The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • The old man and the governors

    The old man and the governors

    Prominent Ijaw leader and former Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, revels in his unofficial role as President Goodluck Jonathan’s godfather. On several occasions when critics had his godson on the ropes, his pugnacious intervention served to stiffen the backbone of the man who, not too long ago, described himself as the world’s most criticised president.

    Well into his 80s, the old man is not your average meddlesome interloper. Indeed, anyone who tracked his role in the emergence of the current occupant of Aso Villa will find much evidence suggesting that he and Jonathan sing from the same hymn book.

    Back in 2011 when the zoning palaver threatened to tear the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) apart, Clark led a delegation of South-South leaders to reason with Northern power brokers led by former Finance Minister and one-time presidential aspirant, Adamu Ciroma. His trouble-shooting expedition received short shrift from the embittered leaders, but his cause will ultimately prevail after former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s challenge collapsed on convention night.

    Clark is still at the wars – taking on everyone from former President Olusegun Obasanjo to the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF). His latest no-holds barred attack on those he blames for making life difficult for Jonathan, is a reminiscence of the recent attack on Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe.

    These days nobody has a nice thing to say about Obasanjo so there’s nothing novel about another volley of invectives spat in the direction of Baba. I would suggest though that Clark was not so ferocious in denouncing the former president’s so-called crimes against party democracy when he was in the vanguard of those fighting for Jonathan’s enthronement back in 2011.

    I am more interested in the Ijaw leader’s vituperations against the NGF, because in the past I had been quite critical of the forum – likening it to some sort of secret society. Clark, rightly, has accused the governors of demanding at the centre what they would not tolerate at state level.

    He said: “The governors’ forum is now acting as an opposition party to the Federal Government. It deliberately breaches with impunity, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Constitution of the PDP, without any challenges. The Forum has now become a threat to the peace and stability of Nigeria. Most of the governors today are more dictatorial than the then military governors.”

    Ignoring the hyperbole, any fair observer will admit that while most governors would like a say in who becomes national chairman of the ruling party, they would not tolerate such impertinence were some local government chairmen to band together and insist on making input into who becomes state chairman of the party.

    So, a lot of the observations of Clark are spot on. However, the only reason the chief is moaning so loudly is because his godson is on the receiving end. Try as he might he has not been able to impose his will on the PDP as Obasanjo did. Much of that is down to the make up the two men. Whereas one was willing to ride roughshod over the party – deploying the apparatus of state to achieve his goals, the incumbent would rather tiptoe around obstacles. He would rather deploy homilies where an Obasanjo would have set off Scud missiles.

    But that is not the whole story. If the governors have become more formidable and better organised as a pressure group, it is down to the lessons they learnt from the Obasanjo years. Back them they also tended to band together. People forget that at the 2003 nominating convention, a good number of them were actually backing Atiku. Obasanjo and his late wife, Stella, virtually had to go on bended knees to secure their support. Of course, he never forgave them for the humiliation of making him beg.

    Today, Clark would like us to believe that the NGF is this new-fangled monstrosity that is a clear and present danger to our democracy. Closer examination will, however, show that the behemoth has a soft underbelly.

    They can be a powerful bloc when they agree, but they are as powerless as a congregation of strange bedfellows when their interests diverge along regional, ethnic or monetary lines.

    To confirm this you only need to look at their disarray over issues like revenue sharing and state police. On the former, suddenly you had a sub-bloc – the Northern Governors Forum – taking the position that the Niger-Delta states were cornering an unfair share of our commonwealth. That divergence of opinion is also evident over the contentious Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

    Not surprisingly, the governors of the South-South states find the aforementioned positions of their northern colleagues, to put it mildly, insulting.

    But where it comes to more parochial matters like who controls party positions and certain political offices, a certain amity descends upon what, in reality, is a fairly fractious organisation.

    My main area of disagreement with Clark, though, is that I no longer believe that the NGF – no matter how powerful it is made out to be – is such a bad thing after all. The Ijaw leader says the governors have turned themselves into the real opposition to the government at the centre. What he does not want to accept is that in every big political party there will be all manner of tendencies each fighting for control of the soul of the organisation.

    More importantly, democracy is about checks and balances. Obasanjo was often accused of running an imperial presidency where the legislative and judicial branches became appendages of the executive. Under him we saw that the awesome powers of an executive president could be deployed towards the most unsavoury of ends.

    Such is the way things are stacked the even the weakest of men could be transformed into a Machiavellian monster by the powers of the office. In our practice of American-style democracy the legislative branch, and to some extent the judiciary, have failed woefully in providing the brakes upon a rampaging president.

    It helps that in an environment such as ours that there are several power centers and no office holder – no matter how eminent –begins to delude himself into thinking that the sun rises and sets on his desk.

    The power and influence of the NGF is a reasonable check and balance against any potentially overbearing occupant of Aso Rock. Better still, it forces all the leading players in our political space to reappraise the virtues of compromise in addressing all political issues – no matter how contentious.

    Rather than foaming at the mouth with rage and calling the governors names, what Clark and others who are discomfited by the influence of the NGF should do is seek ways of working with the National Assembly during constitution review process to cut the governors down to size at state level.

  • Is the political party corruption? Are soldier’s and politician’s oaths different? Davos!

    Is the political party corruption? Are soldier’s and politician’s oaths different? Davos!

    Nigeria is at a needless moral and monetary crossroads from theft and stealing- masquerading as ‘corruption’ which seems to be a judicially ‘forgivable sin of politics’. Quite apart from the massive and multi-dimensional financial extortion and theft in cash there is the ‘other corruption’- lost leadership, poor decision-making, ethnic protectionist decision making, false federalism, inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic discrimination and social immorality. Even ‘plea bargaining’ has been Nigerianised for politicians and billionaires. But judicial equity exists only if a goat thief can ‘plea bargain’ away a three year prison sentence by returning goat’s tail, leg or skin if the police and judiciary have not chopped the evidence!

    ‘Are you a politician and corrupt and a thief?’ If ‘yes’ step aside. 2013 Nigeria has no place for you. ‘Can serving politicians become non-corrupt and non-thieving?’ ‘Why are they corrupt and thieving anyway?’ ‘If we had better policing and anti-corruption agencies, would political corruption and thieving reduce?’

    Let us get something straight about politics and democracy in Nigeria. The current political class is making Nigerian citizens feel that they, not the politicians, are ‘the problem’ with Nigerian democracy. It is even the mantra of public lectures. After recommending Public Private Partnerships to fill the huge hole left by official government corruption and provide more money to steal, the lectures target the citizens for not overcoming massive electoral fraud or not ‘Arab springing’ and of course dying. ‘A citizenship gets the government it deserves’ summarises the attitude. But the citizens, especially non-civil service private sector citizens, have suffered billions in lost incomes during strikes, Nigerians have died, over 500 during the Abiola annulment and since then assassinations, maiming and lethal political violence incidents. The people of Nigeria are told to forget the rigging, cheating, cross carpeting, unknown candidates all misnamed benignly as ‘political electioneering’ instead of ‘Crimes Against Nigeria’. Somehow when the word ‘political’ is put in front of a murder or election forgery it is transformed into an unsolvable ‘lesser crime’ a misdemeanour, a juvenile incident, a joke, judicially ‘alright’. No punishment. ‘Go for re-election and please do it properly this time!’ Rubbish! Political crimes must be punished in prison, like for goat theft. A vote is more valuable than a goat. Nigerians, your misguided acceptance N500 to vote is not the cause of our political problems.

    Politicians, military and civilian, cannot escape blame for Nigeria’s failure to provide 100,000Mw power, books and sports equipment for all schools, pothole free transport and modern 200kph railways and MDGs with all the riches God has given to Nigeria. The people were never at decision-making business meetings, contract awards where Nigeria’s budgets were divided between greedy political parties, contractors and potholes.

    It seems the political party is designed as the greatest corruption organ in Nigeria draining the budgets of the nation through fictitious or inflated contracts and extortion from contractors and consultants, having access without accountability? Politicians are not infants but adults who voluntarily and automatically take responsibility for development and are solely responsible for their actions and inactions, their morals and immorality.

    Our soldiers from 18 years will be fighting and dying in Mali for what reward? Already the first two have died on home soil? Our policemen, some just 18 are ‘training’ in a pigsty. Congrats to IGP Abubakar and Channel CSR Project for this ‘revelation’ about the Ikeja Police College that we all know. Many years ago, the Americans sent to teach new techniques at the College had to leave because it was not fit for animals. But it is an widespread educational malady in ‘pigsty’ secondary and tertiary hostels and schools across Nigeria while Nigeria’s politicians grow fatter. What is the Police College’s annual budget over 30 years? Who stole it? Who underfunded the college? Who dehumanises the trainees? Which past IGPs now advising Abubakar on ‘good police governance’ neglected the Police College and used it as punishment posting for senior officers? Today the seniors of these 18+ year olds are dying daily in kidnappings, robberies, bank attacks and terror attacks. They die as adults, often unmourned. They, like the soldiers, took an oath to protect Nigerians and serve the country, laying down their lives.

    Politicians also take a sworn oath to serve with honesty. Does it not matter to their souls? So even if they are fraudulent with honesty, the oath to serve Nigeria is still binding. So the politician must be anti-corrupt and honest. But can good come out of bad? What was the original motivation for running? Corruption?

    This ‘’politicians’ responsibility’’ argument does not absolve the electorate from some responsibility. Within one week a politician had demands from his constituents totalling over N5million for school and hospital bills. Citizens invite politicians to functions, expecting megabucks. Citizens elevate the politician to a minor god by bowing to ‘Excellency’, ’First Lady’, ‘Distinguished’, ‘Honourable’. Citizens create the political monster and are surprised that it bites them!

    Where would Nigeria be without the Corporate Social Responsibility, the Parent Teachers and Old Students Associations, NGOs, DFID, USAID etc? ‘Government cannot do it alone’ is a smokescreen for corruption and the need for Public Private Partnerships is questioned in the light of a trillion naira losses to corruption scams.

    DAVOS World Economic Summit must begin to get a new deal for the world’s poor or the revolutions will be worldwide. How can Morgan Stanley ‘return to profitablity’ and not repay ruined shareholders?

  • Booming business of pipeline vandalism

    Booming business of pipeline vandalism

    For many years, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, depots at different locations around the country have suffered severe product shortage due to the nefarious activities of vandals who destroy the pipelines feeding the facilities. This way, consumption of the product has been adversely affected due to inadequate supply. Even where they are available, they are often sold at cut-throat prices.

    Andrew Yakubu, NNPC Group Managing Director, GMD, put the number of pipeline breaches between August and early January this year at 1,498. He told newsmen in Lagos last week: “Between Atlas Cove and Mosimi depots, the NNPC recorded 181 break points; from Mosimi to Ibadan, it had 421 ruptured points; and from Mosimi to Ore, it recorded 50 vandalised points. Also between Ibadan and Ilorin, it had a total of 122 break points.”

    Yakubu, who was on a fact-finding visit to Arepo in Ogun State, the scene of constant vandalism and fires in recent times, decried the unending incidents of pipeline hacking and product theft, which, he said, were currently posing great danger to the efficient distribution and supply of petroleum products in some parts of the country. The GMD said if vandalism was left unchecked, the activities of pipeline marauders could cripple the smooth operation of the downstream sector of the industry.

    Also last week, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company Limited, PPMC, said the economy had lost about N165 billion in the last four years to pipeline vandalism. This includes the cost of repairs and products theft. Haruna Momoh, the Managing Director of PPMC, noted that “the activities of vandals at Arepo and products theft across the country had become a recurring national embarrassment and had cost the country N165 billion between 2009 and 2012.”

    Giving an insight into the activities of the ubiquitous vandals, Momoh said: “In one case, the vandals killed one of our personnel who had gone to fix a vandalised pipeline, and buried him in an unknown grave. It took the intervention of the management of PPMC, which pleaded with the community for several days, before they could show us the grave, allowing us to exhume the body so as to give the (staff) a befitting burial.”

    Between 2010 and 2012, Momoh said, 76 fire incidents were recorded in the country. According to him, more than 87 per cent of these were as a result of the nefarious activities of vandals along PPMC’s pipeline right of way. He gave the recurring decimal of Arepo as a typical example of such incessant fire outbreaks the organization has had to grapple with. Nigeria has about 15000 kilometres of oil pipeline.

    There is no doubt that pipeline vandalism is one of the biggest challenges confronting the country today. The harassment, intimidation and perennial killings of PPMC personnel by these vandals underscore the desperation, viciousness and callousness with which this booming business is being carried out. The illegal business is also believed to have led to the death of no fewer than 6,000 people due to fire incidents that resulted from pipeline vandalism in the last five years.

    While some people blamed the fire incidents resulting from petroleum pipeline vandalism on the ruptured pipelines, the affected oil companies, in their own defence, always attributed it to the activities of pipeline vandals. Regrettably, the activities of the vandals might have led to the unplanned exit of some oil companies in the country, which in turn has a drastic effect on the economy.

    The economic downturn in the country could have made many people to seek alternative means of survival through crime and criminality. In this regard, the very lucrative oil business must have been of topmost priority for them. Pipeline vandalism, therefore, has become almost an all-comers’ game because of the seeming ‘ease’ of stealing petroleum products. Though the pipelines are buried deep inside the ground and many in swampy forests, the vandals have devised various ingenious methods to breach the pipelines. Once this is done, they divert the products for their illegal business.

    In most cases, trucks are used to load illegal products to be sold to willing buyers in the black market. The buyers could be owners of filling stations or other unscrupulous Nigerians acting as middlemen for end users. When it is not convenient to use trucks, drums or jerry cans are used, and then taken in large quantities to secret places where the buyers come to take delivery. It is in the process of siphoning these products that ‘avoidable’ fire incidents occur.

    Since the first fire incidents in Jesse, near Sapele in Delta State, on October 17, 1998, where an estimated 1,200 people died, many more people have died, particularly as a result of the activities of pipeline vandals. These people met their untimely death through sudden and devastating explosions resulting in huge infernos. Men, women, old and young, even toddlers have been roasted alive.

    What is more saddening is that, try as the government may, with constant advertisement in the media pointing to the dangers inherent in scooping fuel from burst pipelines, nobody seems to be listening or perturbed. The simple reason is that those engaged in vandalism have formed a terror gang or cartel to keep themselves in business. Those living around or close to the pipelines, could possibly be aiding and abetting this heinous crime. At worst, they could be accessories to this act of vandalism. Also, a probe of the owners of several mansions that dot these landscapes around the pipelines could lead to some startling discoveries. Most of these mansions could have been built from the proceeds of this crime.

    I have heard stories about some unscrupulous Nigerians who have built houses inside villages and settlements close to pipelines route. Such houses usually go with high walls to keep prying eyes at bay. Inside these high walls, they bring oil tankers under the cover of darkness to take fuel siphoned from burst pipelines which are then neatly stored in huge storage tanks in the houses waiting for buyers. This is why I believe that the security agents must do more of intelligence gathering in order to unmask these enemies of the nation. Perhaps, one should add that the possibility of some unscrupulous security agents acting as shield for some of these criminals cannot be totally ruled out.

    In a society where money is worshipped and where poverty is widespread, the tendency to look the other way when these crimes are being committed is always there. This is more so if would-be or potential whistle-blower is given a piece of the action to keep body and soul together. Each time pipeline vandals are paraded on network television, it is usually the foot soldiers from the dregs of the society, who run errands for the barons that get caught. The godfathers usually lie low, while their stooges are being paraded half-naked in public.

    Oil theft, generally, is a very lucrative business in Nigeria. That is why many people are involved- from Nigerians to foreigners. The other day, it was some Ghanaians that were caught with illegal crude oil on the high sea; some Russians followed; so also were some Filipinos; now some Indians have joined the ‘deal’. And the soul train continues.

    A Yoruba adage says, “It is the rat at home that informs the one outside that there is food in the house”. It is Nigerians who act as fronts for all these foreigners who are falling over themselves in their bid to plunder our oil resources.

    Don’t let us talk about the Niger Delta area where illegal oil refineries have sprung up like mushrooms. Rightly or wrongly, it is estimated that the quantity of oil stolen from Nigeria through various dubious methods might far outweigh our officially declared national output or legal sales. Bad enough, even the NNPC does not seem to have a good and reliable record of Nigeria’s total oil output and sales. All that is being fed to the public is mere apocalyptic guesswork!

  • PDP civil war and Boko Haram

    PDP civil war and Boko Haram

    The latest skirmishes in what is shaping up to be a full-blown civil war in the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) ahead the 2015 general elections was headline news all through last week. There was former President Olusegun Obasanjo on CNN pontificating about the Nigerian condition and offering remedies for our many maladies.

    Consumed by patriotic zeal, he offered his most hard-hitting critique yet of President Goodluck Jonathan’s management of the Boko Haram insurgency, dismissing it as all stick with nary a carrot in sight. This was the signal for a presidential retort that it needed no “lectures” on how to resolve the conflict. Not the chummiest of exchanges between leading lights of the ruling party!

    Baba, as his fans call him, had forgotten that at Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s, 40th anniversary ministry celebrations in Warri, Delta State, he had bragged about how his muscular intervention in Odi, Bayelsa State, broke the backs of pesky Niger Delta militants once and for all.

    Those comments were widely, and correctly, interpreted as an endorsement of the firm hand treatment for terrorists, as opposed to Jonathan’s vacillation between force and talk.

    To now turn around a couple of weeks later to denounce the president for not trying enough to understand why the Boko Haram killers are so bestial is mischievous – to say the least. It is a pointer that in the looming war ahead in the ruling party truth will not only be an early casualty; logic will also be turned on its head.

    Anyone investigating the short history of failed dialogue between the government and the insurgents will find that Jonathan and his administration have been anything but hawkish over the matter. Even in the face of the worst outrages the president was always advocating talks – much to the chagrin of many.

    His recent tough talk is not the result of any sort of Damascus Road conversion; it is rather the cul-de-sac into which the government has been pushed by harsh reality.

    The fact is nothing has happened in the battle against Boko Haram to make dialogue any more reasonable or plausible at this point. Of course, it is politically correct to back talks, and the advocates of dialogue have tried their best to paint those who take a different view as intemperate, sectional and partisan. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

    Dialogue doesn’t just happen: humans are not that reasonable. Combatants only come to the table when they realise that their cause cannot be achieved by force of arms. Sometimes they come to that realisation before the shooting starts; at other times it takes the sight of blood and devastation to bring them back to their senses.

    I should also point out that no legitimate government – no matter how peace-loving – will just scurry into talks with every outlaw or pseudo-freedom fighter the minute its authority is challenged. They will only do so when they come to the conclusion that they can no longer impose their will and authority over the territory they control.

    Talks with Boko Haram is further complicated by the fact that sect has since fragmented into several factions. Which do you begin to negotiate with? If you cut a deal with one band of goons, will the other faction uphold such an agreement?

    In these sorts of matters dialogue can only be a reward for reason, or the consequence of the insurgents proving themselves militarily. They have not done so, and have suffered so many reverses in recent times they have been reduced to carrying out their inhuman killings in isolated villages along the Nigeria-Cameroun border.

    They have not done anything that can be vaguely described as reasonable. They could for instance declare a short ceasefire as a window for negotiations. They could also say they will no longer target innocent, unarmed civilians. But they have done nothing of this sort but continue with what Pope Benedict not too long ago referred to as “savage acts of terror” whenever they get a chance.

    For me, all talk of dialogue is especially repugnant when the group we are supposed to be talking with has devoted itself to setting the country on fire using sectarian triggers.

    Some mischievous commentators have excoriated CAN President, Oritsejafor, in recent times for taking a tough stance against the so-called dialogue. In their desperate bid to appear politically-correct, they miss the point. If they would take off the blinkers from their eyes they may appreciate how a man in his position can take such a stance.

    Where else in Nigeria are adherents of any religion being set upon in a deliberate and systematic manner as is happening in the North-East today? Who has heard or been given anything that approaches a rationale for slitting a pastor’s throat before his congregants?

    After a series of deadly attacks in June last year, Boko Haram spokesman, Abul Qaqa, in claiming responsibility said: “We are responsible for the suicide attack on a church in Jos and also another attack on another church in Biu. The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state.”

    If the sect is angry with the government over the killing of its erstwhile leader, Mohammed Yusuf, how do Christians come in? The president at that point was Umaru Yar’Adua – a Muslim.

    Some advocates of dialogue at all cost, and by all means, have even reduced the matter to the parochial level of arguing that even more Muslims than Christians have been killed by the sect.

    It is easy to play a morbid game of statistics, but silly arguments about which side has more body bags to show will not get us very far. The fact of the matter is this conflict is taking place in northern Nigeria where there are more Muslims than Christians.

    When these killers sow their bombs in Kano city, for example, anyone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time would be blown to bits. It wouldn’t matter whether they were carrying a tesbiu or rosary. Those killed become collateral damage in the process of Boko Haram terrorising the community. They didn’t die because the sect launched a war against Muslims.

    But there is evidence of deliberate, coordinated murder of Christians in their homes and churches from Borno to Kano to Adamawa. What is happening in the North is sinister; it is evil. It should be stamped out – not coddled. No one suggested dialogue with the Nazis who were exterminating people because of their race and beliefs; no one should suggest that with this sect.

  • The colour of rape; Prevention; Rainy season Road works and 365 day FRSC Campaign

    The colour of rape; Prevention; Rainy season Road works and 365 day FRSC Campaign

    The colour of rape is the title of a short story in my book Nene And Other Stories published by Bookcraft. Rape is a beast attacking a less powerful being. Why is it that the poor in strength must die ‘to live’ and get justice? The Indian student called ‘India’s daughter’ dying 13 days after being raped and thrown out a moving bus is horrifying. All such boys’ or men’s evil plans and recordings for facebook coverage of such heinous acts says a lot about the social, family, institutional, medical, police and legal stigma, systems and structures in many countries involving black, white and yellow peoples i.e. worldwide. Naturally Nigeria is replete with similar episodes from the poor to the privileged, from disorganised to organised society and even police stations are involved in such violent abuse of uniform privilege. Kidnap by political thugs and ritualists for rape, ritual and other abuses in public transport are rife.

    The dangers to female petty traders and hawkers are well documented but still young girls and even educated female bank officials are sent unaccompanied to ‘the male meat market’ i.e. the rooms, houses and offices of customers and clients to deliver wears from bread to requesting bank deposits and to collect money owed or promised often at a high price- rape. Does the girl or woman ordinarily want sex in those circumstances? Remember that non-consensual sex, we-did-not-agree-but-I-had-to-or-he-would-have-become-violent-or-denied-me-my-goods sex, even when not resisted sex, is also rape. The female should she be expected to die in order to prove beyond a doubt that she was raped. Prevention is better than cure as you cannot cure a rape victim. The memory is never erased by love or money but justice is a good start. But as any rape victim knows, a lawyer’s probing questions are almost as humiliating as the rape but even more public.

    Prevention and successful prosecution includes proper, easily read and remembered numbering of taxis, okada, danfos and their drivers for easy identification, driver ID stuck to the back of driver’s seat so that back-seat passengers can identify the driver and vehicle ID which are all used to prevent sexual assault, robberies and other attacks in normal countries. What sexual excesses and crimes, lecturer-student, student-student, lecturer-lecturer, go unreported in our tertiary institutions? To quickly get a legal case from any rape that will stand up in court, the NMA, Nurses council and government police, health and legal ministries must ensure that the ‘International RAPE PROTOCOL’ is available and operational in clinics, hospitals, police stations and female and male prisons. Are medical students, nurses and police officers taught this protocol during undergraduate, tertiary, postgraduate and cadet training? Are sympathetic female police officers automatically chosen for investigation and interviews in rape cases?

    All women politicians, perhaps this will be a useful use of so-called first ladies, civil servants, corporate women, women’s groups in and out of government and women NGOS should set aside their political and ethnic and religious differences and take a real constructive visible and vocal STAND AGAINST RAPE’ in the media and on the roads, putting ‘RAPE’ on the agenda. Beyond powerful rallies, banners, posters and television and radio talks a lot of education and preventive information strategies must be done by and to the male sectors of the country as they are the perpetrators. Specifically this should target male market boys, area boys, thugs, secondary schools, tertiary institutions, religious leaders targeting religious youth organisations and the targeting of male dominated government organs like the civil service, the armed forces, the police, customs, Civil Defence, FRSC and NGOS like Boy Scouts, Man O War, the Red Cross etc to educate firstly themselves and then targeted segments of the community. The citizens can be easily engaged through the use of slogans and songs in Nollywood and Nollysongs and even careful use of comedy and MCs at public promotional functions using local languages on the air. A neglected educational avenue is the multibillion naira poster commercial market. Posters can declare messages like ‘RAPE IS NOT OK, IT SHOULD BE 21 YEAR JAILABLE CRIME.’ ‘REPORT OFFENDERS.’ ‘DATE – DO NOT RAPE’. ‘LET HER ‘NO’ MEAN ‘NO’ TO YOU’. ‘HER ‘NO’ MEANS ‘NO’. ‘WHEN YOU RAPE –THERE IS NO ESCAPE’ ‘FROM YOUR CONSCIENCE AND THE COURT’. Imagine the local and global impact if such a variety of messages are adopted by advert gurus for corporations who make billions of advert stickers and posters daily like Coca Cola, Pepsi, MTN, Glo, Etisalat, Star, Gulder, Guinness, Malta, Maggi, etc and immediately include them in their advert material for campaigns.

    The Nov/Dec 2012 repair the ‘holiday roads’ must be extended 12 months a year, as in normal countries. If Nigerian governments and contractors are too incompetent for rainy season work, they should quit and let another government come in or compress 12 months’ work into the dry season by double time work, day and night, with extra crews. Actually due to ‘incompetent mobilisation’ we only have three months a year to build Nigeria’s road network, so it will be 2080 that we get our East West Road and our second Niger Bridge, which governments have failed to deliver for over 30 years. I go don die!

    Similarly, if FRSC claims its EMBER campaign a success, government should direct FRSC to conduct EMBER level of activities year-round to keep sanity on the roads. Start with an FRSC ‘UARY’ CAMPAIGN.

  • Still playing dangerous politics with Boko Haram

    Still playing dangerous politics with Boko Haram

    For the umpteenth time, President Goodluck Jonathan has seized the opportunity of his attendance at a church service to reassure Nigerians that the end of Boko Haram insurrection in Nigeria is well nigh. This time it was a service on the last Sunday of last year at the Ekklisiya Yan Uwa a Nigeria (EYN), in Abuja, to mark the end of 2012.

    “We are,” he told the congregation, “suppressing the insurgency. For instance, before Christmas, we were told the whole of Abuja will be burned down, including Maiduguri, among others. Though we had some incidents but they were minimised… I assure you the excesses of Boko Haram will be brought to a reasonable control in 2013.”

    I do not know any member of the congregation, much less talk to anyone of them. But I’ll be surprised if the President’s assurances induced anything else but “we’ve-heard-all-this-before” big yawn. After all, have his past assurances not almost always been followed by even worse spate of bombings allegedly by the sect?

    It will be a big pleasant surprise if the President’s assurance makes any difference this time. However, I, for one, have my doubts based on at least three reasons. First, we have a President who seems easily given to hyperbole, at least on Boko Haram. This is a dangerous flaw in anyone’s character, but even more so in a leader, if only because it will invariably lead him to over-react in looking for solutions to a problem.

    The reader will recall how our President once described the sect’s threat as worse than the country’s civil war between 1967 and 1970. This was at the National Christian Centre, Abuja, during the 2011 end of year service. It simply beggars belief that anyone, much less the president of a country who, like our own President, is old enough to have experienced it, can compare the horrors of a full scale war with the effects of any insurrection.

    The President was back again to his hyperbole mode during last year’s end of year service. This time he went beyond our borders to compare the Boko Haram insurgency to the civil war in Syria and to the rebel insurrection in Central African Republic. The wars in those countries, he said, are “akin to what Boko Haram is trying to do in Nigeria, to take over Abuja so as to make me and those in government to go and hide.”

    His comparison of Boko Haram with the CAR rebels is understandable, but isn’t it incredulous that he will compare himself with Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, whom the West and Israel, the main sources of our President’s foreign security advisers in his fight against the sect, regard as the bad guy who should be kicked out of office and out of his country or who, better still, should be dead?

    The second reason I am sceptical about the President’s last assurance that the end of Boko Haram is nigh is his predilection for using churches instead of secular institutions to make pronouncements about the sect. Since last November alone he has used occasions of church events no less than four times to pronounce on the sect, as if Muslims too have not been victims, probably worse, of the sect’s terror. Our President’s apparent preference for churches, as against secular institutions, to speak on this ostensibly religious issue exposes him to suspicions that he is not averse to exploiting religion to divide and rule Nigerians.

    Thirdly, his recent altercation with his erstwhile benefactor, former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo – of recent there appears to have been a falling out between the two – over the President’s handling of Boko Haram suggests that, like so many Islamophobes in and out of this country, he believes in one law for terrorism in his part of the country and another for the Muslim North.

    The genesis of the altercation between benefactor and protégé, as we all know, was Chief Obasanjo’s dismissal of the President’s handling of Boko Haram as “tepid” compared to the iron fist with which he said he had handled a similar insurrection by the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) in November 1999.

    The former president couldn’t have chosen a more apt occasion to rebuke his protégé; the 40th anniversary celebration in Warri on November 22, last year, of the call of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor to the ministry. As president of the Christian Association of Nigeria few, if any, have spoken more forcefully than the pastor against any form of accommodation with Boko Haram. To date no president of CAN has been as hawkish as the pastor, not even Dr. Sunday Mbang, the retired Prelate of the Methodist Church, who was once quoted as saying, “Whether they like it or not we will not allow any Muslim to be president of Nigeria. I am declaring this as President of CAN.” (Thisday, July 31, 2000.)

    As if to add salt to an injury, Chief Obasanjo’s belligerent former spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode, added the gratuitous, and evidently incorrect, rider that Odi effectively destroyed MEND; as several press adverts that seem to have the imprimatur of the Presidency have pointed out, MEND merely went deeper underground after Odi only to return with a vengeance that ultimately forced the Federal Government to negotiate an amnesty for all Niger Delta militants.

    In his own response to the former president, President Jonathan, during his media chat last November, in effect, described Odi as a crime against humanity. When, he said, as then deputy governor of Bayelsa, himself and his boss, Diepriye Alamieyeseagha, visited Odi after the operation ordered by Obasanjo all they found were, “some dead people, mainly old women and also children. None of those militants was killed. None. So the bombardment of Odi was to solve the problem but it never solved it.”

    This raises the logical question of why the President has since persisted in using the same method against Boko Haram insurgency that he has strongly denounced as a crime against humanity. One possible answer is that for the president MEND was “us” but Boko Haram is “them.” Another and related answer is that it is against his political interest for peace to return to the North where opposition to his retention of the presidency in 2015 is likely to be strongest.

    Those, like the President, that insist on a hard-line solution to Boko Haram obviously miss the historical lesson of terrorism, even of the emergence of Boko Haram and of the apparent inability of government to destroy it. Contrary to Obasanjo’s claim of government’s failure to nip the sect in the bud, its massacre in Maiduguri in July, almost ten years to the anniversary of Odi, was predictably worse, if only because Odi is a hamlet compared to Maiduguri as Borno State’s capital.

    It is also telling that when the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua ordered the army to put the sect down, he boasted that “The operation we have launched now will be an operation that will contain them once and for all.”

    As we are all by now painfully aware, putting down Boko Haram has been anything but a cake-walk. And no one interested in ending its terror will deny the fact that what Amnesty International described at its November 1, 2012 press conference in Abuja as “serious human rights violations carried out by the security forces in response (to Boko Haram), including enforced disappearance, torture, extra-judicial executions, the torching of houses and detention without trial,” will never work.

    Anyone who imagines that it will should take a lesson in the history of terrorism. One good place to start, as I once mentioned on these pages, is a three-page primer on the subject in The Economist of August 20, 2005. As the report pointed out in a comparative history of 19th and 20th century anarchism and contemporary jihad, just like repression did nothing to stop the former it also cannot on its own deter the latter.

    Terrorists, the magazine said in its wise editorial to the West on the subject, “…can be caught, sometimes before they have done anything terrible. That argues for excellent intelligence and police work. Perhaps their numbers can be reduced by ameliorating the grievances that lend them justification for their attacks. That argues for political action. And certainly the public needs re-assurance. That argues for honest explanation – that terrorism does not threaten any western government, that retribution, like police injustices committed in nervous haste, is likely to provoke more violence, that new restrictions are unlikely to bring new safety.”

    None of these three elements – excellent intelligence and police work, political action and honest explanation – exists in President Jonathan’s strategy for bringing an end to Boko Haram terror.

    Instead what we have, as I said on these pages in my longest piece on the subject to date (December 6, 2011), is a government that seems hell-bent on playing dangerous politics with Boko Haram.

     

    Corrections

    Last week’s piece elicited a number of reactions on factual errors it contained along, of course, with many interesting comments. I’d intended to publish them but lacked the space. I’ll do so next week, God willing, along with reactions to the piece before on the 70th birthday of General Muhammadu Buhari, former military head of state and a leading opposition figure.

     

  • Manko’s ‘rare’gesture

    Manko’s ‘rare’gesture

    This year’s New Year festivities did not go without some alluring side issues. One of them was the gesture extended to ‘suspects’ in police custody in Lagos. On New Year’s Day, Umar Manko, the Lagos State Commissioner for Police, ‘disarmed’ himself and put aside his uniform in order to cater for the needs of suspects in his custody. He transformed into a Father Christmas, dishing out food and drinks to suspects brought out from the cell of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, (SARS), at the Command Headquarters, Ikeja, Lagos.

    When asked for his comments on the unusual gesture from equally unusual quarters, Manko said the suspects deserved to celebrate the New Year like others. According to him, policing the society is not limited to crime prevention and control, but uniting people. He added that being a suspect should not deprive one the enjoyment of his fundamental human rights. Manko further said that the gesture would be extended to other suspects in police custody across the state, adding that Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) and Area Commanders (ACs) had been given instructions to that effect.

    In all, no fewer than 125 suspected robbers, kidnappers, arms dealers and receivers of stolen goods, among others, were hosted by Manko. Some of the suspects who spoke to reporters at the occasion thanked Manko for his gesture. This ‘social interaction’ between the police boss and the suspects was the first of its kind in the command’s history, and I doubt if this had happened anywhere before in the history of the Nigeria Police.

    Since he was posted to Lagos as Commissioner of Police, I have watched Manko’s activities on the sidelines with keen interest. In the first instance, I knew he must possess some outstanding qualities to deserve such a posting to a state regarded as the commercial capital of the country. In addition, Lagos is undoubtedly an irresistible attraction to criminals, which is why the government cannot toy with the issue of security.

    In my curiosity, I had inquired from some of his colleagues those qualities that stood him out as a person to police a state like Lagos. One of them, Leye Oyebade, Deputy Commissioner of Police who once called the shots at the state CID, Panti, Lagos and now with Zone 5 Police Headquarters in Benin, spoke glowingly about him. He described Manko as a peaceful, easygoing and hardworking police officer. In terms of policing, he said, the police boss is a tactician, a master strategist who can hold Lagos successfully when it comes to fighting crime and criminals wherever they are.

    Not quite after my ‘inquisition’, late last year, daredevil armed robbers struck on a bright Sunday afternoon. From Agege to Gbagada, Anthony to Mile Two to Surulere and almost everywhere, the rampaging armed robbers left their signature mark – sorrow, tears and blood. It was a day the hoodlums momentarily took over Lagos with little or no resistance from the police. Worst affected by the onslaught of the hoodlums were bureau de change operators who lost huge sums of money and some of their members to the melee that ensued.

    That ‘coordinated’ operation by the hoodlums jolted the police hierarchy. Mohammed Abubakar, the Inspector General of Police, who quickly dashed to Lagos to assess the situation, described his men as “sleeping on duty” on the fateful day. Manko, who later addressed the press, did not betray any emotions. Rather, he ordered all Divisional Police Officers, DPOs, in the command to be on their toes. He warned that any DPO who allowed criminals to have a field day in their areas of jurisdiction would be severely dealt with.

    But Manko did not stop there. He went about diligently to match his rhetoric with actions. Pronto, some members of the gang were apprehended. From there, the Compol spread his dragnet to many states outside Lagos. At the end, almost all the hoodlums who participated in that orgy of violence were reined in. This was followed by the police’ seizure of the cache of arms in the custody of the criminals. The way and manner their ‘armoury’, which included many dangerous weapons and even grenade launchers, was uncovered is a testimony to the job of a “master strategist”. Their chief ‘armourer’ or arms supplier was also taken in.

    From then on, the police boss had recorded streaks of success in his exploits against crime and criminality in the state. I am not saying that crime has totally been wiped out of Lagos, but the fact remains that wherever the call of duty demands, Manko has been able to rise to the occasion.

    However, this is not to say that only Manko deserves to be singled out for commendation for policing Lagos. Security, as we all know, is a collective responsibility. The Lagos State government has made it one of its topmost priorities to ensure the safety of lives and property in the state. Through the Security Trust Fund initiated by the state government, corporate bodies and other well-meaning individuals in the state have, through their collaboration, been sustaining the fund. This is probably why the security agencies in the state have been living up to expectations in recent times. Besides the police, there are other security agencies like the Army, the State Security Service, the Navy, Air Force and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, to name a few. These outfits are toiling day and night to ensure the safety of lives and property in the state. The relative peace in the state is due to the synergy between them.

    But there could be a few slips here and there. If we all live to our responsibilities in the society; if we all volunteer prompt information to the security agencies; and if we don’t engage in any cover-up, whether of our neighbour, relation or even children who may have been lured into crime and criminality, the state and the country will be a better place to live in. This is because criminals live amongst us. They are not visiting ghosts from any other planets. If we turn a blind eye, they could endanger the lives of our neighbours, our relations, our friends or acquaintances, our children and even ourselves. Criminals constitute an intolerable nuisance to the society. That is why they must be exposed and stopped in their tracks at all times.

    Back to the main gist. Manko’s New Year’s gesture is a novel development. This is because suspects in police custody all over the country are usually treated as sub-human beings. Whenever a suspect is arrested, in most cases, when he appears in public, you see a half-clad person almost stripped to the pants. The suspects look unkempt. Some are battered in the course of interrogation to the point that they give up in police custody and are buried as unknown persons.

    Therefore, what Manko has demonstrated is that we should treat the unfortunate ones in our midst with human face. If this is so, perhaps, we might soon be living witnesses to a situation where the police will refrain from extra-judicial killings of suspects; where innocent people will no longer be framed up or railroaded into jail on trumped-up charges; and where policemen will not brutalise innocent people and even suspects in the name of extracting confessions from them. No doubt, this will engender a situation where policemen will respect the fundamental human rights of all regardless of status in the society.

    Manko’s gesture is worth emulating by his colleagues all over the country, many of who are known to be ‘goalkeepers’. As goalkeepers, they grab whatever money or anything that comes their way without any inclination to give to the less privileged or even their subordinates who are usually short-changed.

     

  • A king’s ransom

    Sometime in December 2012 six management staff of the South Korean construction and engineering firm, Hyundai Heavy Industries, were kidnapped somewhere in the creeks of Bayelsa State.

    The ink was barely dry on the reports when news emerged a few days later that they had been released. Since there was no account of security forces heroics, it is no surprise to now read that the company had coughed out a tidy N30 million to secure the release of their staff.

    Now, the Bayelsa State Police Command is furious that Hyundai paid the ransom ‘without their consent’. I am a bit confused as to the reason for their anger. Are they mad because the payment was done without their involvement, or they are opposed in principle to all such payments?

    In virtually all cases of kidnapping in recent times, hefty sums have exchanged hands. These sorts of exchanges are nothing new. In the past many Niger Delta governors paid off militants to secure peace in their domains. It has also emerged that Boko Haram elements had been paid protection money in the past by some wise northern governors.

    Insecurity – whether caused by kidnappers or terrorists – will not cease when you can make N30 million for a few days work. Only in Nigeria can you achieve such a return!

  • 2013: Beyond promises of deliverance

    2013: Beyond promises of deliverance

    There’s something about a new year that gets everyone giddy with excitement and hope. Whereas the Bible speaks about a hope that never disappoints, for several decades Nigerians have had to go through the gut-wrenching annual ritual of the evaporation of their dreams when our national peculiarities and weaknesses kick in as the months roll along.

    One of the great mysteries about this country is that in virtually every area of human endeavour you find the best minds – world beaters who excel when they are in a different environment. This is not an original thought or observation, yet it remains relevant as we begin the excursion into 2013.

    We need to crack the riddle as to why a nation of energetic, hardworking, creative people living in a land blessed with endowments many nations only dream about, have contrived to make their homeland one of the most wretched on earth.

    For a while the thinking was all we needed to get the country moving was to assemble our brightest and best in a federal cabinet. In 2011, fresh from a comprehensive victory at the general elections, President Goodluck Jonathan set about one of the most long-drawn cabinet construction exercises in recent history.

    Excoriated by impatient critics for his undue deliberation, he explained that he was putting together a first class team. In the end, even he would have agreed that what he finally assembled could in no way be accused of being Nigeria’s finest.

    A little over a week ago, an exasperated president who has been at the wars since that distant victory in 2011, offered a new explanation why this country continues to fail in delivering on her immense promise. Speaking at the funeral of his erstwhile National Security Adviser, General Andrew Azazi, in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, he suggested that attitude and not corruption was Nigeria’s problem.

    He said: “If Nigerians would change their attitude, you will realise that most of these issues being attributed to corruption are not caused by corruption.

    “Recently, I met with officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps who told me that they had discovered that majority of the road accidents are recorded on good roads. So you can see it is not a matter of corruption, it is an issue of the people’s attitude. If we change our attitude to life, if all Nigerians do what is right, Nigeria will change.”

    For daring to suggest that corruption was not the problem, Jonathan received a fusillade of flak. Beyond caring, he would weigh in a few days later with another philosophical observation that national transformation was a job for all – not just the president.

    Let me say that, as the name suggests, leaders have a responsibility to lead. So ultimately a president or governor will take responsibility for progress or failings in his area of authority – even when those success stories are the products of chance, or some other X-factor. That is life.

    Still, I find myself agreeing with some of the positions of the president. Long before his Yenagoa speech, some other Nigerian leaders had come to the conclusion that the basic problem of this country was lawlessness. The then Major-General Muhammadu Buhari and his sidekick, Tunde Idiagbon, ran their short-lived regime prosecuting a War Against Indiscipline (WAI).

    Of course, they went over the top in trampling people’s rights. But truth be told: if you give a pig a bath in a Sheraton bathroom it would soon find its way into the nearest gutter. Nigerians, unused to orderliness strained at the leash, and were only too glad to return to their old ways when General Ibrahim Babangida offered them a shiny object that looked like freedom.

    No government will work in this country, no president can succeed in this land, for as long as Nigerians, retain their contempt for order or the rule of law. Those nations we all love to escape to only work because the people have accepted that order is paramount.

    To understand this country you need to observe how we conduct ourselves on the roads. No one wants to obey any sign; traffic lights are just flashing objects to be ignored. Only fools drive on designated lanes; wise men drive against traffic. No one wants to be regulated; commercial bike riders want to be free to break every rule in the book. The upshot is that the Nigerian road is a jungle where only the craziest and most cunning survive; the larger society is its mirror image.

    Nigeria’s problem is not just one of legislation, or amending constitutions to produce the perfect document. In the end a people whose mission in life seems to be the subversion of all things lawful, would be expected to implement these same laws.

    It is not just a problem of building infrastructure. It is also a question of a gang of people banding together to disrupt the national electricity supply network by stripping off miles of transmission cables with a view to selling same for personal gain. It is about vandals who will rip aluminum railings meant to safeguard motorists off bridges for the sole reason of profit making.

    It is hard to explain away this sort of deranged behavior by crying poverty. Even in the United States, United Kingdom and other parts of Europe with very high standards of living you still find the poor and homeless. Their poverty has not caused them to descend on public infrastructure like a plague of locusts.

    Yes, corruption is a problem, but it doesn’t explain everything about where we are. It is the old chicken and egg debate. Is it corruption that causes our bad attitude, or our indiscipline that manifests as corruption?

    Even if Jonathan and his team deliver on their promises on power, the larger economy and insecurity, Nigeria will still not work if we carry on the way we are doing. Nigerians know what is good and right – that is why we are a nation of vociferous critics. But you will find that some of the loudest noisemakers are the first ones to do something disruptive to order when things get inconvenient.

    Deliverance will not come from Jonathan in 2013; it will only come when a majority of us determine to do the right thing in our little corners. It is a commitment very few are willing to make; it is the reason Nigeria is the way it is.

  • Goodbye 2012, Welcome 2013

    Goodbye 2012, Welcome 2013

    Yesterday, Tuesday, January 1, marked the beginning of yet another year. This event, as usual, was heralded by pomp and ceremony all over the world. The ceremonies were rather spontaneous. This is because regardless of previous or past experiences, people are always nostalgic in welcoming a new year. And so is the joy and optimism that goes with it.

    But then wait a minute. Let us take a look at 2012 and see whether the year justified all the ceremonies and expectations that heralded it this time last year. We might just look at the good, the bad and the ugly scenes or events that characterized 2012. As I was saying earlier, there is something so special about January 1 of every year. It is a day people give thanks to God for many things. High on the agenda is the gratitude for surviving the previous year. And it does not matter if the previous year was either good or bad. Everybody will be united in looking forward to a pleasant new year.

    In Nigeria, January 1, 2012 brought sorrows, tears and even blood. That was the day Nigerians woke up to the reality that the Federal Government had removed ‘subsidy’ on petroleum products. The exercise led to astronomic hike in the cost of fuel. It rose from N68 to N140. Many people who had travelled to their villages and hamlets for the New Year festivities were stranded. Tension enveloped the entire nation.

    What followed were huge protests all over the place. In Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Square at Ojota, on the outskirts of Lagos, came alive. For days, protesters trooped there to register their displeasure over the sudden hike.

    For some people, it was fun all the way as the organizers of the protests, the Save Nigeria Group, added innovations like bringing musical bands to play, and people volunteered food that was served freely. This kept the protests alive for several days. Every day, the crowd grew in number. The more the crowd grew, the more worrisome it was for the government in Abuja. For a government that had all the time stuck to its gun, by the time it was apparent that things might snowball out of control, the Federal Executive Council scrambled to the negotiating table. By this time, the whole country was in turmoil. Lives were lost.

    It was a fidgety President that later addressed the nation, and reduced the price of petrol as well as promised the nation a number of steps to right the wrongs in the oil sector. Had it been that there were no protests or that the protests did not assume the fearful dimension it took, I am not sure the government was prepared to look into the oil sector to actually see what was going on. Though attempts have been made by the government to rubbish the protests by labeling it as the handiwork of the opposition, that protest will go down as the first well-organised civil disobedience in Nigeria.

    We are all witnesses to the subsidy probe that followed. That probe opened a can of worms in the oil sector. It was like turning up the underbelly of a bad car. A lot of earth-shaking revelations on the financial malfeasance and sleaze that have bedeviled the oil sector were unearthed. However, what is left is the will by the government to successfully prosecute those involved in the subsidy scandal. The scandal dominated the polity in the first half of 2012. Many of the so-called ‘big boys’ driving around in posh cars were unmasked as thieves.

    Take for instance the case involving the oil magnate, Femi Otedola, and Farouk Lawan who headed the subsidy probe instituted by the House of Representatives. Otedola is known to be one of the commercial hangers–on around the president. Therefore, many people believed the bribe between him and Farouk could have been stage-managed or instigated from above to rubbish the exercise. Otedola’s company was one of the companies allegedly indicted. Till date, nothing concrete has been heard over that case. Yet, in Nigeria, it is a crime to offer or receive bribe. In that case, both the giver and the receiver are culpable. Nigerians are still waiting.

    In June 2012, a major diversion was the news of the crash of Dana Aircraft on a routine journey from Abuja to Lagos. All the 150 passengers, including the crew, perished. The crash threw the entire country into grief. The Aviation industry came under the binoculars as people asked questions. Anyway, that did not prevent further crashes in the sector.

    Danbaba Suntai, the governor of Taraba State, was involved in an air crash in October 2012 while ‘personally’ flying an aircraft from Jalingo to Yola. He, along with some of his aides, were badly injured and they are still receiving medical treatment abroad. If Suntai and his aides were lucky, Sir Patrick Yakowa, former governor of Kaduna State, along with Gen. Andrew Owoye Azazi, immediate past National Security Adviser, the pilots and aides, were not so lucky. Six of them perished on December 15 in a helicopter crash in the mangrove forest of Bayelsa State.

    Nigerians had thought that that helicopter crash would complete the unfortunate events of 2012. Another tragedy, this time, on the road, occurred when the vehicle bearing Idris Wada, the governor of Kogi State, was involved in a fatal accident on Friday, December 28, 2012. The crash occurred when the governor’s Lexus Jeep suffered a tyre burst on the Ajaokuta-Lokoja Road while returning to the state capital after attending an official function. Though Wada sustained a leg fracture and other minor bruises, Idris Mohammed, his Aide-De Camp, an Assistant Superintendant of Police, died in the crash. He has since been buried in Kaduna.

    I will not want to bother my readers with the numerous terror attacks in the northern part of the country in 2012. As it seems, that has come to be a permanent feature in that part of the country with an apparently helpless government blowing hot and cold each time the terrorists strike. It is a big relief that 2012 is gone with the loads of highs and lows that confronted the nation.

    If our recent experience is anything to go by, Nigerians welcomed 2013 with mixed feelings. We surely need a new beginning this year. It is obvious that issues of the economy, security, employment, fighting, corruption and official cover-ups, to name a few, will dominate 2013 in Nigeria.

    On the political turf, though the president has confessed that his government is “slow”, Nigerians will want to see a more invigorated government that will alleviate the sufferings of the people. The first way to ensure this is for the President to tinker with his cabinet and his aides. Some of them are dead woods who have nothing to offer than to sing praises and tell the President what will make him happy at all times. When you look at the performance indices of some of the ministers and aides, you could see that they are not worth to be councillors in their local governments. They are simply bereft of ideas and the wherewithal to move this country forward at the pace it deserves.

    It is obvious that many of them have become fronts for fortune seekers and profiteers. Majority of them have become too stupendously rich to continue in their present positions. It is for this reason that the president must take a second look at those around him and his cabinet. Nigerians don’t want a slow government. What is at stake in this country today cannot be handled slowly anymore. Afterall, the resources – human, natural and capital – are there. The president only needs to see beyond the present narrow prism and confront the challenges facing the nation headlong. To do this, he must act like a tiger and not a snail!