Category: Opinion

By Nnedinso Ogaziechi

March 8 is International Women’s Day, a day dedicated by United Nations to honouring the achievements of women throughout history globally. It is a day that women are expected to come together across the world to evaluate the global impact of women and see areas of improvement for a better world.

However,  even though the fight for gender parity in all sectors is often being pushed  a majority of women, no one can discountenance the support of most men in the actualization of gender justice. There are fathers and brothers and spouses who have through their actions empowered the women who are often at the forefront of the fight for gender justice. A few men in most professions try to push these fights but are often unrecognized even when they are more actively proactive in the fight for gender equity than most women.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani education activist and youngest Nobel Peace Laureate always tells the story of the unalloyed support she got from her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala could not have become the global icon she is without the support of her father the late Prof. Okonjo.  In fact, she was able to function well  because of the support from her father at the most trying times of her professional career beyond his investment in her education.

There are legions of men who fervently push for gender justice in all professions, lawyers, engineers, doctors, traditional rulers and sundry professionals of various hues. These ones realize that the equity achievable in human interaction is limitless and aids development and progress.

The media industry is one place that we seemingly have some equity even as patriarchal as ‘gentlemen of the press’ sounds. It is as empowering as it is paradoxically recognition of the capacity of the human brain irrespective of gender  to deliver in a field that unites the world in ways no other profession can boast of.

The RoundTable Conversation sat down with the President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Christopher Isiguzo amidst reports that about 300 school girls had been abducted from a government Secondary school in Jangebe  Zamfara state at the time of writing this. This abduction came on the heels of the Chibok, Dabchi, Kagara and other schools in the Northern region.

As a journalist, he believes that journalism identifies the true value of women. Journalism especially in Nigeria to him has always identified the value women bring to the table and there seems to be no noticeable gender based roles in the profession. The Nigerian Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) to him is evidence that journalism allows the women to exercise their own influences the way they deem fit even when the general NUJ still allows the female in the leadership to flourish too.

To Isiguzo, feminism is about projecting and protecting women as the real strong forces of development. They are first human and should not be treated based on gender in ways that says they are inferior. It is about assuring that women should be treated equally with men. The women are human because they have capacity to deliver. We have a history of women excelling at all levels of leadership, at local, state and globally too. Women are excelling. If they are achieving great things at all levels, why then should we continue to treat them differently?

He recalls the recent contest for the World Trade Organization (WTO) that had our own Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala emerge as the first black and female to achieve such a rare feat. It is on record that some of the male candidates did not make it to the final level but Okonjo-Iweala and the lady from South Korea stood as the two best candidates. The two last people standing were women and the world took note.

He believes that women must stand up for themselves. They must be a ladder to each other for more progress. He wonders why women that constitute a great percentage of voters do not support each other. He recalled how the first Nigerian woman to contest for a party ticket for the presidency only got one vote when majority of the party delegates were women. It does appear women often despise each other. How can a party primary election that had thousands of  female delegates that could be in the neighbourhood of forty five to fifty percent  abandon a fellow woman at such a strategic political time says a lot about how women treat or support each other.

He draws another analogy of the animal kingdom that depicts the power of the female. The lioness goes in search of prey and brings home the food and the lion eats. This is equally similar to the human nurturing and striving spirit of women. In his words, the animals can even decide to join hands and dethrone the lion as the king of the jungle but it needs their cooperating with each other to achieve that feat. Women must have to work together to get that pride of place they deserve.

Our women must have to come out from their stranglehold. They have challenges, there are religious and socio-cultural issues that have impeded the women but they should go beyond that and the fight has to be by women themselves as men cannot do that for them.

The insecurity as it affects the country must be addressed for women to flourish. The primary duty of governments is to protect lives and property of the citizenry even when security is the business of everyone. The government must redouble their efforts aa the world celebrates women. The abductions that hurt women must be checked. From Chibok to Dapchi to Kagara and now it’s Zamfara.

The media will continue to hold governments accountable. Ours is to continue to inform and educate our citizens. The Nigerian media would continue to be the watchdog of the society and has been worried at the spate of insecurity and the effects on  the whole country not just women but it is sad that abductions of school children seems endless. This will have long term implications for education in Nigeria.

The Chairman of the Federal Capital Territory Union of journalists (NUJ FCT) in Abuja, Emmanuel Ogbeche known for his gender activism and social justice advocacy believes that even though there are sad tails surrounding gender issues, the International Women’s Day must be a time to draw more attention to the women who have broken the glass ceiling and to point a torch to the dark tunnel that still exists as it concerns women and their rights. It offers an opportunity to also draw attention to issues of discrimination and the very hostile condition of women and an opportunity  to inspire  younger girls. We have to tell the young girls the possibilities available.

With what is happening in Northern Nigeria, the already huge number of out of school children would triple in the next few years because the schools are getting too vulnerable and the parents there might have to start keeping their children away from schools.

For those of us who grew up in the villages, women are the bedrock of agriculture. With the insecurity in the country, more women cannot go to the farms and if they cannot go to the farms, food insecurity would and is already hitting families. Women are the ones who plant vegetables and tend to fruits. The family meals would be poorer and kids would either die or be malnourished. There would be increased poverty. The bandits take women as war booties and sex slaves and this is retrogressive.

The abduction patterns from Chibok, Dapchi to Jangede in Zamfara shows that more girls have been kidnapped than the boys in the last few years which is very telling on the values we place on women.

The FCT NUJ Chairman believes that journalists can go a step further in the fight against insecurity by blacking out some influential people that through their utterances and actions are seen as enablers of violence.  We must not offer our platforms to such individuals that call journalists names for reporting facts and figures about the insecurity in the country. We will continue to call out all tiers of governments for the failure to do the most basic duty of governments, the protection of lives and property,

We should  continue our  media  roles as peace and unity arbiters in the country. We must continue to inform and educate and it does not matter whether governments harass us or refuse to read.

The media would  continue to  challenge the poverty and insecurity to the women in the rural areas so that women can go to the farms and especially in the North where most women have abandoned going to farms.

Gender parity appointments isstill a  far cry so women should have more cooperatives, mentor the younger women to take over governance, media, corporate world and even civil society. There are too few female mentees, begging the question why? We must continue to point the torch in the dark. We want more women to occupy editorial hierarchy in media houses to push for inclusiveness.

Men must give more room to women to empower more women through the media. Whether we like it or not, the world has embraced the social and orthodox media and as such even women bloggers must begin to redirect their attention to other real sectors beyond gossips and the entertainment . The media has power and the power must be used by women.

The RoundTable Conversation has observed the apathy by most women for issues around politics and economy which is quite ironical because history of  glass ceiling breakages are in the fields of political economies that predates colonialism and trans-Atlantic slave trades. In the modern times, the popular women are more in the political space and global economies.

As we celebrate this year’s IWD, may the words of these journalists resonate in ways that can liberate more women and make the country more caring and accepting of the challenges women face as a result of insecurities in the country. No economy can develop under such dire conditions for girls and women.

The dialogue continues…

By Emma Agu

Many will remember the rhetorical question posed by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu when accusing fingers started pointing at the Fulani, as the culprits in the unfortunate murder of Mrs. Funke Olakunrin, daughter of Afenifere leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti. When asked to comment on the murder, Tinubu asked: “…Is Evans a Fulani herdsman”?

Tinubu was referring to Evans, who is now standing trial for allegations of kidnapping and extortion of money from victims. To be sure, by referring to Chukwudi Onuamadike, alias Evans, many people of Igbo extraction interpreted it as a dig at their race. After all, since Mrs. Olakunrin’s killers were presumed to be looking for money, Tinubu might as well have asked: Is “Dr”. Ishola Oyenusi or Shina Rambo Fulani? Oyenusi (Yoruba by tribe), was the notorious armed felon who, in the early seventies, led a series of carjacking and bank heists that, for several months, defied the best investigative effort of Nigeria’s security agencies, until he was apprehended after leading the Boulos Factory robbery of 1971. Similarly, Shina Rambo, was the dare-devil robber who terrorized Lagos and environs in the mid-nineties leaving a trail of blood as he made nonsense of Nigeria’s security apparatus. He too was later checkmated.

On the identity of the murders of Mrs. Olakunrin, Tinubu had this to say: “I am extremely bothered about security but I don’t want stigma. I can go through the history of kidnapping and we know how it started, where it started, there are lot of copycats; how many years ago have we faced insecurity in this country and cases of kidnapping? Is Evans a herdsman?”

I have recalled the two episodes to remind us that ethnic profiling has never been encouraged by the society. Neither Oyenusi nor Shina Rambo (both Yoruba by tribe) or even Lawrence Anini (Edo by tribe) were of the Igbo or Fulani stock. That was the implication of Tinubu’s riposte to the accusation that, the Fulani had killed the daughter of the Yoruba leader.

By some uncanny coincidence, that dastard criminal act was carried out in the same Ondo State where, a few weeks ago, the State Governor, the indefatigable and fearless Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, issued an eviction order on Fulani herdsmen in the state. The controversies and actions that have trailed Akeredolu’s order have reached fever pitch and the nation is searching, or is it groping, for a path out of the conundrum.

Thus when, last week, the Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, tried to rationalise the circumstances of the Fulani herdsmen by saying they armed themselves with AK47, in self-defence, he obviously did not expect a slap in the wrist from Nigerians. Understandably, many have kicked against his statement for the well-founded reason that, there is no questioning the culpability of some Fulani herdsmen in the sordid spate of crimes that not only dehumanise people but now threaten the very survival of the country.

Actually, contrary to the impression created, anyone who knows Bala Mohammed will agree that he would never dispute a claim that the Sultan of Sokoto and MURIC have ostensibly corroborated. Be that as it may, in the nature of things, the impression that has gained ground is that Bala Mohammed’s primary intent was simply to support a kin-group to which he only tangentially belongs. However, from the explanation of his spokesman, Comrade Gidado Mukhtar, that was not his intention. According to Mukhtar, “at no time did the Governor set out to justify criminality by anyone, no matter the person’s ethnic nationality. Rather, he admonished us, in the interest of national unity, to avoid wholesale branding of any ethnic group as it is inconceivable that any one group can be made up of only criminals”.

Fortuitously, appearing on a TV programme last Tuesday, two days before Bala Mohammed’s statement, Femi Otubanjo, retired professor of political science at the University of Ibadan, maintained the same position. To him, all the hoopla can be avoided by addressing the people by their occupation as “herdsmen” (emphasis mine), so that the over 70 percent of Fulani people who are engaged in other occupations in the urban areas, would not be stigmatized by the wholesale profiling of their ethnic group as criminals.

Just as no one can dismiss the obvious culpability of some people of Fulani extraction in the unconscionable blood-letting and bestiality that has killed many and defiled women, no one can sweep aside the genuine fear, as expressed by Bala Mohammed, that the ethnic profiling of Fulani could lead to unpleasant actions against them. Are we not already there? Apart from the Sunday Igboho expedition against the Fulani in Ibarapa, today, all over much of the South West, people of Fulani extraction now live in fear.

Anyone who saw last Monday’s lead headline and photograph, on the front page of the Daily Trust newspaper, would certainly begin to appreciate the perspective from which Bala Mohammed made his statement. In the photograph, distraught Fulani women and children could be seen, apparently heading to nowhere.

The main thrust of Bala Mohammed’s admonition was for leaders to avoid statements that could exacerbate Nigeria’s already disquieting faut-lines with the reminder that, given the convergence of ethnic nationalities all over the country. In this regard, his aim was to guard against a throwback to our historical experience whereby retaliatory actions could lead, and this time around, to an unmanageable implosion.

Anyone familiar with the concern and despair caused each time some Northern Youth, under the leadership of Yerima Shettima, issued those ultimatums asking people of Igbo extraction to leave the North, will readily appreciate Bala Mohammed’s concerns. As he forewarned, events of the past few weeks point to a precipitous descent to the nadir of ethnic intolerance and a misguided escalation of the rhetoric of war and national destruction.

Sadly, at times like this, when people seek to make political capital out of every situation, Bala Mohammed, by his figurative reference to AK47, has placed his neck on the slaughter slab of political opportunists. Ironically, his statement reminds one of the call, in 2018, on the people of Taraba, by no less a person than General T.Y. Danjuma, to take up arms to defend themselves.

If the Bala Mohammed, a nationalist and compassionate Nigerian with whom I have been associated for close to forty years, is sure that staking his political career, even his life, will restore inter-ethnic harmony, and place Nigeria on the path of greatness, he will readily make the sacrifice. He has done so in the past.

Ten years ago, when the nation stood on tenterhooks, as uncertainty trailed the fate of the country, following the death of Yar’Adua, it was Bala Mohammed that broke the ice. Recall that some hawks in what looked like a near consensus by the north, were hedging on President Jonathan, then vice president of the country, succeeding the ailing Yar’Adua. It was Bala Mohammed’s Integrity Group in the Senate who pushed the Doctrine of Necessity motion, that paved the way for Jonathan, the “shoeless” boy from South-South Nigeria, to become President. Last December, while flagging off some of the projects that have become the trademark of the Bala Mohammed Administration, former Senate President, David Mark, reminded Nigerians that it was the statesmanlike conduct of Bala Mohammed and his ilk, that provided the impetus for the success recorded by the National Assembly (NASS) under his (Mark’s) leadership. Perhaps the greatest success of that era was in breaking the Yar’Adua succession logjam.

Similarly, as minister of the Federal Capital Territory between 2010 and 2015, Bala Mohammed ran an administration that, apart from its record in infrastructural development, set very high standards, in diversity management and gender inclusion. I am not surprised that since the unfolding of his statement, a number of members of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) with whom he had very close interactions in 2013, have called to express worries that someone whose stature as a nationalist and statesman portended so great a promise for the country, could allow himself to be sucked into the vortex of an unforgiving political inferno. My simple response is that, before we crucify Bala Mohammed, from what they know about him, it will be unfortunate to allow this one incident to define a man whose belief in and commitment to a united, peaceful and prosperous Nigeria remains undiluted, in spite of these trying times. Even at that, he meant well.

That said, all hands must be on deck to resolve these issues. In my view, the first immediate solution is to assuage the hurt of the victims of the actions, of the strange Fulani herdsmen in our midst. By the same token, those Fulani who have suffered collateral damage because of the untoward behaviour of some of their kinsmen also deserve the compassion and apology just as all the parties in this unfortunate saga, deserve restitution.

Yet, as these efforts are being made, it is only when justice has been done by apprehending and prosecuting the accused herdsmen, Fulani or by whatever tribe, that closure can be brought to the families of the deceased and as well as victims of rape. Furthermore, admitted that itinerant Fulani have always been with us, the Federal Government, in collaboration with states and local governments, should rid the country of those strange herdsmen whose culture and motives are at variance with our national ethos. Then, and only then, can peace return to Nigeria.

By Nnedinso Ogaziechi

The growth in the Nigerian national economy has been credited to agriculture which accounts for over 20% of Nigeria’s GDP. The importance of agriculture in any nation’s economy cannot be over emphasized. The  agricultural value chain in any well planned economy is a huge employer of labour and revenue earner. According to the federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, women account for 75 percent of the farming population in Nigeria.  They are equally a great part of the agriculture supply chain in both the formal and informal sectors.

The role of women in the agricultural sector in the country has been very pivotal to the success of that sector principally due to their nurturing, leadership and multi-tasking nature.  However, despite their huge contributions, agriculture is somehow instinctively seen as a man’s field possibly because of socio-cultural perceptions.

However, the changing global trends have seen the younger generation of women raising the bar in a sector that often gives them less credit and support. There are more determined  female entrepreneurial players in the agricultural value chain and more and more young women are bringing their grit and industry to agriculture in ways that seem to be saying, ‘do not ignore us, even in agriculture, women leadership, industry and the ability to multitask and be optimally productive is for the good of our country’.

The RoundTable Conversation sat down with the Lagos state Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya who had had been called to serve from the private sector.  An Abisola came into her new role with valued and valid experience in leadership as she had been in charge of sales, marketing and supply chain management with a specialty in executing strategies towards food security, SME inclusion, growth and profitability. She comes to the job with an obvious passion for leadership excellence and service.

Abisola seems to be reaffirming the dictum that ‘when the mother goat is chewing grass, the kid watches and learns too’. Her leadership instincts obviously come from a father who is well grounded in public life and service. Her father, Asipa Laoli Olusanya was the Commissioner for Agriculture during the tenure of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as governor in Lagos.

Abisola recollects that her father had always shown leadership and loyalty as a politician and that inspired a daughter who is slowly blossoming and telling the father subtly, ‘dad, what you a man can do, I, a woman would definitely do even better’. In essence there is no gender barrier to excellence in leadership and sense of service especially when you learnt in house.

Abisola believes that coming from the corporate world having worked for eight years at Olam Ghana, her present leadership position is a call to service that demands she brings her experience from working at Olam Ghana Rice and Sugar supply business of well over 180 million dollars annually to the table of public service in Lagos state.

As one who manned the local supply chain aspect for the local market with international intelligence in making all the decisions it had to be a multi-faceted kind of role because you were dealing with global commercial partners and you had to understand prices, the weather patterns and how it is going to affect crops and the impact on importation of crops.  Having enjoyed the freedom to take the best decisions in the interest of the organization where everyone’s output was constantly monitored she came into public office hoping in her small way to impart excellence.

She is determined to make sure she inculcates that in all the staff in the agriculture ministry knowing how pivotal the ministry is to economies’ suevival. So coming into public service with her background is an opportunity to bring in the private sector added efficiency that can help people seeing that an invitation to serve is a call to service. No matter how high up in the corporate anyone is, the call to service should not be ignored and as such she feels she has been honoured with a rare opportunity to pay back and impact on a few lives.

Service is the biggest motivation to her as a person and she is happy that the governor  is very encouraging and tries to give everyone all the needed freedom to put in their best. The hunger to change what one can is a valid energizing force.  Olam Ghana is very entrepreneurial and target-driven, so coming from such an institution where your performance is measured every step of the way into the public sector inspires one to bring the best attitudes into public life. Imparting excellence, making sure numbers matter and that everyone is target- driven is a very unique and productive way of doing business and will obviously assist in serving the people.

We must learn that data is important, there must be goals to be achieved. Each department or unit must be efficiency driven. I come to work every day realizing that I am on a temporary assignment not a lifetime job. I may be asked to exit anytime and what  that implies is that I must try to utilize government resources in the most efficient way possible such that a greater number of people  would  benefit  and people feel the efficiency of the initiatives, projects and activities of government.  More people should feel the government directly through the actions we that are called to serve take.

As a young woman, I go to work every day taking advantage of the opportunity I have been given to motivate the staff in the ministry to remember that each action they take or do not take impacts on the system because when the people especially the youths are availed opportunities through our collective actions, there would be a reduction in crimes and the society would be safer and more productively stable for us all.

As a young female in public service, my advice to the youths is to go out there and seek out how they can benefits from government interventions and initiatives.  The youths have to do more research around possibilities, partnerships, synergies and initiatives by government even when this administration has always tried to put out those needed information.

I believe that to progress as a nation, we must have a strict value reorientation. Leadership should neither be gender nor age specific and the governor of Lagos Babajide Sanwo-Olu has proved that by the number of women and young people like me who have been called  to serve. We must be more focused at work to realize the impact of our actions or inactions either in the private or public sector.

The  RoundTable Conversation encountered another lady breaking boundaries in the agricultural sector. She is a female cattle herder from Nsukka.  Ekene Obayi  has a degree in Archeology and Tourism from the University of Nigeria Nsukka. Having searched for jobs without success after her national youth service, she decided to join her family business of cattle rearing. Even though her decision to go into cattle rearing coincided with her husband’s period of recovery from an accident, it is a business she currently does with great pride and satisfaction despite the odds and financial constraints.

She feels her not finding a white-collar job is now a blessing because she has seemingly set some records in a country where cattle rearing is seemingly getting synonymous with sorrow, blood, death, injustice and ethnic tension. She recalls that her in-laws have reared cattle for decades but has had no issues of farmer-herder clashes and wonders why all of a sudden cattle herding seems such an endangered occupation. For her as a woman who has been in the business for long, it’s almost an obsession for her. In the course of rearing the cattle, she discovered the bond that herders have with each cattle in ways that they communicate without talking.

She is often pained at the sudden acrimonious relationship between some unscrupulous cattle herders and the many communities and recalls how one Fulani herdsmen she encountered in one part of Nsukka actually appreciated her job and even gave her a cow as a gift. To her, she feels there has been a mismanagement of that sector of the economy. The government must take cattle rearing as a serious business that adds value to the economy and can actually create a chain of value added jobs if the country can structure better organized ranching systems as done in other countries.

She feels that both the federal and state governments seem to ignore the fact that meat production and other ancillary dairy products from cows could be a big foreign exchange earner for the country aside from creating jobs for the teeming youths.

As a woman in the cattle rearing business, she believes that it is an agricultural sector that should not be a male-only business. Rearing cattle does not mean carrying them on your head so no one needs masculine energy to rear cattle.  Women to her must begin to break away from some socio-cultural inhibitions about certain occupations especially in agriculture. She is happy that necessity has seen more women breaking boundaries  in the agriculture beyond what she is doing right now. Many women are now agriprenuers and adding value to the economy.

The only snag for her is that a field like the cattle business is very capital intensive and governments must begin to make policies that can encourage financial institutions to help young people like her to access funds with low interest rates as is done in other countries for farmers. Despite other challenges in the business, that of funds and loans seem to be too heavy a burden not only for her but for some other youths she has inspired.

Nigerian governments must continue to open up and invest in sectors like the agricultural one to young people like Abisola and Ekene as agriculture is the global highest employer of labour. The women are already excelling in leadership here.

The dialogue continues…

By Emmanuel Oladesu

These times are remarkable for anxiety, pain and fear. Nigeria has been dragged to the theatre of the absurd. What is wrong with the supposedly African giant?

In a breath, wrong solutions are being proposed as remedies to protracted security problems. The correct response is being avoided. Nigeria is being turned “upside down.” It is fast becoming a rude joke. Why should this important country be a laughing stock in the international community?

In another dimension, as the country is beset with problems arising from its defective federalism and under-policing, ridiculous treatment are being prescribed for its structural ailments.

Yet, the truth must never be told about events. It is considered as ethnic profiling. It is forbidden, even if the reality stares all in the face. Killer-herdsmen and bandits are not Igbo, Kanuri, Yoruba, Ijaw, Hausa, Nupe or Junkun. Their tribe should never be mentioned. After all, the culprits are suspects. The bloodletting notwithstanding, the allegation has not been proved in any court of competent jurisdiction. But, to discerning Nigerians,  it is evident that in the 21st Century Nigeria, a particular ethnic nationality has turned insecurity into business.

The prank, this time around, is from an unexpected quarter. Jesters are advising the Federal Government on how to pacify criminals troubling the peace of the ‘nation.’

A cleric posing as a human right crusader has proposed an answer to the prevailing banditry in the Northwest. But, to observers, his panacea is devoid of logic and no basis can be found for it in history, religion, law and logic. Where in history have government and people beckoned on armed robbers for a parley? Which law will encourage an exchange of ideas and opinions with thieves? Can bad elements who enjoy obtaining ransom from their captives turn a new leaf, except by force?

It is noteworthy that the curious suggestion is not even a call for the replica of the Northeast Development Commission in the Northwest. Some elements are systematically canvassing increased federal allocation to their geo-political zone without a sound and convincing argument. In Nigeria, there is usually more emphasis on how revenue should be shared, and not how the revenue should be generated.

According to the cleric, who has the ears of the bandits, killers and unprovoked masters of violence, amnesty is the antidote to banditry. Therefore, the Federal Government should consider giving amnesty to national tormentors holding the beleaguered country to ransom. In order words, criminals, rapists and kidnappers deserve compensation for their nefarious activities; for targeting rural areas where rural people practice farming, and for blocking the highways to cause commotion and panic for travellers.

What should precede the amnesty programme,  in the opinion of the proponent, is dialogue by government with the men of the underworld. It becomes more problematic as some Northern politicians had suggested that the bandits are a mixture of Nigerians and illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries.

The priest had taken it upon himself to, according to reports, visit the bandits in the forest. It was a risky venture. But, he returned unharmed. It was also reported that the bandits, who welcomed the cleric in their hiding place with open arms, were not willing to listen to the government.

It is not certain whether the visitor to the den of banditry in the Northwest had sought to legitimise the inexplicable activities of the bandits. The details of the interaction or conference in the bush appears sketchy. But, as a person who seems to understand the language of those spoiling for war without a rational reason, he also seem to have a herculean task of convincing the government about the need to indulge kidnappers, killers and faceless criminals through financial reward, the type of gesture yet to be extended, and which will never be extended, to even identifiable legitimate agitators.

It would appear that the objective of the amnesty programme is beyond the ken and comprehension of some people. It is not a tool of cowardice and a sort of appeasement to armed robbers.

The Amnesty Programme has a background. Some Southsouth boys were said to have stormed Abuja to protest. They were at the federal capital territory for the first time. According to the story, they were captivated by the beautiful environment.  Then, someone raised their consciousness to the fact that the bulk of resources used to develop the city accrued from the oil domiciled in their rustic towns and villages in the coastal region. They were also told that Abuja had become a beautiful place at the expense of the oil-rich, but poor Niger Delta.

Although these village boys were semi-literares, according to the account, they were dejected. They lamented the deprivation, ecological disaster, flooding, loss of their fishing occupation and farm lands, oil spillage and general environmental denigration.

The Southsouth boys had gone up North and returned with information and enlightenment. Their eyes were opened to years of neglect, exploitation and marginalisation of the goose that lays the golden egg. They begun a special human and environmental rights battle.

The battle for the redress of justice and wealth redistribution grew in leaps and bounds. The military tried to suppress it with force. It failed. Soon, the protesting youths started to deal with perceived military collaborators. It backfired. Protest leaders were apprehended, jailed and hanged. Although the military, which ordinarily brooked no opposition, had to set up OMPADEC to cater for the oil-producing region, the agitations intensified.

The civilian government inherited the Southsouth crisis. Oil pipes were destroyed and the country suffered from fuel crisis. Highways were blocked. Protests became a veritable career.

The onus was on the late President Umaru Yar’Adua to dissect the problems and acceed to the demand of the oppressed zone for improved welfare. Earlier, the concession of 13 percent derivation had been granted. Also, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was established by his predecessor. Yar’Adua created the Ministry of Niger Delta in September 2008. Despite all these, the youths continued their protests for resource control and federalism. Thus, in August 2009, Yar’Adua established the Amnesty Programme.

The objective was clear. In 11 years, the justification is evident. Under the programme, the creek boys have been disarmed, demobilised and reintegrated into the society. Government succeeded in mopping up arms and weapons of over 20, 192 ex-agitators. Oil bunkering also reduced.

There is a huge difference between unprovoked criminal activities of bandits in the Northwest and legitimate agitations of Southyouth youths. Niger Delta boys restricted their agitations to the Southsouth zone, unlike killer herdsmen going to all the zones to grap lands, kidnap, rape and kill. Whenever the Southsouth boys kidnapped oil workers, mostly white expatriates, they took responsibility. Their leaders were identifiable. Government knew that it was negotiating with militants agitating for more funding and infrastructural facilities in the Niger Delta.

Are there oil exploration or prospecting causing environmental denigration or pollution in the Northwest, as it is observed in the Southsouth? Is Northwest suffering the same terror attacks like the Northeast?

What are the bandits after? Niger Delta militants were fighting, not against Nigerians, but against the government. But, the bandits are attacking innocent people at home, on the farm and on the road.

The puzzle is: what do the bandits want? Banditry had become a viable economic activity. Bandits kidnap for ransom. Where did they get the guns? Who are the people supplying them arms?

What is the agenda of their sponsors?

By Nnedinso Ogaziechi

One of the beauties of global development is the contributions of human ideas to improving lives and developing the needed infrastructure to carry things through. The race to manufacture the most effective vaccines for the global pandemic has occupied the global society since 2020 that the pandemic broke out in Whuhan, China.

Progress is being made and slowly but steadily the vaccines are making progress as more people are getting the vaccines in Europe, Asia and Africa.  For Africa, it is still a long road to access to vaccines in a world that has been forced to embrace the nationalistic spirit of their charity starting at home. The effort is to first take care of their own people before sending to Africa and other third world countries lacking in both the manufacturing facilities and storage too.

What this must reiterate in the developing countries must be the spirit to invest in the human capital as well as the visible and functional infrastructure that aid development.  In Nigeria for instance there must be the willingness to look beyond gender in the leadership at all levels so as to achieve a holistic development powered by the best brains and the most willing to serve.

The Round Table  Conversation sat with Ajibola Ponnle, a skilled Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Practitioner  who rose from a successful career in the corporate world to become the Lagos State Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions. Her more than two decades work experience capped with becoming the CEO of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management before joining government equips her to well for her present position.

To her, she sees her opportunity to serve as her own way of impacting the human capital sector that is indeed the pillar of any development efforts in any society. The infrastructural developments are good but the people are like the primary log that lights the fire of development and must therefore be well educated, trained and refocused for the development we seek to be effective and sustainable.

To her, education, training and capacity building must be availed the workforce especially in the public service for them to be optimally productive. To her leadership at any level must be based on competence and capacity to be focused and serve at any level. There is no scientific proof that any gender is incapable of being optimally productive when empowered on an equal basis with the right education, training and motivation.

The commitment to excel and achieve your goals to her has been her driving force and she believes her present position is an opportunity to give what she has practiced in a career spanning almost three decades. She believes  each worker must find a greater purpose for waking up every day and going to work. Productivity that drives economies must come from the human workforce, whether in the private or public sector, that must realize the value of commitment and hard work.

She is determined to support the state civil servants realize their potentials and understand their contribution to the prosperity or otherwise of Nigeria. She feels that a well-structured Public service is key to prosperity because that is what has developed other nations especially the Asian tigers. There is to her an urgent need to continue reforms in the civil service for optimal productivity and service delivery to citizens so that they can indeed enjoy the gains of democracy fully.

She feels that what has happened over the years is a focus on infrastructural development, roads, hospitals and schools and not enough attention on the Public servants, structures and processes that deliver these outcomes that should produce sustainable impact for development.

We must address the root cause of production and service delivery inadequacies. Luckily, the Governor in Lagos is truly people-centric and continues to support the necessary initiatives required in the area of capacity development such as the investing in a Learning Management System and partnering with LinkedIn Learning which provides access to the best in class content library and has successfully trained 33,000 Public servants. This is encouraging as it is energizing the Service and the benefits will be far-reaching.

We want to do what is sustainable in the long run and which can grow the system. The focus should be the people delivering the service and that means that focus must be on merit and competence and a structure that enables efficiency and productivity. Knowledge is key and we must ensure we get the best into our public service and give them the opportunity to continue to learn, grow and thrive. The commitment to excellence must be the driving force for the civil service and the template must be set by the governments at all levels across the nation for national impact.

Being a part of this Administration has been challenging because of the quantum of work and expectations from public life but it has been very fulfilling. It’s an opportunity to truly serve and there has been a lot to learn from the system. Humility and passion are key to thriving in the Public Service for any individual irrespective of  gender and also being laser -focused on what one is trying to achieve.

The RoundTable  Conversation  believes that our country will begin to make progress when the import of the civil service in the country is truly understood in a way that supports their services as the heart of the nation. They literarily pump blood to all sectors of any country’s economy.

There must be a determination to get the best heads into our civil service. At the moment there seems to be an ageing population in the civil service because younger generation of Nigerians have the wrong assumption about the civil service. The sector ought to be the engine room of development and as such the best and most qualified must be recruited, trained and motivated like in other countries. In most developed countries, the graduates of Ivy league Universities are recruited into the civil service because they come with the best ideas and brains for innovation and  excellent service delivery.

Governments in Nigeria must begin to invest in the training and re-training of civil servants in a country where it seems the only consciousness about civil service amongst the people seems to be strike actions and protests over fuel hikes. Like the Commissioner said, there must be a conscious investment in the civil servants in the area of capacity building and other forms of motivation.

The neglect of the civil service seems to have crept into the national consciousness during the military era with the command and control style of governance that clashed with the merit and hierarchical order that ought to power the civil service.

Most politicians in the developed world always boast of years of excellent public service. In the same way, those in the civil service in  post independent Nigeria used to be reference points for excellence too but with time, even the politicians seem to have towed the lines of the military by diminishing the relevance of civil servants through the treatment they get during and after service. The prolonged cases of pension disputes and cases of deaths and agony of pensioners is a clear evidence of a nation that seems to have lost the value for public service.

That the highest paid group of  Nigerians are not in the civil service says something about our values as a nation and why development continues to elude us. In countries that value the civil service, civil servants are normally very valued that they drive governments in a non-partisan manner for the good of all. That is why they are often referred to as public servants because they serve the public even though they are paid and employed by governments.

The federal and all state governments must go back to reinstating the dignity and respect of the civil servants in ways that their input in the public service can develop the country. There must be a huge investment in their training and welfare so that the position of the civil service as the engine room of government can be restored and development guaranteed..

Ajibola equally believes that the idea of emphasizing quality and rewarding merit is a good step to begin with as that would encourage the best and make the sector more attractive and fulfilling for the people as they work to put in their best and grow the economy.

Coming with her very vast experience in the private sector her depth of analysis about the value of a better structured and reformed civil service is no doubt an asset to the Lagos state government with an economy that is the biggest in the country and one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world.

For a government that is obviously focused on engaging the best irrespective of gender, her contributions in the Ministry of Establishments, Training and Pensions would in no small way impact on the public service in the nation’s economic and commercial capital.

She obviously comes to serve with the vintage female commitment and one cannot rule out the nurturing attribute of women in the policy direction that she has been pushing for the civil service in the state.

The Roundtable believes that an evaluation of her perception about the value of the people in any economy is a valid professional advice to all governments in the country if the nation must move up the development ladder. Her efforts in the Ministry is a clear display of one with sustained development in mind and coming purely from the corporate world, her track record obviously spoke for her and she seems bent on being the change she seeks.

We believe that the Nigerian economy cannot have the quantum leap we all want and the seamless functionality we all value in other countries if our governments do not invest in the complete restructure of the civil service and the welfare and training of the human capital that power development.  Governments must begin to deeply invest in our human capital. It will help us create wealth and improve lives.

• The dialogue continues…