The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Ogun won’t return to Egypt

    SIR: Amidst euphoric celebration yesterday in Abeokuta, the Governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, was officially declared the standard-bearer of the All Progressives Congress, having received overwhelming votes of the delegates at the party’s Governorship Primaries, which were adjudged very peaceful, open, free and fair.

    With this event, the journey of another four years in Oke-Mosan has begun. The February, 2015 governorship election will really be a case of no contest as a Mike Tyson in Amosun will be pitted against a Michael Spinks in the opposition. Did you remember that match in 1988, promoted as “once and for all” fight? It was a 12-round match but lasted 91 seconds! I’m not sure Spinks was able to land more than a jab before he kissed the canvas under the weight of Tyson’s fist.

    The fact is, Amosun will fight with the strength of five million Ogun citizens, leaving the opposition with a few votes as consolation. Yes, Amosun derives his strength from the masses!

    I agree with the widely-held view in Ogun State that the opposition and their allies should use the next four years for stock-taking, that is, to try to win back the confidence of the people which they completely lost while in power in the state.

    The wounds inflicted on the residents of Ogun while these people held the reins of power are still as fresh as injuries sustained a few minutes ago. Worse, they are yet to get their act together to even be considered a challenger in the forthcoming election.

    Under them, the children of the poor had no access to free education. Their parents could not sleep with their eyes closed because of insecurity, which also led to banks shutting business on a weekly basis. The few “face me I face you” roads they constructed were derelict. The economy of the state was in shambles amidst corruption while health care collapsed, worsening the crisis of misgovernance foisted on the state. During this season of anomie, even the children of Israel could claim a better life in Egypt.

    Today, under Senator Amosun, there is no home that does not enjoy free education with free standard textbooks. Residents now sleep in peace while banks open daily to customers. There are now international standard roads and flyovers in Ogun State.  The World Bank just a few months ago acknowledged how Ogun moved from F9 under the last government to A1 just under three years of the Amosun administration. And Amosun’s prudence in public finance management has been widely acknowledged all over the country. He has moved Ogun from Egypt to Canaan.

    I advise the opposition to spend the next four years to repent of their sins. Who knows, the people of the state may decide to forgive them in 2019. But then, consider this: A man you trusted defrauded you of say N50 million you placed in his care.  Thereafter, he repented and apologised without repaying the money. You accepted the apology because you just had to forgive.  But do you immediately place another N50 million in his care?

    • Soyombo Opeyemi

    Abeokuta

  • The plight of the Almajirai

    SIR: Almajiri (singular), Almajirai (plural), as they are called in Hausaland is a long standing tradition of Islamic education in which the individual leaves his locality to far away places to learn. Usually, an Almajiri is sent away at childhood, handed to his teacher at a very young age.

    Nigeria is not the only country with Almajirai population in the world. Sudan, Niger, Egypt, Tibet, Burma, India etc all have Almajarai.  What make the Nigerian Almajirai totally different from all others is the fact that government and all other relevant stake holders have not been giving them the necessary attention and assistance they need. Until the coming of President Jonathan, I don’t know if there was any other regime at the centre whether civil or military, that offered them any form of assistance.

    In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan promised to assist the Almajirai by building special schools that include both Islamic and western education for them. For this, the sum of over N1 billion was said to have been allocated. Two years after, not much has been achieved. The Almajirai are still roaming about scavenging for food, shelter and clothes. Even the schools constructed in Katsina State near Army barracks, and in Sokoto near Rima Basin Development Commission are not put to use. The buildings have been completed, but the schools remain closed and under lock.

    The people and government in northern Nigeria should make a special allocation for Almajirai in their budgets to better their lives.

    Above all, the federal government should ensure that the money voted for this class of Nigerians are utilized judiciously.

    • Comrade Abdulbaqi Aliyu Jari,

    Katsina

  • Rebuke of King Nebuchadnezzar

    SIR: It was inevitable that President Goodluck Jonathan, who has, to all intents and purposes, abandoned restraint, would trudge on, like a pilgrim bound for doom. He had to keep chalking up more outlandish blunders until they were sufficient to draw attention of the Nobel Laureate.

    Tyranny, like promiscuity, always has a humble beginning. One instance of violation stealthily grows in fits and starts, into a consuming routine. And the virgin moves from a first timer to an addicted returner to the forbidden. You have it when the shy, demure mien gives way to a self-assured, dismissive I-Don’t-Give-A-Damn look.

    Wole Soyinka just had to do it. The man would have died in him if he had chosen convenient silence in this dawning dictatorship. Soyinka was alive – alive to his duty as citizen and patriot. He had to rebuke this modern Nebuchadnezzar. Before, when Jonathan was starting off with seemingly little infractions, we largely excused them as evidences of his fallibility. Those acts of mischief counted, for sure, but were not considered symptomatic of dictatorial tendencies. But the Jonathan of this day has become a threat to the country, inspiring anarchy in the sensitive realms that cannot bear attack.

    So Soyinka did the right thing, calling the tyrant, a tyrant. Without the correct christening, Jonathan would be no less ruthless and malevolent – after all, the WS of a bygone era had rhapsodized that a rose called by another name would smell as sweet. But it was very important to name Jonathan properly. In pronouncing him Nebuchadnezzar, we do not hallow his name. Rather, we say, we will reference you only with the repulsion we feel for the oppressor you are.

    You remember this President was so ashamed of one of his names, he buried it. It remained a classified secret until he recognized that the dormant name had potential electoral value. Then, he promptly resurrected it and instructed that it be appended to his other names, to convey the notion of consanguinity with the East. That was how an approaching election compelled an ‘Azikiwe’ to introduce himself.

    As in that election, this impending one is also introducing another Jonathan to us. And what you can see is the Nigerian politician at his debauched best. He was capable of dispensing smooth talk until he faced the dire prospect of a challenging election. When he perceived that there is a real possibility that a fair contest could throw him off the seat, he made a clever decision to go into overdrive, battling to avert this portent that is reasonably worse than biological death. Of course, any shortcut to that end is fair.

    This flagrant desperation to complete a total conquest of the political space, which is setting the nation on the edge, is rooted in insecurity. Jonathan nurses a fervent conviction that his re-election rests squarely on his use of state sanctioned terror. So far, his biography is replete with interventions of good luck. He senses that he may have exhausted his credit of fortune and needs to create his luck. His discretion tells him that fate has already given him the power to secure his power.

    In his reading of the scriptures, Nebuchadnezzar’s command and terror over Babylon and beyond must have struck President Jonathan as power as it ought to be. But the strictures of a democratic context, he acknowledged, would not permit him to mimic that fairy bogeyman. So there came the thought that this country of Nollywood might feel indulged to see him acting Nebuchadnezzar, unscripted.

    We needed Soyinka to do it. It seemed that we were unwilling to admit that the tally of all we have seen sufficed to prove that a dictator now reigns. How many more feats of impudence would Jonathan need to enact to qualify?

    Soyinka’s rebuke could call forth an interlude of reflection. But trust the career sycophants of Aso Rock to dilute the censure’s effect and press Nebuchadnezzar to show his iron fist more often. In the bubble where Nebu lives, a word of caution is hard to come by. Not even from a wife who is a terror in her own right.

    •Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu

    djosh4.ugwu@gmail.com

  • Nigeria, broken nation in need of therapy

    SIR: Nigeria suppurates from many wounds in the same way a man who has been in an accident does. Is Nigeria not ailing from diverse ailments that debilitate it? The many dysfunctions that characterize our country are proofs that Nigeria is malfunctioning. But at the root of Nigeria’s problem is incompetent, corrupt, myopic, and visionless leadership.

    Since our attainment of political freedom in 1960, Nigeria has not got it right, politically. Bad and inept political leadership has been our bane since then. More so, the military incursions into our politics further compounded our national woes. Thankfully, now, we have been enjoying democratic governance for 15 unbroken years. Against the background of our volatile past characterized by religious crises and a civil war, 15 years of uninterrupted democratic leadership is a milestone.

    But our leaders’ inability to entrench national unity and cohesion in the country impedes our national development. Who does not know that unity is a force for national growth in a country? Ethnic and religious fissures have polarized our country. In the past, the Maitatsine religious uprising claimed many human lives. And, one Akaluka was vilely killed and his head hoisted on a pole for allegedly desecrating the Koran. We experienced the riot caused by the miss world beauty contest scheduled to take place in Abuja in 2002.

    Since political power slipped away from the grip of northern politicians, the North-east has not known peace. It has become a river of blood owing to the activities of the dreaded and murderous Boko Haram group. Members of the group control large swathes of land that cover Yobe, Adamawa, and Borno states. Members of the group kill people by exploding bombs in churches, schools, mosques, and other places. The insurgency in the North has created a humanitarian problem. Can economic activities take place in an area that has become a hotbed of violence and theatre of bloodshed?

    In addition to our security challenges, our economy is not sitting pretty now. Our mono-based economy solely depends on oil revenue for its survival. Sadly, the crude oil prices have plummeted with its sad economic consequences.

    But even when the economy was healthy, the dividends of the oil boom never trickled down to the poor. The federal government couldn’t diversify the economy to create jobs for millions of unemployed youths. And, millions of Nigerians are under-employed, too. Yearly, our universities churn out graduates who are sent into the saturated labor market.

    Is there not a connection between the existence of criminal activities in the country and the issue of unemployment?

    Are our leaders not capable of providing solutions to the myriad problems that have held us down as a nation? They can solve of national problems if they are determined to solve those problems. But the tragedy of the Nigerian state is that our leaders are with the warped perception that one’s occupation of an exalted political office is an opportunity for one to corruptly enrich oneself. Sadly, and regrettably, too, Nigeria is the worst for it now. Consequently, our country has not realized its potential. It has remained the eternal potential giant of Africa.

    Nigerian politicians should rise above politicking for their selfish ends and band together to salvage Nigeria from the cesspool of corruption and the wood of underdevelopment.

     

    • Chiedu Uche Okoye

    Uruowulu–Obosi, Anambra State

  • Nigeria’s greatest problem

    SIR: What is the problem of Nigeria? I ask assuming we agree that Nigeria is not where it should be in the comity of nations.  Giant of Africa, land of milk and honey, haven of opportunities; that is definitely not what Nigeria of today is. Believe it or not, we are a long way from home, we have drifted, we are lost, and unless and until we find our problem, we shall not find our bearing.

    We are where we are, dying, stinking, wasted, not only because our colonial masters set us on the wrong foot, orchestrating a nation that was bound to fail, as they did in other places like Rwanda; we are falling, our oil economy unsustainable, our Naira once touted to be the standard for African trade now deregulated, the integrity of our perimeter threatened as insurgency is insurmountable. We have an undiagnosed threat – the National Assembly (NASS).

    If you believe that our problem is corruption in unthinkable places; that our Constitution is inadequate, antique, and skewed; if you believe that our judicial process is unpardonably slow; that our law enforcement is nonexistent; if you believe that our executive is not accountable; that our legislature is outright irresponsible, scaling fences in the bid to secure their paunches; then you agree with me that our problem is fundamental.

    Take corruption. What happened to Oduahgate? What happened to the $20 billion NNPC funds which then Sanusi Lamido Sanusi called our attention to? What happened to subsidies and Police pensions?

    Are the investigations still alive? Where are the reports? I bet they are gathering dust somewhere beneath schemes to appropriate more subventions to our sacred parasites now themselves agitating for immunity while bemoaning the executive’s misuse of same…

    It would indeed seem to the attentive mind that the true intent and purpose of NASS behind-doors interventions in corruption matters is not farfetched: sharing the loot! Otherwise, NASS, being representatives of the people would not keep from them live transmissions of these probes; otherwise, the matter would not be dead on arrival, and thrown under the carpet; otherwise, there would be reportable results…

    But then, how does one expect NASS to be anti-corruption when their salaries are themselves corrupt? When they would rather starve Nigerians of subsidies that shrink their own bogus allowances? When they only serve themselves: their interests, their pockets, their election as governors of their home states, or perpetual election as Representatives?

    Why, I ask, is there not term limits for them?- David Mark, for one, has become a veteran, yet the battlefront in the Northeast is devoid of their esteemed veteran selves or presence…

    We have a Constitution that is not harsh on corruption. We have a constitution that does not compel office holders to perform, to execute worthwhile projects and leave behind sustainable policies. We have a constitution that does not stipulate a national development plan and consequently leaves us at the mercy of the officeholder, inadvertently allowing abandonment and wasteful repetition of projects, oftentimes white elephants.

    Whose duty is it to make laws, to amend the constitution, to strengthen the constitution?

    Your guess is as good as mine!

    • Ayk Fowosire,   

    Sagamu

  • Time to let Keshi go

    SIR: I wish to strongly appeal to the NFF to simply allow coach Keshi to go, for his benefits and for the general interests of our football. Keshi’s coaching skills had become obsolete, he has no clear game plan for any match, and he lacks the ability to properly read games. He needs refresher courses, while the coaching job should be given to a world class coach(foreign or local) who can take our football to the next level.

    Bringing him back was a great mistake as his sack would have sent the message that no poor performance will be tolerated. The boys would have raised their game to secure the qualification, to safeguard their positions in the team and to impress the new coach. But alas, that didn’t happen. Keshi was brought back, and the disaster of not qualifying was sealed. Also, coach Keshi put his personal ego above national interest. Without holding brief for any player who might have offended the coach, I think national interest and how good a player is should play great part in inviting him.  Obagoal was “hot”, Ike Uche was “shooting” and in Iheanacho is a “great potential”, yet they are all not qualified for Keshi’s team. So, Keshi should go with his moderate achievements, while Nigeria recruits a world class coach.

     

    • Fatai Abisodun,

    Ore Ondo State

  • It’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities

    SIR:This day, December 3, has been set aside annually for the observance of the International Day of persons with disabilities as proclaimed in 1992, by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 47/3. Its observance seeks to promote understanding of disability issues and to mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. It also seeks to increase awareness of gains to be derived from the integration of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

    We appreciate the National Assembly for harmonization, adoption and passage of the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Bill for the third time since the advent of this democratic era. The bill provides for the prohibition of discrimination and harmful practices against persons with disabilities. It also provides for rights to health, education, participation in political activities and National Commission for persons with disabilities.

    We acknowledge states that have enacted disability laws like Plateau, Bauchi, Ekiti and Lagos. These states have made robust provisions for the protection of their citizens with disabilities from cruel and harmful practices. But very important is the criminalization of discrimination on grounds of disability which is a critical factor in the daily lives of citizens with disabilities.

    We are worried that Nigerian banks claim to promote financial inclusion but exclude Nigerians with disabilities. Participation of citizens with disabilities in banking activities is becoming limited due to lack of access to banking halls and services. We are also concerned that eligible Nigerians with disabilities may not participate in the 2015 general elections due to limited provisions for PWDs in the Electoral Act even as amended. INEC has capitalized on it to deny PWDs access to participation in the electoral process. Efforts to compel INEC to enhance effective participation of PWDs in the electoral process have been unsuccessful due to absence of enabling legal framework.

    Finally, we are also worried that the Boko Haram insurgency has raised more persons with disabilities than we can think or imagine. Whenever a bomb drops, after the casualties, the rest are those who might have lost a part of their body. Yet, the National Information Centre hardly informs Nigerians about the number of persons disabled as a result of the attacks. Those that survive the attacks that are disabled are on their own due government neglect.

    We call on the President to use this year’s observance to sign the disability bill into law so as to reduce the challenge of living with disability in Nigeria. Government at all levels should take appropriate steps to enhance access to justice for citizens with disabilities. This is achievable through removal of institutional, environmental and attitudinal barriers that hinder access to Police Stations, court premises, Alternative Dispute Resolution Centres and the cost of justice.

    The Central Bank should also take necessary measures to ensure citizens with disabilities have access to financial institutions in the spirit of financial inclusion campaign. Widening the poverty level of Nigerians with disabilities due to minimal access to banking halls and services is a classical example of how not to promote financial inclusion and poverty reduction, as disability causes poverty and poverty causes disability.

    David O. Anyaele

    Ikeja, Lagos,

     

     

  • Nigerians must rise beyond divisions

    SIR: It is unfortunate that despite many years of self rule, oil boom, and economic prosperity, corruption, and long years of military dictatorship has brought about a situation in which Nigerians have no sense of patriotism or nationalism. Tribal and regional inclinations have been dividing Nigerians for a very long time. Instead of Nigerians to unite against their common problems, they choose to remain divided. The political class are enjoying this division to take advantage of Nigerians. For example, the consistent power (electricity) failure is as common in the north as it is in south. The Igbos, Yorubas, Hausa-Fulani and even Jonathan kinsmen, the Ijaws are suffering from it. Instead of Nigerians to unite and pressure the government, the Ijaw’s will say Jonathan is their kinsman and they will not join other Nigerians in pressuring him.

    On the alleged missing $20 billion, is the money stolen against northerners alone? It belongs to all Nigerians. Likewise the current insurgency in the north-east. The money budgeted is for all Nigerians not just for people of the north-east.  Nigerians should unite against it. If one argues that northerners are against President Jonathan and that is why the bombings are going on, then why will they kill them selves? Why will there be a bomb blast in a mosque?  Why will they do it in their own land?

    The Nigerian masses are at the receiving end. They are at the mercy of those evil, devil-nurtured, renegades, traitors and satanic politicians. They have enslaved us. They steal our money, we work for them for peanuts, our parents as their drivers, our mothers as their nannies.

    Is that how Nigerians want to continue to live? Why don’t we join hands to fight corruption, and to demand a better life? Our predecessors lived that way, we are living it, do we want our children to inherit this rot? Woe unto Nigerians.

    The 2015 general election is by the corner. Nigerians are still divided. What sort of people are we? Nigerians are becoming dumb, unlearned, and the most unwise people in the world.

    With the killings going on, is Nigerian problem one of Muslim-muslim ticket? What’s wrong with a Buhari-Fashola ticket? If Jonathan runs with David Mark, and they are deemed competent why should Nigerians go for them? The current government has failed and Jonathan should be blamed. This man is incompetent and incapable. Nigerians must rise above this nonsense and irrational inclination and choose leaders based on competence and ability to deliver. Buhari has said that nobody can Islamanize Nigeria. Let me also say that nobody can Christianize Nigeria. Nigeria belongs to all and not to group.

    Nigerians should stay battle ready for 2015. Elections must be free, fair and credible. Elections must hold throughout the country including Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. Elections must hold in Gwoza.

    Nigerians must emancipate themselves by voting the right leaders in 2015.

     

    • Comrade Abdulbaqi Aliyu Jari,

    Katsina

     

  • SOS to Ekiti Ministry of Environment

    SIR: I wish to call the attention of Ekiti State Ministry of Environment to the plight of the people living around St Michael Primary School, after Polytechnic Junction in the state capital. For some time now, a pile refuse has been steadily building up there. The refuse continues to increase every day with people from different streets trooping there to drop refuse there. The real problem is that no evacuation activity has taken place hence the pile of refuse that currently liter everywhere.

    Suffice to say that the foul odour from the dump is now unbearable; it is extremely difficult to get a breath of fresh air and this is dangerous to public health.

    We plead with the authorities in charge to please help us pack and dispose the mountain of refuse to save us from further discomfort.

     

    •Clem Alade

    Ado Ekiti

  • OAU Davids and Goliath President

    SIR: On the face of it, the reported stoning of President Goodluck Jonathan by a vanguard of Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife students is incredible stuff. As an idea, it has a feasibility that can be estimated at a degree shy of impossible. This is because the President enjoys the protection of an elite security force. Alert and nimble, their trained reflex answers any detectable attempt to harm the President: this typically constitutes a disincentive to plot. But pictures and eyewitness accounts confirm that the irreverent students defied the prohibitive risk.

    What did Jonathan do to deserve the hail of stones that is reserved for the devil in Mecca? The answer can be traced back to the day President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated a modern Stone Age.

    On February 3, 2012, President Jonathan mounted the soapbox of Seriake Dickson’s gubernatorial campaign rally in Yenagoa and regaled the teeming crowd with a reprehensible story. He told them of how he relished the spectacle of impudent miscreants stoning Timipre Sylva, then incumbent Governor of Bayelsa State. The stoning had occurred during the President’s homeboy visit and bore the decipherable signs of his tacit imprimatur.

    President Jonathan said, ‘’Dickson, you brought the people from Abuja to present the flag; the only thing I want to do is to tell you that some time ago I was in Bayelsa and the people stoned the Governor. I was here and you must work hard for Bayelsa not to stone you. The day they stone you, I will join to stone you’’.

    At the time, President Jonathan had imagined that his perch on the top of the totem pole exempted him from similar disgrace. But he misjudged: he actually scheduled his own baptism of stones with that cruel public endorsement. Two years later, the spatial distance between Yenagoa and Ile-Ife was literally bridged to a stone’s throw.

    So the daredevils who cast stones at President Jonathan may have been furnished with good breeding; very unlikely prospects for such despicable stunt. But it seems that Karma, the triumphal payback principle of the universe, momentarily commandeered their volition and drove them to serve President Jonathan a dose of his own medicine.

    President Jonathan supervised the stoning assault on the then vulnerable Governor Sylva. Jonathan was content to recline and watch the absurdity run its full course, like some morbid voyeur. He declined to affect indignation that such barbarity could be executed in his presence. He even opined that the incident offered the next governor a didactic nugget. Jonathan, a PhD, thought he sounded sensible when he decriminalized lynching, proclaiming that any group that thought the governor had been substantially slothful was free to empty their stone quiver. And he threatened, to dramatic effect, that if such Stone Age mob emerged, he would join, lugging Aso Rock itself. The President made these scandalous declarations without a blush.

    Thankfully, the students adopted the President’s recommendation and chose to test its value on him – it was a passable empirical experiment. The OAU lynch mob had apparently determined that Jonathan, the stoning exponent, has now qualified as a stoning target.  Has he not been largely idling away like ‘Governor Sylva’? Has he not been a C-in-C in hibernation mode, with Boko Haram sacking entire villages and expanding borders of the territory under their Caliphate?

    The takeaway from this Karma return on President Jonathan’s woeful investment is that all of us, at some point, would be compelled to reap the reincarnation of our actions. And the rebound often comes to initiate the offender into the embarrassment the sufferer has already recovered from. In the ironical role reversal, we see Speaker Tambuwal watching as his oppressor duck stone hits.

    One stone could have scored the David point. And Goliath could have fallen flat.

     

    • Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu

    @emmaugwutheman