The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Nation 2018 May 30 Our Girls; Agodi Exhibition? ; Waterways Bill???

    It is now four years + since our Chibok Girls were viciously kidnapped on April 15, 2014. However we await the release of the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girl-child, 15 year old, Leah Sharibu. We await government to stop the killings highlighted by the nationwide march of the Catholic Church and the pronouncement of the Methodist Church.

    Children’s Day: Total congratulations particularly to Governor Ajimobi for the foresight allow the development of Agodi Gardens, Ibadan into a ‘Parks & Gardens’, P&G, tourist destination. The place was packed full on Sunday Children’s Day. Could we have given them more, beyond Government’s contribution? Oyo State, and every other state in Nigeria, is larger than 20 countries. Should we expect Governor Ajimobi to be King of Oyo State and deliver every need to the desperately brain-challenged children under his care? Were the children satisfied at Agodi P&G? Yes! Could the children have been happier? Yes! P&Gardens nationwide are deceptive: Body fun, no brain challenge!  They fulfil children’s sensual and bodily needs, running and playing, in safe spaces but fall short of Oyo State’s capacity to blow the children’s brain and minds! All children do not know they require the opportunity to fulfil and expand their brain needs. Only some parents and good Governors know this! We know this in Oyo State! This is the next step in ensuring the supremacy of Oyo State in P&Gardens&Exhibitions Strategy!  Governments can make P&G& add Educational Exhibition Spaces on the same grounds to encourage the developers to consider a ‘Nigerian and International Brain’ component. A partnership together or in rotation with the 5 federal and one international Agency with over 200 individual departments and other companies to insert in the Agodi gardens to fulfill this yearning will ‘WOW’ the Governor’s collective children.

    Material for inspirational material and exhibits and wall charts to challenge the minds of visiting youth in career choice can come from hundreds of thousands of students and thousands of teachers and hundreds of lecturers. UCH, UI, Polytchnic, FRIN, CRIN, IITA have a lot to offer the children of Oyo State visiting Agodi Gardens, BUT ONLY IF ASKED!

    President Buhari: What is this Fulani Herders War which should have been nipped in the bud 20 years ago and certainly 3 years ago instead of a deafening silence allowing it to explode into a murderous countrywide blight? There were 2 murders among those who attended the funerals of 17 parishioners and 2 priests and attacks and killing of 5- 10 the evening of the VP’s visit. This impunity speaks volumes about the armed forces leadership, questions you as C-in-C, and police inability to prevent outrageous terrorism.

    Professor Soyinka speaks for millions, already articulated in articles in this column and by others, when he said a dispassionate review of the data, the victims and beneficiaries of these killings amounts to ethnic cleansing. Do not run away from the logical conclusion for political correctness. Few believe Minister Lai Mohammed on the deadly issue anymore. End the killing today or as I have said many times, this government will lose the 2019 election and not because of ‘corruption fighting back’, which is merely one finger of the hand of government. It will lose the election because death and disaster have touched millions who know the ugly truth that Nigeria has the highest rate of terrorist murder and displacement worldwide and the massive insecurity in the country. Even IDPs are not safe. An example: I warned three years ago that IDPs need proactive protection mechanisms to protect them from abuse by the uniformed authorities as has happened even on UN missions and in our homes when we go to work and even at work whenever vulnerable females are in close proximity unsupervised with males. Ever heard of Weinstein?? I believe the Amnesty Report and instead of crying foul, the military needs to identify the culprits and prosecute them.  But it exonerated itself of Danjuma’s claims, reaffirmed by Soyinka and eye witnesses, so what do we expect. Political rebuttals do not change hearts and minds.

    President Buhari: What is this Presidential proposition to NASS called new Waterways Bill introduced by a sitting president but which has never been seen or discussed by the citizens who may be seriously traumatized by such a bill before being laid before NASS? Is there some poison in the Bill that Buhari does not want us to see? Why would a president in a democracy present a Bill that will negatively affect all our lives to parliament without doing the democratic thing and letting the citizens see and debate the bill to find out who will be favoured and who will suffer from its implementation? The clauses of the bill should be forensically analysed for subjugation of a section of the country for the illegal benefit of others. Is this an antidemocratic Bill aimed at destroying any restructuring dreams? Is this a Bill which can mutate into toxic, obnoxious interpretations? Enough of smuggled bills! Nigeria is in trouble. Interested democracy Groups, political parties and states with large and small waterways should this week hold ‘Public Sittings on the new Waterways Bill’ to expose any hidden agenda. The President should come clean on the matter and his spokesmen should educate us and listen to our concerns and not dismiss than as opposition politics.

     

    • NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; Herders; N8trillion ‘theft’

    It is now four years + since our Chibok Girls were viciously kidnapped on April 15, 2014. We await the release of the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girl-child, 15 year old, Leah Sharibu.

    Why is obvious preventive action not taken until after preventable misery and deaths? Are we to applaud the Armed forces for its widely announced counter terrorism adventures in states bloodied and battered and lacking assistance against a terrorist -style onslaught of herders? ‘Better late than never ’ will never bring back the dead, the crops and be parents to the orphans. Where is the apology for trivialising or ignoring the war? Besides wide publicity before the mission encourages the marauding herders to transfer their nefarious activities to other non-militarised states until the military‘whirlwind’ blows over. By the activities of our gallant soldiers, the armed forces reputation as protector against terrorists will be retrieved and Nigeria’s farmlands will be recovered and returned to their original owners or their descendants, survivors of the vicious onslaught.

    We must never forget, even if we forgive, that this is one war which was allowed to escalate into a massacre spread across 26 states by the failure of government to engage the enemy years ago and especially during the escalation of Fulani herder hostilities in the last 3 years. Farm deaths appear meaningless on the corridors of Abuja politics and do not easily tap into the milk of human kindness and human decency. I care little for Lai Mohammed’s submission that the herders violent is not ethnic. Enough rhetoric. Not all of us are fools! However, whatever it is or is not is irrelevant to the solution. Killers must urgently stopped before we are all killed. Let the army bring us results. We want action even as yet another 5-10 killed after the VP’s visit. Did he not leave any security behind for the people?

    When will we mature democratically enough to hold FAF ‘Free And Fair’elections with nothing beyond the heated word? A political party membership that lacks the discipline to hold peaceful, violence-free, murder-free internal elections is not fit to participate in multiparty elections. No vote is worth the death or the cheating of others. Do not vote for any party with any history of violence in 2019.

    The wedding is over. Let the marriage begin!! Lessons for Nigeria. Meticulous organisation and respect for crowds. Security without oppression. No buntings or flower arrangement obscuring views in church or at the banquet. Throw out obstructive buntings at functions.

    ‘Government Stole/misplaced from Government’ N8,000,000,000,000+ ie N8+trillion naira equal to an annual budget in five years, according to forensic auditors KPMG released by the National Economic Forum. In some countries the citizens get paid a bonus when the economy does well or free electricity when there is excess. In wealthy Nigeria the ‘white collar’ steal it all. The heads of the relevant MDAs at the time should be quizzed and the guilty removed for incompetence and/or corruption, and then prosecuted for Machiavellian financial terrorism, have their personal assets stripped and be jailed. NNPC, FIRS and NIMASA, Customs, the Ports et cetera are all run by human beings who must be held responsible. Pay all money into TSA, not Agency accounts and credited by paper or commuter trail to the Agency? Who made such Agencies have leaders who are so arrogant in accumulating funds and so corruptly irresponsible in passing the funds to the cheated federal government and the Nigerian citizen crying for justifiable infrastructure –denied because there is no money? Ask how many Fellow Nigerians are dead and dying or deprived of a rightful need from books in school to drugs and the latest equipment in hospitals and better roads everywhere because of this stolen/misdirected/mismanaged money? Now ask how honest are your Agency leaders? Again this should have been anticipated by preemptive ‘Regular Weekly Forensic External Auditing’. As wealthy as we really are why should Nigerians have to continue to bear the cost of waiting five years to know they has been shortchanged by 20% of the budget annually by their own agencies not to mention stupid policies that idiotically give away our national oil blocks to individuals forever? Do they know what they have done to the lives of almost every single Nigerian? We shout about unemployment and employability-both solved with adequately funding good education and job creation and health services. On the hands of these financial criminals as CEOs, are the woes of the naira collapse, the blood and tears of 50+ millions of students denied good comprehensive education, bursaries and scholarships nationwide even as they beg for free or subsidized tuition. Women want free Antenatal care. When that money is finally added to the nation’s budget, if ever, and recovered we require a N1,000,000,000,000 or N1trillion invested each in health, education, roads, railways, electricity, housing, Sovereign Wealth Fund and drawing down the Foreign Debt. It could be partly converted to foreign exchange to increase the Foreign Reserves and reverse the exchange rate back towards N150 as a real strategy to improve the value of salaries. This is a financial catastrophe and nobody cared. This government’s move requires ‘Recovery of funds, Prosecution and Prison’ for the guilty Agency staff. Now ask ‘How honest is your Agency today?’ audits should be brought up to date 2018.

     

    • NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; FRSC; Single term!

    It is now four years + since our Chibok Girls were viciously kidnapped on April 15, 2014. However we await the release of the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girl-child, 14 year old, Leah Sharibu. Disarming villagers, without providing protection is like preparing them up for slaughter as the herdsmen have not been so disarmed.

    Can FRSC clarify why one FRSC official Olanrewaju stopped me on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway before Ogunmakin on Sunday 13th May at 8 o’clock and kicked carelessly at my plate number and informing me that my vehicle registration plate number was ‘not in the FRSC database’? Is that a crime?

    Name a single politician at presidential, Governorship, LGA or even NASS, or professional in any parastatal who has done better in a second term than in the first term. Very few and far between.

    We are a nation supposed to be in a hurry, because of our low ranking in all UN development indices and the relative disadvantage of our citizens. Having even a good leader demanding a second term as of right and rigging his or her way back into power deprives us of even better leaders. If the recycled leader is bad it further impoverishes the quality of life and the level of service delivery for another four years. We know that the people’s will is not always carried out at elections. As for federal and state parastatals, the heads hold office and re-appointment by the President’s will and his circle or the Governor and his own circle. Any renewal or extension of terms has become more of a burden than a blessing of continuity.

    More often than not new Vice Chancellors and other parastatal heads, governors and even Presidents spend a good deal of time belittling the achievements and dismantling or abandoning construction work of predecessors. This happens worldwide. There are several ghostly see-through incomplete buildings to confirm this, Federal secretariat in Lagos is a disgraceful waste of the Nations patrimony as is the Ilubirin Estate.  In Nigeria a sect in power has managed to make the school subject history redundant. We are all witnesses as students or workers, to Heads of Departments and such places, going off at a tangent to the previous direction while warning that their predecessors name must never be mentioned again.

    However such issues do not call for perpetuation in power by anybody. There is an obvious decline in productivity during the second term. In Nigerian ethnic politics compounds this problem as the longer one ethnic group or one part of the state is in power, the less content are those who feel left out leading to perceived and often genuine cries against marginalization following a 2 term, 8 years rotation,  instead of a single term 4 year rotation. At the presidential level the present acrimonious 8 year North –South cycle of power has done no one any favours. The cycle is too long and requires revision and reduction to a single term of four or maximum five years. With a teeming population of qualified professionals why should one person be allowed to take up someone else’s job, depriving other Nigerians of the same job and depriving   and the citizens of new ideas, directions and goals every four years? Second term has become a cancer depriving Nigeria of exposure to the tree of leadership. Of course there are exceptions – few and far between.

    Today therefore let us think deeply about the value to Nigeria and Nigerians and the cost : benefit analysis  to our rapid development by introducing a single term of four or maximum  five years. Let us contrast that gain with as yet unwitnessed gain and losses from the ‘second term syndrome’. We must change the mindset of the citizen and the politician in this regard. All political parties should initiate studies and look seriously at the second term. Imagine where Nigeria would be today if it had had a new President every four years. Better or worse?

    At some point in our future we Nigerians have got to face and deal with the ‘8 year- two term right’ because it is wrong and has stunted our political and economic and even our ethnic recognition development. We all know that ethnic differences may be brewing at every national political opportunity but they also fester at state and LGA level. A compulsory four year system with create a wider playing field with more winners and hope for aspirants and more opportunity for development delivery.

    The strangely boastful Obasanjo claim that he ‘made’ several billionaires while he was president may be correct. The other way of saying ‘I made billionaires’ is to say that he did not make 1000 people with $1,000,000 each but a few who had over $1,000,000,000 each. Imagine the different impact on citizens in the wider spread of wealth. The result is cement is more expensive in Nigeria than anywhere in the world. Strange abi? Are billionaires not supposed to be generous? Of course not! Perhaps only in later life?

    Please note that the security of material and elections in not the responsibility of INEC who has no security personnel. It is government’s full responsibility.

    NASS has failed to deliver a budget in 7 months. Why should even a single one be re-turned to office in 2019?

     

    • NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

     

  • Our Girls; Terrorism: Garrison Villages

    It is four years + since our Chibok Girls were viciously kidnapped on April 15, 2014. However we await the release of the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girl-child, 14 year old, Leah Sharibu and an end to war hostilities or terrorism by both Boko Haram and The Fulani herders and their murderous rampage across most of the innocent and unarmed and now terrified and terrorised general population. There are attacks and killings in every location from Local Government Headquarters to roadside culminating in those 27+ BBC says 51,  slaughtered in Kaduna and those recently killed inside religious houses. This is a maximum terror tactic because it is the religious leaders who are charged by God and even by government with keeping the citizens calm and holy and ‘turning the other cheek’.

    Murdered people, Priests or Paupers, Senators or servants, are equally precious to families, friends and God. Terrorism, mayhem, destruction of property and laying waste other people’s labour are a breach of their human right to a good life but obviously Herdsmen do not agree! President Buhari is being reactionary by crying wolf after the recent killings. We need  preventive leadership, nipping potential death and disaster in the bud before the loss of  a single life. The current rate of loss of human life and the cost of the ‘laying waste crops and the burning the land’ if added to the well-known coming potential violence associated with elections will further cripple the country into 2019 in a nation where it has taken 6 + months to think of passing a budget!

    Our Nigerian democratic system pretends when it suits it to follow the UK system and now the US political system. However our political leaders are not forced to put their activities under the microscope of scrutiny like in the UK and its Question Time in UK parliament  or US’s press conferences. Why did not President Buhari cry out, and take decisive proactive actions during the last 3 years before accumulating thousands of deaths under his watch and now suddenly giving the Ghadaffi-sponsored- them angle as a lame excuse to side-track accusations to escape personal responsibility. To the dead, does it matter who sponsored those who killed you on your own father’s farm and in your own sovereign country which has not yet declared war?  For years Buhari said nothing even in the face of rumours arising from a study of lapses in Presidential conduct marked by inactivity and lack of condemnation of the massacres. He as Grand Patron, must know more than he is telling Nigerians and his routine silence is not comforting to the corpses or the living citizens. No president we know ignores the death of thousands and displacement of millions and survives an election. The herders War against farmers and road users and villagers is a major ‘2019 Election Issue’ because the war impacts with misery and mourning so many millions of eligible voters. They cannot explain logically the slaughter and cannot have faith in a security apparatus that has allowed such murderous routing of village and roadside populations. Potential voters in every state – far beyond the Boko Haram War will react to this insurgency/invasion by Ghadaffi in diaspora -something every security observer pointed out as far back as 5 years, including in this column. How come therefore can the security and even the president be pointing out to us what we know after doing no counterinsurgency measures for years?  A failure! Murderous armed herders are murderous armed herders, no matter where they have come from-local or Ghadaffi bred. No ranching will stop the thirst for blood or the pattern of wonton destruction because ill managed-ranches will not hold the herders in check as the grass will die and not be nurtured and will always be greener on the other side of the fence where the diligent farmers are tilling and watering and  tending crops -soon to be food, not for humans but for cows! Nigeria is a sad country where cows are better fed on stolen and seized  yams and cassava than the citizens who plant the crops. Should we become like cows and led to other people’s farm to farm for free feeding?

    following the okada motorcycle epidemic every single Nigerian has witnessed an okada attack or knows a victim. Unchecked herders violence and the destruction of livelihoods  and human life have meant that most of us know farmers and families and places where these nefarious crimes are being committed. In addition to discussing the questionable origin of marauders with Trump, has Buhari strategized with Nigeria’s  security agencies who need to change from post attack visits and reporters of terrorism to preventers of terrorism.  He has not been proactive enough in the mayhem. Buhari’s finding that many are Ghadaffi/Libya mercenary graduates is no comfort to Nigerians under terrorist alert. Just provide security, close the barracks and redeploy to garrison the villages and use drones for surveillance and ask Trump and UN bosses for hourly satellite terrorist movements. Nigeria must garrison its villages.

    There was a local council election across the UK on Thursday. Approximately 22 million people were eligible to vote. No violence or marked fraud and everybody went to work. What stops us in Nigeria replicating this ‘normal cyclic democratic activity’?  Politicians or he people. Ourmumudondo-Charlie Boy!

     

    • NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; No Bullying; Uniform Corruption

    It is now four years plus since our Chibok Girls were viciously kidnapped on April 15, 2014. However we await the release of the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girl-child, 14 year old, Leah Sharibu. We also seek an end to hostilities by both Boko Haram and The Fulani herders who recently killed inside religious houses. Priests or paupers, all are precious to God not the herdsmen!

    All hail the Cancer Control Strategic Plan of Oyo State. Every state in Nigeria is larger than many other countries and should take total responsibility for citizens’ welfare without waiting for Abuja. Upgrading medical services to ensure the citizens receive even better care than offered at Federal Medical Centres and University Teaching Hospitals is a first step. Cancer screening is a human right and for cancer care is best delivered in the local environment.  So far these big hospitals have been the only ones offering cancer treatment and the states have refused to upgrade and employ expert cancer manpower for diagnosis, treatment and care. There is only one reason why state governments do not make its state hospitals better than teaching hospitals. That is corruption! It takes motivation and manpower and equipment.

    Why does the media make the same mistake year in year out? The media always puts the politician ahead of people. A media house interviewed Saraki but failed to interview the woman Sergeant At Arms who Saraki went to visit. She had been injured on duty for trying to block the mace thugs entrance into the Senate! Surely that human interest story should have been a large report in order to enlighten Nigeria and give a genuine role model. The citizen, especially the hero citizen deserves media exposure. The media did not even put up the standard media ‘suspected rogues gallery’ mug shot pictures of the mace thugs in the most media covered act of political thuggery in Nigerian history.

    In notoriety and brigandage, it beats standard political assault on the citizenry like stealing ballot boxes any day! Nigeria’s media must take an oath not to subordinate the people to the politician to stop the creation of yet another set of monsters who will devour even the media. We should not continue with this backward trend into 2019. Nigeria by 2019 requires a ‘new direction media beyond even social media. The media must refuse to publish every silly comment by politicians of questionable election honesty and character. Already some media houses discriminate in favour of one party or another in line with their ownership or policy bias-a worldwide ‘ownership’ practice. However, paradoxically perhaps, we expect journalists to be unbiased and give more exposure to the people than to the politician. Almost all professionals debate national issues and come up with guidance and planning for the next year. Of course little gets done but dreams are made of planning.

    What priorities do the media have in Nigeria beyond music and advert revenues? Of course there are many educational programmes but can the media massively motivate young voters and all female potential voters to vote in 2019? Beyond reportage and the editorial what does your favourite newspaper do for the nation?

    You have heard the estimated cost to the constantly empty pocket of Nigerian youth and the profit on the phone calls of the millions of Big Brother ‘de-voters’ and tweeters? Add the corporate sponsorship and advertisement arena and you may easily count the billions projected by economists.  Ask yourself what a warped society we have when one single show of little ‘conconbility‘ about “Virtual Reality, artificially inflated egos, lies and cheating, and nearly live sex on screen can provide revenues suspected to reach nearly 10% of the national budget of N7 trillion while IDPs live in misery, farm destruction in thousands and poverty among millions. Imagine if these unfortunates also had the wherewithal to vote and the cost could have been higher. This is an amazingly unfortunate spin-off of the instant millionaire programmes championed and executed by a section of corporate Nigeria during the last 20 years which has poisoned a generation of youth, against my and others advice, in the direction of ‘get rich quick’.

    Christiane Amanpour of CNN says ‘I will be truthful not neutral’. That is the answer to those who trying to cover over massive criminal activity seek the neutral ‘non-judgemental’, national interest or unity as grounds for a bad solution when caught out often drowning injustices like mega-corruption, one-sided violence, discriminatory policies and law enforcement  under the canopy of ‘that was yesterday, let us move to today’. Without restitution? Without justice? No bad for the future!

    First the Nigerian people, then Amnesty International, then Transparency International and now the US State Department have ‘objected’ to Nigerian human rights and anti-corruption success! Amidst the fine men and women in our uniforms there are bad eggs who terrify Nigerians, even with full documentation,who approach any uniform on roads or ports with terror and trepidation. ‘Stop and search’ is a terrorist activity. And this in full glare of the anticorruption government and its agencies EFCC and ICPC. For the few caught, ‘Dismissals’ without prosecution after ‘guardroom trial’ is useless. Prosecution is essential. Unless this government can stop such ‘public and visible corruption’ there is no hope against invisible corruption. Stop uniform corruption now.

     

    • NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

     

  • Our Girls; ‘Say No to bullying’

    It is now four years + since our Chibok Girls were viciously kidnapped on April 15, 2014. However we await the release of the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girl-child, 14-year old, Leah Sharibu.

    Amidst the outcry against a really lopsided anti-corruption effort, we may be forced to appreciate even these small beginnings even though National Assembly (NASS) and courts have tied the release of the returning money in knots in order to tie the hands of the government and perhaps guarantee a failed budget 2018 with consequent 2019 election failure.

    Nigerians should understand fully the statement that “We Nigerians are where we are in this largely imperfect Nigeria because of the massive serial politically-led theft of the resources” that God gave Nigeria leading to moral and monetary insufficiency throughout the reign of these leaders. The process was accelerated by a 50-year agenda to deliberately cripple the police force. This was compounded by a major political policy criminality as Nigeria is the only country in the world that gives away [allocates] publicly owned oil wells to individuals depriving millions of desperate citizens of billions of dollars in developmental income while making a few boastful billionaires and many silent billionaires.

    A developmentally different civilian or military leadership, since the 1960s would have probably left us well in advance of any country in Africa and many in Asia. Instead under their short-sighted and greedy guidance and full control, with full collusion of a corrupted followership and weakened policing system, Nigeria has been a beautiful bride robbed, raped and left for dead on her wedding bed of soil, oil and sun. Economics does not describe our lack of power, water, bridges, and books in schools! Corruption does!! So those believing that corruption should be forgotten should remember that corruption is now a measurable economic ‘failure to thrive’ with the politicians proclaiming a ‘We will not save’ policy. The results have decimated development and the foreign reserves which 50 years on should be $300b, robbed allocations and prevented our needed 150-200Mw of electricity being provided. Corruption is also about evil laws!

    Seeing the thugs invading Senate reminded me of their childhood in school where they were probably bullies if they went to school at all.  Remember that corruption made their schools rubbish pre-programmed by greedy politicians years ago. It is too late to help adults traumatised by a stolen education during youth. The youth accused of expecting handouts are largely products of little or no education delivered in rubbish schools – see Chibok and Dapchi pictures.

    Back to bullying. But we can each do something. Unchecked, bullying manifests itself malignantly in adult callous behaviour and violence at home and office.  Bullying really changes the lives of both victims and perpetrators. By adulthood, the bully gets worse and the victim is physically and mentally traumatized. After corruption, bullying ruined and is ruining the happiness of millions more daily and we can change that for the better by taking a pen or sitting at the computer and making a font 48 poster – ‘SAY “NO” TO BULLYING. ABC – AVOID BULLYING CHILDREN AND ADULTS’. Tomorrow we could put 1,000,000 such home and office posters around school and office ‘bully venues’ and help save millions another day of helpless hopelessness and fear.

    Parents write out 10 or 20 signs at home with your children for school tomorrow. This simple sign will help prevent and start authorities monitoring bullying today in your school, home, workplace, office.

    Ten people, fellow human beings, killed in Benue. Is that 1,000 or 10,000 in the last five or 10 years? When will it end?

    Kudos to the vice president’s ‘Ease of Doing Business Initiative’ by reducing a deliberately obstructive and actively and passively, ‘delay until you pay’ corrupt bureaucracy and even the cost of setting up an office. The effort moved Nigeria up by 24 places on the ease of doing business. Go and tell that to farmers driven from their farms by herders. The Nigerian public service and business model is best represented by remembering and regularly revisiting the formerly impressive Federal Government Secretariat (FGS), Ikoyi, which had thousands of offices which could have been immediately rented out to Lagos citizens when the FGS was closed. But no, it was stripped bare and a now just a naked skeleton, an eyesore. A good example of a bad, if not evil, government decision and showing how government shoots itself in the head regularly for questionably altruistic or corrupt goals. Electricity, single digit loans, corruption, one year rent in advance are not nuclear physics but cumulate into the denied right to a decent work environment.

    President Buhari should guard his speeches to ensure they cannot be interpreted, correct or misinterpreted.

    Stealing the mace is not the only disgrace to the nation’s democracy in the NASS. Stealing the mace is certainly wrong but NASS questioning adult members because of political differences and then suspending members is equally wrong. Is it doing the work you elected it for? Is it providing an obstacle or a wheel for democratic motion? Why is NASS deaf to the difference between ‘Ayes’ and ‘Nays’?  Why has NASS not passed the budget 2018 in nearly seven months? Is it to guarantee the failure of governance with uncompleted projects pre-election? NASS has not passed! It has failed and disgraced us.

    NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Sex-for-mark as metaphor

    His guttural voice oozes the geniality only long practice at the game could confer. Excitement over the coming harvest would, in fact, seem telegraphed subtly by his very ring-tone – a line from a classic number by Miliki grandmaster himself, Ebenezer Obey, to wit: “Adura fun awon to ‘nsoro wa lehin o, Edumare dari ji won o” (Prayer for the backbiters, Forgive them O God).

    But just when you thought he had already secured the mug’s handle, came an accident between the cup and the lips. So, his intumescent smile turns detumescent frown. Since the audio of the x-rated conversation went viral last week, the owner of the complicit male voice has been identified as Professor Richard Akindele, thus a suspect in a clear sex-for-mark deal gone awry, casting a sleazy shadow over Obafemi Awolowo University.

    So, it is clear the lyrical prayer invoked at the outset against “backbiters” was not granted after all.

    The details are no less lurid. In the viral audio posted on the social media obviously by the no less suspect prey, we hear the predator – a supposed professor of Accounting and, worse, described as a senior pastor in the local church – haggle over sex with the ardour of a parsimonious housewife at a grocery store. But wait, could the tongue that preaches holiness also be incubating carnality in the same breath?

    Inverting some strange mathematical logic into a clearly illicit transaction, the audio Prof then postulates that nothing other than five bouts of sex would incentivize the upgrading of the soliciting female student’s miserable 33 point to 40.

    Scared apparently by the whopping quantity, the young lady expressed wonder, “Is it food?”

    While the 4-minute bargain lasted, it was clear the presumably young lady has been dodging the Prof’s cocked short-gun for a while.

    Since then, the Prof has not only gone into hiding but also kept a silence that can only incriminate. How ironic – a professor of Accounting is now shy to give account of what really happened.

    It will, however, be myopic to assume that it is only the tutor and his female quarry who are in the dock here. Equally on trial is the moral integrity of those sociologists call “significant others” in a society increasingly challenged ethically.

    In more ways than one, both characters, therefore, hold a mirror on the larger society. The Prof speaks to those in a position of power who prey on the vulnerable. Be they the prosperity cleric who bears false prophesy to the gullible flock and so soil their cassock with filthy lucre. Or lawmakers who parlay legislative license to award unconscionable pay to themselves. Or the reporters who feast on blackmail.

    In the female student, we see a covetousness to bag what was not earned. Maybe, she was doing “runs” (euphemism for campus prostitution) while her mates were burning the proverbial midnight candle. Her male counterpart does “sorting” (cash offer) to lecturers instead.

    To be sure, no one is saying sexual harassment in ivory towers is a new phenomenon. Back in my student days many, many years ago at the Federal Poly, Ado- Ekiti, for instance, I won’t forget hearing a senior lecturer at the department office telling a female classmate of mine sobbing over her poor score, “You caused it by not cooperating and your arrogance”.

    The same lecturer – old enough to be our dad, if not grandpa – later began to eye me with malice and envy. At the next slightest opportunity, he went as far as singling me out in the middle of a lecture in a packed auditorium for a vicious ridicule, simply because he always seemed to find me around his target.

    From my subsequent UNILAG days, I am also still haunted till date by the echoes of lamentations by hapless fellow female students returning from a particular lecturer who, though often camouflaging with a cleric’s white collar around campus, was said to have perfected the art of pulling female students by the strap of bra on the shoulders while pretending to be playful.

    Of course, then, there was subtlety to such sexual extortion and victims would discussed in hushed tones. Not on the scale of impunity now on display.

    Today, it is a perhaps a measure of our now clearly vandalized moral universe that indifference – rather than outrage – has been the response from both high and low quarters. It only suggests the normalization of an abnormality, the tendency of quibble or equivocate – if not surrender – in the face of evil.

    We see that in the apparent double-speak by the OAU management. When the scandal broke initially, there was a pledge to get to the bottom of the infamy. We would hear another tale last weekend. But the university only mocks itself if it now says it can no longer act simply because the lady in question had refused to step forward.

    Really, the debt OAU owes the public here is a moral one, not legal technicality. Phone numbers and call logs can be verified, if indeed there is a strong commitment to seek the truth. To say nothing of the aforementioned Miliki ring-tone.

    There was also a mention of ongoing MBA exams in Moro. Was the Prof present or billed to attend? Was it a mere coincidence that the lady repeated the Prof’s name and the addressee, in what would then seem a fleeting moment of gumption and discretion, had to bark at her to stop mentioning his name?

    A good precedent was, in fact, set in 2016 following similar media reports of an epidemic of sexual predation at Auchi Polytechnic. The Federal Ministry of Education did not demand or make a public show of the appearance of any of the victims as pre-condition to do the right thing.

    Working together with relevant agencies like the DSS, EFCC and the National Board for Technical Education, the Ministry unleashed a manhunt, resulting in the dismissal of 12 lecturers for trysts and extortion.

    Elsewhere at the University of California, authorities did not shop for legal technicality when a professor of Architecture, Nezar AlSayyad, was accused of sexual harassment by a Phd student in 2016. An enquiry instituted by the school management eventually established numerous other incidents of inappropriate behavior by the tutor dating back to 2012, though the man at the centre of the storm continued to deny. The school had to pay the student $80,000 compensation.

    No less disturbing also is the continued silence from the Ife Diocese of the Anglican Church (where the Prof is said to have built a reputation as a powerful preacher) since the scandal broke. If the accused chooses to keep sealed lips, the church, as a supposed bastion of chastity and the repository of social virtues, cannot afford such luxury. The least expected of the church in the circumstance is to encourage him to come out and defend his integrity or have him excommunicated until his innocence is established.

    Again, we expect the women-based NGOs to take up the gauntlet. It is possible that the chief reason the lady is reluctant to step forward and state her case is the fear of victimization by other sex rats lurking around the OAU faculties. It is the duty of such bodies to rally around her and help broker a deal of protection.

    In the final analysis, the challenge lies ultimately with the larger society to return to the building block of the community – the family unit. Social re-orientation is sorely needed for a rebirth rooted on strong moral values.

    Confident and conscientious children don’t fall from the sky; they are often the products of stable and ethically-grounded parents. You don’t expect dads and mums who themselves are found wanting to give what they do not have.

    Re: Gates and the Nigerian ostriches

    Let Nigerians know that Bill Gates will only say things that can be backed up with real data. The class to which he belongs makes him very careful and whatever he says can be defended anywhere in the world.

    Please remind them that many very brilliant Nigerians like Dr. Vincent Ahonkhai spent their most productive lives working for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and  just retired. Nigeria as a country does not engage Nigerian professionals to execute solutions to problems in Nigeria, largely because of regional quota considerations etc. Mediocrity of course, is the result.

    If there is conscience remaining anywhere in Nigeria, Dr. Vincent Ahonkhai who actively executed these projects for Gates Foundation all over the world especially in West Africa, should be found and brought back to Nigeria to help out, instead of the “ostriches”.

    Bill Gates is not looking for reelection to any office. He and other rich people like Aliko Dangote are driven by their convictions. Our people are dying needlessly or being pushed to extreme human desperation as selling their young children even before they are born, because of the activities of politicians and civil servants! Very sad.

    I take the trouble to write this rejoinder as my own contribution to make us Nigerians seek a return to our old decent ways when the lower class had confidence that the upper class, consisting of politicians and civil servants, would make them enjoy the promised dividends of Nigeria’s Independence – peace and economic emancipation of all Nigerians.

     

    • Olu Edeki,

    abuome.edeki@gmail.com

  • Our Girls; ‘Middlle Belt must not fall’

    It is now four years and three days since our Chibok Girls were viciously kidnapped in a terrorist attack on an unprotected all-girls school on April 15, 2014. The title of every article in this column since then has started with ‘Our Girls’ to prevent the absent ones being forgotten. ‘Our Girls’ will remain. Figures are being released of dead Chibok girls. Are you incensed? Or are you insensitive to the catastrophic calamity of losing a child to such barbarism like in the 15, 16, 17th Century Slave Trade? This followed many unreported ‘Silent Kidnapping’. Some cases were investigated ‘after the fact’ just like with the murderous herdsmen attacks. No proactive effort!

    The creation of Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) made Chibok insuppressible and many girls eventually returned. Unfortunately Nigeria deploys more police against BBOG than against herders’ terrorism! We learnt no lessons and Dapchi followed with the tragic loss of five girls though the rest were returned in suspicious security circumstances. However we await the release of the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girl-child, 14 year old, Leah Sharibu. Nigeria is a dying patient ravaged by the disease terrorism on an operating table with blood dripping to the floor with thick red-black clotted material round the feet of the surgeon –the government including the National Assembly (NASS). How many time have police pensions and weapons’ funds been bastardised from within and outside the force? Too many daily deaths, 99%+ farmer/villager 5-20/day x 365 days a year at the hands of Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen or Gadhafi trainees, and now Niger Delta pirates terrorizing shipping lanes. Death is death no matter who kills you! The police manage to arrest a single Fulani herdsman with an AK47 out of the many hundreds marauding across the country. Contrast that with gleeful way that 28 villagers are already in court for allegedly defending themselves and killing 10 herdsmen. But no herders are in court for killing even one of the thousands of dead farmer/villagers. A paradox and an injustice!!!

    My article ‘Maiduguri must not fall’ was in response to Boko Haram’s evil intent on Maiduguri. Maiduguri did not fall. Now we must shout ‘The Middle Belt Must Not Fall’ to herder terrorists because we all will fall after it. Listen to Governor Ortom. We need a huge deterrent and proactive police and army body presence nationwide. Only they have the weapons to combat this extreme violence and the villagers have been disarmed ‘to prevent retaliation and bloodshed’. Whose bloodshed??? UNICEF figures for both wars include 1000 children kidnapped, 1400 schools burnt, 2275 teachers murdered, 100,000+ hamlets destroyed, at least 3-5% of Nigeria’s population rendered homeless and dependent. If that is not war, what is? We are under invasion by a terrorist force, Nigerian or imported.

    The president is now fully informed to upgrade the Fulani herders attack threat to the war we know it is and add the herders’ war and the Niger Delta pirates crippling shipping to his daily briefing itinerary. Meanwhile the military is investigating its own military complicity by silence or otherwise in herdsmen attacks. The military must remember that complicity may not be proven but perception is key.

    Mr President, ‘hate speech’ is not the cause of Nigeria’s current wars but please be seen solving the problem fast, today, not post 2019 election. The face of Nigeria would have changed by them with every family knowing a terror event at first hand. Please urgently deal with it as such with military precision, not ‘Attack And Withdraw’ or ‘training mission’ but ‘Attack And Liberate. Your job title demands it and your party’s re-election with or without you depends on it. Please do this before the daily death count will include us all! Did not Boko Haram grow from a mosquito bite into a monster?  Mr President, it is good to order the rehabilitation of all barracks. Mr President your country needs you not only to cater for the welfare of our gallant troops. You must deploy them out of the barracks to fight the herders war, on the side of the farmers/villagers to save Nigeria’s rural population and rural economy now that the villagers have been disarmed by government and left like sitting ducks.

    Second Niger Bridge 44% complete? Wow!!! But, quiet, do not tell NASSty NASS it will most likely stop the funding as it did Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which brought the government into disrepute.

    I still complain about weak media political analysis as the 2019 election approaches. In addition to the moral and legal issues of the Omo-Agege’s suspension from NASS, NASS is about numbers. No media or TV house I saw analysed how the suspension of one and the deaths of two members recently affected the ‘political party numbers game’. Shame!! Of course our NASS voting behavior is politically, deliberately immature with too much credence given to misinterpretation of hearing ‘ayes’ and ‘nays‘ volumes. Hearing voting should be cancelled in NASS.

    Apart from the huge undeserved salaries and perks that Nigerians seem unable to strip from it, NASS appears pathologically pre-occupied with self -protection. Disenfranchising 1/108th of the country’s citizens for 90 or 180 working days is outrageous. Is it a crime to be political in parliament? Peculiarly the whole matter exploded from a statement of loyalty to the president. NASS is indeed a mutated animal, separate from party and citizens desires.

     

    NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

     

  • Our Girls; Cancel Budget 2018? Education

    Our Chibok Girls are missing since April 15, 2014. We await the release of the remaining Dapchi girl-child, 14-year old Leah Sharibu. Too many more deaths even as the police claim a victory by arresting a single Fulani herdsman with an AK47 out of the many hundreds marauding across the country. The rampage in Offa, etc. was a murderous outrage demanding quick solution. The police have lost six or more officers and men and perhaps women and many civilians. The police announced they have several suspects. Good. No country can allow its police to be attacked so recklessly. Prevention is better than cure. Lives once lost can never be replaced.

    There is an international wave of jail time for corrupt leaders across the world. All cases started in national courts. When will Nigeria follow this fine example? Nigeria has to DIY, Do It Yourself and take past leaders to courts.

    It will soon be six months that the budget was given the Senate. No matter who is wrong and who is right, it is an insult to the nation of Nigeria by all elected politicians, in the Presidency and the National Assembly (NASS). It is a 12-month budget. We are the only country in the world who would dare to waste the peoples’ time by spending 6/12s ‘discussing’ a 12 month budget –a complete waste of the time of the nation for whatever reason, politics – pure or dirty, power, pecuniary benefits, distribution of figures, protection of turfs or even corruption issues. Like with universities constantly on strike, Nigeria will soon lose a year of budget. Perhaps it is time for NASS to pass a stupid bill ‘Cancelling the 2018 Budget Year’ and give the now infamous 2017 Budget an ‘Elongation of Tenure to End 2018’.

    Budget 2018 can be renamed Budget 2019 and worked on during the next eight months for release in December and effective in January 2019.  ’Tenure elongation’ to the still running 2017 seems the logical lazy man’s solution. Every politician identified as being involved in this budget delay should be removed from office at the next election. Budgets must become above politics. We are proving ourselves to be a dysfunctional society not like the USA. Unlike the established US, Nigeria cannot afford the luxury of repeated political debilitating delaying budget rows which render it even more dysfunctional.

    CBN is insensitive to the common man by keeping the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 14% point component of every Nigerian 30% bank loan – probably the highest in the world and creating a free fund for CBN, governments which burgeoned under Babangida. Sadly Nigerians live in country in 2018 with maximum interest on very difficult-to-get loans, 1-2 year rent demanded in advance, absent hire purchase, almost zero availability for mortgages. We also live in a country where we must substitute for an archaic, immoral, moronic electricity system that defies improvement in spite of billions of dollars allocated and released. And someone who becomes a politician demands generators etc. as personal  dividends of democracy and ’political perks and necessities of office’ and says we should be happy with our lot and it is the will of God?

    It is not the will of God that Nigerian should not have 24/7 electricity. NB Portugal has gone 100% renewable from solar, water and wind power. Can we use our coming vote to protest against and work to stop the excesses of NASS ‘Salaries and Perks, SAPping us dry?

    If Nigerians are among the happiest people living among such misery, then we are very easy to please or mesmerise or just mumu because we substitute the lack in developmental governance with our sweat or corrupt acquisition of bribes.  Imagine how ecstatic all Nigerians would be with 24/7 electric power, running water, a police force that protects and schools with, guess what,  a library, a lab and a clean attractive toilet-all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

    For most schools in Nigeria, the quality of the schools we send our children to is so low as to almost guarantee no inspiration, low performance, little achievement and poor examination outcome; why is that? We are awash with government organization struggling for political authority over these children but the high failure rate at the last WAEC and NECO says it all. Nigeria’s education system does not need Boko Haram to force its failure. It is a failure in its own right with snail pace curriculum innovation and sometimes curriculum innovation reverse, a bureaucratic quagmire of corruption for book purchases, an almost zero allocation for science and sporting equipment, empty classrooms bereft of posters and visual learning aids.

    We have a paltry six percent, Vs 26% minimum to prevent deterioration in normal societies not under-budgeted like Nigeria, of the budget going to education showing the general political disgust at initiating the educational mechanisms required to procure an educationally competent electorate and workforce. Even the application of UBEC funds supported by huge efforts of Old Students Associations at secondary school level have not  rescued education from the “I am a dunce dustbin’. Our education system, if it can be called a system at all, fails woefully to teach, provide toilets, inspire, motivate, provide labs and libraries or adequately prepare our millions of innocent expectant children for examinations or for life post-examination-SDG rights in spite of politics.

     

    • NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

     

  • Our Girls; Amnesty? Hollow apology?

    Our Chibok Girls are missing since April 15, 2014. We await the release of the remaining Dapchi girl-child, 14-year old, Leah Sharibu. We hear of talks with the other killer groups and amnesty ‘a la Niger Delta’.’ Is it possible that one day we Nigerians will again be free of fear, but at what cost to the threadbare treasury, left empty by the PDP and neo-APC mutants manifest by the PDP finally rendering a ‘nonspecific all embracing’ apology without facts or ‘pay-back schedule’? And is the APC innocent of ravaging Lagos and other states? And for how long will terrorists who perhaps temporarily ‘down AK47 tools’ be undeserving recipients of funds needed for 2.5+ million citizens in IDP camps?

    The amnesty raises a paradox. In the Niger Delta case, there was the citizen protectionist ideology of resistance to oil companies, the NNPC and unitary federal government which left the oil-bearing states wastelands. The Niger Delta targeted the ‘enemy’ – the Federal Government and oil companies. However todays’ terrorists have their ideology targeted directly ‘at the citizenry’ as an ‘anti-education, anti-development agenda’. They kidnap thousands and strap suicide vests on other people’s children, especially girls.

    By the same logic Fulani cow owners, or someone, has instilled in Fulani herdsmen and their protective militia, a driving ‘divine right‘ ideology of ‘’cow first’’ and ‘’free feeding’’ and ‘all Nigeria belongs to us’.

    Both Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen and their string-pullers have targeted ideology at citizens as ‘enemy’ and invade the farms of the highest, execute monarchs, soldiers and policemen seeking to ‘teach a terror lesson’. This makes all citizen targets.

    And under amnesty what is their intended reward for participating in the massive murder of citizens who by the way got no support and little or no compensation for being victims? Perhaps lifetime salaries for murderers like for National Assembly (NASS) leadership. Some of us hold the view that the Niger Delta blanket amnesty, without a truth commission, admission of guilt and some apology was self-defeating, and encouraged other ethnic groups to apply. And now we have come full circle as the financial tap will again be opened for Boko Haram to reap where they sowed suicide bombs and the Fulani herdsmen rampaged.

    Please note that the long bridge at the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway origin near the cow market is now a murderers’ den for victims’ broken down vehicles. If police cannot places patrols there, government must mount barbed wire to make the under-bridge area less porous. Recently a gentleman had his hand almost cut off by a machete cut aimed at his head.

    Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) passes through NASS, 5-10 years late? The federal government’s 2018 budget is still struggling to live. It is now renamed a ‘Premature 2019 budget’, or is it an abortion carried out by NASS!!

    The hollow ‘empty barrel’ apology, ‘full of sound and fury signifying nothing’, should be by parties in whatever power anywhere. Too few were credible and which one did not use thuggery and rig elections. But apologies are rubbish without a catalogue of the woes and a restitution particularly of what is left of their amassed massive loot to the public treasury. Rigged elections, budget thefts, anti-democratic decisions must stop in 2019 in favour of honest violence and thug-free elections.

    All hail the Ikeja Branch of the Lagos NBA. Other professional bodies should sign with them. No matter the good intentions of government, it must subject itself to scrutiny and exorbitant un-negotiated fees are counterproductive to re-election in 2019. The people have had their earnings halved in buying power and deserve defenders from the politicians’ ambitions for ‘trillion naira economies’ creating local post-colonial slavery. Politicians parade as consumptive parasites, running homes and offices ‘free’ on generators and 50-100/litres /day diesel, paid by budgets though the citizen cannot afford similar electric power substitution for their families. Can Nigeria’s political leadership forget the generator for one year and remember when they last bought fuel and serviced a generator with their own money. We do it daily!

    We booed Gowon and others for blocking Lagos roads for hours during state visits. And 40 years on, no lessons learnt. Shame!!!

    Ivory Coast’s electricity company – Compagnie Ivoirienne d’ Electricité (CIE) has a drone school to facilitate monitoring power grids with options for road transport monitoring, security, river flows and medical services.  Will Nigeria, as usual be late to this developmental technology and its introduction to help achieve the SDGs 1-17. The drone is a very cheap, locally-controlled satellite. Nigeria ignored developing its power grid for 50 years and its telephone system until the citizens were rescued by the cell phone. Will Nigeria be late to the drone dining table? Having seen the rubbish schools of Science and Technology best exemplified by the TV photos of the Dapchi school and seen the dilapidated tertiary science facilities and deficient curricular offered by colleges, polytechnics and universities.

    Teachers strike in Oklahoma, USA, over poor pay, poor facilities, insecurity. They should please visit Dapchi school- a hell-school on earth!

    Meanwhile the world buries Stephen Hawking, cosmologist, science populist theoretical physicist, black hole expert, with Sir Isaac Newton. Nigerians parents should teach their children about him and scientists should teach and demand ‘Hawking Essays’ from all their university students.  But will they? Probably not! Happy Easter Period.

     

    • NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.