The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Fayemi’s final triumph (2)

    Fayemi’s final triumph (2)

    I was with General Adetunji Olurin from October 2006 till March 2007 as media consultant, when he was in charge in Ekiti State as the Administrator. This was sequel to the political crisis that engulfed the state after the dramatic impeachment of Ayodele Fayose, erstwhile governor of the state. A member of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Fayose was impeached by the PDP-controlled state House of Assembly in highly controversial circumstances. This led to the war of succession as two members of the ruling party – Friday Aderemi and Biodun Olujimi – laid claim to the seat of power. Aderemi was the Speaker of the House of Assembly who presided over the impeachment of Fayose, while Olujimi was the deputy governor at the time of impeachment. Both Fayose and Olujimi were swept off in the political volcano that swept the man of power away from his ‘throne’. At that time, Fayose had almost converted the governorship position to an imperial majesty dishing out orders which the highly enlightened people of Ekiti found not only distasteful but undignifying of a people with practically one of the largest colony of professors and academics.

    Olujimi did not take kindly to the blanket removal of herself and her principal. That resentment soon snowballed into a near major conflagration as she took on Aderemi, who had immediately pronounced himself governor in line with the constitution. It was in the hullabaloo that ensued that the then maximum President (note the use of the word ‘maximum’), Olusegun Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, slammed a six-month emergency rule on the state. Although the emergency rule declaration on October 17, 2006 almost stirred another ‘okiki’ (hue and cry) as certain members of the House of Representatives vehemently kicked against the move.

    By the provisions of the Constitution, the House of Representatives automatically assumes the duty of legislation for any state placed under emergency rule. The implication of this was that from then on, the duties of the state House of Assembly, which had been suspended, fell on the House of Representatives. The argument then was that Obasanjo ought to have consulted the House before making the declaration and subsequent appointment of a retired General to take over the running of affairs. Some of the members of the House, especially some principal officers, then seized the opportunity to extort money from the Presidency in order to dance to the President’s tune.

    One other salient issue that came up in the House of Reps over the emergency rule was the dissolution of the local government councils. This was buoyed by internal wrangling in the political landscape of Ekiti itself, especially the fresh bid by those who wanted to succeed Olurin after the expiration of his six-month duty tour as Administrator within the PDP-dominated House of Assembly that was billed to resume sitting immediately the emergency period was over.

    It was really a testing time for Ekiti politics but through prayers, divine intervention and perhaps sophistication of the people of Ekiti, no violence of the minutest magnitude was witnessed during the period. The rest is history. It was a sharp departure from the prevailing political atmosphere in the country today characterised by arson, killings and brigandage of unimaginable proportion which have completely taken over the landscape. This is probably the type of lawlessness and jungle justice a person like Segun Oni might have wished for in order to enable him to actualize his weird and myopic ambition to rule or misrule Ekiti once more since he cannot get his way through in the courts.

    Unfortunately, and surprisingly too, after the latest defeat at the Supreme Court, Oni has now conceded defeat and said that he could not question God. But the reality is that elections will still hold in this country, and dissatisfied parties will still run to the courts and pursue appeals, even beyond the final point as it now appears. But should the electoral process always be compromised and made questionable? Should politicians always question the will of the people? And shall we then not question the decisions of the judiciary?

    Should people or a person like Oni continue to weep and gnash their teeth over spilled milk, when in actual fact, it is glaringly clear to all that Fayemi possesses more administrative, management and human relations acumen to lead his people than the lacklustre administration or style of governance which completely alienated Oni and his government from the people? See the tumultuous crowd that heralded the news of the recent Supreme Court verdict on the Oni-Fayemi challenge. It is apparent that, that same large number or even twice or thrice that could have taken to the streets in protests if Oni had mistakenly been returned to the Government House. Perhaps, he could have thought about the option of ruling from his hometown of Ifaki Ekiti, if he had been returned to government. And, that is, if his people would not reject him outright.

    Oni and others in his clique are no match for Fayemi whose sense of reasoning and scholarly adventurism are enough to send the Onis of this world scampering for cover. Who dare mention a Lilliputian in the gathering of giants? It is an abnormality, a complete misnomer.

    Having said all these, it is instructive to sound a note of warning to the electorate in Ekiti State that 2014 is almost here when elections will be keenly contested in the state. Fayemi and his lieutenants in the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, now re-christened All Progressive Congress, APC, will be standing proudly with the flag of the party soaring higher and higher, Ekiti people should shine their eyes. Do not allow these never-do-well politicians who are clothed like normal human beings confuse you. Vote for Fayemi and his lieutenants and shame the devil. Apart from Fayemi and his henchmen in the APC, no other politician in Ekiti today has anything to offer or that is better to offer the people. They are only after the lean finances of the government, the public till which they are only interested in plundering and plunging the populace into endless poverty, misery and want. You can take their money because it is your money, take their rice and other perquisites but reject them at the final polls. They are not deserving of your votes. Any vote for them is a vote for hunger, deprivation and mass slaughter through non-provision of the essentials of a meaningful living like Fayemi and his people have been doing for the people in the past three years.

    I am not an indigene of Ekiti but I have lived in Ekiti, I have enjoyed the warmth and hospitality of the people, I have observed them from both afar and within. Ekitis are a hardworking lot. With good leaders, they can be the food basket of Nigeria. They have hectares of uncultivated, arable lands scattered all over the state. They are a proud people because they believe in what they can do with either their brains or their hands. I do not see any other society in Nigeria or Africa that parades such a contingent of professors and other academics. It is only in Ekiti that every family has at least one professor or more. They dot the whole landscape, every town, every village, every hamlet. They are just ubiquitous.

    I think Oni should go and look for something more profitable for him to do at the moment. His brand of politics has since become extinct with the coming into the arena by Fayemi and his group. Politics is not the best for Oni. As a water engineer, he can retire to his village in one of the hinterlands and devote his talents to agriculture, especially irrigation farming, channelization and all that. Let him leave politics for the Fayemis of this world!

    Ends.

  • Cheapness of student life! ‘Wetin you carry’ by FRSC and Police again!

    The death of five students of NANS and the numerous deaths of students across Nigeria and particularly in the last month are truthfully mostly preventable tragedies and demonstrate the cheapness of life in Nigeria. They are not what parents expect when they borrow save up money to pay for students to go to university or for National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). No parent expects a coffin, an unbelievable burden. Such tragedies remind me of the discussions I often have with enthusiastic students of higher institutions about their reason for them visiting off campus businesses and professionals. These visits are all in efforts to raise sometimes ridiculously outrageously high sums of money, from N300,000 to N3,000,000 recently, as ‘donations’ for student activities like Annual Faculty Weeks etc. The female students often unintentionally expose themselves to moral impropriety all to raise money while their parents have paid good money and offered many prayers for their studies and think they are at lectures or revision. Instead, they are out begging for ‘stupid’ money.

    Nigeria is dangerous enough for us all but students endanger their lives unnecessarily out of bravado, carelessness, needless travel, speeding and an ‘I will live forever’ attitude. Just last week a group of students overtook my car at high speed on the murderous and mislabelled Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

    Why cannot higher institution students be taught to keep students activities ‘within realistic student budgets’ and not mimic adult budgets and quality and expect money to fall from heaven without any of their own money being involved. In our days in University of Ibadan in the late 60s and early 70s, we as students, funded our own activities with our money. Institutions must actively support student activities more in kind if not in cash and provide venues and infrastructure free as a strategic ‘anti-cultism’ measure to assist good or moral student activities. The patrons of these student bodies fail to advise them to make student budgets realistic and more affordable for the targeted long-suffering donors harassed by numerous unrealistic financial demands. And this happens year in, year out.

    Students should learn, and be taught during induction month, to plan and execute their plans as students, at student level, with student funds. That is why they are students. Instead of using printers, as students, they should write out their placards and posters. We participated and recruited 50 students to write 500 posters in one or two hours, cheaper than using professional printing. Students are students. They should act like students. Students should not act beyond their station and mimic National Assembly members who have millions to spend on trivia like congratulatory and obituary adverts and brochures and buntings.

    Buntings are an adult extravagance that students can design themselves if they have to instead of paying high end costs. Talking of buntings, most venues are fine as they are and do not need buntings. The buntingmania in Nigeria must be curbed. What country’s citizens will be so irresponsible as to cover designer chairs, polished wood panelling, Italian marble, imported artwork and high imposing ceilings with yards of cheap ribbon material crisscrossing the ceiling and obstructing the view of even churches. We cover N1-5000 chairs in N300 rags called chair-covers and cover millions naira walls with N100/yard ribbons of reused material.

    The Lagos-Ibadan road, mislabelled expressway, appears demonised or at least jinxed, as it seems to be getting worse. Will it ever get better? The initially ‘heroic’ efforts of Berger and RCC have petered out as presumable government has failed its own end of the bargain which was not a ‘bargain’ but a lucrative contract. No money, no performance! But it is only in Nigeria that a serving government with billions of naira earned daily would be so callous as to expose millions of its citizens to the easily patchable hazards of the road – deep and wide potholes, narrowing to one lane and lethal road edges. Add to that left hand driving by slow vehicles and uncontrolled speeding particularly by commercial vehicles and you have the deadly mix of road deaths that characterise that road and defy solutions, making contractors and FRSC look like incompetents.

    The police are back on the streets with a vengeance. It seems that police checkpoints are creeping back into several states ‘through the back door’ including Oyo State as Zonal and state commissioners relax the order from the IGP. The police onslaught against tinted windows has been surreptitiously extended to reintroduce ‘wetin you carry ‘. The IGP needs to keep the police service on the straight and narrow. We said ‘No’ to checkpoints and it remains ‘No’. The need for widespread and comforting ‘Police Presence’ is necessary as a deterrent. That need can be fulfilled by static and mobile teams without resorting to checkpoints except in specific crime fighting incidents. The IGP introduced the police to modern police tactics. He should weed out those who are there for retrogression and checkpoint corruption. The harassment of the public, families with small children even on their way to and from church on Sundays and of danfos full of tired passengers by overzealous and unsupervised Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and the police should be curbed. Nigerian citizens have rights and FRSC and police harassment is wrong. Of course police and FRSC do some good work but that work is spoilt by these strong-arm, heavy handed roadside roughing up tactics.

  • Maximum leader, minimal democracy

    Maximum leader, minimal democracy

    Nigerians are loud, opinionated and impatient. Ordinarily, those traits should make for a vibrant and fascinating democratic adventure where freedom of expression and choice, as well as transparency in public affairs would take root.

    But for a people who are quick on the draw when expressing their views, recent events are evidence that we would also be content with a system of governance where a maximum ruler lays down the law and his loyal subjects fall obediently in line.

    Over the last two weeks we’ve been celebrating democracy with two symbolic dates. May 29 speaks to an uncommon longevity of civil rule – an unbroken run of 14 years. June 12 reminded us of the subversion of the very ideal we claim to hanker for.

    How interesting that the celebrations took place in the shadow of the bitter battle to elect a new leadership for the influential Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF). While it was fun for a while reducing what happened to a David and Goliath contest in which an increasingly overbearing president received his comeuppance at the hands of a Lilliputian governor, there are deeper issues at play here.

    Thirty-five governors locked themselves in a room and willingly subjected themselves to a democratic contest. When the dust settled, two “chairmen” emerged in a contest that could only produce one! The winner had a majority of 19 votes; the other claimant had a majority of pre-polling endorsements but only 16 votes.

    How telling that 20 years after General Ibrahim Babangida and his military co-conspirators annulled the results of the June 12, 1993 election, Nigerians are still being made to endure a brazen attempt to annul what was a clear-cut victory by Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi.

    Many governors who until now had been posturing as democrats have been exposed as they sought to deny what had happened by explaining that there had never been an election in the NGF, or that the polling should never have been filmed.

    Today, everyone has a version of the history of forum; how it had always chosen its leadership by consensus. One wonders where all the historians were in the run-up to the election. How come none of these custodians of the NGF folklore never piped up with a word of dissent all those months when it was clear that the next leader would emerge through balloting?

    One of the most disgraceful aspects of the NGF fiasco is the meddling by President Goodluck Jonathan. Following the defeat of his preferred candidate, Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, the president and his aides have sought to distance him from the mess. But then there he was recognising and addressing the “loser” as chairman of the governors forum at some Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) event in Abuja.

    What sort of example is that? Of course, he had never hidden the fact that he was opposed to Amaechi’s return. But then he’s president of Nigeria, not of the PDP and ought to elevate himself above certain things because of the exalted position he holds.

    When it suits them, those around Jonathan are quick to flay the opposition for “playing politics with everything.” They are also known to deliver lectures pointing out that elections had been held and won, and now was the time for governing, not politicking. That sermon was clearly lost on Jonathan who ought to have done everything he could to insulate himself – at least publicly – from the bitter politics of the NGF.

    By endorsing Jang and refusing to recognize the man who won the election on the night, Jonathan and the PDP have behaved in the same fashion as those who refused to accept the electoral outcome of June 12, 1993. The ‘annulers’ equally had reasons for refusing to concede.

    If Jonathan and his henchmen have refused to lead and set an example with something as simple as the NGF election, why should they expect the opposition accept any electoral outcome that isn’t favourable to them? In the same breath why would anyone believe that PDP, given their conduct in this instance, will accept anything short of victory in 2015? Put simply the bane of Nigerians elections which is mutual suspicion of the participants and the electoral umpire has only just been tragically reinforced.

    In the aftermath of the collapse of the PDP strategy to impose its man on the NGF, the party has gone overboard as it sought to exact revenge against the “traitors” who torpedoed its agenda. Both Amaechi and Sokoto State Governor, Magatarkada Wamakko, are out on their ears – the latter suspended for the most flimsy of reasons: refusing to take party chairman, Bamanga Tukur’s calls.

    Whatever may be the sins of these two men, it is evident that their greatest fault is refusal to toe the party line one hundred percent. In democratic practice there is certainly a place for enforcing the supremacy of the party. But truly democratic parties also allow room for dissent otherwise they would be no different from the old Communist parties in the USSR, China or Cuba. I may add that this flaw is not a failing of only the PDP.

    So instead of beginning to build a democratic culture with robust parties with internal traditions of vibrant and open disputation, what we now see is debate being driven underground. Parties are being split along the lines of ultra loyalists and the band of Judases.

    Debate and dissent are now dangerous foreign bodies to be stamped out at all cost. In this setting, the president or whoever is the maximum ruler at federal or state level simply lays down the law, and the rest of the cadres fall in line. In other words, the president has become the party.

    Amidst all the sentimentality that has trailed the NGF polls, the incongruity of trying to create of a new maximum ruler in a democratic environment seems lost on even the most sober of us. I have heard very intelligent people argue that governors had become too powerful and needed to have their wings clipped.

    Let’s hold this thought for a moment: if the governors are less powerful than they are now, the president simply becomes a Frankenstein monster no one can rein in. Even with the checks and balances in our system a reckless occupant of Aso Rock can unsettle the leadership of the states and National Assembly. Things even out when all sides realise there’s a balance of terror.

    In the end having these various centers of power is not so bad after all. Decisions can be arrived at on a more consensual basis. The different tendencies in the country would be carried along, and people wouldn’t feel too alienated. But beware the fake democracy where one man’s word is law.

  • Some thoughts on media and terrorism from Amman

    This year’s world congress and general assembly of the International Press Institute (IPI), the 63-year global press freedom advocacy organisation, took place in Amman, capital of Jordan, between May 19 and 21. Few Nigerians may have heard of this organisation even though it partly funds the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, the country’s premier journalism trainer, and even though some of the most prominent Nigerian journalists and publishers including Alhaji Lateef Jakande who once presided over its affairs, Aremo Segun Osoba, Mr Sam Amuka, Mr Felix Adenaike, Malam Kabiru Yusuf and Alhaji Ismaila Isa, have been among its leading members.

    Naturally the organisation believes that press freedom is “the right that protects all other rights.” Consequently it has tried to defend press freedom everywhere in the world in several ways, including through its annual congress and general assembly where leading journalists, editors and media executives gather to discuss major contemporary issues.

    Among the variety of issues discussed this year were the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the terrible civil war in Syria, the safety of journalists reporting in conflict situations, the implications of internet regulation for democracy and press freedom and reporting on religion. This journalist was on a panel of three – the others were Steven Pollard, editor of the London based Jewish Chronicle and Monjuru Ahsan Bulbul, the CEO of a private television station in Dhaka, Bangladesh who was a last minute substitute for Jeffrey Sharlet, a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine and faculty member of the Centre for Religion and Media, New York University, who failed to make it to Amman – which discussed the last subject. The moderator was Ms Maria-Paz Lopez, a senior religious writer with La Vanguardia, Spain, and chair of the International Association of Religious Journalists. A little bit more about this presently.

    Meantime a bit of my impression of Jordan. For me a more classic study in contrast between the country and Nigeria will be hard to find. Here’s a country in the middle of a harsh desert with no oil, no water, with a population of little over two million and in the frontiers of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which is at the heart of so-called clash between the West and Islam. Yet a visitor to Amman and several of the towns and villages a few hours’ drive from it which we visited would be forgiven if he mistook them for towns and villages in advanced Europe or America. All the highways we travelled along were tarred, all the towns and villages we visited had electricity and water and not once did the lights go out throughout our stay in Amman.

    Of all the barren country’s advances in spite of an almost total lack of natural resources none fascinated me like its ability to provide water to all its inhabitants. According to Nasiru Aminu, a senior diplomat at our Amman embassy and a friend, in all his several years in Jordan the taps in his house have never gone dry. Yet, the country, he said, relies almost entirely on harvesting rain water.

    However, for me even more interesting than the ability of the country to satisfy the water needs of its inhabitants in the middle of a desert was the pattern of water supply among the poor, middle and high income neighbourhoods of the towns; the poor are supplied daily, the middle thrice weekly and the rich only once, said Nasiru. Here in Nigeria the reverse would’ve been the case.

    The secret of Jordan’s relative wealth, said Nasiru, is its investment in the education of its people. This is evident from the country being a leading destination of medical tourism in the world, raking in more than two billion dollars annually. It is also the Information Technology capital of the Arab Middle East.

    Jordan is, of course, no El Dorado. As a kingdom, and for that matter one on the frontiers of the Middle East conflict, its citizens can do with a lot more freedom than they have. I am certain, however, that few Jordanians, if any, would want to exchange their relatively gilded cage for Nigeria, the majority of whose citizens have been left free to live in abject and grinding poverty, almost totally abandoned by a state whose officials are generally too venal, selfish, power-hungry and incompetent, etc, to give a damn about public opinion.

    Back to the IPI congress and general assembly, the liveliest session for me was none of the eight that were held between the morning of May 20 and the evening of the following day. The liveliest for me was the pre-congress town hall meeting in the evening of Sunday May 19 moderated by the well known CNN International anchor and correspondent, Jim Clancy. The subject looked simple enough; “Who is a journalist?” However, not surprisingly, the answer proved elusive. The debate that followed the introductory remarks of the four panellists on the questions whether in today’s digital age where anyone with a computer or a mobile phone who can send pictures and stories to news outlets and bloggers can be called journalists was truly hot and in the end there was no single answer.

    There was, however, one interesting remark from the floor which was that today’s so-called “citizen journalism” was making mainstream journalists lazy by giving them an excuse to abdicate their responsibility for cross-checking the accuracy of news items before publishing. This, said the gentleman who made the remark, bodes ill for the future of professional journalism. I couldn’t agree more.

    Finally to the discussion on reporting religion of which I was a panellist. My submission was that the dominance of the Nigerian media by the private sector in spite of the heavy presence of government in the broadcast media – a private sector dominance which, for historical reasons, does not reflect the ethnic, regional and religious plurality of the country – has led to a reporting culture which is heavily biased against Muslims and Islam. This, I said, was in turn a reflection of the global media which has been essentially anti-Islam.

    Nowhere is this bias as glaring as in the reporting of Boko Haram insurrection which has caught the attention of the world because, of course, Nigeria, with at least 160 million people, is one of the most populous in the world and the biggest in Africa, reportedly almost split in half between Muslims and Christians, and because, of course, Nigeria is a leading world oil producer. The evidence of this anti-Muslim and anti-Islam bias of the Nigerian media is pretty clear in the way it has grossly under reported the human rights abuses of ordinary law abiding Muslims by the military and security forces in their fight against Boko Haram.

    Two recent reports by Adam Nossiter, the West African correspondent of The New York Times, have captured this journalistic blind eye like no other. The first in May entitled “Bodies Pour In as Nigeria Hunts for Islamists” and datelined Maiduguri, made very grim reading.

    “A fresh load of battered corpses,” Nossiter said in his introduction, “arrived, 29 of them in a routine delivery by the Nigerian military to the hospital morgue here. Unexpectedly, three bodies started moving. ‘They were not properly shot,’ recalled a security official here. ‘I had to call the J.T.F.’ — the military’s joint task force — ‘and they gunned them down.’”

    Nossiter’s second story this month in the wake of President Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states makes as grim reading as the first, perhaps even more so. “The first independent accounts of the military offensive (since the emergency)”, said Nossiter, “spoke of indiscriminate bombing and shooting, unexplained civilian deaths, night time roundups of young men by security forces.”

    You will search most of the Nigerian media in vain to see any expression of concern about this indiscriminate use of force by our security forces in their war against Boko Haram terrorism. Certainly you would not see the sort of vehemence with which the media rightly condemned the Odi and Zaki-Biam massacres of the Obasanjo’s era. Yet what has happened in the North-eastern strongholds of Boko Haram is worse than the two combined, if only because both were one-off military invasions.

    In a recent well argued defence of President Jonathan’s state of emergency declaration in the region, the respected constitutional lawyer, Prof Ben Nwabueze, called it “a masterstroke indeed.” Without debating the merit of his position – this is a matter for possibly another occasion – it is obvious that the professor believes the consequential military operation against Boko Haram will bring a definite, if not quick, end to its terrorism, regardless of how the soldiers go about their operation.

    The professor’s “masterstroke” only reminded me of what President George Bush Jnr said when he invaded Iraq. It was, he said, going to be a “cakewalk”. Today, we all know that it was anything but. Right here at home the late President Umaru Yar’adua said more or less the same thing when he sent the soldiers after the sect in 2009. This too has, sadly and tragically, proved anything but a cakewalk.

    It seems to me the lesson of relying mainly on the use of indiscriminate force to solve a problem even as criminal as terrorism, whatever its variety, has not been learnt by our leaders and media pundits. Certainly the Nigerian media has not used its freedom as a shield that, to rephrase IPI’s principal objective, should be used to protect the rights of others.

     

     

     

     

  • PPPs; Banks, loans and the naira; Police Service Commission affair

    PPPs; Banks, loans and the naira; Police Service Commission affair

    Who can forget today is June 12 when democracy was so callously killed at a huge cost to normal Nigerians who are yet to recover. Governments should stop calling for public/private sector partnerships before they themselves do anything good. Government should stop haemorrhaging so much wealth needlessly in corruption and deal with the poverty issues. Only then will the private sector come on board through CSR projects. Governments should not shirk their leadership role in this anti-poverty area.

    A slum is a slum and almost impossible to escape. Everyone in the slum needs water, toilets, security, education and a job just like those in the government reservation area or a mansion near the governor’s lodge. A poorly equipped school is a poorly equipped school. Poor people do not ruin banks. Rich people do with schemes and rich people’s unpaid loans. Bankers are rich men and women. Therefore they have no real right to talk about poverty alleviation especially since it is their policies which perpetuate that poverty in the land. How many poor Nigerians are victims of shylock lenders because the bank interest rates are too high and the bank loan is unavailable to the poor? Greed-eaten landlords demanding two or three years exorbitant rent for shabby gutter-close face-me-I-face-you or better put face-me-I-disgrace-you holes glorified with the name ‘rooms’ must accept their own responsibility in perpetuating poverty in the ‘failed state affair’. Lagos State has banned the taking of more than one year rent, but is that working? Landlords are just as guilty as bankers. In Ibadan, government has given notice that toilets are essential in all houses.

    Everyone needs a small loan at one time or another, even CBN governors. It is now realised that even a funeral or wedding can be turned into a business venture with projected profits after a short term investment in flashy IVs and infrastructure like wakings, wedding parties, canopies, luncheon and well-placed N500,000 obituary adverts in newspapers and on the NTA nine o’clock news to bring the waking and wedding worms, www, out of the woodwork. The sympathy helicopters and jets, often paid for by government and therefore people’s taxes, scuttle from and to Abuja swarm like fat flies and mosquitoes darkening the sky and filled with the great, the good, the bad and the ugly to be seen with lesser mortals regardless of whether or not they knew the deceased or the wedding couple.

    When a loved one falls sick, name the bank which will give a troubled wife or husband tiding-over money for surgery, medicines, or school fees? Most banks worldwide would, but Nigerian banks would not, so what is the use of putting your salary there year after year for your working life. No trust or shared responsibility!

    Can the new Police Service Commission actually do anything? Remember the fate of the last Police Trust Fund meant to upgrade the police and with the likes of past IGP Tafa, of N19b fame, still giving advice to the current IGP, what hope have we in heaven of getting a police to be proud of? A sum of N5-10billion should be set aside now as we are at an intermediate stage between war and peace. The police need a higher visibility with more mobility and patrols. N1billion will buy 100-500 vehicles@N2-5m each. In most cities small cars costing N2m will suffice for corner parking and increased presence. The larger jeeps@N5-7m are for centralised police station back-up, convoys and interstate roads.  Therefore if we allocate N5b to different sized vehicles costing N2-5m, we will triple the available vehicles on the country. Motorcycle patrols, in pairs are also valuable for around the police station and neighbourhood patrols. Instead of crushing okadas, perhaps it would be more useful to recruit the machines to this job although they are usually two stroke pollution generating engines. Each equipped police patrol motorcycle probably costs about N500,000. How many police stations are there in Nigeria? 5000? The annual maintenance budget is what? Investment in data bases, criminals fingerprint, photographic, occupational etc must to be pursued quickly as must a network of forensic laboratories. In these days of unemployment and entrepreneurship and Sure-P employing 5,000/ state or LGA, it should be obvious that white collar computer jobs for photographic and fingerprint and personal records and DNA data base entry are needed. In addition hackers and other computer wiz kids, retired yahoo yahoo 419ers, digital still and video photographers, basic scientists, biochemists, food technologists, microbiologists, ballistic experts, forensic anatomists  etc are all needed to make up a formidable forensic armament against corruption, fraud, crime and political devilry. Even accountants and banking experts are required to unravel the intricacies of bank fraud. You cannot employ such people on a silly salary scale.  They should be treated as if on secondment from the private sector equivalent elsewhere to avoid being frustrated by police interested parties to any investigation.

    One cannot escape the conclusion that powerful forces have consistently paralysed good police work and police workers by deliberately refusing to properly elevate the forensic laboratory to international standards even though money was allocated annually in the budget. Someone should tell us how much that money is in total. Is it N1b in some Past IGP pockets? We can all see investigative forensic policing and crime detection on television, so we know our deficit. The 1930-style police station requires to be upgraded in design and content.

  • Fayemi’s final triumph (1)

    Fayemi’s final triumph (1)

    There is a joke in legal circle that where an unsuccessful appellant at the Supreme Court of Nigeria remains dissatisfied with the decision of the apex court, he can only take his case to the “court beyond” presided over by the Almighty Himself. This common joke is in reference to the finality of appeals at the Supreme Court level. However, one ‘itinerant’ appellant found out on Friday, May 31, that even the Supreme Court was out of his reach when the apex court dismissed his appeal.

    Segun Oni, ousted governor of Ekiti State, had approached the Supreme Court to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal sitting in Ilorin delivered on October 15, 2010, which nullified his election and on which basis he was sacked from office, and Kayode Fayemi, the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, was sworn into office. That decision of the Court of Appeal went on to generate a lot of controversy that led to the investigation by the National Judicial Council (NJC) of the panel of the Court of Appeal that sat on the matter and the suspension of the then President of the Court, Justice Ayo Salami.

    In the appeal he filed at the Supreme Court, Oni, through his counsel, Joe Gadzama, SAN, had urged the court to set aside the October 15, 2010 judgment of the Court of Appeal on the grounds of alleged likelihood of bias on the part of the panel of the Court of Appeal. Gadzama had argued that the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, who constituted and presided over the panel and also wrote the lead judgment that sacked Oni from office, had a close affinity with Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the leader of Fayemi’s party, ACN. Gadzama cited section 36 (1) of the Constitution, which guarantees fair hearing of every party to a suit in a Nigerian court. He added that bias or likelihood of it makes a decision a nullity and is therefore a sufficient ground for the lower court to set aside its own judgment.

    Fayemi, who was joined with his party, ACN, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and three of its Resident Electoral Officers as the first to sixth respondents, filed a notice of preliminary objection along with the other respondents where their lawyers countered the submission of Oni’s legal team and contended that as at the time the governorship election was conducted in 2007, the Court of Appeal was the final court empowered to determine governorship election matters. Fayemi’s team relied on the provisions of section 246 (3) of the Constitution and urged the court to decline the invitation to meddle into an appeal that had been successfully concluded. They argued that by that provision, the apex court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain an appeal that emanated from a governorship election that was held in 2007.

    In a unanimous decision, the seven-man panel of justices of the Supreme Court led by Justice Mohammed Tanko struck out Oni’s appeal and held that the apex court had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal on the grounds that the matter emanated from a decision of the Court of Appeal arising from the 2007 governorship election to which section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution was applicable. The court reiterated the submissions of Fayemi’s lawyers and said that by the provisions of section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution, the Court of Appeal has the final decision on gubernatorial election petitions as at the time the appellate court sacked Oni from office.

    The decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the preliminary objection of the respondents has put an end to the protracted legal tussle between Fayemi and Oni since the elections in 2007. Fayemi had, after the 2007 governorship elections in Ekiti State on April 14, gone to the Governorship and National Assembly/ Legislative Houses Election Tribunal to challenge the declaration of Oni by INEC as the validly elected governor of the state.

    The tribunal, in its decision delivered on November 28, 2008, dismissed his petition.

    Not satisfied with the decision, he approached the Court of Appeal, Ilorin, which, prior to the amendment of the constitution, was the last court in governorship elections. The Court of Appeal, on February 2, 2009, delivered its judgement and allowed the appeal in part and ordered a supplementary election in 63 wards, leaving the result in six wards intact and to be added to the result of the supplementary election in the 63 wards affected.

    On May 5, 2009, both Oni and Fayemi contested the election with the candidates of other 11 political parties. When the result of the supplementary election was added to the result of the six uncontested wards, the first appellant (Oni) was declared the winner with 111,140 votes against the first respondent’s (Fayemi) 107,017 votes. Still not satisfied, Fayemi challenged the result of the election. In its majority decision rendered on May 5, 2010, the tribunal annulled the result of the supplementary election in some wards but dismissed the petition.

    Fayemi appealed to the Court of Appeal, Ilorin against the majority decision of the tribunal and by its judgement delivered on October 15, 2010, the court allowed the appeal and set aside the majority decision and affirmed the minority decision which pronounced Fayemi the duly elected Governor of Ekiti State. From then on, Oni has been going from one court to another.

    There are certain points to this Supreme Court decision, which must be pointed out. First, contrary to some reports in the media, the Supreme Court did not “uphold” the decision of the Court of Appeal so to speak or decide the matter on the merits in favour of any of the parties. The apex court merely withdrew itself from hearing the appeal at all on the basis that it had no jurisdiction to hear it. Another point that must be pointed out is that the 1999 Constitution has since been amended and the final appeals from gubernatorial election petitions now ends at the Supreme Court.

    The crux of the Supreme Court’s decision is that at the time of the election, the amendment had not been made, and it would not be applied retrogressively. Oni’s lawyers tried to distance the issues on appeal from the 2007 election and focussed on the issue of fair hearing accorded to every citizen by section 36 of the Constitution. However, Justice Nwali Sylvester Ngwuta, in the lead judgment, noted that “the appellants’ entire case, when stripped of its extravagant build-ups and reduced to its proper frame, is simply an invitation to rely on Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution to strip the ruling of the Court of Appeal of the finality granted to it by Section 246(3) of the same Constitution.”

    As expected, reactions have followed the decision of the Supreme Court, with Fayemi himself calling for the establishment of an electoral offences commission to punish electoral offenders and deter people who not only manipulate the electoral process but file frivolous applications to clog the judicial process. Femi Falana, the renowned activist who was part of Fayemi’s team, also took a jab at Oni’s lawyers by saying that their moral laxity had led to their encouragement of an appeal when they knew the law could not support it.

    In the end, does one hail the judiciary which is not free of controversy for a ‘well-considered decision’ when in the past we have had judgments that seem to run against the tide of reason and justice? The law has been so mangled in the past to accommodate predetermined outcomes at all levels of court that one can only hope that this decision, sound as it appears, is the product of genuine legal considerations and not influenced by other unseen factors as has happened so many times before. Hopefully, Nigerians will get to the point where second guessing the justice of every case will be unnecessary.

    (To be continued)

     

  • Mamman Kontagora (April 20,1944-May 29, 2013)

    Mamman Kontagora (April 20,1944-May 29, 2013)

    His friends affectionately called him Doki (Hausa for horse), in apparent acknowledgement of his reputation for hard work. A more appropriate epithet would have been Dokin Karfe, a Hausa metaphour for integrity. For Major-General Mamman Kontagora who died at 69 last Wednesday May 29, lived a truly modest lifestyle in spite of retiring as a well-connected senior military officer and occupying some of the most “lucrative” public offices in the land.

    Anyone who had worked with the man would agree that he was a personification of hard work. In all the high public offices he held, the most important of which were twice as a minister of the Federal Republic, he was almost always the first to arrive office and the last to leave. In between he went about his duties with an attitude that detested eye-service and discouraged sloth and shoddiness.

    However, great as his reputation for hard work was, his reputation for honesty was even greater. Two episodes, by no means apocryphal, bear testimony to this reputation. First, when former military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, pencilled him down as his minister of the “lucrative” Federal Capital Territory, a senior traditional ruler from his local government, Kontagora, objected. Asked why he should object in spite of his subject’s reputation for hard work and honesty, the respected traditional ruler said he had no problem with either, only that the man was too inflexible to overlook the bending of rules necessary for the occasional patronage to kith and kin which greased governance all over the world. Needless to say, General Abubakar went ahead to offer the man the job.

    His performance in the job was by no means stellar, but unlike many ministers before and after him, he did not leave it any richer than before he took it.

    Second, in an earlier episode, his home state, Niger, gave him a job as an army engineer, to identify the proper boundary between his own local government and Bida in an area which had become volatile and even a source of altercations between the late Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Umaru Sanda Ndayako, and the Sarkin Sudan of Kontagora, Alhaji Sa’idu Namaska. It was a reflection of the faith both sides had in the man’s integrity that neither objected to his choice. In the end he did not disappoint, at least not from the Bida point of view; he ruled in her favour against his own local government.

    Predictably some of his fellow Bakontagores who could not understand how anyone would find against his own people said he did so because his mother was Nupe! Apparently it did not matter to these critics that he loved his paternal side so much he used the name of the local government it came from as his surname.

    General Kontagora, like his friend, General Abubakar, was as apolitical a soldier as any could be; throughout his career, he never participated in any coup planning although many of those who did were his friends, even confidants; presumably they didn’t think the man was flexible enough to succeed at military politics.

    Yet once their coup succeeded he was among those they turned to to get things done professionally and honestly. Thus in addition to serving as the Minister of Federal Capital Territory under General Abubakar, he also served in the vast and “lucrative” ministry of works and housing between 1993 and 1995.

    In September 1995 he was offered the thankless job of auditing Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, his alma mater (Class of 1972), one of Nigeria’s oldest and Africa’s largest, by the regime of General Sani Abacha, also a friend. This followed a serious financial and administrative crisis in the university that disrupted studies in the premier institution. In early November Abacha went on to assign him the job as sole administrator to clear the mess he had identified, a highly unusual job since universities are supposed to be the epitome of academic freedom and free speech.

    Not surprisingly, mixed reactions trailed his appointment and his tenure. Yet not even his worst critics could question the integrity he brought to bear on his assignment which he completed in July 1998. At any rate those who took over from him were happy enough with his performance they named its convocation square after him.

    Following the return of politics in 1999, the man, like several of his military compatriots, tried to transform into a politician. He was, it seemed, too perpendicular and too austere to make much of a success of his transformation in Nigeria’s shark infested political waters where only the shark repelling rich and their godsons – and goddaughters – dared swim; in his first stab at an elected high office in 2003 he lost the primaries for the senatorial candidature of his party, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for Abuja to an obscure candidate, Isa Maina, himself a military officer but even more junior.

    Undeterred the general went on to seek for the presidential ticket of his party in 2007. Few Nigerians thought he had the connections and the financial resources to be taken seriously. He proved them right when he could not form a credible campaign team, never mind mounting even the most rudimentary campaign to win over fellow party members. In the end his bid for the party’s ticket was, for all practical purposes, a no-show.

    Following this dismal performance the man retired to his modest farm in Kontagora and into politics at the local level even though he maintained his home in Abuja. It was from this semi-retirement from politics and from public life that he was appointed the deputy chair of Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) Committee (SURE-P), a poor imitation of the Petroleum Task Force chaired by General Muhammadu Buhari under General Sani Abacha as head of state.

    General Kontagora did not properly assume office after the inauguration of the committee last year before he succumbed to the illness that has proved fatal. His death is a great loss to a nation in dire need of leaders like him who are hardworking, competent and, above all, honest.

    May Allah make aljanna firdaus his final resting place. May He also grant the dear ones he’s left behind the fortitude to bear his loss.

     

    GEJ, NGF and 2015

    Still talking about the shortage of honest leadership in the country, it’s hard to find anything more dishonest than the stand of the presidency of Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on the contrived crisis of chairmanship of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. His spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, has averred that his principal has no interest in who chairs the forum. Yet everything the presidency has done to the contrary since the crisis started last year has spoken much louder than the words coming out of there.

    From forcing a postponement of the election several months ago because it was clear the Presidency could not force its preferred candidate on the governors, through creating and force-feeding a divisive PDP Governors’ Forum on those so elected on the party’s forum, and now to the shameful rejection of the outcome of last month’s election of the NGF chair which its candidate lost in spite of all means, more foul than fair, that were used to stop Rotimi Amaechi, the Rivers State Governor who has since become a persona non grata in the Presidency, from retaining the chair, it should now be obvious to even the most enthusiastic supporters of the President that he does not truly believe his mantra about every vote counting in an election.

    The question is, if the Presidency would reject the outcome of as transparent an election as that of a numerically insignificant electorate as that of 36 governors, what guarantee is there that he will allow 60 million voters cast their ballot papers freely in 2015? And if he does, how do we know that he will honestly practice what he has preached about every vote counting?

    It is truly frightening to think that what happened a fortnight ago is a mere dress rehearsal of what will happen two years hence.

     

     

  • Freedom; Chimamanda’s Americanah; CBN’s MPR and the rest of us

    Thank God for the successful efforts to secure the release of the Rhodes Vivours. We must thank God even as we pray earnestly for the release of all other kidnap victims and a final full stop to this evil method of extortion.

    The wars against the Boko Haram, indigenes in Plateau and farmers on the North-South cattle route go on even as the rest of Nigeria goes on. I read Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah. It is a long good read, covering a wide range of incidents and sites. I was on the Third Mainland Bridge when it came up in the book. Perhaps you will find yourself ‘live action’ in places and scenes mentioned including Obalende, my old haunt. The book discusses race, confirming it is a non-issue in Nigeria, and love- that worldwide problem engaging every reader in one scenario or another. You will find a lot of ‘been-there-done-that’ as my daughter taught me to say.

    It is amazing in love the same action can be so contrastingly cruel and kind, common and individual and cause so much gain and pain, but we all know that anyway. That is not a reason not to read the book. It is nice knowing you are not alone in your gains and pains from love. And you will learn a lot about women’s hair, beautiful and otherwise. In my clinic I tell my patients that small cysts seen on ultrasound are normal signs of womanhood and that without those cysts the women would be men. They immediately cheer-up. Not one of them has wanted to be a man in spite of the dedicated hours regularly spent weave-on-ing. Amazing. This book answers the unasked question ‘why weave-on?’ and many more ‘whys’.

    Meanwhile the inter-bank interest rate MPR, has been kept by the award winning CBN at 12% making bank loans 21-25% to ‘fight inflation’. What inflation? The one in the pockets of millions of Nigerians or the banks statistics caused by corruption? The commercial banks could cut their own additional 10-15% interest even if CBN insists on 12% but they will not –greed. Meanwhile they make billions! How? Who are they doing business with? They screw us out of our money with COT, cheque, ATM and a myriad of other financial burdens invented in the boardrooms by financial wiz kids seeking bonuses. What do Nigerian banks pay as bankers bonuses? The trouble with being a Nigerian when so many are stealing so much is that the average person suffers so much to service the bankers’ greed. In spite of our oil, Nigerians have the highest interest rates loans in the world and the highest energy costs from generators and fuel from imports while government demonstrated a pathological failure to fix refineries –Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness-CINS.

    Most middle class Nigerians could have afforded to buy a new car annually from what they are forced to spend on power substitution at home and in the office during the last 25 years. So the prohibitive cost of doing business through loans, supplying power and corruption are key problems facing every business and entrepreneur. Today we face political whirlwinds among governors seeking dominance at the Governors’ Forum. Who does not know that 19 is democratically more than 16? We face Presidential pronouncements on incumbency and lack of vacancies in Aso Rock made by proxy through political attack dogs and self-appointed ‘Ministers for Presidential Defence’. We face ex-presidents who for many observers were mega-failures in areas of job creation infrastructure like power, road and rail networks, bringing interest rates down, improving the naira value and in human rights particularly during elections and odiously in Odi. Why did the naira fall further even after the dark days of Buhari, Babangida Abacha when it ended at N88 to $1 under Abacha? These pontificating ex-presidents, including ‘civilian/military’ presidents like Obasanjo with eight years of failed hope and disappointing prosperity under their agbadas, are talking boldly of the failings of an incumbent president who appears to be struggling through a multiple minefield laid by the same past governments’ failures in power, political and electric and economic and social responsibility.

    Why did they, our ‘Failed Past Presidents’, not improve education to make Nigerian students them fully employable with easy access to business advice and normal worldwide acceptable interest rates on loans? The problems today were problems created deliberately, ignorantly or negligently for years.  The Nigerian adult now knows that there was money to service education but it was government policy to starve education –exposed by an unappreciated ASUU.  Parents and students preferred a ‘Let My Children Go Ignorantly Into The Future’ policy to supporting ASUU’s fight for better conditions. For years government has manipulated the education situation to make it appear that ASUU was the cause of the poor education situation, when ASUU was fighting for quality-a losing battle against ‘Acada-hating politicians in power’. Ask Jubril Aminu’s opinion. Has he published his memoirs of ‘A Minister of Education in an Ignorant State’ yet?

    On Sunday we followed Pope Francis’s request to all 1+billion Catholics to join him at 5pm to pray among other things for the poor. A person born poor is at an unfair disadvantage but has ignored rights to make demands on government to cross the poverty line- $1 or $2 a day. Government has a failed responsibility to rescue the poor who are getting wiser and more violent.

  • Al-Makura vs. Ombatse’s Chief Priest

    It is apparent that the dust raised by the recent, senseless deployment of security officers to their untimely death in Alakyo, Nasarawa State, has refused to settle. The unfortunate incident claimed the lives of no fewer than 75 policemen, including a dozen operatives of the State Security Service, SSS. The Police and the SSS had put the number of their dead or missing officials at 56. They comprised 46 police officers and 10 SSS operatives.

    It was gathered that no member of the Mobile Police Force, PMF 38 Squadron in nearby Akwanga, Nasarawa State, also known as “Tiger Squadron”, who were dispatched to dislodge the Ombatse militia group, survived the raid. A top police officer recently said that apart from the 61 MOPOL officers that were deployed from Akwanga, the Police is yet to see many others mobilised from the MOPOL base in Lafia, including the men of the State CID. So the claim that only 56 policemen died cannot be true.

    Abayomi Akeremale, the Commissioner of Police who ordered the deployment ‘at midnight’, has since been replaced with Umar Shehu, who has resumed. But news emanating from the state has continued to paint a gory and grisly picture of what must have actually transpired. It was also learnt that Mohammed Abubakar, the Inspector-General of Police, had summoned the officer in charge of the base to the Force Headquarters. The Police High Command was also said to have begun an investigation into allegation that the Nasarawa State Government paid a huge amount of money to the state police command to influence the massive deployment of its officers for the ill-fated operation against the militia group. Findings indicated that the 2015 race for governorship position in the state informed the operation against the militia group.

    Never in the history of barbarism in Nigeria has a large contingent of security officers been driven to their ‘cheap death’ such as this. The issue of money changing hands between police commanders and state governors has been a source of irritation to the public and also a great embarrassment to the force itself. But whenever this ugly episode rears its head, the hierarchy of the police has always been quick to cover up the misdeeds of their men with ridiculous explanations, distortions and half-truths.

    As for the issue of 2015 being at the centre of the whole crisis, those who alluded to this, and they are many, including my humble self, believe that it is not far from the truth. This argument is more germane when the revelation that has so far come from the major ‘dramatis personae’ in the crisis is pieced together. They are Al-Makura, the governor of the state, and Alla Agu, the chief priest of the Ombatse cult in Lakyo, Nasarawa South Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.

    The chief priest recently said that security men that invaded the community were ordered by the state governor to kill him. Seventy-six-year-old Agu, popularly called Baba Lakyo, spoke through an interpreter when Solomon Ewuga, the Senator representing Nasarawa North Senatorial District in the Senate, visited him. Agu said the security operatives did not come to arrest him, but to kill him “and cut off my head and take it to the governor”.  According to him, “it is the governor that asked the people (police officers) to come here, arrest me and cut my head… When they came, because they were themselves drunk, my god did not allow them to come to me and they died on the way. The question I asked is, ‘Has the governor ever invited me and I refused to go?’ If I’m invited, I will go. But he sent people to kill me and to destroy Lakyo as a whole. That is just what it is.”

    Contrary to reports that the police invaded the village after he shunned their invitation, the chief priest has pooh-poled the governor’s claim by saying that he had never been invited by any of the security agencies. Although Lakyo is now peaceful, besides the carcasses of burnt vehicles used by the security men, Baba Alakyo said he was unhappy with what happened and was apprehensive of the fate that might befall him afterwards. He also denied ever forcing people to join the group through any initiation or drinking of concoction. He also said that he was in a nearby village when the incident took place.

    Asked whether the incident had anything to do with the politics of the state, Baba Alakyo said, “If you are talking about politics, it does not bother me. I don’t even understand Hausa language. Politics is not for me because I am not a politician. Politics is for politicians but I hear that the time for politicking has not even come.”  He said that Ombatse was an association of Lakyo boys into which nobody was forced to belong. According to him, it is even more saddening that he is being linked to the incident, especially when he knew nothing about what happened to the policemen.

    The governor, however, dismissed Baba Alakyo’s claim that he was never invited for any meeting. The governor, who spoke through Iliya Aliu, his chief press secretary, said it was on record that the head of the cult group did not honour several invitations extended to him. He said, “The Police and the SSS invited him before this incident but he refused to honour any of them. It was after he refused to answer all of these invitations that the State Security Council met and decided that he should be arrested. Even their name, Ombatse, means it is our turn, their turn for what?”

    On his own part, Chris Mamman, the President of the Eggon Cultural Development Association, the umbrella body for Ombatse, said the only way to get to the root of what happened at Alakyo was for the Federal Government to set up a judicial commission of inquiry.

    I totally agree with Mamman that only a high-powered judicial commission of inquiry can unravel the hidden truth of this case. Such committee should get to the root of this heinous crime that has now become an issue to be tossed around by Al-Makura and Baba Alakyo. It is obvious that the issue involved here is between the governor and Baba Alakyo as well as the mad race for 2015 election or re-election. It is all a pointer that the 2015 race will be as deadly as ever if the fever has really caught up the polity this way like hurricane in harmattan.

    Now that it is very clear that the governor might have been economical with the truth, especially with the large number of security operatives involved in the midnight raid as well as the issue of money changing hands. These are weighty allegations strong enough to keep the judiciary commission of enquiry on their toes to unmask the culprits. Even whether Akeremale has retired or not, he must also be made to face the music if he is found guilty or complicity in the entire horrible saga. All those directly or remotely connected should face the law at the levels of their involvement. This is not the time to sweep matters of national shame under the carpet. The cops cannot die in vain.

    However, we should take cognizance of the fact that the governor belongs to one of the opposition parties and so the government at the centre should not see this as an opportunity to witch-hunt him in order to shove him out of office. Also, if the claim of the chief priest is true but I strongly doubt this, the government can enlist the assistance of his ‘god’ to root out the Boko Haram insurgents ravaging the northern part of the country. At least, if Baba Alakyo’s god can wipe out such a frightening number of security agents within a twinkle of an eye, he should be able to engage Boko Haram insurgents in a matter of minutes or hours.

     

     

  • Our Father…Deliver us from ‘K-evil’; Racism, sports violence fines?

    We hoped the kidnapping ordeal of friends the Rhodes –Vivours would be over if never forgotten by now. A kidnapping is a particularly malignant form of invasion of privacy. A week is a long time in article writing and often matters such as this are settled within one or two days and comments are rapidly made out of date. But it is three weeks already. This was why I did not comment earlier. Another reason is that one should not give the criminals any opportunity to gloat or appear successful at their despicable performance as they probably have access to the print media and scour it for articles on themselves just to torment their victims -an innocent mother and daughter just going about their typical ‘Nigerian responsibility’ activities- attending a wedding in a far off place at great inconvenience and price and at huge personal sacrifice because ‘apology will not be acceptable’.

    Let us all, readers, families and listeners to you, follow Our Lord Jesus Christ’s advice when we pray and today say a loud and complete ‘Our Father who art in Heaven…. Deliver us [the Rhodes-Vivours and all kidnapped victims] from ‘K-evil’. Amen’. K-evil = Kidnap-Evil. O God Please Make us ‘Invisible to the Enemy’. Amen. We pray that the power of joint prayer complemented by the efforts of the police will bring them and all kidnap victims home, safe and unharmed, Amen.

    Once more Nigeria features prominently in an ugly side of violence. After the rich kid, fully Nigerian but trained abroad Abdulmutallab incident, which, remember, could easily have killed the over 200 airline passengers aboard, we now have the Woolwich affair in which two Nigerians, including one called Michael Adeboloja, a Nigerian by descent who has never been to Nigeria, who ran over and then barbarically killed a white British soldier Drummer Rigby, leaving blood on their hands for social media worldwide. What possessed them? The media gives the impression that their Nigerian ancestry is to blame. They disgrace their ancestors, Africa and Nigeria. Successful children are claimed by the father, ‘My child has passed’. Failing ones are blamed on the mother, ‘Your child has failed’.Successful athletes of Nigerian descent are claimed by foreign powers like Britain. Nothing wrong with that, as they used the facilities. But bad ones are blamed on Nigeria-something wrong with that! What is it that makes a young man of Nigerian ancestry kill in a foreign land, even if he was born in that land? Drugs, religion, brainwashing, publicity, protection, paradise, bullion or what? Was it murderous madness or malicious murder? He sounded sane when distinguishing between women who could and men who could not approach the dying victim. One or two women were so spectacularly bold they should be in the Queen’s Honours List.

    This frightening event reminds us of Nigeria’s Plateau State ‘Civil War’ with murderous violence inflicted by Hausa Fulani herdsmen settlers on indigenous farmers apparently systematically killing 8-10 farmers per day or the regular bloody border clashes in Nigeria or the killing of ‘other’ personnel during kidnappings. The murderers of Drummer Lee Rigby have succeeded in questioning the achievements and friendship of millions of Fellow Nigerians and Africans worldwide and replacing trust with fear. There will be a new debate which will not only involve Moslems but also Christians as one of the killers started as ‘Michael’. The net of mistrust is now wider. We Africans, and particularly Nigerians, are all ‘suspect’,questionable and worth avoiding during ‘choose your friends carefully’sessions. The murderers have truly managed to ‘murder sleep’ for millions of non-Nigerians moving closer to Nigerians and Africans in need or for love and friendship. The clock has been turned back. Many will cross to the other side of the road when an on-coming person is black and Nigerian.

    The international football organisations are taking racism and physical attacks on officials like referees and linesmen a little more seriously. Other sports including golf should follow quickly. Punishment should be meted out for verbal and violent ‘V&V’offences on and off the field of play. It is well known that snide remarks are the bedrock of even formerly staid ‘games’ like cricket where insults are part of psychological warfare to destabilise opponents. Fines for sports‘V&V’ offences should be larger. Closure of stadia for sports ‘V&V’offences only costs the clubs money in lost income which goes to nobody. Every punishment must also compensate the victims of the racist chants, slurs, whispers and offensive gestures. Closure also results in the good being punished along with the bad by denying all the enjoyment of the game. Personal bans sound good also but may not cost the perpetrator anything as he has a contract not a daily paid job. Such bans could amount to a pre-planned holiday if the player insults someone only to get banned and thus have time off to attend a friend’s wedding. However, what happens to the fines? Government and sport governing bodies must not be the sole beneficiary. If we settled for higher fines with most, or all, of the fines going directly to enriching the offended player or victim, things will quickly correct themselves and make targeted players very rich from compensation. Racists do not want to make their victims rich. Such transfer of fine fee funds from violator to victim will solve the racist problem immediately.