The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Still on the gay rights debate

    SIR: It baffles me when I see people channel their energy to rationalize absurd and vile courses in the guise of liberty, freedom, or emancipation. Even in the so-called most liberal societies, human behavior is regulated to protect the society and its inhabitants from the harmful effects of the excesses the liberty of expressing our freedom might exert.

    Dr Pius Oyeniran Abioje of the University of Ilorin in The Nation’s letters page of January 16, titled “Lawmakers death warrant on homosexuals” stated that African leaders have used their Christo- Islamic bias to legislate laws and therefore endangered homosexuals. I find his views as self-serving and impudence to the intelligence of our leaders and their capability to take beneficial decisions on behalf of their people.

    It is an affront for anyone to posit that our sense of morality is the absolute product of our holy books. Long before the advent of Christianity and Islam, Africans are known to posses’ classic virtues and high sense of responsibility which has stood the test of time beyond functional and structural evolution. Except some people are saying we are only politically liberated but still a moral colony of the West, it must be admitted by all that we are rational beings, with our own values, beliefs, and customs which has helped sustained our homogeneity for eons. We might be importing some foreign cultures which are beneficial and others detrimental to our society, no one should challenge our collective conscience and right to filter those things we are sure will destroy us. Every society derive its laws from the peoples culture, belief, and values which are actually the pillars that define appropriate actions, why would anyone rubbish ours down to religious sentiment just because it does not serve his or her selfish purpose?

    I personally do not have any problem with homosexuality or gay people, but I must admit I have issues with gay rights, why? With gay right you encourage what ordinarily some people would not contemplate, more innocent people are disposed and made cushy disciples, and more worrisome is that you are institutionalizing what is capable of wiping out humanity. Yes, wiping out humanity because procreation is threatened by the flourishing of same sex union. Like drug use, abortion rights, prostitution rights etc why are most nations of the world sceptical about endorsing these human preferences? I believe they know institutionalizing it will explode it and its explosion will be a threat to their existence as a people.

    Homosexuality just like heterosexuality and most human behaviours, is a learned orientation that can be unlearned or managed, hence the need to limit its exposure because people learn more from what they are exposed to, and young peoples’ mind is easily imprinted upon by the actions of mentors they seek to model. To the best of my knowledge, the resolve of African leaders and indeed the National Assembly is the honest reflection of our collective conscience on this issue. The effort being garnered to discredit their noble resolution in the name of religious bias is unfounded and a cheap blackmail. But if African leaders had remained silent about this matter, they would have been guilty of negligence to protect the people they swore to defend. The bill on homosexuality in Nigeria did not in any way infringe on fundamental human rights, neither does it ratify incarceration or death penalty to anyone that is solitarily or publicly gay in Nigeria. Ipso facto, the bill is aimed at protecting the sacred institution of marriage which is the hub of the society, the paramount fountain of value transmission, and the primary source of procreation, nay the survival of the society. The bill is the most shrewd and pragmatic legislation African leaders have delivered and we support and uphold that the long arms of the law don’t spare you who seek to institutionalise that which we all abhor.

    • John Samuel Tuwan

    Ojo – Lagos

  • Abuja’s ban on mini-buses

    SIR: The recent ban on mini buses on some routes in Abuja by the FCT administration was never intended to cause any hardship to the residents. The true situation is that the FCT minister intends a realistic delineation for mini and high capacity buses in the FCT, just like it occurs in all modern cities of the world.

    It is mischievous for some persons to claim that the decision of the FCT administration to ban mini-buses from operating in the city centre is borne out of conceit or any other reason. The ban has been in the pipeline since 2010 and it arose as a result of the challenges posed by the actions and operations of the mini-buses which had led to congestion in the city, persistent gridlock, and chaos from their unruly nature.

    The policy is intended to reduce traffic accidents, improve security and restore sanity on major roads and interchanges in the nation’s capital.

    This policy on the restriction of the operation of mini-buses on some routes in the city is similar to the ban on motorcycles by the former FCT administration which was greeted by a negative general public uproar but in the long run it is the same general public that is commending the efforts of government. When the high capacity buses commence services in the city, it will no longer be a situation of everything goes as there will be designated bus stops and the high capacity buses will be compelled by virtue of the agreement entered into with the administration to strictly adhere to picking and dropping of passengers at designated bus stops and ensuring they do not impede other road users as was the norm when mini-buses were operating in the city.

    Residents of the FCT must view the new policy on transportation as bringing order back to the very chaotic situation; as no responsible and well meaning society that sincerely wants development, thrives on chaos.

    The vision of Senator Bala Mohammed is to move the FCT to the next level of development and this includes the new policy for transport operation that is designed to provide an organised transport structure; which invariably is in the overriding interest of the plethora of residents of the capital city.

    • Mohammed Awwalu Ibro

    Abuja

  • N23 billion pension fraud: What a country!

    SIR: Permit me to lend my voice to the public outcry against the wishy-washy judgment meted on Mr John Yakubu Yusufu, one of the police pension scam jobbers who confessed to stealing our pensioners money. The big question now is this: is it enough for the self confessed thief to say yes I stole as much as N23 billion and be asked to part with a miserable N750, 000.00 as fine and be made to go home and steal no more?

    This feeling of impotent rage which has enveloped the citizenry at this judgment by Justice Mohammed Talba of the FCT High Court, Abuja, which is absolutely laughable, should be condemned by all.

    I only hope that other judges would not ridicule the efforts of the anti-corruption agencies.

    Like one Monday Ubani who registered his displeasure on the judgment, I also call for and very quickly too, an urgent amendment of the Penal Code, which he says does not impose punishment sufficient enough to deter corruption. While his legal colleague Bamidele Aturu who also spoke on the judgment in The Punch of Tuesday January 29, said the sentence portrays Nigeria as a country that is not serious to fight corruption.

    It is a known fact that the aged who have served our nation meritoriously die daily while waiting endlessly without getting paid their well earned meager pension.

    I want to say emphatically that Justice Talba’s judgment is a great disservice to the strained investigation leading to the indictment of Yusufu. It is a slap on the EFCC officers who ordinarily would have been thrilled that their hard work be rewarded by the society and its best institutions. This is indeed a shame to the judiciary.

    Another big question is: What does this teach our youths or those who have their hands in the till already? I will say it simply means ‘carry go, collect enough after all, the law will only recoup a negligible portion and you will go a free man. After all, is that not what Justice Talba did to Yusufu?

    Our value system has gone down indeed. Ha! We are headed for doomsday! No shame for the thief again, wahala de!

    • Ngozi Austine

    Awka.

  • Plight of Enugu’s newly recruited teachers

    Plight of Enugu’s newly recruited teachers

    SIR: There was loud ovation in Enugu State when in January 2012, new teachers were recruited to join the state civil service to bridge the gap in the shortage of manpower in most government owned secondary schools. The successful candidates recruited after rigorous processes of written and oral interviews couldn’t thank their creator enough.

    The scramble for the job dislocated many families. Some qualified jobless housewives who succeeded in the recruitment had to abandon their families from different parts of the country and relocated to their place of posting in different remote areas of Enugu State. Some others residing in neighboring states like Anambra and Imo at the greatest risk of their lives, shuttle daily from their base to different schools where they teach in Enugu.

    They go to work with much enthusiasm not only to impact on their students but also banking on the hope that their monthly salary will henceforth cushion the effect of their heavy spending on transport and other logistics.

    But painfully the countdown began. January, February, March to December no sign. To give them false hopes, sometimes, they will be called to Enugu for verification, computerization and other jargons making the teachers whet their appetite that something is in the offing.

    The situation became so bad that for 13 months the new teachers never received a dime as salary. Frustration gave way to anger and despondency while Christmas for them was not only a sad reminder of a failed system but a moment of regret.

    Suddenly, news began to fly that they are not being paid because the governor is sick and has traveled abroad for treatment. That Chime has left instruction that his deputy should not sign any cheque above N500,000. Some also alleged that the money for the new teacher’s salary was stashed away in the ministry as a fixed deposit in a bank while some powerful people are eating from the accruing interest. The situation has led to the return of the old and outdated aphorism that teachers reward will be in heaven.

    The real question now is whether government had genuine intentions to employ the teachers at the first instance or was it a political gimmick? If the intentions were genuine, why then owe people for one year and expect such people to work and still survive?

    During the Christmas season, some of the new teachers received bank alerts of one month salary out of the 13 months owed while some didn’t receive at all.

    What is happening in Enugu state is a national embarrassment, a misnomer and an aberration. Where are the men of conscience? What of the influential people in the society, the church, civil society groups and other leaders of thought?

    Now that it has been confirmed that Governor Chime is alive while the Acting Governor, Sunday Onyebuchi has also voiced out that Chime properly handed over to him, I think there is no need playing games with people’s misery. Paying the teachers will be one step for us to believe for real that Enugu is working.

    • Patrick Chiejina

    Awka , Anambra state

  • Airports remodelling commendable

    Airports remodelling commendable

    SIR: Critics of the on-going remodelling exercise at the nation’s airports agree that something is wrong with the airports and the facilities therein. They agree that a lot is rotten with the system of operation. They also agree that the human component too needs to be addressed. So, a listening President said, Oh something needs to be done urgently to address all the issues that people are raising concerning our airports. And pronto, he set in motion the process of bringing back the glory of the airports. Hardly had he taken the first step that bullets of abuse started to fly. From the President to the ebullient Honourable Minister of Aviation to all the chiefs at the Aviation agencies, none was spared. This is not fair. We must learn to appreciate whatever a sitting government is doing right.

    It is not a secret that a lot had gone wrong with the airports, but here is now a conscious effort to put those things right and some people are not satisfied. What do these critics want the government to do? Close down all the airports? No, that cannot be the answer. What the Aviation Minister is doing right now about these airports should be commended. For example, the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos and the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa in Rivers State which are always the reference point in these caustic attacks were commissioned in 1979; that is 34 years ago. The facts are there for all to see. People passed through the airports and lamented that we are probably a cursed people. That our airports were not better than bread ovens, so some said. People said unprintable things about past ministers and those at the helm of affairs at the aviation agencies. Critics at every turn called for the heads of everybody to roll.

    But this administration listened to the genuine cries of airport users and has begun a major restructuring and remodelling of the nation’s airports. What is going on today in the aviation industry in Nigeria is unprecedented.

    There is a massive construction work going on simultaneously at not less than 11 of the nation’s airports. Users of these airports can attest to this fact that no administration in the history of this nation had had this kind of stoic determination to make a difference in the aviation industry and thus embark on the kind of work going on at present at the nation’s airports. It is rather unfortunate that instead of praise, what the critics are heaping on the President, the Honourable Minister of Aviation and everybody that has anything to do with the industry is abuse.

    For God’s sake, can’t we for once, appreciate a good that someone is doing for our country?

    The wisdom of not closing down the airports for the remodelling should be appreciated. What the nation is going to lose if they are closed down could only be imagined. Definitely jobs would be lost. Families would be affected and the perennial cry of increasing unemployment would reach a crescendo. The popular saying ‘’No gain without pain’’ will suffice here. It is like the pains of a woman going into pregnancy and after nine months is delivered of a baby. The pains are there but the relief after the pangs of childbirth and the joy of a baby in the home bring satisfaction.

    Nigerians will in a short while begin to see the result of this dynamism when the remodelled airports begin to work.

    • Ola Ogundolapo

    Omagwa, Rivers State

  • Still on the rot at Police College

    Still on the rot at Police College

    SIR: The president visit to Police College Ikeja on Friday January 18 was a visit long overdue and better late than never. Though the visit was triggered by the documentary televised on a Lagos – based privately owned Channel Television, the unscheduled visit allowed the President to see things the way they were. I think he should be commended because if he had informed the Inspector General of Police and co. they could have covered up the true situation of things at the Police College.

    During the visit, the President moved round and saw the rate of dilapidation of the college. The grasses were not cut, the hostels facilities were too bad, the wall separating the college from the highway patrol barracks, Ikeja was said to have collapsed a year ago, thus giving access into the college by all manners of people, making the security in the college to be pathetic.

    Apart from the rot, the college is also being dogged by recruitment scandal which came to the surface when the President visited. It was alleged that many under-aged people were recruited which prompted President to ask for the age of one of college trainee. Another problem of the college is the fraud that was alleged being perpetrated against the trainees. Each trainee was paid N3000 instead of N14000.

    Like the President, there is nobody that will not be angry if he/she sees the rate of rot in the college in spite of the huge of amount of money that was allocated to the police colleges in the budget.

    For instance, in 2011, N291.946 million was budgeted for all the 10 Police Colleges across the nation. In 2012, N296.757million was budgeted for the same colleges and in 2013 budget, N280million has also been set aside for all these 10 police colleges apart from the money each of this college is generating from renting out the field of the college to the public for ceremonies as it was witnessed on the day the President visited.

    But it is a pity that all the money that is meant for development of these police colleges was not being utilized well.

    Having commended the President for that surprise visit, I also commend the management of Chanel Television for televising that documentary that revealed the sad state of the college.

    However, President Jonathan must not see the documentary as a calculated attempt to damage the image of his government as he has said but rather he should see the documentary as a wakeup call to his government. Therefore instead of angrily asking for who permitted Channels Television to film the depreciation in the facilities of the college, he should rather be serious with the question why and how the college got to that deplorable state in spite of the huge amount of money that is being pumped into the college.

    The DIG ‘E’ Department who is in charge of the trainees and the college commandant must be probed on how they have been managing the college’s monies. The IGP, his predecessors and other past DIGs of ‘E’ Department must also be asked to say what they knew on how the Police College Ikeja come to that deplorable state. After the thorough investigations, anyone that is found wanting must be dealt with accordingly.

     

    • John Tosin Ajiboye

    Osogbo Osun State

  • Merger: Opposition parties should go for it

    Merger: Opposition parties should go for it

    SIR: Perhaps we all do not know that the future of our democracy and, indeed, the future of Nigeria’s political and economic strength lie in the strength of the political opposition. By political opposition, we certainly would not mean a particular political party or parties today but whichever party may be in the opposition in the future that is virile enough to be an alternative choice of the electorate in a presidential election.

    As at today, Nigeria does not have a political party which can boast of being an alternative government at the centre, and, so, we are yet to have a political opposition in the real sense of it. What we run is a one-party system disguised in an ostensible multi-party system.

    Because of the absence of a virile opposition, the progress Nigeria has recorded so far has come only by trial and error or by sheer luck, so much so that all our visions as a nation which are aimed at self-sufficiency, stable electricity, standard road networks etc. have come as mere jokes.

    An unchallenged ruling party would run at its own pace, if it does not become dictatorial or absolute in the process, and the whole nation would be at its mercy, waiting helplessly, regardless of the electoral rituals of four-year intervals.

    A multi-party system which is not able to achieve anything better than this for a nation cannot be said to be an evolving, let alone perfect, democratic system.

    It is in the light of this that we must rightly view the current moves by the A.C.N, C.P.C and A.N.P.P to merge into one political party as a nationalistic proposition, whether or not they are able to topple the P.D.P at first attempt in 2015.

    While plurality or mushrooming of political parties portrays a people as free and imbued with fundamental human rights, it also portrays them as purposeless and unserious. If power, truly, is the goal of political parties, then plurality or mushrooming of political parties can even be stupid and reflective of our lack of unity as bane of nationhood.

    We all need to realize this bane and rise up to prevent it; to cure the inadvertently designed self-retardation. It is gratifying that the A.C.N, C.P.C and A.N.P.P are taking the merger initiative today as it should be, as against the creation of two-party system by a decree during the Babangida military regime.

    •Jide Oguntoye

    Oye-Ekiti

     

  • Two years prison term for N23 billion fraud?

    Two years prison term for N23 billion fraud?

    SIR: There is inevitably something comic about this political enterprise of ours. N23.3 billion stolen by one John Yakubu Yusuf, a former Assistant Director in the Police Pension Office, in another classic now known as the Police Pension Scam, and after months of back and forth, he gets two years imprisonment with an option of N750, 000 fine only?

    What does the country get? What do the people get? Shock perhaps mild disbelief, pain and destroyed hopes.

    Can I ask, did our Government not spend more than N750,000 to prosecute that man? Gleefully, the matter is reported as plea bargain – the arrest of justice and its subsequent trial on the altar of bargain. By the time bargain is closed, the highest bidder is throwing a party. Sounds to me more like justice auctioned to the highest bidder.

    I thought there is something referred to as the Mischief rule in the Canons of Interpretation, a rule which solemnly calls on today’s actors in the theatre of law and justice to reach out to the original intention of the parliament, to help them unearth the mind of the then makers of the law, to order their steps in doing justice. Was it the intention of lawmakers that a man guilty of stealing N23.3 billion be handed a two-year sentence that can be exchanged for a paltry sum of N750, 000?

    I think not. Some have even attempted to advance the argument that after all the man has forfeited 32 properties to the state and returned part of the loot. I am confident that position would be easily rubbished by the submission of any Undergraduate Law Student studying elementary Criminal Law. Is the administration of our Criminal Justice system not rooted in punishing both the “mens rea” i.e. Intention and the “actus reus” i.e. Act of an Offence?

    Where a man steals N23.3 billion as we have in this very ugly story and is later caught, and by reason of his being caught turns around, his return of the loot is not an escape route for him. It is incumbent on the Law to still go ahead and punish his criminal mind. The Law presupposes that his act of stealing is first and foremost anchored on the criminal intent built in his mind, which is buttressed by the fact that if he wasn’t caught, he would automatically have escaped with the loot.

    More importantly, the punishment of his criminal intent is to serve as a deterrent to the others who may want to ride on the crest of his fraudulent success. Certainly, it is one case that will stall tall in our Hall of Fame of national absurdities for a long time to come. It is the saddest judgement I have ever heard of, it is the greatest attack on our collective intelligence.

    Beneath this mess simply lies our fatal inability to live up to reasonably expected behaviour as it obtains in other climes. Every arm of government regales in the exercise of its powers ambushing the people and nailing the remnant of their hopes and aspirations of justice to the cross. Definitely those who come after now will ask painful questions of those who seek to mismanage today. Is it not said that Justice must not only be done, but must be manifestly seen to have been done?

    Congratulations to those who have brought us here, for they all will be well remembered. Today our nation is caught in a vice between justice and organised malignity, between a majority of rogues in civilian uniforms and a minority of the people in their right minds.

    Permit me to submit on this poignant notes, that it is not the virtues of a government official that restrains him from wrongdoing, neither is it the vices of the demagogue that urges him on, rather the plain, natural history of all political Institution coupled with the aggregation of the will and consent of the ordinary people written in just laws, and backed up continuously by a fearlessly independent and courageous judiciary is the safeguard of sanity and survival of every human society.

    This is a code locked in the immortal Latin maxim, “Fiat Justicia, Ruat Coelum” meaning, “Do Justice, even if Heaven will fall”. Once we lose this, we lose everything.

    • Olusola Adegbite, Esq.

    Kubwa, Abuja.

  • Rotational presidency key to peace

    Rotational presidency key to peace

    SIR: Why is it that Nigerians cannot relate rotational presidency among the six geopolitical zones to the federal character policy that seeks to ensure that no ethnic group is marginalized in governmental businesses and appointments? The argument that zoning may prevent the best candidate for the presidential position suggests that some zones have no presidential materials.

    What manner of reasoning? How can a highly mixed and pluralistic society succeed without a constitutional succession order?

    If entrenched in the constitution, rotational presidency would have outlawed the arbitrariness that engendered the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, and the opportunism of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan that made him to upturn the rotational arrangement.

    Rotational presidency among the six geopolitical zones should complement the federal character policy that is recognised in Nigeria’s statutes. Those opposing it should tell us their proposal for a better political order. If the legislators mean well, they should work for the entrenchment of rotational presidency or its better alternative in the constitution before the end of 2013. Nigeria cannot survive as an amorphous society; every ethnic group naturally bothers about the ethnic nationality of the President.

    Rotational presidency was calculated to establish order and stability. Religious fanaticism and crime thrive better in a disorderly society, such as Nigeria. President Goodluck Jonathan should stop creating confusion about Boko Haram. He and his supporters should tell the international community what they did with Nigeria’s political order, as represented in rotational presidency. Moreover, they should explain what is happening with Nigeria’s wealth and mass poverty.

    Why do some people at the helm of affairs get “personal money” to donate boreholes and offer scholarships, while the overwhelming majority gets less than they deserve from the same system?

    Yes, Nigerian rulers are shouting Boko Haram as a way of distraction from their politico-economic crimes. Unless the country is orderly with political rotation and economic equity, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would remain the spoiler. Let the party keep resisting everything that can bring peace and stability, including rotational presidency among the six geopolitical zones, and an electoral commission whose principal officers are not chosen by the PDP; if one Boko Haram capitulates, another will resurge.

     

    • Pius Oyeniran Abioje, Ph. D,

    University of Ilorin

     

  • Orji’s Abuja jamboree

    Orji’s Abuja jamboree

    SIR: Abia state is endowed with many eminent citizens who have made their mark in both national and international levels. Quite unfortunately, the state ranks last on the list of most underdeveloped state in the South-east. There is no remarkable federal government presence in the state, and the state government is not doing enough to better the lots of its indigenes.

    It is therefore abominable and shameful that our governor, Chief T.A Orji recently led a team of elected PDP politicians and hangers-on from the state to meet with the PDP national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur in their futile bid to stop an individual, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu from returning to PDP.

    Instead of the Governor going to Abuja to discuss on how to attract basic infrastructure like industries, good roads etc to the state, he and his entourage decided to waste tax-payers money on the jamboree trip. Back home, staff in the local government system and teachers are owed several months arrears of salary and none of them is saying anything about it. Why is it that our elite have refused to speak out in the face of this maladministration and oppression?

    Where are the Ebitu Ukiwes, Joe Irukwus, Ndubuisi Kanus et al? It is now time to speak out or never!!

    • Amanze Obi

    Aba, Abia State.