The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Deal with these hemp smokers in Ijoko-Ota

    Deal with these hemp smokers in Ijoko-Ota

    I am calling on the Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Valentine Ntomchukwu, to deal with the youths who daily congregate in different areas of Ijoko-Ota in the state to smoke hemp.

    Apart from the fact that they involve themselves in this vice, they also commit crimes against innocent people who peacefully go about their businesses.

    They rob, rape, steal and destroy property after smoking hemp and drinking alcohol.

    Most of the criminals pursued out of Lagos are now operating in the town and its environs, particularly Agoro, Oyero, Fadunsin, Itoki, Lisa, Oluke and Gas Line.

    We want the commissioner to flush out these undesirable elements from these places in the interest of justice.

     

    Sule Ahmed,

    Ijoko-Ota, Ogun State.

  • Give us electricity at Sam Mbakwe Airport

    Give us electricity at Sam Mbakwe Airport

    THERE is a matter disturbing my mind. As it is making me unhappy, many other Nigerians are also being made unhappy.

    I am very much unhappy to say that the Sam Mbakwe International Airport is in total darkness. For many months, there is no electricity supply there.

    Any international airport is important in any country. It is the pride of the country.

    In the light of this, a stop must be put to this darkness by the Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka

    I must also say that the airport is running on generator. This is not good because it is a waste of funds that can be used for other beneficial projects.

     

    Chief Livinus Opara,

    Ngor Opara, Imo State.

  • Anueyiagu, unsung icon of journalism

    SIR: As political hawks hover about and around in their bid to grab power to, perhaps, enable them as usual, to loot the nation’s wealth rather than serve the interest of the people, anyone who grew up during the struggle for independence is bound to lament over what has been happening in the country for a long time now.

    In particular, such a person is bound to be deeply touched by the news of the death of Chief Chukwuma Anueyiagu, a unique nationalist, who contributed selflessly and immensely to the struggle for Nigeria’s independence.

    I remember the late Anueyiagu as the editor of The Nigerian Spokesman, one of Zik Group of Newspapers then published at Onitsha with the motto: That Man Shall Not Be a Wolf to Man. I still remember vividly his advertisement for news that read: If a Dog Bites a Man, It Is No News, But If A Man Bites A Dog, Then It Is News. If Anything Newsworthy Happens In Your Community, Take Up Your Pen And Write To The Nigerian Spokesman.

    I also remember that he preached the five planks of ZIKISM on the pages of the newspaper to wit – (1)Spiritual Balance, by which is meant  respect for the opinion of others; (2) Social Regeneration,  which meant the jettisoning of all forms of prejudice, be they racial, national, tribal, societal, religious, political, economic or ethical; the realisation that an African is an African no matter where he was born; (3) Economic Determinism, which taught the realisation that economic self-sufficiency on a sane basis is the ultimate means to the salvation of the Renascent African; (4) Mental Emancipation, which states that the African must develop mentally as he is not intellectually inferior to other races, for mental slavery is worse than physical slavery; (5) National Risorgimento which assured that if the Renascent African cultivated spiritual balance, experienced social regeneration, realized economic determinism, and created a condition whereby he is mentally emancipated to appreciate his manifest destiny in the world, then he would expect national risorgimento.

    Anueyiagu was one of the most erudite of such editors that carried out his own campaign with such zeal that beggared description. So efficient was he that served as editor of virtually all newspapers in the Zik Group. He served for six clear years as Editor-in-Chief of the West African Pilot, the premier and most important newspaper of the group.

    Anueyiagu’s editorials were so fiery that the British authorities in Nigeria saw them as seditious and sent him to prison several times. A man of principle, who always had the courage of his conviction, he could not be

    intimidated by the British imperialist.

    One had expected that after independence the government of Nigeria would have recognized and honoured Chief Chukwuma Anueyiagu and others who performed as political foot soldiers during the struggle for independence (Mokwugo Okoye, Raji Abdalah, Osita Agwuna to mention only a few). But those in power after independence preferred to honour such persons as were described by nationalists during colonial times as Uncle Toms, political lackeys and fifth columnists.

    However, God honoured him with longevity as Anueyiagu died at the age of 100 years in a country where life expectancy is below 50 years.

    As Nigerians continue to develop the penchant for forgetting the people of yesterday, they spend so much time and expend so much energy singing the praise of the people of today, even when they are unworthy of such praises. In the process, they build monuments to perpetuate the memory of those who have left no memory.

    But the men of today must realise that they themselves would become the men of yesterday only tomorrow and that tomorrow is very much in sight. They would be wise to stop polishing pebbles and darkening diamonds, start giving honour to whom it is due and to learn that, “When the high heart we magnify, and the sure vision celebrate and worship greatness passing by, ourselves are great.”

     

    • Emmanuel Orji,

     Awka, Anambra State

  • AIT, now FG’s megaphone?

    SIR: EVERY single business person that is benign enough to set up an establishment like AIT (Africa Independent Television) needs to be congratulated especially in a country that is not investor-friendly.

    It is also praiseworthy, if the prefix of the organisation’s name is ‘Independent’. One imagines it therefore, to be as independent as the BBC in the discharge of its duty without seeming to be choked especially –  if it is not government funded, and run.

    I have followed this station over the years from its unsettled days in the mid-1990s up and until this moment. How can I forget Jika Attoh’s Kakaaki back then? The packages those days were first class, but, the station is quickly losing its respect by my assessment.

    In 2009, when I watched without fail, I noticed that guest analysts invited to the studio used to be skewed in favour of the masses such that government policies were queried impartially but it is different these days especially during this political dispensation.

    I have noticed that no day passes by these days without a negative advertisement on Buhari. Not that this is bad. Politicking involves the throwing up of sludge and flak on opponents and, it is up to the masses to filter the tall tales bandied on the screen of truth.

    Buhari as a political figure ought to know that politics is murky as well. What is disturbing is that there isn’t such balance with regards to the opposition. I do not see the advertisement of the opposition (APC) aired as frequent as that of the ruling party (PDP).

    The times I saw advertisement by the opposition, the catch word, ‘sponsored’ was boldly displayed on screen.

    But this is not always the case with damaging advertisement on Buhari. Some do not state that they are ‘sponsored.’

    Is that station becoming insularly partisan, the same way NTA became many years back which made many a Nigerian to look elsewhere for current news (the bulk of my television watching on NTA today is the nine o’clock news). Is it any wonder then, that another television house for eight years non-stop has won the television station of the year. Could they have achieved this feat if they were partisan?

    I watched a people’s parliament on AIT on the need for the placement of the military at election centres for the elections. All of the reactions aired supported military’s presence in the forth-coming elections. To think that government supports the use of the military: Is it possible for a journalist to go to the street in quest of views only to come back with same findings?

    Is it also possible to distribute questionnaires and then have responders submit same conclusions with no variance?

    The female anchors on Kakaaki who interviewed the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President GoodLuck Jonathan, on Thursday, March 5, need be reminded, that a feature interview, with a statesman on sensitive national issues, must be handled with such proficiency, as is, done at other mass media like CNN, Aljazeera, Sky News etc. without an intermittent, informal, laughing gaffes, as exhibited on that day: for the hope of many Nigerians rest on what a sitting president have to say.

    There is the need for Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) to set up a television watch body because the importance of television cannot be over emphasized. Millions of people watch feature interviews, documentaries and news daily but what should they be watching? Especially as it doesn’t require much effort to watch television as much as the tortuous mental strain required to read newspapers. Any negative appearance aired certainly will linger in the minds of people.

    I hope AIT can be as independent as other international broadcast media to give us a bird’s eye view as well as a worm’s eye view of all issues.

    I hope its management also take criticisms seriously with the view to firming up the Nigeria’s news media.

    Could the management also separate its views from that of the advertised views aired on its channel: this will let us know that it is not pandering totally towards the present federal government.

    But should it want to be a pro-government news media, could they let us know, so we know what to expect daily. Just the way some Americans of the Republican Party tune in to Fox Channels daily to catch up on anti-Democratic news or Aljazeera which is slightly anti-America.

     

    • Simon Abah

    Port-Harcourt, Rivers State

  • Still on the plot to remove Jega

    SIR:  The clandestine plan to remove Professor Attahiru Jega as chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission is rife in spite of the denial by the Presidency. But why is this government full of guile? There is no doubt that the tenure of Jega ends on June 30 and the rescheduled general elections are less than four weeks now.

    Are they not inviting anarchy if Jega is illegally removed through the civil service rule? Can a retired civil servant be reappointed? No. But an INEC Chairman can.

    Also, whoever takes over may want more time to do the dagger-man’s job which they would want him to execute. However, any further change in the dates of elections will violate the constitution and the electoral law. Covert or overt action taken to tinker with the rescheduled dates is not only criminal but dangerous. The handwriting is conspicuous; the ruling party is fighting tooth and nail to retain power. Man’s greatest battle is the one he fights against himself. Jega’s INEC was the cherubic chum of the Presidency and PDP in Anambra, Ondo and Ekiti states’ gubernatorial elections; its electoral dish has now become stale. Jega has suddenly become a xenophobic umpire!

    It is now imperative for the President to banish the pseudo-political analysts to purgatory of psychosis. A man’s friends are innumerable when his hands are dripping with honey but they all disappear the moment such hands begin to bleed. Nigeria is greater than all of us and the selfish ambitions of the few among us.

    Today, what Chief Simeon O. Adebo said in July, 1969 summarizes our “modus vivendi”: “We live in troublous times. Look where you will, there is hardly a spot where there is stable peace, where there is not actual fighting there are grave tensions, where the tensions are not international they are local”.

    It is only President Goodluck Jonathan that can douse the looming conflagration by allowing Jega to complete the job he started four years ago shortly after the 2011 general elections. No political chicanery can change May 29, handover date.

     

    • Adelani Olawuyi

     Odooba – Ogbomoso,

    Oyo State

  • Where are the Chibok girls?

    SIR: It gladdens our hearts that the Nigerian military have bombarded locations and liberated some parts of the north-east including the Sambisa forest formerly in the hands of the dreaded Boko Haram. This is going by the information from the Defence Headquarters spokesperson, Major General Chris Olukolade. We have seen the Commander-in-Chief, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, pose with our gallant military men when he visited one of the liberated towns. We have even seen pictures of bodies of some dead Boko Haram members and also recovered arms and ammunitions.

    But painfully, what we have not been able to see and which would have gladdened our hearts the more, are any of the Chibok girls who are probably still in the enclave of the Boko Haram.  With the nearly 300 girls believed to be in ‘Sambisa’ forest, we can only hope that they have not been caught in the crossfire.  One wished that President Jonathan made out time to meet with some of the parents of the abducted girls when he visited our gallant solders to reassure them. Sadly, he did not.

    One remembers that it took local and international outcries for the presidency to accept the fact that Boko Haram actually abducted the girls in the first place. When finally it came to terms with the reality, President Goodluck Jonathan repeatedly promised to bring back the girls alive. At a point he gave a time limit and ordered the military to get into action but the order did nothing to change the situation. And now, most probably to secure a political point in view of the pending elections, the President seems poised to accomplish within six weeks what he couldn’t do all these while.

    Why the mad rush after things have gone awry? The current situation is best described in local parlance as medicine after death. Henceforth, the chant should be – Bring Back Our Girls Alive!

    • Dr. Cyril Kachi Madueke,

    Awka Road, Wuse II, Abuja.

  • Confab of deception

    SIR:When in one of his last political outings, Chief Obafemi Awolowo predicted that the time would soon come in Nigeria when people of hitherto different political persuasions would come together to fight their common cause, no one could have imagined that it would materialize in the form it is taking at the moment. Imagine the alliance of the likes of Ayo Adebanjo with Richard Akinjide, Robert Adeyinka Adebayo, Iyiola Omisore including such political mavericks like Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, Femi Fani-Kayode and the likes of Frederick Faseun and Gani Adams.

    They have suddenly found a common ground in the so-called recommendation of the National Conference. They hide on the guise of political restructuring and power devolutions which Jonathan had promised to implement in his second term in office.

    One would have found it difficult to believe that any core Awoist would have effortlessly fallen into this trap, because even under the military government of Murtala/Obasanjo, Awolowo refused to take the bait. That was what gave birth to the famous 49 wise men instead of the intended 50 wise men in the Constitution Drafting Committee.

    Awolowo would not have been carried away by a mere political propaganda document like the Jonathan’s National Conference and this for a number of reasons. First, for four years, it did not occur to President Jonathan to set up a confab until the last lap of his tenure. This is the first time in the political history of the country that an incumbent would tie his political reform to re-election.

    Secondly, this so-called restructuring in which the Yorubas are being deceived by Jonathan apologists is not a national campaign issue of Jonathan or the PDP. That would serve to explain why they latched to geo-political selective sentiments. To the South-west, the trap is implementation of confab. To the South-east, it is creation of an additional state to catch up with other geographical zones. For the North, it is the building of Almajiri schools.

    That takes me to the one story about Chief Awolowo again. One day, Chief Awolowo narrated a story of why he would ever remain a proud Yoruba man. He drew the example from one of his contemporaries who was also the leader of his own nationality. He said jokingly that if that colleague of his went to a commercial centre of his region at 4 pm, but told the people that it was 6 pm, the people would quickly adjust their wrist watches as directed by the leader because he cannot ‘lie’.

    He said if he, Awolowo tried that in the most remote village in Yoruba land, the villagers would advise him to check his watch to see if something was not wrong with it. His emphasis is that Yoruba people are not gullible but critically minded.

    But paradoxically, what do we have today? Pseudo-Yoruba leaders, confab advocates telling the Yoruba at six O’clock that it is eight O’clock by their time. The average Yoruba man knows that rather than being bound by their overall interest, these people are bound by the political confraternity of taking their own shares from the national loot.

    No wonder the two factions of the OPC that had been on each other’s neck for a long time found the need for truce if only because of the now famous stomach infrastructure.

     

    • Agboola Sanni

    Ibadan, Oyo State

  • That first family land grab

    SIR: Corruption is the abuse of official power or position to acquire a personal benefit. Corrupt activities include but not limited to bribery and embezzlement. Government or political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain. With this as a background, where does one place the fact that President Goodluck Jonathan formed a company, Ebele Integrated Farms Limited, with a capital of N30million with the two shareholders/directors, himself holding 90% and his mother, Madam Eunice, 10%?

    It sounds strange that the company applied for farming purposes, a land measuring 94.04 hectares in size and belonging to the Aviation village in Abuja on March 6, 2012 and got it approved and allocated on March 8, 2012 – just within a space of two days?

    Not only that, the conversion of the land to farming distorted Abuja master plan, thereby contravening part of the constitution he swore to uphold. The land grab issue by the first family is not only nauseating but greed-driven; it also raises issues of conflict of interest, thereby breaching the Nigerian constitution, which President Goodluck Jonathan swore on oath, to preserve. His action contravenes the Fifth Schedule Part 1 (Code of Conduct for Public Officers) of the 1999 Constitution, Section 1. Now what has Ekpo Nta, of the ICPC got to say about this?

    Because Jonathan took the 94.04 hectares of land, his FCT Minister, Bala Mohammed, had to help himself with 40.40 hectares, a land area very close to his boss’s. The President’s media men had the effrontery and pride that after all, former President Olusegun Obasanjo did similar land grabbing. Two wrongs cannot make any right. If it were to be in a well-organized country, this would suffice to ask President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to resign.

    Imagine the irony, the same issues of conflict of interest and conduct inimical to a public office got President Jonathan to relieve Professor Bath Nnaji of his appointment as Minister for Power. Whereas it is on record that before Nnaji was appointed minister, he was already building a power station in Aba with a consortium of investors. In Jonathan’s case, he was already serving as President before registering Ebele Integrated Farms Limited.

     

    •Chief Amaechi Okiri

    Aba Road, Port Harcourt,

    Rivers State

  •  When false prophets are on the prowl

    SIR: Pastor Bosun Emmanuel a close associate of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor in his explosive message titled- Wake up Call to the Nigerian Church sought to place the divine seal on why President Jonathan must be re-elected in the 2015 general elections. Although the preacher wants us to believe that President Jonathan is the best thing to have happened to Christianity in Nigeria, but our Lord has forewarned us to beware of false prophets and teachers who are out to make gain of the simplicity of the Christian faith for their personal advancement. The Nigerian church can ask herself; how has President Jonathan fared in defending the cause of Christ in Nigeria?

    He spared the rod on Boko Haram for political expediency. The sect has been used as a political bargaining tool to postpone election and disenfranchise parts of the North East. Boko Haram under President Jonathan has destroyed hundreds of churches and killed thousands of people including Christians and Muslims.

    His government failed to take quick action in locating and returning the Chibok girls, claiming no girl was abducted until international out-cry.

    President Jonathan in his own words has ‘Boko Haram members in my government’ yet he still mixes freely with identifiable suspects like Ali Modu Sheriff

    Like King Ahab, the President has encouraged the rise of false prophets using money and manipulation to pollute the altar of God. CAN has never been this divided, forcing the whole of the Catholic bloc to recede from the organisation pending ‘when sanity returns to the body’

    The President’s Man Friday, Kennedy Opara of the Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board has informed us that from henceforth, Christians would now be sponsored with lottery money to pilgrimage; this does not apply to our Muslim colleagues. We believe this is unbiblical and an insult to the Church.

    The Vice President Namadi Sambo claimed PDP is the ‘most Islamic party’ and that Muslims should not vote for a particular candidate because he has a running mate who ‘owns 5000 churches’. These statements were made right in front of the President and no statement has been made to deny them.

    It is clear to a casual observer that President Jonathan is now Ichabod (the glory has departed- 1 Samuel 4:21). Under him all the gains the Church had made in outreaches to the Northern Nigeria has almost been totally reversed. Church attendance has never been this low. Hardly can we freely hold open air crusades in the North anymore.Out of 100 martyrs worldwide, Nigeria accounts for 66 under a Christian president. The only beneficiaries of this government’s acclaimed Christianity love seems to be the pastors who can be gifted with private jets and billions of naira while the vast majority of the body of Christ lie prostrate reeling under the pangs of terrorism and persecution.

    While one cannot tell Christians to vote for a particular person, my commission is to bring this information to the fore so that no Christian would be hoodwinked into the religious trap being set by some religious-politicians.

     

    • Pastor Emmanuel Kehinde,

     Lagos

  • Government and extra time mentality

    SIR: The reason why we are still lagging behind in the comity of nations is because our governments, both past and present, have failed to prioritize every given opportunity in ensuring that its citizen’s physiological and safety needs are met. They prefer to be lethargic in governance and waste their time on frivolities till the tail end of their administration before they begin to show seriousness.

    Extra time, an additional time needed or given to accomplish a task or project has become a phenomenon in our polity. It has taken over our system and now cuts across every facet of our lives.

    The recent postponement of the general elections scheduled for February 14 and 28 respectively to March 28 and April 11 is a good example of an extra time phenomenon.

    After reassuring Nigerians repeatedly of its readiness for the general elections, INEC chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega announced in a world in a press conference that the general elections has been postponed for six weeks. While absolving his commission of any blame, he insisted that the postponement was because the Nigerian armed forces wrote that they could not guarantee security on the scheduled February date as they would be busy fighting the Boko Haram insurgents.

    One is forced to ask: why the seriousness this “extra time” and what magic do our armed forces intend to perform in six weeks to dispel the rag-tag terrorists which they have not done in six years?

    After failing to fulfil its core campaign promises and with less than six weeks to the general elections, the ruling PDP federal government has suddenly realized they are in extra time and have started showing seriousness in all their unfinished projects all over the federation. How possible it would be for these unfinished projects to be completed with less than three months before the May 29 hand over date? Just as it is in football, anything can happen.

    Before now, it has always been an easy ride by hook or by crook for the PDP to capture the seat of power; for the first time in our democratic history, an opposition party is going neck in neck with the ruling party in the contest for the seat of power. This is happening after 16 years of democracy. Right now millions of dissenting Nigerians are considering the opposition as an alternative government at the centre.

    Instead of asking themselves how they got entangled in this web by allowing the wind of change mantra catch up with them, the ruling party and its members have resorted to blame games; they have continued to blame the past rulers and opposition for the myriads of problems bedevilling our nation.

    Just as it is done in football, after the normal regulation time without a winner, we have been caught in the web of extra time and March 28, the most anticipated day of the year is the day this extra time will be played. Will the defending champions PDP be able to beat the rising opposition party APC and win the trophy back to back or will APC the underdogs who many never believed will get to the final stage rise up to the occasion and beat the defending champions PDP to the title?

    March 28 will tell.

    • Joe Onwukeme,