The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Renewed hope indeed

    Renewed hope indeed

    • Agric component of the initiative by the First Lady a welcome boost

    Revitalising the country’s agricultural sector to break the over-reliance of the country on a mono-product, oil, diversify the economy, enhance domestic food productivity and stimulate agro-allied industrialisation is a cardinal component of the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) that constituted President Bola Tinubu’s manifesto in his campaign for the country’s apex political office. This objective became even more imperative when, on assumption of office in May, last year, the administration announced the removal of fuel subsidy and the market spontaneously responded with astronomical rise in prices of basic necessities, inflicting considerable pains on large numbers of Nigerians.

    Escalating food costs is a dominant component of the inflationary spirals that have made life hardly bearable for Nigerians as the administration implements painful but inevitable reforms. A number of measures, including the recalibration of fiscal and monetary policies, institutionalisation and better grounding of palliatives succour as well as initiation of diverse agricultural policies to enhance food production are beginning to bear fruit and offer positive hope for the future.

    One of the commendable proactive responses to the current food costs crisis with tremendous potential of positively impacting agricultural productivity in the near future is the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) Women Agricultural Support Programme launched across five of the six geo-political zones of the country by Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, the wife of President Tinubu. The initiative, which has been launched in the South-West, South-East, North-West, North-East and North-Central zones, is aimed essentially at actualising the potential of women and the physically challenged in enhancing food productivity in the country.

    While the Office of the First Lady coordinates the programme centrally, the wife of the governor in each state oversees the implementation of the initiative within her jurisdictional sphere. When personally flagging off the programme for the South-West in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, Mrs Tinubu announced that the initiative encapsulates the donation of a grant of N500,000 each for 20 women farmers in each of the South-West states of Ogun, Oyo, Lagos, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun states. Another component of the initiative is a grant of N100,000 each for one hundred people living with disabilities in each of these states, to recapitalise their businesses. These measures, which will be replicated across the six geo-political zones will no doubt mark a considerable injection of funds to stimulate the local economies. Again, pre-identified 80 women farmers in each state for agricultural support programme would be beneficiaries.

    Read Also: Tinubu approves routing of 20% palliatives through religious, traditional leaders

    Giving an indication of the future trajectory of the RHI, Mrs Tinubu disclosed that plans have been laid down to cooperate with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to empower farmers under the programme and that 75% of the beneficiaries will be young female farmers while 25% will be young male farmers. Stressing that those in these categories will be specially identified, trained and empowered to engage in productive activities, Mrs Tinubu urged women farmers in particular to seize the opportunity to recapitalise their businesses, expand their agricultural ventures and contribute to local and national food production.

     Experts have noted that the contribution of women to the agricultural sector in Nigeria is largely underestimated as Nigerian women make up about 70% of the country’s farmers while they also contribute approximately 70% of the country’s food production. In most parts of the country, women are active in rearing poultry and small livestock, growing food crops, tending animals, processing and preparing food as well as engaging in trade and marketing, among others. This programme acquires added significance because it has been proven that empowering women and enhancing their productive capacity contributes considerably to achieving a substantial decline in income and multidimensional poverty.

  • Not yet justice

    Not yet justice

    • The coroner’s report on Oromoni Jr. leaves several questions unanswered

    The saga of Sylvester Oromoni Jr. at the Lagos State school, Dowen College, has continued to haunt our educational system, the temple of justice and medical integrity.

    The release of the coroner’s report has not and should not lay the matter to rest. The parents, family and the society at large awaited the report but it was more an anti-climax than a soothing closure to the death of a 12-year-old who had gained admission to the college and looked not for death and tragedy but a future like all the hundreds of students in that institution who still live and breathe.

    For a background, the boy was bullied by a set of students at a sports arena on campus and a gang compelled him to drink a black substance. The school did not take charge to treat or apply a discretion to rush him to a hospital.

    Rather the boy was left in the care of a guardian in Lagos who arranged for the sick boy to go to Warri. The intervening period was over 24 hours, and the parents and family are being blamed for the time lag. Consequently, the boys who beat him and put him in that perilous situation were exonerated. The school was set free as well as all the staff.

    In the words of the coroner, Magistrate Mikhail Kadiri of the Ogba Magistrate Court, “The alleged suspects played no part in Sylvester’s death but were victims of their past misdeeds. They were falsely accused, and no staff of Dowen College played any role in the death. The school has improved its facilities since the incident.”

    Again, there was no revelation of the toxicology report, and here is what the coroner asserted: “The claims of chemical intoxication were never proven, and the faces of those allegedly bullying the deceased weren’t seen. The alleged confession of Sylvester was denied by several witnesses. Even if he was beaten, it didn’t lead to his death.”

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    Such a deadpan verdict assumed that his affliction by the boys never contributed to Oromoni Jr.’s death. It implies his injury came from a phantom attack. We believe it was not a methodical verdict. It lacks scientific thoroughness and rigour of context.

    One, it was wrong to let all the boys who attacked him off the hook. It was not a fight between two people. It was a gang assault. The boys were Favour Benjamin, Ansel Temile, Kenneth Inyang and Michael Kashamu. It is as if the savage incident never occurred. The boys will go home at a young age with a perverse sense of justice. It was not the boys who beat Oromoni Jr. alone with such a view, but also students in the school and across the country.

    Such a judgment reinforces what many fear in this country that impunity can succeed with the cunning and connivance of the law.

    It also gives a lack of comfort to parents who leave their children in the care of a school authority. The science of the verdict appalls. What did the toxicology report say? We cannot give a blind eye to the fact that science cannot work without transparency. For sure, that is left hanging. We need to know what the report says, so the public can conclude with the coroner that the black substance had no effect in the boys’ health decline and eventual death.

    When a school of such pedigree lacks immediate medical facility, then it shows that standards are low. When students are playing sports, a medical facility should be at the ready in case not only of first aid but emergency, including an ambulance.

    Sylvester Oromoni Sr, the father, has vowed to appeal the verdict. We certainly encourage it. Justice for his son is not just for him and family, but for society.

  • Chibok girls: 10 years after

    Chibok girls: 10 years after

    • Governments need to do more to bring the remaining ones back as well as curb mass kidnapping

    Chibok, a hitherto unknown rustic village in Borno State before April 14, 2014, has over the past 10 years become the metaphor for not just the tragic abduction of 276 girls of Government  Secondary School, Chibok, but has inadvertently opened the floodgate for incessant abductions in the North and other parts of Nigeria.

    Despite the insurgency and terrorist attacks that have devastated the North East by the Boko Haram sect whose main ideology is that western education is forbidden, the Goodluck Jonathan government dilly-dallied before making efforts to rescue the girls. The government, in an utter display of lack of security intelligence was initially in denial and the back and forth arguments put the rescue of the girls in serious jeopardy.

    There was national and global outrage led by the Oby Ezekwesili #Bringbackourgirls civil society campaign in Nigeria. International figures like the former United States First Lady, Michelle Obama , global actors, gender rights activists, journalists and many people across the world, including governments, voiced their concerns and actually offered to assist in rescuing the abducted girls, but somehow, total success has not been achieved in the last 10 years. 

     Since the incident, some of the girls had escaped their captors,  some rescued by the Joint Military Task Force (JTF), some reportedly ‘released’ by their abductors, etc. The reality however is that the statistics of all the girls still leaves a lot of doubts. As the 10th anniversary was being marked, the Borno State government told journalists that so far, many of the Chibok girls have returned but 89 are yet to return. About 187 girls were rescued over the 10-year period; 57 escaped on their own and 108 were rescued by the security forces.

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    While we commend the government for the efforts so far, there is still a lot to be done concerning those still in captivity.

    The rescue of the 108 is good, but governments at both state and federal levels in the last 10 years have not done enough to secure children and even adults across Nigeria from terrorist attacks and kidnappers who allegedly request ransom payments. Additionally, many of the rescued girls have been complaining of failed promises from government. There seems to be no update on their rehabilitation, given the trauma of their experiences.

    It is apposite to mention that the Chibok abduction has become a blight on the nation’s image. The abduction was a seeming follow-up to the arson in Buni Yadi Government Secondary School, Yobe State, where 59 students were burnt alive in their dormitory in February 2014. Not much preemptive actions were taken. So, after Chibok, there seems to have been a bourgeoning industry of school kidnappings.

    In February, 2018, the Dapchi school girls’ abduction happened and Leah Sharibu is still in captivity despite the global campaign for her release. There have been abductions of pupils, students and some teachers from Kaduna,  Zamfara, Kebbi, Niger, Lagos, Ekiti, Katsina, Nasarawa, of children as young as seven years.  While most of the abductees have been released, some died in captivity and most have been forced to live with the trauma of having babies and marrying their abductors.

    Nigeria has one of the highest out-of-school children in the world at more than 20 million. This is a sad reality but the ticking time bomb is that the country is surreptitiously making the Boko Haram ideology successful because school enrolment would naturally still drop despite the illiteracy rates in the Northern region. Parents would rather their children are alive and illiterate than risk their abduction.

    The series of Safe School Initiatives must be re-jigged to be more effective for parents to trust the system.

    While urging the President Bola Tinubu administration to ensure safer schools and  the rescue of the remaining Chibok girls, it is apposite to remind the administration that a few of the girls that escaped and got scholarships to study in America are today graduates in different fields and one of them recently got engaged. This is what all children who are sent to school expect: study, graduate and choose a career and make a choice of who to marry.

    The stigma of school abductions signposted by the Chibok girls must be erased through proactive actions to stop further abductions of children and adults in Nigeria.

  • Boosting investment

    Boosting investment

    • While government keeps working to improve FDI, local investors too should be encouraged

    On the surface of it, the observation by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, as regards the downward trend of foreign direct investment flows into the country over the last 10 years may appear to be only stating the obvious and thus of microscopic utilitarian value in terms of policy. But, given the critical role that foreign investment has come to play in the growth and prosperity of modern economies, it is imperative that economic policy planners keep an eye on this very important variable with a view to tracking its performance and coming up with policy options to maximise its developmental impact.

    In a recent presentation to top business leaders in Lagos under the aegis of the Lagos Business School Breakfast Club, the minister noted that foreign direct investment inflow into Nigeria nosedived from $22.7 billion in 2014 to $14.5 billion in 2015, $10.4 billion in 2016 and $9.8 billion in 2017. The foreign direct investment inflows improved slightly to $11.9 billion in 2018, fell again to $9.2 billion in 2019, rebounded slightly again to $10.2 billion in 2020 but then continued its downward slide to $6.9 billion, $4.6 billion and $3.7 billion in 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively.

    Mr Edun’s analysis of the trajectory of foreign investment inflows into the country enables us to focus on why the situation is as it is and what can be done to enhance the country’s capacity to attract significantly improved foreign investment. There is no doubt that Nigeria should be a huge magnet for massive foreign investment patronage given, among others, her large and dynamic population, her strategic geographical location and the rich reserves of mineral and natural resources she possesses. That the country is not maximising her potential in attracting foreign investment at present makes it imperative for our economic policy makers to identify why and proffer solutions to change the narrative.

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    The current chronic infrastructure deficit as indicated by desultory electricity supply, huge mileages of bad roads as well as derelict and inefficient ports are some contributory factors. No less critical are the pervasive insecurity across the country, the multiplicity of often identical taxes collected by different levels of government and the debilitating bureaucracy that compounds the ease of doing business. Although the President Bola Tinubu administration has introduced policy measures and reforms to tackle these bottlenecks to smooth investment flows, there is the urgent need to accelerate the tempo of these efforts to achieve maximum gain within the shortest possible time.

    Within his about eight months in office so far, President Tinubu has devoted considerable time and energy to marketing the country abroad for enhanced investment patronage. The Minister of Trade, Industry and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite, recently stated that the country has attracted at least $30 billion worth of investment commitment so far under the Tinubu administration. Sustained and aggressive efforts to address the obstacles mentioned above will help speedily transform such commitments into reality.

    The finance minister noted that the essence of attracting investment into the economy is to increase productivity, growth, create jobs and reduce poverty. He identified rising inflation in western countries and the need to keep interest rates high by tightening the money supply in those countries as some of the reasons for lukewarm foreign direct investment into the country.

    In the light of the poor foreign investment appetite to inject external funds into the economy, he said the country would turn to the corporate world for solutions and investment, stressing that government would place emphasis on “our domestic resource mobilisation”. This is as it should be, as domestic investment is as critical as foreign investment in boosting economic growth and development.

  • A new dawn?

    A new dawn?

    • A 24-hour port-clearing policy will give the economy a fresh jab of life

    The idea is a single-window trade concept, that propels importers and exporters to submit their international trade information to a single e-platform, jointly developed by all the service and revenue-earning agencies at the sea ports. 

    This is against the present practice of approaching these agencies separately to fill paper forms, thus losing lead time; aside from maximising human-to-human contacts, and risking wide-spread crippling corruption.

    So, everyone can understand why President Bola Tinubu was upbeat, at the April 17 inauguration of the National Steering Committee of the National Single Window (NSW) Project, chaired by Zacch Adedeji, chair of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

    If NSW succeeds, it would reduce the clearance of goods from ports to 24 hours (down from days, even weeks); and even beat the 48-hour thresholds of some other ports in West Africa.

    “The national single-window is a game changer that will revolutionise the way we conduct trade by simplifying government trade compliance through a digital platform,” the President enthused.  “This initiative will link our ports, government agencies and key stakeholders by creating a seamless and efficient system that will facilitate trade like never before.”

    Indeed, the federal ministries fused into the NSW Steering Committee are finance, marine and blue economy, transportation, and industry, trade and investment.  The federal agencies to work as a unit under NSW are FIRS, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency

    (NIMASA), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC).

    The motive therefore would appear clear: inasmuch as revenue-earning agencies dominate NSW, they cohabit business-support agencies from the public sector, giving a clear message of planting before reaping big in revenue.

    Again, that reinforces the President’s excitement, at the inauguration: “The benefits of this initiative are immense.  Paperless trade alone is estimated to bring an annual economic benefits of around US$ 2.7 billion.  Countries like Singapore, Korea, Kenya and Saudi Arabia have already seen significant improvement in trade efficiency after implementing the Single Window System.”

    Dr. Adedeji, whose job is to corral as much revenue as possible to energise the Federal Government’s fiscal spending on infrastructure, physical and social, to grow the GDP, even upped the ante: “This initiative will serve as a catalyst for achieving an average GDP growth rate of seven per cent annually and propel Nigeria to new island of prosperity.  The national single window is not just a technological advancement,” he added, “it is the gateway to a more connected, efficient and transparent system by linking our ports, government agencies and key stakeholders.”

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    Quite.  It would appear another putative glad tidings on the economic front, with the Naira’s relative parity success on the forex front.

    Still, let no one get ahead of themselves.  True, the administration,

    through the NSW Steering Committee, has clearly put a lot of quality thinking into this new trade window, so much so that the anticipated success is almost infectious.

    Nevertheless, the likes of Singapore, Korea, Kenya and Saudi Arabia, that have made a success of NSW, didn’t just do it with the open sesame of technology, though reduction of human-to-human contact is a very effective start to reducing sharp practices, all too rampant in Nigerian seaports — and even airports — today.

    They have made such a difference because the operating humans have aligned themselves to the goal of NSW, as codified in the computer.  Those governments have shown zero tolerance for sundry hustlers who might want to sabotage the trade set-up and game the system.

    So, the NSW committee should be no less intolerant of such seedy practices.  Indeed, the earlier success indicators should be the committee’s ability to crack down on rats, and uproot such corrupt tendencies.

    Also, the public should know the 24-hour clearance threshold is a process that wouldn’t happen in a day.  But with NSW doing its job and the public contributing own quota, the prospect is alluring, for both Nigerian importers and exporters.

    An abiding question, though: by easing revenue collection by different government agencies, how would NSW hamper the agencies’ own repatriations?  Will it slow down the process, as many agencies complained of, under the Treasury Single Account (TSA) regime?  How will such a possibility slow down morale?

  • Sad development

    Sad development

    • EndSARS victims in some states are yet to get compensation three years after

    The discordant tunes from the states, nearly three years after the various panels set up to investigate the EndSARS protest, do not bode well with democratic practices. In October 2020, the nation shook to its foundation, following protests by young Nigerians against the brutality of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), an arm of the Nigerian police. While we condemned the hijack of the protests and the violence by protesters that followed, we are shocked that some states have treated the findings of the panels they set up with levity.

    According to some national dailies, many states have refused to implement the findings of the committees, on the premise that the police force is a federal agent, and as such the Federal Government should pay for their wrong actions. While that argument is debatable, the fact is that it was states that set up the panel and as such, are  most suited to implement the findings, including the payment of compensation. After all, it is indigenes and residents of the various states that were affected by the police brutality.

    Lagos, which may be considered the epicenter of the protests has paid N420 million to victims of the EndSARS protests. But some other states, like Akwa Ibom, Benue, Osun, Oyo, Ogun and Gombe, among several others, have reportedly refused to pay the compensation recommended by the panels they set up. Some states, did not even follow through with the judicial panel of enquiry, once the din from the crisis subdued.

    It was the National Economic Council (NEC) that recommended states should establish the panels, and some merely submitted panels’ reports to the body as an end in itself.

    In an interview with ‘The Punch’ Newspaper last year, Justice Ifiok Ukana (retd.), chairman of Akwa Ibom State Judicial Panel, argued that: “It is the Federal Government that will pay. The panel was set up at the instance of the Federal Government, through the office of the National Economic Council. So, the liabilities belong to them. When you are talking about atrocities committed by the police, they are controlled by the Federal Government. Forget about the assistance being made by state governments.”

    We consider that argument as specious. While we have campaigned against the centralisation of the police, and called for state police, we do not agree the police is a federal agency. It is a national organ for the maintenance of law and order; the main challenge being the centralised control, and the debilitating inefficiency arising therefrom.

    Again, the victims are individuals who have no capacity to engage in contestation with the federal authority, and it behoves the state governments to protect their interest.

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    Since the governors, sitting as the National Economic Council, set up the judicial panels, they can in that capacity, or similar others, like the Nigeria Police Council, made up of the President, governors, chairman of the police service commission and the Inspector- General of Police, determine who pays the compensation.

     In one of the dailies, it was reported that the former Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, now, Chief of Staff to the President, promised that necessary budgetary allocation will be made for the payment of the compensation.

    Such procedure can be adopted, after all, the Nigerian police are agents of the entire country, and compensation for their infractions can be borne from the national budget.

    While assuaging the wrong doings of the past, it is necessary to ensure that similar atrocities are not perpetrated, going forward. Even as efforts are being made to decentralise policing in the country, measures should be put in place to ensure that officers and men of the present police conform to world’s best practices.

  • Wild act

    Wild act

    • Self-appointed Yoruba nation agitators must be severely punished to serve the deterrence purpose

    A motley band of insurrectionists on April 13, 2024, stormed the Oyo State Government Secretariat and adjoining House of Assembly in Agodi, Ibadan, purportedly to declare a ‘Yoruba nation’ intended as a secession from Nigeria.

    Reports said the loonies seized the environs and hoisted their flag at the House of Assembly, proclaiming the creation of a Yoruba republic. The masked agitators in army camouflage, armed with rifles and crude implements like cutlasses and charms, stationed themselves at different locations within the area, sending panic waves into residents and road users on adjoining routes. Security operatives on duty at the secretariat were unable to disperse them until the arrival of men of the Oyo State Police Command, complemented by personnel of other security services, including men of 2 Division of the Nigerian Army who demobilised them.

    The police said they earlier in the day got information of the invaders arriving in Ibadan from an axis of the capital city. State police commissioner Adebola Hamzat stated during a parade of the arrested agitators last Monday: “On Saturday, at about 0855hrs, information was received that some men dressed in military-like camouflage, armed with pump action semi-automatic rifles, riding on motorcycles, were sighted moving into the main city from Olomi axis of Ibadan. At about 0915hrs, the hoodlums, later known as Yoruba nation agitation group, were trailed to the state secretariat, spreading from the flyover to within the premises of the Governor’s Office, and hoisted their flag at the House of Assembly, proclaiming the creation of a democratic republic of the Yoruba.”

    If you had thought the agitators were only misguided and overly exuberant youthful hotheads, the parade, early last week of arrested persons revealed a 75-year-old among them. Other suspects include a 60-year-old and a 55-year-old at the upper age range; and a 25-year-old, two 29-year-olds and a 30-year-old at the lower age range. Indeed, the 25-year-old is a female member of the group.

    The Oyo State Police Command, on Wednesday, arraigned 29 agitators before the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Ibadan on seven counts of treasonable felony, unlawful society, illegal possession of firearms and conduct likely to breach public peace. Investigative Police Officer Bakare Rasaq, an Inspector from the State Criminal Investigation Department, said the offence was contrary to, and punishable under Section 516 of the Criminal Code, Cap 38, Vol. II, Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria, 2000.  

    During their parade by the police command at its Eleyele headquarters in Ibadan, the arrested agitators named Modupe Abiola-Onitiri and some other persons living in the diaspora as their sponsors. One of the suspects named Ismaila Malomo said he drove the agitators to the secretariat in Ibadan from Idi-Iroko in Ogun State. He also revealed that besides Abiola-Onitiri, other sponsors of the group reside in the diaspora and had been meeting with the agitators virtually.

    Malomo told journalists: “I drove the bus, it is my bus. I received a message from my friend here that one of our sponsors, named Modupe Abiola-Onitiri, gave us an order to go and take over Oyo State Government Secretariat and wait there till she comes around and pronounce the Republic Nation of Oodua. We have several people as our sponsors, but they’re in the diaspora. The ones that I can recollect for now are Modupe Abiola-Onitiri, one Micky, and there are some others too.” He added: “We do have virtual meetings frequently with these people, and at the last meeting, they told us that they’ve secured sovereignty from the United Nations and they’ve sent letters to all the concerned bodies that very soon, they will come to Ibadan to formally declare the Yoruba nation. That’s why I followed them down here.”

    Another suspected agitator, Alabi Ogundeji, who claimed to be a teacher at the Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo, argued that their leaders had taken all necessary steps before they stormed the secretariat, and that the intention was not to harm anyone but to declare a Yoruba nation, which, according to him, is the agitators’ right: “Our leaders have taken all the steps they ought to have taken on this issue. They’ve embarked on a referendum. They’ve issued almost 500 petitions, signed and served to all the Yoruba speaking states – Osun, Oyo, Ondo, Lagos, Ekiti, Kogi and Kwara.” Ogundeji added: “All these states were served with official letters and we have our own copies too. So, our action at the Oyo State Government Secretariat was legal. We were only there to express happiness and joy over the proclamation of Yoruba nation; we were not there to kill anybody.”

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    Frontline figures in Yoruba nation agitation, Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, and Professor Banji Akintoye disclaimed the Ibadan ‘warriors.’ Akintoye, a reputed historian, said in a statement: “I have spoken to Sunday Igboho. Some people sent them (the agitators) to make sure they disrupt the Yoruba self-determination struggle… We in this struggle don’t act in that manner.” For his part, Igboho, in a social media post by his media aide, said he was neither aware nor was a part of the Ibadan invasion. “I know nothing about it and I don’t know those behind it. If we want to organise a rally or any Yoruba nation activity, we usually make an announcement beforehand,” he stated, adding that: “Any person who said he is agitating for Yoruba nation and is going to attack government facilities, that person or group is on its own.”

    That Ibadan invasion was a madcap adventure in the extreme. How a disoriented handful of renegades expected to achieve secession by hoisting a puny flag on government premises begs the question of their sanity. Besides, their real motive is highly questionable in the context of a polity already being progressively recalibrated. It was a futile act of insurrection that seems conceived ab initio to unsettle societal peace, even when the agitators knew they were acting treasonably by challenging an existing state of sovereignty.

    The act was so puny it could have been dismissed offhand as infantile, but for the fact that it has the potential of seed-bedding anarchy in the Southwest and truncate the prevailing peace in the zone.

    The misadventure bore such dangerous potential that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had to warn that persons pushing for violent balkanisation of the country would henceforth face dire consequences. Speaking on Wednesday while hosting the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, led by nonagenarian Pa Reuben Fasoranti, in Abuja, he said: “Those who think they can threaten the sovereignty of Nigeria will have themselves to blame.”

    The amazing thing is that the agitators never seem to learn from history. About mid-last year, separatist agitators seized the airwaves of Amuludun FM 99.1, a sub-station of government-owned Radio Nigeria in Ibadan, claiming they came to inform the station with an official letter that the Yoruba nation had been approved for take-off by the United Nations. They were, of course, tackled down by the police, who reported one of the agitators saying the person who enlisted them to hijack the radio station was not resident in Nigeria and was interacted with through phone calls. Sponsors seem to always find shelter away from Nigeria while instigating misguided agitators to set the country on the boil over their own heads. But the issue also is that not much has been heard about what the law did with the agitators arrested last year, and may have given audacity to the latest set to re-enact.

    It is high time appropriate sanctions were conclusively applied against violent separatist agitators to serve the deterrence factor. Also, even with all said, the recurrence of separatist violence should send the message to relevant authorities to be earnest with restructuring Nigeria into a truly federal state.

  • A new dawn

    A new dawn

    • Soldiers’ welfare gets a deserved boost

    It would seem a new dawn is here for soldiers of the Nigerian Army, with the disclosure by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, that the army has concluded arrangements to build befitting personal homes for soldiers fighting various forms of insurgency in the country.

    This contrasts with some of the distressing news that we heard during this year’s Armed Forces Remembrance Day earlier in the year. Widows of some of the soldiers who died in the line of duty had disclosed then, among others, that the children of such officers who could not gain admission to higher institutions after 18 years of age automatically forfeit the scholarship that such children were entitled to by the military.

     It is also common knowledge that soldiers fight for the apartments of some of their colleagues who died on active service as soon as they pass on, with their dependents literally forced to vacate the barracks.

    In the past decade or so, our soldiers have been fighting all manner of internal conflict, with some of them losing their lives in the process.

    It is bad enough for people to lose their loved ones, however; but for their dependents to be evacuated unceremoniously from their official quarters without compassion or compunction adds salt to the injury.

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    It is particularly against this depressing background that we welcome the initiatives of the Nigerian Army to raise the bar in terms of welfare for the soldiers.

    Gen. Lagbaja unveiled the good news at the opening of the First Quarter Chief of Army Staff Conference 2024 in Abuja on Tuesday , as part of the Nigerian Army’s new welfare initiatives to boost the morale of the soldiers. Lagbaja also said that premiums paid to beneficiaries of various insurance schemes to cater for troops’ dependents in any eventuality have been doubled, without any corresponding increase in the soldiers’  contributions.

    Moreover, he added that the Affordable Home Ownership Option for All Soldiers (AHOOAS) is aimed at alleviating the hardship soldiers encounter in securing personal accommodation after retirement.

    The new welfare scheme also covers soldiers with operational-related disabilities that the army chief said he has directed the Post-Service Housing Development Limited (PHDL) to set aside five per cent of the AHOOAS Scheme in each estate for allocation to such soldiers. What is more? The Nigerian Army will cover all the housing expenses 100 per cent for such soldiers.

    We are happy with these developments. There is no sacrifice that is greater than paying the supreme sacrifice for one’s fatherland. People who chose to do this deserve the supreme reward. Agreed, they can’t be brought back from the dead, just as those with permanent disabilities are likely to live with the scars forever. But the burden could be lightened for them and their dependents through the provision of welfare packages such as the ones under consideration.

    Such provisions encourage the officers and men to put in their best because they know that even if the unexpected happens, there is something for them and  their dependents to fall back on. It is the absence of such welfare packages that drive some military men posted to certain ‘lucrative’ assignments to collude with civilians and sometimes criminals that they are supposed to fight, to short-change the country. In the end, it is the country that suffers.

    We commend Gen. Lagbaja for these thoughtful ideas. Accommodation is an essential of life and if this is guaranteed and complemented by other needs, then the nation can expect the best from its soldiers.

    We urge the soldiers to reciprocate these gestures by rededicating themselves to the service of the country.

    We also appeal to the government and the army command to ensure that these ideas are faithfully implemented because, already, the appetite of beneficiaries has been whetted; it would be disappointing if they get to the unexpected juncture only to realise that the promised el-dorado is only on paper.

    It would also not be a bad idea if these gestures can be extended to other arms of the military and even para-military agencies whose men also literally walk in the valley of the shadow of death in their efforts to keep the country safe.

  • Ogbonnaya Onu (1951 – 2024)

    Ogbonnaya Onu (1951 – 2024)

    • An engineer, politician, author and first civilian governor of Abia State

    As a politician, he demonstrated a noteworthy sense of history by writing an unprecedented book on the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which became Nigeria’s ruling party in 2015.  According to the publisher’s blurb, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu’s 2015 book, titled ‘From Opposition to Governing Party: Nigeria’s APC Merger Story,’ tells the story of how he “initiated the first successful merger of major opposition political parties which won the 2015 national elections in Nigeria, the roles played by other political leaders, sacrifices made, the challenges encountered and the prospects for effective competition in Nigeria’s multi-party democracy.”

    In his foreword to the book, the then President, Muhammadu Buhari, said: “The role played by Dr Onu in the beginning and especially at the critical stage of the merger cannot be underestimated.” The APC achieved a historic electoral victory in 2015, when it defeated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which had produced Nigeria’s president since the country returned to democracy in 1999.

    Defeating a ruling party that had enjoyed 16 years in power was a significant political feat. In a 2014 interview, Onu said he started the campaign for a merger of the opposition parties “to challenge and defeat” the ruling PDP in 2004, 11 years before it finally happened, adding that he “didn’t do it so that I would be given recognition. I did it because it is important for our country and I am so happy that we have two dominant political parties.” He stressed the point that the country needed to have an alternative to a ruling party.

    Onu’s death on April 11, aged 72, drew attention to the country’s political evolution, and the emergence of the APC, which remains the ruling party nearly a decade after it attained power.

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    Born in Amata, Uburu, in present-day Ebonyi State, he was an academic before he became a politician. He earned a first class degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Lagos (UNILAG) in 1976, and a doctorate in the same discipline from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, in 1980. He taught in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Port Harcourt, and was the pioneer head of the department. He also served as the acting dean, Faculty of Engineering, and was a member of the university’s Governing Council. 

    As a professional, he was a certified member of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, and a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering and the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers. He held six patents and wrote books on various subjects, including philosophy, politics, developmental studies, science and technology.

    He tasted power as the first civilian governor of Abia State, from January 1992 to November 1993, when the military overturned the democratic transition programme. He ran for governor as a member of the National Republican Convention (NRC), and was the first chairman, Conference of Nigerian elected governors.

    In 1999, he was the presidential candidate of the All People’s Party (APP), but his party’s alliance with the Alliance for Democracy (AD) eventually led to the choice of another candidate. In 2010, he became the national chairman of the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP). In 2013, his party merged with Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Democratic People’s Party (DPP) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to form the APC.

    After the APC’s victory in the 2015 presidential election, he was a two-term Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation under President Buhari, making him the longest serving minister with such responsibility. He introduced the annual National Science & Technology Week in 2017 to showcase inventors and inventions, and initiated the 774 Young Nigerian Scientists Presidential Award to encourage Nigerian youths in science, technology and innovation. 

    He notably resigned from the Buhari administration to pursue his presidential aspiration, and unsuccessfully  contested the APC’s presidential primary in 2022. A recipient of the Nigerian national honour, Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), in 2022, he left a legacy of ideas and passionate patriotism.

  • Regress to dictatorship?

    Regress to dictatorship?

    • DIA’s detention of journalist is illegal and barbaric

    Although he has been released after 14 days of being illegally detained by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), there is absolutely nothing that justifies the high handed and lawless behaviour of this military institution in grossly abusing the human rights of Mr Segun Olatunji, a journalist and editor of the online medium, ‘First News’. This kind of atrocious and uncivilised conduct by the military and any other institution is a slap on the rule of law, a violation of the tenets of the freedom of the press and indeed a grave danger to our democracy.

    Twenty-four years after the restoration of democratic rule in Nigeria in 1999, and the retreat of the military from the political terrain, the resort to self-help by the DIA in this instance is shameful and condemnable; its perpetrators must be made to face the full weight of the law.

    A traumatised Olatunji lamented that his life was no longer safe because “they (the military) know my house. They had been trailing me three weeks before the arrest. My life is no longer safe given the manner the soldiers tracked me from my village to Lagos before my abduction”. The men of the DIA broke into Olatunji’s house and abducted him in the presence of his seven-year-old son. The mental torture that the young boy experienced when he saw his father being maltreated like a common criminal can best be imagined.

    Giving an account of how he was manhandled by the DIA men, Olatunji recalled that he was bundled into their vehicle, blindfolded and handcuffed. He was hauled into an underground cell at the DIA facility and, in his words, “I can still feel the numbness in my right wrist because of the handcuffs”. He also had his legs cuffed for no discernible crime he had committed. Even if an individual had violated the law, no institution has the right to take the law into their hands as the DIA has done. At best, such a person can only be charged before a competent court of law which has the powers to determine culpability or otherwise before giving a judgement.

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    Obviously realising that they were acting in violation of the law, the DIA initially denied that the journalist was in their custody. The dangers in this kind of situation is evident. Persons who are criminally abducted like Olatunji , could simply ‘disappear’ without trace if those responsible for their seizure, like the DIA, deny culpability.

    Furthermore, the law stipulates that an accused person cannot be detained for more than 24 hours before being charged to court. What is clear is that despite the over two and a half decades of democratic practice in Nigeria, the military has not cured itself of the delusion that it is superior to civil society and can therefore ride roughshod over the law.

    We commend the International Press

    Institute (IPI), the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) for standing firmly by Olatunji in his hour of travail. But their job is not done yet. They have a duty to help the journalist in seeking remedy in law for the violation of his rights and ensuring that he is adequately compensated to serve as a deterrence to other groups, individuals and institutions who may, in future, seek to emulate the barbaric behaviour of the DIA.