The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • NGF Election: A joke that went too far

    Last week Friday, what we witnessed as a nation in the name of election was appalling. Many have condemned what is now the sour grape of the governors, especially of the PDP who thought that the election was like the exercise of their personal fiefdoms in their states where election is a coronation rather than a contest. After Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi won his reelection as the chairman the Nigerian Governors Forum, an advert ran on page 66 of The Sun of May 25 and showed signatures of the governors who purportedly signed their agreement to oust the current chairmen of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. The whole thing was pathetic. It is obvious that it is a forgery.

    First, number two of the opening section ran: “That we strongly agree for a change of leadership of the forum from April 2013 to April 2013.” The two installments of April on the document were cancelled and May was superimposed on it. The governors who put together the advert were not clever enough to remove evidence of the April. So anyone who read the advert wondered why May on top of April. It was a shabby way to cancel a word. And that showed that the April that was written on it was actually when the document was put together. They hurriedly published it in desperation after the election did not go their way. This is insincerity of the highest order. At the bottom of the document, they dated it 24 of May 2013. They said the 19 signatures voted for Governor Jang. Even if it was true that they all signed the signature, does endorsement automatically translate to vote. It was a secret ballot, and clearly some of those who claimed to belong to Jonathan and Jang did not do so when it mattered. That is how insincere they are about elections, and is that how they won? By fantasy?

    If they thought they had fooled anyone, hear this. The governor of Yobe, Ibrahim Gaidam, was not present. He was out of town, so how did they conjure up the signature beside his name? How come his signature was there? This is extreme forgery, and how many of the signatures there were forged? The police ought to investigate this. This seems like criminality writ large.

    Again, if you examined the handwriting, you will discover that many were written by the same hand. Compare, for instance, the S in Akpabio’s first name Godswill of Akwa Ibom State and the S in Suswan. Look also at the S in Sullivan as in Sullivan Chime of Enugu State.

    Is this how the governors ran elections and won? Is this how they governed their states? This is a disgrace.

    If one man won an election, why the hullaballoo of rejection? Why the nervousness and the huffing and puffing. President Goodluck Jonathan is the culprit in chief in this matter. Why has he now, through his spokesman Reuben Abati, distanced himself from the ignominy? Was it not at the Aso Villa that the PDP Governors’ Forum was inaugurated to undermine Governor Amaechi’s authority? It is indeed too late in the day to play statesman when he enjoyed the public pains of Amaechi in the hope he would lose the election.

    The whole thing was videotaped. So, why the dispute over the result in what was transparent? President Jonathan is destroying the sole force that he climbed to power. It was the Nigerian Governors’ Forum that muscled influence and fought the Yar’Adua forces. We cannot forget the doctrine of necessity. Now, after planting confusion, he says he knows nothing about it. What a farce.

  • Army saboteurs

    The complex nature of the war against terrorism in the country came to the fore last week in Abuja. A seminar organized by the Army Transformation and Innovation Centre was the theater for revealing disclosures on the collaboration of some soldiers with the deadly Boko Haram religious sect. Chief of Army Staff Lt-Gen Azubuike Ihejirika shocked his audience when he revealed that some soldiers have been caught divulging vital operational secrets of the Army to the religious sect.

    A visibly angry Ihejirika lamented that a soldier supplied the information on the movement of the soldiers that were attacked at Okene, Kogi state in January while preparing for international peace-keeping operations in Mali. In that attack, two soldiers were killed and five others injured. He said while some other soldiers were busy posting negative comments against the army on the internet, there were also those promoting communications with the insurgents.

    Confounding as these disclosures are, but they are not entirely surprising. President Goodluck Jonathan blew the whistle when he alerted the nation that there were Boko Haram members within his cabinet. But the weight of that alert was whittled down by the inability of his government since then, to catch any of those of his aids aiding and abetting terrorist attacks.

    However, comments by sundry personages from the areas prone to these sectarian attacks seem to fuel suspicions that some of the reasons touted for the resurgence of terrorism may after all be far from it. Before now, we have been told that poverty, ignorance and disparity in levels of development of sections of the country were the leitmotif for the growing army of terrorists. We have also been told over again that military solution will prove ineffective in the campaign against the malfeasance. The argument is that once we identify and address these developmental challenges, we would have had the right angle to the orgy of violence that has held this country prostrate these past years. The government bought this idea despite initial ambivalence on its capacity to achieve the desired objective.

    Events since has shown no change of heart from the insurgents such that state of emergency is now in force in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. And this has thrown up a plethora of further posers. But central to all these is that we have not been told all about Boko Haram. We have neither been told the real reasons for these acts of terrorism nor have we been led into the sources of the funding of the insurgents. What of the high level planning and sophistry in the execution of these numerous attacks? Is it possible for the insurgents to have been that successful in their military incursions without the benefit of superior knowledge in guerilla warfare and suicide bombing apparently supplied by those well groomed in that art? At any rate, have we cared for the source of those bombs and those that prepare and equip the bombers for their lethal operations? What of the enormous funds that are wasted in them? Yet we talk of poverty as the main reason for these acts of terrorism.

    Perhaps, if those funding these terrorist acts had deployed their funds to addressing poverty among the vulnerable segment, some significant progress would have been recorded. Rather than do that they opted to levy war on the country and further annihilate the poor. Some other people are asking if the north is at war perhaps, for them to now to decide what position to take. The north is not at war but some sections and groups in the north are at it. They also have collaborators both in the military and the civilian population.

    Here, the startling revelations by Ihejirika come in very handy. It is a remote possibility that the insurgents could have been able to hold this country down without the tacit support and collaboration of some insiders both military and civilians. It is also very unlikely that such saboteurs within the army and the larger society are motivated by the simplistic reasons that have often been offered to account for the extreme violence and killings it that part of the country. Neither can it account for the vaulting and stale ambition that it is still possible to Islamize this country of diverse religions, cultures and ethnicity. What will motivate a soldier trained and paid to protect this country to turn round and supply logistic information to insurgents to get his colleagues ambushed and killed cannot be located in poverty? It can only be found in some higher group interest which making this country ungovernable can possibly precipitate. Not long ago, the nation’s high profile military training institution, the Staff and Command College Jaji, Kaduna state was bombed to the greatest embarrassment of the nation. That could not have happened without some insider cooperation. Besides, the leadership of the college was alleged to have received some security report in that regard without taking steps to avert it.

    Given the training, regimentation and command structure of the military, is it not baffling that such high level sabotage can be found in the army in this very sensitive national challenge? Ihejirika has a daunting task to discharge by fishing out all saboteurs that are hell bent in undermining his job. The whole idea is to discredit him and he must not allow that to happen.

    More over, we now hear that the sect had training camps in many parts of the north, sacked the government there and installed their own flags. The report that the insurgents nearly brought down one of the nation’s fighter jets with anti-air craft batteries underscores the point that the matter is damn serious. With such a high level military build up in those areas before now, the government failed in providing quick response to the threat of the insurgents. That may have emboldened them in their weird escapades.

    The point here is that there is a serious political dimension to the Boko Haram menace. And the sooner we come to terms with his foreboding reality the better for us. I had in this column argued that Boko Haram is nothing but political grievances masquerading under a religious garb. That contention has been borne out by the frustrations of the Army Chief. What will make soldiers to supply secret information on the activities of the military for insurgents to inflict maximum fatalities on our forces? And some others are equally busy posting negative comments on the military so as to discredit that institution. So where is the patriotism the military prides itself for? Not long ago, Obasanjo and Babangida had in a joint statement lamented that patriotic Nigerians had begun to question the basis for the nation’s unity. But do we have real patriots or class interest masquerading as patriotism? If we really have patriots, why are they in short supply each time sectional or class interests are seemingly threatened? The inevitable conclusion here is that our leaders are patriotic to the extent that their self interests are not challenged. Such people do not really qualify as patriots. That is why we must restructure the commanding heights of key national institutions in such a manner that no section has absolute control over them. That is the only panacea for political stability.

  • As Nigeria marks Children’s Day

    SIR: The Community Defence Law Foundation, CDLF, felicitates with all Nigerian Children on the celebration of Children’s Day. This is a yearly event that is worldly celebrated because children are special beings hence, the special attention attached.

    We pray and wish that as they join children in other parts of the world in the celebration of this year’s Children’s Day, they would have a joyous and fun-filled celebration. We remind the authorities to enhance their implementation of the two international documents (the UN and OAU charter) supporting, the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which was adopted by the Nigerian government.

    CDLF enjoins local, state and federal government, to strengthen the institutions, laws protecting the Nigerian children from abuse and neglect. Recent reports have shown that the abuse and trafficking of children has risen and, we call on the government, its agencies, to double their efforts at ensuring that the children in Nigeria are keenly protected from criminally minded individuals and groups.

    The children are the hope of the future, they deserve necessary protection and assistance, to enable them develop within the society in the spirit of peace, love, dignity, tolerance and equity. The education of the children is a critical area that the government must begin to take seriously. We must ensure that for no reason must any child’s education suffer a setback, same with their health, shelter, food, development, etc.

    CDLF challenge parents, guardians, to give quality time to the upbringing of their children and wards so as to make them responsible leaders of tomorrow. It is not right for parents, society or state to ignore children’s welfare, no nation progresses in that direction.

    • Uzodinma Nwaogbe

    CDLF, Abuja

  • Amaechi’s God-given victory

    Amaechi’s God-given victory

    RIVERS State Governor Rotimi Amaechi must celebrate his re-election victory as Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) with humility and gratitude to God. This is because he who God has blessed, no President can curse. No force can change what God has decreed. In the midst of tension, the one God has ordained as most appropriate in the prevailing circumstance has won.

    Amaechi’s victory is in actuality against all odds. The presidency working through Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio strained 19 governors to sign an open endorsement before the elections; but as God will have it, the governors voted with their conscience and returned Amaechi to office. Akpabio is now showing the world the pre-signed document where Governor Jonah Jang’s name was written as winner ahead of the election.

    Amaechi’s political triumph has been a wonder of light, freedom and democracy above forces of darkness, despotism and dictatorship. Right from the episode of his aspiration to become state governor, he had been confronted with serial injustices, humiliations and embarrassments – just as it was in his desire for a second term as NGF Chairman. But in all, it has become perceptible that God has been favouring him. The irresolvable contention between Governors Ibrahim Shema and Isa Yuguda was not an error but occurred in order to pave way for him. On the other side, Plateau State Governor Jang who emerged at the dying moment when the two were forced to step down rightly lost to gain the position which he was not prepared for.

    Yet, even as Amaechi has won the polls, the war is not over. The battle line for 2015 is being drawn and the hand writing is becoming clearer for people that have been blinded by sentiment and power. This is a test case on how 2015 will look like when forces of darkness will no longer comprehend the light of day. The governors, including those who voted against the winner might as well begin to see the non-viability of their contentious forum.

    In reality, the NGF brouhaha is not profiting Nigeria anything. It is sad that PDP government has continuously wasted much of the nation’s time and resources in politicking than in growth and development. The forum, with Akpabio’s haughty carriage and other governors playing the devil’s advocate for the president has polluted political atmosphere across the land with detraction to securing power and position becoming the priority.

    For Amaechi and the opposition, as 2015 approaches, more battles might be brewing which is bound to be dirtier. If Niger-Delta (ex-) militants and their leaders could be mobilized to protest publicly against Amaechi, requesting that he should step down as governor, the future of the nation, even if Boko Haram is extracted, is becoming unguaranteed.

    Just like the opposition is trailing, Amaechi might need to use this opportunity to accomplish the vision for his mission. If not, the desperate presidency with its massive manhunt tools will incessantly work to pull him down the same way the nation is being dragged down. The target would be to deprive him and his people of enjoying the rest of his political life just like the masses today are hardly benefitting from the reward of democracy under the ruling party.

    The merry-go-round Akpabio and his pro-Jonathan colleagues should realize that Nigerians are becoming wiser politically. Not many would because of ethnicity or regionalism still want to align with failure in 2015, even with the desperation to hold on to power. Just like some PDP governors denied the pro-Jonathan NGF candidate of their voting rights, many Nigerians in the South would not just vote for a failing southerner if there is a trustworthy achieving northerner in the competition. More and more, Nigerians are yearning benefiting from the good of the land above wasting their voting values on the basis of ethnicity.

    This was why the progressive governors might have read the minds of the people by securing victory for Amaechi. The outcome is an indication that there is still light at the end of the nation’s dark tunnel.

    The likes of Akpabio displayed how he has been governing the people of his state by false pretences. A leader who would always prefer to satisfy an individual in transitory power instead of commitment to selfless service to the people might not receive anticipated personal recompense at the end of the pursuit.

    So thrilled that he was empowered as Chairman of a desperately-created PDP Governors Forum to tackle Amaechi, Akpabio has manifested himself as a typical wolf in sheep’s clothing. He hardly knew how not to throw stone as a resident in a glass house. After his group failed to satisfy the master’s personal political desire, he attempted to turn issues upside down by declaring the election which he engineered as invalid. He said Amaechi ought to have stepped down before the conduct of the election, adding that there was no way an incumbent could be in office while an election was being conducted. It was as if he has forgotten that in Nigeria, like he experienced when seeking for his second term as governor, incumbents do not leave office before elections.

    If also he is still standing on his contention of rigging, emanating from the voting and verification of only 35 governors in attendance, then democracy still has a long way to go in Nigeria. The list he had prepared ahead of the election can never stand as authentic voting pattern. He might have counted the vote before it was casted. Whereas, he ought to know that some of those who signed on the list never did it on their minds but just to please him and his boss. Election is a game of numbers. All manners of manipulations used to be done during general elections, and might be thought as the way out in 2015 might not work again.

    If Amaechi who was eventually voted for by most of the governors had had been declared the loser, Nigerians would have been greatly thwarted. Akpabio needs to be taught that God will always do what He wants to do, no matter what, because power belongs to Him and He gives it to whom He wants. Evidently, Akpabio needs some education to know why he could not even deliver despite all the threats and arm- twisting. Let him understand why he and his team gambled and failed.

    Indeed, the reality of the NGF election is that it is a technical knockout for anti-Amaechi politicians. After several months of intrigues and politicking, the president failed to convince his initial candidate to step down for a newly-chosen one, and could not also convince his party governors to vote for his even tually chosen candidate. This inconsistency means that he has been weakened politically by the result of the election. He picked the wrong battle and was not ultimately honoured.

    It is distasteful that Mr. President, the number one citizen could not gather enough support within his own political party to defeat his perceived opponent. He should now be much more bothered how votes from South East and South-South will return him to Aso Villa in 2015. The fact is that nothing seems to be working in this regime. South-South is only supporting him because he is their son; not much practical benefit with impact on the life of the people.

    We must imbibe the lesson that the political future of Nigeria is greater than that of any individual. Nobody can become the authentic president of Nigeria without the support of majority of Nigerians. Most Nigerians has been crying in all corners that President Goodluck Jonathan is not performing pleasingly. It does not matter his address to the nation this week granting self acclamation for achievbements, what will impress the people is the level of positive impact of his practical performance on their lives.

    The wisdom might be for him to put sentiments and desperation aside so that he can move Nigeria forward. The nation that once had the potentiality of greatness has been stagnant for too long.

  • Orji: Vindication of change maker

    Orji: Vindication of change maker

    Two years after the liberation of Abia State, after the revolution that conquered the ancien regime, it is time to put Governor Theodore Orji on the scale. It is time to march the light-bearer of the people’s mandate to the dock for cross examination. It is time to assess the grand march to freedom, to review the journey so far. How has Abia fared? What is the experiential feel of the people in the new life of freedom?

    Indeed, the month of May is a month of reckoning when our nascent democracy is put on trial for self-defence. The May 29 Democracy Day anniversary is now crucial for our political history. It is not only a day of celebration but more importantly a day of stock-taking. Just as every individual’s story is different and particular so also is the story of states and nations. For Abia State, it is a long walk to freedom, a struggle of emancipation. Like Plato’s allegory of the cave-dweller where the cave inhabitant marches through darkness in search of light, the story of Abia democracy under Orji is a complex trajectory through bondage and then liberation.

    Monuments are great legacies and great footprints in the sands of time. They are marks of noble leadership. Governor Orji has concentrated energy in building a galaxy of legacies in Abia. But, in my personal evaluation, his greatest legacy for which posterity must sing eulogies is his deed of gift of freedom to the people of God’s Own State. For, as Voltaire, the French Philosophy of the Enlightenment noted, freedom is the parent of all the needs of the human spirit.

    Today and 24 months in the second saddle, Orji is confidently stepping out to the market square to show himself approved a workman who does not need to be ashamed. For a people who have seen the two sides of tyranny and then freedom, they are better witnesses in this open trail of the Ibeku man. They are better judges and jurists in this open court of public conscience. Under Orji, there are no more tin-gods and tin-mother-gods in Abia. Nobody goes to Igbere or Nweke Street or anywhere to prostrate before human deities of power. The word “Okija” is totally obliterated out of the Abia social and political lexicon.

    Throughout the campaigns in 2011 and at the inauguration, Orji spoke about his covenant with the people. He expressed determination to break off from the past, to lead Abia out of the doldrums. True to his words, he has led a successful revolution of the mind. The mental orientation towards politics and power in Abia has changed. Power is no more a matter of a cult of brotherhood headed by one family. Nobody carries a cow to any godfather to pay obeisance. Unlike in the past where people make pilgrimages to Igbere, Orji enthroned true representative democracy where all Abians of every hue and colour could have a chance to serve.

    In Abia today, it is the communities and the constituencies that make nominations for commissioners and other political offices. The advisers and assistants are appointed based on merit, track record and competence. Today, meritocracy has been restored as against mediocrity. In the past, it was a case of class distortion and class destruction wherein the elite became endangered species while goons and lay-about became the ruling class.

    Another great legacy of value is the stability and harmony that Orji has brought into the Abia polity. Starting from his administration, he has served with only one team in the last two years. In the days of bondage, there would have been more than ten dissolutions or reshuffling of cabinet by now. Destiny thrust into his hands a society that was visibly at war, a state that was highly polarized where the parties were at daggers drawn. Precisely, he inherited war. But, he did not go the way of the Mosaic – an eye for an eye. He did not amass arsenals for a return fire. He chose the path of Mahatma Gandhi – truth, peace and reconciliation.

    He embarked on a mission of reconciling the state. He threw out an olive branch and threw the door of government house open. In the new air of freedom, the exiles returned home, the old fugitives returned home to embrace their erstwhile foes. The political warriors laid down their arms and all, in one collective spirit, enlisted into the new vision of Abia. This was how the governor came to be the first National Peace Ambassador.

    Indeed, as Orji stands at the market square this month to give account of his stewardship, one issue will be very pertinent. And that is that the first primary duty of government is the maintenance of law and order. This should be the mother of all assessments, the most paramount indices for measuring successful leadership. How has Abia fared under Orji in terms of law and order? Abia, undeniably, has been an oasis of sanity. Orji’s Abia is standing tall in the federation as a model state in terms of law and order and social harmony. And this was not legislated into existence but a product of committed and pragmatic action.

    In the midst of a country gripped by violence, where bloodshed either by accident or by deliberate organized crime make the headlines everyday in the papers, Abia State has remained an isolated case of a sort of heaven on earth where peace reigns and where residents sleep with their doors wide open. And, I emphasize again, this did not come by fiat neither by providence but a product of judicious and strategic governance. Governor Orji toiled day and night, tasked his brain and mind to attain this state for his people. Thus, Orji is the builder of a new Abia of law and order.

    Orji has also run a legacy regime. This regime is about catering for the welfare of the people in terms of infrastructural renewal and provision of social amenities. Today, with a paltry N3.5 billion monthly federal allocation, from where he pays a monthly salary bill of N2.5billion, he has been able to build legacy projects, like the world-class Conference Centre in Umuahia, the new four-storey Secretariat Complex, the new Government House, the Abia Diagnostic Centre in Umahia and Aba, the new High Court building, new modern offices for the Broadcasting Corporation of Abia and a host of other monumental projects. The roads in Aba and Umuahia have been transformed.

    In the power sector, there has been a revolution in Umuahia and its environs where Orji deployed about N1.5 billion to execute a power evacuation work from the Federal Government installed 132/133 kVA power facility at Ohiya. The power is evacuated to other distribution points at Oboro, Afara, Ikwuegwu, Obowo and the Umuahia environs. Today, in Umuahia, electricity supply has been improved by nearly 100 percent and this has engendered a new life in Abia.

    It is farming season in the east and Orji has launched an agricultural revolution. There are Liberation Farms spread across the 17 local councils of the state. They are expected to employ about 10,000 workers when fully operational. Already, 50 Abians are working at the Okeikpe farms, the plot project of the liberation farms where plantain is being bred. For the first time in Abia, a leader emerged that made youth empowerment a top priority in the government policy schedule. This came to a climax recently in an open ceremony where the Governor distributed over 200 vehicles to youths to enable them embark on small-scale businesses.

    In the area of the minimum wage regime. Abia State under Governor Orji is one of the first five states that started paying the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure early in 2011, ditto for the Consolidated Health Salary Structure for health assistants, health officers, vet officers, agric health officers nurses and doctors. In the same vein, Abia is also one of the few states that immediately paid the ASUU agreed salary structure for universities. He also went beyond the Federal Government prescribed N18,000 minimum wage for civil servants and followed the NLC standardized salary regime and has been paying N21,100 since December 2011.

    This is but a brief testimonial for the Abia liberation, the vindication of the liberator. At the market square, Like Paul of Tarsus, Orji would stand on the podium, his hands spread out to the heavens, and say: I have fought the good fight. “I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”

    • Adindu is the President-general of the Abia Renaissance Movement (ARM)

  • Like Baga, like Biafra

    SIR: I’d quickly like to get our national consciousness back from selective amnesia. While a mountain is being made out of a molehill, in one case, a genuine mountain has been reduced to a molehill in another.

    While I truly sympathise with the people of Baga for being caught in the cross – fire between the JTF and the Boko Haram nuisance, they truly cannot lay hold to the claim of “genocide” a word was made most famous by Ojukwu during the war waged by Nigeria against the Igbo people.

    If people are inviting the International Criminal Court ICC to come and investigate what happened in Baga, not minding the emergency relief and compensation effort being put by the federal government, then it behooves on Ndi-Igbo to take Nigeria to court, both locally and internationally and demand the same justice and compensation being given to Baga, Zaki-Biam and Odi.

    In the Baga issue, it is clear that it was the Boko-Haram that opened fire on the JTF first, killing a military officer setting their mosque on fire. The said mosque was where they hid to manufacture their bombs, which has killed over 5,000 people and counting.

    While the opposition parties, media and Boko-Haram politicians can seek to make political capital out of Baga, they should equally recognize that they offend the sensibilities and memories of the victims, relations friends and colleagues of those that have been butchered by these criminals, known as Boko Haram.

    If these same people can put in the same amount of effort they are putting in condemning the Nigerian Army and other security agencies, into condemning the Boko-Haram members and their sponsors, we would have gone a long way in tackling the activities of these cold-blooded murderers.

    The media should be more careful in ensuring that they do not continue to paint Boko-Haram, their sponsors and supporters as the victims, while painting the military as the hostile institution. They should remember that it is these brave military men and women that stand between us and being run – over by jihadist forces.

    Meanwhile, I believe the Igbo people should start going to court to demand compensation and justice because what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. If for the death of 38 or 178 people, Nigeria will spend billion to compensate them, then surely for the death of millions, more should be done.

    • Azubike Nwokedi,

    Onitsha, Anambra State.

  • Emergency rule and northern leaders

    SIR: Almost four decades ago, Martin Luther King Jnr spoke the minds of many people when he said, “The shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of soft-mindedness”. One cannot but concur with the declaration of emergency rule in parts of Northern Nigeria which has since been reduced to slaughter slab. It is on record that the President has tried all known peaceful approaches in crisis resolution to end the orgy of violence. Yet perpetrators of violence deliberately refuse to submit to peace process and still carry out their nefarious trade with great determination. The terrorists continue to invade places of worship, private and public institutions with heavy materials of war to kill and destroy. Shortly after the President announced the amnesty approach as a step to end the causeless violence in the north, a man who at best could be described as a monstrous coward appeared in a video only to reject the amnesty offer claiming that his gang of killers are the one to grant amnesty to Nigeria and indeed Nigerians.

    If not for anything else, I urge Nigerians to support the emergency rule so that those who hide under the mask to commit evil will come to understand that simplicity is not weakness. I do not intend to join issues with a few men who call themselves northern elders but I understand that they claim that the President is unfair to them in view of the ongoing emergency rule. These men who arrogate to themselves the title elders could not offer other workable alternative to peace and they forgot so easily that the President has also taken all known non-violence approaches which seem to have failed. They want the President to lie low when our sovereignty is being challenged by group of men whose heart belongs to the devil. Since government has a duty to defend its territorial integrity and people, the military action taken remains noble and suitable at this time.

    Under the very watchful eyes of the elders, these characterless fellows brought down the Nigerian flag and hoisted a foreign flag. This singular act amounts to a declaration of war. Therefore military action becomes inevitable to respond to such declaration of war by terrorists. I expect the northern elders to expose those agents of doom to our security forces. The fight against terror should not be left to the government alone. They should call on the sect to lay down their arms and embrace the amnesty approach.

    • Ehi G.O.

    Benin City.

  • Hope of divine solution not lost in Nigeria

    Hope of divine solution not lost in Nigeria

    Despite the current challenges Nigeria is facing, like threats to security, social injustice, youth unemployment, political killings, labour-unrest, bombing, among others, there is hope and Nigerians should not lose hope of divine solution.

    Nigerians-at-large should pray to God to redeem and deliver our country, for, only God could redeem the nation from the present fear of insecurity and poverty in the land. Only God could heal our wounds, so that that could be peace.

    Prophetically, I want to assure Nigerians, that, with the prayers of the saints, at the soonest, all-will-be-well, as God is ready to intervene and heal our land, if we humble ourselves and fear God.

    With the potentials available in the country, if we repent our sins and do the will of God, from the leaders to the followers, there is hope for Nigeria and Nigerians in all spheres. There is also greater tomorrow for Nigeria, if we pray fervently and put all hands on deck, to move the nation forward.

    Nigeria had faced many difficult situations in the past, but God had always proved to be faithful. As the problems facing Nigeria currently are big, God will come to our rescue once, we keep relying on Him.

    The current security challenges in the nation could be attributed to high level of corruption and bad governance on the part of the leaders. Since government is not to trust again, the people had lost the trust in those holding offices in government, while poverty, unemployment, insecurity, among others, is on the rise.

    Nigeria now desire, political leaders that will turn our bad situations to better, and whose primary concerns are to build institutions and empower the people.

    By Oladipupo Funmilade-Joel

    General Overseer,

    The Way of Reconciliation Evangelistic Ministries

     

  • Drawing the curtain on Nigeria…

    Drawing the curtain on Nigeria…

    In the last few weeks, I have personally looked of our nation, I have carefully x-rayed thoughts, opinions, listened carefully to comments, and with deep analytical mind I share the following admonition.

    A group in the US said based on hypothesis xyz, the nation’s terminal date is 2015. We had been sick even before the report, we are still sick but are we ready for war, disintegration, division—my answer comes from an unusual source with the following caveats I have added.

    Chief Edwin Clark in an open letter to the Speaker of House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, stated, “I repeat, there will be no crisis, if President Jonathan is defeated at the presidential election in 2015, but he has a right to contest the election if he so wishes.”

    The curtain will fall when intelligent Nigerians and sane minds stop to bother about a certain Alhaji Dokubo-Asari or a docile Northern Elders Forum that have taken turns to make threats…on innocent Nigerians.

    We remain a country fighting development and violent extremism in the face of under-development, marginalisation and weak governance which have created a breeding ground for militancy, cultism and all sorts of deviant behaviour at a very high rate. But the curtain will not fall because we importantly need to find a synergy in our democracy that caters for development and our diversity and I irrevocably believe we are capable.

    Never like before is there a combination of bad governance, poverty, insecurity, poor political and resource governance, a growing disgruntled segmentation of society, exclusion, entrenched corruption, abusive security forces, strife between the disaffected sections of the nation, widening regional economic disparity, unemployment and socioeconomic deprivation, several external factors and add weak public institutions and people’s and government’s loyalty to tribe and clan rather than the nation state and you think the curtain will definitely fall—No, it won’t fall.

    The curtain will not fall, if you count the number of security personal killed in one week and leave it at a conservative 100, break that down to the number of widows, orphans, parents and relatives that are grieving. You will appreciate with pain that this nation is one that after surviving a civil war has a structure almost unknown in contemporary times.

    The curtain has not fallen with almost 40million young person’s not sure of tomorrow, yet the economy is growing, champagne-drinking is on the rise, almost two million write an exam that only a quarter have assurances of further education and half that figure fail.

    The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has stated that it discovered 67 universities illegally operating in the nation and we have over a 100 legal ones and the curtain has not fallen.

    The curtain will only fall come 2015 if stealing governors, politicians and leaders are moved to bedimmed, broken-down, colourless, dark, darkish, dilapidated, dim, dirty, discoloured, drab, dreary, dull, dusky, faded, gloomy, grimy, muddy, murky, obscure, run-down, seedy, shabby, smirched, sombre, sullied, tarnished, threadbare, tired—DINGY jails away from the dingy comfort of their homes.

    I implore my readers, look at your kids, your siblings and ask, apart from the rituals of ramadan and lent…can they go hungry for three days, trek kilometres when ‘there will be no Nigeria’.? When we are prepared for this maybe the curtain will fall…

    How will Nigeria disintegrate, a nation where $15m cash was received by officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from an undisclosed agent of a former governor in 2007.?

    The money was meant as bribe to compromise an investigation by the then Mallam Nuhu Ribadu-led anti-graft agency.

    Enter Olalekan Bayode, an artisan, who repairs fridges, air conditioners and other things and lives in Alagbado, Lagos who prays a court to appoint him as the sole agent to be in custody of the money indefinitely for “proper management” following the dispute on the ownership of the fund by the federal and Delta State governments.

    Come 2015, it will be Jonathan, I declare, or any other dude, but trust me, I am no prophet—but nothing will go wrong. Maybe a riot here and killings there and the courts will be busy but Nigeria won’t collapse, no it won’t.

    We need practical federalism, those idlers that make laws need to up the ante, politicians need to take a look at the electorates the widening disconnect requires a filling.

    The curtain is not near falling, until we are prepared, if a cult group, militia in a village can kill scores of police and security personnel, how many militia groups will a 160 million people nation produce with the police claiming there millions of small arms in circulation?.

    Are we are not citizens of a nation where recently out of the 5,000 police officers assessed for intelligence gathering, only 266 qualified?

     

    Prince Charles Dickson

  • Ambassador Fafowora’s Lest I forget

    SIR: As a young kid, the image of Dr. Dapo Fafowora etched on my mind was that of a rare breed; an individual I aspired to grow up to be like. I was too young to know his exploits as a thorough-bred diplomat, but I remember that he ably managed the Nigerian Manufacturers Association (MAN) when he was at the helm of that organisation. I saw his brilliance at many of the public fora where he delivered lectures, or discussed issues of national concern. It was him that informed my decision to go into academia.

    I think God had other bigger things for him when he was crudely taken out of the Foreign Service. He touched many more lives including mine, after his stint at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For that I want to use this medium to say a big “thank you sir” to him.

    Wishing him more healthy years ahead.

    • Olugbenga Ayeni.

    Lagos