The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sanya Oni

  • Our nightmare’s far from over

    Our nightmare’s far from over

    By Sanya Oni

    For those hounds there baying for the blood of Godwin Emefiele, I must confess that they do have a number of things going for them not least of which is the fact that our beloved naira has, finally, fatally succumbed to a degenerative disease from which it seems unlikely to recover. When the rate initially crossed the psychological threshold of the N500 to the dollar mark, yours truly was probably one among many ready to bet that the plunge was only but a temporary thing. Then, it was so easy to recall that the naira actually suffered the same fate in 2016 when the economy first took a plunge under the Buhari administration.

    But the naira at N580-something to the dollar with no signs of respite anytime soon?

    Whereas the Good Shepherd spoke of faith of the size of the tiny mustard as sufficient to move mountains, in our case, we may have arrived at such moments where even the best of our faiths and piety combined will simply not suffice!

    As it appears, the nightmare, far from being a passing phase, seems likely to endure the whole of the long night.

    True, Nigeria is said to be a country of many paradoxes – or incongruities. Consider for instance that our economy, has, officially been on a steady cruise in the positive territory since the year began; the National Bureau of Statistics actually found that the economy grew by 5.01 per cent in the second quarter — the strongest growth since fourth quarter 2014. If one imagined that the development would somehow reflect on the performance of the national currency, the very opposite has been the case with the naira on a precipitous decline for reasons that are neither hard to explain nor difficult to understand: we are a consuming rather than a producing nation. And an import-dependent one too!

    The oil sector, despite the noise about diversification, still accounts for 85 per cent of our foreign exchange earnings. Currently, that sector has remained virtually in limbo. In January for instance, production actually averaged 1.1 million barrels per day despite the budget’s projection of two million bpd. But that is not nearly half of the trouble in the circumstance that the nation’s appetite for forex continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Yes in leaps and bounds – from such invisibles as school fees to medical bills in foreign hospices to personal travel allowances for leisure and business to the usual visible of trade accounts for raw materials imports, to spares and other industrial goods.

    And then of course the other paradox – the surge in oil prices which should ordinarily benefit the economy but instead leaves the federation account with more and more subsidy bill to pay!

    Read Also: Emefiele: Non-oil sector leading Nigeria’s economic recovery

    Although these factors are way beyond Emefiele and his team, it suffices that some heads will need to be served on the platter simply because things are not going the way they should. That the condemning mobs have not only found their voice, but are literally screaming blue murder should therefore be quite easy to understand!

    However, only if the baying mob will hesitate to cast the proverbial stone will they, hopefully, realise, just like in the famous Bible example of the adulterous woman, that the real culprit is not just at large, they, the judgmental mob no less sinning than the quarry sought to summarily despatch.

    Of course, the real story out there is that Emefiele and co at the apex bank have never truly been in charge of anything; not in the arena of interest rate where the banks are only too eager to play the Shylock; not in inflation management despite all the noise about ‘inflation targeting’. Nigerians surely know where the real power lies. As for the humdrum of activities that have characterised the Monetary Policy Committee meetings where those increasingly boring statements are parcelled out, they are certainly no more than empty motions that the nation needs to assure itself that some things are going on.

    The same goes for forex management; never mind the pious decrees routinely issued by the apex bank; they are merely for the books; the real lever actually resides in the back alleys from where the shadowy the players call the shots.

    In other words, between Nigerians variegated cults – those of the wayward bankers, the bureaucrat with far more money than can lawfully be put in a financial institution, the shady contractor for whom the rule of process means nothing and so needs hauls of cash to push things; the politician with endless troves of cash but whose sources are neither visible nor explainable, Nigerians only need to understand how this confederacy works to appreciate why things are not working! Which is why it remains intriguing that the judgment about the current fate of the naira continues to be put solely on Emefiele’s head.

    But even more intriguing is how the activities of their enablers, the hordes of Bureaux de Change (BDCs) and their cousins-in-infamy, the parallel market, have continued to escape the radar. At least, that was the case until July when the apex bank drew blood! It didn’t stop at shooing them off the forex arena; it slapped a moratorium on new entrants.

    And the charge against them: the BDCs had defeated their purpose of existence to provide forex to retail user, but instead, had become wholesale and illegal dealers!

    Of course, that their numbers grew alarmingly, from a mere 74 in 2005 to 2,700 in 2016 and then 5,500 in the space of six years under the Buhari administration itself says a lot more than the CBN would care to admit; certainly a lot more than what is presented in the quantum of the money to be made by merely hawking foreign currencies in street corners!  That they are increasingly linked to other subversive activities ranging from money laundering to terrorism financing couldn’t be anything but a measure of their clout in the nation’s cult of power as indeed the global network of terror in which Nigeria has long been sucked.

    This is what those after Emefiele are not telling. The $10,000 sold to each BDC twice a week before the forex supply cut, which inevitably ends in the parallel market, though a minor part is nonetheless a crusher. The word for Emefiele should be – BEWARE – as the battle has not even started yet!

  • Abba Kyari: Do Miranda rights matter?

    Abba Kyari: Do Miranda rights matter?

    By Sanya Oni

     

    Let me confess that I barely paid attention to the controversial postings of the embattled super cop, Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari on the Facebook, until a friend a friend drew my attention to what he described as the cop’s tepid denial moments after his indictment by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). And that was even before the FBI released the ‘killer’ transcripts of the exchanges between Hushpuppi and the now out-of-favour cop. From then on, not only did the matter take on a life of its own, the man at the centre of it all, chose the incredible route of singing like a canary, as if completely oblivious of his Miranda Rights – yes, the right to be silent!

    Little wonder that ‘little matter’ – of how a Deputy Commissioner of Police, couldn’t have seen the grave folly of waiving his Miranda Rights so cynically when it actually mattered has since become a subject of animated discussion in beer parlors!

    So much for the so-called presumption of innocence; now you do not even need a polygraph test to know the version of the unfolding story – between that of Hushpuppy and the FBI on the one hand, and the Kyari version on the other – will stand on scrutiny. After all, the FBI indictment, based largely on the transcripts of the telephone conversations between the duo of Kyari and Ramon Abbas (including text messages and audio) left little to imagination particularly with the copious references to payments, to trips and to activities that had the tinge of criminal conspiracy, with one Kelly Chibuzor Vincent, an individual of whom Hushpuppi was said to have been locked in dispute over a criminal enterprise completing the triumvirate. And the matter: how to share the $1.1 million scammed from a Qatari businessperson.

    If, in the end, you are left to marvel at the painstaking rigour of attention to every detail brought to bear on the investigation, or the sheer professionalism that is hard to find in these parts, and, the specific the finding on the criminal racket between the supposedly elite team of crime-bursters and certified international fraudsters. Amazingly, the weighty findings were passed off as sheer bunkum on some nondescript Facebook walls!

    Not to the embattled super cop, that old-time police standard operating procedure meant to guard against self-incrimination; if he sensed disaster looming on the horizon, the resort to that all-familiar showmanship was simply irresistible. Not the calm, measured rebuttal as one might expect given the weight of evidence – that is if there was any; but by some thoughtless, ill-advised bravado in a situation where the right to be silent would have been more appropriate if not entirely golden. Our super cop apparently forgot that the internet never forgets. The super cop, who hitherto took delight in regaling his admirers with regular updates of his exploits on his Facebook wall, obviously mistook the saga as one of those fairy tales that his name has been associated. Talk of the matter becoming one of one mis-step after another until the entire castle of inelegantly woven network came crashing down in the world-wide-web!

    Poor Abba Kyari; guess he never imagined that a day like this would ever come. Just imagine the stories: the bit about a certified fraudster needing an introduction from a crack detective to his tailor! And then, the other equally implausible account about a man with such a globally acclaimed sordid reputation needing his help to investigate an alleged threat by on his family without as much as basic background checks! And now with the full details of his dalliance now out in the cybersphere, with the weighty allegations sticking out like a sore thumb, our elite cop suddenly realizes that he needs the whole of 12 edits over a 24-hour period to undo the mumbo-jumbo earlier posted as defence before finally taking it down on Wednesday morning.

    Read Also: Hushpuppi Saga and Kyari’s seven fatal errors

     

    A case of self-incrimination or one of public relations disaster? The days ahead certainly promises to be interesting as more facts and defence are unleashed on the public space!

    Meanwhile, the joke out there is our super cop is actually all brawn – and no brains. By this, they mean that the head of the elite Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Squad (IRT) ought to have shown more intelligence and better discretion in the situation that Abba Kyari found himself. The joke of course extends to the Nigerian Police. As it is, the familiar stereotypes about the institution as one where just about anything goes has not only been reinforced, it has been presented as one available for hire by anyone with the means to pay!

    In all however, the greatest joke is on the Nigerian society currently riven by primordial sentiments. In the first place, I can understand the attraction to the James Bond-like tactics of Abba Kyari, and even more the exploits attached to the individual in a country where heroes/heroines are perennially in short supply. The latter obviously explains why the nearly one-dozen allegations of impunity levelled against the IRT have either gone un-investigated or simply overlooked. Had Nigerians not given to promoting form over substance, they ought to have seen through the hollowness in the methods routinely deployed in the name of crime-fighting as indeed the in-built impunity not to pay attention to what is going on; and by extension, to anticipate the embarrassment that the country now has to deal with.

    But then, the real problem, seems to me, the ever-growing chasm between Nigerians, on what should be an acceptable behaviour by functionaries in public office.

    As it is, not a few Nigerians believe that the man’s misdeeds are no more than misdemeanors, which, given his ‘exploits’ should be overlooked! In other words, the clear breach of trust by a functionary, not least, from an individual charged with law enforcement, could be overlooked under some extenuating circumstances!  In the case of Abba Kyari, it would seem to the likes of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), being an effective crime fighter should avail Abba Kyari something of a waiver from “castigation”; hence the threat to bring the roof down, should the federal government yield to “the attempted intimidation of a police officer right inside his independent fatherland”!

    Hopefully, we still have enough time for their Oodua and Ndi-Igbo counterparts to hand in their submission on the rule and applicable threats to apply in the cases of Ramon Abbas and Kelly Chibuzor Vincent, the other two-some in the WAZOBIA triumvirate!

    Reminds me of that old anthem – though tribe and tongues may differ, in brotherhood they stand! Talk of a brotherhood!  Yes, Nigeria – we hail thee!

  • Extraordinary times

    Extraordinary times

    By Sanya Oni

     

    Just as well that the nation is currently fixated with the spate of events happening in two theatres – Abuja and Cotonou – to bother about the event in Taraba and its aftermath. That is understandable. If the two events are any revelation of the desperate gung-oho tactics by a government that has run out of patience with contrarians, Nigerians might sooner have to come to terms with extraordinary measures that might prove a mere forestate of a new dawn of intolerance and with it, the emerging descent into dictatorship.

    It is after all, no mean thing that a government that professes the rule of law would comb the books to arrive at the choice of the strategy of “extra-ordinary rendition” which by any account, is itself extraordinary even under international law, to get the gadfly by the name – Nnamdi Kanu under the hammer. But then, didn’t they say – stuff happens – particularly when you are dealing with an administration that has long confused self-righteousness with due dictates of the law!

    If one adds the midnight siege in the Ibadan home of the Yoruba agitator, Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho as another instance in which the niceties of the law and process are put in abeyance in the administration’s mistaken confusion of vengefulness for the fine tenets of justice, you can then put it to the re-born (or it de-born) moment for our erstwhile born-again democrat!

    But then, these are extraordinary times. The administration is supposed to be doing well in the extraordinary circumstances in which it has found itself – even if the view out there is that the administration has, in reality, fared much worse than its predecessor on virtually all known indices of governance!

    Facts, of course are stubborn things. The Jonathan tag-team may have been the grandmasters in profligacy; from the administration’s undelivered mega-projects to dubious ‘strategic alliance’ projects designed to fleece the public till, not forgetting the low-grade governance; yes, the unparalleled incompetence it brought into public finance and administration. That was an administration that came into office at a time the country’s accounting balances were pretty healthy. Oil prices were doing good even if production sometimes came in fits and starts. Over all, the sky could be said to be blue.

    Of course, there was a war to be fought. In the Northeast, the Boko Haram raged. But then, that merely presented opportunity for the administration to yield the treasury to private ends in what would later be touted as the scam of the century. As if designed to open the floodgate for the bazaar that followed, all the elements would appear to have conspired to ensure that debts piled upon debts even when the country was supposed to be earning more – in perhaps one of the most bizarre moments of fiscal brigandage ever to be unleashed on the nation’s treasury. If the Boko Haram – with nearly two score local governments lost to the new caliphate country – was pain in the administration’s neck, the Chibok Girls saga would be its Achilles heel

    Yet, half a decade on, the fact is that more and more Nigerians have had to wonder if indeed they had not judged the Otuoke man either too soon or rather too harshly considering the mess our latter-day conquistadors have made of their lives!

    Yes, facts are stubborn things. That is why Nigerians all must answer to President Buhari’s call to evaluate and judge his administration not only fairly but on the promises it made, first in 2015 and later affirmed in 2019 – and then of course on the Human Development Indices. For only in that context would its quest for ‘fairness’ truly make sense – in other words, it should not be on the standards of its low-grade predecessor as it is wont to do!

    Now, the Buhari die-hards continue to remind us that their era is one of great accomplishments. If you – like yours truly, complain of being wearied by the so-called achievement merely on account of the number of roads still largely under construction, you are told it’s simply because you haven’t taken a ride in those Chinese contraptions already touted as the ninth wonder in modern transportation!

    Not on the power sector that remains a no-no; a sector where very little has changed in the last six years and one in which Nigerians are told at every turn that the grid has collapsed. Nigerians, in the meantime, are supposed to be on the waiting mode – until such a time that our new German friends deliver on the rocket science that electricity generation and distribution have become.

    Today, the economy is in tatters. For all the regional showmanship, the country is probably poorer and certainly far less economically self-reliant than it was when it drew shutters on its ECOWAS borders. If we warned that the border closure could only be a means to an end, the administration apparently saw things differently; if there were any meaningful evaluation or practical, clear-headed measures to address the identified problems, these remain to be seen. Which of course makes many to wonder what the fuss was all about in the first place!

    Don’t get me wrong. The roads and the railways and other infrastructures are important. But so should the promises made by a leader generously described by his cult of followers as Mai Gaskia be held as sacred! Today, an administration which supposedly came into government with a blueprint on state and community policing, with a resolve to ban on all government officials from seeking medical care abroad, and a promise to deliver three million jobs per year has generated far more alibis than the hard ideas and practical actions needed to drive them – which makes one wonder if these weren’t the problems the administration pledged to Nigerians to solve!

    And that is putting things mildly considering the wild and negative dispositions on those same issues. Of course, we can write a book on the economy, and how the continues to plunge on the HDI ladder.

    Beyond the promises however, is whether the Buhari administration actually appreciates the imperative of the moment. For, if the administration could be described as rather tame and tardy on the issues of terrorism, banditry and other variants of criminality currently tearing the country apart, even more atrocious is its mismanagement of the country’s diversity. Which explains why the country is being torn on all sides by the atavistic forces unleashed by herdsmen and the separationists – and then the notable charge against the Buhari administration of using differential measures – or standards – for basically the same crimes – all depending on the factor of ethnicity.

    Nothing of course better illustrates these tendencies than the Sallah day ultimatum by the Emir of Muri, Alhaji Abbas Njidaa Tafida, calling on Fulani herdsmen in the forests to vacate the place. To the revered monarch – himself of the Fulani stock, the cups of his kinsmen, as far as the sheer terror associated with them is concerned, is not only full, but running over.

    Remember, this was basically the same call by an elected governor, for which the chief law officer of the federal government stopped short of tagging as treasonable. While mum has been the word from Abubakar Malami, the nation’s chief law officer since the emir handed the ultimatum, a certain Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, said to be president of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore barely stopped short of pronouncing a fatwa on the monarch. To him, the emir should be taken to the shrink, since, according to him, no right-thinking Fulani can issue such a threat to his people!

    As it is, so ingrained in the administration’s DNA is the virus of unequal justice that it would require more than the ancient magical art of exorcism to root out.

  • Cry the beloved country

    Cry the beloved country

    By Sanya Oni

     

    I know a tribe out there who continue to interpret the events of the past week in South Africa strictly in the context of the usual stereotypes about Africa and Africans, and how democracy is supposed to be alien in a continent where feudalism, the Big Man syndrome and other variants of the Kabiyesi syndrome are supposed to be the natural order.

    With some 200-plus dead and countless scores wounded, not to talk of the mindless destruction that could cost some tidy billions to fix as the smoke clears, there is a lot to be said of the senseless rage as being tragically extravagant; considering that the same people will in the end, have to live with the pains of the destruction they have wrought.

    Reminds me of Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country.

    Good thing, that the institutions in the Rainbow Country held when it mattered most; the country’s apex court – the constitutional court, faced with the most unprecedented defiance – or better still, assault – by a former number one citizen of the republic, Jacob Zuma, did what it had to do. Then of course, the South African police, swift and resolute didn’t even have to roll out the battle gears before the Big Man was marched into the correctional facility at Estcourt, KwaZulu Natal. In the end, constitutionalism and the rule of law, prevailed.

    I know a throng still out there who couldn’t find that connection between the January 6 Capitol insurrection in the United States a la Donald J, Trump, and its milder variant that bred the nearly week-long conflagration in Gauteng and Kwazulu Natal. It is sufficient to crow, not just about what is supposed to be failure of democracy in these parts but also of the strain of lethal virus that makes democracy such a bad business on the continent. An instance of the African leadership flu being more lethal than the more hemorrhagic Western variant!

    By the way, I just finished reading a piece by Helen Zille, the renowned anti-apartheid activist and former leader of the country’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. The piece is titled The Jacob Zuma I came to know was unfailingly warm and humane. Call it a beautiful – or rather a generous attempt to humanize the embattled former president in the way only those with perhaps intimate knowledge of the man could have done. Coming from an individual with a solid pedigree in activism particularly in those days of anti-apartheid struggle, it was perhaps very much unlike her to have lapsed into inferences that could only have flowed from a familiar ethnocentric mindset simply because a certain Zuma could not live up to the expected bar in leadership!

    Here’s how she summed up the Zuma episode: “At the heart of it, this tragedy is rooted in the enormous complexity of our collective decision to impose a modern constitutional democracy on what is largely a traditional, African feudal society….

    “President Zuma is a traditionalist, totally unfamiliar with the concepts of constitutionalism, thrust into the role of President – whose primary duty is to serve and defend the Constitution.  A total misalignment…”

    Take note of how she elegantly framed the Zuma paradox – as something more emblematic of societal anomie as against an individual’s moral failure – in the well guided jibe at the ANC as indeed the majority Black Africans:

    “The idea that people are born with inalienable rights that no-one can take away from them, and that elected leaders are there to protect and defend these rights, is indeed a “Western thing”.  In traditional societies, the notion that the Chief grants you favours if you seek his favour, is far more prevalent –  and it is easy to see how this easily morphs into “corruption”.  The leader looks after his own, making the idea of “nepotism” a very “Western thing” as well…

    Really?

    She probably forgot that two gentlemen, Thabo Mbeki as indeed Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, before Zuma, also took residence in Mahlamba Ndlopfu – the equivalent of Nigeria’s Aso Villa!  So much for the generalisation; were the twain also caught up in the ‘Zuma paradox”?

    Agreed, it is so easy to count a score-plus instances of pure basket cases that the curse of leadership has foisted on the continent; the terrible blight that they constitute in humanity’s quest to advance the frontiers of freedom and human development; fact is, until Trump happened on the world, many could have sworn that political delinquency was, exclusively, an African malaise.

    Of course, the world now knows better than permit such baseless generalisations. For while Jacob Zuma may have been a corrupt, loathsome politician. Indeed, he and the Guptas may have sired and nurtured the phenomenon of ‘state capture’ in the Rainbow Country – systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage. He is probably no less a sinner than Trump, who, thanks to America’s complex legal system has been able to keep all enquiries on his business dealings at bay and later capped it all by granting his comrade-in-infamy, Roger Stone aka “dirty trickster” pardon after the latter was convicted of the federal crimes “of making false statements, witness tampering, and obstruction”.

    Talk of the ultimate un-leader unleashed on the world by the Grand Old Party and its alt-right allies; can anyone truly say of Zuma’s ‘crime’ or delinquency as infernally more venal than the attempt by Trump to torpedo an election which he lost by undemocratic means? Truly, if the Americans as indeed the West are any indebted to their institutions for their resilience, so it must be for the South Africans in the face of intimidation by a wayward one-time president.

    Which takes me to the final point. The world, as it is, may have been too obsessed with traditional notions of leadership – the concept of one big man leader – as against paying close attention to building strong and resilient institutions. What the lessons of the United States and South Africa teaches is that such efforts are best reserved for institution-building.

    To come back home – to Nigeria. Today, the raging argument is on the not just the suitability of the current constitution but also its legitimacy. However, it seems to me, that no constitution, no matter how perfect, can work in an environment where civil society institutions are virtually prostrate. Imagine – only in the environment of prostrate institutions would a parliament- supposedly representing the people, would dare to be seen as working at cross purposes with the aspirations of the people on something as sensitive as the integrity of the electoral process as Messrs. Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila appears to be doing at the National Assembly!

     

    Barka de Sallah, to you dear readers!

  • In pursuit of public purpose

    In pursuit of public purpose

    By Sanya Oni

    Thanks to Louis Odion – the man I prefer to call Gburugburu but who many call Mr. Capacity, a copy of the book – In Pursuit of the Public Purpose – a compilation of essays in tribute to Tunji Bello which he co-edited with Kayode Komolafe, was delivered to my office Monday last week. To begin with, if the word classy qualifies as a most fitting description of the print quality, a lot more could certainly be said of the galaxy of contributors drawn from the diverse spectrum of the nation’s public life all united in their attestation to the exemplary private and public life of the remarkable individual called Tunji Bello. Sincerely, only those who did not know Tunji could have expected anything less! Talk of being truly deserving – or even more – for a man who has touched and continues to touch, lives positively.

    Talking of the book, although I had read snippets of the tributes in one or two newspapers, it was for me a refreshing odyssey of sorts as I poured through the pages of a book laid out in celebration of a brother and a true friend of whom I had the good fortune of meeting for the very first time some 35 years ago on the Features Desk of the National Concord then led by Ola Amupitan and his two deputies – Ayodeji Ajayi and Betty Irabor, which also had Wale Sokunbi, Tunji Bello and yours truly on board.

    A book of nine sections, the chapters run through such themes as Character, Family, World View, Activism/Unionism, Friendship, Journalism, Public Service and Mentees. Expectedly, there is a section – Taste of Tunji Bello’s New Republic – a collection of few of his writings at Thisday newspapers.

    Like the story of the blind men and an elephant, each of the contributors obviously did a good job of describing the subject based on their different experiences of the man and their perception of his impact both in their lives and in the cause of public service,

    From Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu under whom he first served as commissioner in the environment, we read of his profile in diligence and loyalty; from my dear egbon, Segun Babatope, it was an account of his heroism particularly in those heady days of military brigandage. From Lanre Arogundade, Sanni Zoro, and from the irrepressible lawyer cum activist Richard Akinnola, the reader is offered a glimpse into his activism. And then of course the home front, from the pens of the wife, Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello and the children.

    Sam Omatseye, this newspaper’s editorial board chairman would pen a chapter on friendship fittingly titled – Such a long trek together – as in tribute to that endurance trek called journalism and activism; media leader and icon, Dapo Olorunyomi would offer a candid reflection on life at 60 but on what he called ‘social connection’ as touching Tunji’s journalism, politics cum activism.

    Of course, other industry leaders like Victor Ifijeh, this newspaper’s managing director and editor in chief would have a thing or two to say about his team work; the same with labour veteran and popular columnist Owei Lakemfa on how Tunji fought ‘fake news. For Eniola Bello, Thisday’s managing director, it is on the subject’s ‘simplicity’ while Gbenga Adefaye has something to say about the footprints of this great newspaperman. Between Femi Adesina’s account of how he, alongside Tunji Bello struggled to keep the Concord afloat and the inimitable Azu’s portrayal of the unlikely journalist, the analogy of the blind men and an elephant would appear to have come truly alive.

    Those interested in Tunji’s foray into environmentalism would have a ready reference in the contribution of Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN, former Lagos State governor, by whom he was described as a ‘goal getter’; Dr Titilayo Anibaba who tells us why Tunji is called ‘Mr. Clean’ and then of course Joe Igbokwe with whom he’s currently tending the environment and water resources charge in the Centre of Excellence.

    My best section of course is the one penned by his legion of mentees. From Olusegun Adeniyi’s My Editor, my brother, Simon Kolawole’s His grasp of issues Inspires me, Ose Oyamedan’s He see younger people as project, Abdul Warees Solanke’s He pushed me to think on my toes… to Louis Odion’s The man who clasped me in his wings…, Tunji’s profile as a leader, benefactor and inspiration to the generation behind him comes shining through. From his legendary generosity to his acclaimed selflessness, there is always a readiness to offer a helping hand to anyone that came his way and even more so to those privileged to come under his wings.

    Let me by way of closing offer one testimony out of many as my personal tribute to Tunji but to exemplify his sacrifice and depth of friendship over the course of the years.

    This happened in the late 80s. My younger, now a medical practitioner, had been admitted initially, to study Medicine at the University of Ilorin for the 6-year programme. Soon after, his Advanced Level result was released wherein he came out in flying colours. In line with the rules of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board at the time, he promptly applied for an upgrade to the 5-year Direct Entry programme – a request that was, according to him, flatly turned down by an official who told him he should consider himself lucky that he already has a place.

    My brother came down to Concord to share this strange twist in the tale with me. Of course, I was angry, and I told Tunji about it. Not only would he have none of it, he offered to follow me to Ilorin to sort things out! Getting there, he sought out Dapo Olorunyomi whom he also dragged along. The matter was promptly resolved with the official not only apologising to the team but offering a somewhat plausible defence about the outburst being released under pressure!

    That was vintage Tunji! Talk of a friend indeed; a friend not only ready to sacrifice but when necessary, fight phoney officialdom to ensure that justice is delivered no matter who was involved.

    I close with a line of prayer from one of the contributors to Tunji: the best chapter of your life is yet to be written!

  • Not their finest hour

    Not their finest hour

    By Sanya Oni

     

    To the hawks in the Buhari administration, not least its legion of allies, the events of the past week must have revealed its real essence. For an administration often accused of being on the ‘sleep mode’ when things truly important are at play, not only did the administration demonstrate that it could truly bite, there was something perceptively familiar both in its ways and means to suggest that a new but no less familiar chapter may also be in the offing. Now, if the ‘extraordinary rendition’ of the IPOB chieftain, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, with its accompanying wild guesses, was not dramatic enough, the pre-dawn swoop on the Ibadan residence of the Yoruba activist, Sunday Igboho should leave no one in doubt about the fouled mood at the Villa as indeed the crude resort to gung-ho tactics.

    Triumphalism. Understandably, that appears to describe the mood at the highest levels of government at the moment. Yes, the government’s spokesman, Lai Mohammed, spoke of “one of the most classic operations of its type in the world” to describe the interception (?) of Nnamdi Kanu.

    Said he: “What we can tell you, once again, is that the re-arrest was made possible by the diligent efforts of our security and intelligence agencies, in collaboration with countries with which we have obligations”.

    As if to further drive home the point about triumphalism, he said the man “was travelling on chartered private jets, living in luxury apartments and turning out in designing clothes and shoes…” Not of course leaving the tiny bit about his Fendi attire, the luxury Italian fashion brand, which he donned at the point of arrest.

    Now, that was the official line. Finest hour? Debatable. Diligent efforts? Here, the devil might yet be in the details which for now are still in the realm of speculation. Where was he picked from? Is it Kenya, Brazil or Ethiopia? No one can affirm with any certainty – which is not surprising given the rather unusual, but highly complicated process claimed by our high officials. Are we dealing with extra-ordinary rendition –otherwise called irregular rendition or better still, forced rendition – a phenomenon of government-sponsored abduction and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one country to another with the purpose of circumventing the former country’s laws on interrogation, detention, extradition and/or torture! Why that seems highly probable, the only thing that could be said with some certainty is that the man, Kanu was brought into the country under extraordinary circumstances.

    That leads us to the matter of the other ‘fugitive’, Sunday Igboho, whose residence was savagely violated by security agencies last Thursday. Again, what do we know? Nothing of course, beyond the official version of events. First is that the attack was actually staged by security agencies. This is important because in April, the same Sunday Igboho had sounded the alarm of an imminent siege on his residence only to be promptly denied by the security agencies. No less chilling is that the attack was carried out in the dead of the night – some say around 1:00 a.m. that Thursday, which seems rather odd particularly as Nigerians were not told of an earlier invite that was spurned by the Yoruba activist. Third, that some lives – the number is still disputed – were lost none of which included the security men in what was claimed to be an hour-long shoot-out between Igboho’s men and the security agencies. Talk of a military-style operation – as against simple law enforcement, in which everything from vehicles to other valuable properties including furniture, and windows were fair game. And finally, that some arrests were made, just as a cache of arms were recovered. Suffice to say that every other detail from that point on, not only became a matter of conjecture but subject of claims and counterclaims.

    In both accounts, the common narrative is one of a government that has not only run out of patience with agitators but now well prepared to deploy any means necessary – including extra-constitutional measures – to assert its will. The world of course is watching as to where all of these are leading to. Meanwhile, trust Nigerians to offer to offer the counter narrative that had the same government shown the same zeal in dealing with the matter of criminal herders as indeed the number of the countless issues underlying the secessionist angers, perhaps the nation wouldn’t have to be dealing with the likes of Igboho et al.

    For now, we can only wonder as to the extent to which the Buhari administration will be willing to go. However, if its antecedents are any indication, Nigerians had better get ready for more of the shock treatments as the administration strives to bend the law for some narrow, self-serving ends. Imagine an administration that had no compunction in getting the SSS to violate the supposedly inviolable quarters of senior judges to have even far less restraints in dealing with the purveyors of activism deemed, in its own specious eyes, as treasonable. In other words, the ordeal of Messrs Kanu and Igboho might well be a dress rehearsal for the shape of things to come.

    This is where Nigerians should be alarmed. To be sure, it is not a question of whether one loves or hates Nnamdi Kanu or Sunday Igboho; or even the ideologies they propound. For while such fangled phrases as ‘self-determination’ and ‘secession’ or even its milder variant ‘resource control’ have become something of a fad or even a signature badge among the hordes of activists of every shade and hue, for the majority, the quest which is supposed its ultimate derivative is simply no more than mere concepts of idle curiosity.

    Nonetheless, the Buhari government, in approaching the different elements that have dared to challenge the current iniquitous federal arrangement, has oscillated between being selective to being deferential. It explains why a certain ‘Government’ – a one-time ‘fugitive’ will sneeze from his Creek redoubt only for the Buhari administration to catch cold; the other day, it was the uncommon minister, Godswill Akpabio forced to bow to Mr. Government on the matter of NDDC Board – something that the law and the constitution could not get him to do!

    We also know of a certain Sheik Gumi who while in dalliance with heavily armed bandits would not resist a photo-op in the presence of security agencies. Yet, he still finds ample time to throw darts at our almighty military. Apparently, some crimes are more criminal than others; otherwise, we would not have the midnight raid on the residence of Igboho while those frolicking with bandits and terrorists are out there sermonizing. So, when Nigerians talk of unequal justice, they mean the differential perception of what is supposed to be crime and punishment in Nigeria’s unequal republic.

  • Buhari’s press problem

    Buhari’s press problem

    Sanya Oni

     

    Talk of a ‘solution’ in search of a problem; Honourable Segun Dokun Odebunmi, the supposed ‘author and finisher’ of the two media gag bills under consideration in the National Assembly may have done a good job of pushing the pet project against all odds; it seems however a long way yet in convincing skeptical Nigerians that the intention of the bill is anything about the promotion of the public good. Again, talk of the proverbial Hand of Esau versus the Voice of Jacob; with four bills in the last six years of the Buhari administration all of them seeking a curb on the exercise of free speech, it doesn’t even require the sixth sensed to know where this latest arrow on that important pillar on democracy is coming from.

    So much for the ‘media problem’ that the bill seeks solution. Never mind that the sponsor did not deem it worthwhile to let Nigerians into the window of the new pathologies that the bill seeks to cure the media of and of which existing remedies have not availed. The media, as far as the current moods go, is Nigeria public enemy – to borrow a line straight from the Donald Trump playbook.

    Never mind its pretensions to the public good, the bill is apparently uncomfortable with those rights guaranteed under Section 39(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) that: “every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference”.

    Even more disagreeable to the sponsors, it seems, is Section 22 of the same constitution, which enjoins that the mass media be free, so it can “uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.”

    So much for the denial at the highest levels of government; while few Nigerians can pretend to be oblivious of the current moods in government circle, fewer still would deny the perception that has long endured there that the media is not only too free but excessively so both for its own good and for the good of the society. And that was long before Jack Dorsey’s Twitter struck – to put not just President Buhari’s twitter account to the sword but his presidency to a terrible embarrassment.

    It has been a comedy of errors ever since, the latest of which is Odebunmi media gag bill.

    You ask – Honourable Segun Dokun Odebunmi – who?

    No doubt, the 2002 Business Education graduate of the University of Ado-Ekiti may have been a veteran of sorts in the of business of politics; it seems to me that the man is in this particular instance selling a script which he could not have authored let alone understand. Talk of a man who has made not just a career but also business out of the vocation of politics. A man who went into active politics barely two years after leaving school, got elected chairman of his Surulere Local Government Area of Oyo State in 2004, subsequently became caretaker head of the council in 2007 before landing another big one as full-time commissioner in the Oyo State Civil Service Commission. I even read an account somewhere in which he was described as an oil magnate! Currently in his third term in the lower chamber of the Nigerian parliament representing the good people of Surulere/Ogo-Oluwa federal constituency, the man behind the media gag bill also speaks on behalf of that august body.

    Now, he is supposed to know a thing or two about the media. Not necessarily from his current vantage position as spokesman of the Lower House but in the arena where the game, influence-peddling, is certainly profitable. That, obviously would explain the manner with which he brought Ogo Ilu 89.3 F.M. Oko, a branch of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), to his constituency. Yes, Information Minister Lai Mohammed, was there to describe the project as “the first and only radio station that is a product of constituency project in Nigeria”. Talk of the variant of ‘oversighting’ of the executive branch the kind that Nigerians are only too familiar!

    By the way, the last time I checked, Odebunmi was actually promoting a private radio station which, according to him, “will help provide employment opportunities for youths as well as help to discover and develop talents” – which of course is no crime! But then, if I know the typical businessman of which he is of a kind, its probably just one of those ventures designed to nurture the ego.

    To get back to the main point: Odebunmi seems to me a mere symptom of a larger crisis. By this I mean the crisis of governance under which those charged with the business of delivering the public good will rather be chasing shadows. While all manners of placebos are offered in place of governance, the citizens are supposed to be grateful to a leader in whom no guile has been found.

    Unfortunately, had the Buhari administration been a shade less self-absorptive of its own inherent goodness to appreciate the role of the media not just as a critical partner in the governance process but one charged with the constitutional duty to hold the government to account on behalf of the people, its current sanctimonious disposition would have been entirely pointless. But then, as they say, what you see is what you get!

    Talk of a born-again democrat finally shedding all pretensions to a borrowed bona fide. Now, if the very idea of a constitutional order seeking to transmute into a sovereign in the manner of Divine Rights of kings and with it the doctrine of infallibility seems unthinkable in recent past; now it’s no longer seems far-fetched!

    So here we go. Let them define the ‘truth’ as it suits them. Let them constitute the Nigerian Press Council as they deem fit. And then of course their register of media practitioners. And the Black Book.

    Let them roll out their regime of punitive fines designed not just to cow, but to keep the media on the leash. They would need the jails – many of them – to keep those troublesome fellows out of circulation even while the treasury swells with revenues from the punitive fines. It is after all, a case of “we” versus “them”, “patriots” versus “villains”. Welcome to Nigeria’s brand-new world of media regulation; their world of democracy. Welcome Decree 4.

     

  • The president has spoken!

    The president has spoken!

    By Sanya Oni

    There you have it! Two television interviews in quick succession followed by a broadcast all in a space of 72 hours, supporters of our media-averse president can now sit back and relax in confidence that the First Citizen not only ‘killed it” but has finally put paid to the wild speculations about whether or not their principal was in firm grasp of his environment and matters of governance!

    With no prior announcement of the Arise TV interview, it certainly came off as a ‘coup’ of sorts – timely and artfully packaged! The interview was vintage Buhari: languid for the most part in style, and convoluted in delivery; he neither dispelled any ‘myths’ or about his government nor offered any clarity on policy. In street lingo, it would be described as nothing spoil!

    Over all, you get the impression that the man spoke from the heart – simplistic, disagreeable but at least honest! A case of – since you want it; here it is! I am here referring to the Arise TV interview! As for the other one on the NTA, it was simply drab – what you see is what you get!

    I know many out there who are disappointed that the president did not utilize the opportunity to engage or if you like, to re-connect with the people after his rather long absence and his discomfiting silence in the last few months. But then, I also know no less out there who aver that the citizens ought to be grateful that the president has at least responded to our quest to talk to us – something that his aides have been doing all of these while on his behalf! Now, we must thank God for little mercies.

    Let me add to the two, a third group – many in this category wonder, whether silence, wouldn’t have been more ‘golden’ in the light of those antediluvian views canvassed by the president during those interviews. I dare say that yours truly belong in this latter category.

    Let’s take some of the issues the president spoke about. Starting with perhaps the most contentious one – open grazing. Amazingly, the president somehow still believes that the Fulani pastoralist nomadic culture could still be preserved!  Indeed, he verily believes that the solution resides – not in the coming to terms with current realities of population explosion with its correlates of pressures on land use and criminality – but in a romanticized past of freewheeling pastoralism!

    More than that, our president, sworn to the 1999 Constitution (as amended), thinks pretty little of exhuming a carryover colonial law – the Grazing Reserves Act 1964 – apparently without the encumbrances of the Land Use Act and other ancillary legislations that have long rendered that archaic law not only inoperable but a nullity – to push that through!

    I quote here, verbatim, what the president said of his directive to the attorney-general of the federation.

    “What I did was ask him to go and dig the gazette of the First Republic when people were obeying laws. There were cattle routes and grazing areas. Cattle routes were for when they (herdsmen) are moving up country, north to south or east to west, they had to go through there.

    “If you allow your cattle to stray into any farm, you are arrested. The farmer is invited to submit his claims. The Khadi or the judge will say pay this amount and if you can’t the cattle is sold. And if there is any benefit, you are given and people were behaving themselves and in the grazing areas, they built dams, put windmills in some places there were even veterinary departments so that the herders are limited. Their route is known, their grazing area is known. So, I asked for the gazette to make sure that those who encroached on these cattle routes and grazing areas will be dispossessed in law and try to bring some order back into the cattle grazing.”

    Talk of presidency caught in time warp; the whole thing reminds me of Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle classic– a book of wonder in which a farmer wanders into a certain mountain, comes upon a group of dwarfs playing games, accepts their offer of a drink of liquor and promptly falls asleep only to wake up 20 years later, an old man with a long white beard!

    Here by the way is a presidency that has spoken variously of RUGA, National Livestock Transformation Plan and other shades of pastoral modernisation. Now, the revelation is that the chief marketer of those programmes is himself, yet to be cured of his preference for those ancient practices that has arguably no redeeming features. Call it dissonance at its best; here at once is a perceptible clash between the personal preferences of the leader and the posturing of the government that he leads; a classic instance of the unending muddle of inchoate ideas packaged as policy by officials at the highest levels of government.

    We wait for AGF Abubakar Malami. Trust me, he knows the law – in and out; or better still, he tghinks he – not the courts – can make pronouncement on what the law is! Don’t be surprised therefore should the gazette and the accompanying executive order acquire the force of law or if it comes to that, made to be superior to the Land Use Act!

    While the administration is at it, permit me to state upfront that the job will not be nearly half done with the retrieval of those grazing routes/reserves; there’s also a bounden duty on the government to retrieve those high calibre weapons from the nomads – a sine qua non – at least for equity. That way, the farmers could reasonably be assured of living for another day even as  our revered Khadis and judges would have something to adjudicate upon!

    Of course, the president addressed other issues. Like his threat to IPOB and other unruly youths on the Southeast. To those who expected the president to walk back on that threat – ‘to speak to those people in the language they understand’, what he did was to double down. Now, he says, it is fire for fire! The terrorists, kidnappers and bandits troubling the country from the Northeast, to Northwest and north-central, he said, can expect the same treatment under his equal opportunity onslaught!

    Don’t ask me why the fire couldn’t have been put out before things got out hand. Like the imagery of the soldier in Samuel Finer’s Man on the Horseback, our dear president, long thought to be on AWOL, wants to convince that he’s back and smoking!

    Finally, the president touched on Lagos, the EndSARS and all that. Nothing of word of comfort for the people on the carnage and destruction wrought by rioters; deemed guilty for not preventing the arson on those high capacity buses, the president would have the good people of Lagos condemned to walk.

  • Twitter tango and other matters

    Twitter tango and other matters

    By Sanya Oni

    While Nigerians struggle to make up their minds on what to make of the ‘clampdown’ on twitter – whether it is a suspension or outright ban – one of its many correlates is what to also make of the Abubakar Malami’s fiat which deigns to create a felony where none hitherto existed merely per force of his proclamation, and of course the growing rage that currently threatens to constitute the directing principles of state policy under the Buhari administration.

    Although the conveying instrument read – ‘indefinite suspension’, it would really not matter either way at this point. Why because the Nigerian twitterdom has since moved on apparently convinced that the measure came to nothing really. For while many are left wondering whether the government actually appreciates how limited matters of territoriality have come to be in the intricate, virtual world of netizens; for others, the past few days – at least for the likes of yours truly and indeed those willing to explore – have been teachable moments in terms of the vast possibilities that makes state control of that world largely ineffectual.

    So, what to make of the directive by Attorney-General of the Federation and Justice Minister Abubakar Malami, on “immediate prosecution of offenders of the federal government ban on Twitter operations in Nigeria” and calling on the public prosecutor to “swing into action”?

    To start with, the learned Silk did not as much as tell Nigerians which law(s) that covered the ban and by extension its prohibition. Could it be in one of the numerous bureaus of the justice ministry – unknown to Nigerians? Or are we expecting some new multi-purpose but loosely-worded executive orders to take care of the exigency?

    Quite typically; the minister also gave no hints on how the law would be enforced; will Nigerians be subjected to routine searches on their phones, tablets or other devices for the purposes of ensuring compliance? And by the same Nigerian Police serially accused of unfairly targeting innocent youths in the guise of chasing yahoo-boys?  And all of these from the head of the justice ministry that can’t seem to draw the fine line between animal and citizen rights?

    Again, these are interesting times. Talk of killing a fly with the sledge-hammer. So, for the offence of taking out what it considers an offensive phrase, the country – not the president and his 4.1 million followers on twitter that could have campaigned for a boycott – will have to endure the pain of enforced prohibition? And at what costs to the economy, particular the army of youths for whom the outlet constitutes a business companion of sorts?

    Now, don’t get me wrong. Twitter may well be guilty as charged; I read somewhere where a colleague – to quote him – referred to “the tyranny of the Big-Techs and the emergence of an unprecedented, unconventional superpower”. However, while the debate on the subject of power without control as touching that unconventional media is both salutary and legitimate, it is however something else to argue that an administration can so whimsically shut out an entire platform on those grounds that the administration set out.

    Of course, the debate continues. Suffice to say that the issue, in this particular instance, goes beyond the attempt at self-justification. No doubt, the charge sheet prepared by Lai Mohammed against Twitter – “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence” – would, in the eyes of some, seem somewhat treasonable. Fact also is that a growing tribe of Nigerians would, while scoffing at the administration’s oftentimes specious definitions of crime and criminality, have just enough to point to in its unconscionable if not entirely bizarre interventions – yes, double standards – that assails our very essence as citizens equal before the law – actions which are routinely served live via the same social media!

    That the administration, whose language is itself emblematic of the same problems of divisions and insensitivity to be found not just pointing accusing fingers but also going as far as charging others of the same crime is probably one of the grotesque demonstration of powers in recent time.

    Yes, the Buhari administration is probably right to be angry with Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB and its pet-creation ESN. What is doubtful is the right to deploy such a language that in broad stroke, tars innocent youths of the southeast with terrorism brush, while in the same breadth, reminding the people of a past whose wounds are still fresh and so sore. Here, the president does not even need Twitter to let him know that his tone on that occasion is not helpful.

    As for Kanu, only a weak-kneed administration can afford to ignore the anarchy being unleashed by his IPOB group in the Southeast. The issue is that the southeast is no more equal to IPOB than the rampaging bands of outlaw herders is equal to the president’s beloved Fulani! While both deserve the same treatment under the law, only a country of unequal justice would permit one and ignore the other; or as it suits the likes of Miyetti Allah Kaore and their ilk, to issue brazen threats to the extent of literally getting away with murder whereas other less favoured agitators can only do so at the risk of massive clampdown.

    Finally, Tompolo versus FG

    I don’t know if many Nigerians paid attention to the bizarre drama that just played out in the South-south. Earlier in the month, we heard Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo, serve the Buhari administration a seven-day ultimatum to either get the substantive board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) inaugurated or be prepared for a showdown. Call it the mother of all ironies – a lone non-state actor seeking to force the hands of the federal government to do what is right by the law – something that the parliament could not get the president to do!

    Remember, President Muhammadu Buhari had in October 2019 forwarded the names of the 16-member board of the commission to the senate for confirmation. A month later, all but one of the 16 nominees were confirmed by the senate, until the minister in charge of NDDC, Godswill Akapbio decided that the process could not go on until the audit of the place was concluded – something that is at variance with the commission’s enabling law!

    Well, a year and half on – and two major crises in between both of which the minister was a star actor – the audit has become interminable just as the minister and his ‘people’ have continued to dig in as against their original pledge to clear the mess in the place in record time.

    That was until penultimate week, when Ekpemupolo and company served notice that the region had had enough of the nonsense by the Uncommon Minister Akpabio! Ever since, the minister has been running from pillar to post to get the process back on track! Truly, in the Niger Delta, the fear of Tompolo is the beginning of wisdom!

    Now, the same minister who once swore that the board cannot be inaugurated until the audit is completed has promised the month’s end to get the board in place – a case of bare threat achieving what the relevant statute and constitutionalism could not achieve!

    See who’s talking ‘change’ in Buhari’s Nigeria?

  • Kidnapping not yet ‘digital’

    Kidnapping not yet ‘digital’

    By Sanya Oni

     

    It’s hard to know how much the live drama that played out last weekend in Kaduna will affect the tempo of deliberations on the so-called Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Bill 2021 currently in the works in Nigeria’s upper legislative house.

    By the way, that ‘live drama’ is the release of the 14 remaining abducted students of the Greenfield University, Kaduna after 40 days in captivity. Call the altercation a sight to behold: a group of exasperated parents/relatives of the abductees telling the security agencies and government officials to back off as they scampered to take the rescued team for medicals! The same officials that were nowhere in sight while their 40-day ordeal lasted? Absurd!

    To those who do not yet know, that Bill on terrorism prevention also under reference, sponsored by Francis Onyewuchi, the distinguished senator from Imo, and which has since scaled through second reading, seeks to make ransom payment a felony punishable by no less than 15 years in jail! Interestingly, while as it seems unlikely that the bitter-sweet aftermath of the release of the Greenfield 14 will faze the bill’s sponsors one way or the other, we might as well take that development as one among the many absurdities of our time – part of the tragedy of living in the Shitholia republic.  And while the Bill or thoughts of any such thing would be the last thing on the mind of the distraught parents/relatives in those 40 agonizing days and nights; think of a government that practically abandoned those young Nigerians when it mattered most coming to mouth some meaningless mumbo jumbos to convince that we still have a functional government in place!

    Home at last! We must of course thank God for granting the prayers of countless Nigerians for the safe return of those hapless young Nigerians. And then of course the parents and relatives for being resolute even when the odds were stacked against them, and, for standing up to the distraction of a do-nothing government. How can one forget the five that were butchered by those savages even when frantic efforts were being made to engage the outlaws? Or even the male warden whose life was also brutally terminated in the course of the abduction?

    How much was paid as ransom? It really would not matter whether it is N150 million or N180 million. What matters is that these young Nigerians are now reunited with their families. I watched some of the parents tell the story of how they sold valuable property to meet the kidnappers’ demands; how they had to put up with the absence of soothing words from the leaders in those dark, terrible days including the insensitive taunts by officials who sought relevance by talking.

    Now that their ordeal is somewhat over, the rest of us can look back in time to look at the issues more closely. Rather than wallow in pitiable disbelieve in the face of outlandish manoeuvres by a band of relatively unsophisticated loonies, we can now take on the task of asking the difficult question of how the intelligence/security services of the supposed African giant has been reduced to a little more than company of the local Boys Scouts movement.

    Like in every successive cycle of abductions, the impression had all along been conveyed that the nation was actually dealing with an extra-terrestrial enterprise and so requires a little more than science and technology as we know it to root out. And then the other notion of the existence of a vast ungoverned space in the Nigerian territory, not only removed from the orbit of governance but far beyond the reaches of the security forces! Until Sheik Abubakar Gumi went into the deep forests (?) to draw out the outlaws, some Nigerians could have sworn such reality actually exists; that the country was dealing with some extra-terrestrial beings with UFOs providing both logistic and reconnaissance support. And that they reside in some imaginary bunkers borrowed into the earth far below the prying eyes of modern satellites and with parallel communications network to boot!

    Thanks to the cleric, we now know that such notions are patently exaggerated. The first revelation is that these individuals are really not extraordinary.  Although consigned to the fringes of society and so have grouse with the rest of the orderly society, they are, more than anything driven by the filthy lucre – or more appropriately greed.

    Of course, they have the technology – crude at very best, to carry on their heinous business. Sure, they are fairly well armed with AK-47, RPG and the likes; beyond that, they have just the barest of tools to ensure their human cargoes, sometimes numbering hundreds are effectively and efficiently evacuated as against a modern, supposedly mobile and sophisticated army that once boasted of being among the best on the continent. And then of course, their ultimate weapon – they stoke fear!

    So where did the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Police Force, the Department of State Security, and the motley of other agencies get it so wrong that the army of the so-called African giant cannot move massively and decisively against the rag tag army? That is where the puzzle lies! And that is where the revelations from the Greenfield abduction rankle.

    Let’s assume for the purpose of argument that the parents actually pandered to the entreaties of the abductors not to cooperate with the security agencies; would this have also stripped them of the basic but statutory duty of mapping out the territories for eventual onslaught once the abductees were out of harm’s way? Are we to believe that none of the agencies have been able to evolve a credible insight into the operations of the kidnappers? Again, where is the place of intelligence in all of these?

    It seems one great irony that distraught victims would appear more trustful of their tormentors than both their government and the security agencies – one instance of shredding of the social contract! Although unfortunate, that appears to be one lesson that has emerged from the Greenfield University tragedy!

    Moving on, the other fact that we know about the ordeal of the parents/relatives was that talks were going on forth and back during this period; even more is that various sums – in cash – were delivered at various times – until what became the final haul of N50 million was delivered. Of course, the currency of exchange was the naira – our beloved but now abused naira. Is it really true that the security agencies could not have found a way, no matter how clandestine, to follow the hefty sums after delivery?

    Back to the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Bill 2021. Rather than seek to punish the victim – which the Act– is all about, why not better put the burden of cracking the Gordian knot of kidnapping on those charged with the business of securing our collective peace? Truly, kidnapping may have gone industrial; it has not gone digital – yet. Which means that a lot can still be done to curb it using the tools of science.