The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • The drones are coming

    The drones are coming

    At last, faced with the grim reality that the Boko Haram terrorists are bent on spreading terror everywhere in Nigeria, especially in their strongholds in the north-east of the country, the United States, Canada, Britain, France, China and some other foreign countries have decided to assist the country to fight the menace. Apparently, the world is united in wide condemnation of the recent activities of the terrorists who have resorted to large-scale abduction of children, especially schoolgirls. On April 15, more than 240 schoolgirls were abducted from their hostels at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. Since then, the fate of the innocent, little girls have been subjected to mere apocalyptic guesswork.

    In a recent video posted on YouTube, Abubakar Shekau, the self-styled leader of Boko Haram, admitted that his group actually abducted the girls. He also boasted that the girls would all be sold out as there was a thriving market for the sale of women. Perhaps, it is this open admission by Shekau that has fuelled condemnation and indignation all over the world. Now, help has finally come for Nigeria. I am sure many people may be tempted to say that the offer by the international community, particularly the Americans, is coming a bit late. The reason is that Nigeria is America’s strategic linchpin. America believes Nigeria’s military could contain the spread of Islamic militancy. But for four or five years now, the country has been facing so many odds in its campaign against terrorists, especially Islamic terrorists operating in the North.

    Help may have taken time in coming because Nigeria has, in the past, rebuffed attempts by America to train its military whose history of shooting freely and widely has raised eyebrows in Washington and other places. This has, rightly or wrongly, led to a conclusion that Nigerian soldiers actually fuel the very terrorism they are supposed to counter by this operational blunder. Even at that, Washington has struggled for years to cement close ties with the Nigerian military. About nine years ago, the African Command of the US’ military invited the Nigerian military to participate in a joint military exercise codenamed “Operation Flintlock”, an annual multinational counter-terrorism exercise. Surprisingly, Nigeria’s generals balked at sending a large contingent of soldiers. The US later proposed setting up a specialised counterterrorism unit within the Nigerian military, but it floundered.

    However, since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, otherwise known as the “Underwear Bomber”, tried to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit on Christmas Day way back in 2009, the US has been working with Nigeria on creating an “Intelligence Fusion Centre” for rapid sharing of information collected by various Nigerian security agencies. The US views this as an important first step to see whether Nigeria can handle security threats themselves. Unfortunately, after two years of effort, the plan has only inched forward due to mistrust among Nigeria’s security services reportedly over funding.

    Besides, as I said earlier, American officials are really worried that the Nigerian security forces’ free shooting ways may have worsened the security situation in the country. That is very true. Military and police heavy-handedness in the North is core to the story of Boko Haram’s emergence. In July 2009, Mohammed Yusuff and a good number of his lieutenants were summarily liquidated by Nigeria’s security forces even after they had been arrested and paraded on the streets. The effect of that brutality cannot be easily discounted from the mindless conflagration that has engulfed that part of the country.

    All the same, it is good that the Americans and others have decided to intervene and stop the naked madness of these terrorists who, as it seems, are determined to overrun a section of the country. It is almost certain that the American Special Forces which will participate in the operation might be deployed from the US Drone Base in Niger, the Gulf of Guinea, the sea of Somalia and other bases in Africa under the US Africa Command, while additional equipment required for the sensitive operation could come from the US Department of Homeland security. The US Military Base in nearby Niger Republic could provide drone surveillance, logistics and intelligence support for the operation. What this means is that the drones are coming.

    I am not sure the Americans may want to commit much or any ground troops for this campaign. This is so because after a decade of troop-intensive land wars that have strained the US budgets and left the country war weary, the Americans may rely on using Nigerian soldiers for the campaign. The only problem here is that the US and Nigerian authorities don’t fully trust each other. This may put a limit to cooperation against the present threat. The point is that the US officials are wary of sharing highly sensitive intelligence with the Nigerian government and security services for fear that it cannot be properly safeguarded. This is more so since it is almost glaring that the terrorists have informants within the government and security agencies.

    All these notwithstanding, one way or another, both the US and Nigeria must cooperate in this war against Boko Haram. Nigeria is America’s largest Africa trading partner and its fifth-largest oil supplier. Canada, Britain, France, China and other foreign countries also have interests in Nigeria. Furthermore, Nigeria has, by far, the biggest army in the region where Al-Qaeda’s influence is spreading rapidly. As a result of this, America, Europe and the world surely need Nigeria to curb the rising influence of Islamic extremists and this can only be safely done if the country can be extricated from the stranglehold of terrorism perpetrated by religious extremists. In actual fact, the bitter truth is that countries with common borders with Nigeria that are providing sanctuary for the terrorists and pretending as if nothing is happening   should realise that they will be the next target, once the terrorists are routed from Nigeria. I am talking about Cameroun, Chad, Niger and others.

    It is important to note that terrorism is used by extremist to scare the public into meeting their unfathomable or weird demands. They do this because they believe that if they can spread fear among the populace and cause some sort of panic, then they can exert force and have power over them. It is universally acknowledged that their tactics are generally extremely violent and they will do whatever is necessary to strike fear into the hearts of those they perceive to be their enemy. This now brings us to what can be done to combat terrorism. Is there any way that we can keep ourselves safe from these extremists?

    As we all know, combating terrorism is no tea party. It is a task that cannot be achieved overnight. It is a long struggle that could be quite dangerous as well. However, one of the basic things to do is to find out all of the methods that these terrorists use and understand their strategies. How do they launch attack? In what ways have they been most successful? If all the ways they may attack could be understood, it will be much easier to set up defences and stop them in their tracks before they inflict any harm. Once where they will attack is known, then strategies could be mapped out to either stop them or neutralise them.

    Above all, one of the greatest weapons that can be used to combat terrorism is to simply get citizens involved and make sure they understand how important it is to report anything that is out of place. That is what is called Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative in the US.  Having the citizens get involved is one of the most powerful ways to combat terrorism. It can give the authorities thousands of eyes and ears to watch for suspicious behaviours. In addition, terrorism is something that can be stopped. When a terrible act occurs, it is important that the act does not go unpunished like it happens in Nigeria. If the terrorists believe that they can successfully attack and escape without harm, they will become emboldened and more vicious. That is why Boko Haram has festered to this monstrosity.

  • The political wife as disaster

    The political wife as disaster

    While campaigning for the office of President of the United States back in 1992, Bill Clinton regularly told voters that if they elected him Americans would ‘get two for the price of one’. He was referring to the widely acknowledged accomplishments of his wife, Hillary, who many felt was bright enough to be president someday.

    Clinton’s remark underscores how a spouse can be an asset for a vote-chasing husband. Indeed, handlers of many a dour politician have perfected the art of getting their challenged candidate to bask in the reflected glow of the wife’s star shine.

    As candidate of the US Democratic Party in the 2000 general elections, former Vice President Al Gore often came across as stiff as a corpse. All through the campaign season, his staff sought ways of humanising him using his then wife, Tipper. The climax of those efforts was an awkward smooch between the couple on the convention floor.

    From former French President Nicholas Sarlozy and his celebrity wife, Carla Bruni, to the Ghanaian power couple, Jerry and Nana Rawlings, to the royal match-up of Britain’s Prince Charles and his late wife, Diana, a popular or accomplished spouse is often viewed as an asset.

    But a political wife can be a two-edged sword. Her positives are a help to her husband, just as her negatives constitute a drag on his appeal.

    In the early days of the Clinton presidency Americans were fascinated by the promise of the bright, young couple who had taken up residence in the White House. But the romance faded as an unelected Hillary started to intrude more and more into the process of governance.

    The final straw came when her husband handed her the critical assignment of overseeing healthcare reform. The failure of the project had as much to do with the complexities of the US health system as they had to do with antipathy to the then American First Lady.

    Things would go from bad to worse as Hillary became embroiled in the Whitewater scandal which originated from their home state of Arkansas. Many Republicans were keen to turn the controversial real estate deal into the Democrat’s version of Watergate. By then the First Lady whom Bill Clinton once advertised as an alternate president had become a liability who could not be fired.

    Former US President Jimmy Carter respected his wife, Rosalynn’s, abilities so much he had her sit in on cabinet meetings. He also sent her out to different countries as an envoy.  But by allowing their wives such freewheeling roles in their administrations, Carter and Clinton paid a price politically.

    This brings us to the most overtly political wife in the history of Nigeria’s democracy – Patience Jonathan. Critics have long bemoaned her excesses, but the First Couple have largely ignored all criticisms of her presumptuous intrusions into governance.

    This last week she overreached herself by intruding into the process of rescuing the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from their hostel beds in Chibok, Borno State.

    The meeting she summoned in Abuja to hold court before an assorted collection of women office holders and camp followers, has since become an internet sensation. Her dramatic tears, wild gesticulations, pidgin exclamations and all-round assault on the English language, have become the butt of a million jokes across the globe.

    Today, those who printed “My Oga at the Top” T-shirts for sale have rolled out the “Na Only You Waka Come?” edition and are doing brisk business. What next? Ringtones?

    In that one outing, Madame First Lady dealt her husband’s political goodwill a devastating blow with her comments and carrying-on. If she was trying to project empathy, she only succeeded in coming across as insincere and hectoring. Her tearful ‘breakdown’ would have shamed a fifth-rate actress in a badly-produced Nollywood home video.

    Were Madame First Lady to be truly concerned, she would have headed for Chibok, Borno State where the grieving are located. She would have left Abuja unannounced, under a security blanket. In less than 30 minutes of an helicopter hop she would have been there to meet the sorrowing parents. Her photographs comforting the families would have been all over the newspapers and TV. Even if she didn’t utter a single word to the press it would have been a PR coup.

    But what did she do? She sat in a cosy room in Abuja summoning the grieving to come to her. She railed at those who failed to turn up for not appearing before the one who had the power to help them locate their children. Such hubris!

    To compound a calamitous outing, she then insinuated that the girls were not actually missing because of the discrepancies in the accounts of different stakeholders. In her paranoid world this was no mass abduction but the latest conspiracy against her husband’s rule by the usual suspects. She then gave them friendly advice: stop playing games and keep the demonstrations in Borno.

    But while madam was busy playing circus mistress, the #BringBackOurGirls protests had swept the globe. Some of those driving it in distant parts of the world do not even know where Nigeria is; they were just moved by a powerful human story – the very sort that didn’t stir the Nigerian government until the world started crying out.

    What Mrs. Jonathan forgets is that there’s a time for post mortems – and it is not now. A time is coming when the actions and inactions of the Borno State Government, West African Examination Council (WAEC), the military and others would be examined. At that time also what the President and his wife did and said would also be scrutinised. What the world expects now, however, is government action to rescue the girls. Anything that doesn’t help that cause is just self-serving drama.

    As First lady, Patience Jonathan is one of the president’s informal personal advisers. He is free to use her counsel as he deems fit. But he should always remember that she wasn’t elected by us. Her office isn’t recognised by the constitution. He should know, if he’s not already aware, that at this point she has become one of his biggest liabilities.

    Her meddling in Rivers State damaged the president’s relationship with Governor Rotimi Amaechi. Like an elephant in a shop full of china she’s at it again trying to install Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidates in several states – putting her at odds with incumbent governors who don’t appreciate her forwardness.

    This is what it boils down to. Over the last six years we’ve seen the Jonathans under different situations. In the Chibok crisis we’re seeing a cold, calculating and unappealing side of the First Couple.

    As we edge ever closer to the 2015 election year, many are beginning to address their minds to whether they want to go through another four years of Jonathan’s rule. But the president’s qualities would not be the only factor influencing voters.

    After the First Lady’s display last week in Abuja, many will be asking themselves whether they can stomach another four years of Patience Jonathan’s histrionics.

  • The limits of foreign intervention

    The limits of foreign intervention

    The offers of help flooding in from the United States, France, China, Britain and others are a rare serving of positive news in a period of unrelenting gloom hanging over the country because of the atrocities of Boko Haram.

    Available evidence shows that beyond the bluster, Nigeria lacks the knowhow and technology to bring the insurgents to heel. So you could almost hear a collective national sigh of relief when news broke that the government had accepted offers of foreign assistance.

    Now that we’ve acceded to outsiders coming in to help sort out the mess we have made, it is necessary to rein in expectations. This isn’t going to be like a Hollywood movie where some American Rambo character swaggers into the Sambisa forest and takes out Abubakar Shekau before his awestruck followers.

    The Americans and others have made it clear that they are not putting boots on the ground. The much-hyped help will remain in the realm of using tremendous US intelligence assets and expertise built up from many years of fighting these sorts of criminals. It was that kind of intelligence gathering that helped them track down Osama bin Ladin to an anonymous building in rural Pakistan.

    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.

  • As we crucify Nyako…

    As we crucify Nyako…

    Retired Admiral Murtala Nyako has been reaping the whirlwind for sowing the wind of controversy by his recent claim that President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration has been hiding under war against Boko Haram to commit genocide against the North. He made his claim in a letter dated April 16 to his 18 counterparts in the Northern States’ Governors’ Forum. The letter, entitled: “On-going full-scale genocide in Northern Nigeria,” sought the support of his counterparts to stop the alleged genocide.

    Instead of support, Nyako, a former Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, a former Navy chief, first military governor of Niger State and currently serving out his second term as a civilian governor of his native Adamawa State, has been suffering from splendid isolation – indeed, worse.

    The chairman of the NSGF, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has dismissed his claim as baseless. Another governor, Abia’s Theodore Orji, has said there was “unanimous condemnation of the memo” by the expanded security meeting of governors, service chiefs and other senior government officials summoned by the president last week. Not least of all, virtually all his colleagues have maintained an apparently embarrassed silence over his call for their support.

    Probably the harshest criticism of the governor, however, has been Senate President David Mark’s brief but strongly worded opening remarks at the resumption of the Upper Chambers on April 29. Mark, speaking against the background of the suspected Boko Haram Easter bombing of the Nyanya motor park on the outskirts of Abuja which claimed many lives and the kidnapping of over 200 secondary school girls from Chibok in Borno State, did not name names. But when he said speaking along partisan lines over the fight against Boko Haram is “condemnable and totally unacceptable” and that “We should not sell the truth to serve the hour,” it was pretty obvious who he had in mind.

    Outside government circles, there has been a near universal condemnation of the governor by the newspaper commentariat. For example, The Nation (April 24) condemned his letter as “divisive and opportunistic.” Sunday Trust (April 27) denounced his stance as “dangerous” while The Guardian (May 5) said his language “was indecorous and inappropriate” for his high office. It also dismissed his assertions as “wild and unguarded,” without the backing of any evidence.

    As for the country’s leading newspaper pundits, as far as I know, only Adamu Adamu, the must-read Friday columnist of Daily Trust, has so far written to unequivocally support the governor in a two-part piece on April 25 and  May 2.

    I completely share the sentiments of those who have condemned Nyako’s use of such gutter language as “bullshit” and strong words like “evil-minded” in his letter to describe the presidency, even if it fits the description. As The Guardian said, certain language usages are simply unbecoming of certain office holders.

    I also completely agree with the newspaper that, in so far as the governor’s frustration with the Federal Government’s  obvious mishandling of the Boko Haram insurgency is understandable, his letter should have been addressed to Nigerians instead of only to his “fellow Governors and Citizens of the North.” The theatre of Boko Haram’s terrorism may be the North, more specifically the North-East, but the scourge has since transmogrified into a Nigerian problem which has claimed the lives and limbs of Nigerians from all parts of the country.

    However, while we condemn the governor for his language, sensationalism and sectionalism, we must accept that his allegations are not completely baseless.

    First, there was this online interview Sunday Trust had with Jomo Gbomo, the spokesman of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) nearly five years ago and which the newspaper published in its edition of June 21, 2009. In the half-page interview, Gbomo threatened MEND would extend its war from the creeks to the North. “Due to the fact that the (Northern) elite,” he said, “are taking us for fools and the majority of soldiers (fighting us are) from the North, the time has come when brothers have to go to war. In the end there will be mutual respect and true federalism will be mutually beneficial to all of us.”

    In the end, Gbomo’s war against the North did not materialise because President Umaru Yar’adua, a Northern aristocrat if ever there was one, anticipated it through a policy of amnesty for the militants, most notably Government Ekpemupolo, a.k.a. Tompolo, and Mujahid Asari Dokubo.

    As fate would have it, Yar’adua died before he could implement his policy. He was succeeded by his Vice, Goodluck Jonathan, first as acting president and eventually on his own steam following the 2011 presidential elections. This was against stiff opposition from much of the North which felt cheated out of the period Yar’adua would have spent as president if he had not died.

    MEND is said to be no more, but some of its leaders today are part of the kitchen cabinet of President Jonathan. As such they have become powerful and rich beyond their wildest imagination through government patronage. And they are unlikely to have forgotten how things were before the amnesty.

    Naturally they, and other beneficiaries of the current dispensation, would hate to lose their new-found power and wealth. As such they are likely to do anything to retain it. It is obvious that the greatest threat to doing so is from sections of the North with more than enough votes to deny their patron another term in a free and fair election.

    These beneficiaries of the current dispensation obviously have the motive to take the battle for power to the “enemy” territory. More importantly, their stupendous wealth has given them the means. It therefore does not sound as outrageous as Nyako’s critics believe for the man to conclude that some people in authority or having its ears are hiding under the war against Boko Haram terrorism to “deal” with the “enemy.”

    If this sounds like stretching logic to an absurd conclusion, consider the president’s response to a question during his Media Chat of last Monday about the seeming ineffectiveness of his handling of the Boko Haram insurrection all these years. “Things,” he said dismissively, “are not getting worse. The situation is calming, for now there is a low vibe. We have been able to suppress it reasonably well”.

    Clearly, a president who will sound so complacent when over 1,500 people have been killed so far this year – more than all the casualties in the first four years of the war on Boko Haram – is either criminally negligent of his responsibility or, at the least, does not give a damn about the pain a section of the country is going through because he seems to think its leaders, if not its people, don’t like him.

    Worse still, consider his response to the April 15 mass kidnapping of secondary school girls from Chibok. Instead of taking responsibility for dealing with the incident, the president has allowed his rather overweening wife, Dame Patience, and several of his sidekicks, to create the impression that the authorities did not believe there was any kidnapping in the first place; that it was all the handiwork of the enemies of his administration hell bent on painting it as incompetent, heartless and indifferent.

    Second, if Governor Nyako went overboard in his allegations, he merely took his cue from the president. Two years or so ago the president claimed, without giving any shred of evidence, that his government was infiltrated with Boko Haram agents all the way to the presidency. Since then several of his close aides, including Reno Omokri, his special assistant on social media, and the director-general of the State Security Services, have attempted to frame several prominent Northerners, notably the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria turned whistleblower, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, and even more ridiculously retired Colonel Dangiwa Umar, one of his staunchest supporters in the country, as financiers of Boko Haram.

    None of these aides have received as much as a rap on the knuckles even though their attempts have been exposed for what they were – frame-ups. Predictably this has fuelled widespread belief that the president is more interested in making political mileage out of the Boko Haram insurgency than in ending it.

    Governor Nyako may have overdone himself in accusing the president of committing genocide against the North, but the best way to expose the governor’s claim for the hyperbole that it mostly was is to see it as a wake-up call to go beyond using essentially military means to solve a problem which requires sincere dialogue as well if it is to be overcome.

     

  • Free ‘Our Girls’; World Economic Forum policing and Triple Terrorism: Boko, Fulani, Political

    Free ‘Our Girls’; World Economic Forum policing and Triple Terrorism: Boko, Fulani, Political

    We are waiting for the rescue of ‘our girls’ over 200+ young innocent Nigerian girls seized in the pursuit of education in a secure area. Was this attack not predicted? Surely we have enough service personnel to surround the relevant part of the Sambisa Forest and execute a shrinking or strangling noose ‘No One in No One Out’ effect while opening whatever channels come up for dialogue and negotiation with Boko Haram which however specialises in the indiscriminate killing and blowing up of men, women, youth and children of all races and sexes as a modus operandi. Another miscalculation is that the borders with Chad and Cameroon were not closed with boots on the ground to prevent any cross border transfer of the girls. Unfortunately this post-kidnap failure has led to stories including that the girls seized at Chibok are beings sold into slavery and forced marriages. Indeed, very worryingly, Nigerian women say that thousands of children have silently been kidnapped in the area with no noise in the press. And meanwhile the Fulani-Nigeria war continues unabated claiming 10-80 lives daily, in spite of ‘peace meetings’. Who is going to pay compensation to families of those ‘killed-for-cow’ by herdsmen across states? Is this not armed robbery, terrorism and a war against defenceless Nigeria? Is this not saying ‘My cow is more valuable than your human life?  This Nigeria, sha. So we have a triple terrorism. Security is inadequate.  In the cities and towns the police know where the criminals are. However the police often accommodate crime and criminals. If the police can police the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Abuja let them extend their expertise nationwide to protect Nigeria from the onslaught of the terrorists –Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, and the terrorism of political thugs. Note that the political terrorists are as vicious as Boko Haram, yet our police and military allow them to roam around accompanying evil politicians unchallenged. These political terrorists, thugs, are hired, supplied with weapons including machetes, and paid by aspirants to Nigeria’s various political offices including governor, senator, representatives, LGA chairman and councillors. They are no different from Boko Haram and should be called as such. They are no different from Fulani herdsmen and should be called as such. In 2015, will we allow such terrorism to be disguised as ‘politics’ and political campaigning’? Where will the police, now securing Abuja WEF be then to arrest all the political terrors nationwide to clean up elections for honest politicians to step forward? It depends entirely on the police. We will need impartial police. After the Rivers State debacle, that may be a mirage but there is still time and hope for ‘A Political Terrorism-Free 2015 Election’. So far the experience in Ekiti State suggests the need for a massive anti-terrorism police presence to thwart the political terrorism of the usual suspects in the political fray too afraid to face an honest election campaign. Do we really know Nigeria? It has become a very different place from when we grew up. The amount of security effort to protect the World Economic Forum delegates is an eye opener to all including the police. All Nigerians deserve a higher, honest, upright, efficient, well equipped and well paid police and armed forces. The days of giving a loaded gun to a psychologically unbalanced person who may have just been drinking to a state of drunkenness, just because he has a uniform on, should be over. Will the true Nigerians please stand up! Nigeria is so desperately in need of true Nigerians. Every day we hear of and see the bodies of true Nigerians being slaughtered, blown up, run over, machete, machine-gunned, drowned and even killed in the line of duty. We know that the ECOMOG lost between 3,000 and 8,000 troops, human being, unsung true Nigerians. Where are they buried, where is their memorial? Are the maimed, widows and children catered for? Where are the names of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in foreign lands, inscribed in ‘West African Marble’ like the little Military grave at Atan Cemetery, Yaba, Lagos? In those days the families around the cemetery smelt the smell of death as bodies of soldiers were buried at night. My late aunty told me and I personally witnessed an ECOMOG funeral in Sango Cemetery Ibadan where the wife, who was not informed arrived suddenly during the funeral. Her unforgettable words were ‘My husband is dead and you could not even tell me so I could bring the children to his funeral’. Whose duty is it to write condolence letters to the families of dead soldiers? Is it Minister of State in the Ministry of Defence or Special Adviser or the Vice President or the President who writes these letters? The highest honour a man can give his country is that he lay down his or her life for that country, often in the security services! But do not forget the hundreds of farmers, students, youth who have also been forced to lay down their lives due to the inability of the country’s government to defend them in their villages, farms and schools. Is such a country worthy of receiving that final fatal honour from any citizen when it treats its citizens, alive or dead, and their surviving dependents, so shabbily? Too many Nigerians are Nigerian in name, by mere geographical accident of birth without working at making Nigeria a pride to live in.

  • Ambush on May Day

    Ambush on May Day

    May 1 or May Day of every year is a day set aside all over the world to celebrate the toiling and suffering workers who bear the brunt of sustaining global economy. Different countries have their unique styles of celebrating the day. In Nigeria, the tradition is a public holiday when workers congregate to undertake official march past and other forms of pageantry.

    So, ordinarily, this year’s Workers’ Day, which was marked in Nigeria last Wednesday, followed the same old tradition. At the Eagle Square, Abuja, where President, Goodluck Jonathan, was physically present, the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, seized the opportunity presented by the occasion, to rub it in on the government that “unbridled political interests were hampering the war against terrorism”. It lamented that “despite enormous resources voted into maintaining security, the fight against terror has been far from being won partly due to the various conflicting political interests in the country”.

    In his address, Abdulwaheed Omar, the NLC President said, “In spite of government’s effort, the situation in the North-east is deteriorating. The initial gains of emergency rule clearly have been lost and the momentum squandered. Indeed, the choice of target, regularity of strikes, weapons used, co-ordination and sophistication of their operations make them not only the leading group to dread. We feel seriously concerned about the state of the nation’s security infrastructure”. According to Omar,   “It is immoral to play politics with the lives of the people. We are almost certain that if anyone was left in doubt about the universality of this war, the Nyayan bomb blast erased all of that”.

    Barely few hours after, as if to prove that they can never be cowed no matter what, the Boko Haram terrorists were on their devilish best as they hid under the approaching cover of darkness to, once more, detonate another lethal ware right inside the Nyayan Motor Park in Abuja. The first twin-bomb attack in the nation’s capital after about two years lull occurred at the same park in the early morning of April 14. The latest attack is coming on the heels of mass protests that have engulfed the country in the wake of the abduction of more than 240 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno State, North-east of Nigeria.

    Recently, a surfeit of protests took over the nation’s landscape. From Chibok to Abuja, Lagos, Ilorin, Kano, Ibadan and other major cities, women in their hundreds brandishing leaves took to the streets to register their discomfort over what their leaders termed “government’s lethargic approach” to this nagging issue of mass abduction of innocent school children who were writing their final examinations. The women are right. So also are all Nigerians united in the clamour to free these school children from their captors and end the terrible nightmare their parents, siblings and loved ones are currently experiencing. But that is easier said than done. The ease, frequency and devastations of these terrorists’ attacks on hapless and defenceless Nigerians are creating more than enough worries in the country and in the global community.

    Let us look at the scenario like this. At the May Day celebrations in Abuja, the President had said that those who participated in the Nyayan bomb blast on April 14 would not escape justice. The same day, another devastating bomb blast erupted right inside the same motor park. What the terrorists simply demonstrated by this was that the President could continue to threaten hell and brimstone, while, they, in turn, would always have their way anytime, anywhere.

    A few days to the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram terrorists had, in a video broadcast, confidently told a bewildered world that his agents were everywhere, including Abuja, ready to strike whenever the call for satanic exploits come calling. A few days after, his agents struck in Nyayan Park, killing about 80 people while close to 200 were either injured, some seriously, or maimed for life. That same day, his agents swooped on Chibok and forcefully made a way with more than 240 school children. Again, now, they have struck at the same spot in Abuja. This is a national embarrassment, a calamity of unquantifiable magnitude.

    The latest Nyayan bomb attack is eliciting various reactions from the government and other stakeholders, including, of course, the native settlers of Nyayan who can safely be referred to as the land owners. In the wake of the attack last week, a spokesman for the community expressed the frustration of the people over the spate of bomb attacks in the community in recent times and threatened that the community would mobilise and storm the National Assembly to register their disgust if nothing was done urgently to restore normalcy to the area.

    The threat by the Nyayan community underscores the general feeling of bewilderment in the country over the inability of the security agencies to stem the growing tide of killings. Perhaps, it was to assuage the feelings of the populace that the government held an expanded security meeting in Abuja last week. A fall-out of the meeting was the setting-up of a fact-finding committee headed by Brig General Ibrahim Sabo. The committee is saddled with the responsibility of providing the government with reliable information on the whereabouts of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.

    The choice of Sabo, ex-boss of the dreaded Directorate of Military Intelligence, DMI, during the late General Sani Abacha’s Gestapo-like military dictatorship, is quite understandable. Under his watch as DMI boss, Sabo was like the lord of the Manor. At the beginning of the current Boko Haram crisis, suspicions were rife that a renegade group of the Abacha goons might have had a hand in the crisis in order to draw attention to them. This may or may not be true. But according to a Yoruba proverb: “Omo ina la n ran sina”, meaning “to get at a wild fire, you need to go through a lesser fire”.

    Without mincing words, the latest barrage of explosions in Abuja appears to be the handiwork of fifth columnists bent on destabilising the country through the instrumentality of chaos. In a speech some years ago, the President had alluded to the fact that the Boko Haram terrorism is a cankerworm that has spread its tentacles everywhere – in the government, security agencies and other places. The President may have exonerated his cabinet in his last Sunday’s media chat, but with all that are now happening; it is most certainly that palpable disloyalty exists among the President’s aides and within the security agencies.

    Perhaps, the time has now come for the President to embark on a general house cleaning in order to save him from consistent embarrassment and save the poor, innocent Nigerians who are daily being gruesomely massacred from avoidable deaths. Like the late Chinua Achebe said in his book, A Man of the People, “the thieves have taken enough for the owners to notice”. If I may apply this most appropriately in this context, the Boko Haram terrorists, their sponsors and or collaborators, have done incalculable harm to the country and humanity, so much that their  temerity should now be stopped by all available means possible.

    This is no time to engage in unnecessary finger-pointing; we have all failed this country. It is as if we are bereft of leaders in this part of the world, as everybody with the least opportunity to be in government now scampers for the filthy lucre rather than provide purposeful leadership designed to extricate the country from its present moral and socio-economic miasma. We can only defeat these terrorists if we all come together and say “enough is enough!” Without this, our children, our brethren, our generation and the entire country will be the worse for it. Nigeria has the potential to be great but this God-given opportunity is being frittered away on the altar of corruption and avarice. We have the manpower, the natural resources and everything to make us great, but our country seems to be operating a plethora of misplaced priorities.

  • How not to play politics

    How not to play politics

    In May 2013 when a US state under the control of the Republican Party was hit by deadly tornado, politics of division and exclusiveness was shoved aside by the stakeholders to bring succour to the people who had been bereaved, injured and rendered homeless. Democratic Party President Barack Obama who was far away from the scene promptly ordered massive federal support.

    A president who is often embroiled in a struggle with the Republicans over their disdain for expansive federal agencies, Obama nevertheless went to Oklahoma State under the Republican Governor Mary Fallin, who only the year before described the Obama administration as pursuing “failed policies”.

    She declared: “In Oklahoma, we could teach Washington a lesson or two about fiscal policy and the size and the proper role of government,” adding that the Democrats were having a record of “dysfunction and outrageous spending”.

    But that was all politics, unfit for realistic governance in the face of a situation that required the two politicians to govern and not to play politics at the expense of the welfare of the people. To be sure, they did eventually come together as two statesmen elected not to massage their egos but to submit themselves to service to the people.

    That I think was the point the ex-governor of Abia State Dr Orji Uzor Kalu was making the other day when he called on Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State in Ibadan. Noticing the monumental progress that Oyo State has witnessed under the administration of Ajimobi since his advent in 2011, Kalu warned the politicians in the area not to allow divisive politics to rubbish these great advances.

    He commended Governor Ajimobi’s administration for its developmental strides across the state adding, “I am convinced that you (Ajimobi) have done very well and I give a very high mark. I have been in Ibadan before and I can see the development that has taken place. We have seen a lot of change… If Governor Ajimobi wins (again) in future election, he should be supported.”

    It is clear that what the ex-governor of Abia is preaching has to do with doctrine of how not to play barren politics with governance. But for politics not to be barren and make nonsense of the mandate of the electorate, the interest of the society must be reckoned with. So, if there is a performing government in place as it is with the Ajimobi administration in Kalu’s well considered verdict, all of society in Oyo State should rally around the governor in support and loyalty, regardless of party affiliation.

    Right-thinking Nigerians would find it easy to align with Kalu’s position, since he pins it on the need to “ensure the enthronement of an egalitarian society and ensure development” as he put it when he spoke with Governor Ajimobi. In other words if the citizens of Oyo state truly want a progressive and stable environment the ball is in their court to cooperate with their governor and his administration. They should seek to constitutionally perpetuate a system that is fostering peace, progress and development and refuse to be swayed by ethnicity and divisive politics. Truly, Oyo State has seen breathless changes lately. This development is assuming a spirit that is taking the citizens where they ought to be rather than where the poverty and visionless path of the past was herding them. There is no partisanship in the delivery of the good things of life to the people. It would patently be unpatriotic for politicians to confuse the people about politicking and governance. The former is manipulative, blinding the masses with the idea of government as exclusive political machinery aloof from the people. But the latter is the collective administration of society that seeks the welfare of the people who put the representative government in power.

    We must draw the line and let the people know that real test for a public office holder lies in performance not in his ability to play politics. In Oyo State, the people are recognizing for the first time in more that decade that if you have a disciplined and a forward-looking administration, it can be trusted with the taxpayers money to initiate projects that benefit the larger society and not a few.

    Today the citizens of the state are wondering where the funds came from for the construction of new roads, the rehabilitation of long abandoned water works, the provision of brand new buses for free transportation of workers and student, the cleanup of Ibadan, the prompt payment of workers and retired civil servants’ entitlements etc. The money was always there; it was only waiting for a good husbandman with a disciplined profile.

    • Olaopa is a retired civil servant in Saki, Oyo State.

     

  • The real terror of Chibok

    The real terror of Chibok

    Today, world attention is riveted on Nigeria for all the wrong reasons. As you read this 276 girls snatched by Boko Haram insurgents from their dormitory beds in a government secondary school in Chibok, Borno State remain in captivity.

    Their kidnapping has triggered a string of protests from women and civil society groups across the country. It has produced the usual promises of deliverance from President Goodluck Jonathan. The military high command have weighed in with assurances that they were doing everything to set the captives free.

    But neither the demonstrators’ outrage nor the threadbare platitudes of government officials have brought the prospect of freedom any closer for the unfortunate girls.

    Reports say three of the girls may have died, while some others are in very poor health. No one really knows what is happening to the rest. Once upon a time we would have been stunned by reports of 20 people killed in a single terror attack. These days not even the killing of hundreds causes us or our leaders to pause in shock.

    That is why the Chibok kidnapping represents something of a watershed in Nigeria’s dark hour. It has galvanised the country in ways that huge body counts and gory pictures have failed to do. This is no longer about North or South, Muslim or Christian – it is about a shared humanity. Imagine if one of these hapless teenagers was your daughter?

    Chibok is a sad chapter, but it is also a metaphor about present day Nigeria. For starters, it speaks about a country where confusion reigns. For close to two weeks we have been working with the assumption that 234 girls were missing. Now, Borno State Police Commissioner, Tanko Lawan, says well over 300 were actually spirited away on the night of April 14, 2014. Of that number 53 managed to escape – leaving as many as 276 in captivity.

    In the early days after the abduction, the picture of confusion was best captured by the fiasco that saw the military claiming that the bulk of the girls had been rescued. They were forced to retract after the principal of the school attacked by the insurgents spoke up.

    The ordeal of the Chibok girls underlines the embarrassing helplessness of a country the size of Nigeria. So far, everything that has been thrown at the insurgents militarily has only had limited effect. In the days and weeks after President Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, a bombing campaign that targeted the militants’ camps in the Sambisa forest seemed to have broken their spine. Now we know better.

    Even the prospect of a special operation to rescue the girls cannot proceed for fear that they have been converted into human shields by their captors in anticipation of an attempt to free them militarily.

    As recent as two years ago administration officials were still arguing at the US State Department that Boko Haram was a Nigerian phenomenon that could be brought to heel using local solutions. Increasingly there is talk of getting foreign assistance to secure the release of the girls. This would suggest that the administration is finally admitting it lacks that capacity to prosecute this special fight.

    We are coming to that realisation five years after it became evident that we had a serious problem on our hands. In that time we could have built our capacity to fight the terrorists more effectively. Rather than do that we were seduced by the delusion that we could sweet talk a maniacal band of killers who had made it clear over and again they had no interest in talking to a government they regarded as illegitimate.

    Even if the limited Boko Haram of 2009 had not transformed into today’s full-blown insurgency, we had sufficient warnings that because of her endowments, her strategy place in Africa and the world, Nigeria would become a prime target for jihadi groups that were already active in the Maghreb.

    That should have informed a change in our defence and security planning and expenditure. There is no evidence to show a shift from the conventional. At a time when terrorists are using cells of a few people to inflict massive damage on cities and communities, we are still stuck in the thinking that just driving tanks into the Sambisa will be enough to solve the problem.

    For me the real worry is whether the nightmare will end in Chibok. Once terrorists conceive of some evil, they will seek ways to actualise it. They have shown that their preferred targets are vulnerable places like Chibok and Nyanya. Just thinking of other potential Chiboks is terrifying. What is our contingency plan?

    The abduction drama should not stop us from thinking about preventing a repeat. The territory over which the terrorists operate is wide and hard to police. How do we guarantee that similarly vulnerable schools are not visited with such terror again?

    Posting solitary military guards to watch over the institutions is a non-starter because they can be easily overwhelmed by the terrorists who operate in large numbers. We don’t have enough soldiers in the Nigerian Army to post platoons to protect every secondary school in the North East. In any event what sort of learning environment would that be with soldiers all around?

    The key is to take out the terrorists before they can organise and launch their operations using better intelligence and technology. The repeat bombing of Nyanya, Abuja less than two weeks after an earlier attack that killed close to 100 people is confirmation that for as long as the perpetrators walk free these crimes will continue.

    Nigeria needs help with intelligence and know-how. For all of the size of our conventional military we still don’t have the capacity and expertise to contain the terrorist campaign being waged by Boko Haram. We need help and must swallow our pride to get it.

    It may even mean signing a pact with the United States to allow its drones to target these terrorists. The advanced intelligence assets that such an arrangement would provide will enable us strike hard at the killers where we can’t presently reach. Sure, the drone policy has its flaws and has taken out many innocents; still it has proven its potency from Yemen, to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    Such drastic steps need to be taken on the military front while we are thrashing around for more permanent solutions. But let there be no doubt that the help we need now is from countries with proven experience and success in containing terrorists.

  • Inside Jonathan’s rich Nigeria

    It is not only terrorists that our embattled leader has to contend with these days. He is equally struggling to make sense of contradictory statistics. A couple of weeks ago the government rolled out with maximum fanfare new GDP figures that made Nigeria’s economy the largest in Africa, and thrust it into the ranks of the top 25 in the world.

    That GDP rebasing exercise triggered a furious reaction from large sections of critical opinion who felt it didn’t alter the existing reality that ours was still a largely impoverished country.

    That position was confirmed by a recent World Bank report which listed Nigeria as one of the five poorest countries in the world. The President was less than pleased. Addressing workers at last Thursday’s May Day rally in the Eagle Square, Abuja, he dismissed the nation that the country was poor. By his analysis, we are actually a rich country that just needed to redistribute its wealth.

    He said: “Nigeria is not a poor country. Nigerians are the most travelled people. There is no country you go that you will not see Nigerians. The GDP of Nigeria is over half a trillion dollars and the economy is growing at close to 7 per cent.’’

    “Aliko Dangote was recently classified among the 25 richest people in the World.

    “I visited Kenya recently on a state visit and there was a programme for Nigerian and Kenyan business men to interact and the number of private jets that landed in Nairobi that day was a subject of discussion in Kenyan media for over a week.

    “If you talk about ownership of private jets, Nigeria will be among the first 10 countries, yet they are saying that Nigeria is among the five poorest countries.”

    By Jonathan’s yardstick a handful of private jets owned by a few in a country of 170 million people makes us a rich nation! The vast majority of that huge number live on less than $2 per day, have no access to potable water, healthcare and electricity.

    Millions of young graduates in this ‘rich’ country of ours can’t find jobs; that is why hundreds of thousands crammed the Abuja Stadium and other centers during the last tragic Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment exercise. Nineteen of those jobseekers died that day in their desperate search for work.

    There may be no poverty in Aso Villa but on the streets it is a different story. Nigeria is a potentially rich country. She is greatly-endowed with natural resources but bungling rulers till date have ensured that she remains mired in the ranks of the wretched of the earth. Any leader who subscribes to a different reality is just burying his head deep in the sand.

  • How not to play politics

    How not to play politics

    In May 2013 when a US state under the control of the Republican Party was hit by deadly tornado, politics of division and exclusiveness was shoved aside by the stakeholders to bring succour to the people who had been bereaved, injured and rendered homeless. Democratic Party President Barack Obama who was far away from the scene promptly ordered massive federal support.

    A president who is often embroiled in a struggle with the Republicans over their disdain for expansive federal agencies, Obama nevertheless went to Oklahoma State under the Republican Governor Mary Fallin, who only the year before described the Obama administration as pursuing “failed policies”.

    She declared: “In Oklahoma, we could teach Washington a lesson or two about fiscal policy and the size and the proper role of government,” adding that the Democrats were having a record of “dysfunction and outrageous spending”.

    But that was all politics, unfit for realistic governance in the face of a situation that required the two politicians to govern and not to play politics at the expense of the welfare of the people. To be sure, they did eventually come together as two statesmen elected not to massage their egos but to submit themselves to service to the people.

    That I think was the point the ex-governor of Abia State Dr Orji Uzor Kalu was making the other day when he called on Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State in Ibadan. Noticing the monumental progress that Oyo State has witnessed under the administration of Ajimobi since his advent in 2011, Kalu warned the politicians in the area not to allow divisive politics to rubbish these great advances.

    He commended Governor Ajimobi’s administration for its developmental strides across the state adding, “I am convinced that you (Ajimobi) have done very well and I give a very high mark. I have been in Ibadan before and I can see the development that has taken place. We have seen a lot of change… If Governor Ajimobi wins (again) in future election, he should be supported.”

    It is clear that what the ex-governor of Abia is preaching has to do with doctrine of how not to play barren politics with governance. But for politics not to be barren and make nonsense of the mandate of the electorate, the interest of the society must be reckoned with. So, if there is a performing government in place as it is with the Ajimobi administration in Kalu’s well considered verdict, all of society in Oyo State should rally around the governor in support and loyalty, regardless of party affiliation.

    Right-thinking Nigerians would find it easy to align with Kalu’s position, since he pins it on the need to “ensure the enthronement of an egalitarian society and ensure development” as he put it when he spoke with Governor Ajimobi. In other words if the citizens of Oyo state truly want a progressive and stable environment the ball is in their court to cooperate with their governor and his administration. They should seek to constitutionally perpetuate a system that is fostering peace, progress and development and refuse to be swayed by ethnicity and divisive politics. Truly, Oyo State has seen breathless changes lately. This development is assuming a spirit that is taking the citizens where they ought to be rather than where the poverty and visionless path of the past was herding them. There is no partisanship in the delivery of the good things of life to the people. It would patently be unpatriotic for politicians to confuse the people about politicking and governance. The former is manipulative, blinding the masses with the idea of government as exclusive political machinery aloof from the people. But the latter is the collective administration of society that seeks the welfare of the people who put the representative government in power.

    We must draw the line and let the people know that real test for a public office holder lies in performance not in his ability to play politics. In Oyo State, the people are recognizing for the first time in more that decade that if you have a disciplined and a forward-looking administration, it can be trusted with the taxpayers money to initiate projects that benefit the larger society and not a few.

    Today the citizens of the state are wondering where the funds came from for the construction of new roads, the rehabilitation of long abandoned water works, the provision of brand new buses for free transportation of workers and student, the cleanup of Ibadan, the prompt payment of workers and retired civil servants’ entitlements etc. The money was always there; it was only waiting for a good husbandman with a disciplined profile.

    • Olaopa is a retired civil servant in Saki, Oyo State.