The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Dangers of tampering with PHCN installations

    Dangers of tampering with PHCN installations

    SIR: The picture of a man on a pole belonging to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) attempting to fix a cable in Samaru, Zaria featured on page 4 of Daily Trust edition of Monday, September 17, could best be described as one on a suicide mission.

    He was probably reconnecting or attempting to reconnect a disconnected customer for a token or fixing an unauthorised fault to the detriment of his own precious life. Pictures are said to speak more than a million words. The apparent danger in ignorantly or consciously accepting to commit suicide, become a device employed in sabotaging public utilities, treating same with scornful indifference and as inconsequential facilities of no value was the essence of the pictorial message.

    In fact, this picture was as worrisome as it calls for caution and adequate enlightenment. Enlightenment will go a long way in bringing to the knowledge of PHCN’s esteemed customers the dangers inherent in tampering with installations without authorisation.

    The safety of life of those indulging in this illicit act can only be guaranteed by the Almighty as they may not live to tell the stories. Some unlucky ones who threw caution to the wind like this fellow were electrocuted while others live with the unforgettable scar resulting from burns as a reminder of an unfortunate adventure. This action could lead to short-circuiting of transformer (s) or trigger a monumental technical fault along PHCN network which thus throw the entire area into darkness. The effort of government in ensuring that the nagging problem of power is resolved should not be scuttled by a few involved in this act.

    This action deprives PHCN of the needed revenue generation expected to be ploughed back into serving the public better. Electric poles are normally climbed with recommended PHCN ladders only. Therefore, it is abnormal and fool-hardy climbing an electric pole with mere bare hands because chances of losing balance are high. Apart from the aforementioned dangers, the public should be duly informed that the extant laws of the nation frown at this act and a corresponding penalty of 21 years imprisonment await defaulters.

    In short, we have in our hands a time bomb waiting to explode. An ugly situation which practically threw up the quantum of attention and concern an individual Nigerian pay to the sanctity of his own life and that of his neighbours.

    It is our responsibility as individuals and community to safeguard public utilities in our domains especially that of PHCN for the important services they render. We should report any suspicious movement around PHCN installations to the police or the nearest PHCN Service Centres. Furthermore, our various communities should be willing allies of PHCN to be able to win this war by discouraging their people from partaking in this illegal act.

    The media is passionately called upon to assist PHCN in opinion moulding, audience penetration, information dissemination, education and enlightenment on this inherent danger constantly lurking in our neighbourhoods and brazenly ignored to our own peril. By so doing, the consciousness of the PHCN customers will be awakened to the realities and the consequences of this unwarranted trend.

     

    • Sunday Onyemaechi Eze

    Power Holding Company of Nigeria,

    Zaria, Kaduna

     

  • Esa Oke deserves local council headquarter status

    Esa Oke deserves local council headquarter status

    SIR: History and posterity will continue to judge the governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola for his administration’s transformation agenda within the almost two years he has been in the saddle. Aregbesola is bringing his progressive traits into bear with unprecedented achievements within few months of his administration, particularly on his resolve to create new local government councils.

    Although as it is customary when opportunity like this comes, every community is bound to agitate, but there are many factors those in charge should consider. The present Ijesa North federal constituency comprising, Obokun and Oriade Local governments has a complex structure with many big towns,villages and land mass. Esa Oke, the host community of the Osun State College of Technology(OSCOTECH) according to available records is bigger than many present local government headquarters in the state in terms of population,infrastructure, land mass, adjoining villages and hamlets of more than 40 with their separate community heads. The ancient town of Esa Oke which produced the first Executive Governor of Old Oyo state and leader of the progressives, late Bola Ige and many other illustrious sons and daughters has the wherewithal including economic power, high political profile and available structures to become an independent local government or as the headquarters of one of the proposed councils in the present Obokun Local Government.

    A critical assessment of the present population of Esa Oke shows that it overwhelm all others particularly in Obokun Local Government comprising Ibokun, Imesi Ile, Ilare, Otan Ile, Ikinyinwa, Idominasi, Ilowa, Iponda, Ilase, Idoka, Esa odo, Eesun, Ido Oko, Ipetu Ile etc while its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is higher than all other towns put together.

    Esa Oke has a vibrant historic records particularly with his immediate past monarch, Oba Isaiah Ajayi Adeniran, Owa Omiran(JP) serving as the only traditional ruler who was a member of. House of Chiefs in the Old Western region that represented the entire Obas in that axis during an international conference in England, where he met Queen Elizabeth(II). This was about six decades ago. He was also the first chairman of Ijesa North Traditional council.

    Talking in terms of land mass, Esa Oke extends from River Ooni near Ijebu Jesa in the southern part and share borders with Efon Alaye Ekiti in the east and Okemesi- Ekiti and Imesi Ile in the north. It is endowed with a large fertile land that will ginger the laudable agricultural instinct of the incumbent Aregbesola administration. The community has about seven public and private secondary schools and many elementary schools. In fact, Government needs little or nothing to add to the existing infrastructure in Esa Oke community for the effective take-off of the proposal. Our distinguished son, Bola Ige whom Ogbeni Aregbesola and other progressive leaders like Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande hold in high esteem will rejoice in his grave if Esa Oke is granted a status of Local Government headquarters.

    • Damisi Ojo,

    Ondo Bye Pass, Akure.

  • Questions for CBN Governor Sanusi

    Questions for CBN Governor Sanusi

    SIR: Please help us ask the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to give sincere answers to these questions….

    Will the introduction of the new N5000 note make the naira exchange rate higher than dollar, pounds, rand, euros and so on? If yes, please tell him Nigerians can’t wait to have the new currency.

    With the intended introduction of the so-called coin tellers or ATM machines, will the CBN governor and his “pro-=N=5000” note group accept and spend the coins and also will they move around with these coins in their pockets of expensive and imported suits?

    Will the new note change the life of the poor masses or will only make the rich richer?

    Please the CBN should have a rethink. May God bless Nigeria.

    • Lukman Adamu

    Mararaba, Nasarawa State

  • Presidential pessimism

    Presidential pessimism

    President Goodluck Jonathan often complains about the professionalism of the Nigerian media. But in his extempore speech of Tuesday, given on the occasion of the 52nd Independence Anniversary lecture under the theme, Nigeria: Security, Development and National Transformation, the president was once again at his bilious and vehement worst. It was a copious speech, and it revealed the president’s inner, and shall we say, vivid and embroidered thoughts. It also unfortunately amplified his difficult relationship with the concept of security, the political part of which interested and disturbed him. He is also apparently unnerved by media comprehension of the freedom of speech and what he describes as its injurious impact on stability and good governance. Overall, Nigerians should be grateful for the president’s often frank eruptions, for, as this column once said, they are a window into his uniquely pessimistic mind and reveal how delicately wired it is.

    Crucially, the president addressed two interesting things in his speech: the fuel subsidy protests; and his comparison of the media with Boko Haram. He seems to think that given the charming flourish with which the protests were organised in Lagos in January, they had to be sponsored. It is frightening that even the president underestimates the industriousness of his people and belittles their world-famous skill for innovation and improvisation. This column and others like it in this newspaper have repeatedly told the president that Lagos is very enterprising and quite capable of the most prodigious sort of improvisation. When will he believe us?

    The president also compared the Nigerian media with Boko Haram in the following dramatic putdown. Hear him: “And I believe it is not just the media. When we talk about the Boko Haram, we have political Boko Haram, religious Boko Haram and criminal Boko Haram. So also in the media, you have the professional media and the political media. That is why I talk about the political media. Because of the interest of 2015, whatever you do is immaterial, the government must be brought down. And that mentality cuts across most African countries and even outside Africa.” Well, now, according to the president, both Boko Haram and the media seemed to be structured for destructive purposes.

    The president’s minders may doubtless have some influence on his written speeches; it is however doubtful whether they can restrain him a little in his high-voltage off-the-cuff remarks. That is the challenge the aides must bear, the cross they must carry. The president must be told that every time he speaks extempore, he indulges his penchant for goofing. If he doesn’t want to be as highly criticised as he fears he has been, or abused as he believes, he must learn to be taciturn and hope we won’t also abuse him for being laconic.

  • Penny dreadful national honours

    Penny dreadful national honours

    Hardball is today loth to spoon-feed younger readers. He will leave them to find out what penny dreadful means. For older readers, from whose ranks many of the recipients of Nigerian National Honours come from, penny dreadful is certainly not a strange term.

    The old are familiar with it, and more, they can feel an eerie sense of its applicability in the 2012 Honours investiture that took place two days ago for 155 people described fulsomely as eminent personalities. Most Nigerians, if President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, would be kind enough to lend us his idiosyncratic hyperbole, think the honours have been bastardised.

    Since 1963 when it began, the awards have gone to over four thousand people, very many of them truly undeserving. Responding to questions over the apparent debasement of the awards and the fact that some awardees have in retrospect proved unworthy of the honours, Jonathan declared: “I have directed that the National Honours Committee compile a list of persons conferred with National Honours but that their current credibility is questionable. If they are found wanting, our prestigious honours will be withdrawn.”

    We leave it to you to determine whether the honours are really prestigious, or whether it would not have been far better to tighten the criteria beforehand and ensure that awardees are people duly and rigorously tested in achievement and character. It is an indication of the vulgarisation of the awards, for instance, that they have become predictable for certain classes of people.

    It is routine to give it to heads of state and presidents, usually after service or, in the case of Jonathan, during service, whether they deserved it or not. It is now also routine to give it to serving vice presidents, some governors, serving top military and police brass, and as it has become obvious, a few outright charlatans. It has in fact become a tool for dispensing favours, and with each passing year, it becomes increasingly devalued.
    No awardee illustrates the bastardisation of the honours as much as the late Gen Sani Abacha, GCON, whose larcenous and libidinous propensity turned Nigeria into an object of international ridicule far worse than the sensuous Mr Silvio Berlusconi occasioned for Italy. Many more recipients have proved unworthy of the awards.

    The task for Jonathan, if indeed he is capable of discharging it, is not to simply compile a list of those who have debased the awards or to pussyfoot over it. He has a responsibility to rework the National Honours paradigm away from its present predictability and its deployment as a reward system for those still in government, including himself.

    It should worry every Nigerian that, like the honours awards so spectacularly devalued, Nigeria now has governors and presidents who site government institutions and giant projects in their hometowns and villages. In the light of the generally selfless leadership of the First Republic and the decade before, it is a scandal the appalling quality of leaders Nigeria has produced since the middle 1970s, leaders who have no sense of history, no sense of fairness, and no sense of the obligation nobility imposes.

  • Free speech and its expanding list of subtle enemies

    These are not the best of times for free speech. The killing of four American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 by an al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has brought to the fore in all its ugly ramifications the difficult, if not impossible, relationship between humanity and freedom of expression.

    The killings, if AQAP’s claims are believable, were ostensibly to avenge the killing by US drones in June of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a top ranking al-Qaeda militant of Libyan descent. Libyan authorities seem to think that much more than any other reason, AQAP’s explanation is closer to the truth of what happened in Benghazi last week.

    The Americans are still piecing clues together, but they seem to believe that the killings were connected with the protests by Muslims in many parts of North Africa and the Middle East against the film, Innocence of Muslims, produced and posted on the Internet by an American citizen, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. YouTube hosts a 14-minute clip of the film that is considered by most people to have excessively denigrated Prophet Muhammad.

    Protests against the film have spread like wild fire in Arabia and some countries even in Europe. While many African countries south of the Sahara have been largely equanimous about the film, public officials in the US and Europe have struggled on one hand with genuine outrage and veiled contrition, and on the other hand with a steely determination to sustain the constitutional freedoms, especially that of speech, that have become integral to their civilisations.

    It is unlikely they will be able to easily resolve the quandary the hated film has put them. In 1988 when Europe was confronted with The Last Temptation of Christ, an award-winning film by Martin Scorsese, state officials were more successful in resisting any temptation to meddle either in restraining the film’s producers or in censoring its availability to cinema houses. Perhaps, too, because of Europe’s sophistication, protests against the film were not too successful. In fact, when a cinema house showing the film in Paris was fire-bombed, a French Minister of Culture at the time remarked that: “Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts.”

    However, the controversy over Scorsese’s audacious film pre-dated 9/11 and the al-Qaeda phenomenon. Since 2001, when al-Qaeda bombed targets in the US, the issue of free speech has assumed more alarming dimensions. In September 2005, a Danish medium, the Jyllands-Posten, published 12 editorial cartoons that depicted Muhammad contrary to Islamic injunctions. The newspaper said at the time that the publication was its own contribution to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. The ensuing riots that greeted the publication and its reprint in more than 50 other countries led to the death of about 100 people and the burning of many Western embassies.
    After the current gale of protests subside, the world, especially Western societies, will have to grapple with the volatile issues relating to freedom of speech. They will once again begin an examination of the difficult question of where free speech ends and intolerance begins, and how to disaggregate blasphemy in a world of shifting mores, values, interpretations and reassessment of religious principles and practices.

    The world will also have to examine whether the reactions to the Basseley film are just one more landmark in the so-called clash of civilisations between Western culture, or perhaps Christianity, on one hand, and Islamic values on the other hand; or whether the conflicts between the two civilisations merely mask geopolitical struggles in which Israel is at the core.

    What cannot be denied is that the West is finding it difficult to react with the same equanimity with which they often tackle problematic issues relating to the freedoms that underpin their societies. Like the deliberately provocative Danish cartoons, and now the Basseley film, there will be yet more provocations, some fairly harmless, and others quite lurid, to test the frontiers of free speech.

    Western societies do not think free speech must be circumscribed by borders when it comes to religion. Arabia and many Muslim societies think there is a red line that must not be crossed. The current furore will, therefore, not be the last in a world that seems to be growing increasingly and overtly less tolerant. Countries like Nigeria may be unable to contribute meaningfully to the debate, given its peculiar religious tapestry, but advocates of free speech must feel relieved to know that there are still parts of the world that allow or enable challenges to the orthodoxies of the day, whether those orthodoxies are religious, political or cultural.

    For in the end, it must be obvious to all that the world did not start out as either Christian or Muslim, or as any other religion for that matter. What religious texture the world will wear at the end of history, if indeed history will end, remains to be seen.

  • Why did it take EFCC so long?

    Why did it take EFCC so long?

    Mr Chibuike Achigbu, the intriguing man who some reports described as an oil magnate, was on Saturday granted administrative bail by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

    The businessman had launched himself into the thick of the controversy swirling around the $15 million alleged to have been offered as bribe to Mallam Nuhu Ribadu by the former Delta State governor, Chief James Ibori. In late August, Achigbu had gone to court claiming ownership of the money, which he said was not a bribe but money pooled together by influential businessmen as donation to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2007 elections.

    He named Senator Andy Uba as a witness and hoped the legislator would corroborate his account of the transaction, which he said was conducted in the senator’s Abuja residence. While Uba admitted knowledge of the transaction, he balked at going into details, saying he knew nothing beyond the fact that his residence was used merely as venue of the transaction.

    But for reasons he would not disclose, Achigbu withdrew the case from court as intriguingly as he filed it. But by then it was too late. The cat had been let out of the murky bag. For soon after, Festus Keyamo, a legal practitioner, applied to court for an order through Direct Criminal Complaint procedure to compel the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to investigate all those involved in the bribery saga. An Abuja Chief Magistrate Court gave the order and asked the IGP to report back on September 26.

    All these manoeuvres, of course, have nothing to do with the main case itself which is still before a Federal High Court in Abuja where the federal government is battling to legitimise its queer status as receiver of alleged stolen money, and Delta State is latching on to the allegation made by the original beneficiary, Ribadu, to claim ownership.

    Along the line, however, the EFCC on Thursday waded into the legal fracas and arrested Achigbu as part of the agency’s investigation of the bribery saga. It is not known whether they will pick up Uba, also as part of the investigation. Hardball, readers will recall, had repeatedly suggested the case was a very simple open and close one.

    All the authorities needed to do, he argued, was haul all the people mentioned in the transaction to court, particularly Ribadu and the man he sent to collect the money, Mr Ibrahim Lamorde, who happens to be the current EFCC chairman. Surely they couldn’t have become so amnesiac as not to remember how the exchange was done and the discussions that led to it. Why complicate a clear case, a puzzled Hardball queried?

    It has taken EFCC an awful long time to wade into a matter it ought on its own to have tackled effortlessly and even routinely. But better late than never. The public must indeed hope that the agency will really get to the bottom of the controversy.

    After all, Lamorde is available to be interrogated by the agency’s operatives, and Ribadu is still alive and kicking. It must also puzzle everyone that it had to take a court order to compel the police to live up to their responsibility.

    It is expected they will buckle down to it. However, like the EFCC, the police should have taken a natural interest in wading eagerly into a matter that is clearly within their purview. If the country has come to such a pass that outsiders and the courts now think for public officials, well, so be it. Think for them we will; and as frequently as are required to snap them out of their self-imposed paralysis.

  • The menace of Aba metropolitan city

    The menace of Aba metropolitan city

    At times when I behold the scene in Aba, Abia State, I wonder why the town is the way it is. I only but concluded that something has gone wrong somewhere. It will interest you to know that Aba was a town that once competed with big ones like Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano and others. Aba even was leading, once upon a time, history had it that the economy of Aba was so buoyant that desperadoes ventured into its heart so much. After the Biafran war; things began to take a negative turn. Those investors began to look for town where things are moving well. Whereas, Aba was totally devastated by the war, war is evil. Indeed, Aba became a victim. A town once the chief business centre in Africa. Oh, the problems, of Aba grew worse when the originals of Aba began to challenge the government of Orji Kalu, this warranted the government to show the town its back.

    Aba was totally annihilated when kidnapping became the order of the day, may be to frustrate the people living in the land. This brought the great town to its knee despite its great achievements. The government, of Theodore Orji showed total disregard and negligence to the affairs of the town that once humiliated his predecessor by throwing pure water on him.

    This town has been over taken by evil, religious deception through black magic exhibition, injustice, hatred, wickedness, lack of forgiveness, rituals, extortion and other social vices. I may not be able to explain further on the happenings in this town that has become a nightmare to the world.

    Majority of the people are living in poverty, so much pain is encountered. It is only God that will save Aba.

    God help Abia State!

     

    By Ezinwanyi Ugwuala, Aba,

    Abia State.

     

  • On regional integration and state police

    On regional integration and state police

    SIR: Regional Integration is not national disintegration. A nation is a system that has many parts in which any malfunction or dysfunction of a part will affect the other parts and the whole system. Nigeria is not functioning, and this is glaring, because the regions are not functioning well due to poor financing, maladministration at the centre and lack of visionary and transformation leaders. Regional integration will will turn around the fortune of the nation. Regional integration means the coming together of components regions in a state to benefit from economy of scale.
    The present administration has neglected security as a critical component of national transformation. The country is today in fear of attacks by terrorists who are bent on running the country down. Nigeria is endowed with vast natural resources like iron, lime, tin, gold, petroleum, water sources, arable land and highly informed human resources, yet we lack food security and other infrastructures that can make life meaningful because of dearth of visionary and transformation leaders.
    The central government lacks the capacity to influence the regional parts on the kind of development necessary to move the region and the country forward. While states like Edo, Lagos, Osun, Ekiti, Rivers, Oyo and Ogun are doing well, the central government refuses to show signs of development. Regional integration will ginger developments and healthy competition among the regions like we had in the first republic.
    The establishment of state police will improve the security of the country and help to prevent crime. The recent disapproval in some quarters, especially the elites, who should know better, is expected and welcomed. In 1822, Robert Peel, a wealthy member of the Britain’s Parliament, strongly believed that London’s population, crime rate and crime nature merited a full-time, professional police force. But many English, especially the politicians, objected to the idea. They feared possible restraint of the liberty and atrocities.
    They also feared a strong police organisation because the criminal law was already perceived harsh (by the early 19th century there were 223 crimes in England for which a person could receive capital punishment). Indeed, Peel’s efforts to gain support for full-time, paid  police officers failed for seven years. Peel finally succeeded in 1829. His bill to Parliament – entitled “An Act for Improving the Police In and Near the Metropolis”, which culminated in the establishment of the Metropolitan Police – was popularly known as the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829.
    The intention of policing a community is the prevention of crime. Nigeria has changed socially, economically and demographically from the time the Nigeria Police Force was created by the colonial masters. Nigeria is an amalgamation of different states with different cultures.  Creation of state police is inevitable if we want to maintain peace and other and care for national development.
    Different states have some different security challenges and different states have different priorities for crime prevention and control. A state that is ready to spend more for its security should be allowed to do so.
    • Ademola Adebayo
    Lagos
  • Okada and the Lagos Traffic Law

    Okada and the Lagos Traffic Law

    IR: Some 15 years ago, while I was still in Sokoto, I had flagged down a commercial motorcyclist, what Lagosians call okada, but which is called kabu kabu up there. It was about 9 p.m, and there were few vehicles on the roads, and fewer human traffic still. We were approaching a junction and the traffic light was showing red a distance away.
    Looking that there was no vehicle anywhere and no one I could see around, I expected the motorcyclist to keep moving. But when he got there, he stayed put, waiting for the light to turn green. I was not only moved, I was impressed. Some may have urged him to move on, and perhaps generating an argument, but I never did such. Here was an uneducated northerner, perhaps illiterate, obeying traffic law to the letter.
    I asked him in Hausa why he did not jump the light since there was no vehicle or even anyone in sight, and since he apparently posed no danger. He said he always felt morally obliged to do the right thing. I patted him on the back and his leathery face split into a smile. When I got to my destination, I paid him the fare, and he made to give me my change, I told him to keep the change. And he was very thankful.
    I also remember back then again in Sokoto, I strolled along the street with a friend, when a Caucasian rode past on a motorbike, with full protective gear, and a bold helmet, and my friend yelled at him: “Get real!” And the rider rode on with a confused expression. Perhaps he had done something wrong, he thought. It seems it is not in our nature to obey laws, even that which will save our own lives. Up till today, it is common to see an Okada rider with his passenger both not wearing protective helmets.
    When traffic snarls, I see drivers“jackrabbit” just because they are not patient enough. And I often wonder where they are running to and how much time they think they can gain. But they not only burn their fuel, they could also cause unnecessary panic that could lead to accidents as they try to overtake, vehicles after vehicles.
    Okada riders perhaps pose the greatest risk to a driver in Lagos, and even to pedestrians. Even when they are at fault especially riding one-way, and they hit you, you have bought yourself a cargo whether you like it or not, as sympathisers will package the Okada man for you to take to the hospital and incur unnecessary expenses. Nobody remembers your car that he may have dented.
    The Lagos State government has signed into law new traffic regulations, but instead of welcoming them, many are getting frantic about this. They complain that the penalties are too stiff, and are now fearful of running foul of the law. But doing the right thing, rather than the fear of paying penalties should be the drive to obey traffic laws. The best driver is the one who can predict the other driver. But if the other driver is lawless, it makes it more difficult to predict him.
    The Lagos government is well-meaning and sounding the message for all to hear, and it is for us to cooperate for our own good.
    • Dr Cosmas Odoemena,
    Lagos