Category: Editorial

• Maiduguri brothels shut down by the military opens a severe wound from terror war

We discuss the question of Boko Haram in the northeast, especially in Borno State and environs most as a case of armed goons with overload of religious bigotry.

We also refer to dislocations from homes and farms and the crowded Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) centres. But we spend little time on the psychological spin-offs.

Recently, that came on the front burner with the shutdown of brothels at a place in Maiduguri called Kasuwan Fara in the Shagari low-cost area. Other brothels have been shut down in the recent past, but this one brings into high relief the decay that war brings to a society.

The other brothels shut down by the military were in Waluri, Bayan, Kwatas, Tudu Palace, to name a few. The end of business in these brothels led to concentration in Kasuwan Fara.

The victims are underage females, nubile innocents between 13 and 14 mostly, and their main “clients” are mainly soldiers and other uniformed men. They operate daily, and the girls seem to have no choice.

They do it to provide for themselves and their families. In some cases, their mothers are complicit and encourage their daughters to do it.

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But the intervention of the military is seen by the residents as godsend.

“We suffered years of torment and misery but with what we are seeing today, normalcy is setting,” a resident said.

The place is a buzz of activities at night. According to reports, one of the enablers is the proliferation of high-octane drugs. The girls who might have recoiled from yielding to the illicit sessions with the men ease into promiscuity after taking the drugs. The drug peddlers are integral to the brothels because the girls are encouraged to take the drugs before copulating with the men.

These are not just spoils of war. It is a story of how war spoils the young, and even children. The brothels were owned by well-known locals, including retired service men and security operatives, all of whom have deep connections to the high and mighty, including the military. They named a certain Kenneth, Ifeanyi and Monday. One of them is also called ‘Doctor’ because he works at a teaching hospital.

Efforts to shut down the place have been constantly resisted. In fact, the locals staged a recent protest that was to lead all the way to the palace of the Shehu of Borno. But the soldiers stopped the protest before they were able to make any traction. Some of the soldiers often helped to sustain the place by serving as intelligence assets and notify the operators when a raid was in the offing.

The consequence of the shutdown is that some persons who do legitimate businesses have been disallowed as yet to operate.

“There are traders doing their legal business at Kasuwan Fara, we appeal to the military to allow them back,” he said.

It is also one of the effects of the war against insurgency. It has birthed many widows and dislocated families. So very young persons have no family for prop or succour, and this has pushed them to work as house helps, labourers and farm hands. They often are at the mercy of powerful people against whom they have no prayers.

Rape is a common phenomenom in the area. The commissioner for justice, Hauwa Abubakar, said 80 percent of cases reported to the ministry are rapes and rape-related. In fact, she said five out of every six files are on that case.

This is a serious matter. To solve it does not require the mere shutting down of brothels. There is a serious matter of survival for the young folks who need to go to school, have sustainable means of income, enjoy the support of families and government and look into the future with cheer.

• Nigeria has been on a free fall as values means nothing to most citizens.

The case of Alfa Rafiu, a Point of Sale (PoS) operator in Ilorin, Kwara State, illustrates how low the country has sunk. A man who was led into the PoS business because he could hardly meet the needs of his family suddenly began to spend money as if it would soon get out of fashion.

Alfa Rafiu, also an Islamic cleric, made strange purchases out of sync with his regular income pattern. He reportedly acquired cars, bought houses, sent some of his relations and acquaintances on Lesser Hajj to Makkah, and became a philanthropist.

It was not too long before the source of his sudden wealth became known. A commercial bank in the city had mistakenly posted N280 million into his account. As many Nigerians with such crooked mindset would react, the Alfa just began spending, perhaps attributing it to his God, and returning thanks to his creator.

This is the bane of the society. A man whose means of livelihood is so well advertised should not have been so embraced by his community. Such depravity encourages vices in the country. While the police deserve commendation for swinging into action so swiftly, escalating the case to the Force Investigation and Intelligence Command, Alagbon, Lagos, the people must realise that the best Intelligence network is that provided by citizens. Security forces cannot perform magic if people refuse to team up with them to smash criminal gangs.

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It is unfortunate that some Nigerians are even asking what was expected of him, “after all he did not steal the money.” When money he did not earn found its way into his account, Alfa Rafiu had two options available to him. One, he could have reported the development to the police authorities.  Two, he could have reported it to his bank, in realisation that it would have caused distress to some staff and probably owners of the money.

It is gratifying, however, that not all Nigerians would embrace such a criminal route to wealth. A Superintendent of Police in Kano, Mr. Daniel Itse Armah, last year turned down a bribe of $200,000 from criminals. He was rewarded for displaying integrity in an organisation believed to be citadel of corruption in the country. Also in 2018, a cleaner with the Nigerian Airports Authority, Josephine Agu, who discovered $12,200 left at the toilet of the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, duly turned it over to the authorities.

Nigeria will be better if more citizens take after such men and women of high moral rectitude. The starting point is in celebrating such people to show others that it is the way to go. Schools, from the elementary to the tertiary, too, should step up moral instructions and encourage clubs that teach good citizenship and leadership values. This will go a long way in restoring values that are almost becoming extinct in our society.

Something should be done to ensure that religious leaders know and abide by what is expected of them. There have been too many stories of rot emanating from them. In such situation, how do we expect them to contribute positively to sanitising the society? Alfa Rafiu should be made to face the full wrath of the law, and it starts with his full name and details being released. The police should do a good job of investigating the case, such that a tight case is presented at prosecution.

•The rate at which toddlers are now being abused and killed calls for stiffer sanctions

Toddlers would seem to have become an endangered species in the country given the way  and manner some people take undue advantage of their vulnerability. This is not to say that even adults are not at risk; but one would have thought that evil doers would at least spare toddlers who can barely differentiate their right from their left arms. These are innocents that are incapable of hurting anyone despite the fact that they tend to show greater independence and  deviant behaviour and imitate the behaviour of other people at their tender ages. Why would anyone want to pounce on them at the slightest opportunity?

This must have been the question in the minds of people who read the stories of two recent incidents involving a 30-year-old man, Abubakar Abdulaziz, and 33-year-old lady, Olaide Adekunle. Abdulaziz, who lived in the Sabuwar Santa area of Musawa Local Government Area of Katsina State abducted the three-year-old son of one Adamu Alhassan of Bacirawa village, in the same local government area. The spokesman of Katsina State Police Command, CSP Gambo Isah, confirmed the incident on Monday, last week.

“On April 12, 2023, around 3pm, the command succeeded in arresting one Abubakar Abdulaziz, 30, of Sabuwar Santa, the Musawa Local Government Area, Katsina State, a suspected kidnapper and killer of a three-year-old child.

“The fact of the case is that on March 23, 2023, around 1am, the suspect criminally trespassed into the residence of one Adamu Alhassan of Bacirawa village, the Musawa Local Government Area, Katsina State, while he was asleep and kidnapped his three-year-old son to an unknown destination.”

The suspect then demanded for N800,000 ransom. The boy’s father managed to raise N150,000 which was paid to the suspect who collected the money and still went ahead to bury the poor boy alive. The police moved into action after the matter was reported to them. They claimed that the suspect has confessed that he killed the boy.

In the case of Adekunle, she literally took her 18-month-old baby to the market for sale for N600,000! According to the report, she left her home in Sango Ota, Ogun State, for Lagos on March 15 where she started to sell sachet water, with the hope of raising money to offset the loan she obtained from a microfinance bank. When she was unable to realise her aim, she decided to fast-track the process by offering her daughter, Moridiat Rasaq, to a woman whose identity is not yet known, for sale. The police say the mother met a man in the course of her selling sachet water who introduced her to the woman that eventually bought the child.

It was when she returned home without the baby and she could not offer any tangible explanation that the husband, Nureni Rasaq, reported her to the police since she left the house with the girl. The woman allegedly confessed to the police that she had sold the baby!

If Abdulaziz could kill a three-year-old the way he did, apparently because he had no blood connection with the victim, how do we explain that of Adekunle who sold her 18 – month-old baby for N600, 000 to enable her repay “an embarrassing ‘’ bank loan? What makes the latter case the more pathetic is the fact that the suspected perpetrator of the crime is the baby’s mother who should naturally protect and care for her. Could hers be a mental case, because it is unthinkable that a woman would return home without her baby that she left home with, without any acceptable explanation? Did she not expect that her husband and father of the child would want to know what happened to his child?

Yet, these two incidents are not isolated cases as the incidence of child abuse and murder continue to occur almost daily. Interestingly, it is also not something peculiar to Nigeria. It is not novel, either. In fact, as far back as 2018, the police in Indonesia arrested four suspects, including a mother and a broker who allegedly attempted to sell a baby via Instagram. The mother, 22,  wanted the 11-month-old baby sold for 15million rupiahs (about N358,768 at the then prevailing exchange rate). Child trafficking used to be done manually but social media has made the transactions sophisticated and easier, with the pictures and images of the parties now posted online.

It is however heartwarming that the two suspects in these incidents were eventually apprehended by the police. It would be great if the police could still trace the whereabouts of the baby sold in Lagos so they could return her to the father and also prosecute the buyer alongside the mother who sold her. People who want children for genuine purposes know they have to follow the procedures laid down for adoption.

It is disheartening that a mother would sell her child to a complete stranger without thinking of the possible consequences of same to the child. It is equally sad that someone with blood flowing in his veins would bury a three-year-old child alive for his parents’ inability to complete the ransom requested. None of the two suspects is fit to live among rational human beings. They should be promptly arraigned in court so that they can pay for their wicked actions if convicted, to deter others from toeing their ungodly path.

•Govt must urgently address the issues of millions of abandoned phone lines, and bank accounts not linked to BVN

If the news that 96.8million of 323.6million telephone subscribers in the country had abandoned their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards as at February is not shocking enough, the report that only 57.01 million of the 191.4million bank accounts are linked to registered Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) should be startling. The two cases show Nigeria’s capacity to create loopholes in the banking and telecoms sectors.

Latest data by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) indicates that the unused mobile lines represented about 29.9 per cent of the total registered SIMs. The inactive SIMs cut across all the four mobile networks — MTN, Airtel, Globacom and 9mobile.

A mobile line is deemed inactive if it is not used to make or receive calls and/or access data services for a minimum of 90 days. Such lines are thus separated from active lines because they do not generate any revenue for the telecom service providers within the period. The inactive lives have been in the increase since December, last year. There were 94.4million such lines as at December 2022. These rose to 95.2million in January and then to 96.8 million in February.  

SIM registration became compulsory in the country with the rising incidence of cyber frauds as well as terrorists and kidnappers who use the lines to facilitate their nefarious activities. It got to a head in 2021 when the Federal Government made it compulsory for all mobile telephone subscribers to link their SIMs to their National Identity Number (NIN). Because of the tedious nature of the process as well as the seeming inability of the agency in charge of the exercise, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to cope with the deluge of people rushing to register, the deadlines had to be shifted severally from December 2020 to April 2022. Millions of lines that were not linked to the subscribers’ NIN were ordered by the government to be blocked. Many people simply abandoned the lines and went for new ones which were relatively easier to register. This was a major source of many of the abandoned lines.

It is for the same reason of ease of acquiring new lines that many subscribers dump their existing numbers and acquire new ones which are sometimes offered for free by telcos that are looking for all means to increase their subscriber base. This has also adversely affected the number portability introduced by the sector’s regulatory agency, the National Communication Commission (NCC), designed to enable subscribers move from one network to another without changing their numbers.

With regard to the banking sector, it is worrisome that only about 57.01 million of the 191.4million bank accounts in the country are linked to registered BVN. This is about 30 per cent. It is true that, given the fact that the BVN is relatively new in Nigeria (it was introduced in 2014 and made compulsory a few years after), it is impossible to have all bank accounts linked to it. BVN, lest we forget, was introduced to enable banks capture the biometrics of their customers and to give them a unique identity peculiar to them across the Nigerian banking industry. Some of the account holders would have died, some others would have travelled out and abandoned the accounts because they don’t have much money in them, and so on.

But we cannot rule out the possibility that there would also be many other people who would not want to be identified with their accounts because their hands are  not clean. Many of the accounts not linked with BVN could belong to shady characters who are either into money laundering or drug trafficking. People who can explain the source of their wealth have no cause not to want to be identified with their bank balances, no matter how fat such balances are.

The Federal Government and its agencies concerned in the telecoms and banking sectors must move swiftly to inquire into the circumstances that led to mass abandonment of SIM cards as well as the inability to link almost 70 per cent of accounts in the banks to BVN. These scenarios have grave security implications for the country even as they are injurious to its financial health. People who abandoned their SIM cards at random could be doing so because they don’t want to be tracked since they know their hands are not clean. Similarly, those who don’t want to be identified with money in their accounts could be into drug trafficking, money laundering or terrorism financing; none of which is good for the country.

The statistics are out; and figures don’t lie. Efforts must be made urgently to sift the wheat from the chaff. We must know what led to the two circumstances in question to be able to tackle the possibilities of corruption and instability that they could unleash on the polity before things get out of hand.

• NAFDAC’s provisional approval for Oxford malaria vaccine R21 raises many questions

The news is good: Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has granted provisional approval for R21/Matrix malaria vaccine. It is to vaccinate Nigerian children, aged six months to three years.

The news excited the Nigerian medical community — for it seems putative triumph over malaria, which has claimed more lives in Nigeria, minor or adult, than in any other place worldwide.

NAFDAC Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, announced: “A provisional approval of the R21 Malaria Vaccine was recommended and this shall be done in line with WHO’s Malaria Vaccine Implementation Guideline.” 

NAFDAC gave its reasons: the vaccine, developed by Oxford University, UK; and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India Rvt Ltd, had met the World Health Organization (WHO)-prescribed standards on safety and efficacy.  

The evaluation was done by a joint review body, the NAFDAC Vaccine Advisory Committee (NEVAC).  That committee also found the vaccine 75 per cent effective in protecting children against malaria — the highest so far by any malaria vaccine.  

Aside from Nigeria, Ghana and Algeria have also adopted R21/Matrix, which suggests some peer confidence, on the African continent where malaria rages most.  By WHO stats, malaria killed 386, 000 Africans in 2019.

Still,  NAFDAC itself added a dampener — per a report in The Nation of April 18.  The newspaper paraphrased NAFDAC: “that the vaccine’s potential benefits outweigh its known and potential risks, thereby supporting the manufacturer’s recommended use.”

Manufacturers’ recommendations are a function of marketing. Though such come only after strict medical procedures, validated by rigorous peer reviews and followed by clinical trials, manufacturers’ advisories are, at best, to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Which is why NAFDAC, without prejudice to the rigour of its NEVAC, which it said used WHO and European Medicines Agency (EMA) guidelines, ought to have volunteered more to the public on the vaccine’s “known and potential risks”, though far less than its “potential benefits”.   

Pray, what are these risks?  This question is very vital for public trust and confidence.  Parents that submit their newborn babies for jabbing are taking a risk: the prospect is the child could be immunised from malaria — perhaps for life — if the child makes the 75 per cent efficacy threshold.  

But what of the children that don’t?  Are they then exposed to some health risks that hitherto wouldn’t have been theirs?  Or is it a situation of little or no risk, in which case they can embrace the usual anti-malarial drugs for routine protection?  More information please!

Knowledge is power, as that quip goes.  But NAFDAC and allied pubic health agencies can fulfil this sacred duty by a health publicity blitz around the new vaccine.

Still, to be fair, the result of vaccine’s late-stage testing, ongoing in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania, would appear impressive, even pending the release of the final results, due later this year.  

In Burkina Faso, for instance, R21/Matrix was up to 80 per cent effective depending, of course, on how much immune-boosting ingredients were included in the mix.  

That clearly trumped ‘Mosquirix’, the WHO-recommeded malaria vaccine now in the market, developed in Africa by African scientists, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, after 10 years of clinical trials, in African countries.

The R21/Matrix is far from that.  Indeed, it is still under WHO review — a few spots yet from clinical endorsement.  So, why this hurry to apply it on Nigerian, Ghanaian and Algerian children?  Why not wait until the clinical processes are completed?

Perhaps, a stitch in time — given the heaviness of the malaria burden: Nigeria, for instance, has more than a half of malaria cases (55.2 per cent) in West Africa. Of the four countries most hit in Africa, Nigeria accounts for almost a third of cases: 31.3 per cent.  

In global stats, Nigeria has 27 per cent of malaria cases but 32 per cent of malaria deaths (by 2020 numbers) — thus pointing to a dual preventive and treatment crisis.  R21/Matrix can sure help fix the preventive crisis; and also reduce fatality by prevention.  That reason could also have powered the NAFDAC approval, given the vaccine’s upbeat peer review.

Yet, dangers could lurk.  In fixing malaria, might the vaccine open the gates to other diseases, that could plague the jabbed children all their lives?  It’s a fair supposition to ponder, before arriving at permanent approval.

That is why the near-unanimity, by the Nigerian health and medical community, is logical: that this period of provisional approval be used as clinical trials of the vaccine on Nigerian children.  That note of cautious optimism makes eminent sense.

• Bribe-for-promotion allegations are becoming too strident in the force to be ignored. Let’s probe them

It was perhaps inevitable and only a matter of time before the process of recruitment of officers and men into the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) as well as their promotion encountered the current moral crisis, with allegations of massive bribery and corruption tainting the exercises. In a statement signed by one Mr. Chijioke Okonkwo on behalf of a faceless group which labelled itself as the Aggrieved Officers of the NPF, it had been alleged that the Police Service Commission (PSC), the constitutionally stipulated body with regulatory and oversight authority over the force, had given special promotions to junior officers over senior ones after a bribe of $10,000 had allegedly changed hands. This is of course a very weighty charge that has understandably elicited the immediate response of the PSC.

Although the PSC states that it has not formally received any petition on the issue, it has commendably gone ahead to set up an investigation panel comprising members of the commission and the NPF to conduct an inquiry into the allegations and come up with a report on its findings. According to the Head, Press and Public Relations of the PSC, Mr. Ikechukwu Ani, “The commission wishes to state that it does not sell promotions in the Force and will not start now when a deliberate effort is being made to reposition and reinvigorate the force, especially with the assumption of duty of Dr Solomon Arase as chairman of the commission”.

Urging officers with grievances over issues of promotion to present the proof of their allegations to the investigative panel to aid its enquiry, the commission warned that it would not tolerate any frivolous and fictitious media claims “as officers and men of the police should be abreast and conversant with approved lines of communication “. It noted further that “The said Mr Chijioke Okonkwo, who posed and signed on behalf of other officers forgot that he is a serving police officer and did not indicate his rank. He forgot the line of communication for officers of the NPF which also guides the Public Service”.

While we agree that the police authorities ought to be concerned about wild, unjustified and unsubstantiated allegations that could jeopardise the institutional credibility of the organisation, we caution that this allegation should not be peremptorily dismissed as ‘frivolous’ or ‘fictitious’ without the panel set up being allowed to thoroughly carry out its assignment. Given the circumstances of this case, it is only natural that the aggrieved parties who made the allegations would be reluctant to unveil their identities for fear of persecution if there is some truth to their claims. It thus behooves the PSC and other police authorities to bring to bear their specialist training in surreptitious investigations to ferret out the truth in this case and expose as well as punish any indicted person, no matter how highly placed. If, on the other hand, it turns out that the allegations are nothing but wild concoctions made in bad faith, those responsible should face the requisite sanctions if they are found out.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018 given approval for the recruitment of 10,000 new police constables annually for six years bringing the total newly engaged law enforcement agents to 60,000. However, in the course of implementing what should have been a straightforward exercise, the recruitment process resulted in a bitter and protracted struggle between the PSC and the NPF on which of the two had the constitutional right to actualise the President’s directive. Indeed, the matter soon became a matter of litigation between the two bodies, with the Federal High Court in Abuja initially ruling that the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) was the office vested with the power of recruiting new officers into the force.

However, this ruling was later nullified by the Court of Appeal which declared that the PSC was constitutionally empowered to conduct the recruitment of police constables. The higher court ruled that the Police Act enacted in September 2020, was unconstitutional and void since it was manifestly in conflict with paragraph 30 Part 1 of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution which empowers the PSC to appoint persons into offices in the NPF, except for the office of the IGP. Despite the decision of the Court of Appeal not being challenged at the Supreme Court by the NPF authorities, till date, to the best of our knowledge, controversy and confusion on the due process of new recruitments into the force continues, especially given the lack of a firm directive on the issue by President Buhari.

Recruitment into the NPF and their promotion thereafter, it stands to reason, should be one deserving of the highest degree of meticulousness, diligence and transparency. The conduct of many of the officers and men of the force involving brazen extortion of members of the public, incessant harassment of innocent citizens and rampant shooting and murder of citizens for no justifiable reasons demonstrate that significant numbers of undeserving and totally unsuitable persons have found their way into the NPF and presumably bribed their way up through the hierarchy.

This is why this allegation of bribe for promotion and other shortcomings associated with recruitment into and ascendancy within the police hierarchy must be thoroughly investigated and enduring remedies found.

•FG should move to avert full-blown strike by expeditiously considering the demands

When would industrial peace and harmony be guaranteed in the various sectors in Nigeria? When university teachers are not on strike, doctors in public hospitals withdraw their services. On other occasions, it is workers in the downstream of the petroleum sector, or electricity employees. And, in all cases, the reasons are related to the conditions of service of the workers and the working environment.

The situation would not have been so pathetic if the Federal Government could be trusted. For years, government that had been quick to enter into agreements, ostensibly to avert industrial action, hesitates or blatantly refuses to implement them. Ironically, the result is still withdrawal of service by the shortchanged employees.

It was the turn of aviation workers last week. This is one sector that is hardly allowed to go on strike to avoid paralysing it. The rich are comfortable with any action so far they are not affected. If university lecturers cause schools to be shut for one year, the wealthy are not affected as their children are safe in private universities at home or have been sent abroad to preserve their privileges. Their families hardly patronise public hospitals in the country and they do not rely on public power supply.

But one sector they do not joke with is the aviation sector that affects flights within and outside the country. Even those who own private jets are jittery whenever unions in the airports threaten strike.

On April 17, workers in the aviation sector embarked on a two-day warning strike to drive home their points. All the seven industrial unions in the sector bared their teeth. They told the public that they were left with no alternative course of action as the Federal Government had failed to implement agreements freely entered into with them years back. The minimum wage structure and the consequent adjustments that had been so long in coming which the Federal Government claims to be in the process of reviewing is yet to come into effect for pilots, flight engineers and general workers of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Airspace Management Authority (NAMA), Nigerian Civil Aviation  Authority  (NCAA) and even the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET). The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) is not spared.

It is unfortunate that a negotiated review of conditions of service willingly and specifically entered into with NiMET workers in 2019 remains on the tables of bureaucrats in the Federal Ministry of Aviation, awaiting attention. Despite failure of government to adhere to agreements reached in the past, we call on the union leaders to respond positively to the entreaty by the Director-General, Civil Aviation, Captain Musa Nuhu, by sincerely engaging the authorities in another round of negotiations, with timelines attached to the agreement.

In the meantime, agents of government should halt demolition of structures around the airports, especially the Lagos airport, on the grounds that they constitute safety threats to flights. The question to ask government is how the structures, some of which house offices of the unions were approved in the first instance. Owners of Dominion Hangar, one of the structures slated for demolition, have served notice to contest the move as they have valid approval to build them. Is government not aware of this? Or, were those structures illegally built?

While we agree that safety of passengers should take priority in all agreements in the sensitive sector, a panel of experts should review all government’s plans on the issues as the workers have raised queries over what informed them.

On the claim that the parastatals and agencies cannot afford the proposed salaries, it is necessary to review all appointments in the agencies in recent years. The workforce is over-bloated with recent recruitments skewed in favour of the region that the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika, hails from. These should be reviewed.

Given the importance of the sector, actions should be expedited to resolve all pending matters. An inter-agency panel excluding Mr. Sirika, but including directors from the National Salaries and Wages Commission, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, presidents and general secretaries of the seven unions, as well as heads of the agencies should be set up to do the negotiations. The warning strike has come and gone. We do not want a full-blown strike that the workers have said would come if government failed to respond positively to their demands.

In a few weeks, there would be another administration in charge of affairs in the country, pending issues that could constitute clog in the wheel of progress should be resolved before then. In future, government must be cured of inherent bad faith if it is to be trusted.

•Oil theft bleeds the country pale and must be stopped by government

Nigeria loses monumentally to oil theft – a menace that has deprived the country of maximising her biggest natural resource and hobbled her economy over the years. This was a bitter fact again highlighted last week by Shell Petroleum’s disclosure that it eliminated hundreds of illegal tapping points from its Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) before the facility was restarted after being shut down for one year.

Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) and Country Chair of Shell Companies in Nigeria, Osagie Okunbor, said the oil giant detected and removed 460 illegal connections on the trunk line before resuming operations after a one-year shutdown. Owing to the fleecing points, the company has had to operate at 60 percent capacity. The TNP, operated by Shell, is a major pipeline capable of transporting some 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude from oil fields in Rivers and Bayelsa states to Bonny export terminal.

Other oil firm executives as well lamented the grave impact of oil theft on their operations. Okunbor and  other executives of international and indigenous oil and gas companies spoke at the just-concluded 2023 Nigeria International Energy Summit in Abuja where Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, announced government’s plan to generate 5,300megawatts of electricity from solar and produce six billion litres of biofuel annually.

In response to a question on what the incoming administration should address in the oil sector, Okunbor cited security of oil infrastructure as priority. “What keeps me awake today as regards my onshore business in Shell is the fact that we cannot operate a pipeline, and that’s what is responsible for the 60 percent capacity. I think today that’s almost just how much gas we can supply,” he said. “And this is because one of our key gas infrastructure – the TNP – was shut down for one year. We removed 460 illegal connections on that line, we just reopened the line. Today we are struggling to catch up with our first (export) programme,” the Shell chief added. According to him, the loss was reckoned as affecting Nigeria’s oil production quota to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but it also had devastating impact on the supply of gas to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG). “So if you ask me what the number one issue has to be for the incoming administration, it is the security of oil and gas infrastructure. If you don’t fix this, then we have a huge problem on our hands,” he said.

Also speaking at the event, Managing Director of Nigeria LNG Limited, Philip Mshelbila, noted that 40 percent of the globally renowned gas firm’s capacity had been lying fallow due to theft. He also said lack of willpower to execute recommendations and policies in various documents and regulations on the oil sector remained a challenge to the industry.

The oil executives spoke against the backdrop of concerns often expressed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) about how the menace of oil theft undermines Nigeria’s output and, consequently, financial returns. Early last September, NNPCL Group Managing Director Mele Kyari fingered various sectors of the Nigerian society as being complicit in the theft of millions of barrels of crude oil, alleging that make-shift pipelines and stolen fuel had been found even in churches and mosques. On his heels, another NNPCL chief and Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPMS), Bala Wunti, said the oil firm was losing 470,000bpd of crude oil amounting to $700million monthly to oil theft. According to him, major pipelines, particularly those around Bonny terminal, could not function due to activities of criminals – like some 270bpd that ought to be loaded in Bonny but could not because of theft.

It must be acknowledged that efforts were made by government to tighten the noose on oil thieves, only that the consequential effect of these efforts have not translated to eliminating the menace. Among other things, government has engaged pipeline surveillance contractors on mega-billion naira deals. Some of the contractors reported eliminating illegal tapping points, like a four-kilometre long illegal oil pipeline in the Forcados area of Delta State that Tantita Security Services Limited linked to ex-militant Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, claimed late in 2022 to have uncovered. The contractors and conventional security services like the Navy reported a serial arrests of suspects that are yet to be tried before the courts. Besides, NNPCL reported having put in place a technology-based control and security system to curb oil theft, but the impact of this intervention is apparently tentative.

The experiences just reported by oil executives at the Abuja summit show why government must muster the willpower to decisively tackle down the stubborn menace that is laying the country’s common wealth waste.

It is gratifying that the rightful winner has been declared, but the perpetrators of the electoral fraud must be punished.

Since the return to democracy in Nigeria in 1999, elections and the electoral processes have been beset by a number of fundamental and systemically socio-political problems.  Nigeria is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society and, logically, these factors have in various ways affected democracy in the country.

Success and failure during elections ought to depend on how political parties and their candidates are able to sell their manifestoes and party ideals, in addition to the capacity and charisma of candidates to sell themselves to the various voting demographics.

Unfortunately, from pre-election to post-election cases, the judiciary has decided many of the winners, whether at the party primary level or in general elections. Indeed, the country is reputed for being the most litigious country in terms of election matters and this is a blight on democracy in the most populous black nation.

But the fundamental issues of flawed electoral processes are not natural disasters, they are essentially man-made. The lack of internal democracy in political parties and other structural and systemic issues contribute to the aberrations that have kept dogging democracy in Nigeria.

The April 15 supplementary gubernatorial election in Adamawa State will go down in history as one of the clearest examples of the human angle of  electoral irregularities in Nigeria. After the March 18 governorship and house of assembly elections, the former was declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which then announced April 15 for the supplementary election.

There were reports of a peaceful election in the state on that day, yet, collation of results was postponed in about 10 local governments to 11am the next day. However, before the appointed time, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Hudu Yunusa Ari, sauntered into the collation centre with the state commissioner of police, Mohammed Barde, and a staff of the Department of State Services (DSS), and announced from a piece of paper from his pocket that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Aisha Dahiru Binani, was winner of the gubernatorial election.

Curiously though, Binani hurriedly delivered her acceptance speech in what some lawyers have described as a ‘self-indicting confirmation’ of her involvement in illegality. Many people have used diverse adjectives to describe what transpired in Adamawa State on April 16. Some called it a civilian coup, some described it as the new low in Nigeria’s democracy, others said it was the climax of electoral impunity, etc.

All the descriptions embodied the outrage the people felt. But all the principal players need to answer some questions, not just from the Adamawa State people or Nigerians; they all must face prosecution after diligent investigations.

But we feel it is a righteous indignation. The collation of election results was not completed, the REC was not legally empowered to announce results, even if all the results had been collated. The commissioner of police and the DSS staff are supposed to be law enforcement officers. Yet, they willfully broke those same laws they are paid by tax payers to enforce. Senator Binani is a law maker, amongst other legislative duties. She was part of the 109 senators that passed the 2022 Electoral Act hailed by many as the panacea to electoral irregularities in the country. How did a senator surreptitiously rail-road herself into election hall of infamy?

But INEC acted swiftly by declaring the illegal declaration of result null and void and of no effect whatsoever. We commend the commission for doing this even if it is what is naturally expected of it in the circumstance. The commission’s speedy declaration of incumbent Governor Umaru Fintiri winner of the election helped to avert a looming chaos because the clouds of anarchy had started gathering, with both the APC and PDP supporters already on the streets protesting.

We are also happy that the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has called for thorough investigations into the unfortunate incident even as he has congratulated the winner, Fintiri, who is of the opposition PDP, as well as other winners in the elections. He also commended the peaceful conduct of the polls. That is the way it should be.

Although we are equally outraged by what transpired in Adamawa State, it is just a metaphor for a deeper malaise in the way politicians play politics in the country. Could it be that the senator who ought to be distinguished forgot that, like Caesar’s wife, she ought to be above reproach? Could it be that her ambition to become the first elected female governor in the country was stronger than her sense of patriotism and service? Her action in even dashing to the court despite the illegality in question reeks of all forms of ill-conceived vaulting ambition. It negated all that a senator ought to stand for.

Being a woman comes with some diligence and sense of order. Her femininity ought to have affected her actions, knowing the societal and natural expectations of care and nurture expected of the womenfolk. The state would have been plunged into an avoidable bloodbath and women who she is assumed to be representing primarily are always the grass that suffers during conflicts. There is a certain calmness that women ought to bring to the political space where most men have sown chaos and illegalities over time.

We commend Governor Fintiri for the restraint he showed by quickly addressing his supporters and people in the state at large to be calm. But this incident must be taken seriously by the nation. We must begin to demand integrity from would-be public officers. The REC who was at the centre of the scandalous declaration, even though a lawyer, is undeserving of the office he holds. Similarly, the colluding law enforcement officers deserve the punishment meant for the actions or inactions they are obviously guilty of.

We are outraged that these officers are not promptly being treated as the law breakers that they are. Instead, there are tales of INEC, the police and DSS pretending to literally be petting them. The 2022 Electoral Act is clear about laws and the consequences of breaking them. There must be deterrent set for future offenders. Merely reposting the police commissioner is not enough. Telling Ari to stay away from Adamawa State INEC is not enough punishment, given the weight of the offence.

Senator Binani ought to be facing recall from her constituency if we run a functional system. She ought to have reined in her emotions. Allegations of the N2b bribe to the REC must not be swept under the carpet. Our electoral processes are supposed to get progressively better, not worse.

We  must never allow a repeat of the 1993 incident where unscrupulous politicians used the courts to truncate democracy. We commend the Abuja high court for tactfully handling the Binani case. Now that the results have been declared, attention must turn to the breakers of the law.

•At 77, the former Anambra State Governor breathed his last, leaving others to wonder the legacy he left in public service

Twenty-one years after the gruesome murder of Barnabas Chidi Igwe and his pregnant wife, Abigail Amaka Igwe, former Governor Clement Chinwoke Mbadinuju who presided over affairs of Anambra State at the time has also bowed out of life stage. If there was anyone from whom much was expected in the 1999 set of governors, it was Dr. Mbadinuju. He had been a journalist, in fact, editor of Times International, a lecturer at State University of New York, and a businessman. Academically, he was considered sound enough to know what to do for a people thirsty for democracy and good governance. Besides, he was introduced to politics when former Governor Jim Nwobodo, who took charge of the state in the Second Republic, appointed hlm a personal assistant. He was later appointed personal assistant to President Shehu Shagari.

The state had much more going for it than neighbouring states as it held the advantage of an educated population, one of the largest markets in West Africa located in Onitsha, the famous Nnewi that has become a metaphor for industry and entrepreneurial spirit, a general population just seeking that push and catalyst to spur unprecedented growth.

But, for four years, Anambra, under the leadership of Governor Mbadinuju witnessed decay. Teachers were on strike for about 13 months as salaries went unpaid, and the security situation in the state degenerated.

Life in the state became as brutish, cheap and short as Thomas Hobbes depicted life in the state of nature. The Bakassi Boys were a law unto themselves, striking at will, leaving the impression that no one was in charge. One couple whose death caught the attention of the entire country was the Igwes who were mowed down by assassins on September 1, 2002. At the time, Mr. Igwe was chairman of Onitsha Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and his wife was also a lawyer. The man was not only a lawyer but a crusader for good governance in his state and the nation. So, when the activist was macheted to death with his young family, there was great mourning among lawyers, social activists, and politically conscious Nigerians.

It is unfortunate that by the time the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) decided that the governor was undeserving of its ticket to run for a second term, he was able to pick the ticket of Alliance for Democracy (AD). The party system has since continued on that trajectory. Defection across parties has become so commonplace that it is difficult for the electorate to distinguish one political party from another. He lost calamitously at the 2003 governorship election in the state. 

It is often regarded as a taboo to criticise the dead in Africa, but if the society is to develop, we cannot continue to speak glowingly of all past leaders. It is a duty to separate the good from the bad, if we are to check the excesses of current and future leaders or rulers. It’s instructive that the late governor could no longer pick his political bearing until he breathed his last 

We call on Gov. Charles Soludo to remember the orphans of the Igwes, if only in memorial of those who lost their lives to political violence, starvation, and other consequences of misrule under the late Governor Mbadinuju.

The man has departed the stage, it behoves his successors to live up to the expectation of turning Anambra State to a model for others, not only in the South East, but the whole country, if not in Africa.