The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • CBN’s SOS; Prevent school injuries

    CBN’s SOS; Prevent school injuries

    Hurray! CBN’s ‘SECRET OF SUCCESS’ has ‘Saved Our Souls’ and is working faster than internationally predicted.

     The 2024 Easter will go down in Nigeria’s history as ‘THE EASTER WITH NO NEW CLOTHES’, as they lack the traditional gift at Easter. Easter has been very financially depressing challenge for Nigerian families. But the dark cloud enshrouding the weak naira has a silver lining as it is strengthening against the dollar, recovering faster than foreigners expected and lightening the Easter general gloomy mood slightly. All credit to the CBN governor, Yemi Cardoso and his team. Cardoso is the leader in a bitter politically motivated cycle of naira recovery and naira ruin.

     What is CBN’s Secret of Success, SOS. It is not nuclear physics. It is reintroduction of age-long values of the G-O-D, ‘Good Old Days’. The newly dusted values in CBN were ignored for years and are the old values of our Oath of Office and daily mouthed without meaning by government and political office holders.

    In CBN, the current SOS, Secret of Success, is backed up by the reality of instant forensic auditing of every strategy and action. CBN’s SOS is adherence to the letters of the Nigerian National Oath to be ‘FAITHFUL, LOYAL AND HONEST’, FLH, and specifically in Project Nigeria, Project Naira and Project Fellow Nigerian Citizen. Let all Nigerians, not just Governor Cardoso and CBN be FLH in 2024.

    Years ago, this column recommended that the dominant photo in CBN should be a group of poor Nigerian children one from every state and FCT on every wall and desk to remind officials that CBN’s action daily will rescue or ruin the future for children nationwide.

    Today, the CBN, governments and agencies labour under 10–20-year-old ‘neglected debts incurred by criminally irresponsible politicians, officials, bankers, businesspersons and contractors. These failed to perform compulsory responsibilities of paying bills.

    In other countries, areas including Education, Agriculture, Health, Water, Transport and the Central Bank are untouchable by the corrupt or the countries will collapse and lose Future Manpower, Food Sufficiency, Population Health, safe Drinking Water, Human Connectivity, Currency Stability, Developmental and Sovereign Wealth Funds. Inform politicians, civil servants, MDA officials and contractors that we can no longer pay billions in ‘THEFT FEES’ and simultaneously develop.          

    The backlog of government unpaid electricity, salary, pension, maintenance and development bills demonstrates that Nigeria suffers ‘CHRONIC GOVERNMENT DELIBERATELY-INFLICTED DERELICTION of DUTY AND SERVICE PROVISION’.  The ‘unpaid bills money’ has ‘disappeared’ with no punishment for offenders.

    The naira has reawakened and may be less than N800-1,100:$1 in 2-3 months provided we stop oil theft and Dangote and other refineries work and power supply becomes stable reducing costs of living and production. We have another power grid collapse. CBN and EFCC reiterated the ban on spraying naira, and criminalised bank managers and the unnecessary army profiting from selling new notes. Wrongdoers are in court for disgracing and devaluing the naira. Has CBN eliminated the unnecessary and army of itinerant middleman currency ‘aboki’ traders paid by forex sales? Dollar undisputed debts have been paid and theft and criminal deals  between CBN top officials  and commercial banks have hopefully been terminated, which will in-turn terminate questionable trillion-naira forex trading profits for banks. WILL CBN PLEASE ALSO CANCEL OR CURTAIL the CURRENT BURDEN OF CBN-SANCTIONED & UNSANCTIONED EXTORTIONIST BANK ACCOUNT CHARGES UNHEARD OF IN OTHER COUNTRIES?

    WILL Nigerian banks at last get back to normal banking and not ‘Director-lending only’ trap? Amen.

    Money for celebrant and band must now be enveloped or transferred. Expect itchy fingers to create a Nigerian Spraying Artform going through the motions with toy money backed up by an envelope.  Watch and learn. It will be contested in court.       

    CBN Directors are not immune to temptation. Governor Yemi Cardoso and EFCC should be proactive to prevent detrimental CBN Director activity. One bad CBN Director, will ruin the entire CBN reputation. CBN, Please keep it up and keep our precious naira up. Amen.

    The amazing pictures of the brave-faced children kidnapped at Kuriga, receiving education support and school-rehabilitation promises from the relieved governor, must be seen alongside the story of their ordeal at the hands of bandit terrorists and murderers when one vigilante member was murdered and one teacher sadly died in front of the students including his own terrified son during captivity. Just imagine the psychological trauma!

    Read Also: Banks, experts okay CBN’s policy on recapitalisation

    Even if our children can escape being kidnapped, raped, brutalised and bullied and beaten in school, tragically, too many schools, teachers and students in 2024 lack current textbooks, chairs, desks and toilets and infrastructure to be stimulating  learning environments. Last week I saw four students with preventable eye injuries from a thrown stone, biro stab, pencil stab, belt beating and bullying. University students died during a stampede for poverty palliatives, preventable by crowd management. The Federal Ministry of Education and the National Orientation Agency have advocacy work to do to ‘STOP BULLYING, STOP EYE AND OTHER INJURIES IN EDUCATION FACILITIES’. Last week WAEC reported a pathetic 30% (2519 students) pass in the first ever CBT Computer Based Test WASSCE. That failure precipitates the  failure of  ‘generation next’.

    SHOULD LOSING AN EYE OR A LIFE OR A 60% FAILURE RATE BE THE PRICE OF A NIGERIAN EDUCATION? It means our EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS need to be SDG and current curriculum compliant ‘TEACHER/LECTURER AND CHILD/YOUTH  FRIENDLY SCHOOL/ EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS’ or they are not fit for purpose.

  • Freed children! Stop Nigeria’s ‘Failure to Perform’

    Freed children! Stop Nigeria’s ‘Failure to Perform’

    Hurray for the release of the Kuriga, Kaduna State children and teachers. There were nationwide tears of joy, including mine. Congratulations to the president, government, the armed forces, the governor of Kaduna State and others responsible. 

    We must memorialise the valiant murdered vigilante with family support and an honour, e.g. school named after him.

    May the terrorists, their spies, promoters, defenders, mouthpieces, promoters,  supporters and bankers be arrested, tried and punished. May this be the last attack. Amen. Do not trivialise terrorism.

     The kidnap video shows the school’s state, similar to Chibok School of (little or no) science! Not an inviting learning environment to return to.

    Why is Nigeria financially disadvantaged with millions working hard lifelong?

    Nigeria has missed dedicated decisive developmental leadership, supervised monitored and the disciplined followership required to become a 2024 Sustainable Development Goals equal partner country. Instead, and despite adequate resources thrown at us by oil, shipping, airport, mining, banking and educational earnings, Nigeria stagnates, a shadow if its projected self.

    Read Also; Tinubu appoints Garba Laka Counter-terrorism center coordinator

    Nigeria has chronically suffered political self-serving mediocrity manifesting as ‘developmental impotence’ and a ‘political failure to perform’. If Nigeria is the beautiful bride, the political class is just raping us, financially, leaving us with physical scars. This is recently manifest by the ‘off the mic’ or recent financial scandal in Senate raising forensic financial questions in the latest stinking and disgraceful ‘Constitutional Projects Scandal’. Read past EFCC investigation reports.  

    Past political impotence and rape have resulted in massive backlogs of unpaid pensions and salaries, electricity and water bills, genuine contractor fees and even, and quite unforgivably, unpaid  counterpart funds for Basic Primary Education Board jeopardising brain development, future career choice and earning ability.

    This massively incompetent and impotent pathetic but politically widespread approach has not only been detrimental and actually stagnated development nationwide. There is no proper supervision to make sure everyone at each point in government is doing the correct job in time and as-and-when-due or maintaining and improving standards.

    So now instead of multiplying, the water taps in homes and streets in the 1960s have dried up for years. Instead of 60-100Kw power, we have 2-5Kw and every home is condemned to an environmentally murderous generator. School libraries are mostly a memory of grandparents, not even parents. School sports are mostly theoretical.

    Without pensions and salaries, the famed Nigerian Extended Family, the real traditional and historically first bank in Nigeria, has been murdered. This has destroyed the financial, social and moral fabric of the Nigerian extended family. Youth sneer at, disrespect and disobey un-providing parents and grandparents who, salary and pension-less, cannot even buy sweets for them.

    This greed-driven approach has allowed those impotent and corrupt leaders, and their followers to identify a lot to steal in 100s of billions of naira. If that money had been properly disbursed, remitted and spent as-and-when-due, monthly, there would never have been any single  steal-able mountain of N100m, N500m, N1,000,000,000, N100,000,000,000 i.e. N100b  scattered throughout Nigerians MDAs and banks. Even presidential ticket forms and then copycat kidnap demands are now N100m.

    If they did everything right according to their sworn obligation to the General Orders of government schedule imposed on the citizenry, the money would have been spent correctly and there would have been nothing to steal. 

    If bills and debts are unpaid by the leadership as-and-when-due, all defaulters will automatically run into trouble. This is the golden rule of fortune and misfortune in life and government budgets. How dare government agencies owe years of electricity bills? EFCC must charge past defaulting office holders for dereliction of fiscal duty.

     Nigeria’s financial woes started long ago. The political class’s greedy sense of ‘assets entitlement’ not ‘assets management and maximum service delivery’ changed them from custodians of public funds and day-to-day government running, into corrupt criminal monstrous  ‘masters of our money’.  

    ‘WHAT CAN I DO FOR MYSELF? 

    ‘SELF(ISH) DEVELOPMENT’ cannot lead to the ‘DEVELOPMENT OF ALL OTHERS’ which is the only key to developmental success. They deliberately dismantled, diverted and disabled many essential maintenance schemes inherited from the colonialists. Their failure to perform, a form of impotence, resulted in the ‘systematic deterioration’ in our infrastructure. 

    This failure to perform was manifest first by the politician’s greedy nature demanding generators and fuel forever, borehole water, police security and several allowances and money for mansion(s). Every family subsequently became a Local Government. The political class rejected denigrated professional advice on maintenance and needed infrastructural expansion to empower the development agenda. This destruction of first-class civil service and private sector culture of maintenance resulted in countrywide destruction of road, rail, water, electricity and building infrastructure. The maintenance money disappeared as did our dream of a Great Nigeria.

    Simply by not being on seat to sign payment vouchers, evil persons can accumulate billions in banks which pay huge finders fees and the same money can be delayed, diverted and ‘disappeared’.  Of course, Nigeria had and has honest leaders and followers. But one thieving person or politician who withholds a cheque and boldly gets away with it, or is promoted after stealing, inspires others.

    A stolen N100b ruins millions, cripples and disgraces governments and reverses development.

    To recover quickly, requires politicians, officials, banks, indeed all Nigerians to stop stealing in 2024.

    Remember Nigeria’s money, especially in budget 2024, is insufficient for the needs of service delivery and also the greed of political democrazy stealing.

     Just stop!

  • TV name runner; murdered military; school security

    TV name runner; murdered military; school security

    Why, when guests are on TV, is the name runner left for such a short time for both local and international programming? If the foreign media does not leave the name of the person speaking for an intelligently long period of time, why must local Nigerian programming follow suit? How can a person who tunes in late watch for 15 minutes an interview with no name appearing, just because ‘That is how we were taught’? It is now obvious that you were taught wrong and should improve on your teachers’ efforts.  Does leaving the name runner permanently hurt anyone or limit the view in some way?

    Conclusion: Leave the name runner on the screen throughout the appearance so it can be read and remembered. It costs nothing!  Why hide the name of your media guest during an interview in AFRICA? Both the viewed guest and the viewing public lose.

     Murdering soldiers on peace missions…In a country in which no war has been declared, there can be no justification for the murder and capture of the weapons of 14 decorated soldiers and distinguished officers of the armed forces while on a peace mission between two communities. These soldiers and officers were already recognised for their dedicated combat experience in theatres of Nigeria’s many ‘We Are Not Yet At War’  combat areas in our over 20-year terrorist incursion mainly in the North.

    Now it has been murderously shown that even where there should be relative peace, a war-like situation can arise in seconds and transform military peace path into a pirate or terrorist driven bloodbath and a watery grave. Even the hostage they sought to negotiate release of, was also found dead, executed and floating in the water with his hands tied behind his back and some of military bodies had been mutilated. Many mourning widows and children. Nigerians remember Odi, a town Bayelsa, in which 12 policemen were similarly murdered by local gangs on November 5, 1999.  Under President Obasanjo the military went in on November 20, 1999 to reassert authority with many more casualties and homes lost. A court in 2013 ordered the federal government to pay N37b of a demanded N100b, as compensation, for completely destroying the town with loss of an estimated 60-100 civilian lives according to the court records.

    It remains to be seen what lessons the federal government reaction will show have been learnt  in 2024- 25 years later, as we struggle to understand this callous and needless loss of military lives and family men on national services  at the hands of yet another gang or group of terrorists using villagers and townsfolk as human shields. Is there any ‘measured response’ to such mindless violence?

    Will history repeat itself or will the real criminals be brought to book? Human rights are of maximum importance when human wrongs have been done on such a massive scale. It is reported that areas have been destroyed. We pray the gang was neutralised or arrested. 

    Note that those ‘We Are Not Yet at War’ skirmishes have still managed to have caused over five million Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in and outside camps and cost the blood of hundreds of thousands of murdered and millions of injured, physically and mentally abused suffering from PTSD and the scars of losing thousands of homes, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land – stolen and insecure-. Lost jobs, schooling and even identity and entire future. 

    Read Also: Senate passes N446bn FIRS 2024 budget

    The callous kidnapping of 280 children, a heinous crime, is still raw on our minds as the military grapple with the task of liberating them from their kidnappers who use the children as human shields who could easily become their killers as they have no human value of even children apart from cash. You cannot imagine the anger, terror, anguish and torture that child, parent and siblings are going through.

    Have we lost the opportunity of a 280-child rescue without ransom and reward for the kidnappers? Every police and armed forces report and documentary earmarks the value of the first 2 and 48 and 72 hours. It is 10 years since Chibok more than 1400 children demonstrate that needed lessons learnt are yet to reach the classroom or they should have caused a different, more positive outcome from what we have seen.

    What happened to the much talked about ‘SECURITY VOTE’ and the longed-for realisation of the apparently fictional tweaking of the mysterious ‘SCHOOL SECURITY ARCHITECTURE’. We had expected to hear of panic buttons, secret alarms, sirens, cell-phone spies, bush fires and even different colour of clothing as signs of passing terrorists should all be in place as well as drone surveillance. By now Nigerians hoped for an Emergency Elite Anti-Mass Kidnapping Airborne Brigade which can be flown to an advanced location to obstruct, encircle, redirect, restrict and contain such gangs of assassins and hinder their exit while larger forces quickly move up from behind to encircle the offenders. Even if the children were force-marched or forced to run, an immediate  perimeter at 10 or 20 kilometres within an hour or two would have been able to cause disruptive release of many  of them, without any shot being fired.

    The whole country is praying in support of the 24 hours/ day efforts of the various political and security organs linked with international satellite heat-seeking surveillance to bring our children home alive. Amen.

  • 280+ children taken; pension arrears= capital offence

    280+ children taken; pension arrears= capital offence

    We had the exciting phrase ‘security architecture’ bounced around in relation to the despicable Chibok ‘assault on the country’s children’.  Now more desperate parents face more torture with further mass kidnappings, 280+ children and teachers last week. At what point do we ‘ADMIT WE ARE IN A STATE OF WAR’ and know militarily that we must surround and destroy the enemy and not just confront the enemy and allow it to relocate to kidnap more children elsewhere tomorrow? Nigeria is well covered by satellite should pay for access to  European Union, United States, Russian, Chinese, Australian, Middle Eastern cross-referenced satellite information covering 200 kilometres around the Ground Zero from seven days before the attacks till today. It is the only remote way to get ‘WHERE THEY CAME FROM’, ‘HOW THEY CAME’ and ‘WHERE THEY HAVE GONE’. But I guess the military is doing this already. We pray for their safe release with minimum trauma.          

    A state in Nigeria has pension arrears since 2007. The governor has announced that the effort to pay is ‘a Capital Project’ meaning that it is being moved from a budget item under ‘Recurrent Expenditure’ to ‘Capital Expenditure’. This is indeed a unique solution to a shameful, disgraceful failure of past administrative performance and an example of bad governance. We must congratulate the governor for tackling this huge burden. Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State met a similar criminal accumulated pension debt and has since liquidated it. Congratulations.

    It demonstrates a serial ‘Failure to Practice Good Governance’ or fulfil the serious responsibilities of office on the part of the 2007-to-date governments. Imagine the despair of the thousands retiring from a working life for government. The huge devastation, deprivation, denial of normal life and devaluation of the person -emotionally, economically and socially-, in the Nigerian nuclear and extended family and wider Nigerian society is unimaginable. 

    The state of ‘chronic pensionlessness’ has certainly led to more disease and worsening of disease and more early death of pensioners and their loved ones because medical treatment is  out of reach of the penniless pensioner. The pensioner also loses the respect of the children and grandchildren as they cannot perform simple grandparent tasks like providing ‘sweet, biscuit or akara and emergency supplementary pocket money’. The unpaid pensioner is immediately turned from an earner and retiree to a koboless beggar with no hope and a burden dependent on the children for medicines, food, shelter, transport and clothing.

    So, because pensioners and their family members sometimes die, the non-payment of pensions should be designated ‘Capital Offence’ and past governments and the leadership should be accused of such ‘Capital Offences’ and punished accordingly especially as worldwide politicians and sportspersons and others are in court for past irresponsible offences  when they were younger.

    Past governors and even presidents and their top government officials have a lot of negligent behaviour to apologise and make reparations for. They must forfeit their personal property to partly offset the unpaid pension. Yes, governors complain that previous governments deliberately employed political deadwood just to economically and politically annoy and destabilise incoming governors by giving them an added salary and pension burden.         

    The governor or president faced with a multiyear and multibillion naira backlog of pensions is very frustrated at the irresponsible behaviour of his predecessors in office who, by failing to pay pensions, failed to keep their Oath of Office and are seen to be getting away with negligence, fraud, diversion of funds, and spreading misery and even murder among their voter population.

    Read Also: NAFDAC shuts down 10 substandard bakeries, eight water factories in Rivers

    What an insult to Fellow Nigerians  who elected or were forced to allow the leadership  to be ‘selected’ and imposed on the population which looked up to them only to be exposed to malignant criminal leadership failure. No one should be in responsible public office, elected or promoted, if they do not want to meet their sworn obligations to use the available funds for the budgeted needs in recurrent expenditure. Is there a single governor or president who does not know he must pay pensions along with salaries, electricity and water bills? Look at NASS and the presidency. They happily pay outrageous petrol and diesel bills but not electricity bills.  Sadly too many governors and even presidents have allowed both salaries and pensions to become ‘Party Political Pocket Money’ and just another usable item in the long list of mis-usable and abusable items like ‘Maintenance’ under ‘Party Political Propaganda’, Even granted that governors hate leaving things in good order for the next government, they should remember they are ‘governor’ and not ‘God’ denying the Human Rights of citizens to salaries and pensions and shirking their responsibility to honour their oath to provide them.

    Let us not pretend that the pension office like the tax office is somehow without fraud and immune from corruption.

    It was not so long ago that armed forces pensioners were forced to take over streets in Abuja. Recently we are told that 1000 widows of police or armed forces were given their rightful financial dues -how many years overdue?  Why was each widow not paid immediately as aright and honour?

     We are told fine new words ‘N3trillion legacy debts in electricity etc’. Legacy debt is misapplied to criminally ‘unpaid bills’ transferred government to governments as a yoke-a bad governance ‘inheritance’. They are evidence of financial crimes demanding EFCC investigation of the criminal burden passed to subsequent governments.

  • $1billion donation; Support the new CBN

    $1billion donation; Support the new CBN

    The donation of $1billion by Dr Ruth Gottesman, from her husband’s investments with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is great and a greater lesson in responsibility of billionaires everywhere especially in needy environments. Multibillion donations are an integral part of developed countries. The US thrives on such legacy donations and investment supporting education and health. Hospitals and universities in the US or UK are smothered with donor names on rooms, wards, departments, buildings, structures and even entire institutions because of the financial contribution or the stature of the name, like Einstein or Soyinka. Congratulations to the $1billion donor and recipients.

    Happily, many Nigerians and Nigerian businesses have donated billions to the buildings and working of universities and departments, schools and institutions. Western education has been supported since the 18th Century in Nigeria.  The first big donation was Trenchard Hall, built by UAC in 1956, costing £61,000. The university then suggested the name of Lord Trenchard, the UAC chairman. Without UAC, would there have been a Trenchard Hall?

    After UAC, many companies and donors have contributed to education and health in Nigeria, but not enough. The Big Brother scenario could have helped youth education instead of being of questionable value while enriching MTN. Recently the family of Mama Professor Mrs Oyin Olurin @ 90, distinguished medical teacher and Ophthalmologist created a professorial chair in University of Ibadan. Years ago, the Chief Anthony A. Ani family created a professorial chair in the University of Calabar. The Zard Group and the Alakija Group and Bono donate the youth centre through Educare Trust. We can add the amazing work and the huge funds invested in private universities including Covenant, Afe Babalola, Kola Daisi universities. Similar is expected of the multibillion Herbert Wigwe University despite the tragic passing of its funding principal.

    Dr Gottesman, a professor at Einstein College of Medicine wished to donate the money anonymously to give free tuition in perpetuity to medical students in Einstein College of Medicine, in The Bronx, a poor area. Anonymity was respectfully denied her because the donation required publicity to metamorphose into an avalanche of similar donations.

    We are all aware of the Billionaires Giving Pledge Club set up by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and has recruited 236 billionaires willingly giving up half or more of their fortunes to charitable causes, totalling $600b+.

    Nigerian billionaires, including the ones with the president on TV, should redouble their donation skills especially where it comes to failing health and educational institutions. The donatable billions are needed now. It is no good in foreign banks. Children unfortunately generally mismanage large inherited fortunes, so donate to other, really needy, children. Large fortunes become misfortunes too often. Ask multimillion lottery winners. They are never happy till they have given it all away.  Investment in research education and health has been shown worldwide to be transformative in the job, economic and foreign exchange market. Even Nollywood and theatre need a so-far negligent government’s grant seen in the credits, like most films abroad and also billionaires’ support as they employ large numbers and are profitable.

    Many years ago, a Nigerian billionaire donated £1million to a London project. If that money had been donated to a Nigerian project imagine what value would have been added to Nigeria.

    We congratulate all Nigerian billionaires even as we raise serious questions on the morality, honesty of business dealing, banking strategies and cleanliness of their cumulative fortune. The growing collective billionaire fortune must be contrasted with Nigeria’s skyrocketing misfortune. What is the use of ‘billion-billion-billion’ when your fellow citizens are suffering hardships due to past greed and massive theft? This misfortune is manifested by the disastrously weakening naira and today’s economic hardship.

    Read Also: CBN warns Nigeria, others of new debt risks

    We have a CBN governor trying to save the raped, robbed, rubbished rag that the innocent naira has been forced to become in my working life from $1: N0.8 to $1:1,400-1,700. Nigeria now walks naked in the world’s markets, our weak naira, no protection from shame!

    The first step in the massive effort to stop the precipitous slide is on-going by CBN’s bold shutting down of the previously untouchable parallel market, a beast of no …fed illegally by Nigeria’s CBN dollars passing through or bypassing bank channels to the  abokis and their handlers and starving the black market of product-dollars. Have you tried stopping a lorry plunging downhill with failed breaks sabotaged by deliberate previous government economic manipulation and ongoing nefarious trading outside CBN?

    For those angry with this government for shutting down over 4,000 crime-driven BDCs and stopping the inflationary and unnecessary ‘middleman job’ for thousands of aboki spots, ask them to think hard. Where would Nigeria be today, if Emefiele was still CBN czar and the CBN had not stopped the naira-rot for the last 3-6 months of so? Would the naira be $1: N3,000 ???

    Once the naira free fall is stopped, the open sore of black market will close or be forced underground and not insultingly flaunted in our faces at thousands of bank, airport and street spots. Only then will we see oil corruption reduction strategies increase our oil exports and revenues.

    The funds from our oil, paid direct to CBN, will rapidly offset our huge debts, unpaid by serial renegade degenerate MDAs, government officials and politicians who should be prosecuted.

    But sadly, to recover can we endure for now, at a time politicians cannot suppress their own manifest greed over need?           

  • Bills; ‘Customs rice?’ Naira: Support CBN

    Bills; ‘Customs rice?’ Naira: Support CBN

    We must ask why, and how come, government facilities including the armed forces were not forced to pay their power bills. If they had paid monthly, the huge accumulated debts would be non-existent. It is the abandonment of such international-standard government routine administrative basic norms that allows huge sums to be accumulated. But when not spent, the funds are stolen but the electricity bills still have to be paid. Double jeopardy.

    MDAs must behave responsibly and act in a leadership position in regard to utility bills and maintenance.  This negligence is intolerable, demonstrating the arrogance and impunity of past administrative leadership. The money is huge but only because it was not paid monthly. It would be interesting to know exactly which government failed to pay. They must explain their incompetence, irresponsibility and arrogance. We must compare this to the massive harassment of the normal citizen for owing small amounts for even a month. 

    All Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) should be forced to review ‘all Billing/Payment Procedures’ and liquidate their debts. Nothing is for free. If MDAs do not pay, the debts may illegally be transferred to the bills of the citizens of Nigeria thus criminally inflating their bills. This is what is believed to have taken place in regard to citizens’ electricity bills and also International Direct Dialling, IDD, and other telephone bills of citizens which were given to innocent citizens which ballooned their bills scandalously. Electricity bill should be paid monthly or sack the incompetent civil servant or CEO. President Tinubu, having directed the State House to pay its bills, should insist MDAs, as part of his reforms, do likewise monthly.

    Is there evidence that the civil servants at all levels of governance presented the monthly Electricity Bill but the head refused to pay?  Was the money allocated, paid out but stolen?

    Ramifications of ‘Customs Rice’: it is ‘Our rice’, not Customs rice. Customs is re-bagging, rebranding ‘FGN Customs’ and selling at 25k/bag for N10,000, seized rice direct to the public on presentation of NIN and telephone number. It is hoped that the federal government auditors will ensure that all rice is accounted for. Some argue that the rice was seized and therefore should not be sold, but given out free. Sadly, some deaths have been reported during distribution.

    Why were re-bagging, rebranding done especially as they add no value, only cost. There is an argument that the rice should have been handed over to the normal humanitarian and economic intervention agencies for free distribution to orphanages, schools, hospitals and to widows. Anyone who has N10,000 may not be seriously needy.  What will happen to the N10,000s as inflow into Customs? The accountant general and auditor general should immediately monitor the scheme to prevent it becoming scam, so that the good name of Customs remains unstained. Maybe EFCC and ICPC should help produce a ‘Customs Rice Account’ and pay the funds to CBN, as custodian.

     Senator Ned Nwoko, has emphasised the need for naira to be the single legal currency, with the complete abandoning of the dollar.  Certain government agencies, in ports, airports and petroleum industry charge landing, docking, take-off fees in dollars for services. However, there is now a CBN directive that those payments must be paid directly, no delays or diversions, to dedicated accounts at CBN. This will help empower the naira and will eliminate the flow of dollars from agencies to the black market and politics. Many of us are enraged at the atomisation of the naira. This has been fuelled by a fraudulent bank leadership, new note selling -immediate devaluation, round-tripping, Bureau de Change corruption, mass speculative purchase of dollars at-any-price by politicians post-FAAC meetings, abuse of the security vote and a bottomless hitherto untouchable black market manned by an army of street corner abokis, the ethnic peddlers of the hidden black-market ethnic leadership which wickedly set the illegal black market dollar to naira rate at midnight daily, getting the dollars from where? Banks and billionaires?

    All these are economic sabotage and treason. At last in a multi-pronged financial/police/EFCC action, those destroying the naira are facing the full heat and wrath of a determined CBN team led by Yemi Cardoso. He must not stand alone because corruption is fighting back. We the people and public should rally around the CBN to stop this economically disastrous free fall of naira. Government must stop mega and petty theft.

    Read Also: House invites CBN Gov over REMITA leakages

    The recent forensic audit of CBN must include forensic audit of the CBN customers and also the banks. Are we getting money back? If so, the people need to know now, on a weekly basis through a ‘WEEKLY FUNDS REPORT’. Citizens ask about returned stolen funds. Announced recovery but no visible application of the recovered funds. We require a new law that ALL CASH RECOVERED FROM EFCC AND ICPC SUSPECTS AND CRIMINALS AND POLITICIANS MUST BE DIRECTLY DEPOSITED IN CBN WITHIN 12 OR 24 HOURS of recovery especially in these days of electronic transfer when the money should go direct to the CBN held EFCC or ICPC RECOVERY of FUNDS ACCOUNT. It appears even seized assets like houses and vehicles are prone to ‘waka’ or be sold to the favoured few, out of the public view.  This must stop. Recovered assets must be widely publicised and publicly disposed of or converted to public use and thieves prosecuted.         

  • Nigeria/CBN: Ask dollar/naira billionaires for a $50b loan

    Nigeria/CBN: Ask dollar/naira billionaires for a $50b loan

    The African Development Bank under its determined president, Akinwumi Adesina is lifting Africa up with hope for the future. The AfDB is not to be confused with another, untapped fund within Nigeria. This is the ADNBN= Association of Dollar/Naira Billionaires of Nigeria.  The ADNBN should take action before their fortunes are further negatively impacted by Nigeria’s huge miss(ing)fortune. Can they come together and form a NBB, Nigerian Billionaires Bank, to provide a $50billion loan to back up Nigerian foreign reserves?  Nigeria has been good to billionaires. It is time to rescue the Nigerian sinking ship. The billions are in banks; why not lend them to a new improved CBN? ‘We bailed out our country in need’. Patriotic billionaires. Does the frequent death of wealthy people teach us nothing about the futility of an unfortunate unspent fortune?

    But there is international precedent in Bill Gates. He persuaded Warren Buffet and then, the ABA, Association of Billionaires of America and elsewhere, to join his Billionaires Pledge Club, billionaire members voluntarily giving away half (yes 50%+) of their fortunes. It has 236+ members from 26 countries, honest even if morally ruthless or opportunistic.

    We can discuss the morals of billionaire wealth and achieve nothing. But the wealth exists. It can be used for benefit or to give nothing to the billions of citizens in politically-driven need of infrastructure today for a future tomorrow. ‘Making Wealth worthwhile’ and impacting the society and world is why the Billionaires Pledge Club has raised $600billion that was previously frozen, untouchable.  To reach this initially crazy but inspired goal, Bill Gates simply did three things: 1. SHOWED GOOD EXAMPLE- LEADERSHIP AND COMMITMENT  2. ASKED FOR SIMILAR EXAMPLES FROM OTHERS and 3.CREATED A GOAL- A SUPER-EXCLUSIVE BILLIONAIRE GIVING CLUB. Even billionaires require challenges, incentives and goals to give. 

    What lesson can Nigeria, an economically formerly rich country with potential now ridden into the ground by political, administrative and commercial greed and mismanagement, learn from Bill Gates, the  self-sufficient very wealthy man who saw beyond personal self-aggrandisement? He even dreamt beyond personal huge ability to contribute. By an economic and social masterstroke, he metamorphosed from a one man’s 50% effort of maybe $40b total to a giant 236 person centi-pedal multipronged force-for-greater-good. Hopefully. He thus multiplied what one billionaire could do to what 236 billionaires could do for the world by combining their GIVEAWAY wealth. Bill Gates and the Billionaires Giving Pledge Club have become an exemplary study point in social and economic universities worldwide. Another time Bill Gates ideas have yielded billions! Can Nigeria learn and follow this example? 

    Imagine Nigeria/CBN reaching out to each of the estimated 1000+ Nigerian billionaires or one billionaire reaches out to the CBN. Imagine that they mutually agree to deposit $1b, interest-free or at very low 0.5-2% interest for five or 10 years guaranteed deposit-just like World Bank, IMF and some other long term, soft term loans. The first billionaire to do it will be likened to Bill Gates and he or she will be recognised forever as the first Nigerian billionaire to lead others in supporting Nigeria in this very desperate hour of its need for dollars to pay genuine long outstanding debts which ‘CBN Emefiele & Co’ failed to pay as-and-when-due but instead diverted the dollars to other activities of no economic benefit and in fact definite economic loss to Nigeria.      

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    Nigeria’s downward security and economic spiral is directly traced to the coalescence of multiple factors, many involving greed above need. That greed turned everything into ‘for sale’. They sadly steal and sell banks and clean naira, roundtrip dollars, monetise ‘on-seat’-‘not-on-seat’-‘I-know-the-person’ thus selling connections and influence. Greed has turned government offices into negotiation nightmares and a depressing experience. Greed and self-interest monetise every activity from security,  parking, gateman, receptionist, PA-Personal Assistant or secretary obstruction and facilitation, waiting room space and chairs, introductions, appointments and cancellations, letter writing, opening and finding files and filing, documents and documentation and photo-capture. Let us add the final insult – selling the key to the only usable toilet- always mis-labelled ‘Executive Toilet’. They steal maintenance money, even for their own public toilet and toilet paper– a human waste right.

    The prevailing poverty is caused largely by years of tens of thousands of deliberate maximum thieves in and around governance and banking who have horribly raped and robbed Nigerians ‘of their quality and quantity of life’ using legally-illegal or illegally-legal or simple crime-driven thieving means. We stand, financially and morally naked, in our hyper-priced market now. Some say we are all guilty. I am not. Are you?

    Occasionally, usually by accident, not forensic audits, our EFCC/ICPC or police capture a few multimillionaire/billionaire white collar thieves. We are shocked at the zero-remorse witnessed as they ‘glide through the gilded legal gauntlet’ only to ‘walk-away-free’ after returning plea-bargained peanuts. Some of the convicted will later ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ from suspect judicial systems after media covered smiley-or-pretend-collapsed-crippled accused in court cases. These cases  later, by illuminated legal luminaries and judges, may be deemed to have started in the wrong court or investigation date or other monumentally unjust technicality. Something needs SAN-itising.       

    Politicians trying to make a university degree the minimum academic qualifications for political leadership in 2027 have hit a ‘the-bill-is-stepped-down’ wall. Yes, all politicians of any education can fail or steal or rally the masses. But can a School Certificate President or Governor decide constructively on our budget, AI, IT, SDGs, and MATERNAL MORTALITY? 

  • Wigwe, Ogunbanjo, RIPP; Valentine’s; Osundare’s Poem

    Wigwe, Ogunbanjo, RIPP; Valentine’s; Osundare’s Poem

    The tragic loss of CEO Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, founder of Wigwe University, his wife Chizoba, a child and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, chairman, Nigerian Exchange Group Plc in a helicopter crash is a terrible blow to the family, friends and the intellectual Nigerian business community. May they RIPP. 

    Happy Valentine’s Day to all Nigerians. Congratulations to Nigerian football players, families, coaches, sponsors for overcoming the chronic underfunding of Nigerian sports, and other challenges. Number two is really good and not bad second out 16 teams. Some people died watching you, including football colleagues renowned and respected High Chief Osunde and an NYSC member, unbelievably dead to family and friends at the start of his adult life. Tragic. That sacrifice must count for something? How many governors have bought even one football for schools or complete sports equipment-hurdles, high and long jump, all the balls – table, tennis, etc. etc. like schools worldwide? 

    Please Google and read Emeritus Professor Niyi Osundare’s latest poem ‘Corruption weds Incompetence’. A masterpiece as usual, it speaks to our problems and the easily identified solutions. Pray it is read to every Nigerian and acted upon by every corrupt Nigerian. ‘TO SURVIVE, NIGERIA NEEDS A YEAR OFF CORRUPTION’.

    Everywhere our ‘CINS’ –‘Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence, Selfishness’ destroy our currency, our country.

    It is time we all listened and acted  to stop more greed-above-need, complete contract theft and frustration of every well-intentioned government effort, often by officials responsible to deliver the project to the ‘h-angry’ poor, the children in ‘rubbish’ schools, the women in ‘ill-equipped and undermanned’ hospitals, the traveller on the ‘potholed, poorly secured’ road or the entrepreneur drowning in ‘multiple taxation’ from federal, state, local government, area boys and local terrorists and bandits.

    For over 70 years, our brightest minds in journalism and every discipline have filled every newspaper with articles, reports and research clearly identifying the problems and solutions to Nigeria’s seemingly irreversible backwardness in  stepping up to success. Let us not forget the army of the public in the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section. In addition, every administration starts with a glossy, well-researched, never implemented manifesto-now called ‘fake manifesto’.

    By the end of every administration, military or civilian, there has been almost uniformly failure to bring the manifesto to mature fruition. The country is one-step-forward-five-steps back in economic and other yardsticks of growth. Often the incoming regime, even from the same political party, is too politically petty or corrupt, to build on and finish past administration’s uncompleted projects and strategies. These projects, costing billions rot away, bleeding society and reducing the collective financial inheritance of all citizens. Yet there is no punishment for failure to spend money wisely or finish a project. The country is choking with uncompleted projects costing trillions of naira-an economic crime.

    Daily I twice drive past an abandoned NEPA seven storey 100metre long building and see-through monstrosity which could have been completed to make a magnificent office, school, hostel or single flat housing scheme if NEPA had no need for it and the contract smelt of corruption rat. It is exactly like Ikoyi with the ‘now infamous’ abandoned and stripped naked shell of a once proud and hugely costly [to Nigerians] Federal Government Secretariat.

    It annoys every honest Nigerian because such monuments were conceived and raised up, as our own pyramids of Egypt, to our glory and future economic advancement, but have mutated into monstrosities testifying to our failure in governance systems. It is our Nigerian citizens’ money abandoned since long before Uncle Bola Ige was murdered 23-12-2001. I know because I took photographs from the top of the abandoned NEPA building of the Educare Trust Gallery that Uncle Bola commissioned. 

    The entire country is disappointed by the abandoned unfulfilled promise of TINAPA, a major government contribution to Nollywood, strangled and abandoned by subsequent governments. Citizens’ money wasted. 

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    There are thousands of failed projects taunting and tormenting Nigerians nationwide. The worst case is probably Ajaokuta. Conceived between 1967 and 1973, started in 1979, 84% completed by 1983, 98% completed by 1994 and corporate and government quagmire with buyouts and buybacks and stalemates followed. The loser? Nigeria! How much lost? Billions of dollars. Result = zero so far.

    The mention of Ajaokuta Steel Mill, is a metaphor for Nigeria’s failure, and annoys most Nigerians as it has hung around Nigeria’s neck like a never-ending chain of financial loss and no steel.  This has disappointed the entire Nigerian population since 1979, 44 years of political and legal problems and failed promises with no solutions. This government is active on the Ajaokuta Steel Mill. When will our losses end and income begin?

    The courts are frustrating EFCC and Nigerians. Today’s court success become tomorrow’s court failure. Criminals go free with really petty fines for really major crimes. Massive multi-billion naira crimes with successful initial prosecution rendered ‘null and void’ on the technicality of whether investigation was initiated before or after the then jailed party was in or out of employment. It used to be a ‘thief is a thief’ especially after returning more than N2billion, no matter which court or employment.

    It has been reiterated that statutory fines in the laws should be erased from all laws as they are out of tune with financial reality. Fine size should be at the discretion of the judge and relevant to the crime and should not be ‘jail or a fine’ but ‘jail and a fine’.

  • Scrap ‘Passport LGA Letter’; 56 women kidnapped; Three Obas murdered

    Scrap ‘Passport LGA Letter’; 56 women kidnapped; Three Obas murdered

    Stop blaming INEC for any last Saturday’s bye-election disruption and thuggery. Blame instigating politicians who should be prosecuted and they and their party banned for 10 years. 

    We must reiterate last week’s call on this page for the need for an urgent solution to the new bureaucracy-created delay in ‘Renewing or New Passports’ demonstrating how a good beginning can fail to cross the ‘for public good’ finish line’.  Government should please SCRAP The OFFENDING LGA LETTER REQUIREMENT which, as expected is converted into a corruption scam with delays and costs to citizens. Certainly, we must exclude criminally-minded foreigners from access to our treasured citizenship and passports without due process especially with the influx of millions from war-torn Sahel areas illegally for nefarious ‘electorate inflation’ voting, violence, terrorist, bandit, and herder reasons. However, punishing all, especially ‘passport renewals’ with this requirement, turns the much anticipated and wonderfully intentioned ‘Seamless Easy Passport Issuance’ into a new 2023 nightmare. Exactly what the government is trying to prevent, it is precipitating -delays, bottlenecks, extra bribery costs.

    The grand laudable ‘New Passport Plan’ was to put into simply practice compliance with worldwide standards of a ‘Speedy Contactless Passport Process’. ‘A letter from the LGA’ in the ‘List of Requirements’ is a negation as citizens’ LGAs have nothing to do with their right to hold a passport. An in-house review of the scheme as it stands is an advance on where it was before this regime took over. However, we are moving directly backwards to square one as the in-house corruption and delays of the Passport Office have merely been transferred to the LGAs which will happily and greedily take us back to the still very recent age of bribery and corruption. Let us add the dangers, difficulties and terrors of the long trip to an unwelcoming and hostile LGA probably not seen in the lifetime of the citizen needing a passport.

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    Government officials often ignorantly make rules and regulations without streetwise context or thought for repercussions or strategic scenario studies on ‘WHAT CAN GO WRONG? HOW CAN THIS BE ABUSED?’ The result is a positive policy becoming negative and detrimental in practice, sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. Of course, the LGA chairmen will lobby against the cancelation of the letter requirement claiming potential loss of income and relevance. But a government review will show the LGA letter is more harmful than good with delays, costs, psychological trauma and corruption. The non-Nigerians who government is hoping to exclude will, sadly, be the first the bribe or intimidate to collect the letter ASAP. If not, they will terrorise and perhaps terminate the ‘stubborn, honest’ LGA officials who refuse demands. Were three Obas sadly, not killed in cold blood, executed, last week?

    Let us stop preying on Fellow Nigerians and treat them as true ‘Fellow Nigerian’. It is undoing or unnecessarily delaying the planned, but as yet unfulfilled, ‘contactless two-week passport issuance’, damaging both citizens and Nigeria’s ‘ease of doing business’. There is nothing contactless about getting to the LGA.

    We await the urgent removal of the LGA LETTER FROM THE PASSPORT APPLICATION REQUIREMENT BY THE WISDOM AND CITIZEN-FRIENDLY AND ‘SEAMLESS PASSPORT’ MINISTER. IF HIS HANDS ARE TIED, BY WHOEVER, THEN THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT MUST BE ASKED TO OVERRULE THE INSTRUCTION.

    In Katsina, 56 women kidnapped, and hundreds nationwide. Fear and sorrow everywhere! And now the execution of two Obas, and then a third Oba, a retired military general, the Oba of Koro, Peter Segun Aremu, should be shaking the ‘security architecture’, verbose words meaning nothing, to its foundation. The murderers aimed at three Obas in the first attack but one Oba escaped by the grace of God. Sadly, Oba Aremu’s wife and others were kidnapped for an unimaginably high N100 million ransom, others killed or wounded are also Fellow Nigerians. N100 million was the cost of the presidential aspirant’s form and was quickly adopted by kidnappers, from politicians, as a benchmark for ransom. Was Oba Aremu’s murder a separate killing or related? Yes, these murders are nationwide. Personally, we narrowly escaped after being surrounded in an attack on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway at Km 41 in 17-3-2017 at 3-4pm.  

    Why do we do not ‘declare war’ instead of the reactionary mobilisation activities and operations to areas long abandoned by the killers who escape unchallenged after attacks, kidnappings and murders? We must applaud the police and security services victories and sacrifice as we do know our armed forces are doing their best. But are available weaponry and logistics support modern enough? Our NASS legislators received N160 million bullet proof jeeps but Abuja is now a kidnap zone. Self-security over community security will fail. If that money had been spent on everyone’s security, Nigeria would be safer. Do our troops have night goggles, bullet proof vehicles, adequate IT and drone support and attractive salaries?

    Our NASS members are the only ones worldwide who have deviously arrogated to themselves annually multiple millions so as to afford to ‘give away’ millions in misnamed ‘DOD-‘Dividends of Democracy’ aka ‘Deception of Democrazy’. No! It is our money. Meanwhile insecurity bars many from their LGAs. Let us stop this ‘LEGALISED ILLEGAL LEAKAGE’ of Nigeria’s funds, and strip politicians of the ability to misspend the citizen’s money noisily in the media on ‘criminally self-branded palliatives’, grinders, motorcycles, sewing machines, etc. while fattening the or political pockets -a corruption photo-trick. 

  • Passports: stop LGA letter; Lawan; 2024 Police: labs, fingerprints

    Passports: stop LGA letter; Lawan; 2024 Police: labs, fingerprints

    Minister Ojo: New bureaucratic delays in ‘Renewing or New Passports’ demonstrate how a good beginning can collapse into ‘deliberate of accidental’ administrative culpable failure. Please SCRAP THE LGA LETTER REQUIREMENT which has mutated into a corruption scam with delays and costs and maybe apologise for failure to anticipate?

    Sixty-one year-old Farouk Lawan’s timeline to jail: Four-term House of Representatives member 1999-2015 [from 37yrs old, almost a permanent  member?] until accused in 2012/3 [11 years ago], as chairman of committee investigating fuel subsidy fraud, demanding  and/or receiving [under his hat?] $500,000 from Femi Otedola to remove his company’s name from a fraud list – a paradox. Otedola recorded him. After failure to blame Otedola for corrupting an ‘innocent’ Lawan, he, Lawan, was sentenced after eight years in court to seven years jail, later reduced to five years on appeal, in 2021, and forced to pay $500,000 to the federal government. The Supreme Court’s confirmation of conviction is relatively fast. Amen. Eleven years from crime to definite punishment, less than two years at Supreme Court. But despite pressures justice faced, delay machinations by ‘legal illuminati’ and this delivery of justice is still too slow to deter others.

    Note the ‘N100 billion fraud cases’ and ‘lesser thefts’ with Lawan-minded politicians and government officials, some hindering justice with technicalities and some still undiscovered.  Too many slow cases are winding through the courts, hampered, delayed and diverted by ‘any ‘SAN-itary means necessary’. What is the cost/punishment ratio? $500,000= N5,000,000,000 at current rates of N1000+/-N200:$1.He is being jailed for taking  $274/day[N274,000]x5 years – an expensive criminal.

    The citizens have victories as Pastor’ Feyi Daniels is sentenced to life imprisonment for two rapes. How many more were in his dreams for the future from his congregation and how many will nightly torment him from memory? 0, 100? He also predicted an ‘Interim Government’ displacing PBAT.  There as a conviction of a rape doctor and an academic for sexual harassment.  We must  congratulate and encourage the legal teams, NGOs, specialised police units, medical and social services especially of Lagos and other states who ‘TAKE RAPE SERIOUSLY’ and, instead of intimidating and insulting rape complainants into embarrassed silence, welcome, comfort, embrace, protect and guide them towards justice.

    The Minister for Police Affairs Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim must bring Police Investigation methodology and laboratories into 2024. Violated and socially disbelieved and victimised girls and women appear at security services, police stations and clinics everywhere. But they face an archaic, crime-insensitive police service with no ‘POLICE INVESTIGATION LABORATORY SERVICE’ backup. International television news, and Crime Scene Investigations (CSI), Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) etc. teach Fellow Nigerians the norm in what crime investigation should be, not nuclear physics. Nigerians maintain investigative laboratories like Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and food and beverages laboratories across the private sector and institutions – universities, polytechnics, IITA, etc. Are Police Pathology Labs internally sabotaged with diversion of funds? There are thousands of unemployed laboratory technicians sadly selling foodstuff because the laboratories do not exist to employ them. There is so much unsolved crime because THERE IS NOT EVEN COMMON FINGERPRINTING used in UK since 1858 AND STILL NOT USED BY NIGERIAN POLICE routinely who do not have a PROPER PHOTO DATABASE OF CRIMINALS. 

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    The police must enter the 21st Century, 2024 and budget for best quality SON-approved POLICE LABORATORIES, FINGERPRINT, & PHOTO [MUGSHOT] & TATTOO DATABASES on national and state level as well, obviously, with adequate financial injection, relevant modern laboratory training in police colleges and upgrade to meet the 2024 need of victims of rape, robbery, bodily harm, kidnapping and murder.

    There is need for widespread introduction and familiarisation of a ‘STANDARDISED RAPE PROTOCOL’. Such a protocol is on Google, adaptable for the local environment. Acute rape cases are tragic and urgent and clearly expose the police and crime lab as deficient in their attitude and training capacity to properly secure and document the crime scene. I remember the hundreds of politicians, media and onlookers police tramping all over my first cousin, late Funsho Williams’ upstairs landing where he was murdered. No crime scene restrictions activities. Ditto for Uncle Bola Ige.  Does any police station have  a ‘ PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION KIT’ to secure the crime scene, duck-tape, plastic gloves and shoe-wraps to prevent contamination and evidence plastic bags and cameras [every inspector has a cell-phone with camera capabilities] and FINGERPRINTING SET to take and secure evidence of a quality and quantity that can get quick clear convictions.

    This chronic, dare I say congenital, persistent police laboratory crime scene deficit in collecting court-worthy evidence allows many cases to fail to reach court, leaving many victims suffering two assaults – the rape and then the robbery of getting justice through the fault of the investigating police. This makes many victims back away from the police/medical/justice system and live raped and robbed with no justice, and likely to see their rapist daily, in offices, pulpits, homes and streets.

    The victims and supporters must not be treated with embarrassment but encouragement, support, welcoming and being embraced. A recent rape victim must be rushed to see a medical doctor and police must take immediate possession of clothes, bedding etc. especially as now DNA is available. Do not rush them to the bathroom ‘to purify the victim or prevent pregnancy’ before medical exam as that washes away the evidence.  

    To demonstrate the stupidity of ‘mis-pastoring’ sometimes, what has God got to do with a ‘pastor’ ‘mis-predicting’ football match results between Nigeria and Cameroon?