The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

What Obama botched in Libya

REPUBLICANS have a potentially strong case to make against the Obama administration’s handling of Libya, as the latest political developments there underline. On Sunday, a disputed vote in parliament led to the swearing-in of a new prime minister — the sixth since former dictator Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011 with the help of U.S. and NATO air forces. The new leader, an Islamist from the city of Misurata, replaced pro-Western prime minister Ali Zeidan, who was driven out of the country this year after his government proved unable to stop a militia from filling a tanker with stolen oil.

From the safety of Europe, Mr. Zeidan conceded what was obvious all along: Libya’s post-Gaddafi government has no army and no way of establishing its authority over the hundreds of militias that sprang up in the vacuum that followed the revolution. Libya has fragmented into fiefdoms, its oil industry is virtually paralyzed, massive traffic in illegal weapons is supplying militants around the region and extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia, which participated in the Sept. 11, 2012, assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, are unchecked.

The Obama administration and its NATO allies bear responsibility for this mess because, having intervened to help rebels overthrow Gaddafi, they then swiftly exited without making a serious effort to help Libyans establish security and build a new political order. Congress might usefully probe why the administration allowed a country in which it initiated military operations to slide into chaos.

Instead, House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he would ask the House to create a select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack and the administration’s alleged attempt to cover up how and why Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. To the extent that it zeroes in on the behavior of White House aides and other U.S. officials in Washington following the Benghazi attack — as it appears likely to do — the investigation will address the least substantial and blameworthy aspect of the Libya record.

Numerous investigations and congressional hearings already have established the basic facts: U.S. intelligence agencies initially judged that the Benghazi attack was spontaneously inspired by reports of protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and it “evolved into a direct assault” by heavily armed militants. That account was turned into talking points for then-Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

More than a year of efforts by GOP congressmen and conservative media to prove that Ms. Rice or the White House conspired to cover up the fact that Benghazi was a “terrorist attack” rather than a spontaneous act have gone nowhere, because there are no supporting facts. A recently released e-mail written by National Security Council aide Ben Rhodes reveals a not-so-scandalous proposal to argue that the Cairo and Benghazi protests did not prove “a broader failure of policy.” What’s missing is any evidence that Mr. Rhodes or anyone else knew the facts of Benghazi to be other than what was initially reported by U.S. intelligence. In fact, while an authoritative version of the Benghazi assault is still missing, the account cannot be ruled out.

Republicans may calculate that scandal-mongering about a Benghazi cover-up may rally the base before the fall’s elections. What it’s not likely to do is hold the Obama administration accountable for its actual failings in Libya.

– Washington Post

May 9, 2014
WEF extravaganza

• Despite its claims, the conference is not designed to redress poverty and inequality in Nigeria

Nigerian officials are understandably optimistic that the country will benefit enormously from hosting the 24th edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) for Africa, which opened in Abuja yesterday and will end tomorrow. Despite the country’s current security challenges, particularly the two recent fatal bomb blasts in the Nyanya area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), a substantial number of the expected 1,000 participants at the event, including some heads of state, had reportedly arrived Abuja by Tuesday.

The theme of this year’s edition of the WEF for Africa is ‘Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs’. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy considers this theme as very apt, given Nigeria’s objective of growing her economy to rank among the top 20 economies of the world by 2020. She says the Nigerian government will seek ways of utilising the WEF to impart needed skills to make unemployed youths employable.

According to Okonjo-Iweala, other benefits that will accrue to Nigeria from the WEF include the Grow Africa Initiative, which is projected to attract investment worth N3.5 billion to the country’s agricultural sector; the Forum’s Skills Initiative, which encompasses a new initiative of Safe Schools launched by Nigeria’s private sector and the health care initiative designed to strengthen access to health care. On its part, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) plans to host 150 of the delegates at a special session tagged ‘Nigerian Investment Platform’, to showcase the country’s huge investment potentials.

Unfortunately, Africa has for decades been the target of diverse conferences, workshops, plans, initiatives, agendas and programmes designed to extricate her from the trauma of underdevelopment. Yet, the continent’s plight only gets steadily worse. It is instructive, for instance, that despite having the largest economy in Africa, being endowed with huge mineral and natural resources and posting an impressive economic growth of at least 7 percent over the last decade, the vast majority of Nigerians are among the poorest people on earth. We can thus imagine what would be the fate of less endowed African countries.

It is all too obvious that a plethora of events like the WEF will not bring about the transformation of Nigeria or Africa. Perhaps it is time for a rigorous cost-benefit analysis to ascertain the utility of these talk shops. For instance, Abuja will be practically shut down for the duration of the WEF because of insecurity. The economic implications will be staggering. The attention of the whole world is currently focussed on Nigeria for the wrong reason – the abduction by Boko Haram of over 200 school girls from Chibok in Borno State for more than three weeks now. Whatever rhetoric may pour forth from the WEF in Abuja, very few serious investors will channel their funds into such an insecure environment which also suffers a debilitating dearth of infrastructure and power supply.

That Nigerians do not know how much is being spent to host the WEF is an example of the lack of transparency that undermines good governance and development. The impediments to the development and transformation of Africa are already too well known and we do not need any talk shop to teach us anything new. The money expended on such extravaganza as the WEF should be used to provide modern infrastructure like roads and railways, provide uninterrupted electricity supply, enhance security and create the necessary environment for businesses to thrive.

Once this is done, investment will naturally and irresistibly be attracted to take advantage of Africa’s immense potentials. The key to Africa’s development lies in visionary, competent and disciplined leadership rather than the soaring but sterile rhetoric that has characterised the WEF over the years.

May 8, 2014
Lawless INEC?

• The electoral body should obey the court and register the Fresh Democratic Party

It was a landmark, unambiguous and unequivocal judicial decision. The day was the 29th of July, 2013. The presiding judge was Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja. The legal dispute was principally between the Fresh Democratic Party (FDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The latter had on December 6, 2012, communicated to the FDP its decision to de-register the party for purportedly not meeting the constitutional conditions for its continued legal recognition as a political party. Twenty-seven other political parties were de-registered for similar reasons.

Two specific reasons were cited by INEC for de-registration of the FDP. First was its failure to win any national or state assembly seats in the April, 2011, general elections as required by Section 78 (7)(ii) of the Electoral Amendment Act, 2010. Second was the FDP’s alleged inability to hold its conventions as scheduled, or have its national officers elected as constitutionally stipulated by Section 223 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution (As Amended).

FDP approached the court to seek legal redress. Among the reliefs it sought from the court were that it has satisfied all the conditions and requirements of a political party as stipulated under the Electoral Act, 2010, and continues to exist as an extant political party in Nigeria; that it cannot be de-registered except in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 constitution; that the reliance by INEC on Section 78(7) (ii) of the Electoral Act as well as Section 223 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution to de-register FDP without hearing the party’s side violates Sections 36, 38 and 40, 221-222 of the 1999 Constitution and paragraph 15 of the 3rd Schedule (part 1) of the constitution and an order nullifying the purported de-registration by INEC as illegal, unconstitutional and violating democratic tenets.

The FDP also prayed the court to order INEC to restore its recognition as a political party as well as restrain the electoral body or any of its agents from implementing or enforcing the de-registration. Describing Section 78 (7) (ii) of the Electoral (Amendment) Act as a product of “legislative arbitrariness” the court held that the legislation negates Section 222 of the Nigerian Constitution, which stipulates qualifications for registration of political parties. The learned jurist stated clearly that the Nigerian constitution does not ‘specifically or impliedly’ provide for de-registration of a political party that has met the conditions of Section 222 (a) to (f).

On INEC’s contention that the FDP violated Section 223 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution, the court ruled that the party ought to have been given a hearing before any such decision could be taken. As the judge reasoned, upon registration in accordance with Section 80 of the Electoral Act, a political party acquires a legal right to participate in the electoral processes. Such ‘vested right’, he continued, cannot be stripped by INEC without affording the political party a hearing. The court accordingly granted all the reliefs sought by the FDP but declined to award costs against the defendants.

Since the judgment appears so clear, it is inexplicable why rather than obey the court, top INEC officials, including its spokesman, Mr Kayode Idowu, and one of its national commissioners, Professor Lai Olurode, insist that FDP will not be allowed to field candidates in the 2015 general election unless it applies for re-registration. The implication of the court ruling is that FDP was not legally and constitutionally de-registered in the first place. There can thus be no question of applying for re-registration. Until INEC gets a higher court to rule to the contrary, it must abide by the existing court judgment. An electoral umpire like the commission cannot afford to act in a lawless manner.

May 8, 2014
South Sudan is on the ‘verge of catastrophe’

IN THE violence and misery caused by the civil war in South Sudan, a very faint ray of light appeared this week. Since December, the nascent nation has been torn apart by armed conflict between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and the rebel leader and former vice president Riek Machar. Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. On Friday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry won a promise from Mr. Kiir to sit down with his rival and begin talking about peace and a transitional government.

We can only hope that this time will be different. The two sides never honored a January cease-fire agreement. They have turned deaf ears to appeals to restrain their forces, split along ethnic lines between Mr. Kiir’s Dinka and Mr. Machar’s Nuer group. An attack last month on the oil hub Bentiu after Mr. Machar’s forces took the town left hundreds dead. Then, residents of Bor, a predominantly Dinka town, attacked a United Nations base where the Nuer were sheltering. The twin assaults brought U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to investigate. At a news conference Wednesday in the capital, Juba, she warned that a “boiling point” has been reached and the two leaders have “embarked on a personal power struggle that has brought their people to the verge of catastrophe.”

By all evidence, including that offered by Ms. Pillay, the catastrophe already exists. More than 9,000 children have been recruited into the armed forces of both sides, women and girls have been raped and all civilians have been subjected to indiscriminate violence. Humanitarian groups already have described South Sudan as one of the world’s most urgent crises, along with Syria. “How much worse does it have to get before those who can bring this conflict to an end — especially President Kiir and Dr. Machar — decide to do so?” Ms. Pillay asked.

The world ought not wait. If Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar show up for peace talks in Addis Ababa aimed at a transitional government, and if they truly engage in negotiations, it might be a good sign, but their behavior so far sows grave doubts. More needs to be done to prevent the civil war from becoming a genocide.

Mr. Kerry said agreement with the foreign ministers of Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia was reached on the “terms and timing” of sending an additional 2,500 African peacekeepers to augment the existing 7,700 United Nations troops in the coming weeks. That’s better than doing nothing, but to see South Sudan survive, a larger intervention of well-equipped forces is called for, and not just from Africa. Peacekeepers must do their utmost to protect civilians and provide safe conditions for humanitarian relief.

Mr. Kerry was right to warn that those who commit crimes against humanity will be held to account. We can only hope that Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar will come to their senses. Their nation, so filled with hope upon achieving independence, cannot be allowed to become just another failed, violent state.

– Washington Post

May 8, 2014
Capital of books

• Governor Rotimi Amaechi scores for literacy in Rivers State and Nigeria

Paradoxically, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Book Capital 2014 highlights the disturbing challenges facing Nigeria in the important area of citizen literacy. Reading and writing are indisputably essential civilising skills in contemporary times, and it is one of the tragedies of the modern-day Nigerian experience that literacy levels across the country of about 170 million people reflect disproportionately lower numbers of illiterates.

It is heart-warming that last month’s inauguration of Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, as this year’s World Book Capital, holds a rich promise for improved literacy in the country. Notably, the administration of state governor Rotimi Amaechi demonstrated uncommon enlightenment by giving support to a local book-focused group, Rainbow Book Club, organisers of the Garden City Literary Festival, which competed internationally with 11 other countries for the nomination, making Port Harcourt “the first World Book Capital City in sub-Saharan Africa.” This historic record truly deserves to be celebrated for the honour it has undoubtedly brought to the country and to the African continent as well. It is worth mentioning that UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova’s congratulatory words represented a striking tribute to the thought that informed the bid as she referred to “the quality of its proposed programme which provides for extensive public participation and aims to develop reading for all.”

In this connection, Amaechi’s vision is definitely commendable and deserves to be emulated by those who hold the reins of government across the country, particularly because of its possible far-reaching impact. According to him, “We budgeted nearly N4 billion for the World Book Capital. We are building libraries, but I call them reading rooms, in the city. They are about seven and we are having 23 in all the local government areas. We will equip and furnish the libraries.” No doubt, this is a useful approach to tackling issues related to illiteracy in the society, and an effective way to boost interest in reading, especially among the young. It is hoped that the state government will realise the lofty dreams, not only because such accomplishment will raise the standard of literacy in the state but also for the reason that other states can learn from it and positively change the depressing situation of widespread illiteracy in the country.

Regrettably, Port Harcourt’s reign coincides with perhaps the most potent threat to educational pursuit in the country in decades, speaking of the ongoing terror campaign against western education and related values by the Islamist militia Boko Haram. In specific terms, the group’s outrageous April abduction of over 200 students at the Girls Senior Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, most of them still missing, is a terribly negative and undesirable development. The scandal is even more devastating on account of the fact that it is a monstrous blow against girl-child education, which is relatively disadvantaged, especially in the country’s northern region where the activities of the religious terrorists are pronounced.

Nevertheless, in a philosophical sense, the extremists teach a valuable lesson because their actions are evidently informed by ignorance, which will always promote darkness, as against education and literacy, which are agents of light and advancement. Without intending to do so, the group has, by reverse behaviour, contributed to raising awareness in favour of education.

It is noteworthy that President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010 launched the Bring Back the Book project in Lagos State, which was in 2012 revived in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, after an uncertain lull. Instructively, he declared that the campaign was designed to “make in-roads into schools all over the country,” adding, “By so doing, we will get our pupils reading to feed their imagination for the upliftment of the entire society.” This idea dovetails nicely with the status of Port Harcourt as World Book Capital. However, it is important to stress that it will take more than talk.

May 7, 2014
You dey bleach?

• WHO rates Nigerian women as world champions in skin-bleaching

Nigeria seems to have become a remorselessly cheerless place, like an arid land where flowers don’t grow. In the last few years she has been shorn of good news, especially as concerns human development indices emanating from the United Nations agencies. We are prominent but only in the league of the laggards. Among the poor nations, we are notable; on the jobless index, we are running strong. Just raise any social or economic index and Nigeria is preeminent on the negative end of it.

While these may be understandable considering that our polity has been long beset with poor leadership which has left her underdeveloped for a long time, how do we explain her current laurel as the country with the most bleached women in the world, as recently adjudged by the World Health Organisation (WHO)? The desire to make the colour of the skin lighter is a personal decision and has nothing to do with economic or social pressures; it is strictly a self-induced harm.

According to WHO, 77 percent of women in Nigeria use skin-lightening products and this is the world’s highest. This compares with 59 percent in Togo and 27 percent in Senegal. An independent poll conducted in Abuja early in the year by NOI Polls corroborates WHO’s position. Ironically, it was discovered that the practice cuts across all social strata while educational standing did not prove to be an important factor. This suggests that attempt to alter the colouration of one’s skin has deep-rooted psychological and colonial undertones.

Some respondents said they use skin-lighteners because they want “white skin” while yet others said they wished to “look beautiful” and “attractive to the opposite sex”. It was also discovered that many people who bleach believe that light or pale skin depicts beauty and success while dark complexion is considered to be below standard and ordinary.

Sadly, skin bleaching substances like most other things, are hardly regulated in Nigeria. All sorts of tubes, plastic bags of powders, ointments and mixtures can be found in most patent medicines stores and on the sidewalks in markets across the country. Both the imported and locally concocted ones are sold side-by-side by vendors. Some of the most ruinously potent ones are not labelled as to their ingredients.

Skin-bleaching has become a pandemic in Nigeria regardless of the fact that skin-lightening creams have been proven over the years to contain dangerous and toxic substances such as hydroquinone, mercury compounds and topical steroids which are known to cause such debilities as kidney failure, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. Long use of these chemicals which steadily erodes the concentration of melanin (dark pigments of the skin) often portends long-term damaging effects on the bleached skin; it makes the skin less responsive to suture during surgery while large dose of the chemicals in the body could affect the unborn child in child-bearing women.

It is quite worrisome that even in this age so many Nigerians are still prisoners of their skin colour. Even after we have been liberated from the shackles of colonialism, many of us are still unable to break the chain of inferiority complex and low self-esteem. Despite the crusading work of people like James Aggrey, Booker T. Washington and even Kwame Nkrumah, many years ago, it is uncanny that some Africans, led by Nigerians, would still consider the white skin better or superior to black.

Let us restate Aggrey’s evocative words on this matter that, “I am proud of my colour, whoever is not proud of his colour is not fit to live.” While we urge government to ban bleaching substances and criminalise their sale, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) must initiate campaign to educate bleachers on the need to shore up their self-esteem, be proud of their exquisite black skin and try being beautiful from the inside.

May 7, 2014
Kids and kidneys

•Another worry Nigerians will gladly live without

Except that Nigeria is fast becoming a country where nothing shocks us as a people again, the revelation that at least one in every 10 children in our hospitals has kidney problems should be source for worry. A paediatric nephrologist and lecturer at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Lagos, Dr Christopher Esezobor, disclosed this in an interview. A more worrisome aspect of this is the fact that most of these children go about with the kidney problems unnoticed until they have cause to be admitted in the hospital for the treatment of other ailments.

Kidney disease has been a recognised killer disease in male and female adults, but mostly male adults. It is a disease treated usually with the use of dialysis by which substances are separated from a liquid (urine), especially by taking these waste substances out of the blood of people with damaged or diseased kidneys. In acute cases, the treatment by Dialysis Machine is a continuous one that can be very costly, even though the patient may eventually die.

However, what is worrisome about Dr Esezobor’s report is the fact that we are made to realise that kidney disease is so common nowadays such that one out of 10 children admitted into hospitals suffers from it. We consider this a very serious issue, more so that the disease is not often detected until the children are taken to the hospital for some other ailments not initially suspected to be associated with kidney problem.

Against this background, it is difficult to rule out the possibility that many children might have died of kidney problem while they were thought to have died of those common ailments, like those mentioned by Dr Esezobor. These include malaria, diarrhoea and unorthodox or unprescribed drug usage. Other causes, according to him, are congenital abnormalities at birth, nephrotic syndrome (that is when the body of a child becomes swollen and the child loses a lot of protein through urination) and infections.

Surely, this revelation calls for an early diagnosis of this killer disease, not only in adults but especially in children. There should be a scientific research to know why the disease is so prevalent, especially among children who were never thought to be in that danger zone early in their lives. Moreover, as Dr Esezobor advised, “parents and even other health workers should suspect that a child may be having a kidney problem if the child is not making enough urine as the child used to make it before” or when the child is making too much urine; both situations may be a sign of kidney problem.

Other symptoms include if the child’s urine colour is becoming red or it is looking cloudy so that one cannot see through it. In addition, if a child is struggling to urinate or is screaming while urinating, it is possible that there is an obstruction to the flow of urine. Whenever such incidents are noticed, the parents should seek immediate medical attention.

Although there are a few places for the treatment of kidney-related ailments in the country, like the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital in Ile-Ife, and some other places; however, special attention should now be paid to children. A state like Lagos is paying special attention to kidney issues, and has even established a kidney centre where kidney problems can be handled at far cheaper rates. We need more of such centres across the country.

Also, greater awareness should be created by the federal and state ministries of health on this issue while we strongly recommend that treatment should be free, at least, for children all over the country. Nigeria has lost many of its children, some of them possible future leaders, through various diseases that are still potent killers. We cannot afford to add to these another dangerous killer disease that could destroy our future generation.

May 6, 2014
Primary problem

•Kano’s unqualified teachers highlight a national challenge

The recent revelation that 25,486 out of the 45,000 primary school teachers in Kano State are unqualified is a sobering reminder of the challenges besetting Nigeria’s beleaguered education sector. The discovery was made after a verification exercise conducted in the 44 Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in the state. A primary school teacher who is deemed to be unqualified lacks the National Certificate of Education (NCE), which is the minimum qualification for teaching at that level. More importantly, it means that such individuals do not possess the basic skills to teach impressionable young children in their first formal educational setting. The implications of this are horrifying. Generations of pupils have been at the mercy of ill-trained and poorly-motivated teachers, thereby creating a dislike for learning rather than a love of it. With such inauspicious beginnings, most of those children have gone on to an underwhelming secondary school career, if they bothered to complete it at all. The net result: a colossal loss to a state and a country in dire need of human resources. While its efforts to get to the bottom of the issue are to be commended, Kano State cannot be absolved of all responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs. In July 2011, it was found that 75 per cent of all primary school teachers were incompetent and unqualified. At the time, assurances were given that training and re-training programmes would be introduced in order to ensure that the problem was resolved. Now, the same promises are being made, nearly three years after they were first given. Nor is Kano alone in this quandary. In 2013, Plateau State announced that it would sack 11,000 unqualified primary and secondary school teachers; eventually, some 2,000 were fired. In February 2013, about 1,300 primary school teachers in Kaduna State failed tests normally taken by Primary Four pupils. Nigeria had 10.5 million children outside primary school in 2012, one of the largest figures in the world. How did Nigeria end up with so many terrible teachers at the very foundation of its education system? Several causes come to mind. The spectacular increase in primary schools which accompanied the oil boom created a huge demand for teaching staff which tertiary institutions were unable to meet. Combined with the failure to enforce standards, this meant that teaching became a popular last resort for those who were unable to further their education or get into their preferred professions. Poor salaries and conditions of service have made primary-school teaching very unattractive to those who do it, inhibiting any desire to strive for excellence. Facilities are poor, classes are large, and the infusion of needed resources is arbitrary and infrequent. There has clearly been a dereliction of duty in matters pertaining to primary school education, and it must be reversed if the situation is to change. Ironically, several viable solutions are suggested in Kano’s own Revised Education Strategic Plan for 2009-2018: upgrade unqualified teachers; halt the recruitment of unqualified teachers; improve NCE training in Colleges of Education; provide regular in-service training for teachers. In 1999, the Federal Government established the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Programme to accelerate the development of primary school education, but its activities are inhibited by an apparent lack of cooperation of many state governments. In January, the Federal Government accused them of refusing to access the N44.9 billion in counterpart funding for the implementation of UBE. It is alleged that they have declined to make use of either the conditional Matching Grant or the non-conditional Special Education Fund managed by the UBE Commission. The most prominent offenders include Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Plateau and Benue states. This should not be the case, given the huge financing challenges facing primary education in the country. If Nigeria is to achieve the much-vaunted Millennium Development Goals (MDG), it must improve the quality of primary school education, and that cannot be done without well-trained, adequately-remunerated and properly-motivated teachers.

May 6, 2014
Failed pledge

•CDS Badeh’s promise to bring Boko Haram to heel by April underscores the need for less garrulity in security matters

AT his resumption on January 20, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, former Chief of Air Staff and new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) assured that, by April, Boko Haram and its murderous insurrection would be history.

“I can say confidently,” he had enthused, at the ceremony of his take-over from his predecessor, Admiral Ola Ibrahim, “that this war is already won.” With current realities, the CDS counted his chickens before they were hatched!

What might be the driver of his upbeat declaration since, as Chief of Air Staff, he was part of the security apparatuses under the old CDS? Excitement of promotion as new military top dog? Improper analysis of the situation on the ground before making a pronouncement? Latter-day reversals in the battle front that made complete nonsense of a very promising situation?

Whatever it was, and taking cognisance of the fact that nothing is absolute and definite in human terms, the CDS’s failure to keep his promise underscores the need to be less garrulous in security matters.

To be fair, he spoke in the context of a patriot, a military officer quite anxious that the insurrection would not result in a constitutional crisis. “The security situation in the North East must be brought to a complete stop before April 2014,” he had said. “We must bring it to a stop before April so that we will not have constitutional problems in our hands.”

Aside, things were looking up in the North East theatre of war. Things were looking good not because the terrorists had been vanquished but because the bulk of their attacks were limited to far-flung border areas, which the terrorists could hit and run across the border.

It looked far away from the wild free-wheeling days of terror when the anarchists could strike, anytime they wanted and anywhere: from Kano to Abuja to Kaduna to Jos to Jaji — and no place was sacrosanct, not the Police Headquarters, the United Nations Headquarters in Abuja or the military high shrine of Jaji. That relative curtailment was believed to be positive results of the emergency in the three North East states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

Still, the two Nyanya bombings, in a spade of less than two weeks, have brought everyone back to the rude reality: Boko Haram is long from being defeated. That makes the CDS’s pledge run hollow, if not outright unthinking.

From a hurting populace, the CDS is assailed by flak. From it all, he should learn the virtue of humility and the imperative to be less naive and more clinical in his utterances on security matters. Besides, military history has shown even the best of generals carefully weigh their words in making war forecasts, knowing full well the lack of certainty in combats.

The right lessons having been learned, Nigerians should get fully behind their military as they go on the arduous task of facing down the blood-thirsty Boko Haram. And this support should start with the CDS. This is no easy call given the level of hurt and amount of bitterness and pain in the land. But we can defeat terror only if we stand as one people.

On his part, the CDS and his generals, under the civil authority of the president and other political bosses, must dig anew and uproot the Boko Haram madness. They must work especially at intelligence — both to latch on Boko Haram’s plots before they are executed and to figure out the case of probable pro-Boko Haram moles in the military.

Now that the CDS has learned his lessons, it is time to move in and finish the job.

May 5, 2014
Questionable confusion

•The court must find out the source of misrepresentation of its order on Diezani’s suit

THE orchestrated confusion over the actual order made by the Federal High Court, in the suit brought by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to frustrate the summons extended to her by the House of Representatives, over the alleged N10 billion bill on jets, is embarrassing. So, we share in Justice Ahmed Mohammed’s angst that a simple ruling of the court that the defendant, the House of Representatives, should be put on notice, has been misrepresented by the House spokesman, Zakari Mohammed, to mean a restraining order against the House in the performance of its constitutional responsibility. That is scandalous, and there is need to find out who engineered this misinformation.

Rightly, the court has summoned the House to explain the source of this misinformation, as counsel to the minister and the House have both denied knowledge of such an order by the court. But even more importantly, the court must ask itself: what is the substance of the suit brought by the minister to it? If as we suspect, the minister is on mere frolic, to frustrate a clear constitutional prerogative of the House of Representatives to investigate and expose corruption, inefficiency and waste in the administration of laws within its legislative competence, the court has no business allowing such a frivolous suit on its cause list.

Even as the confusion lingered, it is reassuring that the Speaker, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, has assured Nigerians that the probe on the incredulous sums allegedly expended by the minister on chartering private jets for her trips, has not ended. Indeed, it must not. For, how can the House of Representatives which is clearly mandated by the provisions of sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 constitution to conduct such a probe it has told Nigerians it shall do, over the Alison-Madueke’s saga, turn around to do otherwise? The claim by the House, that a court has issued an order, which the court has openly denied, puts the integrity of the House in question over its determination to conduct the investigation.

It is bad enough that such humongous sum has been allegedly wasted by the minister and her cohorts. But it will be heart-rending were a constitutional watchdog, like the House of Representatives, give itself out as either not giving a damn about such serious allegations of corruption, or of having been compromised by that rapacious agency of government.

The House and indeed Nigerians are not unaware of the grave opacity pervading the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, neither are they unaware of the great length the ministry is reputed to usually go, to ensure that its activities are never opened for scrutiny. It is public knowledge that efforts in the past to bring the ministry to be publicly accountable never succeeded, and unless the House moves swiftly, the general impression will be that this probe has suffered a similar fate.

While we acknowledge the rights of individuals to approach the court to ventilate their claims, we are surprised at the minister’s resort to court in this instance. After all, unless she has something to hide, the issue at stake was ordinarily the propriety of the costs she incurred as a public official, which should be in the public domain. Notably, the House is not in a position to convict, merely to expose corruption and make necessary laws to correct any defect. So, what is the haste by the minister, to stop a mere investigation for? On our part, we urge the court to quickly dispense with the matter, in the overriding interest of public policy.

May 5, 2014