The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • In Boston, explosions transform a scene of celebration into one of tragedy

    In Boston, explosions transform a scene of celebration into one of tragedy

    IN THE weeks and months after the 2001 terrorist attacks, every iconic sports event became an occasion for anxiety. World Series games, the Super Bowl— with each, trepidation suffused every fan’s normal interest.

    Over time, the trepidation faded — until Monday. The Boston Marathon, held each Patriot’s Day, is about as iconic as a sporting event can be, for the world’s elite runners and for Bostonians, whether sedentary or fit. As Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) said, “This is a pretty special day around here.” That it would be despoiled by two explosions near the finish line, killing at least three and injuring scores, is a terrible development.

    In the early moments after the blasts, there were indications of the nation’s maturity, for better and worse, in dealing with such shocks. Runners and onlookers seemed to respond, for the most part, without panic. Local police began cooperating seamlessly with state police and the FBI and other federal authorities. Emergency crews responded with professionalism.

    Officials and reporters, meanwhile, were careful not to get ahead of the confirmed news. Could the explosions have been something other than bombs? In the late afternoon, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis confirmed that they were explosive devices.

    Who was responsible? Again, there seemed to be a general understanding of the danger of jumping to conclusions. The nation has seen its share of foreign terrorism and homegrown terrorism attacks alike (the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta come to mind). Sadly, any number of explanatory scenarios were plausible, absent a claim of responsibility and pending a more thorough investigation.

    Washingtonians who knew a marathoner, or whose friends or loved ones were in Boston for other reasons, frantically sought reassurance. For everyone else, there was little to do but hold the victims in their hearts and wait for more clarity. Unfortunately, we’ve learned well by now that “senseless” doesn’t mean“unlikely.” Even so, who could help but feel furious that anyone would target such a sunny event and so many innocent people?

    – Washington Post

  • One up for Lagos Command

    One up for Lagos Command

    •Quite some feat tracking Queen Okonjo’s kidnappers, but the Lagos CP has a big test in his hands in the abduction of Ejigbo LCDA chairman

     

    As fate playing pranks with the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Umar Manko? Well the next few days will prove. The Lagos top cop who, with the logistical and institutional backing of the Fashola administration, has also proven to be a tough crime buster in his few years in the mega-city has just been caught up in a thrilling double-decker irony. Just last Monday, Manko had regaled the media with the cheery news of how his command cracked the notorious gang that kidnapped Queen Kamene Okonjo, mother of the finance minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Ugwuashi-Ukwu, Delta State, last December.

    According to Manko, upon the arrest of two of the informants instrumental to the kidnap of Queen Okonjo last March, the command had pulled all stops, raising decoy teams that stormed Delta, Edo and Rivers states; all tracking methods were put in place and networks activated. In no time, eight of the dare-devil gang members led by 22-year-old Jideofor Ogbuem, a.k.a. Marvelous, had been apprehended. The gang, said to be 13 in number (with one dead and four said to be still at large) gave copious accounts of their escapades both in the abduction of the queen and several other operations. Though the suspects are still to be prosecuted, Mr. Manko’s is a laudatory report of how policing ought to be conducted. He has proved that with the police hard at work and criminals are brought to book, there would be sufficient deterrent to curtail kidnapping to bearable minimum.

    But there is a fateful twist in the tale. Perhaps at about the same time Manko was briefing the press, hoodlums in Ejigbo, outskirts of Lagos Mainland, were busy snatching Mr. Kehinde Bamgbetan, chairman of the Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, LCDA. He had been kidnapped near his house in Ejigbo and a ransom of N150 million has reportedly been demanded by the criminals. What exhilarating irony it is that in closing his briefing Monday, Manko had sounded it loud and clear that: “There is no hiding place for any criminal in Lagos, no matter where he runs to.” The criminals may have thrown the challenge right back at the police boss. We urge him to always consider the insider connection as numerous accounts have shown that total strangers can hardly do the abduction ‘business’.

    While we commend Manko for his gallantry, rigour and methodical approach, we hasten to say that governments at all levels must seek holistic solution to the scourge of human snatching in Nigeria. What was known to be rampant mainly in the south-south and south-east parts of Nigeria in the past few years has spread to nearly every part of the country, including the south-west and lately, Lagos. We have said it here times without number that crimes like these are symptomatic of a failing economy.

    As we have noticed in the accounts of the arrested suspects, they are all supposedly graduates of tertiary institutions who claimed they could not find jobs after school. There is no doubt that unemployment in Nigeria is invidiously high with a teeming mass of enlightened young people who are idle and frustrated. Vast areas across the country are particularly comatose, with hardly any economic activities going on in them.

    We urge governments across board to stir themselves. We advise that stakeholders must meet urgently to seek immediate and long-term solutions. Apart from the traumatised victims, the paralysing effects of this heinous crime on the economy cannot be quantified. For instance, no quality foreign investor will venture into any country where kidnap-for-ransom is rampant. We urge governments to act as a matter of urgency.

     

  • Double jeopardy

    Double jeopardy

    •MEND’s threat will put the govt in a tight corner as it has to battle many enemies simultaneously

     

    A  chilling countdown has begun, with all eyes glued on May 31, the date fixed by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to launch Operation Barbarossa. “The bombings of mosques, hajj camps, Islamic institutions, large congregations in Islamic events and assassination of clerics that propagate doctrines of hate will form the core mission of this crusade,” its spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, said in an e-mailed statement. The motive, according to the militant group, is “to save Christianity in Nigeria from annihilation.”

    It is intriguing that the group claimed it was speaking “on behalf of the hapless Christian population in Nigeria.” Clearly, the immediate questions raised by this posture are: Who made MEND protector of the Christian faithful? What are the group’s credentials qualifying it to play the self-assigned defensive role? What is the basis for the premise that the Christian faith is in grave danger? Why is Islam the target of the planned campaign?

    Certainly, it is more than a coincidence that MEND spoke out following the dramatic rejection by Abubakar Shekau of the idea of a governmental amnesty for Boko Haram , the Islamist group terrorising the northern part of the country. The leader of the religious fundamentalists stunned the Federal Government, arguing that his group had done no wrong, and that it was the government that should be considered for pardon.

    Inspired by an unrealistic dream to Islamise the country and enthrone sharia, Boko Haram has become increasingly radical since 2009, and its terror tactics has resulted in a reported death toll of 10,000 victims. In its reign of terror, the group has been particularly hard on churches, a fact that helps to put MEND’s reasoning into perspective.

    However, it is not difficult to detect an opportunistic angle in MEND’s new-found love for Christianity. Before the announcement of Operation Barbarossa, there was Hurricane Exodus by which the group resumed open hostilities this month against the government, prompted by the trial and imprisonment of its leader, Henry Okah, in South Africa, on charges related to terror acts carried out by the group in Nigeria. True to its threat, the group claimed responsibility for the killing of 12 policemen on the waterways of Azuzuama in Bayelsa State, and the destruction of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited Well 62 at Ewellesuo community, also in Bayelsa.

    Now that the reversal triggered by Okah’s fate has been expanded to accommodate what is obviously conceived as a counter-punch against Boko Haram, the development casts a reasonable doubt on the group’s actual motive and the sincerity of its pro-Christian campaign. It is instructive that the group named Okah among those who could intervene to arrest the operation. Will he do this from jail?Also, it is noteworthy that the group clarified the status of Hurricane Exodus, saying that it is on-going and would be carried out side by side with Operation Barbarossa.

    If MEND gives bite to its threat, the consequence will be a balance of terror. It remains to be seen, though, whether such development would tame Boko Haram. It is indeed remarkable that MEND was itself a beneficiary of governmental amnesty and its renewed insurgency demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the pardon approach as a deterrent for champions of terror.

    For the government, this is, without doubt, a case of double jeopardy; and the situation will certainly put it under immense pressure as it struggles to find solutions. Dubious self-help, which is what MEND’s move represents concerning the Boko Haram challenge, is definitely out of the question. Equally defective is the government’s insistence on considering amnesty for Boko Haram, which has rubbished the thought.

    There is no escaping the fact that the government will have to address the security challenges with all the creativity that it can summon. However, in the final analysis, nothing succeeds like good governance, with all the positive implications for political and socio-economic development. That is the way the government should go.

     

  • Amaechi’s warning

    Amaechi’s warning

    •The Rivers governor’s statement that Nigerians were too docile to be revolutionary is a battle cry for positive change

    Should a governor openly say Nigerians are too docile for a revolution to take place in this country? To the extent that it could easily be misconstrued as people-baiting, it is clearly impolitic. But that is about the only negative thing about the statement Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi made in Ado Ekiti, at the second Nigeria Symposium for Young and Emerging Leaders.

    The governor, in his presentation at the symposium, had decried the seeming endless elasticity of Nigerians and their penchant to resign themselves to suffering, instead of girding their loins to challenge bad governance and its myriad of injustices.

    He said Nigerians would rather pray, and expect God to come down and perform a miracle over what God had given the people the power and the intellect to change. It was in this context that he said revolutions could not happen in Nigeria, given that less serious cases had caused great catastrophes elsewhere.

    Two things are clear from Governor Amaechi’s submission: that Nigerians could be better governed by their leaders; and that Nigerians could more vigorously call their leaders to question and account, given their penchant for peaceful change.

    That Nigerians appear timid and docile is no lie. But that does not mean their temper is eternally elastic. No people’s temper is. But then, why should any government, democratic or monarchy, rise to the occasion of exemplary governance and development if the people make a fetish of docility? If that happens, the people themselves would have thrown into the Atlantic Ocean their God-given and constitutionally sanctioned power to challenge their leaders to do better – and by so doing, get the people’s lives better transformed.

    Therefore, given that the governor was speaking to young Nigerians and emerging leaders, it was as good a place as any to call for the people’s change of strategy; and for Nigerians to deliberately and consistently challenge for better governance. The youth must champion this crusade. And Nigeria, near-dysfunctional as it is, can certainly use such attitudinal change.

    On the government’s side, Amaechi’s call should sound as a timely alarm that our governments must put their acts together. Mr. Amaechi is a sitting governor. If despite his assured comfort zone, his political antenna is still socially acute enough to pick out the great suffering in the land, while the government does little or nothing, then he ought to be praised for telling his co-rulers to brace up to the business of improving the people’s lives, rather than being nailed – as quite many of his colleagues would blissfully hold – of goading the people to rebellion.

    Indeed, Mr. Amaechi has shown great courage to have consistently held that Nigerian leaders should not just sit back and do near-nothing, just because they have the impression that the Nigerian people are no agitators. Such a glum attitude, erected on what could prove an attitudinal mirage, may well be cause of future but needless agony.

    So, let everyone, leaders and people alike, use the Ameachi comment as a wake-up call. That Nigerians do not exactly love agitation does not mean the government should abandon its very essence: adding value to the life of the citizen. That would be courting needless danger.

    On the other hand, the people must cultivate the culture of constant challenge and healthy demands to push the government to do its duties and perform its obligations towards citizens.

    Both parties doing their own bits would create the healthy tension that ensures democracy is deepened; with its resultant development and prosperity. With that assured, any talk of revolution would sound patently asinine.

     

  • Preventable diseases

    Preventable diseases

    • Nigeria must strategise to rid itself of this tragedy

    It is once again thumbs down for the country, with two different alarms raised about its high maternal mortality and tuberculosis rates, said to be killing hundreds of Nigerians daily. According to the Chairman of Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Dr Oluwarotimi Akinola, Nigeria accounts for 10 per cent of global maternal deaths. “The last National Demographic and Health Survey in 2008 placed the National Maternal Mortality rate at 545 per 100,000 live births”, the second to India where 145 women lose their lives daily during or shortly after child birth. This is in contrast to Ghana and even Benin Republic that are doing better, with 350 out of 100,000 and 400 deaths out of 100,000, respectively.

    As if this was not depressing enough, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) also came up with a report that the country has the highest number of people living with tuberculosis (TB) in Africa. The report further shows that 27,000 out of 190,000 Nigerians who were diagnosed with the disease in 2011 died while 84,263 new cases were reported in 2012. NMA President, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, in a statement to mark this year’s World Tuberculosis Day, disclosed that Lagos, Kano, Oyo and Benue states had the highest prevalence while Ekiti and Bayelsa states had the least number of TB cases in the country. Coming on the heels of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Report in 2012, citing Nigeria as having the highest burden of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in the continent, we do not need any further proof of the hopeless state of the country’s healthcare system.

    It is particularly saddening that Nigeria is still losing many lives to a preventable disease like tuberculosis. Only a few weeks back, it was reported that polio is still in contention in parts of the country, in spite of the fact that it has been checked worldwide, including in some less endowed African countries.

    We have to face the challenges headlong. Governments and other stakeholders must wake up to the reality that this trend portends. TB is preventable and curable; all that is required is for people to observe simple health regulations, hygiene practices and strict adherence to its treatment guidelines by those already infected. Why then must Nigerians continue to die of such a disease?

    This might look like a rhetorical question because we know that poverty and ignorance are major causes of some of these diseases. The truth is that many people cannot afford to pay the bills in our hospitals, public or private, forcing them to make do with the services of quacks and semi-qualified medical personnel and pharmacists when in need of medical attention. Many others seek help in churches and other religious places on account of their inability to afford the medical bills. Governments must seek ways to expand the economy to give room for creation of more jobs. When people are empowered, they will be in a better position to eat well, and reduce the risk of some diseases.

    Moreover, there should be extensive campaign on health issues to make people aware of what they stand to gain or lose if they cultivate certain habits. It is also important for the government to note Dr Enabulele’s suggestions on lack of vaccine, overreliance on funding from international donor agencies, inadequate budgetary allocation towards the Nigerian Tuberculosis Control Programme, general poor health facilities and the high burden of HIV/AIDS in the country, in its efforts to combat these diseases.

    What we spend on healthcare at present is hopelessly inadequate. So, government has to dedicate at least 15 per cent of the budget to healthcare, in line with the Abuja Declaration of 2001. If this is done and judiciously spent, we would have gone a long way in reducing the prevalence of some of these preventable and curative diseases.

  • The North Korea problem

    The North Korea problem

    Secretary of State John Kerrysent several important messages to North Koreaafter talks on Friday in Seoul with South Korean leaders. Speaking at a news conference, he said that the United States would defend its South Korean and Japanese allies if there was conflict, that the international community would never accept the North as a nuclear weaponsstate, and that Washington was willing to resume long-stalled negotiations but only if the North Koreans agreed to move seriously on denuclearization.

    But the window into North Korea’s nuclear intentions and American policy in response was as blurry as ever. The Defense Intelligence Agency rang alarms bellson Thursday with a report that it had concluded with “moderate confidence” that the North was capable of launching a missile with a nuclear warhead. Mr. Kerry and other officials later dismissed the report as premature.

    On Friday, in a background briefing for journalists, a senior American official played down an expected North Korean missile test, saying it might provide the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, with an “off ramp” to save face and de-escalate tensions. Hours later, Mr. Kerry used a news conference to warn Mr. Kim not to proceed with the test in an“already volatile, potentially dangerous situation,” saying Mr. Kim “needs to understand, as I think he probably does, what the outcome of the conflict would be.”

    In that climate, Mr. Kerry’s reaffirmation of American interest in negotiations could get lost, especially since he put the responsibility on the North to act first, by seriously committing to denuclearize, and seemed inclined to let South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, move ahead first on her call for dialogue with North Korea.

    That’s worth trying, but China, the North’s only ally and chief benefactor, remains crucial to any progress and is going to have to apply more pressure on Pyongyang than it has so far.

    There are signs that some Chinese officials are becoming fed up with Mr. Kim’s threatening ways, and that should give Mr. Kerry a new opening when he visits Beijing on Saturday to make the argument that China’s support has allowed Mr. Kim to operate with impunity. For a country like China that values stability above all, that should be an untenable situation.

    North Korea poses a more imminent nuclear threat than Iran. But so far, Mr. Kerry’s continuing trip does not make us confident that the administration has a fully thought out strategy that will be any more successful than the current one, which has failed to curb either the North’s nuclear weapons program or its bellicosity.

     

    – New York Times

     

  • CEOs and development (2)

    CEOs and development (2)

    In the quest for a society of high probity, Nigerians have either turned a blind eye or have fallen prey to institutional ignorance about the connection between the political elite, the business class and government bureaucracies on the one hand, and the banking elite on the other.

    Unless we x-ray this maggoty part of our national narrative on corruption and attack it, we shall remain a nation of hypocrites. Since the dawn of this republic in 1999, the Federal Government has lofted as priority the significance of installing the rule of law. The idea is to trim our excesses as a people of impunity and establish discipline as a national habit.

    The establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) became the signpost of this grand ambition. But since then, we have seen appearances of gravity in this battle. Many big names among the political elite have been charged with fraud, whether as governors or as ministers. The news initially generates a lot of excitement, but after a few months, the story fizzles into stagnation in the courts. They crawl through several adjournments. Eventually they die in public either on the altar of technicalities or over the frivolity of plea bargains.

    We are also not unaware that some of the cases thrived on political blackmail as the government of the day deployed the war on corruption as revenge or intimidation. We still have that today.

    In the early days of the EFCC when the war on corruption swung about in a berth of innocence, the anti-corruption czar, Nuhu Ribadu, swaggered on the image akin to a rock star. He had a messianic glow, even dwarfing any other national figure, including clerics, in moral grandeur. The arrest and conviction of an inspector-general of police helped to seal the public perception. We were ready to abide the contradiction that a supposedly thieving elite had institutionalised a mole in their midst to expose and root them out. It appeared in the form of a classic class suicide.

    In spite of all that, the Ribadu regime enjoyed declining, though acceptable, levels of public praise that ached with doubts and scrutiny. It was a measure of the political elite coming to terms with its own moral perfidy. It coalesced forces in the early days of the regime of former President Umaru Yar’Adua to oust Ribadu. The result has been a craven warfare with battles that came across less as blows than as handshakes between government institutions and the accused.

    We have had a few of such narratives in the country, but the glue between the political elite and the business class and bureaucracies has been the chief executive officers of the banks. As we noted in the first part of this editorial, tons of money are moved in the bank vaults from one place to the other, and such heavy lifting is not possible without the knowledge and – or connivance – of the bank executives.

    We know the case of now pardoned former governor of Bayelsa State, Chief D.S.P Alamieyeseigha, who was not only convicted but served a term in prison. We know of the case of former Delta State Governor James Ibori who is now serving his term in a British jail. We know of the plea bargain that former Edo State Governor, Lucky Igbinedion, secured after a sustained hullaballoo died as though it never sounded in the first place. We have had smaller “sins” belonging to less decorated or flamboyant men of that class.

    Hardly were the complicities of the banks delineated in these heinous endeavours. The charges against the chief executives involved billions of Naira and we can only lie to ourselves as a people if we deny that such tremendous money flows transpire out of the ken of the bank elite. If the banks know about this, why do the bank officers involved not come up for questioning? Why are they not prosecuted?

    We do not want to accept that the bank officers were used as informers. The offenders do not have the capacities to move money in the banks because they are not bankers. They need co-conspirators, partners in felony.

    We have also had many former governors that have been prosecuted, like in Ogun State with Gbenga Daniel, or Oyo State with Adebayo Alao-Akala, but the bank CEOs were not named in the suits.

    The bureaucracy suffers the same fate. The pension scandal still rankles the nation’s skin today. Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, who is now at large, could not have tinkered with the money of the lifetime perspirations of hardworking Nigerians without the role of the bank management.

    There are many of such stories. If we say we want to follow due process, we must apply the same logic in investigating fraud and malfeasance in government. The EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) cannot dig out the scum of financial crimes without encountering the bank officers and their roles along the way. Again, such monies cannot move without catching the eyes of the CEOs unless they are incompetent and they lack requisite vigilance for their offices.

    News reports have swarmed the media about the cosy relationships between the political elite and the business elite. Reports also have it about how governors, ministers, even local government chairmen connive with banks to stay payments, including contract money and salaries in order to generate interest. The relationship between politicians and banks is inevitable, but it ought to be regulated. The story is also rife that the business elite serve as fronts for political elite, and it is in that context that we must locate the invisibility of the bank CEOs in the story of political fraud.

    We have not reached the stage where we can hold political operatives to account on the money spent on elections and other campaigns. But if we take seriously the war on corruption, we must unleash our searchlights not only on the obvious suspects but also their subterranean backers.

    Unless we do that, we make trifle the war on corruption. We will continue to clutch at straws. We will accuse and not convict and that becomes a vicious cycle that hardly addresses the issue.

    It is an irony that an anti-democratic regime under General Sani Abacha hounded down errant bank chiefs. Also ironic is that the democratic dispensation under Obasanjo pruned the banks for their inefficiencies and corruption. Yet the bank chiefs enjoyed immunity while he hunted corrupt politicians over billions of Naira.

    The political elite govern this country, and if they are not above board, we need to create a rubric to hold them in check. If we fail in that regard, we mock ourselves when we yell to the world about the war on corruption.

    The consequence is immeasurable. We shall have contracts awarded but siphoned away with the help of the CEOs. Roads will not be constructed, school supplies will suffer neglect, hospitals will churn out the dead and not the living, etc. We shall run a country for ruin. If politicians are the source, the banks and their CEOs are the glue. We need to initiate the divorce and free taxpayers ‘money to lift the lives of our people.

  • A WikiLeaks way out

    A WikiLeaks way out

    Prosecutors must prove that Pfc. Bradley Manning “had reason to believe” that the classified material he provided to WikiLeaks would harm the nation, a military judge ruled Wednesday — offering the Pentagon and the Obama administration an opportunity to bring an end to a prosecution that has become an exercise in overkill.

    Manning, the 25-year-old former intelligence analyst in Iraq, pleaded guilty in February to 10 charges, including possessing classified information and transferring it to an unauthorized person. The plea alone could subject him to 20 years in prison, but the government wasn’t satisfied. It continues to charge him with multiple violations of the Espionage Act and of “aiding the enemy.” Conviction on the more serious charges could put him in prison for life.

    To Manning’s supporters, he is a valiant whistle-blower; they often cite the video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack that killed 12 civilians in Baghdad that Manning provided to WikiLeaks. His detractors argue that his actions sprang as much from personal problems as from altruism and that his indiscriminate document dump went way beyond identifying war crimes, undermining national security and the conduct of diplomacy.

    Even if Manning was engaged in principled civil disobedience, he must face the consequences that await anyone who violates the law in a supposedly higher cause. But the current charges against him go too far.

    In arguing that Manning aided the enemy, the government’s case apparently will rest on the assertion that some WikiLeaks material made its way to a digital device found in the possession of Osama bin Laden. This is an ominously broad interpretation. By the government’s logic, the New York Times could be accused of aiding the enemy if Bin Laden possessed a copy of the newspaper that included the WikiLeaks material it published.

    As for the Espionage Act charges, the judge, Col. Denise Lind, ruled that the prosecution must prove that Manning had “reason to believe” that providing computer files to WikiLeaks would harm the nation; it wouldn’t be enough simply to show that he knew he was disclosing classified information. Whether this ruling would make conviction of Manning significantly harder isn’t clear. But it could make it easier for the government to announce that pursuing the additional charges wouldn’t be productive — a graceful exit that would still leave Manning facing considerable time in prison.

     

    – Los Angeles Times

  • What shall we do with the police?

    What shall we do with the police?

    The force is faced with dire institutional rot

    Could it be that each day breaks with the sole purpose of revealing the misery that has become the Nigeria Police? Has the initial good sense shown by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Abubakar quickly dissipated in the overwhelming rot that assailed the police boss upon resumption? Indeed, Nigeria’s number one law enforcement agency today represents a long list of sad questions; it is an interminable list of unsolved and unsolvable crimes; it is everything that is unsavoury and unpalatable.

    This is not about the sordid episode of the Ikeja Police College which state of dereliction shocked the world recently. Two fresh matters last week highlight the dire state of the Nigeria Police. First was the muffled outcry of about 48 men of MOPOL 4 Command, Ibadan, who were recently deployed to Kano in the heat of the increased tempo of terrorist activities in the ancient northern city.

    The hapless men, unable to contain their frustrations any longer made their plight known to the world: they had been without food or water for over 10 days, they alleged in pained anonymous voices as police rules barred them from speaking out. No allowances were paid them for nearly two weeks and to cap it all, they said, “We were not sure who is responsible for our welfare; we were told it should be the Kano State Government but the right thing is for the state police command to take charge of the situation.”

    The sad tale goes further: “for those of us in Rano Area Command, we have to make daily trips to buy food, water and charge our phones. The well water at the recreational centre where we live is not good for drinking. There is no light and our phones are the only means of communicating.” Speaking through its chief spokesperson, the police authority has dismissed the story of these men as “false, baseless and with no iota of truth.”

    But, as if to weigh in on the side of the men and to lend credence to the seeming fiscal anomie and impecunious state of the force, our second story is a revelation about how police stations in Nigeria are run on less than N2,000.00 daily. Yes, two thousand naira per day. According to Senator Gyang Pwajok (PDP, Plateau north), the police force is grossly underfunded and some divisions and stations do not even get up to that paltry sum.

    Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Pwajok corroborates his assertion thus: “In the 2013 budget for instance, the police force has a total vote of N300 billion. Of that amount, N293 billion is for recurrent expenditure like salaries for the more than 400,000 police personnel.

    “It is from the balance of about N8 billion that the 1,115 police divisions, 5,515 police stations and 5,000 police posts are run. Most of those formations do not even get anything at all and that is why they do not have crime diaries, stationery or even biros.” We also believe that the police funds need to be audited, and a clear report released on how every kobo is spent in the recurrent context.

    These stories sound weird but we all know that they represent the Nigerian reality; the situation is bleak and indeed forlorn for a primary institution of state on which hinges her law, order and overall protection of the citizenry. The police, being so germane to the very existence of any state, should never be allowed to be thus imperiled as the Nigeria Police has become today.

    It is particularly troubling that at a time when the Nigerian state is literally at war fighting all shades of armed elements that are breaking out from every corner of the country, the police remain underfunded, poorly trained and ill-organised. With the Boko Haram Islamists terrorising half of the country in the last decade, it is expected that the police would have been the main beneficiary of this adversity through improved funding, quality training and improved professionalism. As we all can see, nothing has changed.

    As we have said here often, government must rethink, revamp and restructure the police as a first step for containing the crises erupting across the country. It is a delicate, if not dangerous state of affairs as we have today that soldiers are let loose on nearly all the 36 states of the federation doing civil duties and supposedly maintaining the peace. It is an aberrant and indeed suicidal state of affairs. The Federal Government has also unwisely created all manner of quasi-law enforcement agencies purporting to carry out police functions but merely dissipating scarce funds that would have served policing better. For instance, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC); the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) among a number of others, are effectively, units of the police which have merely burgeoned as bureaucratic centres and have drained scarce funds without necessarily being more effective.

    As we have canvassed several times, the Federal Government must rethink the current centrality of the police which has failed woefully. As currently constituted, the states virtually fund the police while the central government holds the command. We posit that the Federal Government can begin to gradually cede some policing authority to the states while maintaining oversight and overall control. The police force as presently constituted is not working and it serves no purpose, either to itself or the citizenry. We must restructure it.

  • What’s in a report?

    What’s in a report?

    Detention of Leadership newspaper journalists is absolute disgrace in a democracy

    For the police, the informant is something of a protected species; and the force treats as confidential information supplied by this source in the context of its crime-busting role. In this picture, information value is as important as source anonymity. It is interesting that the media also upholds a similar institutional protection for the provider of information in the context of its constitutional responsibility as watchdog on power.

    However, the recent arrest and detention of some journalists betrayed the self-centred thinking in the police force, which has refused to accommodate the reality that what’s ‘sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’. If the police have a right to protect informants, why can’t the media, which has an equal right to shield its sources, be allowed to exercise same? This kind of governmental double standard is not only patently unreasonable; it is also deplorable.

    Four media workers at Leadership Newspapers – Executive Director, Human Capital, Mrs. Chinyere Fred-Adegbulugbe; Managing Editor, Mr. Chuks Ohuegbe; Group News Editor, Mr. Tony Amoekedo; and Correspondent, Mr. Chibuzo Ukaibe – as law-abiding citizens reported at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, on invitation in connection with a published story entitled, “Outrage trails presidential directive on Tinubu and APC.” The paper had reported that there was a “presidential directive” to attack key figures in opposition political parties, which the presidency denied, claiming it was a piece of falsehood. “We published the bromide to authenticate the story,” Amoekedo told reporters, while giving the background to their ordeal.

    The journalists endured hours of grilling to disclose the source of the document; and while two of them were released on the night of their arrest, the other two were caged overnight and set free conditionally the following day. Reports said it took the intervention of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), to get the police to grant bail to Amoekedo and Ukaibe who are required to report at the police headquarters daily for further investigation.

    In this matter, it is quite disturbing that the police force, to put it mildly, went beyond the law. There are worrying questions: Why were the journalists arrested and detained without evidence that they had broken the law? Why did the police force itself break the law by holding two of the journalists beyond 24 hours without charging them to court, contrary to the law? Who was behind the arrest and detention of the journalists? Why did the police allegedly insist initially that they produce the document, or else they would remain in detention? Why did the police demand that they disclose the source of the information, contrary to the ethics of their profession?

    Also, it is apt to consider the presidency’s part in what is certainly an absolute disgrace. The authorities created room for suspicion as the journalists were invited for quizzing following the publication of the document by the paper, to corroborate its report after the initial denial by the presidency. If, in the course of legitimately doing their work, the journalists put the presidency in an embarrassing situation, there can be no apologies for that. Rather, it is the government that should be shamefaced for its messy involvement in the reported plot against the opposition, and apparent moves to muzzle the press. The democratic system of government leaves no room for such uncivilised conduct.

    It is, however, heart-warming that Amoekedo and Ukaibe have filed a suit against the Inspector- General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, claiming N10 million for breach of their fundamental rights. It is a correct signal to the powerful that impunity within the government will be challenged with the instrument of the law.