The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • GEJ vs Sanusi, the whistleblower

    GEJ vs Sanusi, the whistleblower

    Last Thursday’s sack of Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was a bombshell even though it was hardly surprising. From the moment the former CBN boss was issued a query three or so years ago by then National Security Adviser to the president, late General Andrew Owoye Azazi – a query he rightly ignored because it did not come directly from the president himself – for a remark he made abroad linking Boko Haram insurgency with what he said was the financial neglect of the North by Abuja, it was obvious that if the authorities had their way, they would’ve fired him long ago.

    What apparently stood in their way was the CBN Act which said its governor and his four deputies cannot be fired without the support of two-thirds of members of the Senate the president needs to hire them in the first place, something he could not be sure of, given the uncertain political terrain that has lately confronted his ruling party. From his defensive answers in his media chat two days ago over his firing of the governor, it is obvious that the president must have been advised, more like misadvised, that he could go round this obstacle by announcing that he was merely suspending the governor.

    Trouble is, the law is completely silent on whether or not the president can, short of firing them, suspend those he’d hired. I am told by some of my legal expert friends that a cardinal principle of law is to give the benefit of doubt to an accused where a law says nothing or is ambiguous about the issue in contention.

    A more satisfactory solution for everyone in such cases is to resort to the courts for interpretation. Obviously, this would’ve taken more than the four months or so Sanusi had left to serve out his five-year tenure. It seems the way the man started running his mouth about corruption in high places in the oil business foreclosed the option of allowing him to end his tenure quietly since there was no telling how much more damage he could do if he continued talking with the authority of a governor of the CBN.

    The President claimed in his media chat that he has “absolute” powers to suspend the governor. Perhaps he does. However, it remains no more than his opinion until the courts agree with him. Happily, Sanusi, as irrepressible as ever, has said he will go to court to challenge his suspension and has already gone to court successfully to stop the authorities from unleashing their law enforcement and intelligence forces to arrest or detain him.

    Try as he may the President and his team are highly unlikely to ever win the propaganda war between himself and Sanusi. And it’s not just because the former CBN governor, in sharp contrast to our generally incoherent and bumbling president, is as eloquent in speech and in writing as they come from anywhere in the world. It’s also not because the President does not at all have a case against Sanusi. The President may have overstated it when he accused Sanusi’s CBN of being “characterised by various financial recklessness and misconduct” but it seems to me, at least, that in going to equity the former CBN governor did not do so with clean hands.

    In an interview with Metropole magazine after his sack which Daily Trust of last Monday reproduced, Sanusi rejected insinuations by the magazine’s editors that his latest accusations of corruption in the oil business against the authorities was like taking out an insurance against being fired for the charges of recklessness and mismanagement that had been levied against him. “You can never,” he said, “have any insurance in life. What is insurance? The only insurance you have in life is to try to do the right things.”

    As CBN governor, Sanusi did many right things. If nothing else, he, as I said on these page on August 26, 2009, barely a couple of months after taking over from Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, cleaned up the mess his predecessor created after he had done a good job of creating 25 mega-banks in place of the odd 80 that were in existence, most of them no better than glorified family automated teller machines. Soludo had virtually ruined his good job by becoming too chummy with the bosses of the banks he was supposed to supervise and regulate. The result was a financial crisis which led to a near-collapse of the economy, and certainly of the stock market where you and I bought and sold shares of companies, including those of banks.

    By putting a stop to the casino capitalism which the new big banks had fostered while Soludo kept assuring us that all was well when it wasn’t, Sanusi brought back stability and integrity to the financial market. If that was all he did, the man deserved praise as CBN governor for his courage and competence. But that wasn’t all. His exposure a few years ago of the magnitude of the huge remunerations the federal legislators decreed for themselves in violation of our Constitution, and his refusal to back down from his charge in the face of intimidation by the law makers, if nothing else, served to underscore the public’s concern about how we’ve spent more, much more, of our annual budgets on recurrent items than we have on capital goods since the return of civilian rule in 1999.

    There are even more right things he’s done as CBN governor than these two, but even these alone suffice to show that his tenure has, on balance, done more good than bad to our political-economy.

    The trouble with Sanusi, however, was that he did not measure up to what he had led the public to expect of him as someone who had consistently spoken truth to power before he became CBN governor, and which he continued to do even after.

    The report of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) which the president has relied upon to suspend the governor has listed his many alleged transgressions including the award of no-bid contracts in billions of Naira, the spending of billions on his own and his management’s creature comforts, overpaying legal and public relations consultants and donating hundreds of millions of Naira to victims of natural and man-made disasters without board approval, etc.

    His defence has been that he has the president’s approval for some of the expenditures he’d incurred and that with things like donations he was not the first governor to do so. He also says he has constantly reduced operating management costs since he became governor.

    The governor’s self-defence may well be tenable. But this is beside the point, which is that as a long standing social critic he should’ve known better than to give those in authority sufficient ammunition to impugn his integrity and credibility. And this is exactly what the FRC report has done, even if only a fraction of its charges are true. The specific nature of the FRC report means it cannot be easily dismissed with the wave of a hand.

    That he built a one billion Naira car park at his official residence, as is common knowledge, and the fact that he was always accompanied by a huge and expensive retinue of bank staff, friends and hangers-on alike, to receive awards and honours abroad and here at home, were enough to suggest he did not act with the degree of prudence and integrity his crusade for good governance and transparency demanded of him.

    Sanusi’s alleged transgressions as CBN governor notwithstanding, he clearly has the upper hand against the president in the war for public sympathy and support. The reason is obvious; his alleged transgressions are small beer compared to what the oil thieves and their partners in government have been stealing with impunity.

    So long as the president is seen to be incapable and/or unwilling to take on these mega-thieves, so long will anyone who poses as a whistleblower against corruption in governance win public sympathy, whether his own alleged transgressions are true or not.

    It is, of course, not realistic or even sensible to expect the authorities to fight all cases of corruption or none at all. But when they are seen to ignore cases more deserving of their attention than those they are pursuing, they will find it hard, if not impossible, to convince the public that a case like Sanusi’s is a fight against corruption not a witch-hunt.

     

     

     

     

  • Rescuing Borno State

    Rescuing Borno State

    That Borno State is the founding home of the Boko Haram insurgency is no longer news. Muhammed Yusuf, the founder of the sect, was eliminated by unscrupulous security agents in very controversial circumstances after he was captured during a riot in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, in 2009. In that mayhem, many people, including scores of security agents, were either killed or maimed. The security agents responded by mowing down whomever they suspected to be a Boko Haram member.

    It was during this melee that Buji Fai, a two-time Chairman of Kaga Local Government of Borno State and former Commissioner for Religious Affairs and Water Resources, was killed. He was captured alive in his farm along Bui – Danboa Road, but was later reported dead in very questionable circumstances. After he was arrested, the former commissioner demanded to meet Ali Modu Sherif, the then state governor. He was taken to the Government House half-naked in handcuffs. Unfortunately for him, Sherif was said to be out of office by the time they got there. The late Buji Fai was later taken to the police headquarters where he was reportedly killed. Mohammed Fugu, a Maiduguri-based businessman, also suffered a similar fate. He was reportedly killed by the police at the police headquarters in Maiduguri after he gave himself up.

    The government of Sherif displayed nonchalance to the killings when its officials later stormed Railway Quarters with bulldozers and demolished Yusuf’s house as well as Fugu’s compound. Dissatisfied with the development, Yusuf’s family went to court, accusing the police of extrajudicial killing of their patriarch. The court gave its judgment asking the Police to pay the sum of N100 million to the family, but the police appealed the verdict. By this time, anger had inflamed passion as the sect members were poised for war. That was how the whole Boko Haram insurgency started as a war between the sect members and security agents on one hand and the sect and government on the other hand.

    Though shortly after Sherif left as governor, the new helmsman, Kashim Shettima, paid the N100 million to Yusuf’s family, the sect members could not be placated as many contending interests had been introduced into the entire imbroglio. Remember that at the inception of the crisis, it was alleged that Boko Haram was a militant wing of the Borno political class under Sherrif. It was under his watch as governor that the sect blossomed. This, probably, accounted for the reason why Fai demanded to see the governor face to face on the day he was arrested on his farm before his life was abruptly terminated. That liquidation was probably to forestall what would have led to a great confession. Perhaps, that confession that never was, could have helped Borno government and indeed the federal government to bring the temerity of the sect members to an early halt. However, rather than abating, the activities of the insurgents have, in the last few months, escalated, particularly in Maiduguri, its traditional founding place, in spite of subsisting State of Emergency now in its ninth month.

    Since the beginning of this month, the sect appeared to be having a field day in their operations despite the presence of military Task Force in the state. Their ceaseless attacks have led to the untimely death of more than 300 people in this month alone. Last week, a terrified Kashim Shettima, the Governor of the state, shuttled back and forth to the State House, Abuja ostensibly to brief President Goodluck Jonathan on the killings. While addressing reporters shortly after, Shettima made it clear that Nigeria is “in a state of war”.  He also said the fight against Boko Haram was far from being won, as the insurgents seem to be more motivated than the Nigerian military.  He warned that the faster Nigerian leaders braced up to the challenge, the better for the country.   But a few hours after Shettima’s outburst, Doyin Okupe, an aide of the President on public affairs, in his usual boisterous manner, countered that the military was better equipped and motivated to fight Boko Haram militants. My take is that Shettima is the man who wears the shoe and so should know better where it pinches.

    At any rate, uncertainty now pervades most of the North-east each day, over fear of possible attack by the sect. The question being asked by many today is: for what use have the huge budgetary provisions made for the armed forces in the fight against the insurgents been put into? This is germane following the seemingly failure of the security agents to tackle the insurgency headlong since all these months that emergency had been in place. Rightly or wrongly, some people have attributed this lacklustre performance by the security forces to high level of corruption in the management of funds budgeted to fight the menace.

    Aside from the issue of up-to-date military hardware, it is believed that the absence of an operational air wing of the Army may have constituted a clog in the wheels of progress in the execution of operations in the affected areas. The fact remains that the Army pilots trained for such operations have largely been idle since they were not being utilised because of the absence of Army Aviation in the country. This has made the Nigerian Army to rely solely on the Air Force for air support in their operations. This, no doubt, may have greatly hampered the operational efficiency of the army in its ongoing combat operations against the insurgents as the Air Force was said to be more or less reluctant to take orders from the Army because of the inter-service rivalry.

    An air wing would make it possible for the Army to plan its operations and execute them speedily without relying solely on the Air Force for such support. There have been instances in the past where soldiers had been endangered when an expected air support was called off at the last minute after troops had advanced into the battlefield, at the Sambisa Forest. This abrupt tinkering with operational plans has often given the insurgents the upper hand as security forces have been easily routed for lack of the desired support. The casualty figures from these operational misdemeanors have been tremendous.

    Besides, the thinking is that there is a sort of political undertone in the insurgency attacks which have recently escalated in line with the body language of Mr. President which suggests that he will soon declare for a second term in office. The attack may be aimed at portraying the President as anemic and incapable of protecting the people in the far North. And the sponsors of the insurgency are believed to be some political gladiators in that part of the country. The government needs to unmask them in order to cut-off the oxygen supply to the insurgents.

    With the way things stand now, the onus is on the Nigerian military to gird its loins and effectively confront the menace of Boko Haram, particularly in Borno State, which appears to be its only remaining theatre of war, and its environs. Chris Olukolade, a Major-General and Director, Defence Information, has assured the nation that the military is capable of winning the war against the insurgents. Turenchi apart, the military really needs to demonstrate that it is an effective fighting force that can be relied upon by rooting the rag-tag Boko Haram terrorists from our soil without further prevarication.

    The insurgents may have taken sanctuary in the hills of Cameroun, from where they attack isolated villages every now and then. But, mind you, Cameroun could be quite reluctant to cooperate with Nigeria in the prosecution of this anti-terrorists’ campaign. That has been the nature of the francophone countries in Africa, especially in the West-African sub-region. If that is the case, we should not hesitate to close all our borders with Cameroun as was done in the past. It is only through this, that we can bring its government to see reason and co-opt it into this must-win war. This is a war that must be won at all costs even if it means declaring a full-blown emergency on Borno State.

  • NESG: N102b in TETFUND/UBEC; Sanusi and ‘kerocalamity’; Whistleblowers;

    NESG: N102b in TETFUND/UBEC; Sanusi and ‘kerocalamity’; Whistleblowers;

    As the Nigerian Economic Summit Group focuses yet another spotlight on Education, sadly, while some children have no desks, chairs, books and lab equipment, there is N69 billion in TETFUND and N33b in UBEC, totalling N102billion, un-accessed by potential beneficiary institutions. Is this an administrative, political will, red tape or corruption problem? NESG 2014 should insist that this be solved and some institution and state ministry of education officials should be investigated and perhaps removed for incompetence.

    Whistleblowing is dangerous to your employment health. But we, the honest, must improve efforts to clean up the growing cesspool. Remember the fertiliser, NITEL answering machine, NEPA guesstimeter, multiple pension, petrol, bunkering and kerosene scams, the funding of political parties from government coffers, and the questionable census figures from the 1956s? -All corruption.

    And now shamefully and perhaps illegally governments punish us for government failures by billing citizens to assess emissions from very expensive private generators bought for business survival and to replace government power failures. Is this not double punishment over-charging, illegality and government corruption? This must be challenged in court. In this cesspool, Nigeria needs many whistleblowers, websites, exhibitions and Museums.

    The exit of CBN GovernorSanusi, who is no saint, appears a vindictive step to shut him up, so close to the end of his term. Was it an attempt to prevent him using CB documents as backup when talking to NASS on the N10b kerosene scam? Sadly there are always others immediately available to take the place of fallen stars. We are all animals and the human is a very nasty animal. While one expects government agencies to cooperate we do not expect them to cooperate in corruption. No doubt he will ‘resurrect’ as the Emir of Kano and future Presidents will pay homage. Yes, he was excessively flamboyant and loud for a CB Governor. That asset will probably help him on speaking tours worldwide with the Wikileaks and the US security whistleblowers. He should be joined by Odumegwu whose successor at the Census Commission was warned against commenting on past rubbished Census figures which favour the North. It seems the politicians are the only ones who do not know that the census figures are a corrupt, malicious, malignant mathematical creation. Ostriches! Some people, and government insider Mafiosi or cabals, do not want the truth because it will question Nigeria’s foundation for unity.

    I disagreed with Sanusi’s policies like high base lending rate, the N5000 note, high interest rates, undisclosed bank bonuses and policy not to appreciate the naira to pre-Abacha levels $1:N88. His giving of billions in funds to ‘needy’ causes is not within the remit of CBN. The CBN’s job is to keep and improve the value of, and not spend, our money and to handle, hold and manage and invest our money wisely. He did not even pay CBN pensioners without a costly fight to the Supreme Court.

    However, Sanusi’s exposure of the ‘kerocalamity’ is redemptive and worthy of national honours. We need a WHISTLEBLOWERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA, WAN, and a website. We should all get whistles and on a particular ‘WAN’ day, blow them at officials committing crimes. We should call carry ‘WHISTLEBLOWER WHISTLES’ and blow them whenever we see a checkpoint, or other crime being perpetrated. There is corruption everywhere, from petrol station pump supervision, to hospital admissions, to exam success, to police stations, to the electricity we generate and the water we drink or the air we are allowed to inhale. There is real war by the Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen with many deaths and injuries and homeless. Nigeria must stand firm for Nigeria to survive. We must stop corruption at every level. Nigeria must fight but can it fight two battles on two separate fronts- corruption and the Boko Haram. Around the world, Venezuela, Ukraine, Thailand, we see the suffering and struggle for political purification. Bad politicians of every party must be forced out. Nigeria’s goose laying golden eggs days may be over. As our gallant soldiers defend Nigeria with their blood, from the internal and external war of Boko Harem, we must clean up the rest of the country. We must clean up the polity, which must not be allowed to fund itself from the treasury. We must clean up the civil service, stopping bribe-taking before every service is given or even appointing consultants as middlemen. We must clean up the bar and the judiciary. We must clean up our homes, offices and communities. Are you corrupt? Stop today before you kill Nigeria.

    One addition, can we not call on political parties not to fund, equip, use or be seen with thugs, other people’s children, for political war? Demand a ‘thug ban’? Let us have poster and advert wars but no physical violence. Sponsoring violent bodies or having them in one’s entourage should lead to expulsion from the party. The Ejigbo extortion and murder of women and girls is an opportunity to stop irregular behaviour by irregular ethnic or political militia/armies and police. To force them into visibility and responsibility there should be compulsory 1] Registration of members, 2] Name tags, large size, 3] Duty Rosters, 4] Mug shots, 5] Closer Supervision, 6] Prosecution and Punishment for breaches of the code and 7] Accessible Membership Lists. What manner of man would murder, beat and treat women this way unless he is in a criminal organisation? Go on ‘Blow a whistle!’.

     

     

  • Hurray! Jonathan snares his quarry

    Hurray! Jonathan snares his quarry

    Given his talent for amassing enemies you didn’t need a prophet to tell you that former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s tenure was likely to end in tears.

    In the end he has been nudged out of the door courtesy of some dodgy contrivance of officialdom called a “suspension.” Given the roadblock set up in Section 11 (f) of the CBN Act 2007 which requires the President to seek the approval of two-thirds of the Senate in order to remove the CBN Governor, this “suspension” was the quickest way of getting rid of him.

    The official line is that Sanusi’s removal was down to acts of ‘financial recklessness, violation of due process and the mandate of the CBN.’ Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, then listed a litany of sins such as “persistent refusal and negligence to comply with public procurement act in the procurement practices of the CBN; unlawful expenditure by the CBN on intervention projects across the country, deploying huge sums of money without appropriation and outside the CBN’s statutory mandate.”

    From where I stand it is hard to determine Sanusi’s guilty or innocence. Still, it is rich hearing this administration which stands accused of similar malfeasance levelling these allegations.

    This is a government that is straining to explain the whereabouts of $10.8 billion from crude oil sales proceeds which the erstwhile CBN boss insists the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is yet to pay into the Federation Account.

    This is an administration which is unable to explain what happened to billions expended on funding kerosene subsidy by the same NNPC. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, has said the monies were spent without authorisation.

    This is the same administration which the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) has accused of presiding over the emptying of the Excess Crude Account (ECA). The allegation that $5 billion is missing from the account remains unresolved. According to CBN figures, the ECA had $11.5 billion in December 2014 but by January 17, 2014 that amount had dwindled to $2.5 billion. Many would attribute this evaporation of cash to “financial recklessness.”

    In its attempt to justify the dramatic “suspension” the presidency claims that the ex-governor’s infractions and reign of recklessness lasted for most his tenure. This raises natural questions as to why wait until three months to the end of the man’s tenure to bring him to book – given that government was so concerned about the health of the CBN.

    What was wrong in 2009 is wrong in 2014. Why did President Goodluck Jonathan tolerate Sanusi’s excesses for virtually all of his tenure?

    Apparently, public officials engaging in malpractices is fine so long as they remain good boys who don’t paint the government in bad light. When Sanusi was feverishly defending the removal of petroleum subsidy on national television in January 2012 his ‘sins’ were overlooked.

    But they suddenly became unforgiveable and deserving of a suspension because he allegedly leaked an embarrassing letter about the mismanagement of the nation’s finances to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He exacerbated matters by his further revelations about missing monies at the National Assembly public hearings.

    Government spokesmen say the sacking was not about Sanusi’s utterances at the Senate. They can tell it to a platoon of marines. It is clear this drama isn’t about transparency. On that score the government is in no position to point fingers at anyone. This is clearly a vengeful political act designed to spite a man who dared the president.

    In any country the office of president is a powerful one – but it is more so in developing nations like Nigeria with baby democratic institutions, and where constitutional rule is still evolving. Often, presidents get away with murder unchallenged. Examples abound from Cameroon to Zimbabwe to Gambia where the leaders’ very words have become law, the police and military his personal enforcers to deploy as he deems fit.

    But while we must respect and honour leaders as symbols of our sovereignty, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the office of president is a creation of the constitution. He’s not a monarch whose word is law. Even modern day monarchies are regulated. He’s not some infallible deity who must be worshipped and revered. He is a fallible human prone to the same foibles and frailties that are common to men.

    So, to President Goodluck Jonathan we say congratulations. You finally got rid of Sanusi. What an achievement sacking a man who was just a couple of months away from retirement! It must feel good letting another of your ‘enemies’ know how awesome your powers are as president.

    For the former CBN boss suspension may turn out to be the least of his worries. There may be something or nothing to the negative claims about his tenure. In heat of his purge of CEOs who had turned their financial institutions into personal piggy banks, he used to boast about sending offending Managing Directors to jail. I doubt whether he would want Jonathan and his men to give him a taste of his own medicine. Perhaps they may just stop at destroying his reputation.

    Some have pointed out that Sanusi’s ouster bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Salami. Whereas the judge still had two years to go and was clearly not in a hurry to depart, the CBN Governor had repeated again and again that he didn’t want a second term.

    Until the very end the powers of the president to suspend Salami was a matter of intense debate. Another issue was whether the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the judiciary were correct in surrendering the powers to regulate their branch and hand same to the president. Till date many insist it was a blunder on the part of the NJC.

    But once the suspension was activated it was sustained until Salami’s voluntary retirement. There are those who would say that the presidential move against Sanusi was just a cynical ploy to get a troublemaker out of the way knowing that his only option would be a recourse to the snail-speed courts. In the end even if it is decided that Sanusi’s removal was illegal, it would be an academic exercise that would only inform any future actions by other presidents.

    A court ruling on whether Jonathan was right or wrong may be immaterial to Sanusi’s career progression, still it is important to test whether the constitution has made Nigerian presidents as powerful as they think they are, or whether a conniving public has allowed egotistical men to launch unending and unchecked power grabs.

    It would be interesting to watch what the National Assembly would say or do. Would it take a clear position on this presidential maneuver? The Presidency is throwing everything at Sanusi in a bid to destroy him. He is being investigated by every agency that has a name. That is fine.

    But who will examine a powerful president’s actions? The courts for one: the legislature also if they would rise to the occasion. Can we trust this National Assembly to do their duty?

    The courts may take the rest of the decade to decide if the President has violated the laws in this instance. Ordinary Nigerians don’t have those same constraints. They can reward him if they feel he has done well or make him pay a political price if he has overreached. Time will tell.

  • 2015: Beyond the defections

    Nigerian politics has come a long way. In the past defectors who crossed party lines for whatever reason were viewed as a detestable subset of the political class. They were often denigrated as desperate people who stood for nothing and would flee a sinking ship at the fight sight of water.

    These days the defector is king. He is courted by even presidents as Goodluck Jonathan did not so long ago when he led a colourful rally in Sokoto to welcome serial defector, former Governor Attahiru Baffarawa into the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    All parties are in on the act. The All Progressives Congress (APC) was the major beneficiary of the first wave of defections last year. But it is now crying foul that the eventual destination of potential carpet-crossers is being determined with generous cash inducements by the PDP.

    As though the whiff of the scandalous that trails them wherever they turn were not bad enough, a comical turn was introduced into the matter not too long ago. Former FCT Minister, General Jeremiah Useni, who heads the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) miffed that his party had lost one of its few national legislators went public to correct certain wrong impressions.

    He said the instruction given to the representative by the party was actually to defect to the PDP! Apparently, the man got things mixed up and landed in APC. So far there’s no indication that he’s retraced his steps.

    It is tragic that as we head for 2015 the basis on which political parties would be asking us to vote is how many defectors they managed to attract into their ranks. Although I believe that individuals should be allowed to freely join and freely depart any party or organization, many of those who are fleeting from place to place are not doing so for any firm convictions.

    In most instances the reasons are as pedestrian as ‘I wasn’t made head of the party in my state’ or ‘I was denied ticket for some election.’ In the end when their personal quest fails they, without any sense of shame, quickly return to their vomit.

    I was reading about a couple of politicians in Imo State apparently afflicted by the wandering disease. They had been in APC but now have seen the light and are set to be received with fanfare by President Jonathan. Just trying to make sense of how many times two of them have switched parties makes me dizzy.

    There’s a lie that has been sold to the public for too long. It claims that Nigerians don’t bother with issues when they vote. Nothing can be farther from the truth. I know of incumbents who were punished by voters for their appalling record whilst in office.

    The electorate will focus on those things we prioritise. A celebration of defectors is not a game that will do the parties – especially the opposition much good. They must begin to focus like a laser on Jonathan’s record in office. Anything short will allow the other side to define them in those terms that play to our primordial and emotional weaknesses.

  • For APC, time is ticking

    For APC, time is ticking

    Among the reactions to my column, last week, on the diatribe by the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, against defectors from his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the new formidable opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) were a few who said I was biased. Some of them said I should’ve equally criticised the defectors from PDP to APC. Others said I should’ve considered the merit or otherwise of why the defectors from APC to PDP defected before condemning them.

    I plead guilty to both counts, but only partially. I plead partial guilt on the first count because my silence on the defections to APC can be easily and seemingly justifiably construed as a blind endorsement of the opposition party. It was an endorsement, alright. But it was not a blind one; no Nigerian who has witnessed and/or experienced PDP’s brutalising misrule of the country in the last 15 odd years – a misrule which has made Nigerians much poorer today than they were in 1999 and which has also made their country much more insecure today than it was since then – would not shudder at the prospects of four more years of same under the behemoth, never mind the 60 more years of same it has been threatening Nigerians with.

    The huge turnout in the membership registration of APC a couple of weeks ago which prompted the PDP to accuse the party of preparing the ground to rig next year’s election – a strange accusation coming from a ruling party which prides itself as being the largest on the continent – was a clear testimony of the desperation of Nigerians for something, anything, to rescue them from PDP’s misrule.

    However, as a journalist and political analyst, I have a responsibility to point out to the public that it is not just anything that can rescue them, obvious as this is. Obviously anything which lacks the virtues necessary for good and transparent leadership can only lead to a change of guards, so to speak, rather than to a change from the misfortune of the people.

    The way the APC has carried on since it emerged as an amalgamation of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), it stands the distinctive risk of becoming PDP, with all its ingrained “garrison democracy,” in all but name. For the sake of itself and of Nigeria, the APC must do everything it can to have internal democracy.

    In defecting to the PDP from APC, both Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, former Kano State governor, and Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, his former Sokoto State counterpart, accused it, in effect, of being no better than PDP which it wants to replace. This was precisely why I thought it was strange that the two would defect to the PDP, which is obviously too set in its undemocratic ways to transform itself and offer the genuine article.

    However, both governors were justified to have felt exasperated with the way the top party hierarchy at the centre simply asked them to subordinate themselves to the governors of their states. The right thing the party should have done was to have provided a plain level field for congress elections of its officials from the ward level to the national within at most six months of its emergence. If it had done so most of the internal crisis the party is currently facing in several states would have been avoided. Certainly, its defectors would have had to look for other excuses.

    I say excuse because, in my view at least, the defectors should not have given up so early in the fight for entrenching internal democracy in the party, especially when they are unlikely to make any serious difference in the way the party they have defected to is run.

    It is not too late for APC to avoid creating itself in the terrible image and character of the PDP. It can avoid this pitfall ideally by first of all dissolving its interim executive organs at the ward, local government and state levels before the congress elections. These interim executives have generally constituted themselves into obstacles in the way of internal democracy.

    However, if dissolving them sounds impractical, the least the interim leadership at the national level should do is to bar them from contesting in the congress elections. It should also bar its own members likewise. Not least of all, it should send large enough teams of members with high integrity to conduct the elections.

    For example, for Kano that has 44 Local Government Areas (LGAs), the APC should send a 46-man team of outsiders to Kano, made up of a chairman and secretary and one person per LGA to conduct the elections. And for a state like Bayelsa that has eight LGAs, they should send a 10-man team, also of outsiders, with a chairman and secretary to conduct the elections. If this looks unaffordable the party should send teams larger than those it sent for the membership registration, say at least one member per two LGAs.

    Of course, all this would cost a lot of money which APC is not as well endowed with as PDP. However, with proper organisation the party does not need the huge outlays the PDP has been using to keep itself in power.

    If the well-endowed and the comfortable members of the party sincerely wish to rescue Nigeria from the clutches of what looks like an unreformable PDP, they should selflessly give their all, including their money and time, to ensure they create and sustain internal democracy in their party. The time to do so is not on their side.

    RE: Makun and the defections from PDP

    Sir,

    I agree with you that politicians are looking for shelter from the typhoon called poverty. Blame the social system which protects big business at the expense of the people. The truth, however, is that the Alice in Wonderland world awaits the politicians the day their charming promises fail to send the hungry and the homeless to sleep.

    Amos Ejimonye, Kaduna. +2347085284103.

     

    Sir,

    Are you surprised at any politician or Nigerian politicians and their comments? They all cling together when ‘the goings are good’ AND vituperate when their ‘goings get sour’. Not only Maku, not only Bafarawa and not only Shekarau! They are spread across all the political parties.

    Lanre Oseni. +2347064181045.

     

    Sir,

    It is surprising how you condemned Shekarau’s and Bafarawa’s defection from APC to PDP, while keeping mute on the defections of many governors and legislators from PDP to APC! To you any defection from the PDP to any party is like a blessing to the nation (or north), while defections from any party to the PDP is a curse to the nation (or north). The truth is: APC treated Shekarau, Bafarawa and many other members just like the PDP treated the five defecting governors and other members too. Please always be objective in judging peoples actions and inactions.

    Habibu Hamisu Ibrahim. +2348033262011.

     

    Sir,

    Dr. Nnamdi Benjamin Azikiwe (God bless his gentle soul) was once asked, why he joined d then NPP, and not NPN, UPN, GNPP, PRP, or any of the parties, so called then) in Nigeria’s Second Republic. He retorted, among others: “…I reserve to myself, the prerogative to pick and choose, those who will travel with me, comfortably in d same ‘boat’ … and I will not complain (about) the ultimate fate of the ‘canoe’!”

    Defecting politicians (either in APC, LP, APGA, PPA, PDP, whatever called) in Nigeria today are enjoying this prerogative of jumping into any ship or canoe they feel comfortable with and/or may guarantee them electoral success. So it’s a question of time, for us to see the ultimate outcome of these defections. For now let us watch, pray and wish them well/bon voyage!

    Chukwuma Dioka. +2348142171487.

     

     

  • Man, animal marriage

    Man, animal marriage

    The debate on same-sex marriage has been ranging back and forth for some time. It gathered momentum recently when Nigeria passed a legislation which put a seal on the abnormal behaviour. Since then, different groups and governments, especially the United States of America, USA, and the United Kingdom, UK, have been very vociferous against the clampdown. The reason is simple: their laws support such inanities and, therefore, whoever goes against such moral absurdity is regarded as a ‘sinner’. At least, that is the unfolding scenario that is threatening to suffocate all of us and lead us through the path of evil and perdition.

    Now the United States, the self-acclaimed custodian of morality, has gone a step further. On Monday, February 3, the most obscene event took place. The venue was the Chapel of Our Lady at the Presidio in San Francisco, California State, where the first-ever state-recognised human-animal marriage took place. Paul Horner, a 35-year-old local resident, was the groom during the wedding ceremony. He was joined in ‘unholy’ matrimony with Mac, his faithful dog, who is 36 years old in dog years. Mac was to have been the groom, but the animal ended up wearing a white veil at the last moment.

    On hand to perform the marriage rituals at the outdoor wedding was Reverend Father McHale. Shortly after he had officiated, an obviously elated Fr. McHale told reporters that he was extremely happy to be a part of “this joyous moment of life”. According to him, “this is the definition of true love my friends. There is nothing more sacred than the bond between a man and his faithful dog. It’s a fantastic day to be alive.” Among those who witnessed this eye-sore of a union was Horner’s entire family who flew in from Hawaii for the event, while Mac also had her puppies in attendance.

    In the book of California’s State Laws and Regulations there is a little known law that was passed as the state was being formed in 1850.  Article 155, paragraph 10, clearly states: “If a man and a man can get married and a woman and a woman can get married, if ever comes that day, then a human and animal will have the exact same rights to marriage in every eye of the law. God help us if this ever is to happen!” Now, it has happened. Since it is recognised as a legally binding marriage by California law, “Horner and Mac will have all the same tax benefits and everything else coming to them that a regular married couple would receive.”

    However, Horner, the man of the moment, surprised many when, after the wedding, he quickly said that he would not have sex with the dog. According to him, “I just love my Mac so much; I can’t wait till we can finally get back to the honeymoon sweet in Montana where bestiality is legal… People keep asking me why I wanted to marry a dog. I told them I just want the same God-given rights that every person in California is allowed to have. Don’t tell me I can’t marry my dog. I don’t tell you that you can’t marry a 500 lb woman with gas issues. That’s your decision. Don’t tread on me. I love my dog and I know he loves me a hundred times more than any gay wedding out there.”

    With this strange wedding between a man and a male dog now officially consummated, the US must have wittingly opened a new vista in the journey to bestiality and amorous rascality. It is a one-way ticket to Sodom and Gomorrah. As usual, they may be too willing to export this strange union to other parts of the world. What this signifies is that we are seriously in trouble with this convoluted definition of human rights as espoused by the Americans and their cohorts in other parts of the world.

    Nigeria has been placed under the hammer since the country recently signed the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill 2013 into law. This action unsettled many gay-rights enthusiasts across the globe. When the Senate, the Upper House of the National Assembly in Nigeria, passed the bill on November 29, 2011, the international community greeted the move by launching a spirited campaign to stall the final passage of the bill into law. At the forefront of the international campaign were the UK, Nigeria’s colonial master, and the US. Since then, their resentment had multiplied not diminished.

    The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Australia towards the end of 2011 provided an opportunity for David Cameron, the petite British Prime Minister, to assault the collective sensibilities of Africans when he veered off mark during his speech and launched himself into a sermon ostensibly targeted at Africans at the meeting. In the long speech, which betrayed his deep-seated anger and emotional stress, Cameron laboured hard to espouse the beauty of same-sex marriage. He said his country would not tolerate a law that seeks to punish people because of their preferred ways of life in accordance with their orientations and beliefs.

    He was not alone. Barack Obama, the US President, added his own voice by issuing an executive order through a memo personally signed by him, empowering US diplomats worldwide to advance the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, LGBT, persons. According to the memo, “the struggle to end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons is a global challenge and one that is central to the United States’ commitment to promoting human rights. By this memorandum, I am directing all agencies engaged abroad to ensure that US diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons”. The release of that memo coincided with the day some handpicked Nigerians posing as gays, staged a protest against the same-sex bill in their country in front of the Nigeria House in New York.

    Homosexuality is illegal in most African countries, where sodomy laws were introduced during colonialism. In Uganda, punishments for homosexual acts range from 14 years to life imprisonment. By the new law, the gays in Nigeria risk 14-year jail terms if they do not retrace their steps and renounce such marriages. Also, any person who operates or participates in gay clubs, societies and organisations directly or indirectly will earn 10-year imprisonment. Those who administer, witness, abet or aid the solemnisation of a same-sex marriage are going to bag 10-year jail term. The signing of the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill into law has foreclosed any pressure on the Nigerian government not to assent to the bill.

    Indeed, this is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family and the future of our children because the African cultural values do not tolerate same-sex marriage. Like I said in my column on December 14, 2011, “Africans abhor same sex unions”. African culture revolves round their ancestors, the living and the unborn children. Not even the advent of the dominant religions – Christianity and Islam – has been able to interfere with that fundamental belief. Therefore, marriage in African context has never been seen as a private affair. Rather, it is a community affair, and that is what gives it essence and meaning. Christianity and Islam frown at homosexuality. So also is African traditional religion, wherever practised. In actual fact, African traditional religion does not only frown at it, it imposes severe sanctions on those involved and even their families. So, for all practical purposes, homosexuality is un-African; the society condemns it in its entirety and, in most cases, ostracizes anybody involved or passes a curse on such a person or persons”.

    Now that human beings are getting married to animals – and maybe trees and other objects much later – this satanic practice, rather than bring development, will only spell doom for those who engage in it or who tolerate it in the name of civilisation. However, in Nigeria and as a people, we must remain steadfast and undaunted as we move gradually and steadily to annihilate the vestiges of bad influence on our culture, beliefs, tradition and norms.

     

  • Party transparent  funding – anti-corruption strategy;  ‘The Pre-Election Year of ‘Phantom Governance’

    Wanted: Party Transparent Funding, PTF –an election issue! Parties must fund themselves and politicians independently of the government treasury. Political hangers-on tell politicians to stop developmental projects during the pre-election year and divert all the budgeted public money to party people for distribution to the party faithful and hangers-on as ‘dividends of democracy’ to boast about to other party faithful and cause maximum disaffection and envy among ‘hungry’ non-party members. They say that only this undemocratic injection of stolen funds and abandonment of development projects will guarantee election victory. Shame. What wrong thinking is this especially as the absence of that money leads to project abandonment, a fall in social services, more potholes, less medical care, inconsistent salaries and pensions and a grinding of governance to a halt for the election year?

    Of course, the salaries and perks of politicians and certain ‘key’ fictional and untraceable projects will be fully ‘funded’ during this ‘Year of Phantom Governance’ but pensions and civil servant salaries may suffer due to ‘shortage of funds’. All this creates opportunity for the party officials to gather huge ‘Political War Chests’ collectively estimated in the hundreds of billions of naira nationwide for political publicity, politicians’ posters, billboards, advert time, rallies, uniforms, clothes, party insignia like umbrellas and brooms, vehicles, security and cash handouts and violent ‘covert ops’ – all at the expense of public treasury, development and electoral credibility.

    It is calculated that less than 30% of money given out to a second person or group for a political activity is ever spent on that activity. Again it is ‘The Mobutu Law of Multiplied Corruption’. If Mobutu wanted $1m, he would ask the Finance Minister who would ask the Central Bank of Zaire for $2m. The CBZ Governor would sign out $3m, steal $1 and send $2m to the Finance Minister who would steal 1$m and send $1m to Mobutu. The CBZ officials may have a ‘self-service administration charge’ of 20% i.e. $600,000. So when one big person like a First Lady or minister chooses to steal, the effect on the moral system is devastating and crippling to the economy. Similarly when a party chairman or governor or council chairman  allocates funds to a ’party rally’ or campaign, he will have a first line charge as oga at the top, even if it is his ‘own’ money acquired fraudulently. Everyone in line will take 10-50% of whatever passes by under the principle of ‘who is a fool? Not me O!’ So an initial mobilisation of N10,000,000 passing through five or 20 greedy party hands will quickly become only N500,000 or at most N1m available for the actual political rally or project. And everyone gets rich drinking from the gravy trail, the money stream passing by down to the trickle reaching the ground or grassroots.

    Of course it has been this way for years under the slogan ‘Government Money is Nobody’s Money’ or ‘Government money is Party Money’ or ‘Government has more money than I can steal –but I will try my best’,  especially with military and political government money. It is exactly this way for thousands of government projects written in the mists of the harmattan dust and executed only in foreign bank accounts where mobilisation funds and loans have been deposited with no intention of execution of developmental activities. The beneficiaries are scattered across the political and military landscape as ‘respectable’ citizens while we suffer the indignities caused by their leadership skill failures and corruption –no power, railways, second Niger Bridge, water, books and libraries in schools –all budgeted for annually. Party and military patronage, first lady accounts, import licences, Form M and ‘Military indent’, security votes, the unauditable accounts of political and military office all add up. Of course there are many honest contractors denied their money and owing banks for money used to execute projects. Such non-payment and compulsory kickbacks are corruption making them ‘underperform’ or be owed the N1.7trillion domestic dept.

    This is a true but very sad indictment of the political system which trivialises the voter in the political scheme and equated the voter to a N200-500 commodity instead of that voter needing to be converted by the ‘wonderful’ productivity, projects and performance of the party. The politician seems to ignore the voters completely or have the voters on a string. Voters are not part of politicians’ toys to be brought out of storage to ‘perform’ at the four-yearly election event. Voters must seize back the central political ground and not be peripheral to the political battles to come. Disgraced, nonperforming and corrupt politicians must be relegated and kept out. There are enough new Nigerians without going to geriatric homes to bring back the nearly dead. We want a new wind to blow the political chaff away from the wheat. Remember it is not every idle person who seeks to be a politician who is capable of service, not self-service. Worldwide politics takes up 1-10% of governance, but in Nigeria politics takes up 90-99% of governance. This must change.

    However the current situation is no different from the corruption common under all misguided and teleguided ‘corrective military coupist’ adventures. We must insist on PTF: Party Transparent Funding and get a maximum performance year instead of a ‘The Pre-Election Year of ‘Phantom Governance’. Spend the money on performance and there will be no need to bribe anyone.

  • Maku and the defections from PDP

    Maku and the defections from PDP

    Last Wednesday, Information Minister, Labaran Makun, launched a blistering attack on members of his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who defected recently to the new opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), an amalgam of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

    The defectors, the minister said, were “like the Fulani nomads; they move from one party to another without shame. It shouldn’t be something we should cherish.”

    The minister launched his rather gratuitous offensive during a news briefing in Abuja, the federal capital, on the outcome of the day’s Federal Executive Council meeting.

    In launching his attack on the defectors he singled out the governors of Kano State, Dr Rabi’u Kwankwaso, and his Sokoto counterpart, Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko. They were, he said, undemocratic desperados who parachuted themselves into the APC and hijacked it from its founders.

    Their defections, he said, were however good for the party; akin to an obese person shedding undesirable fat to live a healthier and more robust life. (I am not so sure it would be wise for PDP to be so smug as the youthful minister; between Kano and Sokoto states there are relatively nearly as many voters – over seven million – as the entire Southsouth put together, with their nearly nine million).

    Maku’s unflattering comparison of the defections with the nomadic lifestyle of Fulanis has been rightly condemned by many as ethnicist. However, I agree completely with the underlying assumption of his diatribe which is that any defection based on ego or personal ambition rather than on a sublime principle is a thing to be condemned.

    The trouble with Maku’s angry words, however, was that they were not based on any principle. Rather they were simply meant to please his political godfathers. Otherwise, it would have occurred to him before he spoke that his harsh words would be truer of former governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, and his Sokoto State counterpart, Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, who subsequently traded places with their successors by defecting to the PDP. This realisation would have advised him to have been more careful in his choice of words against Kwankwaso and Wamakko.

    Take Bafarawa first. Nearly twelve years ago, on March 28, 2002 to be precise, the former Sokoto governor, as guest speaker at the second anniversary of the founding of the Arewa Consultative Forum, had only harsh words to describe what he said was the marginalisation of the North by the PDP under former president, General Olusegun Obasanjo. “Ogun and Oyo alone,” he said, in the course of his lecture to the applause of his large audience, “have benefitted from over N30 billion worth of road projects, more than what 12 states that make up Northwest and Northeast together enjoyed.”

    His answer to this marginalisation, he said, was Northern unity, pointing out that “While the West is AD 100%, the South-south and the South-east are PDP 100% … the North is 50% APP and 50% PDP.”

    He concluded that it was therefore “imperative that, at least for the sake of future presidential elections, we must all go one direction…United we stand, divided we fall.”

    Without prejudice to the merit or otherwise of his preference for the politics of regional monolithism, a preference which lacks any basis in our political history because opposition forces had always thrived in the old regions, one must ask what has changed between now and when Obasanjo left office seven years ago to justify Bafarawa’s defection to the PDP. The truth, as Bafarawa knows all too well, is that the North has been marginalised even more under President Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP than under Obasanjo’s.

    Exactly eight years to the day he was guest speaker at the ACF’s second anniversary, he said in a lengthy interview in The Nation (March 28, 2010) that he would never join PDP because being in opposition was the only way to deepen democracy in Nigeria. This was after he left ANPP in frustration, following his accusation that PDP had planted Chief Donald Etiebet as ANPP’s chairman to serve as a fifth columnist.

    Instead of joining PDP, he said, he decided to form his own Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) on whose platform he eventually contested the 2011 presidential election. Naming then PDP chair, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, and then acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, as his witnesses, he claimed Obasanjo offered him the control of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states by ceding the nomination of their governorship candidates to him, if he would join PDP. He said he rejected the offer.

    The Nation: What is in PDP that is making you run away from it?

    Bafarawa: I don’t believe in joining PDP because I want to help democracy grow…When there is challenge in democracy, then the government will move but if there is no opposition, there is no democracy.”

    Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what has changed about the PDP’s proverbial “garrison democracy” four years after the former Sokoto governor’s encounter with editors of The Nation that it has now suddenly become a beacon of democracy without the threat of a viable opposition party.

    Obviously, Bafarawa needs a better excuse than the ones he’s been giving us for his defection to a party that before now he had regarded as simply incapable of fostering democracy. And what is true of Bafarawa is even truer of the former Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau.

    Only late last year at a conference organised by the Movement for Better Future and Democratic Emancipation in Kaduna on September 7, 2013, he dismissed President Jonathan as a “total failure.”

    “My assessment,” he said then, “is that the government is a total failure… The only answer to this failure is to get the right people to do it.”

    Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, how within a short spell of five months the president has, in the former governor’s eyes, become the only right person to take Nigeria to now “do it.”

    For this intelligent and highly eloquent former teacher-turned-politician who, most Nigerians agreed, emerged the clear winner of the 2011 Presidential debate – what with, in the words of BBC News (April 5, 2011) “his eloquence, a calm disposition and an apparent grasp of policy issues” – to now sing praises of a president he thought unworthy of his office not too long ago, it speaks volumes about the courage and integrity of the self-declared convictions of our politicians.

    Of course, real elections are won not by debating skills alone. In free and fair elections that have defied this country, politicians win on the strength of their character and performance. The long history of carpet crossing between parties in this country and the manner in which our youthful minister of Information, Labaran Maku, heaped scorn on those who defected to the opposition party is proof positive that it would be a great miracle if next year’s election is, for once, won, not on the basis of propaganda, but on the basis of character and performance.

     

    Re: Babangida’s triumph of hope over reality

    Sir,

    So IBB does not as a Nigerian, a former president, war veteran, leader, elder statesman, etc, etc, have the right to say his mind and air his views on any national issue, without you attacking him.

    So Gen IBB is wrong and you are right. How selfish, self-centered and confused you are.

    Are you attacking IBB to please your pay masters or you have nothing to write or you want to be heard loud and clear because you attacked IBB?

    You (have) many issues to write about so why wait for IBB to speak, you then attack him? He has been very kind to you and your family. He does not deserve any attack from you on pages of newspapers, more so when you have direct access to him and can see him at any time you so wish.

    Who is sponsoring you against IBB? Who is afraid of IBB?

    Please have a re-think and kindly desist. IBB only said his mind, simple and clear and he has the right to.

    Hassan Muhammad Jallo.

     

    Sir,

    Does it matter if there are hitches in a society? And despite General Babangida’s optimism, yours was “pessimism” all through! Remember, you have benefitted from this same wobbled system and you are still benefitting. Give encouragement and support to our leaders rather than sanctions and ridicule!

    Lanre Oseni.

     

     

     

     

  • Lagos terrorists’ threat

    Lagos terrorists’ threat

    In the book, The Olive Tree, Aldous Huxley, 1894 – 1936, an English writer, said: “The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings and that these individuals are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.” Going by Huxley’s submission, the current scourge of terrorism that is ravaging the entire globe could be attributed to politics of various colours and dimensions. In some places, it is religious rivalry; in others it could be the struggle for political control or domination. Whichever way it is viewed, human rivalries, over the years, have found expression in violence, be it terrorism, assassination, arson, outright war or any other despicable criminal activities.

    In Nigeria, we have witnessed so many conflicts all over the place. When it is not tribal or ethnic rivalry, it is religion or politics. Today, the whole country has become one huge theatre of war. In Plateau State, it is both tribal and ethnic rivalry that has almost turned the place into modern-day George Orwell’s ‘animal farm’, where life is miserably short and brutish. This internecine war has paralysed the socio-economic life of its once bustling capital city, Jos. Further north is the unrelenting carnage being unleashed on defenceless and innocent people, especially in the three north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe by the Boko Haram insurgents. Not even a state of emergency declared on the three states since May last year has been able to restore law and order. The whole thing has degenerated into a sort of guerrilla warfare in which elements of Boko Haram now make occasional incursions into isolated villages and hamlets, leaving deaths and destruction in their trail.

    Recently, new service chiefs were appointed to replace the former ones who had prosecuted the war against these terrorists without success. While taking over as the new Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, at the Defence Headquarters, Abuja, on January 20, Alex Badeh, an Air Marshal, assured Nigerians that the military would bring the Boko Haram insurgency in the country to an end before April this year. The CDS said that this was possible if the military approached its security responsibilities cohesively. He told the new Chief of Army Staff, Major-General Kenneth Minimah, who is expected to coordinate the fight against the insurgents, that it was possible for his work to be concluded in a short time. Badeh also gave the assurance that the other service chiefs – Air-Vice Marshal Adesola Amosun and Rear Admiral Usman Jubrin, Chief of Air Staff and Chief of Naval Staff respectively, would give the requisite support to the Army chief in the prosecution of the campaign to end terrorism in the country.

    From events that followed, it was obvious that Badeh was merely basking in the euphoria of the moment. The new CDS’ assurance was taken with a pinch of salt as various commentators on national affairs took him to task on the validity of his promise to end terrorism in the North-east in three months. When the commentaries became unbearable, the authorities at the Defence Headquarters, Abuja, rose to his defence. As if in a volte-face, Chris Olukolade, a Major-General and Director of Defence Information, admitted that it was not possible for terrorism to be brought to an end anywhere in the world with a specific directive. He said that the CDS was aware of the complex nature of the problem of terrorism and was optimistic that the problem could be brought under control with the vigour and readiness of the new service chiefs when he made the statement.

    The denial by the Defence Headquarters coincided with an alleged plot by the Boko Haram terrorist group to invade Lagos. The terrorists were said to be planning to infiltrate the state in vehicles painted with military colours. This is worrisome. Some months ago, a terrorist group allegedly conveyed weapons to Lagos inside some of the numerous fuel tankers that ply major roads to the country’s former capital and indeed the nation’s commercial nerve centre. A raid carried out some months ago by security agents saved residents of Lagos and Ogun states from possible attacks by the terrorists.

    The joint raid led to the arrest of some suspects who are members of the Boko Haram sect.

    Before the latest threat, security agents had uncovered and dismantled the plot by the alleged terrorists to plant cells in the western part of the country with Lagos as the headquarters. Security operatives, who later briefed the National Assembly leaders last year about the reality of the planned invasion of Lagos, told the federal legislators that indeed the attackers had planned to cripple the economy. The security chiefs told the federal legislators that some of the attackers captured had hinted that the plot was deliberate: to cripple the nerve centre of the country’s commerce and industry, a city that hosts the international air and seaports, so that the nation’s economy could collapse.

    The federal legislators were thoroughly alarmed by the revelation about the sense of urgency of the insurgents to hit Lagos just to make Nigeria ungovernable. The implications of targeting the very strategic Lagos Third Mainland Bridge, the longest bridge in Africa, have been of major concern to authorities at all levels. The 11.8 km long bridge built by Julius Berger Nigeria Plc was commissioned in 1990. The Bridge is the longest of the three bridges connecting Lagos Island to the Mainland. The other two are the Eko and Carter bridges. The bridge, which is a vital artery of the network of federal highways, commands high patronage.

    Since the eruption of the Boko Haram insurgency in the northern parts of the country some years ago, their activities have been concentrated in the North, where several lives and property have been lost. Though there have been some cases of arrest of suspected members in some states, the southern part of the country has not experienced or witnessed any attack by the sect members.   Therefore, the recent alleged plot to attack Lagos by the terrorists has been raising serious concerns among the residents of the city and other Nigerians. This is in spite of assurances by the security agents and the state government that they were battle-ready to nip in the bud any attack by sect members.

    Since he became Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola has been engaged in proactive measures against such attacks and other crimes in the city. The government recently launched the installation of 1,200 security cameras in the city. Already, the cameras have been deployed in critical locations. Though the Lagos State government is unrelenting in the fight against crime and criminalities in the state, deploying cameras all over Lagos is not enough. Those who will man them at the control room are very vital to the success of the project. Besides, the state needs to go all out to enlighten the populace on the danger of harbouring criminals in their neighbourhoods. Again, Lagos residents must be educated about the importance of volunteering useful information on suspicious movements in their localities so as to put the terrorists in check. The security agencies too must treat such information with utmost confidentiality in order to win the confidence of the people.

    Criminals are human beings; they are not spirits. In that case, with the support and cooperation of the people, they can be stopped in their tracks. Above all, our politicians or some of them that are in the habit of keeping criminals and other hoodlums as bodyguards who are usually let loose to commit all forms of atrocities on the society should desist from such ignoble practices and allow peace to reign. In the words of Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, in New York, on September 11, 2001: “This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of life, and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together and fight it together and eradicate this evil completely from our world.”