCN.

    The DisCos are the architects
    of their troubles. They knew
    of the sector’s enormous problems before buying into it with their eyes wide open, but they were more interested on the return on investment (ROI), which they have calculated in their minds’ eye will be in billionfold of whatever they spend. This calculation seems to have backfired and they are taking it out on customers through tariff hike and crazy bills. Many customers are not complaining about the tariff hike, what irks them is that they are not getting value for their money. The people are sick and tired with the way they are being treated by these DisCos. Will the government call them to order before things get out of hand?

     

    Ali: Forever The Greatest

    When the kid from Louisville, Kentucky in the United States (US), hit the world boxing stage in the sixties with his razor sharp tongue, many would have thought that he would soon burn himself out and become history. But he went on to dominate the game for almost 30 years, clinching the world boxing heavyweight title three times. Muhammad Ali captured the world’s imagination like no other boxer in history. He was as fast on his feet as he was with his mouth. It was a delight to watch Ali fight. He fought with his fists and mouth. As he pounded his opponent with his fists, he followed up by taunting him. Many times, he ran into trouble because of his costly remarks, but there was no stopping Ali. ‘’The man who will beat me has not been born’’, he once said. “I am The Greatest”, he also boasted and the world accepted him as such. Ali was master of his trade. His passage last Friday after a 32-year battle with the Parkinson’s disease showed that he was a fighter to the end. The world mourns as the Champ’s funeral rites hold today and tomorrow in Louisville. Adieu, The Greatest.

  • The Avengers’ angst

    OF all things, militancy should be the last to occupy our minds right now; but it has crept back stealthily to the front burner. Many thought that it was dead and buried following the amnesty granted militants by the Yar’Adua administration in 2009. Under the deal, those who renounced militancy and surrendered their weapons were granted amnesty and rehabilitated by the government. The ‘men’, that is the leaders, were said to have been given a huge sum of money to give up their weapons; the ‘boys’, that is the foot soldiers, were taken to camps for deradicalisation.

    In the camps, they were paid stipends and taught handcrafts. Many were taken abroad for further training, with the government spending millions of dollars on them. The amnesty deal was, however, not embraced by all militants’ leaders. Dokubo Asari of the Niger Delta People Salvation Front (NDPSF) remains a known critic of the programme. Asari has also never hidden his disdain for the North, which he believes is responsible for the despoiling of the Niger Delta. The region is oil rich, but its people are the flotsam and the jetsam of the earth.

    The Niger Delta environment is not conducive today because of the operations of oil companies. They have messed up the waters and the farms from which the people derive their living without giving them anything in return. Rather than come to the people’s aid, successive administrations were believed to be in cahoots with these foreign firms to deprive the oil-producing communities of what rightly belongs to them. It was to call attention to their people’s plight that environmental activists like the late Ken Saro-Wiwa sprang up. But with the death of Saro-Wiwa and the likes of the late Isaac Adaka Boro before him, the agitation took a militant hue.

    Militancy changed the face of the fight because it became what the agitators could get from the struggle and not what could be done for the larger community. Militants resorted to kidnapping for money and blowing up oil facilities, which are the nation’s assets. As things stand now, it seems it is bye bye to amnesty, with the sudden emergence of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), starting the fight all over again. It is not that the fight had been settled; no, not all; but, at least,  the country was making headway in resolving it through the amnesty initiative. The Avengers, only they know what they are avenging, have thrown a spanner in the works, with their ill-motivated action.

    There is more to the resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta than meets the eye. There is no threat to the region’s interests for now to warrant what the Avengers are doing, except if they are executing a hidden agenda. The militants may not be happy that the region has lost power at the centre and may be doing all this to rattle the Buhari administration to draw constant attention to the place. The Avengers are surely not fighting for former President Goodluck Jonathan, but fighting to keep what they were getting under him, which may no longer come to them, with Buhari at the helms. We were warned of this day long ago by Asari, but we did not take heed of what he was saying then.

    Shortly after the last presidential election, which Jonathan lost to Buhari, Asari rambled about the Niger Delta ideology at the gathering of the Ijaw for the 2015 yearly Isaac Adaka Boro public event. He was bitter that Jonathan had lost the election and without mincing words, he said his people would ‘’resume our struggle if Buhari draws the first blood’’. Asari forgot that Buhari was not elected to shed blood, but to preserve it. In the heat of the moment, he spoke the minds of his people on that occasion, threatening fire and brimstone, all because their son lost an election.

    Asari said : ‘’Yes, a new government begins in Nigeria and a new phase of our struggle shall begin also. The Jonathan presidency was like a restraining order; now that restraint is lifted. However, we will watch and wait; let them draw the first blood and we shall determine our best way forward. Truly, Nigeria will never be the same again; the future is pregnant’’. Is NDA the product of that pregnancy? Asari should tell us because a rabbit does not run in the daytime for nothing. The Avengers are dancing to the drumbeats of some people, but we do not know where these people are. Asari may know for him to have spoken the way he did last year.

    Using strong words to the delight of his fellow Ijaw, he went on : ‘’Should Buhari whom like Pharaoh has determined in his heart to turn desolate the Niger Delta draw the first blood by undermining certain interests of the region, then begin the systemic arrest, maiming and murder of our comrades, continue the confiscation of our rights for self determination and treat the region as a conquered region then it may be honourable for some of us to die in prison or on the field of war as nobody is afraid of him’’. Long before Buhari assumed office, the Niger Delta people seemed to have resolved to give him a tough time because of the fear of the unknown. Whatever gave them the impression that the president would come with an agenda to decimate them only God knows.

    Or are they trying to do to Buhari what Boko Haram did under Jonathan? Of what use will that be? Were they told that the president was Boko Haram’s sponsor? This shows how shallow their thinking is. The Avengers are having a field day destroying our commonwealth in these hard times and even daring the military to a fight. Those who know them should call them to order now because by the time the military takes them on, the story will be different. We all have our grievances against the system, but they cannot be addressed through violence. The earlier the Avengers appreciate this fact the better for them and their backers.

     

  • One year of change

    Having just a few minutes ago sworn on the Holy Book, I intend to keep my oath and serve as president to all Nigerians. I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.

    -Buhari, May 29, 2015

    The magic word was change and it worked like magic. The electorate keyed into the word and voted for the party of change – the All Progressives Congress (APC) – in the last elections. APC not only swept the polls, it also  swept out the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ending the so-called largest party in Africa’s fantasy to be in power for 60 years. It took a change in government to open our eyes to PDP’s  disastrous 16 years outing spanning 1999 to 2015. It took that change for us to know that PDP took us for a ride all those years.

    With that change,  APC’s battle cry during the polls, comes the hope of a better tomorrow for our country. With that change we have hope that things will work and that outsiders will not continue to look down on us. The APC has a lot to do to change Nigeria for it to reclaim its place in the comity of nations. Transforming the country is not going to be easy, but President Muhammadu Buhari must start from somewhere. We are an extremely impatient people; we want quick fixes to problems. This is why many of us have come to see the president as being ‘’too slow’’.

    We want him to do whatever he wishes to do fast because the time is short – he has only four years in the first instance – to deliver on his promises to change Nigeria. By Sunday, he would have spent the first of his four years, leaving him with three more to go. What has Buhari done in the last 365 days? Has he delivered on his change deal? Has anything really changed? The president’s loyalists will quickly point out that things have changed. They will tell you that things are no longer the way they were in the last dispensation. What they are saying in effect is ‘’it is no longer business as usual’’.

    But his critics will say ‘’it is all motion and no movement’’. They will insist that ‘’nothing has changed’’ because the lives of the people cannot be said to be better than before. They will also point at the economy, noting that rather than improve, it is still haemorrhaging. They will refer to the high exchange rate, the fuel price hike, the erratic power supply and unemployment. All these were inherited problems, no doubt, but the critics do not want to hear that. To them, the issue is ‘’what has changed?’’ and they are quick to always add the clincher ‘’is this the change we voted for?’’

    This may not be the change we voted for yet, but it is better than where we are coming from. Things are hard today because they have to be so before they get better. In the last dispensation when there was money, what did the administration do for the country? Nothing. The leadership allowed the country to go to seed, while lining the pockets of a few. The government was more concerned about itself than the people. The welfare of ministers and their aides mattered most. That was why a minister could be gallivanting around the world in a charter flight under the guise of working for the country. What did all those flights yield? Nothing, but pains and debt for the country.

    We went through hell in the past in the hands of successive PDP administrations. If the people are today impatient with the Buhari administration, the government should try and understand how they feel. Once bitten, they say, twice shy. Former President Goodluck Jonathan pretended to be a good man and we gave him all the chance in the world, but what did we get in return? The Buhari administration must bear with the people. It should listen to their cry for the good things of life early in the life of the administration. The president is no stranger to how tough things are. He once wore the shoes like us and his being in power today should not distance him from the people.

    Things have become tougher under him because he has to correct the ills of the past in order to take off well. This is for those who understand; many do not. These people do not understand why fuel price had to go up from N86.50 to N145 per litre after several months of scarcity of the product, which during that period they even bought for as high as N250 and above per litre. They also cannot understand why power is still unstable despite the president’s promise to tackle the problem frontally. They want to take the president for his word, but the reality is otherwise. They keep asking themselves how long they have to bear these pains before the paean.  Their songs of triumph will surely come, the president assured the nation a few months ago.

    He said then that he was aware that people were complaining that he ‘’is too slow’’. He told his party members to tell us that he still has three years left to deliver on his election promises. We need not remind him of those promises. He knows that there is suffering in the land, with many workers going for months without salaries. As a caring father, he came to the aid of many states to pay salaries, but that gesture seemed not enough. Many states are still owing their workers. What about fuel, power and security? The president knows that these are issues he must address to remain in the hearts of the people after winning their votes in the last elections.

    At his inauguration last May 29 while reviewing the state of the nation, he said : ‘’At home, we face enormous challenges. Insecurity, pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages are the immediate concerns. We are going to tackle them head on. Nigerians will not regret that they have entrusted national responsibility to us. We must not succumb to hopelessness and defeatism. We can fix our problem’’. That was not all he said. On security, he said ‘’we cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the Chibok girls and all innocent persons held hostage by insurgents’’.

    Two of the girls have been found, raising hopes that others may also be found soon. It will enhance the Buhari administration’s image if all the girls are found. But, a better way to launder the administration’s image  will be to ensure constant fuel and stable power supply. With that, Buhari would write his name in gold. He has only three years left to do that.

  •  The prodigal father

    How old was the prodigal son? The Bible did not say, but surely, he could not have been up to 60. The prodigal son may have been in his twenties or thirties.  From his story, he could not have been more than a child, a boy still being fed by his parents. Since his father was wealthy, he had all he needed. He and his older brother lacked only what they did not need!

    Like all rich and spoilt children, he rose one day and decided that he wanted his own share of his inheritance. How can a child inherit his father when the old man is still alive? His father acceded to his request and the boy left home. In no time, he had squandered his inheritance. Before he knew it, he fell into hard times and resorted to doing all sorts of menial job to keep body and soul together.

    The prodigal son could not cope with the change in fortune. He looked at himself and he did not like what he saw and the scales fell off his eyes. He wondered how he got into his lowly state. He resolved to return home and it was a happy ending for him as his father forgave him his trespasses. If the prodigal son was being childish, could that also be said of a man, who is above 60 and with his mental faculty intact, who misbehaved because he found himself in power?

    Doyin Okupe was not a newcomer to public office when former President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him as an aide. Okupe had worked for former President Olusegun Obasanjo and even served in a higher capacity then than under Jonathan. Mind you, there was nothing he did under Obasanjo that he did not do worse under Jonathan.

    He was voluble, abusive and always attacking his master’s real and imaginary enemies. Obasanjo enjoyed what Okupe was doing as his attack dog; he did not call him to order. He allowed the Remo-born physician a free rein and Okupe became a loose canon. So loose that he did not spare even Obasanjo when the tide changed.

    Okupe is not a boy that he should not know where to draw the line in the discharge of his duty. At his age and a Yoruba to boot, he should know that he did not have to call a cow brother because he wanted to eat beef. In order to show Jonathan that he is 100% loyal, Okupe took Obasanjo to the cleaners for daring to attack the immediate past president, forgetting that Obasanjo was his former boss. By attacking Obasanjo to please Jonathan, Okupe displayed the trait of those the Yoruba call alayi more (an unappreciative person).

    Like the prodigal son, this prodigal father has wormed his way back into Obasanjo’s heart. Penultimate Sunday, he went to Obasanjo’s Ota farm in Ogun State to beg for forgiveness. Does that mean he has withdrawn all the uncomplimentary things he said about Obasanjo? If tomorrow he finds himself in office again will he not still tear Obasanjo to pieces if the former president criticises his new master? The likes of Okupe do not change. They are blown by the wind. If the wind blows left, they move there, if right, they will be found there. Do not be surprised if Okupe changes gear tomorrow and attacks Obasanjo again. I tell you, he will do it over and over again to please his new masters, who ever they may be.

    People like Okupe are always on the side where their bread is buttered. I am not fooled by his prostration; so don’t be too. As the Yoruba say prostration does not portray good breeding. Obasanjo beware.

     

    Exit of a virtuous woman

     The  news of the death of Remi Ibitola’s wife, Abiodun, hit me like a thunderbolt on Sunday night.  Biodun dead? What could have happened? As soon as I got the information, my mind went straight to Remi. I knew that he would be shattered because he and Biodun were close. I know because I lived with them in Akure, the Ondo State capital, in 1992. I had joined the Daily Times from the Punch and was posted to Akure on relief duty. Remi, who was Punch’s Ondo State correspondent had also just been posted to Lagos. The late Dare Ajuwon replaced him in Akure. Remi knew that I had nowhere to stay in Akure, so he offered me his place. For six months, I was the guest of the Ibitolas. Whenever Remi came home from Lagos, we always had a swell time, with Biodun (I find it difficult to refer to her as late) striving to satisfy us. She was a woman who knew how to take care of her man. She really took care of Remi, ensuring that he lacked nothing whenever he was around.

    She did not say it; but she acted it. She would have preferred that Remi remained in Akure because she felt he was not receiving good care in Lagos. She was fond of asking him whenever he came home so jeun dada sha; mio feran bo seri yi (I hope you are eating well; I do not like how you are looking). Unknown to her, Remi’s posting was for his own good, career wise. Her prayers for him were answered when Remi became editor of the Sunday Punch some years later. Remi and Biodun were soulmates. They cherished each other’s company. They never got tired of gisting till very late in the night. When one went to the loo, the other followed, still talking and laughing. I kept asking Remi what they were talking about that could not wait for the other person to return from the loo so as to continue. And he would burst out laughing. Omo eko ni e tie Lawi, sha ba wo (You are a Lagos boy, Lawal, just keep watching). They were a study in love; true love. Remi loves Biodun (yes, he still does) and would never do anything without her. She was his confidante, partner, adviser and above all mother. Biodun mothered Remi. Her love for him was deep and true. There was nothing she could not do for him; she was always there for him. And the love was mutual. Remi too did not joke about her. Her death will shake Remi; I only pray that God will console him. May He grant him the fortitude to bear this great loss. Those of us who knew Biodun know that she was a wife in the true sense of the word to Remi.

    When I spoke with Remi on Tuesday, the voice I heard on phone was not that of the ebullient guy I know who is ever ready to throw banters at you. His voice was subdued and low. I immediately knew that he has not been finding things easy since the untimely death of his better half. I could only console him and pray for the repose of the soul of the departed. May she rest in the bosom of the Lord. Biodun’s funeral holds in Akure on May 27 and 28.

  • DisCos of darkness

    POWER outage is not strange in this land. It is something we have become used to. We are only surprised when light is stable. We keep on wondering what is happening, expecting the light to go off any time. As long as there is light we feel uncomfortable. It is as if something is wrong somewhere; as if we are being propelled by a force to will the power authority to cut light. Call it the force of darkness, you may not be wrong.

    Living in darkness has been our lot since the days of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) – the forerunner of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).

    With the explosion in our population by the time NEPA came into being in 1972, it was obvious that we may be having an energy crisis if we did not do the right things. We relied solely on hydropower for our supply needs then. It was not the era of gas turbines and power plants.

    Our inability to get the power sector right has done a lot of havoc to the economy. Many companies are today running below capacity because of irregular power supply. Many have sacked workers to remain afloat and yet many have relocated to other countries where the environment is friendlier. The story does not end there. Others have folded up because they cannot cope. In this category are the textile firms, which used to employ millions of people. Today, the textile industry is dead. Go to the Ikeja Industrial Estate on Oba Akran Avenue and see the carcass of the Nigerian Textile Mills. Many others abound like that in Kaduna and Kano.

    The real sector is hard hit by this problem. Manufacturing companies are now comatose because their machines cannot run at optimal capacity. These machines require uninterrupted power to function well.

    Like large scale companies, small businesses also suffer from the power problem. They are hard hit because they do not operate an economy of scale. Theirs is a cash and carry business run on the basis of what can be tagged as ‘’pay as you go’’. They cannot expand their businesses easily because they do not have the financial muscle. All they do is subsistence business – trading to get what to eat. These days, they can barely make ends meet because of the terribly low power supply.

    Ironically, it is the government that is asking Nigerians to be creative that is killing talents. As it is for businesses, so it is for individuals. In our respective homes, we run a mini-government, providing for ourselves services which should be rendered by the government. We dig boreholes for water supply; we run generators to provide light and through communal efforts we build our own roads. Yet, we pay tax; but we do not see what it is being used for.

    Getting power right is crucial to remaking Nigeria. There is nothing we will achieve as a nation if we do not address the power challenge frontally. The privatisation of the sector was meant to achieve this. The gains of the  2001 deregulation of the telecommunication sector opened our eyes to the inherent benefits of getting government out of business.

    We were upbeat about the privatisation of power because we thought it would change the electricity supply equation for good. The 2003 unbundling of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), which succeeded the NEPA in 2005, into 18 successive generation companies (GenCos) and distribution companies (DisCos), was supposed to end our power woes. We never knew that it will mark the beginning. The GenCos and DisCos have been in business for about three years now, yet we have not felt their impact. The other day, a friend disagreed with my observation, saying: “but they have been distributing darkness!”  Can you beat that? All we have been getting from these companies are excuses on why they cannot deliver.

    It seems they did not bargain for what they are getting. These firms probably thought that they were walking into money by acquiring the assets of the PHCN. They appeared to have forgotten that business is not a bed of roses. Acquisitions are not always what they seem from outside until you get inside. A seasoned businessman does not only look at the assets of a concern, but also at its liabilities. The GenCos and DisCos missed the way by looking at the good side of the books only; they did so because they were thinking only in terms of naira and kobo – that is what is in it for them in the short run and not what they were going to give to customers in the long run in terms of efficient service.

    Under them, power supply has collapsed, yet they keep on harassing customers to pay their bills. To pay for services not rendered? In recent times, they have been placing adverts in the papers, threatening to disconnect debtor-customers. What are they waiting for? They should go ahead and start the exercise having fulfilled the requirement of serving customers a notice before disconnecting them. What difference will it make if they disconnect debtors? Have they not thrown the nation into darkness already with their incessant power outages? Those of us not owing them do not enjoy their services. There was nothing to show for the N750 monthly Service Charge they used to collect from us before it was scrapped with the coming of the new tariff last February 1.

    They fought tooth and nail to retain the charge because whether or not they gave us light in a particular month, they will be entitled to the money. The DisCos, especially have not been up and doing; they should buckle up in order to win customers’ confidence. We know that there are challenges; but they, as corporate entities, should have factored these into their operations before taking off.

    We know all about the gas problem; the clash with former PHCN workers; the vandalism of power plants and cables and the resurgent Niger Delta militancy, but all these cannot justify the DisCos’ poor performance so far. They can do better and I hope they will change for the better before customers rise against them.

  • The herd instinct

    I saw a traumatised community in shock and despair. I saw a dead body. I wept. I wondered what has become of our quest for a united, peaceful and prosperous nation. —Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

     

    The Gonernor was visibly pained as he relived his efforts to nip in the bud the herdsmen gruesome attack on Nimbo in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State on April 28. Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi battled not to betray emotion as he read his speech last Friday while constituting a judicial panel of enquiry into the dastardly act. As I watched him on television I felt his pains as he recalled all he did to stop the attack as soon as he got wind of it. According to him, he mobilised the security agencies to forestall the attack and they assured him that everything was under control.

    It turned out to be otherwise; nothing was under control. Rather, everything had spun out of control not because of lack of resources and logistics, but because of the failure of some security agents to discharge their duties. Why were the security agencies caught flatfooted in the wee hours of April 28 when the herdsmen struck in Nimbo? Were they outgunned or outnumbered? Or is it that they just decided to look the other way when some of their compatriots were being massacred? As Ugwuanyi noted when he asked a similar question while constituting the probe panel “only the security agencies can provide the answers.”

    But, it is quite revealing that our security agencies failed on that crucial occasion. The nation has been battling with the menace of herdsmen for sometime. There is virtually no part of the country today that they have not struck, leaving death and destruction in their trail. But, Benue, Plateau and Nasarawa states seem to bear the brunt of their attacks. In one fell swoop, herdsmen killed over 500 people and rendered 7000 others homeless when they invaded Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State on February 29. Herdsmen were never known to be this vicious. At least, the herdsmen that I grew up to know were not killers; they were genial, lovable and friendly.

    We ran and sang after them as they herded their cattle through the streets without any fear of molestation or attack. At times, they even laughed at our jokes which they did not understand. But because they saw us laugh, they also laughed. That was the Nigeria of the good old days where everybody was his brother’s keeper. This was what Governor Ugwuanyi was seeking answer to when he asked : ‘’I wondered what has become of our quest for a united, peaceful and prosperous nation?’’ Really, what has become of the Nigeria where we looked after one another’s interest? Where did we miss it? What went wrong and when did things go wrong?

    Why is it that herdsmen have suddenly become killers? Are they being treated as outcast in their host communities? When did such hostile treatment begin? Something must be behind the sudden transformation of these herdsmen. If they had been living peacefully with their hosts for ages, why is it now that they are unleashing terror on the communities that have been home to them? Their progenitor also lived and did business in those communities. Something must have transformed the hitherto simple and easy going nomads into monsters. We must do something to tame this monster of herdsmen killings before it consumes us.

    Irrespective of where we come from, this is not the time to look at this matter from an ethnic prism. If we do that, we will not be able to find lasting solution to the problem. As things are now, something can still be done to salvage the situation. But if we start to talk from both sides of the mouth, we will achieve nothing. Rather, we will exacerbate the problem. The Fulani are known to be cattle rearers, a trade they have been into for eternity. If you go round the country today, anywhere you find a herd of cattle, a Fulani will not be far away. I have never seen an Ijaw, Bini, Itsekiri, Igbo or Yoruba herding cattle. I have never seen it. I may be wrong; but until I am proved wrong I will maintain my stand.

    We cannot deny what is obvious and this is clearly what the northern governors attempted to do last Friday when they met in Kaduna. When a finger brings oil, according to a local adage, it stains the whole hand. The herdsmen atrocities have portrayed the Fulani in bad light; but that does not mean that the race is evil. No, far from it. I know where Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima was coming from when he said in Kaduna : ‘’We want to unequivocally condemn the recent killings in Enugu and other parts of the country. But, we equally condemn the politicisation or permit me, the ethnicisation of the whole crisis. It goes beyond Fulani. If anything happens, they say Fulani herdsmen. To me, it is an insult’’.

    I beg to disagree sir. Nobody is pointing finger at the Fulani. It is a well known fact that the herdsmen are Fulani. Nobody is trying to give the Fulani a bad name in order to hang them. It is the northern governors that are trying to ethnicise the whole thing by their position, which is not good for the stability and unity of our country. Rather than speak the way they did they should join hands with other leaders to stop these killings before other groups start hunting down the herdsmen. The governors should be mindful of their exalted office and not inflame passion with their utterances. They should not pour petrol into a fire which is threatening to engulf the country.

    Because President Muhammadu Buhari is a Fulani does not mean that we should close our eyes to the evil being perpetrated by the herdsmen. Neither the president nor the northern governors sent them on those deadly missions. Our leaders should condemn what is bad and the perpetrators of such evil even if they are their kinsmen. That is the hallmark of a true leader. I know that blood is thicker than water, but the unity of Nigeria should be paramount and non-negotiable.

     

             Never say never

    Leicester City Football Club aka the Foxes are today the toast of English soccer having won the Barclays Premier League. Nobody gave the Claudio Ranieri-managed team a chance in the 2015/2016 season. With their chances put at 5000-1 at the  beginning of the tourney, they were not expected to do better than they did in the last season when they escaped relegation by whiskers. This season they shocked the soccer world including themselves with their feat. Leicester had never won a major title since it was founded in 1884. By winning the Premiership, they have written their name in gold in a way that some football legends, such as the gentleman Gary Lineker, who passed through the club, never did. It is the can-do spirit that saw the Foxes through. When everybody wrote them and their coach off they believed in themselves and today they have made history. All hail, the new soccer kings. Will it be an encore next season?

  • Okonjo-Iweala’s satanic verse

    Okonjo-Iweala’s satanic verse

    In a national broadcast to mark the forgiveness of Nigeria’s debt by the Paris Club in 2005, former President Olusegun Obasanjo made some remarks, which I have since held on to. In closing the broadcast, he said: “How about the future? We must learn from the past. We must all show collective responsibility to prevent a return to the past. We must all commit ourselves to protecting, rather than squandering the future of our children. We must all agree not to remove the solid blocks on which our nation stands by accumulating debts that we cannot pay. May God never let us go through this painful path again’’.

    The statement ended with a prayer, which I know that many of  us would have said amen to. Even with that amen, are we sure that our country is not reeling under another debt overhang today? I will draw heavily from the text of Obasanjo’s broadcast in writing this article. It is over 11 years since the Obasanjo administration got us the $18 billion debt relief. Obasanjo left office in 2007 and since his exit, we have had two other administrations – the late Yar’Adua’s and the Jonathan’s. The late President Umoru Yar’Adua, as we all know did not have the time to attend to affairs of state because of his health, so he may not have gone on a borrowing spree that will harm the country.

    But the same cannot be said of his successor, former President Goodluck Jonathan, who was in office for almost six years before his loss in the last election to President Muhammadu Buhari. A key figure in the Obasanjo and Jonathan administrations was Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the renowned economist, who left the World Bank to serve her country. Okonjo-Iweala played a key role in the negotiations that led to the writing off of our debt. And Obasanjo acknowledged her role in his broadcast by describing her as ‘’a woman of indomitable character and courage’’.

    If I know Obasanjo well, he will not think twice today before withdrawing that accolade. Why? It is the same Okonjo-Iweala that should have led the campaign for savings in the wake of the debt relief in which she played a central role that did otherwise under Jonathan. In the opening of the June 30, 2005 broadcast, Obasanjo enjoined us to savour the cheery news of the debt forgiveness ‘’and draw bitter lessons from the profligacy of the past’’. Did Okonjo-Iweala, the architect of the debt relief, draw such lessons? The answer is no. Speaking on ‘’Inequality, growth and resilience’’ at the George Washington University in the United States (US) last Thursday, she said our country is in dire straits today because her boss, Jonathan, lacked the political will to save!

    Under Obasanjo, she said the nation saved $22 billion, which came in handy during the 2008/2009 global meltdown. Obasanjo, she said, was able to save because he had the political will to do so. ‘’This time around, and this is key now, you need not only to have the instrument but you need the political will. In my second time as finance minister, from 2011 to 2015, we had the instrument, we had the means, we had done it before, but zero political will. So, we were not able to save when we should have. That is why you find that Nigeria is now in the situation it is in, along with so many other countries”, Okonjo-Iweala said.

    In one word, Jonathan failed the nation when we needed his leadership most. It is not that the money was not there; the money was there because oil was selling like hot cake then – between $120 and $140 per barrel – and there were no problems whatsoever with production. It was Okonjo-Iweala’s duty to ensure that we saved for the rainy day because life goes up and down like a yo-yo. The oil that was selling for $140 per barrel when she was in government is today hovering between $38 and $40 per barrel. If I were Okonjo-Iweala, I will cover my face in shame. She should not be seen or heard talking at all because it was her duty to get the then president to save for the rainy day.

    She was a super-minister – the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy – all roled into one. What was she coordinating if she could not get Jonathan to do what was expected of him? To reduce what happened then to Jonathan’s lack of political will shows that she did not appreciate the enormity of her responsibility as a super-minister. The issue is Okonjo-Iweala should admit that she failed as finance minister. Their administration, as she noted in her US lecture, put us in the mess we are in today because of its ineptitude. She worsened her case by trying to explain it away later that governors were the problem. Were the governors our president or Jonathan? Why didn’t governors stop Obasanjo from saving when he was president?

    I return to the Obasanjo broadcast again because what Okonjo-Iweala did relates to what he warned the nation against 11 years ago. ‘’We can identify bad governance, abuse of office and power, criminal corruption, mismanagement and waste, misplaced priorities, fiscal indiscipline, weak control…These all took place in this country, before our very eyes, and at times in active complicity with many of us…We often forget that stolen and wasted funds were money meant for growth and development especially education, health, roads, water, electricity and other social services’’.

    Okonjo-Iweala saw evil being perpetrated against her country and she kept quiet instead of raising an alarm. Of what benefit is her statement today that we could not save for the rainy day because of our former president’s lack of political will? Her statement cannot remedy the situation; so she should keep what she knows to herself and not add to our problems. She and her cohort have done their worse. I just hope that we will not be infected by the Okonjo-Iweala disease of keeping quiet when we should speak out when things are going wrong.

    As Obasanjo said in his broadcast:  “We pray to God that we get beyond this debilitation and develop a collective conscience that is anchored on transparency, accountability, probity, value-for-money and due process’’. For Nigeria, may it yet be morning on creation day.

     

  • Chibok girls, two years on

    Anniversaries are important dates celebrated to mark significant events. Couples celebrate their wedding anniversaries. Children mark the death anniversaries of their parents. Monarchs celebrate their coronation anniversaries. Companies, schools and related businesses celebrate the anniversaries of their formation. First birthday anniversary; a company’s 10th anniversary; a school’s 25th anniversary; 50th and 100th birthday anniversaries are, in most cases, marked with fanfare because we consider them as special.

    But, there are some anniversaries that we recoil from celebrating because we do not wish to remember them. We want to forget such events and, if possible, we wish that they never happened. Anniversaries that evoke bitter memories are no anniversaries, but we still remember the events that happened on those dates to see what can be done to ease our pains.

    Two years ago, we were hit by a thunderbolt when over 200 pupils of Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) in Chibok, Borno State, were abducted by Boko Haram insurgents in the wee hours of April 14. Since their abduction, many theories have been propounded about their whereabouts. As at today, we cannot say categorically where these girls are. The fact is, as President Muhammadu Buhari said in his maiden media chat, there is no intelligence report on where the girls are being kept. This has provided some unscrupulous people an opportunity to defraud the government.

    Knowing that the government is desirous of bringing back the girls, no matter what it takes, they have been coming up with tales about where the girls are and promising to get them released if the price is right. The Jonathan administration fell prey to such confidence tricksters, who have also tried to play a fast one on the Buhari administration. The Chibok girls’ abduction remains a slap on our face. As the girls mark two years in captivity, chances of their being rescued are getting slimmer by the day. Nothing will gladden the hearts of  Nigerians more than these girls being rescued intact. But the truth is that may not be possible.

    When former President Olusegun Obasanjo said some weeks ago that the girls may not be rescued intact, many wanted him skinned alive. As a former president, Obasanjo must know what he was saying. He may be privy to certain information that we do not have. Obasanjo would not have spoken that way if he was not in the known of certain things. We should not crucify him for what he said. What we should do is to see how these girls can be brought back no matter what it takes. Boko Haram must not be allowed to win this war; otherwise we will be doomed.

    It may not be possible to rescue the girls intact because we cannot say for sure if Boko Haram is still keeping all of them together. The insurgents knew why they kidnapped the girls and they will stop at nothing to ensure that they remain in the sect’s custody. The insurgents may not be as daft as we think. They know that as long as these girls are with them, they have a bargaining power. This is what they have capitalised on in the past two years to swindle the government. If that is the price we have to pay to rescue the girls, why not? But are the insurgents ready to let the girls go after they get what they want?

    In the past 24 months, the group has been playing on our collective intelligence over these girls’ matter. Today, it is that they are in Sambisa; tomorrow, it is that they have been moved to God knows where. Where really are the girls? This is the game being played by the insurgents to throw investigators off their trail. The latest talk in town now is of the phone calls being made to some of the girls’ parents from their daughters’ lines. The parents were said to have missed the calls, but on seeing that they were from their daughters’ lines, they called back. And what did the receivers tell them? Some were told that the girls were now in Ondo and Cameroon. Others were told not to call the numbers again or they will be killed.

    Are we sure that those calls emanated from Boko Haram? Were they not prank calls just to set the girls’ parents’ blood on the rise again? Boko Haram knows that it is another anniversary of the girls’ kidnap and that there could be no better time than now to make such calls apparently to raise the hope of their release. Having studied the situation critically, I do not think that Boko Haram is going to release the girls just like that. It is painful though, but that is the truth. Let’s face it if Boko Haram ever wanted to release these girls, it would have done so since. Boko Haram was not ready yesterday; is not ready today and will not be ready tomorrow to release these girls.We have to force it to do what it does not want to do.

    We have to fight to get the girls back. By fighting, I mean we have to flush Boko Haram out of Sambisa, if that is still its operational headquarters. With ties to  the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Haram may have changed base with money and materials from the global terror group to which it pledged allegiance last year. From what we have seen so far, it has also changed tactic, with the way it is using some of the girls as suicide bombers. One of the girls who escaped from its den told the Cable News Network (CNN) that some of them volunteered to be suicide bombers with the hope of escaping. Fati(not her real name), according to the CNN, painted a picture of life in Boko Haram camp.

    Fati said they were abused and tortured. The girls, she said, had no choice than to do the bidding of their captors in order to save their lives. So, the girls opted to be suicide bombers, hoping to see soldiers that they may run to during the deadly mission to facilitate their escape. Just like their parents and their compatriots, the girls do not like the life they are being forced to live now. They look up to us to rescue them, but so far, we have failed them. When these girls were abducted in 2014, we never thought that two years down the line we will still be struggling to get them back.

    Like Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, I strongly believe that these girls will be back, but we will have to fight Boko Haram to bring them back.

  • Not the Buhari identity

    There is hardship in the land today, let us not mince words about it. And the suffering majority is angry; an anger borne out of hunger and frustration. Nigerians did not expect what they are getting from the present administration. They knew that things were bad, terribly bad before the last presidential election, but they were hopeful of a better tomorrow under a new government. So, they went for change, coincidentally, ‘’change’’ was the slogan of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which wrested power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    The people did not expect things to be rosy under the APC government from day one, but they did not also expect that they would be called upon to make more sacrifices before things got better. To be sincere, Nigerians have made a lot of sacrifices in the past. While their leaders were stealing the nation blind, they were living and sleeping in hunger. Many families were virtually fasting daily because they could not get food to eat.

    Nigerians voted for President Muhammadu Buhari to wipe away their tears. After much suffering under successive PDP administrations for 16 years, they were looking forward to things being different under Buhari. Things may yet be different under this administration, but so far the suffering is something else. There is nothing cheery about what the people have been going through in the past 10 months. It is as if nothing has changed in terms of the government in power. Why are things so hard? When will they get better?  Are we still under Jonathan?  Some are wont to ask. We are not under Jonathan. But, if we are to believe the present government, we are still suffering from the mess it left behind.

    The suffering masses are bearing the brunt of this mess. They have been wondering whether they made a mistake by voting for ‘’change’’. They have been criticising the government for not improving their lot despite its election promises. They have become tired of hearing that the Jonathan administration left behind a mess. They already know that; they are only interested in what the Buhari administration is doing to clear the mess.

    The economy keeps going down, with the exchange rate of about N300 to the dollar, caused by the falling oil price. The industries are not running at full capacity because of unstable power supply and what some have termed harsh foreign exchange (forex) policy and to compound it all is the biting fuel scarcity. In the past three months, motorists have been going through hell trying to get fuel for their vehicles. In a society where electricity is unstable, you can imagine what many are going through to get fuel to power their generators at home and in their small shops.

    Many of these budding entrepreneurs, such as barbers, welders, fashion designers and printers have folded up because of light. Where will they get money for fuel when business is not booming? The fuel crisis was never this bad even under the worst of administrations. In the tense days of the late Abacha when Nigerians were going on strike almost everyday the fuel crisis was not this menacing. Even when we went on strike over the fuel price hike under Jonathan the situation was not this serious. Today, marketers are also blaming the ‘harsh’ forex policy for their inability to import fuel, leaving the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to carry the whole weight of the problem on its head.

    When will respite come? May? No, not again, says Minister of State for Petroleum Dr Ibe Kachikwu, who has now changed it to April7. So, in the circumstance, our suffering and the long queues at filling stations continue until  then. For now, the government should put some palliatives in place to cushion the people’s suffering. At least if fuel scarcity is not going to end soon, the government should do something about power supply. It should let there be light so that we will no longer rely on generators, which require fuel to run, for domestic and business uses. It is sad seeing Nigerians on queue at filling stations with generator fuel tanks because the outlets are not ready to dispense petrol in jerry cans.

    They sell the product at an exorbitant rate of N150 per litre yet their pumps do not measure up. The pumps have been tampered with to shortchange customers. What people are buying is less than what is being sold to them. Almost all the filling stations are guilty of this practice and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) is looking the other way or pretending not to know what is happening. DPR knows what is happening, but it cannot act because some of its top officials are part of this huge scam. All the filling stations have made a killing from this fuel scarcity and their prayer is that may it never end.

    The government must come to our rescue before these Shylock marketers and dealers finish us off. At the end of the day, it is the government, especially the president, that will carry the can for what is happening and not these people who believe that they are in business to profiteer. The earlier the government did something the better. Mercifully, President Buhari knows that the people have been criticising his administration for not meeting their expectations. He has promised that in the next three years they will see wonders.

    We believe him, but he should know that his first year has not been impressive. Will this be the face of his administration? I do not think this will be the Buhari identity. Having said that, the president must convince Nigerians that he is equal to the task at hand.  If he must know, many have given up on his administration  because, according to them, morning shows the day. So, the sooner he delivers on his election promises the better for him and his party. Otherwise, there is political danger ahead!