The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Political delinquency in Osun

    SIR: A dangerous trend is taking shape in the politics being played by the Peoples Democratic Party in Osun State. Or, how else does one describe a situation, where a political party, seeking to be an alternative in the quest for power in a state takes hooliganism to the next level?

    As a party in power from 2003 to 2010, the PDP demonstrated the worst form of violence on the then hapless people of Osun. Even when as at that time, there was no serious opposition to its lacklustre rule, violence was its second name as any mass gathering of the party always ended in violence, with death and broken limbs in trail.

    This was why the people felt the need for change, culminating into their voting overwhelmingly for Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola of then Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. This was unfortunately, an election that was marred with lurid violence and not allowed to count, which led to a very prolonged legal battle before his victory was restored at the courts.

    Why must winning an election in a democratic dispensation be a do-or-die affair even when it’s obvious that you are not wanted, based on your sordid records of criminality and ineptitude? As if the above aren’t bad enough, you now go on to accuse the other party or person of doing or planning to do what you are known for, and that which you are even intending to do.

    A typical and most recent example of this kind of behaviour is the unfortunate incident at the High Court sitting of the Election Petitions Tribunal in Osogbo, on Friday January 23. The camp of the candidate of the PDP in the August 9, 2014 governorship election, Senator Iyiola Omisore, had raised an alarm that the state government was planning to make use of the State Boys to disrupt the tribunal’s proceedings of the next day. The government denounced the allegation as baseless.

    Again, it was ridiculous, but not surprising that on the day the tribunal was meant to take final statements of both petitioners and respondents, known thugs of the PDP stormed the venue to foment trouble and to even celebrate what they regarded as victory, even when there was no judgment!

    The poser on the lips of well-meaning Nigerians is: when would the camp of Omisore learn to behave honourably and desist from political shenanigans? Somebody ought to tell them the home truth that incumbent governor Rauf Aregbesola is, today, by popular will of the people of Osun and through the wish of the Almighty, a statesman, who will never engage in indecent acts.

     

    • Ayo Akinola,

    Osogbo, Osun State.

  • Calling on Tetfund

    SIR: One of the success stories of this current government is the introduction of the Tertiary Intervention Fund. Not too long ago, the presidency told the nation that many universities were not accessing the large pool of fund set aside for training and  infrastructural development of tertiary institutions.

    But as I write this letter, I am aware that very many academic staff on training may lose their studentship, while those who just secured admission may not be able to meet registration deadlines if funds are not released urgently by Tetfund, Abuja.

    I therefore use this medium to appeal to whom it may concern in Tetfund Abuja to please urgently release the approved funds to universities that have done the needful. I personally do not want to believe the rumour that the delay in release may have been as a result of diversion of the fund for political campaigns.

    I beg those in charge to please help save our studies and career. May God bless you as you do this.

     

    • Lanre Akinola

    North West university

    Mafikeng, South Africa.

  • World Cancer Day: Not Beyond Us

    SIR: Every February 4 has been set aside by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for creating awareness about the deadly disease of  cancer. Cancerous tissues are loosely malignant growth or tumour which invades adjacent tissue and spread by the lymphatics and blood vessels to other parts of the body.

    Cancer has become one of the frequent causes of death notably among the Caucasians, but it has raised its ugly head in often times in Africa and Nigeria, affecting young and old. It is more prevalent among the old and aged. Statistics show that 70 percent of deaths from cancer occur in economically less developed countries. About 80,000 Nigerians die from various forms of cancer annually with an estimated 10 persons dying from cancer every hour. Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary-general said in 2008 that cancer, diabetes, heart diseases are no longer the diseases of the wealthy. Today they hamper the people and the economics of the poorest populations even more than infectious diseases. This represents public health emergency in slow motion.

    This year’s Cancer Day has its theme Not Beyond Us. In truth, the elimination of cancer worldwide seems to be insurmountable; however, it requires a combined effort of all the parties involved; these include non- governmental organisations, patients, relatives and all stakeholders that are concerned especially, the effective utilisation of resources and grants.

    Most unfortunate is that many Nigerians are living with cancer without knowing, they discover late at a point whereby the cancerous cells had metastasized, that is, transported to other surrounding tissues and organs which are delicate and cannot be removed.

    Cancerous cells are said to be hereditary, that is, capable of being inherited by offsprings of a particular filial generation. This knowledge has assisted in tracing and controlling the recurrence of cancer in a bloodline. A grandmother with breast cancer, for instance, is capable of passing the cancerous cells through her children, but manifesting in her granddaughters. Therefore, it is advised that any family line with the history of cancer should carry out routine medical check-ups and personal breast examinations to determine their own status.

    Many treatment options are available, ranging from surgical removal of malignant tumours, chemotherapy; the use of anticancer drugs, radiotherapy, which is the use of radioisotopes to numb the cancerous cells have also been of immense help and importance help in treating the disease. Nevertheless, compliance to treatment, appointments with health care facilitators and chemotherapy is very important.

    Living with cancer affects life on many levels.  it changes ones perspective about life in different ways. It offers an opportunity to re-evaluate and reassess one’s life, life style and daily chores that will be of benefits in life. A change in diet, finances, communication, interaction and association with other persons occur. Most times, these changes are beneficial; some are detrimental to health.

    A day like this should offer an initiative towards  alleviating the dual burden of the diseases and for all partners involved to seek joint strategies in early detection, prevention, management and to set up  a very reliable health infrastructural and health care capacity. Taking an approach in this direction will offer a window of opportunity for future development.

     

    • Ogunwola Oluwatosin,

    Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso.

  • Okorocha is a blessing to Imo

    SIR: Rochas Okorocha is a blessing to the people of Imo State. His administration has done what Napoleon could not do, so to speak, in terms of redeeming the people of Imo State from the shackles of abject poverty, kidnapping, armed robbery, and the notorious “419” saga that took centre-stage during the 12 years reign of Achike Udenwa and Ikedi Ohakim, both of the PDP.

    If you go to Imo State today, the difference is clear.  When you compare or correlate the state of affairs in Imo State during the 12 years of Achike Udenwa, and Ohakim combined, with the current state of affairs in Imo State today, every sensible and right thinking person would not hesitate to say that Rochas Okorocha is a blessing to the people of Imo State and as such deserves to be given another chance.

    Okorocha has given Imo State a new lease under four years in office. Security, protection of people’s lives and property is the bedrock of economic growth, and he has brought that to Imo State. The problem of kidnapping and armed robbery that became the order of the day in Imo State during the 12 year reign of Achike Udenwa and Ohakim has been grossly decimated. In Imo State today, you can go to bed with your door wide open, and wake up peacefully! Owerri the state capital has been transformed from a sub-standard (dirty) city to a clean-mega city. You could recall that the only two major roads in Owerri were Douglas and Whethral. Go to Owerri today, you would be surprised at what you will see!

    Prior to the advent of the Okorocha administration, Owerri was the only urban city in Imo State. Today, Okorocha is on the path of transforming Orlu and Okigwe to a standard urban area that could attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). have no doubt that urbanization of Owerri will extend to other vibrant areas within the Owerri senatorial zone, such as Mbaise and Okpala. Before we talk about industrialising Imo State, we should not lose sight of the fact that the necessary infrastructure and enabling environment must first of all be created for industrialization to flourish. Apparently, that is exactly what Rochas Okorocha was busy consolidating during his first term in office. I strongly believe he should be given the chance to actualize his vision for the state in the second term. There is every hope that he would do more!

     

    • Chief H. U. Nwachukwu.

    Baltimore, Maryland,

    United States

  • Kudos to Ajimobi on workers’ welfare

    SIR: From inception, the Ajimobi administration in Oyo State gave priority attention to workers’ welfare in the realization that the engine room of any government is its civil service.

    Without a competent civil service which is a necessary condition for effective and efficient administration, nothing meaningful can be achieved because an inept civil service would not only frustrate the implementation of laudable policies and initiatives, it would render the government dead on arrival.

    This must have informed government’s decision to lay great emphasis on training and retraining of civil servants. It is to the credit of the Ajimobi government that over 40,000 civil servants across the state have been subjected to various training programmes both locally and internationally.

    For the first time in the history of the state, government did not only provide free transport service for its workers, but also considerably improved the environment in which they work. This great gesture by government has significantly reduced workers’ transportation burden.

    Other areas of comfort zone for workers include among others: Payment of the arrears of 142 percent increase to pensioners; Payment of 13th month salary to workers in the state since 2011; 100% upward review of Housing Loans for Civil and Public Servants from N1m to 2m.;  150% upward review of car loans to civil and public servants from N200,000 to N500,000.

    Others include raising the bar of graduate primary school teachers from GL 14 to 15; Gazetting of the employment of public primary and secondary school teachers; Lifting of stagnation bar for typists in the Civil Service that had stagnated for over 10 years on GL 09 to GL 12, with re-designation to Secretarial Assistants, etc.

    Senator Ajimobi who the civil servants through their chairman, Joint Negotiating Council, Nurudeen Arowolo once described as never-seen-before worker-friendly governor has also revealed that part of his continuity agenda would be to continue to explore all possible avenues to make life more worth living for the workers in general who he said deserved even more, given their unflinching cooperation and support for his administration.

    The workers therefore must give unwavering and total support for the second term aspiration for Governor Ajimobi.

     

    • TolaAdeoya,

    Opoyeosa, Ibadan, Oyo State.

     

  • Still on Imo PDP and internal democracy

    SIR: The conspiracy to deny Senator Ifeanyi Araraume of his hard-earned victory in the Imo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election, if not reversed, will serve as a major case study in the practice of democracy in this dispensation and beyond.

    It is unfathomable how the leadership of the PDP can allow interests other that of the people,  to override the general and acceptable standard of best practice.

    As the largest party in Africa, the onus is on the party to live by example so as not to incur the wrath of the electorate. The mathematical abracadabra conceived and unleashed on the psyche of Imo people by dispossessing Araraume of victory is an expensive caricature taken too far and a slap on modern day democracy.

    However, this goes to show the utter need for an independent and impartial judiciary.

    The pre-conceived plan to award victory to an undeserving contender has certainly put a question mark on the criteria for the conduct of primaries in the PDP where Emeka Ihedioha’s votes were counted last to achieve the aim of allocating victory to him against a preferred candidate.

    Araraume’s constituency diverted the legend’s victory despite the ruling of a competent court of jurisdiction. The same misdemeanor is about to be repeated but we can only be confident in justiceability of this particular case where figures and pattern of election do not tally. How can anybody explain to the people of  Nigeria that total number of votes declared are at variance with the number of accredited voters?  Nigerian democracy has certainly out grown tutelage stage were misappropriation could have been excusable as a learning process; this time such assumptions can not be sustained because Nigeria has become a leading light in African polity and by extension politics of the world.

    To say that the party has been alienated from the electorate in Imo is stating the obvious. The only way to curb impunity and illegality in our polity is to disallow such anomaly as a corrective measure to future ocurencies. The silence of the party leadership presupposes that might is rigtht. For how long can we continue to toy with the sensibility of the Nigerian electorate? Can somebody ponder for a while to assess the damage that can emanate from such injustice if allowed to thrive in our clime?

    How can anybody justify the imposition of delegates list as a substitute for a constitutional mode of such practice? As a former aspirant, I was a victim of such circumstance which I had never expected could be allowed  not to talk perpetrating injustice of such magnitude in Imo governorship election.

     

    • Ben Onyechere,

    Owerri, Imo State

  • Nigeria must survive February polls

    SIR: It has been four years since the last election was conducted. Four years after, another opportunity has presented itself for elections to be conducted, where leaders who will steer the ship called Nigeria for another four years will be (s) elected. Everywhere one goes to he sees, feels and experiences the frenzy of elections. This situation is present both at the federal and state levels. At the federal level, the candidates have been engaged in serious politicking, to the extent that governance has been at a stand still because the incumbent president is seeking to be reelected for a second time.

    One common phenomenon is the way and manner we conduct our elections. Virtually all elections we have conducted save the last one have been characterised by violence and massive rigging. In fact, our elections in this part of the world are a mockery of elections and democratic practices.

    We witness a situation where candidates are imposed on the people and where certain candidates emerge through popular votes, they are not announced. One must however admit that INEC under Professor Attahiru Jega conducted what some people are describe as a near perfect election; compared with what used to obtain in the past, one can give him credit for that feat.

    We have always recorded violence at our elections. The 2011 election was no exception. Supporters of the candidates thronged the streets in protest and engaged in reckless and wanton killings of individuals. Young Nigerians who were serving their fatherland were killed like chickens, putting their families in endless sorrows. The sad thing is that four years after, no body has been prosecuted for tried for that crime.

    So, we go into another round of elections with little or nothing being said about the prosecution of those who orchestrated violence during the last election. The wound is still fresh in the hearts of the bereaved. They are painfully reminded of lost loved ones every time they hear issues pertaining to elections.

    To escape another situation where people will be caught unawares, majority of Nigerians have decided to vacate their current place of domicile to the various home states or states of origin. People have left where they were registered to vote. This is a sad reminder of what transpired during the pre-civil war period of Nigeria.

    Politicians are already inciting their supporters against their opponents. Nigerians are divided along the line of the candidates and the few who chose to be neutral are called cowards and enemies of Nigeria. Politicians must guard and watch what they say while soliciting from votes from the people. They must stick to issues and tell us what they will do different if given the mandate to lead. A so-called peace pact was recently signed. While it is a commendable move, we must not forget that politicians are hardly seen at the scene of violence. They hide at comfort of their homes to push jobless and aimless youths to the streets to wreck havoc on innocent people.

    This month, Nigeria must not be killed. The elections should provide us the opportunity to redeem our country from the clutches of those who have held us to ransom. Candidates and their supporters must be civil during campaigns and at elections.  We must not destroy Nigeria on order to govern Nigerians. The elections should be conducted. Postponing the elections may overheat the polity and bring Nigeria to an end. God forbid!

     

    •  Frank Ijege,

    frankijege@yahoo.com

  • Time to break out of lethargy

    Sir, In a land where most people go along to get along, Nigeria’s writers and performers have always been a feisty lot. For the generation that came of age at independence in 1960, art and politics mixed with a general optimism about the country’s future. And as the last decades of the last century unfolded amid greed, corruption and state-sponsored violence, they took it upon themselves to become the voice of the nation’s conscience.

    The work of a new generation of Nigerian writers, by comparison, has grown inward-looking and politically remote, the inversion of the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka’s much-quoted admonition, “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.”  It’s not that the writers of today are afraid to address the problems that plague our country — they do so with eloquence and compassion. But there is more gloom than hope in their writing. Their work is weighed down by a despair that stems from the fact that the people most in need of reading what they have to say are paying little or no attention.

    This was not the case during the first decades of independence. Ken Saro-Wiwa’s campaign for the rights of the much-abused Ogoni people in the oil-rich Niger Delta drew worldwide attention. His organization, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, became one of the largest in Nigeria. His artistic and political reputation spread far beyond his homeland, especially after Gen. Sani Abacha’s military government had him tried on trumped-up charges and executed in 1995. Amid the international outrage that followed, human rights activists brought a lawsuit against Shell oil company, and Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth for more than three years.

    The reputation of Nigerian writers remains broad, but it is not deep. Wole Soyinka’s poems and plays earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986; novels like Saro-Wiwa’s “Sozaboy” (about a young soldier caught up in the civil war), or Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” (which traces the cultural destruction of a village at the hands of well-meaning missionaries) are honoured the world over.

    No Nigerian artist in any genre has been more scathing about the country’s colossal failure of leadership than Fela Kuti, who died in 1997 at the age of 58 but whose ironic, mournful music plays nonstop in dance halls, bars and cafes across the country.

    Despite the outspokenness of these men, they seem to have had little domestic influence on a population that is still largely rural and woefully under-educated. A new generation of writers, singers and stand-up comics may draw urbane audiences, but to the politicians gearing up for elections next month, what the artistic community says about them remains of little consequence.

    Comments like these raise age-old questions of artistic integrity and the writer’s duty to confront tyranny and injustice. Soyinka, Saro-Wiwa and others of their generation did not hesitate to do so. But things are different today. The climate has changed. Three decades of military dictatorship have given way to a listless democracy, where corruption rules, apathy spreads and a dangerous vacuum is filled with the likes of the murderous Boko Haram insurgency.

    No amount of noise making from the chattering classes seems to reach our politicians, and that is exactly what makes our predicament so dangerous. If our leaders refuse to listen when our artists speak of ennui, anger and despair, they set themselves up for the fate that befalls all rulers who remain deaf to simmering discontent. We must break out of this national lethargy before it’s too late.

    Ibrahim Muhammed Sani Hadejia,

    Gusau, Zamfara State

  • Religion, morality and development

    Sir, Our practice of religions has failed abysmally in effecting moral regeneration among us. A country whose religious leaders cannot hold aloft the moral compass and torch for their compatriots will come adrift. Not surprisingly, and consequently, too, there is an erosion of moral and family values among us. Here, good is deemed bad; and bad, good. Nothing shocks and offends us, anymore. Moral vices have become normative in Nigeria.

    People destitute of positive morality do perpetrate corrupt deeds. And we are not unaware that corruption is the bane of Nigeria. A morally up right person will not divert public money entrusted in his care into his private bank account rules and regulations to achieve his lofty objectives. And a morally upright person is aware of what constitutes good and bad.

    Our dear country teems with people who have moral vacuity and spiritual aridity. They indulge in deeds that destroy our country. Human beings mobilize and galvanize other factors such as natural resources, labour, and capital to effect national development. And if they place their selfish interests above other considerations owing to their moral vacuity, then Nigeria will remain an underdeveloped country.

    Our lack of positive morality is the reason why we indulge in corrupt deeds. And while perpetrating evil deeds, we do not have prick of conscience and qualms. So, it is imperative for our religious leaders to effect moral regeneration among us.

    It is sad to note that Nigerians are putting their religions to bad uses. Some Islamic clerics brainwash and indoctrinate young Muslims with teachings that are not contained in the Koran. They misinterpret and twist them to suit their purposes. That is why the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east has not been eradicated. And many men of the cloth subordinate biblical teachings that border on spirituality, holiness, and love beneath the performance of miracles and propagation of prosperity messages.

    There is a connection between our underdevelopment and the erosion of moral values among us. A person with positive morality and active restrictive mechanism will not undermine his country’s progress for selfish reasons. Our adherence to religious injunctions, no doubt, will activate our consciences and imbue us with positive morality. Then, we will start to desist from engaging in acts that can destroy our country.

    Chiedu Uche Okoye,

    Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State

     

  • Three sins of Jonathan

    Sir,My attention has just been drawn to clips of where President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan pledged to spend only a single term of four years, and the former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), was praising him for that “magnanimity”. But after his electoral victory in 2011, Jonathan stopped mentioning the pledge. Instead, he started canvassing for a single term of seven years. Currently, he is denying that he ever promised to spend only a single term of four years.

    No wonder, some well-meaning Nigerians have now reviewed past mass media news, to extract and assemble, systematically, clips, including pieces of news broadcast on the National Television Authority (NTA), where he made the single term pledge. How then can any decent Nigerian expect Nigerians to vote for falsehood and deception?

    The foregoing is the second of Jonathan’s three sins. The first is truncation of rotational Presidency. Sadly, hardly anybody (neither Peoples Democratic Party nor the All Progressives Congress) is talking about what matters most to Nigeria, namely unity/stability. In 2011, President Jonathan tricked too many Nigerians to discard that solution. How then does Nigeria guarantee stability? How do we stave-off a feeling of marginalisation/alienation?

    GEJ’s third sin is bribing the Igbo with whom his South-south people fought during the Biafran war. He bribed them with crucial positions in Nigeria: Finance Minister, Petroleum Minister, Governor of the Central Bank, Secretary to the Federal Government, etc. The temptation is serious, but the Igbo should consider Nigeria’s peace, and let’s return to rotational presidency.

    What will make rotational presidency democratic is our acceptance of it for unity, peace, and stability. Let’s be politically disciplined!

    Pius Oyeniran Abioje, PhD,

    University of Ilorin.