The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • APC: Nigeria deserves new, not recycled leadership; Suffering: Nigeria is an Emergency

    APC, the new political party should not accept just anyone from other parties, particularly PDP which has ruled since 1999. Al Mustapha will be a huge negative for the APC. PDP’s political deadwood will not perform better in APC. A change of party will not change these people. The APC already has many forward looking politicians. Give them space and do not tie them up in ‘political favour’ knots. The new electorate is more discerning and desperate for good governance. Romancing with Babangida, Abdulsalami and players like Danjuma who is not a democrat though wealthy may empower APC with money but will that bring change to save Nigeria from destruction? Buhari’s and Tinubu’s reputation means they should take to the sidelines! No to recycled leadership. We need new leadership!

    Hurray, the FRSC has moved its Ogere checkpoint 100metres to where stopping a vehicle will not shut down a lane. Who authorises procedures, supervises, reviews situations and plans for eventualities in FRSC? Strangely, though such hawking is illegal, we see both hawkers and FRSC waving their arms frantically to attract you to stop. The FRSC should now carve out an FRSC area, free of hawking, for vehicles to be interrogated.

    One day the FRSC will remember its old ‘Observe Speed Limits’ and ‘Keep Right’ campaigns. Professor Soyinka will tell them that slowing down vehicles by speed limits and keeping slow traffic in the slow lane except when overtaking or avoiding dangerous road surfaces was the primary goal of the original FRSC. Such actions are more effective than randomly stopping vehicles for vehicle and driving licence ‘particulars and fire extinguisher’.

    On Saturday at 9.06am a brand new government issue Ibadan based yellow and deep red commercial vehicle overtook us, four kilometres outside Ibadan on the way to Lagos, at about 140-150kph.  That is our problem. Someone is driving at a speed that could kill us and we sit silently praying for a ‘Safe Journey’. That is a threat of GBH, ‘Grievous Bodily Harm’. We must inform the FRSC that commercial vehicles are driven, with impunity, by members of the NUTRW who make commercial vehicles into WMDs- a ‘Weapons of Mass Death’.

    What is FRSC waiting for? Mega deaths? The Highway Code shows road safety signs. Even potholes have no warning signs. The FRSC needs new strategies in order to tackle speed and as well as ’particulars and fire extinguisher’ enquiries. The new big multimillion naira billboards sponsored by an oil company, Exxon Mobil I think,  encouraging the speed limit are a small very expensive step. There are cheaper ways of enforcement. Passengers are often too intimidated by the NURTW reputation for violence to report ‘Endangering The Lives Of Passengers’.

    Who is there to report to, anyway?  FRSC should please add phone in and internet ‘Name and Shame Anti-Speed Campaigns’ where passengers are encouraged to report erring vehicle drivers by ‘Motor Park, Time, Date, Route’ for FRSC to place on their website and investigate. Speed can be controlled by convoys led by demarcated ‘FRSC Convoy Leader Cars’ driving at 100kph.

    I and tens of thousands of others suffered silently, but angrily, in yet another totally preventable nearly five hour massive traffic jam on the Ibadan-Lagos on Saturday. Apparently unknown to FRSC leadership, the FRSC was actually specially set up to deal with, and possibly prevent and then manage major traffic emergencies and rescue the citizenry from their misery through novel approaches to traffic control through short diversions, information dissemination, preventing overtaking on shoulders et cetera. But none of this happened. Nothing happened. The members of the FRSC could not be seen at any of the problem areas in over 30km of traffic. The FRSC made little or no effort beyond trying to arrest a few miscreants around ‘Redeem’.  There was no alarm raised by the FRSC.

    Did the FRSC members report up the chain of command and higher authorities to request assistance for the six vehicles and maybe 15 FRSC members we saw clustered around turnings and junctions? Was any order given to recall FRSC members from other areas and off-duty officials to help deal with the problem? Why were no FRSC members deployed automatically every few hundred metres along the 20km traffic jam to inform citizens and implement solutions to the massive problem and also keep order and keep vehicles from driving on the road shoulders?

    During this emergency, it was a serious if unrecognised emergency, the few FRSC who were seen were casual, disinterested and lackadaisical in attitude and showed no real concern to actually solve the traffic problem. They were not on their phones discussing with superiors and implementing any plan like the ‘FRSC 20KM Traffic Jam Plan’ at panic stations. FRSC knows that one of Nigerian drivers’ major problems is inability to follow the queue. Queue jumping is congenital among commercial and most other road users. Over 1,000 vehicles overtook us on the shoulders. If they had stayed in line we would have moved faster. If everyone was forced to stay in line on the two lane road the traffic problem would reduce dramatically. This can be done by placing some blocks every 20 metres on the shoulders which will allow parking but discourage driving on the shoulders. Perhaps the designers of the new expressway need to take this up. The suffering of Nigerians is preventable. Nigeria is an emergency waiting for treatment.

    PS : Give Nigerians emergency electric power NOW!

     

  • Drumbeats of war

    To say that the security situation in the country is both tense and precarious, at the moment, is to beg the question. In recent times, there have been discoveries and interception of arms and ammunition in many parts of the country. This has raised fears and alarm in security and political circles over the real intention of the arms merchants.

    While such incidents of arms smuggling is not limited to a particular geo-political zone, the preponderance of opinion is that the frequency of such discoveries all over the country, in recent times, has been on a geometric ascendancy. As a result of this, the level of intelligence shadowing and surveillance in the whole country by security agents has been on the increase. As insurgency remains a major toothache in the north-eastern part of the country, where a state of emergency still subsists, the growing cases of arms stockpile in the north-west states are said to be giving security analysts sleepless nights, especially as they look for clues about the motives of the masterminds of this arms stockpile.

    In order to unravel the sudden surge in the trafficking menace across our numerous porous borders, security agencies in the country are said to be focusing on both local and external sources.  In the first instance, the importation of arms may likely be traceable to trans-national Islamist terrorists arming local jihadists as well as using Nigeria as a transit route in the Sahel arms and related smuggling trade. This line of thought dominated the minds of the top-shots of the country’s security agencies for some time until in the last few months when political motivation began to filter in. Although security agents are yet to find direct linkage between the arms stockpile and political gladiators, fears are rife that the ugly trend of politicking across the country could in fact snowball into obvious threats from key leaders who are increasingly getting desperate.

    It will be recalled that the arms cache found in Kano is still a mystery despite the ongoing prosecution of the Lebanese allegedly involved in the whole saga. The security agencies are also said to be at a loss over the alleged connection between alleged Hezbollah Shiite agents and the Sunni-led Boko Haramists. Boko Haram is said to belong to the Sunni school of Islam, and therefore, finding a synergy between them and the Lebanese under trial over the arms cache is said to be proving very difficult. What the security agencies are believed to be zeroing on is the possibility that the Shiite group could have its own separate agenda for the country.

    Consequently, the Kano arms discovery has thrown up many theories. One of them is the possibility of a non-religious involvement, with political undertone being the chief reason. This theory was said to have given added fillip after the Zamfara State government recently got its hands burnt in an arms importation imbroglio. Abdulaziz Yari, the state governor, had claimed that it wanted to arm vigilance groups in the state in view of recent rising incidence of violent robberies. However, the way and manner the state government imported the arms allegedly without police approval has since become a subject of investigation in Abuja. And understandably, this investigation is already attracting attention of people within the nation’s security circles.

    Though the Zamfara State government has since justified its action on the need to combat criminal gangs operating freely in the state, keen watchers of the 2015 drama pointed out that arming vigilantes in the countdown to 2015 sent mixed signals. The belief is that, once Zamfara succeeds in this matter, other state governments will follow suit, leading to proliferation of arms in the country ahead of a potentially explosive electoral year in 2015.

    However, while the controversy over Zamfara arms importation is yet to abate, a tanker filled with assorted arms and ammunition, whose source of importation is still unknown, was recently impounded between Kebbi-Zamfara axis. With hundreds of such tankers streaming into the country through remote border areas, fears are mounting that there may be a deliberate agenda by some unknown elements in the country to warehouse arms ahead of 2015 elections.

    This is more worrisome because a few days after the arms-bearing tanker was impounded, another arms cache was discovered in the sleepy state of Jigawa, which led to an exchange of fire between security agencies and those described as Boko Haram insurgents. This assertion is astonishing, to say the least, because Jigawa has never once witnessed any Boko Haram attack since the insurgency reared its head in the northern part of the country many years ago. At any rate, the exchange of fire cannot stand in as explanation for the owners of the arms or those who masterminded their importation.

    One thing is that, each time there is a security breach in some parts of the country, especially in the North, it has become convenient for security agents to heap the blame on Boko Haram. This situation is scary. We cannot say for sure that all these arms are imported by Islamists. We cannot prove that. We can also not prove that politicians are behind the menace for electoral purposes. All that is apparent is that there is an arms build-up across the country.

    While the real motive behind this dangerous development is still baffling to security agencies who are probing deeper, Mike Oghiadohme, the Chief of Staff to the President, recently warned leaders and elders in the country against precipitating a civil war in the country through their actions and utterances. He warned such leaders and elders against plunging the nation into avoidable catastrophe, in furtherance of their individual or collective agenda. Analysts argue that Oghiadohme’s warning is a signal that the Presidency already has more facts over security situation, especially arms build-ups in the country, than it is willing to tell the public.

    Arms build-up in the country has become a constant issue for discussion within the Nigerian military arena, which is battling insurgency in the North-East. Though the military has not ruled out any trace of political opportunism, suspicions are strong that the Islamists could be behind the development. The wider intelligence community, however, thinks differently. They feel political forces are neck-deep in the menace.

    In a recent statement, Sagir Musa, a lieutenant-colonel and spokesman of the Joint Task Force in Borno, while confirming the rising incidence of arms proliferation, gave greater insight into the problem facing the North and the country as a whole.  Said he: “Nigeria’s borders are massive with hundreds of footpaths crisscrossing to neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroun with links to Mali, Libya and Sudan.”  According to him, “from conservative estimate by locals, there are well over 250 footpaths from Damaturu/Maiduguri axis that link or lead directly to Cameroun, Chad or Niger. These paths, which are mostly unknown to security agencies, are unmanned, unprotected and have continued to serve as conveyor belts for arms and ammunition trafficking into Nigeria. It is disheartening and unfortunate that the merchants of death have since devised methods to beat security agencies at the borders, chief among them, through the footpaths.”

    Musa explained that “the Libyan and Malian rebels are desperate to exchange arms for money to Boko Haram terrorists, their financiers and collaborators as the sect has since been affiliated to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb.” This, according to him, “has added to the overwhelming challenge of the influx of illegal aliens, arms, ammunition and sophisticated IED materials into the country and an efficient and effective fight against terrorism.”

    Whatever the case is, I believe the security agents still need to critically explore the political angle to all these discoveries. If need be, investigation could be extended to foreign soil. As the arms influx continues, the questions are: Is Nigeria fast becoming a Somalia? Who is preparing for war? Could the current flexing of muscles by political gladiators be a subtle declaration of war ahead of 2015? Perhaps, a thorough investigation by the security agencies would provide answers to these probing questions. Time will tell!

     

  • A combatant’s chronicle of the Nigeria – Biafra War

    A combatant’s chronicle of the Nigeria – Biafra War

    It is fitting and quite thoughtful that General Godwin Alabi–Isama has chosen Nelson Mandela’s birthday to present his book, The Tragedy of Victory. For Mandela, in so many ways, exemplifies the generosity of spirit which you will constantly encounter as you read this sprawling book. In Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela’s engrossing and deeply moving chronicle of his extraordinary life, he shares the honour and glory of the successes of the anti-apartheid struggles, not only with all the comrades with whom he served long jail terms, but also with many others who supported the struggles. For instance, on page 601 of that fascinating book, Mandela pays the following tribute to one of his comrades: “In Plato’s allegory of the metals, the philosopher classifies men into groups of gold, silver and lead. Oliver Tambo was pure gold; there was gold in his intellectual brilliance, gold in his unfailing loyalty and in his tolerance and generosity, gold in his unfailing loyalty and self-sacrifice. As much as I respected him as a leader, that is how much I loved him as a man”.

    Gratitude matters. Appreciation of the good contribution of others humanises us all. When you recognise the goodness of others, you’re actually laying the building blocks of what will make humankind endure and survive. It doesn’t diminish you; the world is incredibly richer for it.

    The total lack of this kind of generous spirit in General Olusegun Obasanjo prompted General Alabi-Isama to write The Tragedy of Victory. Three years ago, when General Godwin Alabi–Isama turned 70; he came to Nigeria from the US to celebrate his birthday. His close friend, General Alani Akinrinade who attended the ceremony, gave him two copies of General Olusegun Obasanjo’s My Command. By that time Alabi-Isama had heard about the book but had never read it. Akinrinade had told his friend that the book would turn his belly. It surely did. General Alabi-Isama discovered that there were so many distortions of fact in the book, and he immediately dismissed it as a tapestry of inaccuracies. As he read it, he marked out not less than eighty two passages in My Command where General Obasanjo simply told outright lies to massage his ego and damage the reputation of his colleagues. Alabi-Isama then thought that since he was still a moving encyclopaedia on the three Marine Commando Division, it was time to tear the painted mask of Obasanjo’s lies.

    In My Command, the achievements of gallant officers like Benjamin Adekunle (The Black Scorpion), Alani Akinrinade, Godwin Ally, Ayo Ariyo, Ola Oni, Isaac Adaka Boro, Ahmadu Aliyu, Roland Omowa, Sani Bello, SS Tomoye, Yemi Alabi, Philemon Shande, Musa Wamba, Mac Isemede, Sunny Tuoyo, Audu Jalingo, Ignatius Obeya, and their informants like Ndidi Okereke – Onyiuke, Margaret Eyo, Florence Ita-Giwa and many other women who made the 3 Marine Commando Division such a formidable force, are tainted and belittled. Blessed with very good memory, General Alabi-Isama, in Tragedy of Victory, offers a ferocious and damning critique of General Olusegun Obasanjo’s vainglorious claims of his gallantry. He sets the mangled records straight with absolute passion, precision and indignation. To him, history matters because it is meant to inspire and instruct posterity.

    He shares George Santayana’s view that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. And because Nigerians have been made cynical by many decades of lies, all claims that Alabi-Isama makes he supports with abundant evidence. If this book is a 671-page to me it is in part because the memoirist illustrates his story with 450 pictures, 36 maps and 20 documents. It is also partly because the author meanders. He repeats himself many times.

    By and large, his responses to General Obasanjo’s claims show that he was a more competent soldier, military strategist and theorist than OBJ, who tends to mistake good luck for profound gift and talent. Alabi-Isama simply did his duty and left politics in the army for all the crafty war profiteers who have been described by Wole Soyinka in Jero’s metamorphosis as DGS – Desk Generals. As Chief of Staff of 3 Marine Commando Division, he was very demanding of everyone – he was hard on his men and women without ever losing tenderness. Deep knowledge was central to his strategy and tactics, so he sought for it everywhere. Indeed, one very important duty of the 3 Marine Commando women was collecting vast data about Biafran soldiers and their operational orders. The 3 Marine Commando Division operated in a very difficult terrain of creeks and mangrove forest comprising the present Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states. Those young men and women fighting for the unity of a country that would later abandon them demonstrated uncommon patriotism. Consider the courage of a young officer who just got shot in the war front, and as he was about to die, he asked his commander, Alabi-Isama, who was carrying him, “Have I tried? Those young men were brave people. Consider the immense talent and heroic move of Captain Gbadamosi King, the Nigerian Air Force pilot whose air-to-air operation was the first, not only in Nigeria’s history but was the first in Africa. Consider also the exploits of those ladies who cheered up the troops when their morale was down. The book is dedicated to Alabi-Isama’s mother who solidly supported the war efforts of her only son.

    This was war at the Atlantic theatre. A very difficult place to fight to keep Nigeria one. Each time situations became intractable and confounding; it was either Akinrinade or Alabi-Isama who were ordered to go and sorts things out. Many of the troops died of malaria, dysentery, cholera; cold and snake bites. One soldier was swallowed by a 50-foot-long snake. The troops had to kill the snake with the soldier still inside.

    As the troops were getting tired, the Biafrans redoubled their efforts.

    Helped by France, they launched deadly attacks. With the capture of Port Harcourt by the 3 Marine Commando in 1968 and the capture of Enugu and Umuahia in April 1969, Biafrans had lost three of its major capitals. Uli-Ihiala then became its centre of gravity. But Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, the commanding officer, did not see Uli-Ihiala that way. Missing the point completely, he ordered that OAU (Owerri, Aba and Umuahia) be captured as an October 1 1968 Independence gift to General Yakubu Gowon. It was a complete disaster. General Alabi-Isama says he warned his commander against the operation, but Colonel Benjamin Adekunle did not listen. The 3 Marine Commando Division that had given a good account of itself in Bonny, Calabar, Warri, Ugep, Obubra, Oron, Uyo, Ikot Ekpene, Itu, Eket, Abak, Etinan, Opobo, Bori, Okrika, Port Harcourt, Degema, Buguma, Abonema, Finima, Nembe, brass, Ahoada and part of Midwest now became a butt of joke in other divisions. Other blunders followed.

    Suffering from stress, all those who criticised Benjamin Adekunle constructively he regarded as cowards. The case became so bad when he decided to get both Alabi-Isama and Akinrinade killed in an ambush. They escaped to Lagos where they reported to General Gowon the crisis of confidence in the 3 Marine Commando. But Gowon was very reluctant to remove Adekunle thinking that, with the Agbekoya riots and protests in Ibadan, many people would shout, “ethnic cleansing” if a non-Yoruba officer was brought in as a commander. He, therefore, asked Akinrinade and Alabi-Isama to suggest a Senior Yoruba Officer he could use. Akinrinade suggested Obasanjo—not Oluleye, not Sotoye, not Olutoye because Akinrinade and his friend were simply desperate to have a commander who would listen to them and implement Alabi-Isama’s operation Pincer 2, a plan that they were sure would end the war in 30 days. Obasanjo was not an infantry officer, he was in the Army Engineers Corps, but Akinrinade rooted for him because he thought he was his friend. General Gowon, who suspected that Obasanjo would not want to go to the war front, asked Akinrinade and Alabi-Isama to go and persuade him which they did. Of course, General Gowon was right. General Obasanjo was furious that they suggested his name. He thought these men wanted him dead. While Akinrinade was civil in his dealing with him, Alabi-Isama was impatient; he told him off, wanting at a point to walk out after several hours of talking without any food or drink from their host. Alabi-Isama would soon pay the big price for doing that to Obasanjo who obviously has what the medical experts call pachydermatous memory for slights and insults.

    When General Gowon gave the order that all divisional commanders at the war front, who had been there for two years, should be replaced and the then Colonel Obasanjo was made the commander of the 3 Marine Commando Division both Alabi-Isama and Akinrinade thought they had won but their victory is part of the tragedy recounted in this book. General Olusegun Obasanjo’s did not take over the 3 Marine Commando until 16 May 1969. As soon as he did, he simply sidelined Akinrinade and Alabi-Isama. He went after all the members of the dream team of the Commando with vengeance. The winning force that was being praised for fighting gallantly to keep Nigeria one was now fighting a war of attrition. George Ininh who knew how to play the politics of genuflection which Obasanjo wanted rose meteorically during and after the war.

    Four days after he resumed duty, Obasanjo’s first battle experience as a commander of 3 Marine Commando Division was a disaster. In what Alabi-Isama describes as a complete disregard of the sound advice of his sector commanders, he ordered Godwin Ally to attack Ohoba, a town 40 kilometres south of Owerri. The Division lost over 1,000 troops. This loss still enrages Alabi-Isama, who suggests that in a saner society, Obasanjo should have lost his commission on account of that tragedy. Why would he be bothered? Did the high command in Lagos ever sanction Murtala Mohammed of 2 Division for ordering an Asaba – River Niger crossing, against the advice of Akinrinade in which about 2,000 troops died by drowning and bullet wounds in the River Niger? Alabi-Isama reminds us many times that Obasanjo, the blundering Commander of 3 Marine Commando Division “had no battle experience and had never fought at any of the three fronts of the war. He had never commanded a battalion or a brigade, now he had to command a division in battle. That was why his military administration and logistics placing was that of a cadet”.

    It was because of his tactical error as a commander that he was almost killed in an ambush when he visited Col. Iluyomade’s unit. He had to flee from the ambush and got shot in the bottom. Alabi-Isama’s take on that is that true generals do get shot in the chest, not bottom. Before Obasanjo was posted to 3 Marine Commando Division, Alabi-Isama, in consultation with Adekunle and other officers, had three plans – Pincer 1, 2 and 3, strategies and tactics which their division knew would win the war. Pincer 1 would be a monstrous operation that was meant to level many towns in Biafra. As if to impress those who doubted his ability, Obasanjo wanted his troops to settle for that. If the 3 Marine Commando had used that plan, Alabi-Isama argues, the charge of genocide that Chinua Achebe raises in his book, There Was a Country would have been justified. Thankfully, reasons prevailed. The commander finally listened to his officers. Pincer 2 was used. And it took only 23 days for the 3 Marine Commando Division to put an end to the Nigeria-Biafra War. Biafra surrendered, not to Obasanjo, who was not at the war front, but to Alani Akinrinade, who was very much there.

    It was a triumphant and self-centered Obasanjo, who rushed to Lagos with Effiong and some of the Biafran officers. And the real heroes of that war were then forgotten. But Alabi-Isama was not only forgotten he was later persecuted and dismissed from the army by General Olusegun Obasanjo who was then the head of state. Alabi-Isama was accused of stealing money which he did not know anything about. He was even accused of being part of the Dimka coup. The two officers who refused to implicate him suddenly died mysteriously. But as James Frederick Green would say their organised slaughter did not settle the dispute; it merely silenced an argument which The Tragedy of Victory has now brought to the front burner. Before his unjustified persecution, General Alabi-Isama was the likeable Principal General Staff Officer of the Nigerian Army. He was a well-decorated officer. He gave the Nigerian Army his best shot. And he was a role model. It is important to remember that our history is full of this kind of bad behaviour. Let me explain that with just one example. In 1980, Chief Bola Ige accepted to review My Command because he thought General Olusegun Obasanjo was a good friend. But since Ige’s assassination, has the general not been dancing on his grave?

    Of course, The Tragedy of Victory is not only about the civil war and the 3 Marine Commando Division even though it is the major plank of it, its centre of gravity. There are other+ interesting stories. The story of his humble early life, how he joined the army after his secondary school at Ibadan Boys High School, his military training in Zaria and England, his peace-keeping mission in the Congo where he helped to kill a huge and notorious hippopotamus that had been terrorising a village for many years. There is a sense in which the story of the Nigerian Army mock battle in Ibadan which he, and his troops won foretold the victory of the Nigeria-Biafra war in the Atlantic Theatre. We are told of how he was captured by the Biafrans, how he was sent to Kirikiri prison for wrong accusation. We are moved by the story of Azuatalam the wonderful swimmer who was later recommended to be recruited into the Army by General Alani Akinrinade. The reader is told of how Alabi-Isama, and his officers arrived at their strategies and tactics like the dilemma strategy. As Generals, Yakubu Gowon and Adeyinka Adebayo write in their introductory remarks, this is a book about military strategies, tactics and campaigns. There is the interesting story of the visit, in 1993, of Stella Obasanjo to his American home where Stella stayed for a pleasurable week. You will not miss the story of how he saved General T.Y. Danjuma and Domkat Bali from being killed by the Dimka coupists.

    Finally, it is clear from our reading of this book that when we yield our hallowed ground to clueless people, they will grow and nurture their weeds on it, thereby suffocating the flowers of the land. May our country have the good sense to always choose good people who will reproduce their goodness in others.

     •Ajibade, Executive Editor of The News, read this review on July 18 at the public presentation of The Tragedy of Victory at the NIIA, Kofo Abayomi, Victoria Island, Lagos.

  • Charity’s conversion: The scapegoating of an emir

    Charity’s conversion: The scapegoating of an emir

    In the last five years, Bida, my home town, has attracted bad press and public attention nationwide. The source of this attraction, it seems, has been the apparently well-intentioned but grossly misrepresented actions of its paramount ruler, the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, on the emotive issues of sex and religion.

    Five years ago, the story was about a randy 84-year-old man, Mohammed Bello Abubakar, alias Masaba, with his harem of 86 wives, some of them young enough to be his daughters and even granddaughters. The man’s lifestyle was a clear breach of the Penal Code of the old North and a violation of the norms and traditions of the Islamic society he lived in.

    One fine morning, the Etsu, as descendant of Malam Dendo, the flag bearer of Shehu Usman Danfodiyo in Nupeland during his 19th century jihad, and therefore the modern day custodian of Islam in his territory, decided to put a stop to Masaba’s impunity. Accordingly, the Etsu summoned the heretic to the palace to defend his conduct before the town’s clerics and community leaders. He couldn’t. So he was asked to choose between Islam, which he professed, and his 86 wives, since the religion forbade a man to have more than four. He accepted to choose his religion.

    Or so it seemed; on the day he was to inform the palace of his choice of the four wives he was to live with, the man simply disappeared. Next thing, he sued the palace before the state high court for the violation of his fundamental right to live as he chose. And before you could say harem all manner of human rights organisations, with the press in tow, were falling over themselves to defend the man.

    Since then the man has, for all practical purposes, become an (untouchable) media celebrity. This was five years ago.

    Nearly five years on last month the big story has been about a beautiful 25 year-old student of Federal Polytechnic, Bida, who converted to Islam in February. Charity, the daughter of a pastor of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) – one of the country’s leading Pentecostal churches – Raymond Uzoechina, sought and eventually got the audience of the Etsu to ask for his protection from her father who she claimed could harm her because of her conversion.

    From all accounts, including that of her father, the palace did not readily oblige Aisha, her adopted Islamic name. First, the Etsu asked her if her father knew of her decision. When she said no he asked for her father’s telephone number and called him to come to Bida. He sent for him twice, first on March 1 and then the following day. “Overwhelmed by the call on March 2,” Pastor Uzoechina told the press, “I had to travel to Bida to ascertain what was wrong.”

    Predictably, the palace encounter was not a pleasant one for both parties. According to one account, the Etsu first asked the father if his daughter had ever suffered any mental problems and he said no. The Etsu then confirmed to his invitee that his daughter had converted to Islam. The pastor was then given a room to talk things over privately with his daughter. The talk did not end happily.

    Since then Pastor Uzoechina has accused the Etsu of kidnapping his daughter and forcibly converting her into Islam. Naturally the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has rallied to his support. “The Emir of Bida(meaning, of course, the Etsu Nupe),” its president, the combative Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, said last week, “ must understand that Christianity and Islam must stand side by side. So we are using this occasion to say: ‘Release our daughter to us.’”

    Interestingly but even more worryingly, it seems President Goodluck Jonathan too has weighed in on the pastor’s side; on separate occasions he had asked first the Etsu and then the Niger State governor, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, in not so many words, to find a way of releasing Aisha Charity to her father.

    Apparently the logic seems lost on the CAN leadership that Aisha Charity’s case is even more symbolic of fundamental human rights than that of the recent Senate’s so-called approval of marriage below 18 for girls over which it has threatened to ask its flock to take to the streets if the Senate does not reverse itself.

    Aisha Charity is 25 and is therefore more than old enough to decide things for herself. She has consistently said she converted of her own free will. Certainly, the Etsu Nupe’s invitation to Pastor Uzoechina to his palace to talk things over with his daughter is not the action of someone who is a kidnapper intent on forcing his belief on another.

    Even more certainly scapegoating him for the predicament of Aisha’s father and, by extension, that of CAN, will not solve the problem for anyone who thinks he has one with her conversion, even if it were induced.

    So far, the most sensible and sober thing anyone has said about this controversy is the eloquent piece written on it by Bitrus Gwadah, a Kaduna based senior lawyer, in last Saturday’s Weekly Trust. It is an article that anyone interested in stopping the episode from getting out of hand must go back and read.

     

    Abubakar Idris Usman: all’s well that ends well?

     

    It’s now thirteen weeks since I first wrote on May 8 about the plight of my youth corper “son” Abubakar Idris Usman, on these pages in an open letter to the Director General of the National Youth Service Corps, Brigadier-General Okorie Affiah.

    The reader will recall that he got into trouble with the NYSC authorities in Kaduna State over an article he had written in The Nation (November 22, 2012) which was critical of the facilities at the state’s orientation camp. The article, the authorities said, was sheer malice and breached the service rules against talking to the press.

    As penalty for his alleged offense he was initially denied posting for his primary assignment until he retracted the story. When he and his real father, a childhood friend, brought his predicament to my attention I rebuked him, as an uncle should, for breaching his service regulations but told him to stand by his story so long as he was sure of his facts. He said he was even though he had apologised to the authorities for the embarrassment he had caused them following his father’s and another uncle’s intervention with the authorities.

    Apart from refusing him his primary posting until he retracted his story, his camera and handset were seized. He was also threatened with a month’s extension without pay and, worst of all, he was interrogated by the State Security Service on allegation that he was Boko Haram.

    After several weeks of stalemate the local NYSC relented and posted him to a remote village in the state in March. He had barely settled down when he was reposted to Delta State. The reposting letter said this was at his own request. When, however, he pointed out that he never made any such request, he was issued another letter which said this was punishment for his alleged offence.

    At this point, I got a senior lawyer friend, Yahaya Mahmud, SAN, to intervene by sending a petition to the service Director General, and the Minister of Youth, Inuwa Abdulkadir, Esq. My friend did so gratis.

    Not long after the petition the DG, I was made to understand, instructed Kaduna to rescind the Delta posting. For weeks, Kaduna did not carry out the instructions. However, it did so finally last week after our lawyer sent a reminder.

    Penultimate Monday, Usman was called to the head office and given a letter, dated June 31, posting him to Katsina State. He has since reported there and has been posted to Government Technical College, Funtua, for his primary assignment.

    Hopefully, this is the end of an episode that needed not to have occurred at all – never mind dragging on for months – but for the thin skin of your typical government official.

     

    Re: Aregbesola’s real transformation

     

    Sir,

    We have indeed known your mindset. No non-Muslim can ever go right, and no Muslim can ever go wrong even if he is secretly – expletive deleted – your mother. Now, even if you’ve sworn never to see anything right about the president, because he is your sworn enemy, being a non-Muslim, what is the purpose of trying to drag him in the mud before commencing on praise singing on Aregbesola? Is it a gimmick to win the trust of the Yorubas? Mind you Haruna the Yorubas are very wise people. They are not fools like you and so you cannot fool them in order to win their support.

    +2347054795500

     

    Sir,

    Thanks for your article on “Aregbesola’s real Transformation’. Please advise Abia State Governor to learn from Aregbesola and stop his unpopular media campaign.

    +2348036735682

     

     

  • An ominous sign

    Recently, a new report titled Nigerian Unity in the Balance, which was authored for the United States Army War College, warned Nigerian leaders to beware of another civil war or an outright break-up following what it called on-going divisive trends in the country. The report was written by two former American servicemen – Gerald McLaughlin and Clarence J. Bouchat and released by the Strategic Studies Institute of War College.

    The report observed that divisive forces were becoming far stronger than uniting forces in Nigeria. It then warned that unless this debilitating trend was reversed, Nigeria’s existence could be jeopardised. According to the report, “Parochial interests created by religious, cultural, ethnic, economic, regional, and political secessionist tendencies are endemic in Nigeria.” The report warned that, “under such stresses, Nigerian unity may fail.” The report stressed further: “Should Nigeria’s leaders mismanage the political economy and reinforce centrifugal forces in Nigeria, the breaks to create autonomous regions or independent countries would likely occur along its previously identified fault lines.” The report observed that, “having already experienced one brutal civil war, Nigeria is at risk for a recurrence of conflict or dissolution, especially since some of the underpinning motivations of the war remain unresolved.”

    While detailing many fault lines speeding up disintegrative tendencies in the country, the report said: “Indeed, East Timor, Eritrea, Croatia and Somaliland indicate that the weakest point of failing states is along colonial borders. Of more interest for Nigerian unity is that this may also occur between regions separately administered by a common colonial power, as occurred between Malaysia and Singapore, and North and South Sudan, where differences proved irreconcilable after the departure of British administration”. The report projected that “at least, some of the resulting regions and states of a possible Nigerian devolution may divide along such internal lines.”

    While conceding that Nigeria’s fate is primarily in the hands of Nigerians, the report noted that such could be positively affected by actions of the US, adding that “Nigeria’s future is hanging precariously on the balance and the United States should help tip the scales.” Furthermore, the report particularly warned that religious differences were taking the centre stage in the emerging conflict situation in the country, disputing repeated reports that economic reasons were to blame for the insurgency and other conflicts in the country.

    There is every reason why Nigeria cannot afford to dump this report in the trashcan. SSI is part of USAWC and is the strategic-level study agent for issues related to national security and military strategy with emphasis on geo-strategic analysis. It would be recalled that a former US ambassador to Nigeria had, last year, warned of a possible break-up of the country, if the growing trend of disaffection is not curtailed. The government’s reaction to this advice was in the least shocking and disappointing. Rather than view the opinion with the seriousness it deserved, the government merely threw unprintable expletives at the ambassador. Since then, everything has been done to disparage the report.

    However, going through the SSI report, one could perceive its genuineness in view of recent happenings and events. Our so-called politicians, whose patriotism is ever in doubt because they look more like fortune seekers, have largely been toying with the security and stability of the country. It is as if they have zoned the entire country to themselves as things are done within them at their whims. To them, the people are secondary whenever issues bordering on the unity and stability of the country come up for discussion.

    The country was almost stripped bare at the demise of former President Umaru Yar’Adua. Throughout his sick period, various pranks, I mean, ‘official pranks’, came to play. At a time, a cleverly conceived dummy was sold to the public; at another time, the greatest hoax was foisted on the people. That was the time many of us really sat back to think whether the country belonged to Nigerians or only the politicians who were ever so meticulous with their lies and fairy tales.

    When eventually the former President gave up the ghost, attempts were made from many quarters to ‘rewrite’ the Constitution. We all know what it took the nation to arrive at the “doctrine of necessity” before an acting President emerged. We can also remember, too, the various schemes and shenanigans brought to the fore to make sure that the new President, when he inevitably emerged, could not function.

    By and large, like some Nigerians are wont to say “we are individually successful but collectively a failure”. What this means is that Nigerians, as a people, are very dynamic, industrious, except that selfishness rules them most, if not, all the time. While we all crave for individual, family, tribe and clannish excellence, we are the least patriotic when it comes to the issue of national question. Take for instance, the build-up to the 2015 elections, which has started in earnest. Everybody, every section of the country, is angling for the coveted number one seat: the Presidency. It is no longer what the Constitution says but the unwritten doctrine of “turn-by-turn”. In this new craze, brothers have become enemies overnight in the mad race to undo one another.

    Now, let us take the issue of Rivers State. Today, that once peaceful state is in turmoil. And many people believe the problem with Rivers has many things to do with 2015. The sitting governor, Rotimi Amaechi is believed to have incurred the wrath of Abuja because he is suspected to be nursing an ambition to become the Vice-President of the country under the rulership of a candidate presented by the North. Many permutations have come up to the effect that Amaechi might pair up with Sule Lamido, his counterpart in the north-west state of Jigawa, to wrestle power from President Goodluck Jonathan.

    At a point, the posters of a Lamido-Amaechi presidential ticket flooded Abuja, the nation’s capital. It is strongly believed it was the handiwork of fifth columnists bent on wrecking that ticket if at all it exists. The next thing was that the war was taken to the Nigeria Governor’s Forum whose election was truncated after the votes were counted. Amaechi is believed to have emerged as the winner of that keenly contested election, but the powers that be are not favourably disposed to that. The belief is that the number one spot at the forum for Amaechi will give him an undue advantage over the incumbent president.

    To stop this, the Presidency threw up a puppet in the name of Jonah Jang, the confused governor of Plateau State. Since then, logic has been made to stand on its head. Or what do you call a situation where 16 could be adjudged to be greater than 19? Amaechi scored 19 votes out of 35, while Jang scored 16 votes. Today, Jang enjoys the undue privilege of getting the President’s ears as he has been officially recognised as the chairman of the Governors’ Forum to the chagrin of the Amaechi camp and many right-thinking Nigerians. And where do we go from here?

    The other day, the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly became a battle zone when elected parliamentarians and leaders of the various communities in the state, who were elected to serve the people, turned the whole place upside down. Again, there was a mathematical infraction in which five was adjudged to be greater than 23. In a melodramatic move, five members of the House met and purportedly impeached the Speaker. The bedlam that followed speaks volumes of how much we cherish the unity and stability of the country.

    As it stands, the issue of Rivers State is largely unresolved because certain egos have refused to be massaged. And from what several commentators have said, this protracted issue that has been allowed to fester for too long might as well be the beginning of the end for the country’s fledgling democracy or even the country itself. The ominous signs are there for all to see!

     

  • No ‘Resit’ for politicians who failed electric power exam; Berger: Emergency Repairs now pls!

    We sit in the national disgrace of darkness from a 30 years power grid failure, victims of PHCN’s TOS, ‘Temporarily Out of Service’ with the power switch in PHCN offices nationwide. We are deafened and stifled by the noxious, noisy generator polluting the atmosphere and draining our pockets. Many families and offices could easily afford a new car monthly; forget Tokunbo, with the money wasted on ‘power substitution. But let us not be too hasty to celebrate this or any government for any slight improvement. Government is making a poor showing at doing what it should have done throughout its tenure- provide power, emergency and long term and not just long term. During the last 30 years successive governments should have added 1,000Mw/year to the grid or gotten that needed emergency power from generator ships etcetera like the Fujiyama nuclear plant was substituted within three months. All our governments have done over the 30 years is to use and abuse government taxes and budgets, to selfishly substitute the government-induced power failure in their offices and homes. They have abandoned the 99.5% of the population which is non-government who have to substitute on their own.

    In fact do you know that governments and political leaders have subjects and examinations just like secondary school students? This power is a subject they tackle for four years. Electricity is a combined physics and commercial subject exam and all governments have failed. Of course they also failed almost all other subjects from environment, sanitation, health, agriculture et cetera. The one subject they think they passed is ‘Politics and Social Studies’ but they failed that too.

    So all past leaders failed woefully their leadership practical exams. Unfortunately some political parties are recruiting an army of failed political octogenarians, and some politicians of odoriferous history in an ‘Exam Resit’. Anenih@80, Bamanga Tukur and Umaru Dikko of the ‘crate’ infamy spring to mind. Imagine the national horror when our new governors are trying to offer old military political leaders like Babangida and Abdulsalami a ‘Resit Exam’ to launder their tattered image. Some images cannot be washed clean and some exams will always be failed by certain students. We shouted about the Benin-Ore road while the Lagos-Ibadan road decayed and collapsed under the weight of our trucks and poor maintenance while our trains were killed ‘on’ their tracks – all by government neglect too busy carting money from contractors for their multi-billion naira election war chests.

    We are on a slow coach to nowhere. It is a month of heavy suffering since the multi-billion dollar contracts for Lagos-Ibadan road were signed and there is still no Julius Berger, JB or RCC ‘Emergency Pothole and Road Edges Teams’ working on the worst potholes and stretches. Where is the love and the ‘Best Practices? The most atrocious sections of the road at Ibafo and Redeem cause 4-5 hour delays and 25-50km traffic jams. But who cares? FRSC cannot even save lives by controlling the speed of commercial vehicles or the side on which trailers drive. Giant contractors, Julius Berger and RCC, have new contracts with and for human beings –Nigerians- in need of saving from government neglect. Government signs on behalf of the citizens but the contracts save lives. JB, urgently fill these potholes! RCC, urgently make smooth our path, now, not in four years’ time! Government has failed, you must pass the exam!

    But who is government? People, not buildings, people not institutions. I am insulted when those seeking solutions to Nigeria’s myriad infrastructural and political problems have the naivety, short-sightedness and effrontery to visit Babangida and Abdulsalami, the midwives of our problems who helped deliver a nearly stillborn baby called ‘Nigeria’ bereft of any civilised infrastructural amenity for ‘miracle cure’. It is time to put these people in their place, in the retirement home, on the sidelines. It is too late for them to ‘Resit’. We have not heard them lamenting any action of theirs. Only the people lament their rule. Could their business empires, built during the time of Nigeria’s maximum corruption, destabilise Nigeria? Can they reverse what they did and failed to do for Nigeria? No, and would they undo their bad deeds if they could rewind the clock? I doubt it.  Power supply is not nuclear physics; the countries with power have good governance, not criminal politicians with two heads.

    Check the web for the Wikipedia list of countries by electricity consumption. You should know where Nigeria stands or stoops. Top countries with 500-1,700 watts per person include all G-8 countries, most EU and Middle and Far East countries. Top African countries include Libya 460, South Africa 457, India 90, Namibia 213, Egypt 147, Ghana 29, Cameroon 29, , Kenya 25, Senegal 16, Republic of Congo 14, Sudan 14, the Gambia 13,  , Lesotho 13, Nigeria has 12 watts /person boastfully above Malawi 11, Guinea 10, Democratic Republic of Congo 9, Burma 9, Mali 9, Benin 8 East Timor 7, Comoros 7, Uganda 6, Equatorial Guinea 6, Guinea –Bissau 5, Madagascar 5, Burkina Faso 5, Ethiopia 4, Niger 4, Haiti 4, Burundi 4, Eritrea 4, Central African Republic 4, Somalia 3, Rwanda 2, Afghanistan 1, Chad 1.

    It is a criminally culpable admission of government that 10,000Mw will have to wait till Dec 2014 to be achieved. Enough of power supply corruption. Emergency power substitution for the 100,000MW needed is the only way forward.

  • Aregbesola’s real ‘Transformation’

    Aregbesola’s real ‘Transformation’

    Even the most casual observer of the country cannot help but notice the huge gap between President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2011 campaign slogan of “Transformation” and the facts on the ground; in spite of his administration’s bravest efforts the country has been anything but transformed for the better. On the contrary it has, in spite of all the brave claims to the contrary by the president’s men (and women), been on a slide in almost all sectors of society; employment, education, infrastructure, health, good governance, name it.

    The gap between the presidential rhetoric and the substance of the word has so much discredited it in the public eye that even the Peoples Democratic Party would look foolish to stick with it as its slogan for the next general elections in 2015. Yet there are governors, some PDP, some in the opposition parties, who can credibly use the word to describe the impact their policies and programmes have had on their states since their ascension.

    One such governor is the State of Osun’s Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola. Since coming to power three years ago the man has provoked much gratuitous attack from PDP as the leading opposition party in his state and from some sections of the media variously for adopting a state flag and anthem, for his urban renewal programme and for declaring the first day of the current Islamic year a public holiday, among others.

    Of all the criticisms he has come under, the most reasonable-sounding are about his urban renewal programme. This has involved extensive demolition of buildings and removal of containers used as business premises by road sides. However, as any fair-minded critic would agree, such demolitions and relocations of mobile structures are inevitable; as the chef said, if you want to make omelette you must break eggs.

    And as the governor said on the occasion of his interactive session with the media only last week, urban renewal is not just about the beautification of our cities. More importantly it is also about the health and safety of their residents.

    “Those of you who think I am a Lagosian, I am not a Lagosian,” he said on that occasion. “I was born and bred in Ikare (fifty six years ago). But interestingly, when I was born there and bred there, I found out that there was nothing like what we have now. The colonial masters left a tradition that made it impossible to erect any illegal structure to occupy the frontage of any building. As it was in Ikare, so was it here…It was everywhere in the Western Region.  Then what happened to us? Why was this decline and degeneration? Was that the effect of Independence that there must be a decline? No!”

    The abandonment of proper planning for our towns and cities is obviously what has led to the kind of devastations from floods experienced in recent times and to the easy spread of epidemics occasionally.

    What is important, therefore, in trying to recreate and, of course, improve upon the safety and healthy environment of our colonial past is that no governor hides behind his urban renewal policy to illegally demolish the property of his adversaries or to refuse to pay adequate compensation for properties that have to go. So far no one – not even his worst traducers – has accused Aregbesola of either. Nor has anyone accused the man personally of inflating contracts for selfish reasons.

    One important element of his urban renewal policy is the airport he is building on the outskirts of Osogbo, the state capital. The first time I heard of it, my instinct was to dismiss it as one of those things politicians do more for their symbolism of statehood than for their economic value. Later, however, I found out this one was with a difference; it is mainly to provide West Africa with its only facility for helicopter repair and eventually also for the repair of aeroplanes. Right now, all the aircrafts operating in the country go abroad for such repair.

    One of the marks of effective governance is a leader’s ability to attract direct foreign investment to his charge. Until the last three years under Aregbesola, no governor of the state since its creation in 1991 had attracted any such new investment. Since then, however, three companies have set up shop in the state, the first, a garment company in Osogbo that will employ 3,000 workers, the second in Ilesa that will produce flat screen television, laptops, iPads and phones, and the third, and for me the most important, to produce the potentially revolutionary Opon-Imo (Yoruba for tablet of knowledge) for use not only in the state’s primary and secondary schools but also possibly elsewhere in the country.

    Of all the tools any leader can use to lift the people of his state or country out of their ignorance and poverty none has the effectiveness of this tablet of knowledge. The reason is simple and obvious; knowledge is power and countries all over the world have increasingly come to adopt and adapt the new information technology as the most effective tool for imparting knowledge.

    As a lengthy article in The Economist of June 29 pointed out, even a country as literate as America has had to resort to this new information technology to stop its slide in the international ranking in education during the past three decades from first to tenth of the educational level of those leaving high school, and from third to 13th for college students. The magazine’s earlier editorial piece on the same subject in the same edition showed how the new education technology, edtech for short, has been making a big difference in the learning curve of children and adults alike both in America and elsewhere.

    The wisdom and foresight of Aregbesola in investing much of his state’s lean resources in the new edtech lie in his focus on primary and secondary school education. As a journalism teacher at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in the last five years I can attest to the alarming semi-literacy of undergraduates in this country. The single biggest source of this problem, whose most dramatic manifestation are the scandalous rates of failure in West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) examinations, is obvious; the inexplicable abject neglect of primary and secondary education since the First Republic.

    The economics of Opon-Imo alone should recommend its use all over the country. As the governor pointed out to reporters in defence of his spending on the gadget so far, the accusation that he was being wasteful is laughable.

    “The charlatans,” he said, “bribed their way into our system, stole a document and published it. You all read it. They said we bought all the textbooks, digital textbooks for two hundred million, and that is all we spent for the over fifty-six books that are in Opon-imo. If you are good in mathematics divide 56 textbooks costing 200,000,000 from Evans by 150,000, the cost is 26 Naira. Tell us where you can buy a book for N26. Opon-Imo is a world beater!”

    My own arithmetic showed the unit price was actually N23.80. But the beauty of the tablet of knowledge is not only in its economy but in how effectively it can raise the quality of primary and secondary school education in the country the way it is already doing elsewhere in the world.

    In an article entitled “Pass the Books. Hold the Oil” in The New York Times of March 10, 2012, an article which should interest Nigerians as citizens of a major oil producing country, its columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, said when asked every so often which country was his favourite outside his own, he always mentioned Taiwan.

    “‘Taiwan? Why Taiwan?’ people ask. Very simple,” he said. “Taiwan is a barren rock in a typhoon-laden sea with no natural resources to live off of — it even has to import sand and gravel from China for construction — yet it has the fourth-largest financial reserves in the world. Because rather than digging in the ground and mining whatever comes up, Taiwan has mined its 23 million people, their talent, energy and intelligence — men and women.”

    Almost alone among the country’s leaders Aregbesola seems to have appreciated the significance of mining the talent, energy and intelligence of the children of his state for its future development by massively investing in their education. The dividend of his faith in the youth as tomorrow’s leaders has already manifesting itself in the latest statistics from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics which shows the state as the first in primary school and girl-child enrolment throughout the country.

    “Steve Job,” as he said in his final words during the media interactive, “was not a super human. He only had early interactions with computers. Bill Gates is not a super human. He only had early encounter with technology. Who says our own pupils cannot? That is our vision.”

    Of course, gadgets alone cannot bring about the realisation of his lofty vision. Along with gadgets you need good teachers, something he has also been investing in. Above all, you need good leaders who teach by example. As I have cause to say on these pages not too long ago, Aregbesola, by his simplicity, humility and uprightness, among other virtues, is among this breed of leaders that are rare in the country.

    Hopefully, he can persuade the citizens of the State of Osun that he is the man to beat at next year’s governorship election in the state.

     

     

     

  • ‘Harry, the Soldier Prince’

    Almost all the major international network news stations are still engrossed in the celebration of the new royal baby, George Alexander Louis. He is to be known as His Royal Highness, Prince George of Cambridge. The frenzy and wide coverage of his birth reminded me of a mini-documentary sometime ago on the charming Prince Harry Williams, the proud father of the baby who is now third in line to the British throne. The documentary, which was aired on Cable News Network, CNN, was titled: “Royal Watchers; Harry, the Soldier Prince”.
    The documentary was on Prince Harry and his numerous engagements. Starting from when he was a baby, the documentary ran through the death of Diana (his mother), his sojourn in the British Army, his diplomatic engagements within Britain and other places, his deployment to Afghanistan for military duties and all that.
    Throughout the period the stuff lasted, I stayed glued to the TV set, watching the moving and captivating scenes. During the burial of his mother, Harry exuded the confidence unexpected of a lad at his age. He was composed, calm and devoid of any trace of emotional distraction, as he followed the hearse bearing the body of his mother in an ornamental casket adorned with a bouquet of flowers.
    As a cadet in the elite Sandhurst Military Academy, Harry was a beautiful sight to behold in his trimmed and well-fitted military uniform. His squad mates who were intermittently interviewed described him as a young officer who responded well to training and military discipline. He was said to mix freely and devoid of the opulence of royalty. Every now and then, he was seen in the video clips either marching side by side with his mates or engaged in one military exercise or another.
    When he was deployed to the battle front in Afghanistan, he was seen flying a combat helicopter along with some of his colleagues. Again, he was shown on foot patrol in full combat gear. The scene then changed from Southern Afghanistan to the northern part of the country, where he went on patrol with the armoured unit stationed there.
    The highlight of that patrol was when his team spotted an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) on their route. The tank came to a halt as Harry got in touch with the bomb disposal unit which mobilised and promptly arrived at the scene in a Tomahawk helicopter. On the approach of the helicopter, Harry had thrown out a fire cracker from the tank, ostensibly to pinpoint the area where the device was buried. This was to prevent the helicopter from landing right on top of the IED, which could spell doom. In a few minutes, the device was detonated and Harry and his team continued their patrol.
    The scenes of his diplomatic shuttles include when he represented his maternal grandmother, the Queen, in Jamaica, Haiti, Canada and the rest. Here, he exhibited the statesman in him to the delight of his numerous hosts and the Queen. Everywhere, he went, he distinguished himself as someone who had the passion to mix freely with children and the downtrodden, shaking their hands, hugging them when necessary and sharing chocolates and drinks with them.
    Of course, his wedding that shook Britain was also well advertised. From Harry, the considerate lover who became a teacher and role model for his wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, to Kate herself who, within a few months, rose to become Britain’s fashion ambassador. In one of the clips, some of the dresses and shoes she wore on some of her engagements became widely sought after as scores of people invaded the shops and emptied them from the shelves as soon as they saw her wear them.
    On a visit to Hollywood in California, Harry and Kate were the cynosure of the crowd that lined the routes they took. Not even the well-known actors and actresses that graced the event received the sort of attention and loud ovation that Harry and his heartthrob were bestowed on by the ecstatic crowd. The crowd also carried several placards, one of which read: “Harry and Kate: All we want is a wave”. That underscores the degree of excitement and warmth displayed by the crowd towards Harry and Kate.
    But by far, the most compelling part of the episode which sent cold shivers down my spines was the visit by Harry to Lesotho, a tiny country located on the southern fringes of Africa where he spent two months in an African jungle among the blacks. What was really astonishing in this part of the entire documentary was that he spent the whole two months attending to and caring for AIDS sufferers who form a large proportion of the population. In a brief interview, he expressed optimism that the problems bedevilling the population would be tackled. But he said it was not something that could be done in two or three years. This means that it was going to be a long distance race, especially when he was told that the greatest danger was the primitive belief among the people that “once an AIDS sufferer goes to bed with a minor, the disease could be cured instantly”.
    In his parting remarks there, Harry promised to get back to the country at least twice in a year, “if his military duties would allow him.” That statement underscores his commitment to assist the poor, a deep sense of empathy with their plight as well as discipline as a military officer who does not want his royal background to interfere with his normal life. It would be recalled that the late Diana, Harry’s mother, was involved in many shuttles to the neglected parts of Africa, Asia and other Third World countries where she offered succour and compassion for the poor during her eventful life time.
    As I watched the documentary from start to finish, something struck me. Here was Harry born with the proverbial silver spoon, raised in royalty yet had passion, compassion and empathy for the dregs of the earth. I remember a time in the past when he was shown in some British newspapers sleeping on the bare floor, in chilling winter cold with a Nigerian youth, his companion. At that time, all he wanted was to experience the life of the homeless tramps in the society who have nowhere to rest their heads.
    The irony of it all is that such display of commonality, as exhibited by Harry, is, to say the least, alien to us in this clime and perhaps, in Africa in general. Those who call themselves royal bloods in this part of the world only have passion to acquire wealth, exhibit outlandish lifestyles, acquire expensive wardrobes, show off crazy limousines and all the rest.
    If you look around, when such spoilt children take over their families’ businesses, they easily run them aground. They are lawless, disrespectful, arrogant and lazy. In most cases, they grow up without any good idea of life except to keep on partying, frolicking in night clubs, drug addiction and all other despicable engagements. By and large, Harry’s documentary is a study in humility, the type that is rarely seen in this part of the universe.
    Now that he is a father. It is expected that Harry will devote more time to his family, wife and the new baby. The British Royal Household has an enduring legacy of good upbringing, care and affection. And they are revered all over the place.
    The other day at an Entrepreneurs’ Organisation, EO, Forum in London, we had the privilege of having dinner right at the British Royal Museum. It was a delightful sight to behold, with various royal ornaments dating back to centuries on display. The highlight of the night was the ceremonial locking of the Queen’s gate at Buckingham Palace. It was such a treasured memory that will linger in the participants’ sub-consciousness for a long time to come. Such is the royalty and regality associated with the British monarchy which Harry and George, his son, third in line to the British throne, are expected to preserve!

  • FRSC Ogere; Al Capone & Al Mustapha: Court Marshal? Electricity Power play

    A  response by Dapo A on lane mile costs in America came. Please note that a kilometre is 0.62miles. So the 132km former Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is just 78miles. In the USA, in urban areas, widening costs $2.4 –$6.9 million per lane-mile. In rural areas, $1.6 – $3.1 million per lane-mile. So draw your own conclusions about JuliusBerger/RCC costs and the 48 month contract for 78 miles.

    The now permanent FRSC Ogere roadblock actually breaks the law by narrowing the two lane federal highway to one lane. It is manned by officers standing in the expressway stopping vehicles. The FRSC man actually smashed the mirror of a vehicle dodging arrest, making the FRSC at Ogere a nuisance, a laughing stock and a cause of traffic jams. The FRSC team, as an obstruction at Ogere, has replaced the trailers moved to parks. Is there no one in FRSC with love of country and authority to dismantle this menace? Deliberate, unnecessary and malicious narrowing of the expressway which takes 60-100 cars a minute to one lane is a punishable and towable offence. Who will tow the FRSC? The possession of a uniform must not promote illegality.

    Let the FRSC re-learn the ‘Soyinka’ civilised ways of road safety and not ‘go slow’. FRSC should promote ‘Right lane driving’ and fight over-speeding. Most commercial vehicles take off from motor parks. FRSC/ NURTW joint motor park inspection, ‘particulars’ checks, load assessments, monitoring, registration and passenger manifests will improve the rights of citizens to a safe journey. Install an ‘FRSC Desk’ in every motor park. Who at FRSC is listening? As for the illegal vehicles, the ‘Stop’ method must be applied in a more ‘Keep Traffic Moving’ friendly manner. FRSC needs to get more success with ‘Preventive FRSC Road Safety Strategies’. Prevention is better than cure.

    Al Mustapha is still in the Nigerian Army. Is he a military role model? As Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, CSO, Al Mustapha’s tenure ‘witnessed’ many targeted, attacked and murdered citizens by ‘someone’ using the Army as ‘cover’. There are several explanations. Perhaps the CSO was innocent but incredibly irresponsible and stupid amounting to gross incompetence, negligence of duty and malicious military malfeasance. Perhaps Al Mustapha was the hands-on military leader of a devil team. Perhaps the victims did kill themselves as suggested by that government.

    Sometimes you do not catch criminals for what they do, but for what they do not do. Al Capone was not jailed for murder but for tax evasion. Is there a parallel between Al Mustapha and Al Capone? They both begin with ‘Al’. They ‘are’ both ‘smooth customers’, considered nasty pieces of work. Fifteen years on, the army must exonerate itself and tell of the Al Mustapha Days. Did he acquit himself as an officer and a gentleman? Should the army sit in judgement on the irrefutable, activities of Major Al Mustapha? The army could consider a Court Marshal for ‘Actions Unbecoming of a Nigerian Officer, let alone a gentleman’.

    There will be a flurry of intimidation, ‘let time heal all wounds’ and let ‘bygones be bygones’ as ‘the blood is dry’. Someone will play the ethnic card of North Vs South or even Kano vs. Katsina and the Yar’Adua connection or the Abubakar financial issues. Then there is the Abacha loot still in safe houses? Al Mustapha will have money, Governor of Kano State, Kakwanso has promised, as he seeks a successor. Even Hitler was never tried, but guilty as sin and won by democratic elections and then unleashed evil. Germany lost that war but has gained the same superpower status through peace. A strong lesson for war mongers seeking to write stupid memoirs to themselves. Thank God for Brig Gen Alabi-Isama for putting the records of Obasanjo’s forgetful ‘My Command’ straight! We must counter with money for prosecution. We must donate to a fund, ‘Abacha Victims Justice Fund’, to get justice – civil, military or moral- before the next generation of Al Mustaphas appear.

    The risk of silence in this matter will accelerate the choreographed ‘Rehabilitation of Al Mustapha’ and the dancing on the graves of ‘The Abacha Dead’. In addition Al Mustapha could be rehabilitated in the army and ‘God Forbid’, be given 15 years back-pay, honourable discharge or promotion. There are enough SANs, resting between political tribunal trials, to suggest that he may sue for ‘wrongful incarceration’ even though he was responsible for most of the court ‘adjournments’. If we are not attentive we may soon be facing Senator, Governor Al Mustapha of Kano State, Minster of Defence, Vice President and President Al Mustapha. After all, many did no less ‘Honourable and Distinguished’ things than Al Mustapha to get into nasty National Assembly, NASS.

    The Abacha Dead have families’ ruined financially and emotionally. What compensation does victims of government violence get when politicians crazily and serially award ‘Life Salaries and Allowances- SAP’- to already fat-cat principal NASS officers? NASS, is there a ‘Victims of Government Violence Compensation Act’ or even an artistic masterpiece monument to the ‘The Abacha Dead’ taller than evil, wider than devilry. For Nigeria’s children to live in peace, we adults, must face our suspected killers and their mentors or lose our children in our lifetime.

    Meanwhile, where is Nigeria’s needed 100,000Mw of electric power? Stolen or lost in Nigeria’ power play?

    Power supply is not nuclear physics; the countries with power have good governance, not criminal politicians with two heads.

  • The strange case of Charity Uzoechina

    The strange case of Charity Uzoechina

    For mischief makers religion is always a useful tool. That point was hammered home again in the Nigerian Senate last week when in the course of retouching a section of the constitution dealing with citizenship lawmakers veered off course.

    Today, senators find themselves battling the backlash from outraged Nigerians who say their action opened a loophole for people to legally take child brides.

    Although they insist they didn’t lower the age of consent or amend the Child Rights Act, Senate President David Mark has admitted many of his Muslim colleagues were blackmailed into voting a certain way once former Zamfara State Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima introduced religious sentiments.

    That a group of people at that level could blithely ignore the serious ramifications, and endorse a clause that is open to all sorts of interpretations, underlines the power of religion.

    It is not only in the Senate that badly-managed religion is playing havoc with people’s lives. This Thursday, August 1, a Sharia Court in Bida, Niger State, will rule whether one Charity Uzoechina, a 24-year old student of the Federal Polytechnic in the town, will be allowed to return home to her parents.

    The case has been rumbling for months, and revolves around Uzoechina’s alleged renunciation of Christianity and embrace of Islam.

    Her father, Raymond Uzoechina, a pastor with The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Abuja, denies his daughter converted to Islam, alleging she was hypnotised and kidnapped, and is being held captive in the palace of the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar.

    For his part, the traditional ruler claims Charity, or ‘Aisha’ as she’s now called, was not being held against her will. He has presented legal documents where Charity claims to have converted to Islam and says her father could kill her for the move. That threat ostensibly prodded her to seek protection from the Palace and the Sharia Court.

    The court duly obliged, ordering “that the custody of the plaintiff be entrusted in the hand of Etsu Nupe for the time being and the Etsu Nupe should employ a qualified Islamic scholar who will be teaching her and showing her what the Islamic customs is all about and the plaintiff can even be watching and selecting a man of her choice whom she will want to marry as her partner.”

    While the Sharia Court is already making marriage plans for her, Charity has dropped out of school and remains holed up in the Etsu Nupe’s palace.

    Pastor Uzoechina vehemently denies the version of events as retailed by the palace and the court. On the day when that ruling was given he was not present. He rejects talk that the Emir tried to broker peace between him and his daughter – insisting that the last time he saw Charity she had an emotional breakdown.

    “My daughter was crying when we saw her. They never allowed us speak with her. It is not true that the royal father invited me and the girl for talks, with the hope of reconciling us. On March 2, I came to the palace and was taken before the Etsu Nupe. The Etsu Nupe never asked the girl to go back home with me as claimed,” he said in The Nation this week.

    In the four months over which this controversy has raged, virtually everyone has had their say. Charity’s father, as is to be expected, has been vocal in expressing his outrage. President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, to whom he ran for help, has been relentless in demanding answers.

    His intervention provoked a response from the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). Both the Sharia Court and the Etsu Nupe have also tried to defend themselves. The only missing voice in the hubbub is the most critical – Charity’s.

    Third parties have been regaling us with what she said or didn’t say. But this needless controversy can be cleared up in a minute if the lady at the center of the storm would be allowed by those in whose custody she presently is, to speak for herself.

    Every side claims to be telling the truth and yet we know there can only be one version of the truth. The only person who can clear things up is not being allowed to speak. All those interested in the unvarnished truth ought to ask why?

    Section 38 (1) of the 1999 constitution provides for freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change one’s religion or belief. It also allows us to propagate our religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

    However, in canvassing one’s beliefs there’s no room for coercion. Uzoechina’s claim that his daughter was abducted is very grave. Kidnapping is a criminal offence. The fact that neither the parents nor the Etsu Nupe can agree on the circumstances that caused Charity to wind up in the palace ought to attract more than cursory interest from the police. That is assuming they can export the same zeal with which they are ‘enforcing the rule of law’ in Rivers State to probing a matter involving a high profile traditional ruler in Niger State.

    The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) ought also to be very interested for we might just have on our hands an egregious case of violation of a citizen’s rights.

    There are issues about the legal process that judicial authorities need to look into. For example, what notion of justice makes it acceptable to drag a Christian before a Sharia Court?

    Does any court under our constitution have the power to circumscribe a person’s liberty just to propagate a religious belief? Does any court have the power to assume custody of an adult who has not committed any crime? Under which law can a court commit an adult into the care of a traditional ruler?

    We need to understand whether justice is being served in this case or whether this is another manifestation of impunity for which present day Nigeria is becoming notorious.

    Uzoechina alleges that he has not received fair hearing. He claims not to have been served notice of hearing and that the same day – March 4, the complaint was presented before court, judgment was given and executed. Those who exercise oversight over the courts ought to investigate this.

    We must acknowledge that the individual involved in not a minor but 24 years old. Even then she was living with her parents and was still responsible to them. She may be old enough to take her own decisions – assuming she did indeed convert – but her father and mother were entitled to an explanation. The absence of such a discussion will make any parent suspicious. This is especially so given that reports of forced conversions are rife in the north.

    Despite the Etsu Nupe’s protestations there are just too many unanswered questions and posers. As the girl’s father has pointed out, even if Charity wants to practice Islam, it doesn’t have to be under the Emir’s roof. His home is not a government remand center.

    This whole business is not positive for the traditional ruler. The Etsu Nupe stool is one of the most respected in the country. He doesn’t need this messy controversy to drag on. He can control the damage being done to his image by setting Charity free.