Category: Hardball

Notorious for the unprofessionalism and irresponsibility of some of its personnel, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) needs to do more than it is reported to have done to redeem its image following the Christmas Day shooting of a female lawyer by a policeman at a checkpoint in Ajah, Lagos.

Mrs Omobolanle Raheem, 41, was pronounced dead at the third hospital she was taken to after the shooting. Her mother was reported saying she “was pregnant with twins.”  This means that the shocking shooting resulted in three deaths.

She was in the front passenger seat in the car driven by her husband, who was trying to respond to an order to stop, when the policeman shot her.  Her sister and five children were also in the car.

The alleged killer, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Drambi Vandi attached to the Ajah Divisional Headquarters of the Lagos State Police Command, was said to have been in the police force for 33 years. It was unexpected that a policeman who had served for that long would be so irresponsible.

Amid public outrage, the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali, in a statement, said “the ugly and unprofessional act” did not “portray the Nigeria Police Standard Operating Procedure and core values.” He recommended the immediate suspension of the alleged killer policeman, and ordered a speedy investigation and prosecution of the implicated officers.

The police notably described the shooting as “one too many,” noting that a similar incident had occurred at the same location less than three weeks earlier when a young man, Gafaru Buraimoh, was shot dead by an inspector, Imeh Johnson, attached to the same division.

This week, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, was reported to have tweeted that the new DPO Ajah, CSP Adolf Ogwu, had “dismantled all the shanties” around the Ajah police station, some of which were drinking places where policemen drank alcohol while on duty. 

He also said: “In addition, the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, CP Abiodun Alabi, has already effected the transfer out of ALL personnel of the division, with replacement from other divisions. This would fully materialise in a couple of days.”

It remains to be seen if the new Ajah police personnel would be different from the old ones. Also, it is a point to ponder if the old ones would not take their old ways to their new places.

Changing-of-the-guard at Ajah is not the answer.  Police authorities need to urgently address the issue of reform of the institution. The police need a reorientation, including reviewing their rules of engagement, among other crucial reforms.

Nigeria’s image abroad is much of the time sketched by people of Nigerian origin and what they do in countries of their habitation. It is based on their conducts that other Nigerians either resident in those countries or just passing through with the green passport are profiled. That is why it is of interest how people of Nigerian descent abroad behave or the feats they achieve.

The closing weeks of year 2022 showed up a bad Nigerian brand on the international canvas, but elsewhere a good brand. In years past, just like we had notorious cyber-fraudster Hushpuppi, there was also Nigerian doctoral student Ikenna Nweke in Japan who, in 2020, stumbled on a lost wallet containing huge cash, credit cards and other valuables and, rather than keep the tidy fortune, he not only returned the wallet to Japanese authorities for the owner to retrieve, he also declined a percentage he was entitled to by law. Bad brands must be condemned and good brands celebrated.

On 15th December, last year, the Guyana Police reached out to the International Police Organisation (Interpol) for more information on a Nigerian identified as Bethel Chimezie, who staged a daring knife and gun attack on presidential guards at the Guyana State House that resulted in him being shot and injured. Chimezie reportedly entered the south-east guardroom at the Guyana State House early that day and demanded to see President Irfaan Ali. He allegedly whipped out a knife and stabbed a policeman several times on his neck and body, then managed to disarm a female guard of her 9mm pistol and ran out to an adjoining street where he started shooting at the officers. Law enforcers who gave him a chase overpowered him, though, after shooting him and taking him to hospital. The Guyana Police said it wanted comprehensive background check on Chimezie who arrived the country in March 2020. His last employment was in a cleaning company but he had not show up for work for 10 days before the incident. Now, on account of Chimezie, every Nigerian who gets near Guyana’s borders would be deemed a violent criminal.

Unlike Chimezie, there is 28-year-old Tracy Eboigbodin who won  the 2022 edition of MasterChef Italia held in Rome late last year. Tracy, who has lived 17 years in Italy, is from Edo State where she had her childhood years. In tearful acceptance of the 100,000euro prize, she said she refused to be limited by the stereotype of being a Nigerian and woman from Edo State often linked to prostitution and trafficking. Italian embassy in Nigeria alongside the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission celebrated Eboigbodin at an event held in Abuja recently. She is a good poster girl who could ease the way for other Nigerians in Italy.

We need more of the good brands and must hope 2023 have them aplenty in store.

President Muhammadu Buhari has doubled as Minister of Petroleum Resources since he came into office in 2015. His anti-corruption stance in his first term continued after his reelection in 2019.  In his eight years in power, he was expected to tackle corruption in the country’s oil sector.

The latest news of sleaze in the sector calls into question Buhari’s presidential and ministerial roles.  Crude oil is Nigeria’s main export, and it is disturbing that the country continues to bleed terribly from the effect of scandalous corruption in the oil sector.

According to a report by the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF), more than 17.877 million barrels of crude oil “valued at $1,020,969,281.12 (One billion, twenty million, nine hundred and sixty-nine thousand, two hundred and eighty-one dollars, twelve cents only)” were exported from 2016 to 2019 without proper documentation.

“This gives rise to either non-repatriation or delay in the repatriation of export proceeds,” said the report signed by the immediate past Auditor-General, Adolphus Aghughu, and submitted to the Clerk of the National Assembly on June 29, 2022. In other words, there was room for corruption. The report focused on pre-shipment inspection and monitoring of crude oil and gas exports by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

How did this happen under Buhari as president and minister? This question also came up last year after an unbelievable number of oil-theft points were discovered following the Federal Government’s controversial pipeline surveillance contract with a company, Tantita Security Services, to check the massive oil theft in the Niger Delta.  The company is linked to Government Ekpemupolo, popularly called Tompolo, the former leader of the militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta.

Notably, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, through his representative, said at an event at the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, Delta State, last October: “Oil theft has denied the country of an estimated 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The adverse effect of this is the drop in the production of crude oil and decline in the national income.’’  It is estimated that more than $3.3bn (£2.9bn) has been lost to crude oil theft since 2021.

It is disappointing that President Buhari, who doubles as Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister, has failed to deal with corruption in the oil sector despite his administration’s noisy campaign against corruption.  He leaves office this year after two four-year terms. From all indications, part of his legacy may well be flourishing corruption in the oil sector, which he encouraged by inaction.

Two policemen arrested alongside Drambi Vandi, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) accused of killing Lagos lawyer Mrs. Omobolanle Raheem on Christmas day, were let off the hook last week. They were released on Tuesday – two days after the killing – with the Lagos State Police Command declaring them not guilty of any crime. The men were together with Vandi on purported official functions when he pulled the trigger on the late Omobolanle at Ajah under-bridge in Ajiwe area, close to Ajiwe police station, in the Ajah suburb of Lagos.

Vandi is facing prosecution for the killing and has been suspended from police service. The Lagos command said two others arrested along with him had been interrogated and their testimonies on the incident taken, and they were accordingly being released. “The two policemen arrested with the ASP who killed the lawyer will be released (Tuesday) after giving their testimonies to the command,” command spokesperson Benjamin Hundeyin, a Superintendent of Police (SP), said. “They were arrested because they saw what happened. They were not the ones who allegedly killed the woman. They have given their stories on what happened and the CP (Commissioner of Police) has ordered that they should be released while investigations continue,” he added.

The killer-cop and the other policemen were said to be on stop-and-search operation on Christmas day when Omobolanle was cut down. Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Alkali Baba during a visit to Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu last week, while condemning Omobolanle’s killing, rationalised ‘stop-and-search’ as one of routine security operations of the police. But many people have questioned what Vandi and his gang were ‘stopping-and-searching’ the Raheems for before the gun went off on Omobolanle. Even by mere appearance, it couldn’t be the Raheems’ car posed such threat as to itch Vandi to his trigger. The encounter was at high noon, with a whole family returning from Christmas day outing. Besides Omobolanle’s husband with her in the car, there was the Raheems’ eight-year-old daughter along with a younger sister of the victim and that sister’s four children. Nothing could’ve been more picnic-like in aura and potential motive. Still, the killer-cop felt sufficiently itched to reach for a gun with live bullets! The questions here are as follows. Though they weren’t the ones that pulled the trigger, what were those accomplices, just like Vandi, stopping-and-searching the Raheems and other evidently harmless citizens for? Were they on official assignment; and if they were, what was their brief, who gave the brief and what were the deliverables?

That some police personnel had not pulled the trigger did not explain why they unleashed themselves on roads to harass innocent citizens who the most elementary psychological profiling would indicate were utterly harmless.

Interestingly, Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke’s ultimatum to the immediate past governor, his deputy and some senior officials of the previous administration to return government vehicles they allegedly took away illegally or face criminal charges, has resulted in the return of some of the vehicles.  Adeleke had said the vehicles should be returned within 48 hours. 

The governor’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, said some people “are secretly returning the vehicles because they are now aware that there is no legal basis for them going away with government vehicles, it is like engaging in criminal conduct.” He stressed that anyone that failed to return such vehicles in their possession within the period stated by the governor would be “liable to prosecution.”

He explained that if the vehicles were not returned “the state government will spend almost N3.2 billion to purchase new vehicles for all the government parastatals. We are not witch-hunting anybody, many people do not know the implications.”

 He argued that the state “is still lacking development, we are still struggling to pay salaries, even if we want to spend on vehicles, it should not be too much.”

The former governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, was reported saying he gave the vehicles to some of those who served in his administration in appreciation of their service to the state. The question is whether it was legal to do so. It shouldn’t be based on whether Oyetola wanted to demonstrate a sense of gratitude. Those who have returned the vehicles seem to understand this. 

It is curious that the Speaker of Osun State House of Assembly, Timothy Owoeye, was quoted as saying the  law empowers governors, their deputies and some top public officials to go with their official vehicles when they leave office. He cited the State Public Office Holders (payment of pension and severance packages) Bill 2018, signed into law in 2019. Is Governor Adeleke unaware of this law?

The speaker, however, appeared to contradict himself by inviting the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Teslim Igbalaye, and the Chief of Staff, Kasim Akinleye, for a discussion on the matter.

 “I want to call on the SSG and Chief of Staff to let us discuss this matter holistically. There are so many things we can settle without denting the image of anybody,” he said during plenary in reaction to Governor Adeleke’s ultimatum.

If, indeed, there is an existing law that allows the concerned persons to leave office with their official vehicles, there is certainly no need for a discussion on the matter “holistically,” which is an ambiguous expression in this context.  It does not suggest openness.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan recently advocated a law to make it possible for the federal and state governments to withdraw national honours from persons of questionable character. It was ironic that he made the proposal at an event where Gen. Sanni Abacha, the late military dictator, was honoured posthumously.

“Talking about awards, I want to say, probably, when we are making laws, at the federal level, there should be an amendment empowering the president or the governors to strike off such honours,” he said in Abakaliki when he received an award, Grand Commander, Ebonyi Hall of Fame (GCEHF).

More than 300 Nigerians from all over the country were reported to have been honoured at the event. Abacha was among them. He ruled the country dictatorially from 1993 to 1998, and in 1996 created six states, including Ebonyi, which increased the number of states in the country to 36.  For creating the state, he also got the GCEHF award posthumously.  But the evil he did overshadowed the creation of the state.

It’s curious that the Ebonyi State government not only considered Abacha for the award but also decided that he deserved it. His name evokes unimaginable brutality and unimaginable kleptomania.

His authoritarian regime was responsible for the deaths of many pro-democracy fighters. Many prominent and not-so-prominent Nigerians fled the country to escape his hit squad. During his time in power, he intimidated the existing political parties into endorsing him as the sole presidential candidate in a desperate self-succession effort.

 Notably, Abacha prevented the inauguration of Chief M.K.O. Abiola, who won the country’s historic 1993 presidential election annulled by his predecessor, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Abiola was detained for four years by the Abacha regime, and eventually died in detention in July 1998, a month after the dictator’s death.

Abacha’s evil was compounded by his kleptomania. He is believed to have stolen money to the tune of over $3 billion from the treasury. The story of his mammoth loot stashed away in banks across the globe continues 24 years after his death. An official in the US Justice Department described him as “one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billions from the people of Nigeria while millions lived in poverty.” 

Abacha does not deserve any positive award. Indeed, he is in the category of honourees who should have their awards withdrawn under the law proposed by Jonathan.

Importantly, there is the question of the integrity of the selection process that determines who is listed for such honours, whether at federal or state level. It’s better not to confer honours on dubious characters in the first place, instead of withdrawing such honours afterwards.