The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Fresh twist

    Fresh twist

    The bombing of Kano’s luxury bus park may have introduced an ethnic hue to the activities of Islamist terrorists

    A fresh twist may have been added to the terrorism tendencies of the Islamists in the north of Nigeria. Seemingly unrelenting in their quest to inflict maximum damage to the polity, they may have gone one step clear of the authorities by playing the ethnic card; trying to incite one group against the other in a bid to escalate the crisis. This may be the thinking of the sect which bombed the New Luxury Bus Park in Sabon Gari, Kano, last Monday. Though no group has owned up to perpetrating the massive explosions that devastated the large park, it has all the trappings of the Boko Haram group.

    The suicide bombings, according to reports, had happened at about 4.30 pm when a few luxury buses had been fully loaded for the onward night journey to Abuja, Port Harcourt, Onitsha and other parts of the east. One of the bombers who was said to have driven into the park in a Volkswagon Golf car, pretended to be a passenger and pulled up right in front of the buses. As the bus stewards crowded the car to canvass the ‘passengers’, the explosion went off; another one was said to have gone off in seconds and all hell was let loose in the park.

    Some of the luxury buses in the park traded by the name, Gobison, Blessed Chimezie, Ezenwata and New Tarzan; some of the buses are said to be brand new and at least one was reported to have been fully loaded, ready to leave the park. Others were in various stages of loading. No fewer than 75 people may have died almost immediately, especially those seated in the badly charred buses. About twice that number may have been injured considering the size of the park and the fact that it was at its peak. Of course, the damages in goods and even cash will remain incalculable because the victims were mainly traders who were set on night journeys to either buy goods or sell their wares. Both the luxury buses and a good number of the travellers were suspected to be Igbo, the park being their hub.

    There are strong reasons to believe that the bombers did not hit the Luxury Bus Park by accident or by random selection. It seems a well thought-out and premeditated attack designed to score a certain point. We think the attackers were trying to ‘ethnicise’ their operation in other to provoke a spontaneous chain of retaliations across the country. With such a result, they would have set the country on a violent bloodletting spin whose end portends dire consequences.

    Again and again, we condemn the dastardly and senseless killing of innocent people who have not done any harm to the Boko Haram sect or any sect for that matter. No religion preaches the hateful slaughtering of fellow human beings as witnessed in Kano last Monday and as have been carried out in the north of Nigeria in the last two years. As we write, we, and we bet, most Nigerians do not know for sure, what grieves the Islamist terrorists. Neither have they stated coherently, their demands from the Nigerian state or even the people. Are we to assume that the mission of the Islamists and their backers is to ensure the willful destruction of Nigeria; is it possible that these criminal acts are being enacted by foreigners intent on breaking up the country?

    We also restate, as we have done so many times before, that the Federal Government has not done well in combating the incipient terrorism that has been playing out in the last two years. Neither political solution nor security efforts has been seen to be carefully thought- out and carried out. For instance, we expect that Nigeria’s security agencies would have ramped up to be among the best in the world today, especially as concerns counter-terrorism and intelligence gathering. We expect that there ought to have been some form of security ‘cover’ for some areas of our major cities which would ensure that even when a terrorist slips through the net, it would be easy to track his trajectory and pre-impact manoeuvres.

    But we fear that our security agencies seem to have remained the same rumbustious bunches of gun-wielding people. We aver that security today is more a mind game conducted on hitech and electronic platforms. We have also canvassed several times that the president must also relentlessly work on the political solution. There is dire need for rapprochement; for the deliberate slaking of the current blood- thirstiness and a show of goodwill and generosity instead of hardening of stances.

    We commend the governors of the south east states, Igbo monarchs and some elite who seemingly saw through the bait of Monday’s bombings and called for restraint. While we commend their forbearance in the face of extreme provocation, we call on the federal and Kano State governments to move quickly to assuage the pains and losses of the victims. And to all Nigerian everywhere, we urge eternal vigilance.

  • Environmental vigilance

    Environmental vigilance

    Other states should emulate Lagos in addressing the challenges of climate change

    The fifth Lagos State Climate Change Summit has come and gone but its significance to the drive towards mitigating the injurious impact of climate change cannot be lost. The summit,with the theme: ‘Vulnerability and Adaptability to Climate Change in Nigeria- Lagos State Transport, Housing and Infrastructure in Focus’ held for three days at the Eko Hotel and Suites, and provided a platform for reviewing how far Lagos State and Nigeria have gone in tackling the dangerous impact of climate change. It also reminds governments and the people that the challenge posed by climate change is real and that something drastic at the policy and communal levels must be done to arrest the situation.

    The climate change converge, an annual ritual, underscores the fact that the issue has metamorphosed from being a mere hoax to becoming the greatest challenge facing mankind. Scientists across the world have affirmed its hurtful consequences on the human race, if not curtailed. This explains why there have been global conventions, coalitions and conferences held in its name.

    No wonder attendance at the summit was encouraging. A reported turnout of not less than 1,000 stakeholders, comprising members of the national and state legislatures, university teachers, political appointees from the centre, state and local levels of government, big shots in the private sector, global/national experts on climate change, members of the diplomatic corps, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), traditional rulers and senior civil servants from all strata of government across the federation, among others, attended.

    We recognise that no state or country is an island in the combat against climate change. The country needs environmental survival and this annual summit on the subject is showing right concern in the right direction. It is thus not surprising that Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) of Lagos State acknowledged climate change-induced problems as mankind’s biggest war that must be fought and won at whatever cost. We cannot agree less with him that for the nation, nay continent to survive, we need to change the way we do some things, slow down the way we do some others and where necessary, stop doing others altogether – in the collective interest of the human race.

    More importantly too, it has been empirically proved that though Africa contributes only 3.8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it stands to suffer most from the impact of such injurious natural pervasions. And Lagos, being the commercial nerve-centre and the second most populous city in Africa with high industrial presence cannot be immune from these negative impacts. Without doubt, urban congestion, soaring industrial emissions and high vehicular traffic constitute some of the contributing avenues of obnoxious gases into the state’s atmosphere.

    But Lagos, as reportedly enunciated at the summit, has through legislative enforcement, proper policy planning and focused plan implementation in industrial, transportation, urban renewal and the adoption of other environmental-friendly initiatives including beautification, is succeeding in its reduction drive of carbon emissions into its atmosphere. Despite the laudable moves of the state, we know that there is more to be done to alleviate the climate change status of Lagos. The interesting thing is that the state government, particularly through its Ministry of the Environment, is making efforts to reduce the effect of climate change in the state to the barest minimum.

    This initiative that is in its fifth edition is commendable. But it would be more beneficial if other states in the country emulate Lagos by creating similar platform for ventilating ideas on climate change. This is necessary so as to create national awareness on the challenge and to come up with appropriate mitigating and adaptation measures that can serve the interests of Nigerians.

  • Pope of hope

    Pope of hope

    •New Catholic Pontiff starts on a good note

    The formal inauguration of the new Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis 1, on Tuesday, signalled the commencement of a new era in the history of the church at a most critical period. The galaxy of world leaders who graced the occasion as well as the global attraction it elicited indicate that so much is expected of the new spiritual head of the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, both within and beyond the Catholic communion. Pope Francis is the first Jesuit priest to become Pope.

    An Argentine, he is the first Pope from outside Europe. He is the first Pope in living memory to occupy the seat when his predecessor is still alive as Pope Emeritus. He assumes office at a time of grave moral crisis in the church and critical socio-economic challenges confronting humanity. The new Pope’s early gestures indicate that he has the spiritual grace, humility and wisdom to help guide the church to a higher moral pedestal. Francis is in many ways a Pope of hope.

    It is significant that the Pope has assumed the name of St. Francis of Assisi, a monk whose commitment to the poor was demonstrated by a life-long vow of chastity, humility and poverty. This is an indication of his identification with the ‘wretched of the earth’ that still constitute the vast majority of humanity in a world that has, ironically, evolved the technology and expertise to make poverty history. As it is well known, poverty is at the root of many of the problems – religious extremism, terrorism, rampant criminality and gross moral degeneration – that threaten the very existence of humanity today. The current economic crisis that afflicts most parts of the world today also underscores the gulf of inequality that separates a microscopic proportion of the opulent from the less fortunate rest of mankind.

    Pope Francis was thus right on target in emphasising the need to protect the poor and the environment in his inaugural homily. He called on Christians “to protect the whole of creation, to protect each person especially the poorest, to protect ourselves” saying further that “This is a service that the Bishop of Rome is called to carry out, yet one to which all of us are called …The vocation of being a protector, however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting the people, showing concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about”.

    These words of compassion have a special resonance for us in Nigeria, where society worships at the altar of crass materialism and man is no longer his brother’s keeper. Pope Francis is showing a worthy example to the Nigerian church, where the size of a person’s bank account has become the measure of the salvation of his soul and men of God fly private jets in the name of God, even as millions of their members wallow in hunger and deprivation.

    Pope Francis has shown signs that his will not be an imperial, distant papacy. He reached out beyond the shield of security to touch and empathise with the ordinary people who came to witness his inauguration. He asked the people to reach out their hands and pray for him first before he pronounced his papal blessings on them. This truly is an exemplar of the humble Nazarene whose vicar he is on earth – at least to Catholics.

    We pray that the Pope meets the great expectations his elevation has engendered, especially now that the church is beset by a lot of challenges that require tact and divine wisdom to asddress.

  • Cubans are losing their fear of Castro regime

    Cubans are losing their fear of Castro regime

    WHEN YOANI Sánchez talks about “alternative means of communication” in Cuba, she speaks with authority. Her blog Generación Y has become a beacon of democracy and freedom on the island, where the news media are still held in the tight grip of the Castro regime. Producing a blog hasn’t been easy; Internet access is spotty. But she reports that alternate networks are throbbing with information that the government wants to suppress.

    When the dissident Oswaldo Payá and activist Harold Cepero were killed in a car wreck in Cuba’s eastern province of Granma on July 22, Cubans learned of it through these alternative channels. Ms. Sánchez, visiting Washington this week, told us that Cubans sense that “the government seems to be hiding something” about the Payá and Cepero deaths and there has been a “manipulation of facts.”

    The suspicions are well founded. On these pages recently, Ángel Carromero, a Spanish politician, said that the car he was driving and in which Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero were riding was hit from behind by a vehicle with Cuban government plates and that he was threatened and intimidated by the authorities in an attempted coverup. Ms. Sánchez said that an independent, international investigation should be carried out as soon as possible, before the government manages to erase every last bit of evidence. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has just written to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, asking him to appoint a panel for such a probe, saying that Mr. Payá’s family, the Cuban people and the international community “all deserve to have the truth.”

    Truth is not a currency well respected by Fidel and Raul Castro. Ten years ago this month, they launched a crackdown known as the “Black Spring,” in which 75 dissidents, independent journalists and human rights activists were imprisoned. The authorities also crushed the Varela Project, Mr. Payá’s 2002 petition drive for guarantees of freedom; many of his colleagues were jailed. But Mr. Payá was not imprisoned.

    Ms. Sánchez reminded us that such arbitrariness is characteristic of authoritarianism. “It is hard to think like a repressor, if you have never been one,” she said. “They have their own logic. One of the most paralyzing elements of the Cuban repression is its illogical nature.” While not in jail, Mr. Payá had no peace. According to family members, he was threatened repeatedly with death. The threats were often quite direct: You will die before the Cuban revolution does.

    Cuba has lately seen some economic reforms and liberalizations; one of them allowed Ms. Sánchez to travel freely abroad for the first time. But she told us the real change in Cuba today is not from the top but rather from below. “People are losing their fear, moving from silent to open, from wearing a mask to showing their real face in public,” she said. Ms. Sánchez stands at the cutting edge of this change yet sees a long road still to be traveled. Cuba has not yet relinquished a stranglehold on individual liberties.

    – Washington Post

  • N6 billion for God’s sake!

    N6 billion for God’s sake!

    This is another chapter in a series of absurdities of this awful presidency

    We have not as a people drawn the distinction between the sacred and the profane or secular. It is also the same perfidy of ideas that fails us in distinguishing the personal from the official. Hence, government officials, including presidents, governors and legislators at every level conflate the personal and private as though they were actions on behalf of the people.

    This is one of the grave failings, failures and, often, the tragedies of the democracy that remains fledgling even after a decade’s sojourn. We experienced such a charade of show on March 16, at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.

    It was the launching ceremony to build a church complex for the St. Stephen’s Anglican Deanery and Youth Development Centre in Otuoke, the Bayelsa State home village of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Apart from the obscene piece of news that the bigwigs that attended managed to donate a princely fortune of N6billion to a subaltern worship place, what was a bit dramatic was that the event had a snob factor to it. The church complex was to serve the local community of the President. They are poor, rural, mostly illiterate and removed from the high-flown opulence of the city, and especially Nigeria’s special city known as Lagos.

    But all those who gathered, including governors, bank chiefs and top politicians and bureaucrats, could not meet even under a tent in the village of Otuoke in the economically disenfranchised ambience of the ordinary people. But as if to demonstrate their innocence of the people’s fount of being, they chose the air-conditioned, barricaded and tony place to vote N6 billion. The sum matched the locale of the event, but was out of place in the community of benefit.

    Part of the large sums were as follows: Chief Arthur Eze (N1.8billion), PDP Governors Forum (N230 million) and South-south governors (N100 million). It was obvious from the huge sums that these so-called leaders and moneybags are remote from the common people.

    In the first place, how does the building of a massive church complex change the lives of the poor people of Otuoke? A church as big and a complex as that would have a lot of modern devices and touches that will dazzle the simple people of the village. How do we expect a person whose best clothes cost barely N2,000 and cannot match the grandeur of the chair and the ambience of marble walls, frescoes and rarefied greenies, etc? This is dissonance of the most pestiferous and cold-hearted sort.

    If the amount voted is indeed all spent on that project, then it is obvious that the people will have it as their monument of mockery. A people that barely live on N1,000 a day, a people whose ambience is surfeit with deprivation, where no school of high quality exists, where the people live mainly on shanty and dilapidated structures, a people who do not have the opportunity as those who voted the money to strike out in entrepreneurial universe? The same people are being urged to expect to wake up every Sunday to behold the wonder of the Lord in a sickening beauty of palace in the name of God.

    To give the place a sense of glamour, the Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, said he would donate a nursery school and cancer diagnostic centre components of the structure. Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio and the new leader of the PDP Governors Forum announced the donation of N230 million while Governor Liyel Imoke reeled out the news of the N100 million gift from the south-south governors.

    Apart from the fact that these sums are out of place, we need to know whether these are personal donations from the individual coffers of the governors or from the state purses. In either case, it unveils the maggoty state of corruption in the society. We don’t believe that, if the governors put the matters to the vote, the majority of the people will give their consent. So, the donations represent abuse of office and violation of the people’s trust. This newspaper reported that some of the governors contacted denied ever being consulted before the donations were announced.

    We also need to understand that this is not the first time such issue of grand abuse will hit the headlines regarding the President and his home village, Otuoke. The President’s home village church also benefitted from a contractor, Gitto Construzioni Generali Limited as it donated the multi-million dollar church. The matter generated so much uproar that some concerned persons wanted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to wade into what they saw as conflict of interests. It was in that context that it was revealed that the contractor worked for President Jonathan when he was governor of Bayelsa State. Some commentators and politicians also responded to the charge by former governor Timipre Sylva who said Gitto was building a house for the President at Otuoke.

    These are not the sort of narrative that we should associate with a President that claims to hold anti-corruption crusades in high esteem. The launching of last week Saturday took place against the backdrop of the state pardon he granted his former boss and friend, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a decision that has drawn turbulent rage from both civil society and the international community.

    President Jonathan is following in the footsteps of another opprobrious precedent. On May 14, 2005, a similar event was organised to build a presidential library for President Olusegun Obasanjo. This was a valedictory gesture, but as many know, it was an act of coercion on the public square. The extravagance of the sycophancy only foreshadows the sort of society that we may morph into if this emotional theatre is not put to an end.

    Those who donated did not do it out of their love of God, or the spiritual health of the citizens of the President’s village. They did it, to quote Professor Itse Sagay, as an act of extortion to which sychophants respond because they “ are unjustly benefitting from government.”

    In this age of economic crunch and grinding poverty, this extraordinary act of financial showiness sends a signal to the poor and the young: make money at all cost.

    There are many projects that N6 billion can accomplish even in the village of Otuoke. But the same president who has lost a sense of priority in the larger society does not know that. All he had for the donors was gratitude rather than ask that the money be spent for other worthy projects that can connect his village, nay his state, to the modern world. If he had started connecting the nation to the modern world, we would have shown greater shock at his failure to do same to his village with this N6 billion opportunity. Alas, the President cannot give what he does not have.

  • A cure, in essence, for H.I.V. in some adults

    A cure, in essence, for H.I.V. in some adults

    Two weeks ago, American doctors reported that they had “functionally” cured a baby infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, with an aggressive treatment of drugs starting some 30 hours after the baby was born. Experts hailed the feat but cautioned that the findings might have little relevance to adults.

    Now French researchers have identified 14 adults whose treatments with antiviral drugs began within a couple of months of infection, continued for one to seven and a half years, and then stopped. Their immune systems have been able to control their H.I.V. infection for years after the end of their treatment.

    The patients are not fully cured, which would require eliminating all traces of the virus from the body. Rather they are in remission, with extremely low levels of the virus that their immune systems keep in check. This is referred to as a functional cure.

    The researchers estimate that as many as 15 percent of adults who start treatment early and continue for at least a year may then be able to stop their drug regimen and live healthily without the drugs. Whether the virus will be held at bay forever or will reassert itself many years later is not known.

    Although the study was small, the findings suggest that treatment should be started earlier for most people, a difficult feat without a lot more testing to identify who is infected and prompt treatment of those who test positive. The findings also suggest that many people taking antiviral drugs may be able to stop safely, provided doctors can find some sure way to identify them.

    – New York Times

  • Mass failure again

    Mass failure again

    • Poor performance in last NECO exams underscores neglect by federal and state governments

    The results of last year’s November/December Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations recently released by the National Examinations Council (NECO), has once again exposed the precarious state of education in Nigeria. The registrar of the 13-year-old examination body, Professor Promise Okpala, who announced the performance of the candidates said only 33 per cent of the 83, 755 candidates who sat for the English Language paper passed at the required credit level. By the result, given the condition that only candidates who obtain credit passes in five subjects including English Language and Mathematics could gain admission to universities in Nigeria, only 25, 628 of the candidates could achieve their dream this year.

    Many young men and women who sat the NECO December examinations have been repeatedly disappointed owing to failure in one or two of the core subjects. This is more so for science students who may not be particularly good at the English language. While the performance in Mathematics, another general core subject, was above the 50 per cent mark, it was not so in the sciences. In Physics, less than one per cent of the 35,000 who sat the examination passed at credit level. Mathematics did not give us a cause for cheer. Only 15 per cent passed while in Chemistry it was 35 per cent.

    If the results had been inconsistent with the pattern in recent years, it would not call for consternation, but results from NECO and the sister examination body, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), over the past five years show that there has been a steady decline in the quality of education offered at all levels.

    The nation was first jolted to this reality when, in 2009, 98 per cent of the 234,682 candidates failed to make five credits, including English and Mathematics. Mind-boggling was the level of malpractices as 236,613 cases were recorded that year. It was expected that all stakeholders would be pushed to action and achieve a reversal of the trend within years. The latest results have confirmed that not much has been achieved.

    The failure of our teeming youths is the failure of government. Things have been kept at the same level, little has been done to upgrade facilities in public secondary schools and make teaching attractive for prospective students and applicants. The profession has become a fall-back for those who failed to gain the attention of other employers.

    Private schools of other shapes and descriptions have since sprung up to fill the vacuum. Even in this wise, there is an obvious failure of supervision and monitoring that has also led to poor performance in external examinations.

    Desperate students have thus resorted to abusing and subverting the process. Sometimes aided by parents and teachers, especially in private schools, the candidates do everything to have advance copies of examination papers or pay others to either sit for or assist them in the examination centres. No nation hoping to bridge the development gap between the first and third world could afford such neglect of the education sector.

    We call on governments at federal, state and local levels to take urgent, coordinated and concerted steps in adequately funding education. We must go beyond holding workshops and jamborees ostensibly to review laws and rules regulating education in the country. As a first step, funding must improve. While the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has recommended that all governments allocate a minimum of 26 per cent of their budgets to education, the Federal Government has consistently voted below 10 per cent in the past 13 years.

    Policy inconsistency resulting from change of ministers has not helped matters. Eight ministers have taken charge in the ministry since 1999. Professors Tunde Adeniran, Babalola Borishade, Fabian Osuji, Dr. Chinwe Obaji, Oby Ezekwesili, Igwe Aja Nwachukwu, Sam Egwu and Ruqayattu Rufai came up sometimes with contrasting policy thrusts.

    It must be realised that development in all sectors is hinged on the quality of education and no country can advance without paying special attention to the needs of the youth.

  • The stench in NDDC

    The stench in NDDC

    • Report on the commission reflects a deep rot and failure to fulfil its promise

    The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has surely failed the people of Niger Delta, if the report of the Presidential Monitoring Committee chaired by Chief Isaac Jemide is anything to go by. The committee was set up by President Goodluck Jonathan to evaluate the projects executed by the NDDC between 2005 and 2011. In a damning report, the committee said over 46 percent of the projects awarded by the commission in Cross River, Edo and Rivers states within the period were abandoned.

    The committee also claimed the commission refused to provide records of account for some of the projects, and remain uncommitted to take steps to recover the sums paid for the un-executed contracts and punish recalcitrant contractors.

    While receiving the report, the President acknowledged that the NDDC was set up to stem militancy in the Niger Delta. We believe it therefore unfortunate that the commission usually headed by indigenes of the region, can be accused of sabotaging the development agenda that many claim is the cause of the militancy. The committee, among other serious allegations, noted the unjustifiable introduction of astronomical variations on contracts awarded by the commission, over short periods of time. It also claimed that the commission deliberately excluded some mega projects from the list of projects submitted to the committee for evaluation. The refusal of the commission to work harmoniously with the committee was corroborated by the President, while receiving the report.

    No doubt the NDDC is proving a bad poster child of the latter day efforts of the government of Nigeria to redress many years of neglect of the Niger Delta region. Set up in 2000 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the commission has always been accused of poor performance, while the states in the region fight over its headship. In 2007, former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua created the Ministry of Niger Delta to oversee the commission, but not much changed. Without realising it, the astonishing allegations of corruption within the commission and their insignificant efforts to redress the development challenges of the region, are some of the reasons why many stakeholders oppose more funding for development in the region.

    We urge President Jonathan to go beyond complaining about the inability of the commission and the committee to work together in the interest of the Niger Delta community, since the two are ultimately accountable to him. The President had noted while receiving the report that the commission cannot monitor itself, and decried the infighting, likening it to a cat-and-mouse relationship. Nigerians expect that the alleged fraudulent conduct in the report will be further investigated by anti-corruption agencies and those responsible held accountable. It is indeed a shame if, as alleged, some important projects have been left uncompleted in the past 12 years, particularly the shoreline protection projects and school hostel blocks.

    We hope the report was able to specifically hold the past executive chairmen and managing directors accountable for their period of service. It will be helpful to name and shame the various regimes responsible for each of the abandoned projects, the astronomical revaluation of short-term contracts, the retention of grossly incompetent contractors, the refusal to recover sums paid for un-executed contracts and sundry acts of conduct that have brought the commission to the alleged failures.

    Unless the culprits are known and held accountable for their actions, chances are that the commission will never be able to meet its mandate. It is also a shame that the Ministry of Niger Delta created to oversee the commission has so far failed to make any difference.

     

  • Decorum, please

    Decorum, please

    • Row between Adoke and Oshiomhole unnecessary

     

    It was obviously a most unseemly and unbecoming spectacle. We refer to the altercation between the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke (SAN), and Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, at last Tuesday’s National Council of State’s meeting at the Presidential Villa in Aso Rock, Abuja. It was the intervention of some other members of the council that reportedly prevented the face-off between the two degenerating into fisticuffs.

    Given the high offices they occupy, which make them role models in society, we expect that both men, no matter the provocation, should be able to keep their tempers in check and comport themselves with decorum and dignity. This is particularly so as the National Council of State is the country’s highest advisory organ made up of current and past occupants of the most exalted executive, legislative and judicial positions in the land.

    The issue in contention between the two men was the very sensitive one of the dastardly murder, last year, of Governor Oshiomhole’s Private Secretary, Mr. Olaitan Oyerinde. This has understandably been a very painful and emotional issue for the Edo State Governor. Oyerinde was not just a political aide but a close associate of the governor since the latter’s days at the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

    Governor Oshiomhole had consistently and vehemently criticised the handling by the police of investigations into the murder, insisting that this would not be allowed to go the way of the numerous unresolved cases of high-profile assassinations in the country. Oshiomhole had apparently been irked by Adoke who walked up to him and suggested that the case file on Oyerinde’s murder should not have been referred to him, but to the state attorney-general, since murder is a crime under the jurisdiction of the state. The insinuation was obviously that the Edo State attorney-general was unaware of his responsibilities – an insinuation Oshiomhole did not take lightly.

    This is an emotional matter for the Edo State governor, and the attorney-general should have understood that the matter of his aide’s murder was not just technicality, but human pathos. In Oshiomhole’s words, “The issue is that he was saying my attorney-general should have known what to do; that he has nothing to do with the matter. I simply asked him who referred the matter to him. Was it my attorney-general? The matter was referred to him by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) and I asked him who should know better? If the Deputy Inspector-General of Police referred a matter to the Minister of Justice that he ought to have referred to the state, who is the one dragging him into the matter? Who is the one politicising the matter?”

    This scenario illustrates the confusion that characterises the administration of justice in the country, particularly the lack of synergy between the federal and state governments on such a critical issue. The police that are responsible for investigating murder cases report to the Inspector-General of Police and not the governor. Yet, the state has the responsibility of prosecuting murder cases. Now, if as happened in the Oyerinde case, the investigation case file was wrongfully sent by the DIG to the Attorney-General of the Federation, what should have been the appropriate response of the latter, especially since this is a matter that involves human life?

    The Attorney-General of the Federation should have wasted no time in returning the file to the DIG and instructing him on the appropriate course of action. It is inexcusable for Adoke not to have taken any action on the matter, only for him to tell Oshiomhole at the National Council of State meeting that the file should not have come to him. That was certainly most provocative. We urge Mr Adoke to return the file to the appropriate quarters without delay so that this murder can be resolved and the culprits punished.

  • Killed hostages?

    Killed hostages?

    • The Jonathan administration owes us a clear and emphatic explanation

    The militant Islamic group, Jama’atu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan (JAMBS), popularly called Ansaru has thrown the nation’s security apparati into turmoil since their purported killing of seven foreign hostages (a Briton, an Italian, a Greek and four Lebanese), abducted since February 16, 2013 from a construction camp of Setraco company at Jama’are, Bauchi State. The Islamic fundamentalist sect that is claiming to be “vanguards for the protection of Muslims in Black Africa” has admitted the killing through a video posted on the social media and signed by one Abu Usamatal Ansary on March 9.

    Despite public admission by Britain, Italy and Greece that their nationals have indeed been killed, there seems to be confusion in the Nigerian government circles, as high-ranking ministers, including Mr. Abba Moro, Minister of Interior, and Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, Minister of Foreign Affairs, have been giving conflicting signals by either claiming that the hostages are still alive or that the government is searching for their dead bodies.

    What is incontrovertible is that the al Qaeda-linked Ansaru group reportedly released a web video footage on March 9 that showed a gunman standing next to a pile of bodies with purported Arabic title: “The killing of the seven Christian hostages in Nigeria.”The face of one of the bodies in the video reportedly resembled that of those hostages already named by the authorities. The Nigerian government has not, till date, provided contrary evidence to support its position that the hostages may still be alive. Yet, the government claims to have intensified the search for the location and whereabouts of their bodies.

    Surprisingly, the Joint Task Force, code-named Operation Restore Order, assigned the task of quelling violence in Boko Haram troubled states of Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Kano and Adamawa, and its coordinating organ, the Defence Headquarters, have been mum on the whereabouts of the abducted hostages. The inability of government security agencies, including the State Security Service (SSS) to unearth the location of the killed hostages’ bodies amounts to nothing but a failure of intelligence in a country that spends billions of naira annually on security issues.

    The issue now has gone beyond asking why the Ansaru sect struck against the hostages. The country should, more importantly, not belabour matters by joining issues with the criminal sect over whether it actually attempted, with affected countries, a rescue operational raid on the hideout of the sect. All that must be pursued now is how to get at those unscrupulous elements behind this evil plot.

    Boko Haram (western education is sin) and the principal body of Ansaru, sometime last year killed a British and an Italian hostage in Sokoto State during a failed rescue mission by the British and Nigerian forces. A German kidnapped by the Islamist sect in January 2012 was also killed in the same year during a raid on his location. The list of barbaric onslaughts by this devilish group, purportedly embarking on Islamic crusade, is endless.

    The killing of the hostages has shown that the government is not abreast of realities of the country’s security challenges. Otherwise, it would not doubt what was already known to the outside world. This puts a lie to the government’s aversion for security alerts raised by foreign countries, especially the United States and United Kingdom, to their nationals in the country. We hate to say that the official cluelessness on the whereabouts of the hostages or their corpses is a metaphor of surrender to a criminal gang by a sovereign government.