The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday Magazine

  • 2023: Nyesom Wike as beautiful bride

    2023: Nyesom Wike as beautiful bride

    This minute, Nyesom Wike is Nigeria’s most sought-after political figure. Like the fabled Artemis, he enjoys storied clout among rival partisan cultures.

    His influence manifests where ambition rebounds; little wonder his platform, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) vies with the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and even the less striking Labour Party (LP) for his prized patronage.

    To say the Rivers State governor’s dalliance with the APC’s presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT), ruffled a few feathers would be an understatement; to the PDP and LP presidential aspirants, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, it was a frightening coup de grace.

    Former Vice President (VP) and PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in particular, dreads the consequence of a Wike-Tinubu bromance for his presidential ambition. The import is dire and declarative of his imminent loss.

    Thus barely three days after Wike met with Tinubu in London, the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, jetted out of the country to equally meet the Rivers State Governor in London.

    The meeting was held a few hours after former President Olusegun Obasanjo and LP’s presidential candidate Obi, met Governor Wike.

    There is no gainsaying Wike has attained sudden renown characteristic of the proverbial beautiful bride. Like the famed belle, he has become the object of affection of prominent political parties and politicians, en route to the 2023 elections.

    In affecting his role as the coveted bride, Wike unfurls like the legendary androgyne: luminously virile yet self-fertilising. He flaunts rippling muscles and shimmering magnetism, thus as the contest intensifies for the nation’s number one seat, the Rivers governor manifests with promise as a significant game-changer.

    His political capital is spiritedly splayed and pawed by rival aspirants as he glamorously showcases it across partisan spheres. Ultimately, Wike dazzles like the star of the Nigerian theatre, the material champion of our democratic agon.

    Rival aspirants jostle for Wike’s attention and support. So, they impose mathematics on political culture: How promising? How strong? How effective and well-heeled is he? They ask of Wike’s political complex.

    This is hardly the first time, however, that local politics would pulse to the sway of a beauteous bride. The beautiful bride was the focus of the political space in 1983. Back then, Nnamdi Azikiwe’s Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) was the cynosure of all eyes. Members of the party who had been part of President Shehu Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria (NPN)-led Federal Government since 1979 were in talks with Obafemi Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN); Waziri Ibrahim’s Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP) and Comrade Michael Imoudu’s Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) for the purpose of unseating Shagari’s government in the presidential election of that year.

    All eyes were on Azikiwe who flaunted impressive political and social capital and the parties united under the aegis of the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA). However, they could not agree on who would emerge as their presidential candidate.

    The three most significant personalities, Azikiwe, Awolowo, and Waziri nursed presidential ambition. At the same time, Shagari who was certain of his victory assured Azikiwe and his NPP that he would give them juicy positions if he was returned to power.

    “Being thus wooed away from the PPA, Azikiwe described himself as a beautiful bride torn between different suitors. In the end, Shagari won the election and fulfilled his promise by appointing NPP members into his cabinet,” writes Jide Akinbiyi.

    Like Azikiwe, Wike has become the beautiful bride, aggressively courted and solicited by rival candidates en route to the 2023 presidential polls.

    While it may be too early to ascertain if his political broad-shoulder would manifest with a masterstroke of worth and exploitable capital, his muscular complex – impressively sculpted and contoured in Rivers State – ripples with promise for rival contenders for Nigeria’s presidency.

    His meeting in London with the presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Tinubu, clearly unsettled the PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku.

    Wike, who came second during the presidential primaries of the PDP has been at loggerheads with Atiku following the latter’s selection of the Delta State governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as the vice presidential candidate of the party.

    Spirited efforts by concerned leaders of the party to persuade Wike to embrace peace and key into Atiku’s presidential project have persistently ended in a deadlock.

    Prior to Wike’s Monday meeting with Tinubu in London, the ruling party had persistently sought to profit from the crisis in the PDP over the presidential primary won by Atiku, which left Wike aggrieved. Atiku won the party’s primary election with 371 votes, with Wike trailing behind with 237 votes. Wike left the convention ground fuming and quite dejected.

    The PDP set up a reconciliation panel to resolve the crisis between Atiku and Wike but the move failed. After several postponements, the panel met Wike in Port Harcourt last Friday but the meeting ended in a stalemate as the Rivers State governor insisted that the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, must be removed for the role he played in the emergence of Atiku as the party’s flag-bearer for the 2023 polls.

    Camp Wike argued at the meeting that Ayu could not be an impartial chairman because he took sides during the party’s national convention. They argued that Ayu was biased during the primary and that he pledged to quit if a northerner emerges as the presidential flag bearer of the PDP.

    The failure of the reconciliation panel to reconcile Wike and Atiku left room for Tinubu to court the governor. Wike’s meeting with Tinubu in London purportedly yielded a positive outcome and would be consolidated upon at more fruitful meetings.

    At the London meeting, Wike had in his company, two PDP governors, Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and Samuel Ortom of Benue State.

    Would Wike dump the PDP and join the APC or would he remain in PDP but work for the APC at the presidential election? In the 2019 presidential election, Atiku polled 473,971 votes against Buhari’s 150,710 in Rivers State. And there are fears within the PDP that if Wike should dump the party for the APC, it might afflict the PDP with a dismal outing at the 2023 polls.

    His July 8 meeting with three APC governors, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, and Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State at his Rumueprikon country home in Port Harcourt, further accentuated fears that he might dump the PDP. The meeting was part of a purported strategy to woo him into the APC.

    Wike’s separate meetings with Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi in London, recently further establish him as the newfound darling of Nigeria’s political elite.

    At his arrival from London, the Rivers governor, speaking at the  Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, confirmed that his team held fruitful discussions with Tinubu as part of consultations for a better Nigeria.

    He said he also met with the presidential candidates of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, and Labour Party’s Peter Obi as well as former President Olusegun Obasanjo in London.

    Of course, pundits have wondered if his dazzling stature and robust political base rest on an unsteady frame – stringy and unsteady – the parties jostling for his patronage, however, envision him as a distinguished mercenary of ballots.

    As the contemporary beautiful bride, Wike is far removed from the intrigues that birthed Azikiwe’s attractiveness to rival parties in 1983, nonetheless, he is reborn as a belle of statesmen through necessity, clad in the armour of his strapping politics.

  • Kaduna communities where villagers marry daughters off to bandits, farm for terrorists to have peace

    Kaduna communities where villagers marry daughters off to bandits, farm for terrorists to have peace

    The security challenges in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State have taken a turn for the worse. Besides demanding money from farmers before allowing them to plant or harvest their crops, terrorists are also taking the daughters of helpless villagers as wives, radicalising the youths and compelling community members to cultivate their lands as a condition for them to have a measure of peace. INNOCENT DURU reports that many members of the farming community have been kidnapped at one time or the other and made to pay huge ransoms to regain their freedom. Some of the victims were killed by the terrorist group after ransoms were paid.

    A few weeks ago, the Secretary of Birnin Gwari Local Government Area, Mohammed Abubarkar Maialo, went to his farm to till the soil and plant some crops without any foreboding that he was visiting the farm for the last time.

    Shortly before he concluded the task he had set for himself on that fateful day, bandits invaded the farm and whisked him and his brother away.

    Subsequently, the terrorist group made contacts with his family, asking for a huge sum as ransom, which the victims’ relations rallied round to pay.

    That, however, was not enough for the bandits to release him.

    “The bandits said the money was not up to the sum they demanded. So they killed him and kept asking his family and friends to send more money.

    “It was in the process of sending more money that his younger brother escaped and told the community that  his elder brother was killed 11 days before he escaped from captivity.

    “Abubarkar was not the only one killed in that manner. We have had so many others killed after paying ransom for them.

    “Many farmers are being killed, kidnapped and maltreated,” Ishaq Usman Kassai, Chairman of Birnin Gwari Emirate Progressive Union (BEPU) told our correspondent.

    The fear of bandits pervades the entire area. It is a topic that many members of the community would never get into for any reason. The bandits hold the ace and dictate the pace in a good part  of the area.

    Farmers are worst hit as they can no longer access their farms because of the menace of the bandits.

    “If you dare speak against them, you will be killed on that day. That is why people are not talking about the bandits,” a community member and farmer, Ibrahim Umar, told The Nation.

    The state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, had earlier raised the alarm about the spread and grip of bandits in the state.

    In a memo to  President Muhammadu Buhari, El-Rufai said: “Terrorists are consolidating their grip on communities in Kaduna with a “parallel” government and “permanent operational base” in the state.”

    Sharing some of his unpleasant experiences with bandits, a farmer, Surajo Isah, shared some of his unpleasant experiences with the bandits thus:  “I have friends that have been kidnapped and brothers who were shot dead while visiting the farm.

    “About four months ago, my brother was travelling from our community to another. After passing the army checkpoint, he ran into some bandits who are always staying there.

    “They wanted to kidnap him but he resisted them. In the course dragging with them, the bandits shot him dead.

    “His corpse was taken to our grandmother’s house. When she saw the dead body, she suffered a heart attack and later died.

    “Last year, the bandits came to my house and kidnapped my wife, my brother and my boss’ wife.  I was the one who entered the bush to deliver the ransom to the bandits. Our predicament is  much worse than the  picture being painted.

    It was after dropping the ransom that they released my people. The bandits told my wife that they were from Birnin Gwari bush. They called the names of all the villages in our place.

    “I have left my farms and some family members to seek refuge elsewhere.”

    To  broker peace between the bandits and the people, Surajo said: “The army and our community leaders called for dialogue with the bandits but that didn’t work. They have guns that I have never seen even in American films.

    “I chatted with one of the mobile policemen drafted to our area. He told me that the kind of guns that they have is nowhere near the ones that the bandits have.

    “The government knows where they are.  If they say they don’t know, let them come and be escorted to where the bandits are. Our people know where those bandits are hiding in the bush.

    “You cannot travel for more than two kilometres without meeting the bandits. They are there for 24 hours.”

    Our correspondent’s encounter with Ibrahim Umar, a youthful farmer, further revealed the level of despondency among the people.  Aside from having had his family members killed by the bandits, he has had to leave over 20 hectares of land he had planted on for them.

    He said: “Everywhere you go, you will find the bandits.

    “There was a time the bandits called and asked us to pay N10 million before they would allow us to cultivate our farms. We told them we didn’t have such money and that if we had we would have given it to them so that they would allow us to farm.

    “The bandits then warned us not to come to the farm, saying that if we should come, they would kill us.

    “At that point, we agreed among ourselves to leave the farm until the government takes action on this.”

    Asked what the response of security operatives had been to the threat, he said: “Up till now, we have not seen any soldier, police or vigilante group.

    “We are indigenes of Kaduna and not foreigners. Nobody cares about our plight and nobody talks about it. I don’t know what we would do in this country.

    “We are trying to get some weapons so that we can protect ourselves, because the government does not care about us.

    “We have bandits here and also the Ansaru. Every time, they come inside Damari. When you come there you will see them with AK 47, AK 49 and machine guns.

    “The bandits killed my brother and four others in our house.  They came around 3 am and started shooting indiscriminately.

    “My brother was the first to rush out of the house when the bandits started shooting. I was only lucky to escape on that day. When we came back, we saw our people’s corpses lying on the ground.

    “Our people are leaving in droves to use trucks to carry loads for people so that they could get some money to feed.”

    Another member of the community, Ibrahim Zaharaddeen, lamented that the menace of the bandits was too much for the people to bear, adding that it has affected their social and economic lives badly.

    His words: “People are barred from carrying out their business activities along the road. Also in the farms, thousands of hectares of land have been abandoned as a result of insecurity.

    “There are villages where if you move a kilometre, you can easily be kidnapped or killed. We are being forced to abandon our farming activities and animal husbandry.

    “It is only lands that are close to town that can be cultivated. We have been on this for many years.

    “When they kidnap people, the family members of the victims may have to pay ransom three times before the terrorists release their victim.”

    Zaharaddeen said: “A neighbour of mine was kidnapped recently.  After collecting ransom from his family, the bandits didn’t release him. They kept asking for more money.

    “At times, when the bandits invade a village, they would cart away all the valuables and also kidnap about 20 people.

    “I am a farmer. I have left some of my farmlands because of the menace of the bandits. We have become hopeless in the face of what is happening to us.

    Villagers farm for bandits to have peace

    The impunity with which the bandits operate in the area appears dumbfounding.  Findings revealed that they have been forcing the villagers to work for them on their farms as a condition for some respite.

    Ishaq Usman Kassai, Chairman of Birnin Gwari Emirate Progressive Union (BEPU), said:

    “The issue now is that these bandits are into farming. There is one Yellow Jambross, who two weeks ago told four communities in Birnin Gwari that if they want peace and want to farm this year,  and even for them to stay in their communities, they should go and work on his farm. About 140 people in that community went to the farm of that particular bandit Last Tuesday and worked for him in order for them to have peace of mind on their farms.”

    The secretary of the group, Comrade Abdulrashid Abarshid, said he had also learnt about the ugly development. He said: “I was told that some communities used to go and farm for the bandits just to have peace. The people that are vulnerable to them cannot do otherwise.

    “I don’t know what the government is doing about dealing with those people.  There are some groups of bandits that allow people to move around. They intentionally allowed people to use the road.

    “The bandits are moving freely with their guns.  Even you, if you go, you will see them.”

    Terrorist group wins villagers’ hearts, marry daughters, radicalise youths

    After many years of bloody attacks and mindless killings of their members by bandits, some communities in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area gladly accepted the offer of the Ansaru group, a splinter of the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents, to protect them against bandits.

    To the surprise of the embattled people, the Ansaru group began to repel attacks from bandits who had effortlessly invaded the communities to unleash terror on the villagers.

    With that singular feat, the Ansaru group gained the confidence of the people and embedded themselves deeper in the communities.

    Laudable as their mission was, checks around the communities revealed that the group had an ulterior motive which they have started showcasing.

    “The Ansaru group has a similar ideology to Boko Haram. They are there in Western Birnin Gwari and they have been there for years.

    “They camp in the bush the way Boko Haram does. It is only recently that they started showing the real motive why they are there.

    “They go into the community, share pamphlets, wear army uniforms and carry sophisticated weapons. They tell members of the community to stop western education, politics and whatever is western,” Ishaq Usman Kassai Chairman of Birnin Gwari Emirate Progressive Union (BEPU) told our correspondent.

    He further said: “They told the villagers that they are protecting them from bandits. From there, the villagers concluded that the Ansaru group was there to protect them.

    “Based on the acceptance they are getting, they started marrying the villagers. This development is very dangerous.

    “I understand that Ansaru is more dangerous. It is better to be with bandits than to be with the Ansaru group.

    “The Ansaru group is recruiting people and changing their mindset. That is why they are very dangerous. They are cajoling the youths and asking them to become terrorists.

    “They are telling the youths to take arms and fight the government and stop everything that western.

    “Terrorism will continue to escalate in this area if the government  fails to act. Children are being radicalised. Over 50 youths were recruited by Ansaru.”

    Corroborating Ishaq’s remarks, a resident of the embattled area, Ibrahim Zaharaddeen, expressed concern about the activities of the Ansaru group in the communities.

    He said: “The people have agreed and accepted the Ansaru group up to the extent that they marry off their daughters to them. The Ansaru group takes the villagers’ daughters into the bush.

    “Sometime last month, there was a clash between the Ansaru and another terrorist group. One of the Ansaru men that married a villager was killed during the clash.

    “The parents of the girl that was married to the late Ansaru member asked that their daughter should be returned to them but the Ansaru people said the daughter could not return to the parents.

    “They said she had joined them permanently and that there was no way she could return to their families.”

    The Ansaru group, Ibrahim said, came in, assuring villagers that they were going to assist them against bandits.

    “They came using religion as a decoy. The Ansaru people have sophisticated weapons and small explosive devices with them. Sometimes the Ansaru group repelled bandits when they came to attack.

    “Because the villagers have lost hope in government, they embraced the Ansaru group. I don’t believe that they are here to help us. Rather, I believe that they have come to add insult to our injury because we don’t know what will happen next.

    “The worst thing is that they have started recruiting some individuals from the villages to join them. If care is not taken, they may later turn to another Boko Haram and the problem will get worse.

    “Honestly, people have lost hope in the government, and that is why people embraced the Ansaru group.

    “The Ansaru group always quotes verses of the Quran and Hadith of the Holy prophet to convince the villagers that they are there to help and not to cheat them.

    “Like I said, someone like me would not buy into that idea because I believe that they have come to do more harm.

    “People have abandoned their farms and that will affect food supply.”

    ‘Discussions on agriculture could draw natives into tears’

    Following the losses they have recorded over the years, discussing agriculture in the agrarian communities move the people to tears.

    Surajo Isah said: “If you talk about agriculture in Birnin Gwari, some people may begin to shed tears, because a man that was harvesting two to three bags before will hardly have a bag of rice or maize now.

    “As I am talking to you now, I have a brother that was harvesting more than 5000 bags of produce before. Today, he cannot harvest 50 bags of maize.

    “If this continues for the next five years, I don’t think you will be able to see up to 1,000 people in Birnin Gwari anymore if you remove  Birnin Gwari town.

    “Our population is reducing on a daily basis. Some people are migrating to Kano, Katsina and other places.

    “The bandits kidnap and kill. We cannot go to our farms. If they kidnap you, you must pay a huge sum of money as ransom to secure your release.

    “I have more than 10 hectares of land in one area, and two hectares and three hectares in other places, but I cannot access them again.”

    Describing the farms as a no-go area for the people, Ishaq, the BEPU chairman, said: “If you go to your farm, the bandits will attack and kidnap you.

    “The farmland that we used to cultivate is no longer accessible. It is only farms that are very close to the town that we can cultivate now.

    “Unfortunately, those farms are tired and are not as fertile as those that are far away. Bandits are covering those distant farmlands. 70 per cent of the farmlands are no longer accessible.

    “Many members of my community have been kidnapped. Last year, more than 100 people in my community were kidnapped.

    “There was a time they kidnaped between 60 and 70 people.  People had to contribute money in the Kakanji community for us to pay the bandits and secure the release of our people.

    “We paid about N14 million to secure their release. We cannot determine how much the individuals that were kidnapped paid for their release.”

    Continuing, he said: “If the bandits allow you to farm, when it is time to harvest the crops, they will stop you from doing that even when you paid to plant the crops at the beginning of the season.

    “At times when you want to harvest, they will ask for money ranging from N300,000 to N1 million. The size of your farm will determine how much they will ask you to pay.

    “When you remove all the monies collected by the bandits, there will be no profit left for the farmers. Our people pay to harvest our produce just to minimise the losses. “The bandits kill victims even after collecting ransom. They sometimes kill if what they asked for is not what the victim pays.”

    Also bemoaning their plight, Comrade Abdulrashid said: “You can’t access the farms that are two kilometres away from the town because of the activities of the bandits. They kidnap, extort and ask for ransom.

    “Before they would ask for how much you would pay, they would first beat you. After the beating you, they would ask you how much you want to pay.

    “I know of several people that have been kidnapped by the bandits and you have no alternative but to pay what they ask you to pay.

    “Some communities negotiated with them and paid some millions of naira so that they could be allowed to harvest their produce.

    “Some time ago, the farmers in some communities could not harvest their produce.”

    360 people killed by bandits 1,389 persons kidnapped in Kaduna in three months

    To show the level of havoc  being wreaked  by bandits in the state,  a security report by the Kaduna State government revealed that bandits killed at least 360 persons in the first quarter of 2022 (January – March).

    According to the 52-page quarterly report presented to the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, by the Commissioner for internal security, Samjuel Aruwan, the figure also includes those killed in communal clashes.

    The latest figure by the state government comes as attacks in Kaduna and other parts of the North-west heightened in the past few months.

    In 2021, bandits killed 1,192 people in the state and kidnapped 3,348 others, according to SBM Intelligence.

    Deaths from insecurity in the state in 2020 were three times higher than those recorded in the North-east states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, which are battling terrorism.

    According to the report, 1,389 persons were kidnapped during the period under review within the three senatorial zones of the states.

    Among the local government areas worst hit were Birnin Gwari, where 169 persons were kidnapped, Giwa 158, Igabi 263, Chikun 287 and Kajuru 203.

    It also said no fewer than 249 people were kidnapped due to banditry and other violent attacks in the Kaduna South Senatorial District alone within the same period.

    Other incidents are the rape of 10 women, including six minors, 258 injured due to banditry and communal clashes while 3,251 animals rustled during the period. Of the 3,251 animals, 3,137 were stolen from Kaduna Central, accounting for 97 per cent of the total.

    According to the report, 41 bandits were neutralised by the ground force while more than 60 were neutralised through various air strikes carried out at identified bandit camps within the state.

     

    Budgetary allocation rises as insecurity escalates

    A run through the statistics of the country’s budget shows that allocations for security have continued to rise over the years as the menace continues to escalate. In 2016, allocation to security gulped N1.06 trillion and moved up to N1.14 trillion in 2017.

    In 2018, the allocation jumped to N1.35 trillion and rose in 2019 to N 1.76 trillion. In 2020, allocation to the sector was put at N1.78trillion.

    Put together, the total allocation within the five years under consideration totaled N7.1 trillion.

    Between 2011 and 2015, budgetary allocations to the sector by the Goodluck Jonathan administration stood at N4.62 trillion.

    The allocation to security in 2011 was N920 billion and N924 billion in 2012. In 2013 and 2014, N923 billion each was allocated to security while the sum rose to N934 billion in 2015 to bring the total to N4.62 trillion.

    The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) said that at least 60,000 people have been killed in Nigeria’s 18 northern states in the last 10 years due to insecurity,

    In a new report by CDD titled “Multiple Nodes, Common Cause: National Stocktake of Contemporary Insecurity and State Responses in Nigeria,” the CDD said in the Northwestern states of Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara, about 14,000 people lost their lives between 2011 and 2021.

  • Inside Niger community where Nigerians dump family members afflicted with leprosy

    Inside Niger community where Nigerians dump family members afflicted with leprosy

    Stigmatised because they were afflicted with leprosy, residents of a community in Kampani part of Minna, Niger State capital, have been abandoned by family members and friends who brought them in from different parts of the country. Now they are afraid of venturing out of the community they know into the uncertain world. JUSTINA ASISHANA visited the community and reports that its inhabitants are in a world of their own.

    For more than eight years, 32-year-old David Felix, an indigene of Ebonyi State, has been living in Kampani, a community in Niger State inhabited mainly by leprosy victims. Since he was brought into the community for treatment close to a decade ago, he has not had a visit from any of his family members. Neither has he returned to his community or state since he was brought in for treatment.

    Felix was taken to Kampani with a leprosy case he had been battling with herbs in the hope of overcoming it.

    “It would only subside for about two weeks and return with more pains and discomfort,” he said regretfully.

    “Someone told my family about this place and they brought me from Ebonyi. When we came, my family did not want me to stay because of the way the clinic was, but I insisted on staying because the people here assured me that I would get well.

    “But since they left me, I have not seen my people. Neither have I gone back to Ebonyi. When we go outside to do one or two things, the way people look at us and try to avoid us makes me to fear that even my family members may not accept me if I return home.

    “But I do not know why they have not come to visit me. I am happy here. I feel like I am home. Whatever I need is provided.”

    Apart from spots that looked like dried boils on his face and neck, no one would be able to tell that Felix was once infected with leprosy. His legs and hands were in good shape and he walked well with good posture.

    He feels comfortable with the people he has been living with within the community of leprosy victims. He said he had been wholly accepted by the other inhabitants unlike the outside world where he was being stigmatised.

    Now a proud owner of a kiosk where he sells household items, he told the reporter that he was ready for the next phase of his life.

    Persons afflicted by leprosy could be classified as the poorest of the poor because even in the gathering of people with other forms of disability, persons with leprosy are discriminated against.

    Historically, leprosy was believed to be extremely contagious and divinely ordained, leading to huge stigma its sufferers experience. But the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) stated that leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is hard to catch as 95 per cent of adults cannot catch it because their immune system can fight off the bacteria that cause the disease.

    Leprosy is caused by a bacterium that spreads slowly around the body. Infection occurs with the breathing in of droplets and long-term contact with a victim. Leprosy causes irreversible damage to the hands, feet and eyes if left untreated for long and can lead to paralysis, blindness and amputations.

    Kampani leprosy community

    Like in the times of the Old Testament in the Bible when everyone living with leprosy was sent outside the camp of the Israelites or to the end of the town, the community of people living with leprosy is located on the outskirts of Minna, the capital city.

    Sited at the back of the IBB Specialist Hospital, the leprosarium is about five minutes drive from the junction of the hospital, which leaves a first-time visitor filled with doubts as to whether people live in the place. The road leading to the leprosarium has been repaired by the state government, unlike some years back when the road was not motorable.

    The community, situated at the back of the leprosarium, was built by The Leprosy Mission after noticing the stigmatization normally suffered by everyone who had concluded treatment. To this end, the mission built schools for the children of the people and provided social amenities like electricity, water and housing to make them live comfortably.

    Going around the community, it was observed that the residents had taken to farming to produce their food and several of them were seen involved in one activity or the other. A woman was seen frying masa (rice pancake) with people surrounding her to purchase some. Some kiosks were seen where people could buy simple commodities for household use.

    Female victim finds love with healthy partner

    But it is not all gloom in the community. The reporter stumbled on the love story between one of the female residents who fell in love with a non-victim and both of them had been living happily together.

    Mary Azeh was 10 years old when she was brought to the community by her parents who were both afflicted by leprosy which later led to their death. Mary had spent more than 25 years in the community and was now the leader of women living in the community.

    Mary said she had always had fears over the thought of settling down and having a family. But each time she went into a relationship, it would break up once the man discovered that she was infected and told about the situation of her parents who had the disease and died from it.

    Mary had given up on love when she met her husband at a church meeting, and despite her reluctance to go into a relationship with him, his persistence and understanding stance made her to change her mind.

    She said: “As young people, we are faced with the challenge of who would love and accept us the way we are. The elderly ones are always telling us the younger ones that nobody will marry us because we live in a leprosarium.

    “We are facing challenges with this problem.

    “On my part, I had several offers for marriage before I eventually settled down, but many of those offers did not work out because once they came to know that I once lived with leprosy and my parents lived and died with leprosy, the relationship would be cut off and I would be left heartbroken.

    “But my husband is not a leprosy patient. He has never had leprosy in his life. We met in the church which is outside the leprosarium during a meeting last October.

    “After the meeting, he approached me, but I said no because of my previous experiences. I didn’t know how he would feel regarding my health condition and history.

    “But when I told him, he insisted that he loved me and would still marry me. That was how we were able to get married. He agreed to stay here with me and since we got married, we have not had any problem.”

    On his part, Felix was still looking for love as there were no girls of marriageable age within Kampani community and he is scared by the thought of any girl accepting him with his health history and stay in the community after marriage.

    Residents seek permanent location

    The residents of Kampani leprosy community have pleaded with the state government to provide suitable land as their permanent abode.

    The head of the community, Mallam Bello Umar, said the residents had received several notices asking them to vacate the land, saying that it would go a long way to give them a sense of belonging if the government provides them with permanent accommodation.

    Mary also lent her voice to this appeal, pointing out some leprosy communities in Abuja and other parts of Niger saying that a permanent land would give them the confidence to live confidently amongst themselves.

    “This community is peaceful but the only challenge we are having is that this is not our land. It is government land and they have been asking us to leave.

    “Our cry to the government, the way they did in other places where they gave the leprosy people their land, we want them to give us our own land.

    “As we are here, a lot of us are scared of leaving here, especially as many of the children and youths were given born here.

    “We cannot go and live outside this community because of the stigmatization we face outside.

    “Most of the children here do not know the way to their villages, and even if they go there, nobody will welcome or accept them.

    “We are begging the government to please help us to get our own land and our permanent abode.”

    The Community Relations Officer of The Leprosy Mission Nigeria, Habila Daniel Dikko, said the community has been in existence since the 1950s, adding that it is like a smaller version of Nigeria as all tribes and religions are there and they live together peacefully.

    Dikko said: “The community has been here since the 50s. Persons who come to the leprosarium and are treated, a lot of them cannot return to their society and their families because their families would not accept them.

    “We have a lot of people from Ebonyi, Sokoto, Katsina, all over. All tribes are here. They come and they cannot go back, so we just make arrangements for them here.

    “We make provisions for accommodation, and while they are staying here, we support them with their means of livelihood.

    “The Mission built a school for them where education is free. As of this July, we have four children of the persons affected by leprosy in the university, three in College of Education Minna and several others in primary and secondary schools.

    “We provide uniforms, textbooks, notebooks and others for them. For those who want to learn skills, after learning the skills, we provide the equipment for them that they need to use”, he explained.

    The leprosarium

    The Leprosy Mission Nigeria operates a leprosarium where people who are infected with the disease are admitted and treated. The Mission also provides them with skills to empower them in a bid to reintegrate them back into society after their period of being admitted while those who have been rejected are being provided homes in the community with their families catered for.

    The Community Relations Officer of The Leprosy Mission Nigeria, Habila Daniel Dikko explained that the leprosarium began with taking care of only people with leprosy, but they have now gone a step further to take care of people with general disabilities.

    He said that treatment for people with leprosy is free and while on admission, they are fed daily, adding that those who need prosthetic limbs are being given free of charge.

    Dikko, who stated that leprosy is curable, lamented that some people come in very late with bad ulcers which leads to their limbs being amputated.

    “We partner with the IBB Specialist hospital for amputation, and after that, the prosthetic workshop of the mission where we make prosthetic limbs free of charge for persons affected by leprosy. But for other people and the general public; we charge them.

    “Below the limbs is N300,000 and above the knee is N400,000. We do this so that we can raise little funds to carry out free of charge treatment for persons affected by leprosy.”

    When The Nation visited the Leprosarium, there were 17 patients on admission, five women and six men with various stages of leprosy.

    The Community Relations Officer explained that when leprosy is detected early and cured, it would leave no mark or scar on the person, adding that when it has stayed for long, that is what results in scars and the amputation of legs or fingers.

    “Take a look at Mary. She was at a time afflicted with leprosy. But if you see her now, you will never know. When your case comes up and it is detected early, you can be treated without having any deformity and no one will know.

    “If the person is diagnosed, treatment and drugs are free. It is curable. There are treatment regimes for three months and nine months and 12 months and people are cleared completely. It is not hereditary.”

    He said that the people on admission and the survivors living in the community need a lot of support and assistance from individuals, organisations and the government.

    He lamented the neglect alleged by victims and survivors against their families, saying that many of them were brought to the leprosarium and abandoned there, with nobody coming to check on them or take them back

    “Several of them, even those on admission now, were brought in and left behind, the people that brought them have not come to check on them since they have been here.

    The Community Relations Officer said: “We have a lot of them who are abandoned, especially those that were brought in from the East.

    “We have a lot of challenges with people from that part of the country. When they bring patients, they keep them here for years. They do not check on them and you never see any of them again.

    “Some come on their own and beg us to take them in as they were being ostracised in their communities. Several of them even ask us to bury them here when they die as they no longer have any hope of seeing their families again.”

    Dikko appealed for more support from the government and individuals, especially in the area of providing education for the children and rehabilitating the leprosarium.

    “We call on the government to give us support. We have children here who are in school but are on our scholarship. We struggle to meet up and not keep them stranded.

    “If you look across the building, you will notice that it is dilapidated. We ask for support from the governor and the people.

    “The government has helped us with the roads but the wards are still an eyesore.”

    Explaining about the orthopaedic workshop, he said that it is the only one owned by The Leprosy Mission in Nigeria and it caters for all the needs of its clients and patients, especially those affected by leprosy.

    Women journalists stretch out helping hand

    The Niger state Chapter of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) visited the leprosarium to distribute clothes, foodstuffs, detergents and cash to the female survivors in the leprosarium community.

    The Association also gave cash palliative to the 17 patients who were undergoing treatment at the leprosarium to alleviate their sufferings.

    The Chairperson of NAWOJ, Niger State Chapter, Hajiya Rabi Sarki Bello, represented by the Vice Chairperson, Hajiya Hauwa Abubakar, said the visit was intended to identify with them and tell them that they are still remembered even in their state.

    She called on the government to listen to the plea of the survivors and provide them a permanent site while appealing to individuals and organisations to come to the aid of the leprosarium by rehabilitating it.

    Leprosy in Nigeria

    Leprosy is one of the neglected tropical diseases. Nigeria established a National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme back in 1989 to actively identify cases of leprosy.

    According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), more than 3,500 people get infected with the disease every year in Nigeria and about 25 per cent of the number go on to develop physical disabilities.

  • Femi Kuti: When ‘trolls’ dare music giant

    Femi Kuti: When ‘trolls’ dare music giant

    That Femi Anikulapo Kuti loves Nigeria – warts and all – is no secret. It is rarely surprising that at every stage performance by the Afrobeat maestro, he bares to the bones, Nigeria’s myriad leadership problems.

    His songs often resonate as scathing rhetoric of misgovernance, government, and public corruption.

    It’s a given, therefore, that he’d persistently make the news. But for all his rippling activism and artistry, the first son of late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, got entangled with internet trolls, on the hostile end of the news, recently.

    Due to his perceived reservations about Labour Party presidential candidate,

    Peter Obi, recently, Anikulapo-Kuti was subjected to abuse and threats by online trolls and Obi’s supporters.

    The Afrobeat maestro, however, took to his Instagram page to condemn the revilement, reiterating his earlier stance about never being ‘obidient.’ He also denied calling Obi’s supporters “zombies.”

    Anikulapo-Kuti had earlier stated that he could not be ‘obidient’ as he was too angry, sad, and depressed to subscribe to the use of the term, ‘obidient’ as used by Obi’s supporters.

    The first son of the Afrobeat legend, Fela, made it clear, that he doesn’t support any of the leading presidential candidates including Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    He said, “I did not call Peter Obi’s supporters, zombies and personally, I cannot be obedient in this country of today. Nothing can make me be obedient. I’m too angry, too sad, too depressed to be.”

    Of course, the Labour Party candidate, Obi, seized the moment to make a political statement. He visited Anikulapo-Kuti at home and assured him that his ‘obidient movement’ will base its campaign on everyday issues affecting Nigerians and Nigeria rather than personality attacks.

    Read Also: Femi Kuti @ 60

    He disassociated himself from the ugly incident, stressing that wasn’t what his movement stands for.

    But Anikulapo-Kuti is no stranger to vitriol. In a past interview, he recalled that growing up as Fela’s son was “very hard, very scary. The police, SSS (State Security Service) were always following us. I was victimised in school, because of who my father was.”

    His album, Africa for Africa, highlights “Bad Government” as a problem in Africa. In a memorable admonishment to Nigerians, en route to the 2011 elections, he said, “We could say we’re moving in the democratic process. And it’s probably better than going to war, but corruption is still very rampant. The people are hungry and sick. And the government controls the media, so it can’t be critical”.

    He also said: “It’s a very hypocritical situation. People settle for putting a meal on the table, but they don’t know that the rest of the world doesn’t suffer every day from power outages and water shortages. Nigerians don’t even know about the history of African slavery, because it’s not included in the textbooks.”

    He echoed the same sentiments in the 2015 elections by releasing a remix to the song “Politics Na Big Business.”

    For a very long time, Femi has been using music to inspire, change and motivate African people.

    In a chaotic world burdened with non-stop reformation, many look to music as a means of escaping the problems of the world. Anikulapo-Kuti, towing his father’s steps, did the opposite.

    His music was borne of humanity and an overriding quest to influence the tide of the tempests tormenting his people. There is no gainsaying Anikulapo-Kuti evokes the mythic narrative of heroism and patriotic glory oft denied to the public by the government and entertainment’s public relations machine.

    Anikulapo-Kuti probably saw his hope of Nigeria’s rebirth morph into an illusion – courtesy of the toxic politicking reflective of the country’s social space en route to the 2023 elections.

    But his reality of things was deemed unsympathetic to the combative spirit and power of illusion of ‘obidient’ trolls.

    Femi’s truth, evidently, did not feed their fantasy of venom as a ticket to electoral victory and residency at the presidential villa in Aso Rock.

  • IGP Alkali: Beyond tough talk

    IGP Alkali: Beyond tough talk

    Random urban legend establishes the Nigerian Police as a fiend even as Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali, projects its image as our dependable friend.

    Recently, while warning of a plot by terrorists to attack public institutions and structures, IGP Alkali struggled to present a cozy image of the police.

    Emphasising the urgency and importance of the new security measures, he charged police officers to serve with courage and compassion in line with the policing theme of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    He said policemen should be on the offensive, adding that they should take the battle to the doorsteps of criminals.

    Alkali ordered tight security surveillance on schools, hospitals, health facilities, and other critical infrastructure; he also ordered regular patrols, raids, and shows of force by tactical commanders to eradicate crime in some states.

    Not a few Nigerians perused his order with a chuckle – policemen inclusive.

    Perhaps because despite Alkali’s defiant posturing, the grisly manifestations of insecurity and police helplessness at stemming the tide contradict his spunk.

    Alkali did well thundering his riot act; he followed the script to the letter but his assurances seemed evanescent. His reassurance of police efficiency and request for public cooperation unfurled with an incised edge.

    Ultimately, it flounders on the whetstone of corruption, and professional and administrative mishaps hindering the police.

    For some years, Nigeria has been grappling with insurgency perpetrated by the Boko Haram sect, ISWAP, and other terrorist groups. Terrorists have been on the prowl, invading schools and abducting students for ransom.

    They have also attacked churches and mosques, the latest being the bombing of St. Mary Catholic Church, Owo, in Ondo State, leaving over 40 people dead.

    About five months ago, a train was attacked on Abuja-Kaduna Road. Not all the abducted passengers have regained their freedom according to The Nation reports.

    Apart from the invasion of correctional centres to free inmates, insurgents have also attacked the Brigade of Guards in Abuja, killing some officers.

    In the Southeast, criminals have disrupted socio-economic activities while illegally enforcing sit-at-home, attacking police stations, and destroying Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) facilities.

    Read Also; Kuje prison attack: Aregbesola in the eye of the storm

    Against the backdrop of such fledgling insecurity and wanton destruction of lives and property, the police fight futilely to assert their feeble might and capacity against the tide.

    The most lurid portrait of the police’s frailty is discernible in its corrupt officers and the extrajudicial killings – among other things – that triggered the 2020 #EndSARS protest against the now defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

    Yet to recall the police killings in the wake of the conflict is to explore a grotesque facet of Nigerian life. Pundits argued that the police had it coming even as the latter, admitted disillusionment, affirming that the incident has made them apathetic to their work ethics.

    With a staff strength below 400,000, the police, as the primary law enforcer and security agency in Nigeria, is expected to protect about 200 million Nigerians via 36 state commands grouped into 12 zones, and seven administrative organs including special units like the disbanded SARS and newly constituted SWAT.

    Over time, policemen have become predators in impoverished communities. They indiscriminately extort the innocent and criminals – often colluding with the latter against the former.

    The random policeman gleefully weaponises the law to detain people and seize property, unlawfully. Traffic violations attract extremely twisted penalties and extortion across the cities; such extortionate schemes fund police trucks and flesh the pockets of corrupt officers.

    This perverse culture has turned every commuter into a perpetual victim or prey to the predatory police. More worrisome is the lack of effective checks and interventions by the state.

    Alex S. Vitale writes in his book, “The End of Policing,” that “Criminal policy is structured around the use of punishment to manage the ‘dangerous classes,’ masquerading as a system of justice.”

    But who belongs to the dangerous classes? This is a question for the police authorities. Notwithstanding, IGP Alkali ordered his officers to take the battle to the criminals.

    The police boss directed strategic police managers at various levels to prioritise the use of intelligence gathering networks, particularly local intelligence, to locate criminal hideouts and flush them out before they strike.

    Much as it’s inspiring to see Alkali talk tough, he must understand the dynamics that hinder the police force from efficiently fulfilling its obligations to society.

    There is no gainsaying the #EndSARS protest and the mayhem triggered in its wake has strained relations between the police and the public. Speaking with The Nation, several officers – who pleaded anonymity – admitted that they have become less passionate about their work.

    “Our morale is very low. Extremely low…” a policeman confided in The Nation.

    Nationwide, policemen live in squalor within and outside the barracks. They patrol in rickety vehicles, often extorting commercial transporters and motorists for fuel money.

    A combination of poor training, poor remuneration – recruits earn N9, 000 and less than N120, 000 annually – and a culture of corruption and impunity has allowed torture and other ill-treatment to become routine in criminal investigations by the police.

    Suspects are tortured to extract confessions as the police are under pressure to solve serious crimes without adequate resources and specialised skills.

    With little investment in fingerprint databases, ballistics, and other forensic expertise, investigations often rely on confessional statements, not brilliant police work to solve cases.

    The challenge for the police on Alkali’s watch is to find creative ways to reorientate its officers as they engage with force authorities and the public. The police must be reinvented to help the communities they serve help themselves.

    The underlying premise guiding this expansion of the police role is that the police cannot solve community problems without the help of citizens and community agencies.

    To achieve this, the police must recalibrate its operations on a foundation of unwavering trust with the public.

    The onus is on IGP Alkali to foster a trusting relationship between the police and the public. Before his officers can function at their best, they must be able to maintain a healthy relationship with their superiors and the public.

    They must be inspired to reengage with the citizenry as co-producers of public safety – each contributing to the maintenance of law and order with the intent to manifest more humane policing.

  • I’ll still be next Alaafin’s royal ambassador — Aare Ayanlakin

    I’ll still be next Alaafin’s royal ambassador — Aare Ayanlakin

    Oyo high chief, Aare Ayandotun Ayanlakin, the Aare Asoju Oba (royal ambassador) of the deceased Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi 111, speaks with KUNLE AKINRINADE on his lifestyle, his relationship with the late Yoruba monarch and how he waited for 25 years before he was blessed with a set of twins.

    You worked closely with the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi 111 for more than 22 years. How would you describe the monarch?

    Oba Adeyemi will be sorely missed by the people of Oyo for his love for everyone and care for all and sundry. He was a lover of people. He held Oyo town and people firmly. He was a good man and never kept malice with anyone. If you offended him, he would tell you immediately instead of holding a grudge against you.

    Any personal experience in this regard?

    As his royal envoy, I loved him because he treated me like one of his sons. There was a day I went to him and told him that I had no money to pay for my children’s school fees and I was shocked when he gave me N1 million. He was generous to a fault.

    The vacuum he left behind will be difficult to fill because he was such a good monarch to the people of his kingdom and numerous persons who are not from his kingdom.

    Did you have any previous relationship with him before he installed you as his royal envoy?

    My grandfather was a renowned royal drummer who woke Oba Adeyemi’s father (Oba Adeyemi 11) with the sound of a distinct drum called Kanfo every morning. My grandfather would leave our homestead in Akinmorin as early as 4 am for Alaafin’s palace in Oyo to wake him up.

    On a certain day, the Asalu of Oyo, Chief Afolabi, took me to Oba Adeyemi and introduced me as the grandson of Adekunle Ayeleso the famous Alaafin’s Kanfo drummer. Oba Adeyemi asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was a reporter turned businessman. The monarch promised to give me the title of Aare Asoju Oba Alaafin, with special designation as his royal ambassador, because of my grandfather’s meritorious service in the palace as the lead drummer.

    I could not believe it when he asked me to return home from London where I was based at that time in order to be bestowed the chieftaincy title, and my installation ceremony was grand. The years I spent with the monarch were memorable and I will continue to treasure them.

    What did he notice in you before he chose you as his royal ambassador?

    Oba Adeyemi never attached monetary gains to awarding chieftaincy titles. He would have studied and monitored your character very well before selecting or honouring you with any chieftaincy title. In my own case, he asked some people to discreetly monitor me before the conferment of my chieftaincy title in 2001. No one had ever earned the title of Aare Asoju Oba (royal ambassador) before me. I thank God that nothing has ruined my reputation as his ambassador.

    Specifically, what is your duty as Alaafin’s royal ambassador?

    My duty is to project the Alaafin in good light before people at all times. I am saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that his good image is not tarnished and I pray that his successor would be like him.

    But there is another royal ambassador who is a woman?

    The person is holding that title in an honourary capacity. My role is different from hers. I also gave Alaafin Adeyemi advice and he listened to my advice. I am not restricted to Oba Adeyemi alone; I am going to work with his successors because my chieftaincy title is a lifetime honour.

    What kind of person was Alaafin Adeyemi?

    Oba Adeyemi was a rare breed and I pray that someone that possesses the same character as his would be chosen as his successor. I have been praying to God to grant his soul eternal rest. There is no monarch like him just as there is no other chief like the Bashorun of Oyo.

    Can you share your early life with us?

    I was born in Akinmorin town near Oyo about 65 years ago. I was living with my father’s younger sibling and worked on the farm with him. The man did not believe so much in western education hence I had to move in with my mother’s brother called Lamidi in Oyo. My mother had left me in Akinmorin after my father died and she had remarried in Lagos while I stayed back in Akinmorin hawking for my grandmother. So, I joined my mother in Lagos with the assistance of Uncle Lamidi.

    My mother first enrolled me in UNA Primary School in the Bashua area of Shomolu, Lagos. I was a bit older but I was enrolled in Primary 2 and finished at Primary 6. I left for Timothy Secondary School in Onike, Yaba. From there I was enrolled at Orammiyan Grammar School, Ile Ife where I spent just one year and I finished at Origbo Community High School in Ipetumodu, Osun State.

    I started Yoruba poetry (Ewi) while I was a student of Origbo Community High School at Ipetumodu and recorded my first album thereafter. I also performed Yoruba poetry for ace Juju music star, Dele Abiodun and King Sunny Ade, who knows my late mother very well because we lived in the same area in Lagos. I got to know a lot of prominent people while I was doing Ewi poetry at Origbo Community High School. Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammed Buhari, and his younger brother were my juniors at Origbo Community High School. Their father was a former principal of St Charles Grammar School in Oshogbo.

    I finished at Origbo Community High School in 1977. I made a lot of friends with children of affluent people and moved to London where I worked with the late Chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Chief Meredith Adisa Akinloye.

    I have suffered a lot in this life but God has been so kind to me. I lived in London for 28 years and own buildings there. At one point, I was importing commodities and foodstuffs from Nigeria to London.

    I couldn’t continue with Ewi chanting after I made a lot of money in London and my life changed for the better.

    What were you doing when you returned to Nigeria?

    When I relocated to Nigeria, I started working as a freelance journalist with the Daily Times newspaper. I worked with Titus Soyombo, who was my editor then. I worked with the newspaper for six years and God really blessed me.

    Where and how did you meet your wife?

    I met my wife here in Somolu area of Lagos where my mother lived and was a market leader. It happened that she went for a photo shoot at a studio in the Somolu neighbourhood and I met her there. The owner of the studio popularly called Ade Photo then introduced me to her as the son of Iyaloja. Incidentally, she told me she is an indigene of Fiditi, a community in Afijio Local Government Area of Oyo State where my town (Akinmorin) is also located. So, I cuddled her and called her my wife and I found out that she was working at Union Bank.

    Were there any memorable challenges at the beginning of your union?

    Yes. We were childless for about 25 years. However, my younger brother, Olayinka Sosan, who lives in the United States of America (USA) invited us to his base in the USA and introduced us to a specialist doctor who ran several tests on my wife and confirmed that she was fertile. To cut the long story short, the doctor recommended IVF to us and my wife eventually gave birth to a set of twins.

    So we waited for 25 years without any child and without any row whatsoever before God blessed us with a set of twins. At a point, my mother brought some Islamic marabout to our house and asked them to confirm whether my wife had problems or not, but nothing was found to be wrong with her.

    My mother used to say that a man married to two women would be afflicted with two sicknesses hence she never encouraged me to take another woman as a wife because my wife couldn’t bear a child for me.

    How did your mother receive the news of the birth of your children?

    She was very happy. My wife was delivered of the babies in an American hospital. My mother kept asking my wife on the phone, “Joke, you eventually have your own children? And my wife said yes. I did not bother about having more children because my wife was already 44 years old when she had the twins, and I was older than her.

    What role do you think culture can play in the society?

    Culture plays a prominent role in raising good or better citizens in our society. Culture is what parents use to teach and raise their children to conduct themselves in the most appropriate way and familiarises them with certain ways of life acceptable in our society.

    Do you think that culture can be used to reduce insecurity in the country?

    Our cultural norms comprise time-tested values, and when the young generation inculcates these values, it would restrain them from participating in criminal activities. Hence, we should teach them about the inherent values in our culture to make them better people.

    What is your take on the recent attacks on some Oyo communities by suspected herdsmen?

    Well, the solution to this is for elders of the communities to ensure that strangers and visitors are well documented or registered by those housing or hosting them so that anyone that breaks the law can easily be identified and reprimanded or prosecuted.

    Do you think the agitation by Yoruba Nation activists for secession is necessary?

    I am not in a position to offer any opinion on this matter other than the position of my elders on the subject. So, I won’t tell anyone what to do about the matter.

    What is your opinion on the 2023 presidential election and candidates?

    Well, as for me, I think that we Yoruba people should rally around our own person, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is the presidential candidate of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC). Tinubu is my candidate. We all should vote for Asiwaju Tinubu, so that he can attain that height that the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo could not achieve in his lifetime. Besides, I cannot leave Tinubu and vote for another candidate and I have told my friends and associates to vote for Tinubu.

    Why do you support Tinubu’s candidacy?

    I am not only supporting him because he’s a Yoruba but because of his strides in public service and as an astute builder of men. We all can see the good things he did when he was governor of Lagos State. Hence, our people should support and vote for him to win the forthcoming presidential election come 2023 because he is the only one among the contestants that have track records to show for his tenure as a public office holder.

    Why do you think there is usually prolonged contest for royal stools in Yorubaland?

    Every community has its founders and early settlers and those who are not of royal blood should stay clear of chieftaincy tussle to prevent unnecessary squabbles in the race to fill vacant stools. For example, in Oyo, if you are not a descendant of Adeyemi or Oladigbolu, you are not eligible to vie for the Alaafin stool because they are the only two recognised royal families.

    What is your take on pastors becoming Oba in Yorubaland?

    Anyone who is a pastor and wants to be a monarch must be ready to subject himself to the necessary rites peculiar to the throne he desires to occupy. Any candidate who refuses to undergo rites to ascension to a stool because of his religious belief should perish his ambition of becoming a monarch in Yorubaland.

    You are known to be a power dresser using the aso oke fabric. How much does it cost to turn out in those regal traditional attires?

    I took after the late Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi in terms of dressing. Since I am the Aare Asoju Oba (royal ambassador) of Oyo, I have to look good like him because I represent the Alaafin everywhere. Let me also say that Oba Adeyemi was a fashionable monarch that cannot be compared to any Yoruba monarch.

    I have over 3,000 agbada (flowing gowns) at home, and the kind of events I am invited to determine the kind of agbada I wear because I have to appear like the Alaafin who I serve as royal ambassador. I must not look dirty or shabby because the Alaafin detests a shabby appearance and I cannot afford to dress anyhow as his representative at events. Let me shock you: my dresses are very expensive. On the average, each agbada costs about N500,000 while the iyun (royal beads) around my neck are worth more than N1.5 million; not to talk of my staff and specially made royal shoes. In a nutshell, my outfit costs more than N2 million.

  • PRINCESS LARA FASHOLA: Why I sacrificed my marriage to serve Olokun goddess

    PRINCESS LARA FASHOLA: Why I sacrificed my marriage to serve Olokun goddess

    Princess (Yeye) Lara Fashola, a great granddaughter of the 48thOoni of Ife, the late Oba Ademiluyi Ajagun, is an American trained maritime lawyer, a culture ambassador of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) of the African Union (AU) and the YeyeOlokun (Olokun goddess) Worldwide. Princess Fashola is at the forefront in the promotion of African culture and tradition and annually hosts the popular Olokun Festival. She spoke with OKORIE UGURU about her life as a princess and a business woman, and the responsibility and sacrifice that come with being the YeyeOlokun worldwide. Excerpts

    What is an American trained maritime lawyer doing in cultural promotion? Like I said earlier, I am from the royal families in Ile Ife, Lagos and in Benin Kingdom. Of course, any child that is born into a royal family must know tradition, especially in Ile Ife. You know that indigenes of Ile Ife do not joke with tradition.

    My great-grand father was the Ooni Ademiluyi.   If you read about him, he was a great man, very spiritual and very powerful. And if I have the DNA of such a man in me, there is no way I will not be doing what I am doing now.

    With your looks as a beautiful woman who is sophisticated and urbane, how do you marry being the YeyeOlokun and the sophistication you exude?

    I mean, who are we as a people? This is my identity. You cannot take a person’s identity away from him. This is who I am: an African, a Yoruba woman. So, being beautiful, sophisticated or educated has nothing to do with anything really. As a matter of fact, I think those qualities should be used to enhance culture.

    How did your journey into culture begin?

    It started a long, long time ago; right when I was about seven years old. You mean you were conscious of all this as early as that?

    Yes, very conscious. Like I said, I am a very spiritual person. That makes me very intelligent. I don’t forget anything. So, I am very clear about how it started and the things that happened, where it started from, and why I am where I am.

    So, how did it start?

    It is a long story.

    The reader would like to know.

    It is a long story. I was born into a Muslim family and I went to a Koranic school. I read the Koran and graduated. But at the age of seven, I started seeing very strange things. I would tell my parents about them but they didn’t really understand it. So, they had to seek the elders’ wisdom. People then said maybe I needed to be in church because everything that I said always came to pass.

    So, I went to church and I was a prophetess in the church for 25 years but those things never stopped. My great grandfather (Ooni Ademiluyi) would appear to me and would tell me that I had a responsibility to carry on the torch, to promote the culture and the traditions of our people so that they would not go into extinction.

    As you can clearly see, our culture is going into extinction. This is why I am doing the work that I am doing now. I am promoting things every day.

    Moving from Islam to Christianity, how did it feel to switch to traditional religion after 25 years? How was the transition?

    I realised that certain things were missing in my life as a matter of fact, even as a Christian. And as soon as I agreed to take the call, as soon as a harkened to my great grandfather’s call, beautiful things started happening. It was like the puzzle started to fit. Beautiful things started to happen to me and beautiful things are still happening.

    As a child from the royalties of three big kingdoms—Ile Ife, Lagos and Benin—could you talk about that and how you were able to marry these together?

    You see, luckily for me, as the custodian of the Olokun deity, the deity is worshipped heavily in those three places. It made it really easy to merge. And, of course, there is nothing really different about the way of worship of the Yoruba and the Benin.  They are almost the same thing. The only difference is that in Benin, they worship in Benin language. But whatever language we speak really, God understands. It has not been difficult at all. It has been easy. You know when you have been called to save, it is because it is your destiny. It just becomes easy for you.

    How do you marry being an Olokun priestess with being a business woman?

    Like I said before, Olokun is in charge of wealth and economic growth. So, that has really helped me in the creation of wealth. I am a serial entrepreneur, and I am also an ambassador at the African Union (AU). I hold several chieftaincy titles in Yorubaland.

    Could you mention some?

    For example, I am the Yeye Are Parapo of Esa Oke, the late Chief Bola Ige’s hometown. I am the Yeye Ashipa of Gbogan. I am the Yeye Babaguoin of Akinlalu. I am the Yeye of Ife Wara. I am also the Erelu Iwase of Otun Awori, the Otta Awori people in Lagos. I am the Olokun Olosa of Lagos. I am also the Oluwase Olokun of Benin Kingdom.

    So what does this Yeye Olokun worldwide mean?

    It simply means that you lead your people back home to their roots. That is the first major assignment that you have—to take out people back home, to let them remember who they are, their identity as Africans, and also to promote the culture heavily and also practise it so that it does not go into extinction. This is because without our culture, we are nobody, so we lose our identity as Africans. How then do we introduce ourselves to the rest of the world?

    How do you marry that with being a mother?

    I don’t have any issues at all, because if you look at it really, the deity Olokun stands for motherhood, mother to everybody. So, I mean why would that be a problem to be a mother to my children? I am mother to thousands of people worldwide, and I manage it very effectively.

    People would say for your age, the responsibilities are enormous…

    It is actually, and it really gets overwhelming sometimes. But I think once something is your destiny, definitely God will make it easy.

    Were there points on this your journey that you felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities?

    Yes, for instance when this got in the way of marriage. I was formerly married and the man could not handle it. When I started, we didn’t know it was going to be this huge, especially because he was a Christian, an elder in the church and he didn’t find any issues with it at all. But then it grew out of hand so to say because everybody wanted a part of me all over the world. Men, women, children, everybody wants to talk to me. I am getting awards here and there. It didn’t affect my motherly responsibility as a mother and as a wife, but he felt very insecure. He became extremely insecure and could not handle it. And when you have been called to serve, there is nothing really you can do.

    How does it feel to be a princess from The Source?

    It feels really good.

    Are there any pecks or responsibilities?

    There are so many responsibilities that come with it because everywhere you go, you are expected to behave in a certain way; you know the carriage. You are expected to carry yourself in a certain way. Of course, I started quite early and, looking at my very young age…oh my God! But I enjoy it because I was born to do this. I was born for this, so I actually do enjoy it.

    You are very close to the current Ooni of Ife, Oba Ogunwusi, Ojaja 11…

    Yes, he is my father. He is a wonderful father and I cannot trade him for any other. After God, Olodumare and my parents, he is next.

    Is it because he is a culture promoter?

    A grand custodian and promoter of our culture and he is my mentor.  We look up to him.

    You are about hosting the 2022 edition of Olokun Festival. Could you talk a little about it?

    Basically, we are asking people to come and see the beauty of our culture and our traditions, to come and enjoy, because that day we will have a display of our culture. Cultural troupes from all over the world are coming to perform. Our arts and craft will be on exhibition. We are going to be singing and dancing and eating very good food, and also networking.

    We are going to be networking because we are expecting so many important dignitaries like His Imperial Majesty, the Ooni, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi. He will be the royal father of the day. And our mother, the newly installed Yeye Oodua, our Queen Mother of Lagos Erelu Abiola Dosunmu will be the mother of the day. We are going to have all the white cap chiefs of Lagos, chiefs from Ile Ife, from Benin Kingdom and so on.

    We are also expecting monarchs from outside Nigeria, from other African countries. We are expecting ambassadors from high commissions. We are expecting very great people that our people would love to interact with on that day.

  • Tales of sorrow from Benue, Niger IDP camps

    Tales of sorrow from Benue, Niger IDP camps

    Ulcer and myriads of other health challenges are ravaging the camps of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Benue and Niger states. INNOCENT DURU reports that the womenfolk is the worst hit because they constantly have to sacrifice their meals to augment the poor ration given to their children. Their woes are compounded by lack of resources to buy medications for their health challenges.

    • Ulcer ravages inmates as starvation becomes order

    • Hungry children cry all night as indigent patients take herbs for ulcer pains

    Comfort Tyozer, a 28-year-old mother of two was living a relatively comfortable life with her family before they were sacked by murderous herdsmen who invaded their Tomobo community in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State and shattered the peace and tranquility they had enjoyed over the years.

    Before the attack, Comfort and her family had a large expanse of land on which they farmed and reaped bountiful harvest. They had enough to eat and to sell to make the money needed to take care of other needs of the family.

    The story has, however, changed since they arrived at the internally displaced persons’ camp to seek refuge from their assailants.

    She said: “I developed an ulcer here because of the amount of hunger and hardship in the camp. The food that the government is giving us is not enough because there are so many people that the food is shared out to. On many occasions, I give my ration to my children.”

    In her resolve to make sure the children don’t starve to death, Comfort goes to work  for people on their farms whenever there is a job in order to get some money to augment the food the family gets.

    She said: “The money I get from doing that is nothing to write home about. Sometimes I get N1,000 or N1,500, and it does not come every day.

    “The last time we ate meat was in 2018 when the state government gave us swine to kill during the Christmas celebration.

    “There has been no means for me to get meat since then to enhance the nutritional value of what my children eat.

    “My primary concern for now is to make sure they don’t starve and have ulcers like me.”

    As an ulcer patient, Comfort said she suffers severe pains, especially at night. “I can’t sleep at night as I also feel pains in my chest. I also constantly suffer from headache and stomach pains.”

    In spite of her disturbing health condition, the mother of two is yet to go to the hospital for treatment.

    Giving her reason for this, she said: “I don’t have money to go to the hospital for treatment. If I had the means I would have gone to see a doctor, but I don’t. I use herbs to reduce the pain. I take tree branches and leaves to suppress the pains.”

    Logo and many other places in Benue State have remained under mindless attacks by killer herdsmen for the past four years.  Farmlands, houses, schools and many other valuable places have been destroyed by the herders with countless people murdered in cold blood.

    The population of displaced persons is put at two million by the state government with an end not yet in sight to the crisis. The attendant financial burden may have been responsible for the insufficient food provided for IDPs and the concomitant health crisis.

    The Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, last weekend disclosed that the state needs approximately N500 million monthly to provide the basic needs of its IDPs, leaving one to wonder how a poor state like Benue would raise such money, considering that the governor and many prominent groups in the state have constantly accused the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government of abandoning the IDPs in the state to their fate and “playing politics with human lives.”

    If Comfort, a mother of two is being eaten up by how the children would survive in the face of the hardship plaguing the camp, one can imagine what her kinswoman, Naakaa Nwuese, a 35-year-old mother of seven, would be passing through.

    “It is challenging taking care of my seven children in this condition. The food they provide for us is grossly inadequate,“ she said.

    Like Comfort, Naakaa and her family had enough to eat from what they planted on their massive farmland. But all that has changed since they arrived at the IDP camp.

    “We are suffering from acute hunger here,” she said.

    “I have developed an ulcer because of hunger. I have no money to go to the hospital. I depend on herbs to treat and reduce the discomfort that it causes me.

    “In spite of having an ulcer, I often give the ration given to  me to my children rather than watch them cry or die of hunger. Even after giving them my food, they will still not be okay.”

    To reduce the challenge of hunger among her children, Naakaa also goes out to look for something to do to get some money to add to what is provided by the government.

    She said: “I go searching for where I would help people to plant or clear grass in order to get money to increase the quantity of food available to my children.

    “If I get something, we eat and if nothing comes, we stay like that.

    “The children at times don’t sleep at night because of hunger. They would be crying to be given something to eat. It is really disheartening.”

    Secretary of the IDPs in Logo, Levi Utim, is also suffering from ulcer. According to him, “many of us are suffering from all manner of ailments. Many of us  have ulcers and we don’t have drugs to treat ourselves.

    “The cause of our ulcer is hunger and nothing more. Since morning, many people in the camp have not eaten because they have nothing to eat.

    “Some of the people, as you can see, are old men and old women. Many have gone out to work for people and would not come back until evening.

    “As human beings, it is not good to stay that long without food in the stomach.”

    “The government,” Levi said, “gives us food once in a month, and once that finishes, we don’t have another way to get food. To feed our families we have to go and do odd jobs to get some money. The government used to give us rice and noodles and garri sometimes. The only time they gave us pigs to slaughter was during the Christmas celebration in 2018. We have not been eating meat since then.”

    A night before our reporter called on the camp, Levi noted that there was a downpour and windstorm that destroyed their tents.

    “We don’t have money to buy leather to cover the tents, and that made us to suffer seriously. That is another challenge we have now. Our cooking materials and mattresses are damaged.”

    The Chairman of the IDP camp in Logo, Samson, also suffers from ulcer.

    “I have ulcer and have been using herbs to treat it to the best of my knowledge. I pick leaves and branches of leaves to make concoctions that I use to treat the ulcer. I don’t have money to go to the hospital or buy medications. I rely on herbs to alleviate the pains caused by the ulcer.”

    Even as the head of the displaced persons in the camp, Samson still goes to hustle to get money to add to what is given to his family. “There is no other way to provide food for my family than to go and look for where to work as a labourer for people,” he said.

    “The money I make from doing that is insignificant and I can’t buy enough food to feed my family. The food that the government is also giving us is very small. We only finish it within a short time.

    “I have been in the camp since 2018. I have not been doing anything since then. We can’t go to our villages and farm again because murderous herders are there.

    “Just last week, the herders killed many and injured several others that they found in the farm. The survivors ran back to the camp for shelter. The total number of people in the camp is now 7,580.”

     Niger IDPs also ravaged by hunger, ailments

    The challenge of hunger-induced ulcer and other health challenges is not restricted to Benue State IDP camp. In Niger State, life has also been miserable for the Internally Displaced Persons’ seeking refuge at Central Primary School, in Shiroro Local Government Area.

    The local government area has been under serious attacks by bandits who kidnap, maim and kill innocent citizens at will.

    After escaping from the murderous bandits, the displaced persons have had hunger and myriads of health challenges to contend with. They are torn between the devil and the deep blue sea. They long to go back home where they had food to eat to their satisfaction but cannot go because of the herders’ menace. They feel like taking shelter in the camp but hunger and attendant health challenges make the place unpleasant for them.

    Like the many inmates at the Logo IDPs camp in Benue State, a good number of the inmates in Shiroro are also suffering from ulcer as a result of not eating well. Here, the female population is worse hit by the problem.

    Tani Hassan, a 34 year-old mother of five, became an ulcer patient after she and her family arrived at the camp.

    “I have an ulcer and it started when we came to this camp because we are not eating well. I have been enduring the pain because there is no money to buy medications.

    “I only get to use medications whenever there is a medical outreach here and drugs are given to us. As an ulcer patient, I feel pains in my stomach but I have to endure it when there is no medication.

    “I feel very unhappy about it but there is nothing I can do about it,” she said.

    Recalling the incident that brought them to the camp, Tani said: “We ran after bandits attacked our house and killed my father-in-law and my own brother. I was a farmer cultivating a large expanse of land before the attack. I feel depressed staying here. To make sure we don’t die of hunger, I go out to look for work to add to what the government provides.” Rhoda Bullous, 29-year-old mother of three laments the pains she goes through as a result of the ulcer she has.

    She said: “It comes with excruciating pain, especially when there is nothing to eat. At times, I go to work for people with empty stomachs from morning till evening to get money to buy additional food for my children.

    “I can endure hunger but the children cannot. They can play all day without food but stay awake all night crying because of hunger.”

    Rhoda said her family ran away from their home after bandits attacked them, kidnapped her husband and killed her father-in-law. “We paid N2 million as ransom to secure the release of my husband,” she said.

    Another inmate who gave her name as Talatu wore a mournful look as she spoke with our correspondent. She was troubled both by her health condition and the burden of providing food for her seven children.

    “There is hunger in the camp and there is no money to get basic daily needs like soap. We want to go back home because we are missing our farms.

    “We could sleep very well back at home and eat very well, but all that is not possible here. I didn’t have an ulcer until I came here.”

    Esther Yahaya, 31, a widow. I lost my husband to bandits. My husband was killed on his way home and his corpse was brought home.  I have two children and they are not going to school. They are seven years and five years old. They are just at home playing around.

    “My children and I don’t eat well. We have only eaten once, and that was in the morning. The food was not even enough to fill our stomachs. I feel uncomfortable here in the camp. I feel like going back home.”

    Aside from the pains of ulcer, Lani Amos, a 31-year-old mother, expressed concern about the prevalence of malaria in the camp. “I have five children. I developed an ulcer here in the camp. Aside from the ulcer, we also have the challenge of mosquito bites that are causing malaria for us.

    “The mosquito nets we were given are torn and that makes mosquitoes to feast on our bodies without restraints. I don’t have money to go for treatment. We get medication when NGOs come here on medical outreach.”

    The camp’s head, Daniel Lado, spoke of how he lost two of his grandchildren when the camp was hit by a cholera outbreak.

    “I lost two of my grandchildren to that crisis because there was no money to take them to the hospital.

    “Malaria, typhoid, ulcer are some other health challenges we are battling with in the camp now.

    “My wife has ulcer and there are so many others suffering from that too because of hunger,” Lado said.

    He added: “We feed once or twice a day here in the camp. The children come crying whenever there is no food for them to eat.

    “I feel very bad seeing the children crying for food. I really feel bad about it.   I have been managing to survive and provide a little for my family by engaging in labourer work.

    “I make between N1,000 and N2,000 when I help people to work on their farms. That was not up to what I was paying people who worked on my farm.

    “The amount that I am paid depends on the volume of work. The money is not in any way enough to take care of my family. I depend largely on the food provided by the government and non-governmental organisations to manageably feed my children.

    “The food we eat here can never be compared to what we were eating back home, both in quality and quantity.”

    Before he moved into the camp, Lado said he was a successful farmer and a provision trader.

    He said: “My family moved into the camp after bandits attacked and sacked us from our village. They kidnapped one of my sons. I had to sell everything I had to pay the ransom of N1million that they asked for.”

    ‘Niger govt is giving its best to IDPs’

    The Desk Officer of the Central Primary School IDP camp said the state government was trying its best to take care of the displaced persons.

    His words: “I am here to take care of them and see how they are doing. When the government brings food, I am the one to share it for them. When they have any problem, they share it with me and I send it to the office.

    “The government does provide food, and when the food provided finishes, they bring another one. We also go through NGOs.

    Christian associations and even politicians also bring food items for them. When the food supplied is exhausted, definitely there would be complaints.”

    He added: “There was a time we had a cholera outbreak here and we lost about three to four people. Immediately, I reported the incident to my office. They sent a medical team with drugs and addressed the challenge.

    “Environmental sanitation is one of the problems. We are in a school where students come and litre the whole place. We are the ones always cleaning up the environment.

    “We have toilets but they are not enough. Some NGOs did one or two toilets for us.”

    Speaking on the inmates’ health challenges, he said: “They have challenges like malaria, typhoid and hypertension. Apart from the cholera that killed about three to four people, we have also lost about five people who died just like that.”

    Benue needs N500m monthly for IDPs  – SEMA

    The Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, last weekend disclosed that the state needed approximately N500 million monthly to provide the basic needs of its close to two million Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs.

    The Executive Secretary of Benue SEMA, Dr. Emmanuel Shior, explained that the state government was struggling with the burden without support from the Federal Government, saying “we need about N500 million to take care of the basic needs of the IDPs on a monthly basis.

    “We know that food is very, very expensive. A truck of 25kg rice which is about 1,200 bags is about N18 million for one truck. What we have here is not enough to go round.

    “So in terms of purchasing food and non-food items that should be enough, we need approximately N500 million to buy enough items for the IDPs monthly.

    “It is unfortunate that Benue State has been abandoned and the IDPs have been neglected by the Federal Government; and the challenge at hand is very huge that it cannot be left to the Benue State Government alone.

    “Fortunately, Governor Samuel Ortom has been relentless not only in working and ensuring that he mobilises Benue SEMA on a monthly basis to respond to some of the basic needs of the IDPs, but also ensuring that in other areas of human endeavour he works to ensure that the lives of Benue citizens are actually better.

    “The situation we have in our hands is not only humanitarian, in most of the communities that they attacked they also destroyed the infrastructure, farmlands, crops, schools, markets, churches and even bridges so as to make it difficult for security agencies to access the attacked communities and those they are occupying.

    “So it is difficult for the government to return the IDPs. And this has been in existence for over four years since 2018.

    “But we will not be tired of talking about this. Some people who want to be mischievous try to compare the humanitarian situation in Benue State to what is happening in Borno State.”

    We support every IDP camp – NCFRI

    Contrary to claims by the Benue State government that displaced people in the state are not cared for by the federal government, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRI) said it has not left out any state in its support programme.

    The South West Zonal Head, Mrs Erinfolami, said: “We have been catering for every state with IDPs. As I am talking to you now, I am in Maiduguri for an intervention programme.”

    Budgetary allocation rises as insecurity escalates

    A run through the statistics of the country’s budget shows that allocations for security have continued to rise over the years. In 2016, allocation to security gulped N1.06 trillion and moved up to N1.14 trillion in 2017. In 2018, the allocation jumped to N1.35 trillion and rose in 2019 to N 1.76 trillion. In 2020, allocation to the sector was put at N1.78trillion. Put together, the total allocation within the five years under consideration totaled N7.1 trillion.

    Between 2011 and 2015, budgetary allocations to the sector by the Goodluck Jonathan administration stood at N4.62 trillion.

    The allocation to security in 2011 was N920 billion and N924 billion in 2012. In 2013 and 2014, N923 billion each was allocated to security while the sum rose to N934 billion in 2015 to bring the total to N4.62 trillion.

    The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) said that at least 60,000 people have been killed in Nigeria’s 18 northern states in the last 10 years due to insecurity,

    In a new report by CDD titled “Multiple Nodes, Common Cause: National Stocktake of Contemporary Insecurity and State Responses in Nigeria,” the CDD said in the Northwestern states of Jigawa; Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto and, Zamfara about 14, 000 people lost their lives between 2011 and 2021.

  • Controversy trails discovery of 20 mummified bodies in Edo

    Controversy trails discovery of 20 mummified bodies in Edo

    Controversy is trailing the discovery of a suspected ritual shrine in Benin City on Wednesday by operatives of the Edo State Police command.

    Three persons were reportedly arrested with 20 mummified bodies in the operations the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Abutu Yaro, said was in line with the command’s operational mandate of curbing crime in the state.

    Speaking on the raid, the CP said: “Following credible information at the command’s disposal that some corpses were discovered in a building along Asoro slope off Ekehuan Road, Uzebu Quarters, in Benin City, operatives of the command immediately swung into action and mobilised to the scene.”

    Among the corpses discovered at the scene of the crime are 15 dried male corpses, three female corpses and those of two children.

    Contrary to claims by the Police that the building was a ritual shrine, however, stakeholders in Edo State said the building is a legal and private-owned morgue.

    The leadership and members of Edo Civil Society Organisations, led by the Interim Chairman, Leftist Austine Enabulele, declared that the sad news is worrisome, as Edo people had no history of ritualism.

    He said: “More troublesome is the fact that it was the Deputy Police Public Relations Officer in Edo State Command that led a media report on the sensitive matter, which would have suggested that proper investigation would have been carried out to arrive at what was reported in the media.

    “Immediately the news got to us, we quickly dispatched a team of investigators to unravel the true situation of the matter and report accordingly for a follow up.

    “The building is not a ritualists’ den but a newly-built morgue to house evacuated bodies from an old facility, because the operator had been given a quit notice there.

    “The operational name of the morgue is St. Gabriel Funeral Home, with other offices at No. 24, First Federal Road, Benin City. It has branches in Anambra State, Ebonyi State, Murtala Mohammed Way, Benin City, and First East Circular Road, Benin City, where the bodies were moved from.

    “The shrine discovered was a traditional form of worship by the proprietor of the morgue, as a spiritual protection for himself and his business.

    “The police did not conduct an investigation before addressing the media thereby raising the alarm of a ritualists’ shrine. As at the time of putting this report together, the police had not visited other branches of the morgue, in different parts of Benin City and other parts of the country.”

    Read Also: Fear of epidemic grips Abia community over unclaimed bodies

    The groups also stated that the videos of bodies in circulation revealed that some of the bodies had name tags, and medical equipment was also visible in the building.

    They noted that further interview with one of the morgue personnel in another of the branch offices revealed that there was a register of all the bodies in the facilities, with some of the owners already calling to take away the deposited bodies.

    The CSOs maintained that the ugly development had shown that Edo state government lacked its own intelligence gathering mechanism to filter stories, while accusing top officials of Godwin Obaseki’s administration of sharing the “misinformation and fake news” from the police.

    They described Edo as peaceful and the most accommodating state in Nigeria, while insisting that crimes could not be fought with media propaganda.

    Another critical stakeholder in Benin, Osazee Edigin, also declared that there was no ritualists’ den in the Uzebu quarters of the Edo State capital.

    A mortician, Mr. Chukwu Otu, is said to be the owner of the controversial morgue.

    A man believed to be one of Otu’s clients, Mappiar Osaro, eventually identified his mother’s body at the contentious morgue. Osaro revealed that he deposited his mother’s body with Otu where he was initially operating the morgue along First East Circular Road in Benin, in November, 2021, but he did not have money for her burial.

    The displeased man noted that he was now ready to bury his mother, but on getting to the morgue, he was told that the mortician had relocated and was directed to the new place, which was invaded by policemen on August 17.

    Otu, it was gathered, decided to build his personal morgue in the building, in view of the existence of two other morgues in the area.

    On August 19, Obaseki, at a joint news conference with the police at the command’s headquarters in Benin, gave the security  agency seven days to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the purposes and ownership of the facility.

    Edo governor, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, assured that residents of the state would continuously be briefed on the progress of the investigation.

    Edo Deputy Commissioner of Police, SCID, Olawore Oluwole, who is handling the investigation, gave an assurance that the police would do a thorough job.

    The mortician’s mobile lines were not reachable  when efforts were made, at press time, to get his reactions to the allegations leveled against him.

    A big banner in front of Asuen Hospital, which initially housed Otu’s morgue, at No.15, First East Circular Road, Benin, had the following  inscriptions: “St. Gabriel Funeral Home, at St. John Hospital (RC 2492602): O.T. Best Mortician, home mortuary embalmment, grave design, home embalmment, ambulance service, etc. and dealer in hospital and mortuary equipment (08092343814 and 08063692998).

    “Head office – Amasiri Community, Afikpo North, Owutu Eda Road, Ebonyi State. Anambra Office – St. Bernarbees, Uga June, Bethel Hospital, Idemili North, Anambra State. Branch Office – Asuen Hospital, No. 15, First East Circular Road, Benin City, Edo State.”

    On August 17, the Edo police command, through its Deputy Spokesperson, Jennifer Iwegbu, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), stated that policemen uncovered a den of ritualists, with twenty mummified bodies, within Benin metropolis, consisting of fifteen males, three females and two children.

    As at August 17, she revealed that policemen at the scene arrested three male suspects: Chimaobi Okoewu and Oko Samuel, both of Afikpo in Ebonyi State, as well as Gideon Sunday, an indigene of Akwa Ibom State, while other suspected criminals fled, with intensive efforts ongoing to apprehend them, but on August 18, the apprehended suspects increased to four.

    Iwegbu noted that the feat was in pursuance of the command’s operational mandate of nipping crimes in the bud.

    She said: “Operatives of the Edo State Police Command, on August  17, 2022, unravelled a suspected ritual shrine.

    “Following credible information at the command’s disposal that some bodies were discovered in a building along Asoro Slope, off Ekenhuan Road, Uzebu Quarters, Benin City, operatives of the command immediately swung into action and mobilised to the scene.”

    Edo deputy police spokesperson also quoted Edo Commissioner of Police, Abutu Yaro, as directing the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the state’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), to carry out a discreet investigation, to unravel the circumstances surrounding the discovered bodies.

    Yaro enjoined Edo residents to be calm, while assuring that the command would continue to ensure the safety of all law-abiding persons in the state.

    The suspects, however, denied their involvement in ritual killings or operating a shrine.

    A refrigerator and the mummified bodies, with mortuary tags, were sighted in the area, beside the owner’s personal bungalow, that resembled a shrine, while a bedroom and a stretcher were also found in the uncompleted building.

    One of the nabbed suspects, Chimobi Okoewu, disclosed that he was supervising a Plaster of Paris (PoP) ceiling work in the building, while insisting that the bodies were transferred to the new place, a proposed permanent site of a morgue, from where they were initially kept.

    Okoewu said: “The owner of the place is a mortician. He was told by his landlord to pack out of his former place. So, he decided to relocate the bodies to his permanent site, which is his personal building. He was in a rented apartment before now, quietly doing his business.”

    Another suspect, Gideon Friday, who disclosed that he applied to be a driver in the organisation, maintained that he came to check if his application was successful, only to be thoroughly beaten by youths of the community, without hearing his side of the story, and later handed him over to the police.

    Samuel Okoh insisted that the owner of the building was his boss, a mortician, and the owner of the building, a proposed site for a morgue.

    Okoh revealed that his boss decided to relocate from where he was operating from, because the roof of the building was leaking, thereby moving to the permanent site, while gradually developing his personal house.

  • Serenade with ocean treasures

    Serenade with ocean treasures

    Nature provides us with a number of trendy design options that have turned out to be beautiful, exciting, irresistible as well as very creative.

    Flowers, plants, trees, animal skin are great inspiration for our designers and they keep on evolving with styles that have become a must have.

    Images from the Ocean are a great delight for many. This include  fish, prawns , shrimps, lobsters , shells , crabs, waves boats, sea turtles ,shark, dolphins, whales , octopus  waves and so many other amazing scenery that have become a great source of creativity on the fashion scene.

    Read Also: Stella’s stellar exploits in fashion

    You get this on fabrics, accessories and more.

    Ocean treasures and aquatic treasures are a delight. These images are everywhere and have endorsed a number of fashion accessories items that our women just cannot do without in unique ways.

    Apart from clothes designs with embroidery, patches and fabrics you find them standing on in bag designs, shoes as well as jewelry for that special effect.

    A number of our designers have used these images creatively and churned out a number of creative pieces using additions that continue to set a pace and create unique fashion statements.