The Nation Newspaper

Category: Comments

  • Dogara: Building bridges

    If there were any doubts about the capacity of the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara, his actions in his first few days in office have shown that he is a man with a clear sense of direction and focus.

    While he would have been expected to be basking in the euphoria of victory and relishing the defeat of his opponents in the election that produced him as Speaker, he has chosen instead to reconcile all parties as part of his belief that “there is no victor and no vanquished in the House leadership election.” In his recent meetings with state caucuses, the Speaker has consistently stated that he is not willing to pay back any group or lawmakers that did not support his bid for the exalted office. Instead, he insists that all heads must come together to ensure that the 8th Assembly does not fail in its responsibility to the citizens of Nigeria.

    Not a man of many words, it is pertinent to note that in his selection process for chairmen of adhoc committees, Hon Sani Zoro, a staunch supporter of Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, his major contender for the speakership, was selected to run one of the most important and key committees that is charged with the huge responsibility of projecting the House‘s image: the Media and Public Affairs Committee.

    Zoro hails from Jigawa State where no legislator supported the bid of Dogara for the leadership of the Green Chamber. This exemplifies his resolve to work for the progress of the entire House of Representatives and the nation as a whole without recourse to groups, party or zonal affiliations but as a collective unit to achieve the legislative agenda of the 8th Assembly which is ultimately aimed at improving the well-being of the ordinary Nigerian.

    To achieve this and knowing that the more hands on deck, the easier the job, the Speaker had further appealed to Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, who he noted had fought a good fight and who has served the House and the nation with distinction, to join him so together they will heal the wounds and divisions of the contest and work to deliver good legislation and good government to our people.

    I recall in his inaugural speech wherein he stated: “Elections are over. The onerous task of governance begins. I plead with all the supporters of both camps in this election to quickly bury the hatchet and forge a united front to tackle the myriads of problems facing the nation”.

    Getting down to legislative business barely two weeks after his election, he has shown the direction that the House will take in the next four years with the proposed 8th Assembly Legislative Agenda. This is in line with his position that as a parliament, they can only justify the confidence of Nigerians by keeping faith with their duties of law making, representation and oversight of the executive arm of government.

    But this is not without his recognition of the fact that in their responsibility for checking and balancing the executive, good governance can only be effected when all arms of government are working in harmony and partnership to bring about the changes voted for by Nigerians on March 28.

    Highlights of the legislative proposals include enhancing the independence and autonomy of the House of Representatives while maintaining a robust and cooperative relationship with the executive; overhauling the budgetary processes of the National Assembly; improved oversight coordination and processes; strengthening the committees of the House of Representatives; transparency and accountability on the issue of salaries, allowances and running cost of the legislature and improving communications with the general public.

    Others include conducting legislative needs assessment; review of the Standing Orders of the House; introduction of a robust Code of Conduct for members; Strengthening the committees of the House of Representatives; improving physical structures and  equipment used in the House; priority legislation, other legislative measures  and conclusion of outstanding bills from the 7th House of Representatives.

    Introducing the agenda, Dogara further stated, “The 8th House of Representatives will concentrate on legislation that will bring the changes required and voted for by Nigerians. Legislative measures that will tackle the issue of endemic unemployment crises; insecurity of lives and property; poverty alleviation; health and education; endemic corruption; electricity and energy crises; general infrastructure decay etc. We shall work closely and speedily to pass legislation that will tackle these matters.”

    His proposal to introduce sectoral debates on various aspects of the Nigerian economy is also a right step in the right direction. This proposal envisages that the House will designate specific legislative sitting days or weeks in its calendar specifically for discussion on various problems facing the nation.

    Such identified themes, sectors, areas or problems include  –  unemployment, health, education and social services; power/energy sector, oil and gas, science and technology; commerce and industry;  transportation; telecommunications; agriculture; mining; manufacturing; diversification of the economy, finance, corruption, security matters, infrastructure etc.

    These debates, according to the Honourable Speaker, will lead to crafting of new laws or amendment to existing ones or indeed make recommendations on how to better manage the economy. In the coming days, nay weeks, the hallowed Green chamber will subject the draft agenda to scrutiny by all members.

    Undoubtedbly, with his resolve to build bridges, mend fences and extend olive branch to all members alike, there is no doubt that like his elder brother and predecessor Rt. Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal did, Dogara, has taken the path of consolidating on the gains and achievements of the 7th House. Like the Biblical John the Baptist who prepared the way for the Lord,  Tambuwal had prepared the way for Dogara to consolidate on.

    Interestingly, the new Speaker is already armed with a well laid out plan of action which is an indicative of the fact that the 8th Assembly under his leadership will demonstrate to the world that Nigeria‘s legislature is living up to the dreams and aspirations of our founding fathers by leaving a legacy of an accountable, autonomous, focused, progressive and united House capable of playing its role as the stabilizing force in our polity as the House of the Nigerian people.

    Let it be told from here that the House under Dogara, will continue to remain the repository of the democratic hopes and ambitions of the Nigerian people.

    ‘Undoubtedbly, with his resolve to build bridges, mend fences and extend olive branch to all members alike, there is no doubt that like his elder brother and predecessor Rt. Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal did, Dogara, has taken the path of consolidating on the gains and achievements of the 7th House’

    • Hassan is Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs to the Speaker.

  • Couple clubs bus conductor to death

    An Ebute Meta Chief Magistrate’s court has ordered that a couple, Aliu Ismaila and Tolu Mayowa, be remanded in prison custody for allegedly clubbing a bus conductor, Daniel Owusu, to death.

    Ismaila, a driver, and Mayowa, trader, were alleged to have hit Daniel, who was a bus conductor, on the head with a plank and he died.

    It was learnt that Ismaila and Tolu boarded Daniel’s Oshodi-bound vehicle from Ile-Epo in Abule Egba and refused to pay.

    The incident happened on May 7.

    The defendants, who live at 8, Sunday Omotosho Street, Pleasure, Abule Egba, are facing a two-count charge of conspiracy and murder. Their plea was not taken

    The offence, according to the prosecutor, Inspector Asu Feddy, is punishable under Sections 221 and 231 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria, 2011. He filed an application that the defendant be remanded in prison pending legal advice from office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP).

    Magistrate E.O. Ogunkanmi adjourned the matter till July 21.

     

  • Bayelsa: What manner of assembly?

    Democracy is held to be the most advanced and judicious form of governance developed by man. It gives people a say in how their affairs are ordered and to choose those to superintendent over their affairs. Therein lies its beauty.

    But it is also a system that accommodates the ugly, the malcontent and even those working to subvert its tenets. The flaws in the system have become worryingly visible, essentially because of the character of politicians and their do-or-die notion of politics. Many practitioners of the art in our clime see political enterprise solely within the prism of capturing power and deploying the most Machiavellian methods and tactics to realise their ambition. The endpoint of this conception of politics is largely prebendal: crude acquisition of power for primitive accumulation in furtherance of a selfish, hedonistic lifestyle as opposed to working in the service of the people.

    This mindset undoubtedly undergirds the unfolding political macabre dance in Bayelsa State by a fractious elite formation masquerading as the new conscience of the people but which, in fact, is united by the pursuit of greed. Their kind is all too familiar and their motive clear: acquire political power by means more foul than fair and then set upon the public treasury with reckless abandon. As late Professor Claude Ake noted, the problem with development in Africa is not so much that development has failed but that it was never really on the agenda of the rulers in the first place. It is the politics of prebendalism as popularly analysed by Professor Richard Joseph. What seems to matter to this set of politicians is never the germane question of the utility of political power in relation to the interest of the people.

    The undiscerning would hardly equate the foregoing mindset with the recent advertorial published in The Nation by the self-styled Bayelsa Peoples Consultative Assembly. There is a pretended public spiritedness as the motivation but it was so much high falutin nonsense.

    The publication, among other things, raised posers on alleged high-handedness by the state government in running its affairs, claimed that successive governments in the state had not met the expectations of the people in terms of development and wondered “whether or not the strategic interest of our dear state can still be served through the PDP which has become the opposition party at the federal level and in many states of the country”.

    Accordingly, the purported assembly declared in the 4th of its 5-point resolutions: “As a result of this state of affairs in governance and in the PDP, the Bayelsa Peoples Consultative Assembly resolves to align ourselves with the APC to effect a new direction in the governance of the state”.

    Now, are they leaving the PDP because it lost election at the centre and thus lost the privilege to enjoy unmerited favour? And are they now seeking power elsewhere perhaps to continue to enjoy privileges attached to power which they are in danger of losing or are they out to serve the people? What is their objective in politics?

    To be sure, everyone is entitled to exercise their freedom of association and to change political parties as they deem expedient. What they are not entitled to do unchallenged is to clothe their selfish motivation with the robe of principled conviction and high-minded politics.

    A cursory look at the names on the attendance list as published and then discerning their hidden promoters indicate that they were all until recently members of the PDP, who at one point or the other, also occupied important positions in government both at the state and federal levels. Now with President Goodluck Jonathan no longer in power, they have suddenly found everything wrong with the PDP and with the state government whose largesse they had hitherto enjoyed.

    What is in fact playing out is an offshoot of the governor’s long-running battle with this class of politicians on the proper utilisation of state resources. Are these resources to be used to serve the people or are they to be cornered to serve the greed of a few? The selfish conception of the purpose of politics and power is what retarded development in the state since the era of the late statesman, Chief Milford Okilo.

    Now, however Bayelsans can never exchange the present peace and tranquility in the state as well as the unprecedented level of development for the chaos and unmitigated rent culture of the past.

    To the unsuspecting public, the so-called consultative assembly sounded public-spirited but it is all a charade: the driving force of the members is to return the state to the status quo ante where the resources were shared among a few greedy lot at the expense of state development and the welfare of the people. These are the same set of people who, since 1999, have benefitted in state and federal appointments which came with huge influence and privileges. But what did they do with such power and influence? What has been their vision and achievements in the economic development of the state and empowerment of Bayelsans? These people have no record of distinction in personal enterprise, they never set up or run any business neither are they noted for empowering the people beyond meagre handouts. Their business was profiteering in politics, pure and simple. Their modus operandi, which is repeated ad nauseum, is to gang up against the government of the day to press for unreasonable demands and when such is resisted, they resort to threats, blackmail and promote instability. These same people have promoted a culture of impunity in governance over time resulting in wanton looting .

    All they want is free access to money which will enable them to live big at the expense of quality education for the people, at the expense of good medicare, infrastructure and employment generation. Academic to them are visions of economic diversification to change Bayelsa State from being a civil service state to a productive economy that can create good jobs and ensure long term, solid development.

    These are the dividing lines between the new found voices in the Consultative Assembly and the Restoration Government headed by Governor Seriake Dickson in Bayelsa State.

    Without question, the incumbent Restoration Government has in the last three years made its presence felt in major areas of development: from free, compulsory and qualitative education to health, landmark infrastructure and economic empowerment. And for the first time, there is an articulated, overarching vision of development rooted in good governance. Resetting the apparatus of government has led to greater efficiency and the remarkable progress so far is well known to all, except the power mongers.

    The creed of transparency and accountability has paid off, leading to blockage of leakages and is the reason the inherited huge wage bill of N6 billion came down to N4 billion monthly and why the state government is among those that can still pay salaries regularly till date in spite of the suffocating economic situation in the country.

    The issue in the state is not the orchestrated discontent we see in the media but the fact that the era of special interests is gone for good. The profiteers from the misery of our people, like all vested interests who benefit from such ungodly enterprise are not happy.

    Thus joining the opposition by anybody is not the issue. What is their motivation? Although it is now much harder for them to prevail, no matter how they try in a free and fair election, judging by what is on the ground in the state, Bayelsans and the general public should ask those in the so-called assembly about their antecedents and what roles they have played in development of the state since they had all along been part and parcel of the past governments they are now discrediting? In which case, they are guilty as well. So, how can they represent any part of the future of Bayelsa State?

    These are yesterday’s men seeking yet again to confiscate Bayelsa’s future. This time, our people will not allow them.

    ‘Without question, the incumbent Restoration Government has in the last three years made its presence felt in major areas of development: from free, compulsory and qualitative education to health, landmark infrastructure and economic empowerment. And for the first time, there is an articulated, overarching vision of development rooted in good governance’

    • Iworiso-Markson, is Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Bayelsa State Governor

     

  • Imperative of new national paradigm

    “Only he deserves power who every day justifies it.” – Dag Hammarskjold 1905-61.

    Where is a sweltering Harmattan of expectation; a deluge of hope; a mountain of anticipation; and the profound euphoria that underscores the faith that the Nigerian people have in the change movement must determine the thrust of the present watch; yes the masses believe that with President Mohammadu Buhari and the APC comes a new paradigm that must redefine leadership and governance in this clime. It is believed and rightly so that it will no longer be business as usual.

    To hit the ground running we must realize the urgency of now, we must be conscious of the fact that when Nigerians chose change over continuity what happened in actual fact was a ballot-based revolution. We cannot assume that it was a mere political contestation that saw the APC taking the spoils, no it wasn’t. Nigerians voted for change against an era that turned governance to a Bazaar and liberalized corruption. Nigerians voted against corruption, such is the incontrovertible challenge on our hands, we must deal with corruption.

    We must create monuments of deterrence and monuments of reference across the Nigerian space. We must repudiate corruption, sleaze and fleece at all levels of governance and teach our countrymen and women the primacy of service to fatherland. We must overhaul the moral margins of state and national honours, if need be we must revoke all honours conferred on individuals who have been convicted for a crime, and refuse to honour Nigerians whose propensities are manifestly corrupt and egocentric. We must teach our children the nobility of hard-work and set a new praxis that repudiates corruption and corruptive proclivities.

    We must redefine our Federal Character normative such that at all times our enterprise must encourage excellence over mediocrity. It must always be the best man for the job irrespective of state, zone or region. We cannot lower the bar because State A or B doesn’t meet the criteria, Nigeria must be treated as a huge canvass on which only the best should paint. Our country must be treated as a huge national theatre where only the very best must perform; such is the minimum quid pro quo for greatness and progress.

    I know that we are a people with undying resolve to reach great heights. I know that we are resilient specie. I know that we are kindred of the Great Zik of Africa; scions of the sage Awo; kith of the pragmatic Sarduana; kin of the dogged Isaac Adaka Boro; and offshoot of the many greats that berthed this nation, so before us is the inviolable challenge to make Nigeria great again.

    The Green-White-Green must be seen beyond the fabric and treated as our collective identity. We must locate the path to the Isle of Peace, Unity and Good-Hope through a deliberate and conscious effort at thinning down the walls of creed and clan. We must raise our interactive bar to no less an estate where religion becomes a personal affair, and on our national stage make the second stanza of the National Anthem our national prayer.

    A Nigerian child doesn’t need to know if I am a Christian or a Muslim or perhaps a Traditional worshipper, the child wants to see a leader who cares, a leader that creates jobs, a man who doesn’t steal and a leader that empathizes. If you must know the truth our people are tired of rulers who profess one religion or another but whose daily regimen vitiates even the least expectations of their faith. The linchpin of the new national orientation paradigm must be service delivery, patriotism and commitment to the good of Fatherland; yes it must be country first.

    We must review the cost of governance vis-à-vis the emolument of public office holders; we cannot pay political office holders so much salary and allowance in a country so economically rudderless, bare-chested and anaemic and yet lay claim to seeking economic recovery and national growth, no, we must change the way things are done. The urgency of now is the imperativeness of a new paradigm, we must begin a massive rework of values in governance such that leadership must become responsive and responsible to the people, and such is the only permissible minimum.

    Those who see partisan loyalty as the first course in the national buffet must realize that without Nigeria the dining table will be scant or perhaps non-existent. We must therefore make the praxis of our three course meal; yes our full course, Patriotism, Service and True Brotherhood. A nation of patriots thinks more of the good of nation and its people. Service to nation is service to all, and above all true brotherhood devolves on both, when governance delivers on the promises of democracy beyond the banal bounds of partisan, religious, regional, ethnic and parochial prejudices, true brotherhood fosters.

    Like the prized dietary three course meal normative, our nation is a cord of three; yes we are a nation of three major tribes divided providentially by the waters of the River Niger and the Benue into three main regions, the North, the West and the East, we are a people of three major faiths, Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion; and remember how the Christian Holy Book put it, ‘the cord of two is strong, the cord of three who can break?’. Need I remind that the Muslim object of prayer the ‘Tesbiu’ is an unbreakable cord of three, and traditionally three represents the unison of spirit, soul and body not despising the other elements.

    Countrymen and women, please be mindful of this reality that no nation that is a cord of three major peoples and tendencies has ever broken up, most have survived gruesome wars, segregation and internecine conflagrations to weave the great nations they became, Britain, USA, Australia, South Africa et al are lucid mementoes; tell it therefore to those preaching the message of separation and to those drumming the gongs of self-determination that we are a great nation woven by an infallible God.

    The urgency of now compels a huge cross on this generation of Nigerians, it is much too profound now that Nigerians voted for change in the status quo ante bellum, before May 29, many infractions may pass unnoticed but today the margins are different and expectations mountainous, we must not only deliver concrete democracy dividends but we must unite the masses of our people and make the good of Nigerian the summum bonum.

    We must aggregate at no greater pedestal but that which must prize excellence over mediocrity, and make the greatness of Nigeria our collective primacy.We must congregate, Christians, Muslims, Animists, Traditionalists and the likes at the altar where nothing counts but the good of fellow countrymen and women. And we must assemble at the place where ‘though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand’; such is the basic practical minimum sine qua non for growth and progress.

    In the final analysis, we must seize the moment and make Nigeria the pride of all, citizens and foreigners alike. We must begin a massive overhaul of our collective morality and etch hard-work as prime on our corporate canvass. We must passionately rework the margins of leadership such that egocentrics would flee the political turf. We must rejig our economy by exploring other sources of revenue outside this sickening monolithic dependence on oil. We must reawaken the time tested values of patriotism as key to national growth and encourage discipline and discretion across the various strata of state and society.

    We must work so that in the end posterity will say of this generation of Nigerians, when the moment of change came, a vibrant people came at it, took it, and transformed their nation such that it never remained the same, nay this must indeed be done in the positive as the contrary is manifestly unthinkable, morally impermissible and divinely unpardonable.

    • Prof. Nwaokobia Jnr, Director General Change Ambassadors of Nigeria (CAN) writes from Lagos.

  • Oil and missed opportunities

    Some Nigerian intellectuals in particular and development scholars in general criticize the colonial education system as inadequate for the progress of the colonized. This criticism should be re-examined given the poor state of education in today’s Nigeria. Recall that colonial education produced the scientists, engineers, and administrators who produced war resources and effectively managed institutions and organizations in Biafra during the Biafra-Nigeria war.  Because many of those scientists and engineers and their equally brilliant counterparts in other parts of the country have retired from active work or passed on, the country cannot have them back. Nor does the current educational system possess the capacity to reproduce their type.

    An impressive number of academics educated in some of the best universities in Europe and America continued to produce the cream of bright and well-educated manpower in the country’s universities after the civil war. Successive crops of equally bright Nigerians sought higher education in foreign countries. Many returned home and took employment in the public and private sectors.  Many graduates of Nigeria’s primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions in colonial and immediate post-colonial periods often describe their educational experiences in awe.  The environments in which the three levels of education take place today are viewed with disgust by the same alumni who were awed by their educational experience.  What happened to the excellent and dedicated teachers, good physical infrastructure across the three layers of education, and graduates with functional skills inherited at independence?

    Cracks in Nigeria’s educational system had started by 1976 when the Obasanjo administration hurriedly implemented universal primary education. The resulting shortage of teachers led to recruitment of many unqualified teachers into the primary school system. Though the Shagari administration of 1979-83 is credited with founding an impressive number of unity schools and federal universities, the same administration badly managed the Nigerian economy. The resulting economic crisis left the educational sector under-funded and created the beginning of an economy unable to provide employment to the products of education. Since then, subsequent military and civilian administrations have neither created a strong economy nor have they been able to reverse the decay of the education sector. Hence decline in the quality of education which gradually started in 1976 and accelerated in the 1980s and 90s continues to the present day.

    A critic may argue, and rightly so, that some of the recipients of the high quality education of  the colonial times and immediate post-independence years held important positions in the country but did not put Nigeria on a better footing than they found it, their good education notwithstanding. Bad leadership at local, state and national levels continues to have a ‘backwash effect’ on management of public and private institutions.  Indigenous successors of colonial functionaries are supposed to build upon, improve, or change for the better, the institutions they inherited from erstwhile colonists. The failure of the Nigerian education system is another case of a lost opportunity.

    Another missed opportunity lies in the succession of military governments that ruled Nigeria for 25 years after the civil war. The military had the singular opportunity to shepherd Nigeria’s development without opposition. They operated a quantitatively small state apparatus of military councils made up of a few soldiers, advisers and members of cabinet. The small state apparatus saved or was supposed to save Nigeria a lot of the revenue derived from crude oil. Military governments, especially those that ruled the country from 1983-1998, conjure a bitter taste in the mouth whenever they are mentioned, some because of their authoritarianism, others because of their incompetence and corruption.

    Why should one blame a dictatorship for not shepherding national development while democracy has become the vogue in the global system?  Government shepherding of economic development is not new. Leaders of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore used a government-directed approach to produce miracle economies and influenced the world to see governments that direct national development as developmental states. In the case of Nigeria, military dictatorship left the country worse than it found it and missed the opportunity of using Nigeria’s oil wealth to transform the society in a political milieu undistracted by opposition or concern for elections.

    Nigeria is now an electoral democracy. A developmental state can effectively operate in a democracy. But a National Assembly of 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives cost huge amounts of money in salaries and perquisites in an economy in which one natural resource is the primary source of national revenue.  Moreover, Nigerian legislators are identified as the highest paid in the world. Each legislator earns 116 times the country’s GDP/capita, so goes the claim.

    Debt-relief, another missed opportunity, was a source of fresh air to many Nigerians who follow national affairs. The forgivers of the debt relished the optimism that Nigeria had been re-kitted for a fresh and dependable start. The empirical situation has proven that to be false optimism. Data published by the World Bank in 2015 show that Nigeria’s external debt stood at 13.8 billion dollars in 2013.  The years 2012 and 2013 were good years for oil prices yet the government either borrowed or intended to borrow from external sources to fund the national budgets of those years.  It is difficult to explain this debt syndrome except to say that incompetence, corruption, waste, and haphazard governance at all levels of government consume the huge national revenue from oil.

    The average price of crude oil remained at over $100.00 in 2014 until it began a downward spiral in September of that year. The fall of oil prices in the last quarter of 2014 was unique. It was, perhaps, the first time conflict in the Middle East coupled with a meeting of OPEC did not put the world in a crisis mode for energy. The Middle East was and remains at the peak of violent conflicts, yet crude oil prices have not skyrocketed and major financial markets of the world have not experienced a shakedown. What might be the reason for this unusual equanimity in the world energy sector and financial market while the crude oil basket of the world burns?

    In a brief exchange during a debate on debt relief, I stated that Western countries would not fold their arms in a fatalistic response to the biting problem of high oil prices. That they, as problem-solvers and shapers of their future, would someday find substitutes for oil, solve the problem of dependence on foreign oil, and take oil-producing countries by surprise. That time has come only 10 years after that exchange.

    Advanced and some advancing countries have diversified their sources of energy. They produce and use electric cars, bio-fuels, refined coal, wind and solar power. ‘Hydraulic fracturing popularly known as fracking has made the extraction of energy cheaper’.  The top 10 users of alternative energy belong to the top 10 economies in the world. The United States, the giant of global oil consumption has increased its rate of production of crude oil and natural gas.  And more countries continue discover and produce crude oil.

    The fall in oil prices is therefore a warning to a country like Nigeria whose leaders squandered opportunities to take the country even to the threshold of economic development. The excess crude account which is supposed to be a buffer fund plunged to $2.45 billion in December 2014 in response to the fall in oil prices.  This means that the idea of saving part of the excess crude account for future generations is on shaky ground if nothing is done to diversify, broaden and deepen the economy. Consequently, building a robust economy is the greatest legacy one generation can leave for the other.

    • Ukaegbu, Professor of Sociology & National Development writes from USA

  • The Mediterranean migrant crisis

    Geographically, the Mediterranean Sea passes along countries of southern Europe like Spain, Malta, Italy, Portugal and Greece, as well as the shoreline of North African states, including Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. Strategically, the mammoth sea is one of the most important routes for facilitating trade and commerce between Europe and Africa through shipping. However, the Mediterranean is currently on the front burner of international headlines. Obviously, this is on account of worsening crisis of rickety, overcrowded and unsafe migrant boats that often capsize in the sea while on illegal journeys to Europe from North Africa in recent months, alas leading to tragic and unnecessary loss of hundreds of lives. The worst of such incidents, seen as the deadliest in the Mediterranean and source of renewed international focus on the plight of illegal migrants, was the one that happened off the Libyan coast in the middle of last April, in which nearly 900 people reportedly died.

    From all accounts, most of the stream of Mediterranean migrants are Africans seeking to escape from hard realities of life in their homelands like misrule, political instability, armed conflict, insecurity, persecution, economic adversity, crushing poverty, chronic unemployment, hunger, famine and environmental depredation (including the adverse effects of climate change and the associated global warming). They principally come from countries wracked by bloody conflict and abysmal human rights records, including Eritrea, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Mali, Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The would-be migrants from these countries are joined by people fleeing sectarian violence and persecution in far-flung places like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan and Myanmar (Burma). Others from countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritania, Tunisia, Senegal, The Gambia and Bangladesh are in desperate search of greener pastures or economic prosperity in Europe.

    Going by the recurrent terrifying reports of migrant boat capsizing in the Mediterranean Sea in recent weeks, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has estimated that more than 30,000 people may die by the end of this year from the festering crisis if drastic actions are not taken by the international community to arrest this unfolding humanitarian tragedy.

    In the face of the mounting death toll from the Mediterranean migrant crisis, it is gratifying that European Union (EU) leaders, after an emergency meeting last April, decided to treat the crisis with greater urgency. Part of the 10-point action plan they have unfurled to wrestle with the precarious situation are tripling the funding for rescue operations by naval patrols of EU countries under the Triton programme, sharing of intelligence about people smuggling networks, systematic effort to capture and destroy vessels used by the smugglers (including the possible use of military action), anti-piracy campaign on the scale of Operation Atalanta (in which EU helicopters would attack the boats and fuel dumps of people smugglers just as they were deployed to fight Somali pirates at the peak of their criminal activities in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden several years ago) and spreading the burden of taking in refugees. To be candid, without delay and prevarication by the EU countries, some of these plans are achievable, including the tasking one of national quotas for housing asylum seekers, which countries like the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, France and Hungary may oppose because of their tough asylum policies, fear of public opinion and threat from far-right racial supremacist movements and political parties.

    To vigorously address the plight of the Mediterranean migrants, now dubbed Europe’s boat people, the EU should go beyond her current spending plans on the crisis by considering a number of confidence–building measures. One of them is establishing asylum processing camps in entry points in North African countries like Libya, Egypt and Tunisia to handle both migrants trying to reach Europe overland and those saved from the seas. These countries, as an incentive, should be paid by the EU to maintain the camps. It is expected that asylum process for the Mediterranean migrants would be fast, fair and effective. While concessions should be given to migrants seeking to escape oppression, gross human rights abuses and violent conflict, those rejected on the grounds of hankering for economic opportunities abroad should be repatriated to their countries.

    More importantly, the EU countries are obligated to sign up to their share of refugees, as conceded to the Vietnamese boat people fleeing communist repression in their homeland in the 1970s and 80s. Thankfully, the judgment by the European Court of Human Rights this year stipulated that migrants must be given a fair chance to apply for asylum and may not automatically be sent back even if rescued in international waters. This landmark ruling is in tandem with the UN conventions that make refugees the responsibility of any country where they turn up. It is expected that such resolutions would serve as a moral suasion to countries like the UK, Spain, France and Germany to change their stance on not allowing hapless migrants to reach their shores due to fear that allowing a few to come in would lead to an unstoppable flow.

    So far, it is delightful that the EU has called on such European nations to take in 40,000 asylum seekers from Eritrea and Syria who landed in Italy and Greece after April 15 of this year over the next two years. There is much hope that this directive would help relieve some of the pressure on southern European states like Italy, Malta and Greece, which are kindly disposed to receiving vulnerable migrants. Remarkably, Italy has borne the burden of Mediterranean migrants by doing incredible work trying to rescue as many as possible with her navy and coastguard, as well as accommodating most of them on her island of Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa. It is also expected that member states of the EU would reconsider the more comprehensive search-and-rescue mission launched by that country last year for Mediterranean migrants, known as Mare Nostrum. Other European states like the UK, apart from dismissing the mission as encouraging people smugglers who take illegal immigrants to Europe, said they could not afford to fund it, hence its replacement with the EU’s Triton surveillance operation, run by Frontex, the union’s border-control agency.

    No doubt, the Mediterranean migrant tragedies have amplified the need for developed countries to show unity and resolve in helping to address the sad condition in different parts of the so-called Third World, particularly Africa. Of course, there is a dismal record of inaction and lethargy on the part of the West (Europe and North America) in terms of responding to heartrending events like monumental hunger and starvation in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia and Somalia) in 1984/85, genocide in Rwanda in 1994, subsisting brutal armed conflicts in the DR Congo and abysmal human rights violations in Isaias Aferwoki’s Eritrea that ought to shock and shame its civilisation. In the light of this, former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain had warned during an international conference on Commission For Africa (CFA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2004 that failure by the developed world to take urgent and firm action to help Africa escape bad governance, political instability, vicious conflict, economic collapse, debt overhang, extreme poverty, misery and despair would negatively affect the world by creating weak or failed states like Somalia. Admittedly, such states could contribute to international insecurity through trans-national crimes like terrorism, proliferation of small arms and light weapons, fraud, counterfeiting of hard currencies, drug peddling, human trafficking and trade in contraband, artefacts and endangered species.

     

    • Emeh is a social researcher based in Abuja

  • Sexual Offences Bill and the online mob

    In the past one week, I have been inundated with calls, emails and text messages from all over the world over some mystical issue called “age of consent” supposedly pegged at 11 years in a bill passed by the Nigerian National Assembly. What is amazing to me is that some of the people who have been furiously peddling this story are supposedly learned people. But for some reasons best known to them, they have failed to apply the usual rigor to check out their facts before broadcasting.

    I am not just amazed, I would say I am even amused that the furor is about a bill that I presented, something that has been in the works since the Sixth senate; has gone through the scrutiny of legal drafters; has passed through an intense public hearing with many judges, state attorneys general and law reform people participating. What is most intriguing is that with the exception of a few persons, others simply joined the wave, ranting and cursing on the web over something that they have no clarity on. And when I read a former Minister join up with utter banalities like: “the Senate has passed a law which makes it legal to have sex with an 11 year old child”, I was ashamed for the hecklers, worried for the young men and women out there who may be looking to such persons for example.

    Now what exactly did Senate do? It passed a bill to protect Nigerians big or small, male or female and especially the young and vulnerable persons—children, persons with mental disabilities, elderly persons– from all forms of Sexual offences. It is called “THE SEXUAL OFFENCES BILL 2015” and I am proud to have proposed it.

    Just recently, I read a story in one of the national dailies about a six year old girl who was first raped to death and then set ablaze. In the past, such stories would have been aberrations that would dominate news for weeks. But now, people hardly notice because they are common occurences. Nigerians have been numbed by horror. Many don’t feel anything anymore. The crimes that happen here are so horrendous they cry out to heavens. But no one listens.

    However, the Senate decided it is time to not just listen but act. It passed the 47 page landmark bill. On the two occasions that I have presented the bill, not one Senator opposed its spirit and intent. Infact, the Senate was so concerned this time around that it toughened some of the provisions and prescribed stiffer penalties while minimizing the gaps in our legal system which created room for dangerous offenders to get away with a slap in the wrist almost all the time.

    From clause 1 to 46, the bill comprehensively covers offences ranging from the common to the unknown: from rape, sexual assault, defilement, gang rape, child sex tourism, child prostitution and child pornography; incest by male and incest by female persons; to indecent exposure, sexual harassment, sexual offences related to positions of Authority, administering substance with intent to stupefy and overwhelm, deliberate transmission of HIV and any other life threatening sexually transmitted diseases.

    The bill updates laws passed as far back as 1945 and handed over to Nigeria by the Colonial Administration and brings them up to scratch with contemporary practice. It also includes some crimes that have not yet manifested in Nigeria but which we know will soon arrive because Nigeria is well hooked into the global village.

    The bill also introduces innovations to strengthen the practice and further protect the vulnerable such as supervision for dangerous offenders, disclosure of conviction of sexual offences, vulnerable witnesses protection, punishment for false allegation, admission of forensic evidence, and medical treatment orders for offenders etc.

    For the avoidance of any doubt, in the 47 page document, there is no where it states that 11 years is “the age of consent”. Infact, the bill passed by Senate makes no mention of 11 years. The whole noise and fury is a clear case of someone reading a legal document up-side down; choosing to retain a phrase in the draft which had been rejected and cancelled out during the final reading and then reading it totally out of context. It was a classical case of mischief or ignorance but here’s what Senate passed in reference to the Defilement of Children in clause 6 (2): “A PERSON WHO COMMITS AN OFFENCE OF DEFILEMENT SHALL UPON CONVICTION BE SENTENSED TO IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE”.

    Nowhere did the issue of age come up. If that had happened, many of us would not have been party to that kind of law. Mercifully, The Sexual Offences Bill, as passed, does not deal with the definition of who is a child. That has already been done by established laws . However, in clause 6(3) it makes allusion to the age of 18 years as the terminal point of childhood when it talks of deception as defense. This conforms with section 29 of the constitution and the Child Rights Act.

    Given the foregoing facts, all the fire and brimstone rained by the online mob was about nothing and came to nothing. People were merely making vacuous noises without attempting to get the true facts. Had some reporters who were quoting the social media taken the trouble to get and read through the Votes and Proceedings of Senate for that day, they would have been able to educate the public on what actually transpired.

    No one who has gone through this revolutionary bill passed by Senate and concurred by the House would have nothing but gratitude and respect for the 7th Senate. It is now clear that mischief and ignorance fired this undeserved insult. In these “change” times, it will help if we all learn new ways. We must refrain from being too quick to judge and condemn.

    • Senator Anyanwu wrote in from Abuja

  • Trying too hard to be Goebbels

    On Friday 12, 2015 there was a two-page diatribe published on pages 62 and 63 of The Nation newspaper by a faceless group under the canopy of Akwa Ibom Rescue Forum. This advertorial bore no name of the writer(s), no signature, no address and no telephone number. It simply had by way of an address “Muhammadu Buhari Way, Central Business District, FCT.” The vitriolic and defamatory advertorial was titled:  “The Akpabio Govt: A Legacy of Terror and Evil.”

    The entire advertorial is a product of a blood-thirsty contortionist, a twisted mind that probably suffers from multiple phobias. Two of the phobias are easily identifiable, namely, Akpabiophobia and mythophobia.

    These two phobias brewed from hell’s factory constitute a cocktail of hate, venom, falsehood and arrant nonsense. Throughout the two-page display of irreverent verbiage there is not one kind word about Chief Godswill Akpabio, the subject of their poisoned memo, a man who ruled Akwa Ibom State for eight years to the admiration of majority of its citizens as well as visitors from far and near. That is the extreme extent of their jaundiced vituperation, their lack of a sense of fairness and a sense of proportion. Most people who have visited Akwa Ibom State during the period of Chief Akpabio’s administration have expressed fulsome praise for his infrastructural achievements and his liberation doctrine as exemplified in his free and compulsory education policy.

    It is clear that this faceless group never sought to be fair and never even tried. It simply set out to become the counterfeit version of Paul Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels was the Nazi propaganda minister (1933 – 45) who invented the big lie theory. His big lie never saved his boss Adolph Hitler and never saved him either because when Berlin fell, he felt he had failed. He committed suicide.

    The unvarnished truth is that Chief Akpabio was, and is, loved and adored by majority of Akwa Ibomites. On May 29, 2015 he was cheered lustily by the tumultuous crowd that gathered at the Akwa Ibom Stadium to watch the change of baton ceremony as he drove in an open van into the stadium. After the ceremony, hundreds of cars, three-wheelers and motorcycles followed him in a long convoy to his home town where he was received by his people, watched by his past commissioners, permanent secretaries, friends from various parts of the state and country as well as four past governors of the state. And yet the mischievous writer(s) of the advertorial described his exit as “humiliating.”

    The reference to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala by these cowardly writers as saying that the uncommon transformation of Akwa Ibom State did not add up to even 10% of the revenue that accrued to the state is bunkum. The truth is that Dr Okonjo-Iweala has categorically denied making any such statement either by denotation or connotation, directly or indirectly, openly or privately. The statement is therefore a figment of their demented imagination.

    The writer(s) of the advertorial have a right to let their imaginations run wild. That is their choice but the truth is that Akwa Ibom State never earned up to three trillion naira in eight years as mischievously alleged by them. It is also a lie to state that Akwa Ibom State was the highest income earner among the states of Nigeria for eight years. When the price of crude oil was high, Akwa Ibom was earning about N18 billion and N1 billion from internally generated revenue. There are some states, at least two of them, that currently earn not less than N18 billion from internally generated revenue in addition to what they get from the federation account. But these fiction writers have no interest in correct facts and figures because such will not serve their evil purpose.

    Contrary to the statement by the truthbenders on the issue of budgets, the Akwa Ibom State budgets under Governor Akpabio were often severely scrutinised by the State House of Assembly. After the presentation of the budget, the Finance Commissioner would always disclose the implementation strategies and the budget breakdown. In addition to this, the commissioner would address the public on the performance of the budget from time to time. Without such a close monitoring, it would have been difficult to achieve the giant transformation of the state that was recorded in the last eight years.

    Concerning personal properties, it is pertinent to remark that Chief Godswill Akpabio does not own the properties mentioned in the sickening hate-filled treatise. Neither did he sponsor the impeachment or the attempted impeachment of anyone as alleged. How would any governor go to another state to sponsor the citizens of that state to rise against their own governor? What would it profit him if a governor in another state is removed? In any case, the members of the State House of Assembly and indeed the indigenes of that state would be outraged while the citizens of the busy-body governor’s state would obviously frown at any attempt to waste their own resources on such a fruitless venture.

    The claim that Governor Akpabio commissioned some “ten” projects which were miniature projects is clearly disingenuous. Chief Akpabio only commissioned the mega projects such as The Tropicana, The Ibom Specialist Hospital while the commissioners commissioned the rest of the projects.

    The authors of the advertorial tried to make a fuss about the status of Uyo and what its status was in 2007. Uyo was known then as Uyo Local Government Council because that was its status. However, under Governor Akpabio, Uyo has undergone a serious transformation and merits being dubbed a municipality. Many of the roads allegedly paved before 2007 were impassable and had to be reworked on. The airport project was basically at site-clearing stage in 2007. The contract was awarded to a company which had never done an airport before and which did not do anything that could have met the approval of the National Aviation Authority.

    The case of nepotism against Chief Akpabio is ridiculous. This was the first elected governor of the State to choose his Secretary to the State government from another ethnic group and from another senatorial district. He was also the first to choose his Commissioner for Finance from another ethnic group and another senatorial district. His personal physician is from another ethnic group and senatorial district while permanent secretaries are appointed from all the local government areas to satisfy the requirements of the state character and to give all communities a sense of belonging.

    In their desperation to give a good man a bad name, the authors of the evil advertorial gave a list of persons who were murdered in the state and sought vainly to pin the crime on Chief Akpabio whereas nearly all the persons mentioned were Akpabio’s friends who were probably murdered by opposition politicians. In the case of Engineer Ini Udonwa who was in the 2011 governorship race, he comes from an area that had many strong candidates and his presence would obviously have divided the votes. It was actually in Chief Akpabio’s interest to encourage a man like that to run so as to split the votes, not to discourage or stop him from running. The same thing applies to Mr Sam Ewang.

    It should also be noted that the killers of Udonwa’s mother and the kidnappers of Ewang’s wife were all arrested and they confessed to the crime. The late Chief Albert Ukpanah was a strong supporter of Chief Akpabio and visited him a day before his unfortunate assassination. Chief Efiong Ononokpono had a case with the Commissioner of Police and was arraigned in court. It was unfortunate that he died before the determination of the case.

    Zoning the governorship position to Eket senatorial district was a product of town hall meetings held in all the ten, federal constituencies. In all the places visited the bulk of the people overwhelmingly approved the idea of picking a governor from the only remaining senatorial district after the other two, Uyo and Ikot Ekpene had produced Governor Victor Attah (1999-2007) and Godswill Akpabio (2007-2015). To any reasonable and fair-minded person, the decision to go Eketwards was the fairest decision any one could have taken.

    The contortionists have viciously claimed that Governor Akpabio starved the local governments of funds. Isn’t it a piece of Freudian slip that they also said that some members of the Akpabio family were collecting patronage from the local governments, the same local governments they claim were starved of funds? It is preposterous to think that any one who was not working for a local government would be getting paid by the local government.

    As governor, Chief Akpabio was on the horns of a dilemma. He had these senior citizens of the state who had a bloated sense of entitlement, who had a sharpened sense of greed and were ready to tear everything down if Akpabio did not let them grab and grab and grab. They wanted to reap where they didn’t sow. They didn’t want to plant; they merely wanted to plunder. For them every day was party time and who was to pay for the party? Governor Akpabio. If he refused to pay then he must be fought to a standstill. Of course, if he yielded to their blackmail the development of the state would have suffered.

    It is puerile for the advertisers to claim that Chief Akpabio showed disrespect to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He never did. In fact, Akpabio often describes Obasanjo as his political father. Also, he never showed any disrespect to Muhammadu Buhari even though they were on opposite sides of the political divide. Political differences are never permanent. The attempt by these scavengers to paint a picture of ill-feeling towards Buhari is absolute mischief. There is no such thing. Governor Akpabio’s loyalty to former President Goodluck Jonathan was normal and shows the former governor as a steadfast and dependable ally and a man of unimpeachable character who could be trusted.

    The claim that Senator Ita Enang persuaded the Federal Government to grant a polytechnic to his community and Chief Akpabio took it to his village is ludicrous. If Senator Enang got it how did he lose it? Chief Akpabio is not aware of any attempt by Senator Ita Enang to take any polytechnic to his people and he never discussed any such attempt with him. Chief Akpabio sought the establishment of a federal institution in Ikot Ekpene senatorial district to balance the presence of federal institutions in the three senatorial districts. Uyo senatorial district has the University of Uyo while Eket senatorial district has Maritime Academy now University of Maritime Studies.

    On the issue of Chief Akpabio visiting St. Kitts and Nevis and the Republic of Ghana, he was duly invited by the governments of those countries and he obtained the permission of the Federal Government before visiting those countries. Those countries were fully aware of his official status and did not treat him like a visiting Head of State.

    The mischief makers compiled a negative list for which in their twisted imagination they think Chief Akpabio will be remembered. However, the beneficiaries of the multiple projects and services that Chief Akpabio provided in the last eight years know better and no attempt to tear down his laudable legacy can succeed. Some of the projects are:

    Free and compulsory education.

    Free healthcare for babies, pregnant women and the aged.

    Ibom International Airport.

    IbomPower Plant.

    Ibom E-Library.

    Construction of thousands of kilometres of roads.

    Ibom Specialist Hospital.

    Construction of over 4,500 inter-ministerial direct labour projects.

    Construction of Ibom Tropicana Entertainment Centre with a 250-room 15-storey hotel complex.

    Construction of the 14-storey Sheraton Hotel.

    Construction of thousands of other projects too numerous to be mentioned.

    A few years ago, Professor Ayandele who was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, had described the former Cross River State (which included present day Akwa Ibom State) derisively as “an atomistic society perpetually at war with itself.” Many Cross Riverians thought that Professor Ayandele’s statement was an exercise in exaggeration. By the gift of hindsight it is apparent that the History Professor had hit the bull’s eye. Partisan politics seems to have brought out the worst in some of our people. For example, some people in Akwa Ibom State, such as the cranks who wrote the advertorial, have turned frivolous petition writing into a fine art. They have written baseless petitions to all the major police formations in the world about Chief Akpabio. These organisations have investigated him over and over again and found him to be a man without blemish. To these fellows, petition writing is an addiction that is fuelled by hatred, fuelled by the phobias earlier mentioned, and fuelled by the desire to worship at the feet of the god of nihilism.

    To them facts are not sacred. They are items to be slaughtered. To them scandal is the name of the game, and no substantiation is necessary. They just pile accusations against people without any shred of evidence relying apparently on the fact that many readers are gullible and may not have the means of verifying what they read.

    But if our society must receive a just dose of sanity, these warped ways must be reversed. These miscreants need narcotherapic attention. They need to be rescued from the multiple phobias that torment their wayward souls.

    •Anietie  is Senior Special Adviser on Media to Chief Godswill Akpabio

  • Comments

    ‘My joy is that Saraki has no leadership trait and integrity to sustain the height he coveted. He should remember the fate that befell Afonja. I believe somebody overtly or covertly bought the idea of cutting a certain chieftain of the APC to size. Here comes their comeuppance. Bukola Saraki’s antecedent as a cosmopolitan feudalist is scary and inimical to the change mantra of APC. Kwara has been the fiefdom of the Sarakis and Kwarans have been called names derogatively. Bukola Ilorin Afonja has just berthed at our national political space; we are panicky. This is a litmus test for APC to put enemies within in check. From Bisi, Ilorin’

    For Segun Gbadegesin

    That NASS “election” which installed Saraki as its President and Dogara as Speaker was yet another annulment of our future! And there goes the sweat, toil and hope of the good people of this country once again, with this political coup against the common man. Cruel fate, colluding with unconscionable, but willing politicians, and a naive, idealistic president, has done it again…in the same month of June! Are we in for another 22 year’s wait? Pray, when will the ‘common’ Nigerian be free from wicked tyrants, slave masters, impunity and class greed?  From ‘Tunde Smith, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State

    Re: NASS the 8th .What happened at the inauguration of the Eighth NASS was a bad omen for The Nation .It portrayed most of our politicians as still being politically indiscipline, morally bankrupt, unpatriotic, and self-centered. APC promised CHANGE cannot be wholesomely attained with PDP elements in its kitchen. Let patriotic Nigerians just continue to pray that GOD will strengthen Mr. President with good health and wisdom .APC still has a lot of work to do- trusting its members. From Ladipo O . David. Gwagwalada

    I’m  67 years old, who for the first time voted on March 28, because I fervently believed in Buhari, Osinbajo and Oyegun suitability to bring about true  change. I not only voted but mobilized some “elite” friends of mine to “physically” vote-please, note I didn’t vote on April 11. But see the change Buhari has given us with National Assembly leadership by the naive aloofness stand. Please, tell him I didn’t go through those hassles for this lot- he has Terribly disappointed me! Anonymous     A president who is for nobody shall have no bed not even how to sleep on how he makes the bed, just 12 days after his inauguration he must now sleep on the floor of his enemies house Period! From Alhaji Abdulazez

    Thank you for this wonderful commentary today. Don’t give up until the right things are done not only as regards the 8th Senate, but in every strata of governmental business in Nigeria. Thank you and Keep it up. Anonymous

    Sir, I have an uneasy feeling that Senate Prerident Saraki is going to rue this victory in no distant future. From Olufemi, Ibadan

    Your Piece on the NASS The 8th was good. However, I want to disagree with the method of election of Saraki. If the Senate had allowed all senators to be at the chamber and Saraki won, I would have supported his election just like the House of Rep. Saraki disappointed me personally. The election of Dogara took place when all members were in the green chamber unlike Saraki’s election. Thus it was the wish of the majority members of the House of Reps. From Dada, Ibadan

    Sir, your commentary today “NASS the 8th” no doubt is truly incisive and active.  Complex as the issue at hand may be, I would agree absolutely with the recommendations given in your last three chapters. Be it as it may, to prevent throwing away the baby with the bath water, the APC as a party must explore these options and many more that would tend towards the mending of their fences. From Ibidapo Olorunda. 

    Why must APC senators work with PDP in National Assembly to elect deputy senate president, after all during their 16 years of leadership there was nothing to show for it. ln time of PDP they didn’t allow oppositions to get key position in National Assembly, why now APC allow PDP to get deputy senator president? l don’t see the reasons why PDP should benefit from the ruling party (APC) government, after all  during their l6 years of  governance, opposition parties were sidelined for major appointment. APC should rally round and correct their mistakes before it consumes them over selfish ambition. From Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia     

     

    For Olatunji Dare

    Re: Ekiti:The conquistor at work . Thank you Professor for the piece .Conquistador is a person who takes control by force .This has been the trait and trend of Chief Obasanjo the estranged god-father of Fayose and the later adopted ‘ god-brother’ Mr.Jonathan .”The evil that men do live after them “. Fayose will surely end far worse than his fore bearers; tearing all his cards and on self-exile. From Ladipo O . David, Gwagwalada .

    Good morning. Please I want to advise you to  please use your God-given strength and office, to help advise our new government on how to fight corruption, unemployment, security (Boko haram and kidnapping), Power failure  etc because our past leaders have failed us. Let Ekiti people and their governor rest at least for now .  God bless you. From Pastor Isaiah Ime, Owerri Imo state.

    Prof  I dof  my   hat for your fine  chronicle   of  the trancient victory  of the conqueror of Ekiti  State. May  it  never be long  before the long arm of  God that is shining like lightening rescue Ekiti people from their  man-made conqueror amen.

    R: Ekiti: The Conquistador at Work. I’ll use two similar Igbo adages to qualify your comment on the above topic. (1) “Ejule danyere n’oku suru ufufu k’ogbonyua oku ma sugbue onwe ya” The snail that fell into the fire started foaming to quench the fire but got itself killed. (2) “Nwanza n’aza aka n’okpa, osi na ya n’aha mmanu” The robin bird that’s swelling hands and legs is boasting that it is nourishing. Ayo Fayose ‘ll soon conquer Ayo Fayose. It’s a question of time. From Okeke Eleodichukwu Emmanuel.

    One day, before our very eyes when the much expected new Nigeria dawns, Fayose will earn his rightful place – in jail! From Wole St.Jones,  Lagos.

    For Governor Ayo Fayose to escape impeachment, the game is not over because he would still commit offence that will lead to his impeachment someday. From Gordon Chika Nnorom. 

    Re-Ekiti: the conquistador at work. Both governor Fayose and opposition’s camps have disorganised themselves in different ways between June 2014 and June 4, 2015. I am sure that, both had learnt their lessons. My advice is that, we should be careful in making derogatory statements as ‘words are an egg’. If I were governor Fayose, will apologise through a paid advertorial to President Muhammadu Buhari. From Lanre Oseni.

    Sir, does the situation in your home state of Kogi or is it Kwara give as much nightmares and sleeplessness as that of Ekiti? Kwara is sold to a political family and Kogi is even worse, sold to Igalas who cannot pay salaries. Those two are pathetic sir and should bother you more. Anonymous

    Prof, I enjoyed your article of today titled” Ekiti: The conquistador at work. You captured the entire scenario that is currently playing out in my dear state. I hope that before long my people would see the difference between alagidi (stubbornness) and eranko (animal in human skin). Governor Fayose would never change, leopard cannot change its colour! The day of reckoning is at hand, then thousands of truck drivers, motor cycle taxi operators, motor park touts, artisans, petty traders etc may not be able to save him! Anonymous

    Loving you dearly for this commendable and salubrious-professorial write-up for its laudableness and literary measurement, very scintillating. You are a veritable role model. I pray God to reward you for your legendary work. As for Fayose, his mistakes are too numerous, there is no how he would not pay dearly for all his actions. Both provocative statements, indecorous utterances, unnecessary political arguments. All he has done, due to his narrow and pedestrian thinking and intellectual laziness. Ekitis are more educated than having such mimic, dubious, person like him as a Governor. From Surveyor Amidu Saheed, Ifo.

     

    For Gbenga Omotoso

    Please do Nigeria a good favour by being truthful!

    Aregbesola should pay Osun workers’ salaries. Anonymous

    Do your research well of the mentioned states; if they owing! And for how many months!

    Osun’s basis is heartless compared to the IGR of the state! Anonymous

    Sir, I feel the pain in your column today. I am in pains too; Senator Bukola Saraki’s election is what Sagay called it, a fraud. And I shudder too to think President Buhari could have been part of it all. Strange! This is the classic, selfish, Ilorin Mesu Jamba. But we must move on and let Karma do its work. Anonymous

    Good morning.  I know you will effortlessly recollect in 1980 or there about when the late parliamentarian Jonathan Odebiyi of UPN in one of his repost to late Senator Olusola Saraki, the father of Bukola Saraki, referred to the old man’s “ shifty byzantinism which in Yoruba parlance is mesu jambaism”.  Is Bukola not reenacting his father’s memory? Anonymous

    Re: Of change and strange agents: There is practically no change. PDP is in charge as enunciated in the emergence of number 3 and 4 position in Nigeria. I pity the average Nigerian who so much anticipate and yearn the so called ‘change’. I may sound pessimistic but there is no hope for Nigeria. It will continue to be a laughing stock in the comity of nations. Anonymous

    Re: Osun and its traducers. I refer to your above captioned article and state that Kano does not owe salaries to its workforce. Pay day is 25th of every month or the next working day. From Abdul M Ibrahim

    Your piece today June 11 titled: ‘of change and strange agents’ refer. The APC is a Special Purpose Vehicle [SPV] not meant to provide purposeful leadership but to satisfy the greed of a few. Soon it will be clear that the alliance between the political elite in the North West and South West have nothing in common. President Buhari is a kind of meal ticket to many, not up to 0.1% believes in him and what he represents.  From Owen- Browne

    Reason for the inability of Governor Aregbesola and others to pay workers salary is financial irregularities which caused e payment device (IPPIS) to shut down. To reboot the system, the financial irregularities must be corrected. Chams in Osun it’s a cult of thieves.  The unpaid workers salary is saved in sinking fund which is not accessible to the naive governors who permitted the fund to get out of reach.  It will take revolution to restore the right of workers to their pay. From Prof Kesh, ile ife

    Katsina State is not in financial quagmire to pay salary. The  previous administration paid our salary  up to May 2015. Anonymous

    Now that Senate and House of Representatives has decided to pick their leaders in a controversial manner, let them use their positions to enact people-oriented-laws that citizens would benefit from rather than enriching themselves with taxpayers money. Let them cut their jumbo pay for the interest of Nigerians because they are the most expensive lawmakers in the world. Nigeria is bigger than one person or group of people. From Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia 

    Just read your comment. The PDP sees it as an opportunity to rebuild. Ekweremadu told some people that APC said they have defeated PDP but not their own generation. Anonymous

    Must the apc senators visit Buhari before an election in the legislature hold? I am comfortable that apc version of election you refer to as selection. Sagay’s views with due respect is a trash offensive to democracy. From Mike Ayodele esq.

     

    For Tunji Adegboyega

    “The fear out there”: APC caused own problem by allowing party entry of the five PDP governors and Co. They were unlike minds. That, anyway, is not to invalidate the election that made Bukola Saraki the Senate President. All said and done, if anti-corruption fails in the Senate, it is because of the APC which wanted power at all cost then! Then, I responded in one of my comments on one of your write-ups that Impunity +Purity = Impurity. So, for every advantage, disadvantage exists. The APC will search itself to see whether it would win the anti-corruption fight.  Buhari could fight it as an individual, the party, aside Saraki being targeted, cannot fight corruption in Nigeria successfully as corrupt members won’t tackle corruption headlong. It is not only Bukola Saraki that has a dent(s). From Lanre Oseni.

    Tunji, I am amazed many people erroneously arrogate too much powers to Saraki being the Senate President. For the time being; he has only one vote. Let him go against President Buhari, the people will rise against him in defence of the president. Anonymous.

    Whatever inspired some senators to elect Senator Saraki as Senate President when there are cases of financial mismanagement levelled against him by the anti-corruption agencies is unacceptable, despite his winning by majority votes in a controversial manner. Our National Assembly members should know that the government of President Buhari would not encourage corruption and other vices because he has a name to protect. Legislators should not use the National Assembly to cover themselves of irregularities that they did as governors. From Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, Abia State.

    Thank you for speaking the minds of most Nigerians in your piece, “The fear out there: can Saraki fight corruption”? The apostles of darkness went to work. Nigerians need prayers to overcome them finally. From Ijegbai, M., Edo State.

    I am surprised that people are saying that the new Senate President will not support the president on the war against corruption; they forgot that it was he as a senator who raised the alarm about fuel subsidy scam that led to the Senate investigation that also led to the discovery of so much scam in the scheme. This led the Federal Government to wake up the case against him that was done with in the court so as to cover up the fraud case. From Ben, Uromi, Edo State. 

    There is no gainsaying the fact that the election of Dr Saraki as Senate President is a big blow to the anti-corruption stand of the Buhari administration. Worse still, is that Saraki’s emergence was through the instrumentality of the PDP senators whose party was rejected by Nigerians for its legendary romance with corruption. I pray Buhari remains resolute in his fight against corruption and with the support of the masses, he will succeed. Anonymous.

    I have just finished reading your write-up “The fear out there” in The Nation on Sunday of June 14 and those of others like you. The question I want to ask you and others in your class is this: were these bad sides of Saraki there and known when he defected from PDP to APC and won Kwara State for APC? If yes, why did you change the goal post after the goal had been scored? Thanks. From John Iwu, Okokomaiko, Lagos.

     

  • Citizens from nowhere but everywhere

    Thank goodness we now have a leader who belongs to no one and to everyone. Now, what could be more needful or timely than the declaration of a ban on intra-tribal marriages in the country?

    As write this piece, I see a country with no citizens. I see a Nigeria without Nigerians. I see only tribes of people. Everyone around me is either Jukun or Birom or Ijaw.  No one is Nigerian and if they are, they are only so nominally and that is the problem. No nation of tribes can prosper and achieve greatness. This is because it is in the nature of tribes to compete and war with each other. War impedes development.

    To make Nigeria prosperous and great we need only do two things; the first, create the state and the second, fill up state with citizens. We’ve achieved the first; the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This Republic was not originally a product of our collective initiative but it has since become our making. The British handed down the republic to our fathers. It was not supposed to last but it has and it would endure for a 1000 years! We’ve proved to the world and particularly to ourselves that the idea of Nigeria is a welcomed one, one that has been entrusted to us and one that we can protect, preserve and implement. Our fathers rescued it from the secessionists and our generation is rescuing it from the insurgents. This is very commendable but that is just the first phase in achieving our collective aspiration. We must move on to the second phase.

    Phase two presents us with the more challenging task of populating the republic with good citizens; citizens who see themselves not as belonging and pledging allegiance to a certain tribe or community in Nigeria but as members and loyalists to the republic, citizens who primarily, are federalists, citizens who belong to and own every inch of land and space that constitutes the republic, citizens who hail from nowhere but everywhere, citizens who treasure and jealously guard every good resource and good value that is lies in the republic, citizens who are truly patriotic, and truly, truly, Nigerian.

    To ensure this, we must turn not to ourselves but to the yet unborn. Permit me to call them, the ‘beautiful ones’. We must ensure that we admit these beautiful ones into the Republic through a national placenta. Hence, the need discourage intra-tribal marriages and instead, encourage inter-tribal marriages. Again, I say, nothing could be timelier than this.

    Should the current regime see the need to pursue a vigorous and very aggressive policy of encouraging inter-tribal marriages across the republic while at the same time discouraging intra-tribal marriage relations, I, for one would give it my unreserved and absolutely best support.

    The regime could put in place a new blueprint plan for national peace, unity and security that would among other things; see the NYSC programme entrenched in our constitution, much like was done with the Land Use Act.

    The Federal Government, could over the next 30 years, mobilize and deploy the republic’s youth by the thousands in a bid to spread, expose and encourage them to intermingle with their counterparts from other parts of the federation and foster peaceful and culturally enriching social interactions and possibly inter-tribal marriages.

    The Federal Government may not stop there. She could plan, build and develop more cities in all the 36 states. These cities could be multicultural cities that reflect the federal character of the republic. The grant of occupancy rights in these federal cities could be made evenly to all tribal and ethic affinities in the republic. Every tribe and religious affiliation could be adequately and equally represented in these cities. Furthermore, these federal cities would get special preferences in terms of government investment in infrastructural development.

    The Federal Government could grant national recognitions and rewards to couples that venture into inter-tribal marriages and raise children of mixed tribal parentage.

    Selected biological issues of these couples could receive scholarship grants and job placements in the wider society. If this is done, soon, a time would come when, the phrase, “Federal Government pikin” refers not to a neglected class of people living with mental disabilities but to everyday, ordinary and beautiful citizens of the republic.

    The Federal Government could continue to find creative ways to bring together persons from the several tribes and ethnic groups in the republic. The aim would be to encourage intermingling.

    In a few decades from now, this is bound to result in a delightful explosion of a population of persons who are neither here nor there. It would be explosions of persons who see themselves for who they are really are – persons from north, east, west and south of Nigeria. It would result in an explosion of persons with root everywhere that is Nigeria, an explosion of a new breed and a new generation of citizens who would have no cause to separate themselves along petty tribal sentiments. A society dominated by persons who have no choice but to unite and bond with others like themselves in their mutual pursuit for happiness and prosperity.

    This policy if it ever materializes would be without an iota of doubt, an expression of the spirit of our Constitution. Section 25 of the 1999 Constitution, defines a citizen by birth as a “…person born in Nigeria before the date of independence, either of whose parent or any of whose grandparents belonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria”. The drafters of our constitution envisaged the passing away of tribal and ethic affiliations and the emergence of a nation defined and united by a common and higher sentiment. Yes indeed, the drafters of our constitution envisaged death to our tribes!

    I, for one, would welcome the news of this kind and kind I trust you would too. This is more important than the anti-corruption crusade or the job creation campaign! The peoples of Nigeria need to mingle with one another and the government has to deliberately and vigorously encourage the inter-tribal marriages at the expense of intra-tribal marriages. The predominance and continuance has served only as a recipe of national discord and disunity.

    Well, as it is, to the best of my knowledge, the current regime is not thinking of this policy talk less of pursuing it. I believe that’s a shame. Picture a Nigeria full of citizens who hail from nowhere and everywhere led by leaders who belong to no one but to everyone! Granted it would be immoral for the Nigerian government attempt to impose a ban on intra-tribal marriages but the government can adopt and pursue a policy that would ensure its progressive reduction, something which would secure the republic’s future and bring great benefits to successive generations of Nigerian’s in the long run. What should keep us from advocating and promoting this policy?

    “Death to the insurgents! Death to the tribes! Life to the beautiful ones and long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!”

    ‘Picture a Nigeria full of citizens who hail from nowhere and everywhere led by leaders who belong to no one but to everyone! Granted it would be immoral for the Nigerian government attempt to impose a ban on intra-tribal marriages but the government can adopt and pursue a policy that would ensure its progressive reduction, something which would secure the republic’s future and bring great benefits to successive generations of Nigerian’s in the long run’

    • Ikita is a Kaduna based solicitor and works with the state university.