The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • I weep for Nigeria

    SIR: The scene in Nigeria over the last few weeks can be taken to be an adaptation from a blockbuster première movie in Nollywood. Everything is just a jest.

    In fact, Nigeria is a disgrace. President Goodluck Jonathan should resign with immediate effect. This country is a complete joke and a disgrace. Maybe I should be clear, I don’t believe that Nigeria is a great country and I don’t believe that we are good people in Nigeria.

    Some days ago, some 200 or more girls were abducted from a secondary school in Borno State, or is it the case that they were stolen? Were they simply nobbled or kidnapped?

    Where are these girls? What is happening to them?

    Are they being used for rituals in some voodoo, in some juju and/or some other form of religious cultism? Why was it that only girls were kidnapped? Why? Why? Why?

    How were they kidnapped in the first instance? I thought there’s some form of Emergency Rule with ‘curfew’ and ‘tight security’ in Borno? So, the Boko Haram insurgents came in the middle of the night, opened the schools gate and entered the girl’s dormitories, loaded the girls into trucks, drove through the streets of Borno and disappeared without anyone seeing anything? How amazing? How convenient?

    Or are they are still in Borno? How come no one has seen them? Are they being kept in an isolated building? Are there no Nigerians close to the place where these girls are being kept or whatever? Maybe they are not even in Nigeria?

    The news circulating the media is that the girls had been transported out of Nigeria into Mali, Chad and Cameroon and ‘sold into marriage’ with some unknown persons at  $12, just like you would do to a piece of yam and cloth at the Market Square. How offensive!

    Do we have a president in this country or just figurehead? What is the stand of the National Security Council? Or do they even have a stand at all? Do they have a clue at all? Or could it be true that we don’t even have a body like that?

    I saw some members of some form of ‘security council’ including Christian Association of Nigeria’s boss, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor on the TV smiling after a ‘security meeting’ a few days ago in Abuja. Could it be that they are happy? What is the cause of their happiness? Is that not a disgrace in itself?

    Investigative journalists should be plenty on the streets of Borno by now and in the suburbs, scavenging for intelligence. Or are they doing that and no one knows about it? Is that even possible? I think our journalists do not care. It is either that or that they are simply lazy and don’t know to go about these things.

    Why aren’t Nigerians asking questions? Why hasn’t anyone been arrested?

    Is there any search going on? If any search is going on, why isn’t anyone saying anything to Nigerians? Are we that bad that we don’t care about what is happening to other people as long as they are not our daughters, friends or members of our church or mosque? Are we humane at all in Nigeria? Honestly, I weep for Nigeria.

    I’m definitely not proud of Nigeria, at all.

    • Abayomi Ojo

    Lagos

  • Nigerians must come together

    SIR: All peace-loving Nigerians are tired of the incessant killings, bombings, destruction of properties being carried out by terrorists and marauders. It is unfortunate that innocent people are being made to suffer for what they know nothing about.

    For four years on, Nigeria has continued to endure unrelenting human and material destructions. Having come this far, every Nigerian is a stakeholder, in the project called – NIGERIA. We need to save our country from total collapse before it is too late. God loves our country. I believe there is a better future for our country, if we will turn to God, shun all social vices, love our nation and love one another.

    The time is now for President Goodluck Jonathan to do more to find lasting solutions to the wanton killings and bombings particularly in the North-east of the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). One need not to be told that something is wrong with the intelligence gathering of our security agencies.

    We need to seek the support and cooperation of the international community, most especially, the neighbouring countries of Cameroon, Niger Republic and Chad to put an end to this threat on the sovereignty and security of Nigeria.

    Also, the federal government should ensure adequate funding, manpower and capacity-building of all the security agencies. The government needs to engage religious leaders and traditional rulers and opinion leaders from the theatre of insurgency in robust and far-reaching dialogue, to get to the root causes of crime, while parents should stop breeding more children that they could not adequately cater for.

    Government should take the war against corruption very seriously. Corrupt leaders in all facets of national life – in public and private sectors should be brought to book in a way that would make others shun corruption.

    The National Conference is timely going by the current political, economic, religious etc challenges facing the country. The expectation is that the gathering would help find lasting solutions to the current challenges. It is necessary to remind ourselves that we have no other country we can call our own other than Nigeria thus, anything that would bring disintegration should be avoided.

    • Prophet Oladipupo Funmilade-Joel, Lagos

  • From Chibok 276 to President Jonathan

    SIR: It is with deep sense of anger, resentment and desperation that we write you this letter. You would recall that on April 14, after an explosion rocked Nyanya a suburb of Abuja killing over 75 persons and wounding many others, some individuals in military camouflage came to Chibok Girls Secondary School with the guise of assisting us escape an imminent Boko Haram attack. Conversely, the “good Samaritans” have turned out to be dare-devil Boko Haram abductors. Twenty one horrible days after, we are helpless hostages languishing in the den of these sheep in wolf clothing. The attendant depression and hopeless experience is better imagined.

    We learnt that our abduction naturally hit you like a thunder bolt and our country knew no peace since then. But a day after, your presidential train moved to Kano where you danced away the shock in reception of Ibrahim Shekarau and other defectors to your party the PDP. How would one conscientiously reconcile your shocking disposition to our plight to what happened some hours later in Kano? If we were truly your children, would you have gone to Kano? Being in government should not make us lose our sense of decency and humanness.

    We also learnt that government postponed the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting of Wednesday  April 30, to honour the younger brother of the Vice President Namadi Sambo who unfortunately lost his life in a ghastly motor accident along Lugbe Airport Road, Abuja. We pray Allah to receive the soul of the departed in al-jannah Firdaus and through this medium send our heart-felt condolences to the Vice President and his entire family. It is customary in our clime to honour the dead but should we conclude that the dead are more important that the living in Nigeria?

    At the time we were abducted, we were putting on only school uniforms. Has anyone thought of how we feed, sleep, take bath and care for ourselves as young girls?

    Boko Haram menace needs a concerted national and patriotic effort to surmount. We are hostages today; tomorrow it might be people in position of authority. If drastic steps are not taken, the nation will be consumed. The doom’s day is imminent.

    Our abduction coincided with the untimely death of more than 200 school children like us at a resort island off the nation’s southwestern coast of South Korea as a result of crew malfeasance. The Prime Minister took responsibility and threw in the towel. The crew members are currently facing the music. Who will take responsibility for all these calamities that have been befalling us as a nation?

    The world is expected to mark Children’s day on May 27. Would you like us to celebrate ours as hostages in the bush with gun trotting insurgents whose well established principle is that education is a sin and are out to stop it?

    The events that led to our abduction has offered your government the impetus to scrutinise the activities of those saddled with the responsibility of making sure that the state of emergency is implemented. How could these people have unbridled access to roads that are supposed to be manned by soldiers? We learnt that our government agencies do not even know how many of us thatare missing. Even if it is one person, a good shepherd will leave 99 sheep and go after the missing one.

    We salute the courage of our mothers in Chibok, mothers all over Nigeria who have worked, prayed and marched the cities of Nigeria to demonstrate and register their displeasure over our abduction and lack of government proactive measures for our release. Finally, we thank God for preserving us till this day and for mercifully granting 53 of us freedom and safety. Our gratitude goes to all Nigerians for standing by us and our families in this trying time. We still look forward to our freedom someday.

    • Sunday Onyemaechi Eze

    Zaria

  • Before we pray again

    SIR: It has become a commonplace for Nigerians to resort to endless posts of prayers on the social media and well-publicised fasting programmes most especially whenever any  incident occurs which can be attributed principally to human factors.

    With yet another bold statement on May Day by the notorious terrorist group Boko Haram, there have been renewed calls for re-assessment of the way we pray.

    I am a firm believer in the power of prayer and faith but it is also important that both go along with action. Today, we instal irresponsible leaders every four years; buy our ways to get an appointment/jobs; churn out millions of unemployed youth every year; put mediocrity/nepotism above credibility; place ethnic/tribal interest above national interest.

    We have also made corruption an institutionalised part of social life; we manipulate religion to suit our whims and caprices; maintain a presidential air fleet that can compete with any airline in the world; have an electoral body that can’t supervise a election into a federal constituency…the list is endless, yet we want God to come and clean up our mess.

    Every nation gets the kind of leader it deserves; in essence the quality of  leadership is dependent on the idiosyncrasies of followership.We are the change we want in our country not God or any supernatural being. Let’s do our part before we approach Almighty God because for all I know Him to be, he does no evil, harbours no evil and speak no evil.

     

    • Adebiyi Babatope Opeyemi.       

    Ado-Ekiti

  • The problem with our youths

    SIR: The youths constitute about 70% of the Nigerian population. We can, therefore, say that youths have a greater role to play in moving Nigeria forward, or vice versa. We cannot dispute the fact that most of the atrocities that have been committed in Nigeria today are not done through the youths. Our power-hungry politicians use youths to rig elections or snatch ballot boxes. When we talk of evil activities such as armed robbery, terrorism, violence and snuggery, youths are the active members. Even the majority of the members of Boko Haram are youths.

    The crucial question, therefore, is why should youths allow themselves to be used as agents of destruction rather than bringing development to our country? Youths ought to understand that they are the leaders of tomorrow, and therefore, should do nothing that would undermine their chances of becoming good ambassadors of the country.

    The underlining fact is that, many parents have failed in their responsibilities of proper upbringing of their children. Majority of the population of youths of nowadays lack adequate home training that would groom them to know how important they are to their immediate societies and development of the country in general. We must not shy from stating the fact that politicians have, over the years, taken the advantage of poor home training to brainwash the younger generations and use them as political thugs and agents of religious, regional and ethnic crises. These poorly groomed children today have constituted more problems that would cost Nigeria more than she had expected in terms of human lives lost, resources spent and her image that has been battered across the world.

    Now that President Jonathan has confirmed that Nigeria is not a poor country, why not then use our wealth to improve the lives of the citizens?

    True, Nigeria is not poor because she lacks human and material resources; it is poor because leaders have failed to harness these rich human and material resources to the advantage of the common man. It is worrisome how citizens continue to sink into poverty while the few rich continue to develop fatter stomachs through the resources that should be used to improve the well-being of all.

     

    • Hauwa Isa Gogo,

    IBB University, Lapai-Niger State.

  • Enough of the mindless killings

    SIR: To state that the Nigerian government has a colour-blind approach to the suffering of her people is stating the obvious. And until the government can actually begin to acknowledge the suffering, hurt, and death- preventable death, then Nigeria will become desensitised and numbed to the gripping suffering across country all the time. The government needs to understand that human security which is simply freedom from fear and threat of crime and war, want, poverty, illness and environmental degradation is not guaranteed in this country.

    Where did we miss the step as a nation? My heart bled on the reading of the news of the second Nyanya bomb blast on May Day. After the first Nyanya bombing of April 14, which was described as national embarrassment given its proximity to the nation’s capital, Nigerians were thrown into anguish with the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls by the Boko Haram members in Chibok.

    Why I am not underestimating the efforts of the government in addressing this menace, I am forced to ask: “How is the country winning the war on terror”? There are massive checkpoints in most parts of the country today, but children are abducted in their hundreds, conveyed in not less than five vehicles unchallenged to unknown destinations. Where were the Joint Task Force operatives or was the school located in the forest?

    Since the April 14 bombing, it has become easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than to drive from Mararaba, one of Abuja’s adjoining settlements to Area 11 in the city due to massive checkpoints on this route. Just adjacent to the exact point where scores were killed two weeks ago, dozens have again been massacred.  Where are the CCTV cameras that Senator Bala Mohammed, the FCT Minister promised to fix when he visited the scene of the bombing last time?

    It has been reported that the federal government spent $7billion in the course of stemming the insurgency since 2012, yet this has done little to safeguard the lives of the citizens. Instead, our mourning continues to grow in geometrical progression from recurrent incidents.

    It is high time government at all levels get under the situation to uproot this menace called Boko Haram. My candid opinion is that the government should provide Special Security Intervention Fund for all the local government areas in the federation because most of the attacks and other criminal activities are carried out in the rural areas but unfortunately, local governments lack financial strength to aid security operatives because what they receive as allocation is not even up to allowance of some top permanent secretaries in Abuja. Many of the local government can’t even pay full salary to their staff due to the drastic and constant shortfalls in their allocations.  With such fund, the local governments should be able to provide patrol vans and other security gadgets to security operatives, fund a formidable vigilante groups for proper community policing.

    Today, our politicians have dozens of police escorts and guards around them while the masses are unprotected.  Government should understand that real security flows from placing the poor, vulnerable and marginalized at the heart of her development and security policy. Enough of the mindless killings.

     

    • Onogwu Muhammed,

    Lokoja-Kogi State.

  • Confusing identities of God

    SIR: The crisis of modern times must have caused a change in the belief system of Nigerians.  Young and old people have joined the wagon of crusaders to shout down the Holy Spirit from heaven in different tongues and dialects.  It used to be in the past that different denominations of Christianity were associated with a particular form of worship.  It appears not to be sufficient anymore to maintain the silence of reflection during church services.  Congregants have to verbalise their innermost thought in an atmosphere of raucous, rising to a level of a religious whirlwind.

    The language of praise the believers use is of a striking consequence.  Pagans are known for their demonstrative incantations, extolling the virtues of the ancestors and the forces of the land.  They call upon the powers of their deities during their rituals using humanistic phrases like ‘twice the warrior’, ‘lightning of the sea’, ‘the last voice’, ‘trembling force’ and such others.  Christians used to shun them for their barbaric babblings.  They deem their practice irrational and without redeeming qualities.

    How the wheel has turned.  If one landed from the moon today and blindly listens to the prayers of the Christians and the incantations of the heathens, the harmony in meaning strikes a magical resemblance.  The musicality, either by clapping of hands or the use of instruments during worship, is essentially the means of both religions reaching a spiritual accord.  Even the hours of prayers have changed from daytime to past midnight for spiritual intercessions by the Christians.  One remembers a time when children were strongly admonished not to leave the house late at night for fear of being killed by accidentally encountering a pagan worship session.

    To the extent that the worship of idols is no longer exclusive to the pagans, Christians use different religious paraphernalia to represent spiritual powers.  Followers troop to a certain river for example to worship and at the end, take home some of its water with the singular purpose that it has the spiritual power to work miracles.  One can logically compare this ritual to the pagan’s worship of a water deity.  The belief in the magical power of inanimate objects, witchcraft and animals, which used to be fundamental with the practice of paganism, are now pervasive among the Christians.  Priests and pastors display their prowess to cancel the evil forces; this is no less similar to shamanism.

    Language is crucial to the channel through which spiritual forces flow.  Understanding God requires a familiarity with one’s tradition.  Therefore, the emergence of a combination of the Christian and native religious values in worship is a natural course to divine growth.  It becomes irresponsible to condemn any form of religion so far it is not inimical to human survival.  The spirit recognises the truth and celebrates any supplication offered in the altar of joyfulness.  The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion.  Tradition says that one who holds the sword of truth must return.  One can summarily state that the identity of God is peace.

     

    •Pius Okaneme,

    Umuoji, Anambra State.

  • Abuja CCTV cameras must be made to work

    Recently, a British member of parliament was censured for tweeting that all Nigerians are corrupt people. His tweet was not only deemed offensive but racist as well, tarnishing   all the citizens of a country with 150 million people corrupt and bad. But that’s what we get when all Nigerians are painted with the brush of corruption. Surely, we have a fair share of those who cream off money belonging to our commonwealth, but it is unfair to millions of us who are working hard earning a living in this land.

    And that is why all of us should feel pained when the same tar brush of corruption is being used on innocent citizens and in this instance, a foreign corporation. As someone who knows the intricacies involved in the contract for close circuit television cameras for the cities of Abuja and Lagos, it is very painful watching issues surrounding the matter being muddled and caution thrown to the wind all in the name of that ubiquitous word, corruption.

    Like many issues in our country, I can say confidently that it is power politics at play as most of the reasons adduced are far from the truth. What is more worrisome and painful is that this is a time when all of us should be concerned about this matter because of the war against terrorism which is, perhaps, the greatest challenge facing us as a country presently. So, what are the facts of the matter?

    First, the contract was not just for the installation of close circuit television cameras, it’s actually known as Public Security Communications System (PSCS), a major project that has provided modern infrastructure for public security and E-policing in Nigeria.  The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua initiated the project and it was a $470 million project funded through a finance agreement between the Nigerian government and the China Export Bank. Telecom equipment giant, ZTE, implemented the project.

    The ZTE Corporation is known globally as a leading provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions. With operations in 160 countries, it is a leader in technology innovation, delivering superior products and business solutions to clients all over the world. Founded in 1985, ZTE is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges and is China’s largest listed telecoms equipment company. ZTE presently serves over 500 operators in 160 countries and has almost 65, 000 staff globally. It is ranked number four in terms of handset shipments and presently has 1184 patents granted in Europe making it to be the first Chinese company in the top 10 ranking relating to patent application also in Europe.

    ZTE Nigeria Limited was established in 2002 with offices in Lagos and Abuja and six warehouses in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Enugu. It has over 600 employees and over 200 contractors working in executing their projects with Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC), Globacom, and MTN among its partners.

    The major components of the PSCS Project are 696 Global Open Trunking Architecture (GoTA), 2000 digital solar powered cameras – 1000 for Lagos and 1000 for Abuja, 37 switch rooms, MW backbone, 37 coalition emergency response system, 38 video conference subsystem, 37 E-police system, six emergency communication vehicles and 1.5 million lines.

    The GoTA involves the deployment of 696 base transceiver stations nationwide and the network supports the deployment of 1.5 million subscriber lines. This has been deployed in over 40 countries. The Video Surveillance Subsystem is the most noticeable component of the project with the installation of 1000 cameras each in Abuja and Lagos. Video images captured by the cameras can be stored for more than one month and can also be transferred to the system’s database for archiving. The third aspect is the Coalition Emergency Response (CERS) that supports the police call centre for emergency information. It allows quick response in emergency situations by security and other first responders. CERS also provide a national platform for emergency calls by citizens to the Nigeria Police nationwide. Under it, mobile emergency communication vehicles may be deployed in emergency situations when commercial communications networks are incapacitated.

    The fourth component is the vital E-Policing Subsystem, which is to facilitate the deployment of E-policing database. The fifth is Video Conferencing subsystem that enables video conferencing by all commands of the Nigeria Police Force with the Force Headquarters and among themselves.

    The video surveillance works through the cameras which are solar powered and visible. The cameras capture images 24 hours and keep images locally and also send to the monitoring centre. Next are the base stations, which are diesel-powered, and there 696 stations in all. These receive data from the cameras and transmit it to the switch centre/command and control. The Switch Centre is where received images are stored and required actions are taken.  The video surveillance is partly technology and partly human.

    At the switch centre trained officers analyse feeds from the cameras and if needed they can take the remote control of the cameras, they can zoom them for picture clarity or for different angles among other things. They can also recommend necessary actions, for example, deployment of troops or emergency services to a scene.

    This was the project that was fully completed and handed over to the Nigeria Government in 2012! Further, ZTE assisted in fueling the base stations for an additional six months. It is the sole responsibility of the Ministry of Police Affairs to use these facilities. This include fuelling the base stations, ensuring that the cameras are not stolen and making sure that the trained staff are manning the switch centres and base stations all over the nation.

    We should remember also that the execution of the project was supervised by key ministries and agencies like Ministry of Police Affairs, NPF, Nigcomsat, Ministry of Finance and National Security Adviser’s office. They also certified that the project was implemented in accordance to specification and contract term.  What’s more, a certificate of completion was issued to ZTE in December 2012 and one wonders why these questions are surfacing after nearly two years the project as completed. It is also amazing that Nigerians are not asking questions from the Police who have been using these equipment. Last year’s robbery at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport was solved with the aid of these cameras, this can be verified from the Lagos State Police Command.

    If some of the cameras are not working, they can be fixed just like we change the bulbs in our homes and offices without necessarily laying cables all over again. Our country should not be hoodwinked into paying for another contract again, the real motive in my view why this noise emanated originally. All citizens should speak up against re-awarding of a contract that has been executed and paid for nearly two years ago.

    If the police needs help they should call the original designers of the project to fix it. This is not time for  blame game. We should ensure that the PSCS project is up and running. Government should make necessary provision for its running and maintenance.

     

    By Richard Okunola

    Abuja

  • A country at war

    SIR: Can we stop countries from waging wars against other countries in today’s world? Our history books are filled with accounts of how countries waged wars against other countries. The USA-lraqi war is still fresh and vivid in our memories. In the last century, our world witnessed two global wars: World War I and World War  II. But, war does no country any good, whether it is an internal civil war ignited by ethnic hatred or not. War stalls the development of countries, and causes the massive devastation of their infrastructure. Think about Afghanistan, Sierra-Leone, Liberia, Sudan and others. Have Sierra-Leone and Liberia totally recovered from the destruction and devastation they suffered when they were engulfed in civil wars?

    Ethnic hatred, religious intolerance, and fight for political supremacy are the causes of internal conflicts in some African countries. In Kenya, the Kikuyu and Luo ethnic groups do not see eye to eye with each other.   The conflict in South-Sudan, the newest nation state in Africa, is traceable to ethnic chauvinism.

    Like Kenya and South-Sudan, Nigeria is polarized along ethnic and religious lines.

    Although the Boko Haram group predates President Jonathan accession into office, the group has intensified its bloody campaign since he became president. The North-east is now a hot-bed of violence. Daily, the Boko Haram kills innocent people. They’re decimating our population by detonating bombs in public places. The latest bloody deed executed by the Boko Haram group was the detonation of bombs in the Nyanya bus terminal, Abuja. Scores of people lost their lives in the attack.

    Again, the group has been compounding the educational woes of the North by preventing northern youths from acquiring western education. Members of the group would raid schools in the north-eastern states and kill students and teachers. Many schools in the North-east of Nigeria have been closed down owing to the activities of the Boko Haram.  Now, the North has a lot of catching up to do in terms of education. Are the Boko Haram members aware that the futures of northern youths without education are blighted? Can illiterate youths bargain for the region at the national level? Can they drive the developmental initiatives of their leaders in their states?

    The activities of the Boko Haram have the potentials to cause the disintegration of Nigeria. No nation-state splits without first descending into civil war. Our diversity is our strength. Like America, we can harness our diversities in many areas to achieve national development.

    But, the issues of ethnicity and religion have continued to polarize us. Let us sink our differences and become a peaceful, united, and politically stable country. Nigeria belongs to us all; we have no other country. So, let us desist from engaging in acts that can pitch one group against another group in Nigeria. Recently, Governor Murtala Nyako and Lamido Adamawa made comments that have deepened the divisive fissures in our body -politic. As statesmen, they should be circumspect in their utterances and doings.

    • Chiedu Uche Okoye

    Awka, Anambra State

  • Re: Owambe Prince in Aso Villa

    SIR: Hardball’s piece titled “Owanbe Prince in Aso Villa” only gives credence to the axiom that “when one has no particular talent for anything, one takes to the pen”. It’s shameful that Hardball took on the Great Prince of Benin Kingdom with his acerbic pen on the back page of The Nation of April 29. The said piece was maliciously structured to expose the Crown Prince to odium and opprobrium. The clear attempt by Hardball to crucify the personality of the Crown Prince via vile-diatribe is not only outrageous, and preposterous but despicably sacrilegious.

    Is it now a crime to visit Aso Villa? Is it wrong for the Crown Prince to visit whosoever he wishes to visit? Why is Hardball trying to know what the Crown Prince was doing there? I mean how does it affect him?

    The same Hardball would have gone gaga with illimitable elation if the Crown Prince of Benin Kingdom had lambasted the President and this administration. As a matter of fact, he would have created a colourful headline from the ‘lampoonisation’ of the Ijaw Man. He will not even stop there, he will also go the path of sycophancy hailing the Prince for doing their biding but since the Crown Prince failed to do their bidding, he went to press to run a sacrilegious and most lugubrious piece of the century. Those who know Hardball should please let him know that the Crown Prince is not just an individual but a venerable institution. Hardball needs to know that the Crown Prince has his own fundamental human right to freedom of association and expression. So where he goes and those he associates with and what he says should not be the business of Hardball. If Hardball thinks he is short of things to write on, he should go into farming or better still join the Army to fight terrorism.

    • Godfrey Ehi .O.

    Benin City.