The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Self-damning report

    Self-damning report

    Alarmingly, the Nigeria Health Statistics Report released by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare revealed the sheer magnitude of brain drain in the country’s health sector.

    According to the document, which described the situation as “a significant challenge,” 43,221 health professionals—including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and medical laboratory scientists—migrated out of the country between 2023 and 2024, relocating to countries offering better remuneration and working conditions.

    “External migration surged by 200 percent across all cadres between 2023 and 2024,” the report said. It further revealed that “In 2024 alone, a total of 4,193 doctors and dentists left Nigeria, with approximately 66 percent migrating to the United Kingdom.”

     The report listed the top 10 destinations for Nigerian doctors and dentists in the 2023–2024 period: the United Kingdom (4,627), Canada (934), the United States (561), Australia (188), the United Arab Emirates (140), Ireland (113), the Maldives (77), Botswana (67), India (57) and Saudi Arabia (43).

    Nurses and midwives “are the most affected groups,” the report said, with more than 23,000 migrating abroad as of 2024. Pharmacists and medical laboratory scientists also joined the flight to foreign lands, deepening the loss. 

    Predictably, this exodus means fewer personnel are left to cope with the increasing demand for healthcare, posing a severe threat to the country’s system. Consequently, the report underlined the urgent need for policies aimed at retaining health workers and strengthening domestic capacity.

    Read Also: Alleged Christian genocide: U.S. statements emboldened violent groups in Nigeria, Fed Govt warns

     The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, also acknowledged the workforce crisis during the Joint Annual Report meeting of the health sector in Abuja.

    He said: “Our doctor-to-population ratio is 1:5,000 (against the WHO recommendation of 1:600), while the nurse-to-population ratio is as low as 1:2,000 (against the WHO recommendation of 1:300). This is further compounded by inequities in the distribution of health workers, where 75 percent are concentrated in urban areas, serving 45 percent of the population.”

    He stated that the government remains committed to strengthening primary healthcare systems, expanding the Health Workforce Registry, increasing training quotas for health professionals, and implementing retention policies to curb migration.

    The escalating exodus of healthcare professionals from the country is detrimental to its health sector.  The situation calls for urgent intervention by the authorities; the nation cannot afford to continue losing its healthcare experts by failing to provide an enabling environment for their work.

    The latest government report on the workforce crisis in the health sector should be embarrassing to the authorities. 

  • Abuse of power?

    Abuse of power?

    A journalist in Ebonyi State, Godwin Aliuna, landed in hospital late last week after being brutalised by operatives of a state security agency, Neighbourhood Watch, allegedly under instruction by a commissioner in the state government. Aliuna, a correspondent for Daily Asset newspaper, fingered Commissioner for Border Peace and Conflict Resolution, Prof. Paul Awo Nwobasi, while recounting his ordeal to reporters at a hospital in Abakaliki, the state capital, at the weekend.

    The journalist said he was attacked while covering an event alongside other journalists at the Old Government House in Abakaliki, where the commissioner was attempting to resolve a community leadership dispute. According to him, trouble began when Nwobasi ordered him out of the venue. He said as he made to leave, the commissioner allegedly pushed him onto his way, upon which Neighbourhood Watch operatives seized him and took him away for disciplining. Neighbourhood Watch is an agency under the Internal Security ministry that shares an office block with Border Peace and Conflict Resolution ministry.

    Speaking from hospital bed, Aliuna said: “I was manhandled by Neighbourhood Watch, under the directive and supervision of the commissioner. I hadn’t done anything wrong, I was only reporting on the event.” He further alleged that his phone was confiscated and content deleted. “Before I knew it, they threw me inside their cell and began beating me, hitting my head, eyes and back while trying to restrain me.” He added: “They even threatened to break my legs. I asked what crime I had committed, but they said it was on the commissioner’s orders.” The journalist urged State Governor Francis Nwifuru to call the commissioner to order, he also enjoined rights and civil society groups to intervene and resist alleged attempt to suppress journalists who are the society’s conscience and mouthpiece.

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    Reports said when he was contacted, the commissioner denied ordering the journalist’s rough-handling by Neighbourhood Watch. Hardball also finds it a gap somewhat in Aliuna’s narrative that the commissioner singled him out from among other journalists at the event for the reported ill-treatment, unless there had been a previous encounter that fostered animus which boiled over at last week’s event.

    Still, it was extremely overreaching for Neighbourhood Watch operatives to have acted the way they did, regardless of at whose instance. One of Aliuna’s colleagues was reported pointing out that the law that established the agency empowers it only to apprehend and hand over suspects to the police for investigation as may be necessary. “But today, they have horrible cells in their office where they dump people and continually torture them. Some have stayed months in that place under very awful conditions,” he said, adding: “We were able to rescue Aliuna only because we went as a group of journalists.”

    The fear of many about state control of security – e.g. state police – is how it could be abused. Ebonyi Neighbourhood Watch hasn’t helped to allay that fear.

  • Soludo vs Obi: a new low

    Soludo vs Obi: a new low

    The Anambra governorship election has come and gone, with the people speaking loud and clear.  Across the state’s 21 local governments, everyone now knows the undisputed lord of the manor: the re-elected Governor, Chukwuma Charles Soludo.

    But that wasn’t joy — indeed, it was concentrated anguish — to former Governor Peter Obi.  He played the Emeka Ojukwu wannabe.  Recall: the late Ikemba Nnewi literarily strapped Obi to his back, and sold him to his captive APGA electorate. 

    That powered Obi to his two-term governorship.  In instant appreciation, Obi promised not to ever leave APGA — but that turned a dud, no sooner than Ojukwu hit the grave.

    But Obi, ever the mere butterly that always fancies himself a powerful bird, wasn’t quite shy playing the neo-Ojukwu, but this time to the Labour Party (LP) candidate, George Moghalu, himself an ex-APC, who wanted to cash on Obi’s felt popularity to sneak into the Anambra governorship. 

    That proved a rich mirage and opportunism never crashed so badly!  Some claim it was the “Soludo solution” that unhorsed Obi so badly.  But others swear it was the “APGA curse”, which harvested Obi’s conceit at the most painful of seasons.  Again, remember: Obi’s sensational renouncing of APGA, sooner than later, would come back to haunt the guilty.  Ojukwu, to whose grave Obi always went to campaign, while selling his hand-picked successor, Willy Obiano, must be smiling in his grave!

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    But Obi won’t be the sensational spin master, if he didn’t turn his trouncing into some realtime lexical triumph.  Mocked for his crash — well, the loud collapse of his LP protégée — Obi, gripped by post-electoral rout and conceit, claimed he wasn’t on the ballot, so he couldn’t have been defeated — true, but only literally so.  He knew he was well and truly trounced, because he was lifting Moghalu’s hand all over the place.  So, Moghalu’s rejection was Obi’s rejection too — fair and square!

    In his conceptual confusion, he happened on the rather colourful sports imagery: having been Anambra governor more than 10 years ago, he — Obi — now played in the Premiership (read presidency) and therefore was no Soludo’s mate.

    Well, that was a risky claim.  Besides, the Premiership — Presidency — claim is rather tendentious.  It ended in a loss, except you’re a Chimanmada Ngozi Adichie, who staked her literary integrity on Obi and confederates’ suspect 2023 claim.  His governorship?  There’s even a bigger shadow on that, given Obi’s legacy crisis.  Beyond a controversial “savings” claim, he left virtually zero landmark, compared to Soludo’s extant record.

    Soludo, who Sam Omatseye loves to call the “boom of Anambra orchestra”, on account of his baritone voice, didn’t take things lying low.  He countered that he, with his present gubernatorial record and previous record as CBN Governor, aside other pre-governorship achievements, had played in the World Cup, while all Obi could boast was playing in League One — effectively the English Second Division!

    Obi — a foul loser — brought it all upon himself, to be sure.  But Soludo too was no magnanimous winner, the way he robbed his predecessor in the mud.  That was a new low.  Both could do far better.

  • Narrow nets

    Narrow nets

    According to a new World Bank report, poor Nigerians who need government-funded safety-net schemes the most are not benefiting from them, despite billions of naira spent on poverty alleviation. The bank’s November 2025 report, titled “The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria,” says poor households receive only 44 percent of the total benefits from such programmes.

    The report, which examines the country’s spending on social safety nets and evaluates their coverage and efficiency, attributes the failure to reach the neediest to poor targeting, weak funding, and fragmented implementation. 

    “Many programmes implemented by the federal, state, and local levels, as well as safety net programmes implemented by religious bodies, fail to reach the neediest,” the bank observed. It described the impacts of extant safety nets on the overall poverty headcount rate in the country as “negligible.”

    It also said the poverty impacts of safety net programmes in the country “are much lower” than in most other low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), adding that “The range of poverty impacts in Nigeria is even lower than the average among not just the LMICs, but also low-income countries with lower incomes and a higher extent of poverty.”

    In 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had released a report that said 133 million Nigerians were multidimensionally poor. This figure represented 63 percent of the country’s population of more than 200 million.  Three out of five Nigerians lived in poverty, according to the NBS report.

    The data from the Monetary Poverty Measurement (MPM) and Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) had called into question the anti-poverty efforts of the Federal Government and the seriousness of state and local governments in the fight against poverty.

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    Ironically, the findings had suggested that poverty in the country was governance-driven, with high deprivations nationally in healthcare, food security, and housing, among others.

    Poverty remains a big issue in the country, and anti-poverty solutions must be governance-driven.

    The United Nations (UN) defines extreme poverty as “a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services.”

    This definition captures not only monetary poverty but also multidimensional poverty, showing how “deprivations in basic amenities” are used to assess poverty.

    The World Bank’s critical findings demand action from the Nigerian authorities. They must ensure that the social safety nets are spread wide enough to cushion the neediest citizens.

  • Blood on their hands

    Blood on their hands

    Three notable Nigerians were cut down by hit-and-run drivers within a span of 11 days in October 2025. Those killings freshly raised the question of safety enforcement on the country’s highways and responsibility of motorists to the safety of other road users, especially pedestrians.

    A prominent labour activist, Abiodun Aremu, a retiring director in Lagos State Government service, Serifat Talabi, and a lecturer at the Federal University Lokoja (FUL), Emmanuel-Olowonubi Oluwakemi, were fatalities of hit-and-run incidents that caused outrage among members of the public, yet with no known measures of justice for the victims and redress for their relations till date. Reckless driving, weak road safety enforcement, vehicles that are not roadworthy and dilapidated condition of roads are among factors largely blamed for road mishaps in the country.

    It was on Sunday, October 12, that Aremu, an ace unionist and Secretary of the Joint Action Front (JAF) was hit by a speeding vehicle while crossing the road to his house in Ota, Ogun State, at about 6p.m. Eyewitnesses said the 65-year-old was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors battled to save his life but without success. Aremu was reputed as a committed revolutionary and was until his death deeply involved in labour activism, youth education and pan-African solidarity causes. His killing sent shockwaves through the nation’s labour and civil society circles.

    Read Also: Trump’s ineptitudes and panic in Nigeria

    On October 18, the Lagos State Civil Service was thrown into mourning following the killing of Serifat Talabi, who until her death was the Director of Procurement at the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA). Talabi was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver on the Lagos–Ibadan expressway close to the Redemption City in Ibafo, Ogun State, just four days before her retirement and 60th birthday. She had already sent out invitation cards for her birthday thanksgiving and retirement ceremony scheduled for October 22, and her killing upended preparations for what would have been a double celebration of life’s glorious accomplishments. Her colleagues described her as a humble, dedicated worker whose sudden death left the entire agency in shock.

    Barely a week after Talabi’s killing, another tragedy threw the FUL community into mourning as a trailer crushed Oluwakemi, a lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts, to death on Felele Road, Lokoja, the Kogi State capital. The late lecturer was reportedly returning home when the accident occurred near a location notorious for frequent crashes, just days after the university held its 9th convocation ceremony. Oluwakemi was fondly called ‘Mama Theatre Arts’ by her students, and her killing reignited concerns over safety on the highway axis where a number of students and commuters have lost their lives owing to reckless driving and heavy-duty vehicles flouting traffic regulations.

    The hit-and-run drivers have blood on their hands, but relevant authorities also need to double up regarding safety enforcement on Nigerian highways. It sucks that those killer-drivers may have effectively gotten away with their heartlessness.

  • Checkpoints on border routes

    Checkpoints on border routes

    Multiple checkpoints are a menace on Nigeria’s border corridors. We have the word of stakeholders in Southwest corridors to illustrate that.

    Ogun State House of Assembly recently called on police leadership to scale down 52 checkpoints erected on the Idiroko-Owode route, decrying the situation as oppressive and detrimental to the socio-economic wellbeing of residents and commuters in the border communities. The assembly made the call in a resolution, following a motion by member representing Ipokia/Idiroko state constituency.

    The member, Bisi Oyedele, had said the proliferation of police checkpoints on the route subjected residents, motorists and traders to daily extortion, intimidation and unnecessary delays. He noted that checkpoints along the 20-kilometre stretch increased from about 20 to 52 within weeks, saying: “A trip that should ordinarily last 20 minutes now takes almost two hours due to endless interceptions by security officers who often demand bribe from drivers and traders. Transporters are most affected, paying up to N1,000 per stop – a situation that has led to losses, protests and even a temporary local transport strike recently witnessed.” He added: “The proliferation of checkpoints has crippled local businesses, increased transport fares and worsened the prices of goods and essential commodities in Ipokia Local Government and environs. Perishable goods now get damaged in transit due to unnecessary delays, while traders are forced to factor illegal payments into the cost of their wares, making life increasingly difficult for ordinary citizens.”

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    The assembly, in deliberations presided over by Speaker Daisi Elemide, deplored the multiplicity of checkpoints, describing the conduct of some officers manning them as abuse of authority. Its resolution urged Ogun police commissioner to reduce the checkpoints to a reasonable number as would yet guarantee security without inflicting hardship on innocent citizens. It also called on Governor Dapo Abiodun to engage the police command so to address the matter swiftly. The house further resolved to transmit the motion as a petition to the Senate President, House of Representatives Speaker, Police Inspector-General and the National Security Adviser for investigation and necessary action at the federal level.

    Barely a week earlier, the Controller, Seme area command of Nigeria Customs, Wale Adenuga, said multiple checkpoints along Lagos-Badagry expressway were tarnishing the country’s image. Speaking at a stakeholder engagement with security agencies, traditional rulers, community representatives and business partners in Seme, he added that Customs would not rest until the checkpoints are reduced to the barest minimum  on the corridor. “The time wasting along Lagos-Badagry expressway is disturbing. You will see many vehicles queueing for checking by security operatives. It is embarrassing to see as many as 10 Immigration, 20 Police and 15 Customs checkpoints doing same work along the expressway.” He added: “We need  to tell ourselves the bitter truth. The more we facilitate legitimate trade, the better for our country. When trade thrives, crime reduces.”

    Those testimonies say it all.

  • Narrow view

    Narrow view

    Contrary to the Federal Government’s claim that the observed drop in food prices across the country signalled progress towards food sovereignty and food security, the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) argued that the decreased prices may be unsustainable. AFAN’s position is bad news for Nigerians struggling with a tough cost-of-living crisis.

     “We are beginning to witness a decline in food prices across several commodities — a reflection of ongoing market stabilisation efforts,” including increased local production, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, stated on November 6, at the opening of the 47th National Council on Agriculture and Food Security, in Kaduna. The forum assessed Nigeria’s agricultural progress.

    However, reacting to the minister’s presentation after the event, AFAN President Kabir Ibrahim explained that “seasonal or harvest period price” was an important factor in the prevailing low prices in commodities. He also listed zero tariff imports between July and December last year, and low purchasing power of most Nigerians as other factors.

    He added that the current low or reduced price regime for most farm products “may not be sustainable if the farmers are not supported to readily go back to the farm.”

    According to the association, the urgent support required includes the reduction of input costs such as fertilizers, agrochemicals, and labour. It noted that farmers were facing higher production expenses despite increased output.

    Notably, the National President of the National Apex of Cashew Farmers, Processors and Marketing Cooperative Limited, Yunusa Enemali, also wondered why the minister had attributed the drop in food prices to increased local production. He said the government had failed to address the challenges facing farmers.

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    Importantly, Enemali further raised potent questions about the country’s ongoing cost-of-living crisis, arguing that the noted cut in food prices does not tell the whole story. 

    “If the food has fallen,” he asked, “is it affordable to the common man on the streets? Has the transport dropped? Has the fuel dropped? Is the infrastructure okay?”

    These posers effectively shift the focus from the superficial argument about reduced food prices to the real-life impact on ordinary citizens.

    The arguments from these two top players in the agricultural sector against the minister’s picture suggest that the government may be out of touch with the challenging realities facing farmers in the country to the detriment of agricultural growth.

    Indeed, this food price debate shows that the authorities need a holistic view of reality.

  • His Lordship has spoken

    His Lordship has spoken

    By hardball (PIX)

    A federal high court in Abuja lately highlighted an aspect of Nigerian law that people most concerned would prefer abides in permanent abeyance. The court sacked Abubakar Gummi, representing Gummi/Bukkuyum federal constituency of Zamfara State in the House of Representatives, for defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Cross-party defections by political actors is the in-thing currently in Nigerian pollical culture. But Justice Obiora Egwuatu, late last week, held that Gummi’s defection was unconstitutional since there was no division in the PDP at the time he left the party in 2024. The judge restrained House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas from further recognising the Zamfara lawmaker as a member of the green chamber. Among other things, he also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct fresh election to fill the vacant seat within 30 days.

    In a suit filed through their lawyer, Ibrahim Bawa, SAN, the PDP and its Zamfara chairman, Jamilu Jibomagayaki, had asked the court to determine whether Gummi’s defection from the PDP – that sponsored his election – to the APC was lawful, and whether the House speaker’s failure to declare his seat vacant violated Section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The referenced section states: “(1) A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the house of which he is a member if – (g) being a person whose election to the house was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that house was elected; provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored.”

    Read Also: FEC approves $396m loans for northern IDPs, Sokoto health project

    Gummi, in his defence, argued that his defection was warranted by “lingering unresolved internal and external crises” within the PDP at both national and constituency levels. He said the situation made it impossible for him to effectively represent his constituents and ensure equitable distribution of democracy dividends.

    Justice Egwuatu, however, dismissed Gummi’s defence and criticised the growing trend of political defections, describing it as a betrayal of the electorate’s mandate. “In a situation where the electorate have made their choices between different political parties and their candidates based on the manifestos and marketability of such a political party, it is legally and morally wrong for a politician to abandon the party under whose platform he or she was elected into office and move to a rival party without relinquishing the mandate of his or her former party. If a person must decamp, don’t decamp with the mandate of the electorate. Don’t transfer the votes garnered on the platform of one party to another party,” he ruled inter alia.

    As His Lordship pleases…

  • ‘Killing of Christian’, American delusion

    ‘Killing of Christian’, American delusion

    Ted Cruz, a US senator, cruising on the falsehood of a Christian “genocide” in Nigeria, epitomizes the graphic American delusion to escape, at Nigeria’s expense, the clear mess the ever-fumbling Donald Trump is making of his hitherto hallowed country.

    With that comprehensive Trump mess, and the halo of anything good and decent coming out of America vanishing fast, it’s little wonder Cruz and co are in pitiable over-drive, as cynical protectors of Nigerian endangered Christians!  What a fib!

    Still, that fib, no matter how much repeated, wouldn’t stop making America and its narcissistic president a global laughing stock. Pray, how can a 249-year old democracy, and so-called leader of the democratic world, shackle itself — not once, but twice! — to a character like Trump, who even sacked the US Capitol?

    But again, that’s no business of Hardball.  It’s a universal truth that elections have consequences: for good or for ill.  Hardball only draws the line to tell these American busybodies to first remove the Trump log in their eyes, before pointing at Christian “genocide” speck in Nigeria’s — again, a total and complete fib!

    Still, by America’s records, even at its best of times, lying to bully other countries and races, has always been its notorious pastime.  With sheer lies and deceit, this same America got rid of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi  — and that was under President Barrack Obama: as refined as Trump is gross. 

    They got rid of Gaddafi, o yes!  But with his macabre death went the soul of a once thriving country.  Post-Gaddafi’s Libya has become a global reference for chaos, with terrible consequences for the Sahel. 

    Ironically, that Sahel-pushed chaos is driving terrorism/banditry in Nigeria’s North — that same violent outlawry Cruz and co now confect for their new brew of “Christian genocide” in Nigeria!  Must these evil folks lie, and repeatedly lie, just because they know they can get away with it?

    Before Gaddafi was Saddam Hussein, his fall plotted by another lie from one of America’s most iconic and respected soldier-statesman, Colin Powell, under President W. George Bush — Bush the Son, or Bush II, if you will.  When Powell said he had “evidence” that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction”, at the UN Security Council, the globe dotted on his very words.  But lo!  That turned out a brazen lie.  It nevertheless gifted America an excellent excuse to get rid of Saddam.

    Read Also: How Nigeria should deal with Trump’s military threat

    Well, no tears for Saddam.  If he was so power drunk he annexed Kuwait, a weaker but independent country, he got the due for any misguided bully.  But when comes the comeuppance of America, the global bully-in-chief?  Perhaps Karma is providing one in Trump, under whose watch America is fast unravelling?  Who knows?

    For the umpteenth time, there is no Christian, Muslim or any genocide, for that matter, in Nigeria — much less any, backed by the government, as Cruz and co claim in their lies.  We should know because we’re here — not some meddling aliens, enslaved by own colourful tales, claiming they know Nigeria more than Nigerians.

    Indeed, such is tantamount to Nigerian high officials claiming that Trump, as insensate as he is, is responsible for all the senseless killings and gun violence in America.  Even, the most rabid hater of Trump knows that’s a frothing lie. Mad killings, part of America’s DNA, preceded Trump and will survive him.

    Let Cruz and co get themselves busy with other productive campaigns — like saving their country from Trump.  Sooner than later, these in-your-face lies of Nigeria’s Christian “genocide” will fall flat, with rotten eggs splattered on the faces of Cruz and co.

  • Unpunished

    Unpunished

    By engaging in a disturbing display of brutish conduct, Taiwo Lawal—leader of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) in Alimosho, Lagos State—illustrated the excesses of the vigilante organisation known for its Yoruba nationalism.

    According to reports, Lawal recently led six men who assaulted Joseph Omokunle Afolayan, proprietor of Meteorite Standard College in Ayetoro, Ogun State.

    Afolayan’s account: “This incident happened shortly after the morning assembly on October 23. I was moving around the premises and classrooms… Around 9.30 am, I spotted from a distance a 10-year-old JSS 1 student, Sodiq Aremu Lawal, sneaking into the premises… our resumption time is 8 am. He also violated our dress code by not tucking in his shirt.”

    He said he “asked him to stop,” but the student “refused to obey me.” The boy “ran away from the school premises through the pedestrian gate,” and “returned with his father and six men and they descended on me while I was explaining to his father called Taiwo Lawal aka Eniba what his son did.” According to him, the father said “he is the OPC chairman in Alimosho Local Government Area and that nobody can talk to him or reprimand his son.”

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    Afolayan continued: “He threatened to beat me up, and before I knew it, he and his boys started beating me mercilessly and dealt blows on me until blood gushed out of the wound they inflicted on my head, nose and ears as they dragged me on the floor while my teachers and others watched… I was later rescued by my students who trooped out and engaged Eniba and his thugs…this attack on me was the height of humiliation that I have suffered as a result of trying to instill discipline in a student.” He added that he “spent thousands of naira” on his treatment at the State General Hospital, Ota, Ogun State.

    Curiously, he also said when the son showed up in school the following day, “I did not send him away because he wasn’t the one that beat me up, albeit, his bad behaviour was the trigger.”

    At Ayetoro-Budo Police Station, where he reported the incident, the police told him that “it was not possible to arrest Eniba at his nearby residence under Lagos territory.”  The OPC leader, it was noted, had also shunned a police invitation.

    How the story ends leaves much to be desired. The Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Ayetoro-Budo Police Station, Akindele Okunoye, said “the case was settled” after Lawal “sent some men to the victim pleading for amicable settlement, and all of them later came to my office.” He said the proprietor had demanded that the OPC leader bear the cost of his medical bill, “leading to settlement of the matter.”

    The student whose bad conduct triggered the incident and his father whose conduct was even worse seem to have escaped punishment.  What happened to the use of punishment for deterrent purposes?