The Nation Newspaper

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  • Why is there so much rape in Nigeria today?

    Rape is a conscious process of intimidation wherein perpetrators keep women and children especially, in a state of constant fear. Rape devalues the victim.  It is a crime which stigmatizes the emotions, a crime of insult, oppression and revenge that needs to be punished because a rapist is a criminal and all crimes and their beneficiaries must be punished. Rape and other forms of sexual harassment need the urgent and serious attention of family, institutions, civil society groups, government and international community if we really want to ensure a violence-free society for all.

    Cases of sexual violence have increased all over the world. The Stanford rape case involving a 20-year old former Stanford University student who was sent to jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on the school campus is a case in point. The judgment generated a lot of negative responses on social media and from the public against the Judge mostly because the sentence – a mere 6months and 3 year probation – seemed like a slap on the wrist for the rapist.

    In Nigeria as well, there has been an increasing number of rape and sexual harassment cases on a keen keel. A total number of 150 reported cases of sexual and physical abuse were recorded in Lagos state for one year period as at April 27, 2016. Also the Lagos State commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs. Lola Akande, said the Ministry in the last one year treated about 589 cases ranging from sexual abuse, physical abuse and child labour.

    There was the case of a 52-year-old builder who confessed to having carnal knowledge of a 12-year old girl in Suleja local government area of Niger state. As a matter of fact, another 33-year old teacher of Government Girls Secondary School, Minna, Abdullahi Shaba was remanded in prison Custody for allegedly raping a 16-year old senior secondary student. Two teenage girls were violently raped to death by a gang of young men in Bayelsa state. While this was going on, two other cases  of child abuse occurred in the state, and this included  the death of a 7-year old girl after being raped and infected with HIV/AIDS.  There was also a report of a 15-year old girl who was gang raped in Ebonyi state on her way from a wake-keep.

    If nobody is alarmed at the frequency of these occurrences, we are. They seem to have grown in frequency maybe because our institutions are not addressing these crimes by dealing with the perpetrators. There was a case of a 44-year old man from Ini local government area of Akwa Ibom state who was alleged to have defiled his daughter and actually confessed to have had sexual intercourse with her severally. What then can we make of the man in Enugu who raped three of his children aged five, seven and nine and another 10-year old girl who cried out after constant defilement by her father for a period of 18months in Lagos state? What can we say about that? Rape in Nigeria has also been festering in our universities. We are not likely to easily forget the Cross River state university rape matter between the Dean, faculty of Law, Prof. Cyril Ndifon and a 20-year old 400 level student; the part-time lecturer of the University of Lagos, Afeez Baruwa who allegedly raped an 18-year old girl seeking admission to the university of Lagos. Another case of rape involving a certain Dr. Mohammed Sani Idiagbon and it took place at the department of English in  University of Ilorin.

    Just recently, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, revealed that the 19 governors in the northern states are set to review the Penal Code which will address the issue of rape and penalties. He also said a bill to that effect is currently before the State House of Assembly. We are gladdened by this but wish that the governor was not merely reacting to the case of one Haruna Tukur who allegedly raped a five-year old girl in Kaduna recently.

    • Sandra Eguagie, programme officer and Rape Watch Coordinator, ANEEJ.

     

     

     

  • The big difference a small bus-stop makes

    I left my office on Awolowo road, Ikoyi, Lagos by about quarter to 6pm on Thursday 23rd August and by 6pm I was already at the base of the bridge at Iyana-Oworo. I was pleasantly surprised again that we could descend 3rd Mainland bridge at such a record time. When this started happening a couple of weeks back, I thought it was a fluke but alas, it has happened over and over again.

    Ayo my Musician/Driver and I started analyzing the new phenomenon on 3rd Mainland bridge traffic. We initially thought it might also be due to the fact that children were on holiday but the truth is, how many children live on the Mainland and school on the Island? It finally dawned on us that it must be this bus stop at the base of the bridge.

    This definitely makes sense, with about four (4) lanes of different categories of vehicles veering off to discharge passengers thus leaving the road free for free flowing vehicular movement. I began to wonder why no one ever thought of it. Of course it is common in Nigeria to refer to so many places on the road as bus stops without actually making allowances for the bus to stop.

    In many cases where there are allowances, the vehicles did not use them. Some brazen drivers even discharged passengers on express roads. In fact, it is assumed that bus stop are for commercial vehicles only by many of us. Thus, discharging passengers along the road became the norm. It did not stop there, off course our LATSMA Men and Police are on hand to ensure compliance. I am very delighted to see many of this sort of development going on all over Lagos State.

    I see a lot of Pedestrian bridges springing up at Berger, Anthony Oke, Mile 12 and so on as well. I was quite happy to see the construction for traffic diversion at Berger bus stop too. Ayo tells me about the massive construction going on in Abule-egba area. I am really happy and grateful. This is surely an answer to my prayers. You would wonder why I prayed. Well, after we were robbed of our victory at the polls in my home state of Ekiti and the signs of impunity began to emerge, I prayed that the set back we were experiencing in Ekiti after four years of progress under FAYEMI would not befall Lagos.

    After all, Lagos is my second home. I prayed earnestly that Lagos State would remain under the leadership of a progressive Governor having seen the gains we made starting with TINUBU and through the FASHOLA years. I must admit that I was initially put off by AMBODE when it seemed as though he wasn’t going to continue to build on the sterling legacies of his predecessors. I felt they had laid such a solid foundation for him that all he needed was to build on it. I am glad to say that he’s doing just that now.

    With the street lights coming up, new and expanded bus stops, pedestrian bridges and roads , progress is for sure. With a free flow of traffic, commerce will improve in Lagos. The quality of life will improve. Our vehicles will last longer. Our environment will suffer less pollution. Thieves will find it more difficult to operate. The benefits are countless. The important thing is that if we all try to contribute in small ways to add value to our daily existence in our small areas of influence, life will be so much better for all of us.

    The change we need starts with each one contributing what will make life easier for everyone. Life is much better lived when it embraces consideration for others. Little things make a difference. I will never forget the difference in traffic flow we experienced with that little diversion under the bridge in between Muson Centre and The Nigerian Army Officers Mess in the TBS area leading to Ikoyi / Victoria Island during the time of Fashola. How can I forget Allen Avenue traffic until it was demarcated during the time of Tinubu? The point I am making is, let this little value additions continue, they add up. No city or country can be built in a day. The important thing is that we must keep building and making progress. Brick by brick a house is built.

    Traffic reduction with expanded or new bus stops would not have been noticeable with roads riddled with potholes. Somebody took time to fix the roads before this intervention could be meaningful. We need to have leaders who understand the meaning of continuity in governance. It is not about personal achievements, it is about progressive legacies. It is not about personal empires it is about building our commonwealth for generations yet unborn. It is about all of us.

    The beautiful thing is that we Nigerians are very easy to please especially when our leaders understand that little things make a big difference. Prosperity will be forever grateful to Governor AKINWUMI AMBODE if he could rid the Lagos Metropolis totally of traffic. The little bus stop at Iyana-Oworo has definitely made a big difference.

    Progress makes for peace and prosperity. Let the progress continue, the best is yet to come.

    • Ajayi, a Medical Doctor, owns an hospital in Ikoyi

  • The burden of cancer in Nigeria 

    The menace of cancer in the country has continued to be of great concern to all due, to its destructive tendencies in family life and colossal amount of funds required for diagnosis and treatment. The death of a cancer patient often means the loss of a breadwinner or total impoverishment of survivors due to high cost of treatment which often drain the resources of victims and their family members.

    The Executive Secretary of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), in Nigeria, Mr. Abia Nzelu, had told the media that “Nigerians spend $200 million annually on treatment abroad.” Nzelu, according to the report spoke at a press conference jointly organized by CECP and the Association of Advertising Agencies in Nigeria, to mark the 2015 World Cancer Day (WCD), in Lagos. The event he said was meant to raise public awareness about the disease and to underscore the need for government at all levels to make provision for cancer treatment centres across the country. He lamented that the outcome for Nigerians who embark on cancer-related medical tourism is often poor, because of late detection.

    On its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) said about 24.6million people live with cancer worldwide while about 12.5 per cent of all death is attributable to cancer. It further estimates that over 100,000 Nigerians are diagnosed with cancer yearly, while about 80,000 die from the disease. This brings the consequences of the cancer epidemic to 240 Nigerians every day or 10 Nigerians every hour, dying from cancer. It noted that the country’s cancer death ratio of 4 in 5 affected persons is one of the worst in the whole world.

    The grim statistics above accounts for the earnest quest by the 8th National Assembly to urgently tackle the dire health challenge posed by the incidence of cancer to Nigerians and to lay a solid legal foundation upon which present and future superstructure of interventions aimed at the control, treatment and prevention of the disease in the country would take root. It is worthy of note that while it has been introduced by both the Red and Green Chambers, the Senate has already considered and passed its own version of  the “Bill for an Act to provide for the establishment of the National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment.”

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Lanre Tejuoso, while presenting the report on the Bill to the Senate for the third and final reading, explained that Cancer has been identified as one of the public health problems worldwide. “The disease affects all categories of humanity. Cancer is known to be the second common cause of death in developed countries and third leading cause of death in developing countries of which Nigeria, with its population is highly affected,” Tejuoso said. He said the control, treatment and research on cancer has tremendously improved in the developed economies and even in some developing nations like India – where efforts of science and improved national strategy against cancer have been harnessed and deployed to fight cancer related deaths – such achievements were only made possible through the establishment of advanced cancer research infrastructure, new cancer centres and improved treatment procedures. “It is sad to note, that Nigeria has not done enough to fight cancer as evident by lack of adoption of a national strategy that focuses on research, improved awareness and provision of treatment centres. This certainly must be the reason the spread of the ailment is not abating in Nigeria,” he stated.

    The bill is meant to bridge this yawning gap in the national efforts to properly diagnose and manage the cancer pandemic. The objectives of the Bill among others is to provide a national leadership in cancer research, prevention, control and treatment; guide scientific improvements to cancer research prevention, treatment and care; coordinate and liaise between wide range of groups and health providers with an interest in cancer; and assist with the implementation of government policies and programmes in cancer research, prevention, control and care. Highlighting the relevant provisions of the legislation, Tejuoso noted that the broad-base participation at the public hearing conducted by the Committee, agreed with the intentions of the Bill. “Its intent is to ensure that all forms of cancer disease are prevented, controlled and treatment and care for cancer patients provided, with national strategies that focuses on cancer research,” he said.

    To ensure that the proposed institute is manned by qualified manpower that would effectively and efficiently carry out its mandate of curtailing the cancer scourge and ensuring accessible and cost effective treatment to those already plagued by the health condition, the Bill, flowing from the input of stakeholders and development partners, provided that health professionals with cognate experience be made to compose the membership of the board of the institution. Aside from a nominee of the Minister of Health, who should be “preferably a Civil Servant with 10 years’ experience”, the board is to comprise of eight persons drawn from the following groups: Radiologists, Medial Laboratory Scientists, Physiotherapists, Nigeria Cancer Society, Civil Society Organizations, a cancer survivor living free of cancer for a minimum of five years, National Complementary and alternative Medical Association (NACAMA) and the National Association of Nigeria Traditional Medicine Practitioners (NANTMP).

    To avoid ambiguity, the Bill also provided that the Director of the Institute should be an Oncologist with 10 years research and administrative experience and preferably a professor. According to Wikipedia, “Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an oncologist.” Moreover, to ensure the financial sustainability of the  institute on a long term, the Bill provided that the institute can leverage on the Public Private Partnership ((PPP) model for additional funding needs. Clause 10 subsection 3 of the bill provided that “the board shall establish Public Private Partnership (PPP) wherever possible for providing clinical services, defray costs and maximize efficiency” in tandem with best global practices.

    The institute when established is to among other administrative and technical function, “create a central online database for statistical analysis to create access by both public and private individuals with a view to attracting donor agencies; establish a department of telemedicine for collaboration with peers both within and outside the country; responsible for establishing a cancer preventive protocol according to age and family history of every Nigerian with a view to carrying out a public awareness campaigns for screening right from the primary health centre to the secondary and tertiary hospitals with the ultimate referral centre for everything cancer being the institute; this is aimed at eradicating medical tourism by the theme ‘Operation know your health centre and referral point.”

    The Senate Committee on Health had in its findings/observations noted among others that: “The consensus of opinion of stakeholders and the general public favoured the enactment of the legislation (i.e. National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment Bill, 2016); the absence of legal framework for the management of cancer has greatly affected the delivery of appropriate control, prevention, treatment and care of the disease in Nigeria.” The chairman of the committee specifically lamented that “from the stakeholders’ meeting, it was evident that Nigeria was yet to do enough in the area of improved national strategy in the fight against cancer.”

    The Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki had thanked his colleagues for approving the passage of the legislation. He stated that the passage of the Bill will go a long way in changing the lives of Nigerians and also add value to their living standard.  “As someone who has lost a loved one to cancer,  it gives me great joy to announce the passage of cancer research Institute @NGRSenate,” Saraki later said on his Twitter handle. “Once established,” the Senate President  added, “the National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment will provide a holistic national strategy for dealing with cancer.”

    It is pertinent to mention that the priority given to the consideration and speedy passage of bill is no doubt predicated on the resolve of the 8th Senate to ensure that relevant laws that would improve the health and economy of the average Nigerian are promptly enacted in line with its Legislative Agenda. The absence of such laws and critical agencies in the past, if it must be said, are directly or indirectly responsible for the humongous financial resources, time and energy expended by Nigerians in seeking diagnosis and treatment of cancer ailments in countries outside our national boundaries. It is hoped that with the passage of the Bill by the Red Chamber and the expected concurrence of the Green Chamber anytime soon, cancer patients in the country would have their burden of raising scarce foreign exchange for oversea medical tourism drastically scaled down, if not totally lifted.

    • Onogu is the Chief Press Secretary to the Senate President.
  • Conversation with Ojo Maduekwe (1)

    Conversation with Ojo Maduekwe (1)

    Mekaria,

    On Friday, we had a praise and worship session for Aunty UC, your Wife and her twin Aunty Nnenna to celebrate their 70th birthday. It was so surreal to be in house 22 without you. The mood was somber; the energy in your house was Low. We tried singing but our voices were hollow; we tried doing the things you would have done, but the emptiness pervaded the environment.

     On some occasion that I have represented you at events, I had prefaced my speech with, “if Ojo were here, he would have said this or that”. But on Friday, I tried to do what Ojo would have done: We played your favorite music, we tried dancing like you….yet all rang hollow.

    As we sat in the Clinton room, where you hosted Mrs Clinton during her visit to Nigeria for a lunch, I couldn’t ask for black beans and fried yam, your must eat diet. The combination of vegetable and egusi soup brought you forcefully into the room. I could see you saying, “Osita nwannem, eat some more and let’s drink some civilized wine”.

    Talking about red wine, you made me a convert to your love of fine wine. You recorded my conversion as a great success Since Pius Okigbo converted you to wine drinking, you were so happy you have influenced a protégé to the joy and art of wine drinking.You taught me many things. So every where I turn I see you: I hear your restless voice, I feel your presence in the art works in my house, in the wine opener, decanter, wine cover, and all the accoutrements of your almost sacramental wine ceremony.

     As I entered my study, I could hear you say, “Osita nwannem…your collection is growing; you must read this new book or that new book…”.You were always ahead of me in finding and consuming new books. I always secretly competed with you trying to read new books before you, but whenever I bought a new book for you, alas you had already owned it. I never could beat you.

    I just heard that in this last trip to Chicago, you spent almost a day at Barnes and Noble, as usual. What did you buy? I am on Barnes and Noble website now trying to figure out what you must have bought before I take a look at the content of your luggage.

    Ike-Ohafia, I have to go and deal with a few issues and will continue the conversation. Am sure you would have said, “Ike-Obosi, eat a few more fried yams. It is crispy and the black beans is hot…. Ehen, one more thing Osita Nwannem, do you think there would ever be an African success story like Singapore?” Leaving you was usually impossible, but now I must go to return soon.

    We have had the first meeting of the burial committee, and again it was difficult for me to discuss your funeral. I made effort to always differentiate the burial of the cloak you used on earth and Ojo the soul that lives on. As I rummaged on our usual debate on metaphysics, I thought of my friend I told you about who lives in Milan and planned to be buried in Milan because he believes Africans do not treat the dead with dignity. You were so excited about him that you said, you will like to meet him, and if you were to write a poem about him you would have titled it, “Who will light my candle”. You even without a pen wrote the first stanza.

    While I was thinking about dignified funeral, my mind drifted during the meeting to our first meeting. I met you first on the pages of Sunday Times where you wrote a column every Sunday, espousing the philosophy of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). A mutual friend of ours, late Mr. Martins Itotoi had asked me if I knew you, since he saw I was interested in politics. I said,“no, but I read you.” He said, “Ojo is a man you must meet; he is an Igbo man to watch.”You were writing your column as Adviser to a man you admired a lot: Baba Gana Kingibe, Chairman of the SDP.You became Kingibe’s Adviser after you lost your quest to become the Secretary of the SDP. How did you lose? You refused to swear to the Oath administered by a certain powerful Igbo Politician, who was the clearing house for all the positions allocated to the East.

    For refusing to swear to the oath you lost that position. As you told me, “Osita nwannem, what will my late father, a Presbyterian Pastor say if he heard I swore to a fetish oath for public office?” It was to assuage you for the loss that Amb. Kingibe appointed you his Special Adviser.

    You had a difficult and tumultuous political career.

      As a Minister, you would not bend the rules. Your friends turned to foes and the rank of embittered extended family members swelled as you propounded your theory of zero tolerance for corruption. To demonstrate this, you fired Chief Executives of Agencies under you. You founded the first Anti-corruption unit in government before it was institutionalized in all MDAs.

    In my 8 years in public office, you were the only person who advised me consistently against corruption. You never sent a note to me even as I knew the pressure you were under. Whenever I had ethical dilemmas, I turned to you and your usual refrain was, “Osita nwannem, I worry for you, but it’s not worth it. After 16 years in government, I sleep well at night. I want the same for you”. You always wanted the best for me.

    How can I forget your visit to Washington in 2005? That visit was a turning point in our relationship. You called me from London saying,“Osita I am coming from Korea on a government trip. I am heading to Washington, D.C. to see you, Chidi and the babies”. I thought you meant you were coming for government business; I picked you at Dulles Airport.

    You were in DC for two days, and for the two days, you ate with us in my small two-bedroom  apartment in Arlington VA. We discussed endlessly about Nigeria, I drove you to the mall to a bookshop as usual and back to where you stayed. On the second day, I waited to hear when you will go for the government business. Lo and behold, you indeed came to see how I was faring in DC.

    To compound the matter, you indicated you wanted to spend another day but could not, because you bought an economy ticket from London to Washington just to see how I was doing. Former Minister of Transport! On that trip you told me there was a conversation going on for you to become Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. As I watched you walk towards airport security at Dulles Airport, I was moved by the nobility of soul and my eternal respect for Mekaria rose exponentially. A few weeks later you became the PDP National Secretary.

    My relationship with you was not always easy. As your aide you were exacting. You suspended me for one month for disobedience; you demanded excellence that meant I had to always be on my toes. You will say, “Osita, I want to go to Onitsha to represent the President, from there to Benin for a wedding and then Lagos for a meeting before departing for London that night.” I ensured it happened seamlessly even without GSM phones then!

  • Edo Politics: Between continuity and reality

    Many commentators on the run-up to the governorship poll in Edo State appear not to be getting a full-orbed picture of the salient arguments in the position of Godwin Obaseki, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate with regard to what he would do with power if he wins the ballot next month. Some, like Tonnie Iredia, a Sunday Vanguard columnist, believe that Obaseki is going to be the “third appearance” of the outgoing governor, Adams Oshiomhole, whose constitutional two-term tenure is running out this year.

    Writing in his column on July 31, 2016, Iredia put down the continuity refrain of Obaseki and his team to mean continuity of Oshiomhole. He wrote in the piece titled Continuity in Edo on What?: “With continuity as a selling point, would Edo people continue to experience discrimination in governance in which, for instance, roads in the GRA are not maintained because, according to government, it is rich people who live there?…What about multiple and increased taxation, will they continue? Would local government funds continue to be manipulated while the salaries of their workers remain unpaid? Will pensioners owed several months pension remain in penury? If all we have said so far will or will not happen, the people deserve to know the nature of continuity to expect.”

    This former Director – General of the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) cited several steps of the Oshiomhole administration and concluded that he feared they might continue in the Obaseki time. Now it is disturbing that such otherwise methodical essayist as Iredia would write a one-sided piece for consumption by an enlightened public. The article failed to examine what Obaseki has been saying on what he would do as governor of Edo State. It only dwelt on Oshiomhole, thus exposing the writer’s hidden animus against the comrade governor while conveniently ignoring the campaign issues thrown up by the APC governorship candidate.

    It irritates the columnist that “the dominant person in all its (APC’s) rallies in the outgoing governor.” Why is that strange? In every campaign for votes in an election, the departing incumbent can’t but visibly shop for votes for his party and his potential successor. It does not only happen here in Nigeria. Right before our eyes, it is playing out in the United States of America. President Barack Obama has campaigned for Mrs. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party presidential candidate for the November poll this year. He and his wife, Michelle, have offered massive support for the former First Lady and ex-Secretary of State. Naturally, the First Family would take the centre stage during such campaigns.

    Of course, that is the quest for continuity, the yearning for the continuation of the administration of the Democratic Party. And there is nothing irritating or offensive about it if they play a central role in achieving that goal. It is precisely what Oshiomhole and Obaseki are doing, seeking the continuity of the APC in power after the exit of Oshiomhole. But to suggest, as Iredia has done, that Obaseki, who is seeking votes for the office of the governor, isn’t presenting his own agenda, is far removed from the truth. Obaseki has repeatedly unfolded his own agenda; that is the goals he would pursue as the Chief Executive if he wins. Being a tested politician with proven pedigree, Obaseki has produced a long-term programme that would turn Edo into a “food basket” of the nation, notably in this era of diminishing revenue from oil. He has spoken of working out meaningful human capacity schemes to make entrepreneurship a way of life for the people such that the young men and women, graduates and school leavers in Edo State would no longer have to queue for jobs in government offices or factories. They would not only be self-employed but also be employers of labour. At a recent campaign, Obaseki said that he hopes to achieve all these through agriculture and skills acquisition. The glamour of this project is that agriculture would transit from the pedestrian subsistence plane to the money-spinning commercial level.

    The flagship of his manifesto is the drive for the creation of 200,000 jobs for the citizens of Edo State.  All these give the lie to the claim that Obaseki does not possess a backbone, as it were, and has to lean on the outgoing helmsman to campaign. The projects he says he would embark on are not those he would be inheriting from Oshiomhole. They are projects he has worked out with his team as he waits for the electorate to give him the mandate at the ballot next month so they can, by the Grace of God and the cooperation of the people, put those ideas into action.

    Of course, needless to say, these progressive initiatives fit into the APC worldview. It can’t be otherwise or Obaseki would cease to be a faithful party man. The APC is a transformation-seeking party whose programmes at any level of governance stand for change and the provision of the basic needs of life to the people. As you have it at the center, so you should have it in the states and in the local governments. It is unacceptable therefore for critics to assemble what they wrongly perceive as the so-called mistakes of the Oshiomhole government and claim that these shortcomings would find their way into an Obaseki administration if he wins the election in September. That is mischievous thinking stretched too far. Obaseki is going to have a life of his own, never mind how he is enjoying the support of the incumbent governor. It is the same way a Clinton government will have its own life if the woman secures the presidency, not minding the support she is getting from the outgoing President Obama.

    The main point of the continuity mantra in the Edo gubernatorial contest is that both Oshiomhole and Obaseki are urging the people to remember that since it was the APC that delivered the state from the stagnation of the past, they would do well to maintain the momentum of change so the state does not slide back to its old ways. The reality, an indisputable one, is that there have been positive changes in Edo State in the nearly eight years of the Oshiomole administration, just as there have been quite grave challenges which would require a template of the change wand to deal with. The continuity disciples are saying that only the sustenance of the policies which brought succor to the people should be maintained.

    • Ikhaghe is a public policy analyst in Ihievbe, Owan East L.G.A. Edo State

  • Learning from Madiba’s enclave

    On August 6, I left the shores of Nigeria for South Africa to take few days’ rest.     As a student of Comparative Politics, I quickly forgot that I was in that country to rest. I picked interest in monitoring the election processes in pronto.   Two things struck me with their system.  In Nigeria we hold elections on Saturdays with full restriction of movements.  In Madibo’s enclave, the Election Day was Wednesday with public holiday but no restriction on movements across the country.  The concomitant effect based on my observation is that a number of potential voters went shopping spree and recreation rather than exercising their franchise.  Perhaps to dissuade apathy, voting hours was between 7.00 a.m and 7.00 p.m.  In a number of urban voting stations, turn-out was high in the evening with those coming from work places.  This resulted into ‘serpentine’ queues in cold weather. Though voting processes took less than 15 minutes per voter when they reached voting stations; but apathy was still visible in some places despite the holiday.

    Nonetheless, South Africa’s federal system exhibited glaring variations from Nigeria’s federal structure.  First, Local Government election took place in all the provinces and municipals simultaneously across the country.  Secondly, Local Governments in Nigeria are not perceived as ‘locale’ of power because they are far away to autonomy as a tier of government.  The 1999 Constitution as amended made them an appendage of state governments, completely under legal supervision by the state Houses of Assembly.  The debilitating effect of that arrangement is known to us all. Most governors fiddle with their allocations and administratively deal with them within the purview of their whims and caprices.  The South African model actually made the third tier to be a training ground for democracy.  The zeal put into the exercise was indeed unprecedented.

    One other juxtaposition that worth noting is that of tenure;  while, the life span of elected local government functionaries in Nigeria is three years, they govern for five years in South Africa.   The beauty of this is that it reduces both cost and frequency of elections at the municipal level.  Though where you have a demagogue in power, corrupt or lackadaisical elected officials, and the system becomes beleaguered for five solid years.

    A unique feature of the local election and peradventure the electoral law in South Africa is provision for special voters.  The law allows those that apply for special consideration to vote before the actual voting day.  This was two days before the D-day.  This was allowed in the 22,612 voting points across the country.  Nigeria’s electoral law and system do not make any provision for special cases. Both the military and South African Police were deeply involved in the process to maintaining law and order.  The Police was saddled with the responsibility of transporting ballot boxes and papers to and fro the voting stations while the military kept vigil in volatile areas. No doubt, election is still war-like in Africa.

    Total number of registered voters amounted to 26 million which was slightly above the previous election by about 1.5 million; this truly enhances political consciousness.  South Africans register from the age of 16 but they cannot exercise their franchise until the age of 18 years.  Uniqueness with the South African system which is cost-saving is the fact that voters do not need voters’ card which was even non-existent.  To vote, all potential voters signify their intention by registering to vote before the election.  What you require on the D-day is the National identity card or International passport.  More so that the name was already on the voters register; the voter must have also signified which province he/she intends to vote.

    Nevertheless, South Africa’s electoral system allows independent candidacy.  In all, 858 independent candidates participated in the election.  Most of them were African National Congress ANC members who felt frustrated with the way party leaders handled the party primaries. The major advantage of this innovation is the opportunity for professionals who may be scared of dabbling into the murky waters of partisan politics to throw their hats into the ring.

    Also of the 855 independent candidates, 86% are men and only 14% are women. No doubt, the rate of women participation in South African politics and electoral processes compared with several other African nations is commendable.

    Despite all preparations for the election by Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) which recruited 240,000 ordinary South African citizens that were trained for between five and 10 days to conduct the election, according to Mr. Glen Mashinini, the Commission’s chairman, he too was worried with hideous aspects of the electoral process. With high rate of electoral violence which claimed as many as 25 lives before the actual Election Day, the political milieu of South Africa is a bit ugly! Rigging too was not left out of the electoral misdemeanor as four IEC officers were fired after allowing people to vote illegally in the special request for special voters.

    Undoubtedly, the 2016 Municipal poll in South Africa was a referendum on national government; and a dress rehearsal for 2019.   Analyst believed that it was also a litmus test for the ANC which had been in government since the collapse of apartheid.

    Let me add that as South Africa faced the August 3 local government election with the fiercest build-up ever seen since the dawn of democracy, political parties were at each other’s throats and racism reared its ugly head too.  If ever there was a time when South Africa and the world needed Nelson Mandela, it was in the last election.  The voting pattern glaringly demonstrated this too. The white-dominated Cape Town voted en masse for Democratic Alliance (DA) white dominated party.  ANC only had marginal lead in rich cities that harbour big investments of whites such as Johannesburg, Pretoria among others.

    South Africa is endowed with national wealth as well as well-developed infrastructure, its relative technological advancement could allow its people to pursue and live a comfortable economic life.  But not everyone can find that comfort zone.  This both perceived and real social stratification in terms of not only the wide gap between the rich and the poor but between the rich white and poor black.  South African blacks got flag independence, but their economy is still in the hands of the white ones who own the big investments.  In Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban amongst other major cities, one can see affluence and squalor pari-passu.  The system seems to have sentenced the blacks to a life of being hewers of wood and fetchers of water.

    Conclusively, on the polling day the ANC tried to get supporters to the electoral boots by hiring 783 taxis across the city of Nelson Mandela Bay.  But this effort was not really helpful because voters seem to have made up their minds to vote otherwise.  ANC failed woefully in that metro.

    While in Madiba’s enclave, I took particular interest in the media coverage of the elections both print and electronics.  Expectedly like in most developed societies, they were objective and announcing results as they trickled in before official announcements by IEC on Saturday August 6.  Eventually, no discrepancy between the officially announced results and the ones the media had announced.

    In the final analysis, the South African system allows virile opposition. No municipal was with inconclusive election. The only one – Johannesburg – which was not ready by 9.00 p.m when final results were being announced, was not allowed to hold down the electoral commission nationally.

    Without gainsaying, Nigeria still has few things to learn from Madiba’s enclave.

     

    • Dr.Ojo is Chief of Staff to Oyo State governor.

  • Bauchi politics and Dogara’s indiscretions

    By now, the outpouring of disgust that has continued to trail House of Representatives’ Speaker YakubuDogara’s ill-fated attempt to divert the attention of Nigerians from the allegations of budget padding that he is enmeshed in and which has added to the misery of Nigerians, will hopefully teach him a lesson he will never be able to learn in any history class.

    It must have occurred to the most incurable Dogara loyalist that the needless, badly-scripted drama staged last week, when he led a delegation of some Abuja politicians to report the governor of Bauchi State, Barrister Mohammed Abubakar to the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has backfired because Nigerians are more politically conscious now to allow any politician take them for a ride. For the embattled Speaker, if the attempt was aimed at sweeping under the carpet the issue that directly affects the lives of all 170 million of them, using local politics as a pretext, then it has failed.

    As a lawyer, Dogara knows that anyone coming to equity must come with clean hands. Not even Robert Green, the famous American author of the 48 Laws of Power, who advocates that creating enemies to achieve selfish ends will endorse the amateurism and double-speak that have dogged Dogara’s desperate efforts to fend off attention from the budget padding matter that he sensationally claimed is not a crime.

    To Dogara and his team of spin-doctors, accusing the governor of Bauchi State of not applying the sum of N8.6billion bailout funds to the purpose (according to them) for which it was collected, or merely saying he is running a government that excludes their personal interests, will not get the nation to ignore the real issues at hand. Shifting attention to Bauchi will not be enough to get the discerning public to shudder at the mindless indiscretions of the Honourable Speaker.

    Let us even assume for its mischievous intent that the allegations against Governor Abubakar were true, there is no way an issue that affects only about three million Bauchi citizens will override the more damning matter of budget padding that affects 170 million people across Nigeria.

    Many Nigerians have expressed disgust that the timing of Dogara’s allegations against the governor, and ridiculously following it up with personally leading a delegation to protest against him is not right. Even political grandmasters often tutor their disciples to always master the art of timing.  Clearing his name against the allegation of budget padding should have been more urgent and important to Dogara.

    The truth is that, as in many other states of the federation, Governor Abubakar met an over-bloated civil service of well over a hundred thousand personnel. So over-bloated was the number of civil servants that funds accruing monthly to the state, in statutory allocation from the Federation Account, could not even address payment of salaries, not to talk of other matters of development and of urgent importance to the state.

    Even when he very well knew that it was all landmines set up to entangle him, the Bauchi Governor disappointed the perpetrators of this evil by not sacking tens of thousands of civil servants and causing deep damage to the innocent ones among them. To minimise the damage and ensure justice, the governor decided that the way to go was to institutionalise a process of sieving the grain from the chaff by identifying actual workers from the ghost, non-existent ones.

    But in a manner that leave their flanks open, and which could make people to suspect their involvement, Dogara and his gang had as a prime reason for their protest to the APC National Chairman: the need to get the governor to stop the process of verifying the truth. In the words of Senator Suleiman Nazifi, (APC Bauchi North), “all the unending verifications must end,” even though they know, more than most of us, that what they were demanding will only benefit a handful at the expense of millions of good people of Bauchi State.

    Did Governor Abubakar divert the bailout funds meant for payment of salaries to something else? First of all, it is to the credit of the governor that with all the venom coming out of Dogara and his co-travellers, none of them accused him of diverting the money for his personal use. And the answer to the question is that the bailout funds were never diverted. Anyone in doubt can crosscheck with the ICPC which investigated the matter and gave Governor Abubakar a clean bill of health. The funds were openly applied for the purpose for which it was collected. Save for mischief, Dogara knows more than all of us  that though Bauchi is situated on the lower rung of the statutory allocation ladder, with very little potential for internally-generated revenue, Governor Abubakar has strived to be as up to date as possible, with payment of salaries to civil servants. Any check will easily establish the fact that only last month’s salary is being owed the workers. Even at that, efforts are being made to ensure prompt salary payment.

    To lay a solid foundation for the development of the state and boost its sources of revenue, the governor has developed and transformed the Yankari Games Reserve to international standards, and has been paying commensurate attention to overall development and transformation of all of Bauchi, not sections thereof, even though he is inhibited by the clearly-known national tragedy of paucity of resources.

    This brings us to the question of motive. People have rightly been asking: what does Dogara aim to achieve by sabre-rattling? In Bauchi today, people openly talk about demands on the governor to purchase properties in Abuja and abroad for some federal legislators, and share out the state resources on a monthly basis to the agitators, even if far more resources are needed to develop the state and transform the lives of the people. There are also intrigues surrounding the general election year of 2019 as another reason Dogara and his cohorts are neck-deep in fighting the governor. The group is believed to have co-opted a member of the federal cabinet to contest against Governor Abubakar in 2019 in case Dogara’s rumoured candidature fails.

    To buttress the fact that the motive of the latter-day agitators is far from being noble; that it is all about personal interest, they complained to the APC National Chairman that Governor Abubakar is running an exclusive government.  This was also shot down by Comrade Sabo, the governor’s media aide when he pointed out that “after the gubernatorial primaries, the governor picked Engineer Nuhu Gidado as his deputy, though Gidado had contested against him in the primary election.

    “Again, the allegation that the governor has side-lined them is unfounded because five serving commissioners were close to these people that are now fighting the governor. Why are members of the state House of Assembly and the state chapter of the APC not complaining? It goes to show that the Abuja politicians are out for mischief.”

    Does Dogara listen to any wise counsel from his retinue of advisers and hangers-on? Only they can provide the answer, but it is either they are giving him inferior advice, or they are afraid to tell him the bitter truth because of his rumoured over-bearing, only-me-knows-it-all nature. People have rightly been asking: How many wars can the speaker fight at the same time? Throughout history, even wisest generals believe the best way to win a war is not to spread your strength thin. Of course, he can seek to fight on all fronts if his motive were pro-people.

    In the traditional Bauchi society that some of us sprouted from, trouble is regarded as an enemy that one is enjoined to always keep a safe distance from. Not just when it knocks on one’s door. Trouble is like an ill-wind, which blows no good to anyone.

     

    • Musa wrote from Bauchi.

  • MURIC to CAN: show us secularism in the constitution

    The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has disagreed with the Christian Elders Forum (CEF) over the country’s religious nomenclature.

    The CEF differed with the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, for describing the country as a multi-religious nation. They insisted that Nigeria is a secular country.

    MURIC challenged the Christian Elders to show Nigerians the word ‘secular’ in the constitution.

    A statement by its Director Prof Ishaq Akintola, said a secular country is one that does not recognise God or religion.

    The group said: “This is a country that recognises the existence of many faiths. Churches, mosques and shrines thrive in their thousands while the Federal and State governments give official recognition to the spiritual engagements of the followers of all creeds. To cap the edifice, the preamble of the Nigerian Constitution starts with the words, “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, having firmly and solemnly resolved to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under GOD…”

    “This is an indubitable rejection of secularism. So how secular is ‘secular’ Nigeria? It is sheer bunkum. We assert clearly, emphatically and unequivocally that Nigeria is a multi-religious nation.”

    MURIC affirmed that the Sultan Abubakar is right.

    The statement reads: “Nigeria is a multi-religious nation. By describing Nigeria as a secular country, CEF ploy is to sustain the colonial game of Christianisation of the Nigerian structure. They are simply defending the actions of the colonial master. Based on the strategic approach of all belligerent elements and oppressors, that attack is the best form of defence, it is now in the character of Nigerian Christian leaders to be constantly on the attack.

    “The truth is that the British colonialists had forcefully entrenched Christian way of life on Nigeria. A few examples will suffice. Whereas Friday was our day of rest since the advent of Islam in Nigeria in 1085, the colonial master who came 800 years later (in 1842) annulled Friday (like June 12) and changed it to Sunday. Shariah was prohibited while Christian common law was imposed on us till today.

    “Hijab, which was an integral part of school uniforms for female students, was outlawed. Islamic Studies was trivialised while Bible knowledge was prioritised. The Christian cross was forced on us as symbol for the hospitals. The church choir gown became the officially recognised academic gown used during ceremonies in universities. It is also used by lawyers and judges in the law courts. We can go on and on ad infinitum.

    “Christian elders complain that Muslims are now occupying certain posts but they ignore all other sensitive positions being occupied by Christians. Were they on sabbatical in the days of former President (Goodluck) Jonathan when General (Azubuike) Ihejirika was Chief of Army Staff, Rear Admiral Dele Ezeobe was Chief of Naval Staff, Air Vice Marshall Alex Badeh was Chief of Air Staff? Were these people Muslims? Where were the Christian elders when all Jonathan’s ministers from the South west were Christians?”

    MURIC appealed to the Christian elders to allow their nomenclature to reflect in their actions and utterances, adding: “They should let the youths benefit from the wisdom of elders and not vice versa. We expect CEF to douse tension and not to heat up the polity. Nigeria has enough on its hands already and true patriotism demands that all hands be on deck to salvage the near-helpless situation. Let us squarely face the tangential and ignore the peripheral. Nigeria should be on our mind, not fishing for men or rabble-rousing.

    “MURIC salutes the Sultan of Sokoto for his self-control, unparalleled tolerance and robust appetite for moderation. We urge him to ignore all sorts of provocation and continue in his chosen path of statesmanship and responsible leadership.”

  • Winners receive N15m in Zakat competition

    Winners receive N15m in Zakat competition

    Eight persons comprising four males and females have emerged  overall winners in the second edition of Entrepreneurship Development Project (EDP) organised by Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation (ZSF).

    Twelve others were given consolation prizes.

    The competition, ZSF said, was meant to reward young people with outstanding business ideas.

    Tagged: Business Plan Competition (BPC), the presentation of prizes and plaques was held at the Westwood Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos.

    According to ZSF Operations Manager Mallam Ahmed Ma’aruf, the initiative is tailored towards empowering youths with business ideas either at conceptual level known as “Idea track” or transitional stage known as “Business Growth”.

    ZSF Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Prince Sulayman Olagunju said the BPC was initiated last year to cushion the effect of economic hardship.

    Olagunju said N15 million was expended on the competition.

    He said: “It is no longer news that the economic hardship being experienced by Nigerians and worsened by increase in youth unemployment, Boko Haram insurgency, militancy, kidnapping cum armed robbery and the high cost of living confronting the youths in nation building”

    According to him, “the tree we planted together last year, has grown up favourably and it has started yielding fruits that gave us more impetus to continue this competition despite low sponsorship.

    “The number of participants increased from 128 last year to 165 this year. This increase in number of participants made our consultant and his team to spend more time in screening the participants. The consultant and experts did a marvellous job to produce the winners we are rewarding today.

    “Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating all the winners and the finalists present here today. They have indeed performed well and all of them deserved to be commended and rewarded handsomely. However, due to low sponsorships received, we shall be rewarding the winners as follows: the first position in the Growth Track will go home with the sum of N1.5Million, the second – N1 million, the third  – N750,000 and N500,000 for the fourth position. The first, second, third and fourth winners in the Idea Track category will go home with the sum of N1million, N750,000, N500,000 and N250,000 respectively. All the remaining finalists shall go home with consolatory prizes of N100,000 each.”

    Prince Olagunju urged the winners to use the fund judiciously to take your businesses to the next level as a demonstration of competence and confidence repose in them by the team of experts.

    Chairman on the occasion, Ambassador Adamu Babagida Ibrahim said there is no better time to encourage the ZSF noble and lofty project than now.

    Ambassador Ibrahim, the Director General/Chief Executive Officer of Jaiz Foundation said: “Therefore, Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation’s intervention at this auspicious time is a welcome development that should be supported by well-meaning individuals and corporate citizens in order to complement the efforts of government in the delivery of socio economic welfare services to the less privileged youths.

    “I commend the board and management team of ZSF for encouraging the youths to be job creators and not job seekers. The practical steps taken by the foundation is a testimony of its commitment and passion to empower the youths through the window of its entrepreneurship development project code-named Business Plan Competition. You will agree with me that this is another better way to assist the youths as well as contributing to the socio-economic development of the country.

    “I am equally filled with joy to know that not only the finalists will be rewarded with prizes and certificates of participation but all the runner-up contestants will also be appreciated financially by the foundations as a way of encouraging them to do better in the years ahead.”

    He implored well to do Muslims and non-Muslims to “support the entrepreneurship initiative so that individually and collectively, we can move the Nigerian project forward.”

  • Making Ondo economy self-sustaining

    Four decades after Ondo State was created, she is still breathlessly dependent on Abuja money. This cannot be said to be normal. It’s strange even. The grinding poverty and grim livelihood that is consequent to this heavy dependence on federal allocation attests to this unacceptable insufficiency, which clearly raises the need to immediately create a self-sustaining economy that is key to developing the state and creating better livelihoods for her people. Ondo State has the resources she needs within her purview – both natural and human – to become practically a wealth-generating and job-creating economy that can essentially sustain itself; thereby making oil revenues from federal allocation an added bonus rather than its mainstay.

    But the great reality of the moment is a vivid reflection of the crisis of governance and leadership which have been the bane of our existence in recent time. The monumental challenges of poverty and underdevelopment that rear their ugly heads in our state today are products of several decades of unconscionable governance that was bequeathed to us by the do or die political apostles and their desperate local counterparts. They are hostile to our peace and progress in the times past. Their democratic expediency is replete with an orgy of maladministration, corruption, nepotism, favouritism, politics of exclusion, and a dearth of purposeful and responsible governance. The consequence of all this is a wobbly economy hanging precariously on a mono-product to the detriment of the industrial sector. The consequence of this is also education that has grown old and lethargic as well as teachers that are tired and suffused with the inclement condition of hardship; resulting in mass illiteracy in geometric proportion among the people, coupled with the general social convulsion.

    A report from the Nigerian Socio-Economic Indicators in 2012 said that as a resource-rich state Ondo has no reason to have the extremely high poverty incidence level of 70 percent. Thisis a serious indictment of the state government. There is poverty in the midst of unmatched but concealed wealth. This should not be so. It is high time that the political leadership in Ondo State stoke a reprieve to put everything she has to use in order to make her prosperous and create an economy that is practical, productive and people-centred. This is what the government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is all about. How should this be done?

    Judging by the current rudderless political leadership that has perennially missed out on maximizing resources, it is clear that for the Sunshine State to possess a shinning economy, she needs a leader steep in experience in the real practice of making things work; a leader with tenable substance beyond rhetoric. It is high time sentiments are abandoned in the consideration of leadership for this great state. The state needs an experienced leader with business acumen who understands how to leverage on the rich natural resources and the already existing but latent skills and talents of the people. In the past seven years especially, it is clear as daylight that not much has been done to practically use what the state has in order to take her place of pride among growing economies not only in the South-west but in the nation. The situation has become so bad that a recent report has it that Ondo State is one of the worst places to start a business. Apart from the political will needed to make things work in the state, Ondo needs a leader with the requisite experience and refreshing expertise in business to activate her rawness to practical wealth.

    One of the ways to create a self-sustaining economy is by addressing the knowledge deficit amongst the majority of her citizens. There’s a mantra that says you cannot give what you do not have. This mantra simply underlies the truth that the grinding poverty and tasteless economic situation are directly proportional to what I call “ineffective education” that breeds ignorance and joblessness. The way it is right now in our dear state is that the totality of education is not strategically tailored towards our needs. And that is one of the reasons we rely on importing expensive expertise at the expense of our own human resources that only needs a new re-orientation, thus facilitating the economic growth of our state. One of the major ways to accomplish real growth is to “un-isolate” the classroom from the out-of-classroom learning environment in a structured way that integrates real life scenarios with curriculums in an effective way – the idea of schools without walls. Installing this method of learning will empower the people with the practical knowledge on how to look inwards, master the prospects of the wealth around them, and eventually become stakeholders and vital parts of a flourishing economy for self-sustenance.

    We’re blessed in Ondo State with arable land well-suited for agriculture that it irks the mind to see this God-given endowment lying waste and untapped. In this era of oil doom, it is not only wise for government to embark on an aggressive agricultural initiative, but also the right and expedient thing to do to grow its revenue base and create wealth. Most of us didn’t know that when oil prices started to plummet in September 2015, the international price of cocoa rose by about 60% from its current price around the same time.It’s important to bring this point home by stating here that the African country of Cote d’Ivore and its 20 million people depend entirely on cocoa production and export. It’s the major source of earnings that sustains the country and its people. The population of our state is less than four million people, yet we’re still very poor. What is more, the world has gone green and organic; and there lies the wealth of any economy with the right leadership to fuel this new economic trend. Ondo State is uniquely positioned as a major agricultural hub and an alternative to the mono-product oil economy. Aside from merely encouraging people to engage in agriculture, a serious government must practically create the interest by heavily investing in a structure that suits its practice; a structure that ensures mechanization of the processes of creating organic products from the farm produce and their commercialization.

    The aim of bridging the knowledge gap among the people of Ondo State (especially the youths) is to develop a home-grown expertise in place of ineffective education in order to create wealth. This is very pivotal in creating an economy that can sustain itself. We don’t really need to spend borrowed money to import the so-called experts to build our state when we can wisely spend less to develop ourselves and our raw materials, thereby developing our state. For instance, if the government formulates a policy to rehabilitate schools, specific industries should necessarily be set up to provide most of the materials related to rehabilitating the schools with at least 90% of our local content. Developing local expertise via practical 2-3 months trainings is an indicator towards the encouragement of Small Businesses that will serve as the key engine for growth and job creation. Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) and Micro SMEs should be the key focus of any serious administration.

    The amount of foreign investments in Ondo State needs to increase in place of borrowing. Most of the solutions listed above will need government funding to kick start, hence, the need to seek partnership with foreign investors. Getting investors into the state isn’t the main issue. The reason why the state hasn’t enjoyed foreign investments is the glaring lack of integrity within the ranks of the present government. Therefore, without mincing words, the way forward for our dear state is through a healthier, growing, debt-independent and self-sustaining economy.

     

    • Abraham, a frontline All Progressives Congress (APC) wrote from Ikare, Ondo State..