A father of three, who tried to save his son from the gas tanker explosion that rocked Baruwa area of Ipaja, Alimosho Local Government Area, Lagos State penultimate Thursday died together with the son at a point he thought that they had escaped the tragedy, KUNLE AKINRINADE reports.
The brave act of a father who rushed into a burning building during the gas explosion that rocked Baruwa area of Ipaja, Alimosho Local Government Area, Lagos State penultimate Thursday counted for nothing at the end of the day. Thirty-nine years old Olushola Amos Adeleke and his two-year-old son, Martial, died in the incident at a point they thought that they had managed to survive the tragic incident.
No fewer than five persons were confirmed dead in the gas tanker explosion that shook the community to its foundation. The explosion had occurred at dawn when an LPG tanker was discharging its inflammable content at the Best Roof Plant Station on Candos Road in Baruwa. The explosion was said to have been triggered by the generator of the gas station, which was said to be on while the LPG tanker was discharging its content.
The explosion, which razed several vehicles and buildings, including a nursery and primary school, threw the discharging tanker across the road and spread the fire to adjoining buildings. Many residents were rendered homeless in the wake of the blast.
According to the Acting Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Ibrahim Farinloye, three persons were rescued while five bodies were recovered from the explosion.
The rescued persons, including Adeleke and his son, were taken to a hospital after the initial first aid treatment. The 39-year-old employee of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was said to have been woken up from bed by his wife when she saw smoke billowing from the scene of the incident.
The wife was said to have rushed out of the house with their five-year-old daughter, Sharon , to avoid being trapped in the spreading fire which by then had got to their building. An eyewitness said that Adeleke had rushed out of the building just like his wife and daughter before he realized that their son was left behind in the house, hence he decided to rescue their son from the house.
He was said to have rushed back into the building and was about coming out with the son when fireballs from the burning tanker landed on him and his son, inflicting them with severe burns.
They were rushed by sympathizers to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) in Ikeja, where they were admitted at the intensive care unit (ICU). Adeleke however died from the fatal injuries in the early hours of Saturday, October 10, while his son breathed his last the next day.
Family sources described the death of Adeleke and his son as a monumental loss.
One of them said: “Shoshy, as Adeleke was fondly called by residents, was one of the illustrious youths of Baruwa. His gruesome death alongside his son is nothing but a monumental loss.
“He had rushed out of their home with his wife and daughter after his wife alerted him to the explosion in the neighbourhood. But on realising that they had left their son behind, he braved the fire to rescue his son, Martial.
“He was about taking his son out of the compound when flames from the burning tanker landed on his body and also burnt his son fatally.
“They died at LASUTH a day apart and have since been buried.”
Another resident, Fred Alade, described the deceased as “a very energetic young man who related well with other residents in his lifetime and made visible impact in youth development in the community. We will all miss him for his eager disposition to things that could uplift this community.”
Unfulfilled dreams
Until his death, the deceased INEC official, according to impeccable sources, was planning big for his 40th birthday in February next year. He was said to have planned to move into his new house at Ajibawo in Atan part of Ado-Odo/ Ota Local Government Area, Ogun State, after a housewarming scheduled to coincide with his birthday.
A family friend said: “He initially said he would move into his new private residence by the end of this year, but he later changed his mind and rescheduled his relocation till February 2021 to coincide with his 40th birthday, which he termed ‘housewarming cum birthday’.
“Unfortunately, his remains were interred in the same house he had planned to open with fanfare on his 40th birthday.”
“He is survived by an aged mother, wife and two children,” the source added.
The deceased was described as an unassuming young man and ardent fan of the English Premier League team, Manchester United.
His love for the top English team, popularly called ‘Man U’, was said to have made him to name his son after the club’s centre forward, Anthony Martial.
“Adeleke’s love for ‘Man U’ was second to none. So much so that he named his son after the team’s mercurial player, Anthony Martial,” a resident who identified himself simply as Omowale told The Nation.
However, contrary to the official casualty figure released by NEMA, investigation revealed that no fewer than 10 persons lost their lives in the fire disaster.
Like Adeleke and his son, a 79-year-old, Pa Broderick Unuajohwolia, and his 39-year-old son, Otuene Unuajohwolia, also died in the blaze. The aged man and his son were said to have been trapped and died from the flames of fire that engulfed their apartment.
The list also includes a 36-year-old woman, Ayo Aderinsoye, and her two children, Olamikun Aderinsoye, 4, and Mowa Aderinsoye, 2, while the identity and whereabouts of the woman’s husband could not be ascertained at press time.
Others include Mohammed Abubakar and an unidentified security man killed by the ravenous fire.
A special interdenominational memorial service at the instance of community leaders was held in the evening of Thursday October 15 in honour of the deceased victims at the scene of the explosion at Unity Bus Stop, Baruwa.
At the event, various Christian and Muslim clerics offered prayers for the repose of the victims’ souls amid outpouring of emotions by residents, community and political leaders who attended the ceremony hosted by the traditional ruler of the community, Chief Khalid Baruwa.
“We organised the memorial service to honour the victims of the gory incident as well as to pray against a reoccurrence of the incident in the community,” a leading member of the community’s development association, who did not want his name mentioned, said.
Lagos has witnessed a number of gas explosions with heavy loss of lives of property since the beginning of this year.
In March this year, about five persons including students were reportedly killed in a gas explosion that also ravaged buildings, including Bethlehem Girls College, and vehicles in Ado Soba village in Ojo Local Government Area of the state.
Barely three weeks ago, an explosion caused by a gas tanker swept through Ajuwon area of Iju-Ishaga, a Lagos suburb, killing a number of residents, while no fewer than 30 persons were injured and 23 buildings destroyed.
The lives and dignity of female children have been subjected to gross abuse in Becheve, a community in Obanliku Local Government Area, Cross River State, for ages. An age long traditional practice allows the betrothal of underage girls, including unborn ones, to men who in some cases are old enough to be their grandfathers. The practice popularly known as money woman has not abated in spite of the adoption of the Child’s Rights Act by the state in 2009. Many innocent girls who are victims of the abusive practice are betrothed to their would-be husbands while they are still in their mothers’ wombs. Unfortunately, they are often denied access to basic education and treated as slaves by the aged hubbies. INNOCENT DURU reports that apart from the social deprivations they suffer, the hapless girls are dying from Vesico Virginal Fistula (VVF), among other health challenges.
How men trade their innocent nieces into marriages to settle debts
Why baby brides can’t break tradition –Monarch
Victims denied basic education, regarded by in-laws as private property
Health commissioner says they are dying in hundreds from VVF, other health challenges
It sounded like another Alice in the Wonderland tale, but Lovelyn (surname withheld) meant every word as she shared her ugly life experience. She was betrothed to an aged man while she was still in her mother’s womb and only escaped the servitude that would have been her lot by jumping out of the unholy arrangement.
“They told my mother while she was carrying my pregnancy that if I came out as a female child, I would be given out to the man as his wife,” said Lovelyn.
“It is no fiction; it is what happens in Becheve. As we speak, many innocent girls in the town are going through hell because of the practice, which they call money woman.”
Asked why her parents would agree to that kind of arrangement, Lovelyn said her father died a few days after she was born while her mother had no choice in the matter but comply with the agreement.
She said: “The betrothal process began immediately she gave birth to me, although I was still with my family. It was my mother’s family that gave me out to the man because my father had died a few days after I was born.
“My bride price was paid; I think it was about N40,000 or N50,000. The man was already above 60 years and going to 70. The only attraction is always the money. Once they see some small money, they will give their daughters out to the man that desires her.”
The smart girl that she was, Lovelyn had noticed how the practice had crippled the lives of many other girls around the community, so she began to plot her escape from the web of tradition she was entangled in if only to achieve her dream of going to school.
Recalling her escape from the forced marriage, she said: “When it was time for them to come and take me away, I made an arrangement with one Pastor Richard for my escape.
“I have many friends whose future was ruined by the practice. I remember Vivian, Charity, Jeniffer and Jacintha, to mention a few.
“Many girls who are only 14 or 15 years old are already giving birth from their forced marriages. Those of us that escaped with help from Pastor Richard have every reason to thank God.”
After her escape from Becheve, Lovelyn, who has since taken refuge in a Southwest state, was enrolled in a school. Now a senior secondary school (SSS) pupil, she says her ambition is to go to the university to study Law.
“I thank God that I can now read and write,” she said with a smile betraying excitement.
“I am in senior secondary school 2 going to SSS 3. If I had been married to the man, I would never have gone this far academically and my dream of going to a higher institution would have been dashed for life.
“I just thank God for using Pastor Richard to save me and others from their hands.”
But there is a part that still makes Lovelyn sad. She said while she is free, her elder sister is going through hell as a result of the traditional practice.
“She was a very brilliant girl and she had hoped to go far with her education, but she had her dream shattered when she was in primary three, as she was given out in marriage at that age.
“She is only 22 years old now, but she already has four children. She was married off at the age of 11. She had her first child at the age of 15.
“The man’s family had taken her away to Abuja when she was 11 and later brought her back to the man.
“There are many young girls who are not happy being in marriage but they cannot stop it. This is why we are calling on the government to help us stop the practice.”
Investigation conducted by our correspondent revealed that the case of Lovelyn has inspired many girls in the ugly arrangement to flee Becheve. One of them, Faith, who spoke from self-exile in a South-south state, recalled how she was given out as a replacement for a sister of hers who got married to another man before the man she was originally betrothed to could complete the payment of her dowry.
Faith said: “When my grandfather was still alive, he collected money from someone with a promise that he would give the man a wife. He later gave my aunt to the man. But when my grandfather died, the man stopped giving money to the family.
“My grandmother told the man not to worry; that even if my grandfather was dead, she was still there to continue the deal. She said she would give the man another wife if my aunt passed the age he was supposed to take her in as his wife.
“The man subsequently resumed giving her money. But before he could finish paying the dowry, my aunt was old enough to marry, so she got married to a man of her choice. My grandmother then asked our mother to give one of us out to the man and my mother gave him my elder sister.
“Unfortunately, my elder sister refused to go to him and my mother tricked me to go to the man while I was still very small.”
‘How I fled from my 70-yr-old husband at 13′
Recalling how she was tricked to the supposed hubby’s home, Faith said: “I remember that one morning, I was going to visit my aunt but my grandmother told me that we should go to the next village to see my uncle. I did not know that it was the man she was taking me to.
“She took me there around 7 pm. When we got there, I saw people celebrating. After staying there for some days, they made the little ones in the area to start playing with me so that I would not be feeling lonely.
“One morning, I followed them to the stream, but before I came back, my grandmother had left. I asked them about her and they told me that she left a message that I should wait for her; that she had gone to the next village and would pick me up on her way back. I stayed there for one and a half years.
“After some time, I started realising what was happening, because they were not treating me like one of them. When it was raining, I would be the one to go and fetch water. It was as if they always wanted to ensure that I was sad even when everyone else is happy. They told me that I didn’t have any rights there because they bought me with money and that I was like a goat.
“There was a day I came back from the ranch and met my brother who had come on a visit, and told him that I wanted to leave. I asked him to explain what was happening but he said he didn’t understand what I was talking about.
“He responded in that way because he knew that if he told me the truth, I would leave.
“There was a day it was raining and they sent me and the man’s daughter to go and fetch firewood. When we got to the farm, an issue came up and the man’s daughter told me she didn’t know why she followed me to the farm when I was supposed to be going to the farm alone.
“She went on to say that I was like a goat to them and that they had to use me anyhow they wanted. I told her I didn’t have anything to do with her and asked if she thought I was in their house for the father’s money.
“I went on to tell her that her father should go to my grandfather’s grave and wake him up to pay his money. We ended up fighting on that day. I packed my things the next day and left the house to go back to my parents.
“My mother accepted me back but my father refused to. He said he also did money woman and would not allow me to stay in the house and poison the mind of the girl he had married through the practice.
“From there I went to my aunt’s house, but my grandmother and my uncle went there and told her not to allow me to stay with her. So, they drove me away from there and I rented a house on my own. But they still went to the landlord, returned my money and sent me away.
“I ended up going back to the man’s house.
“At that point, his wife told him that the only thing that would make me stay in the house was for him to make me pregnant. So, one evening, I went into my room to sleep only to see the man lying on my bed. I left and went to the other bed to sleep but he asked me to come and sleep beside him.
“I told him I did not understand what he meant but he said I should understand that I was his wife. I told him God forbid that I would be wife to a man who was old enough to be my grandfather. I was only 12, going to 13 then.
“As we engaged in a heated argument, he brought out a cane to flog me but I hit him with wood and ran into a forest. It was around 11 pm and to trek from there to my father’s house would take about six hours. Thereafter, I fled the state.
“He has not come for me since then, but I believe they are still giving him false hope that I will return to him. I was nine years old when my mother took me to the man who was in his 70s.”
Like Lovelyn, Faith is also in school and highly excited at the prospects of fulfilling her life desire.
“I am schooling now and have just completed my junior WAEC. I want to study Law when I get to the university. If the man had impregnated me, education would have been out of it,” Faith said.
Controversy dogs practice
While some community leaders who spoke with our correspondent said the practice has been phased out after vigorous protestations from the youth, Pastor Richard Akonam of Rich Grace Foundation, who some girls said assisted them to escape early marriages, said the practice was still going on till date.
The Clan Head of Becheve, HRH Onum Sunday Ichile, said: “It used to be the practice here in Becheve. But in the 90s, the youths came out to say the practice was not proper; that it was affecting the education of the children.
“The youths came out and said no to it, insisting that we could not be forcing girls to get married to men that that are not their choice. That is the situation now.”
Corroborating Ichile’s views, the Paramount Ruler of Obanliku, HRM, Item Amos, said: “In those days, it was the pride of any man to have that kind of wife. But with exposure and agitations by the youths, the women started looking into the issue.
“The information got to the traditional rulers and we also looked at the negative aspects of it. As I am talking with you now, we have phased it out. We have put down rules and regulations to guard against it.
“But we still have a challenge: some parents who betrothed the girls are late and may be do not have anybody to pay back what the man had paid. If those things are not returned, the man may go mystical and cause the girl some ailment that she may not be able to treat.
“We want a situation where individuals and governments would come to our aid and make some money available to us so that in a situation where a particular family cannot pay back, we can go in and see how we can assist the family to clear the debts and free the woman.
“That is the challenge we have now.”
Asked how many girls were stuck, the monarch said: “We are trying to come up with statistics so that we would know those who can pay back and those who cannot.
“The money paid as bride price in some cases is much because the parents keep collecting money from the man. If they start from when the child is small, they will look at the pieces of kolanuts, goats, yams, and so on.”
On his part, Pastor Akonam strongly disagreed with claims that the practice had been phased out.
He said: “I believe that the state government will wake up to do something about it, because when you speak to the leadership of the community or of the tribe, they will tell you that the practice no longer exists. But when you dig deeper, you will find that it is still very much in operation.”
He went further to narrate how his foundation recently rescued some of the girls, saying: “We have been able to rescue some of the girls and sent them to skill acquisition centres. Some of them are on scholarship now. We are networking with some organisations that are helping some of them.
“One of the girls we rescued two years ago was only seven years old. Two of her sisters had been given out in that manner. One died at the age of 14 without a child, so they gave the man a replacement, but she also died at the age of 12. So they came for the third girl who was only seven years old. Thank God we rescued her and she is in school now.
“There is one right now whose husband died when she was six years old. Just two weeks ago, the family of the man went to bundle the girl who is between 15 and 16 years now. They are transferring her to the man’s next of kin. It is a funny practice but you know it is something that is planted in the culture and tradition. We are also looking at the natives themselves getting involved in speaking against the practice. Unfortunately, even those who are backing us do not want their voices to be heard. They don’t want their faces to show for fear of being killed.”
Speaking on the sums paid as bride price, Akonam said: “Each case is different. We have had a man who sold his daughter for N10,000. Another one sold his for N20,000 and we redeemed that one with N50, 000.
“The reason is that once the marriage is contracted, each time the family of the girl visits the man, whatever he gives to them as kola, he attaches some cost to it. While the girl was sold for N20,000, the mother, the uncle and so on had also visited the man. So all the things they were give during the visits brought that money to N50,000.
“While the man is giving things to the in-laws, he records whatever he gives. But the in-laws who are receiving don’t keep records of what they collect.
“The girls are at the centre of this wickedness. None of the money is spent to take care of them. The money is only spent to service the family. The girl will have to labour and provide care for the man. It is a crazy thing.
“Most of the men take their wives while they are still young, because when they grow, it becomes difficult for them to take them to their houses. The ministry of health in some instances has helped some of those girls. Some don’t suffer from VVF but some do and they are being treated.”
Types of marriages practised in Becheve
Akonam said the Becheves have two basic types of marriages. One, he said, is where two consenting adults can live together for as long as they want.
He said: “Dowries are not paid in that respect and every child born in the marriage belongs to the family of the girl. The brother of the girl can decide to take the sister’s child and sell. The father of the child does not have a say in that; neither does the woman have a say.
“We have had instances where a woman’s younger brother was owing and could not pay and had to sell his sister’s daughter just to be able to pay the his debt.
“Money marriage, which is the second type of marriage, is where a man goes out on his own to buy a girl so that the children will be his children. If the girl happens to have female children, the man can as well sell to another man.
“Even if he decides to pimp his wife, it is nobody’s business, because she is his property. And if the girl dies without having a child, the family of the girl must bring a replacement.”
Why baby brides can’t break away from marriages – Monarch
The paramount ruler of Obanliku, HRM, Item Amos, shed light on why many of the girls remain in forced marriage even when the conditions are unbearable.
He said: “The arrangement has spiritual connotations, and that is one of the things that put fears in the mind of the girl child not to break the arrangement. Even if the arrangement is hurting them, they have to endure so that nothing serious would happen to them.
“The arrangement does not allow the girl child to go to school. The practice gives the man the power to treat the girl child like a slave. The girl is deprived of opportunities like education or even socialising. Her presence at social gatherings is dictated by the man.
“The practice doesn’t allow the girl to exhibit her talent in any way. That is why we
•Community members at a sensitization programme organised by Pastor Richard.
looked at it as something too barbaric. In fact, it is just like a kind of slavery.”
He added: “A girl can be given out even when she is in the womb. The arrangement will be going on in expectation that the baby in the womb will be a girl.
“In a situation where the baby is not a girl, they will have to wait for another pregnancy. Otherwise, if the man has another wife, they can now go for her girl child in order to replace that one.
“When a baby girl is born, the process (marriage) can start within one or two years or less than that.
“The girl does not have any option but to abide by the rules of the arrangement. She does not have the power to back out on the grounds that the man is too old for her.
“There is no education for the child because the man believes that if the girl goes to school, she will be exposed and she may come back and become stubborn or break the arrangement.”
Girls dying in hundreds from VVF, other health challenges – Health Commissioner
The Cross River State Commissioner for Health, Dr Betta Edu, in a telephone chat with our correspondent, regretted that the practice had caused hundreds of young girls their lives and made several others to suffer from VVF and other fistulas.
He said: “Yes, we have been having cases of Vesico Virginal Fistula (VVF) in Cross River State as a result of the menace in Becheve. However, that is not the only source of the VVF cases that we have been having.
“Most of those children are given out sometimes before they are even born, based on the fact that their parents are owing money, and the men who take them in very early defile them even before they are 18.”
She added: “Sometimes, they get pregnant as children and have to give birth to other children. Remember that their reproductive organs are not matured at that age. So they go through the trauma of drop foot from peroneal nerve damage, VVF, Rectum Virginal Fistula or the Vesico Rectal Fistula. All of these fistulas can happen and lead to them dripping urine, being ostracised from the society and leading a very miserable life.
“Most of them don’t go to school and so it is all-round bad news for children from those areas.”
Asked if some of the girls have been dying as a result of the practice, she said: “For the girl-child, so far, we don’t have the exact number that have died as a result of early sexual exposure, but I want to say that they are in their hundreds over the years.
“At the last count, close to 43 of them have suffered VVF. However, most of them have actually got repaired. We have VVF centres in Ogoja and in Calabar. The treatment is free of charge and we have been doing the tests for them.”
She however expressed joy that the international community and indeed the state government had shown interest in what is happening in the area.
“The wife of the governor is doing a lot of projects in that community to see how she can empower them and stop the barbaric practice. Furthermore, from the health sector, we have done a couple of health outreaches there.
“Sensitization is still going on, and we are working on a gender based violence policy and legislation to protect the people of Becheve,” she said.
Barrister Uko Udom (SAN) and his brother, Essien Udom (SAN), have so many things in common. The greatest is their striking resemblance which intrigues those who come in contact with them. However, they are not twins. But there is always the possibility of mistaking one for the other because they also work together in the same office as co-founders of Udom & Udom Legal practitioners. While celebrating Akwa Ibom at 33, the state government recognized the Udoms’ contribution to the state as Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN). In this interview with PAUL UKPABIO, Uko Udom reveals what it felt like to be under the tutelage of Chief FRA Williams and other sundry issues.
LET’S go a little down memory lane. What was life like for you, growing up in the Eastern part of Nigeria? Would you consider yourself a privileged child?
I was actually born in Ibadan, in Oyo State. My father was a senior staff member of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ibadan. We lived at the University campus until the riots and political crises that led to the civil war. I had my primary school education in Ibadan and started my secondary education there. However, we relocated to the east before the war started. I guess you could call my childhood a privileged one, by Nigerian standards.
What do you recall about your early life?
I was privileged to grow up in a Nigeria that people dream about today. We lived in an area called the Senior Staff Quarters at the University of Ibadan campus. We rode in a school bus to school and we had free lunch and fresh milk served at school. The milkman delivered fresh milk at the doorstep of every house at the staff quarters. On Sunday afternoons, an ice cream truck went around selling ice cream. The only power outage I can recall that we ever had was caused by political thugs during the “wetie” crises in Western Nigeria, around 1964.
In what way did your childhood influence the person that you are today?
My formative years were in a residential environment that was multi-ethnic. We had friends across ethnic groups, attended the same schools, and ate in each other’s houses. Every family subscribed to the same high moral and ethical standards. Growing up in this social environment shaped my world view and mindset. My parents were very strict disciplinarians, like most parents of those days. We were taught that there was no substitute for hard work. If you came second in class, my father would ask why you were not first. The day you struggled to be first, my father would just smile and look away. He always tried to hide his emotions. But he had a way of surprising us, like when he took us to watch Millicent Small and Fela and the Koolalobitos when they played at the University of Ibadan.
In those days polygamy was popular. Was that the situation in your house?
No. We grew up in a monogamous home.
What was your educational background?
We saw education as part of growing up. We all went to Abadina School, Ibadan for our primary education, then most of us ended up at the International School, Ibadan, before joining the exodus to the east before the start of the civil war. After completing my secondary education at the Holy Family College, Abak, in today’s Akwa Ibom State. I did a diploma course in Company Administration before proceeding to England where my brother and I took a degree in law at the Manchester Metropolitan University.
The Nigerian civil war has been written about severally; what are your memories of the war?
My first impression of the war was that it was a disruption of the cushioned life we were used to in Ibadan. I was too young at the beginning to fully understand the politics of it all. But then, losing almost two years of schooling, facing the scarcity of essential items, and watching people succumb to disease and deprivation, all these took its toll and reformatted my perception of life as a Nigerian.
Were there occasions that you thought you would not survive the war?
Not really. My parents and older siblings probably felt more endangered. We were at least 15-20 kilometres from the nearest active war fronts, although we faced occasional air raids. My father had constructed a very large underground bunker that could take the entire family and our relatives. Each time there was an air raid, we would all run into the bunker, which was covered with planks lined with vegetation. One of my brothers had built a periscope that we would use to see what was happening on the surface while we were underground. We faced more danger from defeated soldiers retreating from battle. They would raid our compound taking all the food and livestock they could find. They would demand to know whose side we were on. Our answer always depended on whose side the rampaging soldiers were on.
After all that, were you able to return to Ibadan to reunite with friends and acquaintances?
I went to Ibadan for the first time after the war with our state’s basketball team for the National Sports festival in 1979. I could not go around because of camp restrictions. But in the ’80s, I went back and visited my primary school, Abadina School, and International School. I went to see our family house at No. 25 Amina Way, at the University of Ibadan. I was transfixed and covered in goosebumps as memories of my childhood flooded back. Somebody came from the house and asked what I wanted, and I apologized and told him I used to live there.
Any regrets about the war?
Yes, I deeply regret the war, because so many people died needlessly. Worse still, our country has not learned any lessons from the war. Today, Nigeria is tottering at the precipice of a worse crisis; a war with no geographical boundaries. It could be a class war, or a generational conflict, or another internecine conflict. Our leaders must learn that no society can survive without justice and equity. The future of our young ones is mortgaged to feed the insatiable greed of a corrupt political elite.
You had to go abroad at some point for your studies, how did you find life over there, compared to Nigeria?
Yes, and for me, it was a low point in my life. I always wanted to study Engineering at the University of Ife but could not get admission. So I ended up in England, where my brother and I were admitted to study law.
What motivated you to return to Nigeria?
It never occurred to me not to return. In those days, we loved our country and wanted to be part of its development. We headed straight back after our final examinations and enrolled at the Nigerian Law School.
Did you and your brother share similar motivation?
Studying law was clearly fortuitous for both of us. We never went to England to study law. We were actually considering a degree in Business or Economics. The Student Affairs people advised that we were qualified for consideration in the Business, Economics, and Law faculties, but that the different faculties would make the decisions. So we got in the lift and headed up to the faculty offices. Law was on the 3rd floor, Business on the 5th floor, and Economics was on the 7th floor. At the law faculty, we were offered admission after a review and interview, so we decided that there was no point going to the other departments. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Why did you both decide to work together in the same law firm?
Once we decided to practise law, it was only natural that we practised together. When we were in college in England, all our friends called us Udom and Udom, and one of them, a Kenyan guy actually said back then, that we would in future practise law as Udom and Udom. We both did our Law School pupillage at the firm of Chief F.R.A Williams where the late Chief had three of his sons in his practice.
What was working with Late Chief FRA Williams like?
I did not actually work with Chief FRA Williams. It was a pupillage. It was an internship. It was a great experience that served us well in all our years of practice. Chief Williams was a gentle giant. In court, he was always well prepared and very intimidating. In the chamber, he was very gentle and considerate. He would speak with us as we read and reviewed files in the library. He made us all attend the “Black Table Conference” every week, where all the lawyers reviewed and prepared the cases for the next week. He would even listen to our opinion as law students, on each case.
Working with Chief FRA Williams, did that make your fellow lawyers see you as privileged? And did you feel being privileged?
We did flaunt it at our friends at the law school that we were interned at Chief Williams’ Chambers. It was a privilege because it was one of the top chambers in Nigeria.
When you started out as a young lawyer was it your dream to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria?
To be honest, as young lawyers, it was not our dream to become SANs. We were more focused on building a solid practice and excelling in our specialized areas of the practice. We naturally applied and took silk when it was clear that we were qualified, and had attained the standards set by the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee.
Two brothers in the same profession and both are SANs, do you have other lawyers in the family?
As a matter of fact, there are four of us who are lawyers in our family. I have a senior sister who is about 46 years at the bar, and our last sister, who studied law in England but chose not to practise law.
How do you and your brother handle those who mix you up for one another?
Yes. This happened to us a lot. Most people assumed we were twins since we were in the same class in most of the schools we attended. Sometimes, we would be mischievous, and answer to each other’s name.
But who is older between you and your brother?
I won’t tell you who is older. We normally use the information to get free drinks.
What led to both of you being ready for the university at the same time, and being in the same class?
While in Primary 5 at Abadina School, I took the Entrance Examination into International School, Ibadan, and was admitted. So, I skipped Primary 6. From then on, we were always in the same class.
If you were not a lawyer, what else would you have loved to be?
Like I said earlier, in my younger days, I had always wanted to be an engineer. But looking back today, if I were not a lawyer, I would have loved to be God. (I’m sorry if I blaspheme). But there is so much in the world today that I would love to change.
Your role models?
My father was my role model, and I always wanted to be like him. My heroes, however, are Martin Luther King, Jnr, and Nelson Mandela.
And what do you do for leisure?
For me, nothing beats listening to cool jazz music and dreaming of Arsenal Football Club winning the Champions League.
Starting a day with a glimpse of goodness and beauty did no wrong, as beauty is said to be a culture, one of which is fascinating. Nevertheless, there are various skincare brands of which more good has been done. One of such brand is Pels International Luxury Skincare Products whose mission is aimed at creating the best skin products to aid the enhancement of a woman’s beauty.
The goal of the brand stands out for being every woman’s go-to plug in terms of struggling with all skin conditions.
Okiemute Tonye Pela
The skincare brand is spearheaded by Okiemute Tonye Pela who is seen to be one of Nigeria’s best cosmetologists, a beautician and an admirer of esthetics. He formulated the objectives of which active participation and enthusiasm have brought interest in his skincare products.
Impressively, Okiemute Tonye Pela holds the magic wands of beauty that had been passed down to him from prehistorian existence. He had sought for a missing beauty essence in Nigeria, of which lies in the vast production of efficient and exquisite skincare products.
Tonye Pela owns a luxury and lifestyle brand through which he sells and provides high-toned jewellery and precious metals, with top-flight leather merchandise made from the best exotic leather in the world.
Furthermore, Pels International Luxury Skincare Products brings its clients with foremost ancestry ideas saddled with effective components.
Anita Nana Okuribido is the CEO of SIMANS Engineering and the current National Coordinator of the Association of Nigerian Women’s Business Network (ANWBN), a coalition of about 50 Women’s organizations across the country with membership strength of about 4 million women.
In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talked about the First Nigerian Women’s Business Summit, mitigating the threats of COVID-19, launching the Women’s Business Agenda, the Women’s Economic Empowerment Fund for Female entrepreneurs and a resource and Industrial park amongst other initiatives.
YOU just had a Summit for women entrepreneurs across the country, what is the message for Nigerian women?
The expectations of the women would actually commence from so many of our initiatives that ANWBN would be launching. First and foremost, is the Women’s National Business Agenda that is being reviewed to go with the trending of the new normal since our businesses got hit by the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s a rude shock to women in particular. Like I’ve always said, this coronavirus pandemic has the face of a woman.
So, the expectations for women at the summit, is for them to learn so much from all the wonderful speakers that we brought from government, from the private sector, global institutions, global organization, academic institutions and security institutions. And the fact that we are now working with the five pillars, the priority issues of the Women’s National Business Agenda. Each of the priority, starting from the insecurity insurgency which COVID-19 has now taken big chunk of, was discussed in detail. The second one is the infrastructure and road network, lack of electricity and the fourth one is the inclusion of women in governance, the fifth and not the least is lack of access to finance.
For finance, ANWBN is already planning to have a Women’s Empowerment Fund.
So, I am sure that the speakers would show us the roadmap of how we can have our own empowerment fund. The same with governance, women inclusions and a lot of policy framework would need to be reviewed and by the time we get talking, the expectation would be so high that ANWBN would be promised the 35 percent affirmative action on women at all levels of governance.
Even if we have to go into energy efficiency programs and initiatives in renewable energy, having one rural community, one solar hub, one Nigerian child, one solar lamp for education. So, we must have some specific initiatives confirmed through the supply of electricity forming community based organisations so that we can have the supply of electricity for occupational clusters in the communities.
Also, we are having stakeholders in the renewable energy sector to also show us the entrepreneur aspects of how we can achieve having electricity supply and also make some money with the supply of electricity. So, it cannot be in the hand of the government alone. Individuals can now come in and be operators and be part of the Green economy. I am also a consultant, a specialist in the Green economy itself, a big player in it and by the grace of God, I will definitely lend my own voice to my beliefs and give the roadmap that I think women should tie and be energy independent, energy sufficient and energy efficient. Coming back to the road network and transportation. We have all seen the decadence in this type of infrastructure. Most women for their road safety would have preferred to have more of their produce being transported by railway corridors, by the sea and others. So, you just get to the port or railway with well packaged produce, with your waybill and send your produce to another station within the country or even outside the country. When we have such infrastructure, it would be seamless and have the ease of doing business seamlessly. What we have now because of infrastructure, you have to follow your goods to be sure that your goods get to the next station. We don’t need all that; you can spend your time doing some other things giving your other services productively.
Now with the lack of infrastructure productivity is very low. We would be able to open up and strategies on how we can fill that gap of decadence in infrastructure, so that our women can now have a seamless road transportation, sea, air, and other forms of transportation that we need to apply to get our roads from one place to the other.
Let’s talk about the other projects that have been carried out?
I’m very happy, enthused to state that ANWBN happens to be the very first organization to stage and organize a webinar in Nigeria, Africa, or probably all over the world during the announcement of COVID-19 lockdown. We were not deterred at all. Normally, before the COVID-19 set in, the National executives, regional and zonal and state excos met physically periodically, to move the organization forward. But with COVID-19 we were very proactive putting on our thinking cap quickly and with the help of our consultant for the Women National Business Agenda (WNBA) the researcher, Mrs. Bimbo Osuchukwu we had the first webinar and it was well attended.
There we discussed the validation of WNBA and it was the right time for us to discuss COVID-19, to look ahead of it and suggest ways to mitigate the threats when the new normal comes in and how we would be able to tackle it. And the communiqué which now happens to be the first project for ANWBN, the new normal is the digital skill acquisition for women. We discovered that, that is the way forward for the new normal post COVID-19 and we have been able to follow this. We have had series of webinars thereafter. We were also able to have a lot of conferences, workshops on Innovation having world renowned Innovation guru, Morris Langdon from the US and business consultant, Angela Faloye also from the US. We then had a huge conference with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), our international partner, the International director, Barbara Langley attended. From the government, we had the presidency represented by the Senior Special Adviser on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) Princess Adejoke Orelope Adefuliere.
We have hand series of conferences. We have also had collaboration with banks like Union bank, Alpher, the gender desk. Here, we have been able to have some projects coming up for our women Agropreneurs. We are discussing how to have a pilot in Ogun State, where we would have incubators for our women in agriculture starting from cultivation to harvesting to packaging, branding, certification and for them to be export ready. It’s a project that we are working on right now. We also have alats with WEMA banks, women’s desk and we had a webinar on how to manage funds for our women, we are still on it. That is not all. We had another webinar with UPS, international SheTrades for women exporters and other series of webinar that are not directly organized but because of the spread of our women in the 774 local government, a lot of organisations have partnered and collaborated with us.
Let talk about the organisations under the coalition, you started with 18 now you are 50, what is the magic?
There is no magic, it is just proper planning and we discovered that many women business and professional organisation are springing up in Nigeria and it is good to harmonise this organisations. So, it is the purpose of harmonization and for us to be able to articulate them very well, so that we can now have a common voice when we are doing our advocacy, policy, briefs that actually informed the increase. We then planned to have a membership sensitization forum in July 2019 which was very successful. We had it at Radisson Blu, Ikeja and we wanted only about 60 participants but the hall was full and we were about a hundred. We discovered that women organisations were now yearning to belong to an umbrella organisation that would make them have a common voice to achieve a lot of their visions and mission and that has been really successful.
I think what made it to be sustainable at that magic figure was when we had the initiative to go to Addis Ababa to attend the international SheTrades convention. That really got the women together and when we got to Addis Ababa, CIPE our institutional partners were so magnanimous to come all the way from Washington DC, they had a wonderful meeting with us and it gave us a sense of belonging. They now took ownership of ANWBN and about 12 organisations out of about 50 that came for the membership sensitization were in Addis Ababa. That was very impressive. From there a lot of things started happening particularly at Addis Ababa. We had the communiqué and the march on order to commence the first women’s international resource and industrial park for women which CIPE through the spokesperson, Barbara Langley gave their nod to and we didn’t just rest with letting the communiqué sit in Addis Ababa, as soon as we got to Nigeria we commenced work on it and by the special Grace of God we now have a parcel of land in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo state courtesy of the wife of the deputy Governor and of course, she has the support of her Excellency, the first Lady of Oyo State. It’s actually because of the increase that propelled the Oyo State government to really want to be part of this project.
Let’s talk about the ongoing review of the Nigeria 1999 constitution, what is ANWBN’s position on this?
For me, this invitation to be part of the review of the National constitution is an icing on the cake because we have been working and preparing on the review of our Women National Business Agenda with the five priority issues. It makes it now so seamless for us because we would now present our women’s agenda and tweek it into the different clusters that we are going to work on with the constitution. The women really thrashed it out at a very strategic meeting we had a few days ago.
I am so excited because we have been working on the WNBA for the past one year; we never knew this would come. We just love that we would be called to the conclave to defend our proposal when the time comes.
The proudly made in Nigeria goods is one of the first priority issues at the onset, how do you see ANWBN’s impact here?
Honestly, I feel very enthused about this because during the first publication of first Women National Business Agenda, I was the Deputy National Coordinator, my predecessor, Barrister Nkiru Okpala took us all to Abuja to present the document to Dr Bukola Saraki and he promised that the senate passes it into a bill and from a bill to a law and by the special grace of God, being a man of his word, he did just that. Within three months, the bill was passed and it was sent to the presidency and was now passed into law and the ministry of information started the campaign for patronage of Made in Nigeria goods and it has really been a huge success. At least, something I am very sure of is that nobody wants to eat imported rice anymore. It started from ANWBN and I am also sure that some other produce and services tagged Made in Nigeria now because of our move on it. So, I am very happy.
The second one then was the harmonization of taxation. Women should not be made to pay taxes on their labour. They should have some palliative that would be enticing and would make women come into business and be encouraged.
Suicide among young persons in the country, especially teenagers, has assumed an alarming rate with Nigeria ranked sixth by the World Health Organisation (WHO). In 2019 alone, more than 42 deaths were recorded from hundreds of suicide attempts in Nigeria, with many of the cases linked to the ingestion of pesticide and hanging, among others. Curbing the ugly trend, according to WHO and experts, requires joint efforts by government and parents, reports KUNLE AKINRINADE.
It would seem that the life of Rokeeb, a teenager, was tied to figure 13. He was born 13 years ago and also died in a bizarre manner on July 13, 2020.
Rokeeb was said to have terminated his own life after a disagreement he had with his mother. Witnesses said he was found hanging from a tree in the premises of an uncompleted building in the early hours of the day at 25 Ekimogun Street, Bariga, Lagos, shortly after he was scolded by his mother.
The boy, it was said, had asked his mother for some money which she refused. And miffed that her son was grumbling because she refused to give him money, his mother told him to go hang himself if he liked.
Neighbours, who described Rokeeb as a brilliant schoolboy and Quranic pupil, said he became depressed and committed suicide afterward.
A resident identified simply as Kunle said Rokeeb was found struggling for breath while dangling from the tree and was rushed to the emergency section of Gbagada General Hospital where he eventually died.
He said: “We heard some residents shouting for help that Monday morning only for us to find Rokeeb hanging and struggling for breath.
“We brought him down and rushed him to Gbagada General Hospital, but he died at the emergency section before medical help could get to him.’’
Like Rokeeb, like others
Rokeeb’s case is just one out of many young persons with lofty dreams and bright future, who somehow could not rise up to the challenge that life poses. Overcome by despair and frustration, they knock on death’s door and die the hard way, and more often cutting short a life that holds a lot of promise.
The monster reared its head in Gwaram Local Government Area, Jigawa State on Wednesday, April 15, 2020, as a 15-year-old girl, Ummi Garba, ingested rat poison and died.
According to the police spokesman, Abdu Jinjiri, “on April 4, at about 5 pm, a report was received by the police in Gwaram LGA that one Ummi Garba of Kofar Gabas Quarters, aged 15, drank sniper and fell unconscious.
“The police rushed the victim to a hospital where she was confirmed dead,” Jinjiri said.
For 14-year-old schoolgirl, Anita Haledu Ibrahim, death was the only solution to her “disgraceful” pregnancy.
Anita, a student of Government Science School, Andaha, near Akwanga, Nasarawa State, ingested a pesticide to kill herself on Saturday, July 12, 2020 after she got pregnant for a boy she had met during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Such was also the story of 17-year-old Amos Ibrahim who committed suicide in Jos, Plateau State on May 14, 2019 after he drank the popular pesticide called Sniper.
Ibrahim was said to have ended his life after his poor performance in the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
Reasons they took their own lives
Parental scolding, frustration over educational goals, untimely pregnancy, rejection and depression are some of the issues identified as reasons for rising cases of suicide among teenagers. It was the case with Rokeeb who could not stand a reprimand from his mother and so decided to take his own life by hanging. Witnesses said the boy was earlier spotted doing the call to prayer in a local mosque near his mother’s residence before he suddenly abandoned the Quran he was later seen reading when he sighted his mother leaving their residence, in order to collect money from her.
A source said: “Rokeeb’s mother sells noodles at a bus stop in Bariga. A few minutes later, we heard the mother shouting and abusing the boy. I was wondering what could have gone wrong with Rokeeb and his mother.”
According to the source, the deceased had asked his mother for money, but she told him she had none. Rokeeb then started grumbling, complaining bitterly about life. The boy’s action angered his mother and she told his son to go hang himself if he was truly tired of life.
The circumstances in which Ummi took her own life suggested that she had fallen into depression.
Jinjiri said an investigation conducted by detectives in the matter revealed that the girl had previously said she was tired of living.
“Investigation showed that the deceased had said she was no more interested in life. The case is still being investigated,” Jinjiri said.
As for Anita, it was said that she decided to take her life after her father, Haledu Ibrahim, discovered that she was pregnant and beat her up mercilessly. She was said to have being rescued by neighbours from the brutality her father visited on her, upon which she screamed for help.
The girl was later found holding her stomach, writhing in pains and gasping for breath after she had swallowed the pesticide. She later died in the hospital where she was rushed to for treatment.
Disappointment resulting from a botched educational goal was the main feature in the case of Ibrahim, who was withdrawn by his mother from a Christian mission owned University of Nations for fear that her son could become a clergyman. Ibrahim was said to have fallen into depression, which was compounded by his failure to secure a good score in the matriculating examination. Subsequently, he committed suicide by drinking a popular brand of pesticide.
Like Ibrahim, a boy identified simply as Segun on May 13, 2019 attempted suicide after his poor grade at the 2019 University and Tertiary Institutions Matriculation Examination (UTME).
In a tweet that sought to put the world on the alert about his plan to commit suicide over his poor UTME result, Segun, who was said to have lost his father at age six, wrote: “…It is now when people want to send me to school that I would score 167 in UTME? 167? LMFAO. Make I close eyes pick answers sef…Me? 167? Meanwhile, I will be teaching you all how to make tea with Sniper by 9 pm live on Twitter…Tune in. This thing go sweet oo. You all should at least make it fun for me by 9 pm pls. Tune in and wish me luck.’’
Luckily, he was rescued by some of his friends who rushed him to the hospital where he was treated.
Worrisome data
An end to the rising suicide cases in the country seems not in sight yet as more and more young people are dying from the malaise. Media reports indicated that no fewer than 42 suicide cases, mostly involving young people, were recorded in Nigeria as at June 2019.
A recent data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) ranked Nigeria sixth globally and first in Africa. The report also revealed that Nigeria had the highest suicide rate among African countries in 2016 with over 17,000 lives lost to suicide.
The report titled “Suicide in the World: Global Health Estimates,” listed hanging, pesticide self-poisoning and shooting as the three major methods by which people commit suicide.
It said that 17,710 cases of suicide were recorded in 2016 at all ages (in Nigeria). Out of the number, 8,410 were females while 9,300 were males. The percentage ratio of men to women was 53:47.
How to curb suicides
Worried by the impact of suicides on global healthcare, the World Health Organisation (WHO) outlined various strategies, including media intervention, restriction of access to pesticides or insecticides, and education programmes, by which the tide of suicide can be stemmed, especially among young persons.
“Suicide is a serious global public health issue. All ages, sexes and regions of the world are affected (and) each loss is one too many,” the WHO report said.
“Every death is a tragedy for family, friends and colleagues.
“Yet suicides are preventable. We call on all countries to incorporate proven suicide prevention strategies into national health and education programmes in a sustainable way,” WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said.
The WHO report added that there was progress in suicide prevention activities in some countries, but much more was needed.
The report said: “Key interventions that have shown success in reducing suicides are restricting access to means and educating the media on responsible reporting of suicide.
“There is now a growing body of international evidence indicating that regulations to prohibit the use of highly hazardous pesticides can lead to reductions in national suicide rates,” the report stated.
The global health organisation also called for the implementation of initiatives that would engender personal skills that can enable young persons to cope with life stresses and ‘’to identify early, manage and follow-up people at risk of suicide.’’
In its reaction to the suicide rates among the youths in Nigeria, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in September 2019 prohibited the sale or hawking of agro-chemical substances including sniper in open markets and superstores in the country. The implementation of the prohibition has however been poor as Sniper continues to account for most of the suicides recorded so far this year.
A clinical psychologist, Olumide Coker, called for greater involvement of parents in the lives of their children.
He noted that the breakdown of the family system as the first agent of socialisation accounts for why teenagers and youths take to suicide.
Coker said: ‘’The family system in the country has broken down and the inherent values that could checkmate extreme behaviours are no longer in place.
“This is the reason for moral decadence and abominable behaviours, one of which is suicide by young people to justify their frustrations over failed goals and dashed hopes in life.
‘’To this end, parents should be more alive to their responsibilities of raising their children in appropriate ways.
“It is not enough to provide for the needs of the children; it is equally important to deeply understand their emotional, educational and psychological stresses through one-on-one interaction so as to help them resolve issues, and through meaningful interventions rather than abandoning them to their fate after providing for their domestic needs.’’
In her opinion, Mary Odogwu urged the government to establish suicide prevention helplines and attach social workers to public hospitals and schools as a way of curbing suicide rates among the youth.
She added: “Some cases of suicide have linkage with psychological disorder. Hence, the only way to address this is for the government to provide helplines for people to contact relevant authorities on potential suicide victims. Also, there is a need to deploy social workers including mental therapists to schools to identify abnormal behaviours in teenagers.
‘’Some children have taken to suicide to escape bullying and loss of self-worth arising from their inability to meet education goals, untimely pregnancy, and rejection or outright isolation by their peers.
“It is important for parents to also find out why their children are withdrawn or isolated or become melancholic.
‘’Some pupils cannot express their feelings and emotional battles, while some of them only do so in suicide notes sighted after they might have killed themselves. Hence, teachers can also be helpful in spotting character malfunctioning in pupils which could be a symptom of bottled up emotions that could lead children to embrace suicide.
“Knowing the reasons through appropriate questioning and interactions would enable teachers working in conjunction with parents to proffer possible solutions to issues affecting certain pupils.”
Citizenship is at the heart of inclusiveness and a sense of being a stakeholder of a particular country. A sense of citizenship empowers an individual or a group with shared values to contribute and to protect those shared values. Citizenship comes with a sense of allegiance and commitment the absence of which presents the individual or group as renegades which could imply being prosecuted or outlawed.
Each country tries to protect its citizens as this forms the cardinal reason for governments. Each country progresses in relation to the kind of sense of citizenship it grants the people in its geographic space. It therefore means that the productivity of citizens beyond survival counts for the general good of everyone.
However, a country like Nigeria often shortchanges itself with the sense of citizenship its various groups experience due to the socio-political structure of the country. With the disintegration of the pre-independence regional economies, the sense of citizenship got a tad corrupted as the political system moved from the politicians to military and back to politicians with varied intrigues. The war equally redefined citizenship because of the unaddressed post-war hurts that some regions feel as a collective.
Sadly though, women as a group seem to suffer the greatest form of citizenship denial socially and politically even as they are the hands that rock the cradle. Marriage, a necessary social status often puts that woman in a dilemma as she often leaves her community, state or even country to another to join the husband. The Nigerian society seems to have been very unfair to women socially given the post -colonial patriarchal structure of leadership.
The woman is often in a dilemma as neither the ancestral home nor the marriage home gives her full citizenship of either in the political space. The men who incidentally make the laws often surreptitiously strip women of their assumed citizenship rights by denying them the rights to be equal participants in the political space by erroneously assuming that the women’s citizenship can be fluid and therefore not authentic enough to grant them full, unfettered political participation.
As Nigeria celebrates its diamond jubilee this year, The Roundtable Conversation chatted with a number of individuals in inter-ethnic marriages that have stood the test of time despite differences in language and culture to find whether there is a nexus between these differences and ability to build lasting and happy relationships over time. What are individuals such as these doing right in managing their relationships that the country as a whole cannot manage on the given the national differences on a political level?
Senator Grace Folashade Bent is the first female Senator from the North East geo-political zone, a political/gender activist, author and entrepreneur who represented Southern Adamawa Senatorial District between 2007-2011. She was born and raised in Kaduna state by parents from Osun state. She is married to a man from Adamawa state and was called upon by the people of her husband’s community to go represent them at the National Assembly at the time.
Senator Bent’s experiences in the field were a mixture of sadness and joy. Sadness because all she had known in her life at the time was that she was born and raised and attended most of her schooling in the Kaduna, she got married to a man from Adamawa, had children in Adamawa but yet faced great challenges trying to serve the same people she had lived and loved for the great part of her life. She was equally happy because she had the support of most men chief amongst whom was her husband of forty years who has been referred to as her ‘engine room’ given the support and encouragement he has consistently shown her in her political career.
As the first woman in the whole of the Northern region to be elected into the National Assembly even with her status as just linked to the state by marriage, she had seen what even women that are bona fide citizens of the state went through trying to get into leadership positions not out of incompetence but merely based on their gender. Today, she looks back with positive pride as a trail-blazer who made it possible for a Senator Binta Garba to contest and win election both in her ancestral state and her marital state. So marital affiliation should no longer be a disqualifying feature of any woman trying to contest election in the state and even the larger Nigeria is testimony to her doggedness in Nigerian politics.
To her, Adamawa is almost like a mini Nigeria with about eighty four ethnic groups. Her constituency alone had twenty four ethnic groups and when she adds her own Yoruba ethnic group, that would be twenty five. She craves a constitutional amendment that can bring clarity to Section 42 sub-section 1 of the constitution that says that no one should be discriminated against on the basis of sex, religion or status. She intends to seek full interpretation by the courts especially for women married outside their birth states. The hidden abstract intendment of the law as it stands today must be removed.
She believes that having been born and raised in Kaduna, she ought to be entitled to the same rights as any other Kaduna ‘indigene’ because even though her parents are originally from Osun state, Kaduna is all she has known. How does the Nigerian state and political elite define citizenship? Why should a woman that has been married to a man for more four decades still be referred to her state of ‘origin’ when she seeks to serve the people she has known for forty years and where she has had children too? What is citizenship definition at that level?
Senator Bent believes the panacea to the political exclusion of women based of flimsy social construct like birth and marriage is a constitutional amendment. She believes that women are often more committed in leadership than the men who conspire to exclude them for their own selfishness. Women like her with tripartite citizenship should be at freedom to choose where to offer their political leadership. It should not be a wave of the hand decree by some men who seek their persona gain in a democracy.
Senator Bent despite all she went through is happy that she broke the proverbial glass ceiling for Northern women in particular and Nigeria in general. She believes that women in politics cannot be content with just being added to the male figures. They must provide mentorship and support in other ways for other women. One of her joys in life is seeing that few of her political mentees; Hon. Kate Mamuno was elected to represent her Demsa local constituency in the Adamawa House of Assembly and Pwasto Amos was elected the Vice-Chairman of her local council too.
She believes that the legislative arm of government is a strong tool for women’s voice to be heard and laws beneficial to the whole country to be made. Her efforts at sponsoring the Climate change Commission bill was one of the high points of her legislative career, short as it was. As Chairman of the Committee on Environment , her efforts was so effectively functional that some other African parliamentarians were consulting her Committee for insights on how they managed to pull the bill through.
She credits her father, her hero even in death for the validation she got as a girl child raised as a ‘girl-boy’ meaning her that father raised her to believe that once she has breath in her, she can achieve whatever she set her mind on and put in her efforts. Her husband again has been her engine room and the traditional ruler of her community who forth off the conspiratorial few that tried to use her marriage against her political career. The high point of her significant achievements was receiving the National honour of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) from the government for her pioneering efforts for Northern women at the highest level of legislative authority in the land – the Senate.
With her experience, she sponsored a bill to take care of women in inter-ethnic marriages that had passed the second reading but given the fact that she did not return to the Senate due to predictable political circumstances that had been against her audacity to represent her senatorial district for a second term, the bill got stalled. The bill was to support women married outside their locality not only in politics but in all sectors, judiciary, civil service, business etc. seeing what some women have faced just because they are women married to those they love. We have seen female judges in some states refused being made judges even when they are the most qualified just because the men throw up puerile reasons like their being married in other states even when they meet all other requisite criteria.
Women must be able to get to the peak of their careers no matter their marital status or choices. Bent feels that no woman with political, social or economic roles to play can claim success without pulling up other women. She feels women must be encouraged and supported by fellow women no matter the field they are in as far as they are able and competent. She loves that beyond politics she galvanized support for former rector of Yaba College of Technology, Kudi Ibiyeye the moment she found out she was super qualified for the job.
From the experiences from a Senator Grace Bent, it is apposite to urge Nigerians and those with the duty of law-making to take more seriously the idea of citizenship and the value it confers on all the people. A Lee Kuan Yew was a phenomenal success because he took the idea of citizenship very seriously. He found, from the history and success of Singapore that he took from a third world to a first that citizenship and the accruing benefits make for prosperity as each citizen own the country and does everything to contribute to the growth and development.
Lee Kuan Yew realized early the implication of getting even Caucasians or other citizens married to Singaporeans to have a sense of belonging as they ultimately have children who in turn become citizens. Each individual is propelled by the sense of value given by the citizenship privileges. Women in Nigeria must be constitutionally saved from the myopia of exclusion through tags and encumbrances imposed through the sociology of marriage. The best capital is human capital and every man and woman must be free to contribute to leadership for growth.
In relationships, not all will last forever because everyone has a different tolerance level. Some will be able to withstand the trials and tribulations while some will not be able to because generally, if they cannot, then the relationship will end. People break up for so many reasons, but the major reasons to take note of are sex, money and morals.
When two adults decide to come together and have a relationship, they tend to have different views and opinions on sex, money and morals because quite a number of may not be objective.
Therefore, a lot of subjectivity is applied. If couples cannot find common ground and are unbending in any one of these areas, it can deeply damage the entire relationship. Communication in any relationship as I always advise is key.
If this breaks down, then restoring health to the relationship will be hard. Many couples who are friends apart from being lovers are able to withstand these pressures. If friendship ends, then communication breaks down. Your partner must be your friend.
Couples who do not operate as friends start competing with each other which translates into envy and resentment because they no longer have a common ground.
Communication with each other
In every relationship, communication is the foundation. No matter how bad things are, if there is communication, you can overcome the challenges. When communication gets staggered, many parts of the relationship start to suffer. Arguments become frequent and some of the issues end up being unresolved. Thus creating a gap and both of you becoming strangers to each other in the end and if not resolved leads to a break-up.
Growing apart from each other
The constant thing in life is change. People must change and evolve. Someone you know today can change tomorrow; no one really stays the same. We have to keep exploring and rediscovering ourselves and trying out new things. There are times when you grow alone without your partner. It may be a small growth or a big growth. We grow and learn more about ourselves. It should be top priority of any relationship to grow with each other and not away from each other.
Trust between each other
Trust is a serious issue for couples when trust is low between each other. It can break the relationship. If any relationship keeps experiencing or has experienced cheating and other problems, it will reduce the trust and spoil things between them, making things fall apart.
It is even worse when one or both refuse to apologize or worse even admit their faults.
Inadequate love between each other
When only one person is making all the efforts to give love and is not receiving, this makes the relationship unhealthy. Relationship is all about “give and take.” It is not every day you will be in the mood to give love. That is when the other partner should step in.
But when you give today, give next year and nothing comes in return, then it becomes difficult to maintain the love and sustain it. At some point, one person will realize this love is no longer worth fighting for at all.
It is important for both partners to have a healthy level of self-esteem. If one person lacks this, it will definitely affect the relationship and things will turn sour because the person with less self-esteem will start doing negative things to gain their self-esteem back which in turn will affect the relationship in a bad way.
The goal of both partners is to understand each other. You both need to, from time to time, evaluate yourselves as a team and see if you are both heading in the same direction.
You both need to have maybe not exact thoughts, but see each other’s visions and support yourself in achieving them. Find a way where both of you can come to the middle and understand each other.
Take time to decide if you may change your perspective in the future. Then, discuss solutions with your partner and be willing to let go if compromising is unfeasible. The last thing you want to do to anyone you care about is string them along and cause more pain for yourself and for them. It ends up being loads of wasted time for both parties.
If you notice at some point that little things no longer excite you. In addition, that you prefer being away from your partner than being with your partner then it may be that you are due for a self-reevaluation. You have to be sure that you have not sacrificed your happiness for your relationship.
In relationships, there must be sacrifice and compromise, but not to the point of losing your own identity. Keeping the relationship afloat is the job of both parties and not one person alone. Find out if the relationship is the reason of your unhappiness or if there are other underlying issues.
There is no relationship made in heaven. Every good one you see entails hard work and constant moves to keep things spicy. The grass may look greener, but the fact remains that if you and your partner do not consciously and intentionally work on the issues, then break-up is imminent. I wish you all the best.
Dental surgeon and former Delta State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Dr. Chris Ekiyor, is also a former president of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide. In this interview with Southsouth Bureau Chief, BISI OLANIYI, the Benin City-based former Chairman of Patani Local Government Council, Delta State declares that cannot remain one after another civil war. Describing himself as a strong believer in a united Nigerian state, Ekiyor says there is need for equity, fairness and justice. He recalls that it took divine intervention for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, a minority (Ijaw) from the Niger Delta to be the President of Nigeria, noting that a President of Igbo stock will emerge at the appropriate time but not by using force. He also explains why the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) should not be jettisoned, among other issues.
WITH benefit of your experience in relating with militants in the oil and gas-rich Niger Delta region, how do you think that banditry can end in Nigeria?
Any President of Nigeria, it does not matter where he/she comes from, whether minority or majority, must be patriotic and faithful to the Nigerian state. I am convinced that President Muhammadu Buhari has that spirit. He does not want to lead a country that is balkanised into sections or run into another civil war/unrest, and he will not want another country to be carved out of Nigeria under his watch. President Buhari is compassionate and concerned about the security situation in the country. As a citizen of Nigeria, I am concerned that the efforts the security chiefs are making have been heavily politicised. Nigerian military personnel who stood out in special peace-keeping operations outside the country have the capacity to protect Nigerians against bandits.
Funds are being approved by government for security but with little to show for the efforts. So, the service chiefs need to be re-jigged by President Buhari. You cannot be doing the same thing always and expect different results. The security chiefs may have run out of ideas on what to do to secure Nigerians. President Buhari must take a bold step as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to re-jig the positions and re-energise the system by way of appointing new service chiefs and given a mandate with an ultimatum, failing which the service chiefs should get repercussions.
If I am given a mandate to stop the conflicts in Nigeria, within a timeline of six months to one year, they will be over. The whole of Sambisa Forest can be cleared for the purpose of dealing with the terrorists and bandits. The terrorists and bandits are getting emboldened every day. Nigerians have courage in their hearts. What is lacking is motivation, not in terms of money in their pockets, but in terms of approval to do the necessary things in war situations and to be provided with the needed equipment. Arms, ammunition and authorisation to use must be dealt with.
You do not need bombs to win the current wars in Nigeria. All the military personnel need are their AK-47 rifles and strategic secret planning. Two men with AK-47 rifles and enough ammunition can hold a whole battalion to ransom. What the military personnel lack are proper intelligence/covert operations, motivation and the required equipment, especially modern arms and ammunition.
The National Security Adviser (NSA) should properly coordinate the activities of the security agencies, in order to have better results. The Federal Government should also recalibrate the intake process into the security training institutions to reflect passionate and patriotic citizens who are willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of the country and other Nigerians. The ragtag bandits and terrorists should not continue to hold Nigeria and Nigerians to ransom.
The deradicalised/debriefed Boko Haram fighters should not be enlisted into the Nigerian military, at this time of war, as they may be pretending to have been deradicalised. Herders are being emboldened because there are militias among them. I grew up in the North and I know that the Fulani are not violent people. The Fulani protect their lives, but not at the expense of human lives. Mercenaries might have infiltrated legitimate herders and blackmailing them to look like marauders. Let us identify the genuine herders and find ways to co-habit with them. We need to deal with the criminals as provided for by the laws of Nigeria. The criminal-herders are now involved in kidnapping and armed robbery.
In 2018, I was shot at, at two different times by persons who dressed as herdsmen on the East-West Road, while my wife, in 2019, also once survived similar attack between Ughelli and Patani in Delta State on the East-West Road, between 6 pm and 7 pm, on her way home from Benin City, with bullets piercing her car, but she narrowly escaped being killed by the criminal herders.
The people of the Southwest zone are also beginning to lose faith in the national security architecture by creating their own security outfit, Amotekun. It is a regional security outfit, but if we are not careful, it can become a monster. If the national security is not sacrosanct, then regional security outfits will take over. When militancy started in the Niger Delta, it was not to confront the Federal Government, it was to protect the citizens against the oppressors. Most citizens of Nigeria have lost faith in the national security architecture. So, top officials of the Federal Government need to restrategise.
We do not want a repeat of the nasty experiences of the Civil War, between 1967 and 1970. The wounds are still fresh, but our people are now wiser. Another Civil War cannot keep Nigeria together. I am a strong believer in a united Nigerian state, but there is need for equity, fairness and justice. Policies of government also need to be fair to the citizens. President Muhammadu Buhari loves Nigeria and Nigerians, but whenever he says anything, it must be followed to the letter.
Would you say the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) has actually benefited Niger Delta youths?
Most of the troubles in the Niger Delta are caused by the people of the crude oil and gas-rich region. For want of power, greed and economic gains, Niger Deltans are not considering how to sustain the gains made so far, but we are now balkanising the region with our greed. A lot of Niger Deltans will rather be moles to a system in order to bring down their brothers and sisters so as to access power. They will rather be in government at the expense of the truth.
President Buhari earlier stated that he had no problem with finding a justifiable way to know whether the funds deployed in the Niger Delta are producing the desired impact. Mr. President directed the forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and ordered the investigation of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP). Maybe tomorrow, President Buhari may order the investigation of the activities of the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA). While carrying out the investigations, the administration must also look at other agencies of government like TETFUND, PTDF, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to know if they are living up to expectations.
While carrying out the forensic audit of NDDC, the genuine contractors in the Niger Delta who have delivered their projects must be paid. Auditing an agency does not mean that the agency will be stopped from functioning. Although, the forensic audit of NDDC is a necessary evil that we must deal with, the auditing of NDDC should also not be shrouded in secrecy.
Members of the National Assembly are also auditing the auditors of NDDC, thereby turning the exercise into a vicious cycle. Unless President Buhari breaks the barriers and call to order the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and to demand that he does the right things, real progress may not be made in the region.
Quite unfortunately, the output from the PAP is not clear. Policy direction should be placed on PAP to achieve the objectives. If that is not done, PAP may not be different from what we are currently seeing and hearing about NDDC.
The East-West Road is one of our biggest gains in the Niger Delta region, but the parts that Setraco Construction Company did, quite unfortunately, are now failing. You cannot drive from Warri to Port Harcourt, without suffering from the bad road. People of the Niger Delta are living with the pain and it does not look well for the Nigerian government. Having the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs does not mean that the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing should not embark on legacy projects in the Niger Delta, to show that the Federal Government has interest in the region.
I am glad that crude oil and gas have been discovered in the Chad Basin in commercial quantities. So, it will be a matter of time that the people of Chad Basin will demand certain rights, like the people of the Niger Delta.
Could equitable distribution of Nigeria’s wealth be responsible for agitations for a President from the Southeast zone in 2023?
Biafra died with Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. No section of Nigeria can survive on its own, as we are today, because it will be swallowed by international conflicts. At this critical moment, no section of Nigeria should consider being on its own. Igbo people have the right to feel deprived, but they also need to change their attitude and become more patriotic to the country and win more trust. Because of the civil war, there is still mutual suspicion among the people of the six geo-political zones of Nigeria.
It took divine intervention for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, a minority (Ijaw) from Otuoke in Ogbia LGA of Bayelsa State in the Southsouth zone/Niger Delta region, to be the President of Nigeria. The Igbo people must remember that in everything that we do as humans, there is a divine hand. At the appropriate time in Nigeria, we will have an Igbo President. It will not be by using force.
When will the appropriate time come, bearing in mind that most Igbo people are clamouring to produce Nigeria’s President in 2023?
Most Nigerians did not know that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan could be the country’s President, but by divine intervention, it happened. The Igbo people have the right to clamour to produce Nigeria’s President in 2023. I am happy that many Northerners are saying that there should be no zoning in 2023. It is a good omen. Without zoning, let Nigerians vote. We saw it during June 12, 1993 election, when the presumed winner of the election, Chief Moshood Abiola, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), from the Southwest, picked Alhaji Babagana Kingibe, who hails from the Northeast, as his running mate, both Muslims, without thinking about religion or tribe, with Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) defeated with a wide margin and he (Tofa) quickly congratulated Chief Abiola for emerging victorious.
Other Nigerians are willing to allow the nation’s President of Igbo origin in 2023, but they cannot take it by force. They need to lobby and campaign. The Igbo cannot threaten national security with agitations for Biafra Republic. If such a thing must happen, it must be through referendum, where we will sit down and say we want to go our separate ways, not through the barrels of the gun. If Igbo people opt for Biafra agitations, without lobbying to produce Nigeria’s President in 2023, they will not get the support of the people of the South-south zone.
Niger Deltans rose against the Federal Government of Nigeria for many years, especially between 1991 and 2009, and we insisted that the crude oil and gas-rich region was marginalised. The agitation for fair share for Niger Deltans actually started in 1957 and it is still on till date, thereby giving birth to the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, among others. But we are still part of Nigeria. So, the Igbo people can demand their rights within the Nigerian state, including producing Nigeria’s president in 2023, not contemplating breaking away, because it will lead to another civil war that will last more than three years.
In the civil war of 1967 to 1970, the Igbo lost over three million people. I do not want Nigerians from the Southeast to again lose their lives in another avoidable war. So, agitations for Biafra Republic will not help their cause. The Igbo people need to always bear in mind that there are more sophisticated weapons now, compared with the civil war era.
You are a former President of Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide. Is IYC still on course?
IYC is a movement. So, it cannot die. We will have strong and weak leaders from time to time, but eventually it will evolve. Movements are not born by political intentions but by the need to survive. IYC may have its internal conflicts but the vision for the survival of our people and protection of our rights as a people can never be killed even if they kill everybody in the organisation. Ijaw people will rather die fighting than kneel down and beg for crumbs.
Government must always look at us (Ijaw people and other Niger Deltans) with a lot of magnanimity. I can boldly say that about 60 per cent of Nigerian politicians who are in office, elected or appointed, are there for their own self benefits. That is why the country is where it is. Our politics is yet to be driven by ideology but by ambition, greed and power. Today, you are in PDP (Peoples Democratic Party), tomorrow, you are in APC (All Progressives Congress).
Biafra Republic. If such a thing must happen, it must be through referendum, where we will sit down and say we want to go our separate ways, not through the barrels of the gun. If Igbo people opt for Biafra agitations, without lobbying to produce Nigeria’s President in 2023, they will not get the support of the people of the South-south zone.
Niger Deltans rose against the Federal Government of Nigeria for many years, especially between 1991 and 2009, and we insisted that the crude oil and gas-rich region was marginalised. The agitation for fair share for Niger Deltans actually started in 1957 and it is still on till date, thereby giving birth to the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, among others. But we are still part of Nigeria. So, the Igbo people can demand their rights within the Nigerian state, including producing Nigeria’s president in 2023, not contemplating breaking away, because it will lead to another civil war that will last more than three years.
In the civil war of 1967 to 1970, the Igbo lost over three million people. I do not want Nigerians from the Southeast to again lose their lives in another avoidable war. So, agitations for Biafra Republic will not help their cause. The Igbo people need to always bear in mind that there are more sophisticated weapons now, compared with the civil war era.
You are a former President of Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide. Is IYC still on course?
IYC is a movement. So, it cannot die. We will have strong and weak leaders from time to time, but eventually it will evolve. Movements are not born by political intentions but by the need to survive. IYC may have its internal conflicts but the vision for the survival of our people and protection of our rights as a people can never be killed even if they kill everybody in the organisation. Ijaw people will rather die fighting than kneel down and beg for crumbs.
Government must always look at us (Ijaw people and other Niger Deltans) with a lot of magnanimity. I can boldly say that about 60 per cent of Nigerian politicians who are in office, elected or appointed, are there for their own self benefits. That is why the country is where it is. Our politics is yet to be driven by ideology but by ambition, greed and power. Today, you are in PDP (Peoples Democratic Party), tomorrow, you are in APC (All Progressives Congress).
Self-styled prophet subjects residents accused of witchcraft to inhuman treatment
His actions pure abuse of human rights — Activist
LG chair reveals plans to banish him from domain
Rights abuse allegations not true says Aide
Videos of gross abuse of human rights in a so-called miracle centre in Mokwa, Niger State have been trending on social media in the past two months. They include those of men and women stripped naked after they were accused of witchcraft. Bizarre scenes in the videos include women being forced to confess their alleged evil deeds at gunpoint and men being forced to urinate on one another.
The opening scene in one of the videos features two men fighting naked while a singer described as the healer Mallam sings for them. The two men engage each other in a fight until they became tired, after which they were made to confess their sins. In one of the confessions, someone is seen in the background slapping the confessor until he admitted to being a wizard. The other man who “refused to confess completely” was given another opponent to continue fighting with.
The two men who were fighting in the opening scene and gave their names as Danjuma and Mohammed are also made to dance naked while the self-styled healer Mallam throws sachets of ‘pure water’ at them.
Another scene features two women who within seconds were stripped naked while every attempt they made to cover their nakedness in front of a mammoth crowd was rebuffed. Even one of the naked women who tried to cover her face was prevented from doing so as she was forced to remove the hands she masked her face with.
Another scenario saw an old woman being tortured with a stun gun to confess that she is a witch. The woman, who looks like one in her 80s, is seen being stunned in the back to force her to confess that she is a witch.
The foregoing are only a tip of the violation of human rights being perpetrated by Hassan Muhammad Nnafene Patigi who claims to be a prophet with the ability to heal all kinds of diseases, including stroke, leprosy, blindness, deafness, and dumbness, as well as provide remedies for infertility, kleptomania, and stillbirth, among others.
It was gathered that Patigi first arrived in Mokwa with claims that he could heal all kinds of illnesses and make barren women productive; a claim that endeared him to many of the town’s residents. This, The Nation learnt, he did for some time before he veered into branding people as witches, stripping them naked, and compelling them to admit that they are witches.
patigi
Patigi is then said to make the accused persons undergo all manner of obnoxious treatments like asking people to urinate in their mouths, stoning them with sachet water, and causing them to fight themselves naked in public.
Patigi is also accused of asking those who are searching for the fruits of the womb to bring the sum of N11,000 and make them count the money repeatedly until they are exhausted. The women are then made to hold hands with their husbands for hours before they give the money to Patigi who would pray on it and ask them to come back to collect the money after some days.
Those who give birth to stillborns or witness premature births are made to count charcoals until they are exhausted while those in need of spouses are made to count stones until they are fagged out.
Mokwa residents no longer at ease with him
The foregoing deeds of Patigi were said to have been tolerated by Mokwa residents until he began to brand people as witches and wizards, on account of which many began to suspect his credentials as the Mallam or Sheikh he claimed to be.
Some Mokwa residents who spoke with our correspondent said they were no longer comfortable with Patigi’s style, especially his use for vulgar languages and how he seems to always single out women to torture and taunt them.
One of the residents, who identified himself as Kasim Umar, said that the self-styled prophet had tortured a lot of people in his presence as one of those who go to watch them tortured or humiliated until it dawned to him that what the ‘prophet’ was doing was not right.
Umar said: “Hassan (Patigi) tortures old women, married women, young girls and men accused of witchcraft with shocking gadgets. He hauls sachet water at them when they refuse to say what he wants to hear.
“He asks some of his boys to beat them with sticks and even strip them naked. When he does some of these things, people think it is funny, so they laugh at the victims.”
A woman who gave her name as Saida believes that it is wrong for Patigi to force people to confess to practising witchcraft, saying that she no longer goes to the arena to watch the shows.
She said: “Everything he is doing or has done is not Islamic. Hassan would ask for the music to be played by his DJs. How can someone who calls himself a prophet go about with DJs? Sometimes, he would ask that a beat be played without lyrics and he would sing to it. It is not Islamic at all.
“When the music is played, he goes around dancing and those who are apparently hypnotised are pushed outside and made to undertake shameful acts. I wonder how people that are made to do undergo these would live with other members of their community without being taunted or embarrassed.”
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Uthman Mokwa, one of the cameramen engaged to cover his activities, has had to pull out when the scenes were becoming too obscene. Mokwa, who said he was never Patigi’s supporter, said he withdrew his services because he could no longer bear the sights that confronted him on a daily basis.
Explaining Patigi’s mode of operation, Mokwa said: “Whenever he claims to be doing healings, he would point towards the gullible miracle seekers and turn in a circle while standing on a table. Sometimes, he claims to be using his eye contact to heal people.
“After doing it for about five minutes, he would ask those who had been healed to come out for testimonies. His boys will then give such people the microphone to tell the crowd how they were feeling before and how they are feeling now.
“If any of them says he or she did not feel better, he would chase them out of the line and ask me to delete that part from my camera.
“My major problems with him are, first, the torturing of people accused of witchcraft. I was moved to tears seeing the way an old woman who said she was not a witch tortured and asked to confess. Hassan (Patigi) stood by, watching her being tortured. As young as I am, under that condition of torture and helplessness, I would confess to anything.
“My second problem is the way he strips people naked. These people are human beings and it is wrong.”
Prophet or lawbreaker?
Dawod Usman, a journalist who also trained as a lawyer, said that everyone has his or her own perspective about the controversial mallam, adding that his condemnation is based on the weight of one’s justifications.
Speaking about the legal implications of Patigi’s activities, Usman said that what is happening at the miracle centre is nothing but “a massacre of human dignity, considering the that human dignity is a central objective and normative value system established by the Constitution, which is also epicenter to the preamble of Universal Declaration of Human Right 1946.”
He stressed that the human rights basically means that every Nigerian has a right not to be subjected to torture or inhuman/degrading treatment, and no Nigerian should be held in circumstances that amount to slavery or servitude.
He said: The Northern Nigeria penal system where Hassan Patigi is staging witchcraft “exorcism” expressly provides in Section 216 (a) of the Penal Code Law of Northern Nigeria that: ‘whoever by his statement or actions represents himself to be a witch or to have the power of witchcraft, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to two years or with fine or with both. By virtue of the above provisions, witchcraft is a punishable offence in the Northern Nigeria penal system.
“However, Hassan Patigi is not recognised by any law as a judicature or judgeship to administer such law whatsoever. And it implies that any pronouncement made by Hassan on any person whatsoever is inconsistent with any provisions of the law, and to the level of that inconsistency is null and void.
“Any Magistrate court, Area court or Upper Area Court in the northern part of Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory, is a proper venue for commencing an action against a witch in that the penal code is applicable only in this region as opposed to the Southern, Western and Eastern part of Nigeria where criminal code is in operation.
“Hassan Patigi Miracle Centre Mokwa is, therefore, a non-jurisdictional place to entertain and administer justice on any offences of any ruling whatsoever. Just like any other criminal activity in the northern part of Nigeria, an action against a witch can be instituted by First Information Report or Direct Criminal Complaint. The second mode is applicable in other northern parts of Nigeria except the FCT).
Old woman accused of witchcraft
“It is worthy of note that stripping an alleged witch naked before a large crowd of spectators is not only diabolical by the civility of all the international and domiciliary law put together against the violation of human rights and dignity of the human person, it is socially deplorable, societally condemnable, logically despicable, humanly intolerable and legally actionable.
“Among all the laws that regulate humanity and human transaction, the law that upholds human dignity is “sui generis” that is classical in its own kind. Therefore, every human being needs to enjoy decency of living devoid of any modicum of deprivations except one occasioned by the instrumentality and supremacy of the law.”
We told Patigi he’s acting against the rule of law – LG chair
No longer comfortable with Patigi’s activities and the way he conducts his services, the Mokwa Local Government Council may ask him to leave the council to somewhere else. Our correspondent gathered that he has already been invited to the council secretariat several times for issues bordering on his conduct.
The Chairman of Mokwa Local Government Area told The Nation that what Patigi is doing is clearly against the rules of the government, especially the gathering of large crowds, which he said is against the preventive measures taken by the government against COVID-19.
He said that several letters had been written to the Mallam and the District Head of the community where he carries out his activities and they had been invited for a meeting.
“When he came, he said he was giving help to the people. We have no problem with that, especially if people need help. But now, with the complaints we have received, he is going beyond the stipulated rules and we won’t accept it.
“We are doing our best to see that the rights of our people are intact. We will not fight him, we will only dialogue with him, and if he refuses to change his ways, we will allow the law to take its course. If he wants to practice, it has to be within the rules and regulations of the state and the confines of human rights.
“We have sent a letter to him and we have invited him to come for a meeting. I will let you know the outcome of the meeting when it is held.”
We’ve not delved into the matter yet – Emirate
The Secretary of the Emir of Bida and the Etsu Nupe, Abdulmalik Usman, told The Nation that the palace was yet to delve into the matter, although several complaints about the activities of Mallam Patigi have got to the palace.
Usman debunked insinuations that the palace invited Hassan to warn him about his activities, stating that the only time Hassan came to the palace, he came to pay homage to the Etsu Nupe.
He said: “The palace has not invited Hassan (Patigi), but several complaints have been received about him.
“There was a time he came to Bida and paid a courtesy call to the Etsu Nupe in the palace. Because of the busy schedule of the Emir, he couldn’t see him in good time. He waited, and after some time, he saw His Royal Highness, greeted him and he left.
“There are lots of complaints about his activities and people say there are videos flying around, but I haven’t seen the videos yet. They said he strips women naked, I have only been hearing these but I haven’t seen any video yet.” The Palace Secretary said the Emirate might not invite him because he is not from the Emirate.
“If the Etsu Nupe wants to call him to order, he will send to the Emir of the place of where he comes from and tell his Emir to call him to order,” he said.
It is purely traditional matter, says DG, Religious Affairs
The Director-General of Religious Affairs in Niger State, Dr. Faruk Abdullahi, told The Nation when he was contacted regarding his agency’s stand on the issue, that the issue is purely traditional and not religious.
“From the position of my agency, what we see here is a traditional issue and not a religious issue. My agency deals with religious issues and not traditional issues,” he said.
Men accused of witchcraft stripped naked
He also confirmed that he had been getting a lot of calls regarding the issue, wondering why people were calling him instead of the security agencies or the government.
“I wonder why people keep calling me. What is happening in Mokwa is not within our jurisdiction and for that (reason), we cannot delve into it.”
Allegations of human rights abuse not true — Patigi’s aide
Our correspondent made frantic efforts to get Patigi to speak about his activities and the various allegations leveled against him and to ask if he knows that his activities were a violation of human rights, but the efforts yielded no result.
After repeated efforts made to have an audience with him, one of his aides assured that the reporter would be able to meet Patigi on October 1. Unfortunately, it rained heavily on that day before the reporter could depart Minna for Mokwa, rendering the Minna-Bida and Minna-Zugeru-Bida roads impassable. The reporter was forced to disembark after sitting in the vehicle for more than three hours.
Reaching out again to the aide identified by Truecaller as Mohammed Mokwa, he said that he was not in a position to speak on the matter. He, however, said the allegations against Patigi were not true.
The Reporter asked to speak to Patigi on the phone, and she was asked to call back later. When she eventually did, she was told that the Patigi would only speak with her physically. The reporter’s explanation about the conditions of the road from Minna to Mokwa did nothing to change Mokwa’s stance as he insisted that Patigi would only speak with her physically.
