The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • FCT minister and his traducers

    SIR: I have watched with considerable concern nay disdain the smear campaign of calumny targeted against the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed with respect to the attempt to extort money from him by a Kaduna-based publisher under dubious circumstances.

    Since the controversy, which started with the desperate attempt by this publisher to extort money from the minister, ostensibly to forgo the publication of a book the former claimed to writing on the latter, Nigerians have been waiting expectantly that with time, the whole brouhaha would come to an end.

    From all intents and purposes, what this publisher did smacks of unprofessionalism, a backhanded attempt to coerce the minister into parting with huge sums of public money to ‘settle’ him. From whichever angle the issue is viewed from, it is morally and ethically indefensible.

    As a former journalist himself, the minister is conversant with the ethics of the profession, one of which expressly forbids extortion by journalists. And that is why he has decided to attack the virus of this ungodly game by refusing to settle his heckler, a commendable act that should be emulated by other public officials that have been helplessly fleeced by conmen masquerading as journalists.

    No doubt, some people would have preferred the minister settling this extortionist silently without raising an uproar, but methinks that is a defeatist way of reasoning. It takes a lot of guts to do what the minister has done. As a matter of fact, somebody has to muster courage, the same way the he did, to stand up this dangerous practice that is fast depleting our national treasury and ravaging the media profession once and for all. For this singular act, he deserves commendation and not condemnation.

    Contrary to what some spoilsports are saying, the minister scored the bulls’ eye by reporting the matter to the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), the umbrella body of all media practitioners. The point must once again be orchestrated that it is unprofessional to hide under the canopy of journalism to perpetrate acts that are detrimental or inimical to the interest of the highly revered profession. Agreed, journalists are to hold public officials accountable to the people, but it should be done within the confines of the ethics of the profession.

    Those troubling the minister should profit from the lessons of history. Publishing gladiators and worse propagandists have passed through this land in the past. They had left the people nay government officials traumatized. When they spoke, acted or wrote, it was to trample on or to offend the sensibilities of Nigerians. Some even boasted, like this publisher is currently doing, that no power could render them irrelevant. But when denouement came like a whirlwind, they were all swept into the dustbin of history. So history is like gallows, it hangs those who ignore its poignant lesson.

     

    • Ray Edmund Oche

    Bwari, Abuja.

  • Understanding Fashola’s cable bridge

    The excitement written on the faces of the crowd that trooped out to witness the unveiling of the road was euphoric. That indeed was one of the hallmarks of the ingenuity of the current Lagos State government headed by Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN). His total commitment to the comfort of Lagosians has never been in doubt. This is why the new Lekki-Ikoyi link Bridge while it was being declared open last week excited motorists and residents alike. People stood in clusters of groups, staring at the awesomeness of the bridge. To them, it was a huge phenomenal developmental stride for the state.

    Governor Fashola last Wednesday formally opened the bridge with the primary objective that it would help to decongest traffic on the Victoria Island – Ikoyi axis of the Lagos metropolis. What impressed people most was the innovative idea behind the link bridge. Its modernity in terms of concept also surprised many people who could not as yet understand its workability.

    Until Governor Fashola introduced this idea of a cable bridge, no one in Lagos or Nigeria as a whole had the faintest idea that it could work here. The bridge, besides being a link to decongest a busy highway, has something like a rope that helps to move a car or vehicle faster. This way, there is no room for a traffic jam or traffic build-up that will in anyway affect or hinder vehicular movement on the road.

    In it, the cars are attached to an endless moving cable by means of adjustable grip. This grip usually passes through a slot or leeway on the roadway, helping a car to move faster and easier. It is a perceptive concept to help ease traffic, more so where many other modern and innovative ideas had failed in the past. And so considering the fast growing population of people on the Lekki-Ikoyi-Victoria Island – Ajah axis, what the state government has done has proved how fast it can think and work to meet the yearnings of the people.

    Although it will take a little while for motorists to come to terms with this noble idea, it remains to be seen how people can even circumvent this laudable project.

    A cable bridge works like a locomotive train in many ways. It is the rope that grips a car to make it increase its speed. Since there is the tendency to have traffic gridlock on such a link bridge or junction, the application of the cable adds more value to the system.

    The governor even made it clear while opening the road. Not only that he promised that it would help to save more travel time for motorist, going into Lekki now will become a delightful drive. For the avoidance of doubts, the Ozumba Mbadiwe axis of Victoria Island will now be decongested. Any one who follows that route to Ajah or Lekki or thereabout, does so out of choice.

    The beauty of it all is that traffic will be lighter henceforth. It will even be much better when the state government completes the Third Roundabout through the Admiralty way to provide another choice and access to commuters from Ajah into the Mainland area of the city. In other words, with functional large network of modern roads and the proper application by road users, Fashola is telling Lagosians that it is time to sit up and be counted among modern and civilized people.

    This is a fast growing world in terms of technology. And cable bridges which are often linked to congested cities have been in use in technologically – advanced societies long before now. And because Fashola has seen it all, he has been to many cities akin to Lagos, it is easier for him to replicate the good examples he has seen in those places.

    Remarkably, link bridges abhor heavy trucks. It does not function well when big lorries disturb it too often. Its beauty lies in free flow of traffic where traffic laws are not in abeyance.

    Owing to this and more, the governor has promptly banned Okada, commercial buses, tricycles and others from the road. This is to avoid a mess of the new experiment which is geared towards the lofty benefits of a civilized environment. This banning of Okada and their ilk is in line with the ideals and concept of a link cable bridge.

    While Governor Fashola has been commended by a couple of people for his foresight in doing this, it is also advisable for him to shift attention to some other knotty traffic-prone places in the state. For example, the Amuwo-Odofin axis of the state needs such a lift. The state government can also facilitate another project in that line to ease vehicular congestion on those roads.

    The 1.358 kilometre link bridge built by Julius Berger, obviously serves as an eye-opener to people who never saw anything good in the state. A cable bridge in many ways shows an automated form of vehicular movement. Typical examples can be found in many parts of Mexico and Brazil, especially Sao Paolo which is one of the most developed cities in South America.

    It shows a government in action; a place where action also speaks louder than words. No one can take it away from Fashola. Here is a governor who knows how and where to apply tax payers’ money for the proper transformation of the state. And he knows that when more of such of link and cable bridges go round the state, people will no longer spend more productive hours on the road everyday.

     

    • Okeke writes from Lagos

  • Why India trails China: Lessons for emerging economies

    MODERN India is, in many ways, a success. Its claim to be the world’s largest democracy is not hollow. Its media is vibrant and free; Indians buy more newspapers every day than any other nation. Since independence in 1947, life expectancy at birth has more than doubled, to 66 years from 32, and per-capita income (adjusted for inflation) has grown fivefold

    In recent decades, reforms pushed up the country’s once sluggish growth rate to around eight percent per year, before it fell back a couple of percentage points over the last two years. For years, India’s economic growth rate ranked second among the world’s large economies, after China, which it has consistently trailed by at least one percentage point.

    The hope that India might overtake China one day in economic growth now seems a distant one. But that comparison is not what should worry Indians most. The far greater gap between India and China is in the provision of essential public services — a failing that depresses living standards and is a persistent drag on growth.

    Inequality is high in both countries, but China has done far more than India to raise life expectancy, expand general education and secure health care for its people. India has elite schools of varying degrees of excellence for the privileged, but among all Indians seven or older, nearly one in every five males and one in every three females are illiterate. And most schools are of low quality; less than half the children can divide 20 by 5, even after four years of schooling.

    India may be the world’s largest producer of generic medicine, but its health care system is an unregulated mess. The poor have to rely on low-quality — and sometimes exploitative — private medical care, because there isn’t enough decent public care. While China devotes 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product to government spending on health care, India allots 1.2 percent.

    India’s underperformance can be traced to a failure to learn from the examples of so-called Asian economic development, in which rapid expansion of human capability is both a goal in itself and an integral element in achieving rapid growth. Japan pioneered that approach, starting after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when it resolved to achieve a fully literate society within a few decades. As Kido Takayoshi, a leader of that reform, explained: “Our people are no different from the Americans or Europeans of today; it is all a matter of education or lack of education.” Through investments in education and health care, Japan simultaneously enhanced living standards and labor productivity — the government collaborating with the market.

    Despite the catastrophe of Japan’s war years, the lessons of its development experience remained and were followed, in the postwar period, by South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and other economies in East Asia. China, which during the Mao era made advances in land reform and basic education and health care, embarked on market reforms in the early 1980s; its huge success changed the shape of the world economy. India has paid inadequate attention to these lessons. -2-

    Is there a conundrum here that democratic India has done worse than China in educating its citizens and improving their health? Perhaps, but the puzzle need not be a brainteaser. Democratic participation, free expression and rule of law are largely realities in India, and still largely aspirations in China. India has not had a famine since independence, while China had the largest famine in recorded history, from 1958 to 1961, when Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward killed some 30 million people. Nevertheless, using democratic means to remedy endemic problems — chronic undernourishment, a disorganized medical system or dysfunctional school systems — demands sustained deliberation, political engagement, media coverage, popular pressure. In short, more democratic process, not less.

    In China, decision making takes place at the top. The country’s leaders are skeptical, if not hostile, with regard to the value of multiparty democracy, but they have been strongly committed to eliminating hunger, illiteracy and medical neglect, and that is enormously to their credit.

    There are inevitable fragilities in a nondemocratic system because mistakes are hard to correct. Dissent is dangerous. There is little recourse for victims of injustice. Edicts like the one-child policy can be very harsh. Still, China’s present leaders have used the basic approach of accelerating development by expanding human capability with great decisiveness and skill.

    The case for combating debilitating inequality in India is not only a matter of social justice. Unlike India, China did not miss the huge lesson of Asian economic development, about the economic returns that come from bettering human lives, especially at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. India’s growth and its earnings from exports have tended to depend narrowly on a few sectors, like information technology, pharmaceuticals and specialized auto parts, many of which rely on the role of highly trained personnel from the well-educated classes. For India to match China in its range of manufacturing capacity — its ability to produce gadgets of almost every kind, with increasing use of technology and better quality control — it needs a better-educated and healthier labor force at all levels of society. What it needs most is more knowledge and public discussion about the nature and the huge extent of inequality and its damaging consequences, including for economic growth.

    •Culled from The New York Times. July 19, 2013.

    Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, is a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard. He is the author, with Jean Drèze, of “An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions.”

     

  • Abiola and some tales in Nigeria

    You can only go round a pepper tree, you cannot climb it.”

    The crab may swim across big and small rivers but it will eventually end up in an old woman’s soup pot.

    “How are you celebrating Yoruba democracy day.’They’ like the man but no gree make dey change ‘unilag’ to his name. Na UNN name dey want make dey give am”

    The above was sent to me by my friend, on June 12, as I read it I recalled that phrase “oso abiola” (refers to how ibos reacted in the aftermath of the elections) the date was like any other day except it has become a reference point for some of the nation’s many fairy tales.

    IBB has been our pillar—Abiola’s family. Misquoted, or misrepresentation. It tells it all, it is true, and it is a lie. Already, I seem to enjoy the tragi-comedy in the Abiola family, on who is the greatest and the revelation that even Obasanjo gave some ‘smart’ members of the family a few millions to keep body and soul.

    I have gone through countless opinions, commentaries and figments of June 12. This is my admonition…

    There are several hundred stories about June 12, so there is about Nigeria, depends on who is telling it.. Whether it is about Vatsa or IBB, or it’s about Idiagbon or Ojukwu, the document that says we should split by 2014. How Ironsi was killed or was Balewa shot?

    Rumours, and small facts, myths and outright moonlighting tales and the actors keep dying one after the other. Former example anything said against Abacha, no Abacha to defend it… And how about that document that killed June 12, signed by the Sule Lamidos, Ciromas, Dongoyaros, Marks, Gusaus, Musa Yar’adua, Rimis, Nwobodos…and some several dozen fellows dead and alive to establish the ‘fi edi ha’ (take small part of yansh siddon) interim govt.

    When a woman has ten children, there is nothing that happens in the night that she does not know about

    I have used the term ‘rumours’, because most important events about Nigeria are only available at elite men parties and commoners’ beer parlors and palm wine joints.

    A sizable amount of Nigerians believe that MKO got what he deserved, after his long romance with the military with business interests that were largely fronts for top military brass. All these businesses are dead today anyway.

    Rumours: that once upon a time, despite all that claim of Nigerians voted for the first time a Muslim/Muslim ticket. Many Christians and others till tomorrow believe that folklore of him ‘sinking’ a ship load of bibles. Or wait, that he and IBB basically put Nigeria into Organisation of Islamic Countries.

    Many Nigerians benefitted from the MKO salt, wrapper, sugar and monies, but why did IBB and his men not stop the process when they could—forget that lame excuse of ‘pressure’ to hand over as promised?

    If there was a particular group so against MKO emerging president after the military class, it was the Yoruba elite that fought against him.. And while everyone who claimed NADECO went on to better their lot via asylums that came like VISA lotteries, the man died alone.

    Many elite would say, after all he stabbed Awo and worked for Obasanjo to stop the Yorubas and was rewarded with money for Concord to fight Tribune…His bakery served ECOMOG and was responsible for that ‘wheat policy’…so?

    How strange that our democratic symbols are rife with all manner of controversies, MKO was labelled International Thief-Thief by none other than Fela, a democracy without democrats and caricature activists.

    I recall this factual tale, from an inside player that what hurt Abacha was the fact that after the brouhaha, he met with MKO and made him an offer (some big sum). MKO accepted, only to renege.

    Is it not an irony NADECO today is headed by Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, an Igbo son?

    I have stopped since to preach our false unity, preferring to engage on the strength of our diversity. We are not one, cannot be one and the earlier we face that rumour the better.

    While some celebrated the dictator that Abacha was, some even rate him higher than Jonathan in all spheres, after all even his looting records have been broken by the current crop.

    If anyone had the chance of immortalising MKO, it would have been Obasanjo, but here’s a man that has never hidden his scorn for the name MKO for reasons only more tales can tell.

    Just before you ask me my drive in this admonition, my take or stand. I will tell you, 80% of Nigerian young people aged around the 35year point don’t understand June 12, and these include the Akokites that prefer their ‘sexy’, name Unilag against some MAU-MAU acronym.

    Many young Nigerians beyond book theorisation do not know themselves or Nigeria except rumours, fairy tales and perceptions, few real, but many largely false.

    I say categorically the problem with Nigeria is not PDP, nor APC, but a politically bankrupt class and a grossly diminished intellectual yard.

    That Nigeria itself is a tale celebrated and argued based on ethnic groups and religion, whims and caprices of a few that will continue to lord it over us because we are yet to find out whether MKO drank a poisoned cup of tea or Abacha ate poisoned apple.

    We are not a united nation; we are not even a nation, we never may become one, till we are ready to move forward with the truth, stop all the tales, start to appreciate our diversity and ‘steal less’ and ‘lie less’ ever year we will keep June 12-ing—only time will tell.

    Charles Dickson

  • Nigerian presidency and the northern death spell

    Nigerian presidency and the northern death spell

    The eagle had no immunity against the intensity of cosmic light, being unknown to the cosmic sun rising from the East. In the intensely luminous year 2009, when the sun ran its course and peaked in the North before journeying to set in the West, it was expected that the eagle’s head will be scorched and its crown dissolved.

    The peaking point of luminous year 2009 was the eleventh month of November. Doom of the living principal Northern Icon was sealed at the closure of the evolutionary triangle of cosmic illumination in the following evolutionary order of days: Wednesday, November 11, 2009; Friday, November 20, 2009; Sunday, November 29, 2009. The numerological order of this sequence is 33, 42 and 51 derived from the calculation of 11 (number of November) + 11 (of the day) + 11 (of year 2+0+0+9), 11 (number of November) + 20 (of the day 2+0) + 11 (of year 2+0+0+9), and 11 (number of November) + 29 (of the day 2+9) + 11 (of year 2+0+0+9). All these numbers, digit summed in numerology, revolve to figure 6, the number of the Sun and intensely expressive illumination.

    In Yoruba cosmology derivable from the Odu-Ifa mythology, Wednesday, Ojoru, is a day in which all evils berthed on earth, and on which those who perform the necessary sacrifices are expected to avoid the evils. In the utilitarian philosophic sense, sacrifice here is really not the material sacrifice of anthropological interpretations of traditional religious culture, but of the essences propounded in the fourth noble truth of Buddhist philosophical tradition which enunciates an eightfold path to peace which are as follows: Right mindedness, right concentration, right intention, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right speech, right views.

    In the spirituality of days in Ifa tradition, Friday, called Ojo Eti, is the day of evolution of trouble and spiritual siege. Sunday, Ojo Aiku, is the day of immortality. Of the aforementioned triangle, at the time of manifestation of Orunmila (that is, Open-Heavens of Fate), the first determination was the evil day (Wednesday) by agreement of emanations from Nigerian Coat of Arms which operate in the form of what the Yoruba call aba, i.e, wishful decree to the powers of Heaven. Instead of experiencing the good fortune of number 33—a master number vibration of healing derivable from the Sun, the Presidency Icon was exposed to a manifestation of terminal infirmity by aarun ojise iku (spirit of disease, the messenger of death). In cosmic evolution, at the formation of the first point of the triangular base in the Eastern cosmic space on Friday, 2oth of November, the Presidential Icon came under the full spiritual siege of terminal infirmity. At the triangle closure in the Western cosmic space by Sunday, November 29, 2009, the advantage of immortality was non-existent, and the Presidential Icon’s mortality by terminal infirmity was sealed at sunset.

    The metaphysical abstraction stated posits that the cosmos of nature as determined by the Coat of Arms never favored a Northern leadership in Nigeria, even though the cosmic evolution of the effect of the said Coat of Arms placed a Northerner on the Presidential seat—to face a ruthless and invincible cosmic revolt and opposition. The natural revolt was expected to be most intense if the Northern Presidency emanated from the 90 degrees range of the Northwest direction where the eagle faces, and which also represents the crown of the head. Incidentally, the degree range is the space occupied by the State of Katsina (which was Yar Adua’s state of Origin) on the Nigerian map. The scorching effect of the sun drained up the water contents of the eagle like it will drain water completely from earth devoid of spring, thus creating the emaciated cadaverous image (i.e., extremely thin and pale). In reality, this manifested physically in the fate of late President Yar’Adua in the year 2009.

    The Northern decline and Jonathan’s ascension

    The Northern decline began at the turn of the century and millennium. Turn of every millennium is an indicator of cosmic re-arrangement and crossover. It is a potential cause of the rise and fall of civilizations and empires largely determined by the influence of civic icons. As for Nigeria, although the Red Eagle and Horses on the Coat of Arms still appear to be in a fixed state, in metaphysical evolution and history, at the turn of the century and millennium in 1999, all theese astral images naturally repositioned in a state of rest and chaos. The horses have since let go of the shield that elevates the distressed eagle which has since crashed with the shield and is buried in the devastation of Nigeria’s cosmic earth and waters through the wreath space, leaving its evil ghost to haunt the Presidency. In the plunge, the eagle drew upon itself and the South-South destination some elements of the treacherous spirit of the Horse (which, by vibrations of Odu-Ifa Obara Owonrin, is imported into the sub-consciousness of Eastern and Western Nigerian political class the spirit of treachery—in view of contest, akin to the Ifa legend in which the horse entered into a conspiracy to kill the beautiful deer before a scheduled dance contest in which the deer was favorite). Most unfortunately for the Red Eagle, it was without energy to flee from the cataclysm unlike the Horses which experience some cosmic earth-slide and struggle to find their feet on natural cosmic earth.

    By the millennial turn that caused the Horses to let go of the shield on which the eagle perched uncomfortably on a wavy band, the Red Eagle’s plunge headed towards the down-south direction of the Nigerian Coat of Arms. The plunge created a vacuum in the cosmic space of leadership and terminated the Eagle’s ill cosmic fortune in the national space of subconscious direction. As a rule of causal science, nature abhors vacuum, and therefore, there was bound to be a cosmic exchange of position. In the Eagle’s down-south plunge through the wreath, advantages of leadership position and the cosmic fortune which crowned the North spattered over the Down-South of the Coat of Arms, bringing a burden of crisis upon the space of the Down South axis where the fortune roosts to fill the empty space of national leadership. A physical manifestation of this metaphysical historical evolution is the ascension of President Goodluck Jonathan, of the Down-South axis of the Coat of Arms, to the position of Nigeria’s Head of State.

    Bayelsa’s inheritance of the Northern death spell

    By the creation of the proposed Coat of Arms for Bayelsa, the principal evil immediately incarnated from the Nigerian Coat of Arms Red Eagle into the Bayelsan and National space was the death spell which overcame late president Yar’Adua and which still saturates the Northern space in a different dimension. It was expected by presumption that the spell of death was predestined to primarily haunt Mr. President’s space by incarnation, which means that death will occur within it, but the manner and targets cannot be precisely predicted, just as the Presidents’ space may refer to those directly connected to him. His wife was expected to be the first target of the vibration of death emanating from the eagle, because she is a principal officer in the government of Bayelsa State (as Permanent Secretary) and co sharer of the National Coat of Arms seal as the first lady by virtue of office. By this, she takes precedence over the President and the Governor in death choice; for, like a maxim in the law of equity posits: “when two equities are equal, the first in time prevails”.

    Dame Patience Jonathan was reported very ill around the time of the inauguration of the Bayelsan Coat of Arms, but she escaped death by whiskers. Somehow, the death which lurked around Mr. President’s space however struck against his brother on Mr. President’s 55th birthday in November 2012. A coincidence it may seem to be, but the order of astral program of peculiar arts emanating powerful ether vibrations will always run its course. Assuming the first lady of Nigeria was not a part of the Bayelsa State Government, the death would expectedly have manifested in the space of the State Governor without any hope of an escape. Having roosted on the Mr. President’s brother, it was presumed in prognosis that the death had concluded its first dimensional manifestation in the Presidential space, and that the next space of manifestation was expected to be that of the co-sharer of the Nigerian Coat of Arms seal in the hierarchy of government, i.e., the Vice Presidential space.

    Perhaps the Vice President’s wife does not have an official position in the government of her husband’s state of origin, therefore, the equity rule is presumably not expected to arise, and the deathly vibration of the eagle emanating from the Bayelsan contaminated space was speculatively expected to manifest against the Governor of the Vice President’s State of origin, i.e., Kaduna State. It was not precisely known how this was to manifest, but could be traced to any other astral icon on the proposed Bayelsan Coat of Arms. It was presumed that the deathly essence of the Red Eagle on the proposed version seals the deathly art vibrations of the unintelligent image of the ‘fishes out of water’. The two fishes are identified as shark and dolphin. Dolphins are aquatic icons of military intelligence—of Naval Command in particular. The configuration is very bad for the Nigerian Navy and this is most probably the metaphysical historical cause of the death of a former Kaduna State Governor, Patrick Yakowa, in a Nigerian Navy helicopter crash in Bayelsan territory.

    The worst imaginable situation may be sealed in Nigeria by month of November of the expressively luminous year 2013, (2+0+1+3 = 6), on the normalcy platform of a cosmic triangle beginning from Thursday, November 7 through Saturday November 16 and Monday, November 25. Thursday, in the cosmic essence of days derivable from Odu-Ifa, is a new beginning of cosmic course when Sun returns to its normal course. It is within the powers of Governments to check the art forces unsuspectingly dealing devastating blows on Nigeria’s fate. To save Nigerian Presidency (as an office and institution) now and in the future, irrespective of which geo-political zone or political party occupies the position of Head of State, the National Coat of Arms (alongside the first Stanza of the National anthem and the pledge) must cease to exist by the force of legislation. Reasons stated are the most easily explainable so far for public knowledge. The Nigerian Coat of Arms is a common enemy to every Nigerian and the world. In its potential to permeate the global space, the gate of evil cosmic influence will be open through Nigeria’s mother—Britain. As a rule of practical metaphysical science, it is much easier to effect good changes from the astral plane in physical existence than using all the forces in the world to put things right on earth. It is written in Ecclesiastes 10 verse 10 that ‘Wisdom is profitable to direct’.

    Every nation has a right to adopt a Coat of Arms. In doing so, there must be an understanding of what it is. A Coat of Arms is an armorial achievement or bearing. Its use by countries is known as civic heraldry. It originates from European culture and is a symbolic code and sign post of family or fraternal history and aspirations. Its use in Nigeria constitutes an improper and miscalculated adoption of foreign culture, thus constituting a colossal cultural and spiritual catastrophe. In Nigeria, it is the seal of the Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and the Vice President in both the Military and Civilian regimes of government. As a matter of necessity, it is also used by the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial arms of government. It is the principal astral base of evolutions of indigenous cultures and national will.

  • Curbing street beggars in Efurrun

    There is growing trend in Effurun which demands urgent attention of government and her agencies. It is the proliferation of beggars in our streets and major junctions such as Airport, Jakpa and Enerhen junctions. The worrisome part of this trend is that over 95% of them are women with children that range from few months to 12 years and are from a certain part of northern Nigeria. These children are used to pursue passers-by to beg for money. This is abnormal in any right-thinking society. I have also noticed that the babies in the hands of these women are always sleeping and I have wondered why. Out of curiosity, I made a private investigation and discovered that most of these toddlers are drugged, making them to sleep for hours so that they can carry out their acts undisturbed. This again is the highest form of child abuse. The government must do something fast and get this people off the roads and streets. Most of these people are not even ready to work and I have always asked them, any time I meet with them where are their husbands?. Their actions are callous and demeaning. I believe if they are serious-minded people, they should have relatives, friends and tribes men who could help them start small scale businesses, but the question still remains, are they ready to engage in meaningful trade?

    Alexander Ighoro

    Effurun, Delta State

  • President’s sermon on death warrant

    SIR: President Goodluck Jonathan appeared to have expressed his long years burden and pain, last week when he frowned at the governors’ seeming non-committal attitudes towards the implementation of capital punishment aspect of the country’s criminal laws. However legal the President’s comment might appear on the surface of it, it is unfortunate that the agitation for the gallow system would be so championed by the country’s number one citizen. It is even more curious that the same president, who recently pleaded with countries like Indonesia to stop execution of some Nigerians convicted for drug- related offences in that country, would suddenly begin to agitate for death warrant for offenders here. Talk of hypocrisy?

    The said expression was made by the President in his bid to justify the place of discipline in preserving the society at the Fathers’ Day Sunday service organised by the Aso Villa Chapel. Specifically, he said: “Even governors sometimes find it difficult to sign and I have been telling the governors that they must sign because that is the law…”

    Much as one does not have qualms with the President position on this, it however, suffices to state that he did not direct his mind to the effectiveness of such approach in crime reduction in the society. The President did not realise that capital punishment has never proved effective in crimes fighting in any jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, countries like the USA, Iran, China, North Korea, etc, which still retain this primitive approach in their laws have not in anyway exterminated crimes out of their societies.

    It is, indeed, against this backdrop that most countries are abolishing capital punishment of whatsoever nature from their criminal law realms. For instance, 18 out of 54 independent states in Africa have abolished this barbaric method of punishment from their laws. Even those which still retain it have not applied it in the last 10 years. Specifically, Burundi, Benin, Togo, Gabon and Madagascar have few years ago phased out any form of capital punishment from their system.

    In Nigeria, also, the Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, has refused to sign any death warrant since assumption of office in 2007. The governor’s recent refusal of assent to the Anti-Kidnapping Bill, which stipulates death sentence to convicted kidnappers, squared him up with state lawmakers, who eventually vetoed it into law. Maybe the governor has come to realise that such punishment is not what is needed to tackle crimes in the land.

    It is, therefore, highly regrettable that, out of the myriad challenges confronting the country, the most that bothers the President is the refusal of the governors to endorse the death warrant of the condemned criminals! The President ought to be in the vanguard of not only urging the governors to deliver good governance and justice to their people, but also leading the entire country out of the throes of hardship and flagrant abuse of powers.

    It is my submission that the effective management of crimes in our societies is not a creation of law as the President would want to assume. A daily execution of these criminals can never abate crimes here. The best way to tackle the menace is by uprooting its causes: unemployment, poverty, corruption and other forms of injustice.

    • Barrister Okoro Gabriel,

    Lagos.

  • Children and cell phones

    SIR: Our children are now very much interested in the manipulation of cell phone, watching films and other thrillers every day. They are deep rooted in the act in such a way that they often forgo doing their home work, reading their books and attending to other home chores. More worrisome and disturbing is that those in the secondary schools go to school with the gadgets which they browse in the class even when lessons are going on. This craziness in frivolous activities has in fact contributed in no small measure to the massive poor performance in examinations by students.

    Unfortunately, this syndrome is manifesting at the time the government is setting every thing in motion towards achieving quality education for all by 2015. All the same, the situation is not completely out of hand as the government, especially the school authorities, can do something to remedy the situation.

    Against this backdrop, I suggest to the government, teachers, parents and other stakeholders to do everything within their strides to correct this aberration. Otherwise, our nation would be infested with bunch of illiterate graduates in the near future.

    The last UTME witnessed the worst performance ever known in the history of this country. Only 10 out of 1.7 million candidates who sat for the examination scored 300 and above. Such a poor performance should move stakeholders, especially the present government to find a lasting solution to the problem,

    Regrettably, the deadline projected for making education in the country superb clashes with the next general election. I have the eerie feeling that government would do much on the issue since the campaign for governance in 2015 has dominated the polity.

    Nigeria has all it takes to bring back education to an enviable height like in the days of our famous trio, Awolowo, Balewa and Azikiwe of blessed memory. My heart bleeds whenever I see the poster, STUDY IN GHANA in our major towns and cities. Imagine Ghana that was sent packing decades ago now, like the biblical Joseph feeding us educationally. Nigerians now go to Ghana to study. Is not shameful?

    Parents should do something about this indulgence in frivolities by our children because they are the first people to feel the impact of their misbehaviour. The bottom line is parents should not buy their children cell phone until they finish their secondary education.

    • Nkemakolam Gabriel

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

  • Good Night, Pini Jason

    SIR: For certain reasons, I never knew Pini Jason had exited our terrestrial milieu until I saw “Just Before Pini Jason Goes Home” by Kanayo Esinulo in The News, May 27.

    I was jolted. Could it be the same Pini Jason? I ran through the piece and it turned out to be the same ace columnist.

    I was an addict of Pini Jason’s column in the Vanguard in those days. I recall sending him a letter in 1990 or ‘91 on his criticisms of the then military government.

    He acknowledged it was a rare occasion where he would take up a reader’s reaction in his column.

    Pini was one of the few in the media of that era that excited my friend, Biodun Sodule and I.

    There was Chris Okojie of the “Blunt But Fair” sports column in the same Vanguard – I sent write-ups to him regularly from 1989 as far as I could recall.

    Danladi Bako’s “Morning Ride” was a ‘must watch’ for us every Saturday morning on NTA Channel 5.

    I met both Chris and Danladi for the first time at the National Stadium in 1991 during a match between Nigeria and Burkina Faso. It was almost 20 years after that I met Bako at Daily Independent during one of our Editorial Board meetings. How ineffable was my joy! But Danladi had no cheery tidings for me when I asked after Chris.

    I never had any particular encounter with Pini but always admired his incisive and cerebral opinions on national issues both in the print and electronic media.

    Pini later had a stint as Media Adviser to the immediate past governor of Imo State.

    It is interesting that I later became a columnist myself and a guest analyst on stations like Channels, AIT,  TVC and Galaxy before my current post as Special Assistant on Media to the governor of Ogun State.

    I have no doubt that whatsoever is my story today, Pini Jason had had a positive part in one way or the other.

    Pini fought a good fight and ran a good race. We all can make our lives sublime…

    • Soyombo Opeyemi,

    Abeokuta.

  • Spectacle at MKO’s graveside

    Spectacle at MKO’s graveside

    Memory was an evident casualty even as those who chose to remember marked the 20th anniversary of June 12, 1993, the historic date when the fangs of military dictatorship poisoned the purity of a popular democratic election. General Ibrahim Babangida’s bizarre and inscrutable annulment of the presidential poll that endorsed Chief MKO Abiola, undoubtedly, remains relevant till this day, particularly on account of the devastation it wreaked on the collective psyche, the still-active fallout and the irretrievable loss of what might have been.

    It was, however, an interesting irony that among those who exhibited an appalling lack of a sense of occasion was no other than Mubashiru Abiola, MKO’s sibling. His choice of setting made it doubly incongruous. At a public ceremony to commemorate the dark episode that ultimately took his older brother’s life, Mubashiru made utterances which suggested that he was probably memory challenged.

    Speaking at Abiola’s Oja-Agbo family house in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Mubashiru, who is the head of the Abiola family, reportedly said, “I hail the support of former President Ibrahim Badamasi  Babangida to the Abiola family over the years. I pray that the Almighty God will continue to guard and guide him. Gen Babangida’s administration remains the best in the nation’s history.”

    It must be conceded that his statement had a trace of news, although it also grossly misstated reality. Isn’t it food for thought, this information that Babangida had provided “support” for the Abiola family, “over the years?”  This revelation bespeaks the impermanence of interests as well as the potency of conscience. Clearly, whatever interests motivated Babangida’s assault on popular democracy and his rigid rejection of MKO’s victorious emergence, these must differ from the interests behind his latter-day embrace of the family.  The former context was about power play, likely megalomania, unfriendly friendship and possible ethnic-based calculations. The succeeding situation is probably about tormented conscience and self-redemption.  It   is uncertain whether Mubashiru’s expressed gratitude accurately represented the feelings of the entire Abiola family. Also unsure is the coverage of Babangida’s stated “support” and its nature. Indeed, it is enlightening that Mubashiru’s glorification of Babangida has been questioned by members of his family, who described their relative as “a traitor.” There can be no doubt that whatever liberality the former strongman has shown toward the family after Abiola’s mysterious 1998 demise in detention is corrupted by reasonable suspicion. It is akin to a destroyer shedding crocodile tears over the ruins he caused.

    Strangely, however, displaying a rather narrow and simplistic perspective, Mubashiru washed Babangida clean, saying, “I don’t believe that Babangida was the one that killed MKO, no. Everybody knew that Babangida was not in the government when MKO died. How could you say that somebody who was not there did something? It is not possible. Babangida does not know anything about the death of MKO.”  This is crude revisionism. Has Mubashiru ever pondered on what course events could have taken had MKO not been violently denied the presidency, a denial initiated by Babangida’s regime and perfected by his military successor, General Sani Abacha?

    Oddly enough, in a perplexing double-speak which, perhaps unwittingly, deservedly discredited Babangida, Mubashiru also said, “I implore our leaders to embrace the vision of June 12 by ensuring that Nigerians get food on their tables and shelter on their heads. All employable youths should be given jobs, while everybody should enjoy basic amenities.” It is on record that Babangida blocked the actualization of MKO’s ambitious vision for the country, which puts a question mark on Mubashiru’s hyperbolic assessment of his administration as “the best in the nation’s history.” What is his yardstick?

    Possibly worse and more disturbing  than Mubashiru’s revisionist tendencies was the redefinition of June 12 by no other than Alhaji Bashir Tofa, MKO’s rival in the electoral contest which  Babangida  unfairly and inexcusably aborted. He reportedly described June 12 as “fiction.” Were it not for the serious fundamental issues arising from this absurd labelling, Tofa’s uninformed borrowing from the vocabulary of Literature could well have passed for a banal joke. However, it is tickling all the same, if only as a faultless example of wrong word usage.

    Is Tofa, by his descriptive licence, suggesting that the country should suspend disbelief over the enormity of Babangida’s atrocity, and accept it as normal in the context of a supposed fictive universe? Does he imply that the June 12 poll was never a real-life event, but was rather imagined and, consequently, imaginary? His fantasy, in case he didn’t realize it, also makes him a fictitious character.

    Following his reasoning, he would need to provide concrete proof of his own real existence in spatiotemporal terms, beyond fiction’s make-believe world. There are significant questions here: What if Tofa, rather than MKO, had won that election? Would Babangida have annulled it just the same?  Would such action have made a difference to Tofa’s fictional angle?

    Tofa was quoted as saying, “I sincerely believe that it is an episode that we need to get over with and look forward to a better electoral process and, therefore, a better democracy.” Here we go again, with repulsive revisionism rearing its head. Two decades after an election widely acknowledged for its unprecedented transparency, and an acceptable model of voter sovereignty, Tofa seeks the invention of “a better electoral process” without highlighting the demerits, if any, of the option that worked. His notion of “a better democracy” can only be imagined, considering that the democracy which was supposed to have been delivered by the June 12 election never materialized because of Babangida’s negative intervention.

    Not surprisingly, the ghost of June 12 continues to haunt the land. It is a measure of the depth of the damage done by Babangida and his ilk that MKO’s convincing win remains a front-burner issue even today. It is a tribute to the late charismatic and ebullient politician that his spirit is an inspiration to pro-democratic forces battling for the soul of the country. Of course, there are opposite forces still at work, contrary spirits that must be defeated to achieve the desired flowering of democratic beauty.

    Perhaps the most fitting way to immortalize MKO is the assertion of voter sovereignty, which will hopefully result in the crowning of the people’s choice. It is an inescapable challenge waiting for the people to rise to the occasion. Remember MKO’s immortal wisdom, “Democracy is the question. Democracy is the answer.”

    • Macaulay is on the editorial board of The Nation