The Nation Newspaper

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  • Lighting up Taraba for development

    Arc Darius Dickson Ishaku, governor of Taraba State is no stranger to the technicalities of electricity power generation and distribution. He routinely dealt with those details as minister of power in the immediate past federal administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. In that position, Ishaku co-ordinated the activities that eventually led to the creation of the present dispensation of active private sector participation in electricity power distribution in the country.

    He came out of that job also well-grounded in the knowledge of the economic benefits of stable power and with the resolve to use that experience, whenever he had the opportunity to serve his people, as key for unlocking the huge potentials of the state, to create employment opportunities and raise the standards of living of the people. It is, therefore, no surprise that the provision of electricity in urban and rural communities in Taraba State is today a priority of the Ishaku administration.

    One of the first things Ishaku did on assumption of office as governor was to identify existing but broken or low performing power generating facilities in the state, assess their state of functionality and determine how they can be immediately put to full and effective service of the people. That exercise has paid off very handsomely. It has led to the restoration of electricity power supply in many towns and communities in Taraba State. But it took not a small amount of courage and commitment on the part of a government that was not only new but was constrained by the long litigation process over the gubernatorial election result in the state and also hamstrung by a treasury that had been plundered and emptied.

    One of the communities that benefitted from this new and positive attitude of government in electric power delivery is the tea producing Kakara community in the Sarduana Local Council Area of the state. In August last year, a few months after his election victory, Ishaku commissioned the small but very vital Tunga Dam hydro power project which now provides un-interrupted power to the tea factory in Kakara and neighbouring communities. The commissioning was a product of a political will which previous administrations in the state lacked and which almost crippled the project.

    Ishaku’s intervention came at the time the European Union, EU, which provided the turbines for the project was threatening to dismantle them and take them to Ghana because of the delay in putting the equipment to use. The commissioning has saved the project and provided succour for the people of Kakara and other neighbouring communities. The project is today seen as a pathfinder for what the nation’s stands to benefit from the bigger Mambilla Hydro Electricity Dam Project that is yet to start in terms of stability in electricity. Ishaku has visited the Sardauna Council area three times in less than one year to sensitize and elicit the support of the people for the bigger Mambilla project. He has also been to Abuja several times to discuss the project and to awaken the appropriate federal authorities to the need to start work on this very important but long neglected electricity power generating project.

    Many other towns and communities have benefitted from the very aggressive disposition of the Ishaku administration towards electrification of Taraba State. Lau is one of them. Ishaku had arranged for electricity power to be stepped down in Lau from Kunini and this has greatly and positively transformed power situation in Lau and other adjoining communities. Before then, power supply in the area was far more than epileptic. The commissioning of that project has brought relief for small scale business entrepreneurs whose businesses depend on power.

    The Kakulu Bible Institute in Zing Local Council Area also now has steady power supply, provided by the administration of Governor Ishaku. Yakoko, another community in the area is profiting from the Kakulu project. Monkin village has a similar good tale to tell on electricity. Its long dream of regular power supply was finally fulfilled with the commissioning of an electricity project by Ishaku early in the life of the administration.

    Bali Local Council area has a more pleasant tale to tell about electricity. Five transformers were provided and installed at the same time while 30 electric poles were also mounted to facilitate the provision of electricity in the area. Governor Ishaku executed and personally commissioned this project within the first 100 days of his administration. In Takum, a lot has also been achieved by the administration in the provision of electricity. Electricity is now far more regular with the purchase and installation of three transformers to boost power supply. Similar projects are replicated in virtually every local government council area in the state.

    In less than two years, a lot of progress has been made to extend power supply to urban and rural communities. A lot of people are even surprised how Ishaku was able to finance these projects at a time that government revenue sources are on the decline. But even with the lot that has been achieved in a short time in the provision of electricity, a lot more needs to be done. In fact, truth is that what government has achieved, remarkable as its impact has been, is a mere scratch on the surface of the power needs of the state. The ultimate solution depends on the outcome of the Mambilla Hydro Electricity project which is yet to take off. Governor Ishaku is not oblivious to this truth and reality. And that is the reason he has been drumming support for the Mambilla project.

    Unfortunately Mambilla, as far as the federal government is concerned, is all talk and no concrete action. Nothing really is on ground as testimony to the federal government’s commitment. In fact most of the people speaking on the project at the federal level and building the people’s hope of the nation for regular power supply on the Mambilla project have never even visited the site. As at today, there is no access road to the site of the proposed dam. This is the reason people are asking if the federal government is, indeed, committed to the project at all.

    President Muhammadu Buhari has a date with history on the issue of Mambilla. Many Nigerian leaders before him made promises on the project but did virtually nothing to redeem those promises. Many people know President Buhari to be a man with the reputation to stand by his words. He should do so on Mambilla project. To say that the project is critical to national aspiration for development is an understatement. We can only pay lip service to this project to the detriment of these aspirations. Buhari should take the first major crucial step towards actualising the Mambilla project now.

    • Yaro is a public affairs commentator.

  • Kaduna: Understaning the crisis

    The good news is that communities in southern parts of Kaduna State that were recently embroiled in very unfortunate, albeit bloody clashes now enjoy relative peace, safety and security. Deft moves by the Governor, Mallam Nasir el Rufai, community and religious leaders as well as the efforts of security agents have yielded profound results. However, in spite of the best efforts of the governor and millions of peace-loving people of Kaduna to stem the ugly tide of communal clashes in the state, there are glaring pointers to the fact that a few, influential and politically connected persons are bent on reigniting the conflagrations at all costs. Their mission is clear: distract and defocus the El Rufai administration.

    Like most knowledgeable adults in Nigeria are well aware, Kaduna State has its ethno-religious peculiarities. These peculiarities that ordinarily ought to be harnessed as strength have over the years been the state’s albatross of sorts. Interestingly however, the latest round of crises in southern parts of Kaduna State has very little to do with religion or even ethnicity. The crises, as we have since learnt, were ignited by acts of banditry and criminality that were either not nipped in the bud or poorly managed by community and local leaders. Worse still, the downturn in the nation’s economy may well be stretching the tolerance level of the average Nigerian. And this is where crisis profiteers, political jobbers and queer puritans are seeking a window of opportunity to keep Kaduna State in perpetual crisis and possibly make it ungovernable.

    Persons fanning the embers of discord in Kaduna State are cashing in on the aforementioned historical ethno-religious peculiarities in the state and are creating false impression that the recent crises were induced by religious or ethnic differences. It has become compelling and imperative to clarify, once again, that the very unfortunate and extremely condemnable incidents that have occurred were largely as a result of inherited problems that are steeped in the failure of successive past administrations to decisively punish previous grievous acts of impunity and lawlessness. The El Rufai administration has severally explained that since 1980, Kaduna State has had about 12 major ethnic and religious conflicts and each time a crisis occurred, a commission or panel of inquiry to find out what happened and to recommend measures or ways to avoid or stem recurrence, was usually instituted. Curiously however, no sitting government has ever fully implemented the recommendations of any of these panels or commissions. The latest round of crises in some communities is clearly a fall-out of the failure of the previous administrations in the state to decisively tackle security problems when they occurred. It is therefore unfortunate and patently mischievous for a prominent political leader in Kaduna State to suggest in a recent article that “Governor el-Rufai’s personality and brand of politics have not prepared him well to deal with the daunting cumulative legacy in Southern Kaduna State.”  What personality or brand of politics is he speaking of?

    To be clear, Mallam El Rufai understands the sensitive ethno-religious dynamics in Kaduna State and remains resolute about preventing situations like the ones that have unfortunately played out in the southern parts of the state. On assumption of office in May 2015, the governor was quick to put in place a high-level committee under the globally acclaimed Gen. Martin Luther Agwai (rtd), to review the reports of previous panels of inquiries with a view to recommending measures that would help stem recurrences. As expected, the Gen. Agwai Committee made critical observations and far-reaching recommendations. One of the observations made by the committee was that recent flare-ups in some communities in southern parts of Kaduna State were traceable to the 2011 post-election violence. The committee in its report said that a number of Fulani herdsmen lost their cattle around southern parts of the state during the crisis and as a result, continue to carry out sporadic raids in these communities in their supposed bid to avenge the loss of their cattle. In fact, it is not a secret that a former Governor of the State, the late Governor Patrick Yakowa, who had this fact, constituted a team that was going round Fulani communities to preach peace and reconciliation. Following Governor Yakowa’s unfortunate death in an air crash, this outreach was stopped. This is exactly what Governor El Rufai inherited and the General Agwai committee established this fact.

    The truth is that the recommendations of all the committees and commissions of inquiries set up from 1980 to date on communal clashes in Kaduna State were never implemented. This failure of previous administrations to implement the far-reaching recommendations is to blame for the latest flare-ups. Following Governor El Rufai’s dogged insistence, several persons involved in the recent incidents have since been apprehended by security agencies and are now being subjected to the full weight of the law.

    However, the greatest challenge to peace in Kaduna State now is the antics of political jobbers and opportunists who have gone as low as spreading hate speeches; telling communities in Kaduna State to “defend themselves”. This, is of course is an unmistakable call on the people of Kaduna State to procure arms and ammunitions and start killing themselves. This is not just very low but extremely dangerous. This call on the citizenry to take the laws into their own hands totally undermines all on-going efforts to achieve lasting peace in Kaduna State.

    In their haste to malign the Kaduna State Governor and create a fertile ground for their malicious intentions, the politically connected persons stoking the embers of war in Kaduna State have shamelessly resorted to falsehood, particularly quoting Mallam El Rufai out of contest with a view to creating the very wrong impression that the governor may well be taking sides in the conflicts. What will it benefit a governor who is working round the clock to fix the economy and speedily redress the inherited decayed infrastructure in Kaduna State, to have his people fight each other or side any group against another at a time of unfortunate and highly condemnable conflict.

    On the contrary, Governor El Rufai and members of his team are tenaciously restoring order, brotherhood and solidarity in communities in the southern parts of the state where conflicts were recorded. For the umpteenth time, let it be clarified that the recent conflagrations in southern parts of Kaduna State were not induced by either religion or ethnicity. In his bid to accelerate the peace and reconciliation processes, Governor El Rufai during one of his several visits to violence impacted communities said: “Anyone that feels he has been grieved because his relations were killed or has lost anything, he should come out and complain and we will compensate him if that is what it will take but no one should resort to killing because of anything. We appeal to you to be patient and allow authorities to bring justice”.

    Persons who do not wish Kaduna State well have now made the twisting of this olive branch waved by the governor their latest occupation. “Oh! El Rufai is paying Fulani herdsmen money to stop killing!” Well, if only they bothered to seek information, we would have rightly informed them that the Kaduna State government is not paying any money to herdsmen or anyone for that matter to embrace peace and that several aggrieved persons have indeed embraced peace without seeking any form of monetary compensation. Virtually all of them have seen the sincerity and transparency of Governor El Rufai and have embraced peace unconditionally. So, the stories that are making the rounds in both the social and mainstream media about El Rufai paying some Fulani herdsmen is just a figment of the imagination of unrelenting political jobbers and crisis profiteers in league with their paid agents outside the state. Our worry really is the destructive antics of political actors and jingoists as well as queer puritans who are bent on seeing Kaduna State go up in flames. Our passionate appeal to them is to allow our people to continue to leave in peace. We are however confident that ultimately, truth, sincerity and good works will triumph over the evil intentions of proponents of discord in our dear state.

     

    • Sani is Political Adviser to the Governor of Kaduna State.

  • Revolution Nigerians have been waiting for

    One of the abiding arguments why people believe that politics and public service in Nigeria have failed is that many politicians and those in public office are not professionals. Even those with thriving businesses and professions, abandon them, on getting to high political offices.
    It is for this reason that they do everything in their powers to remain in office. For the professional politicians, they commit the most heinous crimes even to the extent of killing people, apart from the normal bribery, electoral heists and general corruption of the system to win the next elections.
    For the appointees, they do everything to bribe the next appointer. It is either they jump ship and start singing the praise of the next government in power or they become irascible critics that would make the most noise, a gimmick meant to attract attention to themselves only to shift their positions, once they are settled with the next appointments.
    In fact, the country is replete with those who have been in power or its corridors for as long as anyone could remember still clutching their files searching to secure either political offices or board appointments even with all the evidence of age-induced infirmities written all over them. There are examples of those who actually went to the extent of selling valuable properties to raise money to induce and outright bribe those they believe could get them appointments.
    Why? In Nigeria, people equate public office with arrival. It is never, to them, an opportunity to serve, but one that grants instant and boundless opportunities either to have full access to public coffers or position of influence towards getting in the dinner table to share the public cake without limits.
    That is the reason for the sadness, bitterness and general sense of loss for them and those around them out of office, as opposed to the merrymaking and stupendous joy at the point of appointment. Because they abandoned their professions or businesses, they never believe that there is anything again in the country for them. So, those that made this loss possible become instant enemies that must be pulled down at all cost.
    It is against this backdrop that the recent undertaking of Prof. Chinedu Nebo, must inspire and speak to a different paradigm, one that encourages life after public office. Nebo was at the office of the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, recently.
    The former Minister of Power, was there to present, what could be the solution Nigerians have been waiting for, to be liberated from decades of living in darkness figuratively and literally, due to lack of, or at best, epileptic power supply situation.
    Some fundamentals instantly come to the fore here. First, having been a university teacher and two-time vice chancellor of two federal universities, before becoming minister, he could be said to possess the credentials to look for the next job. At least, there are many in the corridors of power today who would likely listen to him, study those credentials and make his case at the highest echelon of power.
    Otherwise, he could also become a bitter critic of the government. He possesses not only enough personality and public influence to get the right attention, but the intellectual and language power to say the right things that would rock the system and lacerate the government and its officials to no ends.
    Indeed, being part of the last government which lost power, he ought also to have been equipped with the right sentiment – the bitterness of losing power to become a virulent clog in the wheel of progress, were he the ordinary Nigerian.
    But not Nebo. He did neither. Nor did he take the numerous international jobs waiting for him for the picking, as he peers would have done. Instead, he retired to the quietude of his original enclave – the research room, to apply his knowledge, which he had gathered and horned over the years in the classroom as scholar, teacher and high office holder.
    The result is that today, Nigeria may soon shout Eureka! For that singular disposition, a regime of 24-hour uninterrupted supply is beckoning.
    He explains: “Before I ended my tenure as Federal Minister of Power, I had chanted to all who wanted to listen that the big power machines, those mighty turbines that are several hundreds of megawatts capacity may take decades to solve Nigeria’s power problems. And for that reason, we needed to do a lot of embedded generation – small scale power generators that will saturate the entire landscape of our country and help to bring about industrial revolution, by making power available at the beck and call of our people.”
    The result, according to him, is the Power Seed Web (PSW) system, a system he described as not only science and technology at its best, but one that is 15 to 20 years ahead of the world.
    How it works: The PSW in a layman’s perspective, according to Nebo, is designed to use the same quantity of fuel, needed to generate a small capacity generator to generate 10 times or more what ordinarily was possible. For instance, using the less than the amount of fuel needed to produce a 25kilowatts to generate 250kilowatts of power and with the possibility and potential of producing one megawatt.
    He added: “The implications are mind-boggling. Number one, homes, businesses, industries, villages, agricultural clusters, manufacturing clusters, industrial clusters, schools, hospitals, campuses, you name it, can now get electricity at much less expenses.
    “Take for example, you have one of those mighty generators consuming 100litres an hour and our system will use only 20litres an hour, you save 80litres an hour and in one hour, you save 160,000 litres, in a day, maybe you run for 10hours, you save 1.6million, you can imagine the impact this will have on the society. So, the days of the big size generators are numbered, as our innovative machines can save up to 80 per cent of the fuel needed to run them.
    “Next, we have also designed and tested a power ovary machine and seed, driven by 100 per cent renewable energy. In other words, we have also designed one that doesn’t need fossil fuel or any non-renewable fuel to drive. That will be the next level production of our innovation and the implications are astounding – clean, cheap electricity, produced by machines, made in Nigeria, by Nigerian engineers. And this can be used for embedded generation in every part of Nigeria.”
    The beauty of the entire phenomenon is in its simple operation. Unlike the big turbine that takes the space of a whole village, this particular one could simply be vehicle-mounted in an estate, a village or industrial cluster.
    Then, gone would be stories of bursting and vandalising of gas pipelines that feed electricity turbines, vandalising transmission lines and stealing cables or vandalising transformers as have been the lot of the old system.
    Besides, by the time the target consumers are cut off from the national grid, more power would be freed and the surplus used to service consumers still connected to the system.
    The result – Nigerians will simply return to work. With that comes smoking chimneys resulting from rolling machines in the factories, restive youths off the streets, creative minds revving up, a thriving economy and ultimately, waking the Nigerian giant. How else is public service defined?
    Onu described it as a futuristic vision, the type that turned Japan into an industrial giant, when they went for the option of developing smaller cars that consumed less fuel as opposed to the American cars known for huge consumption of gasoline.
    Whatever comes from Nebo’s efforts remains to be seen. But what is evident so far, is that public office is not the only way to contribute to public service or public good. That’s the message.
    •Igboanugo, a journalist, lives in Abuja.

  • Sokoto’s E-governance example

    Sokoto’s E-governance example

    Until now, not much was known about Sokoto’s huge investment in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. But that situation changed when it defeated 35 other states in the country to win the prestigious award of Best State in e-Governance at the 2016 E-Nigeria Expo and Conference. The award, instituted by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), recognises and promotes excellence in governance through ICT.
    The assessment criteria for the highly competitive award include capacity building in the sector, generation of employment opportunities, improved education and healthcare services using ICT, operational efficiency of ICT tools, self-help services among others.
    E-governance is regarded as the ICT-enabled route to achieving good governance. It integrates people, processes, information, and technology in the service of governance initiatives. The expected benefits have led to increase in the efficiency of government operations, strengthening democracy, enhancing transparency, and providing better services to citizens and businesses.
    The vision of e-government is the optimization of services so that government can achieve its goals. When Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal took over the mantle of leadership in Sokoto State in May 2015, he outlined the ‘Government ICT Strategy’ which aimed to ensure that, in a dynamic technology environment, it can achieve the government’s plan of an ICT-enabled transformation of public services of the state.
    The ICT Strategy provided an opportunity of benefitting from several emerging game-changing trends that support better public service by putting citizens and public institutions at the centre of design and delivery of digital services.
    The Government ICT Strategy 2015 has three focus areas: Enhancing citizen awareness about ICT; Applying ICT in public sector transformation; and partnerships with the private sector and other stakeholders to deepen application of ICT in the state. The success of the strategy has so far led agencies to collaborate with one another and with vendors to deliver better public services to the people of Sokoto.
    In practical terms, to achieve the aims and objectives of the government’s e-strategy, Tambuwal revived the State ICT Directorate and made it a parastatal under the Ministry of Science and Technology. The directorate has helped to coordinate and spearhead transformation of the state’s ICT landscape. To demonstrate government’s commitment to the sector, the ICT Directorate was allocated the sum of N1.1 billion for its operations in the 2016 budget. This amount is staggering considering the fact that only N80m was allocated to the directorate in the preceding year.
    Realising the importance of social media to today’s governance strategy, Tambuwal, upon assumption of office, created a Social Media Unit domiciled in his office. The new unit, which operates closely with the office of the Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, is enjoying the same privileges as the (traditional) media crew attached to the Government House. The unit coordinates activities of all government-assisted online groups, and interacts, on behalf of the government, with interested persons and groups seeking information about government’s policies and programmes.
    Tambuwal had made it clear that he would continue to explore different avenues to widen interaction with special groups, especially the youths. “Adequate training will be organised for the youths to equip them with the latest knowledge in online information management. By the creation of this unit, we hope to engage our youths and also get their inputs in the running of the government. Our youths played critical roles during the campaigns to mobilise our people for the task ahead. We want them to do more by offering quality suggestions on their vision for Sokoto State,” the governor had said while announcing the creation of the new unit. Buoyed by the success of the unit, the government later gave approval for the integration of social media units into all MDAs to effectively publicise government activities.
    In March 2016, Sokoto became one of two states to represent Nigeria at the Smart Cities Program in Washington DC, USA, which was organized jointly by the United States Government and Government of Nigeria through NIST and NITDA respectively.
    Widening the scope of the application of information technology in governance saw the state deploy ICT in the accreditation of all its students schooling abroad, thereby modernising record keeping at the State Scholarship Board. This ensured massive savings of public funds. The focus of e-governance also led to the provision of computer facilities in all tertiary institutions, and select primary and secondary schools to serve as pilot centres for ICT education. This is not forgetting the building of Computer Based Test Centres (CBT) in the three senatorial zones for students writing JAMB and other public officials writing promotion examinations.
    Government has made public commitment to support entrepreneurs in the ICT sector. Once the policy is implemented, knowledge will be enhanced, while start-ups will benefit from new investment to develop their expertise.
    Another important project that will come on stream in 2017 is the world class Data Analysis Centre for the state Ministry of Health. The Centre will be used in tracking and analysis of health-related data in Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi states.
    The government is not relenting in efforts to deepen application of ICT in all public endeavours. Recently, it announced that it is working with the Federal Government to develop the sector. Briefing reporters after a meeting with the Minister of Communication, Adebayo Shittu, Tambuwal said the state government will leverage on the modest achievements recorded in the ICT sector in the last one year, and welcomed the opportunity to partner the Federal Government for the benefit of the state. He said his administration has “extensively applied ICT in various spheres of governance,” and will continue to do so because the new method enhances good governance and helps in tackling corruption at all levels.
    No doubt, use of modern day technologies such as medical treatment databases, cell phones to improve livelihoods, and computers to enable citizens to compete for online jobs in the global market, will continue to enrich the lives of the people in many ways. The example set by Sokoto is that governments can become closer to its people through the use of information technology and communications, thereby increasing efficiency and helping to make their lives better.

    •Imam writes from Sokoto and is on Twitter @imamdimam

  • Culture of silence

    Sometime ago, I listed 13 issues that were likely to spell the death knell of Nigeria and I remember listing criminal silence on the part of Nigerians as number one. I have critically examined the factors that had kept Nigeria on her knees for this long and I have concluded that the timidity of our people, the fear to raise a voice in the face of severest oppression and deprivation and the loss of self-esteem ranked the highest in the scale of culprits.
    Sadly enough it had not always been so. In the pre-colonial days we had great warriors of note and empire leaders who were ready to lay down their lives in the defence of what they held dear. There were citizens who were very bold, fearless and articulate and were prepared to dare and challenge any tendency towards absolutism, autocracy or untoward tyranny. In those days no leader would dare steal what belonged to the people. Any leader whether a monarch or priest or even warrior that overstepped his or her bounds would be shown the way to the death chamber. In Yoruba land no king or queen would dare go against the wishes of his or her people or for that matter act contrarily to the established norms. The punishment was certain death!
    Great men and women of distinguished valour were too many to be listed in a three-page essay. But they existed and history has continued to do justice to their memory.
    Nowadays people simply keep quiet and you wonder whether the cruel padlocks used on our forefathers who got carted away as slaves were reserved for them. So many things have gone wrong with the polity, and these precursors of the calamity that has now virtually fallen on our heads have always been with us.
    With our eyes wide open we allowed unchallenged the various bogus population censuses that were allowed to pass. With our eyes open, we watched in damned helplessness like zombies the crass award of lopsided legislative seats to a section of the country which would allow perpetual imbalance and master-slave relationship in the land. We allowed creation of many unviable states and crazy number of local governments by the unitary military government at the centre.
    With our eyes open, we allowed the so-called federal character and quota system jargons to define national participation in the affairs of the land and we allowed instead the jettisoning of merit and fairness.
    With our eyes open we allowed the worst insidious design that was meant to cripple education advancement. That criminal strategy is called – Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board – JAMB. JAMB to me has always meant JAMBAFORITI, the pinnacle of academic treachery. However brilliant you may be, JAMB has a built–in mechanism to make you look like a fool. In our time once you secured good grades at the West African School Certificate level, or the Cambridge University Higher School Certificate or the Ordinary or Advanced Levels of London University General Certificate in Education, you were right there at the university gate. Mothers were not required to expose the colour of their underwear to any lecturer or any vice chancellor or their fronts!
    So many young Nigerians have been sent to their early graves by the wicked antics of JAMB. And JAMB for all you may care was designed to slow down the educational advancement of some sections of the country called Nigeria.
    With our eyes wide open, we allowed the stationing of the entire national armoury in a section of the country. All sensitive Defence, Intelligence, Security, Immigration, Customs and the ports strategic leadership positions are held by a cabal. And some idiots will tell you not to talk about the anomaly or raise questions because of a so-called national security. Security for whom? For the oppressor so that he can continue with his antics forever?
    With our eyes open we allowed a persistent decline of a federation into the abyss of unitary totalitarianism. And we all kept quiet in a culture of criminal silence.
    With our eyes open all the major resources of the country were forcibly taken from their owners, put in the hands of a cabal at the centre only to be shared in a most inequitable basis to all the supposedly federating units of the polity. Nigeria is the only land space in the world where natural owners of God-given resources are not allowed to determine what to do with their resources. Texas in the US and Alberta in Canada are in charge of their oil. Those states only yield a percentage of their earnings to the government at the centre.
    With our eyes open, we allowed the culture of indolence, easy money and lack of competition to become our national anthem. The money from oil became nobody’s property. And because it was always there in large quantum, all sorts of rogues and vultures emerged in the centre to ride the country roughshod.
    With our eyes wide open, we allowed rogues, ruffians and charlatans to dictate how our lives would be run and governed. Thieves of various shades and sizes seized our common patrimony and we applauded them in mosques and churches even as they nonchalantly rape all of us with unprecedented impunity.
    The culture of silence found mother and father in doctrines that teach people to turn their left cheek if and when they are slapped on the right. Or worse still, a doctrine that teaches people not to worry about making success of their lives on earth but should be content with an imaginary mansion in a place called heaven! Paradoxically, the owners and preachers of the doctrines are busy amassing wealth here on earth and robbing their flock silly.
    Ask an average Nigerian [is there anybody so called?], he or she will tell you his or her religion has taught him or her to keep quiet in the face of persecution, deprivation and oppression, because he or she is sure to inherit the earth!!!
    The culture of silence is about to kill this place called Nigeria. And unless people wake up to their responsibilities and ask pungent questions, the so-called poor masses shall continue to suffer in silence until, like the deaf and dumb, erupt like an angry volcano.
    It is not yet too late. But time is not on our side. Those who have ears should listen to the few who have refused to submit to the culture of criminal silence.
    People should stop grumbling in beer parlours and at their clubs. The time to speak up and be counted is NOW. Enough of this Made-In-Nigeria internal colonialism!

  • The euphoria of new year

    The year 2016 will go down in history as one of the most difficult years for Nigerians. It was a year when the nation’s economy passed through severe turbulent waters that nearly sank the whole nation. In 2016, inflation rate peaked at 17.1%, the GDP contracted by 2.06% and the economy by 0.36%. Oil price crashed to less than $50 per barrel while production output tumbled by over 400,000 barrels due to militancy activities in Niger Delta region. Oil production plummeted to 1.69 million barrels per day in the second quarter of 2016, down from 2.11 million barrel per day in the first quarter, with oil – based GDP contracting by 17.5% in quarter two compared to 1.9% in the first quarter. Naira was at a record low of N480 per dollar in the black market, as dollar exchanged for 365.25 in the interbank market.
    The nation’s groaning unemployment situation also grew worse. Unofficial data puts the unemployment figure at about 20% (about 30million), but this number still did not include about 40million other Nigerian youths captured in a recent World Bank statistics. By implication, it means that if Nigeria’s population is 140 million, then 50% of Nigerians are unemployed, or worse still, at least 71% of Nigerian youths are unemployed. This is particularly disturbing and counterproductive because at least 70% of the population of this country are youths. According to reports, in 2016, the unemployed in the labour force increased by 1,158,700 persons, resulting in an increase in the national unemployment rate to 13.3% in Q2 2016 from 12.1 in 2016, 10.4% in 2015 from 9.9% in Q3 2015 and from 8.2% in Q2 2015.
    Workers in both the public and private sectors were worst hit by the troubling economic situation. In order to make ends meet, some firms opted to downsize, thus complicating the already bad unemployment situation. For those who work in the public sector, the situation is a bit different. Though, they have the sheer luxury of keeping their jobs, it is only a few of them that can boast of receiving their wages as at when due. Except for Lagos State and a few others, most states in the country owed their workers outstanding salaries that sometimes run into months. The whole distressing episode is reinforced by the counsel of a particular governor in the South-east that public workers in his state could actually skip work twice or thrice a week to embrace subsistence farming in order to escape the excruciating claws of hunger.
    One obvious consequence of the ranging economic recession in the country is depression. Medically, depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest in things that the victim is ordinarily usually passionate about. It is also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression and it affects how the victim feels, thinks and behaves. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems which include finding it difficult to embark on daily activities. It can also lead to marital troubles as depression victims find it very hard adjusting to family values and ethics. Indeed, coping with the stress of family life cause more difficulties to victims of depression who often want to be left alone. Perhaps, the worst of it all fallouts of depression is the feeling that life isn’t worth living which eventually makes depression victim contemplates suicide.
    From all indications, the nation’s tough economic situation has increased the number of citizens who run the risk of experiencing the agonizing incident of clinical depression. According to reports, the rate of marital break ups has increased while matrimonial violence occasioned by economic woes has equally multiplied significantly. Indeed, there has been incidence of husband killing wife and vice versa. There have been reports of men absconding from home for weeks in order to escape growing economic responsibilities at home. Therefore, we now have more women who are over burdened with excruciating domestic pressures. Cases of pronounced mental health condition have also unsurprisingly increased. Along major cities in the country, you are likely to come across clean and beautifully dressed compatriots who talk and walk alone, actually without any destination in mind. This, to medical workers is a vital sign of depression induced insanity, which if not quickly attended to could lead to serious psychiatric condition.
    Ironically, in the midst of all these uncertainties and stress comes the exciting hope of a better New Year. Not that there is any concrete rationale for the euphoria about the New Year. It is a natural feeling that does not need to be subjected to any empirical analysis. Here, the belief is that New Year would naturally bring with it good tidings. That is the nature of hope. Hope is hope. No more, no less.
    However, one is of the view that for hope not to be mere hallucination, it must be anchored on more solid platforms. For instance, it is generally believed that the world is subjected to the authority of the Almighty God whom many anchor their hope, faith and trust in. This is good enough, especially if the one anchoring his hope on the Almighty has sufficient capacity to understand the nature and ways of God. Nevertheless, as good as placing one’s hope in God is, for hope to transcend the stage of expectation and move into the realm of reality, necessity places it on man to play key roles in speeding up the process of divine intervention.
    The truth is that we would continue to live in the realm of delusion until we make bold to collectively change our ways as a people. For our hope not to be dashed this New Year, we need to embrace new ways of doing things. We need to stop cutting corners. We need to stop living in lies, deception and hypocrisy. It is only when we collectively embrace sacrificial change that we could boldly hope that the New Year would usher in our desired change.
    •Ogunbiyi is of the Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

  • 2017: Prophecies, predictions and policies

    “The best way to predict the future is to create it”
    – Peter Drucker

    To start with, let me be upfront in declaring my lack of qualification for the elevated title of a prophet. I am not a prophet and I very much doubt if I can ever make one by any stretch of imagination.
    Just as I am not prophetic, I also cannot make any pretensions to being clairvoyant. Indeed, I have no orbuculum and can therefore not be involved in the act of scrying.
    However, in spite of these seeming shortcomings, I dare say that I can see the future. Without the aid of crystal balls, I can see a future where Ogun State grows its Gross Domestic Product, GDP, from its current position of $20bn annually to $100bn within the next 10 years.
    That is not all. I can also see a future where someone resident in Ogun State can arrive Lagos for work, business or any other purposes, after a 20mins train ride.
    I can see a future where an international airport in Ogun State becomes a major hub for the movement of goods, machineries, people and services in and out of Nigeria thereby completing the meaning of the state’s appellation as the gateway to not just the rest of Nigeria but also the West African sub region.
    Now, since I am neither a prophet nor a fortune-teller, how did I see this future that I have so painted? Well, Peter Drucker, the Austrian-born American management guru already took care of that when he said, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.”
    And that is exactly what Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, is doing in Ogun State at the moment. He is busy creating the desired future of the Gateway state.
    “One of the strategies towards achieving this aim is to attract investments into the state,” he recently said.
    To make this happen, the state government however realizes the need to first put infrastructure in place. “This is why we have embarked on massive infrastructural development. At the commencement of our massive road construction and redesign across the state, even some of our steadfast supporters never believed we could achieve what we have achieved.
    “Today, these projects have opened up Ogun State as the investment destination of choice in the country. Indeed, Ogun State has emerged the fastest growing state economy and is now the industrial capital of Nigeria by all indices, giving further proof of our actions. We have been able to attract 543 new industries in the five years of our administration, all of which have invested not less than $50 million each. Of these industries, 110 have invested between $200 million and $2 billion,” Governor Amosun said.
    Realising that in order to achieve massive industrialisation, there is the need to support road transportation with rail transportation, the state government has concluded plans to have the ground-breaking ceremony for its proposed light-rail project within the first quarter of 2017.
    The first phase of the proposed Ogun Light Rail Network is approximately 102.3km and consists of two lines namely: Abeokuta (Panseke) – Sagamu Interchange – Sagamu Town (49.8 km) and Ogere Town – Sagamu Interchange – Berger (52.5km).
    This first phase of the rail line was selected to take advantage of the existing traffic on the Lagos to Sagamu section of the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway, which is the busiest road in Nigeria with an Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) of over 40,000.
    This phase also connects Abeokuta, the State Capital to the rapidly growing industrial zone of Sagamu and commercial zone of Ogere.
    As part of efforts to create the desired future, the Ogun State government is also keying in to the potentials provided by agriculture and agri-business. “We are exploring an Agro-Politan development strategy which emphasises the localisation of the entire value chain that agriculture provides: Grow-Process-Store–Package–Market-Sell. This will ensure that millions of our citizens, especially youth, will be engaged in the agricultural value chain and will be able to prosper wherever they are,” Governor Amosun said.
    Closely related to this, is the reforestation project of the state government. For this, Ogun State already has two sites at Aworo and Imeko. Apart from the fact that the projects will go a long way in improving the quality of the environment, it will also boost forestry development plan and promote investment in the timber industry.
    “Since most of the people who will drive the agriculture and forestry sectors are mostly rural dwellers, the year 2017 will witness huge rural road construction.
    “We will take advantage of the opportunities provided by the World Bank through the Rural Access and Mobility Project (RAMP) to ensure easy access to farm produce and mobility of dwellers to modern facilities such as pipe borne water, electricity and qualitative health care delivery,” Governor Amosun said.
    Of course when you attract investments and investors, you then also have to make provisions for their housing needs. In this respect, the Ogun State government is making efforts to create the desired future by continuing with the development of the New Makun City; MITROS City in Isheri; New Government City in Kobape; New Cities in Ota and Agbara; New GRA in Ijebu-Ode, and the President Muhammadu Buhari Housing Estate, Kobape, among others.
    So, won’t these new projects affect the completion of ongoing ones? The governor’s answer is an emphatic no. “Let me again re-assure you that the commencement of new projects will not in any way affect the completion of on-going projects spread across the three senatorial districts. By the grace of God, I assure you that we will not leave any project uncompleted,” he said recently.
    Indeed, in the present day Ogun State, nearly anyone can claim to be a prophet or seer and this is because the state government is clearly creating the future.
    •Soyinka, is Senior Special Assistant (Media) and spokesman for Governor Amosun.

  • Buhari and the principle of justice

    From the ringing clangour of change that blared from the ginormous megaphone of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2015 electioneering to the ear-splitting applauses that greeted the historic swearing-in of General Muhammadu Buhari as the fourth president since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, a strong indication was given that Nigeria was clearly on the threshold of a defining transformation. At home and abroad, the message energetically bruited about was one of Nigeria changing tack and finally ready to walk the path of justice, order, development and progress. President Buhari amplified it in his inaugural speech, stressing that ‘Nigeria has a window of opportunity to fulfil our long-standing potential of pulling ourselves together and realizing our mission as a great nation’. Quoting confidently from Shakespeare’s well-known Julius Caesar, the president explicitly made it known that he understood his brief as leading his country’s folks to take at the flood the tide of change and lead the country on to fortune.

    But as every compatriot whose critical mind-set is not skin-deep knows, the new beginning that the turn in the tide of the country in March 2015 generously vouchsafed is being incredibly recklessly frittered away. Rather than take the current of that new beginning wholly and heartedly when it was served and from there move steadily on to creatively improve the human condition, the new administration elected, wittingly in many instances and unwittingly in some cases, to omit the great and golden opportunity of a fresh start. The consequence of this errancy is the oceanic number of Nigerian lives and businesses ‘bound in shallows and miseries’.

    It is a confounding irony and a perplexing paradox that it is an acute lack of a deep sense of justice that is at the heart of the heart-searing failures and limiting feats of the Buhari administration. What hobbles the administration since inception is not largely the giddily overstated fact of a nearly empty treasury necessitated by the combined profligate bents of previous administrations or the drastic reduction in the revenue accruable from the sale of crude oil. Rather, the present administration is finding it harshly difficult to transform Nigeria and remake it into a liveable emporium of progress and prosperity because its understanding of the principle of justice is superficial. Being unable to heal the wounds of Nigerians with the balm of justice which it does not admit it lacks, it casts around for kindergarten excuses, deflects public attention from grave issues, scapegoats its critics, and basks needlessly in the constricting streams of inchoate successes. Unable and unwilling to see the forest for the woods, the Buhari government thinks that with more money and not justice and structured thinking, it will reform the country and make it a reference point in the discourse of viable nations.

    More specifically, President Buhari’s numerous appointments since assuming office – from his kitchen cabinet to the security agencies – prove aright the claim of his alienation to the principle of justice. A plural society, indeed any society, cannot abide and thrive on the principle of injustice and narrow considerations. Had the President really taken the tide when it was served, he would have known, ab initio, that his appointment must unavoidably reflect the plurality of the country. When your choices and conducts make segments of your plural society to distrust and consider you as one winking in the dark, you cannot attribute the problem assailing your efforts to lack of funds. A proper diagnosis will reveal it is plainly an issue of lack of justice and good thinking on your part.

    This is what President Buhari loathes to appreciate. Yet, he cannot do without it if he hopes to transform the country. The structured thought of the abolitionist, Frederick Douglas, is apposite here: ‘Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.’

    Similarly, President Buhari’s disposition to the extrajudicial murder of many Nigerians in different parts of the country advertises his uninspiring appreciation of the criticalness of justice in building a functional country. As the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he has neither questioned the unprofessional propensities and unseemly conducts of the troops he commands nor has he demonstrated believably to anyone that he feels greatly disturbed by the cruelties they unleash(ed) on the civilian components of the country he swore to protect.

    When the President responded to question on the activities of the Shia claque in his maiden televised Presidential Chat in December 2015, he gave the impression that the group got the right treatment, arguing instead that its members were thorns in the flesh of their neighbours. Like the self-possessed Governor el-Rufai of the state, President Buhari could not be bothered that the army under his watch orchestrated the death of harmless citizens. It did not, and still has not, occurred to these men that there is something called justice, which can be done for both the offender and the offended. Not a soldier or a commander has been summoned to account for the unjust deployment of brutal, excessive force in both Kaduna and some of the states in either the South-east or South-south.

    It is equally the absence of justice that is evident in the continued incarceration of El Zakzaky and Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB, and a couple of other Nigerians, in flagrant disregard of court pronouncements. The tenuous crisis-management capability of the Buhari administration is worsened incrementally by its niggling appreciation of the indispensability of justice to the whole project of nation-building. It is strange that this administration learns nothing from the unpleasant conducts of the police under the watch of President Yar’Adua, during which that agency of government extra-judicially killed the Boko Haram kingpin, Muhammed Yusuf, and thereafter brutally cracked down on many more of his followers. If the state under the control of past administrations spurned justice and consequently came a sad cropper, can it be argued sensibly that the Buhari administration has not ignored the tide of a new beginning when it is the case that the colour of the injustices playing out in its time is indistinguishable from those before May 29, 2015?

    Look to the avoidable tragedy of the Internally Displaced Persons and the inability of the Presidential Initiative in the Northeast to account for about N2.5b meant for the wellbeing of the IDPs and how the presidency is pussyfooting in doing the right thing, you will see a glaring picture of an administration inured to the culture of injustice. Rather than heal and be made ready for decent living outside their present temporary abodes, the IDPs are being re-endangered and re-traumatised. Does the President remember what he said in his inaugural speech? Here is it: ‘I will not have kept my own trust with the Nigerian people if I allow others abuse theirs under my watch.’ Sadly, many Nigerians have been serially ill-treated under his watch by those he saddles with vital responsibilities.

    If President Buhari wants to succeed, he must perforce re-examine his attitude to the principle of fairness. He cannot continue to listen to the surface thinkers and self-serving savants who tantalise his ears with the testimonies of unreal realities. Will President Buhari take the tide of opportunities to do justice to the lingering aches of the land? Will he pull down the strongholds of injustices scattered across the country?

     

    Ademola writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. 

  • 2017: It’s the economy, stupid!

    It is a constant rite of passage. At the dawn of every new year, there is that vibrant and infectious burst of hope of better things to come. Humanity – maybe with few, if indeed any exception – forges a rare unanimity in resurgent optimism; and regardless of varied and, for most parts, disappointing experiences in the preceding year, there is that unanimous mood swing towards keen expectations of bliss in the incoming year.

    Experience shows though that it is a vicious cycle: from high mode in excited hope, to bottom-out in failed expectations, and back to high mode in resurgent optimism. This happens year after year. But it has never been a sufficient factor to dissuade humankind from the almost naive rebound of hope that resonates in the exuberant goodwill we mutually share as we wish one another ‘Happy New Year!’ In that celebratory spirit, I hasten here to wish you, dear reader, a Happy New Year in 2017.

    Rituals apart, it seems apparent enough that the prevailing mood in Nigeria this year just isn’t as boisterous as it used to be in a season as this. If you interrogate the ambience, you would find there is a subdued cheer in the land this New Year; and if I may hazard a guess, I would say the subdued mood has to do with some trepidation many Nigerians feel about general prospects of the national economy in the incoming year.

    Not that this new year isn’t pregnant with promises of better things as all new years have always been. Among others, we have the word of President Muhammadu Buhari that the Federal Government’s 2017 budget plan will send the recession currently plaguing the Nigerian economy on terminal recess in the course of the year. As I recall, the President said that much when he presented the budget proposals to the National Assembly in December.

    And that promise has been amplified by Information Minister Lai Mohammed, who in the closing days of December praised Nigerians for their perseverance and understanding in 2016 and urged them to look forward to better times in 2017. “We give thanks to God that we are alive. By the grace of God, next year will be much easier. 2016 has not been a particularly easy year even for governance because the economy has not done as well as we thought it would. This is not because of incompetence on the part of government, but because of the general global slowdown that affected commodity prices,” the minister told journalists at a Yuletide programme staged at the State House, Alausa, by the Lagos State Government.

    Well, I am sure many Nigerians earnestly look forward to the promised better times in 2017, because the economy put the majority through living hell last year. The bitter experiences left a nasty aftertaste that rankles deep in the polity, and possibly explains the subdued cheer in the land over the dawning of a new year. Besides, critical indices as at the close of last year weren’t exactly bright, with the exchange rate of the naira sliding further and inflation running riot in the economy amidst severe strictures in general cash flow.

    The year 2016 was not all doom and gloom and apologists would want the success stories acknowledged, and you really can’t argue against that in good conscience. The epic war on corruption was waged relentlessly by the present administration despite some faltering steps, and the military under Buhari’s leadership made indisputably giant strides in the battle against Boko Haram insurgents. Even on the economy front, the drying up of foreign exchange resource compelled backward integration that has boosted local content in certain sectors, including agriculture. All that is readily granted. But the prevailing experience in 2016 was an unprecedented hardship that left the bulk of citizens in acute distress.

    That is why if anything matters at all for Nigeria in 2017, it’s the economy, stupid! (Just so we are clear about it, that slogan is a popular variation of the phrase ‘The economy, stupid’, which James Carville coined as a strategist for Bill Clinton’s successful campaign against sitting President George H. W. Bush in 1992. Carville’s coinage was meant for Clinton’s campaign workers as one of the three messages to focus on, the other two messages being ‘Change vs. more of the same’ and ‘Don’t forget health care.’) The recession pangs were intensely suffocating in the just ended year, and many citizens are gasping for life-saving breath even now.

    I live on Main Street with the people and I can relate a few experiences from there. Both government and private businesses were stiffed by the short supply in cash flow in 2016, and part of the fallouts were job losses that piled high in the course of the year, making the impact of the 200,000 n-power jobs the Federal Government flaunted in employment creation very tame. As for those who managed to keep their regular jobs, many had to live with delayed / withheld payments or downrightly slashed wages; and those were in the face of a drastic slump in cash value amidst runaway inflation that the Federal Office of Statistics (FoS) reckoned above 18 per cent.

    Epileptic power infrastructure, high cost of fuel and persisting scarcity of forex, among other things, combined to compound the rouge inflation, such that the local economy turned predatory as producers and service providers readily passed on their mounting overheads to increasingly cash-strapped end-users. If you asked me, the most scary dimension was easily the spiralling cost of drugs, which compelled some citizens to shun conventional medicare at a grave risk to their lives.

    A seemingly settled disposition of some state governments compounded the woes for citizens in their workforces. Some state governments appear to have settled for abdication of their moral as well as constitutional responsibility to pay their workers’ salaries that are due. Now, perish the thought of bonuses! And neither are pensions being paid to elderly citizens who are retirees. Those affected are left by employer-governments to sink or sulk in the predatory economy, even though many state governors never seemed to lack resources for ego trips and vanity fairs.

    Bothered by the trend, President Buhari late in December requested state governors to use the refund made to them from excess deductions for external debt service to settle outstanding emoluments of workers. He recently approved a refund of N552.74billion to state governments arising from their claim that they were overcharged in deductions for external debt service between 1995 and 2002. The states received 25 percent of the respective sum approved for them mid-December, and the President only requested that the money be used for workers’ wages. In a directive through Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun, he admonished that the issue of outstanding workers’ benefits, particularly salaries and pensions, be tackled with urgency and not allowed to continue as a national problem. Soon after he assumed office in 2015, President Buhari had declared an emergency over unpaid salaries when it was found that 27 out of the country’s 36 states were behind in payment – in some cases for up to a year. It was on that account the Federal Government has twice issued them bailout funds.

    It is doubtful though that many of the affected state governments are equally concerned for the workers’ welfare, because much of those emoluments remain unpaid by some state governments even now. But that is what you get when a country’s Labour movement is dead. Forget the palpitations you see in relentless factional in-fighting and sporadic but lame pronouncements by Labour leaders on disparate concerns and at discordant times, the Labour movement in Nigeria is DEAD.

  • The fall of Camp Zero

    When the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. Gen Tukur Buratai, told brave troops that December was a month of decision, perhaps not many took him serious for what he meant in that motivational message to troops of Nigerian military early December.

    But last Friday’s fall of Camp Zero bears the bell for this military tactician by whose leadership the notorious Boko Haram has been roundly routed. No doubt, the fall of Camp Zero marks a watershed in the military campaign against insurgency in North-east.

    Dislodging the deadly terrorists from their very fortress is a military feat which critics never gave any chance. Now, never has the certainty of an end to the war become surer than since last Friday when brave troops overran the enclave of the criminals, smoked them out of their fortress, sending a host of them scampering for safety from sustained military bombardment.

    For those who do not know, Camp Zero is the heart and nerve of Boko Haram. In Camp Zero the notorious Shekau and his faction of Boko Haram established their headquarters.

    It was between Banki and Camp Zero, that the 21 Chibok School girls out of 219 abducted in April 2014 were released by the Shekau group through a negotiation by the Swiss government and the Red Cross. And there are strong indications that the rest of the girls are quartered within this periphery.

    Negotiation for the release of the remaining Chibok girls and other hostages will be faster than expected given the fact that Shekau has lost the last point of his jealously guarded territory.

    They (Boko Haram) had always had access to Sambisa Forest through Gwoza Hills from Kuka town. Shekau exercised strict control of the massive geographical territory covering Damboa-Abi to the Chad Basin area of Mate Local Government, Gambologala, Kalabalge, Gwoza Hills down to Sambisa Forest.

    At Kuka town, the Nigerian troops working on intelligence report, had established a military check point which tamed mobility of the terrorists. As a very mobile outfit that leaves destruction on their trail, Boko Haram were all over Sambisa until Buratai came to the scene barely a year ago, and the table turned.

    The military tactician deployed expert military intelligence and genius, coupled with superior fire power and incentives for troops, started clawing back territories seized by Shekau. Shortly after, comfort of the terrorists was shattered.

    Strife and ripples ripped through their unity. Cracks and factions emerged. Today there are the Maman Nura faction of Boko Haram and the Shekau group. Maman’s group believes that they are late Muhammed Yusuf’s group.

    Shekau had given money, lots of dollars, pounds, euros and gold for Nura and others to procure weapons having lost most of their weapons to energized troops. Nura and co felt uncomfortable about the way Shekau was eliminating their leaders, and reasoned that it could be their turn the next day. So, they left and never came back.

    That marked the beginning of the second front of insurgency war. With their moderate concept, they relocated towards Damboa axis and started killing Shekau’s men, and cleaning up that axis of every trace of Shekau. They would round up terrorists of opposing camp and offer them option to drop their arms if they wanted to follow them.

    Those who insisted on going with Shekau were eliminated while those who opted to follow them were asked to submit their weapons, and be under the group with a leader in control. They later turned more aggressive and became a serious threat to Damboa town and Sabongari. It was this group that killed Col. Abu Ali on night ambush.

    Nura’s faction covers the entire Damboa axis with all the territory within Damboa-Abi area while the Shekau group is boxed in between Mate, Gambologala, Kalabalge, Gwoza Hills down to Sambisa. Thus the Shekau group is concentrated at Sambisa, the Gwoza Hills and the Chad Basin area of Mate Local Government.

    What this means is that the military are fighting on two different fronts, the Shekau group in the Sambisa axis and the Maman Nura group in the extreme. The Nura group has more territory than the Shekau group but are said to be more tolerant. It is Shekau group that is believed to have the custody of the Chibok girls which is why the military have turned on the heat on Sambisa with emphasis on Camp Zero.

    Having dismantled the last enclave of the terrorists, the Operation Lafiya Dole has intensified efforts to locate and free the remaining girls abducted from their school in Chibok, Borno State in April 2014.

    Elated President Muhammadu Buhari could not hold back his heartfelt appreciation to troops of the Nigerian military for seizing the Sambisa Forest from the Boko Haram terrorists and securing the North-East.

    Buhari wrote: “I am delighted at, and most proud of the gallant troops of the Nigerian Army, on receipt of the long-awaited and most gratifying news of the final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave in Sambisa Forest.

    “I want to use this opportunity to commend the determination, courage and resilience of troops of Operation Lafiya Dole at finally entering and crushing the remnants of the Boko Haram insurgents at “Camp Zero”, which is located deep within the heart of Sambisa Forest.

    “I was told by the Chief of Army Staff that the Camp fell at about 1:35pm on Friday, December 22, and that the terrorists are on the run, and no longer have a place to hide.  I urge you to maintain the tempo by pursuing them and bringing them to justice.

    “I also want to congratulate and commend the able leadership of the Nigerian Army in particular and indeed, that of the Armed Forces in general, for making this possible. This, no doubt, will go a long way in improving the security situation not only in the North East, but the country in general.  But we must not let our guards down,” Buhari advised.

    To underscore the routing of the terrorists and the fact that they no longer control any inch of the vast geographical area, two strategic roads in Borno State including Maiduguri-Gubio-Damasak Road and the Maiduguri-Mungono-Baga Road, which link Nigeria with neighbouring countries, were reopened last Sunday after being deserted for more than three years

    After reopening the roads on Sunday, the next day troops took over 3,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees back to their houses in Damasak town in Mobbar Local Government Area of Borno State. The IDPs and refugees, comprising a majority of women and children, were led home by the soldiers in company of Buratai, himself who paid a visit to the troops of 145 Battalion in Damasak, Borno State, to mark the reopening of the two strategic roads.

    How could the success recorded by the military in many fronts translate into lasting security in the liberated areas? Working out a system of safeguarding returnees in their homes, farms and markets is as important as food assistance, and should be everyone’s responsibility.

    The military are overstretched. They liberate villages hitherto under Boko Haram siege, occupy, and maintain the places. They also protect the IDP camps, provide security for convoys and people passing through the routes that have been cleared.

    To ensure lasting security, North-east leaders, the police, DSS, the Interior Ministry and other stakeholders should join hands with the military to put in place a security arrangement to protect lives and property within areas liberated by gallant soldiers. When this is done, more soldiers will be available to embark on effective patrols, raids, ambushes and deliberate attacks in ongoing clearance operation until the last Chibok School girl is recovered.

    Mgboji wrote in from Lagos.