The Nation Newspaper

Category: Dele Agekameh

  • PDP’s roiling crisis

    For quite some time now, the Nigerian political theatre has been embroiled in crises of unimaginable proportion. Every other day, new dimensions are added to the contentious issues. Surprisingly, most of these issues border on conflict of supremacy and arbitrary use of power through which many party faithful have been either emasculated or ignominiously shovelled out of the parties. Indications are rife that there is a gradual incursion of tyranny in the administration of the parties.

    The major culprit in this whole shenanigan is the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, a party that prides itself as the biggest party in Africa. As they say, rather jokingly, the bigger the head, the bigger the headache. In the first instance, many of our political parties are apparently nests provided for strange bed-fellows to cohabitate. That is probably why the struggle for supremacy and control of party machinery has assumed a war of survival on its own. In the ongoing war within the parties, there is a systematic annihilation of political opponents or those whose views are considered to be injurious to the interest of the few who have monopolised power. This has invariably led to what political scientists would refer to as democratic centralism.

    We are all aware of the nature of scheming and internecine war that have engulfed the PDP since Bamanga Tukur, its present chairman, took over the reign of leadership of the party in March 2012. It started like a fratricidal war among the members of the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party. With Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the secretary of the party, as the arrowhead of the dissenting group in the committee, Tukur was perpetually placed on his toes as the group perfected their strategy to unseat him. But for the moles within the NWC, by now, Tukur would have become history in the party hierarchy.

    Much later, the party’s NWC was dissolved and Oyinlola was removed as secretary. Rather than solve anything, the removal of Oyinlola and other officers who had become a thorn in Tukur’s flesh, further deepened the crisis in the party. The struggle for reform in the party later snowballed into a major conflagration last August, when some party leaders, led by some state governors, staged a walkout from the party’s national convention ground in Abuja.

    The insistence of the group on reforms within the PDP and its hierarchical structure has created a deadlock, which has remained unbroken for so long. Not only have the various reconciliation meetings even with President Goodluck Jonathan in attendance failed to yield any fruitful result, there appears to be the presence of a certain clique within the party that is opposed to any form of reconciliation with aggrieved members. The reason for this is the fear that such reconciliation may pose a threat to their present comfort zone in the party. Therefore, they are hell bent on maintaining the status quo.

    Several meetings, which attempted to resolve the two knotty issues involved in the whole saga, have yielded no tangible result. The issues are Jonathan’s candidature in the 2015 election and the fate of Tukur as national chairman.  Going by the body language of the party’s hierarchy, the issue of Jonathan’s candidature in the 2015 election appears to be cast in iron, meaning that it is a no-go area. In order to consolidate the hawks’ hold on the party machinery, Tukur has become a willing puppet used to perpetrate illegality and arbitrariness in the party. Unfortunately, his fate has always been hanging precariously in the balance.

    In recent times, the leaders of the breakaway faction, with seven state governors as point men, have come under severe emotional, psychological and even mental torture all over the place. The G7 governors are Sule Lamido of Jigawa, Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers, Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu of Niger, Rabiu Kwakwanso of Kano, Muritala Nyako of Adamawa, Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara and Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto.

    Lamido has come under intense security binoculars for some time now. Early this year, Aminu Sule Lamido, one of his sons, was held at the Aminu Kano International Airport over an allegation that he was trying to go out of the country with $50, 000 as against the $10, 000 allowed by law.  He was convicted on July 12, by a federal high court in Kano for money laundering. Last Thursday, operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, again, arrested Aminu and Mustapha, another son of Lamido, over yet another allegation of money laundering.

    The story is the same for Amaechi of Rivers State, who has known no peace since the rumble in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF, erupted many months ago. The crisis in the NGF over the election of its President, which was believed to have been won by Amaechi, has seriously polarised the body into two factions. The one headed by Amaechi is believed to be the authentic NGF, while the other one led by Jonah Jang of Plateau State is a surrogate of the Presidency.

    The climax of this regime of terror unleashed on the group was the recent disruption of the governors’ meeting at the Kano State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja. The meeting was held to discuss their grievances against the PDP and how to marshal their points ahead of their planned meeting with Jonathan. That meeting may never see the light of the day anymore because a recent event has overtaken such consideration. On Wednesday, November 6, a Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja reinstated Oyinlola as the National Secretary of the PDP. The three-man panel, chaired by Justice Amiru Sanusi, upturned the January 11 judgment of the Federal High court, Abuja, which sacked Oyinlola.

    One would have thought that this judgement would provide a good opportunity for the party to resolve the intractable crisis that has engulfed it, but rather than find a solution to the crisis, some desperate elements within the party went ahead to suspend Oyinlola and others under flimsy excuses. This action has clearly vindicated those who are calling for reform in the party. Moreover, that decision has the potential of setting the judiciary against the party and its government because it is seen as a negation of Jonathan’s avowed commitment to the rule of law.

    The Presidency has since come under heat from some stakeholders in the government who felt that certain forces were exploiting the situation for their selfish motives. Some governors loyal to the President were said to have made contacts among themselves and with the President all through last week, expressing deep concerns that the leadership of the party scuttled the opportunity for peace presented by the Appeal Court verdict.

    The legal and ethical issues thrown up by the suspension order have also engaged the attention of stakeholders who are viewing, with concern, the legality of decisions being currently taken by the party with the sitting secretary whose appointment has been declared illegal by the court. This is why Tukur may have incurred the wrath of Jonathan over his latest handling of the moves to resolve the crisis in the party.  The Presidency is believed to be tinkering with the idea of directing the party leadership to reverse itself on the suspension issue.

    If that happens, then Tukur’s days are numbered as the President is said to be unhappy with the unilateral decision he took to suspend the party leaders, including Oyinlola, who have been reinstated to his post by the appellate court. The Presidency is worried that instead of the party creating and getting more followers and friends, the hierarchy is busy creating more enemies for the party and the Jonathan administration.

    So far, Tukur’s tenure as party leader has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. It has been dogged by series of arbitrary use of power, witch-hunting and indiscriminate removal of national officers and dissolution of party executives across the country. The suspension of Oyinlola is nothing but a deliberate ploy to circumvent the Court of Appeal judgement which recognised him as the National Secretary of PDP. By that action, the PDP has foreclosed the possibility of any reconciliation and portray itself as a lawless party.

  • The Chimes’ controversy

    Wonders will never cease! Every other day, Nigerians are treated to different dimensions of news emanating from virtually everywhere – in the polity, on the economic sphere, in religious circles, market environment, beer parlours and other innocuous places. The government houses scattered all over the 36 states of the federation, where the almighty governors hold sway, are also not immune to shocking revelations. Usually, the items of news coming from these government houses are stories about extravaganzas, arbitrary use of power and other forms of recklessness.

    Today, there is a novel dimension to the news oozing out from the Government House in Enugu, South-east of Nigeria. Here, the news borders on man’s inhumanity to a woman. And the dramatis personae in this melodrama are no other persons than the Number One citizen of the state, Sullivan Chime, and Clara, his wife of five years. Since the news broke out about a fortnight ago, it has continued to spread like a festering sore.

    The kernel of the story, which is now in public domain, is the call by Chime’s wife to be rescued from detention right inside the Government House, Enugu. The wife had, through a petition to the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, cried out to be saved from her husband. She accused the governor of an abusive relationship that has led to her suffering from depression. The governor, she added, has locked her up in a room and denied her access to her four-year-old son and visitors. In the same vein, Femi Falana, her lawyer, also sent a letter to the Inspector General of Police, demanding the immediate release of Mrs. Chime from unlawful custody.

    According to the petitions, the governor’s wife said though she had been married for five years, “it has been a somewhat tempestuous relationship, which has virtually irretrievably broken down in the past couple of years”. She said, “We do not have a relationship anymore and the situation inevitably led to my nervous breakdown. I have been diagnosed with severe depression and at some point, was quite suicidal. The strategy of my estranged husband is to subject me to the most horrific and intolerable of conditions to cause my demise but my strength and will to live has kept me alive”.

    The governor’s wife went on to enumerate the major issues as follows: “Not had sexual relationship with my husband for four years; deprived of all my responsibilities as a wife; prevented from bonding with my four-year-old son; barred me from receiving visitors, whether family or friends; in the last three weeks, a lady friend who visited me was stopped from seeing me and the result is now complete incarceration from the outside world; in effect, I am locked up in my bedroom, without access to anybody; I am only allowed food but no access to fresh air; I have been locked up because I demanded to leave, even without my son; Governor Chime recently revoked my land allocation; the governor is doing everything possible to break my will”.

    Furthermore, the estranged woman said: “All I want and demand is to be allowed to leave; if I have committed any crime, I request that due process should be followed; I am falsely being imprisoned; all my rights are being violated; I have tried to leave and was pushed back by the security agents; and it is clear I am unable to do so except through other intermediaries; my passionate plea is to be allowed to leave peacefully as I no more wish to exist under this prevailing state. In the event that I die, please note that this must have been brought about by my husband. I wish to make it categorically clear that I have no intention of taking my own life. I have completely lost trust in my estranged husband; the possibility of the doctor injecting me with a lethal substance must never be underestimated; I am begging you to help facilitate my release and bring my suffering and ordeal to an end.”

    She claimed that even President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience, have intervened in the matter without convincing her husband to make life easier for her. She continued: “My father is late, my mom and few of my siblings are confused and have done all kinds of prayers they know of; three of my siblings prefer me dead than to see me leave the Government House.  He treats my mom and my siblings bad.”

    In his own reaction, an unperturbed Chime has vowed to continue to protect the integrity of his wife. According to him, “well, my wife has some medical challenges and it would be very unkind for me to talk about her condition on the pages of newspapers. I have done everything to protect her integrity and I am not now going to expose her to ridicule because some people want to exploit her situation to drag me into a needless war of words”.

    The controversy between Chime and his wife seems to have become an open-ended war between the couple on the one hand, Chime and Falana on the other hand, as well as, Chime’s wife and the NHRC. While Chime, who is also a lawyer, is contesting that his wife never contacted Falana for help, Falana has maintained that he has the woman’s brief to act on her behalf. Also, Chime’s wife has kicked against a recent report which was attributed to the NHRC to the effect that she was indeed suffering from “depression and hallucination”. This has prompted the human rights body to dissociate itself from the report at the last minute although the body did not refute the story when it first broke out.

    All indications point to the fact that there is more to this story than meets the eye. It is clear that Chime’s wife has been passing through unpleasant moments in her chequered relationship with her governor-husband. She has bared it all. What I think the husband has been trying to do is to embark on frenetic damage control to save his battered public image. For one, assuming the wife is actually depressed or having some psychological nightmares, the best place to treat a patient, whether of malaria or any other illness, is the hospital purposely built for such, and not the Government House. And the fact that some doctors allegedly connived with the governor to put the woman in ‘detention’ in the Government House smacks of suspicion and other ulterior motives.

    From the little information I was able to piece together from Enugu, the governor may have been economical with the truth. His lifestyle, which is said to be less than honourable and perhaps, unbecoming of a person occupying such a sensitive position, may have, in one way or another, contributed to his wife’s state of the mind. The governor is rumoured to have an insatiable appetite for frolicking with women and drinking in hotels in the coal city. He is said to be gifted with excellent dancing steps so much that, on a good day, he provides enough fun whenever he takes to the floor doing yahooze, azonto or skelewu dancing steps. This, they say, he relishes doing sometimes with six, eight or more girls in tow.

    If this is true, what follows each session of wining, erotic dance steps with women and all that, is a matter of conjecture. And the wife could easily be turned into a punching bag thereafter.  Here lies the crux of the matter. Therefore, there is the urgent need to get to the root of this problem. The talk about divorcing the woman, which is now uppermost in the mind of Chime and his collaborators, cannot provide a safety valve to wriggle out of this embarrassment. At any rate, Chime should not only toe the path of honour by taking his wife to any good hospital for adequate treatment, he should also do a comprehensive self-appraisal to see if there are some of his actions that may have caused the woman severe depression. This remains a shameful and condemnable act!

  • The new power regime

    It was the birth of a new era in power supply in Nigeria. Perhaps, this is the best way to describe what happened in the country last Friday. On that day, a flurry of activities took place across the country as new power managers assumed control of what was left of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN. Namadi Sambo, the Vice-President, personally handed over 11 power distribution and five generation companies, created out of PHCN, to their private owners on behalf of the federal government. The handover ceremony was replicated in many other centres and zones across the country by several ministers and top government officials who were all bubbling with enthusiasm, hope and a sense of fulfilment.

    For me and many others, that day may not be a memorable day. The reason is not far-fetched. In the last few months, there seems to have been a striking steady power supply in some parts of the country, especially in Gemade Estate located within the precinct of Gowon Estate in Egbeda/Okunola axis of Lagos. It is not to say that residents of this estate and other adjoining places have been experiencing uninterrupted power supply all along. What makes the power supply steady and regular, as I claimed earlier, is the fact that the area in question could boast of between 12 to 16 hours supply of electricity on a good day.

    That is not to say that the erratic supply pattern has tremendously improved for that matter. In many instances, especially during the nights, power supply could become an on and off thing for more than six to eight times between the hours of 7p.m and 7a.m. The period or length of seizures varies from few minutes to longer periods. This way, you have to be constantly on your toes to put off your electric appliances every now and then or risk severe damages to them. Many a time when power is restored after each outage, what follows is high current that, more often than not, send your bulbs crashing if not together with your TV-set, microwave machine, sound system, fans and what have you.

    Anyway, between last Thursday and Friday, the area was thrown into total darkness. It was so worrisome because, being the eve of the eventual handover of PHCN to successor companies, there was this anxiety of what to expect after the handover. I made a call to a fellow resident in the estate who had always liaised with officials of PHCN on behalf of other residents to find out what the problem really was. I was shocked when he told me that PHCN officials had embarked on a strike action, preparatory to the takeover by new investors. I went further to ask him what their grievances were. He told me that though about 80 percent of them had allegedly been paid their severance entitlement, the remaining 20 percent had not, and that was why they went on strike. And they needed to do that on the very day new investors were taking over. That is strange. Could it be a bad omen or a prelude to what to expect in the days to come?

    I had resigned to fate while expecting the worst to happen. But I was surprised when, at about 5p.m that Friday, power supply was restored. Barely three hours later, we suffered yet another blackout that lasted up to an hour before power was again restored. Since then, the on and off thing have taken turn for the worse, thereby making everybody to wonder whether things can actually get any better.

    All the same, we are all eagerly awaiting a new era in power supply in the country. With the transfer now perfected, I believe the investors should move quickly and focus on the vexed issue of achieving a remarkable improvement in power supply. That is the least obligation they owe the average Nigerian who has waited all this long to witness this new era. In actual fact, Nigerians may not be prepared to listen to excuses, such as those the federal government had ceaselessly reeled out in the past. In the same vein, it will be just too early in the day for the government to suddenly go to sleep. It has a duty to ensure that its efforts translate to better power supply in the shortest possible time because Nigerians are in a hurry to see things happening the way they should be.

    For too long, Nigerians have suffered untold hardships from epileptic power supply. Not only have they been so discomforted in their daily lives, they have also continuously lost the vital ingredient so important for industrialisation and improvement in their welfare as citizens. This has, no doubt, led to the collapse of industries or lack of them with the consequent astronomic cost of living.

    Therefore, this handover represents a milestone in the country’s effort to break the jinx of poor electricity supply, which has plagued the nation all this while. This ordinarily should signify a transition from the era of national darkness to improved power supply. But if I may ask: Are the new power managers ready to meet the yearnings of Nigerians for improved power supply? This question becomes germane in view of reservations expressed in certain quarters that a few more years may be needed to achieve the required stability in power supply in the country. Again, the question is: how many years will it take us to arrive at the desired Eldorado?

    There is no gainsaying that Nigerians are obviously looking forward to a new beginning in the country’s quest for rapid industrialisation, which will help to curb the endemic unemployment problem now starring the country in the face. This is why the new operators should do everything possible to justify the implicit confidence reposed in them by the government in its determination and commitment to provide Nigerians with adequate power supply. Above all, what Nigerians expect from this privatization exercise is appreciable difference in electricity supply from now onward.

    The good news is that all labour issues with workers of the defunct PHCN have been resolved following the near completion of payment of severance, pensions and gratuities of all the 47,913 workers. It will surely help to remove inherent obstacles and ensure a smooth transition. And to achieve a hitch-free performance, the federal government, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Nigerian Gas Company and some private sector concerns, has embarked on a robust gas master plan with the specific aim of meeting the gas requirement for power supply. It is true that uninterrupted gas supply to the power plants is crucial for their effective performance. This is because the rampant incidence of shortage of gas caused by disruptions in supply had been one of the major handicaps to the optimum performance of the power plants in the country. This ugly situation should not be allowed to rear its head under the new dispensation.

    On the likelihood of hiking electricity tariff, nobody should be surprised that this issue appears to be on the front-burners of the investors who have pointedly told the National Electricity Regulatory Commission to review the current tariff upward. I think it is premature to ask for increased tariff at this point in time. What Nigerians need is an assurance that this privatization will ultimately manifest into improved power supply across the country. Once this is achieved, consumers are not likely to kick against affordable tariff.

    The truth is that there is no moral justification for an increase in tariff. Many Nigerians believe they are currently being short-changed with the criminal bills they pay without adequate power supply.  They will accept no excuse, even as they are yet to be taken to confidence on the details of the improvement they should expect from now onward. However, the optimism is that power supply will record the same kind of improvement recorded in the telecommunication sector following the arrival of private investors on the scene many years ago. In this regard, it is hoped that the present transition from one octopus public power company to multiple private providers will, sooner than later, prove to be a worthwhile venture.

  • Boko Haram onslaught on Yobe

    Boko Haram onslaught on Yobe

    In May 14, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the three North-east states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. The declaration took the nation by surprise. What followed was the popular expectation that normalcy and peace would swiftly return to these hot beds of the Boko Haram insurgency. This expectation was buoyed by the prompt and massive deployment of troops, including military hardware, air fire power and other war arsenal to the troubled area.

    The deployment of the troops attracted intense media publicity and support. This overwhelming support soon translated to the early military successes the troops recorded against the marauding terrorists. However, recent events in the areas under emergency rule, especially Yobe State, have made nonsense of the initial high expectations that greeted the military onslaught. Expectations have, no doubt, been severely dampened by the recent dastardly activities of the Boko Haram anarchists.

    Between last Thursday night and early Friday morning, insurgents launched a violent siege on selected security formations in the state. During the confrontation, the insurgents killed some soldiers, their wives and their children at a mini army barracks along Maiduguri Road, Damaturu, the state capital. The heavily armed insurgents also bombed the mini barracks; the Police Area Command; the Criminal Investigation Department; the Mobile Police Base; and an office in charge of environment along Guija Road, in the city.

    The bloody confrontation erupted following the arrest of two trucks belonging to a foremost industrialist from the northern part of the country at a military checkpoint. The drivers of the trucks were said to have told the security agents that a big bag in one of the trucks belonged to a very senior military officer and should not be searched. The drivers and their colleagues backed up their claim with a display of a memo purportedly from Defence Headquarters and signed by the said military officer that the bag should not be searched for whatever reason.

    But rather than being cowed by the drivers’ claim and the memo, the soldiers became more suspicious and emboldened. When the bags were later searched by the security agents, a large quantity of military camouflage uniforms, arms and ammunition were discovered in them. The trucks, with their lethal cargos, were subsequently impounded and taken to the Police Area Command, Guija Road, Damaturu, while the drivers and their passengers were also detained. The Boko Haram insurgents reacted by launching attacks on security formations in the state.

    Security operatives who were drafted to the scene succeeded in killing more than 50 of the insurgents. The military authorities immediately suspended movement throughout the state. Thereafter, the Special Force killed 13 other insurgents on their way to Maiduguri. All the 13 insurgents were believed to be Chadian nationals. This has indeed confirmed earlier speculations that terrorists from other African countries may have aligned forces with the Boko Haram terrorists to wage war on Nigeria.

    For some time now, there have been strong indications that Islamic terrorists from some North African countries are coordinating attacks against the military in the North-east. Security operatives were said to have come to this conclusion when they   discovered that many Arabs of Shuwa descent and fair-skinned people from Mali, Sudan, Mauritania, Algeria, Somalia and Niger were among those whose bodies were found after some of the recent encounters with the terrorists. The general feeling is that the terrorists, who still have several cells in the thick forests of the north-eastern part of the country, were among those   chased out of Mali   by the French and West African troops led by Nigeria. Their level of preparedness and the calibre of arms in their possession may have been responsible for the usual high casualty on the side of security agents.

    Last weekend’s bloody clash was the latest in the series of such confrontations between security agents and Boko Haram terrorists in Yobe State. On the night of September 29, Boko Haram insurgents attacked the hostels of the School of Agriculture, Gujba, murdering no fewer than 41 students in their sleep. That night, a large number of gunmen, armed with sophisticated rifles and improvised explosives, reportedly took part in the orgy of violence and bloodletting. Not satisfied with the high figure of precious lives they had snuffed out, the insurgents also set ablaze several of the college buildings, as they retreated from the dormitories.

    Before the gory incident in Gujba, seven secondary school students and two teachers were shot dead by gunmen in Damaturu, while, in July, Boko Haram militants threw explosives and sprayed gunfire into school dormitories, killing 41 students in the town of Mamudo in the state.

    The Boko Haram terrorists may have shifted their operations from Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, and now concentrate on Yobe State. The sect appears to have been pushed out of Maiduguri largely because of the efforts of a network of youthful informer-vigilantes fed up with the routine violence and ideology of the insurgents they grew up with. The network’s intimate knowledge of the community enables it to quickly recognize Boko Haram members and turn them over to security agents. This way, a good number of the insurgents have been turned over.

    Perhaps, realizing the importance of the group in the ongoing ‘war’ between the security agencies and the insurgents, Kashim Shettima, the State Governor, recruited the vigilantes for ‘training’ and pays them monthly stipends. A number of the recruits are repentant former Boko Haram members. This has obviously made it easier to correctly identify and apprehend the insurgents, to the extent that the vigilante group now calls itself the “Civilian JTF.” Therefore, the establishment of more vigilante groups in Yobe and Adamawa states could be a game-changer in the current effort by security agencies to uproot these terrorists from the north-eastern part of the country.

    At any rate, the government may have allowed the Boko Haram menace to fester for too long with the implication that the sect has now moved to a new stage of what may be a long-drawn guerrilla tactics in its war against the country. Obviously, this is not the kind of war that conventional soldiers are familiar with. Therefore, a new strategy is required to confront it. The terrorists appear to be more proactive in planning and executing attacks with the repeated and ugly consequence of security forces arriving after the damage has been done.

    The question now is: Do these ceaseless attacks by the insurgents suggest that the state of emergency has failed to achieve its objectives? It may be too early to say so. It would certainly be most unrealistic to expect the insurgency to end too soon following the military operations going on in the emergency areas. This is because the insurgency has festered for more than four years running. Besides, the terrain in which the terrorists are being confronted is very difficult and vast. And because it is an internal insurrection or conflict of a sort, I am sure the military are, wisely, being careful in the use of maximum force so as to limit collateral damage on the civilian population in the affected areas.

    One good thing, though, is that appreciable progress has been made in the area of crippling the capacity of the insurgents to operate beyond the North-East zone of the country. This is a departure from what the situation was before the advent of emergency rule when the insurgents made occasional incursions into such states as Niger, Kaduna, Kano and even Abuja, taking lives and destroying property in the process.

    What the recent hit-and-run attacks by the insurgents portend is that the battle against terrorism has entered a new phase with the likelihood of more devastating effect on civilians and other soft targets. That is why the military must go back to the drawing board and sharpen their intelligence-gathering capacity in order to nip the attacks in the bud. They can only achieve this by courting the local community. This is the only way they can win the confidence of the people who will in turn feel free to volunteer information on the movement and activities of the terrorists.

  • Stella Oduah’s romance with scandals

    For quite some time now, Stella Oduah, the masculine and wrestler-built Nigeria’s minister of aviation, seems to be permanently hooked to scandals of various dimensions and magnitude. Her 27-month tenure as minister has been dogged by several controversies and scandals. Not only this, the aviation industry under her watch has witnessed two major air disasters leading to the loss of no fewer than 200 precious lives.

    The latest scandal involving the minister has to do with the purchase of two BMW 760 Li luxury cars which were recently purchased for her by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA. The way and manner the cars were procured as well as the exorbitant price tag placed on them seems to have compounded the integrity issues confronting her. The minister has come under severe criticisms from notable members of the public following the revelation that the NCAA bought the two bullet-proof vehicles for a whopping $1.6 million or N255 million. The armoured vehicles were reportedly delivered to her in August this year.

    The BMW is a fast-moving car with all the accompanied luxuries. For those who prefer a quick dash all around, any make of the BMW series could satisfy their sartorial taste. Findings on the BMW website indicate that the 760 Li HSS model purchased for the exclusive use of the minister has a shelf price of $186,000 or N29, 760,000 (at N160 per dollar). However, the price varies, depending on options, that is, the aesthetics – both the interior and exterior finishing of the luxury car. It is purposely built to meet the highest and most demanding security requirements. The 760Li High Security model has been tested by a German bullet and firing inspection authority. With its 6.0 cm bullet-proof glass, the car can withstand attacks with explosives or bullets of the armour-breaking 7.62x54R API calibre often used by terrorist organizations such as the rampaging Boko Haram insurgents currently ravaging the north-eastern part of the country. It has a reinforced body and explosion-resistant undercarriage that meets the higher VR9 standard. Even if it is hit by a high velocity impact such that could lead to a sudden loss of tyre pressure, the vehicle can run on flat tyres for an upward of 50 kilometres at an average speed of 80 kilometres per hour. The car’s emergency exit is conveniently situated around the front wide screen.

    There are other security features and relaxation ambience that come with the car. Its long-distance infrared technology can pick out people on the carriageway in poor visibility or at night at a distance of up to 300 metres. The optional rear-seat entertainment system allows two passengers to watch the same or different DVDs at the same time. It also allows the occupants of the back to follow the car’s progress on the navigation system, or even go on the internet as they cruise along. This is possible because two distinct and independent 9.2-inch colour screens are built into the front headrests. To complete this out-of-this-world luxury, in case the owner or occupant desires a good massage to emerge from exhaustion, tiredness or boredom, the car provides optional massage function in the rear-seat backrests.

    The latest revelation has come at a time when certain events in the aviation industry, which Oduah supervises, have become a cause for concern and embarrassment, not just for Nigerian air travellers, but also for the world at large. The first was the Dana Air crash in Lagos on June 3, 2012 barely one year after she took over as Aviation Minister, in which 159 people died. Another one was the Associated Airlines crash of October 3, also in Lagos, which claimed 15 lives.

    Apart from the two fatalities, many air passengers had escaped death by the whiskers on some other occasions. One of such happened a day after the Associated Airline’s crash, when a Kabo Airline’s Boeing 747-400 plane, which was taking an estimated 512 pilgrims for this year’s Hajj to Saudi Arabia, made an emergency landing at the Sokoto airport after suffering deflated tyres. The emergency landing caused some damages to the airport’s Instrument Landing System.

    A few days after this near-tragedy, an IRS Airlines Fokker-100 plane carrying 99 passengers also made an emergency landing at the Kaduna airport after developing hydraulic problem mid-air. The nation’s embarrassment is not limited to the Nigerian airspace though, as a Nigerian registered cargo airplane had also crashed in Accra, Ghana, on June 2, 2012, a day before the Dana crash.

    In the wake of the Associated Airline’s crash, the unrepentant aviation minister had stirred the hornet’s nest in an ill-informed press conference she addressed after the incident.  Oduah had incurred severe public criticism for describing the two major air crashes as “inevitable acts of God.” She said that, as minister, her job was to provide leadership and ensure that the right policies were in place for the aviation sector to run efficiently. She passed the buck on safety and industry regulation to the heads of the agencies in the sector, such as the NCAA, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigerian Airspace Management Authority.

    While ‘natural’ disasters may not necessarily be anyone’s doing, the fact remains that with the controversy thrown up by the recent air disasters in the country, it is quite obvious that many things are wrong with the nation’s aviation industry. And from the look of things, coupled with the minister’s vague admission that air accidents are acts of God, it seems that the minister may be ill-equipped to deal with the situation decisively. Based on the fatal accidents and near-mishaps that we have witnessed in recent times, one wonders if the Nigerian aviation sector has excellent standards and maintenance regulations for domestic airlines. If there are, they don’t seem to be enforced.

    Again, the minister had said the aviation sector needed injection of funds if air travel must be safe and secure. if this is true (and we all know this), isn’t it then a contradiction that the same minister that desperately shops for operating funds is now engaged in a spending spree, compelling parastatals under her supervision to be buying amoured cars and other gifts for her? This is a dent on the integrity of the aviation minister.

    Except in Nigeria where anything goes, it is absolutely unethical for the minister to have accepted ‘gifts’ from the NCAA, an agency she supervises. If there were threats to her life as she claims, there are constitutional provisions for that, as a bona fide Nigerian, even if she is not occupying public office. She should have exploited that means instead of accepting gifts from an agency whose shoddy handling of the aviation sector, many believe, has contributed enormously to the death of innocent people.

    Certainly, Oduah may not be the only minister who breathes down too heavily on the parastatals they supervise. It is common knowledge that many of her mates compel such agencies to foot the bills of their transport, accommodation, feeding and more, each time they have to attend one function or the other. Even bills of family members, distant relations and other acquaintances are forced to be picked up by such agencies without a whimper from any of them. This is a corrupt practice that only a country like Nigeria, where ethical issues are taken with levity, condones.

    As usual, rather than cover their faces in shame and or make atonement for the unbridled corruption involved in the purchase of the cars, including the highly inflated figures presented to the public, the management of the NCAA is busy chasing shadows. Now, they are busy hunting for the whistleblower, while the minister is sitting tight in office. Is this how we will continue to run the affairs of this country? The answer is no. Something must definitely give way. It is either the government shows a firm commitment to fighting corruption in all ramification or the citizens resort to self-help, which may take the form of pelting thieving officials with stones and other available objects on the streets. If the chaos this will precipitate will force our leaders to redress the endemic anomalies in the system, so be it!

  • Libya’s boiling cauldron

    Too many cooks, they say, spoil the broth. This proverbial saying fits perfectly well into what is currently playing out in the North African country of Libya. Since the brutal end of the autocratic dictatorship of the late Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, in October, 2011, the fate of the country has been hanging precariously on the brink. The revolution, as the Libyan uprising that saw the end of the Gaddafi’s era was dubbed, appears to have produced more problems for the country than it has solved.

    In the absence of an active military or police force, the state has had to rely on militias who now act as security forces. The militias are paid by the Defence or Interior ministries although the ministries are largely unable to control their activities. As a result of this, there are tens of thousands of fake revolutionaries who now use the rebel name for personal gains whereas they are just gangsters prowling the streets of Libya and wreaking havoc at will.

    In the last two years, the country has witnessed a lot of upheavals precipitated by these marauding militias in various parts of the country. The climax of these internecine crises in the country was the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi, the home of the Libyan uprising, in which Christopher Stevens, the United States Ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans were killed. Since then, it has been one form of threat or another from the roving militants who now bestrode the street of Libya with impunity.

    If it is apparent that the average Libyan resident may have got used to the tension in the country, but not with the latest dimension the whole thing seems to have assumed. Last Thursday, Corinthia Hotel, an imposing tower near the coast in downtown Tripoli, played host to some unusual visitors in the wee hours of that fateful day. The unusual visitors were scores of gunmen who invaded the hotel where Ali Zidan, the country’s Prime Minister, and other top government officials reside. After a brief scuffle with hotel security guards, the prime minister quickly instructed his personal bodyguards to stand down against the ‘invaders’ and surrendered himself. He was promptly taken away.

    Hours after the incident, a group called the Operations Room of Libya’s Revolutionaries claimed responsibility. The militias later released a photo of Zidan looking morose and ensconced between two militants. Initially, the militias claimed to have an arrest warrant against the prime minister on accusations of harming state security and corruption. This claim was immediately debunked by the public prosecutor’s office which said that such a warrant never existed.

    As the day progressed and public outrage mounted, the militants changed their storyline. The group said their action was in response to the comments made by John Kerry, the U.S Secretary of State that the Libyan government was aware of the U.S Delta Force’ raid that captured Nazil Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, a wanted terrorist suspect, in Tripoli on Saturday, October 5, and spirited out of the country. The U.S raid had sparked protests and complaints from Libyan officials and politicians who claimed that the Americans had violated Libya’s national sovereignty.

    Shortly after the militias’ reference to Kerry’s comment on the arrest of the wanted terror suspect, Marie Harf, spokeswoman for Kerry, said the American Secretary of State never said that the Libyans were informed in advance of the planned operation, as the group suggested. According to him, what Kerry said at a press conference in Indonesia was: “We consult regularly with the Libyan government on a range of security and counter-terrorism issues but we don’t get into the specifics of our communications with a foreign government or in any kind of operation of this kind”. Speaking further on the incident, American officials argued against concluding that the prime minister’s kidnapping was a backlash against the U.S raid. A senior U.S. official said: “Any time you take action like that, you want to understand the impacts to the host government, especially one that we want to continue to work with”.

    However, the prime minister’s ordeal ended barely six hours after his abduction, when “he was set free” ostensibly out of frenetic pressure from other senior government officials and militia commanders. A day after his release, Zidan said his brief abduction by gunmen was an “attempted coup” by his Islamist political rivals, using militias which he warned are trying to “terrorize” the government and turn the North African nation into another Afghanistan or Somalia.

    With this nationally televised address, the embattled prime minister appeared to be trying to leverage public shock over his abduction into a momentum against his political opponents and the multiple armed groups stirring chaos in the country since 2011. The militias, including Islamic extremists, carry out daily violence nationwide and have defied attempts by the weak central authorities to rein them in. Doing so has been an uphill task for the government who is daily confronted with the tremor associated with the militias’ activities all over the country.

    Since Gaddafi’s ouster and death, the groups have grown and multiplied. Many tout themselves as defending the “revolution’s goals”, but often act to protect fiefdoms they have carved out for themselves, while blackmailing or intimidating citizens. Others have Islamic extremist ideologies and are suspected of links to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups across North Africa and in Egypt.

    Just last month, militiamen abducted the son of the defence minister in a move seen as an attempt to prevent any action against the groups. Several weeks ago, the militia of al-Tajouri, which rescued Zidan, seized the daughter of the Gaddafi-era intelligence chief and held her briefly. Earlier this year, militiamen besieged government buildings for days to exert pressure on lawmakers to adopt a law banning Gaddafi-era politicians from holding any posts.

    Similarly, last July, 33-year-old Ibrahim al-Jathran, a former rebel with a 17,000-strong militia in eastern Libya, ordered his fighters to shut down two of the country’s main oil export terminals. Jathran is seeking more autonomy for the eastern part of Libya.

    These unrests have dented hopes for a rebound of the energy sector in Libya, which holds Africa’s largest oil reserves. In actual fact, International oil companies, as well as, international diplomatic missions, started retrenching their Western staffing levels after the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi that killed the U.S. Ambassador and three others.

    The apparent backlash against the government over the al-Libi raid could make Tripoli even more wary of allowing Washington to go after other wanted terrorists on Libyan soil. In particular, the U.S. has sought the arrest of terrorists behind the September. 11, 2012 attack on its consulate in Benghazi. Though, some of the suspects live openly in the eastern city, but the state is powerless to pursue them.

    Zidan has been struggling with political opponents and militias since he was named by parliament to lead the country about a year ago. The prime minister is one of the few senior people on the Libyan political scene today who never had his own militia or front line experience in the revolution. He was working in Geneva as a human rights lawyer when the uprising against Gaddafi erupted. His diplomacy with European nations, especially France, was key to gaining international support for the rebel movement. As prime minister, Zidan has struggled to cobble Libya’s fractured militia groups into a national security force loyal to the central government instead of provincial commanders or strongmen.

    Therefore, the recent kidnapping of one of Libyan citizens by special US forces, which has raised serious concerns about double standards concerning international laws, followed by the kidnapping of Zidan himself, is really a cause for concern for all on what has been a disgraceful handling of the Libyan affairs. The problem is that Gaddafi was taken out, like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, with no thought given to what would come next. The truth is that Libya is a country of tribal rivalries held together by Gaddafi while his dictatorship lasted. You can’t just remove him and be surprised when the tribes start jostling amongst one another for supremacy. This whole idea that you give countries an election and they become western liberal democracies overnight is somehow a liberal nonsense!

     

  • Robbing the Dead

    A pall of sorrow, tears and grief descended on the entire country last Thursday. This was triggered by the unfortunate death of 13 people on board a chartered aircraft which was carrying the body of Olusegun Agagu, former governor of Ondo State, to Akure, the Ondo State capital, for his burial ceremony. The aircraft crashed a few minutes after take-off from the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. Apart from the 13 victims, seven other passengers of the ill-fated aircraft who sustained injuries, including Feyisaye Agagu, the son of the late governor, were rushed to various hospitals in Lagos for treatment. One of them later died bringing the total death toll to 14.

    Reports have it that the crash afforded some bad boys and hoodlums the opportunity to prey on the victims of the disaster. This group, comprising mainly youths from Mafoluku area of Lagos where the crash occurred and their accomplices from nearby Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, NAHCO, motor park, were the first to arrive at the scene of disaster. As soon as they got there, they turned the whole arena into a stealing spree. They battled with the thick smoke that bellowed from the wreckage, with the ulterior motive of stealing from the victims while pretending to be on a rescue mission. It was as if the unfortunate incident provided them with the needed opportunity for self-enrichment.

    This group successfully robbed the victims dry. The boys simply picked any item they could find around like phones, laptops, handbags and money. A guy was said to have started it all. In an attempt to rescue the injured pilot, the guy stumbled on his laptop and picked it. That degenerated into frenzy as others started looking for what to steal. In the melee that followed, the whole place erupted in fisticuffs as the boys fought one another over who should own what. While this ugly scene was going on, the victims were left burning inside the aircraft until fire-fighters and the police came to disperse everybody.

    That was not the first time an incident of this nature happened in the country. On October 22, 2005, when a twin-engine Boeing 737 belonging to Bellview Airline crashed at Lisa Village, Ogun State, killing all the 117 passengers on board, rescuers who thronged the scene literally stole the victims blind. Many of the youths within the vicinity of the crash, were said to have made bountiful harvest from stealing money and other valuables from the victims. Most of them were said to have used the proceeds from the satanic act to buy motorcycles, popularly called okada, which they converted to means of transport for commuters.

    Such immoral behaviours are common scenes at accident spots all over the country, including scenes of fire disasters and collapsed buildings. While the victims of such unfortunate incident ruminate over their losses, majority of those who come around pretending to be pacifying them, often turn the place to an opportunity to loot and steal whatever they could lay their hands on. This bad behaviour is not limited to hoodlums alone as law enforcement officers and other government officials are known to engage in such nauseating acts.

    By and large, it goes to show the incalculable damage our value system has suffered in this country in recent times. Today, if your car is stuck in the mud or on a sandy terrain which are the hallmarks of some of our roads, you dare not beckon on people around, whether youths or adults, to help free your car from the trap. If you do so, you should be prepared to part with some hard-earned money as compensation for these commercial sympathisers. All is about money and nothing else. This is dangerous to the future of our youths and the future of the country as a whole.

    It is a pity that nobody, not even the elders of our society or even the government at whatever level, is paying any attention whatsoever to this irritating attitude that has gained currency over the years. If all people think about anywhere they are is how to make money by all possible means, whether fair or foul, to the extent of even robbing the dead, then, there is no other way to explain it than to say that we are a cursed people. I have no apology for that.

    However, the news of the crash has continued to grip the whole country with fear and trepidation. It was one crash too many. Since 1969, the country has witnessed more than 40 air crashes and close to 1,000 deaths in the history of its aviation industry. On November 20, 1969, a Nigeria Airways BAC VC10 from London crashed on landing in Lagos, killing 87 people on board. This was followed by another one on January 22, 1973, when a Royal Jordanian Airlines Flight 707, carrying 171 Nigerian Muslims returning from Mecca and five crewmen, crashed in Kano, killing all on board. Since then, it has been a litany of crashes culminating in the Sunday, June 3, 2012 air crash involving a Dana Airlines Flight 9J 992 with 153 passengers on board.

    Four months after, precisely on October 25, 2012, Danbaba Suntai, the governor of Taraba State, and five of his aides narrowly escaped death when a Cessna 208 aircraft piloted by Suntai crashed into a hill in Adamawa State. On December 15, 2012, the nation was again thrown into mourning with the news of the death of Patrick Yakowa, who was then the Governor of Kaduna State, and General Andrew Owoye Azazi (rtd), former National Security Adviser to the President. A total of six persons were burnt in the helicopter crash which occurred in the forest of Okoroba community in Nembe local government of Bayelsa State.

    From all indication, it is as if the nation has not seen the last of these unfortunate air crashes that have kept on occurring every now and then. With the frequency of air crashes in the country, one might be correct to conclude that Nigeria ranks highest among African countries or developing countries with the highest prevalence of air crashes in the world. Speaking at an aviation forum in Lagos recently, Tony Tyler, the Director-General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), disclosed that 50 per cent of global plane crashes in 2012 occurred in Africa. According to him, African airlines recorded one accident for every 270, 000 flights for 2012, while the industry average was one accident for about 5, 000,000 flights.  Tyler, who described the figure as shocking, therefore urged African governments to invest in safety, infrastructure and capacity building for the personnel working in the aviation sector.

    The Civil Aviation Act, which was passed into law in 2006, sufficiently empowered the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, to effectively regulate the operations of airlines and ensure that they adhere strictly to the rules. But some airline owners have been accused of disobeying the same rules. Most of the airlines operating in the country are believed to be in the habit of skipping maintenance checks. They are possibly aided by some unscrupulous officials of the regulatory bodies who either allow them to postpone the checks or settle for below-the-level types for pecuniary gains.

    However, the latest plane crash raises a question about the implementation of the recommendations of a report on the causes of plane crashes believed to have been submitted to the federal government by the Accident Investigation Bureau a long time ago. Perhaps, if the government and relevant aviation authorities had promptly acted on the content of the report, it is possible that last Thursday’s incident could have been averted.

    It is high time airline operators in Nigeria noted that the safety of the flying public is first and foremost dependent on the proper functioning of the aircraft and its components. Maintenance plays such a crucial role in flight safety and it is the responsibility of the aircraft owners or operators to ensure that the aircraft in their fleet are properly maintained.

     

  • Like Anini, like Kelvin

    Either for good or for ill, history has a way of repeating itself. Remember Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini, the notorious armed robber dreadfully called ‘The Law’ or ‘Ovbigbo’ in the defunct Bendel State? In the 1980s, Anini and his gang of blood-thirsty armed robbers held Benin City, the capital of the then Bendel State, comprising today’s Edo and Delta states, by the jugular. The hoodlums held everybody spellbound as they raided, robbed, maimed and killed at will. It was such a sadistic exploit that kept security agencies, especially the police, on their toes while their criminal ‘regime’ lasted.

    In the fight to contain their dare-devilry, many policemen lost their lives, many more were maimed, while the list of their victims read like a classroom register. The escapades of the notorious gang entered into national consciousness in 1986, when the then military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, gave Etim Inyang, the then Inspector-General of Police, a marching order to produce Anini “dead or alive”. A worried Babangida had confronted Inyang after one of the Council’s meetings with the question: “My friend, where is Anini?”

    That brief encounter appeared to be the final straw that broke the camel’s back as the echelon of the police deployed all they had – men and materials – in search of Anini and his gang. There were fears and apprehension in the then Bendel state while the hunt for Anini lasted. This was because of certain diabolical mysticism associated with Anini, who was largely rumoured to have heavily fortified himself with charms and amulets to evade arrest. At a point, the fear of Anini was the beginning of wisdom, as many of the policemen literally took to their heels whenever he was on the prowl.

    At the end of the day, Anini and his gang, including his fearsome deputy in the underworld, Monday Osunbor, were reined in. But before then, Christopher Omeben, then an Assistant Inspector-General of Police, who was dispatched to head the team of investigators that plotted Anini’s arrest, narrowly escaped death in the hands of the gang. If Omeben, now a pastor, was lucky, his driver, one Albert Otue, a Sergeant, was not that lucky. The driver was abducted by the gang members led by Osunbor and murdered.

    The arrest of the gang opened a Pandora’s Box as Anini started singing like a canary bird in police custody while begging for leniency. The trial of Anini led to the conviction and eventual shameful execution of George Iyamu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, who was, until his arrest, the head of the anti-robbery squad of the Bendel State Police Command. Anini and his gang members had confessed that Iyamu had abandoned his call to service as a police officer and, instead, became the godfather of the criminal gang. He aided them with information on security movements which enabled the gang to beat police operations as well as supplied them with arms and ammunition. And when the end came, both Anini and Iyamu, including other members of the notorious gang, went down in a hail of bullets when they were publicly executed by firing squads at different times in Benin in 1987.

    Today, 26 years after, another hoodlum who goes by the name Kelvin Ibruvwe seems to have stepped into Anini’s shoes. This time around, his bestiality has gone beyond armed robbery. Kelvin and his band of well-armed hoodlums have made their satanic marks in kidnapping, rape, pipeline vandalism and all sorts of heinous crimes. He has become well known as the brain behind high profile kidnappings in many parts of the country in recent times particularly in parts of the South-west, South-east and South-south geo-political regions. His victims include eminent persons like Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, late Chudi Nwike, a former Deputy Governor of Anambra State, who was killed in captivity by the gang, as well as Adedoyin Rhodes-Vivour, wife of a Supreme Court judge kidnapped with her daughter and driver on their way to Benin on May 10.

    A fortnight ago, unknown to him that his cup was about to be full, a boastful Kelvin appeared from nowhere, flanked by some of his gang members – all in military camouflage dress – and addressed a gathering of his kinsmen at his Kokori native town in Delta State. There, he gave President Goodluck Jonathan a 60-day ultimatum to address the degradation of his native land and other communities in the Niger Delta or face grave consequences. All that has now proved to be hollow bravado and nothing more than a façade that it is, as he was arrested in a hotel room in Port Harcourt in the wee hours of last Wednesday. His arrest, along with five of his gang members, was carried out by a combined team of the Army and Department of State Services, DSS, operatives, in a coded lightning operation.

    However, a few hours after his arrest, a shootout ensued between Kelvin’s ‘boys’ in his country home, Kokori, Ethiope-East Local Government Area of Delta State and soldiers. Nevertheless, the soldiers succeeded in arresting the chief priest (Ose Igba), said to have provided native charms for Kelvin and his gang to evade arrest over the years. All the while, Kelvin knew he was being monitored, but he did not know his end was so near. The security agencies only re-doubled their operational strategies after his infamous declaration where he handed over an ultimatum to the federal government to develop the oil community or his group would blow up oil facilities in the area. At that declaration, the hoodlum described himself as leader of the newly-found Liberation Movement of the Urhobo People, LIMUP, and said he had become a freedom fighter. That is now history.

    Kelvin lived like a kingpin. His tentacles and business interests cut across Delta State, Port-Harcourt, Enugu, Ibadan and Lagos. The kidnap baron shocked security operatives when he pulled a daring mission in Warri, some months ago, killing a number of prisons officials, as his gang ambushed warders and snatched two of his men being taken to court for trial. It was learnt that the police were deliberately sidetracked in this latest operation by the army and DSS, as neither the police in Rivers and Delta states were aware of the operation until it was concluded. Since then, his hometown, Kokori, has been taken over by soldiers, in an attempt to round up his boys as well as their arms cache. I am sure the aim is to put him away before he begins to think that he is a hero.

    Kelvin is believed to be currently undergoing serious interrogation in Abuja, where he is said to have made substantial revelations. I am quite sure such revelations will have something to do with his collaborators within the security agencies who gave him cover for his nefarious activities all this while. The fact that the police was sidelined in the operation that led to his arrest, shows that something is definitely wrong with the police hierarchy who might have been compromised all along. His interrogators will also have a lot to do to unravel his godfathers who are suspected to be mainly politicians and other highly-placed people in his community and state who may have benefited immensely from his criminal extravaganza.

    We are now being inundated with the fact that the crowd of people who gathered around him in Kokori on Tuesday, September 17, when he made his boisterous declaration, did so because of a promise that ‘oil money’ will be shared at the event. What that goes to show is the level of moral decadence in our society where the love of money has relegated decency and patriotism to the background. It is simply a rehash of the Anini episode in the 1980s, when the robbery kingpin was fond of gleefully spraying his booty in crisp naira notes along the road for people to pick each time his gang raided a bank’s vault. This was to divert people’s attention while they made good their escape.

    Surely, anything that has a beginning must certainly have an end. Like every criminal, the end has come for Kelvin, just like the end came for Anini and his gang in the 80s.

  • EFCC and other stories

    EFCC and other stories

    Tracking news and reporting or investigating them in Nigeria is fast becoming a cumbersome affair in a country where scandals unfold in unimaginable proportion every passing moment of the day. Once there is a news break, before you settle down to look carefully at the issues involved, another news break comes in to unsettle you. With the frequency and rapidity of news breaks in the country, the media world is facing a deluge of news items. The screaming headlines in our daily newspapers attest to this fact, as journalists engage in a rat race to undo one another in news coverage.

    Last Monday, a good number of senior journalists attended a one-day workshop on reporting financial crimes. The event took place in Abuja under the auspices of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. Ibrahim Lamorde, the humble chairman of the EFCC, was on hand to declare the workshop open. So also were some of his henchmen-Osita Nwaja, deputy director, public affairs, and Wilson Uwujaren, acting head of media affairs unit, as well as many other operatives of the commission. Almost all the nation’s media houses -newspapers, magazines, radio, TV – were represented at the event.

    Papers were presented by eminent journalists in core areas of ethics, news reporting and investigations. Thereafter, the floor was thrown open for participants to ask questions. A number of issues bordering on free flow of information between the commission and news hunters were raised. While the journalists believed they were not getting enough, the commission explained that, in some cases, news is deliberately held back so as not to jeopardize their investigations. According to the commission, once the news gets to the public domain, those who could be targets of arrests easily go underground, while witnesses also get scared and may be unwilling to volunteer information to the agency.

    The decision of the commission to host the workshop underscores the importance which it attaches to the role of the media in the fight against corruption and economic crimes in the country. Just as Lamorde puts it, “Without a doubt, the media is a critical stakeholder in the anti-graft war. With your pen, you could make or (break) the fight against economic crimes and corruption … We need the media to help sensitize the people to the ills of corruption and economic crimes”.

    The chairman of the EFCC then used the occasion to correct the “notion that the commission is selective in investigating persons suspected of committing economic crimes; that only those who have fallen out of favour with the powers that be are touched by the commission; that the commission has gone to sleep” and all that. The chairman then went on to say that “even in the midst of contrary evidence, a section of the press has been so swayed by this stereotype that they are unwilling to shift their gaze”. “This”, according to him, “is sad”. “Corruption “, he said, “threatens all sectors, including the media. I expect the media to lend its investigative skills to helping the EFCC fight corruption and not allow itself to be sucked in by the corrupt and become a pawn in their hands to undermine the commission”.

    The take-home from the workshop is the fact that the media should exercise its constitutional mandate as the fourth estate of the realm with the highest sense of modesty and responsibility. All the speakers at the parley seemed to have agreed that to make meaningful impact on the anti-graft war in the country, the media must be very cautious in their coverage of economic crimes matters and ensure they verify their facts before publication.

    A number of publications on the war against corruption were freely given out by the EFCC at the workshop. One of them was a bulky magazine titled Zero Tolerance. Two days after the workshop, some of the contents of the magazine went viral in the media. As usual, former President Olusegun Obasanjo was widely quoted as throwing jabs at his former deputy, Atiku Abubakar, and the immediate past EFCC chairman, Farida Waziri. These have elicited serious controversy and debate in the polity. With both Atiku and Waziri up in arms against Obasanjo, the public is, once more, being treated to another season of accusations and counter-accusations, all bordering on corruption by major actors in our nation’s political history. As it is, the last may not have been heard in the last few years about what transpired in the corridors of power in the war on corruption and official sleaze.

    On the political turf itself, all is not well with our politicians, especially among the ranks of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. A splinter group among the PDP, with about seven governors as arrowheads, now known as the New PDP or NPDP, is doing all that is possible to assert themselves in the political space. It is now a war between the old and the new PDP as the struggle for power in 2015 assumes a frightening dimension. In the meantime, all efforts by the NPDP to open offices in Abuja and the states have met with stiff resistance with the old PDP using the police as veritable weapons against its perceived opponents. Offices have been barricaded by the police in Abuja and Port Harcourt. The climax was the prevention of Chibuike Amaechi and his guests from accessing the Government House in Port Harcourt last Thursday.

    In the meantime, Bamanga Tukur, the chairman of the old PDP, has continued to spit fire by referring to the members of the splinter group as rascals. Tukur is at the epicentre of the ongoing controversy over his style of leadership of the party since he took over as chairman. Perhaps, it is not inappropriate to refer to the splinter group as rascals because what Nigeria needs now is the emergence of some rascals in the polity. This is to invigorate the process of governance in the country.

    The political temperature in the country was further heightened in Warri, Delta State as the Itsekiri people gave their monarch, the Olu of Warri, an ultimatum to vacate the throne. This was predicated on the recent proclamation of the monarch renouncing the Ogiame title and other traditional rites being practised by the Itsekiri nation. The renunciation sparked off several protests with the indigenes barricading the palace of the monarch for several days. Not even the timely interventions of Emmanuel Uduaghan, the state governor, could sway the people. After four days of protest, the monarch capitulated, and rescinded his earlier decision to renounce the title. That is the triumph of people’s power and an indication that the people can no longer be trampled upon. This is a signal for people who are holding positions of authority either at the community, local government, state or national level to understand that they are doing so on behalf of the people and not vice-versa. Sovereignty belongs to the people and these powers must be exercised in conformity with the wishes of the people. Not to terrorise them or impoverish them.

    Last Thursday, Mike Ozekhome, Senior Advocate of Nigeria who had been in kidnappers’ den for about 20 days, was set free. But this was not without paying a ransom, the value of which has not been properly laid in the public domain. It is indeed a sad commentary in our national life that a flourishing kidnap industry has taken over everywhere with people’s lives being endangered every day. Not only this. Millions of hard-earned money is also involved in the thriving and criminally lucrative business. It is sad that the country’s security agencies have not found an enduring solution to this epidemic, which is why many people tend to accuse some of them of connivance.

    However, the week ended on a sadder note as Olusegun Agagu, former governor of Ondo State, died in Lagos last Friday night. May the Lord grant Olufunke, his wife of many years, his children, family, his colony of friends and admirers the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss. His sudden death, once more, underscores the transience of life. May he find solace in the bosom of His creator. Amen.

  • Ayala: A painful exit

    Nigeria is certainly passing through a dark phase in its history. From the wheeler-dealers that are called businessmen milking the nation dry to the shenanigan of some of our greedy but visionless politicians and the satanic exploits of hoodlums, it is trouble all over the place. The situation confronting our nation today beats imagination.

    One thing that has remained constant in recent times is the rise and continued rise in criminal activities in every nook and cranny of the country. Perhaps, there is nowhere in the country, be it our cities, villages or any of the hamlets for that matter, that is safe. This reminds me of Bernard Odogwu’s book, No Place to Hide, or the late Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. What all these boil down to is that we are a nation at war with ourselves.

    Many years ago, once you leave the city to any of the villages, you are overwhelmed with the hospitality, conviviality and spirit of camaraderie that embrace you as soon as you step your feet into your village. Above all, there was this real or imagined air of absolute security that pervaded the entire environment. But not anymore! Hoodlums are on the rampage everywhere. Some of their victims have been traced right from the cities to their villages and are either killed, robbed or kidnapped. Not long ago, a serving police commissioner who was close to his retirement travelled from his base in Ilorin, Kwara State, to his hometown in Enugu where he was gruesomely murdered in cold blood.

    In the early hours of Sunday, August 25, while Christian faithful were getting ready to go to church for the usual weekly worship, tragedy struck. This time, the victim was Reverend Father Peter Ayala, the Catholic priest in charge of St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church, Sobe, Owan West Local Government Area of Edo State. The lifeless body of the priest was discovered inside his apartment in the Cathedral. So far, information available said a locally made double-barrelled gun and two spanners were found with his lifeless body. The rumour making the rounds is that the priest mistakenly shot himself while cleaning his gun. But such outlandish claims have raised a lot of doubts in the sleeping town.

    Ayala’s neighbours were said to have rushed to his apartment when they heard the sound of a gunshot that early morning, and were shocked to see him in the pool of his own blood. The questions being asked by many are: Why would a reverend father be keeping a gun in the house? If it was true that Ayala actually owned a gun, why would he choose early Sunday morning, when he was supposed to be in the church, to clean his gun? If, indeed, his neighbours heard the sound of a gunshot and rushed to the scene, why would they meet the body stone dead? Was any attempt made to rush him to any hospital for medical attention?

    Again, some other people are saying that the reverend gentleman might have committed suicide. This assertion is arrant nonsense. Such a happy, quiet man had no worries for which he would even toy with the idea of taking his own life and he could not have died accidentally. Anyway, there is every possibility that he could have been murdered. This is more germane given the fact that if actually the gun belongs to Ayala, he would have known that it was loaded. In any case, why would he choose to service his gun on a Sunday morning instead of preparing for mass? And I don’t believe he could own a common locally made double-barrelled gun. What for?

    However, it is gratifying to note that, in the face of all these rumours and postulations, Rev Dr Gabriel Dunia, the Bishop of the Auchi Diocese of the Catholic Church, has called for caution and warned people not to engage in apocalyptic guesswork over the circumstances that led to the death of Ayala. According to him, though the church was traumatised by Ayala’s death, it was eagerly awaiting the result of police investigation. Dunia believes that “although the body of Rev. Fr. Peter Ayala was found lying lifelessly in his pool of blood with a locally manufactured gun and a big spanner on his body and floor respectively, they were only some of the clues on which experts’ examinations must be effected to ascertain more authentic proofs of what had led to the death.” The question is: What would a big spanner be doing on the body of somebody who supposedly died of gunshot either self-inflicted or fired by an assassin? I believe the talk of spanners, or what have you, is a mere decoy to mislead investigators into jumping to unfounded assumptions.

    However, Dunia spoke glowingly on the late Ayala. He said the late Father was a “calm, modest and well-behaved cleric who worked under me as a seminarian when I was the parish priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church, Emeora, 17 years ago and as a priest who collaborated with me, nonetheless similarly in the Diocese of Auchi until his passage from this sinful world.”

    I cannot agree less with Dr Dunia. Ayala, until his unfortunate death, was a good friend of mine and a true friend for that matter. I met him in 2001 while he was serving as a parish priest in Iviukwe village on the Auchi-Jatu-Agenebode Highway in Edo State. Surprisingly, Iviukwe village is the home town of irrepressible lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who was kidnapped by yet-to-be identified hoodlums at Ehor, a village on the Auchi-Benin Expressway on Friday, August 23. That incident happened two days before Ayala’s death. In that kidnap episode, four policemen were said to have lost their lives.

    As a priest who resided in the parish at Iviukwe, Ayala had a concurrent obligation to lead them in service in most of the adjourning villages in the area. That was how he came into contact with my aged mother in the late 1990s, when she relocated to Iviukhua, my village, also in Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State, a distance of less than two kilometres from Iviukwe. Considering her active role in the church, it was not difficult for my mother to invite Ayala to come and perform the dedication of my country home in July 2001.

    That was when I met the late Ayala and our friendship blossomed ever since then. Shortly after the dedication, he was posted to Port Harcourt on pastoral duties. He was also in Rome for some time. All these times, we kept the contact alive. I remember in one of our discussions way back, he told me he had a cousin who was a journalist as well. He gave his name as one Brotu (Eric). That name stuck. I remember my days of freelancing with the defunct Daily Times. There was a guy who went by that name with Times International magazine, one of the titles on the Daily Times stable. It was edited at that time by Dr Dayo Alao, now a professor with the prestigious Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State.

    I received the news of Ayala’s death through a phone call by my mother from the village, in the early hours of Monday, August 26. The obviously devastated old woman spoke to me amidst sobs, as she said: “They have killed your friend, Fr Ayala.” I was particularly shattered and I tried to figure out whether such a quiet, jovial, nice, easy-going, young man deserves to die in such a violent manner.

    I will like to appeal to the police authorities to do everything possible to get to the root of this heinous crime and similar cases that have cast a dark spot on our national image. From all I know of Ayala, he could not have engaged in anything that could lead to his death in such a callous manner. He was a gentleman through and through. I will surely miss him; so also are the many people who traversed his path while he was alive. May his soul rest in perfect peace! Amen.