Category: Editorial

Reports that facilities of the Shiroro Hydro-Electric Power Plant in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State have been invaded by victims of bandit attacks displaced from over 30 communities in the state is an indication of the porous security provided for such a critical strategic asset in the country. This is indefensible, particularly given the critically inadequate power supply situation in the land, which suggests that the available power plants should be given maximum protection. Commissioned by the General Ibrahim Babangida regime in June 1990, the station has an installed capacity of 600 MW and is currently operated by the North-South Power Company Limited (NSPCL) following the privatisation of power facilities undertaken by the Federal Government in 2013.

Giving details of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have taken refuge in the station’s facilities, the Northern Zonal Organising Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Generation and Transmission Employees (NUEGTE), Mr Eyurentosacen Godwin, told the media that they had camped at the Day Secondary School, Shiroro, and the Day Secondary, Zumba, which are within the facility’s area of operation. Alarmingly, it was revealed that the IDPs had been using the place for over one month without any support from the federal, state or local government. Rather, according to one of the victims, the only assistance they had received was from officials of the power station who provided them food and drugs.

We find it strange that the IDPs have been occupying these facilities for so long without the power station’s management informing the requisite emergency and security authorities. The Director-General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), Alhaji Ahmed Inga, claimed that the state government had not received any official report on the IDPs from Shiroro Local Government. This is inexcusable on the part of the local government. But even NSEMA should be more alert to its responsibilities, especially since it functions in a state where bandit attacks on and displacement of local communities have been quite frequent. It is incredible that the agency claimed ignorance of the fact that people from so many communities had been rendered homeless. Indeed, there is no reason why there should not be properly established, managed and secured IDP camps in Niger State, given its position as one state vulnerable to attacks by bandits and other criminals.

The electricity employees union also noted that the IDPs who are using the classrooms of the schools as camps have disrupted teaching and learning in the institutions. Incidentally, the power station had reportedly recently carried out renovation works, including the construction of two blocks of 20 classes at Government Day Secondary School, Zumba, as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR). Of course, there is always the danger that for an area prone to attacks on schools and kidnapping of pupils, reports of unprotected school premises may attract the attention and assault of undesirable elements.

We call also on the military, police and other security agencies to take prompt action to protect the occupied facilities, restore normalcy as well as provide adequate security for the power plant. This undesirable situation calls attention once more to the fact that the present unitary security and policing system is inadequate to adequately meet the security challenges of a vast federal territory like Nigeria. There is thus the need to constitutionally empower component states of the federation to establish their own security agencies to complement the efforts of federal outfits and with adequate accompanying safeguards, to prevent the abuse of such powers.

Like one programmed to lurch from one crisis to another, Nigerians cannot but wonder if any good news can ever come out of the nation’s beleaguered oil sector. After enduring nearly month-long fuel scarcity induced by corruption, incompetence and sundry regulatory failures, it is unfortunately the case that Nigerians are having to put up with a lecture circuit as if to justify why Nigeria could not meet the 1.8 million barrels per day oil production quota set by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC) at a time other major producers are reaping a windfall from the current high prices of crude.

Currently, Nigeria’s production is said to have stagnated around 1.4mbpd in the past 11 months.

Last week, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, had announced at an oil and gas conference in faraway Texas, United States, that the speed with which international oil companies and other investors were withdrawing investments in hydrocarbon exploitation had contributed significantly to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC targets.

His words: “The rate at which investments were taken away was too fast. Lack of investment in the oil and gas sector contributed to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC quota. We are not able to get the needed investments to develop the sector and that affected us”.

Of course, like a failed workman quick to blame his tools for a poor outing, the recourse to alibis by the minister does not come as strange or entirely unexpected. Not only has this been the lot of the managers of the incomparably inept oil corporation since time immemorial, it is sadly at the heart of the failure of the organisation to justify its rationale, both as a national oil corporation and as a major player in the extractive sector, for the more than half-century of its existence.

So much for the minister’s strange logic; we are here referring to a country that once netted a daily 2.2 million barrels of crude production now struggling overnight to produce 1.4 million barrels. Clearly, if the situation is to be blamed on anything, it would be on the extremely poor governance structure that pervades the sector, the corruption and the intolerable culture of non-transparency and subversion that characterise the day-to-day operations; rather than lack of investments.

This is why the likes of businessman Tony Elumelu deserve commendation for rejecting the jaded position of the minister. In a series of tweets that followed the minister’s position, he had stated point-blank that the reason Nigeria cannot meet its crude oil production quota and so benefit from high oil prices is due to theft.

His words: “How can we be losing over 95% of oil production to thieves? Look at the Bonny Terminal that should be receiving over 200k barrels of crude oil daily, instead, it receives less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator Shell to declare force majeure… It is clear that the reason Nigeria is unable to meet its OPEC production quota is not because of low investment but because of theft, pure and simple!”

We could not agree more. As for those Nigerians who want additional evidence, they only need to grab a copy of the scathing findings by the Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF) as contained in the Federal Government’s Consolidated Financial Statements for the year ended December 31, 2019, submitted to the Clerk to the National Assembly on August 18, 2021. Not only is the report a summary of how things came to be, the massive pilfering is more accurately, the story of the benumbing paradox of an oil corporation that is everything that an accountable business entity should not even pretend to be.

Among the key findings of the AuGF report are that the defunct Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) now NNPC Limited could not account for about 107,239,436 barrels of crude oil lifted for domestic consumption in 2019; that about 22,929.84 litres of PMS worth N7.06 billion claimed to have been pumped to the two depots (Ibadan-Ilorin and Aba-Enugu) between June and July 2019 were not received by them; and that while the NNPC records showed that N1,272,606,864,000 was transferred by the corporation to the federation account, the amount recorded by the Accountant-General of the Federation was N608,710,292,773.44 – a whopping discrepancy of N663,896,567,227.58.

The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, the report averred, should be asked to explain the discrepancy between the two figures and remit the balance of N663,896,567,227.58 to the Federation Account or face sanction. There was also the case of a certain N519,922,433,918.46 said to have been transferred to the Federation Account by the NNPC based on transfer mandates. Summary: NNPC should provide “reconciliation statement for the difference of N88,787,862,853.96 between AGF’s figure of N608,710,296,772.42 and NNPC’s figure per transfer mandate of N519,922,433,918.46″.

Those were the findings for 2019.

Meanwhile, there are no indications that anything has changed in any real sense. If anything, the facts so presented, far beyond the typical book-keepers’ nightmare, represent the jumbled paper trail of an organisation not only steeped in crime, but one in which criminal behaviour is enabled by powerful figures at the highest levels of government. It explains why not a few Nigerians sometimes wonder if anything could be salvaged by the mere name-change being presented as transition from the old NNPC to NNPC Limited. It is at the heart of why the current high oil prices, rather than benefit the country, will in fact leave her much worse – in the environment of low output and at a time the cost of imported fuel has hit the roofs.

If it is not late in the day to ask the Buhari administration to shed its stasis mode, one decisive step it could take is to move swiftly to address the issue of oil theft. For, while the argument about lack of investment might sound plausible, what the regression on the whole suggests is massive leakages in the chain of production and transportation. As for instances of massive corruption identified in the AuGF report, the expectation is that the government will at least go after those so identified. While the former and the associated criminality are at the heart of why the international companies are exiting our shores, the latter explains why the nation is not only denied full value of its accruals but why the crime and impunity in the sector persists.

We urge the Nigerian Navy as indeed other agencies charged with maritime security to step up their surveillance and policing duties on our sprawling waterways to stem the practice of crude theft. At the same time, the upstream regulator needs to step up its game of monitoring how much crude is produced and delivered at the export terminals.

The Nigerian lack of values is sinking the nation’s only bread basket: oil. The oil majors are leaving because we no longer run businesses in the sector but installing rackets like a gangster paradise. Even those responsible for bad fuel and long queues at fuel stations are walking the high places of power like lords.

As for the NNPC, perhaps what is needed is comprehensive overhaul of its personnel and systems. Needless to state that the economy would sooner than later be brought to its knees if nothing is done to arrest the situation.

The United States of America continues to show why it is a global leader. In all aspects of life and living, the country inspires the young and creative to put their energy into research and development.  She also spreads her tentacles to other countries with a view to spotting talent, inviting them over and harvesting their energies for development of their society. This manifested recently when a young boy who built a replica of the famous Kano Overhead Bridge was offered scholarship to study in an American university.

The offer was not from the government of the US, but a construction company that believes in the American dream and decided to hone the boy’s abilities and harvest it for advancement of their society. Towards the end, the mother has been offered one million Naira grant to help her trading business, while the father is to reap the benefit of having such a brilliant boy by the offer of employment. The family is to relocate to Maiduguri where a three-bedroom flat is being provided.

IT is unfortunate that the federal and sub-national governments are oblivious of these opportunities. Our politicians, rather than create the environment for creative energies of the youth to be channelled to progressive pursuit. While the American government leads the way in this, other levels of government, institutions and institutes, as well as private companies have taken up the challenge.

While the United States goes across the world talent hunting, brilliant Nigerians are frustrated by lack of opportunities in the system. Such is the fate of Mercy Grace Christopher who, having completed her secondary education in 2020, could not enrol for the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) as her mother, a widow could not afford the fee, It took the intervention of Hameed Alabi to further enrol her in a tutorial class that prepared her for the examination that she eventually passed with distinction in all eight papers she sat for. Having played her part, the circumstances of her poor background is standing in her way.

Her benefactor has since taken to the social media to appeal for support for the brilliant girl. Neither the state nor the federal government, nor the numerous Foundations in the country have been able to pull up the girl by offering her scholarship to study in Nigeria’s public and private universities. In other countries, even the universities would be too happy to nurture such a girl. Nigeria has to turn around the education and social welfare systems to support the brilliant and talented, irrespective of their social status.

The United States that makes provision for sponsoring the dreams of the indigent and brilliant has no plan to release them for Nigeria that needs them more. This is one of the areas that the political elite has failed the country. They are not so integrated to the constituencies that produced them that they could easily pick up the needy and creative. It is one reason why the young ones got so enraged in 2020 that they unleashed their fury on the society, even though it was anchored on police brutality. Frustration continues to grow in the system. Those who managed to raise funds to attend the tertiary institutions are greeted with unemployment that now stands at almost 40 per cent. Some are forced to drop out of school at various levels because the parents lack the means to feed them, while companies are folding up because of the inclement environment.

In 2019, a 22-year-old young engineer caught the attention of the world when he built a drone that could provide solutions to challenges in the agriculture sector. Nigeria saw no need to encourage the boy to hone his skills until another company in Finland took him up, offered him employment with a view to exploring and using his capacity. Today, the young man, Ignatius Asobor, is in Helsinki availing them of his potentials. The products of his ingenuity would thereafter be exported to Nigeria.

It is time for Nigerian professionals and the middle class to take this up with politicians as they take to the soapbox in preparation for the next general election. If Nigeria must change for the better, it must start with building the human capital. During the Nigerian Civil war, potential was so unleashed that many things considered impossible were produced. The popular ogbunigwe was the scourge of the Nigerian side of the war. The crude refiner that dot the landscape in the Niger Delta now started then. But, no sooner was the war over than we decided to discard the inventions to depend on imports. Legislators should come up with sessions where these deficiencies would be addressed and come up with a financial plan to support them. It is the only way to a prosperous future.

Nigeria seems to be a one-day, one trouble nation; but not in any comic sense. There are absurd happenings and it hurts more that people seem to assume certain irresponsible or negligent acts are synonymous with the Nigerian system. Problem is, most people in authority are so enamoured with positions that they never resign or get sacked for negligence or abdication of responsibility.

In our modern social media world, most incidents get to the global community in seconds. The issue of the Lagos-Ibadan-bound train that stopped in the middle of nowhere due diesel exhaustion in the train had greeted the world. Passengers were stranded in the middle of a bush while the search for diesel was on. In an era of high insecurity level around the country, many would ascribe it to divine providence that the now notorious bandits did not meet the hapless passengers as they panicked while the search for diesel was on.

A lot of theories has been put forward by both passengers, analysts and citizen media. However, we are shocked that the Managing Director of Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Fidet Okhiria, reportedly told the News Agency of Nigeria that the train stopped midway as a result of fuel gauge failure. “The train gauge was not reading correctly, and by the time they started moving, the driver discovered that there is no sufficient diesel in the train”.

Not many statements from a chief executive can sound so puerile.  He excitedly said that under an hour, a drum of fuel was sent to the stranded train. In a country where many people in power take no responsibilities, the man would likely thumb his chest and smile at his explanations that sound very hollow. Which part of the world can this happen without heads rolling and people being held accountable?

If the gauge was faulty, whose job is it to repair it or make contingency plans? Again, how old is the train that the guage had gone bad so early in the life of the project with the Chinese? China has one of the largest populations in the world and their transportation system is mainly through railway. Why do  the trains they bring here not meet morden specifications and digital options? We must begin to ask ourselves these questions if we must meet up with modern transportation sysytems. While the whole rail project  is a commendable infrastructural project, we insist that all those concerned must give the Nigerian people the real value of modern rail transportation. There must be no half measures. Experts must be employed to give us the international standard service.

Rail transport, especially in a very populous nation like Nigeria, must be handled with the seriousness it deserrves because modern transportation has moved beyond the mundane. The saying that you can’t stop a moving train has been negated by the tacky attitude of those who are supposed to do the right things to avert such occurences.

The import of the carelessness displayed by the management of NEC is global in nature. Investors and tourists must have been watching that, and not many can make the decision to trust our transportation. The connectivity of railways is unmatched by both air and road transportation, so we must have a functional rail system for the value it brings to the socio-economic life of our people.

Beyond the explanations and excuses, those that endangered the lives of passengers either by omission or commission must be made to face the law guiding such negligent attitudes. We must not go the route of the ‘Nigerian system’ forever. We expect actions that can serve as deterrent to future official negligence. We must learn to adapt to international standards of running institutions.

Chilling information supplied by the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, gives an insight into the gravity of maternal mortality in the country. He was reported saying about 100 women die every day during childbirth.

This figure may not reflect the true picture because of unreported cases. Only a third of Nigerian women are said to deliver in a facility or are attended to by someone skilled.

The minister presented the alarming information on maternal deaths in his address at the launch of Nigeria’s Family Planning 2030 (FP2030) Commitment and Dissemination of Other Reproductive Health Policy Documents in Abuja.

“Our key aspiration,” he declared, “is to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including for family planning information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes which align with past and ongoing efforts in Nigeria.”

Health experts say about 95 percent of maternal deaths are preventable, which raises questions about the high rate of such deaths in the country. There may well be inadequate clarity on the causes of maternal deaths in facilities because of the lack of a strong surveillance and response system.

Central to the problem of high maternal mortality is the country’s under-resourced and weak primary healthcare (PHC) system. According to the CEO of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, “only approximately 43 percent of Nigerians have access to quality primary healthcare services with only about four doctors available per 10,000 people, a fraction of the minimum rate recommended by the United Nations (UN) for basic health coverage.”

The country’s doctor-patient ratio is alarmingly low, and is nowhere near the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standard doctor-patient ratio of one doctor per 600 people.

This situation is connected with, and compounded by, the increasing exodus of Nigerian doctors to foreign lands because of poor working conditions in the country. About 2,000 doctors are said to leave Nigeria yearly; and there are currently more than 5,000 Nigeria-trained doctors registered in the UK.

There is no doubt about the importance of a strong primary healthcare system in tackling high maternal deaths in the country. The primary healthcare centres are supposed to be the first service points for expectant mothers and infants, and when they are ill equipped to respond to their medical needs it exposes many mothers and babies to untimely death.

It is reassuring that the Federal Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the NPHCDA, is holding a Primary Health Care Summit on March 24 and 25 in Abuja to address the problems. Tagged “Reimagining PHC,” the programme is designed to provide solutions for improved PHC services nationwide.

Necessary improvements include providing more facilities, especially in the rural areas, and increasing the availability of trained health personnel. Apart from improving PHC services, the authorities must also address other factors that contribute to high maternal deaths, including poverty, illiteracy, early marriage and cultural practices.

More importantly, the authorities must review the approach to budgeting for the health sector to reflect a greater focus on healthcare delivery. In April 2001, heads of state of African Union countries met in Abuja and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 percent of their annual budget to improve the health sector. It is disappointing that Nigeria has consistently failed to meet the standard of the Abuja Declaration.

The country’s 2022 budget is N17.16 trillion, and N724 billion (4.2 percent) was allocated for healthcare across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. This picture of poor funding shows why health-sector budget improvement is a necessity.

It is unacceptable that Nigeria ranks among the countries with the highest maternal mortality rates. The authorities should urgently deal with the contributory factors.

This year’s international Women’s Day (IWD) had the theme,  #breakthebias as the global focus. Curiously, the coiners of this year’s theme seem to have had a premonition about the incidents that were to unfold in Nigeria’s apex law-making body, the National Assembly. The first day of the month of March saw the lawmakers throw out about five bills that were proposed to help in closing the gender gaps in the country.

These bills were: bill to “expand the scope of citizenship by registration, bill to “provide criteria for qualification to become an indigene of a state in Nigeria,” bill to “give women a quota in the federal and state executive councils or ministerial and commissionership seats,” bill to “provide for affirmative action for women in political party administration”.

Nigerian women groups, civil society organisations, some female politicians and a few spouses of some politicians have been  physically  protesting at the National Assembly building and across Nigeria for what they consider  as a contravention of the provisions of section 42 of the 1999 Constitution  (as amended); Articles 2, 3, and 13 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) with their ill-thought-out decision not to pass any of the bills. The protests have been loud and the women have sworn not to rest till the legislature reconsiders the bills.

We are as dismayed as the women of Nigeria and we condemn the National Assembly for acting with insensitivity in a world that has been working towards dismantling all gender insensitive laws for global and national progress. If women constitute about half of the Nigerian population, how do the men feel comfortable operating the economy at half capacity? We expect that every man in the National Assembly should be patriotic and knowledgeable enough to understand the modern political economy which works maximally with inclusivity and gender justice.

We however commend the Federal House of Representative’s decision  to reconsider three of the bills; indigeneship bill, citizenship bill and the 35% affirmative action on political parties bill in four weeks. The Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, talked about the procedure to be adopted in harmonising any differences, but we feel that the women do not care for the semantics of the process. We are glad that there were no dissensions when the Speaker called for voice votes for the future reconsideration of the three bills.

At least, this is a good start. We know it may be difficult to justify the creation of additional legislative seats in the states and the National Assembly because it would further balloon the cost of governance, a thing we have been complaining about. If anything, women should find [pace within the existing numbers in the legislature after all, even as things stand, some women have been elected into the states houses of assembly and even the National Assembly on their individual merit.

There is no doubt that the world has gone beyond the cultural and religious parochialism that promote gender inequities across the world. Our law makers must think outside the box and realise the value that women bring to national development. A former third world country like Singapore rose to a first world country under a visionary leader like Lee Kuan Yew because he harnessed the value of his population without gender biases. Rwanda, despite its tragic genocidal war today has the highest women parliamentarians in the world at more than 61% . The country has become the modern African phoenix as it is now the investment and tourism hub in Africa.

Democracy flourishes more with inclusivity and gender justice. We feel some discomfort that the legislature of the most populous black nation has to be hounded by women protesters to do the right thing. It is never a favour to the women to do the most progressive things to aid development of the poverty capital of the world with a plethora of development challenges. The men opposing gender justice must introspect and see themselves as cutting their nose to spite their face. So what suddenly changed between March 1 and 10? If women are good as voters, they are good enough to have a seat at the table. #BREAKTHEBIAS

To say that Nigerians love social parties is stating the obvious. To also say many of them can go to any length to organise what they see as befitting parties is incontrovertible. Despite the harsh economic situation in the country, a lot of money is still being spent on parties for weddings, funerals, naming, house warming, etc., sometimes with musicians on standby. A lot of money is spent to rent halls and event centres, even as many parties are incomplete without the guests going home with souvenirs of all kinds.

These range from kitchen utensils to soaps and detergents, face caps, handkerchiefs, towels, plastic buckets and bowls, slippers, glass cups, salt, sugar, bags of all shapes and sizes, and what have you. There are even instances when invitees are given cash as souvenirs. We have seen all of these and more.

What we have not seen or heard (may be it had happened but was not reported), is handing kegs of petrol to guests as souvenirs. But this happened at a social ceremony organised at the Havillah Event Centre, Oniru, Lagos. Occasion was the installation of the party host, one Chidinma Pearl Ogbulu, as Erelu Okin. Video clips from the lavish event captured 10-litre kegs of petrol, with customised stickers of the picture of the new Erelu, being handed over to guests who came to celebrate with her. The kegs with different colours were branded, ‘The Erelu Okin Foundation Installation Party’.

Lagosians were naturally alarmed at this awkward development, and their palpable anger reflected in their various comments on the social media.

Expectedly, the Lagos State government took exception to this absurdity and launched an investigation into the matter. It consequently shut down the events centre. The commissioner for information and strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, said in a statement on March 5 that “There is no doubt that this action is dangerous and can lead to loss of lives and property. It is blatantly against all safety measures in such places.” Omotoso added that the government would ensure that all parties to this reprehensible action are made to account for it, even as he advised Lagosians to avoid actions capable of endangering the safety of citizens in the state.

The state’s commissioner of police, Abiodun Alabi, was no less irked as he ordered the arrest of the host of the event. The command’s spokesman, Adekunle Ajisebutu, conveyed the police commissioner’s anger: “Although the event centre where the distribution of the souvenirs took place has been located and subsequently sealed, the Commissioner of Police, CP Abiodun Alabi, fdc, mnim, has in addition, ordered the arrest of all persons involved in this regrettable and reprehensible act.”

Nothing can justify this unusual generosity. It is true that at the time of the ceremony, Nigerians were going through one of its worst rounds of agonising fuel scarcity, sequel to importation of off-spec petrol by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). But that cannot be enough reason to embark on what could have amounted to suicide mission if something had gone wrong. Petrol is a highly inflammable product and a single spark could have endangered the lives of not only the host and her guests, but others in the vicinity. Even the events centre might not have been spared in case of conflagration.

It is sad that Nigerians were made to go through the excruciating pain of fuel scarcity despite the fact that their country is a major producer of crude oil. This shows the depth of the incompetence of successive governments that have been relying on importation of fuel to run the economy. But that would not be a good reason for anyone to go to such extent in compromising  public safety. Two wrongs can never make a right. The fact that government was lax in its duty to refine fuel locally does not permit any individual to endanger the lives of countless others just to say thank you to guests who honoured an invitation to her installation. If there was fuel scarcity and the host felt this could adversely affect attendance at her event, they could have postponed the event to a more auspicious time. We do not see any urgency in the ceremony.

We are only lucky nothing untoward happened. That is why even the host is alive and well to tender an apology for her ridiculous indiscretion. It is surprising that those at the party did not even see the danger in the fuel gift and merely laughed as the kegs of fuel were being distributed. This signposts how we bow to all kinds of absurdities in the country.

We commend the police and the state government for their prompt intervention. We also seize this opportunity to advise owners of event centres of the need to monitor activities at the centres after renting them out because of a situation like this. It is easy to query the basis of the government’s shutting down of the venue of the party but this is only because we were lucky things did not get awry. Otherwise, the centre itself could have been partially damaged or consumed as a result of this suicidal indiscretion. The government owes all a responsibility to ensure a thing like this does not become a contagion.

A far cry from the mostly ragged and derelict Molue buses that once dominated the roads and defined the transport landscape in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial, industrial and financial hub, the more elegant, secure and dignified Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vehicles are now a permanent feature on diverse routes across the state, conveying thousands of commuters on a daily basis. These buses run by private management operators under the regulatory auspices of the state government are evidently safer, neater and more efficiently run than the all too often unhygienic, disorganised commercial yellow buses with their assortment of largely uncouth, rough and indecent drivers and conductors.

The reputation for safety of the BRT buses has, however, been badly dented by the gruesome murder on February 26, of a 22 – year old fashion designer, Oluwabamise Ayanwole, who had boarded one of the buses in the evening at Chevron Bus Stop, Lekki, with the aim of going to her sister-in-law at Oshodi but never made it to her destination.

Rather, Oluwabamise’s body was found over a week later dumped on Carter Bridge in Lagos. Luckily, the young lady had been alert and smart enough to contact her friend through WhatsApp shortly after she entered the bus and discovered that the driver was not stopping to pick additional passengers apart from three other persons who were in the vehicle and that the lights were not on inside. The deceased’s communication with her friend on social media when she became uncomfortable proved crucial in tracing the identify of the bus with registration number 240257, its route and final stop. This in turn facilitated the arrest in Ogun State by officials of the Department of State Services (DSS), of the driver, Nice Andrew Ominikoron, who had fled most likely after discovering that Oluwabamise’s relatives had sufficient information to be making enquiries about her whereabouts. From all indications, he had routinely parked the vehicle after the dastardly deed and resumed for work normally the next day, believing that the secret would never be uncovered, only to later take to his heels.

While the police and DSS officials deserve commendation for the relatively speedy apprehension of Ominikoron, the security authorities still have a Herculean task ahead of them as the case must be thoroughly investigated to identify, arrest and bring to justice all those implicated in this gruesome murder. A justifiably enraged public wants nothing but justice for Oluwabamise and her grieving family. Already, the initial seemingly hasty claim by the police that her body was intact and had not been tampered with contradicts that of her family members who alleged that her private parts had been removed in what is reminiscent of ritual killing for money. We wonder which version to believe.

Again, the driver’s account that he was helpless because he was afraid the gunmen who abducted the girl from the vehicle might kill him if he disobeyed their instructions sounds like a cock-and-bull story. Why did he flee rather than report the incident to his company’s management and the police? Only diligent investigation can get at the truth.

The identity of the bus and the driver were traceable from the deceased’s recording partly because of the relatively more organised BRT system. It is unlikely if this would have been the case had Oluwabamise been on one of the commercial yellow buses. Yet, both the operators of the BRT and the Lagos State government have to do more to enhance the safety and security of the BRT buses. We urge the governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to act speedily on his promise to ensure the installation of CCTV cameras, which cannot be disabled on all the buses. Indeed, this should have been done long before now. The state government should also step up action on its promise of citing monitoring cameras on major highways and routes across the state. This has become inevitable in a megacity like Lagos. Beyond this, the management of the bus operators should improve their mechanisms of tracking the movement of the vehicles at all times of the day as well as ensuring the character, trustworthiness and accountability of those employed as drivers and other staff of the buses. We also urge the state government to consider deploying staff of the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC) as security personnel attached to the BRT buses. It is gratifying that Ominikoron has been arraigned as prime suspect. We hope the matter would be thoroughly prosecuted and expeditiously concluded, with those involved handed their due punishment.

However, apart from the BRT buses, this murder should also spur urgent action on sanitising the public road transportation system in the state, especially with regard to the operation of commercial buses and taxis. There is need for more efficient maintenance, tracking and monitoring of the vehicles, enforcement of higher standards of discipline and ethics among drivers and conductors as well as curbing the excesses of the road transport unions to enhance safety at motor parks and on the roads. All this we owe to the memory of Olwubamise Ayanwole even as we console and comfort her family at this trying time.