The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has taken the proverbial road less traveled for the persons living with disability in the country. The commission deployed 84 assistive Information Technology projects at different locations in Nigeria to support people with special needs, while supporting policies that enable disadvantaged members of the society to enjoy life fully.

In a developing country like Nigeria with a huge percentage of persons living with disabilities, the community seems to have been left out because their needs have neither been prioritised nor given due consideration, even with the establishment of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) as enabled by the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act of 2018.

In town planning, the community  has not yet had buildings constructed with those living with disabilities in mind. There are still limited number of ramps to assist them in accessing buildings, especially in public spaces.

Transportation for persons living with disabilities has also been a huge problem and even during the COVID-19 lockdown, their problems were exacerbated by the protocols that made it extremely difficult for them to move around, given that there were cases where even their care-givers could not get to them to help under such dire circumstances. They do not have the advantage of specialised vehicles or trained canine assists. The health sector equally does not give them any special attention even as they are not given equal employment opportunities.

We commend the NCC for this initiative for about 43.5m people living with disabilities in Nigeria. To integrate them into the twenty first century Information and Communication Technology (ICT) world is indeed something to celebrate.

Read Also: NCC impounds illegal digital cable network worth N250m in Enugu

The population of persons living with disabilities in Nigeria is so huge that it is almost the combined population of some five or six African countries. This is a huge productive bloc and every step must be taken to equip them to contribute to national development.  Most of those living with disabilities in Nigeria have excelled in their various fields in ways that have even made the able-bodied to marvel at the capacity of those people when empowered.

The Yoruba music maestro, ‘Kokoro’ is a legend even though blind. The ace musician, song writer, pianist, composer and producer, Cobham Asuquo is a global icon even though he was born blind. Cosmas Okoli, the former President of Persons Living with Disabilities. He is the founder of Mobility Aid and Appliances Research and Development Centre (MAARDEC) that manufactures wheel chairs and accessories.

These few examples just show that contrary to popular assumptions, persons living with disabilities are no less talented, able and passionate about success than some able-bodied humans. They just need the opportunities and maybe extra attention to be as productive and happy as any other person. We see it as a failure of the Nigerian state to achieve its full potential if the nation continues to neglect  their welfare.

In an age of the internet and technology, it is gratifying to see the persons living with disabilities having the opportunities across Nigeria to benefit from the efforts of the NCC.

We however advise that the management must not allow the project go the way of some other projects that are often launched with pomp and pageantry, only to fizzle out due to negligence and lack of political will to care for inclusive policies.

The programme has to be closely monitored and delivered as projected to all the nooks and crannies of the country. It must be sustainable. We believe that the NCC has taken a laudable step and somewhat set the pace for other agencies and departments of government to follow. Development demands inclusiveness of all humans, irrespective of class, gender or other social nuances.

A productive nation is one that invests in all its citizens by providing the needed physical and mental infrastructure for citizens’ maximum productivity. The community of people living with disability would sure have a very huge psychological boost with the projects if well managed. It is a huge way to tell them, ‘you are valued’..

The parlous state of Nigerian economy that has made paupers of otherwise  hardworking men and women has made shrewd management of common resources more imperative now than ever before.  It has therefore been advocated by many — activists, intellectuals and professionals — that areas such as the legislature, moribund or overstaffed executive bodies and agencies, as well as unnecessary travels should be pruned.

One other area that requires urgent attention is the cost of conducting elections. In 2019, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) put the cost of the general election at about N240 billion.  For the next set of elections, the commission projects it would spend about N305 billion. This does not include the annual budget of N40 billion for the commission’s operations. This is about the combined size of Ebonyi, Ekiti and Nasarawa states’ budgets.

This is not sustainable. But what could be done as elections remain the only acceptable mode of leadership recruitment in a democracy? What could be the cause of this prohibitive cost? Granted that the electoral roll has about 90 million Nigerians, that is the total population of many African countries, mutual suspicion among Nigerians, especially among politicians, puts pressure on the electoral management body to always prove its neutrality.  This comes at a cost.

The commission is also saddled with a constitutional duty of observing all primaries and meetings of the political parties at all levels. Ballot papers have to be printed like the currency abroad to assure opposition parties that government did not manipulate the system.

Read Also: DMO: Nigeria’s debt service cost exceeds revenue

Logistics and security remain major challenges. Nothing could be taken for granted. Even now that the Electoral Act allows for electronic accreditation, collation and transmission of results, INEC has made provision for some form of manual back-up. Our politicians approach elections as war commanders prepare for wars. Their main strategy is not just to overawe their oppnents through the ballot box, but to exploit every loophole in the law. Again, the commission is then forced to keep tweaking with the process at a cost; previously deployed materials are discarded and new ones procured.

Twenty-three years after resumption of the democratic journey, Nigeria ought to have made more progress than it has. Development,  socially,  economically and structurally too, ought to have garnered more speed. One thing that must be done urgently is to drastically cut the cost of governance. All those who use their position in the electoral system to cheat the nation should be prosecuted. According to Senator Kabiru Gaya who heads the INEC committee of the federal upper legislative chamber, only about one per cent of the almost 900,000 electoral offenders in 2011 and 2019 polls were arraigned and prosecuted. One main reason for this is protection by godfathers who regularly engage rough necks to perpetrate various forms of violence,  snatch ballot boxes and get officials to alter result figures. This embodens them to do the same at subsequent polls at great cost to the system.

This must change in 2023 if the financial burden is to be reduced.

Agents of the Department of State Security (DSS) in conjunction with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) have apprehended 14 persons for alleged illicit sale of mint currencies in Kano. Persons affected, among them an 82-year-old, were nabbed during a joint raid in the Kano State capital, as part of efforts to stop hawking of mint notes which is a violation of the CBN Act 2007.

The suspects were paraded at NSCDC headquarters in Kano last week, at which event the NSCDC State Commandant Adamu Zakari reiterated the provisions of the law against abuses of the national currency. “The clampdown on new naira vendors and sellers is hinged on the CBN Act,” he was reported saying, adding that investigation had commenced to ascertain where the arrested persons sourced the mint notes recovered from them. “For avoidance of doubt, the act of spraying naira notes at occasions, soiling and writing on it, squeezing, manhandling as well as counterfeiting of the country’s currency notes are abuses of the naira and are punishable by law,” he stated, and assured the public the suspects would be charged to court soon as investigation is completed.

Section 21 of the CBN Act prescribes penalties against tampering with or trading in the national currency. Sub-section (1) stipulates: “A person who tampers with a coin or note issued by the Bank (i.e. CBN) is guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than six months or to a fine not less than N50,000 or to both such fine and imprisonment.” Sub-section (4) of the same section outlaws naira vending, providing: “It shall also be an offence punishable under sub-section (1) of this section for any person to hawk, sell or otherwise trade in Naira notes, coins or any other note issued by the Bank.” Typically, mint notes are procured by partygoers to feed the sub-cultural frenzy of vanity entailed in currency spraying at social gatherings. But sub-section (3) of Section 21 of the CBN Act outlaws that very practice, stipulating: “For avoidance of doubt, spraying of, dancing or matching on the Naira or any note issued by the Bank during social occasions or otherwise howsoever shall constitute an abuse and defacing of the Naira or such note and shall be punishable under sub-section (1) of this section.”

Read Also: Nigerians face harder times as CBN raises interest rate

By those provisions, the CBN Act criminalises currency vending both in motivation and in actual practice. In other words, currency spraying at parties is not only sheer profanity but also crass illegality. Meanwhile, it is fed and sustained by another illegality, namely hawking and procuring of mint notes. The illegality is so pervasive and deeply entrenched in the polity that you would find hawkers touting mint notes in your face at roadsides and at parties all over the country. These hawkers sell the mint notes at face value plus a sizeable margin built on top as the cost of vanity. That is to say, they could charge N15,000 or more for mint currency worth N10,000. To boot, inflation has caught up with the profanity and the margin built onto the currency face value is nowadays much higher than it used to be. Nigerians must shed the profane culture of currency spraying at parties, or the authorities should get more decisive in cracking down on culprits in accordance with provisions of the law.

It is a good thing the NSCDC chief said investigation into the source(s) of the mint notes is under way. Appropriate authorities owe Nigerians a duty to make their findings public – like they have done with the arrest of hawkers – when that investigation is concluded. Truth that may be uncomfortable is that the CBN needs housekeeping on its disbursement of mint notes, because some of its employees are suspected to be barons of the hawkers and their suppliers. If officials of the apex bank are found to be trading with mint currency, they should be subjected to penalties prescribed by the law for that offence. Cracking down on hawkers isn’t enough; sauce for goose, as they say, must be sauce for gander.

Established in 1971 as a grade ‘A’ parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to promote and encourage the acquisition of skills critical to national economic development, the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) is supposed to play a significant role in actualising the country’s objectives in the areas of industrial, technical, commercial and vocational development. Through its Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES), the ITF prepares students of universities, polytechnics, colleges of agriculture, education and technology for the practical work scenario they will face in the workplace after their academic studies. In addition to the SIWES programme, the ITF is also meant to stimulate performance, improve productivity and induce value-added production in industry and commerce through capacity building for graduates and youth self-employment to boost small scale industrialisation in the economy.

It is sad that over 50 years after its establishment, there are indications that the ITF is failing appallingly in living up to the obligations for which it was set up. According to media reports, large numbers of undergraduates of tertiary institutions in Nigeria who undergo the compulsory SIWES for durations ranging from four months or six months to one year have not been paid the stipulated stipends they are entitled to upon completion of the programme several years after graduation.

Surprisingly, the stipend is not in any way substantial or out of the ordinary. Upon completion of the training, an IT student from any university, polytechnic, college of education, agriculture or technology is entitled to a sum of N2,500 per month. This means that students on a six-month internship should receive N15,000 and those on a four-month internship will receive N10,000. The act setting up the ITF requires that every employer with five employees or more or who make an annual profit of N50 million and above should remit one percent of their annual payroll to the fund.

What then can be the cause of non-payment of the stipends to those who are legitimately entitled to it? Can it be that the stipulated categories of employers are not contributing their quota to the fund as legally required? If so, what has been done by the ITF to bring such culpable employers to book and ensure that they fulfill the requirements of the law? But what compounds the matter is that it appears that participants in the programme are selectively paid with some receiving the stipend and others denied without any explanation even when they did the mandatory IT at the same period.

An institution like the ITF needs to operate with a higher degree of transparency and integrity. For instance, the public should know when funds for the operation of the SIWES have been released so that no excuses can be given for non-payment of the stipends even when funds have been made available. Both the non-payment of the stipends as and at when due and selective payment without explanation give room for massive corruption. Even though the amount paid per trainee is paltry, it amounts to humongous sums if criminally appropriated by a few unscrupulous officials.

We understand that part of the problem is the protracted economic crisis, with many companies only struggling to stay afloat, thus making it difficult for many applicant trainees to even find places to acquire the industrial work experience. Many of them may thus be just content to participate in the programme to fulfill all righteousness even without being paid their entitlement. But this is exceedingly unfair on the younger generation. In the first place, there is absolutely no reason why the economy must continue to be ineptly managed by those in authority. And for as long as the ITF still exists as a legal entity, it has a responsibility to operate strictly in accordance with the law setting it up, particularly with regard to payment of stipends to trainees.

In its submission to the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts in February, 2022, the ITF claimed that it spent N37.592 billion in 2018, N43.133 billion in 2019, N43.468 billion in 2020 and N43.947 billion in 2022, albeit without the requisite budgetary approval. But the question is, what were these funds expended on? And in 2022, the Director-General of the ITF, Mr Joseph Ari, said that the fund paid more than $1 billion to 87,537 students as training allowances. Yet, many students who participated in the scheme that year claimed they are yet to receive their allowances. There is certainly the need for an urgent forensic audit of the finances of the ITF and a total overhaul of its operations.

Nigeria recorded perhaps its biggest bust of the drug underworld till date with the seizure of 1.8tons (1,855kilograms) of cocaine penultimate Sunday by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). The drug haul was unmasked in a warehouse located in a secluded estate in Ikorodu area of Lagos.

According to the anti-drug agency, the seized cocaine is worth more than $278, 250,000 in street value, which is equivalent to some N194, 775,000,000. Four suspected drug barons, including a Jamaican and the warehouse manager, all said to be members of an international drug syndicate the NDLEA had been trailing since 2018, were nabbed. The agency’s director of media, Femi Babafemi, stated that the warehouse at 6, Olukuola Crescent, Solebo Estate in Ikorodu was raided on Sunday, September 18, while the suspected barons were picked up from hotels and their hideouts in different parts of Lagos between Sunday night and Monday, September 19. “Preliminary investigation revealed that Class A drugs were warehoused in the residential estate from where the cartel was trying to sell them to buyers in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world. They were stored in 10 travel bags and 13 drums,” he explained.

The agency spokesman was also reported saying NDLEA operatives impounded a Peugeot J5 vehicle loaded with 18 pieces of pump action rifles and 1,300 cartridges in Kogi State penultimate Saturday. The vehicle had taken off from Onitsha, Anambra State, and was heading to Zaria, Kaduna State, when it was intercepted on the Okene-Abuja highway. Two suspects found in the vehicle were arrested, according to Babafemi who outlined other feats by the agency to include the arrest of a 37-year-old suspect conveying 1,000 ammunition cartridges to Abuja from Onitsha in a bus; and the seizure of 1,404 bottles of codeine syrup and 2,040 ampoules of pentazocine injection from another vehicle that as well took off from Onitsha and was heading to Sokoto. The sender has been picked up in Onitsha and intended receiver simultaneously in Sokoto, he added.

Read Also: Buhari excited over seizure of $278m worth cocaine

These fresh stings by NDLEA are indicative of its reinvention since former Lagos State helmsman Major-Gen. Buba Marwa (retired) took over as its chairman, and the agency must be encouraged to do even more. Under Marwa’s leadership, NDLEA arguably has packed a ferocity previously unknown in the anti-drug war and Nigeria can only be better for it. In his public comments, Marwa had drawn a nexus between drug use and the high rate of criminality in the country, hence NDLEA’s relentless crackdown on drug dealers is a helpful complement to the battle against criminals by the security agencies.

But it mustn’t go without mention that the volume of cocaine uncovered at the Ikorodu warehouse is a pointer to the massive underbelly of the drug world in Nigeria and the very reason NDLEA cannot afford to ease up now. Besides hardened criminals who obviously operate under the influence of drug, the drug effect also cuts across population demographics and is suspected to partly account for the derring-do of cultism and ritualism among the youths, and the epidemic of rape, for which elderly persons in many cases have been fingered. Meanwhile, drug dealers are ‘safely’ embedded within the unsuspecting polity, such that a warehouse with huge stack of cocaine as was found in Ikorodu was ensconced in a residential estate and the barons might well have carried on with their deadly trade unhindered but for the eagle eye of the NDLEA.

One moral for the citizenry is that community residents must be more vigilant and alert to happenings around them, so they could readily tip off security agents to illicit operations in their environs. The Ikorodu bust also freshly highlights the porosity of Nigeria’s borders. Since this is not a cocaine-producing country, the deadly item must have been stolen in for stockpiling as transit point to consumer destinations as identified by the NDLEA. Both entry and intended exit paths underscore border porosity that must be earnestly plugged by the border agencies.

In all, the Ikorodu drug bust is fresh call to duty for all relevant parties.

There are countless reasons why the regime of tax reliefs and concessions as contained in the tax expenditure statement (TES) of the Medium-Term Expenditure and Fiscal Strategy documents of the Budget Office of the Federation should draw more than a cursory glance.

First is the whopping sum of N16.76tn involved over a three-year period at a time government finances are in dire straits. The irony here is that this is even at a time the nation’s tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio of seven percent is among the lowest in the world.

Second is the notable trend. In 2019, the value of the exemptions was put at N4.2tn and this from two main sources: Companies Incomes Tax (CIT) and Value Added Tax (VAT). By 2020, the figure rose to N5.8tn and then N6.79tn in 2021. The report, interestingly, suggested that the amount involved for those would likely have exceeded the stated sums had sufficient data been available, especially from customs duty, excises, petroleum profit tax, personal income tax and concessions under the oil and gas zones legislation.

Then is the notorious fact this is happening at a time the nation is on borrowing binge.

Related to all of these is how the beneficiary companies emerged, whether the exercises were open, transparent and fair. Put in another way – how did the government arrive at the 46 chosen and what became the fate of the186 others said to be pending?

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And then more crucially – could the values delivered in the end have matched the amount foregone by the government when analysed on cost-benefit terms?

A troubling prospect is obviously the fear of a possible relapse into the past regime of corruption when abuses were rampant and access to such benefits limited to special interests, oftentimes people with connections to those in the corridors of power as against those for whom the concessions were advertised. Could that be the case here?

What of the specific finding that the amount involved may in fact be a mere tip of the iceberg? Shouldn’t that worry a government said to be desperately looking for additional revenue to finance critical projects?

No less legitimate are worries about the rules in place; are they adequate to curb abuses? Are they being complied with? Or worries about whether or not the objectives behind the regime of waivers are being met? Does the government actually have mechanisms to track them against stated benchmarks?

There are understandably, exemptions covered by diplomatic privileges, military hardware and other imperatives which are standard practices world over. On these there is pretty little the government can do. But then, most of the exemptions are said to have been dictated by such national imperatives as spelt out in the budget and other fiscal instruments of government. Do the economy and the Nigerian consumer really get to benefit by way of industrial expansion and reduced prices which are supposed to be their end-game? This is even more so when discretionary powers of officials have tended to undermine not just the stated national priorities but also the specific rules put in place to ensure an orderly process. Nigeria has certainly witnessed these in the past, not to voice concerns whenever these are indicated.

For a government said to be concerned with boosting its revenue and raising the tax to GDP ratio, it is not out of place to re-examine the whole gamut of waivers and exemptions administration. For, while their potential as catalyst for the economy are beyond doubt, so are their deleterious effects when abused. It is therefore not sufficient for the government to declare their merits, there has to be verifiable mechanisms in place to ensure that those enjoying the exemptions and waivers actually deliver commensurate values to the consumers and the larger economy.

What is it: triumph of efficiency over effectiveness?  Or just last-minute racketeering to fleece helpless travellers?  If indeed it was racketeering, who were those involved and how widespread was the scheme in the health sector of the Immigration order?

These are hard questions the federal authorities must answer — and fast.

On September 2, the Federal Government had announced a new COVID-19 test policy: fully vaccinated travellers into Nigeria would no longer undergo COVID-19 tests.  But that policy would take effect from the first minute of Monday, September 5: 12 : 01 am — a minute past midnight.

But then, Sunday evening of September 4, a traveller, fully vaccinated with a booster jab to boot, arrived at 2 pm; and was told to pay N39, 500.  It would be eight hours yet before the new policy takes effect.  So, no one could accuse airport health officials of flouting a policy yet to take effect.

Still, the hitherto mandatory polymerase chain reaction (PCR) — which every traveller must pay for — wouldn’t (in fact, couldn’t) have been carried out until the next 48 hours: that would have been deep into Tuesday September 6 — at least 24 clear hours after the old policy had become history.  So, if you’re likely not to carry out the test, why insist on the cash?

That was the bone of contention — and the tingling source of irritation, if not outright tension — between the airport health authorities and the miffed travellers, most of them Nigerians. But then, that brings to the fore again efficiency versus effectiveness.  By strictly sticking to the extant directive, no one could accuse the airport health officials of wrong doing, though a few could wager at their bad faith.  That’s efficiency.

But effectiveness goes much further: putting policy in the context of common sense; then applying healthy initiative, which hurts no one.  That was the grouse of the miffed travellers — and rightly so.

Someone in the health sector of airport Immigration service ought to have mainstreamed this common sense.  If they had, and the officials had been more flexible in their decisions, there would have been no need for the travellers’ protests.

Read Also: Immigration warns officers against Passports racketeering

Yet, it would be hard to impute “extortion”, though holding down  travellers  to pay at least N39, 500, for a test that would never be done was a blind flight from common sense.

But if there was no crime committed, there must be accountability for the money collected.  Even better: there must be processes to return the money to the travellers involved.

That should be the next step.  The government should do a proper audit on all the monies collected.  After establishing that tests would not be carried out (per its new policy), it must refund all those concerned with fulsome apologies.  If it did that, it could logically adduce the glitch to overzealous officialdom, which it well and truly regrets.

But in its audit, government should look out for possible racketeers in the system, who could have planned the gambit to fleece the travellers and make illicit hay.  Such bad boys and girls should not only be weeded out, they should be dutifully prosecuted.

Such actions should not only be swift, they must be clearly publicised as clear warning to other likely future hustlers, who always wait in the shadows to sabotage government policies, aimed at reducing the pains of the public.

With COVID-19, international travel has assumed added stress — and for good reasons because health is paramount to everything and COVID-19 has proved quite a pestilence while it ruled the global roost.

But now that it is gradually dissipating, governments all over the world have started easing measures which, though still recognise the pandemic’s lingering danger, nevertheless put in place policies to mitigate its abiding stress.

That is the whole essence of Nigeria’s change of its COVID-19 travel protocol.  Everyone must join hands to ensure the new protocols are a success, instead of being cogs, wilful or happenstance, in the wheel of progress.

Governors in the country still have a long way to go in terms of revenue generation, given the revelation by the immediate past chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State. Fayemi stated at the 8th IGR Peer Learning Event and Launch of the NGF Public Finance Database in Abuja that their internally generated revenue (IGR) rose from N1.31trn in 2019 to N1.67trn in 2021.

According to the governor, “We have seen total IGR of states grow from NGN1.31 trillion in 2019 to NGN1.67 trillion in 2021 and the share of IGR (as percentage of total recurrent revenue) grow from 31% in 2019 to 35% in 2021. While this is good progress, we must not lose sight of the need to sustain and advance the momentum of reforms, considering the decline in FAAC receipts.”

We agree with Fayemi that some progress has been made. But this is too puny to celebrate, if we juxtapose the potential in the states against the returns. As a matter of fact, what does even the N1.67trn IGR amount to if we divide it by the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)? The import of what we are saying can be better felt if we take out the contributions of Lagos and a few other states like Rivers which, at N117bn IGR is a distant second to Lagos, from the N1.67trn. Lagos alone generates about N540bn per annum.

But it is good that the governors realised that they needed to do more about IGR and in 2019 decided to reform their tax administrations for more efficiency and effectiveness. This was a decision that ought to have been taken several years back given the warnings by several experts to the state governments to be innovative and consider other revenue generation options to boost their income and thus place them in a better stead to deliver to Nigerians the dividends of democracy.

However, rather than heed this advice, many state governments preferred to be running to Abuja for handouts. Unfortunately, the downturn in the economy also affected the capacity of the Federal Government to sustain the handouts to the state governments. It thus became increasingly clear to the state governments that they must reform or perish.

The fact of the matter is that state governments have been rather timid in terms of revenue generation. They hardly gave a thought to it until Lagos State turned the table in this dispensation. At the inception of the present democratic experience in 1999, the state’s IGR was a paltry N600m monthly. It has continued to rise steadily ever since, reaching the N45bn per month last year, a quantum leap of 7,400 per cent. The state government’s decision to put on its thinking cap to explore ways to boost its IGR was the reason it was able to survive when the Olusegun Obasanjo administration withheld the state government’s local government funds for months, over the state government’s decision to create local council development areas (LCDAs).

Read Also: Fed Govt committed to continuous justice sector reform, says SGF

Ogun State, too, has been able to take advantage of its proximity to Lagos to improve on its IGR. But it can do more by leveraging the opportunities offered by the proximity as this proximity on its own would amount to nothing if not taken advantage of.

We agree that states are not equally endowed. But the state governments have  to perish the idea that they must go cap in hand to Abuja to beg for sustenance. There is no state without something to leverage to better its lot. Making money is not always about the mineral resources you have. There are countries without mineral resources that are doing fine. Here, Israel, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Belgium, Singapore, to mention a few, readily come into mind. In like manner, there are countries that have natural resources that are still economically backward. Countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia and even Nigeria, to some extent.

Indeed, if possession of mineral resources is enough assurance of prosperity, oil producing states in the country like Rivers should be brimming with affluence.

If the truth must be told, a state like Anambra should be competing with Lagos State, given the quantum of commercial activities in the state. Zamfara, too, should be a mini-Dubai given its gold deposits.

So, as the governors themselves seem to have realised, they must not lose sight of the need to sustain and advance the momentum of reforms, especially considering the decline in the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) receipts. Where they have to work alone in their respective states, let them do the rightful. Where they need to work in concert, they should not hesitate to through the NGF. They have a powerful voice that no one can ignore.

We must warn, however, that the governors have to check corruption and profligacy in their respective states. It is possible to make all the money and still remain poor if there are too many leakages in the system. If the governors can agree on state police, there is no reason they cannot work together to change retrogressive laws that oil the present arrangement which makes them subservient to the central government, even when they have the wherewithal to be on their own.

It does not make banner headlines, but it headlines the appalled minds of Nigerians every day. It is the rape epidemic. Recently, the nation witnessed another such incident. It was a parody of T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral.

Tosin Kolade, 20, ambushed a young woman, Ifeoluwa Apanpa, 17, coaxed her into the church auditorium and raped her. The defilement was not enough. He allegedly strangled her to death. The tell-tale signs of struggle confirmed to security personnel that it was not a consenting act. From his confession, the matter does not require any more investigation of rigour. Hear him: “I left where I was learning a vocational trade on the fateful day for the church under pretence that I was sick.”

Indeed, he was sick in more than one way. He could not suppress a cave man’s lust, and a barbarian impulse to kill. “I left home after picking the entrance key and left for church. My mother is a worker in the church and member of sanitation department. I pretended to be arranging the chairs of the church when I saw Ifeoluwa passing by. I sought for her assistance not knowing what was running in my mind and she obliged.”

Ifeoluwa wanted to do the work of God. Kolade had designs other than as a steward of the almighty. This happened at the Pentecostal Church of God at Olodo, Egbeda Local Government Area in Oyo State. The girl’s body was found beside Olodo Bible School, cynically dumped. The police acted on a tip-off after they had gone on a fruitless hunt for the missing person. Her genitalia were bloody. She also betrayed signs of struggle.

The story is baffling, but so are the others. And they happened only recently. For instance, in April, a 60-year-old man, Boniface Onyekwere, assaulted a 12-year-old girl, and was banished from the Deeper Life Ministries in Anambra State where he was otherwise a respected member. Pastors have been known to take advantage of those who stepped forward for prayers. Rather than act as chaperons over their souls, they fall for the instinct to prey.

Read Also: How I raped, killed 17-year-old lady in church – Suspect

In another instance, the father of a 17-year-old girl cried out that a certain Ifeanyi Osuji raped her daughter. More egregious, Aminu Bello did not see anything forbidding in incestuous adventures as he targeted his own daughter who was 13, at the Badariya area of Birnin Kebbi in Kebbi State.

Even neighbours are not to be trusted. Rafiu Sanusi was a neighbour to the father of a 14-year-old girl. But the man lay ambush for her each time she paid a visit to her father, and he raped her time and again before his acts came to light. The fifth time was the damned.

Observers say the reported stories are puny compared to the ones hidden under the bushel of shame or ignominy. The gang rapes, the celebrity orgy. Many women are too ashamed to confess. Daughters are too scandalised to unearth their father’s felonies, or their uncle’s aberrations. Mothers are too coy to even admit their husbands’ violations. Girls sometimes convict themselves and excuse their predators.

Big men often get away when they do it in offices or even at home to domestic staff. We are not sure if it has always been the case at this frequency or it is the prying eye of social media that has brought the matter to the public realm. Whatever the case, we need more vigilance in this society.

We witnessed the case of a well-known celebrity and Nollywood actor, Olanrewaju James ( Alias Baba Ijesa) go down because he could not escape the power of evidence and the victim’s parent. The law did not spare him a ruthless verdict.

We can only urge parents to look out and law enforcement to step up their vigilance.