The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

  • The Boko Haram burden

    In this business, the chances of being misunderstood are high.  Of course, not everybody will agree with what we write, but when people leave the issue at stake and impute other motives, there is a need for clarification. Last week, this column looked at the report of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the September 20, last year killing of the Apo 8, which indicted the State Security Service (SSS) and the Army.

    My position was clear. I concurred with the NHRC Report, but that did not say that I am in support of the activities of Boko Haram. For the sake of emphasis, what the article said was that there is need for our security agencies to get their acts right before embarking on any operation, which may result in the loss of lives and limbs. Our security agencies are not paid to waste people but to enforce law and order. The article was clear on that.

    Expectedly, there were reactions, some in support and some against. One of those who felt bad about the article went a step further on Monday after the suicide bombing in Abuja by calling me. The reason for his call is to know what I have to say about the bloody incident in which scores died. “What do you have to say about this Boko Haram attack?” I pretended as if I did not hear him. “Answer me now I am the one who sent you a text message on the article you wrote last week… What will you write now with this attack? Are you happy that Boko Haram has killed a lot of people? Answer now, I am ….”(mentioning his name). He cut off the call when I did not answer him.

    Whenever or not I got this call, I would still have written on Monday’s senseless suicide bombing in which over 70 people were said to have been killed. Although, my caller feels that Boko Haram is behind the dastardly act, which I also do not put beyond the sect, but until it claims responsibility it may be too early to hold it responsible for the tragedy. However, the attack has the imprimatur of the group. It is likely that Boko Haram is behind the bloody attack. It is something you cannot put beyond the group.

    For years, we have been at the mercy of the group because it seems to know when to strike and hit, so to say, the bull’s eye. Any time it strikes, it leaves death and destruction in its wake. The sect, it seems, is more adept at intelligence gathering than those trained for that job. If it is not so, it will not be catching our security agencies flatfooted whenever it strikes. By now, the security agencies ought to be conversant with the sect’s modus operandi. The sect bides its time before it strikes as shown by Monday’s invasion of the Nyanya Park in Abuja.

    From my little assessment of the sect, its targets, in the main, are churches, mosques, schools, parks and at times vulnerable individuals. The sect knows what it is doing. By its action, it seeks to deceive the public that it is after “soft targets”. But, so far, what is “soft” in the way it has killed thousands of people since it began its murderous campaign about five years ago. I don’t know what Boko Haram is fighting for, but whatever it is it is not worth the shedding of blood the way it has been doing. Only the group knows what it wants and what it is fighting for because all efforts to get it to come to the roundtable have failed.

    Boko Haram listens only to Boko Haram. The situation has become so dicey that we cannot continue to allow it to operate freely as if it is law unto itself. The government must find a way round this Boko Haram threat because things have got out of hand. For many Nigerians today, Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states have become no go areas because of the fear of Boko Haram. Graduates can no longer be posted to these states for the mandatory one-year Youth Service; pupils can no longer go to schools and traders dare not venture to these places.

    Must Boko Haram hold us to ransom? The answer is no. We must find a way of containing the sect now. We can no longer wait to take drastic action against the group. It has shown that human life means nothing to it. If it can take lives in a callous manner, the government too should not hesitate before descending on it, except if it is saying it has no capacity to do that. If we wish to give the sect the benefit of doubt over the Nyanya bombing, we cannot do so in respect of the abduction, barely 24 hours after the Abuja incident, of over 100 school girls in Chibok, the boundary town between Adamawa and Borno states.

    The abduction is the handiwork of the sect, which name translates to “western education is a sin”. Before the abduction, it had warned parents to withdraw their children from school. What I do not understand is what is the business of Boko Haram with the way a parent decides to educate his child? Is it the sect that will determine how parents want to bring up their children? It is sad that this Boko Haram nonsense has been allowed to last this long. Yes, we know that security is a collective thing but government should not hide under this assertion to shirk its responsibility.

    It is its job to make the country safe not only for the citizens, but also for the foreigners in our midst, who no doubt will be sending reports of what is happening back home. As we have always maintained in this space, Boko Haram cannot be bigger than the government. No matter what it takes, the government must bring Boko Haram down to its knees in order to make the country safe for all. Enough of the tough talks, it is  time for action.

    But whatever we do. we should not shed the blood of the innocent under the guise of tracking Boko Haram. If our security agencies get the Boko Haram elements and bring them to justice, they will hailed. But, they will not get our support if they kill the innocent.  The security agents are not immune from the Boko Haram terror. They have suffered losses in men and materials. So, they too feel the heat like every other Nigerian. In this fight against terror, we are with them. But, let them discharge their duties with the highest sense of responsibility. As for Boko Haram and its sponsors, I leave them with these words: “Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him”.

  • A Daniel has come to judgement

    Are you Daniel, one of the exiles my father the king brought from Judah? I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and that you have insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom.
    –Daniel 5:13,14.

    THERE was nothing they did not do to paint them as villains after slaughtering them like rams in an uncompleted building in Apo, Abuja last September. According to the State Security Service (SSS) and the Army, the deceased were Boko Haram elements. This, they explained, was why these menial job workers were killed in cold blood. In their characteristic manner, they alleged (or is it lied?) that the deceased were harmed. Were they? According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), they were not.

    The SSS and the Army came up with that lie to justify their extra judicial killing of the eight men, who were said to be squatters in the uncompleted building. The SSS, in particular, was vehement in its claim that the deceased were armed. Its spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, was always on air and in the papers, vilifying those slain. There was nothing she did not say about them. With such a mindset, it was obvious why they had to kill those tricycle operators (Keke NAPEP) without giving them a chance for fair trial.

    The SSS was the mastermind of the mission to flush out the so-called Boko Haram element from the uncompleted building following what it described as intelligence report. It brought the army into the matter in line with the agreement among security agencies to work together when the need arises. What is this intelligence that the SSS was referring to? It claimed to have received a report that Boko Haram members were hiding in the uncompleted building. From what later transpired, it seemed it did not bother to verify the claim before swinging into action.

    The SSS, it seemed, was carried away by the claim that it had Boko Haram so close to it and yet it did not know all this while. The way out, it thought was to storm the ‘sect’s hideout’, wipe out the dissidents and be applauded for doing a good job. But, it did not go that way because it acted on a faulty premise. The SSS did not distil the information it got. It took it at its face value because it chose to believe its informant, who perhaps, might have sold it a dummy in order to get himself off the hook.

    That is the problem of our security agencies. They tend to believe the first person, who brings a report to them without digging into that person’s motive. From all that we now know, the informant may not have told the SSS the entire truth. He may have given the agency wrong information in order to save his own neck. In the process, he did not care a hoot if innocent people were put in trouble. This is why the SSS should have been circumspect in using his information.

    As a security outfit, the SSS should know better. It is a well known fact that some people can go to any length in getting others into trouble. But security men are expected to check and cross check information that comes to them to avoid the kind of thing that happened in Apo last year. It is good, we are told, for 99 criminals to go scot free than for an innocent man to be convicted. In this case, the SSS turned this altruism upside down.

    We are not writing this because we hate our security agencies. No, not at all. How can we hate them when without them we are not safe. All what we are saying is that they should be more careful in the discharge of their duties to avoid the shedding of innocent blood. For sure, nobody is happy with the way Boko Haram is terrorising the country, but that is not to say that our security operatives should be given the latitude to kill anybody under the guise that he is a member of the sect. If they do that they won’t be different from the Boko Haram that we are all condemning.

    Although the Senate cleared the SSS and the Army of any wrong doing in the killing of Apo 8, it was obvious that it did not do a good job of investigating the incident. The ”Distinguished Senators” were more concerned with ensuring that Apo, where they live, does not become a theatre of Boko Haram’s operation. So, it had to come up with a report endorsing the SSS and the Army action. They were not bothered that people were killed for no just cause. And these were some of the people that voted them into power.

    The Senate was not thorough and painstaking in its investigation. You cannot compare what it did with that of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Some of the flaws in the SSS/Army operation as highlighted in NHRC’s report should not be discountenanced by our security operatives to avoid making the same mistakes in future. The SSS and the Army need to study this report to see where they went wrong and make amends. It is in our collective interest that they do not treat the report with levity.

    Contrary to the claims that weapons were hidden in the uncompleted building, no arms and ammunition were shown to have been recovered from those killed, the report said. It also indicted the SSS and the Army for forcefully moving some of those arrested in the building to their states of origin, with a warning that they should never return to Abuja. By so doing, they were exercising the power that they do not have. Neither the SSS nor the Army has the power to bar any Nigerian from any part of the country.

    They did that with those who do not know their rights and because they also had something to hide. They were afraid that those arrested will talk and what they will say will not be palatable. Most importantly, NHRC held that the Apo 8 were not Boko Haram members, adding that they were killed in cold blood. ”There is no credible evidence to show that the victims were members of Jama’atu ahlus sunnah lid da’awati wal jihad (JALISWA) also known as Boko Haram or involved in direct participation in hostilities. They were, therefore, protected, civilian non-combatants.

    ”The defence of self defence asserted by the the respondents (Federal Government, SSS, Chief of Army Staff and Attorney-General of the Federation) is not supported by the facts…the application of lethal force was disproportionate and the killing of the eight deceased persons as well as the injuries to the 11 survivors were unlawful”, NHRC said. Sadly, those we voted into office did not see it this way. It is unfortunate that our lives do not matter to them. Our votes do and after getting those votes, they dump us just as they dumped the Apo 8. Thank you, NHRC for affirming the innocence of these innocent souls. May they get justice no matter how long it takes.

  • In a chartered jet age!

    NO matter what anybody may say about our Petroleum Minister, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, one thing you cannot take away from her is that she likes living big. Whether that was her lifestyle before she became a minister, we cannot really say now because she was then not in the public eye. But since she became a minister of the Federal Republic, she has shown that she is a woman of fashion and style.

    First, as works minister under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, she dazzled us when she appeared on the Benin-Ore road in an orange overall with an helmet to match, weeping over the poor condition of the highway. With that, she registered herself in the subconscious mind of her compatriots. May be she would have come up with more stunts if she had been left in that ministry, we may never know. We never saw such theatrical displays again until she appeared in the petroleum ministry.

    In her present ministry, she has taken her flamboyance a notch high. How else will the world know that she is manning a powerful ministry if she does not live big? Mind you, people like her are used to living like royalty, but nothing gives them more pleasure than to have free money to do so. With such free money, they are ready to paint the world red, moving from one capital city to the other under the guise of discharging their official duties.

    In gallivanting all over the world, they do it at the tax payers’ expense. Money that should be used to develop the country, provide infrastructure is spent on inanities just to oil their ego. They want to live big, conveniently forgetting that in doing so, there are millions of their compatriots, who cannot afford a single meal in a day. There is nothing that depicts the extravagance and flamboyance of those in power more than the recent revelation that Mrs Alison-Madueke spent billions to maintain a jet.

    We were confounded when we had that in three years she had blown over N10billion on the Challenger 850, which has been at her beck and call since she assumed. As usual, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which board she chairs, has since come out to deny that the jet is for her exclusive use. What else would NNPC have said? There is no way it could have admitted that the jet services madam alone. To do that would have amounted to insubordination by the Group Managing Director (GMD), Mr Andrew Yakubu, who has a penchant for defending even the indefensible.

    Since the chartered jet scandal blew open on March 20, Mrs Alison-Madueke has kept mute. That is what they all do when the shit blows open, leaving their aides to run helter skelter, defending them. In a country like ours with its high poverty rate, does it make sense for any minister to ride in a chartered jet, not to talk of keeping one for personal use? If Mrs Alison-Madueke were not a public official would she have kept a chartered jet and spent N10billion on it in three years?

    This allegation is too weighty for her to keep quiet as if it is nothing. It is something. It is just unfortunate that we are from that part of the world where people do not bother about the actions and inactions of their leaders. If it were to be a society of proactive people, we will be saying a different thing by now. They would have made the country too hot for Mrs Alison-Madueke by now that she would be looking for a place to hide. Bu what do we have? She is strutting all over the place, parading herself still as our oil minister.

    The case against her is strong; very, very strong. Hear the House of Representatives member, Mr Samuel Babatunde Adejare, who alerted the nation to the exotic lifestyle of the minister : ”In these days of scarce national resources where public finance is shrinking in the face of ever increasing national needs, such as roads, health, education and power, among others, an official of government could waste public funds on such luxury as chartering a Challenger 850 aircraft for extra official use.

    ”In recent times, most states of the federation have been facing acute shortage of allocations due to the dwindling national revenue, which has reduced the quality of governance and deprived the people of dividends of democracy. Based on reliable evidence, the Hon. Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, has been committing 500,000 euros (N130million) monthly to maintain the aircraft, thus in two years, the minister has committed at least N3.120billion in maintaining the private jet, which is used solely for her personal needs and those of her immediate family, which is an appalling act”.

    Adejare was not done. The expenditure, he said, could only be a tip of the iceberg ”as several other billions of naira have been allegedly wasted on flying the jet all over the world, obviously for the leisure of the Hon. Minister and her immediate family on trips that were of no benefit to the country. This colossal waste is currently estimated at N10billion, which includes the payment of allowances to the crew for the trips, hangar parking and rent based on the lease agreement”.

    Another lawmaker Mrs Uche Ekwunife came to the aid of Mrs Alison-Madueke, informing her colleagues that there is no proof that the minister had been carrying members of her family on the jet. Well, if she has not been carrying her family members on the jet, has she not been giving a ride to her friends, among whom is Mrs Ekwunife? Mrs Ekwunife said in the hallowed chamber of the House that she had ridden on teh jet. If the minister has been carrying Mrs Ekwunife, what then can stop her from taking her family on it? The lawmaker should just spare us of this her unsolicited defence. Better still, she can appear before the House Committee on Public Accounts, which has been mandated to probe the matter, to defend her good friend.

    She would have a lot to defend the minister for. At the last count, it was said the number of chartered jets at her disposal is three and not one. The other two were said to have been uncovered in the course of the committee’s work. Did Mrs Ekwunife also ride on those two jets? It is a serious issue for a minister to have three chartered jets at her disposal. What does she need these jets for? Is she the president that she should maintain a fleet of jets? Where is she going that she needs three jets to always be on standby for her?

    Instead of working to get our four refineries back on stream so that we will no longer suffer the pain of fuel scarcity, Mrs Alison-Madueke is busy gallivanting all over the world, enjoying herself at our expense. If really these trips were official, what benefits have they yielded? If she can show us the benefits of these trips, then the money spent on maintaining the Challenger 850 can be justified. But if there is nothing to show for the trips, she should be made to refund every dime.

  • Three jobs for one life

    In our characteristic manner, we have almost forgotten the tragedy that hit the nation when 19 youngsters died in their search for job on March 15. Since the tragedy, we have moved on as if nothing happened. Those who know us as a nation know that it is in our character to forget so soon things that should engage our mind. It has been 12 days since the tragedy, yet its import seems lost on the government.

    Besides remembering the dead at august ceremonies, such as the inauguration of the National Conference on January 17 and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on March 20, the government has generally treated the job seekers’ death as one of those things that will soon blow away like others before it. The fault is not that of the government but ours because we tend to also treat such issues with levity.

    We are not bothered collectively to the extent of rising to challenge the government. All we are good at is to make noise and after that it is to thy tent oh Israel. We leave the bereaved to bury their dead and move on to other things. The government knows that things will not be different with the March 15 Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment test in which the job seekers died.

    The initial outrage over the tragedy seems to have petered out. We are no longer talking about the incident because as usual other topical issues have cropped up which we consider more important than the death of these promising 19 youngsters who went in search of bread, but never returned home. I do not understand why we are not angry enough as a people to want to fight for our right and what is just. We like to complain in the dark recesses of our houses where nobody will hear us.

    We are afraid of playing on the large stage of the streets where our voices will be heard. This is where we are different from people in other parts of the world, say like the North and South Africans. As the late ace Afro-beat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, sang years ago, our fear stems from the fact that we do not want to die. But when will we not die? Whether we rise to fight for our right or not, we will die? So, why don’t we die fighting on our feet instead of being passive where we should be proactive.

    This is not an incitement, but a wake up call on Nigerians not to allow themselves to be taken for a ride by those in power. Twelve days after the Immigration jobs tragedy, the Minister of Interior, Patrick Abba Moro, who oversees the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is still talking down at us. He even has the temerity to blame others for something he should take responsibility for. From what we have seen so far, there is no way Moro can absolve himself of the tragedy that befell the nation on March 15.

    It is only in this part of the world that public officers find excuses for their actions and inactions. Moro cannot be allowed to get away with the tame excuses he has been given for the cause of the tragedy. First, it was that the job seekers did not follow procedure. Next, it was that doctors, nurses, bankers, teachers and others thronged the recruitment centres in large number. Really? What does he expect in a society where there is no job security? Won’t people look for where their employment can be guaranteed? Moro’s excuses are not tenable; they do not hold water.

    He has questions to answer and the earlier he prepares his mind to answer these questions when he appears before the Senate and the House of Representatives the better. This is a man who stopped the NIS recruitment in 2012 because the former Comptroller-General, Mrs Rose Uzoma, did not follow due process. If he could do that just about 15 months ago, why should he fall into the same morass now? There is no way he can defend the March 15 exercise, which the Board of Immigration Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence, Prisons and Fire Service has said it knows nothing about. Yet, the Board is charged with the recruitment, promotion and retirement of officers.

    Where is the moral justification for Moro’s action in conducting the March 15 botched exercise if he could cancel the one of 2012 conducted by Uzoma for not following due process. Defending his action in an interview with Sunday Trust on March 13, last year, he said : ”We had these allegations of recruitment racketeering. We had these allegations of lack of transparency in the recruitment process…and I believe that it is only responsible that as a minister, if there are allegations that Nigerians expect to know about, especially if it is for the integrity of the person involved and the integrity of the Service and good governance, it is only fair that we should set up a machinery to ascertain the veracity of these allegations.

    ”It is only fair for us to know if things are wrong and to properly situate things so that the morale of the staff and the integrity of the Service are not impugned by these allegations. If we continue to gloss over these things and pretend that nothing is happening, there is the possibility that Nigerians will go to town with the conclusion that certain things are wrong. Where things are wrong, we should have the courage to go ahead to sanitise the situation. Where nothing is wrong, we will show that nothing is wrong”.

    Good talk, honourable minister, Nigerians are waiting for you to walk the talk in respect of what happened on March 15. It cannot, to borrow your words, be ”glossed over” by providing each family that lost people in the tragedy three slots in the civil service. What a way to remember the dead!

     

    Re :lmmigration death point

    Who says our leaders have not been putting on their thinking cap? That is what the president and his council members did which enabled them to come up with the infantile decision to give slots to families of the dead. Help us, oh God! Anonymous.

    The Minister of Interior and the Comptroller-General of Immigration must carry the can. For once, some persons must be sanctioned for this great lapse in organisation and administration. The buck passing must stop. From Chukwuma Dioka, Owerri, Imo State.

     Re: Honour and the looter

    The late Gen Abacha was indecent, brutal, wicked and beastly. What President Goodluck Jonathan tried to achieve by giving the late Abacha, a common thief, an award is yet to be understood. From Uche Okereke, Umuahia, Abia State,

    If you say the late Abacha did not deserve that award, what will you say of Babangida. Let the dead man rest and talk about the living ‘evil’ general. Anonymous.

    His decision to honour the late Abacha shows clearly that President Jonathan is a zoologist. Help us beg him to forward a supplementary list to the National Assembly to honour Oyenusi, Anini, Clifford Orji and even Judas Iscariot posthumously, then we shall applaud him as the president. From Jemiluyi Peters

  • Immigration death point

    For years, my little friend and brother, Telemi, has been begging me to help him get a job. He believes that with the kind of job I do, I should know one or two persons that can give him a job. Whenever he calls me from his Abuja base, he never fails to let me know that many government agencies are recruiting covertly and that all he needed is to be linked with the top shots of those organisations to facilitate his appointment.

    Daddy won gba yan ni Immigration, won gba yan ni Road Safety, won gba yan ni Civil Defence, won ko gbariwo e sita ni. Eni to bamo yan niwon gba. Translation : They are recruiting in Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC); but they are doing it discreetly because they are employing only those with connection.

    After sending him to one or two friends in Abuja without any luck, I told him to take things easy, while we continue to pray to God for the best. Telemi never gave up on his job search since he has a wife and two kids to feed. Whenever he calls, I feel for him because I know how it feels to be jobless. At times, I feel guilty that I have disappointed someone who looks up to me. But what can I do when things have become so hopeless in our country.

    How do we explain a situation where graduates of many years cannot get a job? Rather than create jobs or create the enabling environment for investors to do so, the government is playing politics with the matter. It claimed to have created 1.6 million jobs in four years, yet we cannot feel the impact. In which sectors of the economy can we find these jobs? Civil Service? Agriculture? Telecommunications? Banking? Insurance? Small scale enterprises? Military? Paramilitary?

    The truth is that the government is not doing anything concrete to address the issue of unemployment. It is merely paying lip service to it. Jobs are not created by the government just saying so. There should be tangible things in place to show that jobs have been created. And when these jobs are created, we will surely know because the number of unemployed will be reduced. Sadly, rather than reduce, the number keeps increasing.

    So, last Saturday when I heard about the NIS Recruitment Test taking place across the country, I was worried for Telemi. Something told me that in his desperation for a job, he may have found a way of sitting for the test without telling me. I was worried when I saw the huge crowd at the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos Mainland, who came to write the test. Among them were expectant mothers, elderly men and women. When I saw the sea of heads moving from one end of the stadium to the other, I knew that a tragedy was waiting to happen.

    For one, the exercise was not well coordinated. The applicants were left to their own devices. They knew next to nothing about what to do. They just flowed with the tide. They were confused because there was nobody to direct them. It was not a way to organise a test at all. For those of us who sat for public examinations in the past, we know how these things are organised and how the examining bodies go the extra mile to ensure that things are in order. In this instance, NIS was not clearly in charge of the exam which it asked people to come and write.

    How do you expect people to write a test in an open field like the stadium without chairs and tables? Why ask them to gather at the stadium when they were not expected to do an endurance test? If it was such a test, would the stadium have been ideal for it considering the sheer number that turned up? If it was such a test, would it have been appropriate to invite expectant mothers as we saw last Saturday? There can be only one explanation for what happened last Saturday and that is that, the NIS was not aware of the exercise which was conducted under its name.

    But is that possible? Yes, it is quite possible where the examining body, which in this case is NIS, is not carried along by those who took it upon themselves to conduct the interview through the backdoor. What I do not understand is why the NIS Comptroller-General, Mr David Paradang, allowed a cabal to hijack such a sensitive assignment from his outfit. Well, it may not entirely be his fault as NIS is said to have been handed over to a thick madam as her pot of soup. This madam, it wa gathered, handled the recruitment. So, Paradang has to look the other way when things like this are being done. He is just a figurehead managing an organisation over which he has no control. But this cannot be an excuse to exonerate him from last Saturday’s tragedy across the nation. With 19 persons dead at these recruitment centres (read as death points), Paradang cannot hide under the glib phrase : ”my hands are tied” to wash his hands of this fiasco. We will not accept that except he is ready to tell Nigerians those who tied his hands.

    As for Abba Moro, the Interior Minister, it is unfortunate that someone with his pedigree is caught in this mess. This is what happens to those who abandon the people’s cause to team up with their oppressors. No matter the amount of good he might have done in the past, Moro has unwittingly spoilt everything he ever stood for with the state murder of these innocent Nigerians, who went out in search of jobs, but never returned home to their families.

    If Moro has any shame at all, he would have resigned by now.

    RATHER than do that, he is trying to rationalise why things went wrong on Saturday. There can never be any plausible reasons for the death of these young men and women. Their country failed them at a time they needed the country most in their lives. They wanted a platform to enable them contribute their quota to national development, but the country sent them to their early graves. Must we continue to waste the lives of our youths this way.

    In 2008, we lost 17 persons in similar circumstance during the nationwide recruitment of NIS and the Nigeria Prisons Service. Six years down the line, we are yet to get out of such a horrible cycle of deaths. Are we progressing or regressing? Let the government immortalise these youths so that they would not die in vain and also serve as a reminder to us as a nation that unemployment is a gunpowder waiting to explode. Affliction, the Bible says, will not rise a second time. But what do we have here? Let our leaders put on their thinking cap and do the needful. May the souls of the departed rest in peace.

  • Honour and the looter

    Last month was the month of our centenary as a nation and the government rolled out the drums in celebration. The celebrations have not ended mind you. In case you missed out in the revelry in Abuja some two weeks ago, do not worry, you can still get on the gravy train. For those of us who were not lucky to get an award during the February 28 ceremony where the deserving and the not deserving were honoured, we have a chance to get our own share of the cake in the three-month lottery programme, which was launched in Abuja on Monday.

    The star prize is N100million, while 90 Hyundai cars will be won daily for 90 days. Talk of empowerment, I think this is one way the government thinks it can empower many Nigerians, who live under the poverty level. Other consolation prizes are tricycles, generators, smart phones, television sets and freezers. Did I hear you say how I wish everyday is our centenary? Those, who from the outset, said that the centenary is nothing but a jamboree may be right after all.

    Until now, Nigeria had never celebrated the amalgamation of its northern and southern protectorates, which gave birth to its name. The amalgamation was an accident of history and we treated it as such for all of 99 years until those in power today decided to mark the 100th anniversary with pomp and ceremony. Does it mean that we will, henceforth, celebrate the amalgamation anniversary on its due date as we do that of our Independence on October 1 of every year? The centenary celebrations were nothing but a waste of scarce resources.

    What is there to celebrate about a nation where the per capita income is nothing to write home about? What is there to celebrate about a nation where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening by the day? What is there to celebrate about a nation, which is the ninth producer of oil in the world, but cannot meet its people’s domestic need for petroleum products? What is there to celebrate about our 100th year when all the industries, which used to be our pride in the 70s and 80s are dead? Those that did not die have since relocated to smaller countries like Ghana and Togo. What is there to celebrate about a nation that does not care about its people? The people only matter to our leaders in times of elections.

    The celebrations were just to make those in power feel good, no more, no less. There is no justification for it at all. We thank God for our unity; we thank Him for keeping us one. We thank Him for those that fought to keep the country together till today, especially the unsung heroes, who died in the civil war. But did they spare a thought for these people during the centenary celebrations? No, these people were not remembered. They chose to honour some of those who put us in the bind we are in today. It is good to honour a former head of state, but such honour must be earned, not given on a platter. Elsewhere, former leaders are not honoured because they once held office, they are honoured for the legacies they left behind.

    This is why many find the honour given to the late Gen Sani Abacha during the Centenary Awards Ceremony rankling. Honour for the late Abacha? It is unbelievable, but it happened in Abuja on February 28 before a host of dignitaries. To show us how unserious we are as a nation, five days later the United States (US) seized a $458million Abacha loot in what was described as the “largest civil forfeiture action ever”. What an encore to the honour for a looter. More implausible is the government’s reason for honouring the late Abacha. Hear the government :

    “He took over power when the nation was on the brink of the precipice. He mobilised the nation’s most prominent political class into his cabinet and succeeded in ensuring the continued unity of the nation. He also raised Nigeria’s international standing for his peace keeping military interventions in Sierra Leone and Liberia. He oversaw an increase in the foreign reserve from $494million to $9.6billion by the middle of 1997 and reduced the external debt from $36billion in 1993 to $27billion in 1997”.

    What about the evils he committed. Those evils are more than the good he purportedly did for which the government honoured him. If only the late Abacha had maintained the course, he would have ended well. He ended badly because he was evil personified. There was no peace in the country in his time. Assassinations were the order of the day. Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, Suliat Adedeji, Lai Balogun, Tunde Elegbede and Omosehinwa, among others, were killed by gunmen either on the road or in their homes. The late Abacha was also instrumental to the judicial assassination of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Yet, the government found him worthy of honour.

    The late Abacha honour was not deserved. And we do not need to look any further on why he did not deserve this award than the seizure of his $458million loot in the US. This loot is just a tip of the iceberg. The other day, we were told by Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that the government had recovered a $500million Abacha loot. Since the government is aware of the atrocities the late Abacha committed, the question is why did it still deem it fit to honour him? Did it take the action out of fear of being accused of unfairness? Unfair to who? To a looter? Was Abacha fair to Nigeria? The late Abacha does not deserve the award and it is not too late for the government to withdraw it and apologise to Nigerians for its error of judgement.

    The prayer of many Nigerians is that the likes of Abacha shall not come this way again, not for him to be honoured by the government. The honour does not fit him. It is like putting a necklace on a pig. How will it look like? Ugly, of course. This is exactly how the garland looks on the late Abacha. Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka spoke the minds of many in his statement titled: Canonisation of terror, in which he rejected his own award because he could not share the same pedestal with the late Abacha. Soyinka said : “What the government of Goodluck Jonathan has done is to scoop up a century’s accumulated degeneracy in one pre-eminent symbol, then place it on a podium for the nation to admire, emulate and worship”.

    Soyinka spoke before the US released its scathing indictment of Abacha over the $458million loot. The US Department of Justice noted: “This is the largest civil forfeiture action to recover the proceeds of foreign official corruption ever brought by the department. General Abacha was one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billions from the people of Nigeria, while millions lived in poverty”. It is sad that this is the man my country is given an award. Cry, beloved country.

  • The Boko Haram terror

    Since the beginning of the year, the country has known no peace from Boko Haram, which is daily terrorising the Northeast states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. The attacks reached a frightening height last Tuesday when the sect hit the Federal Government College (FGC) in Bunu Yadi, Yobe State, killing no fewer than 43 pupils. Many of the pupils are still said to be missing. A search has begun for them. Hunters are leading the search sponsored by the state government.

    The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ahmed Goniri, told reporters in Damaturu, the state capital, on Monday that the collaboration with hunters became necessary because ”many parents are still complaining of not seeing their children after the attack. We decided to make this contact with the hunters and some herdsmen in the area because some parents have come up to lodge complaints that they have not seen their children since the attack.

    ”Though, we have not received a report of any student found in the bush, we are working on the assumption that some of them may have run into the bush for dear lives. We have also contacted vigilance groups to give information to the village heads and religious leaders for rapid action.” Over one week after the dastardly attack, we are still talking of missing pupils, yet Boko Haram is all over the place, killing, maiming and looting. The killing of the pupils was a bestial act taken too far.

    For God’s sake, these were defenceless children sent to school by their parents, who thought they would enjoy the government’s protection. When they needed that protection most, the government failed them. I feel that as a nation, we collectively failed these children. Why? We knew all along that Boko Haram takes delight in harming school children. The insurgents had struck not once, not twice, but thrice in schools in Yobe before last Tuesday’s attack.

    So, we should have anticipated Boko Haram before it struck at FGC, Bunu Yadi, last week. Rather than do that, our intelligence agencies went to sleep and only woke up from their slumber after the insurgents struck. Before last Tuesday’s attack, they should have been able to put in place measures to protect pupils in all schools in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, especially the boarders among them, since the insurgents like to strike at ungodly hours.

    They may have chosen such hours to perpetrate their murderous acts because they know it is the only time they will have a free rein to operate as people will be asleep then. But it is the same hour that we expect the troops, who are deployed in these three Boko Haram attack-prone states, to be hyper alert. Unfortunately, on each occasion that the insurgents struck, our troops have been caught flatfooted. They are not always around at such times. We are told that it is that time they go on patrol.

    Isn’t something fishy there? Why is it that it is when Boko Haram attacks schools that our troops are on patrol? Must all the troops go on patrol at the same time? Can’t they go on patrol in batches, that is some are left to secure a place, such as these schools, while others go on patrol? From what is happening these days, Nigerians have become cynical about the role of our security men in the Boko Haram saga. We cannot blame Nigerians for feeling this way.

    The government declared a state of emergency in these states in order to contain the activities of Boko Haram, but it seems the emergency is not working. What is the essence of the emergency if Boko Haram can still come and go at will? Or is the process being sabotaged by those who do not mean well for the country? Those at the helm should not take offence when some of us talk like this; it is because we are pained by what is happening. If children can be killed virtually under the nose of soldiers then something is definitely wrong somewhere. Or doesn’t the government think so?

    He who wears the shoe feels the pain. So, Governors Kashim Shettima and Ibrahim Gaidam of Borno and Yobe states should know what they are talking about when they speak on what has befallen their domains. I do not think that these gentlemen can still sleep with their two eyes closed with the way Boko Haram is running roughshod over their states. Who is that governor that will sleep in such a situation? Only a person without blood running in his vein will sleep in that condition. Of course, a Doyin Okupe will because he is about 845 kilometres from the scene.

    The way Okupe talks leaves

    a sour taste in the mouth.

    He likes to talk before he thinks, all to be in the good book of his paymaster. He tends to forget that he will not be in power forever. When he leaves office won’t he come to live in the midst of the people? What will he tell them was his achievement? That he was able to make more enemies than friends for the government? What did Shettima say for him to have descended on the governor the way he did the other day?

    The governor, while assessing another Boko Haram attack in his domain in which hundreds were killed, submitted that it seemed ”Nigeria is at war”. Okupe took offence at Shettima’s statement, pointing out that the governor could talk that way because ”he is a civilian”. So, Okupe is now a military man, who knows how civilians talk. It is not Okupe’s fault. It is the office that he is occupying that he has got into his head. When some people find themselves in positions of power, they become another thing, forgetting where they are coming from. It should not have been Okupe talking like that. But then as the Yoruba will say, people like him only know of what they are chewing at a particular point in time. If tomorrow, he no longer serves President Goodluck Jonathan, he would stop seeing something good in the man.

    Dr Jonathan, who should be more temperate, was even harder on Shettima than Okupe during the Presidential Media Chat to mark the centenary celebrations. Berating the governor for saying Boko Haram is better equipped than the army, Jonathan said if he should withdraw the military from Borno, ”we will see what will happen. He won’t be able to stay in his government house”. Haba, Mr President. See what happened in Bunu Yadi, some six hours after you spoke, even without the troops’ withdrawal. What is the big deal about their withdrawal then? Even without their withdrawal, are the people safe? The answer is no and this is why Boko Haram finds it easy to strike at will, killing, maiming, looting and kidnapping.

    Our military chiefs have told us that they have the capacity to tame Boko Haram. I agree with them. The time for them to bring Boko Haram down is now. We should not wait until the group decimates the entire Northeast before we do the needful. My heart goes out to the families of the slain school children. May their killers know no rest.

     

  • Baggage for Jonathan

    Whether President Goodluck Jonathan likes it or not, suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has become his baggage. If he had been a little more patient, things would not have been the way they are now. Sanusi has a few months left to complete his first five – year tenure, which ends in June and the man knows that there is no way he would have got a second term, at least not as long as Jonathan remains the president.

    Like a bolt out of the blue, he was suspended last Thursday for what the government described as financial recklessness. Now, I am not a Sanusi fan and readers of this column can attest to that. I have had occasions to join issues with him over the CBN donation to some Boko Haram victims in Kano, his home state, and some of his policies, which led to the crumbling of some big banks. But on this matter of his suspension, it seemed the president was not well advised.

    The president has for long wanted Sanusi out of the way and the last straw that broke the camel’s back was the suspended CBN governor’s letter to him on the missing oil money, which was purportedly leaked to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In his own letter to the president, Obasanjo quoted the Sanusi letter and asked Jonathan not to watch while corruption is being perpetrated under his nose. Jonathan did not find the matter funny and he promptly asked Sanusi to resign. Sanusi refused, insisting that he could only be removed by the president, with the backing of two-third of the Senate.

    The battle line was drawn. The president and his loyalists must have thought who is Sanusi to talk to the number one citizen like that. There should be a way to deal with him no doubt. Apparently after going through the books, they came up with what they thought was their trump card – suspension. By suspension, the president would not have sacked Sanusi in the real sense of it, he would only have rendered him incapacitated. But does the law approve of such a “disciplinary action” to borrow the president’s word? On the special Presidential Media Chat (PMC) held on Monday as part of activities to commemorate the centenary celebrations, he said as part of his oversight functions on federal executive bodies he could suspend the CBN governor.

    The question is can CBN be referred to as a federal executive body when it is not so defined in the Constitution? The Constitution in Part 1 of the Third Schedule lists out the federal executive bodies as established by Section 153. They are : Code of Conduct Bureau, Council of State, Federal Character Commission, Federal Civil Service Commission, Federal Judicial Service Commission, Independent National Electoral Commission, National Defence Council, National Economic Council, National Judicial Council, National Population Commission, National Security Council, Nigeria Police Council, Police Service Commission and Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission. In law, these are the recognised federal executive organs and except the Constitution is amended to accommodate the CBN as one of them there is no way it can be classified as such now in order to satisfy the whim of the president.

    The thing is the CBN is a special creation and I believe it is a deliberate act to ensure its autonomy, not total independence, from the state as represented by the head of state. Globally, central banks are protected by their own laws, which shield them from undue interference by their countries’ leaders. Central banks are the economic livewires of their countries. They are not only the keeper of the treasury, but the treasury. So, they are insulated from the executive to avoid financial abuses. Although, the laws setting up these banks state that their governors or chairmen or chancellor or by whatever name so called shall be appointed by the head of state, they guarantee these bankers’ tenure by making their sack somewhat difficult for the appointor.

    No appointing authority has the sole power to sack a central bank chief without recourse to the legislature. This is why it is absurd that the president is saying that he can suspend Sanusi when the law setting up the CBN does not contemplate such an action. Call that an error of the law, may be. But it is more the error of those who drafted the CBN Act. There should have been a provision for the punishment of the governor, his deputies and directors for infractions, but the law is silent on that. Does that mean that the governor himself cannot discipline any of his deputies or the directors found wanting in the discharge of their duties? I do not think that is the intendment of the law. But where there is no such provision, can it be imported into the law?

    I understand the president’s dilemma over Sanusi. He wants to assert his authority as the person in charge, but in so doing, he should follow the law. No doubt, he has the power to hire and fire, but the CBN governor is not just any staff that can be fired at his whim without following strictly the provisions of the law. Yes, he has not sacked Sanusi. The handwriting is clear on the wall that Sanusi is not coming back to that job, with his replacement, Godwin Emefiele, standing in the wings to take over from him in June. Forget that, Emefiele will be cleared by the Senate, which has come out strongly on the side of Jonathan on his suspension of Sanusi. When will the Senate ever learn to stand for what is right?

    It is good that Sanusi is contemplating going to court to challenge his suspension. No matter how long the case takes, let him pursue it to its logical conclusion so that the judiciary can tell us whether or not the president can suspend the CBN governor. Such a pronouncement will go a long way in avoiding a recurrence in future. If only the court had decided the Justice Ayo Isa Salami case, perhaps, Sanusi may not have suffered the same fate as the former President of the Court of Appeal, who was suspended for almost two years before his retirement.

     

  • Stella Oduah’s swan song

    LIKE her predecessors, she came to office with her people, who she planted in key areas of the aviation sector. These moles were are ears and eyes. They were the ones doing the dirty jobs for her whenever the need arose. She came on board as Stella Ogiemwonyi, but in no time, she dropped her marital name for her maiden name. Nothing bad, you would say, since she had become estranged with her husband.

    But that should have told us something about the former aviation minister. It should have told us that with her at the helm, the sector will not grow. Some seem to think that it grew under her watch because of what they call the fanciful changes she made at the terminals. But, I beg to disagree. What are these changes, which some writers have already dubbed as ”cosmetic”. They are the remodelling of 22 airports nationwide. It is good for our airports to look beautiful from outside, but the real beauty of those facilities lies in their working seamlessly.

    By this, I mean getting the airports to function as airports, with little or no delay of passengers. As minister, Princess Oduah was less concerned about that, she was more concerned with using the airports to her own advantage under the guise of serving the national interest. Little wonder that she ran into trouble with experts in the sector. She also got into trouble with the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation because of her pomposity.

    She was full of herself, yet she knew nothing about aviation. Perhaps, since she is into oil and gas, she must know something about Jet A1 , the aviation fuel, which planes use. Besides that, I do not think that she is that conversant with that beat. All she needed do as minister was to look for those with the technical know how to guide her. Rather than do that, she elected for those who worked with her on Neighbour2Neighbour (N2N), one of the groups, which campaigned vigorously for President Goodluck Jonathan’s election in 2011.

    As the face of N2N, Oduah was all over the place, spending money as if it was going out of fashion and many of those in power were ever ready to lend a hand. Some National Assembly members were not left out in the binge. These lawmakers benefited heavily when Oduah became aviation minister on July 2, 2011. Assessing her tenure appears difficult because there is nothing tangible to point to as her achievement, except, if you like, the remodelling of airports, which she solely undertook.

    The money for the project, according to those who should know came from the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) fund, which had accrued over the years, ever before she became minister. The fund is in the care of any serving aviation minister and the person can do whatever he or she likes with it. If the person decides to plant flowers in all the nation’s airports with the money, so be it since he is the alpha and omega as far as the money is concerned.

    Oduah had a field day, spending the money on beautifying airports, which failed to serve the purpose they were built for. What is an aviation minister for when airlines treat passengers shabbily? What is an aviation minister for when the regulatory agencies cannot do their jobs the way they should? What is an aviation minister for when security remains porous at the airports despite their so-called aesthetic beauty, which is making some people swoon over her? Last month, some experts gathered in Lagos to dissect the aviation sector under Oduah’s watch.

    Their verdict was an indictment of the sector. They said the heat generated over the N255million bullet proof cars bought for Oduah by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) was a tip of the iceberg when looking at the rot in the sector. The sector, they said, was in bad shape and needed a surgical knife. It seems their prayers were answered, with the sacking of Oduah last Wednesday. Before her sack, she was planning, among others, to make Aero Contractor the national carrier, without considering the implications for the economy. She had tidied up things before the hammer fell on her. We pray that her predecessor will not make the mistake of going that way.

    At the Aviation Round Table (ART), the president of Sabre Travel Network, Mr Gbenga Olowo, advocated that three airlines be designated as flag carriers, adding that they should have a combined fleet capacity of at least, 30 aircraft, which should be expanded to 50 in three years. He described as ”fundamentally flawed” Oduah’s plan to designate Aero Contractor, in which the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has 60 percent equity, as national carrier. ”Such an airline with limited capacity and weak structure cannot compete favourably in the increasingly competitive global industry”, he said.

    Former Managing Director of Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) Rowland Iyayi lamented that the NCAA cannot meet its oversight responsibility and sufficiently train its technical personnel. Yet, Oduah spent over two years in office and saw no need to address this critical issue. Iyayi said : ”Airlines are not making profit because the fabric of infrastructure in the industry is not yet what it should be. Even aviation fuel is taxed by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

    ”Even the NCAA cannot pay its bills to carry out a thorough oversight of airlines. Imagine airlines paying the travel bills of NCAA aircraft inspectors, who travel abroad to inspect aircraft. It appears to me that the NCAA is completely docile. The NCAA has to fight to get its autonomy because the law provides for that”. But can the NCAA lift a finger when its leadership is at the beck and call of the minister? Isn’t it the same agency that cannot pay its bill that bought two armoured cars for Oduah for N255million? With her exit, it will be interesting to know where these cars are now.

    Oduah could not have done

    more than she did at the

    aviation ministry. She was not equipped for the job; she was put there as compensation for her role in the president’s election in 2011. This is a sad commentary on our nation, which is so blessed, but yet goes for its third eleven in manning key political posts. She should have been sacked long before now having realised that we put the wrong foot forward in posting her to that ministry. Oduah signed her sack warrant during what she called a Stakeholders’ Buy In on her pet aviation master plan.

    She spoke as if the aviation ministry was her private property at the event held in Lagos between January 26 and 29. Thinking that the controversy over the armoured cars had died down, she thundered before a bewildered audience : ”Those who say this minister is going, their nightmares have just begun. This minister is going nowhere. I am your minister today; I am your minister tomorrow…” And her proteges clapped wildly to cheer her on. Perhaps, she meant to say : I was your minister yesterday. By the way, what happened to her claim that she was shot at in her car in the heat of her probe over the armoured cars? Are the police still investigating the case? Yeye dey smell.

  • A fish bone in Mark’s throat

    THEIRS is not the first defection in this dispensation and it is certainly not going to be the last. But it is generating heat. Before them, some senators had defected, but their defection was not greeted with the kind of noise we are now hearing all over the place over the defection of 11 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators to the All Progresseives Congress (APC). The Senate leadership is doing all within its power to stop the senators from going to where their hearts are. One cannot say why Senate President David Mark and co are afraid of letting the 11 senators go. Mark is claiming that his hands are tied because the issue is in court. He may have a point there, but many can see through his ploy. Mark is mouthing court order because it is convenient for him to do so in order to stop the defecting senators. According to the Senate leadership, past defections were not this controversial because the defectors did not go to court. That may be true. Truer still is the fact that the parties at the receiving end then cried out without anybody listening to them. The defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) may not have gone to court, but they took their complaint to the public domain. As the benefiting party, the PDP ignored their complaints and welcomed the defecting senators and governors to its fold without giving a damn. PDP had its way despite the demand of the extinct AD and ANPP that the seats of the defecting politicians, especially the senators, be declared vacant. Politics, as we all know, is a game of numbers. So, parties are forever looking for more people whether elected or not to boost their standing. Whether the number of people coming on board is one or two, it does not matter, the benefiting party celebrates it because it will portray it as strong and cohesive. In a country like ours, it is a big deal when politicians defect from HEIRS is not the first defection in this dispensation and it is certainly not going to one party to the other. No party wants to lose a member, no matter how bad he may be. It will continue to manage such a member because he may have certain values, which those of us outside may not see. In this dispensation, the PDP has benefited the most from defections. In its fold today are many members of the opposition, who defected from their parties at one time or the other. By virtue of this fact, PDP cannot complain when its members are defecting to the other parties. To do so will portray it as a bad loser. What we have seen in the past few months shows that PDP can only take but cannot receive. If it can receive, it will not be bellyaching over the defection of its members to APC, which is fast emerging as the party to beat in the 2015 elections. PDP is jittery over its members’ defection to APC because of its likely impact on its fortune in the 2015 polls. Indeed, defections from a ruling party on the eve of an important election, such as the one coming up in 2015 is not something to crow about. It is something to worry about. This is why Mark in concert with the party is trying to frustrate the defecting senators from going. Mark has been using every trick in the book to stop the reading of their defection letter on the four or so occasions that the issue came up at plenary. In contrast, in the House of Representatives, 37 members elected on PDP platform, who sought to defect to APC, were given a smooth ride. When they brought a December 18, 2013 letter titled : ”Communication of Change of Political Party”, Speaker Aminu Tambuwal promptly read it and business has been going on smoothly there since then. But, the Senate has known no rest since Mark has been dilly-dallying over the reading of the letter. If the senators were defecting to PDP would he be behaving this way? I doubt if he will. He would have since welcomed them with open arms. The defecting senators’ letter would have been taken, with Mark and other PDP members backslapping and cheering widely in celebration of their catch. The hunter is now the hunted and he is afraid of the consequences. There is no need for Mark to bring the court into this matter. Yes, the defecting lawmakers went to court. The question is why did they do that? They did it to stop their former party from resorting to what lawyers call Jankara to relieve them of their seats. You cannot put anything beyond PDP and that we have seen so far with the way the defecting senators are being blocked. What did the court order Mark so much like to quote say. The Justice A. R. Mohammed’s order says : ”That the second and third defendants (Mark and Tambuwal) are hereby directed to maintain the status quo on any proposed deliberation to declare the seats of the affected and interested plaintiffs vacant, pending the hearing and determination of the plaintiffs’ motion for interlocutory injunction”. In simple language, what the order is saying is that the Senate and the House should not declare the lawmakers’ seats vacant during the pendency of the case. It did not say that they should be stopped from defecting. If it had said so, will Tambuwal, who is a lawyer, have allowed the defection in the House? I do not think he would have gone contrary to the law. The thing is Mark is in cahoots with the PDP to deny the defecting senators their freedom of association. Yet, he is painting it as if he is acting within the ambit of the law. The court order he so much cherishes did not say that he should not allow the senators to defect. He and his legal advisers should take another look at that order to enable them interpret it properly. Mark is holding a position he considers convenient to him on this matter. His job is to stall the senators’ defection and so far he seems to be having his way. But for how long? No doubt, PDP is not comfortable that the APC is closing the wide gap between them in the National Assembly. Nevertheless, the party cannot force these senators to remain in its fold if they choose not to. Belonging to a party is a matter of choice, which people are free to exercise anyway they wish. Using delay tactics to keep the senators in PDP cannot work because there is no way they can do the party’s bidding on any matter. Is it possible for PDP to get these senators to toe its line on any issue in the National Assembly? We all know the answer. PDP has lost these senators for good and the earlier Mark and PDP realise this fact the better for us all. The game Mark is currently playing with these senators’ defection is not healthy for the polity. He has no choice than to allow them go. Mark may continue to delude himself that these senators are still in PDP, but he knows that is not so. It is mere wishful thinking to hold that belief. What he and PDP are seeking to do is to break these senators’ will. How can you break the will of a man who has resolved not to have anything to do with you again. Their joker, which is well known, is to declare the senators’ seats vacant. But they cannot do that because of the court order specifically restraining the National Assembly from going that way, at least for now. This is why Mark is buying time by not allowing the senators to read their letter on the floor. The plan is to get the court to lift that order and then they will swiftly move in to declare the senators’ seats vacant even before the logical conclusion of the case. My fear is nothing will move in the Senate if Mark insists on not allowing the senators to go. The issue will continue to dominate debate in the Upper Chamber until he allows reason to prevail. For how long will he continue to play the ostrich. By his action, Mark has brought unnecessary jam to the Senate’s activities. What will it cost him if the letter is read? Can’t he learn from what happened in the House? Does Mark want to throw the Senate into chaos over this simple matter? The senators emphasised the point of leaving PDP at plenary on Tuesday when they came by way of point-oforder to exercise their privilege as senators. All they sought to do was to be allowed to go. Will Mark stop playing Pharaoh and let them go?