Category: Editorial

•Prosecution of Nyanya bomb suspects calls for more seriousness

The Office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) owes Nigerians diligence in the prosecution of the Nyanya bomb blast suspects; that killed 75 persons last year. To this effect, we urge the Office of the AGF to ensure that the tardiness exhibited last week at the court, does not repeat itself. This is because we believe that the fight against terrorism is very fundamental to Nigeria’s survival, and as such, no officer of the state should joke with it. Even without prompting, we had thought that the AGF would personally ensure diligent prosecution of all terrorism charges, across the country.

We are shocked that penultimate Wednesday, at the scheduled trial of Ogwuche Ahmed Abubakar, Mohammed Ishaq, Ya’u Saidu (alias Kofo Rama), Anas Isa, Adamu Yusuf and Nasir Abubakar for the Nyanya bombing, the Office of AGF came to the court unprepared. Strangely, the prosecution counsel, Mr M. M. Ogunsina, in complete disregard of the importance of the suit, served on the defence team, on the day scheduled for hearing of the suit, an application by which it sought for an order of court, permitting it to shield the identity of its witnesses during their appearance in court.

Of course the defence counsel observed the laxity, and informed the court that the prosecution was deliberately stalling the trial, by such conduct. The defence team also reminded the court that the prosecution was defeating the order of court for accelerated hearing. In urging the court to discountenance the application, one of the defence lawyers also reminded the prosecutor that paragraph 3(d) of the Practice Direction of the Federal High Court provides, “no party shall serve an application on another party on the day scheduled for hearing”.

In accusing the prosecution of deliberate mischief, the defence team observed that the application served on the defence lawyers at the hearing, was filed by the prosecution nearly a week previously. So, unless of course, the prosecution can come up with genuine reasons for that irresponsible act, it may be fair to conclude that it has other interests that it is protecting; and we urge the AGF and his team to stop that. In pushing their argument, the defence team reminded the court that the accused persons have been in custody since April 14, 2014, as they have not sought for bail.

Perchance the prosecution is feigning ignorance, may we remind her that Nigerians will not accept any organised tardiness that will hand over a technical victory of discharge for want of diligent prosecution, in favour of the accused persons. In case the AGF and his office need to be reminded, the era of tardiness as the officially accepted standard in government establishments, is on its way out. Indeed, it is a shame that it is the defence counsel that are reminding the prosecution about the order of the court for accelerated hearing, against the standard practice that the prosecution, if it has a properly organised case against the accused, should be the one urging the court for the earliest opportunity to prove its case.

The AGF should personally be prosecuting the accused persons, to show to all and sundry that the war against terrorism is very important to the government. Also, the President ought to be receiving regular briefings with regards to the effort of the Office of the AGF on this trial and similar others, considering the importance of the case. We urge the AGF and his team to realise that a successful prosecution of this case will serve as disincentive to potential terrorists against the country.

• Nothing justifies the current outbreak of xenophobic attacks in South Africa but African leaders must wake up

The world is once again scandalised at the ongoing xenophobic attacks in South Africa, the land of the much revered Madiba. The pictures are as gruesome as they are surreal; in an age where images are streamed live as events happen the world is regaled with savagery that is instantaneous and blood-cuddling.

We have seen scenes of a mob of young, black men chase down a fellow black man on the streets of Johannesburg or Durban in broad daylight. The hapless lad is cornered and mauled until he dies in cold blood. Just last weekend, a Mozambican, Emmanuel Sithole, was caught on video being circled by four South African youths who eventually knifed him to death on the street of Alexandra township, north of Johannesburg. This happened in daylight with a crowd watching and applauding.

In 2008, about 62 immigrants died in a rash of xenophobic attacks mainly in Johannesburg townships. The incidents dented the image of South Africa as an emergent ‘rainbow nation’ of multi-ethnic nationalities living in harmony.

The recent upwelling of angst is being attributed to tribal Zulu monarch Goodwill Zwetlithini’s speech March 20 in which he complained about his people being out of jobs as a result of an influx of immigrants. He was reported to have requested that foreigners should leave South Africa.

A coalition of groups in South Africa was also reported to have teamed up to send out sms messages to non-citizens warning them to leave the country immediately or face their wrath. Some of these groups include Patriotic Movement, Pan Local Forum, Unemployed Local Forum, Unemployed Workers Forum and Anti-Crime Movement.

They were quite explicit in their message which reads in parts: “Dear neigbours from Africa and other parts of the world, we have travelled the world and have not found one country that allows the floods of humans across its borders as South Africa is experiencing…

“We were seven million in Johannesburg in 2011. Today, we have an estimated 13 million. In Johannesburg alone, you have taken over entire suburbs (like) Yeoville, Berea, Bez Valley, Turfontein, among many. You have even moved into rural parts of our country that have 80 per cent unemployment, and there are no visible signs that you have jobs either.

“We want to be proudly part of the geographic construct called Africa but we are different from one another as Kenyans are from Nigerians; Ivorians from Chadians.

“We are pleading with you to return to your home countries. Go and build up those countries so that we can all live in economic, social and political prosperity and peace as neighbours. The genocide in this corner of Africa will be far worse than what happened in Rwanda in 1994…”

Already, no fewer than seven people have been killed, mainly Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. Over 900 immigrants from countries contiguous to South Africa have been evacuated.

Though only a few Nigerians have been affected so far with their shops looted or workshops burnt, movement has been restricted in the worst hit cities and activities of foreigners curtailed as most of them are huddled indoors. The police have been unable to stop the attacks for over a week and soldiers had to be called out by the South African government two days ago.

While many have condemned the attacks and also point to the South Africans repaying fellow Africans who were in the vanguard of their liberation from apartheid with bad coins, the problems run deeper. The recent uprising may well be early symptoms of the unraveling of the ‘rainbow nation’. With increasing misgovernance in recent years, conditions of living have continued to fall. Fewer jobs are created yet there is an influx from other African countries that are in even more severe conditions.

There may be need for the Africa Union (AU) to devise a concerted approach to the problem. Leaders, especially of Black African countries, must resolve to live up to their responsibilities and improve the conditions of living of their citizens. This kind of broad-based solution is required as danger of a continental economic crisis looms.

SIR: The world takes notice when Nigerians, citizens of Africa’s largest democracy, decide.  By participating peacefully and enthusiastically in the recent electoral processes in March and April, millions of you stood strong to re-affirm Nigeria as a leader for democracy in Africa—and around the world.  It was an honor for me to lead the U.S. observer mission during the presidential and National Assembly elections last month.  Today, I join the chorus congratulating you and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the April 11 vote, which built upon the earlier successes in March.

Many Nigerians waited for hours, in sun and rain, to cast their ballots and see their votes counted.  When I spoke with voters, I was struck not only by their patience, but also by their determination to show Nigeria’s dedication to democracy and to democratic principles.  Elections are ultimately about people—the volunteers and poll workers who manage polling stations, the party candidates and supporters who craft policies and political platforms, the civil society activists who work for transparency, the journalists who report on the campaigns and events on election day, the political leaders who accept victory or concede defeat, especially when stepping down is in the country’s best interest.  It is about those men and women who shared their stories with me as they stood in line and those members of the security services who remained neutral and vigilantly guarded against fraud and intimidation.  Again, we salute you all.

I especially want to reiterate President Obama’s accolades for INEC Chairman Attahiru  Jega.  Under Chairman Jega’s steadfast leadership, the staff of INEC succeeded in conducting a generally smooth electoral process and making improvements between March 28 and April 11.  We commend INEC for its extensive efforts to increase credibility and transparency in the electoral process, including through the use of technology.  Despite some technical glitches, it is clear that technology and use of social media—INEC’s online posting of results for each polling unit, live tweeting of results, the use of biometric permanent voter cards and electronic card readers—improved efficiency and limited fraud.  I encourage Nigeria and other nations to continue to explore the use of relevant technologies in future elections.

This electoral process, however, was not without violence and irregularities in a number of states.  Some individuals worked to undermine the will of the Nigerian people, interfering with electoral processes and resorting to violence and voter intimidation.  We regret any loss of life and destruction of property.  As Secretary Kerry said when he visited Nigeria in January, violence and rigging have no place in democratic elections.  Anyone found to have incited violence or interfered with electoral processes will be unwelcome in the United States and subject to visa sanctions.

When President Obama spoke to you last month, he said successful elections and democratic progress will help Nigeria meet the urgent challenges you face today.  Now more than ever, it is up to all Nigerians to stay united so that Nigeria can move forward with a clear set of priorities for the future.  We welcome the commitments made by both President Jonathan and President-Elect Buhari to work closely together in order to ensure a smooth transition to the new government.

This next phase is critical as the world continues its hopeful watch for what happens in Nigeria.  Indeed, because you showed up, stood in line, and respected the results of elections even when you may have disagreed with the outcome, Nigeria will serve as an example to other African countries and nations elsewhere in the world preparing for elections.  Nigerian democracy will be a beacon across the continent and beyond.

With deep appreciation for the long friendship and partnership between our two great countries, the United States looks forward to the inauguration on May 29 and the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship.  We are deeply committed to working with you, the Nigerian people, for many years to come.  Nigeria, you made us all proud!

• The UN intervention fund for terror victims should not go to GEJ’s men

The brutal blight of Boko Haram has aroused global pecuniary consideration with the United Nations’ (UN) launch in Dakar, Senegal, of an appeal tagged: “life-saving aid,” to rescue almost 200,000 Nigerians that were displaced by the insurgents’ terror attacks. The worth of the fund is $174 million.

The plight of the people of the north eastern Nigeria was well captured by Liz Ahua, West Africa Representative for the UNHCR, with her petrifying depiction that the “displaced people in north-eastern Nigeria and across borders are in a very dramatic situation. They continue to fear for their lives, and are at this point unable to return to their homes. Some 192,000 people have fled over Nigeria’s borders into Cameroon, Chad and Niger seeking refuge from relentless violence. A further 1.2 million have been displaced within Nigeria as a direct result of the bloodshed; while the insurgents have killed more than 13,000 people since 2009.’’

The picture painted above is as much as it is gargantuan, and it indeed calls for more empirical global intervention than it currently receives. We are aware of the problems that refugee crisis is causing in flash points across the globe. So, everything must be done to arrest the challenges of Boko Haram in Nigeria, being the most populous country on the African continent.

It is worthy of note that the UN too saw the need to raise funds for the insurgents’ victims. This would complement the Victims’ Support Fund Committee set up by President Goodluck Jonathan on July16, 2014, under the chairmanship of General T.Y. Danjuma, to raise funds for the victims. The committee comprising notable individuals like Fola Adeola as vice chairman, Mrs Folorunsho Alakija, Cosmas Maduka, Jim Ovia, Mohammed Indimi, Abdulsamad Isyaku Rabiu, Sani Dauda and Wale Tinubu has the mandate of identifying sources and ways of raising sustainable funding to support victims of terror activities; developing appropriate strategies for it; ascertaining the persons, communities, facilities and economic assets affected by terror activities; and assessing and determining the appropriate support required in each case. More importantly, it has to manage, disburse and/or administer support to the victims as appropriate.

To demand for how far the committee has fared is indeed a justifiable question. And it would not be out of place to call for accountability regarding the funds so far raised and the expenditure made by the committee so that noticeable grey areas can be worked on. Moreover, in view of the damaging activities of the insurgents’ and the attendant displacements, the requirements of shelter, food, drugs, education and sanitation of the refugees would definitely be at an enormous cost that might be too much for the committee to shoulder. The response to refugees’ needs and protection and living conditions in their camps could only be promptly and precisely attended to with proper planning and right funding by government and other agencies, domestic and international. This could come in the form of due relocation of refugees away from the conflict border areas and where necessary create extra refugee camps. Otherwise, refugees’ overcrowding could lead to avoidable diseases that might end in death.

We commend the UN for embarking on this laudable initiative to augment the wellbeing of people displaced by Boko Haram in the country. But it is important to suggest that such fund when ready should not be released to the outgoing government that has received more knocks for its tepid handling of the insurgents’ onslaught against the territorial sovereignty of Nigeria. It could be handed over to the committee after coming up with marshal plan of how it would be spent and having acquitted itself on how hitherto raised funds were utilised.

‘It is important to suggest that such fund when ready should not be released to the outgoing government that has received more knocks for its tepid handling of the insurgents’ onslaught against the territorial sovereignty of Nigeria. It could be handed over to the committee after coming up with marshal plan of how it would be spent and having acquitted itself on how hitherto raised funds were utilised”

•A saga of carelessness and institutional failure ends happily

The happy resolution of the three abducted children of the Orekoya family in Itire, Lagos, must not blind Nigeria to the ways in which personal negligence and institutional shortcomings combined to create a situation that might have been avoided.

The three children – Demola (6 years), Adedamola (4 years) and Aderomola (11 months) – were abducted from their parents’ home by a woman who had been employed as a housemaid on the previous day. The woman, using the false name of Mary Akinola, had responded to an advertisement placed on an online sales portal, and was employed without background checks or confirmation from the referees whose phone numbers she had provided.“Akinola,” whose real name is Funmilayo Adeyemi, waited for the parents to go to work and simply walked out with the children. Other members of the gang then contacted the distraught parents, asking for a N15 million ransom, which was later reduced to N13 million. They threatened to kill the children if their demands were not met. Akinola was later apprehended by the police, who allegedly tracked her down through her mobile phone.

What is most striking about this case is the ease with which the crime was perpetrated. A total stranger was able to gain the complete trust of a family she had never met before and ruthlessly exploited that trust to her own advantage. She has confessed that this is not the first time she has utilised these tactics to kidnap children. In a nation facing all kinds of security threats which have resulted in the loss of many lives, such negligence is inexplicable.

The parents of the Orekoya children cannot be absolved of blame. Rather than use the time-honoured practice of going through friends and relatives, they chose the utterly impersonal anonymity of an online portal, naively believing that all its users were upright and honest individuals. To worsen matters, the person who contacted them was hired immediately, without any kind of background check whatsoever, and put in complete charge of three of their children. In other nations, they would have faced charges of child endangerment, and thereby risked losing custody of their offspring.

The online sales portal must also come in for condemnation as well. While it is admitted that it does make an effort to warn all users of its platform against the dangers inherent in online business, there is no doubting the fact that far too many scams have been perpetrated in its name. In essence, the online sales portal provides a viable platform for criminals as much as it does for law-abiding citizens, if not more. Rather than promising to completely overhaul its processes to make it less easy for evil-minded individuals to get away with their actions, the company has merely repeated its “buyer beware” mantra, as if that could bring the abducted children back.

Then there is the institutional failure. The absence of procedures governing the registration and employment of housemaids, stewards and other domestic staff has continued to expose families to great risk. There is the lack of regulatory oversight, which allows online sales portals to operate almost unsupervised, even when their operations empower criminals. There is the paucity of surveillance cameras, which makes it easy for kidnappers to transport their victims across cities at very little risk to themselves.

This state of affairs can no longer continue. Online sales portals must be closely monitored by regulatory agencies; where complaints of criminal behaviour are found to be true, they should be blacklisted. Registration processes should be set up for domestic staff, involving photographic identification, permanent home addresses and guarantors. More surveillance cameras should be deployed, especially in bus stops, major traffic junctions, markets and similar locations. 

‘Online sales portals must be closely monitored by regulatory agencies; where complaints of criminal behaviour are found to be true, they should be blacklisted. Registration processes should be set up for domestic staff, involving photographic identification, permanent home addresses and guarantors’

Why would Nigeria import cooking gas and palm oil that she has in abundance?

IT is a most confounding economic principle that a country keeps importing commodities it ought to be exporting. And this perhaps, happens only in Nigeria. There is a mind-numbing report that Nigeria imported 764,000 barrels of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) or cooking gas from the United States last year. This was her first import of the commodity since 2010.

Another disturbing report is to the effect that Malaysian and Indonesian ships are currently at the Lagos ports laden with palm oil worth about N4 billion.

These two commodities – cooking gas and palm oil – are available in abundance in Nigeria. Nigeria is reputed to host the ninth biggest gas reserves in the world with about 187 trillion cubic feet of proven reserve. About three times this quantity is unproven reserves. What this suggests is that she has enough of the commodity for her use and to supply about half of the world’s users.

More curious still, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) has been producing enough cooking gas for Nigeria’s domestic consumption since 2007 to forestall any need for such bulk importation of gas last year. It also gets even more curious considering the fact that it was last year that the US import of Nigeria’s crude oil reached zero level – from the largest importer to zero import of Nigeria’s crude oil, engendering deep-reaching trauma to Nigeria’s economy.

Apart from US’ zero import of Nigeria’s crude, the prices of petroleum products crashed by about half since last year, thus reducing Nigeria’s earnings by that margin. At about the same period, the value of the naira crashed against the dollar, leaving the economy almost prostrate. The question is: why would an economy that is seemingly already endangered resort to a massive importation of a commodity it can produce? There must be more to this seeming freak importation of gas from the US last year than meets the eye.

If the importation of gas from the US is wrapped in intrigues, the shipping in of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia seems like sheer folly. Between the two far-east Asian countries, we imported a total of about 30,000 metric tons of palm oil valued at about N4 billion. According to report, Nigeria has been importing palm oil for industrial uses in the past decade. This is heart-rending if we remember that Nigeria used to be the world’s largest producer of this commodity.

Recall also the now famous tale that Malaysia got her first palm seedlings from Nigeria. It is not that Nigeria’s soil has stopped yielding great harvests of palm trees but in fact, most of the palm plantations spread across the south of Nigeria have been mismanaged and are mainly in a state of dereliction. It is not as if palm oil has grown less in value. On the contrary, the three leading producers, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand collectively control annual export market worth about $50 billion.

Palm oil was one of the casualties of successive Nigerian governments’ abdication upon the discovery of crude oil in the 60s. While the oil boom provided huge, cheap revenues, government abandoned other hitherto, well developed sources of revenue like agriculture, industry and mining, to give a few examples.

Now that there is a glut in global supply of crude oil and prices have crashed, governments at various levels must diversify by quickly returning to the farms. For a first step, importation of all agricultural commodities that can be produced here must be stopped forthwith. It is also trite to urge government to stop in the shortest possible period, importation of all petroleum products as they can be produced locally, to save valuable hard currency.

It is a perplexing economic paradox that Nigeria still imports commodities she ought to be exporting even as she is beset by a severe economic crisis.