The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Alamieyeseigha: A little more bellicosity in our foreign policy would be in order

    Alamieyeseigha: A little more bellicosity in our foreign policy would be in order

    It will take some time before the hysteria triggered by the state pardon granted Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha is dissipated. But while the controversy rages, it may unwittingly serve as a barometer of the potency of Nigerian foreign policy. That President Goodluck Jonathan operated within the ambit of the constitution to grant pardons to former Bayelsa State governor and others is not in doubt. That Nigerians feel justifiably enraged by the pardons, and are vehemently protesting the exercise, is also not to be waved aside, for they are protesting within the rights granted them by the constitution. Yet, the truly worrisome part of the whole affair is that the controversy seems to suggest the quality of our foreign policy enunciation has declined.

    Indeed, the local reactions to the pardons show in particular that the decline of our foreign policy is almost complete, with the Nigerian government and the populace seemingly inured to the neo-colonial dangers engendered by the controversy. Let us put the problem in context. The Wikileaks scandal of a few years ago showed how flippant top Nigerian officials were in the presence of American diplomats. It was not enough that Nigerian heads of state and elected presidents deeply coveted American and European approbation, with many of them even becoming house Negroes, now senior government officials and the media also think in terms of the white man’s worldview. This probably explains why Nigerian officials are desperate to avoid any misunderstanding with the United States over the Alamieyeseigha pardon, as if the former governor offended the US more than he offended and shamed Nigeria. Can Jonathan withstand the pressure?

    Sadly, the times have really changed. Neither the government nor the citizens, who in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s displayed boisterous nationalism and would not be dictated to by any foreign power, are unsure today of how to respond to the relentless foreign insults triggered by our government’s ineptitude. Rather than seek for ways to punish our criminals, no matter how highly placed, President Olusegun Obasanjo in his time in office was, for instance, willing to let the world humiliate Nigerians, as exampled by the Alamieyeseigha Heathrow airport drama. The current Alamieyeseigha sequel could have been better handled if the government and present generation of Nigerians were more nationalistic and sensitive to the full ramifications of the independence handed over to them by the patriarchs.

    Not only did the first US reaction to the controversial pardons come humiliatingly via a twitter posting, even when the US State Department finally reacted, it was to insinuate they would reassess their relationship with Nigeria and look into ways of restricting donor funds. Has Nigeria become an outpost of the US? Does the US have a viceroy in Abuja? Hear the plaintive cry of the Nigerian ambassador to the US on the controversy: “The American government through the embassy in Nigeria made its feelings on the issue of the pardon known. We have taken note of it… We are prepared to admit the rights of our friends to comment on the issue since it is now a matter of public knowledge. We understand the furore caused by the inclusion of the ex-governor. The statement recently made by Dr. Doyin Okupe explains government’s rationale. This will form part of the response of the embassy in Washington to questions that might arise in the future.” Hogwash.

    The world may be a global village, and money laundering may also be a major component of drug trade and terrorism, but the Alamieyeseigha problem is at bottom a Nigerian problem that should be dealt with fully by Nigeria in spite of our imperfect and sometimes corrupt judiciary and incompetent anti-graft agencies. It is deeply troubling that Nigerians are not conscious of their independence. They have forgotten the story of their country and the stories of how other countries, including the US, jealously guard their own independence and national pride. Nigeria fought a civil war without borrowing. If foreign aids, including Bill Gates’ aid money, must be accompanied by meddling in Nigeria’s affairs, we should be prepared to do without donations, and perhaps go to China for tutorials. With the events in Mali and the creeping recolonisation of parts of Africa, we have an even more urgent task ahead of us to elect a government that would be activist like the Murtala Mohammed government and not display the appalling misjudgement shown by the Jonathan presidency on Alamieyeseigha.

     

     

  • There’s no killing APC

    There’s no killing APC

    SIR: The revelation that other political parties had indicated interest to bear the acronym APC before the All Progressive Congress came to progressive Nigerians as a rude shock. It was as startling as it was disturbing, more like a deadly blow, well-rehearsed and cruelly-delivered with seeming utmost precision.

    The blow must have been meant for the jaws of the facilitators of All Progressive Congress (APC) to wit, chieftains of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) who toiled day and night to put together this awesome ‘toddler’ scheduled to enter the political firmament with a bang. But nay, the rank of forward- looking, progressive Nigerians that had fervently prayed for an intervention that would deliver the country from the crippling grip of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and that had looked forward with infectious enthusiasm and welcoming relief at the coming of All Progressive Congress had felt the blow more. Ultimately, democracy has been hit by something in the form of a ballistic missile!

    The fact of the matter is that there exists an urgent need for an alternative to the monster called Peoples Democratic Party. Not a few Nigerians are of the opinion that the PDP needs be dislodged from power before a greater damage is done to the psyche of Nigerians and the country goes deeper into the abyss of economic quagmire.

    Not only have Nigerians been totally disappointed that the government of Goodluck Jonathan has not been able to significantly address the problems of power failure, infrastructural rot, rising unemployment, excruciatingly high cost of living, closure of local industries and re-location of their foreign counterparts, issues confronting the education sector, the present serious security challenge facing the country looks set to exterminate all Nigerians. In the face of this hullabaloo, Nigerians saw the move by the facilitators of All Progressive Party to throw up another large party that could dislodge the ruling party in coming elections as a great relief and positive development.

    We have heard that a lawyer submitted African Peoples Congress’s application to INEC on behalf of somebody; we have also heared that another party All Patriotic Citizens also with the acronym of APC has submitted its application to INEC, bringing to three parties interested in bearing APC. The big question is “How on earth can one person package and sign an application on behalf of a political party? Where are INEC’s rules and regulations concerning party registration? Where were these parties on February 6 when the All Progressive Congress was formed?

    The promoters of African Peoples’ Congress and any other party struggling with All Progressives Congress and their sponsors definitely have a motive: to whittle down the enthusiasm of Nigerians, frustrate the emergence of a credible alternative and perpetuate ineffectual governance. The National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Osita Okechukwu spoke the minds of many Nigerians when he called on INEC to “investigate the allegation that the proposed APC is being floated by the PDP to foist a one-party system on the country”. Some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have allegedly owned up to a conspiracy deal.

    The steely resolve of leaders of All Progressive Congress on this ‘copyright theft’ is note-worthy and heart-warming. All right-thinking Nigerians should prevail on INEC to register the All Progressive Congress with immediate effect. This great political party must not die.

     

    s• Laitan Akinwunmi

    Ifako-Ijaiye, Lagos

  • One moment of madness!

    It is common occurrence for sudden darkness to engulf us and in the jest of the perennial outages, the cry of “Oh NEPA” fills the dark air as if to express our collective disappointment, sadness, unfortunateness! This practice is not a generational occurrence or tribal one; it is the common cry of Nigerians when power outage takes place. It has become our national practice, part of our national character, our national psychic, our national pastime, our national expression of acceptance that power outage anytime has come to stay in our lives!

    And why not, if this sad phenomenon has been with us for the past five or six decades – every man, woman, child and yet unborn baby knows “Oh NEPA”. We have come to accept that it is the norm and not the exception. I recollect a young primary school student on a five-day visit to London asking the Nigerian chaperon on the fourth day if “there was no NEPA here”. Naturally everyone burst out laughing but the chaperon had to explain to the young student that “NO NEPA “ is not the expected, it is the aberration, the failure of leadership that Nigeria and Nigerians had come to accept as a way of life. This young man was so moved he said he was going to study the sciences to fix the problem and those around him encouraged him though everyone knew that the problem is not with science but rather with politics.

    The problem is no longer an issue of leadership alone; it has also become one of the acquiescing of the followership in accepting to live with an unwanted occurrence. We waste our votes each election and then exclaim Oh NEPA every single day of our lives without considering the huge cost to lives and property of the average man. The colossal loss of lives and property each year should provide reasons for voters to be wiser in the exercise of their fundamental human rights, the right to elect those who will govern them.

    We hear each day of outages and the return of a burst of high voltage power causing buildings to burn; we hear of people being burned to death and of generators catching fire and burning properties. We hear of factories burnt, story buildings razed to dust by voltage issues. And yet it continues to be life as usual, as we wait for the next occurrence.

    A nation accepting the power outage problem for five decades, with billions if not trillions spent to supposedly rectify the power problem. I ask you if your child failed his final exams for four consecutive years will the school receive him in the fifth year? If the lives and properties that were being lost were those of the billionaires, trillionaires, politicians, would a solution not have been found sooner?. If state houses and state assemblies were being razed by surge in power after an outage, would we not have found a solution earlier?

    The consequences of “ Moment of Madness” when we shout Up NEPA is never captured, collated or indeed appreciated by our leaders who are quick to show grieve for political reasons when they know they are the cause of the problem.

    I recently experienced one such Moment of Madness power outage, albeit one with an international dimension, with colossal consequences.

    The day was Monday March 4, at the departure hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport. It was hot as the reconstruction effort is ongoing; passengers went about getting set for boarding their respective flights. Flights arrived and departed and passengers waited in lounges, waiting areas and boarding points to jet off in different directions. Suddenly the airport experienced power outage and the usual “Oh NEPA” filled the air. Unknown to many, the light for the AIRPORT RUNWAY for landing planes had also been extinguished! Unfortunately, an Emirates flight from Dubai had commenced landing approach to the runway when the power outage occurred and you can imagine what the Captain of the flight had to do!

    He lifted the plane and ran away from the Nigerian airspace to safety and proceeded to land at Lome. Just imagine if that plane had crashed killing all on board ( maybe 250 people!) just because of one Moment of Madness – all because we could not ensure that the runway is permanently powered to avoid any calamity; the airport and runway were on NEPA!

    The Emirates plane landed in Lome and after hours it finally returned to land at MMIA to drop her passengers and pick up those scheduled to travel that night. As you can imagine, the Emirates Flight to Dubai is usually full or nearly full since our leaders have denied us a National Carrier. Dubai serves as the hub for passengers going to as diverse as India, Shanghai, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand, Perth, etc and so it was that the flight to Dubai on this faithful evening was full of passengers going to different parts of the world with many requiring connecting flights to catch on getting to Dubai. The Lagos to Dubai flight that should have taken off at 9.30pm eventually departed at 1.58am on March 5!

    Let me digress for a few paragraphs just to emphasize the point of the failure of our leaders to ensure we have a viable National Carrier. Nigerians travel a lot and in 2012 the number of Nigerians who would have travelled out would be in excess of six million flying the carriers of other countries, including African countries like Rwanda, Namibia, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, South Africa, etc. Yet we proclaim ourselves as Giant of Africa!

    Let me use Emirates to emphasize the case since I know our leaders must be aware of the profitability, job creation, imagery and cultural benefits of operating a National Carrier. Emirates has turned the city of Dubai to the global hub for linking West Africa, East Africa, Australasia with Europe, Asia , Middle East and North America and vice versa. This has driven the rapid growth of the airline in the last decade and the recent partnership with Qantas confirms this strategic direction for further growth. For the Nigerian market, it has meant that over the last five years, Emirates has gradually developed as the link for Nigerians traveling to Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Middle East and including North America and Europe. The success of this service in the absence of a competing Nigerian carrier has meant increasing flight from a few per week to everyday to two flights per day! And now Qatar and Etihad have joined to serve Nigerians since we cannot get our acts together.

    To continue my story, our flight EK 782 finally arrived at Dubai airport nearly six hours after schedule. You needed to see the stress on the faces of my countrymen including mine, because we had missed our connecting flights and needed to find the next available flight. Many were going for meetings they had now missed; indeed some contemplated returning to Lagos since the new connecting flight was not helpful to their business venture.

    One can then appreciate the challenge the One Moment of Madness caused our countrymen and also Emirates Airline as a business concern. Emirates Airline had to arrange rebooking of flights, hotel accommodation, transfers, and the vacant seats for the passengers who did not travel as planned on departed flights would have been lost revenue! The One Moment of Madness would have cost Emirates Airline a sizeable sum and you ask yourself why and all you are left with is because of Nigeria’s One Moment of Madness power outage.

    It is time the people, the electorate, the followers of Nigeria think of how to eradicate this One MOMENT OF MADNESS. The solution is in their votes, in monitoring performance of their leaders, insisting on a better quality of life, demanding for 24 hours of electricity supply; we can then expect solutions faster.

     

    • Jaji writes from Lagos

  • APC versus APC versus PDP

    APC versus APC versus PDP

    Nothing represents more acutely the distress facing the unregistered All Progressives Congress (APC) than the biblical quotation in Matthew 13:25. It says: “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.” The verse is the opening shot in a parable told by Jesus Christ using farming analogy to describe the kingdom of God. But it could very well describe the predicament the APC is in today. How did matters get so tangled up? The APC, that is, the original APC made up of three or four political parties (Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change, All Nigeria Peoples Party, and a part of the All Progressives Grand Alliance) excitedly came together early last month to activate a paradigmatic change in Nigerian politics. While they were still putting their papers together to seek official registration, they were at the same time irrepressibly bouncing up and down the country acting as if they were already a registered party, making deft moves, giving the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sickeningly effective uppercuts in faraway Maiduguri, and perhaps already secretly imagining they were going to cause an upset in the 2015 polls.

    Alas, they underestimated the enemy, their old and furtive antagonist, the behemoth with many tentacles and, now, many proxies. While APC slept, perhaps dreaming of political nirvana, the tip-toeing enemy craftily spawned “four or five APCs” and got lawyers to put in application for their registration before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The proxy APCs have so unnerved the real APC that the latter’s top hats are no longer sounding as self-assured as they did when they knocked out the PDP in Borno State about two weeks ago. It has probably come to the APC in an epiphany that, just as this column had warned, the PDP is very much alive and capable of delivering knockout punches even with its back against the ropes. The activists in the more troublesome APC will of course fight the ruling party’s chicanery, but from now on they will respect the enemy and learn not to underestimate it.

    It is expected that INEC would do the right thing eventually, for there are probably still a few men in its top echelon whose consciences are still alive and functioning. The chairman of the electoral body has indicated the issue of a surreptitious attempt to register a proxy APC would be investigated. He will see the investigation to its logical end, and he will ensure that justice prevails. Being a man with an eye on history, it is unlikely he would let such deliberate malfeasance define his accomplishments. More, it is also unlikely that the ruling party, which is alleged to be behind the birthing of the pesky proxies, really wants to permanently disfigure the real APC with one brutal blow to the medulla. All they want to do, it seems, is to discomfit or disorient the political upstart, make it less giddy than it has been in the past few weeks, confound its strategies, and generally earn respect from it. Therefore, they will use the proxy cards as much as is feasible until it becomes untenable. Then they will move on to other more malevolent stratagems, some of which will reach maturity as the fateful elections draw near.

    In many ways, the real APC should thank its stars that the ruling party is showing its hand early in the day. The proxy battle, no matter how it is resolved, should tell the APC that the months ahead are fraught with forebodings. There will be bitter battles, eyes will be gouged out, and ears bitten off. And if care is not taken, what seems a proxy, phoney war today could very well transform into a sanguinary war tomorrow, the type experienced by combatants in the Somme Offensive in World War I. From all indications, the APC can stand a chance only if it adopts unorthodox fighting style. The current fanciful footwork it has embraced, reminiscent of Georges Carpentier’s sweet but ineffective pugilistic style against the bullish Jack Dempsey (Heavyweight boxing match, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1921), will have to give way to more enduring pragmatism and, shall we say, more devilment, if it is to stand a chance of winning the polls and redeeming the country in 2015.

  • Of state pardon and Ribadu’s frustrations

    Fact: Nuhu Ribadu is a frustrated man. He is hardly a happy man, at least outside his small cycle of family and friends. The once fiery anti-corruption czar got frustrated and disappointed on many counts. He was unceremoniously axed from the helms of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2008, a few months after the ascension of late President Umaru Yar’Adua. His then rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) was brought to question and eventually trimmed to a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) – two steps down the ladder. And, in clear manifestation of his oft-stated fears over his job, the man narrowly escaped the assassin’s bullets on two occasions before he managed to escape the borders of the country. He became disenfranchised, exiled and, ultimately, ostracised. But it didn’t come to him as a surprise because he had for long realized that fighting the high and mighty is not without a price on one’s side. “Corruption fights back and it fights dirty!” he often says. No other Nigerian, nay African, is more competent to report on how embedded official corruption and fraud are in the fabric of the society, and how corruption also haunts anyone that attempts to cleanse it.

    Like in a well scripted fantasy novel, President Goodluck Jonathan last week convoked the National Council of States (NCS) meeting to grant state pardon to convicted corrupt former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyesiegha and former managing director of the defunct Bank of the North, Shettima Mohammed Bulama. Nothing is as lethal to Nigeria’s skulking fight against the menace of corruption apart from the move to scrap off the EFCC itself that was hatched by some politicians around 2008.

    Listening to Ribadu commenting on the controversial pardon over the BBC Hausa at the weekend, one hears a voice of a frustrated man. There was discernible anger from the way he responded to the questions about the whole show of shame that is the state pardon jamboree. The tone of the voice alone was enough to tell a story: a story of series of disappointments of man who, like a messiah trying hard to cure his society of odious stench of evils got spikes sprinkled along his path by the same people who should clear thorns and pebbles off the road to a better future.

    The former anti-graft czar has valid reasons to be angry. As he stated, he and his team at the EFCC underwent great difficulties in meticulously investigating these two individuals and, eventually, bringing them to book. It was, for Ribadu, something of joy and celebration when Bulama, and, later, Alamieyesiegha was convicted. Joy not for celebrating another’s ‘misfortune’ but for the fact that the once powerful treasury looters who, over the years, collectively siphoned over $380 billion since independence and stashed them abroad, could now be brought to books to account for their fraudulent past.

    Ribadu’s effort to bring those two figures, and subsequent other corrupt public servants to justice, was something that should be rewarded with the highest honour the country could give an individual. Through the ideas and selfless works of one individual, the global image of Nigeria was greatly embellished, leading to the deletion of Nigeria’s name from FATF’s “List of Non-cooperative Countries and Territories” as well as appreciable debt relief from the Paris Club. To his eternal credit, Ribadu worked with a great deal of self-restraint. Thus, he avoided several financial inducements that came his way, like plague. A story was told of how a notorious internet scammer who duped some Brazilians to the tune of $150 million, fervently begged Ribadu to halve the money and let him go with one portion while he (Ribadu) take the other half. The then EFCC chairman refused and he went ahead to prosecute the man and returned the forfeited money to the people duped. This was neither the first, nor the last in the series of barely known incidences of Ribadu choosing the less treaded path to sincerity and honesty, as against personal interest. Well before his days in the EFCC, Ribadu had once rejected bribe to the tune of N20 million while prosecuting a case of fraud involving some Central Bank of Nigeria and Ministry of Finance officials in the mid-1990s. Indeed, the case of the $15 million Ibori bribe saga, which Ribadu declined, has become a reference point worldwide, for sheer magnitude of the bribe money and highest sense of responsibility exhibited by the target of the bribe.

    However, to the chagrin of anti-corruption campaigners and the global community, the first ‘reward’ Ribadu got from his years of untainted work at the EFCC was a tactical though brazen butt out. Yet, those who engineered his removal from the EFCC were not done yet. They kept masterminding heinous plots to distort the course of his entire life, the height of which was a ploy to send him off the face of the earth.

    But still resolute on seeing that Nigeria is cured of its number one malady – corruption, Ribadu accepted to chair the Petroleum Revenue Task Force, last year. He worked against the odds, including starvation of funds, to bring about a report that unearthed unimaginable level of corruption perpetrated in active connivance with those who should have checked such rip off of the country. However, instead of government taking the committee’s revelations seriously, we saw how an obviously government-backed tragic-comedy was staged to rubbish the report from the day of its presentation. Yet, President Goodluck Jonathan still promised to act on the report. However, six months since the report was turned in, mum is the word from the side of the government.

    The same government that showed this lackadaisical gait in dealing with this clear case of disservice for the nation is now reversing the good works Ribadu did many tears back.

    Typical of the saying that prophets are not valued at home, Ribadu’s honours and accolades often come from the outside. A few months after he escaped the twin assassination attempts, Ribadu secured Senior Fellowship position at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, UK and another offer came from the prestigious Centre for Global Development where he served as a Visiting Fellow. The height of it all was the World Bank’s Jit Gill Memorial Award for Outstanding Public Service, the first from Nigeria to fetch such a reputable award.

    Indeed, the Alamieyesiegha pardon-gate has once again brought to the fore the insincerity of the Jonathan administration to fighting the scourge of corruption and fraud in this country. Already, the torrent of criticism from within and outside the country, including – significantly – from the US government, has shown how unpopular this decision is. It amounted to dragging the image of the country to the pre-EFCC days of money laundering, advance fee fraud and impunity. The sooner President Jonathan decides to eat the humble pie, the better for the country.

    •Maikano writes from Kado Estate, Abuja

  • NGF should resist intimidation

    SIR: If the PDP governors are true believers of democracy, they should take the so-called presidency and its fixers head-on and vow not to be intimidated by their threats to impose President Jonathan on PDP members. Those calling themselves leaders and friends of the president have no right, whatsoever, to tell PDP members who to elect. If they so believe in President Jonathan, the party’s National Convention is there to test his popularity, instead of trying to intimidate PDP governors into supporting a cause they do not believe in. Besides, apart from a few opportunists among the PDP governors, Jonathan has not earned their support.

    One can’t help but be amazed at Chief Edwin Clark’s comments, when he claimed that the NGF should be dissolved. The NGF should know that if they ignore or run away from their bullies, they will keep coming after them. Like with dogs, turning tail in flight is a signal for pursuit. And if they yield to their threats, the threats will keep aiming higher as they will become victims, and find it increasingly harder to overcome the bullies. There is only one proper response to leaders-turned-backyard bullies. Stare them down, stay the course and stand up to them.

    Jonathan and his praise-singers should be smart enough to know that no amount of threats, intimidation and blackmail will make the governors change their position on the candidate that they want to elect. Determined governors must be ready to take battering, tumbles and bruises, no matter how grievous they seem, because truth and right are on their side.

    Spin doctors in the presidency, it seems, have misled the President that they really know the country called Nigeria. Do they even feel the pulse of PDP members, let alone that of Nigerians? This ignorance, which some people misconstrued as arrogance, has led them scurrying to re-install sacked National Working Committee members from the South West PDP, a move akin to eating their vomit, all in a bid to pacify already perceived enemies to support the President’s re-election project. This is just the beginning of a series of dog fights in the party as 2015 approaches.

    Interestingly, President Jonathan has put so much faith in the troika of Bamanga Tukur, Tony Anenih and Godswill Akpabio, and his mouth piece, Edwin Clark; men that talk from both sides of their mouth. One writer even noted that Anenih was appointed BoT Chairman to reposition PDP. Excuse me; is it PDP Edo or PDP Nigeria? Has Anenih been able to reposition PDP in Edo State? Here is a man that has since been demystified and sent to the cleaners by Governor Adams Oshiomhole. Twice.

    In one breath, Clark says Jonathan is PDP’s sole candidate, in another, he says nobody should be stopped from contesting as “the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guaranteed equality of all Nigerians to seek elected offices, when and where necessary”. So anybody can contest on the platform of an opposition party but no PDP member has the constitutional right to contest because of Jonathan?

    Akpabio said the PDP Governor’s Forum will try to identify Judases amongst them; the same Judases Anenih is demanding total loyalty from, and the same Judases that, according to Tukur, have been giving Jonathan sleepless nights?

    On what moral ground can these men stand on to lecture other people on politics and democracy when their own party is collapsing? Everything is in black and white now, and Nigerians expect the Presidency to respect the democratic will of the various states governors and their people.

    • Lloyd Robinson

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State

  • Ogun NYSC’s conscientious objector

    SIR: I refer to the case of Tolu Ekundayo, a youth corper posted to Ogun State said to have disregarded the dress code of NYSC. Nigeria’s constitution guarantees our fundamental human rights of which freedom of religion and expressions are there. The lady is free to obey the commandment of her God. We do not need the aid of dictionary to understand this divine command: “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for all that do so are abomination unto the lord their God (Deuteronomy 22:5).

    Only she who believes is obedient, only she who obedient believes.

    In the 80s, the women that wear trousers were classified as prostitutes but today 80% of women are deliberately violating the law of God. Is that not the reason why there are many problems around us? She who refuses to obey God is an unbeliever. There is no way one can be happy in despising divine law.

    NYSC Ogun State left leprosy to treat ringworm. There is a sect that its faithful will not sing our national anthem. There are corpers that will not go to work but bargain with officials to collect monthly allowances. Nigeria is a country where corruption is being institutionalised and attempt is being made to constitutionalise it.

    The highest form of evil you can do to a man is to force him to sin against his God. We underrate God and His law in Nigeria that is why righteousness is despised.

    A lady who says “yes” to everyone and everything, every time is not a lady. Nearly all our career ladies today wear trousers and there are lots of problems all over the place.

    I salute the courage and audacity of this lady as she sounded it loud and clear that “others may, she cannot”. She has experimented divine truth with apparatus of confidence and boldness to let those who compromise know that she is not just God’s fan but His fanatic.

    It is not who is right but what is right. Let us value virtue than social vices, it is then we can have new Nigerians for a new Nigeria.

    • Ezekiel Oluwole Kolawole

    Ikotun Lagos.

  • Sponsorship of pilgrimage a misplaced priority

    SIR: The Federal Government delegation to last year’s Christian pilgrimage, headed by Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, reportedly listed seven northern states among those who refused to sponsor Christian pilgrims. Their displeasure was the bias that has been institutionalized in the policy of the states mentioned. However, President Jonathan had a wise word that gladdened me to some extent. His assertion was that it was left to the states whether or not to sponsor pilgrims, but whatever their decision, they must remember that what applies to Christians must apply to Muslims and vice versa.

    My concern, however, is the religious and economic implication of federal and states continuing sponsorship of Christian and Muslim pilgrimage to the holy land. In the first place, neither the Islamic nor Christian religion suggests that the common wealth of the people could be used to pay for the pilgrimage of a privileged few even where they are state religions. That some countries of the world practice this policy does not absolve us from considering how different our circumstance is.

    I certainly encourage pilgrimage. However, individuals should not be deprived of the spiritual benefit that accrues from the process involved in preparing and actual performance of the pilgrimage. However, when the government decides to pay for all expenses, that process, in my opinion, is interrupted and the full benefit of the pilgrimage is not achieved. On the contrary, the pilgrim’s spiritual riches are, so to say, switched for whatever is received as sponsorship. .

    Economically, what we do every time we sponsor pilgrims to either Saudi Arabia, Israel or Italy, is transfer our meagre resources to help enrich countries that are already far richer than us through tourism spending, the fastest growing economic venture in the world.

    If the same amount used in sponsoring individuals for pilgrimage was given to poor but industrious citizens, Nigeria would have been better for it. The idea of sponsoring pilgrims may be aimed at helping the citizens to grow holy but the reverse, in my opinion, seem to be happening. In a country of 160 million people, even if 10,000 citizens are sponsored every year, that will make up only 0.0062% of the total population and in a 100 years only 1,000,000 or 0.62% would have been sponsored, not even 1%. How long do we expect the other 99% to wait for their turn supposing it is a right? What this later group is seeing is the misappropriation of the common treasury to favour a very minor class of citizens based on their political or family affiliation to the detriment of the majority. The scenario would have been different if the one percent that will be sponsored will return to radically change the moral and socio-economic situation of the remaining ninety-nine for the better; then it would have be a worthy investment. Unfortunately, the security and economic situation in the country today is pregnant with so many questions that demands answers from all responsible citizens.

     

    • Patrick Kanang Nyam

    Department of Development Control,

    Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, Wuse, Abuja.

  • On Jonathan’s untold one-term pact

    The Nation on Sunday’s story on President Jonathan’s one-term pact published on March 19, 2013 is no idle talk. But the crucial question is what has President Jonathan got to show as his credential for wanting to go for another term? To me, and many Nigerians, he has got nothing to show.

    Another issue is PDP’s assumption that it can win the next general election with or without Jonathan. The truth is that the people of Nigeria at home and abroad are fed up with the rate at which the coffer of the nation is being looted with impunity at the federal level. Billions of naira is spent with nothing to show for it.

    President Jonathan merely believes in parading names in his cabinet and most of them are expired both in performance and credibility.

    Nigerians are being ridiculed at the international borders because of the lack of performance of our government at the federal level. Nothing works here; electricity is replaced with generators, roads are crying for repairs, hospitals are not functioning, education system are in shamble. What shall we say about security? It does not exist anywhere.

    The truth must be said, it is not only President Jonathan that Nigerians are fed up with; his party PDP has overstayed its usefulness. Nigerians know who they want. At this juncture, credit needs to be given to Prof. Atahiru Jega for conducting the last election with tolerable errors and mistakes. The fear most people now have is if he will be able to perform better. And is it possible “for he who plays the piper not to dictate the tune?” This is why we need to use the biometric register and to prevent Kenya’s experience. And if Kenya did it with some little errors what excuse shall we have for not using it better? We will have no excuse, and it is biometric register that can prevent the avoidable fracas that would want to rear its head. Not only that it would also prevent fracas of unimaginable dimension, but it is the only way to keep the country together.

    Nigeria is greater than anybody’s ambition. Therefore, let personal interest be shelved for the unity of Nigeria.

    By Rev. Christopher Lekan Alawode

  • Auctioneers and buyers of Igbo Presidency

    Auctioneers and buyers of Igbo Presidency

    Political debates are hitting for the 2015 presidential elections. Opinions are divided among regions, political divides and individuals in the country. Ndigbo are the most affected in these un-organised debates. Bystanders are watching some Ndigbo make a mess of their people in a disgusted manner. Many of them, who are in the employ of the present government, want continuity, whereas others in and out of the government want the president to come from the Igbo extraction, in the next election.

    To a former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, it would be unfair if the president of the country does not come from Igbo in 2015.

    Kalu buys into the debate that Igbo must produce the president of this country in 2015; he has floated an organisation called Njiko Igbo in that regard. Njiko Igbo is his project aimed at uniting Ndigbo for this task. His insight into this project speaks positively as a politician, influential businessman and founding member of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). His love for Ndigbo and the unity of Nigeria is unquestionable; he is incessantly travelling out of the country to seek for Igbo unity and attract investors into Nigeria.

    As a country that is rated in the comity of nations as developing, Kalu believes that Ndigbo should not relax on their oars and watch the political events of the country being handled by people from other regions of the country as from time to time; Ndigbo should be able to identify political opportunities for their engagement and growth. He believes that politics has become a key focus of Nigerians.

    This is already 2013 and what Nigerians continue to read in the newspapers and listen to on the Radio and TV are cases of official monumental fraud among the ruling class instead of records of breakthroughs in developmental strides that need urgent attention. Any group or person from Igbo can say what he or she likes but one thing remains open: Kalu works with his conscience. He has often said it that Njiko Igbo is not going to fight any opposing agenda of this grand move to actualise an Igbo Presidency. Kalu would say, “We are only negotiating and begging to see that justice is done.”

    Ndigbo cannot be fulfilled in Nigeria once the continuous relegation of them is orchestrated as their fate not to clinch the exalted office of the president of the country. In an interview, one of the auctioneers of Igbo presidency to other regions in Nigeria come 2015, a woman from the South-East, said that what she knew was that 2015 is a mirage for the Igbo, because Nigeria has an incumbent (president) and that he may run for a second term. “Even if the president says he will not go for second term, I’m not sure that northerners will agree that an Igbo should go. Let’s plan for 2019, which is more realistic,” she said.

    It is very unfortunate that someone who is known as a politician from the South-East can condescend that low, by becoming an apologist of northerners. She forgot that the northerners had held power for uninterrupted 35yrs! This is against the grains; those persons from other ethnic groups who have ruled Nigeria for years do not have two heads.

    We should believe in the possibility of an Igbo presidency in 2015, and start building bridges of dialogue and form strong partnerships across any warring opinions. Many are of the opinion that this Njiko Igbo project is feasible. Many dignitaries from other tribes are also aligning with this vision, a fact that has buttressed that Njiko Igbo is breaking any cultural and political barriers that had held Ndigbo down for ages, and is making sure that other regions see reason why there should be an Igbo presidency in 2015.

    It is, however, imperative to say that no matter all the auctioneers that have surrounded this Igbo presidency project because of their personal political lucre in this present government, Kalu who has bought the idea of Igbo presidency should continue to put in his best forward, and should not mind those voices begging for the Igbo presidency beyond 2015. Ndigbo should not beg for the presidency because they do not signify weakness both spiritually and otherwise.

    Odimegwu Onwumere,

    Aba, Abia State.