The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Re: Soldiers everywhere

    SIR: The Nation newspaper has endeared itself to its readers not only for its exclusive news and rich opinions, but also editorials. While it hardly commends or praises institutions and individuals in its editorial contents, it nevertheless provides critical analyses and constructive criticisms on most issues.

    The editorial of Thursday July 18, titled “Soldiers Everywhere” is yet another critical editorial that touches on the present security challenges in the country. The editorial made reference to the recent appeal made by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki on the need for better cooperation and understanding between civilians and military as the nation wages war against terrorism in some parts of the country. It expressed concern with soldiers’ presence in most states, which it described as “the militarisation of our democracy.” It argues that the deployment of troops by the government is not an answer to the increasing security challenges posed by terrorists, armed robbers, kidnappers and other anti-social elements making life unbearable for law-abiding citizens.

    It is necessary to say that the current security challenges are not peculiar to Nigeria but it is a global phenomenon. Some countries have witnessed lawlessness at its peak where vagabonds, masquerading as freedom fighters attempted or succeeded in taking over governments. The changing role of the military in fighting terrorist groups, like the Nigeria’s Boko Haram, has brought soldiers closer to communities and the people who reside in them in a way that has been unexpected. This definitely creates the anxiety and tensions as both groups (civilian and military) chart a new way to accommodate each other.

    The question we must ask is: are the police ready to cope with the current challenges when their officers (including DPOs) are ambushed and killed arbitrarily, when their formations are routinely destroyed with highly explosive devises, and when they themselves are overwhelmed? A logical solution, which is in existence, is efficient delivery of the Joint Task Force (JTF) which has membership from all relevant security agencies to tackle the high level of insecurity in the country.

    The setting up of the JTF is in the realisation that policing the domestic arena is not the duty of the military, whose training is directed against external enemies of the state. However, we must realise that the military’s participation in joint activities with other paramilitary outfits to confront the tasking new Millennium security challenges are for strengthening efforts to protect our people from devilish and wicked marauders.

    While we must urge other security outfits to brace up to the new challenges of policing and protection of lives and property; the military’s intervention in the war against terrorism should be sustained till normalcy returns to the enclaves. The civilians themselves and the media should be security conscious and alert relevant security agencies of suspicious movements, behaviours and objects that could pose security threat to our national integrity.

    We should accept Dasuki’s plea that Nigerians should consider the military presence as a necessity to protect our people in dangerous zones, pending when those terrorists with their well-armed lethal armaments and sophisticated gadgets are completely uprooted and eliminated from our national lives.

    • Ola Lookman

    Abuja

     

  • No to anti-workers’ constitutional amendment

    SIR: The Social Justice Institute (SJI) strongly condemns the attacks on democratic rights proposed through the amendments to the 1999 Constitution carried out by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The most maddening is the legalization of child marriage which represents a mighty attack on child’s rights in Nigeria through the retention of Section 29(4) (b) in the Constitution.We express our total solidarity with the opposition against this move and the mass actions being held to reject it.

    We reject the life pensions that the members of the National Assembly through the same amendment process. It validates the fact that the entire ruling elite in Nigeria are bankrupt, backward and anti-development. While the ruling elite has failed to achieve the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy as contained in Chapter 2 of the Constitution, it is showing its neo-liberal character by awarding life pensions to themselves. Yet, many working class pensioners are suffering from unpaid pensions.

    We are equally opposed to the planned total exclusion of Labour matters including the minimum wage from the Exclusive List and its transfer to the Concurrent List. We express our solidarity with the Nigerian Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress which has also rejected this action. We hold that this represent a monumental attack on the mass of Nigerian workers and call on the two labour centres not to limit their opposition to press statements but also mobilize mass actions including but not limited to two-day general strike to show their total and vehement resistance to such move.

    We are equally opposed to the proposed amendment by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to the Electoral Act 2010 (2011 as amended), and the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Among other things, INEC is currently seeking, as evidenced by a letter dated June 13, the power to “disqualify candidates who evidently do not satisfy the requirements for the position, he or she is vying for as provided in Sections 65,66,106,107,131,137,177 and 182 of the Constitution”. The condition for this unilateral disqualification is that if “there is a prima facie case shown from the presentation that the candidate is unqualified”. How this is to be determined, INEC did not state! We hold that if the National Assembly allows these proposed amendments, they would trigger anarchy and disaster.

    On the contrary, we call for the immediate removal of the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 (2011 as amended) and the 1999 Constitution (as amended) that restricts genuine multi-party democracy in Nigeria. We call for the deletion of the arbitrary provision of Section 78(7) (a) which empowers INEC to deregister political parties. We hold that this provision is a graveyard for democracy in Nigeria and amounts to sheer tyranny. We oppose the statutory disbursement of grants to political parties, which is the major ground upon which INEC came up with this provision and submit that the internal funding of political parties be driven through subscription by their members.

    We hold that Nigeria’s warped polity is a reflection of the lopsided socio-economic arrangement, wherein one-percent of the population control 99 percent of the oil wealth, which is the mainstay of the economy in Nigeria.

     

    • Ayo Ademiluyi,

    Director, Social Justice Institute,

    Lagos

  • Nigeria’s emergency child-marriage activists

    SIR: Nigerians are at it again, the band wagon ego trip! Almost everyone of us has morphed into child rights activist overnight, no thanks to the inelegant handling of issues on the legislative floor of the Senate. If this facade of child rights activism we all project truly represent us, who then employs the services of pimps to assemble under -aged girls whom the gleefully refer to as conference materials or second pillow at conferences and functions for the attendees?

    Who takes advantage of under -aged girls in the guise of spiritual mentorship to have carnal knowledge of them? Who extorts money and sex from our helpless under -aged girls for marks in our higher institutions? Who takes advantage of them in our various homes and offices and intimidate them into submitting to their lecherous dispositions? Who sleeps with a six year old girl in the believe that it will help him to acquire political and economic invincibility?

    And finally, who batters and maims underaged house maids on the allegation of child witch craft? etc etc.

    The same people, some of who have suddenly become the proselytes of the new sing song, child marriage activism, are the perpetrators of the evils enumerated above. It is the bandwagon thing in Nigeria. No depth or sincerity. Check yourself. Is there any extenuating feature in any of the above evils that you may be guilty of that makes any one of them a lesser evil than the child marriage for which you have become an overnight activist? You be the judge!

     

    • Chris Edache Agbiti, Esq,

    Abuja

  • Dialogue for national educational development

    Improving the nation’s education sector has become one of the most contentious issues in the country. After several years of neglect, Nigerians from all walks of life are enthusiastic about the total revival of the education sector. Since the return to democracy, the executive and the legislative arm of government have been battling to ensure that the sector becomes the pride of the nation once again.

    The factors that have subdued the development of the nation’s education sector are well known to every stakeholder. These reasons for the failure of the system are recounted at every forum and the picture clearly painted on the sorry state of the sector.

    The National Education Summit organised by the House of Representative Committee on Education was no different. The stakeholders who participated at the historic summit were drawn from the universities, polytechnics, basic education institutions, research institutions, parastatals, the executive and legislative arms of government.

    The interactions at the House of Representatives initiative were frank and productive. Participants agreed quite early in the day to focus on the prospects of resolving the challenges of the education sector, rather than dwell on the sorry nature of the sector, without clear-cut means of achieving the required improvement.

    At the summit, one clear point was thrown up. Most of the stakeholders erroneously insist that almost every single challenge confronting the education sector should be placed at the doorstep of the Federal Government. Challenges such as the decay of primary and secondary school infrastructure were freely placed at the doorstep of the Federal Government.

    However, a major take-away at the summit was the resolution that the amendment of the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, Act should be fast-tracked to ensure that the senior secondary level of education is legally accommodated. The deputy chairman of the House Committee on Education, Dr Rose Okoh, informed that the amendment has reached an advance stage; with deliberation at the plenary being the very last hurdle.

    The lead paper and keynote address at the meeting was delivered by the Minister of State for Education, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike.

    The principal thought placed on the table for deliberation by the minister was the fact that states, local councils and other stakeholders should raise the bar as regards their implementation of programmes and policies aimed at improving the quality of education across the country.

    To the minister, the profound investments and successes recorded by the Jonathan administration in the last two years in the education arena would only be appreciated when other tiers of government start playing their legal roles.

    He declared that the massive transformation and reforms of the education sector being implemented by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration in the near future have positive multiplier effect on the nation’s development process. Barr. Wike stated that the administration’s Four Year Strategic Plan on the education sector is part of 10-year year rolling plan aimed at placing education at the front-burner of national rebirth.

    The minister stated that all stakeholders in the education sector must take responsibility for the general decay that the sector has witnessed over the years and join hands with the Jonathan administration for the success of programmes and policies designed specifically to lift education from its present unenviable state.

    It was agreed that the platform created by the House Committee on Education for the cross fertilisation of ideas on the development of education was a right step in the right direction. The House being one of the pillars of democracy, participants agreed, provided the podium for most stakeholders to push their suggestions for improvements.

    The democratisation of the education development process under the current administration is indeed progressive.

    – Simeon Nwakaudu,

    Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of State for Education, Abuja.

  • Anambra 2014: The candidates and electorate

    Election period is usually very much anticipated and expectations high, this applies to both developed and developing nations. The reason is simple; people always crave change irrespective of the conditions they currently live in. For those living in desperate situations, the desire for change is also desperate. The latter seem to apply to the present situation we live in, considering the high level of insecurity and mismanagement in the country. Until we realize this we may not do the right thing at the right time. Although the country’s democracy is still very young, it is not an excuse to continue to allow clueless politicians run the government else we head towards an imminent end to the fragile peace we currently enjoy.

    In a few months another governorship election would be held in Anambra State and up till this day we do not know all the candidates that are interested in the post. In more civilized countries, candidates would have shown interest and would have started campaigning. The electorates would have known the candidates and their manifestos. A date for an initial debate would have been fixed and the parties would have held their primaries or at least know all those that are interested. Anambra Lineage Forum has noticed the posters of some candidates within the state. Posters of Senator Chris Ngige, Walter Uba Okeke, Uche Ekwenefi, Afam Ogene, Mr Obi Obigbolu, Chief Mike Okoye, Chika Jerry, Dubem Obaze, who is current Secretary to the Anambra State Government and Dr Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah are the only ones seen for now. Unlike the others, posters of Ubah were also seen in Yenagoa environs. Out of curiosity, Anambra Lineage Forum (ALF) with the slogan ‘massive ballot protection right’ is responsible for having Ubah’s posters in Bayelsa. ALF is not interested in whom or where the candidate is from but why he/she has your support. Thereafter questions like; are these candidates interested in contesting or are they being coaxed, is their support based on hitherto knowledge of the personality and his/her capacity to deliver on commitments. ALF is committed in ensuring that the right thing is done and that whoever emerges as the future governor is someone that can be trusted to deliver on his promises, someone that is steadfast and would not compromise. We also want to stress that interested candidates should make themselves known and a debate should be organized and coordinated by a competent body in other to assess the level of exposure and experience each have. That way the electorates would be rest assured they are voting for the right person.

    Chief Ndubuisi Elodimuo Chukwudi Okaigbo

    Chairman Secretary

  • Dualise Ibadan–Eruwa–Lanlate–Maya road

    SIR: The transformation agenda of the Oyo State government especially in the area of infrastructure development (roads, bridges and flyover to be precise) is highly commendable. However so far urban transportation policy in the state has been confined to turning around core areas of major cities to the detriment of the spatial backwaters. Government needs to regenerate sub-urban neighbourhoods and smaller towns to ensure regional integration.

    There is feeling that Ibadan takes the biggest slice and everyone else gets the crumbs. The main road between Ibadan-Eruwa-Lanlate –Maya in Ibarapa East Local government area is mainly single carriage ways. Critics bemoan the successive government failure to make it a priority to upgrade the route to dual carriage-way or motorway standard considering the regional importance of the road especially at the Maya corridor where it links the erstwhile abandoned Badagry – Sokoto expressway. This blatant investment imbalance of the past administration in the state fail to take cognizance of the electoral promises made to the people of the region.

    There is the need for revision of the plan (if any) by the by present administration to tackle the serious transportation deficit facing the region. Past transportation plans fall short of the regional transportation strategy’s primary purpose to benefit society, the economy and the environment and to contribute to social inclusion and quality of life improvements.

    The bane of our infrastructural development policy in the state is lack of basic plan or framework from where guidelines for implementation of any policy drawn in order to conform to international best practices. Most planning policies and programmes in the state are piece-meal, disjointed and incrementalist in approach.

    In response to the problem of accommodating rapidly growing urban population in inclusive cities, UN-HABITAT in conjunction with European Commission launched a tool for rapid assessment of needs in urban centres for effective planning and management. In 2004, UN-HABITAT regional office for African and the Arab states took the initiative to develop the approach for application in over 20 countries. This new corporate approach is known as Rapid Urban Sector Profiling for Sustainability (RUSPS).

    It is a participatory methodology for collecting essential data and information rapidly about urban area. The profile offers an overview of the urban situation through a series of interview with key actors. This is followed by a city consultation where priorities are agreed.

    The idea of RUSPS is no more new in Nigeria. In July last year, Osun State government embarked on development and adoption of structure plans that will guide the growth, development and management of nine participating cities over the next 20 years. The cities, grouped into three clusters of three cities each are Osogbo, Ikirun, Ila-Oragun (cluster 1), Ilesha, Ile-Ife, Ede (cluster 2) and Iwo, Ejigbo and Ikirun (cluster 3).The $100 million structure plan project is funded by the state in partnership with the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-HABITAT). One of the greatest challenge facing urban managers and urban governance is lack of information and accurate statistics that could be used when planning development, otherwise the present clarion call to make Ibadan –Eruwa- Lanlate –Maya road a standard motorway might not be necessary since the data on regional importance of Maya market and various large scale agro-allied companies situated in the region would have been known to successive administration in the state. Oyo State government should avail herself with the innovative RUSPS to tackle its socio-economic, physical and environmental challenges in the course of urban planning and management.

    • Rasaki Tajudeen Olajiire.

    Agasa Estate, Lanlate.

    Oyo State.

  • Senate and underage marriage

    SIR: The Community Defence Law Foundation, CDLF, a grass-root based civil society organization that works to introduce and achieve education among youth groups in Nigeria condemns unequivocally the contemplation of the senate to retain a part of the 1999 constitution, section 29, (4), (b), marriage of under-aged girls deemed acceptable as adults in our society.

    This is indeed shameful, disappointing, and negates all international norms and practices. It is based on this that Senator Sanni Yerima could not consummate the marriage in Egypt where parents of the little girl he calls wife hails from and resides in. He respected the laws of the City of Pharaoh, knowing the consequences, ran back to Nigeria where he believes he could politicize religion to achieve his selfish desires. Nigeria is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and, African Union Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, all these charters are against the early marriage of the girl-child. CDLF, urges the senate to hearken to the voice of the people by rejecting this clause in our constitution.

    Nigerian lawmakers, leaders should concern themselves on those factors that would help the girl-child acquire education, become professionals and trained in their chosen endeavours like their male counterparts. It is against their fundamental human rights, it is also child abuse, an assault and destruction of the life of the innocent, to force them to early marriage. We must allow the girl to be of sound mind, old enough to take decisions, in this case, deciding when, whom to marry. We must also put into consideration the health implications of exposure to early sex for the girl-child. Medical experts have come forward to prove that the major cause of VVF, RVF and all that kind of diseases, is early exposure of the girl-child to sex.

    Again, if this law is retained in our constitution, our politicians may take advantage of such to recruit young girls for voting during elections, since once married qualifies them to be adults.

    We call on all well meaning Nigerians to ensure that this law is expunged from our constitution, to save the lives of our little daughters from our rampaging men who cloak in the name of religion to perpetuate their evil intentions.

    • Uzodinma Nwaogbe

    Abuja

  • Kudos to Ogun State government

    SIR: Permit me space to commend the efforts of the Ogun State Government in sanitizing the haulage toll collection system in the state. A pointer to this effort is the recent introduction of branded haulage stickers in parks and garages in the state.

    I strongly believe that this move will totally eradicate the nefarious activities of thugs and hooligans who continuously torment and extort truck owners under the guise of haulage toll collection. Similarly, the introduction of these haulage stickers will unify toll collection in the garages thereby reducing the incidence of multiple taxation. Indeed, this innovation is worthy of commendation.

    • Agida Temidayo

    Arepo, Ogun State

  • Child marriage: We are all violated

    SIR: Irrespective of whatever definitions it may have been given, child marriage is when a shameless old man is shamelessly having sex with a helpless little girl, without regard to her well-being, safety, success, emotional make-up, education and survival.

    The action of such shameless men, according to UNICEF, is why maternal deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth account for 70, 000 deaths yearly. The risk of dying for infants born to victims of child marriage in their first year of life is 60 percent greater than that of an infant born to a mother older than 19.

    “Even if the child survives, he or she is more likely to suffer from low birth weight, undernutrition and late physical and cognitive development,” UNICEF said.

    This is so because the reproductive organs of these young girls are not developed enough to cope with the rigour and emotional requirements of child bearing.

    Despite the dangers and risks associated with child marriage and efforts being made globally to check the trend, the statistics in Nigeria are nothing short of appalling and scary.

    Nationwide, 20% of girls are married before age 15. In the Northwest, 48% of girls are married before age 15. Worse of all, 27% of married girls aged 15-19 are in polygamous marriages, thus compounding the emotional and psychological torture they are exposed to given the usual attendant wranglings of polygamy. Most of these child brides are also not in school.

    According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), “only two percent of 15–19-year-old married girls are in school, compared to 69 percent of unmarried girls. Some 73 percent of married girls compared to eight percent of unmarried girls received no schooling, and three out of four married girls cannot read at all.”

    Scary figures like these are why many nations are making concerted efforts to stem the tide of child marriage. In Malawi for instance, measures such as providing free universal access to primary education, working with chiefs to sensitize their communities on the importance of sending children to school, with an emphasis on the girl child, implementing a policy that allows girls who become pregnant during school to go back to school after delivery to continue their education, working with parliamentarians to raise the age at marriage to 18 years by 2014 and providing Youth Friendly Health Services. Under the programme, youth are armed with information on how to make informed choices about their reproductive health.

    Despite the global campaign against child marriage, Nigeria seems to be in her own world with legislations allowing sexual predators to further worsen the plight of the Nigerian girl-child.

    Given the high prevalence of poverty in parts of Nigeria where this is common, the end of child marriage may not just be in sight. As long as poverty remains with us, child marriage will be on the increase, and who knows, Nigeria may help surpass the 140 million girls who will be married as child brides before 2020. As long as Nigeria is where there is so much want and pain in the midst of plenty, people like Senator Ahmed Yerima will have their way and irrespective of any law, impoverished and poverty-debased parents will give the hands of their daughters in marriage to such people, after all, it is what they have that they will use to make a livelihood.

    It just doesn’t matter if the lives of young girls are fatally involved.

    And it is not just these little helpless girls: all of us are being violated by our stupendously, criminally and consciencelessly rich leaders. The modes of violation are different, but the end result is the same. A financially violated man and a sexually violated young girl could both end up dead, time or rate of death notwithstanding.

    • ‘Dimeji Daniels

    Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State.

  • Let’s rise to save Nigeria, again

    SIR: The Jonathan government is no longer in any pretence to pass for a government, but a rampage. The charade masquerading as governance is gradually embracing its precincts of extinction. In its incurable passion for self immolation, the fear is rife that it does not accomplish its avowed aim by pulling an already decrepit country along with it. There is no doubting the fact that Jonathan’s government has become, even in its paralytic state; self-serving.

    This verdict is devoid of grudge or malice, albeit the government itself has done nothing unworthy of it! A hapless and clueless government is making hopelessness so commonplace that it is almost a march of idleness to dream! It is a government that kills everything decent and noble.

    The children of the present Nigeria no longer see a future ahead of them worthy of hopeful embrace. What with insecurity and no guarantee for the safety of human life? Life and living, than at any other time in Nigeria, assume the same dangerous pattern; the brutish and the short!

    The youth of the present Nigeria has lost reasons for dreams, given the cluelessness of and the dearth of leadership. The older generation is mentally stranded in unfathomable bewilderment. The question forcibly inhabiting their awe-primed lips seem to be; how did we get here, this is a different Nigeria from the one we fought to make independent!

    Or what is the name for a government which surreptitiously forlorn its electoral mandate to embrace a priceless arena with a state governor? And in its mindless frenzy to foster the annihilation of the governor, it began to desecrate the country’s constitutional sacristy, an arena it swore under oath to defend? Or by what description does a government that consistently but shamelessly lends authenticity to unalloyed illegalities and breaches of everything sanctified be named?

    How can a rational conviction excepting irrationality (even insanity?) be grounded that the numerical number 16, is greater than 19? Only in a democratic fantasia, passing for a government, such as the present can that be excused!

    And l also hasten to ask if it does not cut short of irredeemable democratic dementia, how in God’s earth does five out of 36 house members constitutionally arm to impeach a speaker? Somebody somewhere must as a matter of urgency call the budding dictatorial leviathan to the democratic order. Nigerians paid very direful price to get the present near-semblance of democratic rule in place, than to sit tail-in-thigh and watch a fraudulent rulership deconstruct that labour of tears and pains with its intolerably organised cluelessness and arrogance.

    Where are the Tunde Bakares? Where are all lovers of constitutional democracy; where are all lovers of Nigeria? It is time to save her, again!

    • Wole Jones

    Lagos