The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • JAMB: When Truth Hurts Infinitely

    Nigerians resent truth. They abhor it and seek to cage it within the prisms of their crooked instincts. When President Muhammadu Buhari launched the national re-orientation campaigns for attitudinal change tagged #ChangeBeginsWithMe#, many Nigerians never saw the wisdom. But successive events are now illuminating the necessity of the campaigns.
    There is nothing good leadership at any level or institution introduces that some dubious Nigerians would not contrive ways to defile it. Last week, the Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan Chapter, Dr.Deji Omole canvassed for the resignation of the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) Professor Ishaq Oloyede over the hiccups in the registration for Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) experienced in some parts of the country.
     The academic from Uni-Ibadan, which currently hosts the national secretariat of ASUU, the body which remained the only odd voice that opposed Oloyede’s appointment on selfish grounds, posed like a nationalist and mouthpiece of ASUU. He unconvincingly decried the difficulties candidates are experiencing in registering for the exams online.
    But Dr.Omole, an academic knew, but failed to acknowledge that the introduction of the Computer Based Test (CBT) by JAMB was mainly to curb the high incidence of exam fraud. It was designed to ensure candidates presented by JAMB for admissions in higher institutions in the country were genuinely accessed as qualified for further studies in the courses they applied.
    But as it is typical with Nigerians, fraudsters invaded the process of UTME online and created difficulties in some states of the federation. And the fraudsters who invaded the system have also been arrested and are being prosecuted, an indication that the JAMB Registrar is alive and awake to his responsibilities.
    But instead of looking at the issue dispassionately, Omole purportedly speaking for ASUU erroneously thought it was the incompetence of the JAMB helmsman and he should resign. Beneath the seeming patriotic call for Oloyede’s resignation were the shadows of the resurrection of the old feud ASUU had with Oloyede, when he was the Vice Chancellor of University of Ilorin, over the sacked Unilorin ASUU members.
    They haunted Oloyede while he was still in academics and when he was elevated to the position of JAMB Chief Executive Officer, ASUU was the first to threaten industrial action, should the Presidency fail to reverse the appointment. The Presidency perceived the campaigns against Professor Oloyede’s appointment as baseless and stood its grounds. The anger is yet to dissipate and when fraudsters hijacked the registration process, it became the justification of a section of ASUU to call for his resignation. Its good tidings because at least to the extent that they failed to get him sacked and now, they are begging him to resign.
    So, whatever good intentions; whatever reforms Professor Oloyede is battling day and night to instil sanity into the system became meaningless to the Uni-Ibadan ASUU boss. But his colleagues at Unilorin considered his vomits as balderdash. The Chairman of the  Unilorin  branch of ASUU, Dr. Usman Abdulraheem and  the Secretary, Dr. Mary  Lewu   clearly stressed in a statement that  “All negative actions and commentaries of ASUU,  University of Ibadan cannot dim the  ever shining star of Prof. Oloyede because this workaholic is too committed to achieving excellence in every assignment.”
    Except a section of ASUU which is on vengeance mission against Professor Oloyede, no Nigerian is in doubt about his competence and excellence in any assignments. Just barely a year as JAMB boss, Oloyede has introduced reforms and innovations in the conduct of UTME, which are not just novel in Nigeria alone, but in other West Africa countries.
    Aside the implementation of the CBT, the JAMB boss has also introduced nation-wide mock examinations for prospective candidates of UTME to test their preparedness for the actual exams. And it is free and the JAMB board considered it as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility to both the students and the society.
    It remains a miracle that candidates no longer write UTME and wait endlessly for months to see the results. And there is near zero incidents of missing results. Candidates paying for the exams pay directly to government’s Treasury Single Account (TSA), an indication that the JAMB boss is not concerned with duping or cheating candidates or the government.  It is a strong statement about his disposition on accountability, transparency and probity anywhere he serves.
    Professor Oloyede has not only secured the online system of registration for UTME by issuing personalized access codes to accredited CBT centres throughout the country; it also have features to detect abuses aimed at circumventing the registration process. It explains the arrest of culprits in some parts of the country like Borno, Oyo and Ogun states among others.
    Nigerians must learn to be fair to themselves, especially those in leadership positions.  In spite of the deliberate and dubious manipulation of the registration process, Oloyede’s JAMB has been able to authentically register over a million candidates out of the 1.5 million estimated for the 2017 CBT for UTME within the first three weeks. No yardstick of assessment, if not influenced by malice would neither say, an exercise with such records of success is a failure nor the JAMB boss is incompetent.
    It is extremely bad taste, that Professor Oloyede, a very strong and positive character, a workaholic,   who spends sleepless nights, sometimes in the office to ensure, the system flows smoothly and that abuses are curbed to confer credibility on the UMTE process is vilified by a section of ASUU, instead of commendation.   The Uni-Ibadan ASUU boss laughably canvassed for the scrapping of JAMB and the replacement of university entry exams jointly conducted by JAMB, with exams organized as detected by each university for their candidates.
    If Dr.Omole and indeed, other branches of ASUU who share his funny thoughts are really concerned with the improvement in the standards of education in Nigeria, like he pretended, ASUU should rather be concerned about why they churn out half-baked and unproductive graduates. They are not only culpable, but appear to delight in the sad reality that some of their students cannot correctly spell their names and yet they are issued degree certificates.
    This should be the concern of an ASUU genuinely inspired and disturbed by the fallen standards of education in Nigeria.  Professor Oloyede who is attempting to sanitize the entry process into higher institutions has become their enemy for inexplicable reasons. But it is unworkable to turn a personal feud into a national problem.
    Professor Oloyede should not be distracted by the noise from ASUU Uni-Ibadan and no matter how hard they sponsor malicious campaigns against him, Nigerians know that Oloyede has taken JAMB and UTME to amazing levels of innovations, which are working. The fraudsters shall continue to be detected, arrested and prosecuted until the system is finally freed from their fangs. But finally, until Nigerians learn to change their crooked instincts, blaming others for the criminal outings of others is no remedy.
    Kolawole PhD is a University teacher and contributed this piece from Keffi, Nasarawa State.

  • Revisiting the many inconsistencies in the termination of Pension corruption Fight

    For a long time, the former Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, PRTT, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina has been embattled and news about him had remained very sensational in the media except for a recent surprising disclosure which though interestingly shocking has been kept away from public knowledge by the media. Without a doubt such information which undoubtedly is high quality news would have been readers’ delight especially for deconstructing a highly complex National issue but the seeming deliberate attempt to keep it under the carpet will form the focus of this discourse whilst raising queries on the sincerity the Nigerian media in news reporting.

    From Maina’s feat of recovering 1.3 trillion naira stolen by pension thieves, the twisty allegations on misappropriation of 2 billion naira against him by the Senate Committee to major fallout and counter accusations of three billion naira bribery demand from him by the Senate Committee Chairman, Aloysius Etuk, and his deputy, Kabir Gaya, the narrative on Maina has no doubt been very long and complicated. In fact, the chronicle on Maina by any credible analyst will be incomplete without recognizing how the media through very persuasive write ups incited the then Senate President, David  Mark to ask the Jonathan’s Presidency for  abrupt dismissal and arrest of the then Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, PRTT. What was the major issue of contention that would warrant such deft punishment before trial, especially on a man that has accomplished unparalleled success in decimating the pension fraud cabal in Nigeria one may ask? Simply put, it was nothing far from what was largely termed Maina’s disrespectful conduct to Senate Committee. Even if bad as it was painted, would that have warranted the termination of a major anti-corruption vehicle that was delivering tons of stolen billions into the coffers of the Nigerian treasury?

    Yes, Maina’s main crime was his poor attitude, immature approach and impunity exhibited to the Senate Committee but the twist in the story is that a little after Maina and the Senate Committee exchanged accusations, the media went bizarre with stories against Maina’s impunity with no mention of his good work as Chairman of Pension Reform Task Team. This half-baked journalism was highly noticeable and even the much respected conservative media over looked the need to provide a balanced reporting.

    On all these and more, the simple logic adduced by Maina’s sympathisers to the aggressive media trial was that it was fueled by views from mostly those that opposed to his stay as Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, PRTT and many persons still in possession of stolen pension funds. Even though this remains an allegation with no proof, the failed attempted murder of Maina was well documented by the police and highly suggestive that some persons wanted Maina dead. Probably, this dastardly act might have contributed to his eventual departure from public glare to avoid extermination from the face of the earth with a preferred option of fighting his legal battles from his assumed haven. Luckily for Maina, the court not only quashed the arrest warrant on him, but also granted an order of perpetual injunction restraining the IGP from arresting him.

    Besides, the conjectures on Maina’s forced exit, I think what is important is for Nigerians to first examine the role played by a section of the media in the said character assassination of Maina before trial and then the new Government of President Buhari to examine the real role Maina played in dismantling the criminal gang of pension thieves in Nigeria, then attempt a proper analysis on what seems best for National interest.

     

    First on the media character assassination of Maina, with the recent disclosure by the then Senate Committee Deputy Chairman, Kabir Gaya that the 195 billion naira accusation against Maina was baseless as the money was deposited in banks under the TSA scheme, what it simply affirms is that many of the issues raised against Maina were downright absurd and largely conspiratorial in their undertones for his removal. What has been made public by Senator Kabir Gaya, though an afterthought certainly quashes the Senate Committee’s earlier allegation of misappropriation of about N195 billion naira against Maina, the chairman and members of the Pension Task Team. These are definitely thought provoking.

    With no attempt of getting sanctimonious on Maina, the objective reality for Nigerians herein is that it was absolutely outrageous that the referenced Senate Committee never had quality reason and evidence to engage in what they did by prompting the police to declare Maina wanted. Unfortunately, now that these lies have been dispelled by those that initiated them, the truth is that their effects will linger because of a biased press that engages in selective reporting, otherwise why has the media maintained a deafening silence on this issue of national interest, could it be that those that never wanted Maina around are still busy suppressing important stories that will resurrect Maina’s Pension Task Team.

    Today, without no basis in fact, the press has made Maina’s name contradictorily synonymous with both an achiever in pension reform and a looter even though the evidence against him were never substantiated. This is not only shocking especially now that the accusations on Maina have been overturned but what it clearly exposes is the existence of a skewed desire of a section of the media to condemn a man guilty before investigation. Of course, some may disagree with this position, however, it is really unfortunate that in this era of investigative journalism the media has found it unnecessary to review an earlier misinformation they offered their readers, otherwise what stopping any credible press that carried the initial falsehood from rapidly reversing the erroneous report.

    The story of deception visited upon Maina is not only strange, destructive to his personal integrity but very damaging to our collective interest on anticorruption fight. The most worrisome part of it all is that the allegations that a section of the Nigerian press were motivated to embrace falsehoods by routinely categorizing Maina as thief without basis in order to halt the good work of the Pension Reform Task Team, PRTT might even be true especially given that Maina’s primary accusers have made public apologies and reversed themselves. Sadly, like a well-rehearsed plot, this was rarely reported in the media and even where reported, it received minimal media coverage.

     

    From all fair and objective intents, it may not be wrong to conclude that characterization of Maina  as a criminal by the media is divorced from truth and actuality because the initial failure of the media to conduct proper investigation on such an issue as raised by the Senate Committee raises the very important question of the real role of journalists in the fight against corruption. This is why it may be necessary for the sake of common good to open up conversation to probe why Maina’s accusers conjured phony statistics and stories, yet allowed to successfully terminate a tested and proven strategy that would allowed Nigeria recover more trillions naira in the private coffers of some pension thieves. In fact, the reward for the termination of Maina’s Pension Task Team only favours those who are threatened by Maina’s claims that over six trillion naira can still be recovered from the 97 uninvestigated institutions. Certainly, this is huge loss for the Nigerian nation especially under the Buhari led administration that needs to enhance its revenue especially in a recessed economy.

     

    Another objective reality for Nigerians is that the Maina matter will for a long time be a major reference on challenges that confront corruption fight in the developing world and it is a clear instance of how corruption fight is killed and corruption fighters battled. The fact is that what is happening to Maina is somewhat terrifying and it really does suggest that the fight against corruption and the belief that corruption fights back those that battle it are not just matters of illusion but reality. The ready question herein is would President Buhari allow the battle against Maina be another triumph of evil over good? This where we need a sane public conversation on Maina that will counter the earlier media treatment of Maina which is far from been sober and reasonable. Otherwise, on the termination of Maina’s fight against corruption, the nation will be the big loser.

     

    Now that a contrary conclusion has emerged on Maina, what next? Will his suspension be reversed? Will the previous Senate Committee’s report that has been revealed to be plagued by so many irregularities and inconsistencies be reversed or an apology offered to Maina? Will a National Award be appropriate? Will Maina ever find courage to work again for his country under similar circumstances and inherent risks? However, the truth is that Maina would earn much if he decides to sell his story to the International news media and publishers on how the corruption he fought, found a way to fight him back.

     

    Dr. Okechukwu Duru

    Public Affairs Analyst and

    Sub Sahara Co-ordinator,

    Advocates for Improved Africa

    Area 10, Garki, Abuja

     

  • The denouncement of Babachir Lawal

    SIR: “We are victims of our actions; our destinies are controlled by the cosmic rolls of the dice, the whims of the stars and the vagrant breeze of fortune that blows from the windmills of the gods.”- H.L. Detridge.

    The above lines came to mind on Wednesday, April 19, after the Presidency suspended the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), David Babachir Lawal, from office pending investigation into the allegations of violations of law and due process in the award of contracts under the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE).

    Given the anti-corruption stance of the Buhari administration, the popular expectation was that Lawal would be immediately suspended from office and steps taken to investigate the allegations contained in the report of the Senate to the President, dated December 15, 2016, as the administration has just done.  Rather, the President in his January 17, reply to Senate President, Bukola Saraki, discountenanced the resolution and advanced reasons for his action.

    The administration runs on a tripod of the executive, legislature and judiciary.  Nigerians have seen how the executive, which has been accused of protecting its officials who are allegedly corrupt, has taken the anti-corruption battle into the enclaves of the judiciary and the legislature, charging judges and the Senate President with breaches of provisions of the law and other extant rules before the courts and tribunal.

    Perhaps, a reappraisal of its disposition to the anti-corruption war especially within the executive ambit was at the bottom of the sudden volte-face on Lawal.  Perhaps, the administration has realised that it is losing its massive goodwill and floundering in the anti-graft war on account of its seemingly selective prosecution of corruption cases.  Perhaps, in the circumstance, it has decided to seize the initiative to do the correct.

    This is the time to retune the anti-graft war. The Osinbajo-led investigative committee may be the game changer.  It is saddled with a historic task, the outcome of which may make or mar the anti-corruption war.  But given his pedigree as Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and pastor, Osinbajo should be guided by the spirit and letters of the law, morality and fear of God in the discharge of this tricky assignment.  Corruption, its whiff and tendencies are the foci of investigative attack here and not an individual, his ethnic or religious affiliations, lest people begin to give the exercise a religious undertone.

    It is somewhat sardonic and unfortunate that Lawal is the one caught right in the eye of the storm. It could have been anybody else.  Indeed, what has crystallised is nothing but the fall of Babachir Lawal, a denouement of sorts. It would not matter whether or not he survives the inquisition. By being a subject of executive investigation, he has donned a badge of dishonour as the first occupant of the position of the SGF to be suspended and investigated for alleged abuse of office in the recent annals of Nigeria’s public administration.  But more importantly, Lawal’s debacle will prove salutary to Buhari’s anti-corruption war: that the administration does not have sacred cows; and that if the SGF could be suspended and investigated, the ministers, especially the “super” ministers, should not be conceited.

     

    • Sufuyan Ojeifo,

    Abuja.

  • No Shiites! Nigeria is Not a Terrorists Nation

    No Shiites! Nigeria is Not a Terrorists Nation

    Some Nigerians are really of queer breed. They act, reason and attempt to curry support on issues and matters that are completely in dissonance with the virtues of truthfulness, patriotism and commonsense.

    A perusal of the published article with the title, “Zaria Massacre is an Act of State Terrorism,” authored by Abdulmumin Giwa, apparently, a pen pusher, terrorists sympathizer and a disoriented soul, mocks the tenets of sanity. He desperately, but very poorly attempted to shift the burden of blame the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) or the Shiites led by Sheik  Ibraheem El-Zakzaky’s  earned by self-inflicted wounds to President

    Muhammadu  Buhari,  the Kaduna state government  and the Nigerian Army.

    His narrative was fraught with serious incoherence, disjointedness and steeped in the vile propaganda to protect aggressive and violence-prone Shiites sect members in Nigeria, by pushing their inherent intolerance of lawful foibles authorities and personalities.

    But I wish to remind the author that Nigeria is a country that belongs to all Nigerians. And it is not a lawless nation and, no country inhabited by sane human beings operates without laws. The IMN members cannot import strange religious doctrines into Nigeria; share affinity with terrorist sects in the Iranian republic or the ISIS and conduct their affairs in Nigeria in a manner that traduces the sacred prescriptions of public safety and peace. Neither Nigerians nor the Federal Government of Nigeria can keep quiet for such a morass to fester, not even under the conviction of the gods they worship. We are not in the jungle and all Nigerians must submit themselves to the laws governing us.

    Has it occurred to the author and his cursed sponsors of terrorism acts in the Nigeria, why IMN has refused to register itself with the government of Nigeria for the over 40 years of its existence in the country? The Shiites are not the only religious sect in Nigeria. But if other religious sects have lawfully brought the fact of their existence to the attention of government as required by our laws, what makes the case of El-Zakzaky’s IMN an exemption? It reveals a mindset of evil; it says more than merely portraying them as outlaws. They are in fact criminals who should be languishing in jail.  And in spite of this liberty, Shiites do not pretend to profess their links with the most dangerous external terror sects.

    Government is rather soft on the offensives of the Shiite sect members in Nigeria. The fact of leading an illegal and unlawful organization in Nigeria alone makes El-Zakzaky an instant culprit for trial on criminal charges. Time is ripe for government to explore this dimension and charge the Shiites and his members on this score accordingly.

    On the so called “massacre” of Shiites members in Zaria when they came out to attack Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusufu Buratai, the twisted and embellished aspects of the encounter, as reinvented by the author of the piece cannot alter its veracity. Ask and ask me again, I will plainly and conscientiously swear that the Zaria episode was an assassination plot IMN sect members were paid to execute against Buratai.

    Buratai had incurred the wrath of the Iranian Republic, when he marshaled forces that moved with deafening aggression against Boko Haram terrorists in the Nigeria’s northeast. We also know of the sponsorship of Boko Haram terrorism by the same Iran. And it sensed that the manner Buratai’s army went after the terrorists’ criminals, the tendency to soon decapitate and defeat was ominous. And truly, it later came to pass like a prophecy.

    And the Iranian terrorism kingpins were unhappy with the development and the only way they contemplated to halt the advancing and suppressive force of the Nigerian troops against Boko Haram insurgents was to eliminate Buratai, the brave soldier who gave fillip to the anti-terrorism campaigns in Nigeria. IMN sect members accepted the briefs of their Iranian bosses to assist to the survival of Boko Haram insurgents by murdering the Army Chief.

    It accounted for why IMN sect members ambushed his thoroughfare in Zaria. It explains why Sheik El-Zakzaky declined pleas on phone by Kaduna state Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai to prevail on his berserk sect members to open the path for the Army Chief to proceed on his official trip. It is reason the incensed Shiites sect members pulled the trigger first at the Army Chief’s entourage. The intention was to create a rowdy and violent scenario to detonate the bombs always in their possession when on so called religious processions.

    Elsewhere in the North, the Shiites members are on a voyage in processions to their ceremonies, security agents apprehend them  for carrying dangerous weapons like bombs, guns, swords,  machetes, knives and so forth. They illegally assail public thoroughfares and buildings and strike down to death any Nigerian who dares to question their offensiveness. Which god do they worship with arms outside the undisguised identity as terrorists? Are they the only Islamic sect in Nigeria?

    It is also for the same reason, Shiites refused to honour the invitation by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate the clashes between the sect and the Nigerian Army in Zaria set up by the Kaduna state government. They fretted away this golden opportunity to explain to the world their presumed innocence.  At the burial of  Shiites members who died in Kano state following the sect’s  violent clashes with Nigerian Police last year, El-Zakzaky’s deputy leader, Shiek  Abubakar Koki  publicly persuaded his members never to obey constituted authorities in Nigeria or any law of the Nigerian federation.

    Therefore, Giwa’s puerile and illogical arguments will never make sense to any sound mind. If not madness, Nigerian Army had demonstrated beyond the ordinary its aversion to terrorism and no one in his right senses would claim otherwise. Again, this mentality of dragging the President into any security breach to give the incidents some feigned weight is wrong.

    Giwa argued that President Buhari sponsored state attacks on Shiites and was only forced to comment on the incident during a media chat. But what is the exigency of the presidential comments for a sect which vows it is above the law? Were these comments necessary when the appropriate security agencies had already arrested the situation? But Giwa failed to explain to Nigerians why El-Zakzaky failed to heed to Governor el-Rufai’s pleas to prevail on his members to open the way for the Army boss to proceed on his official engagement.

    Erudite Professor Chinua Achebe said in “Things Fall Apart, “that an elder who brings maggot infested meat home should not complain when flies come visiting. You do not deliberately block the way of soldiers to provoke them because you would shout extra-judicial killings and you have agents in international human rights bodies like Amnesty International to cook reports in your favour. This is indefensible absurdity.

    The writer could as well tell us about the verdict of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry (JCI) in Kaduna and the National Human Rights Commission in Nigeria about the Shiites/Army clash. The sect members were infinitely indicted. And JCI recommended the prosecution of Shiek El-Zakzaky for the perceived intransigence of violating Nigerian laws by his adherents. Has he ever glanced the JCI report?

    But I appreciate the pseudo analyst for one thing. He was able to enumerate the traits of terrorists, which his Shiites sect in Nigeria embody head and toe. He said, “The basic concept of terrorism is that of instilling fear, intimidation and creating unhealthy suspense in ….”

    It laughable to claim security agents moved against IMN  terrorists because  its leader Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky is conscientising them to resist America, Israel and Saudi Arabia’s  exploitation of  Nigeria’s Human and natural resources. Aside their capacity for mischief and violence, what is the numerical strength of IMN members? And  assuming the postulations are anywhere near the truth, is that why  Shiites cannot subordinate itself to Nigerian laws; Is that why they embark on religious processions with dangerous weapons and murder Nigerians who resist them in cold blood, or force conversion of children into the Shiites sect and kill anybody who resists it before the presence of El-Zakzaky? Is that why El-Zakzaky spread hate sermons and instigates his members against the Nigerian state? It is silly wisdom.

    The likes of Giwa and his cohorts must realize that Nigeria is not a terrorist nation and it cannot be allowed to drift into such abyss under a Buhari Presidency.  To claim that other Muslims and Christians also love the messages of “hope” from El-Zakzaky smacks of desperate hoopla. If that were the case, why did both the Muslims and Christians in Kaduna state protest against IMN  sect’s presence and building of a house  in their communities?  Nobody is interested in a wretched soul like El-Zakzaky. But what cannot be permitted is the infringement of our laws and breach of public peace and security.

     

    Abiodun, an anti-insurgency campaigner writes from Ibadan, Oyo State.‎

  • ASUU’s mindless attacks on Oloyede led JAMB

    ASUU’s mindless attacks on Oloyede led JAMB

    The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has somehow managed to take time off churning out half-baked graduates as it savages the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) over reported failings in the mock test scheduled by the examination body. Its angst has nothing to do with the glitches that were caught in the test run of a new system being put in place by JAMB but rather has more to do with a long running animosity against the agency’s current leadership and a desperation to maintain a status quo that has not done the country’s tertiary education any good.

    The union’s chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter, Dr. Deji Omole, alternated between demanding the scrapping of JAMB and calling for the resignation of its Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede. In other moments of frothing rage, Omole asked the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu to call Oloyede to order.

    As if to remove any doubts as to the quality of teachers that Nigeria relies on to train our youths, the ASUU Chairman betrayed the deficit in the analytic skills of his likes and co-travellers by suggesting that JAMB was exploiting prospective  candidates when in actual fact the entire cost of the entrance examination is way below the amount that ASUU members charge for one set of printed substandard study material.

    Omole’s tirade also exposed and confirmed a fact that many Nigerians had expressed concerns about severally. It is the fact that our so called citadel of learning have nothing to show by way of innovation and ASUU’s kick against the digitization of the registration of students aspiring to be undergraduate clearly proves that its members would rather keep the entire country in the era of paper, ruler and thick back notebooks for registration, which is not only retrogressive but opens the pathway for manipulation and corruption.

    The anger against  the computerization of the entire process therefore apparently has more to do with anger about growing efficiency in tracking the number and performance of students that eventually get admitted as opposed to the past when schools and ASUU members conspired under different guise to scheme out those that pass the Unified Matriculation Examination (UMTE). Admissions were in that dark era usually based on some funny criteria that have no bearing on performance. In such instances, it was not unusual to hear of “(ASUU) chairman’s list” that was usually populated by persons that have parted with thousands of naira in bribe to their would be lecturers to secure admission.

    It is apparent that even as supposed academics and educationists, ASUU members caught up with news about the mock examination from the media. It is gratifying that members of this union still retained the capacity to read news and catch up with events in the real world as opposed to the utopic fantasies of perfection they have woven for themselves in the various citadel. The leadership of ASUU must have therefore also seen in the news how the police apprehended its members with firearms and how they are implicated in promoting cultism and campus gangs that have killed several undergraduates. They must read how their colleagues have graduated from cash for marks to salacious sex for marks. The news space and national discourse are replete with the harrowing experience of having to deal with the unemployable graduates that are being churned out while ASUU hunts for rats in a burning hut.

    If they as much as appreciate the national imperative of reforming our education system in a bottom-up approach, they will understand that the changes that Professor Oloyede is implementing in JAMB are in national interest. The mock examination, in case the lecturers’union has forgotten, is meant to build candidates’confidence ahead of the real deal – it was a system in place in the heydays before the current crop of jobbers messed up the tutelage process with intractable strikes that achieved nothing.

    We must as a nation free ourselves from the tyranny of vocal minorities like ASUU who raise dins each time they sense groundbreaking reform is afoot simply because they know such change would block the loopholes they exploit to game the system. Professor Oloyede must in the interest of the rest of us refuse to succumb to the blackmail of these charlatans that have made a career of holding the rest of us hostage.

     

    Agwu  is a public affairs commentator and contributed this piece from Lagos.

  • Between history and Bamaiyi’s ‘vindication’

    General Ishaya Bamaiyi’s latest intellectual perversion Vindication of a General ordinarily should not deserve a response from seriously minded people. For one, Gen Bamaiyi successfully portrayed himself in the book as a bundle of contradictions, and a person of doubtful integrity. Or how else can one describe someone who claimed every other person he ever associated with or serve under as evil?

    Before I am accused of exaggeration, let me give examples. In the book, he described his immediate older brother- the late Major-General Musa Bamaiyi as callous, mischievous and dishonest (page213-216); His town’s Emir (Zuru) Gen. Sani Sami (rtd) as an ingrate and insincere (page 185); Gen. M. Gausau (his former GOC) as incompetent (page 38); Gen. A. Z. Kazir, (his former Chief of Army Staff) an officer of doubtful loyalty (page 40); Gen. M.C. Alli (his former Chief of Army Staff) a coward (page 45-46); Prof Yemi Osinbajo (present Vice President) as an indecisive and diabolical Attorney General (page 133); and Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar,(former Head of State) an ex-convict (page113).

    This is against the background of Gen. Bamaiyi’s bigotry in the same book where he proclaimed himself to be ‘too honest and too smart’ (page 12).

    To put the record straight one is compelled to respond to Gen. Bamaiyi’s revisionism of history in his desperate attempt to rehabilitate himself from oblivion engendered by his self- inflicted habitual treachery and deceits.

    Suffice it to say, the book is a study in contradictions and incoherent thoughts. The general posited that there is nothing phantom about the 1995 and 1997 coups. This conclusion is understandable from his perspective. He claimed to have detected and foiled the coups. This suggests out rightly it will be self-contradictory for him to admit that the coups were phantom. Yet, Gen. Bamaiyi provided evidences throughout the book that the coups were indeed phantom. On 1995 coup, he claimed: “I had doubt about Gen. Obasanjo’s involvement in the coup based on the briefing we received from the DMI, Col. Sabo, the SPI report, and the statements of other coupists. (page 41).  What is more, the principal motive that led to set-ups to eliminate key political and military leaders was provided by Gen. Bamaiyi. According to him, “…based on available evidence and body language of Gen. Sani Abacha himself, the goal of the transition programme was to return himself to power at the end …”

    The perfidy of Gen. Bamaiyi was epitomized by his poor and failed attempt to exonerate himself from the 1997 coup set up against Gen. Oladipo Diya. In the first instance, he admitted inadvertently that there were attempts to set up Gen. Diya before 1997. Let me quote him: “Alli appeared to have agreed to help set up Diya but later confessed to such a setup … (page 56). Again, he asked a question which succinctly suggests set up against Gen Diya, “If we had tried to setup Gen Diya in 1996, why did he agree to deal with us again in 1997? (Pp56-57).  Also, Gen. Bamaiyi admitted that he presided over an army that manufactured evidence against officers for personal considerations. In another instance, he wrote: “Brig. Gen. Sabo, the DMI, once wrote a report to Gen Abacha alleging that Gen. Babangida, Dr. Mike Adenuga, and I had been seen on Kaduna Road discussing how to overthrown Abacha.(p57)” He further admitted that Abacha cohorts manufactured evidences to get rid of their enemies. (pp95-96). It is therefore obvious from Gen Bamaiyi’s narratives that Gen Oladipo Diya was apparently a victim of the ‘Abacha for life cohort’.

    His rendition on the 1997 coup was riddled with incoherent thoughts and contradictions. In one breath, he argued that Gen Diya began the coup plan in 1994 which he Bamaiyi informed Gen Abacha about (page 43-44). Yet, he reported that Gen. M. C. Alli was retired for plotting against Gen Abacha and the same Abacha prevented the retirement of Gen Diya on several occasions (page 43). Haba! You are not talking to fools.

    The historical facts of the 1997 phantom coup are in the public domain. Nigerians do not need a Bamaiyi revisionism to form opinion on who concocted the coup. The Chief investigator of the saga – Col. Frank Omenka had told TELL magazine of Jan. 11, 1999, “When I hear people talk of Diya’s coup I laugh because I know the truth it was not, pure and simple.” Even Gen. Victor Malu admitted that Gen. Diya was not the planner of the plot.

    If the truth must be told, Gen. Bamaiyi thrives on Niccolo Machiavelli adopted philosophy that ‘gratitude is a burden and revenge is a pleasure’-Tacitus c.55-120A.D. His tirade against Gen Diya apparently is informed by the Diya’s question during the trial “Where is Bamayi? I am surprised that the Chief of Army Staff is not here. He is the mastermind, the executioner and the planner of this incident. I am not going into details of that now because this is a clear case of set up…. and it is organised right from the top.” It was a speech made literally at the point death. It was a speech that exposed Gen Bamaiyi’s real character deficiency.

    Is it not curious that in the entire book, Gen Bamaiyi never for once mentioned the inglorious attempt of his cohort to murder Gen Diya on December 13, 1997 while he was on a plane trip to Gen. Lawrence Onoja’s mother’s burial in Benue State. Few days later Gen Diya was arrested purportedly for a coup. The truth is sacrosanct. No matter how many times a lie is told repeatedly, it is still a lie.

     

    • Afowowe is of the Department of History and International Studies, Osun State University.

  • Beggars, Almajiri and the future of the Nigerian nation

    Beggars are a common presence on the streets of most Nigerian cities.  The roadside beggar population may be broken into broad categories of ‘life-style’ beggars and the physically and mentally disabled.

    Roadside destitution has its demographics and economics which may not be immediately clear to the fleeting perception of the passer-by, whose reactions are influenced variously by kindness, when he gives, or by guilt, when he silently queries his own right to have when so many clearly don’t have, or by irritation, when the antics of a persistent beggar reveals to him that the fellow has a sense of entitlement and is not excessively motivated by concern for his fellow citizen or the offence his behaviour may cause him.

    The economics of the situation for a city like Lagos, is that the average beggar earns more from his ‘work’, in a day, than the average civil servant, or the average market woman. This fact may come as a surprise to many, but is one that is well known to people on the street.

    That a large proportion of citizens with physical and mental disabilities in Nigeria are reduced to begging on the streets for a living is testimony to a huge failure in the medical and psychosocial infrastructure all across the nation. That a place such as Lagos which has a number of ‘special schools’ and ‘homes’ for the training and rehabilitation of children with various types of disability may be considered somewhat well provisioned is only a relative description, reflective of the absolute lack of structure and service for that segment of the population all across the nation. And yet the truth is that at least one out of every hundred children born in any society will have, or acquire, a serious physical disability. Another one out of that hundred, at the very least, will have, or acquire, a serious mental disability.  Apart from these ‘best case’ statistics, there is a lot of ‘avoidable’ disability as a result vaccine-preventable illnesses such as polio, and even road traffic accidents. Disability, therefore, is not a rare occurrence in society, and not something to be quickly glossed over in polite conversation. It is not something to be addressed by giving alms to children rendered paraplegic by polio on the streets.  It is something to be planned and provided for in the normal run of things. The disabled – visually impaired, mobility impaired, or mentally impaired ideally should be diagnosed as early as possible in the course of their disability, properly assessed, and channeled into the appropriate stream for treatment, for education, and for rehabilitation so as to limit the secondary impairments arising from their disability to the barest minimum. Where this is done, they keep pace, more or less, with their peers, and most are able to live meaningful, active lives, independent or semi-independent, contributing positively to society.

    Unfortunately this is not the case in Nigeria. The few that are able to get recognition and remedial inputs do so after they have been in limbo or hidden away for several years, and have almost reached the limits of educability. Disability, sadly, is taken as a cultural entitlement to charity. It is a state of affairs that is demeaning both to the disabled, and to the society itself.

    But the danger – the real problem for Nigeria, is that portended by those who constitute the demographic majority of the street population – the able-bodied ‘life-style’ beggar the overwhelming majority of whom are ‘emigres’ from the North of Nigeria. As a visible demonstration of the size of this issue, every day, train and truck loads of beggars are ‘imported’ into Lagos from different centres in the North and disgorged on the streets. In Iyana Iba, as on the Lekki Expressway by Jakande junction, you encounter men, women and children who have transplanted themselves, or been transplanted, to live the rest of their lives begging on the streets of a strange city. The children are uneducated, and the adults are uninterested in learning a skill or doing anything but sitting on the streets, begging. The situation makes nonsense of the efforts of host state to enforce free, compulsory education for its citizens. It also makes nonsense of its efforts to ensure all children are vaccinated against disease. It is an abiding nightmare for the social worker.

    But it is possible to cone down further on a narrower, even more sinister reality within the ‘Begging’ culture and the danger it portends for the Nigerian entity. This is the phenomenon of ‘Almajiri’.

    Almajiri are supposed to be children receiving ‘religious instruction’ under ‘teachers’ who board and lodge them in their ‘schools’. In reality they are scruffy children with dirty begging bowls who swarm over the streets and motor-parks in the northern part of the nation, begging for a living and making a nuisance of themselves.

    The numbers almajiri children on the streets in the towns and cities of Northern Nigeria are humongous. It is said there are millions in Kano State alone.

    The Governor of Kano State has just come out with a statement that is intended to show how well he is tackling the problem. He has added some ‘core’ subject to the curriculum of the schools built for them. They now study Mathematics, in addition to, of course, Religious Instruction.

    Almajiri are not just an innocuous presence on the street, in the motor-park, not just an aesthetic displeasure for the sights of well-heeled fellow citizens sitting in their cars, who they accost with their grimy fingers and dirty bowls, begging for money.

    Their significance is not just about the poverty they epitomize. Extreme poverty in youth is not new to Nigeria. After Chief Obafemi Awolowo introduced Free Education in the Western Region, his team went round some of the ramshackle schools where the youth he was seeking to educate were receiving their lessons. The poverty in the air was clearly visible. Many of the children in the fading black and white photographs were in rags. Some were quite naked. Nearly all were barefooted. But their eyes were bright with hope as they posed with the politicians and civil servants.

    Two sets of Nigerian children then, bare-footed, half-naked. One set the Almajiri on the streets in Kano. The other the naked school children milling round the team from Ibadan, the regional capital.

    Nobody saw the bare-footed children around Awo in the photo as a problem, and neither did the children themselves seem to think they had anything to be ashamed of as they stuck poses for the flash bulb. Many of them had walked up to twenty miles from their parents’ homesteads and farms to get to school this morning. They had left their parents, who recognized the value of what they were doing, and who expected them to come back, walking the same lengthy miles through the footpaths and shrubbery to help out in the farm after school.

    They had hope – many of the naked children in the photo – the beneficiaries of the vision and the largesse of Free Education from their leader and their society. Many of the wretched looking boys in the photos have since gone on to fulfill the hope that shone in their eyes. They have become Professors of Surgery and captains Industry and leaders of thought in various ways. They would smile ruefully to see their old photos now.

    The almajiris ,by contrast, are poverty and wretchedness heading nowhere but south, and rapidly. They are children who will grow up soon to become untrained and un-trainable young men and women. They will roam the streets with hunger in their eyes and anger in their hearts, young folks unfit for any meaningful occupation in the age of the internet, holding a grudge against everyone, including the religious leaders who purport to be their sponsors, teachers or supporters.

    A piece of history is instructive here. There were occasional episodes of civil disturbance in the country during the years when Ibrahim Babangida was the self-proclaimed military President of Nigeria. In one of the worst episodes, when the streets of Kano had momentarily been turned into killing fields and soldiers were out in the streets seeking to impose law and order, it had become obvious that among the most enthusiastic killers and looters perpetrating the disturbance were the almajiri children, who roamed the streets sword and cudgel in hand. The army general in charge of the troops, a lean and wiry old warrior from the Middle Belt, had his men disarm the young killers and sat them down on one of the main roads of Kano, row after row of almajiri, a hundred, two hundred thick. The photos made good press in the national newspapers the following day.

    After the young men had been sitting on the road for hours, as evidence that the Army was now in control and Kano was safe again, it fell to a prominent cleric to cry out in their support. His cry was that the soldiers were making the ‘innocent young men’ sit in the hot sun on the Kano highway, while their parents were waiting for them at home.

    It was a serious plea, not done tongue in cheek. For all that, it was as disingenuous as it was laughable. Parents? That was the first anyone heard that the almajiri had ‘parents’. If they had parents, what were they doing on the streets in the first place?

    The same questions, the same mischief, and the same sinister implications surround the issue today, on a vastly larger scale than was even imaginable in ‘President’ Babangida’s time. For since those ‘innocent’ days, there have been Al Qaeda, and ISIS, and Boko Harem, and countless other poisonous ideologies that find fertile ground in the minds of disaffected, dis-connected young men and women who have no knowledge, no hope and no stake in society. The almajiri are a social menace that has already poisoned the air and the water, contributing to mindless killings that have gone into the gory past of Nigeria, as well as constituting ready perpetrators and cannon fodder for ongoing terror. But the harm they have already wrought is as nothing compared to the social and physical explosions they stand to cause in the future.

     

    It is not enough for anyone to sit smugly in Lagos or Ibadan and think the almajiri is a problem far removed from them. The demographics and the dynamics indicate that it is a problem of the North that will soon become a problem for everybody. The sociologic fallout from a dysfunctionally stratified society cannot be contained within the amorphous boundaries of artificial states. As long as Nigeria remains a federation, or even a confederation, and people are able to move across state boundaries without hindrance, the almajiri are a time bomb waiting to explode in Port Harcourt, as in Kaduna.

    A few Northern leaders are waking up to the specific danger represented by the almajiri and the general dangers posed by a huge population of street beggars disconnected from society, living off handouts from people, and providing cannon fodder for political and tribal warfare. The Governor of Kaduna State is trying to ban street begging, an act which unfortunately will require more than a law to practicalise. The Governor of Kano is, as we have said, announcing proudly to the world that he is introducing ‘core’ subjects such as Mathematics to the education almajiri children are receiving in the schools specially created for them. Of course it is widely understood that those of the almajiri that are ‘enrolled’ in these ‘special’ schools attend school at their leisure, and go out from school as they please begging bowl in hand to ply their ‘trade’ on the streets. The Governor is celebrating what is essentially an exercise in futility.

    How does a caring society begin to approach the problems of street begging and the almajiri with the use of knowledge, so that it gives itself an actual chance of getting a handle on it? Afterall Dr Mahathir Mohammed, founding father of modern Malaysia – a Muslim majority country, always took pains to emphasise that he was building a ‘Knowledge Society’, and that this required him to micromanage the most minute details of the social structure, from limiting family size, to relations between ethnic Malays and Chinese, to compulsory education and a ban on street dwelling and street begging.

    The solution of the almajiri problem, and its corollaries, will determine if the North of Nigeria, and perhaps Nigeria itself, has a future.

    But it is not complex at all. The solution, for the bold society thatcares enough to grasp the beast by the horn, is very straight forward indeed. It is not about pounding the chest about introducing ‘core subjects’ in schools nobody takes seriously.

    The scruffy children in the almajiri scenario need to be remade in the mould of the naked children posing in the photo with Awolowo when he gave them Free Education and set them on the trajectory to a new life. Those children had parents to go home to, parents who followed their progress in school and ensured they did their homework and passed their exams.

    That is the missing link. Every child in a healthy society must be owned by parents, or owned by the State.

    Every child, like every adult, must be documented. Every child for whom there is no one to perform the functions of parent must become a ward of the State. The state becomes the parent and performs all the functions of parenting – from housing to feeding, to loving and nurturing to disciplining, and supervising homework.

    If this is not done in Kano, in Kaduna, and in all the places where the almajiri are a blight on society, building hundreds of schools and ‘introducing core subjects’ will be just money down the drain. The children have to be named and owned first. That they are in the millions is just reflective of the fact that the North has a huge problem on its hands, and the cost of the solution will be humongous. It also means that, though government ‘owns’ the problem, everybody – individuals and the organized private sector will have to chip in resources for the gargantuan task of effective education and rehabilitation. Channels will need to be created for people to make their personal and religious charity contributions towards such a purpose. It is only then that extant or new laws banning street begging can be effectively enforced.

    Every citizen has the right to a reasonably good life in society, and the responsibility to take every chance available to him to pursue one. Begging is NOT a right belonging to anybody. But that can only be asserted when the other things are put in place, and a measure of social security and citizen responsibility is available to all.The cost of doing nothing to solve the problem with good thinking will be incalculable for the North, and the entire Nigerian nation.

    • Olugbile is a psychiatrist and former CMD, LASUTH.

     

     

     

     

  • 60 hearty cheers to Olabimtan: A leader of leaders

    Rt. Hon. Victor Adakanye Olabimtan embodies the best of virtues of a true nationalist. His life has been dedicated to advancing the course of humanity and it is only right that we celebrate this man of many parts who has dedicated his entire life in selfless service to the people.

    An examination of the life of the Supare-Akoko born philanthropist cum politician reveals decades of distinct humanitarian and selfless service from his early days as an active undergraduate to his latter days as a politician.

    As Student Union leader at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), he used his position to right wrongs while on campus. His unique achievements in his leadership capacity include ensuring that a non-Yoruba indigene was, for the first time, elected the Secretary General of the University of Lagos Students Union (ULSU) for the 1980/81 academic session. It was uncommon and unprecedented but accurately represented a detribalised Nigerian who was far ahead of his time.

    In 1993, during his tenure as an official of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in the old Ondo state, he was harassed and detained by the government for fighting for the rights of teachers in the state. As a willing team player, he achieved great success through collaboration with his peers and other leaders.

    As a result of his constant devotion to truth and progressiveness, the people of his constituency gave him their mandate to represent them at the Ondo State House of Assembly in 2003. There, he was elected Speaker of the House of Assembly.

    As Speaker, he used his position together with other colleagues in the House to enact laws and bills that provided long term benefits for the people of the state.

    It must also be said that the House presided over by him was not regarded by the stakeholders in the state as the ‘House of Approval’ not just because he was always active but because he kept the Executive Arm on their toes through purposeful legislative oversight.

    In furtherance of his zeal and desire to contribute to the development of the state, Olabimtan was appointed the chairman of the Ondo State Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM).

    He used his position as head of TESCOM to sanitise the commission and to ensure that its goals and objectives were achieved.

    Olabimtan’s tenure represented the last time the government of Ondo state engaged in the successful recruitment of teachers into the teaching service. This feat was only achieved because of his determination and passion for excellence in the education sector.

    His stint at the Federal Civil Service Commission as a representative of Ondo, Ekiti and Edo states respectively featured several unprecedented achievements.

    For instance, he used his position to fast-track various employment opportunities for youths from the three states he represented.

    His love for fairness and equity ensured that qualified people were engaged not only from his constituency but from across every nook and cranny of the three states. These actions engendered much goodwill towards him.

    We celebrate him today because of his interest in the empowerment of the younger generation, his community and the people of Ondo state. In his quest to encourage the youths in the areas of education and development, he has consistently awarded scholarships to students across the state and beyond.

    This gesture from him has furthered the careers of underprivileged students who ordinarily would have been sent out of school but for his intervention.

    Olabimtan continues to sponsor many indigent students across tertiary institutions both in and outside the country.

    Beyond his philanthropic efforts, Olabimtan is also renowned for his sense of camaraderie. Although he didn’t clinch the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the recent primaries, he congratulated the winner of the primary and promised to work with him, which he did wholeheartedly.

    The national hierarchy of the APC appointed him the Director General of the Akeredolu Campaign Platform (ACP) in view of his wealth of experience and unwavering desire to see positive development in the state.

    His leadership resulted in the unprecedented victory of Akeredolu in 14 of the 18 council areas of the state. He spearheaded a well-coordinated campaign and his role in the victory of the core progressives over the conservatives in Ondo state cannot be overemphasised.

    Rt. Hon. Victor Olabimtan, sir, I say with all humility that you are a wonderful man that I admire. You always know how to light a fire. I am so very glad to have you among the catalogue of my people. You certainly outwit, outlast, and outplay the rest of your contemporaries.

    A kind who listens and seems to care; I say expressly on behalf of the Akeredolu clan that we are lucky to have someone as nice, honest, sincere and reliable as you. You deserve all of the happiness in the world times two.

    I just wanted to take a moment to say have a wonderful 60th birthday. I hope you have a phenomenal 60th birthday. Celebrate it in style and in a grand way.

    I wish you more wisdom, knowledge and understanding to triumph against the tangles of life and the grace to live in good health till the end. Cheers.

    Akeredolu sent this piece from Owo. He can be contacted via babse@aketi.org

  • Let’s talk about sex

    Let’s talk about sex

    A response to Sonnie Ekwowusi’s ‘Sexualisation of Children: Matters Arising’.

    Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi

    On Wednesday April 12th, Sonnie Ekwuwosi wrote an article that was published in This Day Nigeria newspaper called ‘Sexualization of Children: Matters Arising’. It did not come as a surprise to me because he has been frantically circulating his sensationalist claims about adolescent sexuality, sex education and the proposed Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill (GEOB) online for some time now. In his This Day article, he mentioned my name and that of a good friend, Oby Nwankwo, Nigeria’s representative on the UN CEDAW Committee, as champions of sex education as a right for children, and also accused us of pushing the GEOB that will ‘promote homosexuality and abortion’. People are entitled to their own opinions, no matter how archaic, uninformed or scary they might be. They are however not entitled to their own facts. Mr Sonnie Ekwuwosi has a right to write. When he insists on spending energy to convince people that there is a grand conspiracy to corrupt Nigerian children under the guise of Comprehensive Sexuality Education, he should realise that he is treading on thin ice. I take strong objection to Sonnie making libelous statements about my beliefs and values. In an attempt to come across as the champion of morality, he paints women like me as villains who are out to wreak havoc on the moral fabric of our communities.

    I have never met Sonnie Ekwuwosi. The interaction I have had with him has been through a recently created WhatsApp group for people working on gender issues.  After a while it dawned on some of us that Sonnie was the wrong man to have been added to the group. Sonnie was unrelenting in his rants against any reference to ‘bodily integrity’, ‘sexuality’, ‘sex education’, ‘choice’ and so on. He would go on and on about how our ideas were anti-African and were responsible for the collapse of our traditional values. He kept accusing us of promoting abortion and lesbianism. He would not listen to reason and he would make one absurd claim after another. After a while it was decided that because his views were so alarmingly anti-women, he should be removed from the platform because he had constituted himself into an unwelcome distraction. We all agreed on Sonnie’s rights to his views, but we wanted him to take them elsewhere and not clog our space. Sonnie’s removal from our WhatsApp group infuriated him no end. I was woken up the following morning by a journalist friend who called me and then forwarded a text Sonnie had sent to her. In his usual long rant, he claimed that some of us are out to ‘sexualize’ Nigerian children and import foreign values. He named me and Oby Nwankwo, as some of the ‘ringleaders’. He wanted my journalist friend to interview him so he could ‘expose us’. My friend refused. The text was an abridged version of his article which eventually appeared in This Day on April 12th. Sonnie Ekwuwosi is an editorial board member of This Day so I suppose they don’t have a choice other than to provide him space to air his views.

    This is what the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) has to say about Comprehensive Sexuality Education, ‘Comprehensive Sexuality Education enables young people to protect their health, well-being and dignity. These programs are based on human rights principles and they advance gender equality and the rights and empowerment of young people’. UNFPA also goes on to state that, ‘every young person will one day have life-changing decisions to make about their sexual and reproductive health. Yet research shows that the majority of adolescents lack the knowledge required to make those decisions responsibly, leaving them vulnerable to coercion, sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy’. One of my favourites is the UNESCO position which describes comprehensive sexuality education as an ‘age-appropriate, culturally relevant approach to teaching about sex and relationships by providing scientifically accurate, realistic, non-judgmental information’.

    I am in my fifties. Like most people in my generation, my parents never had any deep discussions with me about sex. The most I was told was to ‘stay away from boys’. When I was in high school, there was this classmate of mine who was one of the brightest girls in the class. She also seemed to be the most worldly when it came to matters of boys and sex. One day about six of us were having a conversation about sex.  We were all curious and asked each other questions which, in hindsight, none of us had any truthful answers to. My classmate declared, very confidently, ‘You can’t get pregnant unless you have an orgasm’. The rest of us did not know what an orgasm was, and we were too embarrassed to ask for fear of displaying our ignorance. We believed her because she seemed to know what she was talking about. This friend did not take her final examinations with us. She was pregnant. When I heard the news I said to myself, ‘she must have had an orgasm’. That was almost   four decades ago. Every time the issue of adolescent sexuality comes up I remember the sad case of my naïve, misinformed classmate.

    Any parent would agree that they have primary responsibility for talking to their children about sex and related matters. Sonnie’s position is that it is only parents who have this responsibility. This is where I disagree. Parents do not bring their children up in isolation. Children spend long hours outside of the home in school, and even when they are home, parents are either too busy, too prudish or in too much denial to have these conversations. We go to great lengths to teach our children right from wrong, yet we have to contend with peer influences, social media, popular culture, raging hormones and other forces that are not always within our control. If we are concerned about what goes into the sex education curriculum in our children’s schools, we can get involved and ensure that we know what is going on. What we cannot afford to do is throw the baby out with the bathwater. Providing our children with the information they need about their bodies, relationships and decision-making in order to protect them from sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and unwanted pregnancies, does not amount to ‘sexualising them’ as the Sonnies of this world are claiming. What we are doing is being responsible, proactive and realistic.

    Sonnie is part of a global, ultra conservative network that is ideologically opposed to any discussion about sexuality. As far as they are concerned, any mention of ‘sexuality’ is about homosexuality, and ‘family planning’ means abortion.  Whether we like it or not, our children are exposed to situations or people who will take advantage of their innocence if they do not have the tools to understand what is happening to them and around them. When someone tells a young girl who does not know any better that she cannot get pregnant if she does not have an orgasm, you can just imagine the fate of millions of girls who have fallen victim due to ignorance and misinformation.

    I do not wish to be on the same page with Sonnie, in fact, we are not even reading the same book. What I am asking is that Sonnie should continue reading his book and not attempt to burn mine. He also does not have the right to change the title of my book. One of the most outlandish claims that Sonnie made in his This Day article is about the proposed Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill (GEOB) which is currently being considered at the National Assembly. Sonnie and others in his camp are so rabidly opposed to the Bill that they are trying to sabotage it. They claim that (here we go again) the Bill will promote abortion and homosexuality. There is a draft copy of the GEOB available online. Sonnie should point out which sections of the Bill are about abortion and homosexuality. The Bill does mention the rights of women to ‘Family Planning’ , and  I suppose this is a red flag to Sonnie’s bull. There are a lot of careful negotiations currently going on around the Bill to ensure that it takes into consideration cultural and religious sensitivities without totally jeopardizing the interests of those it seeks to protect. The sanctimonious hysteria of people such as Sonnie does not help.

    Sonnie Ekwuwosi, please stop the bullying and misinformation. I do not claim to speak for all Nigerian women, but regardless of our age, education, social status or geographical location, many of us understand what it means to live as women in a fundamentally patriarchal society.  You don’t. Leave Nigerian women, their lives and bodies alone. Every day, women and girls are raped, abused, excluded from decisions which affect them, are denied access to healthcare, education, inheritance, credit and basic amenities. We need the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill to create a level playing field and to ensure that women and men, girls and boys, can live lives of dignity and respect in this country. The GEOB will ensure that our political, economic, cultural and social systems are more inclusive and responsive to the needs of women. None of our developmental goals as a nation will ever be achieved if women are left behind. We will no longer sit in silence while our children are abused and we lack the capacity to change the story. We will work with men who are our husbands, fathers, sons and brothers, who understand what needs to be done, and who are true supporters of promoting the dignity of women.

     

     Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Social Entrepreneur and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com

     

  • That Oyo State may prosper

    By May 2017, Governor Abiola Ajimobi would have spent two years out of his four-year second-term mandate, and a total of six years as the Governor of Oyo State, and in all these years his covenant with God to do well by the state has remained his guiding principle.

    It was in recognition of his service to the people of the state during his first tenure that he got his mandate renewed for a second term, a feat never achieved before by any politician in the recent political annals of the pace- setter state. During Ajimobi’s first coming, his focus was security and infrastructure. The first task as he saw it was to restore peace and security to the state, particularly to Ibadan, the state capital, which had acquired the notoriety of a garrison town where life was not only unsafe, but short and brutish with the daily deadly battles between the various factions of the transport unions for supremacy.

    In less than six months of taking office, Governor Ajimobi was able to restore peace by sending strong signals to trouble makers that they would no longer find a safe haven in Oyo State, and this enabled government to proceed with its infrastructural development plan which included the construction of roads along Eleyele-Magazine Road-Dugbe axis, Jericho-Aleshinloye, Eleyele-Sabo etc. But the road infrastructural development was not confined only to Ibadan Metropolis; for the first time in the history of the state, simultaneous construction and expansion of some roads to four and six lanes commenced in Iseyin, Oyo and Ogbomoso townships.

    One of the challenges faced by the Ajimobi administration when it came on board in 2011 was the issue of flooding, especially within Ibadan metropolis. The torrential rains of that year flooded many neighbourhoods and swept away many roads and bridges, cutting off many communities. The government promptly went into action by reconstructing the bridges and building alternative roads. A clear case in point was the Apete Bridge in Ido Local Government of the state capital which was washed away by the floods, thus cutting off a large swathe of communities up to Akufo.

    Because the government was bent on building not only a better bridge in Apete, but also upgrading the road leading to Apete from Ijokodo, it constructed another road from Ajibode to Apete within months to alleviate the problems of the people of the area, a road which serves them well even after the completion of the Apete main bridge and road.

    The 2011 experience with floods in Ibadan led the government to device an early warning system and flood control methods that have minimised floods to the barest minimum in the state, thus during the last rainy season when floods swept through other cities in the country, Ibadan was spared because at the approach of the rains, all the waterways were dredged and solid bridges provided for communities prone to floods. Construction of roads and bridges is still going on in flood-prone areas.

    Since the beginning of this year, the Oyo State Government has embarked yet again on the massive construction of roads across the state, which when combined with past efforts will truly change the face of Ibadan to the status of a megacity and modernise other cities in the state. Some of these roads’ reconstruction for which contracts have been awarded since January and for which the contractors have mobilised to site include Idi-Ape-Iwo Road Interchange which would be expanded from the present four lanes to six lanes, Bus Stop-Old Ife Road-Alakia Road, Eleyele-Ologuneru Road up to Ido junction, Beere-OritaMerin, Agbeni-Ogunpa and The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic-Ibaruba Road in Saki. All these roads are to be expanded into four lanes to enhance not only the aesthetics of the towns and ease transportation, but to also enhance commercial viability of the areas.

    Perhaps, the most far reaching reform of Governor Ajimobi’s government is in the education sector where he has taken on the herculean task of improving the standards of education in the state. In the last few years, the state, which was renowned for its academic excellence, and hosts the very first university in Nigeria and the largest concentration of research institutes in Africa, has been lagging behind in the Senior School Certificate and the National Examinations Council examinations, sometimes taking the 34th position out of 36 states. This situation, the Governor found unacceptable.  His words: “We must improve education in the state.”

    Lack of proper supervision has been identified as one the problems, and to enhance close monitoring of each school, the government has introduced a Governing Board for each school made up members from the communities where the schools are situated. The rationale for this is that each community is to take ownership of the schools in their area. The government would still continue to pay teachers salaries, provide infrastructure and other teaching aids, but members of the community and old boys whose children attend these schools must supervise the running of these schools for effectiveness. We are already seeing results as the state came second in the last NECO exams.

    In the State Executive Council meetings, Governor Ajimobi charged members to come up with iconic projects that would improve things in the state and return the state to a leadership position. One of such iconic projects is the Polaris-Pacesetter Free Trade Zone. Polaris is a multi-billion dollar Chinese conglomerate which wants to set up manufacturing companies in conjunction with Oyo State in the free trade zone. More than 100 companies are expected to be set up on the 1000 hectares of land for the project to provide employment and business opportunities to our teeming population not only in the state, but all over the country as people migrate to places where there are jobs.

    Though Ajimobi demands excellence from those who work with him and does not compromise standards, though he is a slave driver as he himself is a workaholic, oftentimes working into the wee hours of the morning tirelessly, yet he is a man full of the milk of human kindness and a man who listens to criticism as can be seen in his recent moves wherein he went to town on different occasions to brief the ordinary man on the street about his various projects, especially the new road projects, appealing to them for understanding and apologising to them for the inconveniences the construction projects would cause them. His only desire is to see that Oyo State prospers.

     

    • Ganiyu is Oyo State Commissioner for Special Duties