The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • ‘2022- Stop violent and corruption terrorism’

    For Nigeria not to fail, we, friend and foe, thief and victim must think and act ‘Nigeria above self’ and commit to the Nigerian Pledge to be FLH – Faithful, Loyal and Honest. Are you FLH? Start today! Do a simple ‘Fellow Nigerian Test’ in 2022. ‘Can what you do be shown on NTA without embarrassing you?’ FLH are chief ingredients of ‘The National Cake’ which all are entitled to, by birth, but which is stolen by the few, leaving millions disillusioned with nationalism.

    While a nation of mostly good people will survive any storm, a nation of mostly thieves and foes, when they have destroyed the good, will destroy each other creating negative growth. No country can survive more than 10% CINS- Corruption, Incompetence (in performance and supervision), Negligence (of duty), Selfishness (ethnicity). Of course, one mega-thief or mass murderer can wipe out a good country or particular target or group. Nigerians deserve better.

    But leadership can mislead. Followership can be misled, mislead or force wrong agendas. How well taught are our leaders on the details of Good Governance? Good governance means a more attractive, economically cheaper society with National Cake going around. Corruption has financial, moral and policy corruption components. Are you guilty? Stop NOW!

    We suffer from abandoning established good governance steps: Since colonialism stopped, our political elite has coerced the professionals in works departments nationwide to dilute and jettison ‘Maintenance Culture’, a positive colonial British legacy and key to Good Government’s Sustainable Development even before Sustainable Development became a byword. Our leadership fails and works professional class are forced to fail.

    The leadership failed to realise that the colonial 4-7year cycle of maintenance, more frequent for infection-prone hospitals, and weekly pothole filling actually were highly rewarding to contractor/civil servant cartels and citizens alike. Instead, these servants of the people only managed to do no work and instead stole ‘Maintenance Budgets’ with consequent degeneration of infrastructure. Do politicians and civil servants realise the incalculable damage they have done over many years? Is it ignorance or are they ill-prepared about the details of Good Governance or do they have knowledge but lack empathy, people-love?

    Nigerians, not Nigeria, have failed our citizens born with ‘Great Expectations’ of a well-endowed developing country. Certainly, the majority of Nigerians, given the infrastructure, will be entrepreneurial and survive happily. Nigeria is alive, if not well, today because of millions doing honest work, dodging entrapment by ‘CINS’ of incompetently supervised uncontrolled ‘uniforms’. The good still far outweigh the bad. But in difficulty, many good become targets and question goodness when compared to the status of the bad. Millions of suffering Nigerian children question the family loyalty of honest parents and grandparents suffering and dying without worked-for salaries or pensions, SAP-a human right. They compare their parents’ pitiable situation to SAP-drenched fortunes of National Assembly members, governors, officials and hangers-on who are accused of obstructing parental SAP and pauperised their families. Politics and theft have stunted Nigeria’s ability to meet infrastructure and superstructure development standards accounting for where Nigeria falls in Sustainable Development Goals and yardsticks like Literacy, Housing, Open Defecation, Maternal and Infant Morbidity and Mortality. We are sadly ‘Out of Stock’ in most schools and for Life-Saving and Life-Maintenance Equipment and medicaments. I deliberately use capitals because these are ‘Key Measurements of Citizen Suffering’, supposedly addressed as stolen ‘Budgetary Items’.

    Good governance demands knowledge of several areas. Monetarily, the key ‘Nigerian Progress/Regression Chart‘ features measured financially are  unrealistic and underperforming states + FCT and Federal Budgets, the Foreign Reserves Policy – Ideally $75-100b but now $40.5b and a Foreign Exchange Rate catastrophically fallen from N1= $1.5 in the 70s, when I started work, now a shameful N414-575=$1. The monetary issues predict the social factors like The Poverty Level – now estimated at 70-80%, and Unemployment Levels – estimated at 40-60%. Please add The Happiness Index linked to the Security Index – Zero%. From village to villa, who is safe?

    This nationwide failure to flourish is not Nigeria’s fault. Nigeria is a truly a beautiful multi-climate ‘mere geographical expression’ which has provided all Nigerians need – ‘SOIL,’ -Soil, Sun, Oil and much more underground. We refuse to harness the SUN, sufficiently!

    In disciplined societies, these are developed into blessings. Even the UK uses its anaemic sun. However, they are not a necessity for development as many countries with no ‘Soil, Sun or Oil’ have huge foreign reserves, strong currencies and high SDG levels from Good Governance. They ‘MAINTAINED’ and ‘UPGRADED’ their citizens’ Education, Health, Science, Tech, transport and communication opportunities regularly They did not only ‘UPGRADE’ politicians and their jeeps every 4 years.

    Even a thief maintains his home and car. Genuine, non-corrupt, non-politicised ‘ROUTINE MAINTENANCE’ employs many, keeping the wheels of income and progress grinding. The current profit-sharing contractor-politician/party policies have failed. ‘Contract-splitting’, if corruption is eliminated, allows more contractors access to a living wage, more jobs, quicker contract execution and distributes wealth.

    Yes, ‘Stop terrorism -2022’ causing IDPs and emptying Nigeria’s farmlands and villages. Also stop the political, civil servant and contractor terrorists whose cumulative theft from salaries, pensions and contracts have stolen the food from our tables and progress from a generation!’   No country can move forward without a ‘maintenance culture’.

    ‘Stop Violence Terrorism’ and ‘Corruption Terrorism in 2022!’ and get a younger 2022 generation of top political leaders for 2023-2027! Political recycling has never helped Nigeria develop!!

  • Speaking back – 2002; Speaking out – 2022

    Speaking back – 2002; Speaking out – 2022

    Happy New Year 2022.

    I thank everyone who thanked me for my role in the fantastic big stage production by Doyenne Circle and the performance of ‘Speaking Out’, the musical, performed from January 1 – 3 at the MUSON. I personally thank Doyenne Circle for producing it and an irrepressible 25-30 strong all-female cast with superstars led by Mama Onyeka Onwenu, Kate Henshaw, Patience Ozokwor, Lota Chukwu and a host of newer talent establishing a similarly enviable reputation- true mentoring -all under the Director Kenneth Uphopho. Wow! The material was ‘written and composed’ by Dr Chukwuma Okoye ‘based on original poetry by Tony Marinho’ That is me, he-he! Thank you. I bow.

    Permit me to add some relevant historical perspective to this latest performance of my poetry. This is wonderful déjà vu for myself and Dr Okoye as my female-empowerment poetry in Engraved was first performed in the play/musical ‘Speaking Back’ UI, 2002/4. A dream coming true twice. Wow!

    So ‘Speaking Out’ is the result of a historical  journey to this amazing 2022 performance begun in 1990-2001 with the original poetry collection eventually published as ‘Engraved’ by Mr Bankole Olayebi of Bookcraft, and discussed with Dr Chukwuma Okoye. As with any writer, I have always wanted my work on stage. With no financial assistance, we worked closely on creating a production which I funded/produced and I also was deeply involved in the rehearsal/ artistic flow and diction and emphasis on words aspects. I claim no credit for the music and singing, talents which completely passed me by, but I insisted that not a single word should be lost or drowned by the music. Music must never become noise. It was called by us ‘Speaking Back’ to be different and successfully staged at the University of Ibadan Arts Theatre in 2002/4. Many actresses cut their teeth in that production in 2002, including some witnessing the production of ‘Speaking Out’ today. Chukwuma and I discussed a Lagos/MUSON appearance but funding collapsed. In fact, the 2022 MUSON performance happened only because of the participation and inspiration of one individual when she was a student in ‘Speaking Back’ in 2002 who chooses to remain anonymous. We must all thank her anonymously until she ‘Speaks Out’ about ‘Speaking Back’ and steps forward to take her own bow. She has delivered a giant iroko from the seed sown and grown into a ‘funtastic’ successful stage play tree in 2002.

    The road started probably in the 1960s when I was in St Gregory’s, becoming Head Boy in 1967. A lifetime of often-traumatic but wide exposure to all human conditions from humour to horror, from tenderness to tragedy, from birth to burial all drove me to use prose, poetry, plays to document our present for the future.  My poetry and other writings document the rollercoaster experience of the female through my role as a human being, doctor and also as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. I have had the fearful privilege, and often terror, of working on the underfunded frontline of maternal care contributing to trying to positively impact girls-to-women, directly and indirectly through medical and social advice and actions – often surgical.

    I remain in fear that ‘Delivery Day Is The Most Dangerous Day In The Life Of A Woman And Her Baby’. Pregnancy and delivery claim too many lives in countries made poor by bad politics and poor health financing in spite of professional and international organisations. Only many amazing doctors, nurses, mortuary staff and the families are aware of wasted mothers’ lives in the ‘War of the Womb’.

    I did not always succeed in saving life, but always tried. Things were often beyond our control especially poor government policies and necessities being ‘Out of stock’. During my 3000+ Caesarean Sections and tens of thousands of deliveries, I always wondered of the baby ‘What will you be?’– doctor or devil, saint or sinner, butcher or burglar, radiologist or robber , rapper or rapist, mechanic or murderer. A doctor who is robbed or murdered could have delivered his assailant 30 years previously. I meet many adults whose mothers said that ‘He was the Dr who delivered you’. I am humbled to have helped.

    Still in 2022, we see what girls and women go through from poor life-skill education systems delivering ignorance, being misled by peers and guardians, or because facilities are unavailable due to devaluation of the female.  We set up Educare Trust to help.

    This double victory with Dr/Prof Chukwuma Okoye through his contacts in Doyenne Circle in 2022 is ‘Wow!’  Is Netflix next like Dr Wale Okediran’s Tenants of the House? I must give respect to the journey and memory of my uncle, Dr Sunbo Marinho, Technical Director at the UI Arts Theatre where we cut our own teeth on stage with Dexter Lindersey and others making me and Dr Cyril Etomi, no strangers to serious theatre, as we performed in The Medea, The Importance of Being Ernest, and After One Time (1960s-70). My play, Why UI? was performed in 1999, and Speaking Back with Dr Okoye in 2002/4.

    Even now at 72+, I am privileged to still work in using ultrasound as a weapon in the war against diseases affecting girls-to-women and also boys-to-men. My personal take is ‘Aluta continua, vitoria un-acerta’ –‘The struggle continues, victory uncertain’. 

    But let us offer ‘Speaking Back 2002’ and ‘Speaking Out 2022’ to the joyful survival of all the female gender.

  • Recycling Cards; Tutu-RIPP; 2022

    Recycling Cards; Tutu-RIPP; 2022

    So, Christmas has come with Jesus Christ born to the church and the world. We pray that the Message of Faith, Hope Charity, Honesty and Peace will penetrate hearts and minds not only of the converted flock but also beyond into what is a troubled nation. The prayers were unusually genuine this year’s December as too many families can recount the insecurity in their lives and that of their community and friends and family. The tens of thousands of homes destroyed and made unliveable on thousands of square kilometres of town-land and farmland have caused the displacement of 5+million to under-serviced and poorly-run Internally Displaced Camps and also to jobs in other parts of the country.

    Also, it is time to gather up all the Christmas wrapping papers and beautiful gift wrap ribbons, fold them neatly and store them in the beautiful Christmas present bags. Soon the Christmas cards will be taken down. Please do not throw away your Christmas cards. The journey of the card to your home or office has been a long one from conception of the picture in the mind of the artist or the words in the mind of the writer, to acceptance of drawings and words by the company, out of thousands submitted for consideration, to cutting down trees to make the paper, to making ink, to printing and getting cards to the shop, to someone choosing the cards and sending them to you and yours. They have been careful crafted and should not be thrown away as useless just because Christmas is over. Every Christmas card has at least an envelope which can be resent to someone else by changing the name and destination. The card itself could be opened out to reveal 1-4 blank pages which can be identified for the children to use as notepads or jotters.

    The younger children or other children in needy schools can be taught to identify and appreciate the ‘Hidden-In-Plane-Sight Educational Value Of Greeting, Seasonal and Christmas Cards’ as they contain the inspirational heavenly Moon and Stars, figures of human, animal and even snowmen and Christmas trees  and the words. These can all be cut out and placed in envelopes for placement on different places – on bedroom walls and school posters, art classes and noticeboards. Of course, there are fewer Christmas cards being bought and sold now that the e-card is commoner on the social media, so the cards should be used carefully before they become extinct.

    Read Also: Desmond “Arch” Mpilo Tutu (1931–2021)

    Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, champion of the peaceful transition from apartheid to racial equality has passed away at 90 years of powerful social service against a bloodthirsty racist white regime entrenched on oppressing the black population and willing to misapply the biblical words to twist the truth is support of their evil racism. Ever serious in his steadfast opposition to the hated apartheid and almost always  smiling unless he is crying at the sad revelations surrounding the totally needless suffering and torture and death especially among the black population which were made public during the South Africa Truth and Justice Commission.

    Archbishop Desmond Tutu for many years was a towering figure whose shadow cast from the moral high ground of the altar of divinity and had a hugely positive impact on efforts to alter the outcome of the battle against apartheid in favour of the masses with much less bloodshed than would otherwise have been the case. Desmond Tutu as a religious figure, stood towering among the leadership of the fight against apartheid and is mentioned in the same sentence as the other great leaders who sacrificed their lives and their freedom for many years, most notably the late Great Nelson Mandela who lost 27 years of his freedom to the infamous Robben Island in the struggle for black freedom and law change.

    We must all thank God that Desmond Tutu was chosen divinely to survive a lifetime to lead a full public life of service and with that, he personally chose not to defend the irresponsible for a ‘stupid unequal peace to reign’ trampling on the people’s freedom. Fortunately, he did not have his life cut short by unfair imprisonment, being thrown out of an eight or 10 storey police building in a fictitious suicide, or by a political hit and run ‘accident’, or a planned murder. He was threatened and humiliated but never lost focus even in the darkest hours of apartheid hours filled with death and disaster even for the children of Soweto and elsewhere.

    Nigeria played a leading role in the apartheid struggle, though sometimes it appears that Nigeria did not get the recognition. Sadly some Nigerian citizens in South Africa have also engaged in criminal activities. Back in the day, during the desperately bloodthirsty apartheid era, Nigeria, as a ‘Frontline State against Apartheid’ happily hosted professionals and others for educational purposes those fleeing apartheid security agencies. In St Gregory’s College,1961-67 era we had a Maths teacher Mr Berens, from South Africa. How times change. Now the shoe is on the other foot and Nigeria and Nigerians are seen as the pariah. Fortunately, in Nigeria we have our own Nigerian Desmond Tutu-like citizens. May they also live long to see the fruit of their labour – an improved Nigeria hopefully in the Happy New Year 2022. May Archbishop Desmond Tutu rest in Perfect Peace. Happy and Equal Rights New Year 2022

  • Gunshot; Christmas; 50 Generals retired

    Life is serious. One day last week we saw patients with retinal detachment in the eye from a robbery, with a breast lump called a fibroadenoma, a breast cancer spread to the liver, a breast cancer with no spread, a liver cirrhosis from alcohol, an infertile male patient with small testicles, an infertile male patient with a varicocoele, a man with a colon cancer, several women with fibroids and cysts, several men with enlarged prostates, an eight-week dead baby in the girl’s womb, a 34-week dead baby in the mother’s womb.

    Life is more serious than politics would have us believe. This is the pattern in medical facilities across the country. In some there are more machete cuts and gunshot wounds. An ordinary person who has worked hard all his life and still has next to nothing who I have known for 40 years had N80 on him when he was attacked by two persons on an okada at a bus stop. They demanded money and when he produced the N80 at 7 o’clock, he was shot in his right arm and right knee. He required pin-and metal plate surgery in both left and arm and his life has crashed to one of total pain, zero mobility and a wheelchair existence.

    Did I mention the 45 gunshot bullet pellets that were mostly removed during three hours of surgery? If one injury is pain-free, another will provide the missing pain.

    We approach Christmas, commemorating and celebrating and reminding us of the value in our lives of the birth of Christ on December 25, coming up on Saturday. Automatically and occasionally with genuine Christ-like emotion, we begin to exchange things. First to be exchanged are pleasantries. These are now selective because we do not know if everyone would like Christmas greetings or would they prefer Season’s Greetings which have nothing to do with Christ’s birth, just the end of the year and other people’s Christmas. Then we exchange leaner and leaner but still unaffordable pocket-squeezing presents to be given whether you can afford them or not because many in society have commercialised Christmas far and above the basic demands of ‘brother’s keeper’ Christianity and smaller and smaller pheasants aka tinier and tinier chicken and turkey. Regardless of the bubbling bank profits that always manage to appear even in times of Covid,  the poor state of almost every single Nigerian family economy and the nightmarish insecurity in every single corner of our troubled land from A to Z,  predict and demand that we  think and act accordingly.

    Certainly, we are to demonstrate our love and appreciation for Christ’s birth. But have we not changed the focus from the birth to aggrandising our own individual self-worth? What does Christmas have to do with how much our presents and gifts are worth? The last to care about the cost and size of your Christmas present and gifts is Christ himself -who is used as an excuse to give expensive presents to the wealthy and poor presents to the poor, nothing Christ-like there. To fulfil that religious task, especially at this time of such desperate need, we must demonstrate our ability to give at least as much and even far more to the poor and needy than we give to our family and friends. We must curtail the public display of our Christmas activities so as not to attract traumatic and terrorising attention to our loved ones and family.

    Contrary to general belief, Christmas was never cancelled because of Covid. Its celebration during Covid was of a different kind- it became the right kind, apart from the lack of community gathering for the celebration of the Mass or service itself. Covid took the commercialisation out of Christmas leaving more time for the Christmas spirt which shone forth in caring for others, nearby. Perhaps we should move to a time when we all say sorry to our families and spend the same quantum of funds on our domestics, our drivers, our delivery people, our security men, the news vendor and their families and just be Christ-like to others in addition to our family. There are poor on every street and we as a country are awash with Internally Displaced Persons each one needing help.  Merry Christmas as you give much more to the poor around you. No matter how much you eat at Christmas, if someone near you does not eat then you will remain hungry. Rethink Christmas and cut down on the commercials and commercialisation.

    Generals retired, 50 of them at once? Which country retires its generals in the middle of the worst crisis facing Nigeria since the civil war when we mobilised over one million men? The crisis we face is a serious and murderous one beyond the strength of the non-military. It requires the use of our best military and civilian brains some of whom have made the supreme sacrifice. Should they be retired in this way? Certainly, we are happy that they have honourably reached retired alive and well. It is easy to forget that a solider signs up to face the minute-to-minute danger of death – a courageous thing to do at 18 or any age. Our enemies are real and with us constantly. Pray to be invisible to the enemy. Who sleeps with two eyes open?

    Wish a needy stranger ‘A Merry Christmas’ with a smile and a gift.

  • ‘School indiscipline’: ‘Anti-bullying protocol/strategies’

    Private schools nationwide will be holding emergency meetings with Teachers, Parents, Prefects, Students and other Staff. Hopefully all schools especially public schools will follow suit. Indiscipline that causes misery, injury and even murder is not the preserve of private schools or to be swept under the carpet. No parent pays and sends a child to be abused, misused or murdered. No child should endure the criminality of child abuse from fellow students.  Bullying as an acceptable way of toughening students, especially vulnerable students, is an out-of-date tradition inherited from almost all education systems and suicides and murders are recorded in 19th-20th-21st century’s education. Bullying was institutionalised, to be endured without reporting or the victim was punished further for being a tell-tale and ostracised. In a bullying society, there is a law – ‘No Reporting The Bully’ or it will be the worse for you. Such a ‘Bully Code’ guarantees that if the victim cries out, he or she will be the guilty one in the eyes of fellow students, a fate worse than bullying. So the bullied endures the poisoned school environment until a brave ‘Bully Neutraliser’ usually another senior student, confronts the bully or operates a ‘Bully the Bully Policy’ so the bully gets nasty bully medicine which is often curative.

    Bullies do not like to be bullied, abused, beaten, have their pocket-money taken or their bags and other property ransacked, spoilt and misappropriated – the law calls it ‘Theft’.

    Parents must teach students from home and look for bullying signs as we send them forth to school. They must 1) Not Become Bullies and 2) Not Tolerate Being Bullied. On entry into school at Morning Assembly during the ‘Five Minutes Daily Assembly Talk’ all students need to hear that ‘Bullying is a Criminal Offence’ punishable by suspension and expulsion and referral to the Remand Home and the Police.

    We need to empower prefects to support teachers to ensure no bullying in-between class lessons when the teacher is not in the classroom. We need more prefect and teacher supervision during break, on and off the playground, and at all the other off-playground areas where bullying takes place. These off-playground areas must be identified and monitored by monitors and prefects and teachers.

    Every school requires to put in place an ‘Anti-Bullying Protocol’ with accommodation of whistle-blowers, victims making reports and bullies identified by parents, teachers, students and other non-teaching staff. Nothing must be left to chance or it could fester into a serious consequence for innocent victims.

    ‘Class Bully Registers’ must be kept as the threat of being inserted in the Bully Book should deter over 80% of opportunistic bullies -those who bully just because they can and nobody is watching them and there are no consequences.

    ‘School Injury Book’. Injury, mental and physical is a known outcome of bullying. Elastic band/finger catapults and normal catapults catapult pellets, stones and broomstick arrows and also thrown items and carelessly applied caning techniques have caused hundreds of life- altering eye injuries annually in school children. Such horrendous and easily preventable classroom and playground disabilities, ignorantly or deliberately, bullyingly-inflicted have far-reaching consequences which will affect choice of jobs and even marriage partner, ability to drive. The victim and parents spend time, money on medication, operations and tests and glasses and lose school time going around the eye clinics seeking solution. Meanwhile the child who did the evil catapult eye-damaging crime continues unaffected in school with two eyes and suffers no cost, punishment, or loss of school days.

    ‘Anti-Bully Posters’ created by each class, renewed regularly after ‘Anti-Bully Pep talks’, ‘Class Discussions’, School Debates are required.

    School bullies, untamed and unchecked, usually grow into societal bullies as adults. We know adult bullies in homes and offices and extended families. Many adults use their authority, position or uniform to bully others and delay, divert, extort, cheat and take advantage of victims.

    Individual personality matters a great deal. We have all witnessed babies playing. Some give and some grasp or seize every toy or sweet for themselves and get into a temper tantrum if they do not have their possessive way. This is a sign for bullying in future. The environment matters. An environment critical of bullying will curtail to a large extent the tendency to bully or be bad. An environment which accepts bullying as part of growing up and personality formation will automatically have more bullying and must face the consequences and accept responsibility.

    Obviously, the ‘School Anti-Bullying Structures’ are essential red flags measuring ‘Tolerance for Bullying’. Highly visible ‘Anti-Bullying Strategies and Structures’ will bring about a safer, happier school experience with early exposure of bullies to reformative ‘De-Bullying Strategies’. Poorly provided or ignored Anti-Bullying Strategies will encourage bullies to embark on ABC –‘A Bullying Career’, and better believe it, for many it starts a career of what some call ‘An Introduction to Criminality’- petty theft, intimidation, threats of violence which may grow into pushing, punching, slapping, and escalate to kicking any part of the body resulting in Grievous Bodily Harm or worse.

    Bully groups are gangs. Once they have secret signs, a secret code of conduct, have some rituals, carry out random and targeted acts of hooliganism, attack and terrify fellow students ‘for the fun of it’ or because ‘they were told to’ and thus spreading panic in their environment,  they mutate into a cult -a very dangerous mutation in any youth’s life.

  • Justice Babalakin, 94; Sylvester Oromoni, 12

    I grew up hearing the name Justice Babalakin, used with respect and even reverence, and had the honour of regularly meeting with him from 1994 when he became the chairman of the board of the then unknown Youth, Education and Health NGO we called, on Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo’s advice, Educare Trust founded in 1994. He happily accepted the post while Dr Joseph Toyosi, of Idiape Hospital, Ikolaba, Ibadan became the first chairman of the executive board and with Dr Raymond Zard as patron.  Educare Trust was initially conceived as a rescue mission to return co-curricular educational opportunities back to the education system and instil better standards. Under Justice Babalakin’s chairmanship of the board, we did get a Wednesday ‘Co-Curricular Period’ for collective activities in the Oyo State Education Class Programme; spearheaded the concept of ‘Holiday School Programmes’ to use school facilities during holidays; more CSR funds from Corporate Nigeria for youth activities. We all had been to secondary schools in Nigeria and had witnessed the deterioration due to corruption, politics, ignorance and greed.

    Together with other upright non-corrupt persons, Justice Babalakin graciously led ET to impact youth in health and education and retained his post until he departed this earth on December 4. Throughout his private, religious and public life, Justice Babalakin exemplified all that is good in good family background, quality education, professional excellence, distinguished public service, unblemished walk through the temptations and travails of the times, active and practical concern for the future generation. At Educare Trust, we are constantly surprised when some people ask ‘Where are the upright, honest, hard-working, caring good Nigerians?’ The answer is everywhere. However, they often lack opportunity or are constrained by an environment which abhors excellence. Sometimes we overburden some good persons and must invite the less busy good Nigerians. Good Nigerians are best exemplified by Bola Babalakin and those like him. May he rest in perfect peace.

    The terrible occurrence of the death of 12-year old Sylvester Oromoni in Dowen College is a tragedy of unquantifiable proportions which crushes most parents and teachers alike. In one pre-Christmas day, a child, seeking only an education, has been subjected to yet-to-be-assessed injuries apparently by other students and we await the Coroner’s Report and proper international standard forensic examination of his clothes and place of attack and interviews with students and teachers on the existence of a school cult or gang of bullies and the efforts of the school to stamp out such groups if they have already been identified. Was he asked to drink a corrosive chemical to which his lips reacted? Whatever the troubling answers someone or some group was responsible and Sylvester has been robbed of life and a future, his family has been plunged into inconsolable grief and heart-wrenching sorrow and suffering while the students and families of the purported attackers roam freely. Closing the school may allow students to make up new stories and cement them. Investigators need to isolate students and individual teachers to prevent the climate of fear or the devil of conspiracy preventing the truth from coming out.

    Bullying and cultism are real and present dangers in every single school even when active efforts are made to keep a ‘Classroom Bully Report Book’ and the school has a culture of ‘Calling-Out Bullies’ and punishing offenders publicly. We ignore the signs of bullying and cultism at our peril. Those who think that cultism is only in tertiary institutions are mistaken. Many bullies and cult members in tertiary institutions started undeterred in secondary and even primary school. The Oxford School shooting by a 15-year old in the USA, killing four and injuring seven is a glaring example of parenting, teacher and education interaction gone murderously wrong. For years I have pointed out that hundreds of children annually in Nigeria have at least one eye damaged beyond use by stones, caning, catapulted pellets and stones and broomsticks or the ‘Dirty Slap’ which can damage the retina or remove an eye from the socket. Yet, there is no Record Book of School Injuries. Without such ‘Bullying and Injuries and Cult Activity’ reporting systems, monitored by education authorities, no progress can be made and no safeguards can be introduced and millions of children and youth will continue to live in fear of going to school, being in school and being in boarding school. I have personal experience of being bullied. A bully needs nothing or too brilliant, too poor in class, wrong colour or height, shape of body parts, accent or just being there. Most youth pass through bullying or being hated –definitely child abuse, verbal and physical. We have executed, through Educare Trust, a constant battle against bullying and cultism in education summits and in the many schools we have contact. Bullying should be a staff meeting and education ministry meeting heading bringing forward names for action -psychological evaluation, reporting to parents.

    But last week a parent brought thugs to beat a teacher who caned her child and another teacher was beaten to death by the brother of a caned student. Parents, Teachers Associations must be more involved in the education battle. Too many teachers and students live in fear.

    We demand justice for Sylvester Oromoni and punishment for the guilty, but it will not bring him back or comfort his family. We demand a clean-up of education bullying and cultism.

  • Wanted: ‘Amazing Annual Davido Charity Fundraiser’ pls!!!

    Too many fallen heroes including Brig-Gen D Zurkushu, Maj L Barde, 47, Lt UA Usman 29, Private S. Mohammed 23, Private D. Umar 28, Simon Solomon 23, A Yusuf, 25 , Oladejo Victor. God help their families, other fallen heroes and Nigeria.

    Covid Omicron is spreading. Beware, Take HW, MANM, SD precautions- Hand Washing, Mouth and Nose Mask, Social Distancing. Get vaccinated – two doses and prepare for third booster dose at six months.

    Government N500, N5,000 mistakes. Private N250m correctly spent.‘ If you Davido me, I will develop OOO!!!’

    Remember the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor who recommended N5,000 notes? Public opinion stopped it.

    A governor offered N500 for women to deliver in government hospitals. Which Special Adviser sent a Memo ‘N500 per Delivery bribe in State Hospitals- good political gimmickry’? The journey of ‘thought to tongue’ can be a terribly twisted trajectory, a comedy or a calamity of errors. Are the medical staff really owed arrears? Please divert the N500/delivery to salaries and pensions. We hope the medical facilities ‘deliver’ quality service on ‘Delivery Day -The Most Dangerous Day In The Life Death Of Mother And Baby’. Tragically, 50,000 Nigerian mothers die/year.

    Stop reading!! Think!! Understand those statistics!!!! 1,666  30-seater buses or 12,500  four-seater taxis or  25,000 two-passenger+driver okadas or  50,000 one-passenger+driver okada, filled with our pregnant mothers driving up to a hospital near you to ‘deliver those who are about to die’ to die, and who gives a damn?

    Back to N5,000. Government seeks to withdraw the petrol subsidy and provide a transitional Monthly Transport Grant, MTG’ as a ‘financial cushion’ of N5,000 for 40,000,000 poor. ‘Dashing’ people money for work not done will destroy the morale of unpaid and underpaid workers -Social Science Course 101 and mocks every market woman and facilitates pre-election theft of billions. We witness theft of XYZ,000,000,000s, totalling trillions, undetected from everything named ‘Fund’, including Industrial Training Funds, Police Pension Funds and Police Endowment Funds and School Children’s Lunch Funds and  Federal Unity School Development Funds and also in the private sector through criminal banking charges, and scams around 21-storey buildings and 120km Lagos Ibadan Expressway. Can any good come from this latest ‘Fund’ a multitrillion x,000,000,000,000 ‘MTG’ Fund ??????

    Remember that if all pensioners had been paid monthly by government, their earnings would already have benefited most of the same 40,000,000 through purchases and relations. Last week, this column discussed ‘Paying Salaries and Pensions= Anti-Poverty Strategy’ highlighting that regularly paid entitlements empower the economy especially the daily-paid, small business and food and beverage giants. Salaries also fund ‘The Extended Family- the oldest and truly First Bank in Africa’. Social Economics Course 101.

    Previous governments, by not paying salaries and pensions destroyed the secure fabric of society and employer-worker loyalty, shredding worker honesty because a worker knows he will join unpaid pensioner protests. He feels that is enough excuse to cut corners. ‘It is not my father’s job’ is a sad but common excuse for failure-to-deliver a government service. There are more youth, 50-100m needing quality education and a future than sick needing care. The worst group to owe is Nigeria’s teachers leaving 40+million undereducated and traumatised youth less likely to fulfil potential or move Nigeria forward. Instead, they will be diverted, distracted, depressed, dismayed and underperform and prone to suicide and crime.

    Nigerians have got to turn towards green manufacturing and creating new-age jobs. Government must provide the green infrastructure, renewable electricity and industrial support funds. Government must provide grants towards green energy industrial development e.g. solar, wind and wave power equipment manufacture. Government debt is in trillions -X,000,000,000,000s in salaries and pensions and contracts. Yet it seeks to spend N2.300,000,000,000 i.e. N2.3 trillion as transitional family support, largely unmonitorable. Governments also pay debts as major poverty alleviation and entrepreneurial support strategy.

    Still talking money; this time N250. When I appealed here for support for a youth health and education Educare Trust, I received two contacts and no funds. Davido’s success, seeking N1m ‘to clear a car through customs’ may have been a ruse to raise money for charity or a serious financial need which Davido and advisers turned into a laudable charitable opportunity when he raised over N200m to which he added N50m. Even though Davido and his advisers demonstrated deep ‘omoluabi’ wisdom by sending the money to orphanages, the act of raising that cash confirms what is possible. So ’pls send this article to him. Ask Davido to become the ‘Chief Charity Fundraiser’ for genuine NGOs.

    Sing ‘Davido, Don’t goooo/ Davidoo help every other NGOooo/ Davidoooo.. the Charity pacesetterrr/ Davido.. the Charity fundraiserr/   Davidooo….don’t stop/ Davido…keep Charity on top/ Davidooo… over to you/ Davidoo . [we] youth rely on youoo!

    In other countries, it is the role of vice presidents, first ladies and corporate chairmen’s wives but here they look after their own NGOs and abandon others. Bravo Davido for showing the possible! Please repeat this amazing event annually as the ‘Davido Charity Foundation’ or preferably a Davido Annual Celebrity Charity Fund Raiser’ targeting N500m-N1billion next year and include other traditional or new NGOs like the Red Cross, Boys Scouts, Girl Guides and of course Educare Trust, please, please as beneficiaries.

    Meanwhile Nigeria has many $ billionaires and many more Naira billionaires NOT CARING. They should also perform.

    ‘Davido, your youth need you! Davido- Music is your medium! Davido – Charity is your calling: Answer OHHH! Answer YESSS!!’ Lead on!

  • Paying salaries and pensions = Anti-poverty strategy

    Recent headline: ‘FG owes pension funds N100b’. A recent headline in the press declared that ‘N2.7- 3 trillion is owed  by workers’ employers in state, federal governments and also private sectors. As Christmas and New Year approach, families are forced to assess their achievements and progress during the year and the role of unpaid salaries and pensions owed their breadwinners, parents and grandparents in our pitiful financial circumstance. The poor financial state is compounded by poor naira value, crisis level foodstuff prices due to insecurity causing farmers to flee farms reducing output, escalating transport and fuel costs.

    Why have too many employers, government and private, deliberately institutionalised unnecessary 3-6month delays or diverted workers’ wages methodically over many years? How dare they play games with employees’ salaries and pension? Some government employers are believed to have perfected the long-standing fraudulent practise of depositing the entire state, or institutional, salary budget in a fixed deposit for three months, ‘disappearing it’ for personal use, the interest payment and ‘finder’s fee’ for bank deposits.

    The ramifications of this evil act should be studied under the heading ‘Institutionalised Fraud’ of the worst kind because the money was actually there for payment but the authority told lies that the money was not there and stole it, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently, and thus ruined the goals of workers denied salaries and pensions. This pension and salary scam has been the bane and hallmark of political office holders. The perpetrators, governors, ministers and heads of MDA -Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government and even captains of industry leave office without being held to account. The debt burden is automatically transferred to the next government. Imagine you are a governor facing 3 -24 or more months arrears of salaries and 10 years pensions owed. You are crippled with debt burden before you even start to work. Erring past officials should be made to explain why they chose not to pay, as first-line drawings, the pensions and salaries and be prosecuted accordingly for breach-of-promise.

    The federal and state governments face unrest and unemployment and high poverty with violence. They must be made to realise that one of the best ways to tackle the rising poverty/violence level is the obvious economics 1-0-1 masterstroke of paying Nigeria’s families, workers and retired, civilian and security, their salaries and pensions ‘as and when due’, not in arrears as hunger has no arrears. Yes, government is too bloated with the long-standing political habit of unnecessary employment of favoured ‘government-job for the boys and girls, causing an inflated salary chunk making governance cost too high. But the problem is here to stay. What matters is that employees’ salaries and pensions feed into the commercial daily-paid market system big-time. The salaries and pensions keep every state and the federal capital, town and alive financially and moving.

    Government authorities should study the almost immediate death of any business ecosystem during every strike when salaries and pensions are withdrawn for 3-6 months in universities, in health areas or due to NUPENG strikes. Covid demonstrated this in the extreme. Poverty sets in within a day or two as food and water vendors and transporters die immediately. Every family feeds indirectly 10-100 people. Every family in the informal daily paid sector of vending food or clothes or newspapers sectors suffers when there is no salary at month end for their customers. No government or private sector employer should not pay salaries or not invest adequately in pensions. In the daily paid private sector, it is particularly difficult to pay salaries when the public sector salaries and pensions are epileptic. Economics 1-1-1.

    We, government, citizens, private sector need each other -as spokes in the wheel. If one suffers and dies, the others all ‘suffer and die’.  The tail end of the ENDSARS Campaign proved just how interlinked we all are. The politicians and criminals and pension fund thieves must not be allowed to take and take and leave crumbs for us. Crumbs cannot feed, clothe, educate, employ our teeming youth and children -our ‘Generation Now’ and ‘Generation Next’. Too many others depend on the financial well-being of the government worker for survival and suffer when ‘the month is pregnant’ and the worker’s pocket is empty. The daily paid vendors are hungry for the next payday, more eager than the workers. Even patient numbers reduce in clinics and hospitals.

    ‘FG bails out states with N18.2b each to help settle salaries with 30-year loans totalling N656b and a two-year moratorium. This may sound a good idea but did they spend their budgets well in the first place? They should ensure that arrears of pay should also be settled. We are told by EFCC that Kogi had N19b bail-out funds in an account and the money has since been returned to CBN. Was it not needed? The media tells us that Kogi has cleared outstanding salary arrears of more than two years estimated at over N50b. If true, that is both a tragedy of non-payment by previous regimes and amazing achievement by the current government of Yahaya Bello.

    Meanwhile Nigeria pays billions for the salaries and perks of workers producing zero at our four ZERO PRODUCTION refineries.  Government also disburses billions to the needy. Paying salaries and pensions to existing workers is even more important to general worker morale and government’s moral responsibility now that people not working are receiving support.

  • COP-26 3: Make your ‘8R Climate Change Poster’

    We are all children of this climate and pollution-troubled world. COP26 concerns 7.9b people, Nigeria and Nigerians. The decisions at COP26 today must be implemented but an important clause ‘phasing coal out’ has been watered down to ‘phasing coal down’ by 2050. COAL-DOWN, not COAL-OUT cannot keep the global temperature rise to max 1.5 C. However great leaps were made like reducing methane emissions,  Net-Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050, ending deforestation by 2030 and increasing funds for developing countries suffering from first-world-caused global warming resulting in rising water levels, catastrophic weather and having to pay cost of introducing renewable energy. This will make the world a liveable earth rather than a coming hell on an unliveable planet. All governments and people must participate to move from ‘earth scarring’ to ‘earth caring’.

    Ask this sing along question. ‘What can the earth’s 7.9b people do? Everybody should know! Everybody should care!!

    The federal, state and LGA authorities must insert ‘Climate Change’ and ‘COP26 Decisions for Climate Change Reversal’ into the 2022 syllabus for all primary and secondary schools and ‘General Subjects’ in tertiary institutions. Every state and federal Ministry of Education supervising the 2022 syllabus must urgently approve this as should all tertiary institutions academic committee. Every person, teacher and student, in school everywhere must be taught ‘Climate Change Reversal Strategies’. Nigeria suppressed information on oil-spills in Ogoniland and beyond and murdered and then paid lip-service to the clean-up. No one can suppress Climate Change. Educate our 60m+ youth and teachers methods to imbibe COP26 Decisions to guarantee their successful future ‘Life on Earth’.

    Simple question: Do you, your co-workers and family waste water? Do not leave the tap on when brushing your teeth. Do not take a long shower. Do not www, waste washing-up water. Do not wash your car unnecessarily. Do not throw away a half bottle of water. Save water. If we all saved one litre of water/day, that is 7.9 billion litres/day saved.

    Do you, your co-workers and family waste trees and tree products – wood, paper, leaves? We need shade, the oxygen and the removal of carbon dioxide through the leaves of trees and shrubs near your home and office. These trees and shrubs are the lungs of the world absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. ‘Cut a tree, cut a lung’, ’Cut a leaf, cut out 10 breaths’. Your paper in any form- envelope, letters, sheets of paper, wrapping and packaging; your wood in any form – trees, shrubs, furniture- can be put to further ‘recycled use’. Imagine 7.9b each saving and reusing envelopes not once but 10 times, making jotters by discovering a page by opening out envelopes and on used letters’ back, reusing newspapers in art and as drawer lining, recycling bags especially Christmas wrappers and present bags. Imagine the number of trees that would still be standing? How many trees are killed every year to decorate homes and wrap all the world’s Christmas presents? Some families have used recycled plastic Christmas trees for years, saving five or ten live-to-dead trees. Is it necessary to wrap Christmas presents at this dangerous time to our planet?

    Read Also: Climate change: Nigeria will fulfill commitments in a way that benefit Nigerians —Osinbajo

    Of course, after Christmas in cold countries the tree is burnt for firewood to warm or cook. But many millions of trees are just thrown out to become oil in a million years…if the world survives. We must prevent more trees falling victim, so we can breathe cleaner air and because trees are key to fight desertification.

    Do you, your co-workers and family misuse and abuse plastic? Do you use plastic and in particular the dreaded ‘Single Use Plastic’ – bags, bottles, straws, kitchen wear, food packs and other plastic products? Hospitality, entertainment and hospitals are especially guilty. The Covid Epidemic produced many mountains the size of Mount Everest, from single-use medical plastic waste. We have oceans, rivers and gutters filled with a fraction of the world’s plastic bottles floating as detritus from a huge number of the 7,9billion earthlings. Imagine one person drinking two 1.5ltrs or six 500cc plastic bottles of water and plastic soft drinks a day for one year= 6×365=2190 plastic bottles or more than two trailer loads/person. I rarely use plastic bottles. We banned them in my office and went from using 12 bottles 1.5litres each a day for 260 working days, or 3,120 bottles/year  down to zero now using the recycled drums of water and washable cups. To date in my office and home we have saved more than 70-100,000 plastic bottles from rubbish dumps. Not enough but what are you doing?

    Examine what you, your co-workers and family contribute to climate change and world pollution. As you know, fossil fuels, coal, petroleum, and methane gas are being phased out. The increasing oil price is ‘good’ for government but also ‘good’ for it makes renewable energy cheaper. The world’s enemies are becoming clearer – coal, petroleum and gas -even though they are the lifeblood of several countries. The self-declared Giant of Africa, Nigeria, must muster the political energy to lead Nigeria to clean energy technologies in transport, power generations and food production and cooking and better pollution control or we will suffocate and die.

    Make an ‘8R Climate Change Poster for every government and private office, classroom and bedroom. The 8 Rs = Recover, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle, Renew and Rethink Resources in energy and waste. ACT OR CLIMATE POLLUTION WILL KILL US ALL!

  • COP-26: Decisions today= Destruction or deliverance tomorrow

    At COP26 in Glasgow, amazingly Jeff Bezos was reported to be ecstatic with the plans of President Buhari even though President Buhari removed the urgent need for climate change measures to achieve the necessary controls by pushing the UN scientific date of 2050 to be ‘net zero’  to 2060 for Nigeria. President Buhari did promise to end deforestation by 2030, on behalf of unknown future presidents. Sadly, future presidents are usually notorious for not following up on previous presidents’ ideas and not allowing them to flourish beyond their term of office.

    To catch the eye and ear of a $200billionaire is a mouth-watering experience, but will it become a lucrative one for Nigeria or Niger. Kudos must go to the Nigerian team which supplied the material for the speech and the speech writers who sadly may remain unsung even if Jeff Bezos, worth almost $200b, decides to fund all the 5million trees and personally solarise Nigeria factoring in the 50-100% corruption percentile which rubbishes every good project in Nigeria.

    Sadly, we Nigerians know all too well the value of the words of Nigerian presidents, and politicians in general, especially when it comes to plans and projections for the good of all citizens. How many Nigerians recall with the depression of failed Great Expectations, the heroic promises of five- and 10-year Development Programmes and the glorious projections of Vision 2010 and then 2020, all full of the Sound and Fury of rapid development to a first world country but Signifying Nothing for the people  but the agony of still living poorly in a Paradise Lost and lost again and again!

    Note that a common road, essential for the common man – Lagos Ibadan road – and 100 other essential roads, we cannot finish, but are postponed again and again and now once again to 2022. It is not a complicated trip to mars, nuclear physics or trilling under the ocean or building a 21-storey building! Is this the last postponement or will it be in 2023 and 2024? Is this road, the flagship for the country, beyond our understanding? Do Nigerian citizens not matter enough for an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ policy for this so painfully and much travelled on road? The pending proposed completion of the Second Niger Bridge is by all standards ‘40 year late’ but still a fantastic achievement if and when it is declared open.

    Read Also: The COP26 climate test 

    Nigerians, have, to their annoyance, been taken down many political promises, wrong blind ending roads listening to many past excellences articulating and pontificating on providing solutions written by others. Almost every budget by lesser excellences in charge of states follows the same pattern of failure to deliver. But the allocated money always manages to get spent, or disappear, with little or mostly nothing to show for it. Are we even bothering to ask if President Buhari’s plans enunciated at COP26 are genuine and workable, bold and beautiful, frivolous or mere photo-op singing from the same song-sheet as part of a cunning plan to get COP26 off Nigeria’s back? More importantly will we as a county be willing to get to the required destination at the expected time? Already we are postponing ‘Net Zero ‘ to 2060 as though Nigeria has some any power over the world’s climate change race. Before the race we are already accepting defeat and placing ourselves last! And going by experience, we will not even make that date as we have never kept to time in our political national history. We must not accept new deadlines without examining why we failed to fulfil our quotas of renewable development strategies over the years.

    Remember the past slogan-branded necessary development milestones for becoming a first-world country? We hoped and prayed unsuccessfully for success and missed every single milestone remaining undeveloped in all but negative indices of corruption and pollution and infrastructure and service delivery. Remember Education For All, Health For All, Green Revolution, Water for All, MDGs and now SDGs.  How do potential donors and supporters know that we will not deliver more of the same? More failure-to-deliver even if given ‘all the money in the world’?

    Nigeria and almost every Nigerian organisation have a credibility problem which is incredulous, unbelievable. But is that reputation deserved? We have all been let down and when asked to interact with government like visiting the ministry, our spirits fall. President Buhari articulated a plan for an expanded use of gas for power Nigeria forward and for cooking, also by 2030. He sounded convincing. We must be watchful so that Nigeria’s Climate Change Reversal Agenda Protocol does not include strategies cunningly included to misuse the Climate Chance Crisis as cover to introduce legislation to [mis]appropriate land sea and water belonging to ordinary innocent citizens for secret, sectional or ethnic gain. Already the federal water bill is questionable on these grounds as the river edge dwellers face eviction by the scheming of any government official under the obnoxious law. The climate change crisis must improve, not disrupt, citizens lives and livelihood.

    Government can start today by showing the way. It should ban the burning of tyres and the burning of seized drugs and contraband by government officials and forcing its own government officials to use the 8Rs = Recover, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle, Renew and Rethink Resources www :waste, water, wilderness use. ACT OR CLIMATE POLLUTION WILL KILL US ALL!.