The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Enhanced NYSC stipend

    Enhanced NYSC stipend

    •A welcome development but everyone entitled to it must be paid even if they have passed out before its implementation

    The approval of a 133% increase, in the monthly allowance of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members, from N33,000 to N77,000, by the Federal Government, is a welcome development. We consider that good news for corps members, who are dedicating one year of their lives to serve their fatherland.

    The argument by some that the increase is not enough, is also plausible, considering the cost of living. We believe the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, which has shown significant interest in the welfare of the Nigerian youths, would look into the merits of the argument for a further enhancement, in due course. Announcing the increase in the allowance, Caroline Embu, the Acting Director of Information and Public Relations of the NYSC said: “The Federal Government has approved the increase of corps members’ monthly allowance to seventy-seven thousand Naira (N77,000) with effect from July 2024. This is in line with the enactment of the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act 2024”. She said the approval was communicated through a letter from the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, dated September 25, 2024, which was signed by the Chairman, Ekpo Nta.

    We urge the authorities to ensure that the corps members entitled to the allowances from July 2024 get their due, even if some of them pass out before the implementation kicks off. If that assurance is given, those complaining now about the delay in its implementation would have little to worry about. Those benefiting from the primary posting of corps members should also be willing to supplement the allowances, by providing accommodation, transportation and security. They should ensure that the place of primary assignment is habitable and welcoming, considering that the corps members come from far- flung places, most times.

    But while seeking for an enhanced welfare package for the corps members, it is also fair to expect greater dedication to national service from the participants. Every participant in the programme must appreciate the very essence of the scheme, which is “primarily to inculcate in Nigerian youths the spirit of selfless service to the community, and to emphasise the spirit of oneness and brotherhood of all Nigerians, irrespective of cultural or social background.”

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    The scheme was established after the Nigerian civil war, essentially to bridge the ethnic and cultural divides, that must have contributed to the unfortunate war. The corps members have over the years also bridged the shortage of manpower, especially in the remote parts of the country where job seekers may not want to work.

    Over the years, there are schools, hospitals and other social institutions which rely mainly on the corps members for their manpower needs. As one batch is leaving, another is replacing, and with a few permanent members of the staff, quality services are rendered to the community. There are also instances where corps members choose to stay put in their places of primary assignment after the one-year service.

    So, the NYSC scheme has been very helpful in forging national unity. But some participants have paid the supreme sacrifice due to the burgeoning insecurity that plague many parts of the country. Indeed, many parents have resisted posting of their wards to parts of the country where insecurity has overwhelmed communities and security agencies. While we support the scheme, we agree with dissenters that when the security of lives of participants are concerned, every precautionary measure must be taken to avoid any casualty. Considering the enormous benefits of the NYSC scheme and the state of the national economy, enhancing the well-being of the participants through increased allowance is a worthy venture. While not advocating for a salary due to a graduate, we support periodic increase in allowance, otherwise, it will be a case of parents of participants paying subvention to the nation for national service.

  • Beyond theatre

    Beyond theatre

    • Probes into Bobrisky’s alleged bribery must unearth the facts and deal justice

    A rash of investigations is underway into allegations of bribery and inducement involving controversial crossdresser, Idris Okuneye, widely known as Bobrisky, in relation with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), among others. The test will be whether these investigations lead to conclusive and actionable outcomes.

    Okuneye trended lately with the leak by social media influencer Martins Otse, known as ‘VeryDarkMan’ of an audio clip of a conversation he purportedly had with someone revealing how he paid bribe to have one of the charges against him dropped by EFCC, and also under-the-table dealings to get him kept out of prison facility and housed in a private apartment to serve his jail term. Okuneye was on April 12, this year, sentenced by the Federal High Court in Lagos to six months in jail without the option of fine, following his arraignment by the anti-graft agency on a charge of abusing the naira on his last birthday.

    Barely a month after Okuneye’s release from prison, Otse posted on social media the alleged audio recording in which the crossdresser purportedly recounted how EFCC officials collected N15million bribe to drop the money laundering charge they had against him and press only abuse of the naira in court. The conversation also cited Okuneye disclosing how, with the help of a godfather who allegedly engaged with NCS top echelons, he was diverted from the service’s Kirikiri facility where he ought to have served his jail term to a private apartment nearby, where he was kept for the duration of the sentence. The recording as well cited some private individuals as playing roles in efforts to get Okuneye’s prison record erased.

    Minister of Interior Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, last week, ordered a probe into allegations of bribery involving the NCS. A statement by his media aide, Alao Babatunde, said the minister frowned on the alleged behaviour and warned that indiscipline would not be condoned. “The (minister) has directed an unconditional and comprehensive investigation into the allegations of bribery and corruption within the Nigerian Correctional Service,” the statement said without specifically referencing the Okuneye case. “The ministry will not tolerate any compromise on its core values of integrity, transparency, and accountability. We will leave no stone unturned in rooting out corruption and ensuring that those found culpable face the full wrath of the law,” it added.

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    Against the backdrop of reports that some senior officers of the NCS had been suspended to allow for unfettered probe, the statement announced the composition of the probe panel, adding that the minister reassured the public the investigation would be “rigorous, transparent and impartial, and appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken against any personnel found guilty.”

    Earlier, the EFCC launched its own probe of the bribery allegation. A statement by the anti-graft body said EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede had raised a team of investigators to “critically look into the allegations,” adding that the public was being assured that the allegations would be “thoroughly investigated and the result of the findings made public accordingly.”

    Meanwhile, officials of both the correctional service and the anti-graft agency have appeared before a House of Representatives joint committee to defend themselves against the allegations. The House panel, early this week, ordered NCS Controller-General (CG) Haliru Nababa to furnish it with CCTV footages of Okuneye’s stay within the service’s facilities, following presentations by its officials claiming he was moved from the medium correctional centre to the maximum correctional centre in Ikoyi after spending 10 days at the previous facility.

    Deputy Controller-General in charge of the medium correctional centre, Michael Benson, had said Okuneye was moved to the maximum facility after 10 days owing to controversies that trailed his donation of chairs to the facility. Benson told the lawmakers that following a trending video of the chairs donated by Okuneye and the controversy it generated on social media, the CG directed that he be moved to the maximum correctional facility. But the lawmakers, not satisfied with the explanation, queried NCS officials if it was in their tradition to receive donations from inmates serving terms in their facility, to which they answered no.

    On their part, EFCC officials told the House panel they dropped the money laundering charge against Okuneye because facts on the ground supported only the naira abuse charge. The agency’s prosecutor, Bilkisu Buhari, among other things, denied the allegation that the dropped charge owed to financial inducement.

    We submit that this whole matter stinks to high heavens and must be drilled down to its roots to ascertain the truth. The challenge has always been that high-interest probes get launched into suspicions of sleaze in public agencies, but they eventually cool off into systemic disinterest in concerned cases. This particular case must not be like that; it must not be mere theatre, but conclusively executed quest for the truth with indicted persons brought to account if found out. In other climes, people resign over mere suspicion of liability, but not so in this clime. The multiple probes should serve the purpose of exposing the facts and dealing justice as appropriate.

  • Farm them young 

    Farm them young 

    • This is the essence of Mrs Tinubu’s Young Farmers Club

    It is amazing how laudable programmes and projects fizzle out of consciousness in Nigeria. Many years ago, the Young Farmers Club existed in several schools in the country. The aim was to get students interested in farming right from their school days so that when they grew up, they would have mastered the art of farming and may even decide to make it a vocation.

    However, like many other such laudable initiatives, the Young Farmers Club died slowly due to loss of interest occasioned probably by the petro-dollars that reoriented the youths and made them to abandon the farms for white collar jobs. It was only a question of time for the youths to leave the villages in droves for better life in the cities. Not only did they leave the villages, those of them who succeeded in the cities also brought their parents along, thus depleting the number of people left on the farms. The groundnut pyramids and cotton plantations in the north, cocoa and rubber plantations in the west and the southern part of Nigeria, and palm oil in the east soon became history. The result was the gradual erosion of food security that has now become a major issue plaguing the country.

    It is against this background that we welcome the launching of the Young Farmers Club, Nigeria, by Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady. Mrs Tinubu launched the club, an initiative of her pet project, Renewed Hope Initiative at the State House Conference Centre, Abuja, during which she symbolically presented membership cards, handbooks and farming implements to pupils from various schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The aims are to revive agriculture, create employment opportunities, diversify the economy and ensure food security.

    According to the First Lady, “Today, the launch of the Renewed Hope Initiative’s Young Farmers Club, Nigeria, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, awakens in me a nostalgic feeling of hard work and productivity as a noble virtue.

    “The song we just heard essentially means that our land is known for farming, anyone who does not work will steal, and that education without farming is incomplete.

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    “It encourages us to revive our indigenous occupation, which is farming. It is this spirit of hard work and productivity that we seek to rekindle today with the launch of the Young Farmers Club Nigeria.

    We need an initiative like this to encourage the pupils, students and youths generally to take up opportunities in the agricultural sector. As the First Lady rightly observed, agriculture used to be the country’s mainstay before we abandoned it, to our collective detriment. We must return to the soil.

    This time, however, unlike those days of subsistence farming, what we need are young farmers brimming with new ideas about modern farming techniques and technology. Gone were those days of farming with crude implements like hoes and cutlasses.

    We need to warn, however, that there should be continuity of this initiative, irrespective of who or which political party is in power. The usual practice of jettisoning an idea or project simply because the initiator is no longer in office should not be extended to this. Food security is key to whatever we do. That is why we should not see the Young Farmers Club, Nigeria, as Oluremi Tinubu’s idea alone, which must die with her husband’s tenure.

    We appeal to the government too to look critically into projects and programmes it inherited with a view to continuing those that are relevant. Where necessary, they could be modified to suit the times instead of abandoning them outright. The country is the loser each time such laudable projects are abandoned. 

    Much as it is good to come up with ideas such as this, it is equally important to stress that farming must be made attractive to keep the young ‘converts’ in the sector. The moment they see attractions in white collar jobs and farming as a vocation for never-do-wells, they will rejoin the ‘tie wagon’.

  • Tall order

    Tall order

    •We need less cumbersome recall process to facilitate the sack of non-performing lawmakers

    More constituents are itching to recall lawmakers representing them in legislatures at all levels. Only they seem to find a tough hurdle in statutory requirements prescribed for achieving that aim. But there are no shortcuts to meeting those requirements, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says.

    The electoral body recently confirmed that it lately recorded a surge in requests from various groups nationwide seeking the recall of their representatives from the national and state assemblies. Its spokesman, National Commissioner Sam Olumekun, who is Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, said such requests necessitated the commission’s release of revised regulations and guidelines for recalling federal and state legislators, as well as councillors in area councils of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    Olumekun said in a statement: “The commission has, in the last few weeks, received a number of requests from different groups across the country for the recall of their representatives in the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly. Some of them have even requested the commission to initiate the process of the recall on their behalf.” He made clear that initiating the recall process is entirely the constituents’ call. “For clarity, the process is initiated by the voters in a constituency. The commission only implements their request in line with Sections 69, 110 and 160 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and Sections 2(c) and 113 of the Electoral Act, 2022,” he said in the statement.

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    The commissioner further stated that INEC had accordingly reviewed its regulations and guidelines detailing the procedure for recall. “The 10-page document has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for the guidance of prospective petitioners and for public information,” he said, adding: “We appeal to constituents interested in the recall of their elected representatives to be guided by the provisions of the regulations and guidelines in preparing and submitting their petitions.”

    Statutory requirements that constituents must meet to recall lawmakers with whom they are dissatisfied have always been very cumbersome. Section 69 of the 1999 Constitution pertaining to national lawmakers and Section 110 for state legislators respectively stipulate in their subsection (a) that a recall petition submitted to the chairman of INEC must be signed by more than one half of registered voters in the constituency where members are alleging loss of confidence in their lawmaker; and in subsection (b) that INEC must conduct a referendum within 90 days of receiving the petition that must indicate approval of the petition by a simple majority of registered voters in the constituency. The 2010 amendment of the constitution further tightens the noose by inserting an additional requirement in subsection (a) of both Sections 69 and 110 that signatures of the petitioners must be “duly verified” by INEC. Section 113 of the Electoral Act 2022 replicates the same requirements for recall of any member of FCT area councils.

    In an electoral clime where barely 50 percent of registered voters show up to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs) in many constituencies, it is obviously a tall order to require more than half of registered voters – not eligible voters who have picked their PVCs – to initiate and sign a recall petition; and with INEC having to “duly verify” the signatures. But then, that is the law the electoral commission has to work with, and it has now detailed its own regulations and guidelines in line with powers vested on it by Section 160 of the constitution as amended. To be clear, the commission’s own rules do not make the process any easier for petitioners because they detail procedures and requirements that make the exercise even more cumbersome, including stipulating the requirement of Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) of petitioners in addition to their names and signatures. There are also turgid rules for conduct of a referendum and other steps involved in the recall process.

    Recall of elected representatives should never become a tool of vendetta that can be tritely deployed for unjust ends. But you would also think the original framers of applicable laws never really intended – obviously from self-serving motives – for the objective to be attainable. Yet, recall of representatives with whom constituents are dissatisfied is a recourse offered by the extant legal framework as part of our democratic experience. It is high time we chose whether we want to jettison the option or retain it, but certainly not as a white elephant provision of law.

    If we would retain the option, the National Assembly (NASS) could use the ongoing process of reworking the constitution to thresh out a more accessible procedure for constituents genuinely dissatisfied with their representatives. But, of course, we are under no illusion here: that could sound like enjoining a self-secure man to fall on his own sword and hoping he obliges. Another tall order!

  • Grazing-ranching transition

    Grazing-ranching transition

    •A commendable middle ground by committee on livestock reform

    Conflict between cattle herders and farmers is one of the seemingly intractable forms of insecurity plaguing Nigeria. Problems often arise when nomadic cattle herders advertently or inadvertently cause their animals to trespass into and eat up or destroy the crops of farmers. Some of the farmers have been reported to have acquired and cultivated the crops with bank loans with rigid terms from the banks. This throws the farmers into devastating debts. Some of them thus retaliate by arresting the culpable cattle to secure compensation. Sometimes, the cattle get harmed or die in the process. This has caused retaliation which at times leads to the death of the farmers, which, in turn has sometimes been avenged through the death of the herders.

    The vicious circle of violence has made it difficult for some of the farmers to go to their farms, and has remarkably affected food production, which has in turn resulted in food inflation and food insecurity. Different efforts to solve the herder-farmers problem have been undermined by ethno-geographical suspicion which has made different groups to see the efforts as ploys by others to seize land or marginalise the original inhabitants. The measures have therefore had very little or no positive effect on food production.

    It is within this context that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu established the Presidential Livestock Reform Committee with the President himself as the chairman and Professor Attahiru Jega, as co-chairman.

    On September 19, Professor Jega submitted a 152-page inception report on livestock reforms to the President. The former Governor of Kano State and National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, was reported to have led the delegation and outlined 21 recommendations to facilitate the resolution of the problem. In the document, the committee proposed, among others, a 10-year transition programme from grazing to ranching. The co-chairman was reported to have said as follows about this: “You cannot wake up tomorrow and have only ranching because a significant portion of the population is engaged in traditional pastoral activities. The solution must combine both approaches initially.” That is, within the next 10 years, both grazing and ranching would be practised concomitantly. Professor Jega was further reported to have explained: “Past challenges often arose from quick, singular solutions. A complex situation requires incremental changes with a clear timeframe.”

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    Every effort to mitigate the problems of farmers and herders is to be applauded, and it is gratifying that a consensus is being built to transit from open grazing to ranching. This is indeed the path to follow. The committee’s pragmatic and methodical approach has immense potential for improved cattle-rearing practices and easier, safer farming environments. Considering the proposal’s potential to enhance wealth creation and ultimately develop the country’s Gross Domestic Product, it would be essential to interrogate the pathways for optimum success within the 10-year development period. In particular, since anyone can invest in ranching, irrespective of cultural or ethnic background, the committee should work towards turning it into a national pastime.

    Botswana and its long-standing global reputation for producing very good beef makes that country a worthy African reference point for the presidential committee. In fact, a visitor from the United States was reported to have noted in the April 24, 2018 issue of the magazine, Venturesome Overland: “Livestock in Botswana is a source of wealth and pride – metaphorically and literally. Cattle are given as part of the bride price. They helped contribute towards the founding of the [University of Botswana]. … Beef is serious business here and the cows seem to live a better life than any I’ve seen in the U.S.”

  • No champagne at 64

    No champagne at 64

    •Nigerian condition is too sober to celebrate

    It is just as well that President Bola Tinubu and the Federal Government have opted for a sober nation on October 1. It is usually a day for clean, crisp uniforms of the armed forces to be on display, their steps and arm swings in choreographed marches, the salutes, the gathering in all 36 states of top government officials, political apparatchiks and bigwigs, foot soldiers and the cultural dances and the galas.

    Goodbye to all that, for now. This national birthday is, more than any other, a time for reckoning. Many citizens are in distress economically, and any recourse to glamour and fanfare will amount to a cynical contempt for the suffering citizens.

    If it is a time for introspection, it is because it is a time for truth. We must take the time to ponder how we got to this sorry pass. We must remember that we had lived a lie as a people. We have known that the nation was abusing the currency by engaging in wholesale printing of the money and pretending that we shall always live in good times.

    We realised that President Tinubu inherited a mess of an economy with 97 percent of the revenue going to debt and over N23 trillion going to ways and means. When we add the interest, the debt runs to about N30 trillion.

    It is in this context we must understand that we have exaggerated the wealth of our nation. The reason for this over-hyped self-image is the divorce between the lifestyle and peacock ill-grace of the political elite on one hand, and the fate of the overwhelming majority of the people. On the other, It is a ruinous deception.

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    But we accept the measures to redress the drift, although we think that while the policies bring hardship, the efforts to cushion the sufferings should be better organised to avoid sabotage and exercise accountability.

    The throes of today should not undermine some of the strengths we have shown, especially on the political front. The nation only recently celebrated 25 years of unbroken democracy. That was because, as a people, we had come to see democracy as a blip, and a fragility waiting to yield to the barrel of the gun. Not that this dispensation has not run upon authoritarian impulses, especially during the Yar’ Adua years when the country resorted to the doctrine of necessity.

    Yet, democracy has survived. The military conscience has since haunted our democracy, having suffered under the soldier’s boot. Our politicians have exhibited some of the impunity that was the hallmark of many years under military rule. We have seen this in the way presidents have defied the constitution and rule of law. One of such instances was the destruction of villages, including Odi, during the Obasanjo years, and the defiance against court rulings. We saw in many times during elections when ballot boxes were snatched and gunfights and other forms of violence became the signatures of electoral practice.

    We are also coming to grips with the rise of militancy and banditry that have ravaged parts of the country in the past decade, first in the Niger Delta and now in the north, especially in the northeast. The Niger Delta militancy has abated, and we are having hints of the killing of many of the kingpins of banditry. This gives us hope that the future of security may not be as dreary as it was a year ago.

    On the cultural front, our education system is in pain, with primary schools across the country being ill-equipped and ill-staffed, and tertiary education having less room than there are eligible applicants.

    The prognosis calls for more focused leadership across all levels of government.

  • Edo election: a postmortem

    Edo election: a postmortem

    •Ahead of other off-cycle polls, what transpired in Edo on September 21 should be expertly dissected

    To many, the 2024 Edo State governorship election may be over already. Those among this category who believe that they were robbed, could have started thinking what to do to turn the tide next time. Others, however, believe that the “battle” has just been joined. Indeed, there are three stages of election in Nigeria: the pre-ballot, polling day activities and the post-election phase.

    The first two phases may be over, but the third is as crucial as the preceding two. It is played at the court room, with a lot fewer participants in judges, lawyers and politicians. The election umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is not left out. They all have their say and day in the court. In some cases, the court could overrule the electorate and decide who ought to have won. That’s the nature of elections in Nigeria. The Supreme Court decisions on the Zamfara, Bayelsa and Imo state governorship elections remain reference points and have encouraged politicians to always explore whatever possibilities exist on the judicial plane.

    But, there is much to learn in the September 21 governorship poll in the 192 polling units in Edo State. It is now known to all that the body saddled with the statutory duty of conducting the election has returned Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as governor-elect with 56 percent of the votes cast, while his closest rival, Asue Ighodalo of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), got the endorsement of 35 per cent of the electorate. Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) could only be classified as also-ran with the others as they all polled less than 10 per cent of the votes cast.

     The media and most of the observers, local and foreign, have said the election was characterised by peace, disappointing all who had predicted that it would be marked by violence and bloodshed. For this, the electoral commission and the security forces deserve kudos. When Governor Godwin Obaseki chose to storm the collation centre, the police, led by DIG Frank Mba, ordered him out. Despite the late arrival of materials for voting, the people kept their cool and thugs were kept at bay throughout the period voting was on and even at declaration of results in each of the polling units. The bimodal voter accreditation system machines were reported to have worked perfectly and results were posted timeously. Again, for this, the commission deserves thumbs up.

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    But, a number of people who checked the posted figures on the IREV have pointed out some discrepancies. Whether these, and the contention that collation for three of the local government areas were not conducted in the designated headquarters, but at the state level, are  good enough to nullify the exercise is left to the courts, to which the PDP has said it is taking up the challenge. What the electoral act requires is “substantial compliance” with the law, rules, procedures and guidelines.

    Beyond the gladiators, political parties and politicians, there are lessons to be learnt by all Nigerians: that is, even beyond Edo State. This being an off-cycle election to which therefore INEC could and did deploy so much human and material resources, a near perfect election was expected. Logistics, punctual deployment of polling officials and materials needed, was the least that should have been achieved. The commission failed in this respect. In many polling units, materials reportedly arrived about four, five hours behind schedule. This is awful considering the number of elections that have been conducted by the commission since 1999. If Edo State alone posed such a challenge, what is to be expected when we have the next general election?

    Besides, Ondo State governorship election is just round the corner. Then Anambra. How do we avoid the pitfalls of Edo polls? It will help if the election czars could release their report of the previous election for public scrutiny and education. The 2023 elections were conducted almost 18 months ago, and INEC has reportedly conducted reviews and a dissection. What did it find? How did that help with preparations for and conduct of the Edo polls? We deserve to know. So much funds go into conducting polls, and so much emotion is expended that we should not continue to repeat the same mistakes.

    In future elections, if the advertised statutory venues for polling or collation were to change, all participants should be duly informed and carried along. If the party agents are informed but refuse to go along, it is not the error of the umpire, especially if it is changed in line with the law. When everything is done in the open and transparently, there would perhaps be little room for rancour. Nigeria must forge ahead and be lifted above the jejune in conducting our elections.

  • Riot Act  

    Riot Act  

    • CBN should have sanctioned bank CEOs who failed to render returns on time rather than threaten them

    According to a report by this newspaper, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is set to wield the big stick against Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and chairmen of banks who fail to publish their annual financial statements of account 12 months after the end of the financial year. The erring CEOs and chairmen, it directed, should be fired with immediate effect. The directive is said to have been contained in CBN’s Monetary, Credit, Foreign Trade and Exchange Policy Guidelines for 2024-2025 posted on its website. The decision, it said, is backed by the provisions of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020.

    Excerpts of the report as published by this newspaper reads: “The CBN shall continue to hold the Board Chairman and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of a defaulting bank directly responsible for any breach and impose appropriate sanctions which may include – barring the MD/CEO or his/her nominee from participating in Bankers’ Committee and disclosing the reason for such suspension; suspension of the foreign exchange dealership licence of the CBN and its name sent to the Nigerian Exchange Group (in the case of a public quoted company); and removal of the Chairman and MD/CEO from office if the accounts remain unpublished for 12 months after the end of the bank’s financial year.”

    Interestingly, the banks, being publicly quoted entities, are also subject to the extant rules at the stock market which require quoted companies to submit their audited report and accounts not later than 90 days after the end of the financial year, or 30 days after the end of the quarter.

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    The above obviously prompts the question: why was the directive necessary? Agreed, nothing in the directive remotely suggests that such breaches are industry-wide; yet, in the same vein it seems only reasonable to suggest that the apex bank could not have been crying wolf where none existed. In fact, the CBN, in putting out the information the way it did, while spelling out the dire warnings of the consequences of the breaches, not only attests to the existence of the problem, it highlighted the seriousness with which it views it.

    Could the affected banks be also in the breach of the capital market rules? Or is it a case of complying with one while ignoring the other? Nigerians will certainly like to know.

    By the way, who, aside the CBN ought to do the firing?

    At the risk of tarring every operator with tar brush, we would have expected the CBN to have provided more information than it had dared to put out. The matter, as it is, begs the question: how pervasive is the breach? In other words, how many institutions are involved? Other than cast the shadow on every operator in the sector, it is hard to justify the idea of bunching the guilty with the innocent. It neither serves any useful purpose nor serves the public cause.  

    In the absence of any ambiguity in the provisions of the regulations, the axe simply ought to have fallen with examples made of the offending players; after all, none of them could feign ignorance of those provisions. To the extent that the failure, which the CBN has already adjudged a dereliction, smacks of an intolerable abuse of public trust that should never in any circumstance, have been condoned, Nigerians would have gladly welcomed the sanction.

    It is certainly not too late for the CBN to offer the necessary clarifications. To fail to do that is to risk further damage to the trust held by the public in the financial services sector.

  • Delayed benefits  

    Delayed benefits  

    • •Government and police authorities must ensure prompt settlement to beneficiaries

    On the one hand one would commend the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) for paying huge sums in benefits to the families of their departed officers and men. But, on the other hand, that much of what was paid was backlog of arrears of the entitlement leaves much to be desired.

    The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, announced Tuesday that N15,606,138,376 had been paid to 5,225 family members and next-of-kin of deceased police officers between 2023 and 2024.

    The IGP, who spoke in Abuja while presenting cheques to another batch of the fallen officers’ families said the sum of N9,851,847,889.88 was paid to 3,077 families and next-of-kin on six different occasions between July 2023 and June 2024.

    “We will be presenting cheques totalling N5,754,290,486.38 to the families of deceased police officers who have selflessly given their lives in service of our great nation, Nigeria,” the IGP said at the occasion. He added that “This is the largest disbursement ever in the history of cheque presentations to family members of deceased police officers. This reflects our commitment to easing the burden on the families of our fallen colleagues.”

    Although those who got the cheques were obviously elated that, at last, they were getting the cheques, we want to appeal to the police authorities to always ensure prompt payment of such benefits. Egbetokun himself said some of the payments were for insurance policies for 2018-2019, 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024. “Today’s disbursement covers balance payments for insurance policies for the years 2018-2019, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024”, he said. He did not include payments for 2020-2021. So, we are not in a position to know whether these were paid or not. But it would be curious if they were since others before and after it had just been paid.

    The police authorities cannot be talking about settling insurance covers five or six years after the beneficiaries had died. We do not know why this is so, however. But we need to know. Was it that the government did not pay the premiums when they fell due or the money was diverted? If it was due to delay in releasing the funds, we want to appeal to the government to prioritise such payments and if it was diverted, Nigerians should be told on what they were spent so that if there is the need to probe further, that can be done. We have to be sure that public funds have not been diverted to private use.

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    Benefits like these ought to be promptly settled, especially to the beneficiaries of people who died so that the rest of us can sleep with our two eyes closed.

    Cecilia Christopher who spoke on behalf of the beneficiaries, commended the IGP for the gesture: “We come here and what you did to us, especially the Commissioner of Police and the insurance officers, in fact, we really appreciate what you people did for us, and we urge that you will continue to do to others as you did to us. This money will go a long way to train our children in school.”

    She also seized the opportunity to mention some of the challenges that people in their circumstances face, like their children finding it hard to secure jobs after graduation. She did not even mention the hell they go through in getting these children educated; a thing that was not easy even when the breadwinners were alive.

    We are not happy that delayed payment of final benefits to our slain officers and men has become a recurring decimal, not only in the police force but in the armed forces generally.

    We cannot quantify in monetary terms the value of their sacrifice to the country. Much as some people must do their kind of job and some, unfortunately, will lose their lives in the process, the least we owe their families is to settle their entitlements promptly. We cannot bring them back from the dead. So, the government and the police authorities must always strive to ensure that their benefits get paid on time to motivate those still in service and assure them that even if they die in the line of duty, their families would not suffer.

  • Off duty calls

    Off duty calls

    PSC should walk the talk of curbing policemen from dabbling in civil matters

    Police personnel, by their statutory mandate, have the core responsibility to secure public order and security within Nigeria’s borders. They are often complemented by military forces in the face of daunting security challenges that threaten the nation’s survival, but maintenance of internal peace and order is primarily their call. The mandate of the police, however, does not extend to dabbling in purely civil matters like land, rent and marital disputes. And that point has been clearly made by the Police Service Commission (PSC), which is the body saddled by law with the power to oversee the conduct and functions of the police workforce.

    PSC Chairman Hashimu Argungu, a retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), has warned that serving police personnel found involved in civil matters such as land, rent and marital disputes would henceforth be firmly sanctioned. Speaking while hosting a delegation from the Justice Research Institute led by a former Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade Ipaye, he stated that the service commission would no longer tolerate abuse of office by police officials. “Serving police officers who are found involved in civil matters such as land, rent and marital disputes will henceforth be sanctioned and their promotions suspended,” a statement by PSC spokesperson Ikechukwu Ani cited him saying.

    Argungu noted that the failure of the police in their legitimate functions obviously equate to failure by the service commission. He thus warned that police personnel must stay clear of civil matters and allow civil courts to do their work.

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    About the same time the PSC boss was speaking, leaders of a community in Awka, Anambra State, petitioned his commission over alleged police involvement in a communal land dispute. The petitioners from Ezinano community alleged that the police were using firearms to harass, threaten and intimidate their members over a land row with neighbouring Umuzuocha village that is currently before a high court. The petitioners further alleged that despite the pending court case, police personnel aided Umuzuocha people in destroying Ezinano community’s economic crops, fruits and trees. They specifically accused officers of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) in Awkuzu of prejudicial meddling in the land dispute and named a Superintendent of Police who led the police team that stormed the disputed land on September 4, shooting sporadically and allegedly threatening Ezinano community members.

    Foregoing is just one of many instances of how police personnel get involved in matters that are entirely civil oriented, with some cases already taken before civil courts. There have been reports of husbands and wives quarrelling and the row degenerating to the point whereby one party called in the police on the other party; and rather than the police referring such matter to domestic arbitration, they would arrest the spouse that was complained against and encourage the complainant-spouse to press the case.  True, it becomes a matter of public disorder that should concern the police if battery and assault were involved, but we are talking here about cases where there were only hot verbal exchanges and one spouse had enough and called in the police. Other instances included paternity disputes that ought to be left to relevant medical and judicial authorities to adjudicate, but where the police were brought in by one party to exert coercive advantage over the other.

    Only recently, we commented in an editorial about reported experiences of a 26-year-old photographer who was arrested by the police and subsequently spent 10 months in prison for resigning his job with a photography studio in Abuja through a text message to his boss, which the boss found insulting. Peter Nicholas, a graduate of Mass Communication from Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, spent jail time at Keffi Correctional Centre after being arraigned on a charge that he insulted the proprietor of the Abuja studio from where he resigned. He was also accused of theft of a phone from the studio; only it was an accusation that could not be pressed in court because, as Nicholas argued, the phone was reported missing after he had quit. All charges against Nicholas were eventually withdrawn by the litigant from the Upper Area Court in Mpape, Abuja, where he was arraigned, but he was left in prison for some months more because he couldn’t raise the money to pay his bail. We had wondered in our commentary how the police could stoop to be dragged into a matter that at best should be left to domestic arbitration, even with the high level of criminality hobbling the society they are hard pressed to tackle.

    It is helpful that the PSC has come round to making it official that police personnel are not to involve themselves in purely civil matters. They never should have in the first place, but for busybody syndrome suspected to be propelled by corrupt inducement plied by parties dragging the police into civil matters. Police personnel are neither skilled nor trained in handling civil matters that are largely juristic and arbitrational in orientation, whereas the police’s standard mode of operation is coercive.

    The PSC has its job cut out holding the ubiquitously errant police workforce to the rule it has just issued. An early test will be how it resolves the publicised petition against police personnel’s involvement in the Anambra community land dispute. In short, all eyes are on the service commission to walk its talk.