Category: Editorial

In the last year, Covid-19 has beset the world with social gloom. We also cannot play down its economic impact.

What with the relatively familiar social lexicons like lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing and mask-wearing? These new recalibrated  language implies a set of remodeled social contact rules and government directives to avoid the spread of the pandemic.

Humanity and romance are as old as creation itself, as holy books tell us that God made them man and woman. The pandemic has taken the greatest toll on rendezvous such that the spots of romantic contacts like hospitality and tourism venues, cinemas, pubs, parks and sundry relaxation places and sports have had to either be shut down completely or people  have been forced to adjust.

Romantic events like weddings and other public engagements have been on the decline understandably. It was therefore a spectacle worth its weight in gold for social media enthusiasts to watch a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)  member at the Yikpata Orientation Camp in Kwara State go down on one knee to propose to a serving female soldier who apparently is one of the military personnel in charge at the paramilitary camp. She was seen on the viral video publicly showing affection at being proposed to.

The Nigerian Army quickly bared its fangs and suspended the female soldier for what the army spokesman, Onyema Nwachukwu, referred to as the ‘flouting of its rules and code of conduct’. She was suspended from her duty. According to Nwachukwu, it is an act of indiscipline for a trainer to fraternise with a trainee. He used the term ‘fraternisation’ to describe the incident. In the military, it is forbidden to indulge in any romantic gestures in uniform and on duty. The Nigerian Army, he said, has rules and codes of conduct as well as regulations guiding military personnel on duty. These, he maintained, were critical to keeping the soldiers focused and committed, especially given the nature of their job, which includes bearing arms.

We observe that this action by the Nigerian Army has become the focus of public discourse. Many have been criticising the army and citing gender discrimination, especially the allegation that in the Nigerian Army, a personnel is not allowed to get married till after three years of enlisting in the army. The rule applies to both genders. It is interesting to note that many had concluded that the rule applies to only females. Now, the truth is out.

However, while we believe that fairness should be gender-blind, we tend to agree with the army spokesman that if the incident was the other way round, there would have been an opposite reaction, with some alleging sexual harassment and official misconduct. On this level, we believe that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. He who comes to equity must do so with clean hands.

Most of the analyses of the incident have been based on sentiments and, to some extent, a reflection of the civil/military relations in Nigeria since independence.  There is a lot of mistrust. We expect the military to be applauded when it plays by the rules and criticised when it fails in that regard. Every institution, starting from the family, has set rules that guide behaviour. Schools and every other institution have their rules and codes of conduct.

One of the most remarkable codes of conduct in most institutions like schools, religious houses and some offices is the use of uniforms. Uniforms are not just clothes, they carry with them the essence and integrity of the institution under reference. They are the soul and heart of institutions as they are makers of identity and representation. So, in schools, uniforms matter, in religious institutions across creeds, uniforms or mode of dressing matter and these uniforms often act as restraining factors on certain unethical behaviour. A school pupil would be severely punished, for instance, for either smoking or drinking alcohol while in uniform. It is therefore very wrong for the soldier to act with little discretion while in uniform. She was wrong. She let her heart rule her head. Her career choice comes with a lot of expectations given their job description.

We equally believe that the modern penchant to literally ‘perform’ proposals and engagements was at the root of all that has transpired–the good, the bad and the suspension. Relationships are now over-celebrated in the public domain. While such life milestones are beautiful, there must be discretion and restraint guided by some sense of caution. So, the female soldier seems to have failed to understand and appreciate her seeming disciplinary debt to a highly regimented profession of soldiering.

While we condemn the lady’s violation of professional codes of conduct with public display of affection which in the military is not allowed, we want the army to differentiate between the punishment for ‘getting married’ before the statutory three years post-recruitment, the army must separate ‘getting married’ from ‘proposing and accepting a proposal’. We want her punishment to match her ‘crime’. While there are rules, there are also appropriate punishments for offenders. We hope the soldier’s punishment is not akin to the proverbial killing an ant with a sledge hammer. Perfection is not human and soldiers are human beings. This must be an opportunity to amend the laws and recommend appropriate corrective punishments.

We equally commend the Nigerian Army for quick reaction, coming up with very concise explanation why the lady was suspended. In a highly volatile social media world of rumours and obvious lack of the tedious task of tidy thinking, information from the army came in handy.

We feel that even though the military is supposed to be made up of strong and courageous humans ready to die for their country, they are still humans that are subject to human foibles. The military must therefore engage in some introspection and seek ways of being more humane. The youth corps member is also a Nigerian serving the nation and must be aware of actions that can build or destroy professionally. The Nigerian Army can only attract more recruits if it is seen to be more conscious of the humanity we all share, without being utterly permissive.

We hope for a quick and amicable resolution of the flawed romantic expression in ways that foster the unity we seek and enhance more the military/civilian relation in a shared humanity. Soldiering must not always be about wars but the soldiers must equally obey the rules of their profession. We hope the incident turns out to exemplify the symbolic love story that empowers and makes the couple more nationalistically functional. To err is human…

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has once again renewed his call for the Federal Government to expose the killers of Chief Bola Ige, former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, as well as other politically motivated assassinations, especially in the Sani Abacha era. Prof Soyinka, who has been relentless in calling  on successive governments to unravel the mystery surrounding Ige’s killers, seized the opportunity of the ‘Foreword’ he wrote to Chief Bisi Akande’s book, ‘My Participations’, to renew his call on the government to unmask the killers.  But today marks the 20th anniversary of his heartless murder.

Chief Ige was murdered in his Ibadan residence, Oyo State, on December 23, 2001. At the time, he was the country’s chief law officer. Ige arrived his residence from Abuja and went to his bedroom to rest. His police orderlies had sought for permission to go for dinner outside the premises, an opportunity the assassins seized to carry out their mission. Shortly before the assassination, Chief Ige’s cap was removed right in the public at the Ooni of Ife’s palace in Ile-Ife. A few days later, Mr Iyiola Omisore reportedly threatened Chief Ige in a magazine interview.

Arrests were made and confessional statements reportedly obtained from some suspects after the murder. Mr Omisore who was detained for interrogation in connection with the incident was elected senator even while in prison. Ige’s wife, Atinuke, a Justice of the Court of Appeal died of shock when she saw the charade that her husband’s murder trial had become. The trauma was too much for her to bear.

It will be exactly 20 years tomorrow that Ige was killed. Yet, his killers are still at large. From the Olusegun Obasanjo administration that Ige served in as chief law officer, to the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari administration, mum has been the word on the murderers of Chief Ige. Indeed, it would seem there is official complicity to bury the matter, as the Oyo State judiciary at a time declared the matter closed. The question is: what sort of closure was that? Chief Ige did not die peacefully in his sleep. His guards all left for dinner at the same time, leaving his flanks open to attack. He was brutally murdered. Even if he was not a top government functionary, we should be interested in knowing his killers, especially given the unsavoury developments in the build-up to his gruesome assassination. That he was a top public officer, indeed the country’s chief law officer, made finding his killers the more compelling.

Read Also: Akande: How ex-minister Bola Ige was killed

Yet, it did not seem the Obasanjo government was serious about finding the killers, not to talk of punishing them. As a matter of fact, Chief Akande, who was deputy governor to Chief Ige in the old Oyo State in the first half of the defunct Second Republic (1979-1983), in his book said that much. He said the then President Obasanjo was more interested in containing social unrest that could result from the killing. Neither President Umaru Yar’Adua nor Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded Obasanjo appeared interested in the matter.

Here, we must commend the doggedness of people like Prof Soyinka who have been seizing every available opportunity to reopen the unfinished business. Indeed, far back as 2016, Soyinka had declared, once again, that “The government at the time of Ige’s killers knows the truth. That govt protected – I repeat – protected, and rewarded his killers. Those who wish to dispute this had better first immerse themselves in the circumstances of that murder, and the unconstitutional, indeed illegal trajectory of the principal accused…”

Hope was raised on Ige’s death and other political murders, when barely 15 months after Buhari came on board, the acting Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, decided to reopen their cases. It was not clear at whose behest this decision was made but the police said it was their baby. Like other attempts before it, nothing came out of that effort. As Soyinka noted in the foreword, “Successive governments have of course followed the same pattern of neglect and evasion. What we are compelled to demand, for instance, became of the panel of enquiries set up with such ringing determination by the current incumbent, General Buhari, into political murders that took place in those days, most prominent of which was that of the nation’s attorney-general and Minister of Justice?” Soyinka then asked a rhetorical question:”Where is the report that may, at the very least, bring a measure of closure to that dismal saga”?

May be the jury would be out tomorrow.

Suffice it to say, however, that any unresolved crime, especially one as grievous as the one under reference, diminishes us as a nation, irrespective of who the victims are, be they very important personalities or even the poorest-of-the-poor. The truth is, we must expose those who committed these dastardly acts and let them face the law. That is the only way to demonstrate that crime does not pay and that the state would always go after those responsible for such dastardly acts.

It was Chief Ige and the others yesterday; we don’t know whose turn it would be tomorrow.

There was really nothing new or particularly helpful in the exposure, last week, by Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-General Babagana Monguno (retd), of three groups he identified as supporting the activities of terrorists in Nigeria and the larger Sahel region. Speaking at the 14th workshop of the league of ulamas, preachers and Imams of Sahel countries in Abuja, the NSA named these groups as the Jama’at Nasir al-Islam Wal Muslimin, the Islamic and Muslim Support Group and Islamic State in Greater Sahara (ISGS). According to the NSA, “Terrorism and the rapid escalation of violent activities by militant Islamist groups in the Sahel since 2016 have been primarily driven by the Islamic State in Greater Sahara, which mainly operates in Mali and extends to Niger Republic and Burkina Faso. It is bolstered by activities of groups such as Jama’at Nasir al-Islam Wal Muslimin, the Islamic and Muslim Support Group and the Islamic State in Greater Sahara. In Nigeria, Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) dominate terrorist activities, especially in the north-eastern part of the country”.

For a religious extremist insurgency that has lasted for the better part of over a decade leading to widespread destruction of lives, livelihoods and property, apart from pervasive economic devastation, it is not out of place to expect much more than already well known banal generalisations from the occupant of such a sensitive office as NSA. We are all aware as the NSA put it, that “The situation in the Sahel has never been grimmer, extremist violence continues to spread; the number of internally displaced persons is growing; and food security is affecting more people than ever before”. But the critical question is what exactly is being done to demonstrate that, beyond lamentations, the authorities are on top of the situation and that prospects are bright for the restoration of normalcy in the terror-infested parts of the country? True, as the NSA noted, the menace of terror is a regional-wide problem transcending several countries in the Sahel, it is still the primary responsibility of the Nigerian government to safeguard the sanctity of lives and property within its jurisdictional territory.

Read Also: How to urgently tackle insecurity in the North

If alliances between religious clerics and leaders as well as the security forces “should be the backbone of rebuilding our terrorism infested communities” as advocated by the NSA, then the public must be provided adequate information on the concrete identities of those behind the nebulous terrorist groups cited by the NSA. At least that way, affected communities can be enabled to give the security agencies adequate and useful intelligence that can help lead to the apprehension or neutralisation of such terrorist leaders. The NSA may indeed have genuine cause for his optimism that there is little possibility of the Islamic State in West Africa Province overwhelming the Lake Chad Basin Commission countries and establishing rival caliphate authorities in the area, the intelligence and security agencies in the respective countries must do much more to enjoy the confidence and understanding of the populace in the war against terror.

For instance, a report last week by the Inter-Governmental Action Group on Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) indicated that ISWAP moved over N18 billion annual revenue through the Nigerian financial system to fund its activities. If these terror groups can channel such huge funds through the country’s financial structures without detection by the requisite intelligence agencies, then we can understand why, despite all protestations to the contrary, not much success is being recorded in the battle against these groups. The report was critical of the Federal Government’s seeming incapacitation to track and block the sources of such terrorist-related funding. It also decried the failure of the country’s financial and intelligence agencies to confiscate the assets of identified terrorists as stipulated in the global anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards.

Just as Mr Monguno was silent on the identities of the leaders and supporters of the terrorist groups he cited last week, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, was equally not forthcoming when he announced several months ago that over 400 financiers of terrorist activity in Nigeria had been uncovered and would soon be charged to court. Months after this disclosure had raised hopes among Nigerians that a critical breakthrough would soon be made in the war against terror, nothing more has been heard from the Office of the AGF towards the fulfillment of its pledge in this regard. Ironically, terror sponsors from Nigeria have been apprehended, tried and convicted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia while they appear to be treated with kid gloves in Nigeria, despite useful intelligence reportedly made available to the requisite authorities. This inexplicably complacent attitude towards decisively exposing and bringing terrorists and their sponsors to justice in Nigeria must change if the citizenry are to repose confidence in the sincerity and good faith of the authorities.

The firing came not as a surprise to many in the inner corridors of Nigeria house of football. Gernot Rohr had coached the Nigerian flag bearer the Super Eagles and the nation had not seen inspired football or inspirational coaching.

It was time to move ahead. “We did everything that we could, but one major factor was that discipline in the team is lost practically. In the dressing room, discipline in the team was at its lowest ebb and once you remove discipline, that foundation in the team has cracked,” said Amaju Pinnick, President of the Nigerian Football Federation.

“Players now talk back at you, players believe that they are indispensable. A lot of factors that will now militate against the team. We are only owing about two matches of all the matches they played in both AFCON qualifiers and World Cup qualifiers.”

Former Eagles defender Augustine Eguavoen has stepped in, in the interim, as technical director.

Nigeria has not had a great run as football team for a long time. In spite of what many see as a bottomless pool of talents, Nigeria has continued to fall out of the elite of soccer nations.

Coaching has been one of our great foibles. When we did well, we always had a good man of ideas and charisma to pull us through. We can speak of all the years we did well, from the time of the Golden Eagles with men like Haruna Ilerika, Tony Igwe and Dominic Ezeani to the triumph of the African Nations’ Cup with Segun Odegbami, Muda Lawal and Christian Chukwu. We had the world hurrah when she snagged the Olympic gold in Atlanta.

Read Also: I was coerced to invite players, says Rohr

We have not lacked for good players. We have never lacked for the resources either. But we have failed to organise ourselves for glory. What is lacking also is an understanding that we should be one of the world’s soccer superpowers. We have fallen short because we have failed to invest in talent at the highest level in the world.

If we could beat a Brazil or an Argentina at a top level in the past, it means we can do it again. That also means we should equip ourselves with coaches comparable in stature and funding with the men who coach those countries.

What we need is a coach that does not necessarily come on the cheap. That will mean some money. The argument has been that maybe the NFF may not be able to afford it. But that point is suspect. We play international matches in which we invite up to 28 players from overseas and that comes at a great expense. We pay their tickets, allowances and boarding while they are here. Yet, we may not field many of them. That amounts to a waste of resources. And the matches may not merit that much investment, especially if they are matches that are for low-level teams.

We can do two things. One, the Nigerian state can invest, in collaboration with the NFF, to secure a great coach, which implies that Nigeria pays for him. Two, the coach will be domiciled here and can design a strategy and programme to develop local talent over a period.

We have had some try with good coaches with Manfred Hoener, Westerhof and Bonfrere Jo. We need to take this a few notches higher. In the age of globalised soccer, we can tap the genius before our eyes. Boys of teenage brilliance can be turned into instant world phenoms. It takes a few more efforts and earnest searching.

With Rohr gone, we don’t need a raw deal again. We hear they owed the man some salaries. Such incidents should not happen. We look forward to a post-Rohr era without such errors.

Nigeria appears to be at the cross-roads with regard to its national frigate, the NNS Aradu. The country has to make one of two options: either refit the 39-year-old warship with $200m or replace it with $700 million. The Nigerian Navy Flagship (NNS) Aradu is currently grounded. On its part, however, the senate has decided that the ship be refurbished with $200m instead of replacing it with a whooping $700m. It has therefore promised to bring the major stakeholders to a parley to deliberate on how to refit and refurbish the frigate so it could effectively fulfill its mandate of protecting Nigeria’s maritime domain. The stakeholders include the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS). The senate also wants the Federal Government to take over the naval ship as a presidential asset and resuscitate it for “national security, safety and pride”.

These recommendations followed extensive debate of a motion, titled: “Urgent need to resuscitate the Nigerian Navy Flagship NNS Aradu,” sponsored by Senator George Thompson Sekibo (Rivers East) and co-sponsored by 14 other senators.

Senator Sekibo traced the history of the ship, narrating how it suffered degradation of machinery and equipment post-re-fit trials in 1994 and was consequently “assessed as Beyond Economical Repair in 1995”. He noted that the ship suffered such serious neglect because it was transferred from the presidency to the Nigerian Navy for maintenance. Unfortunately, the navy, probably the most starved of the Nigerian Armed Forces, could not keep it afloat due to paucity of funds.

We welcome the senate’s decision to have the frigate refitted, either locally or internationally, instead of dumping it for a new one. It is probably the best decision in the circumstance, given the dire economic situation the country is facing right now.  It is better to re-fit it with about N82billion at the present exchange rate, instead of committing a whopping N287billion to acquire another frigate. Moreover, this decision would still afford the country of benefitting from the frigate’s 25 years extended lifetime or more. The road taken by the senate will therefore free substantial funds for other competing needs as well as enable the country plan for a replacement within the 25-year window that the ship would still be seaworthy after being refitted.

Read Also: NNPC not conducting survey, not recruiting

There is no doubt that Nigeria needs a national frigate for national security, safety and national pride. As Senator Sekibo and others told their colleagues during the debate on the matter, “NNS Aradu is the equivalent of Air Force One in the presidential air fleet, which has since been maintained and kept by the Presidency. Indeed, in its heyday, the ship had “a presidential cabinet in it and, by convention, cannot sail out without presidential approval.”

There are other advantages of NNS Aradu. One of these is the fact that it has a unique style of construction which makes it possible to produce every section of the ship independent of other sections. This flexibility makes it easier to replace damaged sections of the ship separately and fixing them back at a shipyard. The same holds for the armament of the ship which are kept in containers and can be tested ashore independent of the various stages of construction. “Once the hull is ready, the containerized armaments are then easily fitted into the hull the same procedure adopted in case of major repair or replacement.”

Aradu was acquired by the regime of former President Shehu Shagari and was commissioned on February 22, 1982. It came about as a result of the need for Nigeria to have a modern sophisticated frigate to complement and eventually replace Nigerian Navy’s long serving frigate, NNS Nigeria (now Obuma) which technology had made irrelevant. Nigeria was thus no longer able  to retain its pride of place on the high seas, not only in Africa, but globally. NNS Aradu was the answer to the inadequacies of the Old Lady, as NNS Nigeria was then popularly called.

Nigeria needs to regain her pride of place on the high seas for which she was once dreaded, especially among African nations. The senate should, as soon as possible, convoke its promised stakeholders’ summit on the matter after which it should forward the report to the executive for possible implementation. We may not agree entirely with the senate resolutions; for instance, a national frigate does not have to come under the presidency to function properly where the navy is well funded. But, if that is what it takes in our peculiar circumstances for things to work, so be it. What is important is getting the frigate back to the waters and sustaining it there.