The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Asari-Dokubo’s unguarded comments

    Asari-Dokubo’s unguarded comments

    SIR: The recent comments by the ex-militant and leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Asari- Dokubo, have further exposed both the Federal Government’s and the nation’s security agencies’ selective attitudes in crime prosecution in the country. Recall that few weeks ago, some journalists from the Leadership were arrested, detained and subsequently charged for an offence bothering on treason, by Nigerian Police over a publication, which Aso Rock found damning to its regime. But staring before our very eyes is a clear case of treason and the same Police and it’s Aso Rock paymasters are carrying on as if nothing has happened. Or what other evidence do our security agencies need to know that an utterance such as Dokubo’s, which tend to threaten the corporate existence of the country is a criminal act?

    In a saner clime, Asari- Dokubo would have been cooling off in detention for such statement of war against the country. He would have been quizzed and charged to the appropriate court for the provocative comments that Nigeria and Nigerians would know no peace if his kinsman, President Goodluck Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015. Expectedly, neither Dr Doyin Okupe nor Dr Reuben Abati has issued a statement or in their usual styles addressed the press on the ex-militant’s statement. The reason, of course, is that the man is making their jobs -of promoting the President’s 2015 ambition-easier. And it doesn’t really matter to them whether such promotion works against the unity and indivisibility of the country, the generality of Nigerian populace or not.

    Every lover of peace and unity of this country must add a voice of condemnation against Dokubo’s drum beat of war. His highly sensational comments that “…there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if (president) Goodluck Jonathan is not president in 2015, except if God takes his life…”, should not be dismissed as a mere threat, not when the ex-militant had gone further to call the bluff of the National Assembly for “daring” to pass a resolution mandating the security agency to investigate his highly inflammatory comments.

    Dokubo’s attempt to justify his comments on the ground that some persons in the past equally made similar statements and nothing was done to them was like turning logic on its head. Assuming, without conceding the fact, that the duo of Gen Mohammed Buhari and one Farouk Aliyu (as he claimed) made such statements, it would still not be enough to exonerate the ex-militant from the criminal liability which his comments carry. No individual, however highly placed, can take law into his hands. It suffices, also, to state that one does not justify a wrongful act by committing another wrong.

    The self-styled Ijaw leader should have known by now that nobody or region is indispensible in Nigeria. He should have been properly guided by the country’s political history that Nigerians are never stampeded into submission by such a cowardice and provocative utterances.

    It is, indeed, gratifying that the respected elder-statesman, Edwin Clarke, has reminded him that the country would neither break nor hell gets loosed if President Goodluck Jonathan loses re-election in 2015.

    • Barrister Okoro Gabriel,

    Lagos

     

  • Leadership is Nigeria’s problem

    SIR: There is no gainsaying that President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is in difficult times. Ditto the states governors. The truth must be told, Nigerians are expecting purposeful, resourceful, Godly leadership. One is deeply surprised that since May 29, 2011 when we began another democratic dispensation, Nigeria’s development continues to be hampered by bad leadership, moral decadence, hunger, poverty, insecurity and deep-rooted corruption. Our leaders tell lies under oath, trust in deceitful words. They make promises and break them.

    What Nigerians need now is a good and God-fearing leader who will work hard in raising the standard of living of the people, transform the society, enact policies that would give all Nigerians a sense of oneness.

    Some of the challenges of national integration and development in Nigeria include economic crisis and poverty, unequal development, crisis of governance and poor political leadership.

    Nigeria has big potentials to become one of the most powerful countries of the world, and for it to occupy such position, it must transform its system, integrate the people, grow the economy, fight poverty and hunger. Nigerians and the leaders should also allow God to direct the affairs of their governance.

    Nigerians and the rulers should be full of prayers, to empower the Goodluck Jonathan administration to tackle the raging socio-economic and political problems facing the nation and capable of eroding national unity and stability.

    President Jonathan needs to urgently tackle the energy problem, revive industries, encourage entrepreneurs, create mass emoployment for the youth, look into the security situation in its entirety, tackle the war against corruption seriously, adhere to the tenents of the rule of law, improve infrastructural facilities, convocation of prayer summit at all levels of our government among others.

    Sincerely, Nigerians must create the atmosphere of trust, transparency, honesty and accountability in the spirit of the fear of God, otherwise it will remain where it is. We have to harness the God’s given abundant gifts of nature around us to make the country great. Our leaders have to learn and start taking decisions on what is best for the country rather than their self-serving interests. Unless and until we address the challenge of leadership, the country can never move forward.

    Religious leaders in the country should not feel shy to address issue of bad leadership and also make their views read and heard.

    • Prophet Oladipupo Funmilade-Joel (Sekunderin)

    Lagos

  • FG, security agencies should tighten security

    SIR: The Community Defence Law Foundation, CDLF, a grass-root based civil society organization calls on the security agencies to immediately begin to tighten security around the country.

    The recent recorded increase in violence in Borno, Plateau and Nassarawa states resulting in the loss of many lives including that of about 30 policemen calls for worry and the need for the security agencies to indeed be on top of the situation. The President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had had to abort his foreign trip to attend to this security lapse, realizing the carnage. Again, there are worries on threats and counter-threats by some political leaders of the north and militant leaders of the Niger Delta on making Nigeria ungovernable if things fail to go their way politically come 2015.

    We may not also close our eyes at the arrest of a woman on Thursday, illegally possessing police uniforms at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja-Lagos. The woman was about to board an Aero airline flight to Kano, when the security details at the airport accosted her and, she failed to provide convincing answers. All these and many others portend danger to Nigeria’s corporate existence.

    CDLF, calls on our security men to intensify security patrol at our borders; arrest and prosecute all those who have truly erred in law; begin aggressive mop up of fire arms in illegal and idle hands. We also will recommend that the Ministry of Information, National Orientation Agency, National Christian and Muslim bodies embark on enlightenment campaign to educate the people to embrace peace, respect and tolerate each other’s religion and culture. The Police must remind the politicians not to, through their unguided statements, overheat the polity thereby, sending wrong message to their supporters.

    • Uzodinma Nwaogbe

    Abuja

  • How truly independent are states’ independent Electoral Commissions?

    How truly independent are states’ independent Electoral Commissions?

    Going by newspaper reports on the local council election held in Kogi State on Saturday, 4th May, 2013, as published in Sunday Tribune and The Nation on Sunday under the titles: “3 Killed During Kogi Council Poll” and “Kogi LG Poll: Ex-Governor Audu’s brother, 3 Others Killed” respectively, well-meaning and patriotic citizens and stakeholders in Kogi State would begin to wonder on the adequacy of the preparations, laid-down processes and the readiness of the Kogi State Independent Electoral Commission (KOSIEC) in the manner of handling of the election which according to reports led to the killing of three people and burning of houses in the East Senatorial District , hospitalisation of five people at the Mopa General Hospital in West Senatorial District, total boycott of the election by the opposition parties and apathy of the electorate towards the council poll across the three Senatorial Districts in the state.

    There is no gainsaying that election in Nigeria is often being approached as a do-or-die affair and the recent council poll in Kogi State is by no means not an exception going by developments during the election. It is also a known fact that untoward acts and rigging tactics such as stage-managed party primaries, imposition of party candidates, voters intimidation by overzealous law enforcement agents designed to cause fear and ultimate disenfranchisement of the electorate, undue delay in availability of voting materials is no longer a new thing during election in our country.

    In fairness to some states’ electoral commissions such as the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC), the commission’s effective handling of its duties is commendable going by the large population of the electorate in the state and the existence of strong opposition parties in the state. Though apathy has continued to rear its ugly head in some instances, the manner of handling of the election process beginning with voters registration, accreditation of the voters on day of voting and the eventual release of results by the electoral commission is not only commendable but worthy of emulation by other states’ electoral commissions in the country.

    In a situation where a council election organised by a state electoral body is characterised by violence, killing and maiming of people and boycott by the opposition, such election should not only be cancelled but be re-conducted by INEC, the national body that is charged with the conduct of the presidential, governorship, senatorial and House of Representatives elections in Nigeria.

    The fact remains that more of the states’ independent electoral commissions in Nigeria remain loyal and solely committed to the whims and caprices of the political party to which the governor in the state belongs and not to the electorate as the case should be and so long as this situation is being allowed, out of ignorance and the high illiteracy level in the society, to be accepted as a norm in our politics, the possibility of peaceful and credible council poll will continue to elude the political terrain in our country.

    The need for credible and acceptable poll at the local government level in any part of the country cannot be dismissed with the wave of the hand, considering the fact that the closest government to the people at the grassroots is that of the local government. The advice of the ex- Ebonyi Deputy Governor, Chigozie Ogbu, given during a national workshop on budget implementation and price monitoring in Enugu as reported in the P.M News of Thursday, 17 November, 2005 on the need for and efficient an service-oriented local government system as opposed to “most public officers, especially politicians, who see their positions not only as an opportunity to serve the public but as a God-given opportunity for personal aggrandisement” should be the watchword of all the local councils in Nigeria and this is only achievable when true representatives of the people are allowed unfettered access to governance at our local government level nationwide.

    Without mincing words, there is need for level-playing field to be the watchword of all electoral bodies whether at federal or state level in our country as this is the only way by which unnecessary animosity and bad blood can be eschewed before, during and after election in our country.

     

    Odunayo joseph

    Publicity Secretary

    South West Zone of Okun Dev. Association

  • Save the traffic situation at Effurun round-about

    It has been a heart aching experience driving through the Effurun round about on weekends. I had a first-hand experience lately and I think if nothing is done urgently to salvage the situation, its effect could be very colossal. On my way from Sapele on a Saturday, immediately after the last army check point when entering Effurun, we ran into a hold up. Under normal circumstances, from the army check point to the round about cannot take you more than five minutes, but without exaggeration, we spent approximately three hours to get to the round about. It was a sad experience with a heavy toll on social economic life.Besides, it poses a grave security threat as hoodlums can catch on the disorderly situation to commit crime.The simple reason for these happenings apart from the impatience of drivers and other road users is lack of obedience to simple traffic laws and regulations. Solving this problem will require the effort of the men of the FRSC and other law enforcement agencies.We would have gone through the road with less hitches if they were on ground to control vehicular movement and bring order. I am sincerely appealing to the FRSC Command covering Effurun to do something about the situation and save road users this unwarranted stress.

     

    Alexander Ighoro

    Effurun, Delta State

  • Phone thief and misplaced sentiment

    SIR: I am appalled by the avalanche of misplaced sentiments, in the media and especially on the internet, being directed at the convicted thief, Kelvin Ighodalo, jailed for 10 years for stealing Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s phone. A particular newspaper led its readers on this false path and the false echo has since been picked up by the mischievous Osun State PDP and the concocted horde of its wannabe aspirants. The allegation is made, in the fashion of what Herbert London called ‘avatars of moral equivalence’ in which a crime, no matter how heinous, becomes insignificant and irrelevant, considering other circumstances of the convict. In this case, the victim of the robbery, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, happens to be a big man, a state governor. So when has it become that a big man should not get justice because of its status? The mischief actually began with headlines that sensationally amplified the sentence – ‘Man bags 45 years for stealing Aregbesola’s phone’. The truth is that he was convicted on a six-count charge totalling 45 years but which will run concurrently, meaning that he would actually spend a maximum of 10 years in jail. Indeed, the law had prescribed a minimum of eight years and maximum of 20 years for each of the first three counts and he was lucky to get just 10 years –slightly above the minimum. A detailed look at the thief’s antecedent will reveal that the sentiment showered on him is highly misplaced. Ighodalo was a police officer dismissed from service for armed robbery and was cooling his heels at Kirikiri Maximum prison when Governor Aregbesola’s phone was snatched. However, the phone got to him from his associates who were the pickpockets and he started calling the governor’s friends, including traditional rulers, soliciting for money. At the last count, he had fraudulently collected more than N20 million from different people. When the governor heard, he informed the service provider and the SIM card was locked. When Ighodalo was released from prison on bail, he penetrated the service provider through corruption and retrieved the SIM card again and started calling the governor’s friends and associates. He was however arrested in a bank in Benin while trying to cash his booty from a victim. He was again detained in a police station in Lagos where in connivance with the DPO, he escaped to continue to dupe people in the governor’s name. Now, this man operates a syndicate involving several police officers, a prison warden and his brother, many of whom are either on the run or facing criminal charges. It is interesting that when he was charged, he pleaded guilty and was given slightly above minimum punishment in light of his uproarious antecedent. I am gutted with the sentiment given to this thief and fraudster who had brought untold anguish to many people. I daresay that the people complaining about the harshness of this sentence would wish that a criminal is released to freely ply his evil trade on innocent people. This misplaced sentiment has unwittingly turned the villain into victim and the victim, this time, Aregbesola, into villain. There is a way still in which the judgement is incomplete. What happens to all the money he had collected? How will the victims collect their money back? The judgement is silent on this. Will he return from prison to start enjoying the gains of crime? Should he and must he? • Mike Adeyinka, Osogbo, Osun State

  • Jonathan wobbles as Somalia beckons

    SIR: Nigeria needs more of strategic urgent socio-political manoeuverings if the current bull in the China shop will not only destroy the shop’s wares but collapse the whole edifice. No head of state has shown total lack of grasp and managerial incompetence, cluelessness and paralysis on almost every aspect of national life as the current occupant of the highest office in Nigeria. This obvious administrative skill deficit is amplified by the ordinariness that the symbol of authority in Nigeria has assumed. The jejune and pedestrian analysis of policies and the cavaliar attitudes of the emperor towards fundamental issues of state such as insecurity, corruption, the economy and a host of others have sharpened and widened the faultlines of the country.

    As emperor Nero fiddled and Rome burnt, the Nigerian emperor is antagonizing every critical sector and geo-political zone with the annoying ethnocentric

    grandstanding of the ethnic Ijaw jingoists and supremacists even in the Niger Delta region.

    The Ijaw with highest concetration in Bayelsa and other few enclaves in some coastal communities have converted the current presidency to an ethnic instrument of victimization and ascendancy to the exclusion of other minority groups in the south not to talk about the alienation of others in the appropriation of state power and resources. It is appalling that these people do not give consideration to the post-Ijaw presidency by their actions and relations with others in Nigeria’s highly combustible powerhouse.

    Under President Jonanathan, Nigeria has become a huge slaughter slab, a haven of kidnappings, a redoubt of terrorists and a centre of communal skirmishes with blood flowing like the water of River Niger. Yet the government believes that the system will continue to wobble and fumble, till 2015 when another abracadabra called election will take place without concrete effort and strong political will to arrest this drift.

    The increasing autocratization of our democracy through the gradual assault on the core tenets and ethos of democratic institutions, federalism, rule of law and constitutionalism through both subtle and crude subversion of institutions and agencies of the state is worrisome.

    All of the above coupled with the erosion of state authority in most part of the country with many arm-bearing groups such as Boko Haram, MEND, MASSOB, OPC, etc challenging the monopoly and monopolization of the instrument and apparatus of coercion and violence and holding sway in different parts of the country with the apparent inability of the present weak government in containing and curtailing it and if this is to be added to the worsening unemployment situation and grinding poverty in the land, then Somalia beckons.

    With the weakening and decapitation of the state by a wobbling emperor through his self-serving and subversive policies, implosion is imminent and the prediction of the U. S research think-tank would have been accelerated. It would be a complete somaliazation of Nigeria. I strongly pray against it but would the power that be listen. A stitch in time can still save nine.

    • Akinrolabu T. Omonitan,

    Ikeji-Ile Ijesa, Oriade LGA.,

    Osun State.

  • Religious leaders should follow Kukah’s example

    SIR: The contemporary history of our dear country will never be written without the mention of Father Hassan Kukah. While his peers seek to metamorphose into owners of private jet and lucrative business empires in the name of God, Father Kukah seeks to advance the course of good governance and responsible leadership in Nigeria. It is on record that most of our religious leaders flood government events in search for the lucre and as such they become blind to the numerous challenges rocking our dear country. At times, they deliberately feign indifference because they have turned themselves into favour seekers and government contractors.

    Like praise singers, they hijack the altar and other prayer grounds to shower unprecedented blessings on government that deserve irredeemable ‘curse’ and conspicuous criticism. But from the pulpit and public forum, Father Kukah thunders the undeniable point that leadership in Nigeria ought to accentuate the powerful mantra of George Bush that “for we are given power not to advance our own purpose, not to make a great show in the world nor a name, there is but one use of power and it is to serve“

    Kukah, as Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese has used every given opportunity to vehemently criticize government for policies that negates public interest. He has always admonished our leaders to toe the path of service delivery, just as he has demonstrated uncommon courage and fearless audacity to speak truth to power.

    Sincerely, among religious Leaders in Nigeria, Father Kukah has distinguished himself as the light of our nation. No doubt he epitomises the moral consciousness of our nation. While America and South Africa have the likes of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bishop Desmond Tutu to boast with respectively, we have Father Kukah to boast of too. I wish to appeal to religious leaders never to forget the laconic but powerful magnus opus of Haile Selassie which holds that “throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who could have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it matters most that has made it possible for evil to triumph”.

    May God grant Kukah longevity, joie de vivre and undying determination to carry on.

    • Ehi G.O.

    Benin City

  • Open letter to Ajimobi

    Open letter to Ajimobi

    SIR: Ibadan is known to be one of the dirtiest cities in Nigeria. But since you became governor, you have been committed to erasing that ugly impression. I wish to use this avenue to laud your efforts and to also plead with you that the ongoing demolition of illegal structures should be done with leniency as many people have been rendered shopless. This has really affected many people not only the citizens of the state but also the visitors.

    We all know the state of the roads in Ibadan before you came into power. Mokola roundabout used to be very clumsy for both motorists and pedestrians but that is expected to be enhanced with the construction of the new Fly-over.

    Sir, I will like to call your attention to some unreasonable and bad attitudes of some motorists and private car owners. I learnt that it has been said that nobody should park his/her car at the junction to enable free movement of vehicles on the roads but some people are still paying deaf ear to that. Most often, cars coming out from the street of Mokola to head to the major roads often clash with motorcycles or passerby due to the way some cars are parked.

    Also, in some streets of Mokola, some shop owners have been ordered to remove the extensions they constructed in the shops not those shops near the major roads but those in the streets where vehicles seldom pass. Even though my mother’s shop is not affected, I still have to write on behalf of affected people to implore the governor to look at the situation of things and ask them to reconstruct their cubicles to avoid rain flooding their shops incessantly.

     

    • Waziri Mohammed

    Mokola, Ibadan.

     

  • Time to revive Abia’s moribund industries

    SIR: Before the creation of Abia State in 1991, outfits like Modern Ceramics Industry Umuahia, Golden Guinea Breweries Umuahia, Aba Textile Mill, Aba Metallurgical Complex, Aba Glass Industry and many others were waxing strong with thousands of workers in their employ. The progressive pace continued even many years after the creation, but unfortunately, this fleet of industries that were the pride of the state and the envy of the neighbouring states started fizzling out in turn as the years progressed

    However, with the exception of Modern Ceramics that received the blessings of the state governor, Theodore Ahamefula Orji with the collaboration of the Roman Catholic Mission, others are still dormant and any hope of their being resuscitated in the near future appears bleak

    The urgent need to revive these outfits cannot be over emphasized as doing so would augment the state source of revenue and at the same time provide employment to the teeming youths as well as reinstating their former workers that are now left to their fate.

    More importantly, it may not go down well in history for the present dispensation if the successive government happens to achieve the feat and possibly take the attendant glory. I therefore appeal to the chief executive of the state to do all within his strides to resuscitate these industries to serve as a lasting legacy to the future generation

    • Nkemakolam Gabriel

    Port Harcourt.