The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

  • The San Siro battle

    The San Siro battle

    San Siro is the name of the home pitch shared by Inter Milan and AC Milan, two leading football clubs in Italy. On Tuesday night, the stadium was virtually on fire, a week after the first leg of the Champions League semifinals showdown between Inter and Barca at the Olympic Stadium in Spain, which ended, 3-3. The Spain encounter was a foretaste of what to come in Italy. The match lived up to its billing. From the start to the end, there was no dull moment.

    By the 90th minute, the normal regulation time, Barca were leading 3-2. At that stage, the game was as good as won. So, Barca and their supporters as well as others thought. But the Inter boys did not give up and in the third minute of added time, they got the equaliser. The game resumed in extra time and Inter got the winning goal in the first half of extra time to end the breath taking game, 4-3 after about 126 minutes, including added time of extra time, of pulsating soccer.

    Read Also: Meta-Nigeria faceoff: Group calls for caution

    It was football at its best, the kind of which I do not think has been seen in the history of the Champions League. Inter are now in the finals. Either side could have won as both teams were hungry for victory. When teams play like this, the beautiful game is the better for it. Is that not why people are crazy about soccer?

  • Nigeria First, a safety valve

    Nigeria First, a safety valve

    THINK NIGERIA, BUY NIGERIA has for long been a slogan that the people are used to. It is employed by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), as well as private enterprises to woo customers to patronise locally manufactured goods. The slogan might have caught on, but the message did not.

    Sloganeering is one thing, but making the message sink in, is another. It is the duty of the messenger to ensure that his message is understood and that the receiver buys into it. If the receiver does not key in, it means either one of two things. The message is not clear or the product being marketed is not good enough. Or it could be the medium or media used for the message was or were not wide enough.

    Message, messaging and the messenger must go hand in hand for any product or policy to sell or work. The Federal Government seems to have realised this under its Nigeria First Policy (NFP), hereinafter referred to as Nigeria First, the Policy or NF, which was unveiled after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Monday. The Policy talks about putting indigenous businesses first in everything.

    Be it in contract bidding or provision of goods and services, Nigerian businesses will come first. They will be the contractors of first resort, according to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris. One may be tempted to say there is nothing new about the policy on putting Nigeria first in every area of human endeavour. Even without a formal policy like NF, the government, industrialists and patriotic Nigerians have always spoken about the country, its people and businesses been the cornerstone of whatever we do.

    Read Also: London to host ground-breaking gala for British-Nigerian Athletes

    The government should be commended for formalising the process. It should, however, not end there. The Policy must be strictly implemented for it to work. There should be no room for any corporate entity or individual, no matter how powerful, to cut corners or attempt to find loopholes in the Policy so as to serve their selfish interests. Most times, the government comes up with good policies but the system prevents them from working. The government is the government and no one no matter how affluent and influential can be more powerful than it.

    The government must go beyond having good policies to wield the big stick whenever a big man or a big firm takes it up by bypassing those policies meant for the good of the country. We should learn from other countries that are doing well across the world. They respect the rich and big companies, but they know what to do whenever such people and institutions cross the line. Policies can only be as good as their implementation. The failure of implementation is the beginning of the failure of any policy no matter how good it is.

    The government cannot afford to allow NF to fail. All eyes are on it, with the unveiling of the policy. Its planned tinkering with the procurement process is good. For too long, the nation has lost trillions of naira through procurement fraud. The sanitisation of the unit is long overdue. It should not start and end with the staff of the unit, which may affect only those in the junior cadre. It needs overhauling so that the unit which is supposed to verify all transactions does not become the tool for fraud and corruption, which many believe it is today.

    If the unit becomes ‘born again’ (read as clean), Nigeria First is on its way to achieve its aim of, among others, “putting Nigeria – not foreign companies, not imports – at the heart of national development”. Our economy can only come out of the woods in such a situation. With time too, the government should back the Policy up with law. An Executive Order does not carry the same force as the law. It has its limitations.

  • #NogreeforNipco

    #NogreeforNipco

    The messages have been coming in, in torrents. Almost all the writers have something to say about gas filling stations. They said all the outlets are crooks. According to them, the outlets are not different from their workers whose stock-in-trade is to rip off motorists and other customers. I have also experienced some of the things they wrote about. But my last experience which has provoked two pieces in this space beats them all.

    To me, it is daylight robbery by a well-heeled oil firm which also runs a retail outlet. Nipco is deliberately refusing to refund my N20000 for a failed transaction last January 15 at its Arepo outlet off the Lagos-Ibadan Express road. The money is not the issue but the outlet’s advertent refusal to make amends. Those who wrote in, in solidarity with this column said they had similar experiences with some outlets (names withheld) as well as Nipco.

    Read Also: Meta-Nigeria faceoff: Group calls for caution

    They said the outlets do not give a hoot about customers’ complaints. For all they care, customers can go to hell. ‘I see wen for dem hand. I go buy petrol for one filling station around Ogba with my ATM. Dem debit me but the receipt say: ‘DECLINED’. Dem no sell fuel for me. My bank say the money don leave dem hand. I go back to the filling station, dem no answer me. Na the thing wey we dey see for dem hand be that. Oga, no gree for dem o”.

    None has a good story to tell about the outlets. This is worrisome. Should they be allowed to continue to treat customers shabbily, especially in cases of ‘dispense error’ – where a customer is debited for a failed transaction, but the outlet is credited. In my case, if Nipco wants to claim, contrary to available evidence, that it did not get the money, then it should throw its books open for scrutiny. From there, we will take the matter further.

  • Wolf cry over one-party state

    Wolf cry over one-party state

    For 16 years, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was on the saddle of leadership in the country. This was between 1999 and 2015. At the height of its power, it became full of itself and overconfident. It believed that there was nothing it could not do; that all it needed to do was to say it out and the deed was done. It was a big mistake. It boasted that it would rule for 60 years. I am not sure that the party still remembers that now because of where fate has thrust it in the power loop.

    It has painfully come to realise that power does not flow from the thoughts and machinations of man alone; that when your chi, apologies to the Igbo, cracks your palm kernel, you should eat it in silence, say a prayer or two and not taunt others. PDP woes began in 2008 long before its fall from power in 2015. Little did it know that it was setting the stage for its eclipse when its former chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, boasted that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years.

    “PDP is a party for all and it is set to rule Nigeria for the next 60 years. I don’t care if Nigeria becomes a one-party state. We can do it and PDP can contain all”. As far back as 2008 when Nigeria’s democracy was just nine years, PDP was already thinking of making it a one-party state. Today, seeing its evil plan collapse before its eyes, it is accusing President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which wrested power from it in 2015 of having such plans.

    Just as politicians both elected and appointed dumped their parties for PDP in its days of glory, so are they leaving PDP in droves today for APC. It is in the nature of politicians to go foraging in places where their bread will be buttered. Politicians do not like to be in the losing party and PDP, for now is not a winning party. It is in a serious crisis which may affect its chances in the 2027 polls for which some of its leading lights chaperoned by its presidential candidate in 2023, Atiku Abubakar, have been trying to form a coalition.

    Their coalition is an extension of their fight with Tinubu and if APC suffers collateral damage in the process, all well and good. The coalition arrowheads, Atiku and Nasir El-Rufai, are not the best of friends but when it comes to Tinubu, they are ready to close ranks and do anything to get him out of office. In their haste to achieve their goal and apparently blinded by political animosity, they, particularly Atiku, left their flanks open.

    The cracks in Atiku’s PDP are widening by the day. He ran as the party’s presidential candidate with then Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as his running mate. Two years down the line, both men have gone their separate ways. Okowa’s defection along with his successor, Sheriff Oborevwori, and the entire PDP structure in Delta hit Atiku like a bolt out of the blue. He never saw it coming and he has yet to recover from the political Tsunami which hit PDP in that state.

    It was one defection like no other. If a state would flip, it was not expected to be Delta, a state hitherto considered as the party’s exclusive preserve. Until the April 23 defection, PDP was Delta and Delta was PDP. No other party than PDP had ruled the state since 1999. ‘How did it happen right under our nose’? This is the question sources say they have been asking themselves in the last few days. But, they may not have seen nothing yet, according to these sources. Asked what they meant, they replied: “more defections are in the offing”.

    Read Also:Sylva saved Bayelsa from one-party state – Yakiah

    Many members are said to be unhappy and asking questions of Atiku whose running mate led others to APC eight days ago. They want the former vice president to explain how Okowa defected without his knowledge. As usual, rather than frontally address the internal crisis which caused the defection, Atiku and his ilk are blaming Tinubu for PDP’s misfortune. They claim that the defection is part of the President’s grand plan to turn Nigeria into a one-party state. Really?

    Can PDP of all parties accuse anyone of working towards a one-party state, the same arrangement that it planned to foist on the country when it boasted that it would rule for 60 years and nothing will happen if Nigeria became a one-party state under its watch? Check: “PDP is set to rule for 60 years. I don’t care if Nigeria becomes a one-party state”. What other proof of a proponent of a one-party state do you need more than that?

    Politics is all about interests and how such interests are protected. As Okowa said when he, Oborevwori and others were ushered into APC on Monday, it was in the defectors’ interests to move into the ruling party in order to ‘connect to Abuja’. Come to think of it, what is bad in it if Tinubu worked underground or through people to make this big catch for APC? When PDP was ‘capturing all the capturables’, as K.O Mbadiwe would say, in its days in power did it not see it all as fair and foul in war?

    Their claim that the nation is descending into a one-party state is what it is – crying wolf where there is none. With over 18 registered political parties in the country, only the serious and the best can attract quality members who will drive their dreams, aspirations and programmes for the people. It is obvious that APC is now the domineering party just as PDP was some years ago. That PDP has lost out in the power game does not make  Tinubu and APC, that are now in the driver’s seat, monsters and harbingers of a one-party state.

    Even with all the 28 out of the 36 governors in the country that PDP had in 2008, Nigeria did not become a one-party state. How then can APC with a lesser number of governors now, 22, be accused of plotting a one-party state? The Delta defections have done as much damage to Atiku’s coalition plans just as the party’s governors’ rejection of same. His talk of a one-party state does not hold water.

  • Nipco: Laying the facts bare

    Nipco: Laying the facts bare

    There is a certain Latin word which lawyers like to use when they have a good case. When the facts are not in doubt and the defendant has nothing to dispute the plaintiff’s case, the lawyer will boldly tell the court: “My Lord, res ipsa loquitur, that is the thing speaks for itself”. What the lawyer is saying in effect is that from the processes before the court, the facts of the case are clear and unambiguous and that there is no need for further arguments. I do not have much to say today on my case with Nipco filling station at Arepo, in Ogun State, over the ‘N20000 dispense error’ that I wrote about last week.

    I do not have anything against the outlet. All I want is for it to go through its books and sort out this matter. I cannot pay N40000 for N20000 worth of petrol and pretend, like the station, that everything is alright. Is my claim true or false? Here are some of my facts as obtained from my bank:

    Read Also: NIPCO eyes long-term growth on strategic investments

    Dear Mr. Lawal,

    Thank you for contacting Guaranty Trust Bank. We apologize for the inconveniences caused. Please be informed that your dispense error claim of N20,000 on the 15/01/25 was declined by the acquiring bank. Please note, transaction declined means that the Merchant got value for that transaction, hence their bank declined or refused to reverse or refund us. Kindly contact merchant for refund if you did not get value for the transaction. Find attached the receipt of the transaction. Thank you for choosing Guaranty Trust Bank.

    • Chinwendu Etolihu
  • Adieu, Pope of Peace

    Adieu, Pope of Peace

    In A world ravaged by wars and agitations, Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis who died on Easter Monday did his best to defuse tensions. He was a man of peace who sought peace in every part of the world. He did not only speak for peace, he worked and walked for it, as much as his frail health could carry him.

    When he celebrated Mass with the faithful worldwide on Easter Sunday, his only message, as usual, was peace in the world. Peace in our hearts and peace in our homes for the world to be livable for all. The Pope would have wanted to do more, but he went as far as his health would allow him. As he sat on his wheelchair by a window at his Vatican residence from where he greeted the world at Easter, it was plain that the Pope was in pain.

    But he put up a brave face to address global ills and what should be done to make the world a better place for all. Unknown to those gathered on the grounds of the Vatican and the millions watching on television and following him online worldwide, he was making his final farewells. It was to be the Pope’s last Easter celebrations as the Bishop of Rome and the foremost Catholic in the world.

    A Russian leader, Joseph Stalin at the height of the power and glory of the now crumbled USSR, was so carried away that he rhetorically wondered: “how many divisions does the Pope have?” The Pope’s power does not lie in military might, it is in his moral force, which is more powerful than the strength of all the combined armed forces of the world. Whenever the Pope speaks, whether in times of peace or conflict, the world listens.

    The Pope does not need an army to do that because the God that he works for does not fight with troops. Presidents, prime ministers and kings hold him in awe. The Pope might not wield the political and monarchical powers of temporal leaders, but his spiritual power places him on a higher pedestal than them. He commands much respect because of his moral and spiritual force.

    Thus, Pope Francis’ spiritual and moral authority gave him the voice to speak the way he did. The Pope was sought after, and not the other way round. No leader refuses to see the Vatican Head of State; never. Such is the the respect, honour and integrity that the Pope commands. Yes, Pope’s are humans, but they are of a different species of homo sapiens. They give their lives to serve the Lord and humanity, living in a cloistered home where they are constant in season and out of season, while their concerns remain what is going on around the world.

    Read Also: Wike hails Okowa, Delta Governor over defection to APC

    Pope Francis brought a common touch to his Papacy. He was at home with the poor, the lost, the forgotten and the migrant. He lived for the wretched of the earth and fought their cause with all he had. He knew he held a powerful office with a strong voice. Even though his weak health strained his own voice, the voice of his office rang out loud and clear wherever he went to. He walked among kings, but he never trampled upon serfs.

    He was the leader of Catholics worldwide which number is said to be 1.4 billion, but Christendom and the global community are the Pope’s constituency. The Pope never speaks for Catholics or even Christians alone, he speaks for the world. He was concerned with happenings in Israel, Lebanon, Poland, Azerbaijan as he was with developments in Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In short, the Pope was everywhere because humanity is universal.

    Francis was an uncommon Pope who took office after his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI resigned on health grounds. He chose the name Francis after the order of Francis of Assisi, the Catholic friar, who became a beggar and itinerant preacher in pursuit of his vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. Pope Francis lived such a life too. Though surrounded by opulence at the Vatican, he never shut his eyes to the suffering of the poor, the lost and the hungry around him and across the world.

    Indeed and in truth, the Pope fought a good fight; he finished his course; he kept the faith. He has gone to the House of his Father in heaven for the crown that awaits all those who finish well. Rest well, Pope, you made the world a better place with your messages of peace. It will not be out of place if you are considered posthumously for the Nobel Prize for Peace. After all, you referred to destitute as the “noble beings of the earth”. It will be noble for you to win the Nobel.

  • Haba Nipco, 40k for 20k petrol! (1)

    Haba Nipco, 40k for 20k petrol! (1)

    It has been over three months since the transaction. It was on January 15 that I went to Nipco filling station at Arepo, off the Lagos-Ibadan Express road to buy petrol. I paid with my ATM card, but the transaction was declined. Nevertheless, I was debited for the failed transaction. On the second attempt, the transaction went through. It was not the first time I was experiencing such at a filling station. I was sure I would get my money back once I went to complain formally at my bank since such disputes are usually resolved inter-bank.

    I took my case to my bank and GTB did all it could to help. It sent my complaint to UBA, Nipco’s bank. UBA said its customer got value for the transaction, meaning that Nipco was credited with my first N20000 for which I, the retail outlet’s customer, never got value for. I was debited for the transaction yet Nipco declined to serve me petrol until I paid another N20000.

    Read Also: Tinubu issues fresh security directives, says ‘enough is enough’ – Ribadu

    So, I paid N40000 for a N20000 transaction. Despite all efforts to get my money back, Nipco and its bank keep proving difficult. I have tried all peaceful means to resolve this matter to no avail. I have tendered everything I got from GTB to support my complaint but Nipco and UBA seem not interested in all the documents. What Nipco is particular about is the POS printout of the failed transaction which I have since misplaced. It is not interested in other supporting documents to my claim provided by GTB.

    It sounds illogical that a ‘dispense error dispute’, as they call it cannot be resolved just because of a missing printout of the failed transaction, despite all the available backups provided by GTB.

  • NBA’s moral burden

    NBA’s moral burden

    A lawyer lives for the direction of his people and the advancement of the cause of his country – Sapara Williams

    To a large extent, the constitution of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) hereinafter referred to as the Bar or NBA, is hinged on this Christopher Sapara Williams’ creed. He was the first indigenous Nigerian lawyer who was called to the English Bar on November 17, 1879. He started practising in Nigeria on January 13, 1888. During his legal practice, he held on to the precepts of being an advocate of the people and society’s watchdog.

    Williams was a pathfinder whose creed has come to define the essence of legal practice and shaped the minds of other lawyers, many of who held him in awe, even though they never met him. One of such lawyers was the irrepressible Gani Fawehinmi who had Williams’ immortal words framed and well placed in his law chambers and Ikeja, Lagos home. Gani took Williams’ creed to heart. That was how he became the Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM), and the people’s lawyer, an appellation which was the exclusive preserve of Kanmi Ishola-Osobu in the 70s and 80s.

    Sapara Williams was a leading light of the NBA which he chaired between 1900 and 1915, when he died. Under his watch, the Bar was the upholder of the truth. It never strayed from the right path. It took up causes that affected the masses at no cost to them, giving them a sense of belonging and being. NBA earned the people’s trust without lobbying for it. Under him, the Bar was never enmeshed in any scandal that besmeared it.

    The Bar was the Bar – upright and not beholden to any elected or appointed office holder. It earned the public’s respect for its integrity, decorum and decency, the cherished values held dear by lawyers like Gani and another Bar leader, Alao Aka-Bashorun, who both came after Williams. Though Gani was never an NBA leader, he lived his life for a Bar with a banner without stain. He was always quoting Sapara Williams in everything he did. He and his hero and Gani had few heroes who can be counted off the finger tips will be turning in their graves over the way the Bar is being run today.

    Even before the scandal over NBA’s collection of N300 million from the Rivers State Government for the hosting of its 2025 annual general conference in Port Harcourt, which has been shifted to Enugu blew open, the Bar was already treading on slippery grounds. It was always involved in one politically-motivated cause or the other, taking sides in matters in which it should be neutral. It must, however, be emphasised that the collection of ‘unconditional’ monetary gift for the hosting of its conferences did not start today.

    It is an age-long practice which predates the present NBA leadership. The only difference is the controversy that is dogging its decision to shift the conference to Enugu after collecting what the planning committee called the N300 million ‘unconditional gift’. Truly, no conditions are attached to such gifts and other miscellaneous and logistic freebies that the state where the event is billed for is always willing to dole out for reasons best known to it. But it is with the unwritten understanding of ‘you rub my back, I rub your back, tombo’.

    Read Also: Rivers: Only police, EFCC, ICPC can probe Fubara, says Ahamba

    Meaning the Bar, though a pressure group, will see no evil and speak no evil about the state, no matter how bad things may be there, at least during  preparations for the conference; as well as while the event is on and shortly after it. But the NBA breached this unwritten rule when it sou moto moved the conference to Enugu because of what it described as the ‘unconstitutional rule’ in Rivers. ‘Unconstitutional’? How did the Bar arrive at that conclusion? I am unaware of any court declaring the present administration in Rivers unconstitutional.

    What we have in Rivers is a state of emergency as provided for under Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The suspension of the democratic institutions under the emergency rule is galling to many people, among them lawyers. But until the court which has adjudicatory powers speaks on the Rivers emergency no other person no matter the number of SAN titles they may have, can declare it unconstitutional. At best, they like any other professionals, can only bellyache over the matter, no more, no less.

    The prerogative of holding the annual general conference in any part of the country is the NBA’s. So, it can decide to move it out of one state to the other, if it so wishes. But in so doing, it must be mindful of the fallout of its action, which we are all now witnessing. With the exception of its inner circle, many of its members and other Nigerians never knew that the Bar got N300 million from the Rivers government for the conference. So, having moved the conference to Enugu since it no longer finds Port Harcourt conducive, what should the NBA do with the gift cash?

    Retain it? Return it? For its own good and image, it is better it returns the cash. The money is not that of suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara whose cause it is openly fighting by its insistence that it cannot gather in a state where there is no democracy. The money belongs to Rivers and whether NBA likes it or not, there is a government in place there. It may call the administration by whatever name it likes, but that will not detract from the fact of the government’s existence.

    The owner of the money, the government of Rivers is asking for a refund. Rather than run its mouth over the propriety or otherwise of its action, NBA should just quietly return the money the way it got the cash and stop ridiculing itself in public. Enough of its show of shame. As the self-styled voice of the voiceless and defender of the defenceless, NBA should not be seen engaged in matters belittling of a professional group of its stature. It is disheartening seeing the way it is defending its indefensible action.

    NBA messed up big time. Though the damage has been done, it is still not too late for the Bar to redeem itself by returning the money to its rightful owner. If its problem is Sole Administrator Ibok-Ette Ibas, NBA should not see itself as returning the N300 million to him, but to the government and people of Rivers that are the rightful owners of the money. NBA has not fared well at all in its handling of this case. How can the Bar say that it would not refund the money because it is an ‘unconditional gift’?

    Yet, it has attached condition to the hosting of the conference by moving it from Port Harcourt to Enugu on the grounds of unconstitutional government in Rivers. The Bar cannot have its cake and eat it. It is in its own enlightened self interest to return the money and make do with whatever the Enugu government provides for moving the conference there. The money belongs to Rivers and the rightful place to return the cash to is the state since it has a sitting government.

    NBA should not allow this matter to go to court because the outcome may not favour it. A giver, whether an individual or an institution can take back his or its gift, if the recipient is not appreciative. It is as simple as that.

  • Odili and his 2007 odd perpetual order

    Odili and his 2007 odd perpetual order

    Odd Things do happen. Whenever they do, their strangeness is not lost on the people. It is an oddity for a man not bitten by a rabid dog to start barking like a dog. Humans do not walk on their heads, but with their legs. So, when you see a person walking on his head or on all fours, that is with his hands and legs, you do not need to be told that, that is strange.

    The strangeness of a thing confounds us. When 18 years ago, a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, granted a perpetual injunction restraining the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from arresting, detaining, investigating and prosecuting former Governor Peter Odili, many Nigerians were shocked to the marrows.

    They kept wondering why the court would stop an agency created by law from doing its job. It was strange. It was not only the order that was strange. It was also strange that such an application was filed. Granted that lawyers can bring any application, no matter how frivolous, but this one was in a class of its own.

    There is a limit to the filing of nonsensical matters. These are cases that can rouse the public to take to the streets to call for the heads of those involved, be they lawyers or litigants. Since many lawyers are ready to take any brief because of filthy lucre, they refrain from advising their clients to file certain matters.

    As long as the money is good, they promise their clients heaven and earth and in some cases, even assure them that they would see (euphemism for inducement) the judge and everything would go well (meaning that they would win). It was out of fear that Odili went to court to stop the EFCC from inviting him to give account of his eight-year tenure as governor of Rivers State (1999-2007).

    Read Also: INEC delineation: Uproar as Itsekiris shutdown 28,000 bpd facility in Delta

    It is standard practice elsewhere for elected office holders to give account of their stewardship at regular intervals. It is not so here. Our elected officers are above the law. It is taboo for them to render account. Who dares ask them to do that? They are easily irritated by such requests. For a reporter to ask governors, especially, certain questions can land him in trouble. The reporter may be abducted from his state of residence and taking to the governor’s state to face prosecution (or is it persecution?) for such temerity.

    Why did Odili act out of fear? Does he have something to hide? What is it? If he had done well, would he entertain any fear? By his action, Odili gambled wth the law and won. For 18 years, he played on our collective intelligence and we all looked on without asking questions. Why should any man whether a former governor or not go to court and seek to stop his arrest and investigation without any lawful reason?

    Odili did not state his right that will be breached if he is arrested and investigated. No man is above the law, no matter the post he once held or he is presently holding. There is equality before the law, but unfortunately, our society has made it to look as if we are not all equal before the law, with the way the rich and mighty are preferentially treated. How many ordinary Nigerians can bring that kind of Odili’s application and have their way in court?

    To start with, do they even have the enormous resources to file, through a senior advocate, such a vexatious application, which does not require a second thought before being thrown out by the court? Odili had his way for 18 years. Now, the EFCC has woken up from its slumber. It is ready to challenge Odili and his odd order.

    It must be put on record that Odili was aided by successive Rivers State administrations which have since 2007 frustrated every attempt to appeal the high court verdict. The last ploy by Rivers to frustrate the case failed at the Supreme Court in February. What were the appellants praying for? They wanted the apex court to quash the Appeal Court’s order granting EFCC leave to appeal the high court’s verdict out of time.

    Without mincing words, presiding Justice John Okoro told the appellants: “this is not the kind of appeal that we hear here”. Following the withdrawal of the motion, he directed the appellants back to the Appeal Court for the hearing of the ‘substantive appeal’. But did EFCC not contest Odili’s case at the high court? What was its position there? Did it support or oppose Odili’s case? If it opposed the case, did the court take the agency’s position into consideration before perpetually restraining it from arresting, detaining, investigating and prosecuting Odili?

    It will be interesting to see how this case pans out at the Appeal Court. Former elected officers should never be allowed to dictate their terms of engagement with the society after leaving office. They should rather be made to render account of their stewardship. By so doing, the society will be better off.

  • Uromi 16, Diri and human rights

    Uromi 16, Diri and human rights

    Before things became bad, Nigerians lived as one. We still do, but not on the same scale as it was in the not too distant past. Then, people harboured strangers in their homes without any fear. They provided for the strangers, treating them as royalty. We were a country of peace and love – peace in our homes and love in our hearts.

    Then things changed. They did not change overnight. The changes were gradual, but we pretended that all was well. Our leaders should have moved then to nip things in the bud. They did not; they watched as the people became divided along ethic, religious, social and political lines. That of political is understandable, but the same cannot be said about religion and ethnicity

    A nation where brothers and sisters, parents and children practiced different religions and still lived under the same roof became a place where they no longer wished to stay together. It became worse accommodating strangers under such circumstances. Every stranger was viewed with suspicion. The stranger was no longer seen as a friend, he was perceived as an enemy, especially in the wake of the herders/farmers clashes stoked by the activities of the religious sect, Boko Haram (Book is a Sin).

    It may not be wrong to say that the rise in Boko Haram insurgency fueled the related activities of herders/farmers skirmishes that have made the country a nightmare for us all today. There were robbery and kidnapping in the land long before insurgency and banditry became the order of the day but those criminalities were few and far between then. They became rampant and flourishing enterprises when insurgency, banditry, terrorism, organ harvesting and human trafficking seized the land.

    Nigerians hardly spoke of their rights to freedoms of association and movement when there was peace in the land. They were accommodating and tolerant of one another – until crimes and criminalities changed the course of things. We then remembered that the Constitution guarantees us certain rights. The right to life as well as to live in any place of our choice, freedom of worship, freedom of movement and freedom of association.

    We became conscious of these rights because of our intolerance of one another; when as brothers we no longer saw eye to eye despite sharing many things in common. For the stranger, it was a bitter experience. His identity was no longer enough to guarantee him peace or refuge in any part of the country. People ran away from the herder and the farmer believing that he has come to kill, maim, loot and rape. Politicians also introduced toxicity into the system, preaching bitterness and divisiveness.

    This is why a community or a people will first descend on a group of herdsmen or farmers before finding out what those strangers are doing on their land. The rule is kill first before asking questions. It is a strange and barbaric rule meant for the stone age. We say we are in the computer age, where at the press of a button, we get things done quickly and effortlessly. Painfully, our actions say otherwise.

    There is no advancement in our human relationship. We have become killers under the guise of securing ourselves and there is no part of the country that is not guilty of this. What happened in Uromi, Edo State, on March 27 is a sad reminder of how as a people we have become our brother’s killer instead of keeper. All because of the fear that the stranger has no good intentions. Our people have become mind readers without the requisite knowledge of the art.

    These mind readers divine only bad intentions. They have never seen anything good in a stranger that will warrant accommodating them. It is only to kill and hide the strangers’ bodies in shallow graves for the security agencies to fish out. Uromi did not just happen to us. It is an everyday thing that the nation must rise as one and do something about before it consumes us. It is Uromi today, nobody knows which town such a bestial act of killing 16 persons or more in one fell swoop will happen next.

    Uromi happened because we did not do anything when such incidents happened in other parts of the country in the past. For instance, when Godwin Ukalaka was beheaded in Kano years ago, nothing happened. Many of such incidents have happened in other towns and cities in the north and the south, with the perpetrators getting away with the crime. There may be no end to these dastardly acts until the perpetrators are brought to justice for all to see.

    Governor Monday Okpebholo has embarked on a peace mission to douse tension over the Uromi killing to avoid reprisals in the Kano home state of the slain 16 hunters. It is disturbing that while he is dousing inter-ethno-religious tension through his shuttle to Kano, another governor, Douye Diri of Bayelsa State, is stoking the fire of political divisiveness. Diri is incensed that a group is planning an event for his state on April 12.

    Read Also: Two more Uromi killing suspects arrested

    Like a dictator, he has read the riot act to the organisers, warning them to stay off Bayelsa. Diri may be the governor and chief security officer of his state, but he does not have the power to ban anybody whether an indigene of Bayelsa or not from gathering there. He claims to have directed the security agencies to stop the planned event because of its security implications. What are these security concerns? He did not say, yet he is wielding the power that he does not have by giving orders to military and paramilitary agencies.

    From his remarks, it is obvious that Diri is worried about the event because it revolves around Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Ezenwo Wike. His  associates under the acronym of NEW (the first three letters of his name) claim that they want to thank him and President Bola Tinubu for bringing more Ijaw people into the government. As a governor, Diri should not be hysterical over matters that can be resolved amicably without going public. As an Ijaw, he should even be happy for his kinsmen and join in the celebrations and not be against the event.

    He has drawn undeserved attention to the event through his unsubstantiated claim that it is meant to destabilise his state. Remarks like this belittle a governor no matter his political differences with the object of his attack. What will he gain by raising unnecessary tension in, as he says, “a peaceful” state like Bayelsa?

    He has set up the organisers for attack  and the consequences may be grave if things go awry in the state before, during or after the April 12 event. As a governor, Diri should learn to guard his tongue. Governors do not talk anyhow.