The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Year of the funeral pyre

    Year of the funeral pyre

     Olatunji Ololade

     

    This is the year of the funeral pyre. The year in which ‘patriots’ carved bullets and axes from soapboxes, and for the sport of politicians, increased the tally of the dead.

    This is the year in which criminals, death merchants, and mass murderers actualised their fantasies of ill-bliss, soon after they rode to power on the wings of snatched ballots and voter apathy.

    This year, Mallam Abubakar Yunus watched helplessly as Boko Haram terrorists slaughtered his two sons like rams, in his presence. The Yunus were reportedly harvesting their rice in fields around Zabarmari, about 25 kilometres from Maiduguri, Borno’s capital when the terrorists arrived decked in army camouflage. They tied up Yunus’ sons and slit their throats alongside other farmers. He could only watch and cry.

    Official reports cited 43 dead in the wake of the terrorists’ attack even as Borno governor, Babagana Zulum told journalists after attending the burial of 43 victims whose corpses were recovered on Saturday, that at least 70 farmers were killed.

    Shortly afterward, Borno state Information Commissioner, Babakura Abba Jatau, disclosed that the death toll had risen from 70 to 76.

    “Forty-three bodies were buried on Sunday and another 33 were buried on Monday,” he told a foreign news service, adding that the death toll could rise further.

    However, Abubakar Shekau, leader of the terror group, in a three-minute video, stated that his group killed 78 farmers because “the farmers arrested and handed one of its brothers to the Nigerian Army.”

    The grim search for bodies continues even as you read. There is no gainsaying the incumbent administration has lost its grip of the nation’s security apparatus. It is, however, pointless rehashing calls for an overhaul of the nation’s security apparatus. Nigeria is in need of a more drastic intervention.

    This administration won’t defeat Boko Haram. Save occasional flashes of endeavour, it will only keep urging the nation’s military on a glorified hide and seek from now till its expiration in 2023.

    And to the contemptuous aides and ministers of President Muhammadu Buhari, who would declare war on critics of their administration’s mishandling of the antiterrorism war, I can only wish that they imagine how ‘logical’ or ‘rational’ they would be if the same terrorists that stormed Zabarmari should invade their homes, rape their wives and slit their children’s throats while they watch helplessly.

    Whatever good Buhari might have achieved is smothered by the miseries and death-cries of victims of insecurity, unemployment, and infrastructure lapse.

    On the watch of the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s President Buhari, Nigeria diminishes into a Darwinian spectacle of turbulent energies: terrorism, warmongering, buck-passing, corruption, and inefficiency – the same failings for which the party tirelessly chastised the former administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    Despite this sad reality, gangs of critics who fought Jonathan and the PDP off citing insecurity and his inefficiency, tend to downplay Buhari and his APC’s ineptitude and ethical ambiguities. For instance, the Zabarmari massacre and ex-pension boss, Abdulrasheed Maina’s alleged scandalous” reinstatement” in very suspicious circumstances, his subsequent arrest, bail-hop, and eventual capture in neighbouring Niger Republic has failed to incite appropriate resent.

    At the moment, Boko Haram, killer-herdsmen and armed bandits have seized control of rural communities of Nigeria’s northeast and northwest; a colony of oil thieves, striving in twos and threes, fours and fives, have made it on to the boards of Nigeria’s most lucrative cash cows, the country’s public corporations.

    From their vantage positions, it becomes easier to hike fuel charges, prevent stable electricity, dominate import/export business, steal public funds, influence election results.

    But contrary to widespread belief, the terror we face is hardly the podgy, covetous creatures that we have ennobled with public office and the Nigerian till; true terror subsists in the Nigerian youth. The contemporary youth is both a victim and perpetrator of terror and President Buhari and his APC would do well to heed Senate President, Ahmed Lawan’s admonishment in respect of widespread unemployment, poverty, and youth dissent.

    This minute, Nigeria unfurls as a funeral pyre; hundreds are hacked to death weekly by terrorists, killer herdsmen and armed bandits prowling the nation’s highways and remote areas. In the wake of the genocide, public officers and politicians of the ruling party trade blame with opposition. They play to the gallery.

    At the backdrop of their shenanigans, poor, helpless families like the Yunus and their butchered neighbours of Zabarmari lose their lives.

    For too long, irrational brickbats, phony platitudes and mindless bloodshed have shaped our politics; many Nigerians, the youth in particular, are probably living through the worst decade of their lives. They read of bloody genocides at dawn, poverty, and strife in the next city, and many more live through such.

    Add these to an economy patched with foreign loans and dubious tales of growth; if Nigeria is prospering, it hasn’t manifested in the lives of the citizenry.

    It took a perfect gathering of bad leadership to get to this moment. It would take electing an imperfect cannonball of a man or woman to brave through it and survive it. It’s about time Nigeria’s youth united to elect men and women of uncommon grit and fibre into public offices.

    Come 2023, what we should be interested in are candidates, a president-elect in particular, capable of restoring stable electricity and generating employment, a functional health sector, and an educational system capable of providing the skilled manpower that Nigeria needs to power her industry. If the youth are gainfully employed, they won’t become vulnerable to criminal masterminds using them to foment mayhem.

    Today is spitting out monsters and tomorrow portends the emergence of a thousand more ogres.

    What Nigeria needs at the moment are youths driven by moral courage to change the status quo. Moral courage encompasses the nerve to do the right thing and speak the truth always. It involves defying the mob as a solitary individual; to spurn the invigorating embrace of toxic comradeship; to speak truth to authority even at great personal risk, for a higher principle.

    But with moral courage comes persecution. Gani Fawehinmi had moral courage, so did Malcolm X. Predictably, advocates of such morality are either maligned by fate or ascribed rogue status by the state. Routinely they are accused and charged for treason.

    But in their touted notoriety subsists the irony of an incontrovertible metaphor; they usually represent the best of mankind and civilization in their time.

    Come 2023, the youth should root for a candidate identifiable as the window into the Nigerian psyche. The one who internalises the grief he has learnt from the streets. I speak of the candidate who manifests as the blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes can rally to project their dreams and needs – the passive yet active instrument by which Nigeria may prosper and we could achieve our dreams.

    To find such a candidate, the search begins now. None of the current contenders is worthy of the Nigerian vote. If Nigeria recycles them in power, the world that awaits us would be more painful and difficult.

     

  • Koshobe 43: Death so cruel

    Koshobe 43: Death so cruel

    By Lawal Ogienagbon

     

    IT was a Black Saturday. The day broke like any other, last Saturday, without any sign of the massacre about to happen on some rice farms around the remote Koshobe, Marrabati and Hammaya villages near Zabarmari in Jere Local Government Area of Borno State. Around noon, Boko Haram insurgents invaded those communities, leaving death and destruction in their trail. Borno has always been a Boko Haram enclave. For 11 years, the sect has held the state by the throat, making life hell for the people.

    Five years ago, it was a campaign issue for President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, All Progressives Congress (APC). Security was at a low ebb then, not only in Borno, but all over the country. Former President Goodluck Jonathan took all the flak for his administration’s failure to tackle the problem. Yet, he sought to return to power in 2015. It was a lost battle even before it started as the electorate wanted a ‘strong’ and not a ‘clueless’ president who could take on Boko Haram frontally. Buhari said security was on the front burner of his programmes, promising to rout Boko Haram within a few months of assuming office, if elected. That was like music to the people’s ears and they nodded their heads huhu ‘that’s the kind of president we want’. Five years after, Boko Haram is waxing stronger,  with the present administration unable to respond accordingly. The public has yet to come to terms with what is happening.

    The citizenry cannot reconcile what is happening with the President’s declaration four years ago on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that Boko Haram has been “technically defeated”. Taking a cue from his Commander-in-Chief (C-i-C), the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant Gen. Tukur Buratai, said in May, last year, that the terrorist sect had been defeated. But from all indications, the sect is still as deadly as ever, striking at will and wreaking havoc on Borno and some of its contguous states.

    Where it operates from remains a mystery in the wake of the  military’s celebrated destruction of the sect’s Sambisa Forest camp in 2016. The military takeover of Ground Zairo, the public was made to believe, marked the demise of Boko Haram. But the sect has refused to die despite the government’s repeated announcement of its death. In the last five years of the present administration, Boko Haram has become more daring than before. What people thought the group would never do under the administration of a war veteran and crack general like Buhari, it has done and more. Under Buhari’s watch, the sect abducted hundreds of girls from a secondary school in Dapchi, Yobe State in 2018, just as it did under Jonathan in Chibok, Borno State, in 2014. Leah Sharibu, one of the girls abducted in Dapchi is still in captivity.

    What Boko Haram has shown in the last five years of this administration is that it is no respecter of any personality in power, no matter their background. As a general, it was generally believed that Buhari would bring his military background to bear on the fight against insurgency. So far, this has not been the case.  What happened last Saturday at Koshobe and environ is a sad reminder that Boko Haram is far from being defeated. It keeps bubbling up whenever they say it is down and out.

    Koshobe should not have happened. That it happened at all is an indictment of the armed forces. This is no time for the Service Chiefs to give excuses; it is a time for them to come out and admit their failure in the counter-insurgency war. As heads of the army, air force and navy, the Service Chiefs must know that the war goes beyond visiting the battlefront to be with their men to boost their morale, eat and drink with them. The campaign requires them to put on their thinking caps to map out the strategy for wiping out Boko Haram. The sect has troubled the nation for too long. If the military brass cannot come up with that strategy, it is certainly time for them to go, as the Senate resolved, on Tuesday, for the third time this year. That same day, the House of Representatives invited the President to brief it on the security situation. The signs are indeed ominous.

    That fateful Saturday morning, some able-body farmers rose early for the day’s work. They had no inkling of danger. They had hardly settled on their farms when Boko Haram insurgents struck. Where did they come from? The nearby Maiduguri, the state capital, where soldiers are said to be virtually everywhere on the streets? How did the insurgents beat the soldiers’ checks to get to Koshobe? From reports, 43 persons were killed in the attack. They were those buried on Sunday in Zabarmari. It is believed that the casualty figure is higher than that. The Senate says it is 67. The Abubakar Shekau faction of Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the dastardly act, puts the figure at 78 on Tuesday.

    The United Nations (UN), which on Sunday said 110 were killed, recanted on Monday, saying it did not have the exact figure. Why then did it rush to give out the casualty figure of 110 when it had not got its fact right? This is an issue for another day. Till today, the actual number of those killed in Koshobe remains unknown. Why is it so difficult to get the casualty figure? These are farmers who go to their farms regularly and whose records must be kept somewhere for business purpose. What happened in Koshobe was the failure of the military to do its work. Where were they when Boko Haram invaded Koshobe and rounded up the farmers who were said to have helped in arresting an insurgent a day or two earlier? That incident should have made the soldiers  to be  alert to an eventual invasion by the sect over the farmers’ action. But the farmers were abandoned and exposed to the Boko Haram danger. Their nation failed them when they needed it most.

    At the point of being killed like animals,  they might have looked up for help from soldiers who are supposed to protect them, but the troops were nowhere to be found. Where were they? Which other job could be more important  than being there for the farmers? Is it true that the farmers were compelled to pay ‘tax’ to Boko Haram before they could work on their farms? The tales people are bearing in the wake of the Koshobe killings are not palatable at all. How have the Service Chiefs conducted the counter-insurgency war? They have done their best, but their best appears not good enough.

    Can they still be trusted with the operation? The answer is no, going by their performance so far. This maybe why the Senate resolved that the President should “sack and replace them with new ones”. Will the President heed the call? He is not likely. On Monday, Buhari’s media aide, Garba Shehu, who drew public ire over his remark that the slain farmers did not obtain security clearance before going to their farms, said the clamour for the Service Chiefs’ sack was “out of place”.

    Can things continue this way? They cannot. Is the use of mercenaries as suggested by Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum the way to go? The governor’s call is not out of place. As the person facing the heat, he must have seen enough to make such pitch. I however believe that the  job can still be done by the army if it puts its heart to it. But the soldiers would only imbibe such spirit under a new leadership. This is why the Service Chiefs must go. The nation must do something about Boko Haram and the President has to lead the charge in line with his promise in 2015 to ensure security of life and property, if elected.  He was elected and he is now doing a second term but the insecurity in the land today is worse than he met it in 2015. His apologists may argue otherwise, but the facts speak for themselves. Boko Haram has got out of hand and the President must take drastic measures to curtail the sect’s excesses. Will he? Perhaps,  he will unveil his plan for addressing the problem if he honours the lawmakers’ invitation.

  • In defence of Lai Mohammed

    In defence of Lai Mohammed

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

    I sympathise with Lai Mohammed, our very resourceful Minister of Information but a victim of President Buhari’s self-inflicted crisis of legitimacy. Transiting from a creative party spokesman that battled PDP in a fiercely fought 2015 election, to a government information minister, it was obvious he would be haunted by his past. And serving an elected president with a mindset of an emir exercising authority based on tradition was to be an information minister’s nightmare. Of course, it did not take long before defeated and injured PDP and its powerful media re-christened Lai Mohammed  “Lying Mohammed”.

    Unfortunately precisely because President Buhari and his loyal gatekeepers did not understand that communication, which Karl Deutch (1963) describes as ‘nerves of government’ and a guide to statecraft for the modern prince,  has implications  for perception and interpretation of government messages, he reappointed  Lai Mohammed as minister of information.

    With a ministry of information no one believes even when it says the truth and a president that has nothing but disdain for public opinion and who often behaves as if he is answerable to none, the governed loses faith in the government and the result is crisis of legitimacy. The EndSARS crisis and its fallout brought it out very clearly that President Buhari’s government faces serious crisis of legitimacy in the. southern part of the country.

    Evidence: Six soldiers and 37 policemen killed, 196 policemen injured 164 police vehicles destroyed and 134 police stations razed”. Then there were about 57 other civilians killed, 269 private/corporate facilities burnt or looted, 243 government facilities burnt or vandalised and 81 government warehouses looted” and the 1,957 prison inmates set free in six states of Lagos, Edo, Abia, Delta and Edo and Ebonyi.

    Few people in the south and even in the north where we have free reign of terror with senior police officers kidnapped for ransom have faith in government. Even when there was no evidence of massacre, those obsessed ‘with massacre without blood or bodies’ just didn’t want to believe. Lai Mohammed had challenged promoters of ENDSARS campaign that accused soldiers of mass killing of innocent peaceful and unarmed protesters to produce evidence of mass murder. No one turned up.

    We have a superior social organisation in Africa where according to Hillary Clinton, former US secretary of state and President Trump’s opponent in the 2016 American election, “it takes a village to raise a child”, than an atomised western society. It is therefore unimaginable that someone would lose his child and would not cry out after two weeks. Yet no one believes the military’s claim that “soldiers were present but fired their weapons in the air and used blanks, not live rounds” at Lekki Toll Gate.

    Lai Mohammed, echoing military’s claim that they did not shoot at protesters, appealed to anyone with information about anyone killed at Lekki Toll gate should head to the judicial panel “with available evidence as against CNN’s “first world case of massacre without blood or bodies”.

    But Nigerians without faith in their government insinuated soldiers carried corpses of their victims away in trucks without proof. And CNN said because the military admitted it had live bullets and blank bullets, they must have killed some people. It claims its “investigation included evidence that bullet casings from the scene matched those used by the Nigerian Army when shooting live rounds. Their crooked logic is that some people must have been killed.

    But, not too long ago, the same award-winning CNN reporter that wrote Lekki report without visiting Nigeria, writing on the ongoing war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, referred to Hodeida front lines, where shells of millions of dollars’ worth of abandoned American armoured vehicles litter the road as a “graveyard of American military hardware”. American senate member of defence committee admitted neither the government nor the American army knew anything about how the arms got to “militias which is expressly forbidden by the arms sales agreement with the U.S.”

    But CNN which did not call for sanction against American government is now blackmailing Nigeria claiming “A US State Department spokesperson told CNN on Saturday, that they were “closely following the Government of Nigeria’s response” to the events at Lekki Toll Gate adding, “We urge that the investigation be thorough, impartial, and appropriately transparent and that perpetrators be held accountable.”

    But the same CNN that now claims to infallibility only on October 23, was said to have tweeted from its verified Twitter handle that “the military killed 38 people when it opened fire on peaceful protesters on Tuesday October 20”. And that was not the first-time activities of CNN would come under scrutiny. It was once accused of paying for and staging a report that showed 24 Filipino hostages being held by masked gunmen in the remote mangrove swamps of southern Nigeria.

    One-time Minister of Information Frank Nweke Jr had back then said “We have evidence that some of these people were actually paid to put up a show,” a charge Jeff Koinange, CNN’s Africa correspondent who wrote the story also then denied. But we must remind ourselves that while Nigerians believe CNN cannot err, over 72 million American Trump voters consider everything from CNN as ‘fake news’.

    We have our own problems. But we are not a Banana republic but a sovereign and independent nation, governed by established institutions. Only last Monday, embattled EndSARS activist Olowoyo Moyinoluwa Victor, accused along others still at large, of setting ablaze the building of the Nigeria Police station, in Ikere Ekiti on October 20, was granted bail by Magistrate Abdul Lawal on liberal terms. It is perhaps only those who made fortunes from EndSARS crusade through sponsors identified through their bank that are sneaking out of the country to seek asylum claiming they will not get justice in Nigeria.

    Today, except for the Coalition of Civil Society for Human Rights and Good Governance Africa, that condemned (CNN)’s report alleging massacre of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos, on October 20, Lai Mohammed is the last man standing defending our sovereignty and appealing to the sense of patriotism of our youths seeking foreign help to distabilise our nation. Buhari’s other ministers and self-serving governors that presided over hoarding of COVID-19 palliative are talking from both sides of the mouth.

    I think what the minister is telling those who are currently sitting on the fence or inviting outsiders is that Nigeria has always confronted its own demons. We fought our civil war alone. If America and Britain that initially sat on the fence eventually joined, it was for the fear of Russia. Nigeria’s civil society groups and the press forced Babangida, the evil genius to step aside. We ended Sonekan’s illegal Interim contraption. When Abacha held the nation hostage along with the winner of a free and fair election for five years, America did nothing. NADECO fought him paying heavy price.

    America only helped itself by ensuring that following  Abacha’s inexplicable sudden death at the presidential villa, they ensured MKO Abiola who was in high spirits when he was brought out of detention, drank tea before he collapsed and died with the US Undersecretary of State and UN Secretary General as witnesses.

    If Buhari is holding us hostage today with his much talked about provincialism, mismanagement of our crisis of nationbuilding and his incompetence, a people deserve the leadership they get. We must as usual be the architect of our own fortune since 2023 is just around the corner.

    America with its threat and Britain with its last Monday parliament resolution are driven only by their nations’ interest. Foreigners and foreign powers cannot love us more than ourselves.

     

  • Lekki shooting tales

    Lekki shooting tales

    Lawal Ogienagbon

     

    IT is over one month since the shooting at the Lekki Toll Plaza during the #ENDSARS Protests. The shooting shook the nation, with many people wondering the need for it as the protesters who gathered at the plaza were peaceful. Why fire at a bunch of young, peaceful protesters? The bewildered public asked. The ready made answer was that there was a curfew. So, it was in enforcement of the curfew that soldiers stormed the Lekki-Epe axis on that fateful October 20.

    Indeed, earlier that day, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu imposed a curfew on the metropolis following the hijacking of the protests by hoodlums. It was a matter of time before that happened. The protests had begun to drag, with no end in sight as the protesters insisted that all their demands be met before they left  the plaza and the Lagos State Secretariat at Alausa, Ikeja, which were then their homes. After failing to get through to the youths despite taking their demands to Abuja for President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval, Sanwo-Olu was left with no choice than to declare a curfew.

    The curfew was to start at 4p.m., meaning that nobody must be found on the road by then until 6a.m., the next day, until the restriction is lifted. With the police “overran”, according to military intelligence chief Brig-Gen Ahmed Taiwo, troops were deployed to enforce law and order under phase four of internal security operation. The soldiers, he told the judicial panel probing SARS brutality and the Lekki incident, were deployed by the appropriate authority at the instance of Sanwo-Olu. The governor, he noted, took the correct action in the circumstance because the hoodlums had overrun the police.

    But on the night of October 20, as the citizenry watched the unfolding Lekki drama on television nationwide, a shocked Sanwo-Olu appeared on set to say he did not know how the troops got to Lekki. Without mincing words, the governor said he did not invite the military.  There is a difference between invitation and deployment. As the governor and chief security of his state, the safety and security of the people are paramount. To discharge this responsibility, he needs the help of the military and the police over which he has no control. Only the President has control over both institutions.

    The governor cannot deploy soldiers,  but he can request for them, through the President, whenever there is a crisis that is beyond the police. On October 22, he made such request, but on seeing the havoc wreaked on the plaza by soldiers, Sanwo-Olu distanced himself from the military. He said the Justice Doris Okuwobi-led  panel, which had by then been constituted, would unravel how the military got to Lekki. The military too, initially kept mum over its presence at Lekki. It said it would not honour any invitation to appear before the panel. It said it could only be summoned by the state. Isn’t the state the panel?

    There is no difference between the state and the panel, which derives its power from its establishment by the governor. The military promptly reversed itself and pledged its loyalty to civil authority. In furtherance of its pledge,  it appeared before the Okuwobi panel. Its appearance has not been without drama. Gen. Taiwo, Commander of 81 Division, Military Intelligence Brigade, has been telling the panel all he knows about 10/20. On November 14, he said the soldiers went to Lekki with blank bullets. Last Saturday, he said they were there with blank and live bullets. According to him, blank bullets do not kill, but live bullets do.

    Is there any possibility that live bullets were fired at the plaza on October 20? Going by the general’s response to a question under cross examination, the possibility is high. “We shoot if pelted with stones. If you are being pelted with stones, the only option is gunshot. You can’t expect us to throw stones back”. Since stones were thrown at soldiers that fateful night, it will be safe to say they shot at those who stoned them. The question then arises: Did the shooting result in a massacre, which some people alleged happened that night? Massacre may be too strong a word to use because if that was what really happened that night at the toll plaza, there would be ample evidence of it in its aftermath.

    A clearcut case of massacre is what happened during the Benin Expedition of 1897 during which the British Army captured, burned and looted the ancient city. Massacre is the unnecessary indiscriminate killing of a large number of people as witnessed in Benin Empire over 120 years ago. If such had happened at the plaza on 10/20, would it have been possible for anybody to wipe off the trace? This is why the claims of Obianuju Catherine Udeh aka DJ Switch, the Cable News Network (CNN), Al Jazeera, et al, fly in the face of available facts. This writer believes strongly that some people might have died of gunshot wounds that day or days after the shooting, but what is puzzling is why  their families are not coming out to talk.

    A case of killing can only be proved with a body. Where there is no body, there is no death. This is not to say that people did not die at Lekki on October 20, but in the absence of their bodies or evidence that they were forcefully taking away by the military it becomes difficult to prove.  Even CNN, which did a story titled: How a bloody night of bullets quashed a young protest movement could not produce fresh pictures or videos to back up its inference of  massacre. All it got were mostly discredited pictures and videos already in circulation.DJ Switch, who initially gave a death toll of 15 before reducing it to seven,  has gone underground to, according to her,  save her life.

    The government would do well to assure her of her safety so that she can come out and help in the ongoing investigation to clear the row over the actual number of casualties in the Lekki shooting. DJ Switch owes the memory of those who died that duty. If truly there was a massacre and she is keeping quiet and also holding on to proof that can unmask the killers, she is an accessory to the fact. She will come to no harm if she decides to go public with her evidence. With the global stature she has attained, she has become a bone in the government’s throat. She is like a hen perching on a rope. For now, everything says otherwise, except those mouthing “massacre”, “massacre” can bring the proof.

     

  • Predators in disguise

    Predators in disguise

    Olatunji Ololade

     

    THIS minute, Nigeria’s youths enjoy patronage by external forces, who see us as pliant objects, sad wrecks of civilization modifiable by buffeting nature.

    In truth, many among us carry on like survivors of dystopia, whose ethical thinning manifests by pitiless experience. We seem weathered like driftwood yet helpless amid familiar and unfamiliar storms.

    Consequently, predatory forces from abroad comprising shady media, political and non-governmental organisations have emerged to “help” us. As a necessary ruse of rescue, they have sunk their fangs into the flesh of Nigeria’s youth via poisonous patronage.

    These external actors wield toxic news agenda, diplomatic intervention and dark psyops streamlined to foster bigotries and rage of disgruntled, impoverished segments of Nigeria’s youth divide.

    They will keep desensitising the youth to guiltless rage and incendiary politics as long as it fulfills their preferred narratives about Nigeria – a hideous agenda to accelerate the country’s self-destruct.

    The ill-fated Arab springs must, however, serve as a reproach to the country’s youth. Nobody could love Nigeria more than Nigerians hence our need for caution in accepting and celebrating help from abroad.

    Libya, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, would tow a different path today, had they a second chance. They would shun their western patrons’ gift of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedoms’ if they could turn back the hands of time.

    Basking in the attention and patronage by external forces from Europe and America, the nation’s youth currently feel dignified, but in truth, they are being paralysed.

    They are being goaded into a melancholy state of contraction from which there is no escape through action. Every action they had been incited to take against their oppressors in the ruling class, for instance, has manifested as actions against self, the collective good, and the future of the Nigerian State. Think #EndSARS.

    Now that the consequences of their previous actions and rage have begun to manifest, they retreat into the wormhole of fear. However, they have taken the battle to social media: the threshing ground of separatists, hoodlums, maniacs, cowards, and all shades of patriot.

    In the physical public arena, the youth has been reduced to only passive responses: fortitude and endurance. But in their new-found battle zones on social media, they parade as warriors and fearless patriots.

    The failure of the #EndSARS protest and its inability to birth a political movement anchored on the progressive dreams of youth, public service and patriotism, stemmed from its protagonists’ directionless and acquiescence to the dystopic visions of their sponsors at home and abroad.

    Eventually, they built what was supposed to be a liberating movement into a national threat; they turned the protest arenas into forbidden open spaces, an agoraphobic wasteland.

    As the protests snowballed into chaos, the world waited with bated breath, the usual culprits especially – known for marketing arms and ammunition to warring factions in exchange for plundering the affected countries’ natural resources, among other crimes.

    This minute, external predators offer to help tell our story and protect us from the oppressive oligarchs. The youth mistake this for love. But it’s a love that would goad them to untimely death and desiccate their flesh; a love that would raise their hopes only to crush them to skeletal deficiency of being.

    At the backdrop of this plot, it is scary to see the tenor of rage being hurled about on social media, mostly by the youths. Many profess love for country but in truth, their passions manifest crude iniquities, distressing orientations, negative energy clusters, and abraded grief, all fostered by loss, poverty, and unbearable gloom.

    The contemporary youth manifest as Nigeria’s secret fear. They are what is left when the oppressive oligarchs are done devouring Nigeria, the dry bones they picked over after they looted and wolfed down our collective harvest.

    Of course, nationalist consciousness still thrives, but images of the self and the collective good have gotten smaller; corrupted to be precise. Yet our youthful patriots preach and provide healing but with palsied hands.

    Their versions of love and healing fail to fill the space vacated by leadership, religion, and society because they are products of a dysfunctional social unit, the Nigerian family. The family despite its historical repute and value as the core and most significant social unit is under severe attack in Nigeria – as in all climes. But this is a discussion for another day.

    If there is a revolutionary dialectic in Nigeria, it is in the tension between individual and self. But this is often mistaken for tension between individual and state, individual and groups, individual and the system, individual and the almighty Nigerian factor.

    The real battle is between individual and self. The dutiful patriot must discipline and restrain himself. Seasoned with miseries and deathly solemnities foisted upon him by governance failure and an oppressive political class, he mistakes his battle with external elements and forces of oppression as his life’s purpose.

    In tackling them, he yields to that innate lust that ignites the heart towards selfish pursuits. He scoffs at posterity and ancestral dreams. Private lust wins over the public good, flaming up in Nigeria’s funeral pyre.

    To attain true progress, the youth must free themselves from innate and external shackles of thought and action. They must understand that the oligarchs make the compromised youth leader their consort, that the latter might, in turn, mislead the youths to sabotage self and state.

    To rebuild Nigeria, I reiterate, that the youth must seek legitimate participation in the political process. They must seize the moment to regroup, adopt or establish a viable political party, duly registered, and founded on humane principles of nationhood, citizenship, and thought.

    They must present through legitimate means, to the National Assembly, a request to normalise the use of the international passport, driver’s licence, national identity card, and BVN (for electronic ballot) as acceptable means of voting at the 2023 elections.

    Of course, the political class will object to this given their penchant for hoarding voter’s cards to fulfill their election-rigging master-plans, but I reiterate that it’s worth starting the debate over that.

    They must unite with societal segments they hitherto ignored and dismissed as too violent, too dumb, too compromised, and too wild, like the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), the trade unions, among others.

    They must move to quash the oligarchic caste system that reduces several youths to political hooligans, arsonists, and assassins. They must initiate debates and deliberations spanning various fora, nationwide, whereby they would honestly thrash out crucial issues that aid the reduction of Nigeria’s youth to disposable social elements and cannon fodder for political violence.

    They must eschew violence and the inclinations for hate-speech, and their synergies must be guided and adapted through an ad hoc and premeditated coordination in repelling moles, armed goons, and saboteurs, who would be sent to disrupt their rallies with tribal toxins, fake news, religious venom, and filthy lucre.

    Then they must scorn poisonous interventions by countries whose major interest is to abolish our sovereignty, plunder our resources, and lay us bare.

    We mustn’t forget how foreign media, governments, NGOs goaded Arabians to a scalding spring, only to desert them afterward. The same voices that incited them to carnage shut their borders against them claiming they were toxic refugees.

     

  • Patriot games

    Patriot games

    Olatunji Ololade

     

     

    For the love of country” becomes our sexiest lie. The buxomly plague of Nigerian politics; everybody cops a feel.

    Government and the governed; oppressor and the oppressed; oligarchs and long-suffering proletariat; old and young; the gbenudake and the soro soke generations all partake in the morbid ritual.

    However, politics fades to melodrama, where the citizen misappropriates the role of a revolutionary and considers himself greater than the state. In his struggle to usurp privileges and power, he inflicts misery on ordinary citizens, those whose predicament supposedly triggered his trueness.

    “For the love of country” becomes his arrant lie, the falsity that becomes his slogan. Thus, this minute, Nigeria pulses to duplicitous love.

    For instance, having lost or seen their favourite candidate lose at the last general elections, cliques and criminal masterminds among the nation’s elite went for broke. Shady clerics, political and business leaders, and failed aspirants resorted to spite; couching their dissonant vibes in patriot lingo, they condemned President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight.

    On the flipside, President Buhari presents with shortcomings. He is not a saint. He is not a perfect president. And his anti-corruption fight unfurls ethically-knocked. Yet he is something, everything or nothing of the spurious labels attached to him.

    Buhari is a president with flaws but somehow, in his warped politics, he has an undying love for Nigeria perhaps. He is simply too hobbled by innate flaws and inherited demons of public office.

    Too much of such duplicity is discernible in the exploits of many whose ‘hardcore’ agitation had been seen to extinguish soon after they attained power, or got ‘settled’ by the ruling class or power brokers aligned to the former.

    Ferocity manifests as crucial aspects of their passion; the clique culture, authoritarianism, and sense of entitlement characteristic of the ruling class actually manifest across class divides. It’s a precursor to rite of Nigeria’s rape cycle.

    The contemporary patriot is morally ambivalent. He pays lip-service to patriotism even as his provocative ‘purity’ incites filth in its wake. Stripped of his slogan, his passion betrays neither breadth nor depth. It is barely individuated from the insensitivity and grotesqueness resonant of the primeval gladiator arena.

    His passion connotes moral emptiness. What Paglia would liken to the still heart of a geode, rimmed with crystalline teeth. His platitudinous chant is disguised as a series of soothing gestures, like rubbing a lantern to make a genie appear.

    In truth, he weaponises a dark sentiment, luring the masses into a dark cycle of sadomasochism. His exaggerated gestures and confessions of love, are an assertion of savage lust. He moots no selflessness or sacrifice, only refinements of domination.

    Beneath the glitter and ire of his platitudinous chants subsist a frantic hankering for privileges and spoils of power.

    For instance, some of the celebrities that led the #EndSARS protests: musicians, religious leaders, motivational speakers, social influencers hardly represent the country’s finest moral compass despite their declarations otherwise. It was ironic though that they became faces of the #EndSARS protests.

    This contradicts the truth about them; in their private lives, some are unrepentant monsters. Random encounters with their aides and underlings may convince you – the latter allege that they have to endure unprecedented savagery to earn their keep. Yet these superstars barged on to the #EndSARS stage through the trapdoor, flaunting their poker faces, and chanting for the underdog.

    Some made videos; that was their in, into the fast-galvanising protests. They saw a window of opportunity as the protests dragged on. Of course, they latched on to the flailing bandwagon, chanting creeds and popular slogans as a necessary performance of will.

    Their intent was to align with the movement just before it overwhelmed the incumbent ruling class. Afterward, they hoped to get invited and “wooed” to seek public office by an army of concerned youth-patriots who would identify them as the real leadership material that Nigeria deserves. Of course, the ill-fated end of the protests put paid to their fantasies.

    #EndSARS failed because it worked out a systematic philosophy of revolution and succession. The agitation was mostly of a visceral type reminiscent of Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin’s idealised revolt “against any kind of oppression and injustice, rejection of any palliatives or halfway measures.”

    But Bakunin, however inchoate his own ideas were about the new society, was at the same time remarkably prescient about Marxism. Bakunin warned that it would lead to a centralized and oppressive state. He foresaw what would happen to workers once their self-identified representatives in the revolutionary vanguard took power, notes Hedges.

    “Those previous workers having just become rulers or representatives of the people will cease being workers; they will look at the workers from their heights, they will represent not the people but themselves.… He who doubts it does not know human nature,” he said.

    The Russian anarchist Alexander Herzen, although he did not embrace Bakunin’s lusty calls for action, violence, and sometimes terrorism, also detested Marx. But Herzen, like Bakunin, offered little more than hazy notions of volunteerism and autonomous collectives, and communes to replace the state. The anarchists proved more adept at understanding autocratic power and challenging it than at constructing a governing system to replace it.

    Of course, the #EndSARS protesters share kindred spirits with the incumbent oligarchs from whose oppressive leadership they seek escape. And like the protesters, the current government is peopled by characters who proved quite adept at challenging former President Goodluck Jonathan’s ‘uninformed’ leadership than at constructing a humane and efficient government as a replacement.

    Due to their inefficiencies, Nigeria’s youth marched on the streets to demand better leadership and a higher quality of governance until constraints of savage origins were hatched into their midst – courtesy the demons outside and within.

    The gale of revolutions that erupted in 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union was the last revolutionary wave before the Arab uprisings in 2010. From the 14 Soviet republics that broke away to form independent states in 1989 to the ill-fated Arab springs, a common strain was the loss of faith among large segments of the citizenry in the ideological constructs of power, just as previous generations outgrew the belief in the divine right of kings.

    These populations argue Chris Hedges, turned against a corrupt ruling elite. They lost hope for a better future unless those in power were replaced. And they seized in a revolutionary moment upon an ideal—one that was often more emotional than intellectual—that allowed them to defy established power. This revolutionary sentiment, as much a mood as an idea, is again on the march.

    In a 2011 New York Times article titled “As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around the Globe,” Nicholas Kulish made this point: Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over. They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

    May we never get to that stage when Nigerians choose bullets over the ballot box.

  • Diminishing leadership

    Diminishing leadership

     Jide Oluwajuyitan

     

    As I struggled through the Ibafo/Mowe perennial traffic gridlock along with other frustrated motorists last Monday evening, what struck me was the glaring evidence of absence of governance and lack of ambition of our southwest political leaders to work for public good just like their illustrious first republic politicians and trail-blazers. The solution to the traffic problem in that portion of the road is simple for those who understand government is service. This portion of the road was reduced to one-lane because of the over 20 years ongoing reconstruction of the 120 kilometre Lagos- Ibadan Express road, a brain child of Gowon regime that took only three years to construct in the late seventies.

    Then Ogun State in its wisdom then decided to create or tolerate the existence of markets and bus stops at the foot of the pedestrian bridges at Ibafo and Mowe. The governor and the local council chairman ought to have realized that was a license for commercial bus drivers to park indiscriminately, a development that most often resulted in three or more kilometres long traffic gridlock. And in the absence of traffic wardens, trailers, fuel tankers laden with inflammable petroleum products, passenger buses and cars dangerously compete for the right of passage. It is however possible that the governor, Dapo Abiodun has not experienced the nightmare that portion of the road has become for motorists since many of the southwest governors are said to move around by leased helicopters. But that cannot be the case with his state government officials and local council representatives who cannot escape passing through the route even if with their police escorts.

    It is an irony this is happening in Ogun State known for public spirited individuals in and out of office. We remember with nostalgia the selfless services of public-spirited giants such as the Simeon Adebos, Ransome Kutis, Tai Solarins, Ayo Adebanjos, Bisi Onabanjos, Osobas among many others. We also remember

    Chief Obafemi Awolowo, president of Action Group, a political party adjudged the ‘best financed, and most efficiently run political party in Nigeria” which faithfully implemented its party’s manifesto of “Freedom for all and life more abundant through Freedom from British Rule, Freedom from Ignorance, Freedom from Diseases, Freedom from Want”.  Richard Sklar (1963: 422) The legacies of these public spirited leaders remain not just unmatched, what we have tragically witnessed in Ogun State and by extension the whole of southwest since the beginning of the fourth republic  in 1999 is diminishing leadership.

    In this regard, Ogun State in recent years has produced a governor Gbenga Daniel whose major legacy was locking up his state House of Assembly after chasing elected lawmakers out of town with thugs. He was also on record as ferrying desperate ex-President Jonathan seeking re-election to Isheri North area of the state where he was misled to commission an empty swamp as completed project.

    Gbenga Daniel has his parallel in Ekiti.  Governor Fayose did not just chase state lawmakers out of town, he stationed thugs at the state borders to prevent them from returning to the state to campaign for re-election. Like Daniel, Fayose was also on record as dragging ex-President Obasanjo to Ekiti to commission a non-existent N14b poultry farm forcing Obasanjo, a successful chicken farmer in his own right, to wonder why Fayose’s poultry farm was without characteristic fowl-smell.

    We have no evidence other southwest governors of the fourth republic showed any inclination towards leaving enduring legacies like the 1952 -62 team did in the departments of education, health, establishment of residential and industrial estates, the Oodua conglomerate, agriculture and general infrastructural development. Most of the once flourishing companies the new inheritors of power inherited collapsed under their watch.  Like Glo and MTN, Oodua governors secured telecommunication license, but it was bungled because of their self-interest as against public interest.  The 1952-66 team had cattle ranches in four different parts of the old Western Region. Today, the new inheritors of power in the southwest have no plan on how to meet the demand of their people who like the Epicureans consume 10,000 heads of cows daily.

    The southwest is also today characterized with infrastructural decay with Ondo and Ekiti, like Osun and Oyo, Oyo-Ogun and Ogun and Lagos, unable to maintain their interstate roads.  With the exception of the brief period of Tinubu and Fashola, Lagos is not different from other southwest states in terms of infrastructural decay. Mile2- FESTAC LASU roads remain a nightmare to motorists and residents. Akinwunmi Ambode derailed Fashola’s National Theatre-Okokomaiko light-rail project. It has taken both Ambode and Sanwo-Olu more than two years to complete a one kilometre rehabilitation of Ojota-Odo Iya Alaro portion of Ikorodu road.  Access and inner roads in most other Lagos communities including Oworonshoki, Bariga- Ilaje-Akoka St Finbar’s University of Lagos road collapsed over two years ago.

    However, it must be acknowledged that diminished leadership and disappearance of public-spirited leaders is not the exclusive preserve of the south-west region.  The north has since 1999 continued to also experience diminished leadership. The legacy of Ahmadu Bello, the Sadauna of Sokoto  for whom “independence was but the fulfillment of Britain’s frequent promises to restore the Hausa-Fulani Islamic ruling class to power”, who therefore dedicated himself to building a nation as a compliment to the building of the Fulani empire by his great-great-grandfather remains unmatched.

    Reminding current northern leaders of Ahmadu Bello and his 1952-66 team’s selfless service to the people of the north, Nuhu Ribadu, the former EFCC helmsman not too long ago said: “It is important to state that with scanty resource, they were able to maintain law and order and ensure effective security of life and property for this vast region. They built Ahmadu Bello University, the largest in sub-Sahara Africa; they built Ahmadu Bello Stadium, one of the largest and best in Africa at that time. They built NNDC, the largest black owned conglomerate in black Africa; they built many textile factories, good roads, marketing boards, efficient water supply where it was available and good sanitation, well planned urban areas with trees and good hospitals with ambulances; good primary and secondary schools; Kaduna Polytechnic that is the largest in black Africa.

    This same “Northern Nigeria which Sir Ahmadu Bello led at independence which is now 19 states and over 400 local government areas,” according to him, “got a total of N8.3 trillion from the federation account between 1999 and 2010, with little to show for it.”

    With over 50% of children of school age out of school in most of the northern states, mass unemployment, widespread poverty, kidnapping, banditry, cattle rustling and general insecurity, there is no doubt the current unambitious northern politicians like their southwest counterparts have betrayed the people on whose back they rode to power.

  • Dayo Alao (1948 – 2020)

    Dayo Alao (1948 – 2020)

    Lawal Ogienagbon

     

    IN its glorious days, the Daily Times paraded some of the brightest and the best in the media. Daily Times was more than a newspaper. It was an octopoidal organisation, with tentacles in various businesses. But the paper, which first hit the newsstands in June 1926, gave it its household name. In the newspaper world, the Daily Times stood out. It eclipsed every other paper, which in their right, were no pushovers. The Daily Times so dominated the market that it became the generic name for newspapers in the country. Every paper was Daily Times in the eyes of readers.

    In no time, it became a commercial success, delving into other businesses to rake in money. The conglomerate became a runaway success under Babatunde Jose, the doyen of modern Nigeria journalism, who died in 2008. Jose’s other investments brought in money for the organisation, making it the first Nigerian newspaper to be listed on the stock exchange. As Jose set up companies here and there under the Daily Times flagship, so did he invest in people. He looked for quality workers and brought them on board.

    To him, only the best was fit for the Daily Times and he went all out for them, no matter the cost. He was stern to a fault and he ruled his empire, which was the Daily Times, with an iron hand. History tells us that all administrators are like that. They are ruthless and do not suffer fools gladly. All they want is result. They are not interested in stories about the efforts made. The Daily Times tradition of excellence was handed down from generation to generation. Long after the Jose years, some of his protégés were saddled with the responsibility of running the organisation at one time or the other. One of them was Professor Dayo Alao, who died on Saturday, at the age of 72.

    As a journalist, he was simply known as Dayo Alao, even when he became General Manager, Times Publication Division (TPD), the powerhouse of Daily Times of Nigeria (DTN) Plc. As GM, he was the overseer of all the publications in the Daily Times stable, and these were many, even when the company had fallen into hard times. By the time Alao became GM, TPD, the Daily Times Group was no longer as strong as it was in the Jose days. In the past, the subsidiaries stood on their own and could easily come to the aid of the newspaper, if need be. By the late 1990s, things were no longer rosy for many of them. They needed support to remain afloat and they turned to the TPD-controlled paper,  which was also struggling for survival.

    The fortunes of the Daily Times had plummeted in the wake of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. It was a bad fall for a paper that had ruled the industry for decades. By 1996/7, the Daily Times was a shadow of itself. Those of us who were insiders, knew what the paper was going through. By then, it had stopped publishing some of its titles in order to cut cost. As GM,  TPD,  it was Alao’s lot to ensure that the Daily Times legacy was kept alive. Being a Timesman to the core, he threw himself at the job. He worked round the clock to ensure that the Daily Times and its other surviving titles came out without fail. He was a hands on boss, who denied himself the perks of office, for the sake of the paper and its workers.

    His motto was: not under my watch will it be said that Daily Times did not come out for one day or that salary was not paid. Alao met a tradition at the Daily Times and he was determined to keep that tradition of excellence and enterprise  as GM. He made sacrifices for the paper to regain its glory. As an ‘indigene’, that is those who joined the Daily Times in the late sixties and early seventies, Alao knew that he could only secure his place in the pantheon of the greats if he turned around the fortunes of Daily Times. For someone like him who had seen it all in the organisation, his propelling force was making the conglomerate great again. It was not an easy task.

    Alao started as a reporter. He later edited Times International, the weekly magazine in the stable. Alao was GM, Times Books Limited, for a brief period,  before he became GM, TPD. As TPD boss, he ruled the roost at Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos. Daily Times was only so in name when he became GM, TPD.  He toiled to turn the paper into a brand again. He knew that he had a major task at hand and he gave it his all. All he wanted was for Daily Times to regain its pride of place. He resumed early and closed late everyday, driving a old, rickety official car,  which he inherited. He refused to buy himself a new official car or stay in official quarters. Alao went on advert drive with the advert department to ensure the return of the good, old days.

    It was unheard of that Daily Times would go begging for adverts. But it happened. A paper where people used to queue, pleading that their adverts be taken! Alao was a boss like no other. He mixed freely with workers, many of who filled his car every evening after the close of work for a ride home. After leaving the Daily Times,  Alao went into the academia, starting off at Babcock University, Ilishan, Ogun State, where he got his professorship. He left there for Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State, where he served for four years as vice chancellor. He conquered the worlds of journalism and academic, leaving his footprints in the sand of time.

    Alao died when he should be enjoying his life in retirement. My boss and former Sunday Times Editor Tunde Ipinmisho told me about Alao’s death on Saturday morning. Ipinmisho said he spoke with the deceased a few weeks ago. Alao told Ipinmisho that he returned to Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on retirement,  two days before the call. Alao returned home to enjoy the bliss of retirement, but God decided to call him to the eternal home. My heart goes out to his widow and children. May he find rest in the Lord’s bosom.

  • Banking with tears in Nigeria

    Banking with tears in Nigeria

    Jide Osuntokun

     

    Some years ago, there was a negative advertisement about the difficulty of banking in Nigeria. This advert showed a man with his mat and pillow entering his bank and when asked why he brought a mat to the bank, he retorted that after taking a number he would be able to have a nap before it was his turn. This was before the liberalization of the banking sector by the Babangida’s administration in the 1980s. From what is going on in the banking sector now, we seem to be back to the past when banking was a burden to be avoided. This is what Covid-19 and the inability or unwillingness of banks to respond appropriately has caused Nigerians. The practice in the urban areas now is for people to wake up and go to the banks to queue up in the wee hours of the morning and to take call numbers so that when operations begin one may go in early to transact one’s business and go away to do normal chores. But since most people have other things to do to earn a living, they find people to go to the banks to join the queues so that when the real people come, they will yield their places to them for a fee. In fact, a business has developed around the inconveniences created by the banks on the excuse of following coronavirus protocol to prevent infections. It is now clear by the size of the crowd assembled each working hour of the banks, that Nigeria is seriously underbanked. Only God knows how much money is kept in the informal banking sector under the beds and in people’s farms, gardens and attics by market women and men and petty traders and the petite bourgeoisie generally because there is just too much hassle going to the banks.

    There is also this unrealistic expectation by the young people running the banks that people should conduct their banking transactions electronically. Because of this, a popular bank like GTB has relatively fewer branches than its competitors. Instead of GTB opening newer branches, it even closes some of its branches for up to week which it runs alternately with other branches for no clear reasons. It cannot be due to shortage of staff in a country where graduates are roaming the streets in search of jobs. GTB merely publishes on weekly basis which banks it will open and which it will not and tells its ever growing customers to go to its ATMs which most time never work because of pressure on the mechanical devices.  Some banks limit to N10,000 the amount of money one can withdraw from the ATMs. The result of this is disenchantments with a popular bank that if people have the alternative, they will quickly close their accounts and move on. Unfortunately there are few alternative options because very few people will go to the old antediluvian banks that existed in colonial days that have found it extremely difficult to innovate in their old fashioned dilapidated banking halls equally manned by elderly folks in their Victorian frocks and trousers and oversized jackets.

    I will be the first to commend any institutions or commercial houses that respond scientifically to the Covid-19 or coronavirus pandemic. But the response must be measured so that the medicine does not kill the patients. There is growing hostility to banks by those who are not able to access their monies in the banks or even to deposit the sales of the day because of the multitudes besieging the banks. It is not every bank that has this problem. For some reasons people prefer to keep their monies in the banks of their choice and I think any bank should be happy to welcome as many accounts as possible and respond to people’s banking behavior and not force even illiterates into electronic banking in which they could be easily defrauded. Certainly, banks can afford to spend from their annual humongous profits on expansion of branches to alleviate the suffering of their customers now and after we would have overcome the coronavirus pandemic.

    The banks must through services provided justify the huge profits they make annually. The CBN itself seems to have ganged up with the banks and their shareholders in ripping off the public. Following CBN’s directives, commercial banks suddenly decided not to accept TERM DEPOSITS thus forcing depositors to move into savings accounts and interests on savings were suddenly reduced to one or so percent! I am not an economist, but I also know economics is common sense and everyday science of income and expenditure, production and distribution of goods, investments, loss and profits and so on. The reason why the countries of Southeast Asia have succeeded very well in recent times is because of their thrift, industry and savings built up through the Confucius ethics prevailing in China which then found expression for investment in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world including China itself. Now there seems a deliberate determination and decision by the CBN to discourage savings in Nigeria. How does one explain a policy of paying savers one odd percent while banks lend out as loans at double digits? Is the governor of the CBN who is a commercial banker trying to increase the huge profits of his colleagues who take depositors’ money at little interest and lend it out at huge interest rates?

    Is the CBN looking at what operates in America and Europe where interest rate is very low and sometimes even below one percent? There was even a time when serious thought was being given to a policy in England where depositors might have been asked to pay the banks for their fiduciary role of keeping people’s money in trust. Nothing came out of such esoteric consideration of the role of banks. But it must also be asserted that lending rates abroad were always very low and as small as 3 or 4 percent. There were also alternative investment windows and portfolio such as stocks, bonds, commercial papers and so on in which depositors could put their money into. We don’t have such options in Nigeria. I agree that the previous rate of interest on deposits and loans in Nigeria and other developing countries is too high. If there is depreciation of interest paid to depositors, there should be corresponding decline in interest on loans.  This is not so in Nigeria. A situation in which the rate of inflation is 13 or so percent while rate on deposit is one percent does not make economic sense and it is a disincentive to savings. If people are encouraged to save, perhaps our government instead of rushing all over the world to borrow and mortgage the future of our children, would be able to borrow at home depositors’ money sitting idly in the vaults of commercial banks or at the CBN. Pensioners who live on their savings are seriously affected by the vagaries of unstable interest rate regimes. I know also that tertiary institutions are also seriously impacted.

    A few years ago, I authored a book on Chief Samuel Festus Okotie-Eboh, Nigeria’s first minister of finance. I advised Dr ‘Dere Awosika, his daughter to endow a prize for  best graduating student with a PhD in economics/finance in the University of Lagos and she graciously agreed and gave the university millions of naira to award a generous prize in perpetuity on the basis that the interest earned would suffice for eternity. My late brother, Professor Oluwakayode Osuntokun left a bequest in his will for a visiting chair in Neurology/Ophthalmology at the University of Ibadan with the hope that the interest on the money will be adequate to support his wish in perpetuity. When I left the Redeemer’s University Ede, I left money for prizes in my name and that of my late wife Abiodun to be funded from interests of the money I left behind. I did the same thing in Ekiti State University where I was  for a while pro-chancellor  and chairman of council for prizes to be given across several faculties  and in the College of Medicine in my name and in the names of  my brothers, Chief Oduola Osuntokun and again  in the name Professor Oluwakayode Osuntokun from money contributed by me, my family and a friend of the family, Chief Dele Falegan. The whole idea was that the money so left will earn interest that would suffice to keep the prizes going in perpetuity. But from this unstable economic policy of the CBN, those of us who plan, seem to plan in vain and it is not right that in the most important part of a country’s life, its economy, there is no stability and predictability. This is just not right and this is one of the reasons why the naira in our pockets is increasingly worthless and not more than just colored paper. The banking sector is probably too important to be left in the hands of bankers alone without the input of serious economists

     

  • Shall we beg the police?

    Shall we beg the police?

    By Lawal Ogienagbon

    For the police, the #ENDSARS Protests were a rude reawakening. Never before had the police which style themselves as friends of the people witnessed such a challenge to their authority by some members of the society. The youths which championed the protests are a force to reckon with in any society. Whenever they rise up in arms against authority, the consequences can be dire. The people saw the raw power of youths on display during the protests.

    Those, who had for long described the youths as good for nothing, ate their words as the protesters defied this profiling to push their case in a peaceful and orderly manner. They tidied up their control centres at the end of each day’s event,  fed the hungry, took care of the indisposed and raised money for the needy. All they wanted was a change of attitude from the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) which they said was harassing them at will. The action was tagged: #ENDSARS,  but it was much more than that.

    To show that they had nothing against the police, the protesters also demanded improved salary for the law enforcement agents. As Nigerians, we know how shabbily the police are treated. While the officers live large, the rank and file are left to fend for themselves despite the provisions in the police budget to take care of their needs. They only hear of these budgetary provisions for their uniforms, boots and other appurtenances, but do not get anything from the vote.

    After the end of SARS,  a new police must emerge therefrom was the underlying message from the protesting youths. A police that will serve the people and not turn their guns on them. A police that will respect the rights of people and not embark on arbitrary arrest. The message was lost to those in power. They saw the #ENDSARS as a war against the police. Truly, the police are not pro-people. They always work against the people from whose taxes their needs are met.

    If only the youths did not over play their hands, the protests might not have ended the way they did on October 20, paving the way for hoodlums to hijack the demonstration. What happened on that fateful night of 10/20 at the Lekki Toll Plaza changed the tone of the protests, but not the essence. The shootings at the plaza by soldiers sparked anger and condemnation. Anger by miscreants and condemnation from well-meaning people at home and abroad.

    The miscreants resorted to looting, burning, raping, maiming and killing nationwide. These were the dark sides of the protests,  but they cannot in anyway taint the message the youths passed across through their battlecry: #ENDSARS. Policemen, their stations as well as other public and private properties were not spared in the horrendous looting and burning that happened in the last week of October. The police are still leaking their wounds from these incidents.  According to Inspector-General Mohammed Adamu, 22 policemen were killed and 205 police stations and formations destroyed.

    The truth is the police and the society need each other. There cannot be the police without the society and vice versa. What happened is disheartening. Sadly, some people are rejoicing because they believe that the police got a dose of their own medicine. It will be myopic to think like that. No matter these people’s  hatred for the police, they should not forget that policemen and women are part of the larger society. They are some people’s fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts. In one word, they are flesh and blood like you and I. So, we should wish them what we wish ourselves.

    That some policemen killed some people extra-judicially should not be an excuse for attacking policemen and destroying their stations. We should not practice the Mosaic law of an eye for an eye because as Ghandi pointed out that would leave everybody in the world blind. No doubt, there are bad eggs in the police, just like in every profession, but that is not enough to perceive every policeman as unworthy of his job. The point has been made with the #ENDSARS Protests.  It is time to put the incident behind us  and move forward.

    To the police, what happened is still a bad dream. So, they are subtly protesting by not returning to their beats. The Police Service Commission (PSC) is siding with them. The PSC has said it could not direct them to return to work, like that, since they are human too. To do that will be inhuman really, but should that be at the expense of maintaining law and order in the society? No, it should not. No matter how bad the police may be, society still has to put up with them as they remain law enforcers.

    When two people quarrel, the police are the arbiter. When there is a traffic offence, the police resolve the case. Anywhere we turn as a people, the police will always be there. We need them as much as they need us. Let them return to their jobs so that there can be sanity in and around us. My heart goes out to all the slain policemen and others who died in the #ENDSARS protests . May they find rest in the Lord’s bosom.

     

    Biden America

     

    Biden
    Joe Biden

    SIX days ago, America’s President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid. He has refused to concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden. Trump is alleging fraud in the November 3 election in the states of Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He has no proof. He has lost at the courts in those states: 0-5. Yet, he remains headstrong.

    Whether he concedes or not, the American people have moved on. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are carrying on without giving a hoot about Trump’s tantrums.

    The United States is a nation built on social values which would be hard for anyone, including even a sitting president,  to trample upon. Its democratic institutions are just too strong for any individual to ride roughshod over. Biden has his job cut out for him to bind his country and save it from the divisive years of Trump. The world will be a better place for all after Trump’s exit next January 20.