The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Nigeria in search of healing

    Myriads of news abound today about the different natural disasters that incessantly threaten the life of people across Europe. While many have been rendered homeless and displaced, some have had their earthly existence abruptly terminated. As a result, many are languishing in pain and lament as the cry for help roars increasingly. Earthquake, tornado, hurricane, tsunami and the like, more often than not, invade the people as unwanted visitors. When they come, they wrought fear and unleash terror on their victims.

    However we as Nigerians have been so favoured by nature. We are immune to natural disaster. We are not victims of earthquake, hurricane, and tsunami as the case may be, but our detestable lot and portion is rather a moral disaster. We have become so engrossed in a colossal moral disaster known as corruption. While other natural disasters occur once in a while, our own brand of disaster has become so immanent. Devoid of any form of exaggeration, corruption as it were has become part and parcel of our nature. It has assumed an ontological status and considerably synonymous with our identity as a people. So bad it is that we not only practice corruption, but it is the case that it has become the air we breathe and the ocean we swim in. In fact to say the very least, corruption which is a social vice, is now shamelessly celebrated. We have gotten to the zenith where corruption becomes our food and drink, a milky way of life, and the fastest and easiest means of self-enrichment.

    Without any iota of deception, it is definitely accurate to assert that what we witness in Nigeria as a people is an institutionalized brand of corruption wherein the very corrupt have the say in the society. In this case, corruption is used as a political arsenal cum sponsor. We have domesticated and adopted a wild poisonous animal in our society. It is pathetic to discover that this monster has become a stakeholder in the corridors of power; a vampire has become the counsellor of our political leaders as it takes over their consciences. I gasp and pant in dismay when I see that this deadly ghost of corruption is the source of anointing of many of our leaders. The future appears very bleak when I realize that many of our leaders have turned professors not in leadership skills, not in human sensitivity, not in economic development, not in profound philosophy of administration, but in the different gimmicks and tricks of corruption.

    Like a rampaging cancer, we are all witnesses to the effects of corruption. It is so crude that its effects are felt quite immediately. First and foremost, every corrupt society is a fertile ground for the thriving of selfishness, greed, shady practices, lack of accountability, hatred, and a harbour for unpatriotic leaders cum citizens. It is only in this kind of society that the innocents can be killed by way of ritual, accidents resulting from abandoned roads for which several contracts have been awarded and paid for, curable diseases which drugs have been confiscated, pensioners whose monthly pensions have been embezzled and so on.

    To this end, we are confronted with a leadership that is insensitive to the plight of the populace; our leaders are crippled in the war against the monstrous giant of corruption as a good number of them are very unpatriotic and mere saboteurs. As such, they are often blindfolded and rendered visionless in the face of the dark cloud covering all aspects of administration. On the other hand, the masses have been instigated to anger, resulting into terrorism. The motherland is therefore polluted and desecrated with injustice, corruption, bribery, sexual perversion, religious bigotry, anxiety, maiming, cultism and their ilk.

    To state further, it is in a corrupt society like Nigeria that we can have her citizenry crying of hunger in the midst of abundance because of the endless crave to satisfy greed which is insatiable. I weep relentlessly when I see the ill wind of homosexuality blowing across young men and boys of today, not solely because they lack the proper sense of nature but because they have been compelled by hardship to fall victim to the corrupt gongs who also make recourse to same sex as a ritual to fuel and sustain their shady and corrupt practices. Or is there an end to the pain evoked by knowing that many young girls and ladies have turned prostitutes just because that is the only means by which they can tap from the treasury of the corrupt?

    From the foregoing, it is quite obvious that we are in need of healing. Where shall we go for help as we stand condemned before our heroes past, as the blood of the dead victims of corruption cum terrorism irrigate our land in utmost cry for vengeance and thirst for justice, as the cry and lament of the poor pierces the heavenly realms, as the faces of the masses are veiled with misery, as many of our leaders have taken diabolical oaths in demonic shrines and satanic cults and thousands of souls are being offered as sacrifices to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for blood?

    Given the enormity of the havoc wrecked by the evil of corruption, it then means that there is a dire need for a national conversion. We have to atone for our sins as a nation. A presidential pardon cannot achieve this for us; rather it may be a subtle way of legalizing corruption. And if it must be of any help, it must have been preceded by a public remorse, atonement and reparation on the part of the offender. In essence, there is a clarion call for a national conversion.

    As a nation, we have to make reparation for the evil we have done. We have to repay hatred with love, we have to embrace transparency in our dealings, we need to imbibe the spirit of the common good and jettison selfishness and greed, we just have to make a return to land of mutual concern as entrenched in communal living and bid farewell to our failed individualism, yes, we must have concern for the other and not just the self alone. It is by so doing that we can be delivered from the hands of this demon called corruption.

     

    • Rev. Ariko writes from Lokoja, Kogi State

  • No clap for FERMA’s cruel joke;  Ipadeola; Sovereign citizen, Politician is paid servant

    Are we a nation lacking good parents? After unimaginable suffering with delays and death on the Lagos-Ibadan road, misnamed expressway, the FERMA dares to congratulate itself for ‘intervening to save road users’. An arrogant and cruel FERMA joke? Rubbish. Where was FERMA when potholes were begging to be filled? FERMA last did petty work on that road when the President visited Abeokuta 3+ years ago. We are all presidents and the S-NC will prove it! FERMA should be ashamed as it is responsible for the negligence turning roads into dirt tracks. Is this the road the Aviation Minister will drive her bomb-proof cars valued at N250m? It is too late for Nigerians to say ‘thank you’. What type of Nigerian government has FERMA and equipment but stands aside, witnessing more death, damage and suffering for years? Is that political, administrative, engineering or corruption failure? Shame on FERMA! Shamefully for Africa in 2013 and Nigeria and its 4th UN Security Council Non-Permanent Seat, government acts as if only foreigner contractors can fill potholes. Is FERMA a salary-for-nothing joke just ‘discovering’ the road like David Livingstone? If so, it is a deadly joke and Nigerian road users are maxi-angry! Once again government treats Nigerians like idiot children with negligent irresponsible parents. We will not clap for FERMA! Why are citizens allowed to feel bastards in a country which tars roads for presidents and visitors but makes potholes for its citizens? Mad priorities, abi?

    Congratulations and gbosas to the unassuming Tade Ipadeola LLB on winning the 2013 LNG Prize for Literature for The Sahara Testaments published by Hornbill African Poets after winning the Delphic Laurel in Poetry from South Korea recently which he showed me then. I also submitted my work The Laterite Road -an African Travel Odyssey published by Evans for the NLG Prize but did not even make the long list. I am therefore definitely jealous and envious in the nicest possible way. Tade’s book, which I am now reading, is an intellectual masterpiece, demonstrating rhyme and reason in and out of season. In some parts it requires a large dictionary or internet access to wikipedia and more while reading, for full comprehension. It is a living breathing look at our Africa….an excerpt…

    Listen, the desert is singing, singing, just singing.

    It is a duet, a duet with the breeze

    and

    Is taboo. They stay attached like Nigerian inflation

    Of which Fela sang with his tenor saxophone.

    An excerpt from my work The Laterite Road anticipates the recent over 500 deaths at Lampedusa

    Survivors of the desert sea storm

    Destined for Mediterranean thirst and drowning,

    In leaking boats bent on sinking.

    Forcing entry into Fortress Europe,

    Burning in the Sahara,

    Or drowning in the Mediterranean

    Destined for Melilla, Lampedusa,

    Sicily, Italy.

    Young bodies beaten black and blue,

    Crushed on Europe’s wet rocks.

    More lost young African building blocks

    Taken from the African Renaissance Building

    On the laterite road.

    You can celebrate this success. Buy Tade’s book and mine as a present for someone today, to improve the reading culture and make a new generation of Nigerians authors into household names.

    All those who have strangled Nigeria through ‘Nigeria’s 40 Years of the Locust’ and installed a ‘Paradise Lost’ have nothing to offer the new S-National Conference. There will be a S-NC but is S ‘Stupid or Sovereign’, ‘Silly or Serious’? Let the over-50s leave the stage with their ‘wisdom’ that left Nigeria waterless, powerless, education-less, health-less, train-less, road-less, naira-worthless and nearly futureless. The over-50s should ignore ‘overpowering desires to “serve”, yet again’.

    The people are sovereign, delegating authority to the political class. But the S-NC is much more than ‘politics’ and politicians do not have a moral track record of putting the nation above greed. The citizens suffer ‘A VIOLENT DEMOCRACY’ and ’DEMOCRATIC RAPE’. The politicians are the expensive employees of the people. So how dare politicians claim sovereignty? The statements from NASS on ‘final sovereignty’ are military and darkly dangerous. Parliaments which disregard people’s power ALWAYS fall. Politicians must ‘take a bow’ or face oblivion. Can they not see the great power of this ‘2013 MOVEMENT’? Get on board or be side-lined. Allowing the NASS final say is a denial of the Nigerian citizen’s sovereignty. How can a servant, paid to occupy a house by his master, claim that he owns the house and the master? WE DEMAND A REFERENDUM.

    Can Nigerian politicians be trusted to work for Nigeria? Can they abolish one house of the National Assembly, NASS and go British parliamentary in their ‘Eternal Retirement Home’. Can they implement needed salaries and perks cuts which SAP Nigeria dry and catalyse the impending economic destruction of Nigeria in the next five years? As merely another interest group in Nigeria numerically less than 0.01% but 100% noisy in the media, politicians and political parties should step aside and watch 99.99% of Nigerians take the stage. It is time to tame the politician made into a monster by himself, people and the press! The Guild of Editors, Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ and the media should meet to re-strategise for the S-NC and institute policy and interview strategies to give space to Nigerians and ignore politicians. It is the politicians past actions and their future employment terms and conditions that are for assessment and decisions by the ‘exam body’ comprising all Nigerians at the S-NC. Politicians should await the Nation’s Examination Result.

    To be continued.

  • National Conference debate: Between Jonathan, Tinubu

    National Conference debate: Between Jonathan, Tinubu

    Two days ago President Goodluck Jonathan used the occasion of his goodwill Eid el-Kabir message to Muslims in the country to respond to those who have dismissed his decision to hold a national conference as diversionary and self-seeking. “Those who continue to say that our initiative is diversionary or aimed at promoting certain political agenda,” he said, “are in error.”

    Of all the critics of the President’s new found conversion to holding a national conference – until his announcement of the initiative during his October 1 Independence Day speech, the man had been decidedly cool, if not completely hostile, to the idea – the presidency seemed to consider Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State, putative leader of the South-West and leading chieftain of the new opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the most intolerable.

    On arrival in Lagos two weeks ago, fresh from his extended medical trip abroad, he had dismissed the President’s initiative as impractical and insincere. “Where,” the Asiwaju had asked, obviously rhetorically, “is the capability, where is the sincerity?” The President’s initiative, he said, was a “Greek gift.”

    That the President probably had the Asiwaju foremost in his mind of all his critics became apparent when his bellicose spokesman, Dr. Doyin Okupe, singled out the Asiwaju for his now characteristic diatribe within hours of the President’s Sallah message.

    “The APC leader,” he said at a press conference he addressed on the issue, “as usual, is completely off target. Desperate politicians and self-seeking political leaders tend to believe that their quest for power or insatiable appetite for wealth accumulation through politics is superior to the genuine desires and innate aspirations of ordinary Nigerians.”

    The “Bola Tinubus of this world,” he said, are concerned only with the 2015 elections whereas “most patriotic ordinary Nigerians” were more concerned with how to build a united Nigeria “based on equity and justice to all its component parts…” This, presumably, was the President’s motive for agreeing at last to holding a national conference.

    So instead of criticising the President, Okupe said, the man should be praised not just for acceding to what most Nigerians, he claimed, have always demanded. His principal should be praised because for the first time in the country’s history a leader has said he will hold a national conference “without the obnoxious ‘no-go areas.’”

    As usual, Okupe’s defence of his oga was pure wind. First, every Nigerian, except the big man himself and his handlers like Okupe, knows that the man had long ago made up his mind to contest and win the 2015 presidential elections whatever it takes. The evidence stares us in the face daily from the cloak and dagger games that have been going on over the control of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) between him and the internal opposition.

    However, the dead giveaway was his denial in his September 29 Presidential Media Chat that he signed any paper or said he would not contest the elections. “I did not,” he said, “say that I will not contest in 2015. In Addis Ababa, that was when I advocated single term of seven years…I said if Nigerians agree to that I may not be involved. I did not say I will contest or not. Those who said I have signed an agreement should show the agreement.”

    Because of the double-speak obvious from these words – you cannot say you may not be involved in a thing and at the same time insist you have not made up your mind on the thing one way or the other – and again because Nigerians have rejected his condition of a seven-year single term presidency for keeping out of the elections, it is not unfair to conclude that he has since felt obliged to contest and will do so.

    Second, the President’s timing – less than 18 months to the 2015 elections – raises questions about his motive. Never mind the insecurity situation in the land, or the incredible oil theft going on, in spite of – some would say indeed because of – the multi-million-dollar contract he gave to a favoured clique of former Niger Delta militant leaders, or the on-going ASUU strike, etc, the President has enough work before him organising credible, free, fair and peaceful elections in 2015.

    To add a national conference to all this against the historical background of a general lack of sincerity by our leaders in summoning similar conferences since 1967 cannot but raise questions about the President’s own sincerity.

    Going back to February 1966, Major-General J. T. Aguiyi-Ironsi set up the equivalent of the President’s panel on how to organise the conference under Chief FRA Williams but before the late legal giant could sit down to work, the head of state, apparently at the prompting of his narrow-minded clique of advisers, went ahead to enact the ill-motivated Unification Decree.

    After him General Yakubu Gowon had his own ad-hoc constitutional conference which eventually ended in a fiasco in Aburi, Ghana. After the civil war which followed ended in 1970, he promised to go in 1976. In 1974, however, he said 1976 was unrealistic and tried to elongate his stay in office. He was overthrown in July of 1975.

    The next regime under General Murtala Mohammed promised to leave in 1979 and kept its word even though the man was assassinated in an abortive coup in February 1976. The Constitution Drafting Committee he had set up under Chief Williams suggested a change from the Parliamentary democracy of the Second Republic to an American type Presidential system.

    The mostly elected Constituent Assembly accepted the change but its sitting ended in a near fiasco. Then General Olusegun Obasanjo who succeeded General Mohammed made 17 amendments to the CA draft before he enacted it into the supreme law of the land in 1979.

    The Second Republic, which started in October 1979 under President Shehu Shagari, was overthrown in December 1983. Between then and the beginning of the current dispensation in 1999, we’ve had four military heads of state – Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Abdulsalami Abubakar. Except for Buhari, all of them summoned a constitutional conference whose outcome received mixed reactions mainly because of widespread suspicions that the leaders were interested in succeeding themselves, in the case of Babangida and Abacha, or in imposing another general on the country, in the case of Abdulsalami.

    The Third Term Agenda of General Obasanjo who took over from Abdulsalami is too fresh in our memories to waste space dwelling over.

    Clearly, President Jonathan is merely treading the familiar paths of past leaders who tried to remain in power by the subterfuge of a manipulated constitutional conference. Virtually all of them failed. However, the lesson seems clearly lost on President Jonathan as he tries to use the same strategy.

    Still on the issue of sincerity, it is evident to all but Okupe who says his boss should be praised for summoning a national conference without “no-go areas” for the first time in the country’s history that this is fiction. The fact is that what the President is summoning is anything but sovereign. Not only did the President not use the word sovereign anywhere in his speech, everything he said took the unity of the country for granted. His conference, he said, among other things, is to provide a platform that will “reinforce the ties that bind the country’s many ethnic nationalities and ensure that Nigeria’s immense diversity continues to be a source of strength and greatness.”

    There may be many people who doubt his commitment to the country’s unity, unless he remains its president beyond 2015 but anyone who thinks the man is ready to surrender his sovereignty to any conference would surely be in for a big surprise.

    Thirdly, as Tinubu has said, apart from the question of sincerity, there is also that of the capacity of the Jonathan presidency to hold a national conference when so far he has failed to demonstrate the capacity to resolve the nation’s myriad of problems.

    Fourth and lastly, but most importantly, flawed as our Constitution is, it is the least of the country’s problems. The fact is that there is sufficient good in it to make our country great if only our leaders will keep good faith with its provisions and with the good but suffering people of this country.

    This lack of good faith explains why we have had about 12 constitutions since the first one in 1922 and we are still blaming them for our problems. As the English would say, it is bad workmen who always quarrel with their tools.

    Compare the American constitution, which is 226 years old and which we have copied, with ours and it’s easy to see that that the difference between the two countries is the good faith the Americans have, by and large, kept with the provisions of theirs.

    Compared to ours, it is concise and brief; the copy I have is all of 34 pages with an average of 27 lines each and eight words per line. A simple arithmetic gives you less than 7,500 words, including all the 27 amendments to the constitution the last of which was ratified in 1971.

    Ours is 235 pages with an average of 29 lines per page, each line having an average of nine words. This comes to over 61,000 words! Yet we still think we have not captured enough in it to serve as a guide to good governance.

    From all this, it should be clear that our Constitution with all its flaws is the least of our problems. The sooner our politicians accept the fact they and not our Constitution are the main problem with our country, the sooner we will begin to solve those problems.

     

  • Libya’s boiling cauldron

    Too many cooks, they say, spoil the broth. This proverbial saying fits perfectly well into what is currently playing out in the North African country of Libya. Since the brutal end of the autocratic dictatorship of the late Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, in October, 2011, the fate of the country has been hanging precariously on the brink. The revolution, as the Libyan uprising that saw the end of the Gaddafi’s era was dubbed, appears to have produced more problems for the country than it has solved.

    In the absence of an active military or police force, the state has had to rely on militias who now act as security forces. The militias are paid by the Defence or Interior ministries although the ministries are largely unable to control their activities. As a result of this, there are tens of thousands of fake revolutionaries who now use the rebel name for personal gains whereas they are just gangsters prowling the streets of Libya and wreaking havoc at will.

    In the last two years, the country has witnessed a lot of upheavals precipitated by these marauding militias in various parts of the country. The climax of these internecine crises in the country was the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi, the home of the Libyan uprising, in which Christopher Stevens, the United States Ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans were killed. Since then, it has been one form of threat or another from the roving militants who now bestrode the street of Libya with impunity.

    If it is apparent that the average Libyan resident may have got used to the tension in the country, but not with the latest dimension the whole thing seems to have assumed. Last Thursday, Corinthia Hotel, an imposing tower near the coast in downtown Tripoli, played host to some unusual visitors in the wee hours of that fateful day. The unusual visitors were scores of gunmen who invaded the hotel where Ali Zidan, the country’s Prime Minister, and other top government officials reside. After a brief scuffle with hotel security guards, the prime minister quickly instructed his personal bodyguards to stand down against the ‘invaders’ and surrendered himself. He was promptly taken away.

    Hours after the incident, a group called the Operations Room of Libya’s Revolutionaries claimed responsibility. The militias later released a photo of Zidan looking morose and ensconced between two militants. Initially, the militias claimed to have an arrest warrant against the prime minister on accusations of harming state security and corruption. This claim was immediately debunked by the public prosecutor’s office which said that such a warrant never existed.

    As the day progressed and public outrage mounted, the militants changed their storyline. The group said their action was in response to the comments made by John Kerry, the U.S Secretary of State that the Libyan government was aware of the U.S Delta Force’ raid that captured Nazil Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, a wanted terrorist suspect, in Tripoli on Saturday, October 5, and spirited out of the country. The U.S raid had sparked protests and complaints from Libyan officials and politicians who claimed that the Americans had violated Libya’s national sovereignty.

    Shortly after the militias’ reference to Kerry’s comment on the arrest of the wanted terror suspect, Marie Harf, spokeswoman for Kerry, said the American Secretary of State never said that the Libyans were informed in advance of the planned operation, as the group suggested. According to him, what Kerry said at a press conference in Indonesia was: “We consult regularly with the Libyan government on a range of security and counter-terrorism issues but we don’t get into the specifics of our communications with a foreign government or in any kind of operation of this kind”. Speaking further on the incident, American officials argued against concluding that the prime minister’s kidnapping was a backlash against the U.S raid. A senior U.S. official said: “Any time you take action like that, you want to understand the impacts to the host government, especially one that we want to continue to work with”.

    However, the prime minister’s ordeal ended barely six hours after his abduction, when “he was set free” ostensibly out of frenetic pressure from other senior government officials and militia commanders. A day after his release, Zidan said his brief abduction by gunmen was an “attempted coup” by his Islamist political rivals, using militias which he warned are trying to “terrorize” the government and turn the North African nation into another Afghanistan or Somalia.

    With this nationally televised address, the embattled prime minister appeared to be trying to leverage public shock over his abduction into a momentum against his political opponents and the multiple armed groups stirring chaos in the country since 2011. The militias, including Islamic extremists, carry out daily violence nationwide and have defied attempts by the weak central authorities to rein them in. Doing so has been an uphill task for the government who is daily confronted with the tremor associated with the militias’ activities all over the country.

    Since Gaddafi’s ouster and death, the groups have grown and multiplied. Many tout themselves as defending the “revolution’s goals”, but often act to protect fiefdoms they have carved out for themselves, while blackmailing or intimidating citizens. Others have Islamic extremist ideologies and are suspected of links to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups across North Africa and in Egypt.

    Just last month, militiamen abducted the son of the defence minister in a move seen as an attempt to prevent any action against the groups. Several weeks ago, the militia of al-Tajouri, which rescued Zidan, seized the daughter of the Gaddafi-era intelligence chief and held her briefly. Earlier this year, militiamen besieged government buildings for days to exert pressure on lawmakers to adopt a law banning Gaddafi-era politicians from holding any posts.

    Similarly, last July, 33-year-old Ibrahim al-Jathran, a former rebel with a 17,000-strong militia in eastern Libya, ordered his fighters to shut down two of the country’s main oil export terminals. Jathran is seeking more autonomy for the eastern part of Libya.

    These unrests have dented hopes for a rebound of the energy sector in Libya, which holds Africa’s largest oil reserves. In actual fact, International oil companies, as well as, international diplomatic missions, started retrenching their Western staffing levels after the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi that killed the U.S. Ambassador and three others.

    The apparent backlash against the government over the al-Libi raid could make Tripoli even more wary of allowing Washington to go after other wanted terrorists on Libyan soil. In particular, the U.S. has sought the arrest of terrorists behind the September. 11, 2012 attack on its consulate in Benghazi. Though, some of the suspects live openly in the eastern city, but the state is powerless to pursue them.

    Zidan has been struggling with political opponents and militias since he was named by parliament to lead the country about a year ago. The prime minister is one of the few senior people on the Libyan political scene today who never had his own militia or front line experience in the revolution. He was working in Geneva as a human rights lawyer when the uprising against Gaddafi erupted. His diplomacy with European nations, especially France, was key to gaining international support for the rebel movement. As prime minister, Zidan has struggled to cobble Libya’s fractured militia groups into a national security force loyal to the central government instead of provincial commanders or strongmen.

    Therefore, the recent kidnapping of one of Libyan citizens by special US forces, which has raised serious concerns about double standards concerning international laws, followed by the kidnapping of Zidan himself, is really a cause for concern for all on what has been a disgraceful handling of the Libyan affairs. The problem is that Gaddafi was taken out, like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, with no thought given to what would come next. The truth is that Libya is a country of tribal rivalries held together by Gaddafi while his dictatorship lasted. You can’t just remove him and be surprised when the tribes start jostling amongst one another for supremacy. This whole idea that you give countries an election and they become western liberal democracies overnight is somehow a liberal nonsense!

     

  • Robbing the Dead

    A pall of sorrow, tears and grief descended on the entire country last Thursday. This was triggered by the unfortunate death of 13 people on board a chartered aircraft which was carrying the body of Olusegun Agagu, former governor of Ondo State, to Akure, the Ondo State capital, for his burial ceremony. The aircraft crashed a few minutes after take-off from the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. Apart from the 13 victims, seven other passengers of the ill-fated aircraft who sustained injuries, including Feyisaye Agagu, the son of the late governor, were rushed to various hospitals in Lagos for treatment. One of them later died bringing the total death toll to 14.

    Reports have it that the crash afforded some bad boys and hoodlums the opportunity to prey on the victims of the disaster. This group, comprising mainly youths from Mafoluku area of Lagos where the crash occurred and their accomplices from nearby Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, NAHCO, motor park, were the first to arrive at the scene of disaster. As soon as they got there, they turned the whole arena into a stealing spree. They battled with the thick smoke that bellowed from the wreckage, with the ulterior motive of stealing from the victims while pretending to be on a rescue mission. It was as if the unfortunate incident provided them with the needed opportunity for self-enrichment.

    This group successfully robbed the victims dry. The boys simply picked any item they could find around like phones, laptops, handbags and money. A guy was said to have started it all. In an attempt to rescue the injured pilot, the guy stumbled on his laptop and picked it. That degenerated into frenzy as others started looking for what to steal. In the melee that followed, the whole place erupted in fisticuffs as the boys fought one another over who should own what. While this ugly scene was going on, the victims were left burning inside the aircraft until fire-fighters and the police came to disperse everybody.

    That was not the first time an incident of this nature happened in the country. On October 22, 2005, when a twin-engine Boeing 737 belonging to Bellview Airline crashed at Lisa Village, Ogun State, killing all the 117 passengers on board, rescuers who thronged the scene literally stole the victims blind. Many of the youths within the vicinity of the crash, were said to have made bountiful harvest from stealing money and other valuables from the victims. Most of them were said to have used the proceeds from the satanic act to buy motorcycles, popularly called okada, which they converted to means of transport for commuters.

    Such immoral behaviours are common scenes at accident spots all over the country, including scenes of fire disasters and collapsed buildings. While the victims of such unfortunate incident ruminate over their losses, majority of those who come around pretending to be pacifying them, often turn the place to an opportunity to loot and steal whatever they could lay their hands on. This bad behaviour is not limited to hoodlums alone as law enforcement officers and other government officials are known to engage in such nauseating acts.

    By and large, it goes to show the incalculable damage our value system has suffered in this country in recent times. Today, if your car is stuck in the mud or on a sandy terrain which are the hallmarks of some of our roads, you dare not beckon on people around, whether youths or adults, to help free your car from the trap. If you do so, you should be prepared to part with some hard-earned money as compensation for these commercial sympathisers. All is about money and nothing else. This is dangerous to the future of our youths and the future of the country as a whole.

    It is a pity that nobody, not even the elders of our society or even the government at whatever level, is paying any attention whatsoever to this irritating attitude that has gained currency over the years. If all people think about anywhere they are is how to make money by all possible means, whether fair or foul, to the extent of even robbing the dead, then, there is no other way to explain it than to say that we are a cursed people. I have no apology for that.

    However, the news of the crash has continued to grip the whole country with fear and trepidation. It was one crash too many. Since 1969, the country has witnessed more than 40 air crashes and close to 1,000 deaths in the history of its aviation industry. On November 20, 1969, a Nigeria Airways BAC VC10 from London crashed on landing in Lagos, killing 87 people on board. This was followed by another one on January 22, 1973, when a Royal Jordanian Airlines Flight 707, carrying 171 Nigerian Muslims returning from Mecca and five crewmen, crashed in Kano, killing all on board. Since then, it has been a litany of crashes culminating in the Sunday, June 3, 2012 air crash involving a Dana Airlines Flight 9J 992 with 153 passengers on board.

    Four months after, precisely on October 25, 2012, Danbaba Suntai, the governor of Taraba State, and five of his aides narrowly escaped death when a Cessna 208 aircraft piloted by Suntai crashed into a hill in Adamawa State. On December 15, 2012, the nation was again thrown into mourning with the news of the death of Patrick Yakowa, who was then the Governor of Kaduna State, and General Andrew Owoye Azazi (rtd), former National Security Adviser to the President. A total of six persons were burnt in the helicopter crash which occurred in the forest of Okoroba community in Nembe local government of Bayelsa State.

    From all indication, it is as if the nation has not seen the last of these unfortunate air crashes that have kept on occurring every now and then. With the frequency of air crashes in the country, one might be correct to conclude that Nigeria ranks highest among African countries or developing countries with the highest prevalence of air crashes in the world. Speaking at an aviation forum in Lagos recently, Tony Tyler, the Director-General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), disclosed that 50 per cent of global plane crashes in 2012 occurred in Africa. According to him, African airlines recorded one accident for every 270, 000 flights for 2012, while the industry average was one accident for about 5, 000,000 flights.  Tyler, who described the figure as shocking, therefore urged African governments to invest in safety, infrastructure and capacity building for the personnel working in the aviation sector.

    The Civil Aviation Act, which was passed into law in 2006, sufficiently empowered the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, to effectively regulate the operations of airlines and ensure that they adhere strictly to the rules. But some airline owners have been accused of disobeying the same rules. Most of the airlines operating in the country are believed to be in the habit of skipping maintenance checks. They are possibly aided by some unscrupulous officials of the regulatory bodies who either allow them to postpone the checks or settle for below-the-level types for pecuniary gains.

    However, the latest plane crash raises a question about the implementation of the recommendations of a report on the causes of plane crashes believed to have been submitted to the federal government by the Accident Investigation Bureau a long time ago. Perhaps, if the government and relevant aviation authorities had promptly acted on the content of the report, it is possible that last Thursday’s incident could have been averted.

    It is high time airline operators in Nigeria noted that the safety of the flying public is first and foremost dependent on the proper functioning of the aircraft and its components. Maintenance plays such a crucial role in flight safety and it is the responsibility of the aircraft owners or operators to ensure that the aircraft in their fleet are properly maintained.

     

  • Fashola: ‘Lagos Solar Generation’; Ibadan-Lagos-disgrace; RCC/ BJ emergency repairs pls;  Lifejackets pls

    Governor Fashola invites us to ‘Let’s talk power’ so let us talk ‘Solar Power’. Governor Fashola, if countries with minimal sunshine, like the UK and Germany, can have rooftop solar panels and solar energy powering cities like in Spain, the USA and Israel, ‘Can You Please Take Lagos Solar?’ The cost of solar equipment, under-education in solar potential and lack of solar planning laws hinder progress. The Lagos State Building Code should encourage new buildings to have a solar component and be more environmentally friendly.

    Recognise, Reward and Award excellence in solar companies. Increase plans and 2014 budgets  for major solar use in the secretariat and local authorities for security lighting in street lights, bus stops, market, motor parks, neighbourhoods, foreshore lighting, Bar beach, recreation areas, schools, tertiary institutions and hospitals all needing security and lighting all night and solar public buildings and lampposts at festive periods.  The equipment cost is a constraint but the cost of solar panels and batteries has gone down by 80% accompanied by a marked improvement in solar battery efficiency. Solar technology is evolving rapidly as demonstrated at 2013 Solar Energy Expo in Dubai. Nigerians including Engineer Yomi Bolarinwa were there and have 2013 cutting edge knowledge to be tapped –but no one will tap them. Talk to embassies.

    Nigeria should beware therefore of ‘Solar Dumping’, the delivery of old solar technology as ‘aid’ or by solar contractors seeking to drop obsolete solar equipment in Nigeria. Nowadays even two years is old technology. Solar equipment costs are high and it takes five-plus years to recoup the cost in savings from cut electricity bills. It behoves Lagos State, federal government, CBN to come up with a ‘Long Term Solar Loans Strategy’. A low interest, 2-4% multibillion Solar Loan Facility would instantly provide 10,000Mw off grid. Importation duties should be waved. Cleaning of solar panels is work for thousands. Creating ‘The Solar Generation’ would be the next big thing in Nigeria after DSTV, the ‘Generator Generation’ and the ‘Cell Phone Generation’. How the UK is planning 20,000Gw while we are still using the odd solar powered torch is a mystery and misery.

    Wanted: A Governor Fashola driven ‘Solar Lagos Project’. Where are Nigeria’s solar factories making solar panels, flat and curved, and solar batteries? We made glass and batteries at Triplex and Exide. Under Obasanjo we got a tobacco factory instead of cellphone factories so no phones Made In Nigeria. God gave us petroleum but we export it and re-import our needs at huge extra costs. God gave us the sun. We ignore it while countries with 10% sun power their people into the 21st Century. LASU should be given a Lagos State Solar Grant for research into solarising Lagos.

    We must encourage new great leaders. A Fashola led ‘Let’s Act Solar Power’ will place Lagos as a leading solar city in Africa. The reason why Nigerians were considered the ‘Happiest People on Earth’ is not our politics but the fact that the sun remained in our otherwise miserable lives. The politicians cannot yet give the sun only to party members -like allowing only party members to live on the sunny side of the street.  The sun brings a smile to the sick, the broke, oppressed and  miserable. Too much sun is not good but every day starts with that warm glow of hopeful rays.

    About leadership, who allowed the imminent collapse and closure of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway with 15 kilometres of traffic five lane wide, 10,000 vehicles long with one million people, daily desperately struggling down that obstacle course? NEMA, if that is not an emergency and disaster, what is? Do we require the death of all these people in a fireball on the expressway? Nigerians know that awarding a contract is never an end to suffering. Nigerians are suffering maximally, stranded for seven hours daily in 2013 while RCC and Julius Berger warm up. Contractors must please show the milk of human kindness. Nigerians expect ‘CONTRACTOR EMERGENCY MEASURES PLEASE’ for patching dangerous pothole and the worst areas within 24 hours pending reconstruction. Painting and deployment of pretty concrete barriers and clearing the median can come later. The main problem areas are Julius Berger areas – very rough/absent road surfaces at the Mountain Top University, Redeem Crossings, Hayday

    Petrol station, Takol, Asese. The road authority should create a Nigerian solution to the massive Nigerian problem of queue jumping– a major cause of prolonged driving time for those who stay in the lanes. The placement of barriers every 20 metres on the shoulders would make it impossible to queue jump.

    Breaking News: The human cannot swim without learning. When will we learn? A life jacket for everyone on the water will save lives. Why is no one listening? We have just lost 42 or 100 citizens and an additional 18 more citizens on the River Niger. Lampedusa, off Italy is the watery graveyard for Africans seeking backdoor entry into Fortress Europe and now over 300 more. None had lifejackets. Is anyone listening? A life jacket costs little compared to a life. A life jacket is reusable, recyclable and is less than a N1 per use if 1000 trips are made. A life jacket keeps the wearer alive. If you do not provide or use a life jacket for your wife, children, relatives or employees you are a murderer or a murdering government and should be tried as such.

  • Niger State 2015: a prognosis

    Niger State 2015: a prognosis

    All politics, as the Americans would say, is, in the end, local. Meaning, politics, in the end, is about simple everyday mundane issues rather than about big and intangible ideas.

    In recent times undoubtedly big and not so tangible issues such as the national budget, the privatisation of electric power, crises of internal party democracy, Election ’15 and, only last week, the national conference, sovereign or otherwise, have dominated our politics.

    However, in the last two weeks this column has avoided these somewhat big and not so tangible issues and dwelt on the more mundane issue of traditional rule, first in my home town, Bida, and then in Suleja, one of the major towns in my home state, Niger. This was for the good reason that each of the emirates celebrated an important milestone for the No. 1 Citizen of its emirate, both of which have been prominent in the history of the country.

    As the reader can see from the title of this piece, I have decided to remain local this week once more and briefly discuss the politics of the 2015 governorship election of my state, whose slogan is “Power State”, not, as is widely misunderstood, on account of the fact that it has produced two military heads of state, an Air Force chief and many generals, but because it contains all the hydroelectric power stations in the country.

    Staying local one more time this week was not easy in the face of the surprise announcement during his October 1 Independence Day speech by President Goodluck Jonathan that he will soon order a national conference and the mixed reactions the announcement provoked.

    Niger State may not be the bellwether of Nigeria’s politics, but as one of only three states in the country to have produced two or more heads of state – the other two being Kano and Ogun – not to talk of its many prominent generals and topnotch politicians like Professor Jerry Gana, its politics deserves more than a passing public interest.

    In its edition of May 21, Daily Trust carried a full page advert signed by Bala Yakubu Gawu, in which the author concluded that the man to beat in the state’s governorship elections, in 2015, is its Deputy Governor, Honourable Ahmed Musa Ibeto. Ibeto, who is from the Kontagora senatorial zone of the state, was once the state’s chief of protocol. He was also a member of the House of Representatives.

    By means fair or foul, the country’s ruling parties – from the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) in the First Republic, through the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the Second Republic, to the Peoples’ Democratic Party in the current dispensation – have always won elections in the state.

    Going by the ruling PDP’s zoning arrangement at the state level it will be the turn of the Kontagora zone, aka Zone C, to produce the next governor. Zone A (Bida) has had its turn between 1999 and 2007 while Zone B (Minna) will come to the end of its two four-year terms in 2015.

    The advert in question discussed only the possible candidates for the PDP governorship ticket from Zone C. Apart from Ibeto the others mentioned in the advert were Muazu Mohammed Bawa, the state’s commissioner of Finance, Abubakar Sani Bello (Habu), former commissioner of Commerce and son of retired Colonel Sani Bello and son-in-law of former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Aminu Yusuf, the secretary of the state’s PDP and Mustapha Bello, former minister of Commerce, younger brother of Col Bello and current Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council.

    Conspicuously missing from Gawu’s list were Ibrahim Ahmed Matani, a former head of service and currently commissioner of Agriculture, three time senator, former DIG Nuhu Aliyu and Abubakar Sa’idu, chairman of Wushishi Local government and son-in-law of state’s governor, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu. Even more conspicuously missing was Mohammed, first son of General Ibrahim Babangida, who seems to have since quietly dropped out of the race possibly because, though his ancestral home is Wushishi, his family has always been identified with Minna.

    The trouble with Gawu’s advert was that it seemed too much of a sponsored promotion for Ibeto. First, the advert conveniently ignored an undertaking Ibeto reportedly gave that the price for his two-term deputy governorship under Dr Aliyu was his forfeiture of his governorship ambition. Second, experience for experience in public service and politics he is no match for Engineer Mustapha Bello and Senator Nuhu Aliyu. Third, if it comes to connections at high places, an element which seems to have become central to winning elections in Nigeria, he is no match for Bello Jr., who, apart from his father-in-law, can count on his father’s childhood friends, classmates and military colleagues like Generals Babangida and Gado Nasko, former FCT minister, for support. Fourth, as if to create even more trouble for Ibeto and his party, Bello Jr. defected to the CPC before the APC merger, following his falling out a long time ago with the state governor over issues of policy.

    Another trouble with Gawu’s advert apart from those it inexplicably left out was that it assumed Niger State, being historically an Establishment state, would be PDP’s to lose in 2015. This assumption ignores the fact that for years now Kontagora has become an opposition territory. If, as the Americans say, politics, in the end, is all local, whoever wins PDP’s governorship ticket is not likely to win Zone C for the party. Although in Nigeria, General Olusegun Obasanjo has shown back in 1998 that you don’t have to have home support to win an election, the lack of a home support is a serious minus for any politician. This was obviously why, in his second term bid in 2003, the general made sure by all means that his party swept his native Southwest zone.

    The probability that Kontagora will remain opposition territory has reportedly prompted the party’s kingpins of the state’s origin in Abuja, notably Professor Jerry Gana, to canvass the option of making the party’s governorship ticket a free-for-all. This would be patently unfair to Kontagora. But whether the PDP primaries becomes a free-for-all or not, the new opposition party, the All Progressives’ Congress (APC), stands a good chance of winning the governorship election in the state if it gives its ticket to a plausible candidate from Zone C.

    Among those said to be gunning for the ticket for now are Ibrahim Musa, the zone’s senator, Ibrahim Bako Shettima from Bida, the Congress for Progressive Change’s (CPC’s) governorship candidate in the 2011 elections David Umaru from Minna, the All Nigeria Peoples Party’s governorship candidate in 2007 and 2011, and Bello Jr. from Kontagora.

    Because Zones A and B have had their turn in governing the state, Bello Jr. seems APC’s best chance of beating PDP in the state, especially if anyone from outside Kontagora picks PDP’s ticket and if Bello Jr. picks his running mate from Bida, the state’s biggest senatorial zone.

    The ruling party’s chances of losing the state is hardly helped by the fact that its caucus seems to be in a predicament over who to back for the party’s ticket between Ibeto, Mustapha Bello and Abubakar Saidu, the chairman of Wushishi Local Government and the governor’s son-in-law who also has the support of the governor’s younger brother, Mohammed Aliyu, the managing director of Niger State Development Company, reportedly the man with the greatest influence over the Chief Servant’s policies and programmes.

    Chances are the next governor of Niger State may be Abubakar Sani Bello.

     

    FEEDBACK

    Last week I promised I will publish two rather lengthy but thoughtful reactions to my last two columns. I am sorry I am able to publish only the shorter one this week for lack of space. I shall publish the other one next week, God willing.

    Sir,

    I enjoyed your tribute to the Etsu Nupe in “Ten Years of the 13th Etsu Nupe” published in the Daily Trust of 18th September, 2013. However, I disagree with your view that “once Bida fell (to British forces), the collapse of the caliphate all the way to Sokoto proved more or less a piece of cake. . . “

    No doubt, the British West African Frontier Force faced a gallant enemy in their two-day battle to capture Bida in January 1897, suffering 17 wounded and 8 dead in the process. Yet, the subsequent conquest of the caliphate did not come any easier for the British, who for instance, lost 14 soldiers in a single encounter with forces loyal to the Emir of Kontagora on Helo Island in the River Niger in October 1898.

    At the Battle of Yola in September 1901, the British suffered 2 dead and 41 wounded, while at the Caliph’s last stand in Burmi in present Gombe State, British casualties amounted to 2 dead and 54 wounded (First Battle of Burmi, April 1903) and 103 dead and wounded (Second Battle of Burmi, July 1903). Interestingly, the defeated Emir Abubakar of Bida fought gallantly in Burmi, alongside Caliph Attahiru and Emir Ahmadu of Misau, and once again, he managed to escape capture by the victorious British forces.

    In short, if the mighty British Empire suffered heavy casualties and took six years to achieve the conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate, that conquest cannot be described “as a piece of cake” by any standard.

    For more on the military battles of the British conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate, readers are referred to the book “War on the Savannah” by Risko Marjomaa, published by the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, Helsinki (1998).

    Dr. Nura H. Alkali

     

  • Nigeria’s finances, Okonjo-Iweala and governors

    Nigeria’s finances, Okonjo-Iweala and governors

    A feel for Coordinating Minister-in-Charge of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. In her first innings managing the nation’s purse under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, comments about her performance were largely laudatory – even fawning.

    She came to her role preceded by impressive career achievements that had seen her function at the very top of World Bank management. Her reputation was burnished no end when she led the negotiations that saw Nigeria exiting her debt obligations to the Paris Club.

    It was no surprise therefore that President Goodluck Jonathan would scurry back to her doorstep whilst searching for a steady hand to run things after his 2011 general election victory.

    A little over two years after slipping almost seamlessly into her old role, the magician’s aura has worn off a bit. Not even the enhancement of her portfolio and powers by making her some sort of super-minister has shielded her from the flak triggered by frustration over a less-than-dramatic turnaround in Nigeria’s economic fortunes.

    Until now, she was one of the few government officials whose personal achievements and comportment spared them the sort of vicious attacks reserved for the President and some of her cabinet colleagues. Clearly, being the butt of strident criticism is not an experience she has found amusing – judging by some of her reactions.

    I suspect that the most painful would have been remarks questioning her ability to continue as Finance Minister. The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) demanded she quit if could no longer manage the economy in a way that ensures that obligations to states were met. Although she was quick to dismiss the call, ever since it has been a steady dripping of bad economic news in a manner akin to Chinese water torture.

    Finance Commissioners who gather in Abuja for Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings have cried out in alarm when they received less than they expected. If this was a one-off incident it might have been easy to dismiss. Unfortunately, with billions still to be paid to the states many have alleged that the nation was broke!

    That is a very strong claim to make. It is particularly embarrassing if you happen to be the one superintending things because it speaks to you your ability to manage the country’s affairs. Okonjo-Iweala obviously understands this and has launched a robust defence – insisting that rather than being broke, what we are experiencing was just a little cash flow crisis.

    Appearing before a special Senate committee to defend the performance of the 2012 budget she said: “The country is absolutely not broke. And I want to repeat that again, because there are those who would want to push that idea. The country is not broke, (though) the country may have cash flow problems from time to time. That is normal and is to be expected because a person may be very wealthy, he may have a lot of assets but at a particular point in time the stream of income may delay.

    “You are running a business, you can be assets rich therefore you cannot be broke but you may have a temporary month when the flow is not as it should be because the price of that product may be lower. The time for you to collect money from that product may take a little longer because you extended credit to people by selling to them and then telling them you will collect later. So, sometimes there may be temporary cash flow issues, but the country broke? The answer is no.”

    Reading through the minister’s comments I was forced to review my understanding of the meaning of the word ‘broke.’ I understand that a diplomat, or an economist may explain everyday concepts in ways different from which laymen may put them, still all the dictionaries I consulted distilled the word to mean a ‘lack of funds.’

    Just this past week Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole suggested that rather than being a storm in a tiny tea cup, the inability of the Federal Government to meet its financial obligations to states was potentially disastrous.

    “I don’t know if the federal government is broke but I know there is serious crisis and it is unprecedented in the history of this country. For the first time since 1999, allocations can no longer come as at when due to states. I have been involved in trying to understand what the reasons are and I have not seen anything yet. Whether we use the word broke or you deny the word broke, the truth is that there is financial crisis in Nigeria which has very serious national security implications,” he said.

    In terms not too different from this, Oshiomhole’s Kwara counterpart, Abdulfatah Ahmed, in a recent interview took the position that Nigeria’s finances were in dire straits.

    Statistics may suggest that the economy is growing at a particular rate, and that Nigeria is about to overtake South Africa, or that in this country investors get the highest return on investment – making it a preferred destination for foreign direct investment.

    But pretty figures are one thing and everyday reality a different matter entirely. There’s no way to dress up the fact that in an economy supposedly doing so well, government cannot meet its obligations. In truth some states may be unable to pay salaries soon because they depend largely on the monthly federal cheque.

    You may dismiss them as indolent for not looking at other ways to boost their earnings to make up for whatever shortfall may occur at the Abuja end, still the constitution entitles them to the handout which the federal government has been unable to deliver.

    The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike continues with no end in sight. The Finance Minister has already said Nigeria does not have the money to pay what it agreed with the lecturers. Until that accord is renegotiated, this is another obligation which the government cannot meet.

    Okonjo-Iweala spoke to the Senate like an economist – talking in terms of how a man can be rich in assets and cash poor. Unfortunately, even the value of the assets that we set such store by keep diminishing by the day.

    More countries in Africa are discovering oil, the United States – one of our prime markets is celebrating shale oil. With sophisticated thieves helping themselves to huge amounts of crude in the Niger Delta, not only are we losing what should have accrued directly to the nation, external markets are also shrinking as some buyers are not too concerned about the origin of the crude they are buying.

    Very soon the markets may whisper very loudly to us that our so-called assets are not worth what they used to be. It’s time to face up to the fact that technically speaking, we may not be broke, but Nigeria is in dire straits financially. Accepting that diagnosis will be the first step towards recovery: continued denial will not make the next FAAC meeting more pleasant.

  • Like Anini, like Kelvin

    Either for good or for ill, history has a way of repeating itself. Remember Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini, the notorious armed robber dreadfully called ‘The Law’ or ‘Ovbigbo’ in the defunct Bendel State? In the 1980s, Anini and his gang of blood-thirsty armed robbers held Benin City, the capital of the then Bendel State, comprising today’s Edo and Delta states, by the jugular. The hoodlums held everybody spellbound as they raided, robbed, maimed and killed at will. It was such a sadistic exploit that kept security agencies, especially the police, on their toes while their criminal ‘regime’ lasted.

    In the fight to contain their dare-devilry, many policemen lost their lives, many more were maimed, while the list of their victims read like a classroom register. The escapades of the notorious gang entered into national consciousness in 1986, when the then military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, gave Etim Inyang, the then Inspector-General of Police, a marching order to produce Anini “dead or alive”. A worried Babangida had confronted Inyang after one of the Council’s meetings with the question: “My friend, where is Anini?”

    That brief encounter appeared to be the final straw that broke the camel’s back as the echelon of the police deployed all they had – men and materials – in search of Anini and his gang. There were fears and apprehension in the then Bendel state while the hunt for Anini lasted. This was because of certain diabolical mysticism associated with Anini, who was largely rumoured to have heavily fortified himself with charms and amulets to evade arrest. At a point, the fear of Anini was the beginning of wisdom, as many of the policemen literally took to their heels whenever he was on the prowl.

    At the end of the day, Anini and his gang, including his fearsome deputy in the underworld, Monday Osunbor, were reined in. But before then, Christopher Omeben, then an Assistant Inspector-General of Police, who was dispatched to head the team of investigators that plotted Anini’s arrest, narrowly escaped death in the hands of the gang. If Omeben, now a pastor, was lucky, his driver, one Albert Otue, a Sergeant, was not that lucky. The driver was abducted by the gang members led by Osunbor and murdered.

    The arrest of the gang opened a Pandora’s Box as Anini started singing like a canary bird in police custody while begging for leniency. The trial of Anini led to the conviction and eventual shameful execution of George Iyamu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, who was, until his arrest, the head of the anti-robbery squad of the Bendel State Police Command. Anini and his gang members had confessed that Iyamu had abandoned his call to service as a police officer and, instead, became the godfather of the criminal gang. He aided them with information on security movements which enabled the gang to beat police operations as well as supplied them with arms and ammunition. And when the end came, both Anini and Iyamu, including other members of the notorious gang, went down in a hail of bullets when they were publicly executed by firing squads at different times in Benin in 1987.

    Today, 26 years after, another hoodlum who goes by the name Kelvin Ibruvwe seems to have stepped into Anini’s shoes. This time around, his bestiality has gone beyond armed robbery. Kelvin and his band of well-armed hoodlums have made their satanic marks in kidnapping, rape, pipeline vandalism and all sorts of heinous crimes. He has become well known as the brain behind high profile kidnappings in many parts of the country in recent times particularly in parts of the South-west, South-east and South-south geo-political regions. His victims include eminent persons like Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, late Chudi Nwike, a former Deputy Governor of Anambra State, who was killed in captivity by the gang, as well as Adedoyin Rhodes-Vivour, wife of a Supreme Court judge kidnapped with her daughter and driver on their way to Benin on May 10.

    A fortnight ago, unknown to him that his cup was about to be full, a boastful Kelvin appeared from nowhere, flanked by some of his gang members – all in military camouflage dress – and addressed a gathering of his kinsmen at his Kokori native town in Delta State. There, he gave President Goodluck Jonathan a 60-day ultimatum to address the degradation of his native land and other communities in the Niger Delta or face grave consequences. All that has now proved to be hollow bravado and nothing more than a façade that it is, as he was arrested in a hotel room in Port Harcourt in the wee hours of last Wednesday. His arrest, along with five of his gang members, was carried out by a combined team of the Army and Department of State Services, DSS, operatives, in a coded lightning operation.

    However, a few hours after his arrest, a shootout ensued between Kelvin’s ‘boys’ in his country home, Kokori, Ethiope-East Local Government Area of Delta State and soldiers. Nevertheless, the soldiers succeeded in arresting the chief priest (Ose Igba), said to have provided native charms for Kelvin and his gang to evade arrest over the years. All the while, Kelvin knew he was being monitored, but he did not know his end was so near. The security agencies only re-doubled their operational strategies after his infamous declaration where he handed over an ultimatum to the federal government to develop the oil community or his group would blow up oil facilities in the area. At that declaration, the hoodlum described himself as leader of the newly-found Liberation Movement of the Urhobo People, LIMUP, and said he had become a freedom fighter. That is now history.

    Kelvin lived like a kingpin. His tentacles and business interests cut across Delta State, Port-Harcourt, Enugu, Ibadan and Lagos. The kidnap baron shocked security operatives when he pulled a daring mission in Warri, some months ago, killing a number of prisons officials, as his gang ambushed warders and snatched two of his men being taken to court for trial. It was learnt that the police were deliberately sidetracked in this latest operation by the army and DSS, as neither the police in Rivers and Delta states were aware of the operation until it was concluded. Since then, his hometown, Kokori, has been taken over by soldiers, in an attempt to round up his boys as well as their arms cache. I am sure the aim is to put him away before he begins to think that he is a hero.

    Kelvin is believed to be currently undergoing serious interrogation in Abuja, where he is said to have made substantial revelations. I am quite sure such revelations will have something to do with his collaborators within the security agencies who gave him cover for his nefarious activities all this while. The fact that the police was sidelined in the operation that led to his arrest, shows that something is definitely wrong with the police hierarchy who might have been compromised all along. His interrogators will also have a lot to do to unravel his godfathers who are suspected to be mainly politicians and other highly-placed people in his community and state who may have benefited immensely from his criminal extravaganza.

    We are now being inundated with the fact that the crowd of people who gathered around him in Kokori on Tuesday, September 17, when he made his boisterous declaration, did so because of a promise that ‘oil money’ will be shared at the event. What that goes to show is the level of moral decadence in our society where the love of money has relegated decency and patriotism to the background. It is simply a rehash of the Anini episode in the 1980s, when the robbery kingpin was fond of gleefully spraying his booty in crisp naira notes along the road for people to pick each time his gang raided a bank’s vault. This was to divert people’s attention while they made good their escape.

    Surely, anything that has a beginning must certainly have an end. Like every criminal, the end has come for Kelvin, just like the end came for Anini and his gang in the 80s.

  • Kwankwaso’s China mission

    No one is contesting the fact that Kano under the leadership of Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is poised to make a date with history. Taking into account the unprecedented developmental projects in education, infrastructure, healthcare, water supply and the economic transformation recorded under his stewardship, any attempt to compare him with his peers will be trite.

    On coming on board as governor of Kano State for the second time on May 29, 2011, the governor came up with myriad of programmes aimed at improving the lot of the people of the state, who in his view were made to groan under the biting fangs of abject neglect by the immediate past administration.

    The fire-brand governor was saddened by the fact that despite billions of naira which had been pumped into the coffers of the state government in the past, Kano was made to fiddle on the lower rung of the ladder in areas of trade and investment in addition to making no effort in the area of fostering economic diplomacy.

    He also noted with dismay, how some reputable industries were allowed to fold up without conceiving some palliatives to cushion the effect of the mass closure, a bad omen that made Kano lose its reputation as one of the leading commercial hubs in the West African sub-region.

    It is a fact one cannot dismiss by a whimper that the governor’s predecessor had been making overtures in seeking foreign investors’ support to agree to oblige to his request to come to the state and invest. Junket upon junket, no investment was forthcoming. It seemed the investors had noticed the suitor had feet of clay.

    The lukewarm attitude exhibited by such investors might not be unconnected with the fact that, the terrain was not favourable to their business interest since every intention he had expressed in that regard only stopped at the level of rectory.

    The people of the state naturally lost confidence in the immediate past administration given that administration’s failure to deliver on the promise to establish a high profile independent power station to inject succour into the industries that had been folding up. With the Kwankwaso administration talking every step to fulfil its promises and even surpassing expectations, Kano people now savour the sweetness of the nectar of democracy.

    His recent mission to China epitomises his readiness and resolve to foster economic and investment diplomacy with reputable multi-national corporations owned by some business tycoons in the communist state. This is in recognition that China has assumed the status of a global economic super power.

    Kwankwaso’s critics would readily attest to his frugality. In Kano, members of the ruling party are seen as the paupers because of the governor’s husbandry of public resources. His mission to China (and previous foreign travels) was in the best interest of the people, part of his persistent quest to propel Kano to the pinnacle of excellence — a measure of his high ambition for Kano.

    Instructively, his ability to attend the 17th China international conference on investment and Trade in Xiamen, an international gathering mostly attended by those who possessed the clout to enhance global trade and investment ties, was to make trade and investment in the state take a global shape.

    The governor was praised for his ability to convince investment gurus that despite the prevailing security challenges in the country, Kano remains a safe haven for robust trade and investment. While parleying with international investors, who equally marvelled at Kano’s rich potentials, the governor stressed that the opportunities when fully harnessed and exploited, would yield considerable dividends and put the state on the pedestal of economic growth.

    With the vast presence of China’s business moguls in Kano markets most especially those dealing in textiles, the atmosphere of unimpeded business transaction with China’s leading multi-national corporations is created with other investors from notable industrial democracies willing to take a cue.

    With the burgeoning population of Kano, the governor’s intention to build additional 1,000 housing units to be constructed by China and the establishment of a befitting modern market and textile industry, there is no gainsaying Kano is in dire need of accommodation.

    What will be of immense benefit to the people of Kano State as far as Kwankwaso’s mission to China is concerned, is the fact that under the Chinese law, every major construction firms or multi-national corporations handling projects in foreign land must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny by the Chinese government to ensure that something is not done to smear the good reputation of their country.

    It was the contention of the Chinese that it is a heinous crime for a Chinese firm to renege on a certain contractual agreement, hence the benefit Kano is set to derive as a result of the contractual agreement it entered into with leading Chinese firms who are currently executing projects in the state.

    • Safiyanu wrote from Sani Mainage Qtrs, Kano