The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Opon Imo yet to be launched

    SIR: After reading through the article written by one Ayo Aluko-Olokun in The Punch of Thursday May 16, titled ‘Osun: Why Launch Opon Imo in Lagos?’, I came to the sad conclusion that the writer does not have the slightest clue of what `Opon Imo’ is all about. I got more disappointed when I discovered that the writer is a journalist and a public affairs analyst.

    The ‘Opon Imo’ has never been launched anywhere under the sun; not in Lagos and not even in Osogbo. What has been held so far has been series of press briefings, including the one in Lagos, on the conception and progress on the project. There was a pilot study last year when the device was given to a few students in Osogbo for test running and collected from them after a few weeks. The device will be launched on June 3, at Ilesa.

    The writer needs to be tutored on the advantages this learning tablet has over physical textbooks. Which textbook in the world can ever have up to 63 subjects in it?

    Furthermore, this precious gem in the hands of these students is equipped with solar chargers and does not rely only on electricity to function. It contains a lot more than textbooks. It is compact, and the students cannot visit any other site on it apart from the purpose for which it was made for. It is loaded with all the learning aid the students need on the senior secondary school level to make good grades in senior secondary school examinations. At a time when even JAMB is trying to make students write examinations on the computer, how will they learn to use computers if they are not introduced to it while in school? All over the world people now gather information on the internet. In developed world, big bookshops are folding up by the day.

    It takes more than sitting in an armchair in Lagos to write about this bundle of knowledge initiated by the government of Osun State. The writer needs come down to see for himself.

    I also wish to correct the claim that there are demonstrations and strikes everywhere in Osun. The government of the state of Osun is a responsive government that does not joke with the well being of its citizens and workforce. The lecturers that are on strike have already called it off. Other workers in the state are at work and are doing well.

    The article was characterized by biases and condemnation throughout. The writer appears to have made up his mind not to acknowledge the good work the present administration is doing in Osun. He is so confused about what the present administration has achieved within the short period they took over from the previous administration. Be that as it may, my advice to him is to always get his facts right before heading to the press.

     

     

    • Titi Ajayi, (Mrs),

    Ilesa, Osun State

     

  • On Yoruba marginalisation

    SIR: The on-going debate on the marginalisation of the Yorubas in the present socio-political set up in Nigeria does not hold water for us third generation of Yorubas. In fact I feel that the first and second generation Yorubas are more of our problems compared with other tribes in Nigeria.

    The first generation are the pre-independence leaders, led by Chief Awolowo, who failed to see that the Yorubas should have been a nation on its own without the drawback syndrome that the other tribes exhibited and are still exhibiting. Their longing for power at a bigger centre blinded them to the open fact that their co-sojourners in the contraption called Nigeria are not compatible with their progressive ideas. While one major group saw education as a continuity of the colonial and religious oppression, the other did not see how it will add to their profit in their line of business. Thus the first generation sold a bright future of an entire people and bedded with incompatible bedfellows.

    The second generation led by Chief Obasanjo, are completely bereft of ideas on how local politics are played. They pretended to be more Catholic than the Pope. It is Nigeria first before the Yorubas while the others think of their own people first before Nigeria. The Obasanjo group did everything to please the other tribes while their own people wallowed in abject neglect and humiliation. But for the so called federal character, the Yorubas would not be holding one single reasonable position in the federal set up today.

    Chief Obasanjo spent eight years as President but failed to complete the expressway going to his farm and town not to talk of completing the Lagos-Ibadan/Ibadan–Ilorin roads that were awarded by his predecessor, a non-Yoruba. Under him, his Minister of Works, Tony Anenih constructed a bypass to decongest Benin City traffic while Mukhtari Shagari – his Minister of Agriculture/Water Resources littered the North-west with boreholes.

    Recently, the Minister of Aviation sacked all the directors in FAAN – six of them Yorubas and replaced them with her own people. The last Minister of Power, Prof Nnaji promoted and placed a lot of PHCN staff during his short stay in office. Over 70% of the beneficiaries are his kinsmen. Take a census of all the key officers in key positions in the PHCN successor companies and one will be amazed at how the Yorubas have lost out.

    Once upon a time, the so called Awolowo disciples are respected and when they spoke others listened. But as soon as they won the battle to install a Yoruba man as President after Chief MKO Abiola’s humiliation, they went to sleep. They thought they have won the entire battle for the Yorubas. What followed was the selling of the South-west to the anti-progressive elements and another four years of set-back for the Yorubas.

    The only Yoruba leader that attracts some grudging respect from the other tribes in Nigeria today is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, but he too must stop acting as if he has done everything for the Yorubas in re-taking the South West from the anti-progressive groups. He should start fighting for positions and better share of the national cake for his own people at the federal level.

    The attitude of the Yorubas in key positions at the national level must change to reflect the Nigerian realities and politics. Our political attitude and decisions must be reciprocal and we must stop the ‘holier than thou’ strategies that benefit other tribes at the expense of our own people. If not, our children will become third class citizens in this country.

    • Chief Omolade Olanihun

    Ala Quarters, Akure

  • Amaechi and the NGF election

    Amaechi and the NGF election

    As governors head to the poll today to elect the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), neither the people of Rivers State nor the powerful schemers in the presidency can determine conclusively what the aftermath would look like. The most important factor in the election is the fact that Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State is seeking a second term. The presidency pretends it is not interested in who leads the NGF. In reality, however, it is deeply and obsessively interested, as if should its candidate win, the victor would inexorably be its puppet and insult other governors by being the presidency’s lapdog. Katsina State Governor Ibrahim Shema is expected to cross swords with Amaechi for the position.

    Should Amaechi win, his troubles with the increasingly powerful President Goodluck Jonathan will worsen, for as Amaechi is boisterously irreverent and implacable, the president is laconically stubborn and imperious. Neither of the two takes prisoners, nor does any of them fancy himself as a prisoner of the other. The ongoing struggle between Rivers and the presidency has manifested in various ways, including struggle for oil wells, the controversy over the so-called excess crude account, the sovereign wealth fund palaver, and the politics of 2015 and how to deliver the votes of Rivers State. So far, it is an unequal combat. While Amaechi seems powerless, he nonetheless appears to sit on the moral high ground. And while the presidency, which has instigated series of problems for the governor, appears so powerful, it has nonetheless acted without the ethical scruples expected of Nigeria’s highest office, or the nobility expected of a sermonising president.

    If the election proceeds decorously, and the governors have the decency to recognise that all eyes are on them, by the end of today or the early hours of Saturday, the election will have been lost or won. That the loser, especially if it is the presidency’s candidate, will reconcile himself to his loss is doubtful. So, expect more troubles in the near future. But if Amaechi were to lose, still expect a different type of trouble ahead, for the governors who support him will permanently resent the winner. From all indications, the NGF is already polarised, and will take long to heal after the election, if it ever heals. The polarisation indicates that many governors are in fact overrated and cannot be trusted to act with the maturity and savvy expected of their high offices. It is truly remarkable how they exhibit such fiery passions and betray a lack of character over a body that is, strictly speaking, not even constitutional.

    But by far the most remarkable factor in the NGF election is the attitude of a loud section of Rivers State society. No one can ignore the political chicanery going on the state as the presidency sponsors politicians to unsettle Amaechi. This chicanery has disabled the state assembly from sitting, created theatrical atmosphere in which the state police commissioner seems to have taken sides, and protests and more protests are being organised almost on a daily basis, for barely discernible reasons. Sometime last week, a group of women demonstrated in support of the governor, calling on the state police commissioner to be redeployed. A day after, and in an unprecedented move, another group of women demonstrated in support of the rather voluble state police commissioner who keeps reminding everyone he got a degree from the University of Lagos, almost as if learning and character were the same thing.

    Now, two days ago, ex-militants were reported to have also taken to the streets to pressure the governor to resign. In addition, another group of contrarians calling itself Rivers PDP elders want their governor to step down from contesting the NGF chair. Enough is happening in Rivers State to indicate firmly that the presidency is at war with Amaechi. The NGF election will, therefore, not be the end of the war irrespective of whoever wins or loses, and the presidency will be as eager to undermine the constitution to unhorse the recalcitrant governor as it will be unprepared to take defeat gamely. But as the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo presidency proved lavishly a few years back, a president that indulges in petty political squabbles diminishes not only himself and the country he leads, he also embarrasses his office and consigns himself to future irrelevance.

  • FRSC, this is unfair

    SIR: On Saturday March 30, at about 1.pm, I was stopped by an official of Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) immediately after Jibowu bus stop, near the bridge head towards Yaba, Lagos.

    All the documents demanded were supplied. The official asked for fire extinguisher, C-caution etc. while I duly showed him one after the other. Until he finally asked me to step on the brake pedal when he then discovered the right side of the brake light was not showing. This was as a result of the bulb getting burnt (which could happen at any time). For this, the officer decided to book me for two thousand naira (N2000) when the bulb costs only twenty naira (N20). I think this rather unfair.

    Sir, I have the following observation to present: FRSC officials on duty should imbibe the culture of human/public relations since they are the mirror society uses to see the commission. This particular officer was very boastful, arrogant and pompous. An offence that has nothing to do with mechanical/electrical fault does not deserve any booking. A burnt bulb does not deserve any penalty.

    There is no doubting the fact that the commission has the onerous duty of sanitizing our numerous road users, we can only pray you continue in this regard.

    • Ajao, Shobalaje Lukman,

    Lagos.

     

  • Senate should move closer to Reps on Emergency Powers Act

    Senate should move closer to Reps on Emergency Powers Act

    The National Assembly is set to begin work on a harmonised version of their assent to President Goodluck Jonathan’s State of Emergency Proclamation (2013). The Senate, reports indicate, has unanimously endorsed the president’s proposals, of course, after noting very grandly the need to nurture democracy and retain democratic structures. It is obvious that the upper chamber, which has made some variations in the proposal, took cognisance of massive, but probably uncritical, public endorsement of the president’s proclamation of state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. The House of Representatives also, in response to public sentiment, endorsed the president’s proposal, but with significant modifications. As both chambers prepare to inaugurate a conference committee to harmonise the two versions, it is important they balance the public mood, which is decidedly, if not fanatically, in favour of unreserved assent, with their onerous and constitutional responsibility to make laws that will stand the test of time.

    That the National Assembly is generally in favour of emergency is not in doubt. That majority of Nigerians endorse emergency is also not in doubt. But it is at times like this, when the country seems to single-mindedly embrace a point of view, that there is need for a pause to reconsider the fateful steps we are about to take, even if those steps turn out to be right. It is precisely when the public mood is impatient and fiercely intolerant of dissent, when there is a general absence of rigorous debate, and when the national mind seems completely made up, that a devil’s advocate is needed. The House of Representatives’ consideration of the president’s request for emergency powers comes closest to the ideal legislative undertaking. Yes, the situation the country faces is dire; but if democracy is to be saved, the country has a historic duty to anticipate and check any tendency for executive excesses, for the threats we face do not emanate from militants only but also from those who purport to fight militancy. The end, history teaches, is as important as the means.

    The modifications the Reps have proposed are in fact not revolutionary or subversive of peace, but are significant and indicative of an admirable measure of caution necessary to improve and sustain qualitative legislative work. In the Reps version, Section 2 of the Emergency Powers Act has been modified to make it very clear that the executive branch in state and local governments could not be subordinated to the president or his designee in the emergency states. This modification may be minor, but it is nonetheless significant, for if it had remained, the promise the president made not to tamper with the tenure or powers of the governors and local government chairmen in the affected states would have been of no effect. Section 2 (3) of the Act makes a provocative provision to directly bind the governor and LG chairman to obey the president’s order. Though the Reps modified it to limit its applicability to peace, order and security, it really should have been expunged, for clauses 1 and 2 could be vitiated by clause 3.

    Hardball had last week feared that given the huge cost of executing emergency, the federal government might be tempted to utilise a part of the allocations of the other two tiers of government in the three states. The Act in fact makes such a provision under Section 3(2e) empowering the president to utilise state and LG funds. Mercifully, however, the Reps have reportedly tinkered with that provision and barred the federal government from touching those funds. If the lower chamber had not had the foresight to do that, that provision could have opened a dangerous window into arbitrariness, if not extension of the period of emergency. There are a few more changes the Reps made to the Act.

    While the details of the modifications made by the Senate have not been published, it is important that during harmonisation, the Senate should move closer to the Reps position. It must be reiterated that while the country is passing through a very troubling time, the legislature must keep a presence of mind that enables it to check executive contrivances. That presence of mind must never be subordinated to the often explosive and unregulated public mood.

     

  • ‘Federating’ tertiary institutions’ admissions

    SIR: As someone, who in the last one dozen years has had great joy and pride to have advised some 180 students for their undergraduate theses, I read with great consternation and a heightened sense of chagrin Prof. Rukkayat Alkali’s almost patrician, patronizing finality that about 1.4 million candidates who sat for the University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) would not get placement into institutions of their choices; this figure of “absolutely certain “rejectees” is out of a total of 1.7 million candidates. Oh dear!

    Why UTME, then? Lately, Nigerians have been all too chirpy in the rumour mill about the 8.5 billion naira raked in by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) as internally-generated revenue (IGR) to have these candidates sit for the examination in the first place.

    It would be a good sign, indeed, if all candidates who sincerely desire to study at higher institutions are duly given placement slots; no, of course not, this is not mawkish utopianism! The minister’s stance smacks of an all-powerful central command structure with respect to how Nigerians wish to study at the post-secondary stage. The argument that facilities are “over-stretched already” at all existing federal, state, and private institutions of higher learning does not impress me much because I have come to the conclusion that what rickety facilities that are there are not even optimally utilized.

    At my department, so the grapevine says, there are crates of laboratory equipment from the 1980s that have not been broken open till now: yet I have single-handedly counseled some 180 students for their undergraduate theses: most of these student have integrated seamlessly into society and are doing jolly good in their chosen careers at home and abroad; those who have dared to pursue graduate studies (at home and abroad) have not disappointed one bit. Actually, in the year 2006, I had the honour to teach a final-year class of 250 students; I am very impressed by the number from that class who are currently pursuing interest in their PhDs. Yet, according to the grapevine, there are crates of lab equipment from the 1980s that have not been broken open till now. Classic case of appropriate equipment glut, eh?

    Methinks individual institutions of higher learning across Nigeria, with no arm-twisting from the “federated” National University Commission NUC, could still make do with expanded student intakes in order to act an “academic sponge” to “soak up” all those “excess-above-requirement” who may not get admission placements come the 2013/2014 academic session.

    What could be done is to prop the crop of academia, mentally and materially, to embrace the challenge of increased student body. Presently, the corps of academia is one dormant baby-producing institution. I should know this. Naturally.

     

    • Sunday Jonah

    Federal University of Technology,

    Minna, Niger State

     

  • Prisons off federal exclusive list?

    SIR: The Senate has said that state governments can now build and operate prisons, which hitherto have been an exclusive preserve of the federal government. Media reports quoted the chairman of Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal Matters, Senator Umaru Dahiru as saying: “under the new arrangement, states can now build, fund, and maintain prisons in their domains,” without seeking any approval from federal government.

    This development, we want to believe, means that prison service has been removed from the old-fashioned federal exclusive list, even though this was not explicitly stated in the reports.

    There is a sense in which Dahiru’s statement makes a patriotic Nigerian want to cry because it is a tacit confession that Nigeria’s foremost democratic institution knows that Nigeria needs a new arrangement, which it should have spearheaded by allowing the Constituent Assembly produce a new constitution for the country through a Sovereign National Conference.

    While we would love to commend the Senate for this development, we dare ask why it is finding it difficult to muster the courage needed for total rearrangement.

    We hope our Senators know that building prisons involve funding, which many states may not have. Many of them are still struggling to pay the minimum wage because the near-scandalous revenue allocation formula is still preferred. We live in a country where federating states are not allowed to control their own resources and Value Added Taxes generated in the states are hauled off to Abuja.

    Removing prison service from the federal exclusive list is a bitter-sweet indication. The sweet sense is the gratification that the senate knows that our call for restructuring of Nigeria’s political governance is essential to the country’s survival. The bitter sense, which lingers more, is the fact that liberalising prison service is actually a trifling portion of the heavy burden weighing down the country.

    It is said that a leader takes the people where they want to be, but a great leader takes the people where they ought to be. We charge the Nigerian senate to be great leaders of our people. They should take the bull by the horns by facilitating the convocation of a SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE (SNC), to solve Nigeria’s problems once and for all.

     

    • Kunle Famoriyo

    Afenifere Renewal Group

    Lagos

  • Finally, newspapers harmonise their figures

    Finally, newspapers harmonise their figures

    It has taken the agency of President Goodluck Jonathan’s state of emergency proclamation to coax the often heady and damned-the-statisticians Nigerian media into some uniformity of statistical presentation. In the past few days, the media have managed to present to a sceptical country a united front in reporting figures, events and places in the war against Boko Haram insurgents. Emergency was proclaimed last Tuesday. Between then and Saturday, the newspapers kept to their old habit of publishing contradictory figures on the same event, whether they involved deployment of troops or casualty. For instance, on Saturday, a newspaper reported “not less than 50” Boko Haram militants killed; while others respectively reported “hundreds” or “35” or “20” or “21.” Indeed, there was no agreement at all. But by Sunday, by some incredible coincidences, there was no newspaper left that differed from its neighbour in reporting figures, places, names and even tactical deployment of troops in the war against terror. The synchronisation seemed to have been engendered by the gods.

    Two reasons are responsible for this miracle. One is the ubiquitous ‘sources’ to which reporters famously attribute their difficult and sensitive stories. And the second is, as expected, the military spokesman, Brig-Gen Chris Olukolade. Cavorting between these two sources, the media have finally and effortlessly achieved reportorial convergence and poise. The miracle has also led to “super accurate” presentation of statistics. Henceforth, on the surface, readers needn’t fret over discrepancies in anything, whether of casualty figures or of names of settlements captured from the militants. Whatever one newspaper gave its readers was as good as those given by other newspapers to their readers. The facts and figures are seemingly indisputable and even bankable. A reader can safely quote them anywhere and anytime; they appear immutable.

    On Sunday, May 19, the newspapers, to the last, reported that the JTF captured 65 militants fleeing from their rustic redoubts and seeking refuge in Maiduguri. Ten militants were also reported killed. None of the newspapers doubted the figures, nor did they warn their readers the figures could not be independently confirmed. Between Monday and yesterday, the papers were irreverently in full blast, publishing figures and accounts provided by the military spokesman and other unnamed sources – all presented as incontrovertible facts. The figures were so good that by Monday’s and Tuesday’s newspaper reports those fleeing Borno State and escaping into Niger Republic, whether innocent victims or militants, were said to number 2,000. Five Boko Haram strongholds were also reported to have been overrun by the JTF, 14 militants killed and 120 captured. Who did the counting? Who confirmed the fallen strongholds? Surely there are enough lessons from the coverage of the Iraq War, especially its beginnings, the WMD controversy and its accompanying sexed-up dossiers, to make the Nigerian papers exercise more caution.

    If the media do not check their reporting of the crisis in the Northeast, especially issues surrounding the state of emergency, they may end up ridiculing themselves for having become the uncritical mouthpieces of the military. Irrespective of who they choose to support, or what sympathies they prefer to have, it is urgent for them to reintroduce professionalism into reporting the crisis. Caution is needed, attribution must be examined closely, and claims and counterclaims need to be subjected to time-honoured principles of journalism. The media may wish to support the JTF and embrace its accounts of the war, for patriotic reasons as they claim, but they have a greater responsibility to the public to feed them with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For in the end, the media will survive the crisis and hope to exhibit the maturity and judgement needed to emerge from the crisis with their reputations intact.

    While the Baga controversy dominated the news, were local media establishments invited to the town to see for themselves, to either corroborate the JTF account or disprove it? The government resorted to generating its own satellite images to counter foreign accounts of the alleged massacre, but even those images were never really published. How many reporters are covering the war in the Northeast, providing accounts of atrocities, if any, or writing about the evidently dramatic and positive changes in the attitude of the JTF to the local populace in the war theatre? Rather than sit in distant towns waiting for military bulletins of the war, quoting unsubstantiated figures and accounts, the Nigerian media should rediscover their values, insist they need to be close to the battlefield to report the heroism of our troops, the sacrifice of patriots and the sufferings of innocent victims. Nothing else will do; certainly not the figures provided by the military and regurgitated in a state of suspended animation by a press that is struggling to regain its standards.

     

     

     

  • Who says Nigeria isn’t a failed state?

    SIR: An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propaganda, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it – Mahatma Gandhi.

    In response to Prof Nwabueze’s comment on Nigeria as a failed state, former Special Assistant to PDP Chairman Osaro Onaiwu cited Nigeria’s Foreign Direct Investment {FDI} of $9b as indication that Nigeria is not a failed state. He claimed that foreigners see better communication, better transportation, and improvement in power, security; they see a pool of educated youth amongst others.

    One wonders which country Onaiwu is referring to. The economic hardship in the country negates whatever claims the government may be having. Venezuela is investing $100b of its oil money on infrastructure and planning the construction of a 1,000km railway line, while Nigeria’s leaders see no need to urgently repair our roads and construct modern rail lines.

    Nigeria has been poorly rated in all world economics indices such as Ease of Doing Business, where it is ranked 133 out of 134 countries and Global Competitiveness, 127 out of 132. The 25% interest on loans is inimical to economic growth of the nation.

    Also infrastructural deficiency has gotten many big industries and factories to close — up and relocated to other economic focused nations like Ghana. It is difficult for business to thrive under these unfavourable conditions.

    It is a mark of collective failure of Nigerian governments at different levels that after 52years of independence, water supply service coverage in the country is around 58%; in other words, about 70 million people lack potable water supply. Maternal mortality is 630 per 100,000. Infant mortality rate is 143 per 1,000 life births. Our status as oil rich nation notwithstanding, we continue to import refined petroleum products.

    Qatar, with a population of 1.7m people generates 8,750mw of electricity; Los Angelis, a city in the U.S. with four million population generates 7,500mw while Nigeria with a population of 170m is struggling with 3,100mw after wasting billions of dollars on power generation. Saudi Arabia plans to spend about $100b to add 30,000mw to its 40,000mw generated already for a population of 28m people, while China has been producing 6,000mw yearly in the last five years which is over 360,000mw. But in Nigeria the looting class is envisaging of increasing the electricity tariff again that will allow the poor masses to pay more for the darkness being experience everyday instead of light, while Nigeria is known to be the highest importer of generators in the world.

    Our health delivery system is shambolic. Our hospitals and teaching hospitals are glorified clinics compared to where our political leaders and policy makers run to when they have ailments. The nation’s Criminal Justice Delivery System is perfunctory and amateurish.

    It is unfortunate that our society continues to manifest what Lord Lugard thought about Nigerians in his book “Dual Mandate In British Tropical African” written over 80years ago: “In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline and foresight. Naturally courageous and polite, full of personal vanity”.

    • Pastor Mark Debo Taiwo (JP)

    Lagos

     

  • Foreigners and arms smuggling

    SIR: The rate at which the foreigners are smuggling arms into the country is alarming and calls for serious concern for all and sundry. With the kind of security challenges Nigeria as a nation is facing, we are supposed to be cautious of who brings what into the country, but it is unfortunate that some bad politicians, greedy custom officers and some disgruntled elements among other law enforcement officers are encouraging and supporting these criminals from different parts of the of the world to import all sorts of arms into Nigeria.

    On July 17, 2010 one Iranian, Azin Aghajani accompanied by one unpatriotic Nigerian named Ali Jega illegally imported 13-by-20 feet container load of fire-arms and explosives into Nigeria from Iran by falsely declaring on the Bill of Lading that the consignment contained construction materials.

    Also, 15 Russians were also arrested in Lagos by Naval officers on Oct. 18, 2012 over allegations of unlawful importation of arms into Nigeria. They were alleged to have entered the Nigerian territorial waters, without due clearance from the Nigerian Custom Service.

    While I commend Justice Okechukwu Okeke of Federal High Court in Lagos for sentencing Aghajani, the Iranian and his Nigerian accomplice Ali Jega to 17 years imprisonment each for illegal importation of fire arms into country, I would have preferred a harsher sentence. I will also appeal to Federal Ministries of Justice and Interior not to allow Ali Jega to serve his jail term in his home country (Iran) as requested by his counsel; rather, he should be allowed to serve his jail term in Nigerian prison so that it will serve as a lesson for other foreigners who think they can do whatever they like in Nigeria and go Scot free.

    The minister of Interior whose ministry is overseeing Customs must be up and doing. Corruption in Nigeria Custom Service must be checkmated and officers found aiding and abetting the smuggling of arms into the country must be sacked and prosecuted. The chiefs of Air and Naval Staff must also caution their officers from supporting the foreigners from smuggling arms into the country via our air and waterways.

    Lastly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru must also address the members of Diplomatic Corps to warn their citizens from causing troubles in Nigeria either directly or indirectly, and should any foreigner be arrested for any offence in Nigeria, he/she must be allowed to face the full wrath of the law as it is done in other foreign countries.

    Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and other countries have one time or the other executed Nigerians while thousands are languishing in their jail for carrying cocaine and other hard drugs into their countries; the same policy should be implemented for citizens of these countries who smuggle hard drugs or arms into Nigeria, after all, “all animals are equal”.

    Nigeria has enough problems and no foreigners should be allowed to add to our problems.

     

    • John Tosin Ajiboye

    Osogbo Osun State