The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday Magazine

  • Collapse of local government responsible for banditry, kidnapping, others — Rep

    Collapse of local government responsible for banditry, kidnapping, others — Rep

    Dr Alex Egbona represents the Abi/Yakurr Federal Constituency of Cross River State in the House of Representatives. In this interview with NSA GILL, he identifies the undercurrents of the bad security situation in the country and counsels President Muhammadu Buhari on what he needs to do immediately to tackle the challenge.

     

    How do you feel about the level of insecurity in Nigeria?

    I don’t think there is anybody in this country who is not worried about what is going on in Nigeria today. We have not had it this bad before. I cannot remember any time in the life of this country that security operatives, I mean policemen and soldiers, would be a target for armed bandits. I cannot remember any time that armed boys would have the effrontery to overrun a police station, set it ablaze and kill the policemen. There is hardly any day that you would not hear of killings or kidnapping. It has now become a new normal for gunmen, and you people in the media will always call them unknown gunmen, to sack a police station. They now feel very free to go after policemen and other law enforcement agents. If you are not worried about what is happening in Nigeria, then I doubt if you have blood running in your veins. It is very scary that we can no longer sleep with our two eyes closed. Our country is in flames everywhere and it gives me serious concern.

    So, what do you think should be done?

    I have a simple solution. I believe that if our president and governors and local government chairmen will pay attention to this, we will be out of this mess in no distant time. Have you noticed that the people who are kidnapping and killing are doing so because of money? They want money. They are jobless and so that makes them angry. Each time they abduct, the next thing you will hear is ransom. It has become a trade for them because they have not been given jobs. So, if government can create jobs for them, or provide the enabling environment for them to eke out a decent living, they will be too busy to think of committing crime.

    Take your time and look at the people who are involved in these criminal activities. They are the youths, most of who have left school and are still unemployed after many years. They leave their villages and their local government areas and enter the cities in search of opportunities. In the process, they join gangs, and before you know it, they have turned into killers and kidnappers. The local government system has the capacity to absorb most of these boys. If the federal government can create an atmosphere for our unemployed youths to return to and maximise opportunities in the local government, things will get better.

    I was once a councilor. In my time, we were autonomous. The local government could embark on projects and there were opportunities for everybody who wanted to live a decent live in the village. Councilors had the opportunity to make things happen. As a councilor, I constructed culverts and bridges in my ward. Those things are still standing today, decades after I left office. The local government system should be revived and made to work. Let Buhari make a pronouncement that all unemployed graduates should return to their local governments and register and get ready for jobs. They will all go to their villages.

    The federal government should make sure that local government funds are sent to the councils directly and the governors should be compelled to take their eyes off local government funds. Why won’t there be insecurity when all the graduates are now in Calabar and in other cities? They are the people doing kidnapping now. How can someone who graduated 10 years ago survive when he has no job?  The so-called gunmen and bandits you hear of today, you think they deliberately want to suffer and subject themselves to hard life inside the bushes and the forests? You think they are happy doing what they are doing? They want to survive and, unfortunately, they think that is the best thing to do. But if government can take them out of the bush and give them a source of livelihood, they will drop those guns. Nobody wants to suffer. They all want to enjoy the good things of life.

    Our governors feel free to talk about federal system of government only when it suits them. They will cry about true federalism when their interest is involved. Most of them are still pilfering local government funds, and that makes it difficult for the council chairmen to perform. Some of the chairmen only get stipends from their governors and that is it. The governor corners the money and uses it as he wants. They have killed the local government system.

    Read Also: Banditry in Northwest can ‘swallow’ Nigeria, Matawalle warns

     

    When last did you hear that a local government chairman is presenting a budget to the legislative arm? When last did you hear that a local government chairman is doing projects, employing people, grading roads, building markets, etc? These are all responsibilities of the local governments. See, as a councilor, I was able to employ people. I was able to provide start-up capital for those who wanted. Which councilor can do that today? Which councilor has sponsored a bye-law in decades? Do they even have a legislative assembly in the local governments?

    The governors have killed that tier of the government. When it is time for local government election, they hand-pick people and put them there. And because of that, the people cannot talk. The local government system has become an appendage of Government House. This is wrong. Mr President should stop this. Any state that is still pilfering local government funds should not be given the allocation. If the local government system comes back to life, criminality will stop or reduce very, very drastically.

    Some people say it is the reason for rural/urban migration…

    Yes, you find people in the cities because there is nothing for them in the local government. There should be a deliberate plan by the federal and state governments to make the local government system work. I repeat, all unemployed graduates should be told to go back to their local governments. An employment bureau should be created. The people should go and register and give their data. Those who can teach should be encouraged to teach. Those who can work in the farms should be given such opportunities. Those who can work in construction sites should be employed to work there. Those who want to learn trades should be assisted to learn. There should be something for everybody. The local government system has the capacity to absorb all these people. If this is done, the influx of people into the city will reduce. But what do you see today? Even the local government chairman, his concillors and even traditional rulers are all in the city. Why won’t there be crime?

    In Rivers State, there was something called school-to-land-programme. Of recent, we started hearing of the Songhai farm project. It is in Cross River. It is in Rivers and perhaps other parts of the country. The point I am making is that we should do everything possible to encourage our unemployed graduates to get into modern agriculture practice. The local government system should be encouraged to do this.

    When I was in the council, we floated a transport company and it was working. Have you seen this anywhere today? The level of unemployment is unimaginable. The governors should stop telling lies and face the real thing. If the governors are sincere, they can do a lot. Look at the natural resources we have in all parts of the country. In my state, you can take off these boys from the streets and help them to stand on their own through agriculture. We have solid mineral deposits. If we are sincere, some people will be doing piggery, some will do fishing, some will do cassava business, some will do rice farming and all that. The security challenges can be addressed if we are sincere.

    People have accused Mr President of not taking charge…

    Mr President has his own role to play. But the governors and local governments also have bigger roles to play. The citizens also have roles to play in all of this. I agree that Mr President has not acted well; he has not taken charge as would have been expected. Mr President needs to wake up and take charge. I agree. I know that Mr President has a lot of good programmes aimed at reducing poverty in the country. But again, look at the drivers of those programmes, how are they driving the agenda of the President? Just recently, the sum of N20,000 was approved for payment to local women in the country. People were shortlisted as beneficiaries for the first phase. Their phone contacts and account details were collected. But when it was time to pay, those in charge decided to carry cash to go and pay instead of paying into the bank account of the people directly. They did this because they had ulterior motives. They ended up conniving with people of their ilk to steal what was meant for the poor, local community women. There are other programmes like this from the Buhari government but the people who drive the processes are the issue. Some of these civil servants are very corrupt and they do so brazenly. And people will still point fingers at the President.

    Like I said, the President also has his own blames. Now, we are talking of Abacha loot. Why can’t the federal government take a good chunk of that money to create employment channels across the country and make sure that these boys are taken off the streets? Before you know now, that money will end up in the hands of a few people who will either go and bury the money or go and invest it outside Nigeria again. Some Nigerian leaders are too greedy and selfish. They amass so much wealth and create a bad name for Mr President. That is also one of the reasons why these boys do the things they are doing. They will see how some people are living in affluence, yet many Nigerians can hardly afford a meal per day.

    I know of many graduates who do menial jobs to survive. I know a young man in Abuja, a graduate of Accounting, who sells windscreen wiper blades in the traffic. You will see him run after drivers on the road and you won’t know that he is a graduate. Those in this group are even very few. His co-graduates are the ones abducting and killing; just that he and very few others have chosen not to toe that path. But there must be a deliberate effort to clean up these boys and give them hope. They will surely drop those guns if they see sincerity on the part of government to give them a new life.

    But how do we deal with the criminals who have refused to drop their guns?

    We have security agents who have the duty to advise Mr President on what should be done. I am not sure what we are going through is beyond the President or our security chiefs. All I would say is that the federal government should equip the security agencies to fight this battle to the end. We have no choice but to win the war against insurgency and criminality. Our children will not forgive us if we cannot fight and win this battle.

    I expect Mr President to act like the military man that he is. I expect the security chiefs to look at Mr President in the face and tell him exactly what needs to be done to stop this national embarrassment. There is always a solution to problems like this and of course you know that thoughts on security solutions are not things you share in the media. But I have confidence that Mr President and his men will resolve this crisis and restore normalcy in no distant time.

    Let us start from the local governments and ensure that they enjoy full and unhindered autonomy. Let’s take deliberate steps to create opportunities for our unemployed graduates. Then the youths themselves should also be ready to grab those opportunities when they come. Buhari has a very good heart. His lieutenants need to help him to succeed. We all have roles to play and the moment we play our roles, things will get a lot better.

  • My worst day in office as Anambra fire service boss –Agbili

    My worst day in office as Anambra fire service boss –Agbili

    Controller-general, Federal Fire Service (FFS), Dr Liman Ibrahim, had during a recent event to commemorate the 2021 International Fire Fighters Day charged Nigerians to desist from attacking firefighters and destroying fire trucks during fire emergencies. He said Nigerians should instead appreciate and support firefighters who put their lives on the line to save other lives and properties. In this interview with EMMA ELEKWA, the Director of Fire Service in Anambra State, Dr. Martin Agbili shares his 24 years experience in fire fighting and his achievements in four years as the Sheriff of Fire Service in the state.

     

    WHAT informed your decision to join the Fire Service?                                                             

    I joined the Fire Service 24 years ago, but took over the mantle of leadership in 2017. My interest in the job didn’t just start today. The man that assisted me in securing the job was CFO Sir Moses Ezekwo, who is now late. In fact, I started seeing him right from the time we were living in Enugu.

    There was this big gully close to our house which always experienced fire outbreak because all the oil coming out from the Nigeria Railway Corporation passed through the gully to settle there. As a result, there was always heat there, and once it heated up, it ignited fire.

    The primary school I attended was also very close to the scene. So, once we heard the siren from the fire service truck, I’ll come out to watch them.

    There was always one particular man I was interested in. Although I din’t know him or his name, one thing I like about him was the way he ran around in the process of putting out the fire.

    Before you knew it, he would have jumped out from the truck, running up and down to ensure that the fire was quicly put off. I just fell in love with the man. I then told my parents that although I would love to become a medical doctor, I liked fire fighters.

    After the creation of Anambra State, the man (Ezekiel) became the first director of fire service in the state. He was a native of Nise in Awka South Local Government Area of the state. Meanwhile, I became a friend to the son. We attended the same secondary School in Awka.

    As soon as I finished secondary School, there was an opportunity of employment into fire service in the state. The man asked if I was interested in fire service and I said yes. That was how I joined fire service in 1997.

    Even as the director, the man was still fighting fire in the state. He was a very free minded but strong man. I doubt if any of his successors could do what he did. I learnt a lot from him because he really trained me and watched me grow to a certain level. The same passion he worked with, the same I carry on with in my duties. The way he fought fire is the way I do. So the passion for the job started in the 80s when I didn’t even know I would join fire service.

     How was the service before you came on board and how is it now?

    The fire service of then and now are not the same. There have been a lot of innovations. Before now, people didn’t know much about fire service in the state. One of the things we were able to do was to increase our public awareness campaign. We believe the first thing to do apart from fighting fire is preventing the fire from occurring. And the only way we can achieve this is through fire safety sensitization. On that, we have been able to achieve 80 per cent.

    People have known about fire service. We have been able to visit churches, markets and companies to educate and sensitize them about what fire safety management and prevention is all about, because that is the primary thing fire service stands for.

    Besides that, we have increased in terms of manpower. His Excellency, Governor Willie Obiano, has done a lot for the agency through the plea of heads of fire service. For the first time in the history of the agency in the country, the hazard allowance for fire fighters, which had always been N10 every month, was upgraded. That was in 2019. The governor, after seeing the need for an upward review, decided to change the narrative and increased the amount to N20.000, which is the highest you can get anywhere around the country. Of course, this is in addition to the monthly salary of fire fighters in the state. Some other states still pay N10 and some N5, which is very funny.

    Moreover, recently, the governor gave approval for the employment of 120 fire fighters into the organisation after we cried out to him over lack of personnel. For the first time in the history of the state, such bulk number of officers was engaged at the same time. Before then, it had been long recruitment was done in the agency. Again, the governor went ahead to assist us in the procurement of fire equipment, because most of the fire trucks we were using were not only outdated but aged; some were 20 years old. He also approved the repairs of some of them that were still good for use.

    If you visit the major markets in the state, you will notice the construction of overhead tanks in the markets. He also installed what we call fire hydrants in those markets. We went ahead to train some security men and leaders in the market in first aid fire fighting before the arrival of fire fighters. You can only do this with the aid of fire hydrants and hose which have been installed.

    After the Onitsha fire incident, we now have fire station units within some of the major markets. We have at Onitsha main market, Ochanja and Ogidi. We’re looking forward for more. The governor has also assisted us in building more fire stations. At present, we have one in Aguleri and one at the new international airport.

    Read Also: LASG warns against attack on firefighters

     

    Another thing in the pipeline is how we can inculcate into the school curriculum fire safety so we catch pupils and students young in the work of fire fighting. We believe involving them at that stage would go a long way in reducing cases of fire outbreaks as they contribute more to fire incidents.

    We’ve been trying to meet up with the international standard. Currently, Anambra State remains No. 1 in fire fighting in the entire Southeast. If you add South-south, our position won’t exceed No. 3.

    These feats couldn’t have been achieved without some challenges…

    Yes, amidst all these achievements, we have a challenge with funding, though this is not peculiar to Anambra State. The truth is that government has not been able to fund fire service the way it ought to. Why Anambra ranks first is that we’ve been able to maximize the little support we’ve received from the government.

    Funding determines a lot of things. For example, it is lack of funding that causes the breakdown of our trucks. And when they break down, repairing them takes time due to the bureaucratic bottlenecks in the system. Running the day to day activities of the office requires funding. Before now, we could delay in responding to fire incident due to lack of diesel. That has, however, been taken care of as we are presently allowed to visit certain designated filling stations to refill our truck tanks. But we still need funding for more trucks.

    We are still facing the challenge of manpower. The work of fire service is a very tedious task which requires enough manpower. Every fire truck needs at least six fire men to move on with. But you’ll see two or three officers manning the truck. Even with the 120 newly recruited personnel, we’re still challenged with manpower because more fire stations are being created. Meanwhile, some officers who are due for retirement are exiting. Presently, our number is not up to 200, including the 120. We are considering engaging young people as volunteers, but we’re still working on the modalities, including incentives, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage people in volunteer work in this part of the world. There may be need for a budget for that in view of the challenge of engaging people on freewill volution. Though those who assist us in fighting fire before our arrival could be seen as volunteers, we’re thinking of making it more formal.

     Your men had many times been accused of late arrival at the scenes of fire incidents. How are you tackling this obvious challenge? 

    We’re well aware of such complaints. Fire fighters are generally accused of late arrival, even in developed countries. Reason is that fire service stations are not everywhere. I think one sure way of tackling this challenge is to establish mini fire stations across the state. This will go a long way in reducing the distance fire fighters normally cover whenever fire occurs. We need fire fighting units. For example, we don’t have stations in Awka North. That is why we emphasise on fire prevention. People should adhere strictly to fire safety rules by ensuring they avoid anything that can trigger fire outbreak.

    Mind you, our calculation of arrival time at fire scenes is different from that of victims of fire incident. We calculate arrival time from when we were alerted of the fire incident, not when the fire started burning. Our major challenge is always the distance between the fire station and where the fire outbreak occurred. Besides, we always tell the public that fire fighters are not the cause of the fire. We’re only coming to assist them in fighting the fire which they themselves caused. Rather than inform us immediately they noticed the fire, they would be running helter-skelter trying to quench the fire. They only remember to alert us when the fire gets out of hand. We are not spirits. We are only aware when we are informed.

    Another ugly experience we encounter, which ocassioned the allegation of late arrival is the periodic attacks on our officers and destruction of our equipment. One wonders what those who engage in this nefarious acts tend to achieve. If they end up destroying our trucks, what then are we going to fight the fire with?

    Which particular day would you say was your worst in this profession?

    To be honest with you, I have lots of ugly experiences in the job. But the heaviest of them all was that of October 16, 2019, the fateful day we witnessed a fire outbreak in Onitsha. It was my worst day because at a time, I really contemplated quiting the job as a result of the lots of bad calls I received. I was called all sorts of names. My name and pictures went viral.

    That was when some people called for my sack. If you google my name now, you’ll see the ‘sack him’ story. Of course, his excellency never did anything like that. People were calling me within and outside the country. The pressure was so much on me. But when I remembered that the governor and the people of the state didn’t do anything to me and lots of people who still believed in me, I couldn’t afford to disappoint them.

    But the truth is that if I had my way, I would have left the state. On second thought, reflecting on what I’ve achieved and where I’m heading to, I said no. Meanwhile, within that time, many organisations were calling me to work for them, especially when they heard that I had been sacked. I think I received about five different invitations for interviews which I didn’t even apply for. To tell you the truth, one of the biggest of them was Dangote. To be frank with you, I don’t know why God kept me in Anambra fire service till now. If not God and humanity, maybe I would have left.

    To my workers and fellow fire fighters, I wish to share my experiences with them as a way to motivate them. I’ve passed through lots of huddles in the cause of fighting fire since 1997. I’ve endured a lot. I’ve sustained injuries in the line of duty.

    I remember one of the days I sustained a burn injury. I also remember the day I entered the pit toilet to rescue a baby, precisely July 3, 2000. Although the baby died, it was one of the biggest risks I’ve taken in fire service. I thought I would never make it. But by the grace of God, I came out alive. It was a successful operation.

  • Moses: we brought digital tools to the margins, people built new lives with them

    Moses: we brought digital tools to the margins, people built new lives with them

    When dozens of underserved and displaced Nigerians began launching micro-enterprises and earning digital income in the middle of a national lockdown, it was not through charity, it was through a government-supported digital skills programme, designed and led with intention. Behind the programme’s structure and success was Victor Uchenna Moses, a digital transformation leader serving as IT Strategy Lead at CEES Assist Resources, the consultancy tasked with delivering the initiative. His work was not limited to planning. He directly taught, mentored, and adapted systems to meet people where they were offering not just skills, but dignity and digital access.  ALAO ABIODUN spoke to Victor about how the programme worked, what digital inclusion really demands, and what other governments and organisations can learn from its success.

    This was a digital skills project. But unlike many, it seems it reached people usually left behind. What made it different?

    We designed it with the most disconnected people in mind. Most of our learners had never worked with digital tools. Some only had basic mobile phones. Many were from displaced or underserved communities. So we structured everything around accessibility, not assumptions.  We focused on mobile-first tools, online safety, digital communication, basic productivity apps, and how to apply them to real-world income generation. But more importantly, we built a system where learning felt possible from day one.

    This happened during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. What challenges did you face?

    The programme launched at a time when movement was limited, power was unreliable, and connectivity was a challenge. We responded with blended delivery: online where possible, offline where needed. We used WhatsApp, printable guides, and small group sessions with safety protocols in place. People showed up hungry to learn. Our job was to remove the barriers not just technical, but emotional too. We adapted daily to keep the programme going. It was service under pressure, and it was worth it.

    What were the outcomes? Did the learners gain lasting benefits?

    Absolutely. More than 60 individuals completed the programme, and within weeks, 38 had launched income-generating digital services ranging from WhatsApp storefronts to online freelance gigs to mobile repair marketing. Just as importantly, over 40% of participants used their new skills to apply for microloans and digital business grants. Many of them reported increased confidence in handling transactions, promoting their work online, and managing digital communications. That shift from being digitally excluded to digitally active—is the true outcome.

    What was your role specifically in this project?

    I served as the IT Strategy Lead from CEES Assist, responsible for designing and overseeing the Community-First Digital Access Framework (CFDAF), ensuring compliance with federal policy, managing facilitator coordination, and mentoring participants directly. I also taught several modules especially around using digital tools for real-life income generation. This was not a contract to deliver. It was a national mandate to empower.

    Some believe digital transformation belongs only in urban centres or corporate spaces. You seem to disagree?

    Completely. If you can build systems that work for those who have the least, then you can build systems that work for anyone. Digital inclusion is not a side-project, it is infrastructure for justice, development, and resilience. When people are digitally excluded, they are economically excluded. When they are included, they do not just use tools, they build with them.

    What can policymakers learn from this?

    First, we must stop treating inclusion as charity. It is a strategy. A digitally connected population is more resilient, employable, and self-reliant. Second, we need to fund and scale programmes designed for real-world conditions, not just cities or broadband corridors. Every community deserves access to the tools of growth. And third, it takes partnership. This programme succeeded because of coordinated delivery between federal actors and implementing partners like CEES Assist, who understand both infrastructure and the human layer.

    What’s next for you?

    I am now working to scale the CFDAF framework in other emerging contexts. We have begun exploratory conversations with delivery partners in Ghana and Northern Kenya, where similar conditions exist low access, high potential, and the need for simple, adaptive infrastructure. This is not about exporting solutions. It is about sharing what works, and working alongside local actors to adapt and deliver it sustainably.

    The programme was delivered using the Community-First Digital Access Framework (CFDAF)—a low-bandwidth, modular learning system combining, WhatsApp micro-lessons, Printable toolkits,Offline exercises and Asynchronous mentorship.

    It aligned with Nigeria’s National Digital Economy Policy 2020 and met international donor compliance standards on inclusion, data protection, and measurable public outcomes.

    I clearly understand that real digital transformation begins with the most overlooked communities. By delivering practical systems with dignity, structure, and vision, he is not only bridging digital divides he is building ladders to lasting opportunity.

  • Effects of masturbation

    Effects of masturbation

    Dele and Shayo (not real names) have been married for a few years. Shayo is a housewife, taking care of the kids, while Dele goes to work every day. Dele came back from work one fine evening, expecting to get “something light” from his wife after dinner, only for her to say “Dele I have already masturbated a few hours ago, so I am not really in the mood right now”.

    This was the fifth time Shayo was telling him this in three weeks, so obviously, she had replaced “Dele” with her “fingers,” using her newly purchased vibrator hidden away somewhere in the house. Dele was so angry at being deprived of his right. Being a Christian, he didn’t believe in cheating on his wife, and he didn’t want to be put in that situation so he wanted her to stop using that “evil” vibrator right away. Out of fear, she threw it away, but couldn’t overcome the urge soon and started using her fingers to please herself, Dele couldn’t take it anymore when he discovered and that was the beginning to the end.

    This story is the same or slightly different with many other experiences of couples in various homes. Some partners accept it because they feel it’s much better than “adultery”, while some see it as a slap on the face. The interesting part is men rarely talk about it amongst themselves. Women are more open in discussing it with each other, while couples don’t even want to mention it at all. Really interesting, isn’t it?

    Couples should be open about their sexual wants and desires, as well as their dislikes. 85 % of men and 45 % of women who live with their spouses are said to have masturbated. Vibrators, sex machines, sex toys and even sex dolls are steadily replacing human contact and encouraging masturbation addiction. Many people would argue that this is more common with men, than women, well that is not our debate for today, but on how it affects both genders and its aftermath in a relationship. Masturbation is derived from the Latin word “manstuprare,” meaning “to defile one’s self by hand”.

    Many couples I have counselled or spoken to say that masturbation is a very uncomfortable topic to broach. Imagine walking in on your partner masturbating? So many questions will be running through your head at once. Apart from immediately casting and binding the devil, there are several thoughts that rush through your mind, number one being who or what is my partner thinking about while at it?  Some couples may wonder if masturbation can ruin their relationship. Other couples don’t even want to discuss it.

    Masturbation often carries a stigma. Some religious, cultural and spiritual traditions associate masturbation with immorality or sin.

    But the truth is masturbation can become an addiction which can cause harm to your relationship with several signals stated below.

    When you get to a point where you inflict self-injury on yourself due to this habit, it can lead to other challenges in your relationship.

    If your spouse uses masturbation to cope when they are under stress, especially when work pressure increases and next step is to quickly get a private place to “handle” themselves, then this is a big issue because apart from leading your partner to other stress management behaviour it can quickly escalate into a big problem, imagine having to get to the toilet anytime you are under duress.

    This can create a feeling of rejection if one’s partner finds solace in masturbating rather than sexually connecting with their partner.  If your partner finds it very easy to replace physical contact with you, even when you are available.

    We operate in a religious environment. The weight of guilt that presents itself with this act, especially in connection to our religious and spiritual beliefs (if you have any) will lead to secrecy or in some cases creating and maintaining a double life around your sexual lifestyle.

    One of the criteria for addictive behaviour is the frequency of the act, sometimes partners who want to stop and are unable to do so, sometimes unconsciously increase after trying to make effort to stop due to the helpless feeling it gives.

    Putting religion or cultural beliefs aside, it is an unhealthy habit with emphasis on the word habit, not only as an individual but for couples. Masturbation is very common among adults, yet it remains a challenging and uncomfortable topic

    It causes a feeling of inadequacy, especially when the partner discovers about it, they tend to blame themselves, assuming that their spouse or partner is bored or unhappy with them. Masturbation is a problem that interferes with day-to-day life, especially when it is used to substitute real intimacy with another person.

    Your partner may feel that his or her partner has been keeping secrets. What couples should understand is that couples have different viewpoints. People who masturbate may do so in different amounts. There is nothing like an acceptable number or not an acceptable number. where we can establish you have a problem with masturbation is when you can’t achieve orgasm with your partner through intercourse, the best is to seek help from a therapist. They can work with you and your partner to iron out major concerns affecting your relationship, or smaller issues you are struggling with.

    So many couples if they can be a sincere struggle with masturbation. It all depends on if you feel you should tell your spouse that you masturbate. But you shouldn’t allow the feeling of inadequacy overtake you if you discover your partner masturbates, as long as you can maintain a healthy relationship where both individuals communicate effectively to understand each other and know exactly when to come in. Adult individuals are entitled to their own thoughts, even what our society might deem repugnant. Basically what should be your priority which is my major rule for relationships is that all your sex, including fantasies, should be with each other.

    Is it possible to stop masturbation, especially when it is affecting your relationship? I would say yes! Definitely, you can stop it.

    Instead of trying to restrict your partner’s behaviour for instance because restriction with words like “you must stop this habit at once’ will only aggravate issues. It is a matter of discipline and acceptance to try and stop, once there is a will there is away.  If you desire to help your partner to stop, then the best method is to

    1. Talk to them about the habit.
    2. Find out what triggers it (for instance work pressure).
    3. Ask them how you can help them stop it.
    4. Give mental and moral support; don’t make them feel ashamed.
    5. Try to turn their attention to something else, so that they get to use their time constructively.
    6. Do it slowly, change cannot happen overnight.
    7. Know when to seek professional help.

    Learning to stop masturbating is a process and this process takes time. To overcome this behaviour you’ve practised for months and sometimes even years, you personally need several coping strategies in order to save your relationship and cause less damage to show them you really want to stop.

    Keeping a full schedule will cut down on the opportunities you have for masturbation. Find activities that are self-soothing, engaging, or exciting. I personally recommend joining a gym, start running or jogging, exert yourself physically.

    You will also need a healthy diet for your body, caring for yourself may reduce urges or provide motivation to resist. It can also provide a new focus for your energy and efforts.  You also need to be accountable to someone you trust, if you can find a support group. That would be excellent and the right path to recovery. It can also help you develop new behaviour. You need to limit your lone time, wear extra clothes at night to cover everywhere as much as possible, make it difficult for the temptation to be successful. Stop everything that triggers the urge, like porn, sex magazines and so on, and most of all, be patient with yourself while healing yourself. Good luck!

  • Your virginity mustn’t be for sale!

    Your virginity mustn’t be for sale!

    By Temilolu Okeowo 

     

    DEAR Mummy Temilolu, You’ve made so much impact in my life since I stumbled on your articles. I was also a virgin until I got into the university and I lost it to a liar! Mummy, please don’t stop telling us the truth about virginity! The guy that deflowered me is married now with kids, but I’m still single. He came to me after he got married saying he’s not happy in his marriage and that he wants us to have a nice time together with a lot of gifts for me but this I turned him down! Even before I saw your posts, I’ve been keeping myself. Thank you ma for telling us the truth some of our parents won’t tell us believing we are grown up enough to be giving them money they don’t even know its source. Thank you so much ma.

    Abosede

     

    Dear Aunty Temilolu,

    I am 27 years old, an HND holder and still a virgin but my life is nothing to write home about. I have had only one boyfriend in my life and he insults me that I have no vision as he has a better life than I.

    Please ma, write an article on innocent girls who had a poor upbringing and don’t know what to do with their lives. How they can get help to get well-trained to attract the right suitors.

     

    Funmilola Adeojo

    My darling angelic Funmilola and other wonderfully-wonderful girls who have chosen to fear God rather than please their flesh and the world.

    Read Also: Your virginity is not for sale, it can give you the world!

     

    I couldn’t help but shake my head as I read your message Funmilola. How can a human-being make you feel so unworthy? You an uncommon and most priceless jewel, fantastically-blessed amongst women! How come you don’t even recognise who you are and what you carry? The fact that you can even brood over someone who doesn’t think much of you is cringe-worthy? I’m sorry but I have to ask- “who is he by the way and by the bush?” Any carnal-minded person reading would say I’m over-flogging sexual purity! Hmm…what a world! If only the average human knew the risk and ridicule they subject themselves to opening up and sharing their lives “anyhow”…but sadly, the devil, the headmaster of the world has gotten into their heads-mind and soul! May God illuminate the heart of someone reading but whether that happens or not, I won’t stop preaching this and saving as many girls as possible from peril and arming them against a satanically-patriarchal society!

    Funmilola, may God forgive you for saying your life is nothing to write home about! Before biblical Mary’s conception, was she ever known? She was just a simple girl bethrothed to a carpenter! What about Esther before she became a queen? She was an orphan and the only relative she had was an uncle whom the bible recorded always sat at the gate. Yet, God found them worthy to be used by Him and transformed their lives beyond human comprehension! I bet your life isn’t as low as theirs was before their eternal fame! Now tell me, if you believe in God and He has been there for you over the years, is there anything God won’t do for you for choosing to obey Him? I repeat- may God forgive you for saying your life is nothing to write home about!

    Whaaaaaat??? With all the power and glory you carry? May your ignorance and spiritual dullness not kick you out of God’s incredibly-grand design for your life! Before I write on your request, please detach yourself from that boyfriend of yours immediately and get ready for the best days of your life! I shall address your request in my next article. May God show you a sample of the rewards of obedience and let it manifest in your life before then in Jesus name!

     

    Let me add this-

    For every favour/gift you lost because you won’t give sex- mark my words- God will give you unbelievable spiritual gifts and inexhaustible wealth!

    Some ladies will be jilted this year because upon spiritual enquiry, their suitors would discover they’ve been emptied of their goodness/virtues. May such never happen to you! Stay chaste!

     

    • I invite you to follow me on Facebook –TEMILOLU OKEOWO Instagram @ Okeowo Temilolu.
  • Our battles with piracy, discrimination, COVID-19 lockdown, others

    Our battles with piracy, discrimination, COVID-19 lockdown, others

    • Visually-impaired musicians relive ordeal
    • Sell off band’s buses to feed with proceeds

     

    They took to music to ease the pains inflicted on them by circumstances they had no control over. They were able to earn a living and avoid begging. But many of these visually impaired artistes are fast losing their source of survival and consolation. With the biting economic situation in the land, some of the musical bands are disintegrating while some are forced to sell off their vehicles for food. While they long to continue with a life that kept them away from frustration and depression, they cannot help wondering if help would ever come their ways, INNOCENT DURU writes.

     

    Realising that I was not like the other children while I was growing up, I resorted to playing my musical instrument each time I began to feel bad. No age mate of mine could boast the number of cassettes I had while growing up. My brothers and sisters bought me every good song they heard.”

    That was Stanly Onyewuchi recalling how music saved him from the sorrowful path that life had put him from childhood.

    Stanly had lost his sight at a tender age and with that began a life of solitude as his energy and joy of playing around with his peers fizzled away.

    At regular intervals his mid flashed back to the days he jumped around with his peers unaided. And each time it dawned on him that he would not be able to do that again, tears welled up in his eyes and a feeling of sorrow overwhelmed him.

    He, however, found joy in listening to music and playing musical instruments. His peers, who were in the habit of abandoning him to go playing around started coming close to listen to him and watch him play instruments with dexterity.

    He went on to sharpen his skills when he was enrolled in a special school where singing was encouraged.

    A move that started as a bid to check frustration later became a source of livelihood for the keyboardist when he joined JONAPWD Musical Band, a group of physical challenged artistes based in Abia State.

    Like the defunct Oriental Brothers led by Sir Warrior, JONAPWD dazzled music lovers in Abia and neighbouring states in the South East.

    “That is a kind of empowerment for our members. Some government officials at times invited us for events and we performed for them.  At one of such events, a serving senator was told that we are blind but he did not believe it. That tells you how good the band was.

    “It was only when it was time to eat and he saw that people were guiding us to take spoons and other things that he became convinced that we were blind,” he said.

    Outstanding as the band was, the challenge of raising funds to acquire sound musical instruments and meet other financial obligations created a crack in their walls. Before they knew it, the crack widened and the band collapsed.

    He said: “The band acquired instruments using a donation but those instruments were second hand.  Now all of them have spoilt. We have made efforts to get replacements for them to no avail.

    “This has resulted in many of our members joining other groups that are not mainly for people with disability. But they complain of being cheated each time they go out to play.

    “They keep calling to plead that we restart the band but the problem is money. To have a complete instrument now,we will need more than a million naira.”

    Although many members of the band were civil servants, Stanly said they could not save money to acquire musical instruments.

    “The salary is not enough. Most of our members work in the local government and you know how they are being paid.

    “Here in Abia State, some were owed more than six-month salaries and we are married with children.

    “We have all faced our work hoping that one day we would get resources and bounce back.”

    Before the group disintegrated, Stanly said, they made use of the bus that belonged to the physically challenged people in the state, which made their movement to events very easy.

    “Along the line, they were involved in an auto crash while they were riding in the bus, and that compounded their woes.

    “After the bus had spent about nine years at the mechanic workshop, the mechanic said the vehicle had crashed beyond repairs. We had to sell it off as scrap for a paltry sum of N130, 000.

    •Upright Wonder performing

    “It was during the COVID-19 lockdown that we sold it and used the money to buy foodstuffs for members.”

    Like JONAPWD band, which shone like a million stars in Abia, Pains and Pleasure Band, a musical group comprising visually impaired people, hit music lovers in Lagos and neighbouring states with lovely tunes.

    A post on their Facebook page shows that members of the band attended the Pacelli School for the Blind and then formed groups in University of Lagos and University of Ibadan that constituted a band of blind men who performed exceptionally. Though plagued by such challenges as transportation, equipment, accommodation and logistics, they, over the years, carved a niche for themselves, performing in different places.

    But like like other vulnerable people in the society, the band has had its fair share of discrimination. Adeniran Opeyemi, a member of the group, told of how friends and families of people who invited them for shows expressed disappointment on discovering their physical conditions.

    He said: “Sometimes when some lovers of our music invite us to play at social functions, their friends and relations express disappointment seeing that we are visually impaired. They would ask the host, ‘you mean you could not get better artistes than blind people to play at your party?’ It hurts. But we have learnt to accept our fate.”

    The challenge was apparently compounded by the lockdown announced by the govern ment last year to check the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Adeniran said: “Most of us (band members) are not having any income because when the lockdown started, we could not go for shows and we had nothing to take care of ourselves.

    “A month before the lockdown was announced we had an accident with our vehicle. We spent all the money we had saved to fix the vehicle on feeding our members. We eventually sold the vehicle when there was no money to repair it.”

    Pirates steal visually impaired group’s work, plunge leader into depression

    The height of man’s depravity came to the fore when our correspondent met with Upright Wonder, a visually impaired gospel singer who also runs a foundation for vulnerable people.

    After releasing her first album, which was an instant success, the soft spoken artiste skipped sleep and burnt the midnight oil composing songs for her second album. When she was done, she beat her chest in ecstasy feeling fulfilled that the time and energy she had spent writing the songs were worth it after all.

    From the little she realised from the first album, she dashed to the studio to record the musical works. But before she knew it, pirates had laid their hands on her work, marketed it and laughed all the way to the bank.

    She said: “When I released my second album, a lot of people pirated my song and started selling it at Alaba Market. That happened because I didn’t have a good marketer. I was frustrated and put a stop to music until God said I should start it all over. I lost close to a million naira in that project, and that made me depressed. This is a mental and intellectual effort.

    “Apart from being challenged, I spent time and resources doing the work, and somebody just sat in a corner and pirated it to make money. That frustrated me. But I am no more depressed.”

    In spite of the teething challenge that almost put paid to her music career, Upright Wonder said her involvement in music has been a blessing.

    She said: “I have impacted people. A lot of people had been without joy. They didn’t have peace and didn’t know how to relate with God. But through my ministration, I have been able to reach out to them in churches and other places, and there are testimonies.

    “I have two different bands—TESMI which is made up of only physically challenged people and another band from where I get resources to support the former.

    “The physically challenged members feel on top of the world to be part of the band because there is nothing that is as good as doing what you know best as a physically challenged.

    “They have forgotten about their problems. They are happy and comforted.  That is why we have to keep them busy to move on in life.

    “I started singing when I was quite young but never knew I would take it up as a career. The career took off in 2000, and in 2002 I came out with my first album.

    “In 2004, I started a band called TESMI for physically challenged and vulnerable persons.”

    Benjamin Ogedengbe, another visually challenged individual, has never been a victim of piracy. But he has at different times suffered one form of discrimination or the other while performing, even in churches where he expects the vulnerable to be treated with utmost regard.

    Unlike the previous artistes, his band comprises sighted members.

    He said: “Definitely, discrimination comes. I go to sing in some churches and when they want to introduce able bodied artistes they complement them and list their achievements. But when someone like me is to be introduced, you will hear something like ‘there is ability in disability.’ I have had to caution them against giving me such introduction.

    “A friend of mine was once introduced as abirun (handicapped) in one church, and that was derogatory. It took that pastor a whole week to appeal to the conscience of my friend.

    “That is part of the soft the discrimination that we get that people don’t seem to take into consideration.  Why not introduce us as artistes and not with some derogatory words?”

    Mathew
    •Mathew working with his producer

    Aside his concern about not properly addressing vulnerable people, Benjamin is also worried that no record label has deemed it fit to sign any visually impaired artiste.

    “You can’t go round the country today and see a record label that signed a blind musician. It pains me a whole lot that Nigerian record labels have not seen that a challenged person who is highly competent and who is worth his onions as far as music is concerned can make them earn more than they would ordinarily earn from  able bodied artistes.

    “My major challenge has been about getting support. Here in Nigeria, people just look at you somehow because you are visually impaired. They feel that they want to help you and as a result would not place you on the same pedestal with those without physical challenges.

    “They don’t look at it from the point that one is good at what he is doing. I have performed with a lot of celebrities, but all you get are claps and no assistance.”

    In Jos, Plateau State is also another group of visually impaired band that has been painting the state red with their sonorous voices and unimaginable skills.

    The exploits of the band was brought to the attention of our correspondent by someone outside the state who had seen them perform.

    Like their colleagues, they also are bedeviled by myriads of challenges that may force them to close shop in no distant time.

    “We are having challenges getting instruments for our performances.  If we have instruments, we can do better than we are doing now because we have good singers,” the Music Director, Mathew Evi, said.

    “We do rent instruments and at times use those of the church where we perform. We started the band because we believe it is important for us to show our talents and bring many to Christ. We also want to use our talents to show that there is ability in disability.

    “We are not being adequately rewarded but people are trying for us. So many others want to join us but the resources are not there. If there is help, we can do better.”

    ‘Discrimination, flair for singing made us to float music bands’

    Floating a musical group was originally not on the agenda of the visually challenged young men who started JONAPWD Musical Band. Individually, they were talented and enjoyed good music, but they never saw the need to start a band.

    They were, however, forced to start one after some of their members faced serial ‘insults’ from artistes they had invited to perform at their functions.

    “It began after one of us wanted to do his traditional marriage. He contacted a musical band to perform on that day. He exchanged contacts with them but when he started calling them to remind them of the date, they were not answering his calls.

    “He had to go to the house of the band leader but he didn’t meet him at home. He however met the wife who said he must be the one that the husband had been saying he would not perform at his wedding because he was not sure of him paying.  That our member was on level 12 in the civil service then.

    “Annoyed by the woman’s remarks, our member dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out the money that the band leader requested to perform at the wedding.  Many of us face this discrimination.

    “That was why we formed our own musical band. It was also an opportunity for us to train some of our members who are being rejected by other bands.

    “It was also formed so that we could cover the events of our members. Today, some of our members have learnt how to play the keyboard. Some play for churches and some play for musical bands, and they are getting paid for it.

    “We have more than 10 of our members playing keyboard in Abia State and also many who play drums.  It is over five years that we went our separate ways now because we don’t have musical instruments.

    “Back then, whenever we hired equipment for a show, by the time we paid for the equipment and settled the band, we would not have anything left.”

    For Benjamin Ogedengbe, music is inborn. “Going to Pacealli School for the Blind also enhanced my music career. Today, everything I have has its roots in music.

    “Several times I cry on stage. Music is emotional and it moves me to tears. At times when you are performing and you see the way the crowd is cheering, it can be emotional.  Sometimes I wish I could see the people that are cheering me.”

    He added: “I have it in mind to have my own studio where I can do digital and live recording and can always do rehearsals.

    “This year I started having serious rehearsals with my band and we have been renting studios. I feel it is important to have my own studio back at home where we can rehearse at any time.

    “It boils down to getting support.  I don’t need the whole world to support me. All I want is just one or two people to believe in what I do. If that happens, one would be happy.

    “My music has taken me to about 31 states out of the 36 in the country. I have been to Egypt and have from here ministered to the US, Germany and several other countries via digital platforms.”

    ‘How we lost our sights’

    Had the parents of Mathew of Redemption Band listened to their kinsmen, the UNIJOS undergraduate probably would not be alive today. His father’s kinsmen had condemned him as a weird creature for being blind.

    “My sight challenge started when I was in primary five. I was copying note and suddenly tears started coming out from my eyes and that began my journey to losing my sight. I was never sick and did not hurt my eyes in any way before then,” Mathew said.

    He recalled that when the challenge began, his father’s kinsmen stopped seeing him as a human being.

    He said: “There was a time they told my father that they had never seen this kind of thing before in their clan, wondering why I was coming with such a problem.

    “I thank God that before my father died, I was already into music and he really enjoyed it.  He was always finding joy in me.  For me doing music is an opportunity to bring people from darkness into light.”

    The sight challenge also started at a tender age for Ogendengbe. As a baby, he said, “I was considered not to be seeing with one eye. And at age one, the other sight was lost. But then my family just wanted anything that would make me happy.

    “I wasn’t locked in for any reason, but they wanted me to do anything that would give me joy. That made it possible for me to be able to express myself even from childhood.”

    Reliving how he lost his sight, Stanly of the JONAPWD Band said: “I lost my sight at the age of five.  My parents were busy taking me from one hospital to another. In one of the hospitals, they were told it was glaucoma. I was taken to a special school for the blind thereafter. Music means everything to me.”

    31m persons with disabilities denied access to budget for 20 years – Lalu

    Prior to the establishment of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, there were no provisions for the vulnerable group and issues around them in the national budget. The bill was signed into law recently by the President Muhammadu Buhari government.

    The pioneer Executive Secretary, James David Lalu, in a recent interview, said the refusal of previous administrations to sign the bill into law led to the national budget side-lining 31 million PWDs.

    “That is a huge number that can be gotten from bringing six states together. We are a major stakeholder in Nigeria, being the largest minority group benefiting from the national budget should not be regarded as an opportunity but a way to ensure there is equity for all.

    “What we want to achieve is to make Nigeria a country that is comfortable for PWD by ending discrimination and providing adequate reporting system. We have received a lot of cases on discrimination against PWD and some involving high profile persons, so we want disciplinary measures to take its course, backed by law.

    “We are working in the area of education, mass housing projects and liaising with the Federal Housing Authority and the Federal Mortgage Bank. We will encourage our community to form cooperative societies across the 36 states to be able to benefit from the national housing fund project. We need to get home because it makes life comfortable.”

    He added: “Part of our intervention as well is accessibility in the transportation sector, and we are collaborating with the Ministry of Transportation. Our commitment to help in gaining quality health services for the disability community is already pulling weight with the support of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

    “We are also working with relevant stakeholders to put a stop to discrimination in the airline sector. Discrimination against PWD by airlines is much as they bring unnecessary policies while boarding planes. The highest form of discrimination is denying someone access to what they can afford.”

  • ‘Inadequate rest can lead to stress, brain damage’

    ‘Inadequate rest can lead to stress, brain damage’

    Dr. Oluwaniyi Stephen, a consultant psychiatrist at Federal Neuro-Psychiatrist Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, in this interview with Chioma Ukor speaks on mental disorder, causes and precautions to take to avoid it.

     

    What is mental health?

    Mental health may be described as a state of being in which an individual is able to realise their potentials and cope with normal stresses of life, as well as function productively and contribute meaningfully to their community – this according to World Health Organisation (WHO). What this implies is that, an individual should be able to face stress, be productive, which will be obvious to anyone, because as humans, they should be able to realise their God-given potentials. Note that all I have said are the positive or optimal mental health.

    But if otherwise, in which case an individual cannot contribute meaningfully, positively to his/her community; that means the person is not in the optimal mental health and needs to be checked.

    Can the state of not functioning well or contributing meaningfully to the society be likened to insanity?

    What people think is that an individual is either mentally healthy or have mental disorder, which they refer to as insanity; but I tell you, “it goes beyond that, it is continuous”. What I mean by continuous is that it is not just two options but many stages in-between. In-between for example could be an individual who is not in the state of optimal mental health and does not have mental disorder or insanity but can’t achieve his/her full potentials.

    Another instance of in-between is when an individual may not even have a diagnosable mental disorder but because he’s not in the state of optimal mental health -probably there are issues bothering the mind or he is having sleepless night, not able to function in his place of work, not creative, not productive as expected. So it is not all about insanity. What is important is to strive for every human being because the more people we have in the state of optimal mental health, the better for the society and the individual as well. Without positive mental health, an individual cannot enjoy life optimally and cannot interact with others, “human beings social beings”. So if not on optimal mental health, the individual may have difficulty interacting harmoniously with others because sometimes, quarrel may arise.

    What are the causes of mental disorder?

    For most cases of mental disorder, there are no single causes but combination of factors called Bio psychosocial causes. When you look at the biological aspect of an individual which is the brain and nervous system, there may be some issues there, likewise the psychological aspect, which is the mental functioning of an individual; and when there is disturbance in those areas, it leads to mental problem or contributes to the onset of the individual’s mental issue, while the social part of it has to do with interaction of an individual with others. So inability to interact and function positively is what is called mental health disorder.

    Another cause is Psychosis (which makes an individual to behave strangely or believing that which are not real). Sleep Problem sometimes can cause mental issue. We sometimes do not refer to drug abuse as mental disorder technically but it affects the function of the brain. We should know that there are certain chemicals in the brain called Neurotransmitter (a substance in the body that carries a signal from one nerve cell to another) and when issue arises with some of these chemicals, the individual will have a liability, a deficit to develop mental disorder in this case.

    The nature of up-bringing also contributes. If perhaps the parents are abusive and such individual receives series of hard punishments which may inculcate the feeling of low self esteem, and he grows up not having confidence in himself. Note that those things inculcated while growing up will stay throughout his life; and though he may not know or remember but these things exist in the subconscious mind.

    How is mental disorder diagnosed?          

    Aside the above discussion, our skill on diagnoses is to look at the behaviour and state of mind of that person to assess and know what is going through his mind that others may not see. And sometimes, we carry out laboratory investigation but do not check chemicals because it is not necessary. We only check chemicals during research.

    What are the signs and symptoms of mental disorder?

    One of them is lack of sleep; an individual should be able to take adequate rest to let the brain rejuvenate in order to function adequately, because stress is one of the causes of mental disorder. Another sign is being afraid unnecessarily. They are also accusing people of attacking them and you cannot convince them otherwise. These people are unduly anxious because they are afraid something bad may happen to them.

    Another one is not associating with others. They’re persistently feeling unhappy, as if life is not worth living. They even contemplate killing themselves (suicide), while some also say they hear voices when no one is talking to them.

    Can mental disorder be prevented?

    Very well! The primary preventive measure is taking adequate rest to allow the brain rejuvenate in order to function effectively. Chronic stress will eventually damage the brain and nervous system, and then expose the brain to developing some of these mental disorders. Also, avoid the use of hard substances because they damage the brain. When people take care of these, they will be able to manage their situation.

    The secondary prevention is how quickly an individual can get treatment and get out of the disorder. The problem is that people do not open up and come early for treatment. The longer you wait, the more damage will be done and it becomes more difficult for that individual to get back to the state of normal functioning. While the tertiary prevention, has to do with individuals ability to fit in back to the society after secondary prevention. To get back to state of normal functioning, the individual has to be re-equipped with those things he/she has lost in other to function normal as quickly as possible.

    Are there treatments for mental disorder?

    You know we are trained to give appropriate treatment to the affected individuals and the treatment may involve medication, psychotherapy or psychosocial intervention, which involves counselling the individual on how to go about life by calling attention to things they have not been paying attention to, and gradually expanding their consciousness as well as modifying the way they see life and their reactions about certain things.

    As a therapist, one practical step is to equip that individual with skills which will be his sources of income if he/she has no job, and see how he/she will cope with stress. In a nutshell, medication, counselling or both can help manage mental illness.

    Which group of people are more prone to having mental disorder?

    Mental disorder affects all ages; it is no respecter of anybody. That is the more reason people should take adequate rest and monitor themselves properly.

    Is mental disorder on the increase in Nigeria?

    We may answer yes, because before now if we take randomly, one in every five individual has mental illness. About 20 per cent the entire population will have one form of disorder or another like Schizophrenia (a disorder that affects a person’s ability to think, feel and behave clearly).

    “Remember, we are passing through a period of Covid-19 pandemic, a situation likely to affect mental health negatively.  Basically, in a country where there is adversity, prevailing, economic hardship, insecurity as the case may be, mental disorder will definitely be on the increase because all those factors are forms of stress.

    Do we have enough psychiatrists in Nigeria to match the one in five persons’ scenario?

    The fact is we don’t have enough. Presently, we have over 200 psychiatrist doctors but not up to 300. We are trying to produce more psychiatrists but as we do, brain drain keeps occurring. After training health workers, the higher paying Western countries employ them and the training go with them. Imagine a situation where just over 200 psychiatrists are facing 200 million Nigerians.

    Should we then conclude that most victims of mental disorder do not have access to treatment?

    A lot of persons still do not have access to mental health care the way they should. One of the reasons is insufficient manpower. Would you believe that some persons come from as far back Badagry to Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, for treatment? Therefore, it is pertinent to incorporate mental health care in our Primary Health Care, so they would be capable of treating common mental health problems. I know there are some efforts in Lagos State. Psychiatric hospitals should be available at both public and private health centres.

    Is the cost of treating mental illness affordable?  

    The cost of NOT treating mental problem is higher than it actual costs. When you take it up early enough, you don’t need to spend money. Nobody prays for sickness but when it comes, you have to treat it.

    What is your advice to the general public?             

    People should monitor themselves because these are trying periods and stress is common in the environment. People should learn to take life with ease; it is said that “tough times never last but tough people do.” Stop blaming yourself. Just do your best and leave the rest to God.

    At all time, have adequate rest; sleep well and avoid hard drugs. Also, be at peace with your neighbour, have good friends, do  good to people so when challenges come your way, you have people rallying around you. And also plan your life appropriately – learn a trade if need be to avoid depending on uncles.

    When you start noticing problems, instead of looking for answers where there’s none, go to professionals where the problem will be assessed properly and appropriate intervention will be taken. If they do that, the menace of mental disorder will be minimised because we need as many Nigerians as possible to be in state of Optimal Mental Health.

  • Herdsman impregnated my wife, vows to take my life, Nasarawa farmer cries out from hiding

    Herdsman impregnated my wife, vows to take my life, Nasarawa farmer cries out from hiding

    Lorver Angbir, a 48-year-old farmer from Tse-Nyamsho village in Keana Local Government Area, Nasarawa State has gone into hiding following the threat to his life by a herdsman who had impregnated his wife. Angbir said his sin was that both his wife, Mwuese, and the baby she had from the pregnancy died during labour and the herdsman, who he identified as Alhaji Abu, concluded that he (Angbir) was responsible for the death of Mwuese and the newborn baby because he was not happy that she was impregnated by another man.

    Speaking from hiding in an interview with our correspondent, Angbir said he regretted the day he met Mwuese with whom he was married for eight years before she was taken over by another man in a manner he considered humiliating while Mwuese appeared to enjoy every bit of the ugly development.

    Angbir, who has since taken refuge in another village, said: “My wife slept with a Fulani man with whom we had lived as brothers in the same village for years. She got pregnant for him and told me to my face that he was responsible for her pregnancy.

    “It shocked me when, from nowhere, Alhaji Abu started coming into my wife’s room and ordered me out of the house.

    “He said I should look for somewhere else to sleep because he had taken over my wife, threatening to slaughter me like a ram if I dared raise any alarm over the matter.

    “He was always coming with a gun and other weapons.

    “Right in my house and on top of my bed almost every night, he would come and sleep with my wife. And, to my surprise, she seemed not to have any issue with it.

    “This ugly development continued for almost one year before she took in.

    “We were married for about eight years and I loved her very well.

    “I suspect that he used a charm on my wife, because he took over my wife completely, giving things to her while my wife too was taking food to him right in my presence.

    “I kept quiet because he threatened to eliminate me if I did anything funny.”

    Angbir recalled how he had spent the entire income from his farm about eight years ago to marry Mwuese, saying: “We had lived happily together without any issue. l loved her so much that because of the bad terrain of our area, I did not want her to suffer, so I engaged her with selling provisions while I went to the farm alone.

    “Then from nowhere, Alhaji started sleeping with her. Within a short time, he completely took over my wife from me, sleeping with her in my own room and threatening to kill me if I raised any alarm.

    “This continued until my wife became pregnant. I have not been able to have sex with my wife since their illicit affair began.

    “When she was about to be delivered of a baby and she died in the process, Alhaji Abu felt I deliberately killed her so that she would not deliver the baby. So he vowed to slaughter me like a ram once he set his eyes on me. That is why I had to run for my dear life.

    “This was in May, and up till now, I have not gone to my village.

    “If not for some Fulani herdsmen who stood by me in the village, I would be dead by now.”

    Angbir is now forced to live like a fugitive who cannot visit his community for fear of being killed by Alhaji Abu, who he said has vowed to eliminate him.

    He is also a victim of emotional and psychological trauma which he said he has suffered from his wife’s alleged infidelity and betrayal while they were still married.

    The couple was living together at Tse-nyamsho, a community in Keana Local Government Area, Nasarawa State.

    Angbir, it was learnt, is a full time farmer who loved his now estranged wife so much that he raised some money for her to start selling provisions in the village and did not bother her with farm work.

    Six years after their marriage, however, he began to notice that the 51-year-old herdsman was in an affair with his wife.

    According to one of Angbir’s relations, who identified himself simply as Mr Agba, his bid for financial stability, which often took him away from home to the farm from early morning to the late hours, leaving his wife behind created the crack in his marriage.

    The following conversation ensued between Angbir and our correspondent from the former’s hideout in a community in the suburb of Lafia, Nasarawa State capital:

    What is your name?

    My name is Lorver Angbir from Tse-nyamsho village in Keana Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.

    Why are you here when it is farming season and you are supposed to be in your village?

    We live among the Fulani in my area. For so many years, we had lived among them without any issue until the last two years when a close friend, Alhaji Abu came to my house at about 11:30 pm one night and asked me to look for somewhere else to sleep as he was going to pass the night with my wife. It sound strange to me and I asked him why. He said he had taken over my wife and that if I refused or tell anyone about it, he would kill me. He brought out a short gun and warned me again not to disclose it to anyone.

    Read Also: Herdsman kills 26-year-old in Rivers community

     

    That was how the man took over my wife and kept threatening to kill me he heard it from anybody. He also warned me never to sleep with my wife again or demand sex from her even in the nights he did not come.

    Surprisingly, one fateful night when Abu did not come, I tried to make advances to her but she bluntly refused to allow me sleep with her and even threatened to tell Alhaji Abu about it. I was very shocked. She told me to my face that Abu had taken over, and that henceforth, she could cook for me and perform other house chores as a wife, but sex was ruled out. Soon, she became pregnant and so many people thought I was responsible for it, but Alhaji Abu told me to my face that the unborn baby belonged to him and that if anything happened to the pregnancy, he would hold me responsible. I was not comfortable with what was happening, so I tried to complain to her parents. But Alhaji Abu bought them over and there was little they could do, so I resigned to fate and allowed the sleeping dog to lie. I concentrated on my farm work while Abu took charge of my wife. He would give her money, chickens and other gifts.

    We live in a remote area where there is no clinic nearby. So when she went into labour, my younger sisters were there with her in the village while Alhaji Abu also sent two of his daughters and his first wife to be with her. She was in labour for a whole day and when she couldn’t deliver, Alhaji Abu arranged a motorcycle to take her to Gizer, the nearest clinic. In the process she delivered a baby boy who came out dead. Two hours later, she also died.

    When this happened, Abu suspected that I had a hand in the death of the woman, and I ask how. One week after this incident, I was fast asleep in the night when he came to my house and threatened to kill me with a gun. It took the intervention of some Fulani herdsmen around to save my life. I ran out of the area because he is serious about eliminating me as he accused me of being behind the death of my wife who was carrying his baby. I am hiding here for safety.

    It is farming season, but I cannot go back to my area because the man is threatening my life that I was behind the death of my wife whereas I don’t know anything about it.

    What about your relatives?

    My younger ones are still there in the area. In fact, they arranged for the burial in my absence. Alhaji Abu said he had no business or issue with my family members except me. He believes that I deliberately killed my wife because she was carrying his baby. All my explanation has fallen on deaf ear.

    Have you reported the matter to the police?

    I am afraid my family members may be put to danger if I report the matter or the threat to my life to the police and an arrest is made. That is my challenge.

    But did you actually kill your wife or do anything to her during her labour?

    My brother, how would I do that? I was actually pained that somebody took over my lovely wife who I suffered to marry, but I can’t take her life because she betrayed me. She might have died because of complications from the long labour she underwent. To say I killed her, it is not true. I didn’t do anything to her. She died naturally.

    Do you know that my in-laws too believe that I must have killed her because they are not happy with me? But God knows I didn’t do anything to her, and my conscience is clear.

  • Northerners can’t be forced to vote Southern President – Bab-Ahmed

    Northerners can’t be forced to vote Southern President – Bab-Ahmed

    Spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Dr.Hakeem  Baba-Ahmed does not agree with the position of the Southern Governors during their recent meeting in Asaba,Delta State,that power should return to the south in 2023.In this interview with Correspondent ABDULGAFAR ALABELEWE, the onetime INEC Secretary says anyone wishing to rule Nigeria  should go round the country and persuade  the electorate on why they should vote for him. Baba-Ahmed ,a strident  critic of President Muhammadu Buhari, says he has failed woefull in running the affairs of the country,citing the poor state of the economy and the security challenge.He claims the president’s style gave rise to the emergence of the likes of Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu. Excerpts:

     

     

    How do you assess the state of Nigeria today? Do you see light at the end of the tunnel or  are you discouraged about the nation’s prospects?

    There is always light at the end of the tunnel, but whether we discover that light or whether it actually leads us to the way out of the tunnel is a different thing. The country is in very serious trouble; we have very poor leadership at all levels. It is quite possible we have never had the kind of leadership that we have today and there doesn’t appear to be a political will to address the challenge. The nation has achieved a lot. It is when we  muster these energies, tap into a huge amount of experiences and insights and commitment to salvage the nation and then create awareness among Nigerians that  we can recover Nigeria and build it. It appears there no such will. And one consequence of that is that  there is an unprecedented level of dejection, lack of faith in leaders and   very widespread questioning of the viability of the Nigerian state, particularly among young people who have no idea about what it took to build this country, what it took to put it together and what it will take to turn it around.

    So, yes, there could be light at the end of the tunnel, but it has to be lit by someone and unfortunately, it is not President Muhammadu  Buhari or this current legislature. And organizations and groups like ours, the Northern Elders Forum, work with other groups from other parts of the country and what we see among our groups is that  there are tendencies  that want to play to the gallery and the wrong galleries, negative galleries, tap into negative energy to whip  up  sentiments  that further undermine the foundations of this country and unfortunately, they fail to play the role of leadership.

    The politicians are the lowest kind of politicians we have ever had.They are completely lacking in leadership qualities.They don’t want to play the hard game of politics; they want easy pickings and they hide behind criminals and thugs and other people who use violence to create fear and they seek to attain short term goals that are dangerous, and to be honest, impossible to achieve. That is the way I see the state of the nation.

     In the course of his interviews around May 29 President Buhari said Nigerians were not fair to him and his government considering where the country was when he took over. Do you agree?

    Well, I listened to that interview too, but the statement was as  hollow as many statements he has made. That is the kind of things that people write for him to read. For me, there are clear criteria for President Buhari to assess himself, that is if only he would accept he is accountable to Nigerians; that how he performs is important to him. In terms of the security of the country, we are a lot worse than we were in 2015. I was part of the build and the campaign of President Buhari; I know what he inherited and I saw him mismanage even that opportunity to rebuild the country and now we have a lot more security challenges than we had in 2015; the country is a lot worse. So, I don’t know what his definition of fairness is, unless he just wants people who have become victims of crimes and violence to just say thank you very much sir for claiming doing the job that you have not even done. But, we judge him by how many people are kidnapped by the day; how many people are murdered by the day; how many people are pushed away from their homes, villages and their farm lands; and we judge him by the threat to the security and integrity of the nation. Those are the criteria by which we judge him. So, I think when he says things like we are not fair to him, he merely reads the speeches, but he doesn’t read the country.

    The economy is also a lot worse. We have lived on a lie for the last five, six years.We keep borrowing money, money that even our grandchildren will pay and all these false claims that the economy is doing well and we know that it is not true, I wish there are other people who could also tell him that we are already in very serious trouble, our economy is in a mess, there is unemployment at an unprecedented level, there is poverty at an unbelievably high level, young people can’t find jobs to do and farming  is under serious threat in this country because of insecurity. So, by what yardstick is the president going to say to Nigerians that he has done better in terms of  the economy? So, when we put these two things together alone, just  security and economy, President Buhari has no heroism to claim any credit for anything he has done, other than the fact that he has woefully led this country. He didn’t do it alone, he did along with a lot of governors in his party and in the PDP who have collaborated with him to foist on the nation the lowest level of leadership that we have ever witnessed and the National Assembly that has decided to become a puddle National Assembly to betray the trust and confidence of Nigerians who have sent them to do serious job for this country. When you put all these things together,and then look at all these quarrels, we have never had all this kind of rhetoric about irredentism, secession, and we don’t want to be part of this country.

    Closely linked to the issue of insecurity is the unity of the country. Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar recently said President Muhammad Buhari has mismanaged Nigeria’s diversity. What is your take on this?

    I agree with him. This issue of our diversity is a permanent feature of Nigeria. There is no level of integration that you will achieve that will eliminate the tendencies for some people to think they don’t belong or they don’t belong sufficiently. However, there is a  threshold you must never cross. For instance, every president runs a circle around him, the circle should demonstrate some commitment to inclusion and competence; you can achieve those two, you actually can bring people from your village, your  ethnic group but you must also bring people from other parts of the country and build a good team that looks to Nigerians as if it is actually a representation of them. He has failed to do that, he has failed to address issues that give chance to irredentists, secessionists, adventurers and killers who ride on this idea that this part of the country does not belong to Nigeria and he has failed to reach out and find a way to integrate them into mainstream political system; that is his job.

    You cannot be indifferent to sentiments in the  Southeast; you cannot be indifferent to what is happening in the Southwest and still hope that you can run a safe and secure country.You ought to have detected this a long time ago and move to nip it in the bud and assure communities that will ordinarily feel that people like Igboho and Kanu have  a case to make; they have no case to make. Every element and every community in Nigeria has been sidelined by incompetence, by indifference and by a president who doesn’t think that it is his job to perform the political role of a leader. So that is the mismanagement that people talk about. It is sad and tragic that we are where we are today when we should be stronger politically.We are not.

    One major challenge facing the country, especially the North, is insecurity. The Northwest is almost being overrun by bandits. What’s at the root of the problem and what is the way out?

    The roots are not as deep as they should be.Ten, twelve years ago, we began to see manifestation of a phenomenon that was very strange:the Fulani were marginalized;they are partly out of choice, partly out of lifestyle and there has been a long history of injustice against the Fulani in the Northern part of the country. But we began to see a phenomenon where the Fulani were systematically being separated from their cattle and the relationship between the rural Hausa and Fulani began to sour and we began to see emergence of some elements of banditry around cattle rustling and attacking villages and fight between farmers and cattle herders. This wasn’t there at all. The long term effect of what was going on  in parts of Kaduna and Zamfara made things to escalate. A good government would have moved in quickly to seek to understand what is going on, seek to find out what can be done to find a way in which this can be limited and eventually eliminated, but this  is not a good government.

    In fairness to President Buhari, it didn’t start under him, it started under President Goodluck Jonathan, perhaps going back to long history but the intensification dates back to say ten to twelve years ago. Nobody did anything about this. Eventually more and more Fulani became separated from their cattle. When you separate a herder from his cattle, you drive him into hopelessness and depression; he moves into the forest, which is their natural terrain, takes  up arms against each other and against rural Hausa, starts sacking villages and this is how this thing started. But we never saw a  strong resolve from the federal government and the state governments to do anything about this until it brought us to where we are now that virtually every route has been taken over by bandits, kidnappers and criminal elements and unemployment is feeding this. Young people who have nothing to do are sitting back for this kind of crime. Now we have an industry that is booming in the country centered around criminality and use of violence and a huge population are now under the  influence of bandits. We have Boko Haram which has not been eliminated by President Buhari as he promised and in addition we now have a phenomenon where you are not safe anywhere: on the road, at home, on the farm, in your village, in the cities. No one is safe. The situation, as it is, is unprecedented and what is even more worrying about the situation is that you don’t see anything on ground that suggests to you that this government intends  to improve or change the way in which it is dealing with banditry and crime rate. They have taken their eyes off insecurity, they have taken their eyes off fixing the  economy, they are all focused on 2023. So this problem will not be solved because politicians are going to become increasingly engrossed with gaining power in 2023.Ask them what they are going to do with this power, will it be enough to fix this country? Will the country not be a lot worse between now and 2023? What are they going to do? No one is paying attention to what is going on now. Sadly President Buhari still has one and a half years to go and these governors have one and a half years to go. They think they can fix this problem by 2023 when they fight each other, maybe destroy the country in the process just so that they can become governors and president. That is what is frightening about this.

    Zamfara Governor Matawalle said the problems of the North are down to lack of visionary leadership. Do you agree?

    I wish that statement came from somebody other than  someone that just left the party that gave him mandate to become governor and just walked into another party. But, he is right, our politicians are not interested in governance, they are not interested in improving the lot of the people, they just want power, and he is not qualified  to speak about this kind of things because his state is one of the worst ravaged states in the country, and he just suddenly walked out of his party with the mandate that was given to him before he walked to a different party. He is right in terms of the statement, but he is the least qualified person to have made that statement.

    Now, looking at the security challenge of banditry, do you think the military approach alone can solve this problem?

    No, if you are talking about straight forward military assault on bandits that has scattered to virtually across the whole land of the North and across the parts of Nigeria, this is not the fight for military alone.

    This administration needs to consult those who have some insight into what is going on, they need to reinforce tactics and institutions. At grassroots level, they need to massively increase the capacity of the military, the police, the SSS. We need to revisit the security structure of this country. There is a case made for sub-national policing. This is vital to the survival of this country. You need to be inventive and imaginative. We need to fight against this banditry and kidnapping with a lot more than the bullet of the military and the virtually non-existent police. Right now, the bandits can go anywhere and do want ever that want to, and they are increasing by the day; their capacities are increasing, their audacity is increasing by the day and all you see are timid responses by the Nigerian states. Citizens have become increasingly pressurized, students can’t stay in school, farmers can’t go to farm, communities sleep with their eyes open. What will the country be like in the next one year, when politicians become completely engrossed with politics and wanting to be president, governors and senators? What will the country be like?

    Related to this problem are clashes between herders and farmers across the country. Southern governors have agreed on open grazing ban while Buhari prefers reviving the grazing routes. Which is better?

    The southern governors need to understand that while the Land Use Act gives them power over the use of land, they also have responsibilities to make sure that they use those powers responsibly and constructively. You can ban open grazing, you should ban open grazing. There’s hardly anybody in this country who would say they don’t support banning of open grazing. We in the Northern Elders Forum have said it so many times and virtually everybody has said so. But we need to adopt a process that allows open grazing to be replaced by a  system that gives security to the cattle and to the herder and security to the country. As it is now, it is causing too much security challenge to the country and it doesn’t need to be and so President Buhari’s position about opening grazing routes, I’m afraid again, is one of those things that makes you wonder whether the president is aware that we are living in the year 2021,

    The Land Use Act can be invoked by the governors and literally overnight they can simply repeal grazing routes and grazing reserves if they choose to and therefore  the federal government has no recourse to opening up these facilities which is not the way to go. If the President believes that it is the responsible thing to do ,talk to the governors to allow a period and a system that allows for a transition from open grazing to  non- open grazing, maybe ranching. He should engage these governors. If the governors believe that open grazing represents a threat to the president, they should engage the president, they should say to him, Mr. President please read the Constitution. Actually utilization is vested in us and we do not want you to come and start laying claims and creating the impression that Fulani can transverse the length and breadth of this country simply because you believe that 30, 40, 50 years ago, there were cattle routes and grazing grounds. They don’t exist anymore. Even if they do, this is not the way to go about them.

    The tragedy is that  the president is not talking to the people and to the governors, so the Governors are not talking to the President and the consequence of this is that  we are not finding solutions . Since the Federal Government has already evolved some strategies  like the National Livestock Transformation Program, it is there in the office of the Vice President, why can’t we work towards this? How come we are now talking about something that we stopped 40, 50 years ago? And the President in 2021 is telling his Minister of Justice to dust up all grazing routes and reserves in a part of the country which is extremely hostile to Fulani. Even if you can retrieve the grazing reserves and cattle routes, how much of security can you provide for the herders who use the routes and reserves? So, this brings us back to the issue of the failure of leadership. Buhari is not leading; if he is, he will be actively engaged in this and engage the governors.

    And if  the southern governors are serious about providing effective leadership, they should know they also have a  responsibility to the Fulani herders. The fact that there  is Fulani and that he lives in their states does not mean he has no right; it doesn’t mean that he is not entitled to some protection. So, drawing a line that by September, we don’t want to see cattle, what happens to the hundreds of thousands of cattle in the southern part of the country? What about  the lie that the southern governors are peddling as if all the cows belong to only Fulani? A huge percentage of the cows in the southern part of the country belong to the southerners, but they give you the impression that everyone you see belongs to the Fulani. Are you providing for your own people? Because the Fulani can, under pressure, return to the North.

    Read Also: 2023: Call for power shift by Southern governors may lead to break up, says PSC

     

    What about the northern governors? Why are they not engaging the northern governors where there is a huge amount of land, a huge amount of water resources? Get them to commit, also in collaboration with the federal government, to develop ranching facilities or to provide alternative to open grazing. Why is the Federal Government not engaging the governors? Why are the northern governors not living up to what they should be doing, showing primary concern for the fate of Fulani? Most of them are northerners. Why are the northern governors abandoning them? Why are the southern governors being opportunistic and being so irresponsible?

    What is happening about leadership in this country? And these are the same people who want to come back and govern this country again. Can you imagine what will happen to this country again from 2023? Can you imagine what will happen to this country, assuming we survive till 2023?

    There has been an upsurge in secessionist agitation. But people say that the  bandits pose a greater threat than the likes of IPOB’s Kanu and Sunday Igboho.

    I don’t have the skill that you are using if you make that assumption. I know that Kanu and Igboho represent strong and very powerful divisive tendencies; they threaten the unity and integrity of this country and anybody who has sworn by the Qur’an or Bible to protect the territorial integrity of this country, to protect the unity of this country, to enhance the coexistence of  Nigerians , cannot be indifferent to the fact that both Kanu and Igboho are engaged in large scale activities that threaten lives of Nigerians, including the constituencies that appear to be cheering them up.

    Secession is illegal; trying to break this country up is illegal. Now, if you want to compare bandits with Igboho and Kanu, I will still tell you my own view. Both of them are just bandits, committing banditry in  different ways. When a man will sit  down   using radio and then ordering  thousands of Nigerians to keep people of the  five eastern states at home at the risk of being attacked or maimed or killed or whatever, what do you call that? That means you are tying down millions of innocent people at home using the threat of violence.

    When Igboho uses words that threaten everybody, particularly the Fulani people who are not Yoruba and uses rhetoric that sends signal that  a whole section of the country is going to opt out, without a single person’s mandate. He doesn’t have the mandate to pull Yoruba out of this country; he doesn’t have the legitimacy to do this. He uses rhetoric  that instills fear and hatred; it is illegal to do that. The bandits that kidnap people, close down schools, rape women everywhere are just the same ; they are all using the same thing.

    What this country is going through is the emergence of criminality that has taken over the lives of millions of Nigerians. That is where we are. So, I don’t want to get into this issue of which one is worse, but any Nigerian who uses force, who uses weapon to terrorise Nigerians whether he is Kanu or Igboho or bandit or kidnapper, he is a threat to Nigerians and the Nigerian state should move against them. If you catch them, put them through the legal process. This is why I support the prosecution  of Igboho, I support the prosecution  of Kanu, the prosecution of bandits and kidnappers and anybody else who threatens or uses violence against Nigerians, and it must stop.

    The biggest weakness of this government is that it allows this kind of thing to grow and grow until it reaches a point where dealing with them now becomes a political issue. Look at what is happening now: the Southwest is lining up, a huge number of people including people who have sworn to protect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The same thing in the Southeast, people including governors are lining up behind Kanu; people who would privately tell you, we are terrified of the man, if we don’t do what they want, they will attack us. Now, how do you justify this? What about the oath you took? Does it mean that the Constitution means nothing to you at all? How do people look up to you for protection if you are afraid of a criminal? Because it is basically fear; politicians that are afraid of the forces they created. They thought Igboho and Kanu will deliver to them a southern president. And now the monsters they created are now coming back to haunt them. Now, the Federal Government has got them, they are now being prosecuted and the same people that were terrified are now coming back to say no, no don’t arrest him, don’t prosecute him. What do you want us to do to people who have threatened the citizens, the security, caused death and destruction? What do you want us to do? Give them national honours?

     Some people have argued that Nigeria can only move forward through restructuring or decentralisation. What’s your view?

    No! We need two things: we need to restructure the structures themselves, that is what type of federal system do we have?What type of federating units do we require? How do we share resources of the country? How do we address concern of grievances and resentments? How do we improve efficiency? How do we address corruption? How do you address insecurity? How do we reduce cost of governance? How do you address this idea that the country belongs to the part of the country where the president comes from? These are fundamental issues that deal with the structures.

    We also need quality leadership that will restructure the  country. Too often, we tend to think that all we need to do is restructure the country. The major challenge for Nigeria is that we have poor leadership. Even the poor leadership will run Nigeria fairly well. Clearly, a good leadership will also say let us change. Change must be a constant process in this country. We must constantly revisit the way Nigeria is run. We must change things as we move, and that is part of being a good leader.

    So, my response to the question as to whether restructuring alone is enough is, no.We need to do two things: we need to radically improve quality of leadership as well as address fundamental limitations to the way the Nigerian federal system operates. That is in everybody’s interest, everyone will gain from this. But it takes a good leader to recognize it and move to do it. This is the problem for Nigeria now. You have a president who says no, I don’t know what restructuring is; if  you people are talking about constitutional amendment, go to the National Assembly. Then, you have a National Assembly that will tell you: well, we don’t think this is the right thing to do, because President Buhari is not very comfortable with it. This country doesn’t belong to President Buhari, it doesn’t belong to  members of the National Assembly.They will all go, but this country remains, then what happens to the country?

    By the day, our problems are mounting, they are getting worse. What kind of nation are our children going to live in? They hate each other; they live on social media; they use scary language because they were taught nothing other  than to hate each other; they know nothing and nobody teaches them history. Nobody teaches children what the religion of the other faith stands for. So, all they know about each other are abuses and insults they throw at each other on  social media, that is all.They hate each other. Are  these people going to live in the same country if you don’t address the problems of this country?

    I am telling you that  going our separate ways now is going to be definitely better than  having a country where 20 years down the road, we are going to have people who fight each other purely because they speak a different language or worship a different God. This is not the kind of legacies we want to leave for our children and we have a chance to fix this and the time is now.

     The 2023 general elections are fast approaching, do you agree that after eight years of rule by a northerner, power should shift to the South as demanded by southern governors?

    Power does not return or go anywhere, power is determined by voters; this is why we have a democratic process, we are a democratic country. Voters should decide who they want to vote for. Since 1999, Nigerians have been voting.We voted a southern president in 1999 to 2007, we then voted a northern president in 2007 who ruled for only two years and a southern president completed his tenure and was voted again in 2011. Then, we voted a northern president in 2015. In all these times, it was the power of the voters that determined who became the President.Votes don’t carry regional connotation.The democratic process says Nigerians should exercise right, that every Nigerian above the age of 18 is qualified to vote for who they want to be president, that is it. You cannot arm-twist that provision.

    We can agree, for instance, that party ‘A’ should field a northerner, party ‘B’ can decide to field a southerner or northerner. Politicians can decide in a room whether their candidate should be a southerner or northerner. What you cannot do is to insist that voters from the northern part of the country must vote a southern candidate or that all political parties must field southern candidates; you cannot do that, both legally and in practical terms, because we have many parties. If we have five parties and one of the parties fields a northern candidate and the northern candidate scores the highest votes, he becomes the President. You cannot force a voter to choose a candidate that is not his choice, just because the candidate comes from a particular region of the country. You cannot tie up northern voters completely and totally and say he must not vote for any party that fields a northerner for the position of the president. You need to persuade people, you need to do the hard work of politics.

    People who believe that having a southern presidency is central to the survival of this country should, in the name of God ,get up do the real work of lobbying and politicking and persuade people that the future of this country is contingent on the emergence of a southern president. But, you cannot do it by threat, intimidation and blackmail. If you keep pushing this rhetoric that it must be southern president or we will leave this country or the heavens will fall, then northern voters will say, what about my right to choose whoever I want? What do you do with my right? How can you force me to choose a southerner if I have a choice to choose a northerner or southerner? That is the point we have been making. You cannot legislate this, it is not in the law. Even the PDP that has rotational presidency as part of its policy, go and see how many PDP governors have printed posters from the north who want to be president. So, even the PDP does not respect it. The point we are making is that  if there are enough grounds, enough people who can do the hard work of persuading northerners or voters all over the country, fine, but they also need to tell us, assure Nigerians that, when people vote this person to become the President, he doesn’t become a southern or northern president, but a Nigerian president; we don’t want another tribal or regional president.

    Nigeria is a very complex country. All these arguments we are making about lack of inclusion, abusing our diversity, have their roots in the way in which this president runs his government, people don’t feel they belong. And the same people who are saying they are not part of the Buhari’s government are now saying give us the presidency. So, shouldn’t we ask this question: if we now regionalize or ethnicise the presidency, is he going to be  president for Nigeria or president for the southern part of the country? He is going to be  president for Muslims or Christians? What kind of president is he going to be? This country needs to move on. We can produce a president that actually represents the interest of all Nigerians, but we appear to be going backward. And it is because we have lazy politicians; they are all looking for shortcuts to power, they are now raising this issue as if it is the single most important challenge facing this country and unfortunately, they are doing it the wrong way; they can persuade Nigerians but they chose not to.

    Left for me,  I think the real problem is not rotational presidency, the real problem is not whether we are a country of different ethnic groups, the real problem is that we have political leadership that is completely undeserving to be leading this country. Now, it has no place in the future, at all.

     On a final note, despite all the criticism, are there any positives you see in six years  of the Buhari administration?

    No! And I say that with a lot of regrets. If there were, I would  say so. I was among the tiny part of people who contributed to putting this man in power, and there were huge expectations.We genuinely believed that President Buhari would  fix  security, the economy and tackle corruption; he would give this country a new lease of life, that he would show leadership that would be different from Jonathan’s PDP administration.

    We had very high hopes, particularly those of us in the North who were at the receiving end of Boko Haram insurgency at that time.We didn’t see any of those things. We have seen decline in the quality of leadership, we have seen decline in security, we have seen decline in the economy. If today I tell you, there are families in the northern part of the country in the rural north, which grows its own food and eat it, families that eat one meal a day, people will find that unbelievable, but it is the truth. If I tell you that there are women in some villages in parts of the north who sleep on trees at night because they are afraid that bandits will come in the night to take them away, people may not find that believable, it is the truth. If I tell you children leave home for  school and their parents are not sure whether they will come back and that a large number of parents are removing their children from school in the north which desperately needs children, particularly the girl child to stay in school, some people will say that is not true. But, it is the truth.That is the reality we live in. If I tell you there are communities in the south that northerners cannot go to, some  people will say it is not true, but the reality is that it is true. That is what the six years of Buhari administration has done to Nigeria.

    It gives no pleasure, believe me honestly, I wish  he  has done the opposite, so that, I can be proud and say thank God, all the efforts we had put in 2003, 2004, 2005 has borne fruits, that we have shown that we can actually produce a good leader that would make a difference, but he has failed to do this and my major concern now is that, I am worried that  the same administration is working to put another administration in power and the PDP is not any better; PDP just wants to wrestle power from President Buhari and do exactly what Buhari is doing, that is the tragedy for this country.

  • My 18-month ordeal in Italian prison – Ex-Edo Commissioner Osemwegie-Ero

    My 18-month ordeal in Italian prison – Ex-Edo Commissioner Osemwegie-Ero

    • Says allegation that he was arrested with $2m in France senseless
    •’ My dad went into coma when they told him I was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment‘

     

    The 18 months between November 2019 and May 2021 will no doubt linger in the memories of former Edo State Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Diaspora Affairs, Hon. Osaze Osemwegie-Ero, having spent those odd months in Italian prison for an offence he did not commit. He recalls the heart-rending experience in this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, including the false claim of his arrest in France with the sum of $2 million. He also speaks about his plans to lead the campaign for the release of other innocent Nigerians illegally detained in Italian prisons and determination to fight his battle for the retrieval of Benin artifacts from foreign lands, among other issues. Excerpts:

     

    YOU have been at the forefront of the struggle to retrieve Benin artifacts taken away to foreign countries. How far have you gone with it?

    We have done a lot of work. We travelled from London to Austria until the day I was arrested. I was on official duty to Berlin on the same issue. I was invited by the Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar. We created a lot of awareness as well.

    In 2018, the Edo Festival for Arts and Culture codenamed EDOFEST was organised by the Edo State Government. We did photo exhibition of the stolen artifacts with locations in Europe and America. This exhibition was also done in the palace of His Royal Majesty, the Oba of Benin and to showcase the affected artifacts to the world.

    There have been a lot of meetings on our own part as government and other individuals were creating a lot of awareness for people to know that these artifacts have to be returned. The feedback from the EDOFEST we did was very good. We wanted to put more pressure on the Europeans and the Americans that those artifacts needed to be returned.

    During the exhibitions, we had a lot of visitors. It coincided with the Oba’s anniversary, and a lot of visitors who came were at the exhibition hall to look at the artifacts. And we have feedback as well that people who visit those museums where they are at the moment would always identify them as artifacts from Benin Kingdom which should be repatriated.

    There was a lot of work done and I am not surprised that the governor is still pursuing this struggle because he is an ardent believer and lover of our culture and tourism. That was why he made it one of the systematic pillars of his government in his first administration.

    We are very proud of who we are because God created us and blessed us with our culture and heritage. We are on the right course and I am glad that the Germans have decided to bring them back now which, to me, is the beginning of other countries returning them to Nigeria. I am sure Great Britain and other countries would follow suit because before my incarceration, managers of British Museum selected a group which was hosted by the governor. They discussed the return of the artifacts and the building of a museum where they will be kept in Benin. I am glad with the progress so far made.

    There has been a controversy as to who should keep the artifacts. The Federal Government has said it will receive and keep them. Should they be returned to the palace or to the museum, the centre built by the state government?

    The Oba is the custodian of our culture. The governor is the son of the palace. The most important thing is that the artifacts are coming back home to where they belong. There are procedures. There are processes to be worked on. There is a museum that needs to be built. I am no longer the Commissioner and I can’t immediately know now what plan is on ground on the return of the artifacts. However, I am just excited like any other person that the government is taking the right steps to retrieve those artifacts.

    There is the story that you were arrested…

    I was arrested in Amsterdam on the 2nd of December 2019 on my way to honour an invitation to a meeting in Germany on the same issue of the repatriation of our stolen artifacts.

    Various reasons were given by people for your arrest. For instance, it was reported that you were arrested for an offence you committed some years before your travail. What is your reaction to this?

    There was no offence of any sort before my arrest. I didn’t know what was going on. The day of my arrest, I was on an official duty to Amsterdam like I have said before. I was on transit on KLM flight to Berlin. Not until seven or eight months after before it became clear to me the reason why I was being kept in prison. In actual fact, it became clear to me that I was a victim of racial discrimination and manipulation of the Italian justice system by a very corrupt prosecutor, Dr. Stephanie Casale. The case became clear to me that what was actually going on was not the actual allegation leveled against me.

    They alleged that I was a Mafia kingpin involved in exportation and importation of firearms; involved in importation and exportation of drugs, cocaine from South America to Nigeria and to Italy; that I was involved in prostitution racketeering, human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and killing. I was shocked. It was when I demanded evidence for these allegations that it became clear that the man was manipulating the justice system of the country to victimise and incarcerate Nigerians. I can tell you that over 300 Nigerians are in prisons for the same concocted offences and there is no evidence for the crimes they allegedly committed.

    Most times, he asks them to do short trial in Italy and would end up convicting them whereas if you do long trial, it takes time and he will be made to produce evidence. I went for the long trial option because I wanted a situation where he would be compelled to bring out the evidence of whatever crime he claimed I had committed. So when I asked him to bring the evidence he had against me, I was expecting that I would see guns or cocaine that he said those Nigerians were involved in. I was never involved in any of those things, so there was nothing he could tender. He only produced a manual called Green Bible. That is the manual the Italian criminal organisations are using. This was the only thing he produced.

    On the 24th of November, 2020, I was shocked and at the same time laughing because after spending one year in detention in maximum security in Italy with a lot of fundamental human rights abuses, he was bringing a manual for a case of as high profile as that. We started the case. I had a lawyer. I had good friends. My family, my parents, my friends, they were very supportive. Everybody all over the world was praying for me and God heard our prayers. That is why I am sitting down here today.

    There are over 300-400 Nigerians in maximum security prisons in Italy for these purported crimes without a single evidence. As I speak to you, 70 Nigerians were arrested on 28 October, 2020 in Italy under this same guise. They are in detention and their court trial process is starting 17th of September, 2021. If you Google Torino Chronicle, Page 8 on 26 September 2020, you will see that 20 Nigerians were sentenced to 140 years for the same Nigerian mafia accusation and it was this same Green Bible they presented as evidence to sentence these people without a single evidence.

    These were things that were going on. It was on the 11th February, 2021 I had the opportunity of speaking and the chance of addressing the judges. For over one year of my detention, this was the first time I had the opportunity to speak in court. And I expressed disappointment that up until that date in court, the prosecutor had not been able to produce any genuine evidence against me, but instead a forged document as evidence for a huge crime of the nature they concocted.

    When were you eventually released?

    On the 29th of May 2021, that was the day the judge gave the verdict.

    A report said you were found with $2 million allegedly given to you by the Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki?

    (Laughs) In Paris? I was so surprised when I heard of such claims. I laughed over it because I can’t imagine how people will think that I will carry two million dollars cash in this day and age. Again, the governor was a rich man before he became the governor of Edo State and he is an investment banker. If he wants to steal money, which is even not in his character to do, will he ask me to carry two million dollars cash for him? Honestly, I was marveled at the cheap way such people reason. It was a laughable thing that even learned Nigerians, supposedly honourable members, will open their mouths, whether it is politics or not, to say such things. It is just to tell you the primitive kind of politics we play here.

    Unknown to them, the primitive politics, rather than affect the image of the governor as they had intended, earned the innocent man more sympathy and more loyal people who now decided to support him. This gave him the massive victory as the governor of Edo State today. That accusation was, honestly speaking, very senseless. First of all, I didn’t go to France. I didn’t carry money. I didn’t travel with the governor. I was in company with the former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and four other people. It was disgraceful of people to be talking about two million dollars, which went viral, and also saying that I was jailed for 10 years, 15 years and all those nonsense on social media. It was shocking to me the extent to which people could go with fabricating stories.

    You mean the governor was not on that trip?

    No. He was not on that trip. Like I said earlier, I was travelling with the former Commissioner for Chieftaincy Affairs and four other people who were following me to Berlin.

    Could that be a set up by your political opponents?

    No, no, it was not a set up at all. The prosecutor was investigating a few Nigerians years back for marijuana and credit card fraud. In 2013, I happened to travel to Italy where I met with some of them and we had a meeting. In that meeting, the place was bugged because the prosecutor heard that there would be a meeting of Nigerians, which was very good for me. They bugged the place and the meeting lasted for three and a half hours. Because he was investigating and Nigerians were going to have a meeting, he thought we were going to discuss crime. And that day, from the recordings and the translation they had, I was advising those Nigerians to be well-behaved, to be good ambassadors of their country. I was telling them to be good ambassadors of Nigeria. I told them if they are well behaved and responsible, they can rise politically, and who says they cannot be commissioners, governors, senators and even President. Those things were captured and recorded at that meeting. That was all.

     What did the judge say before you were released?

    He said mafia allegation was not proved throughout the investigation. The only single evidence they brought was forged, the green bible, and thirdly the investigation by the prosecutor was very, very poor. The green bible was written by the University of Benin students in 1978. Apparently, an association used the book that was written in school. They brought the book. They had a 2017 event in that bible; that was why I told you that this book was forged. One of the collaborators who joined them in forging this book was born in 1972. His name is Geoffrey Thomas Omoregie and the other was Nosa Iyabare. These were the two people used as collaborators. It is important that people know because they still use them to arrest innocent Nigerians.

    What would you be telling the Nigerian government over the number of Nigerian citizens in the Italian prisons?

    I am deeply concerned about these young Nigerians who are being victimised and thrown into prison. I know these ones because I was a victim. We need to work hard to release those boys. Let the Italian government produce the evidence they have against them. First of all, we do not have anything like the Nigerian mafia and I’m going to be vocal about it. I have spoken to people. We will join hands to fight this fight. We don’t have the Nigerian Mafia so they cannot be prosecuting them with the Italian Mafia criminal Code, 416 bis, in Italy, without evidence of the crime committed.

    My message to the Nigerian Government is that they have to sit up. We cannot have people in position without knowing the responsibilities of the offices they are occupying, whether elected or appointed, it is important. Let them sit up, let us demand justice for these innocent Nigerians because they are there languishing in prisons, their families are suffering. These people, they have wives, they have children, they have parents, they have brothers and sisters who are equally suffering because that is what happened to me.

    I’ve spoken to Abike Dabiri who is the special adviser to the president in the diaspora matters who also doubles as chairperson of the Nigerian in the diaspora commission; she is ready to join me on this fight. I wrote a letter to the Senate, I wrote a letter to the House of Representatives, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I didn’t get any response from them.

    For how long were you in the prison, and what was the experience like? For how long were you in house arrest?

    I wasn’t given house arrest. We applied for house arrest, in Italian justice system, house arrest is allowed. The lawyer would say we have a place we can put you while the process is going on. That house arrest was not given at all because for Mafia case they don’t grant house arrest, especially when they say you are the boss of all bosses.

    What about your experience in prison?

    Very bad. Imagine me locked up in one room. You are only allowed to go out for an hour a day in the morning, an hour in the afternoon. And only when you want to use the bathroom, that is all. You are 24 hours locked up. I was there for 18 months from 2nd of December 2019 to 29th of May 2021.

    What were the psychological effects it had on you?

    To God be the glory, I tried to take my mind off it. I was very prayerful. It brought me closer to God. Because I was innocent and I did not commit any crime, definitely justice will be served, that was my prayer. It could have gone the other way as well. Because I had a good team, my wife, my family, my children, my friends, my parents, they all stood by me. I knew the whole world was praying for me, so I had full confidence that I was going to be released. I don’t know if you saw the video that went viral two weeks before my release. Somebody sent it out and I saw it when I came out and I was happy. I told them I would be out anytime we had judgment.

    What was the effect of the detention on your health?

    The detention affected my health my sugar level went up and my belly became bigger. My children and my wife were stressed out. My aged parents too. My dad went into coma when they told him that I was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He went into coma for four days.