Category: Hardball

Remember the legend of Robin Hood, the English tough who stole from the rich to bless the poor?

Well, Tanko Sabo, the PDP delegate to the just concluded chain of primaries, from Sanga local government of Kaduna State, didn’t exactly steal from anyone, rich or poor.

But the way he went about re-distributing the N19.3 million he “made” from the relay of primaries, cresting with the PDP presidential convention that threw up Atiku Abubakar, sure reminds you of good, old Robin, who the English poor would rather have in their hood.

Now, thanks to sundry inducement by ticket hopefuls, Tanko Sabo reportedly grossed N19.3 million.  But he only kept N1.3 million for himself.  The balance he expended on soul-lifting community and charity causes, even if the cash came from soul-sinking vote inducement and political corruption.

A report in The Nation of June 4 broke down Sabo’s charity/community spends from the primaries’ “loot”: N7 million to pay the SS 3 terminal examination fees for pupils of his community; N100, 000 gift to service community folks that served as Sabo’s human logistics to pay the fees; N6.9 million for 150 orphans; N3.2 million to kit and brand “Samba Boys”, his Dogon Daji community grassroots youth football team; N700, 000 grant to the “Moroka”: a league of needy elderly, women and outright beggars; and N100, 000 gift to one Danladi Janda.  The N1.3 million he retained for himself made up the N19.3 million trove.

Sabo’s value system is rather sound: N7 million went into youth education; N6.9 million went to orphans.  So, N13.9 million, out of N19.3 million, bolstered the most helpless of the future generation of Sabo’s community.  Another N3.2 million went into sports, a sort of youth empowerment.

Were Sabo to run for executive office, his agenda of youth empowerment/development would be quite promising.  No less commendable would be his zero personal or family greed — no strong virtue among the Nigerian political elite.

If Sabo were to  keep just N1.3 million for himself, out of N19.3 million “awoof”, you could see a soul consumed by compassion for community need, not personal greed.  That’s rather fresh and near-novel among the hustler power folks.

Reflex commentaries suggest Nigeria’s problem is basically leadership.  That’s not totally false. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have the crass monetisation of the political process that ends up impoverishing the majority.

Still, Sabo’s nobility from this rot points to the potential of a crop of followers that can demand far nobler ways.  Robin Hood would be extremely proud of his Nigerian reincarnation from Kaduna State!

 

American author Nancy Crampton-Brophy features plots about crime and infidelity in her romantic suspense novels. Unlike protagonists in her steamy thrillers, however, she has not gotten away with murder. In 2011, she wrote an essay notoriously titled “How to Murder Your Husband.” Last week, a jury in Portland, Oregon found her guilty of murdering her husband in a true life plot that could have been ripped from one of her books.

Ace news network, CNN, reported that the jury held Nancy, 71, guilty of second-degree murder in the 2018 death of her husband, Daniel Brophy, a chef gunned down at a culinary school where he taught cooking classes. The couple had lived in a quiet suburb of Portland where Daniel raised turkeys and chickens, tended a vegetable garden and liked to treat Nancy to lavish meals. But in June 2018, someone shot him in the kitchen at Oregon Culinary Institute, with students who arrived for class finding him bleeding on the floor. In court documents, prosecutors said the 63-year-old was shot twice – once in the back as he stood at a sink, and a second time in the chest at close range. Daniel’s wallet with cash and credit cards was found with him, and there were no signs of robbery or forced entry. The murder remained a mystery for months until Nancy got arrested in September 2018 for complicity.

During the trial, Nancy insisted that the couple was an item: “I’m a flawed person, Dan was a flawed person…together we made a really good team,” she said.  Prosecutors, however, argued that only she had a motive for the killing. They alleged in court papers that the Brophys were struggling financially and had drained their retirement account two years before the shooting. Nancy, whose books were not big sellers, hatched the plot to kill Daniel and collect more than $1.5million from multiple life insurance policies and other assets, they said. Among evidences adduced were that even though Daniel was alone at the school at the time of his death and the school had no security cameras, nearby traffic cameras showed Nancy’s Toyota minivan on city streets near the institute around the time of the shooting. Daniel was shot with a Glock 9mm handgun, and investigators found that Nancy bought a “ghost gun” assembly kit close to the time of the murder (“ghost guns” are unregistered and untraceable firearms). Prosecutors had wanted to tender Nancy’s notorious essay as additional evidence but the trial judge objected, ruling that it was written years before for a seminar and could unfairly prejudice the jury. As it turned out, jurors didn’t need to read it to reach their verdict.

What could have happened to those who paid N100m as ransom to kidnappers for the release of the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, His Eminence, Samuel Kanu-Uche, and two others, under the proposed law to criminalise ransom payment?

As the head of the Methodist Church in Nigeria, he is a high-profile religious figure, and it was predictable that the church would try to get him freed at all cost.

“The Methodist Church sent N100m for the three of us who were kidnapped. The money came from members of the Methodist Church of Nigeria,” he told journalists after his release.

He was abducted on May 29 on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, in the Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State. His chaplain, Very Rev. Abidemi Shittu, and the Bishop of Owerri, Rt. Rev. Dennis Mark, were with him, and  also abducted.  He said “the communication man of the church and the driver “escaped.

His account of their experience at the hands of their captors showed that they walked through the proverbial valley of the shadow of death. He narrated: “They took us into the bush and tortured us. In the process of the torture, I hit my right eye on a tree and even when blood was flowing and was soaking my handkerchief, they did not feel like anything happened. All they said was that we should follow them.”

After negotiation with their captors, who fixed a ransom of N100m for their release, the cleric said he contacted leaders of the church and his wife to raise the money by all means.

They were shown a place where the kidnappers said seven beheaded bodies had been dumped, which must have sent shivers down their spines. “We also perceived the odour of killed human beings,” Kanu-Uche said.

This incident further showed the unreasonableness of the move by federal lawmakers to outlaw the payment of ransom to abductors and terrorists for the release of any person who has been wrongfully confined, imprisoned or kidnapped.

The Nigerian Senate, in April, passed an amendment bill that proposes a jail sentence of up to 15 years for anyone who pays a ransom. It would be sent to the House of Representatives for concurrence and then to the president for assent.

Under the proposed law, what would the ransom payers in Kanu-Uche’s case be expected to do? The proposed legislation denies their right to try to save the lives of the captives by paying ransom to the kidnappers. This doesn’t make sense, particularly because the authorities responsible for security continue to demonstrate impotence.

Operators of commercial motorbikes, popularly known as ‘Okada,’ are levying their mob factor wantonly on communities across the country – a major reason they’ve been banned from select council areas in Lagos by the state government with effect from this Wednesday, 1st June. They reportedly stormed a housing estate in Abuja last Sunday and destroyed property in a revenge attack over the death of their colleague in an accident.

According to online news site, the ICIR, Okada riders laid a siege on Same Global Estate in Lokogoma area of the federal capital city and were barely restrained from setting houses ablaze in the estate. The unrest was said to have erupted when a motorist killed an Okada rider and one other person in an accident around the area and thereafter ran into the estate for safety. “The person that killed the people ran into Same Global. Okada people went to the estate to look for him and couldn’t find him, so they started burning things,” the news site quoted an eyewitness saying. It also cited the estate chairman, Ashinze Onero, saying: “The motorist ran into the estate and the bike riders were after him. But somehow, they were stopped by the security men and that aggravated the situation. In their usual way, they took the law into their own hands, lit bonfires and were throwing pebbles on houses.” According to the estate official, the situation would have gone out of hand but for swift intervention by security operatives. “The bonfires torched a part of the security house, but no house was really burnt. There were attempts, but thank God, we had to reach out to relevant security authorities and the police came to our rescue. We also enjoyed the goodwill of some of our very high-ranking military personnel (estate residents). They called for military backup and they were able to tame the situation,” he was reported saying.

Some two weeks earlier, commercial motorbike operators attacked a market at the Dei-Dei area of Abuja, burning down shops in a rampage said to have resulted in no fewer than four deaths. Trouble had erupted had after a motorcyclist conveying a female passenger skidded and overturned on the road, resulting in the passenger’s death. A mob had burnt down the motorcycle, prompting reprisal attack by Okada riders. In Lekki, Lagos State, a mob action by commercial motorcyclists resulted in the lynching of a sound engineer, Sunday David Imoh, on 12th May and near death of two colleagues of the victim.

Okada riders have traction in the society because of the rickety state of public transportation system. Society must find a way of keeping them in check.

 

 

 

 

It’s a chilling narrative, indeed. It is about continued barbarism in the Southeast geo-political zone, which has become another hell because of rising insecurity.

It is also about perpetrators of murderous violence, and their identities. Again and again, the agents of evil carry out devilish acts, and it seems nobody can identify them. Indeed, it seems they are unidentifiable.

But how can that be? Are they spirits? They may be under the influence of evil spirits, but they are flesh and blood. This means they should be identifiable.

The blood-curdling narrative by the general secretary of the Arewa community in Anambra State, Mahmud Imam, shows that evil persons are responsible for insecurity in the Southeast. He said in a statement: “What happened was on Sunday, May 22, 2022. We woke up peacefully but later in the day we started receiving calls from our members from various locations of the state that the so-called unknown gunmen had launched a series of attacks on them, which led to the deaths of about 15 persons.

“That of Orumba local government was the most trending because it involved a pregnant woman, whose name is Fatima Jibrin, and her four children. They were murdered in the middle of the road by these faceless and wicked people, called unknown gunmen.” The murdered woman was said to have been 32 years old, and hailed from Adamawa State.

Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, in a statement, described the killing as “senseless, barbaric and unprovoked,” lamenting its religious and ethnic dimensions.

He also made a thought-provoking observation, saying “The lexis of the so-called unknown gunmen is no longer tenable. They are known but ignored! …Hence, the government should intensify efforts in identifying and prosecuting the so-called unknown gunmen.”

The term “unknown gunmen” does not mean the killers are unknowable.  If they are identifiable, then the criminals should be identified and brought to justice.

When mysterious gunmen commit crimes, it is the role of law enforcement to identify them, catch them and prosecute them. It is counter-productive to label them in a way that suggests that they can’t be identified and, therefore, possibly can’t be caught and tried.

In the context of crime and punishment, there should be no room for the expression “unknown gunmen.” It may be said that such gunmen are yet to be identified, but it shouldn’t be said that they are unknown.  The description “unknown” suggests finality, as if the matter ends there.

 

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has bones to pick with the ongoing political process leading up to the 2023 general election. He has just been reported thumbing down the primary elections of political parties to select their candidates for various offices in the polls. Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held its presidential primary over the weekend, while the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is getting on with its primary about now. Although not so prominently featured in the news, other parties are in a race to meet the new deadline by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for submission of the particulars of candidates.

The ex-president was reported describing the entire process as a mess. Speaking last Thursday at the launch of a book by former Power Minister of State Dr. Mohammed Wakil in Abuja, he said: “These whole primaries going on across the country are a mess. This is not standard practice. We cannot use the process to elect the president, governors, senators and House of Representatives members among others. The process has already failed, which is not good for the country. But we will manage and move on. We pray that good people should come. I hope that what happened this year, 2022, will not happen again in this country.”

It was not made clear what specifically was Jonathan’s beef, and with which particular aspect of the “whole primaries.” But he spoke against the backdrop of procurement by a group of northern herdsmen of the N100million presidential nomination and declaration of interest forms of the APC on his behalf, which he thereafter didn’t get to submit to the party. The ex-president said he was not consulted before the forms were procured and described the gesture as an insult, but unconfirmed reports alleged that he actually funded the herders’ group to act as proxies and only chickened out in the heat of negative public reaction to the news of the political assayance. Besides, his body language was spurious: he visited the ruling party’s national chairman late on the day the forms were procured after his spokesperson swapped disclaimer claims over the gesture.

And only last Friday, a Federal High Court in Yenagoa held that the former president is eligible to contest the 2023 presidential election and isn’t affected by Section 137 (1b) and (3) of the 1999 Constitution stipulating that a person cannot take the oath for the office of President more than twice. Many suspect that Jonathan has more than a passing interest in this suit. Will he bite the bullet?

What should the Federal Government do in response to the seven-day ultimatum by the Abuja-Kaduna train attackers?  The vast majority of kidnapped victims of the train attack two months ago are still in captivity.

Now their captors have threatened to start killing them if the authorities do not meet stated demands. The leader of the abductors was quoted as saying “anything can happen to the abducted passengers henceforth.”

Their message is terrifying. Not only the relatives of the captives are terrified; many other people are too.

They communicated their message in a telephone conversation with the spokesman of Sheikh Ahmed Mahmud Gumi, Malam Tukur Mamu, and asked him to convey their message faithfully to the Federal Government, families of the victims and Nigerians in general.

“We don’t need money. We have a good reason for doing what we did. Until our demands are met, none of the victims will come out alive even if it means we will all die with them. They are well taken care of… but we assure you that this will not continue,” their leader, who gave his name as Abu Barra, said.

He also said: “Before any continued discussion on the release of these passengers and a safe resumption of the train service, our children must be released unconditionally.

“Only then will we release some of the abducted victims, especially the women, while other passengers will be released on a prisoner exchange with some of our arrested comrades by the government.

“And if the government doesn’t respond after that, then Nigerians should forget using the Abuja-Kaduna rail line as well as the Kaduna-Abuja highway.”

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) had said there were 362 people on board the train when it was attacked on March 28.  Sadly, eight passengers were killed, 41 injured, and many were abducted. The NRC had suspended train services on the route after the incident.

 

The threat is disturbing. Something similar happened about a year ago when bandits-cum-kidnappers struck at Greenfield University, Kaduna State, in April 2021. They kidnapped more than 20 students. Three days later, the bodies of three of the abductees, a male and two females were found at a location close to the university.

“We did not expect the bandits would resort to killing our children because they had contacted us and demanded ransom,” one of the parents had said, adding that they were negotiating with the kidnappers when the students were killed. After another three days, two more abductees were found dead.

The point is that the ultimatum should be taken seriously. If the government is unable to rescue the train attack captives, it should not let history repeat itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it a mere coincidence that the Federal Government initiated corrective measures at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) after Godswill Akpabio’s resignation from President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet to pursue his presidential dream?

“The Presidency has directed that all contracts awarded by the NDDC from 2000 to December 31, 2019, for which the beneficiary contractors are yet to mobilise to the site, are cancelled,” the agency’s director, corporate affairs, Dr Ibitoye Abosede, announced in a statement.

“Consequently, all affected contractors are advised to note that all monies earlier received by way of mobilisation for any of the projects are to be promptly refunded to the commission’s Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

The spokesman said the action was part of the implementation of the forensic audit report. When President Buhari, in October 2019, ordered a forensic audit of the agency’s operations from 2001 to 2019, the move suggested that his administration’s anti-corruption campaign had finally reached the NDDC.

The audit was reported to have started in April 2020, but curiously took well over a year.  The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on behalf of President Buhari, received the NDDC forensic audit report from Akpabio, in Abuja, on September 2, 2021.

The government said there were “over 13,777 projects, the execution of which is substantially compromised.” But nothing happened to show that the government understood the importance of implementing the report without delay.

Now, about eight months after, it seems the government is set to implement the report. Akpabio, who should have driven the process as minister, was busy offering unconvincing explanations for the inexcusable lack of drive.

As Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, from August 2019, he failed to turn around the agency, established in 2000 by the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration to facilitate progress in the oil-rich region.

He became part of the problem, and was notably criticised for allegedly misdirecting the Federal Government on the NDDC because he wanted to be in control of the agency. Under him, there were puzzling twists and turns by the government, with the result that the agency aberrantly still lacks a substantive board, which does not encourage transparency and accountability.

The government had said it would “apply the law to remedy the deficiencies outlined in the audit report as appropriate,” adding that   “This will include but not be limited to the initiation of criminal investigations, prosecution, recovery of funds not properly utilised for the public purposes for which they were meant for amongst others.”  The government is expected to do what it said it would do.

Importantly, the Federal Government should stop wasting time, constitute a board for the agency without further delay, and ensure that the audit report is faithfully implemented.