The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Anambra 2014 and zoning

    Anambra 2014 and zoning

    Alex Zitto the half-Ghanaian, half-Nigerian crooner had in his second album, a hit song which he dubbed as ‘Walakolombo’ depicted the lamentations of a man who had been ripped off by an alluring woman who having conned her latest victim had wickedly left him in his misery. The song being a hit track naturally ruled the airwaves for quite sometime even as it was played in several occasions and events where people simply bopped to it that eventually the word’ walakolombo’ became a part of our informal lexicon used to indicate when someone had pulled or attempted to pull the wool over his fellow man or woman’s eye.

    Today, the Anambra State, is presently witnessing a walakolombo-like song all in the name of zoning of the office of governor to a particular area. Before I delve into that, it is worthy to note that since the inception of the Peter Obi administration, Ndi Anambra has been subjected to deception.

    The Obi administration would claim to have built schools when all it has done is to build ugly looking classrooms, digital libraries when it has only renovated a house, hospitals when it has built mere cottage clinics, hospitals that couldn’t carry out autopsy on the bodies recently retrieved from the Ezu River, and roads when he has only been constructing future death traps.

    And when not engaged in puerile matters, the Obi administration is much engaged in the absurd, playing to the gallery much to the consternation of Ndi Anambra, who by and large are frustrated about the failure of this government to meet even the smallest of the fundamental needs since the administration rather prefers using the huge funds allocated to it to hire spin doctors and propagandists.

    Today, Governor Obi is on another pathetic mission, which is his inordinate desire to impose a stooge as governor on the people of Anambra come November 2013. Naturally, this shouldn’t be an issue as it is his right to say that he prefers a particular candidate from a particular zone in Anambra. But to want to impose a particular candidate on Ndi Anambra in a democratic society or setting is an indication of total dictatorship and a tyranny of one man which cannot be accepted by the ordinary Anambra man who ranks high in terms of being politically astute. Furthermore, it is imperative to state that all over Anambra, the talk of a governor coming from a particular zone remains a hard sell owing to the peculiarity of the state’s politics. Are we then to forfeit our critical faculties and democratic power of choice imbued in us since the days of our republican fathers to the whims and caprice of one man? Are we now to barter merit and proficiency on the altar of mediocrity? Or does Mr. Obi think that we are like Caesar’s soldiers who on the blast of the trumpet marched across the Rubicon? Are we robots or zombies to do as Emperor Peter decides?

    Funny enough, as the zoning argument seems to be falling apart like a house of cards, Mr. Obi has refused to call it quits while he still has some time to reverse himself; rather he keeps on committing more fallacies. The first is his attempt to link the controversial issue of zoning in Anambra State to the holy agitation of Ndigbo for the presidency in 2015. To the undiscerning people, this would have been a fine argument but before we fall victim to the devious lyrics of this walakolombo song, let us recast our minds back to the August 30 visit of President Goodluck Jonathan. Thence, Governor Peter Obi made the declaration that since Jonathan got 90% of the votes cast in Anambra in the 2011 elections, come 2015, he should be prepared for 99% support this time around.

    Now adding two plus two, that is Obi’s agitation for zoning in Anambra and his reference to the legitimate demand of the Igbos for the 2015 Presidency as similarities, we would find both difficult to merge when pegged against his declaration of support for Jonathan’s second term to the detriment of Ndigbo who have never governed Nigeria as an executive leader, or is our president now an Igbo man?

    On the other hand, the next stanza of this walakolombo music has seen the advancement of a theory that argues for the much work he claims done in the state, he wouldn’t want a buccaneer to become governor of the state and fritter away the so called achievements of his administration. This however would have been true if Governor Obi had dedicated himself to work. To think that his wobbly roads, faulty policies and governance existing only on billboards and propaganda are legacies, I am then forced to wonder if the word legacy has a dual meaning. Again, is Mr. Obi saying that it is only from a particular

    zone that we can find men who may protect his legacies?

    Let us for the amusement delude ourselves that indeed Obi has left legacies, can guarantors of such a legacy not come from any of the two zones which he wants to excise from the politics of Anambra, zones which boast of more credible candidates than any of the lackeys Obi has lined up?

    One is however not at a loss on why the governor is seriously agitating for the zoning of the gubernatorial position to a particular zone, with his eight-year tenure expiring and his political future in limbo. Obi’s call for zoning is a last gasp attempt to ensure his

    political survival. A false move as such gives him room to make deals with many who are ready to sell their souls. The zoning clamour is nothing but a bargaining chip and a ruse.

    Finally, it is my plea to my governor to repudiate this idea of zoning but rather channel his energy to the business of governance, which the people of Anambra State are yearning for. He should let Ndi Anambra in the spirit of democracy choose their next governor since they are the custodians of democracy and have utterly rejected his walakolombo music on zoning or as the garrulous K. O Mbadiwe did once quip “We have zoned to unzone”

    • Arinze writes from Awka

  • Wages of National Assembly overreach

    Wages of National Assembly overreach

    Last week, the spat between Abdularasheed Maina and the National Assembly finally hit the home stretch. On Thursday, a reluctant President Goodluck Jonathan was forced to issue a directive to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation Alhaji Isa Bello to commence disciplinary action against the embattled chairman of the Pension Reforms Task Team (PRTT). An Abuja court also removed the remaining obstacles setting the stage for his possible arrest.

    From the look of things, the prospect of being hauled before the self-appointed magistrates at the Red chamber would seem a far worse prospect than the civil service noose of possible dismissal for absconding from duty.

    Check out the rules of the Civil Service to find out why the latter option would be preferable. It is no accident that the civil service is described as the bastion of due process. There, anything goes! Whereas some members of the political class enjoy the privilege of immunity – (whether conferred or not), the civil service has something of an equivalent in their turgid rules of General Orders and due process which comes close to making their class invincible. The point may have been missed by the distinguished senators in their self-righteous anger. That may yet prove fatal to their cause(s) in due time. And trust Maina; he should know one or two tricks in the GO to make things work his way! Had the distinguished Senators realised this early enough, it’s mostly likely they would be wary of starting a war they could never hope to finish!

    Now, let’s get back to where the hoopla started from. Sometime in March last year, the Senate committee on Pension held a public sitting. In the course of that exercise, a Chief Superintendent of Police in the Police Pension Office, Toyin Ishola, accused Maina and his PRTT of fraudulent activities.

    He told the committee that the task team, headed by Maina, “unilaterally opened three accounts in different banks without recourse to extant financial rules and approval from the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Minister of Finance”.

    He claimed that one of the accounts domiciled at the Abuja Central Business District branch of Fidelity Bank, operated by the younger brother of the embattled Maina had a fixed amount lodged with monthly interest of over N100m. Another N3bn was said to have been deposited in UBA with no proper documentation. The PRTT boss was also acused of spending N240m on the biometric exercise of 20 retirees.

    As it turned out, that was only a tip of the mountain of scam. The Senator Kabiru Gaya-led panel would later discover from the records of the Accountant General of the Federation, huge discrepancies between pension releases and the actual funds spent totalling N195 billion.

    Could the Senate have handled the Maina saga better? Note that the issue here is an alleged scam in the pension office – not a contest of egos.

    Let’s start with the Senate inquiry. I do not think anyone questions the powers of the Senate to undertake any inquiry under the sun, more so from the official of an institution charged with the onerous responsibility to administer the pensions. Indeed, anyone that has followed the probe of the PRTT could not have failed to recognise the deliberate stone-walling and open defiance of the authority of the parliament from the government appointee, in this case Maina. Agreed, it comes with the territory that the subject of an investigation will try stall for time. In the case of the PRTT boss, his overall conduct somehow gave him out as an individual with something to hide.

    But so also is the sack order by the Senate on Maina a case of legislative overreach. Obviously, the Senate could not draw the line between the disrespect shown to the institution by Maina (a misdemeanour) and the crime of heist said to have been committed. Whereas the Senate may impose punishments in a manner it deems fit and consistent with its rules in the case of the former, the punishment for crime is altogether a different matter.

    Was the President right when he artfully parried the demand for the big stick by going for a more probable offence of AWOL governed strictly by the applicable rules of the service? Whether those baying for Maina’s blood recognise the presidential directive as face-saver or not, it seems unlikely that they will have the final settlement on their terms anytime soon – that is, if ever they will. In any case, only the high minded Senate could have contemplated the summary trial and sentencing of a public officer without reference to applicable rules of engagement. What the President did was find a way out of the dilemma even when it came by way of substituting the serious charge of stealing with the lesser charge of AWOL at this point in time. As it is, the prospect of administrative punishment, which again is most likely to be contested in courts, seems the price the nation would pay for what is said to be a crime of heist.

    Earlier, I raised the question of what the Senate could have done differently. The answer seems obvious: the Senate ought to have called in the anti-graft bodies the very moment it sniffed crime. After all, the institution is no court of law; and no matter how painstaking its efforts at fact findings are, the exercise cannot substitute for a due process of trial in the courts. The drama of Maina-chase, other than stoke excitement across the land, has neither advanced the cause of institution-building nor offered a pathway to restitution. And, given the judiciary’s unknowable ways, it would be dangerous to speculate on the direction in which the pendulum will finally swing.

    And the lesson for all concerned? There can be no wrong path to a good intention.

    Is the matter therefore settled? I do not think that it has even started. N195 billion seems too hefty to vanish without trace. Now that the drama has ended with the Presidency officially declaring their man AWOL, it may well institute its own inquiry to determine where the money went. That should offer some balm to the sore egos of our distinguished Senators.

  • Plagued past Vs blasted present

    Plagued past Vs blasted present

    What Reuben Abati, ex-The Guardian and current presidential spokesman and Femi Fani-Kayode, former Aviation minister and Olusegun Obasanjo’s irreverent presidential gadfly, would openly tangle is the stuff of a very pleasing – and biting –irony: as shown in Abati’s “The Hypocrisy of Yesterday’s men” and Fani-Kayode’s counter, “The Delusion of Today’s men”.

    When Fani-Kayode was in power and in government (apologies to Ibrahim Babangida and his infamous post-12 June 1993 presidential election annulment bragging), there was no personage, no matter how hallowed, this gadfly could not sting, all in the service of his imperial president.

    Now, Abati has given the Obasanjo ancien regime a bit of the Fani gadfly dose and all Fani Power junior could do is whine and drivel; and deliberately mix up the valid corporate paralysis of the Federal Aviation ministry, with showcasing a claimed personal glory as aviation minister! That is perfect sophistry – but if reader is dumb!

    But even in his lachrymose riposte, Fani-Kayode dropped a useful Freudian slip, when he prayed with all his soul that yesterday’s men may yet be future occupants of power.

    The question is: power for what? Power for power’s sake, which epitomised the empty snorting, and even emptier grandstanding, of the Obasanjo era that Fani-Kayode served; and which has made it susceptible to Abati’s biting fusillade?

    Or power for positive change, which moral authority would have shut Abati up, even when, for the umpteenth time, his prostrate principal is barbed on account of his glaring incompetence?

    But this Abati vs Fani-Kayode media show also echoes an earlier intra-power bickering, even when Nigeria was far saner.

    When the Great Zik of Africa crossed the path of the then East Central State Administrator, Ukpabi Azika (Judas among his Igbo people but hero in Nigeria, for standing resolute against Biafra), Azika launched into a verbal poetry of “ex-this and ex-that”. The Great Zik kept his peace but got his pound of flesh when Azika fell with the Gowon regime in 1975. He fired back in sagacious triumph: “no condition is permanent”!

    Now, that was biting wit and counter-wit. But it did not leave Nigeria better than it met it, given the progressive decay of leadership, which may yet land this land in a ditch. Neither will this Abati/Fani-Kayode spat. It is yet another costly distraction from proxies of failed and failing leaders.

    Indeed, both Abati and Fani-Kayode produced another stunning metaphor in their debate on how, or how not, a certain Obasanjo aviation minister allowed the Port Harcourt International Airport “to grow grass”, while a Jonathan minister has not only fixed airports nationwide but is busy upgrading them.

    But really, that these proxies of a plagued past and a blasted present are allowed much media space, with all due respect to democracy and its tenets of free speech, is indicative of how the public space has been overgrown with grass, with wilful thorns of a horrible past and a disastrous present choking the imperative for radical change to salvage a clearly troubled future. It is mere empty noise that distracts the mind from clear thinking.

    But if Fani-Kayode and his Obasanjo class of 2003-2007 got so hit the best Fani could produce is a pathetic self-glorifying riposte, Abati is no less tragically misguided. The problem with Abati is that he is tragically trapped in the past. Besides, he is putting his head in a battle he does not understand: for Jonathan, his boss, is an Obasanjo creation.

    In his well primed verbal shellacking, he wrote with the aplomb, the glory and the majesty of a verbal royal; and of a wordsmith that takes no prisoners, the ruthless way he hit home!

    But alas! It was all authoritarian wordplay without moral authority. Like the Biblical King Saul, the moral glory of his Guardian column-writing days is departed from Dr. Abati. All that is left is a naked and hollow language of power – power his pathetic principal, neither a thinker nor a doer, but a gnome wanting to cling to power, even if he does not seem to know what to do with it, projects rather pitifully!

    Still, despite the glaring limitation of the Jonathan presidency, the Obasanjo crowd had it coming; and in the Abati shelling, got their due comeuppance.

    First, it was Obasanjo who, despite being a former president, would go and publicly run his mouth on the incumbent, despite a Lugardian power convention that demands otherwise. He easily forgets it was this same empty grandstanding for relevance that landed him in hot soup with the grim Sani Abacha, who unlike IBB before him and Goodluck Jonathan after him, did not suffer fools gladly.

    Then, an Obiageli Ezekwesili and a Femi Fani-Kayode would come, lobbing into the fray stupendous figures in alleged wasted “savings” for the gullible and excitable to chew, go ga-ga and foam in the mouth – a squandered US $67 billion here, a US 100 billion there from alleged oil sales for two years, query allegedly courtesy of David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, and another N350 billion allegedly shelled on dubious security vote.

    But why is Obasanjo and his gang getting self-righteously livid now? When they knew security was not assured, why did they hoard money as “savings” when they could have invested it in physical and social infrastructure, which would not have been stolen but would also have resulted in multiplier effects for the prostrate local economy and provided jobs for the millions of jobless?

    Was it the perfidy in the Yoruba tale: of prodding robbers to plunder (inviting alleged incompetents to an unstructured national treasury) only to tip off the owner of the property (the present Obasanjo and co jeremiad in the Nigerian media)?

    And why the lament on a spendthrift Yar’adua and Jonathan presidencies when Obasanjo had all the time to erect a robust check-and-balance system structured on genuine federalism, but instead opted to push himself as the strongman Nigeria would perpetually need? That perhaps was why he so desperately wanted a third term!

    Besides, did he not actively campaign for Yar’adua, his darling Umoru? And did he not junk Yar’adua on his sick bed, just to crown Jonathan as his new prince, zoning be damned?

    After all said, all the cacophony is nothing but unlamented civil war in the unravelling power caste Obasanjo tried to erect for his sole pleasure, masquerading as national interest. So, let the Obasanjo crowd maul themselves. It is pure Karma at play!

    Meanwhile, let Nigerians think: a plagued past and a blasted present only assures a torrid future that Nigeria would have only at its peril. So, instead of being sucked into this worthless in-fighting among useless power prodigals, Nigerians must get rid of them all in a clean sweep – and 2015 is another opportunity.

    The Obasanjo crowd, past and present, are the one who trouble Nigeria’s Israel. The power chamber – and the polity – is better without them.

     

  • Reporting Governor Sullivan Chime’s return

    Reporting Governor Sullivan Chime’s return

    Only those who never wished him well – the envious and malevolent whom we shall always have among us, unfortunately – only such people must have been distressed when Governor Sullivan Chime flew into Enugu last Friday.

    They were hoping that, 140 days after his unceremonious departure from his base allegedly on medical grounds and countless reports that his health had deteriorated, he would sneak in – or be sneaked in – “like a thief in the night,” preferably on a gurney. Those with amore macabre imagination were looking forward to a grimmer re-entry.

    Imagine their discomfiture, then, when Chima emerged in broad daylight from the private jet that had ferried him from Abuja, descended the stairway unaided and walked “with his own two feet,” to his official car, one eyewitness wrote giddily, all along waving – with his own hands, it must be supposed – to the mammoth crowd that had gathered there to welcome him back.

    I should leave it to the reporters who saw it all with their own eyes to describe through the headlines of their publications,the scene at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.:

    Jubilation as Chime returns to Enugu.

    Chime returns to Enugu amidst tumultuous welcome.

    Enugu agog as Governor Chime returns.

    Rousing welcome as Chime returns to Enugu.

    Huge crowd welcomes Chime back to Enugu.

    Governor Chime returns to Enugu in grand style.

    Amid jubilation, Chime returns to Enugu.

    Chime returns to Enugu amid jubilation.

    The return of the absentee governor: Enugu jubilates.

    Large crowd heralds Chime’s return to Enugu.

    Ailing Enugu Governor Sullivan Chime returns.

    Commotion as Chime lands in Enugu.

    Each of them is a fine example of headline craftsmanship — terse, arresting, informative, and summative. Some of them even have the additional merit of being colourful. I would hate to be a judge in a competition to select the best among them. But they all share one flaw that I will remark presently.

    As for the full story of Governor Chime’s return, nothing even comes close to the eyewitness report by Ambrose Agu report titled “Governor Chime’s Triumphant Return” (THISDAY, February 9, 2013).

    The report begins with three or four persons emerging from the chartered private jet that ferried Chime to Enugu, none of whom the crowd recognised or cared about, followed by an “unmistakable tall figure,” and sure enough, it was His Excellency Sullivan Iheanacho Chime, who proceeded to walk down the staircase “with his own two feet.”

    With his own two feet did the governor walk down the plane’s stair case to his waiting official car, you understand, all you purveyors and apostles of ill will And with his own two hands did he wave to acknowledge the resonant cheers of the surging crowd.

    The governor looked fine, Agu writes. “I looked at his face. It looked fine, the same handsome face, no change. This was Sullivan Chime, pure and simple. No addition. No subtraction.”

    Despite the throng at Government House where the entourage headed after the brief airport ceremony, to say nothing of the stifling security, Agu secured a private audience with Chime. One on one. No intermediaries.

    Hear it from Agu himself, fascination with the governor’s face and neck and all:

    “I went to His Excellency. He grabbed my hand and shook it, same firm grip, same vigorous shake. I welcomed him back. We spoke for a few minutes. Now I was literally face to face with him. I could see his face and neck.

    “There was no hat, no scarf, and no spectacles. I looked at his face and neck. No mark, nothing irregular. In fact he looked very fresh, very healthy and at ease with himself. He smiled often and spoke normally. There was nothing wrong with his face or neck, and there was nothing wrong with his voice.”

    With his own hand did Chime grab and shake his visitor’s hand, all you apostles of ill will; with his own face did he smile, and with his own voice did he talk for several minutes with his guest

    Nor was this an isolated feat. That same day, Agu writes, Chime must have met, smiled at, and talked with “possibly hundreds” of people –traditional rulers, politicians, government officials,trade union representatives, clergy, and media executives – the full Monty.

    Agu is the first to admit that he is no doctor, and he does so with touching candour. But he knows, as nobody else does, what he experienced during his visit with Governor Chime – what he saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears. And taking all of it into account, he says, any talk of Chime being “incapacitated” — as the apostles and purveyors of ill will were still claiming — “is just too absurd that only a fool would bandy it.”

    He didn’t ask Chime’s opponents to go eat out their hearts or do something really coarse, but Agu clearly would not be displeased if they did just that.

    Concluding his testimony, he writes: “Gov Sullivan Chime is clearly capable of governing Enugu State alone.”

    To return to the headlines I surveyed: Terse and arresting and informative and colorful and summative as they were, they omitted one important detail. Chime, returning to Enugu 140 days after he departed without saying a farewell, spoke not a word to the “tumultuous crowd” that welcomed him back.

    Not a word to thank them for their loyal support and faithfulness, for their prayers and good wishes.

    All the publications I surveyed reported what Sullivan was wearing, right up to his cream white jacket and his sun glasses. But in their headlines, and indeed in their accounts of the event, only two of them pointed out that Chime’s arrival was wordless.

    One of them wrote: “Jubilation as Chime returns to Enugu; keeps mum.”

    The other wrote: “Chime returns to Enugu; fails to address supporters.”

    Those who know Governor Sullivan Chime say he is too well bred and too fine a person to make a public display of such appalling bad manners. It must be, then, that he was saving his vocal chords for a major broadcast to the people of Enugu State.

     

     Correction

    In my column for February 5, 2013 (“Soludo: A quest renewed”), I wrote incorrectly that Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State belongs in the ANPP. He actually belongs in the APGA.

  • Super Eagles victory: Matters arising

    Super Eagles victory: Matters arising

    Against all expectations, the Super Eagles won the African Cup of Nations, (AFCON) at the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa on Sunday night. Except, perhaps the coaching crew, nobody gave the team any chance of scaling through the group stage not to talk of wining the coveted trophy. Indeed, Nigerians had become so disenchanted with past failures of the team that nobody, except the real die-hard Super Eagles supporters thought the team could go far at the tournament.

    So what really happened at the AFCON in South Africa? How did a team of average Nigerian players, most of whom were playing in their first AFCON, surpass all the odds to rule the continent again exactly 19 years after we last won the trophy at Tunisia in 1994? How did the Super Eagles shove aside the usual administrative lapses of the nation’s soccer ruling body to put smile on the faces of Nigerians again?

    Well, one would like to start by giving credit to the coach of the team, Stephen Keshi. A veteran of many soccer battles on the African continent, he started his football career at the local scene playing for and captaining the defunct New Nigerian Bank of Benin (NNB) Football club. Together with talented soccer players such as Bright Omokaro, Austin Popo, Humphery Edobor among others, Keshi made the defunct NNB football club one of the most feared teams on the continent. He was to later lead the national team as captain for 10 years (1984-1994), a feat yet to be surpassed, in an era that has come to be referred to as the golden era of Nigerian football. Keshi later moved on to the pulsating world of football coaching qualifying the low rated Togo for the 2006 World Cup final in Germany as well as leading Mali to the 2010 edition of AFCON in Angola.

    From the foregoing, it is quite clear that Keshi came on board the Eagles job with a fair credential. However, the success he had led the team to attain in such a short time has little to do with his credentials. Rather, one would like to view his success with the team in relation to his determination to build a new team with a completely new mentality for the country. One of the banes of the national teams has been the over- reliance of previous national team coaches on the so-called established players who ply their football trade outside the shores of the country. Though, most of these players are good in their own right, but it has become quite clear that in view of the relative success they have recorded in their career, most of them have lost the zeal to play for the country again. This is usually seen in their lackadaisical attitude to national call. In some instances, these players often choose the kind of matches they want to play for the country while in most cases they don’t usually give their best. Without doubt, it was this nonchalant attitude towards the national team that partially led to the inability of Coach Samson Siasia to qualify the team for 2012 edition of AFCON in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

    Although most soccer pundits have tried to lay the blame of the players’ lack of passion for the national team on soccer administrators, one thing that is, however, clear is that our so called superstars are no longer committed to the national team. Hence, it is to the credit of Keshi that he chose the hard path of starting from the beginning rather than the usual lazy approach of coaches gallivanting across Europe to ‘meet’ with foreign based players.

    Right from the outset, Keshi did not hide his intention to call the bluff of some of these players whose ego has become a big threat to the aspiration of the national team. For instance, a player like Osaze Odewinge, in spite of his talent, has demonstrated over time, that his presence in the national team is more of a distraction. When he is not blaming his coach, he is either quarrelling with team mates or journalists. He has become the nation’s football modern day enfant terrible. Thus, it was eventually a blessing in disguise that Keshi decided not to take him and his likes to the tournament in South Africa.

    The relative peace that existed in the Super Eagles camp during the competition is, perhaps, because most of the players Keshi took to the event were green horns whose major interest was to do well for themselves as well as their country. Sunday Mba, Warri Wolves midfielder that scored, perhaps, the two most important goals for the team in the competition played with passion and grit thorough out. Together with the likes of Victor Moses, Emmanuel Emenike, Godfrey Oboabana, Kenneth Omeruo, Brown Ideye (all playing in their first AFCON competition) as well as Ahmed Musa provided the team with a new dimension that has been missing for long in the Eagles play for a long time. Though the team did not get its act together in the first three group matches, but immediately it got into the right gear, there was no stopping the team.

    What this victory does for the national team is that, henceforth, no player would dare snub the team again. Now that is clear that no player is bigger than the team, competition for shirts would become more intense and this would eventually augur well for the team. Again, the team’s success at South Africa would restore the wining mentality which it was noted for in the early 90’s. Equally, with this victory, the home based players, who had long been regarded as not too good for the national team would be encouraged to put in their best in the local league since they are now aware that national team selectors are interested in them. This, in itself, is a victory for the much vilified local league.

    Now that the Eagles have landed again, all hands must be on deck to ensure that the momentum is sustained. Relevant authorities should make sure that the team and its coaching crew are provided with everything that would make it remain the pride of all Nigerians. As the federal government prepares to roll out the drums for the team, it should equally remember the Super Eagles class of 1994 and fulfil whatever promises the government of the day made concerning the team. It is in doing this that we can encourage our sportsmen across the world to remain dedicated and committed to the course of the nation.

    Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

     

  • After outrage, then what?

    After outrage, then what?

    Outrage may have been an understatement to describe the aftermath of the conviction of John Yakubu Yusuf, the pension thief, for his role in the N23 billion pension scam. In a clime where delinquency not only rules but has as its companion, impunity as directing principles of state policies, I couldn’t have imagined the quantum of emotive energy generated in the wake of the controversial ruling by the Federal High Court of Justice Mohammed Talba in Abuja. I guess that is the way we are.

    So much for our collective sense of outrage. I watched as Nigerians raved, ranted and chanted all manners of expletives targeted at the judge. Did anyone ever imagine this would be our Mohamed Bouazizi moment? (Remember the Tunisian youth whose act of self-immolation prefaced the Arab Spring?)

    And what was it that Nigerians griped about? Simple. That a man who admitted to being complicit in defrauding the Police Pensions Office to the tune of N23 billion – of which N3 billion represented a personal haul – was asked to pay N750,000 and to go home and sin no more!

    What’s the N23 billion to the hundreds of billions allegedly carted away by subsidy thieves? Who refers to the 2009 class of alleged bank robbers these days? Does anyone remember the trillion-plus naira sunk into the banks to bail the sector out of the delinquency of the principal actors?

    Nigerians, most likely would have tempered their outrage if they had bothered to recall those moments.

    Note that the latest issue is essentially about the discretion of the judge to hand out fair sentence; in this case, the maximum sentence applicable was a two-year jail term with or without an option of fine. This is what those who question the prerogative of the judge miss. Need one add that discretion is what it is – and this within the confines of the law.

    Why should Nigerians gripe?

    Put in another way – what is the difference between the farcical pronouncement of a jail term under which a convict would spend his execu-thief time at a place and pleasure of his own choosing as we saw of a bank thief and the option of asking the felon to go home and rest after the due stress of trial as in the pension scam?

    Now, seriously; when did that become an issue in our legal jurisprudence? Do we need to back to the 1999 – 2007 classes of politically exposed persons to appreciate the terrible dimensions of the crisis aptly described by the late Justice Akinola Aguda as the jurisprudence of unequal justice – a phenomenon under which different classes of society are exposed to different facets of the same law?

    Does anyone remember the case of one Lucky Igbinedion who also got a slap on the wrist for abusing the public trust? And James Onanefe Ibori currently cooling his heels in a British jail? Now, was it a coincidence the judgment on the pension scam came in the week in which an Ibadan High Court sent the provost of the Federal Cooperative College, Ibadan, Mrs. Ruth Adehwe Aweto and the school bursar Adekanye Komolafe to jail without an option of fine for the crime of defrauding the same federal government?

    The Ibadan case is interesting for the amount involved. Both provost and the bursar claimed to have employed 41 permanent staff for their institution for which they handed the federal government a wage bill of N7 million. As it turned out, their wage bill was no more than N4 million as all the staff were casuals. For ripping off the federal government of a paltry N3 million, the duo will spend four years apiece behind the bar without an option of fine.

    Here is my point: I find the outrage against the ruling of Justice Talba somewhat misdirected. To start with, not a few of the genuinely outraged citizen would concede that the option of a plea bargain was the next best thing to end the ordeal for both parties. That way, everyone goes home happy: the government could claim that the war against corruption is no fluke; the thief left off the hook to enjoy a fraction of his loot. And for the bewildered citizenry – you guessed right: theirs is outrage therapy!

    I must add also that no dilemma can be more confounding. We need the judiciary to help us fight corruption, but it seems to me that the niceties of its rules and the procedures – the age-long safeguards against arbitrariness of state power – have somehow become a cog in the path of justice. The result is that justice is increasingly sought off-shore while our judicial officers pretend that all is well. Is it part of their reading of the globalisation manual?

    Let me highlight another aspect of the corruption story that seems to have escaped deserving attention. I refer here to the farce that our public finance system has become. The question of how a handful of officials could manage to cart away billions from the treasury without detection or without the trigger of an alarm obviously begs to be addressed. Of course, the problem is pervasive, cutting across every sector of our national life. It seems about time to re-examine the effectiveness of those extant controls in the system, those early warning systems that once served. Aren’t they ultimately cheaper and less frustrating than the current chasing after the wind after the act has been committed?

    Finally, to say that the nation is engulfed in a moral crisis is to put things mildly. The truth is that the nation is dying in instalments; it is only a matter of time before corruption brought the nation to its knees.

    What is the way out? Honestly, the solution is complex. First, we need to do something about the corrosive value system which promotes crass individualism. We need to put systems in place to reduce the possibility of heist being committed. A renewed national will is needed to stand up to the monster.

    How can anyone talk of a fleeting chance of success when those who should ordinarily champion the war are not only pointing fingers but living in denial?

  • Step out Dr Datti Ahmed…

    Step out Dr Datti Ahmed…

    Like most Nigerians, I did not give Coach Stephen Keshi led Super Eagles any chance at the just concluded Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON 2013) in South Africa for obvious reasons.

    For close to two decades our senior male national football team have not inspired confidence and pride in us no thanks to their fitful style of play that we are always forced us to go on our knees praying fervently and furiously for victory each time they entered the field to play even against some supposedly minnows.

    The winning mentality and the can do Nigerian spirit that was always there in the Super Eagles have been missing for so long since Keshi captained the team to AFCON victory in 1994 in Tunisia, that we don”t even know how victory tastes again.

    The Olympic Team at Atlanta in 1996 reminded us of our prowess in football by winning the gold medal in football, but that was under-23 stuff. We came close to reclaiming our greatness in football when we co-hosted AFCON with Ghana in 2000 but fell at the last hurdle. From then on the Super Eagles went into a free fall and we could not even command a place among the elite of African football not to talk of rubbing shoulders with the best in the world. This was disaster for a team that was once ranked fifth in the world after our superlative performance at the 1994 FIFA world cup in the United States of America.

    The pains and disappointments of the past would now seem to have been erased by that lone goal victory by the Super Eagles over the Stallions of Burkina Fasso at the National Stadium in Johannesburg last Sunday. But as we celebrate that victory, it will be wrong to assume that the worst is over for our football and begin to see ourselves in the same league as Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina or even England. We still have a long way to go even though the Federal Government’s spin doctors will seek to portray the situation differently as they will certainly proclaim this as one of the good lucks that President Goodluck Jonathan has in stock for us. Well, they are entitled to say that if that will make them happy but Nigerians know the true state of their nation and no amount of sweet talk of Jonathan’s good luck would change that. But all the same let us all enjoy this rare moment of joy that the Super Eagles have brought to us and congratulate ourselves including our president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan and his dearest wife, Nigeria”s alternate President and Commander-In-Chief, Dame Patience Jonathan. I know what I am talking about.

    Unfortunately some Nigerians will not be joining us in this joyful and victorious celebration following the cutting short of the lives of their loved ones in Kano last week by some demented gunmen. I am talking about the families of those health workers gunned down in Kano state by some religious terrorists as they were administering Polio vaccines on children. The victims of this dastardly act were on a mission to sustain and protect our future by ensuring that our next generation do not suffer from such childhood diseases as Polio, but these agents of the devil who do not want a healthy future for our children and do not mean well for us chose to kill them for trying to help us.

    The perpetrators of this act would want us to believe they were fighting to protect the children from what they and their sponsors believe is a conspiracy by the western world to use the vaccine to either kill our children or make the females amongst them infertile in future so as to stem the increase in the population of black Africans. And they even have a religious angle to this madness by tracing their action to Islam. In fact some Islamic leaders in the North even support them on this. This is madness, there is nothing Islamic here. Islam is definitely not against medicine or science. In fact many of those scientific/medical feats being celebrated today are well documented in Islam even before the advent of modern medicine.

    What is greatly troubling here is that some supposedly learned people who knew or should know the truth as regards this vaccination thing and Islam are the ones behind or giving support to those madmen crusading against Polio vaccination for our children in the North.

    Remember one Dr Datti Ahmed, a medical doctor, who I learnt trained in Medicine in supposedly progressive Russia in the 60s and perhaps the first Kano indigene to qualify as a medical practitioner. His wife or one of his wives, (as the case may be) a Yoruba woman, was already a matron when he married her. The man in question has a daughter who is also a medical practitioner. So, medicine runs in his family. They are supposedly enlightened people. This Dr Ahmed heads one Islamic group in the North, as chairman of the Sharia Council and acts in that capacity purportedly in defence of and interest of Islam. Some years back he, for no scientific reason began his campaign against Polio vaccination in the North, especially in his native Kano and persuaded parents not to allow their children to be immunized. With the kind of religious society we have in the North and his position in the Sharia Council, his campaign gained ground and created tons of problem for the various state governments in the region, particularly Kano, which he practically held to ransom for years over the issue of immunization. Unable to convince the people otherwise, the state government had to sponsor overseas tests of the vaccines to convince the people that Dr Ahmed was wrong and that there is nothing harmful about immunization.

    Although the issue later cooled off and appeared to be over, but the latest attack and killing of health workers carrying out immunization exercise on the children in Kano appears to indicate that Dr Ahmed was able to plant his doctrine of falsehood against immunization firmly in the minds of some people and the seed is beginning to germinate and in its most dangerous form. If he was able to stop the immunization then by his verbal campaign against it, his supporters or those that believe in his campaign are now prepared to go a step further. If the people refuse to heed the call not to submit their children for immunization, why not kill those administering the vaccine, they seem to have concluded, and they were probably taking their inspiration from Dr Datti Ahmed.

    The question here is why would a man with all his training and knowledge chose to ignore scientific evidence, already proven, and mislead his people to accept and follow a path which his head tells him is wrong.

    How I wish Dr Datti and his supporters could find out from those adults suffering the effect of Polio affliction in their childhood whether given a choice of a vaccine to cure them of their deformity now they would take it or remain the way they are. I am sure the answer will most certainly be yes, bring the medicine.

    Dr Datti may not have intended his campaign against Polio vaccination to get this far but we are now suffering the consequence of his action and he must accept responsibility for this, apologise to his people and begin a fresh campaign in support of immunization against all forms of killer diseases for our children. In the true spirit of Islam, he should beg for forgiveness and atone for his sins against the people in this regard.

    Islam places a huge responsibility on the shoulders of religious leaders, who because of their exalted position as servants of Almighty ALLAH (SWT) are supposed to be obeyed by their followers, so, they have been enjoined not to misrepresent Islam and mislead their people. The consequences of misleading their people is grave for them in the hereafter. Dr Datti Ahmed, I am sure knows this.

    And for those who killed those health workers, they have questions to answer from Almighty ALLAH (SWT) on the day of judgment, but before then the earthly powers in Nigeria must fish them out and punish them for that crime. They have sinned against the rest of us.

    While praying God to grant the families of the victims of that Kano killing the fortitude to bear their loss, the Kano State government must assist them to cushion the effect of that loss, especially their children. Adequate security should also be given to health workers on similar missions in future.

    Having said that, let’s come together and celebrate our Super Eagles, THE CHAMPIONS OF AFRICA.

     

  • Soludo: A quest renewed

    Soludo: A quest renewed

    The last time they talked him into bidding for the PDP ticket in Anambra State’s gubernatorial race, the quest almost ended before it got under way.

    The “He” in this case, is Charles Chukwuma Soludo, decompressing in London, still not fully recovered from being edged out of his perch as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

    The “they” here is rather amorphous, but the principal figure was President Umaru Yar’Adua, the person who had signed off on Soludo’s defenestration from the CBN, with other persons of consequence in the PDP who were forever scheming to “capture “ those states not governed by the biggest party in Africa.

    In his revealing January 21, 2013, Op-Ed piece for THISDAY (“What Obasanjo and Yar’Adua told me”) Soludo recalled how, on inquiring about him, Yar’Adua had been told that he was holidaying abroad and how he had been told that Yar’Adua would like to meet with him on his return.

    Their goal, Yar’Adua told Soludo when they finally met on July 26, 2009, was to get him voted governor of Anambra State in the election scheduled for February 2010 so as to finally endow the state with the leadership it had never had the good fortune to enjoy – the kind of leadership encapsulated in the technocratic skills Soludo had applied to nation’s economy and financial system, as well as his accomplishments in those fields.

    Why then was he denied a second term at the CBN?

    But I digress.

    If Soludo thought this was a fanciful goal, considering the power of incumbency in Nigerian politics and the rugged tenacity that the incumbent, Peter Obi, of the ANPP, had displayed over the years, not forgetting the malignant influence of the Ubah clan on the political life of the state, his diffidence must have dissolved there and then.

    Himself The Fixer, Tony Anenih, he was told, had been mobilised for the project and could hardly wait to go into action, if only to demonstrate that, recent setbacks not-withstanding, he was still a past master at turning losers into winners and winners into losers.

    Soludo did not have to make any commitment then. He should go discuss the matter with his family and associates. But if he decided to run, he would enter the race knowing that Yar’Adua would “come out fully” to ensure that he won the prize.

    His wife stood resolutely against the idea, but Soludo felt sufficiently buoyed by his consultations with friends and associates to tell Yar’Adua one month later that he was in the race, though not without preconditions.

    The Federal Government would have to build an airport and dredge the River Niger to enable medium-sized ships sail all the way to Onitsha, where an international seaport would have to be constructed. The Anambra-Kogi road would have to be upgraded to a dual-carriage highway. Because one-third of its land mass was threatened by soil erosion, Anambra would have to be given special drawing rights from the Ecological Fund.

    Nor was that all.

    The Federal Government would also have to complete the Greater Onitsha water scheme, designate Anambra an oil-producing state, and as a “pilot state” for large-scale commercial agriculture. Finally, it would have to speed up construction of the second Niger Bridge.

    With these things in place, Soludo said, he was confident that, after two terms of working 24 hours a day, he would have transformed Anambra to the point that Federal allocations would be devoted wholly to capital projects. Re-current expenditure would be wholly internally generated.

    But with all these things in place, who needs Soludo’s intimidating antecedents and credentials to transform Anambra into “an international city”? And why would the Federal Government do those things for Anambra and not for other states?

    But I digress again.

    The important thing is that Yar’Adua agreed to all these demands, according to Soludo, who then asked for four more weeks for wider consultations. The deal was sealed.

    Thereafter, the waters got muddied.

    Yar’Adua fell ill, went to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia, and was never in control again. Soludo’s78-year-old father was kidnapped. His captors demanded a ransom of N500 million, but later reduced it to N300 million, warning darkly that “the worst” would happen if the demand was not met promptly.They freed him unharmed after six weeks, under terms that were never disclosed.

    Soludo’s opponents sought to envelope him in scandal, charging that he had profited from improprieties in the printing of small denomination polymer banknotes handled by an Australian company when he was CBN governor. More than 1,300 petitions were filed, their major contention being that “outsiders “ were trying to impose Soludo on the Anambra State branch of the PDP. The petitions moved the PDP to suspend the party primaries indefinitely.

    When the process finally got under way, party officials had to be imported from Benue State to conduct the election of delegates. Following a shuffling and reshuffling of the delegates, the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Soludo winner of the ticket.

    The high court voided the outcome. That verdict was affirmed on appeal, but reversed by the Supreme Court, just in time for the election proper

    In the event, Peter Obi was reelected governor.Soludo placed third, with just under 20 percent of the vote, behind second-place winner Chris Ngige. The Fixer apparently went missing in action, or was thoroughly out-fixed.

    Running for governor of Anambra again after this ordeal should be the last thing on the mind of the average political aspirant. No outcome is guaranteed. President Goodluck Jonathan cannot even guarantee his own re-election, much less that of another. The Ubah clan feels as entitled as ever. As for the Fixer, let us just say that his victims have wised up to his tactics.

    But Soludo is not your average aspirant.

    With one deft stroke, he has served early notice of his intent to enter the fray. “The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs,” he wrote, echoing Plato, “is to be ruled by evil men.”

    Bravo, Chuma. May your example pervade this land of little men – and women –in big boots.

    This time around, you cannot move your father and closest relations to safe locations early enough.

     

  • Obi and security in Anambra

    Obi and security in Anambra

    Whenever the Christmas Season is approaching, the Igbos naturally look forward to it with great enthusiasm. It is not just a moment in time to travel home to enjoy the season, but it also serves as the period when relations meet to interact, organize community programmes and end of year parties and generally be at peace with one another. But unfortunately, in the past few years, the fear of kidnappers and armed robbers and their cohorts, had so haunted the society that most Igbos did not deem it safe and wise to travel home to the East for the Yuletide.

    However, this last Christmas and New Year celebrations in Anambra State, for instance, was quite remarkable for Anambrarians. Based on newspaper reports and the testimonies of some who travelled, Anambra State was very save and conducive for the celebrations. Those who were home for the first time in many years actually found time to savour the beauty and joy of Christmas because not only that security was in place, the government of Peter Obi was equal to the task.

    With the dismantling of the kidnapping gangs and kingpins in the state, Governor Obi has shown that with the necessary political will, a good leader can set an enviable precedence for others to follow. Before now, a gang of kidnappers led by Ofeakwu, a native of Oraifife in Ekwusigo Local government area of the state had held the whole state hostage. Ofeakwu’s exploits and those of his gangs were so grave and daring, that the governor quickly mustered forces with security agencies to go after them. His action was so decisive and swift that it took all by surprise.

    At the end of the day, the governor made it clear to the people of the state and indeed the while nation that for one to fight criminals as organized and as rich as the kidnappers were the best thing to do was to first of all cripple and dislodge their economic and financial powers. This was what Peter Obi did and for the first time in the history of the state, a determined governor set bulldozers and caterpillars into remote villages and towns to pull down houses built by criminals with blood and ill-gotten money.

    Governor Obi’s political resolve as a leader has indeed led to the peaceful atmosphere that exists in the state today. If you want to catch a thief, like it is usually said in Igbo land, you have to be smatter than the thief. And if you can successfully puncture his ego and source of wealth and cage those who are behind him, the rest is history. This was what happened all over the state when the government began to go from town to town based on security reports and information to fish out the criminals and drive them into the abyss. This approach shows that no single person or group of persons can be stronger than the state.

    Obi must have taken a lesson or two from the tactics employed by former president of Brazil, Lula Da-Silva. When Da-Silva took over as the first democratically elected president in the history of Brazil in many years, the economy was in shambles. Ordinarily, Brazil had no reason to be a poor nation, given that there were abundant resources to make the society great.

    But Da-Silva went to work. He promised the people that he would cripple the economic powers of their generals who had impoverished the system for far too long. As a political hawk and a no-nonsense leader, Da-Silva truly stepped on toes, very huge toes for that matter in the process of sanitizing the system. Many people kicked, while others attacked him, threatening to unleash terror on him for daring to go where angels feared to tread. But Da-Silva remained undaunted.

    By the time he left office three years ago, Brazil had become the 6th largest economy in the world. All it takes to make a system work for the good of the populace is just the application of the necessary political will. This is what Obi has done, but he needs to do more. He needs to go after the so-called untouchables and bigwigs in the state. Those super-rich people who are really the ones sponsoring crime and gaining from the socio-political and economic turbulence that prevail in the state, need to be taught a lesson.

    No one can say exactly who these people are or where they get their money from which enables them to continue to torment the state. However, Obi can equally rely on the same tactics he has been employing so far or something more superior to hoodwink these people. He has to find them wherever they are, uproot them so as to make Anambra totally free from the grip of darkness, witches and wizards.

    It was a good thing that Chief Tobias Okemadu, a prominent community leader in the state could travel home for Christmas for the first time in three years. “I went home due to the assurances given to us by Governor Obi. I must tell you that I didn’t have any regret. I had no reason to fear for my life or those of my household” he said.

    In a place like Anambra State, a leader has to have a heart of stone to be able to rule and make the desired impact. Obi has such heart, and that is perhaps why a lot of people have chosen to call him Okwute.

    Okwute simply means the rock, a man with the heart of a lion. And Christ the Messiah had told Peter the Apostle in the scripture “you are the rock, upon you I’ll build my Church… Powers of the under world cannot prevail upon you…”

    Darkness and light do not meet. They have no reason whatever to meet either, if the people can fight conscientiously to free thousands from the hold of powers and principalities. In this fight to free the state, the people have to combine forces with the government to make it work; to make freedom and peace permeate the society.

    No leader, no matter how powerful or strong or committed he is can fight crime alone. It is the people who provide the information while the government puts in place the logistics and financial muscle to make the fight effective and purposeful. Obi needs the cooperation of the people to make the state an Eldorado, an investment haven for all and sundry so that all subsequent Yuletide celebrations in the state will be crime-free.

     

    • Udeze writes from Lagos.

     

  • As Mali begins to pay off

    As Mali begins to pay off

    It is early days yet to begin to count the gains of Nigeria’s decision to send troops and military equipment to Mali to help secure that country’s territorial integrity being breached by al Qeada inspired Tuareg rebels in the north. But it is very glaring from the unexpected offer of ceasefire by a faction of the terror group that has been troubling Nigeria for some time now, that at last, President Goodluck Jonathan has done one thing right.

    With French fighter jets raining bombs on rebel targets in northern Mali and ground troops pursuing them deep into the desert, the terrorists collaborators in Nigeria under the aegis of Boko Haram suddenly announced last week they were ready for peace in their three-year long or so campaign of terror in most part of northern Nigeria.

    Why now you may want to ask especially after series of failed attempts by the Federal government to dialogue with the murderous group? Simple. With Al Qeada in the Maghreb on its way out of northern Mali, Boko Haram’s base for ideological, military, as well as financial support is on the verge of destruction and the most sensible thing for the Nigerian terror group to do is to seek peace at home or be wiped out like their brothers in northern Mali.

    So make no mistake about it, these guys are waving the olive branch now not because they are tired of killing more innocent souls or genuinely repentant but to save their necks from a brutal end that awaits them in the hands of Nigerian forces now that their main backers are on the run in northern Mali.

    It is no secret that Mali, Senegal and some other countries in that region have been a source of instability to the area now called northern Nigeria way back in history. Those conversant with the history of West Africa and its great empires of Mali, Songhai and Ghana that preceded the partitioning of Africa by European powers in the 19th century would attest to the fact that the northern belt of West Africa, the Sahara region, was so fluid that it kept on changing hands depending on which empire was rising and which one was falling.

    The Fulani from Senegal/Mali moved across the desert to destabilize the Hausa states in today’s northern Nigeria in the run up to the arrival of the British colonialists. The Trans Saharan trade of old had constantly linked the Sahara region of West Africa with the Arabs/Berbers of North Africa who largely influenced, for good or for bad, events in northern Nigeria.

    Just as an average Yoruba man could move across the border to Benin Republic, Togo and even Ghana as if he was going to the next village, so is the case with movement across the border from northern Nigeria to the other parts of the Sahara region irrespective of the artificial borders created by the Europeans.

    So spurred on by whatever was the reason for their taking up arms against the Nigerian state, Boko Haram operatives or recruits strolled across the border into Niger and Mali for training in terrorist activities and on graduation returned to Nigeria to cause havoc. It is that simple, yes. You only need to go to any of our land borders either in the east, west, north or south and witness what I am talking about. Because most of those living in the border communities most certainly have cousins, nephews and whatever relation across the border, it is often very difficult to regulate movement in those areas, so it is not a surprise that that Boko Haram could send people to northern Mali for terrorist training and they returned home even with arms undetected. So if we can’t get them here, doesn’t it make sense for us to go after them where they receive their training and indoctrination? I think that explains Jonathan’s decision to send our boys to Mali. And I think he got it right.

    And with Mali too hot for Boko Haram’s minders what do we do with their offer of ceasefire back home here, even if it came from a splinter group? Two things, Nigeria can chose to ignore the offer and go after them militarily as it has been doing for some time now albeit with limited success, or embrace the splinter group and use it to get to the other factions either to negotiate or fight them.

    While it is easier to say go after them forcefully now that the group appears to be weak it might not work out well at the end of the day especially if the group decides to damn the consequence and go for broke. I think the offer, minus the conditions attached is a window of opportunity to end this insurgence once and for all and save the nation, especially the north, from further unnecessary bloodshed.

    With France leading the successful assault against terror in Mali, the rank of the Tuareg rebels aligned with al Qeada in the north seem to have been broken with some factions distancing themselves from the main al Qeada in the Maghreb and have offered to fight alongside France and the Nigerian led West African liberation troops to drive out the main terror group. And France has not said no, in fact, these repentant factions have joined the war against al Qeada. So, why can’t we do the same?

    But in welcoming this ceasefire there is need for caution. There should be no lowering of guard and there should be no pre-conditions. If the Boko Haram faction genuinely and sincerely believes in ending their murderous ways and embrace peace it should not give any condition. It should rather engage in negotiation with the Federal Government and collaborate with the authorities to either bring the other factions on board or assist in defeating them militarily. Anything otherwise would indicate lack of sincerity in their ceasefire offer. And if the faction eventually agree to negotiate without condition, the Federal Government should also be flexible in their dealings with them and be ready to bend over backwards to accommodate them in a broader peace plan for the north. We’ve had too much bloodshed in this country that anything that could help stop it should be welcomed but not at the expense of the country.