The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • ‘Our Girls’; World Cup fall- stronger FIFA laws against pitch attacks; Will godfatherism die?

    ‘Our Girls’; World Cup fall- stronger FIFA laws against pitch attacks; Will godfatherism die?

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15 with no word, no sigh, no signal of discovery or release or return. And still others are captured in the same area.  As we pray and worry, we ask, is it possible that nothing can be done? We know our Army and other security services are losing their lives unsung in this war against Boko Haram, and we join the armed Forces in their prayers on Army Day for a swifter closure process than we have had so far. Prayer is powerful but prayer and work are even more powerful. Whether dialogue with such a vengeful and vicious enemy will work is questionable especially as there is nothing to bring them to the table with any humility. They will be there in a position of strength and dictatorial. The angry and energetic soldiers in Lagos who burnt buses costing tens of millions of naira damage may want to choose to be redeployed to North-east Nigeria to face Boko Haram to help work off their anger at their unfortunate colleague being killed or dying from a crash with a BRT bus in Lagos. Was he actually riding his motorcycle in the forbidden BRT lane? Whatever the cause the culprits must be apprehended and prosecuted. We all suffer the death of friends from other people’s misadventures but we do not go overboard.

    The World Cup ends this week. There will be only one winning team but may heroes of the moment and some serious casualties. Football can be a dangerous adventure. There have been winners and losers and injuries, some deliberate and one cannot understand injuring another human being, with a family, in the heat of the sporting moment, whether by biting or by kneeing in the back from a great height. FIFA should consider a clean-up of the sport by legislating that in future when such injuries occur, it should be automatic that the perpetrator of the attack as also removed from the pitch for the same length of time as the victim. In addition to that, between the perpetrating person and his club, they should be forced to pay all related medical investigation and treatment charges and also the victim’s salary and allowances for the duration of the victim being off work and unable to train. FIFA should know that with these draconian but long overdue laws, football pitch violence and player-on- player Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH), will come to skidding halt. Just because it is a sport does not allow anyone to attack with intent to cause GBH. GBH is a serious criminal offence which is punishable with several years in prison. Indeed the perpetrating football player should be handed over to the police if it is proved from the multi-video replay that the attack was sufficiently violent and deliberate.

    Still on the subject of the World Cup; is it not tragic that there are more footballs on advertising billboards that at the feet of young ones particularly Nigerian and African youth who paradoxically are the greatest fans of football following every footfall and turn and applauding every goal and even getting haircuts after the style of their idols? That football fools them into a 90 minute sense of security and pleasurable agony with some experiencing the triumph of victory.  After each Wold Cup match, the youth return to their football-less existence. Instead of training to become the next great player, they must content themselves with kicking a plastic substitute for FIFA rated ball as corporate Nigeria ignores the need for footballs and would rather make billboards unplayable balls on them.

    Did you see a World Cup referee spraying some white paint on the pitch to mark the line for the defence to stand behind during a free kick? The commentator informed us that we should not be alarmed as the paint would disappear in two minutes.  This reminded me of the suggestion that disappearing and heat-appearing ink was allegedly used in the Ekiti State election. What is good for football may cause a foul in elections.

    While blaming the past for our myriad woes, we must not let the future escape us or we are doomed as a nation. The outcome of the Ekiti elections has sent a jolt through all other governments because there was an undeniable misreading of the politics. For years we have been warning against ‘Godfatherism’ and were happy when the godfathers began to fall. Unfortunately the last godfather refused to read the writing on the wall and ignored the fate of his archenemy, a military Godfather of Godfathers and merely exploded in negative godfather activity getting relatives elected to every available post and anointing the favoured for every post far and near. Godfatherism may steamroll and win one election. This can and has backfired four years later for the obvious reason that a distant godfather dispatches agents to the distant conquered hinterland to take up all available political offices and presiding over other people’s commissioner posts, contracts and even executing those contracts to the exclusion of most locals. This will cause a backlash at the next election unless the people are spineless. Even giving the elderly an allowance can be misinterpreted by detractors as taking away the responsibility of the children for parents. Is this the end of the Godfather era?

  • Wild, wild soldiers

    Wild, wild soldiers

    It has become a recurring decimal in our national life. I mean the satanic practice of armed security agents unleashing terror on the populace and destroying public properties at the slightest provocation. And there is no security agency – be it the military, police, civil defence or what have you – that is left out in this perennial ‘madness’. But the worst culprits are military men. Last Friday, they were at it again as Ikorodu Road, Lagos was turned into a ‘theatre of war’ by soldiers who were said to be protesting the death of one of them, a lance corporal, who allegedly died in an accident involving his power bike and a commuter bus belonging to the state government.

    According to reports, the soldiers went on the rampage in the early morning of that day around Palmgrove and Onipanu areas of the ever-busy Ikorodu Road. They were said to have destroyed buses belonging to the Bus Rapid Transit, otherwise known as BRT, owned by the Lagos State government and brutalised residents. At the end of the melee, several buses were allegedly set ablaze. Apart from the burnt buses, many others were said to have been vandalised with their windows smashed and tyres punctured. That was not all. Journalists and curious residents who attempted to take photographs or make recordings at the scene of the mayhem were not spared as phones, cameras, tablets and iPads were confiscated and smashed by the rampaging soldiers. The soldiers also ordered the people passing along the route to raise their two hands in the air, as if they were in Sambissa.

    But trust our security agents and their inexorable capacity to concoct and manufacture lies. Pronto Rightman Ogeh, spokesman for the Army formation in Yaba, Lagos, denied that the soldiers from the unit were responsible for the mayhem. Instead, he blamed the ‘area boys’ for the escalation of the problem. Though Ogeh admitted that the soldiers from the unit were aggrieved that the soldier who was knocked down was allowed to die because no one took the initiative to rush him to a hospital, he still exonerated his men. According to Ogeh, “A soldier, who was passing through the bus stop saw the soldier and called the office… By the time we got there, we realised that our colleague was inside the bus already dead. He was riding a licensed motorcycle. So, why was he not taken to the hospital until he died? Of course, our men were angry and we decided that no BRT bus would be allowed to pass through the road”.

    While denying that the soldiers burnt the BRT buses, Ogeh puts the blame on miscreants, who, he said, perpetrated the act. Hear him: “When things like this happen, you will hear different versions, but I can tell you that soldiers did not burn the buses. It is possible that some ‘area boys’ carried out the act. No one was harassed by soldiers; we only stopped some people who were taking pictures and wanting to film the area.”  In the same vein, the 81 Division of the Nigerian Army also exonerated his men. In a statement signed by the Deputy Director, Public Relations, Lt. – Col. Omale Ochagwuba, the army alleged that one of its personnel was killed by a BRT bus, but claimed that soldiers did not carry out reprisals. According to Ochagwuba, “…when the other soldiers who witnessed the incident rushed to the scene, the driver of the bus ran away with the key. The soldiers then secured the vehicle which was later towed away to safety in our custody. ‘Area boys’ then took advantage of the incident and started attacking BRT buses… Our personnel were immediately dispatched to the scene to restore normalcy so that traffic could flow.”

    Both Ogeh and Ochagwuba’s claims were quickly debunked by the management of the BRT buses. Nonye Onwumere, the Public Relations Officer of the company, said, “On Thursday night, a red LAGBUS, which is run by Mutual Assurance and marked Mo63 broke down on the Ikorodu Road before Palmgrove Bus Stop. Early in the morning, around 7.15am, a soldier on a bike, driving on top speed, rammed into the stationary bus. After the accident, three female and two male soldiers going to work alighted from a vehicle to help their colleague. After seeing the extent of the accident, they gathered and became violent, stopping all BRT buses and ordering the passengers down. They beat some of the passengers and the BRT personnel, and then set some of our vehicles ablaze. They did not even care to know that our BRT are different from the red buses.”

    From these narrations by Ogeh, Ochagwuba and Onwumere, it is not too difficult to decipher who was telling the truth and who was just cooking up stories to cover their tracks. Only those who have ever fallen victim to all forms of brutality visited on hapless Nigerians in the past, especially in a situation like that of last Friday, can appreciate the depth and extent of inhuman treatment usually meted out on people by our uniformed men. While many eye witnesses insisted that the violence was coordinated and carried out by soldiers, their spokespersons have laboured hard to wriggle out of blame. They were simply economical with the truth. I am sure they are conscious that the undisciplined act exhibited by the soldiers in their moment of temporary insanity that day clearly negates the ethics of service discipline that the military should be known for.

    Ogeh’s explanations cannot hold water. If, as he claimed, the soldiers were angry but no one was harassed, what method did they employ to prevent people from taking pictures and filming the incident? Was it by persuasion or brute force that the angry soldiers prevented people from recording the event? In any case, why was it important to prevent people from recording the event when the soldiers could have used such recordings to prove their innocence? That is why I believe that all these cock-and-bull stories are clever ways to pull cotton wool over the eyes of Nigerians and sell them a dummy about what actually transpired on that day. Even Ochagwuba’s claim that soldiers did not carry out reprisals is hollow and falls flat in the face of rational thinking. Why didn’t the other soldiers who witnessed the incident and rushed to the scene convey the lance corporal to the nearest hospital? In other words, what was more important: securing prompt treatment for the wounded soldier or securing the bus that was allegedly involved in the accident?

    Assuming it was ‘area boys’, as claimed by the Army, which took advantage of the incident and started attacking BRT buses, what efforts did the soldiers make to checkmate them?  They also claimed that their “personnel were immediately dispatched to the scene to restore normalcy so that traffic could flow”. Was any effort made by the soldiers to alert the police? Are soldiers now traffic wardens? Indeed, there are too many questions begging for answers. Moreover, in the history of such incidents in this country, soldiers are known for their penchant and proclivity for violence. So it is easy to conclude that what happened that day was a well-beaten track and behavioural pattern our soldiers are known for. This is quite unfortunate. The fact that four out of the more than 17 buses either vandalised or  torched were barely a month old in the BRT fleet shows that these soldiers don’t even value public property and the hardship they would cause commuters who have apparently been groaning that the buses were not even enough to cope with the demand. Apart from this, huge revenue was lost as the BRT buses were quickly withdrawn from their routes to prevent further damage to them.

    At any rate, if and when investigations finally identify these vandals, the appropriate thing to do is to demand compensation for the cost of damages to public property. We cannot afford another ‘unknown soldiers’ episode. Neither would we accept to trade ‘area boys’ for ‘area soldiers’. Chikena!

  • The danger of the military tail wagging the civilian dog

    The danger of the military tail wagging the civilian dog

    In any civilian regime, which is what we’ve had since May 29, 1999, and certainly in a democracy, which our governments claim to be, the military, along with other security agencies, should be subordinate to the civilian authorities. The opposite, apparently, has increasingly become the case in our country; the military tail, it seems, has been the one wagging the civilian dog.

    Appearances can, of course, be deceptive. For the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, it seems, this appearance of the military dog wagging the civilian tail is deceptive. Welcoming members of the House on June 25 to the opening of its last legislative year before the next elections in 2015, he deplored what he referred to as the abuse of the military by the federal authorities to cow their perceived enemies in and out of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    “When,” he said in his remarks, “the military becomes the preferred agency for clamping down on the media, for grounding aircraft and closure of airports and for forcibly restricting the freedoms of citizens, including elected officials…then there is a need for us to return to the drawing board of democratic governance.”

    Tambuwal has every reason to worry about this apparent abuse of the military – and, by extension, the other security services – by the federal authorities. Only two Monday’s ago he was, himself, a victim of such abuse when soldiers at a venue in Kaduna of a seminar on the conflict between Fulani herdsmen and farmers throughout the country, wantonly humiliated him by insisting on searching his convoy, including his vehicle, for arms! As speaker, Tambuwal has hardly endeared himself to the Executive arm for his independent mindedness.

    The speaker, as the country’s Number Four Citizen, may be the most prominent victim of this apparent use of the military by the authorities to harass and intimidate their enemies, real or perceived, but he is far from the only victim.

    Before him, as he observed in his remarks referred to, airports have been shut, aircraft grounded and governors’ movements curtailed by soldiers, “on orders from oga at the top,” in blatant and crude show of power against opposition elements.

    For sheer crudity in recent times, however, it’s difficult to tell among four episodes in the last two months and a fifth one last year, which would take the gold. The first was the recent crude attempt by the Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu, to stop the “Bring back our Chibok girls” campaigners from their rallies in Abuja, citing the usual security concerns. In any decent society, his extra-judicial, if not downright illegal and unconstitutional ways at his previous command in Rivers State would have since earned him an ignominious sack, or at least a serious reprimand. Instead, he seems to enjoy the confidence of those in authority.

    To his eternal credit, his boss, Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Abubakar quickly and bravely countermanded him through a press statement on June 3, which said the police never “issued any order banning peaceful assembly/protests anywhere in Nigeria.” It’s a miracle the IGP has not been sacked – yet. And, not surprisingly in a nation where officials know no shame from exposure for wrongdoing, the man is yet to resign over his well-deserved open rebuke by his boss.

    Early last month the soldiers exceeded themselves by taking on the press, making this the second candidate for the top prize for crude use of power. First on the night of June 5, they threw a cordon around the headquarters of Daily Trust in Jabi, Abuja. The following day they embarked on a nationwide seizure of newspapers, notably Trust itself, Leadership and The Nation, all three seen by the authorities as mouthpieces of enemies.

    As usual, the excuse again was national security. In a statement which read like your typical politician’s meaningless waffle, the army spokesman, Major-General Chris Olukolade, justified the raid and seizure of newspapers on the grounds that there had been “intelligence indicating movement of materials with grave implications across the country, using the channels of newsprint-related consignments.”

    In a more meaningful, but no more sensible, phraseology, Dr. Doyin Okupe, the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, said the security situation in the country demanded the soldiers did what they did. “If,” he told reporters in his office on June 7, “the collective security of a country is a risk, those charged with this responsibility have an onerous job of discharging it even if it is painful to some of us.”

    The government, he said in an act of living in blatant self-dial, would never engage or encourage any act “that will constitute an assault on any media organisation or infringe on Freedom of the Press.”

    From the look of things, what may have led to the attack on the press was the Daily Trust’s exclusive lead story of June 4, which exposed how the army shared some choice army land in Abuja among several of its top serving and retired top brass, their families and companies.

    Thirdly, last Saturday the soldiers barred 278 pilgrims for Umrah, the lesser Hajj, from boarding a chartered flight at the Maiduguri airport to Saudi Arabia. And in a separate incident on the same day, they also stopped Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume from taking a flight out of the airport.

    Both were for no apparent reason than a crude show of force. Not even the explanation of the charter company that it had proper prior authorisation, nor even the intervention of the Borno State Governor, Ibrahim Kashim Shettima, would make the soldiers budge from their instructions that the planes take off empty because they were, they said, acting on orders from above based on – no prize for guessing right – security reasons.

    The fourth episode this year was the arrest, late last month, of 486 Northerners in Abia State, reportedly on their way to Rivers State, by soldiers over suspicion that they were Boko Haram insurgents. The men, and a few women among them, were said to have been travelling in a convoy of over 30 buses.

    A convoy of even a dozen vehicles would be a scary sight even in peaceful times, let alone over 30 vehicles travelling at night in these perilous times. But we only have the army’s word that they were travelling in a convoy that long. This is an army whose leadership has, unfortunately, built itself a record of ethnic and religious profiling.

    Anyone who thinks it is unreasonable to be sceptical of this story should remember that hundreds of thousands of Nigerians travel in mini convoys daily across the North/South divide and it is not that difficult to detain enough of them at a spot over a short period to make it look like they are travelling in longer convoys. In any case, how does it make any sense that a group intent on invading a region would be so foolish to travel in a way that was bound to attract attention?

    At any rate, not a weapon was found in any of the vehicles and over 400 of the detainees have had to be released after nearly two weeks in detention following outcries from authorities in their states of origin.

    The last, but by no means the least, candidate in recent times for the top prize in the abuse of military power by the authorities was last September’s killings of civilians living in an uncompleted building in Apo, Abuja, by soldiers on the pretext that they were members of Boko Haram. A report last month by government’s own National Human Rights Commission, chaired by Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, following its public hearings on the case, has concluded that the eight civilians killed and the 11 injured were victims of extra-judicial murder and should be compensated.

    This appears to have overruled the earlier decision of the Senate investigation, which had absolved the army of extra-judicial killings even though the rather mealy-mouthed report of its joint National Security and Intelligence/Judicial, Human Rights and Legal Committee, upon which the Senate’s decision was based, described the dead and the injured as “victims of an hastily executed operation necessary to save Abuja from terrible attacks.” The joint committee was co-chaired by Senators Muhammadu Magoro and Umaru Dahiru.

    The army had claimed that it had only gone to the uncompleted building where the killings occurred to search and arrest a suspected Boko Haram kingpin who knew where in Apo cemetery arms to be used to attack some landmark places in Abuja had been buried. Unfortunately, it said, its troops were suddenly fired upon from the building and they had to return fire. Subsequent investigations belied this claim.

    Here it is instructive that the joint Senate committee did not table its report before the Senate weeks after it had completed its assignment. Speculations then were rife that it had failed to do so because of intense pressure from the presidency and the leadership of the Senate to absolve the army of any blame in order not to demoralise the troops.

    It is also instructive that the uncompleted building in question said to be the property of Mrs. Aduni Oluwole, the younger sister of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, was never destroyed, in keeping with the security agencies’ tradition of the wanton destruction of properties occupied by suspected terrorists, even when the owners have no idea who the occupants are or what they do.

    Nigerians should be worried, like the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, is, that the federal authorities seem too keen to use the military – and, by extension, other security forces – to harass and intimidate perceived enemies.

    We should all remember that it was such abuse about 50 years ago by politicians of the First Republic, which sucked the military into politics and a few years later made the tail stronger than the torso, with all the attendant dire consequences that we are still trying to overcome.

     

     

  • Our Girls; National Conference:  Demand automatic dismissal and 21 years for election cheating!

    Our Girls; National Conference:  Demand automatic dismissal and 21 years for election cheating!

    Our Girls’ from Chibok are still missing since April 15. Still no news and Chibok area has been attacked again. We pray.

    Happily the Non Sovereign National Conference has endorsed Diaspora voting, something very easy to organise in developed countries. Perhaps INEC and the political leadership fear the disgrace of the results, both in ease of getting the results and the possible swing effect of the vote.

    Corruption is about who gets what office, installing persons and particularly undeserving relations in posts they have no moral right to occupy, thuggery with maiming and murder, inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm for whatever reason, enacting immorally punishing laws to cripple the citizenry while squandering the funds so generated, the non-supply of libraries and textbooks and novels and science equipment and sanitation and quality teachers to schools, the unleashing of unsupervised agencies on the masses for traffic or tax controls.

    Will the real Nigerians please make themselves seen and heard? You, no doubt, have your own list of true Nigerians. Nigeria’s graves are full of rotting flesh and dried bones of true Nigerians. It is a pity we cannot say the same for the corridors of power where Salaries and Perks leave little for Nigeria while those who actually die, gain next to nothing for the very questionable privilege of dying for Nigeria.

    When exactly did politics become synonymous with or part of the definition of stealing?  The issue of party funding must be spelt out clearly to protect the budget. What is the method of party funding in and out of government? The lack of clarity and transparency in party funding is a national corruption calamity which costs the citizens dearly and will bring down the country if not made transparent and public. Parties must be forced to stop stealing [from] the budget. Nobody is open about party funding. Should it be a percentage of the salaries of party appointees? If the country thinks political parties are entitled to 1%, 0.5% and 0.1% of the budget for 1st, 2nd, 3rd at the polls, then let the Non-Sovereign National Conference say so, OK? Let it say so and allocate it through National Assembly (NASS). But stop stealing, legally and illegally, for the sake of the children. Parties must stop stealing from the budget or they are no different from any other thief or a policeman who takes bribes at checkpoint and then arrests a thief for stealing in the market.

    Let the Non-Sovereign National Conference protect Nigerians from Protocol in Nigeria by approving the insertion of ‘All Protocol Assumed to Be Observed’ as acceptable introduction in our constitution to protect all Masters of Ceremony. Let us insist that Nigerian time is dead and lectures, conferences and meetings can start promptly and not wait for political dignitaries.

    We have trivialised the violence of politics and made it part and parcel and accepted. ‘Vote rigging’ which is stealing the mandate of the people, ‘political murder’, political thugs, political thuggery and political violence all should simply be named according to the criminal code. Stealing with intent to defraud, premeditated murder, thuggery, causing Grievous Bodily Harm etc. The dark cloak of politics does not make a murder less deadly, or a beating less bloody or an election less evil than stealing from a bank after killing the staff or the security police! Until the punishments are the same as for out-of-politics crimes, political cheating will continue.

    Politics must learn from sportsmanship and have a radical rethink. We, through the Non-Sovereign National Conference, should demand dismissal for cheating in elections, never a rerun. A rerun is not for a cheat but for a genuine mistake like a false-start and now you can even get dismissed for a false start. Armstrong, the cheating cyclist and hundreds of other athletes even in Nigeria have been dismissed, and suspended, not offered a rerun. When a politician cheats in a political contest, he should be dismissed and prosecuted and jailed for the very serious crime of ‘attempting to steal the people’s mandate through fraud and deception’ and the financial crime of ‘attempting to extort salaries and perks through falsifying the facts by illegitimate and illegal means’. The second in the race should automatically take his place and so on until there is a candidate who is found without stain. Cheating is not a legitimate political tool just because most do it. It is criminal and must lead to dismissal and banning from political office for up to life. The political party also has a supporting role in this and should also be punished for similar offences as it often seizes power with cheating and sometimes inflicts even more violence than a military coup. The accepted name of ‘election malpractice’ trivialises a serious criminal offence which is worse than ‘examination malpractice’ for which the same politicians voted to jail youth culprits for 21 years. What is good for the bad youth is better for the bad adult politician who should know and do better. Both party and candidate should be separately severely punished for criminal activities committed by either or both. Such punishment can be monetary but must include a ban of the party for a time in proportion to the damage to the nation. Nigerians must demand that their phone cameras are legitimate weapons against checkpoint and election malpractice and be authorised to use them unhindered by uniformed authority.

  • A president’s most embarrassing moment

    A president’s most embarrassing moment

    Last week, I promised that as soon as I am able to solve the problem of downloading texts from my phone into my laptop, I’ll reproduce some of the texts I’d received in reaction to my columns of the last several weeks, specifically those on the forthcoming governorship election in Ekiti State and my tribute to Dan Agbese, veteran journalist and co-founder of Newswatch, at 70.

    Today I am reproducing those texts, plus some on my obituary about the late Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, last week, even though I am unable to resolve my digital wahala. Instead I’ve had to type them from my phone. I felt compelled to produce the texts to quickly correct several rather egregious mistakes I made in the obituary.

    Before reproducing the texts, however, I thought I should devote at least half the column this morning to this not-so-small matter of a gentleman’s word being his honour.

    The reader will, I am sure, recall that two years ago, President Goodluck Jonathan gave us his word in a lengthy interview that made the cover of Tell newsmagazine (February 27, 2012) that by June, last year, no Nigerian would need the use of stand-by generators anymore. “I promise Nigerians,” he said in the interview, “we will stabilise power but if you ask me how many megawatts, I will not tell you.”

    However, even though he said he would not be drawn on specific targets, he assured Nigerians that electricity supply will be so stable those with generators will “dash” them to him.  “By the middle of next year,” he said, “you will ‘dash’ me your generator. I’ll send it out of this country because we won’t need it here anymore.”

    About a year and a half before the Tell interview, on August 26, 2010 to be exact, the president unfurled the roadmap of his power reform agenda. It targeted 14,000 megawatts by 2013 and 40,000 by 2020. At that time the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) was generating about 3,500, a far cry from the country’s demand in excess of 25,000 which itself fell far short of South Africa’s 40,000 with a population of 50 million, compared to ours which is more than triple.

    This month, it is one year since the president is supposed to have taken delivery of our supposedly superfluous standby generators and sent them out of the country. Yet it looks like, far from “dashing” him our generators, those who can afford them are indeed in need of more. And for those who can’t, there’s no light at the end of the dark tunnel they’ve been groping around in since the president unfurled his roadmap.

    Nothing could be more embarrassing to the president over his failure to deliver on his promise than what happened on this year’s Democracy Day on May 29 at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. The president had just climbed the podium to present a compendium of his achievements in the last one year to a select audience of youths at the night event when the lights went off. He stood waiting for nearly twenty minutes before the lights returned.

    Given the importance of adequate power supply for the growth of our economy, the president clearly has a lot of work to do to convince Nigerians that the recent rebasing of our GDP, which his administration would want Nigerians to celebrate, is nothing more than economic hallucination, to use the words reproduced below of one of my respondents.

    And now to the texts.

     

    As we crucify Nyako

     

    Sir, You will always defend anything NORTH, be it North Africa. It is now clear that you and your elites know these uncommon criminals. Be bold and courageous enough to present them for DIALOGUE. Note that I don’t like you but I love your grammar that’s why I read your article. Detach yourself from NORTHERN agenda and be nationalistic.

    +2348022740309.

     

    Sir, Why did you not ask your criminal brothers to accept the amnesty offered by the President? I am not surprised you supported  Nyako.

    +2348037168007.

     

    Sir, Please let’s join hands together and push this country ahead. Complains will never help us.

    +2347066583610.

     

    Sir, Why are you always rationalising things when it affects the  North? Stop being divisive and educate your brothers on how to live with others.

    +2348034059462.

     

    Sir, A dull president with crooks manning our security. What do you expect? We need new thinking, new blood.

    Zakka Mangut

    +2347018324878.

     

    Sir, Anytime I need an increase in my system of adrenalin or better still bile, I read your piece. Please go and negotiate with your brothers Boko Haram and leave our president alone. President Yar’adua never went to the creeks to negotiate with the criminal militants. It was the good people of Niger Delta who supported the president and called the boys to order. Call Nyako, go to Sambisa forest, talk to your murderous Shekau to end the killing. If not, he will finish all of you.

    +2348188515867.

     

    Sir, What Governor Nyako said about GEJ was true. The First Family is a circus. The security chiefs are jesters. The government is a comedy of idiotic errors. That’s what they are.

    Bashir I Wada.

    +2348080620712.

     

    Sir, Do help us tell Boko Haram that they are cowards. We the Niger Delta militants are, through this medium, challenging them to battle. We will not only kill them all, we will cook their flesh and eat every one of them like chicken.

    +2347054795500.

     

    Sir, The truth of the matter is that Muslims have been frightened into silence in this country. We all know that Nyako said the truth. See how Patience Jonathan was threatening Borno State governor.

    Alabi Tajudeen.

    +234 8055952747

     

    Rebasing our economy

    Sir, Excellent critique in your column of yesterday in The Nation on the maddening hallucination of our President and his so-called economic experts, first on the old debt relief of 2005 and now the laughable statistical “rebased GDP” which is part of the self-imposed image of a balloon nation.

    Professor Sam Oyovbaire.

     

    Dan Agbese at 70.

     

    Sir, I want to thank you for your beautiful piece on our Dan Agbese. I’ll always remember him for his article on the late Chief Awolowo prior to his last birthday in 1987. In that article Agbese eulogised the qualities and contributions of Chief Awolowo and wrote that he will be remembered as the best president Nigeria never had. The sage died a few weeks after the publication and the late Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu made the same statement thereafter. While Nigerians were crediting the statement to Chief Ojukwu, Dan Agbese was the author and originator of the statement.

    Adefemi Aribatise, Lagos.

    +2348028597775.

     

    Several of the respondents to my piece on Dan at 70 wanted to know where they could buy his books which I referred to. They should contact him on 08033218058 or through his email address, ochima44@yahoo.com.

     

    Ekiti governorship election

     

    Sir, You have just won the highest bid price for Project Kayode as contractor columnist. Please keep off paid job like this and do the real Haruna stuff you’re made of.

    +2348057716603

     

    Sir, What you describe as a formidable rigging machine is as much an APC thing. In case you don’t know, the growing perception in the Southwest today is that the APC is not exactly averse to the electoral infractions they are wont to charge the PDP with. This explains why the sympathy for Fayemi is not overwhelming.

    Kuteyi R. R. Ondo.

    +2348062549133.

     

    Sir, I am not from Ekiti but I am a strong advocate of the social policies imparting on lives of the people. Fayemi has just done that. May Almighty God never allow the likes of Fayose to ruin the good works. Ekiti should be ready to defend their votes bearing in mind that Fayose’s antics at rigging remains notorious.

    +2348036216991.

     

    The death of Ado Bayero

    Sir, Your Wednesday column of June 11 refers. 1. Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano is outside the city wall not inside as you stated. 2. Azare town is in Katagum Emirate not Bauchi and 3. You forgot to add that the emir was also Chancellor of UNIMAID at one time. Thank you.

    Prof. Yahaya Shehu.

     

    I stand corrected on all three counts. On the second count, Azare is indeed the capital of Katagum Emirate. In addition, Emir Muhammadu Inuwa, as many readers pointed out, was an uncle of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi and not his cousin, as I said.

    All the errors are regretted.

     

    Sir, In your Wednesday June 11, 2014, column you forgot to mention the Maitatsine saga in 1984.

    +2348058559098.

     

    Sir, With due respect, I wish to make this correction. Malam Ibrahim Shekarau’s father was a Chadian. He is Gwado-gwado not Babur as you mentioned in your piece.

    Habibu Hamisu Ibrahim

    +2348033262011.

     

     

  • ‘Our Girls’: Victims and Survivors Fund; Solar projects; Dora, Dr Adegoke Kalejaiye. RIP

    ‘Our Girls’: Victims and Survivors Fund; Solar projects; Dora, Dr Adegoke Kalejaiye. RIP

    ‘O The call by American Congresswomen for a Trust Fund for the families and victims of violence, bomb blast and now the especially ’Our Girls’ from Chibock, is an addition to the repeated call in this column on the same issue when it was suggested that a Victims’ Fund be set up by the federal government provided it does not get contaminated or corrupted by the operators. Shamefully, nothing was done then except pay some hospital bills. We pray compensation, medical expenses, further treatment like mobility and hearing aids, scholarships for survivors and dependents will all be addressed.

    The N34billion solar project in one of the states is a wonderful step in the right direction. All states should encourage the erection of solar systems as an alternative to a 40-year failed national grid which will continue to fail in the foreseeable future. It is obvious that at the slow pace of power reform, Nigeria’s companies do not have the mental capacity to provide the required 100,000Mw needed right now even by 2050. If we were Japan or the UK, such electricity power would have been provided overnight by offshore electricity barges and giant generators. Unfortunately we seem to have no capacity for such emergency dynamic solutions.

    Again, a big salute to Dora Akunyili who died last week in India. Among several landmarks she led a spirited, dangerous and life-threatening fight against fake drugs which was partly successful. Unfortunately, as with anything conceived for good, some within the organisation she headed were believed to have partly high-jacked the opportunity of mandatory registration to extort from manufacturers for the issuance of NAFDAC licences. True or false, in memory of Dora Akunyili, NAFDAC should , like Caesar’s wife, clean up any smell of corruption by close supervisory monthly reporting on the honesty of staff- including bank checks of families, attention to applications and transparency in testing and reasonable, not exorbitant fees for tests. NAFDAC should not be allowed to rot.

    We say Nigeria lacks role models, but it does not. The problem is that our role models are not brought to the public’s and media’s attention. Many good Nigerians live their whole lives servicing the jammed wheels of progress and die almost unannounced. Indeed it is those Nigerians, citizens engaged in the various professions and vocations, working tirelessly for years throughout their lives who keep Nigeria going through all the political corruption, darkness and irresponsibility, through the power-failures and the nation’s petroleum and financial upheavals. Paradoxically it is not the politicians, budget, electricity or security situation that keeps Nigeria going. It is the huge workload of many unannounced but outstanding, dedicated and exemplary artisans, traders, transporters, farmers, teachers and professional who work day-in and day-out for family survival that keep the wheels of Nigeria going in spite of the evil machinations of the political class.

    One such outstanding Nigerian is Dr Adegoke Kalajaiye, a name you may or may not know. Perhaps I should use the term ‘was’ because he passed away at 59 on June 5. He went to Government College Ibadan and had his medical training abroad. You will certainly know the name if you have been a member of any of the families of the thousands of patients he has treated or scanned for babies or prostates or gall bladders or livers during his career. I have had the rare privilege of having worked with Dr Kalejaiye since the early 80s, first at Oluyoro Catholic Hospital Ibadan and later in medical practice which eventually became a partnership. Dr Kalajaiye represented the quintessential true Nigerian, not hard to find if you look. He was better than punctual as he was always early to work arriving around 7-7.15am daily for the 23 years we worked closely together. He commenced every day by praying for a successful medical day. He became our ‘Bishop’ conducting all our prayers at any ‘happening’ in the clinic. He worked consistently during each day and ended the day with prayers. He had excellent and positive attitude to work and fellow workers. In the 30 years I have known and worked with him, I do not recall a raised voice or misunderstanding as we always seemed to have the same goal, objective and methodology in any discussion or action. We never once misinterpreted the action or inaction of each other. He was always sartorially elegant but not flamboyant. He was a very good professional, delivering service in a hospital setting for 10 years before specialising in ultrasound. But he was much more than a good prayerful doctor. His medical professionalism was rewarded with an appointment to the Baptist Teaching Hospital Board. He had close brothers and sisters and was a family man who with his wife, brought up his four wonderful children to distinction and he had a grandson. May God protect them all. He was a strong member of the Full Gospel Men’s Fellowship. He was a powerful voice in the Baptist Choir and Choirmaster. Dr Kalajaiye was always available for rehearsals. He was a great writer, devoting his annual leave to writing a spiritual book each year and ‘Where Will You Spend Eternity’ was a poster in his consulting room. This week as we bury this wonderful man and already miss him greatly, May His Gentle Soul Rest In Perfect Peace and may God bring succour to his family.

     

  • The ‘forgotten’ girls of Chibok

    The ‘forgotten’ girls of Chibok

    On Saturday, May 10, Wole Soyinka, professor and Nobel laureate, appeared ontheBritish Broadcasting Corporation’s programme, Hardtalk and added his voice to the growing international discourse on Nigeria, especially the issue of the disappearance, on April 15, of more than 250 schoolgirls from the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. Among other things, Soyinka said: “The Nigerian nation-space is poised on a knife’s point; it is failing, but not beyond redemption. The rescue of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and the outcome of the National Conference would help define the country’s future.”  Today, more than one month after, the opinion canvassed by the Nobel laureate remains fresh in our national psyche as the issue of the abducted Chibok girls remains unresolved.

    The country has been thrown into one huge, dramatic macabre dance since that midnight hostage-taking by the Boko Haram terrorists. The incident has drawn both the anger and dagger of civilised humanity all over the world who have continued, in no unmistaken terms, to condemn it as sordid and barbaric. Regrettably, two months down the line, what we have been witnessing are empty talks and promises of a phantom rescue operation to free the girls from their captors who are in no way ready to relax their stranglehold on them. With various pressure groups mushrooming daily all over the place, the whole thing has now ascended a crescendo of pulsating emotional gyration, ventilation of anger and global condemnation. Perhaps, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, the entire global community is united in solidarity with the country.

    Many foreign countries have offered and are still offering assistance in several ways to help the country in its bid to rescue the abducted girls as well as defeat the terrorists who are now holding on to the country’s jugular. Everybody seems to be eager to get the girls out of the gulag. Unfortunately, days have turned into weeks and months, and nothing tangible or cheering has been on the horizon about the girls’ return to reunite with their loved ones. For the parents and relatives of the unfortunate girls, hope has turned into despair, and a big nightmare with no end in sight.

    While all these are going on, the military, saddled with engineering the release of the girls, appears to be stuck. On May 26, Alex Badeh, Air Marshal and Chief of Defence Staff, told a curious nation that the army have located the abducted Chibok girls. He said this while addressing members of the Citizen Initiative for Security Awareness (CISA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), who were on a solidarity campaign to the Defence Headquarters. He assured themthat everything was being done to ensure the girls’ safe rescue but he quickly chipped in that the military would not use force in the rescue operation. His words: “We want our girls back, I can tell you our military can do it, but where they are held, do we go with force? Nobody should say Nigerian military does not know what it is doing. We can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back. So we are working. The President has empowered us to do the work and no one should castigate the military”.

    Good talk. Except that many weeks after this promise, there is hardly anything to show that those girls are getting nearer to their freedom. In the first instance, many people opinethat what Badeh said was very unprofessional in that it was tantamount to playing to the hands of the enemy. Or else how does one view such a statement which is like giving away what could have been a closely guarded secret while the army strategises to free the girls? Why announce to the whole world that the army was aware of the location of the girls? The terrorists’ response will be to simply relocate the girls further into the wilderness to avoid any surprise from the army. This is why people believe the statement was either totally uncalled for or grossly lacking in military diplomacy.

    Just like Badeh has said, the issue of using force to free the girls may not be feasible. But what are the options available now to achieve that aim? Many people, including Shehu Sani, the human rights activist believed to have a channel through which the leadership of Boko Haram could be reached and engaged, have advocated dialogue as a way of breaking the logjam. Sani, it was, who facilitated the interface between former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the family of Mohammed Yusuf, the slain leader of the sect and other surviving leaders of the sect in Maiduguri in September, 2011. Although that visit generated a lot of controversies and even led to the death of some of the leaders of the sect who met with Obasanjo during the visit, it has, so far, remained the only serious interface anybody, either within the government or outside of it, has had with the sect.

    Now, the former President has come up with yet another suggestion that he could reach out to Boko Haram on the fate of the school girls, but regretted that the federal government has not given him the green light to act. In an interview on the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation last week, Obasanjo said: “I have ways of reaching them (Boko Haram) but I have not been given the go ahead”. The former President expressed fear that some of the schoolgirls may never return home but added that the terrorists might free those found to be pregnant or have given birth. He also expressed worry that the girls might have been separated and kept in different locations.

    As if giving government’s reaction to Obasanjo’s statement, Mike Omeri, coordinator of the National Information Centre, recently created to brief the public on the war against the terrorists, said the former President didnot need any clearance from President Goodluck Jonathan before engaging in dialogue with the Boko Haram sect. Hewondered why Obasanjo would be waiting for any formal clearance from President Goodluck Jonathan when hehad unfettered access to him (Jonathan). He expressed surprise at the development and said: “The government has not stopped any individual who has access to the sect not to come forward and intervene in this matter.”  This is playing politics with lives.

    Earlier last week, some newspapers reported that the parents of the abducted girls had become disillusioned about government’s efforts to free the girls. In fact, some of the parents are said to have died heartbroken, while others have relapsed into all forms of depression as a result of the continuous absence of their loved ones. As they say, he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches. But for how long would these parents remain traumatized? This is why the government should consider the proposal for dialogue as a way of putting an end to the nightmare created by these girls’ kidnap. After all, the US government recently exchanged one prisoner, who was even a deserter, for very senior five al-Qaeda leaders who had been in Guantanamo prison for years. For the exchange to have taken place, they must have been talking.

    What this implies is that there is need for dialogue. It does not appear that the country can free these girls by using force. There is nowhere in the world where that has worked. We have wasted precious time after the abduction before embarking on a rescue mission while the terrorists have fully settled down with the girls in their dungeon.  As things stand now, it will be most appropriate for the government to explore dialogue, whether put together by Obasanjo or any other person, to get the girls out before it is too late. It is really getting late. Like Obasanjo said, right from day one, I have always had this feeling that not all the girls may come back alive. That is the bitter truth. We must move quickly to forestall a high casualty rate among the girls as well as avoid turning them into the forgotten girls of Chibok.

  • Crackdown or cock up?

    Crackdown or cock up?

    A little over a week ago, the Nigerian newspaper industry woke to shocking reports that across the country, delivery vans were being seized by soldiers. Troops invaded sales points where publications were being distributed to agents and impounded copies. Hapless vendors were set upon and their products.

    Military authorities explained that their strange action was the consequence of intelligence reports which indicated that Boko Haram was about to use the newspapers delivery chain across the country to distribute its weapons of mass destruction.

    Interestingly, since the operation targeting newspaper sales lines began, not even a firecracker has been found in any of the distribution vehicles. In most cases, even when nothing incriminating was found, the vehicles, their drivers and bundles of harmless newspapers were detained until it was virtually impossible to sell that day’s edition. Bear in mind that the shelf life of the average daily newspaper is roughly six hours.

    After reports of the crackdown emerged, the president’s public affairs adviser, Doyin Okupe, sought to rationalise the soldiers’ action by saying we live in difficult times, and that certain actions that may be taken by security agents could cause temporary discomfort.

    Granted that all over the world where the authorities are battling terrorists there are disruptions. But what has happened over the last one week was not just a surgical security operation. Just take the example of delivery vans seized early in the morning and kept in military custody till late afternoon even when there’s no justification for the detyention.

    It almost like saying you received intelligence that Boko Haram was ferrying its deadly ordnance into Abuja via the road from Kaduna. Such a report would necessitate searching all vehicles plying the road. But would you impound all vehicles and keep them in your custody for the better part of a day when nothing was found in them? What would be the point?

    Even more curious was the assault on vendors found carrying certain ‘marked’ newspapers. They were attacked by soldiers and the papers they had on them seized. In what ways is national security enhanced by such actions or by the disruption of a private company’s legitimate business when it has not broken any laws?

    There is no question that the government and the military have not been thrilled by the critical coverage of the insurgency by the media. Matters have been made worse by the intense presence brought upon the authorities by the searchlight of the international press.

    From the viewpoint of the authorities, daily reporting of the latest atrocities of the Boko Haram amounts to celebrating terrorists, while exposure of the shortcomings of the military operation in the North East is akin to trying to bring down the institution.

    Add to the mix the conclusion within the ruling party and the administration that the insurgency is political and being fuelled by the main opposition APC and disgruntled northern politicians who were determined to wound the incumbent president ahead of the 2015 polls, and you have the perfect setting for scapegoating. And what better scapegoat than an increasingly uncontrollable media?

    The solution would be simple ‘deal with the unfriendly press.’ To do that you don’t need to tamper with the personal liberties of journalists as that would make for even more sensational headlines. Go instead after the businesses, disrupt their operations and hit them in the pocket.

    But whoever came up with this idea might as well have delivered an IED into the innermost sanctuary of the administration itself. No one can convince me that Nigeria is safer today after the pointless seizures of newspaper parcels and detention of delivery vans. None of these actions have brought back the Chibok schoolgirls nor has it prevented the demented Boko Haram killers from rampaging through the remote villages of the North East.

    What the government has only succeeded in doing is shooting itself in the foot. As though it didn’t have enough troubles trying to bat away negative reports about its competence, it has now opened another front against an industry that is better as an ally. What it conceived as a crackdown has now turned out to be an almighty cock-up as it projects the Jonathan administration as insecure, desperate and intolerant.

    Even more damning is that the authors of the clampdown don’t have a proper understanding of the way information flows in today’s world. Even if you shut down all the newspapers and printing presses, you cannot obliterate all the websites. Even if you could, you cannot seize every mobile phone or monitor who is using Facebook or Twitter or whatever.

    The Nigerian media has never been and can never be a friend to terror. We have been some of the harshest advocates of a hardline against Boko Haram – long before the government woke up to declare “total war” against the sect.

    For our troubles, back in April 2012, Thisday newspaper headquarters in Abuja, and a complex in Kaduna housing the bureaus of The Sun, Vanguard and Moment newspapers were bombed. In between we have received threats to our premises and persons because of our coverage of the conflict which the insurgents were less than pleased with.

    This was what Abu Qaqa, Boko Haram spokesman back then said in justification of the attacks: “We have repeatedly cautioned reporters and media houses to be professional and objective in their reports. This is a war between us and the government of Nigeria; unfortunately, the media have not been objective and fair in their reports of the ongoing war; they chose to take side.”

    The Nigeria media has suffered at the hands of the terrorists. The authorities are wasting everybody’s time trying to impress unarmed press men with their power and might. The real enemy is in the Sambisa forest and those charged with responsibility of taking them down need to focus.

  • Now that the Americans have come

    A couple of weeks ago in this column, in the euphoria of foreign assistance flooding in from the United States, United Kingdom and other quarters, I wrote that even with the arrival of international assistance, the war against the insurgents would not be a walk in the park.

    This is part of what I wrote back then: “While the renewed global focus on Boko Haram is a positive thing as it will limit their room for manouver henceforth, we should not forget that a similar US effort to track down the brutal Ugandan warlord, Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has not yet resulted in his capture. Just this March, the Barack Obama administration announced it was sending in more troops to assist in the operation.

    “We must all hope and pray that the intervention by the Americans and others yields better results in the North East. Anything short of the success of this multinational initiative would only further boost the mystique of a band of killers who have survived everything thrown at them so far.”

    Several weeks have passed since the entry of the Americans into the conflict theater, but what has changed? From the outset it was clear that they were not going to put boots on the ground. But what has been the impact of their much vaunted technological and intelligence edge? Was that what led to the identification of the “location of the Chibok schoolgirls?

    Obviously, certain things will not be shared on the pages of newspapers. But time will tell what the real value of the foreign intervention has been.

  • Not just Sri Lanka, Algeria too

    Reports in the last few days say military authorities are studying tactics used by Sri Lanka to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels as a model for dealing with the extremist Boko Haram sect. The Sri Lankans fought the Tamil Tigers in a see-saw war for almost 30 years until achieving military victory in 2009.

    Perhaps more than the Sri Lankans, the military high command should also understudy how the Algerian state overcame a decade-long civil war in the 90s against several Islamist rebel groups. The conflict which started in 1991 is believed to have claimed as many as 150,000 lives.

    The Boko Haram insurgency bears an uncanny resemblance to what the Algerian Islamists did in the 90s, although the two conflicts had different roots. In the case of the North African country, the rebels were driven to take up arms after the central government annulled elections that they were on course to win.

    Just like the insurgents in North East Nigeria have been doing, the Islamic Salvation Army, the Armed Islamic Group and sundry groups engaged in terror attacks and brutal massacres of innocent people. The insurgents would target entire villages or neighborhoods without consideration for age or sex of victims. People were killed in tens, and sometimes hundreds at a time.

    Along with its military campaign, the government threw in an amnesty for repentant Islamists who were sick of the conflict. The war ended with a government victory, following the surrender of the Islamic Salvation Army and the 2002 defeat of the Armed Islamic Group. There might be something here from the administration to learn from.