The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

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  • As Jonathan breaks Second Niger Bridge jinx

    SIR: The jinx that has bedeviled the Second Niger Bridge is finally broken.  On Monday, March 10, President Goodluck Jonathan performed the historic ground-breaking ceremony for the second bridge across the Niger to link the eastern flank of the country with the West.

    The event is significant in many ways and it can better be appreciated on the premise that previous administrations made similar promises on the second Niger Bridge without fulfilling them. Former Presidents – from Ibrahim Babangida to Olusegun Obasanjo and his successor, the late President Umaru Yar ‘Adua, the project had always been touted as national priority with little done in concrete terms to actualize it. Obasanjo even went a step further in the last days of his administration to perform the foundation stone-laying ceremony in May 2007, but it was a ceremony that was full of symbolism but lacking in substance.

    Twelve months ago, Works Minister, Mike Onolememen, fired up expectation when he announced that the work would start before the third quarter of 2014 and would be completed during Jonathan’s administration.  As the President explained, the delay in starting off the project was simply to ensure that all financial and other logistics arrangements were in place before the ground-breaking ceremony to avoid abandonment.  Already, construction giant, Julius Berger Nigeria Ltd has since begun work on the six-kilometre road between the bridge head and Oko-Amakom community where the company plans to use as its base for the bridge project.

    The Jonathan administration has taken practical steps to demonstrate its commitment by producing the drawing, completing the bidding process won by Julius Berger PLC and awarding the contract.  The N117 billion project, which will span Oko in Delta State up to Ozubulu and Ogbaru areas of Anambra State will involve 12.4 kilometres of approach road while the bridge alone will span a length of 1.8 kilometres.

    The economic importance is better imagined and the fact of its political expediency is obvious.  It is a project whose relevance and national importance will continue to unfold in the years and decades to come.

     

    • Sylvester Okoro,

    Awka, Anambra State

  • The lingering ASUP strike

    SIR: The lingering strike of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has taken an unnecessarily long period. When the Academic Staff of Union of Universities (ASUU) was on strike, it was as though the whole of Nigerian students or parents would not sleep. Religious leaders, groups and individuals of influence had a lot to say about it as they pleaded with the government and ASUU to resolve their differences. It is not same with ASUP strike. Isn’t it because we place more emphasis on universities than their polytechnic counterparts?

    In Nigeria, education, especially tertiary education, has ceased to be a right long ago; it is a privilege. To be a university or polytechnic student is a thing of chance. There are those who are in not in any and there are many too who pursued university admission fervently but who ended up in polytechnics especially in a Nigeria where we fight for nearly everything. The preference for university graduate as against their polytechnic mates by employers does not help matters either. The dichotomy between a university and polytechnic graduate is an issue the government has not done enough to resolve.

    On the current elongated strike embarked upon by polytechnic teachers, it is regrettable just as it is totally unthinkable for tertiary institutions to be closed down for eight months due to an industrial action linked to government’s neglect.

    The most affected group in any industrial action affecting tertiary education institutions in Nigeria remains the students. Nigerian students (who are of the voting age) do not however know that there is a lot of power in their hands – particularly in their thumbs. The power they possess goes beyond taking to the streets to protest against unjust government actions and inactions. It goes beyond carrying placards on the street of Lagos or in a remote campus in any part of Nigeria.

    The population of the Nigerian youth is staggering and when it comes to election, they have a big role to play. The youth of today can decide who should be their head through the power of their vote. It is left for them and their parents to decide who leads them come 2015.

    The ASUP strike and the unnecessary dichotomy between the Bachelor of Science and the Higher National Diploma degrees need to be attended to. The employers of labour need to come to the full understanding that in getting the work done, delivery on the job and not paper qualification is what matters. There is hardly anybody who has not had enough of this unnecessary neglect of duties by the government. We need a change.

    • Anani Sunday,

    Lagos.

  • Governor Chime must hear this!

    SIR: On March 5, my wife and I were riding through Obinagu Road on route Nsukka. As the vehicle was about to join Nike Road from Obinagu Road at Liberty Junction, a man wearing light blue shirt and dark trousers approached the car. Before we could understand what he was saying, he forcibly opened the passenger front door and began to wrestle my driver over the key  and steering, insisting that we had contravened traffic laws. As the car came to a halt, two other men wearing the same uniform opened the back doors violently and tried to sandwich my wife and I inside the car but we quickly shut the doors. Whereupon one of them ran to the front of the car and violently ripped off the number plate. Then he darted to the back of the car like an enraged bull and tried to force the boot open. When he couldn’t, he descended angrily on the rear number plate and also pulled it off with superlative violence and undue energy, disfiguring it in the process.

    All the while we were still wondering  what the offence really was and whether there was no better and human way of confronting offenders. Was there no way of creating awareness for these traffic laws? As they kept mentioning obstruction, one wonders what really constitutes obstruction, and whether a vehicle waiting at a junction to join the traffic on an opposite or adjoining street is really obstructing any vehicles except those behind it which should logically wait until traffic is clear for all to move on. Even when one has run afoul of traffic laws, does it call for the worst in the human animal to the effect that offenders are treated like prisoners of war?

    The next day, at the same Liberty Junction, as we tried to join Nike Road, having been passed by the traffic warden, there was a little jam in the adjoining traffic. As my driver negotiated patiently, a young man in the same uniform jumped in. Initially, he blew hot and cold, refusing that we should stop by the filling station to buy some fuel. When he engaged my driver in the negotiation of bribe, I ordered them to go out of the car as I did not want to hear the negotiations. He refused to step down and ordered the driver to go to their office at Nkwo Nike. My driver later called me to say he got a written demand to pay N25,000 official penalty which was later reduced to a bribe of N6,000. This was paid in the afternoon of March 7, as the team leader of the men could not come to the office early enough to receive the money which, I am told, he said, was so-reduced “on grounds of pity.”

    I wonder where we are heading to in Enugu which has been the pride of the East. Societies enact laws to maintain order and discipline and to deter those who would do evil or cause harm to others. When society and its trappings become an albatross on the neck of the people, it loses humanity and ceases to be a society. Laws are made to create a better society and not to generate tension and terror; they are not to be used as instruments of ambush and aggression against the population.

    Enugu has developed in leaps and bounds in the last seven years under the guiding hands of Governor Sullivan Chime and his team. I am unsure whether the introduction of these uniformed men and their belligerent attitude to motorists will do Enugu any good. Uniformed men claiming to be in the pay of local governments and running after vehicles like hunters running after game in the bush only paint an unfriendly picture of Enugu and will undermine its prospects for tourism.

    I hope that this matter will be investigated and those concerned cautioned. If not, we are only cultivating a glorified jungle where only the fittest can survive.

     

    • Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi

    Associate Professor,

    University of Nigeria, Nsukka

  • Stand up, Bolaji Abdullahi

    Stand up, Bolaji Abdullahi. Take a bow and have your seat among the greats of our land. You have distinguished your pedigree. You have exhibited the character of an Omoluabi. You have shown Nigerians, nay, the global community; the stuff great minds are made of. It does not have to be by age; otherwise you will not have shone so brightly where the aged slanted. The Sheikh Alimi community, Ilorin, is proud of you. Kwara celebrates your uncommon audacity to stick to honour and integrity. The Nigerian youth is proud of your respect for friendship and leadership. Welcome back home. Here we appreciate you. Here we know your worth. Here, following the steps of your mentor, you made every child count. Here you transformed our education system to excellence. Come home, Bolaji, we appreciate you.

    Nigerians are singing that you once ministered well in your ministry of sports. Nigerians celebrate removal of public office holders, but not so in your case. The torrent of comments condemning your removal as sports minister is testimonial to your accomplishment and the love Nigerians have for you. Please read them and thank Allah who made it possible for you to lay your hands on such outstanding accomplishments. Bask in the love of the people, whose cause you swore to serve and whose cause you served till you were asked to go because you will not serve anything less than the cause of the people.

    We are glad that you were made to leave when the ovation in your national assignment was loudest. You may not be the one to lead Nigeria to the World Cup in Brazil, but you were in the saddle when we qualified. No one can take that from you, not even your traducers. Your sterling performance that assisted in our qualification will be in the hearts of the coaches, in the hearts of the players and in the hearts of every sport- loving Nigerian each time our boys file out to play, because you served them with your heart. You may not be the one to bring back a trophy for Nigeria from any international competition again, but no one can replace your name as the minister during whose tenure Nigeria won most of the laurels she had long forgotten were still available.

    They may doubt your loyalty, yet you were not disloyal. You are a thorough-bred professional; a consummate administrator.  None can question that your tenure saw the creation of the first High Performance Centre in West Africa, a science-based support system for elite athletes in Nigeria. You started Rhythm and Play, a flagship programme for grassroots sports development in Nigeria which was launched by the President in June 2013. They may say what they like, no one will forget that in 2013, the first ever National Youth Games for athletes between ages 13-17 took place in Nigeria. That event alone led to the discovery of over 300 special talents that will make Nigeria proud in the nearest future.

    What of international competition? Maybe they forgot and so decided to let you go. Nigerians cannot forget that our under-17 boys won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in the UAE under your watch, that our home-based Super Eagles qualified for the African Nations Championship, CHAN, for the first time and won bronze, under your watch. Okagbare won two medals for our nation at the IAAF Championship, under your watch. The last time we had that fortune was in 1999.

    Again in 2012, we won the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 19 years. Under your watch, Nigeria won both the senior and youth championships at the same time. It has never happened in Africa. They might have forgotten but we cannot forget that under your watch we did it.

    In athletics, just as in football, we have become the leading light of Africa. We were third at the 2012 senior African wrestling championship in Morocco and we were overall winner at the 2012 senior Africa Weightlifting Championship that held in Kenya. We won six gold, five silver and one bronze at the London 2012 Paralympics Games, under your watch, Abdullahi.

    Under your supervision, the local league has seen its credibility being restored with transparency and players welfare being paramount and made manifest.

    We are proud of you at home, Kwara state, and particularly in the emirate; your origin. Have you heard what leaders of the emirate are saying? They are singing praises of you. No one credible leader of our people have come out to say you have not done well, no , no one. Even those who don’t like you have become silent. They have seen the error of their ways in pushing for your removal on the altar of politics. Suddenly your name has become a household commodity, even more popular than when you were in the saddle. See how Allah can transform misfortune into fortune?

    Bolaji, you exhibited character. We have not heard of scandals involving you while on that seat, one of the most reported seats in Nigeria and one of the most subjected to serious scrutiny by reporters and thousands of stakeholders. They said you were asked to go because they could not trust you to destroy an age-long heritage, the Saraki political dynasty. Now that they will have their yes men, or are they women, who can do that, let us wait and see how Allah shall recompense them, for certainly, what they quest after is certainly not in the interest of the people and the Almighty. Their plot will fail and the house of Alimi shall triumph.

    And as they fail, you will be promoted. They might be celebrating that they have taken away from you something significant, but Abdullah you retain your honour, integrity and credibility. You are unscathed.  Almighty Allah alone determines what we get, where we get such and how we get it. If it has pleased Allah to allow them at this time, then it is to say that we came to this world with nothing and we shall not take anything to the hereafter. Nothing is our permanent possession, not even the highest position in the land and not even our lives. But wherever you go, we shall celebrate you. You have queued behind Governors Babatunde Raji Fashola and Abdulfatah Ahmed who proved to the world that we still have in our nation people who celebrate excellence above mediocrity; men who still hold to the value of personal honour and integrity; people who can be trusted and relied on. These are men of honour; men of integrity.

    Bolaji, wherever they are today, they are hero and heroine. They brought you up in the way of Allah to serve humanity with honour and dignity. Your forebears have not laboured in vein. Your children are happy with you. You have taught them resonate lessons in honor, integrity, dignity, faith and loyalty.

    We are proud of you, Abdullahi. Stand up, let us celebrate.

    • Oba is the Chief Press Secretary to the Kwara State Governor.

  • The overseer, accountant and us!

    The present controversy surrounding the alleged missing money has been made more controversial with the removal by suspension of the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (SLS). An otherwise straightforward situation has been so deliberately dramatized, that the citizenry is now confused and polarized. The following is my own dramatization of the situation.

    Afe Udia is a religious organization, whose membership is made up of only salaried employees. It is headed by the Overseer. The organization has different administrative departments for various roles. Part of the tenets of the organization is that each member must contribute 20% of his or her take-home salary to the organization. The accounts department is responsible for collecting the mandatory contributions. There is a governing committee which decides how monies should be spent and an expenditure committee that does actual disbursements. As is typical in organizations and even religious ones like Afe Udia, members in typical fashion start grumbling that the huge financial chest is not being properly managed and several projects including funding for the organizations charities are unsatisfactory.

    The governing council of Afe Udia decides to take steps to ensure accountability and boost confidence in the financial integrity of the organization. An independent accountant is appointed by the overseer after approval from the governing council. In his contract of appointment, the accountant is to use his best professional skills to further the interests of Afe Udia under the headship of the overseer. As standard policy and to maintain his independence, the contract stipulates that should the accountant be found wanting, the contact can be terminated and his services dispensed with by the overseer only with the approval of the governing council.

    The accountant commences his work in earnest and puts different structures in place to ensure success. Part of the new initiatives is that every member should make their contributions via a standing order to the employers, for the money to be deducted directly from the salary and paid to the finance committee. Thereafter the finance committee renders an account to the accountant who will then collect all the money and hand over to the governing committee. In the process of doing his work, the accountant discovers that some unit treasurers have been taking liberties with funds entrusted to them. After scrutinizing available records he informs the overseer that in accordance with his powers under the contract of appointment, he will replace some of them and recover stolen Afe Udia funds from them. He duly carries out his threat but of course with serious protestations from the affected unit treasurers and their supporters.

    From his observations and interactions within the Afe Udia, the accountant notices that whereas some officials are evidently living beyond their means, projects were suffering because of shortage of funds. He discusses this with the overseer who suggests that maybe the members should be levied a higher percentage. Still troubled by the anomaly and sensing that he was missing something, the accountant decides to seek help from the general tax office. He scrutinizes the returns made by the different employers of Afe Udia members under the employee tax scheme. He does his calculations and is alarmed at what he discovers.

    He makes a report to the overseer stating that from his records there was a huge disparity between what was being declared by the accounts committee and what should have been actually received based on the records of the tax office. The overseer does nothing and after some months the members get wind of the essence of the report to the overseer. The resultant outcry by members creates anxiety in the organization and has the overseer and his inner circle worried.

    The governing committee invites the accountant and finance committee members to iron out the discrepancies. The meeting is deadlocked as the accountant maintains his position that huge amounts are missing. The accounts committee explains that because of the poor power situation, it had to spend a huge sum replacing old generators in the branches and that reference to the expenditure committee would have occasioned delay thereby causing disruptions.

    The explanations fail to close the matter or the grumbling among members. The overseer’s intervention for the accountant to tell members that the explanations were acceptable and the accounts in order, fail to change the accountant’s stance.

    The overseer queries the loyalty of the accountant to him and the governing committee. He asks the accountant to resign because by his attitude he will cause disaffection in Afe Udia which could jeopardise his position in the organization. The accountant refuses to resign on the basis of his letter of appointment. He says that if the governing council approves that the overseer should remove him, then he will have no choice but to go. The overseer is not sure of some members of the governing council and in fact some of them had become close to the accountant. Some of the overseer’s staunch supporters sense his predicament and map out a plan to rescue the situation. A general meeting is called for the accountant issue to be discussed. The overseer’s supporters are very vocal and one after the other they lambaste the accountant. The meeting is told how the accountant although not a member of Afe Udia, has been going around criticizing the lifestyle of members of the governing committee. That he wants to cause disaffection in the organization hence he published the make and number of cars owned by the officials of the organization. That he was in the habit of flirting with female members of Afe Udia. That from the organization’s money at his disposal to carry out his work effectively as he deems necessary, he commissioned a restaurant to give free lunch to the indigent people who could make their way to the organizations premises every Monday and Wednesday. They angrily denounced this as reckless spending of the organizations money. That no similar organization had an accountant who behaved like Afe Udia’s accountant! When a dissenting member asked whether all contracts of appointment of accountants were uniform or whether this accountant had gone outside his contract of appointment, he was shouted down and told that the contract was stupidly drafted and when they queried and tried to change it, it was foolish members like him that scuttled the process. Another member reminded the meeting how the accountant even had the effrontery to ridicule the contents of the overseer’s last end of year message. So many accusations but the accountant when called upon to defend himself maintained his position that he had acted within his contract and that money was missing.

    The overseer in a surprising announcement to members following the meeting says the accountant will be denied access to his office and the organizations records and that the governing committee will soon appoint a new more competent accountant. The accountant’s assistant would replace him until a new appointment.

    Some members are however confused and are asking only a very few questions. In the midst of all the noise, what is the true position with the alleged missing money? How tenable is the answer by the finance committee that it diverted some of the money to buy generators for the branches without clearance from the governing committee? Why does the overseer’s body language give the impression that he thinks that no money is missing? How can the accountant know exactly how much is missing when he is not privy to how much exactly was diverted by the accounts department and for what purposes? And lastly, if the overseer locks out the accountant and prevents him from doing the work for which he was contracted, has he not effectively removed the accountant without the approval of the management committee?

    For me as a member of Afe Udia, there is only one question each for the overseer and the accountant: ‘Where is our money’? And ‘Why do you talk so much’?

    Only a fool does not know which should come first!

    • Ukpong, a legal practitioner writes from Lagos

  • A bridge too far?

    Would the second bridge across the River Niger turn out a bridge too far? Remember the 1977 WWll epic of the above title based on a book also of the same title by Cornelius Ryan? It was a story of an ill-fated attempt by the Allied Forces to go behind the Germans lines by taking a bridge at Arnhem, deep inside the Netherlands. It was termed “Operation Market Garden”. The operation turned out calamitous and failed woefully. The story of the second bridge across the River Niger at Onitsha in a sense, also reminds of a bridge too far scenario. It is an ‘operation’ that has been conceptualised a long time ago but has been caught up in the mire of PDP election politics and defeated by the insouciance of a groveling Igbo elite.

    The bridge has also become a metaphor for and a joke on the Igbo race. It is indeed a bridge too far and a joke gone humourless. Last Monday, President Goodluck Jonathan had gathered a motley crowd of governors, PDP chieftains and other bigwigs at the bank of the river at Ogbaru to lay the foundation for the second bridge to rise from Delta State to Anambra. It was a large ceremony in which eulogies were chanted and backs were patted. The gullible would think the bridge had already been built and was being commissioned for use. One of the prominent Igbo leaders present described the project as a dream realised and commended the leadership qualities of President Jonathan whom he said had demonstrated an uncommon love for Ndigbo.

    But this is not the first time this manner of show has been staged. In May 2007, a few days before he reluctantly left office, former President Olusegun Obasanjo also flagged-off this bridge in an elaborate ceremony promising that it would be a public-private financed affair to be completed in a few years. A few months after Obasanjo left office, it turned out that he had shamelessly perpetrated a scam as there was no plan or design or even file of the second Niger bridge job in the Ministry of Works. Obasanjo only managed to hoodwink pliable Igbo leaders whom he had promised the bridge during the campaigns of 2003 and 2007.

    The same pathetic scenario plays out as Jonathan had promised he would build this bridge during the 2011 electioneering. Indeed, he had promised it would be completed before the end of his tenure. Now as the tenure ends and he reckons he would be put on the spot should he return to campaign in Igboland soon, a flag-off was hurriedly organised. For all of three years this project was forgotten! How are we sure it is not another Obasanjo scam? Gullible Ndigbo are supposed to vote Jonathan for flagging off a project. Supposing he does not win in the next election would this project become a nullity?

    More fundamentally, a second bridge across the great River Niger like every other federal project is a duty the Federal Government owes Nigerians; it is not a privilege to Ndigbo as Igbo leaders have been deceived to think. Finally, Hardball henceforth decrees an embargo on the flagging off of projects with fanfare. It has been determined that such projects are often not completed. Will this be another bridge too far?

  • Nigerian women arise

    “O, ye daughters of Africa, awake! Awake! Arise! No longer slumber, but distinguish yourselves. Show forth to the world that ye are endowed with noble and exalted faculties.” Maria W. Stewart 

    As we celebrated the International Women’s Day on Saturday March 8, we Nigerians (especially our women) have major issues we need to focus on, discuss and find lasting solutions to.

    In less than one month, 20 of our daughters were abducted by Boko Haram and about 59 more of our children weremurdered in their sleep in cold blood by the same Boko Harm sect! Our children in Federal Government College in Yobe State were killed by Boko Haram! And several more of our children in that school were injured from the attacks!

    Our children are being maimed! Our children are being murdered! Our children are being killed by terrorists! Our children are being killed in plane crashes! Our children are being killed in car crashes! Our children are being killed by preventable sicknesses and diseases! Our children are being killed – PERIOD! And where have we been? What have we done? And where are our VOICES?

    Where are the voices of the daughters of Nigeria? Where are the voices of Nigerian ladies? Where are the voices of Nigerian mothers? Where are the voices of Nigerian grandmothers? Where are the voices of Nigerian women? Where are our voices? How come our nation cannot hear our voices? Is Boko Haram drowning out our voices? Why can’t our voices be heard? Why?

    This is not the first or second secondary school to be attacked. Twice last year in Yobe State, gunmen believed to be Boko Haram attacked our children. On July 6, 2013, a secondary school was attacked and 42 people died many of whom were children. About another 40 students were killed on September 29, 2013 when gunmen opened fire on them while they were sleeping in their hostels. About two weeks ago 20 school girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram. We still haven’t heard what happened to them. How many schools must be attacked before our voices are heard? How many of our children must die in these violent attacks before our voices are heard? How many body bags of our youth must we count before our voices are heard? How many pictures of our dead children must we see before our voices are heard? How much more blood must flow from the veins of our children before we make our voices heard? How much more…?

    Nigerian women were is our outrage? Where is our anger? Where is our fury? Where are our collective outrage, anger and fury? Where?

    The blood of our daughters has spilled to the ground! The blood of our children has poured to mother earth once again (and this has become one too many times). Their blood is crying out! Their blood is crying out for justice! Their blood is crying out saying “avenge our death” and make sure we did not die in vain! Their blood is crying and screaming out “avenge our death” and make sure it doesn’t happen again to any other Nigerian child! Can’t we hear the cry? Can’t we hear their petition? Can’t we take off time from our busy schedule to hear the cry?

    Is it so hard for us to hear the cry? Are we hard of hearing? Can’t we hear the cry of the parents of these young ones? Is their cry seemingly so far away up North that we feel it is none of our business? Is it that we are so far removed emotionally, financially, socially etc. that we can’t hear their cry? We definitely cannot go on like this! When are we going to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH? When are we going to say NO MORE KILLINGS? When are we going to say NEVER AGAIN?

    When our children are being killed, it is time for us to awaken from our slumber! When the lives of our children are cut short, it is time for us to step up to the plate of RESPONSIBILITY! When our children are attacked in their sleep, it is time for us to arise and stop the killings! When the life of the future generation of Nigerians is being threaten it is time for us to STAND UP AND SAY NO MORE!

    There is so much madness flying around in our country. There is the madness of killings by Boko Haram, the madness of corruption – billions of dollars unaccounted for, the madness of politics etc. We must show our own madness! We must show a woman’s madness and undying love for her children! We need to display a mother’s madness of protecting her children just like the madness of a hen when she is protecting her chicks from harm! We need to exhibit a mother’s madness of defending her brood so that they can mature into adulthood as responsible citizens of Nigeria! And we must have a method to our own madness of preserving the next generation of Nigerian children.

    O ye daughters of Nigeria, now is the time to show our madness for our children, family and our nation! Arise Nigerian women! Arise QUICKLY! Arise with a SENSE of URGENCY! Arise NOW!

    SPEAK UP! STAND UP! SPEAK OUT! CHANGE THE STATUS QUO FOR THE GOOD OF NIGERIA AND OUR CHILDREN!!!

    Desmond Tutu once said “Women, we need you to give us back our faith in humanity.” And NOW Nigerians are saying “We need you our women to give us back our faith in NIGERIA and HUMANITY!”

    • Ms Simoyan writes from Lagos

  • PDP/Labour Party can’t take over Ogun in 2015

    SIR: Recent statements churned out too frequently by jesters in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and together with its replica the Labour Party to take over Ogun or any  state in the South-west come 2015 has constantly provoked hilarious laughter amongst our people and ceased not to amuse them going by the heavy burden  PDP governors left behind when ousted from power. In Ogun State, the eight years of Otunba Gbenga Daniel as governor was a waste because it left so much work undone that could have brought happiness to our people

    Today in Ogun State, not only has governance improved in infrastructural transformation so also health services opportunities made available in towns, hamlets and villages. The all-important separation of medical waste, an important idea of the Amosun/Adesegun government is on course and it would help to prolong health longevity amongst the populace. We now wonder how the masses of our people would leave successes of the duo for the embrace of failed leaders.

    In 2015, those clamouring to take any state in the South-west from All Progressive Congress (APC) must have to contend with the present happiness of the people.

     

    •Akin Malaolu

    Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum

    Abeokuta

  • Early campaign by political parties

    SIR: Despite the fact the our extant electoral laws frown at early electioneering campaigns, our political leaders both from the ruling and opposition alike, have embarked on indirect campaigns capable of heating up the polity. This is more worrisome as some parts of the country are at the moment engulfed in carnage that can be described as a war.

    Our ruling political elites are more interested in welcoming decamped politicians from one party to another, conduct insensitive political rallies, and calculated visits to key traditional and religious leaders across the country. Unfortunately, none of these politicians have visited the various centres of carnage in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. Or have they not heard of the massacre in Maiduguri, Konduga, Mafa, Bama, Buni Yadi, Kawuri, Idzge, and other places in the North-east of the country?

    What does the law say about early campaign?

    Section 99(1) of the 2010 Electoral Act as amended avers that “the period of campaigning in public by every political party shall commence 90 days before polling day and end 24 hours prior to that day.”

    Why would our politicians deceptively circumvent the law?

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must wake up to its mandates and start checking the activities of political parties in the country. It is not enough for INEC to watch alone as the commission claimed it is watching the situation. It must invoke the relevant sections of the law to enforce and sanction erring political parties and politicians doing any form of public campaign in whatever guise.

    The presumption that it is difficult to enforce the rule on election campaign is untenable as there is a very clear distinction between holding unadvertised political strategy meetings and pre-emptively soliciting the public for electoral advantage towards fulfilling political ambitions. To be sure, within the context of Nigerian electoral democracy, an aspirant or hopeful is different from a party flag-bearer: the former focuses his/her campaign messages largely on party members/delegates to secure the party’s ticket as candidate during the election, while the latter engage the electorates directly in soliciting for their votes during the general elections.  INEC should not be frustrated; rather it must ensure politicians and their political parties play according to the rules of the game.

     

    • Tunde Salman,

    Kuje Abuja