The Nation Newspaper

Category: Waheed Odusile

  • The Nigeria Police Force

    Sometime in 1998 as preparations reached top gear for the return of democracy to Nigeria after decades of military rule interrupted midway by General Ibrahim Babangida’s failed third republic, a certain businessman in Ikeja, capital of Lagos State called a press conference for his office at midday. My colleagues and I were there.

    As he was into selling of exotic cars, we were looking forward to him unveiling yet another of such cars into the Nigerian market as was his practice. But we were wrong or rather shocked when we arrived at the imposing glass house structure that was his office and found nothing to suggest that an unveiling of a next generation car was in the offing. Nothing of sort was planned; the Chief from Ijebuland had other ideas.

    As he welcomed us into the press conference he launched into the reason for gathering the media into his office that mid afternoon:Nigeria, yes Nigeria, our dear country was on his mind. The incoming democratic dispensation was troubling his mind and he wanted to share his thoughts with Nigerians on how to make the 4th republic better.

    He was an elderly man and we listened patiently to his wisdom. Out of all the problems confronting our country then he singled out the Nigerian police as one problem, if solved, that could solve most if not all the other problems. Why, we asked.

    He noted that Nigeria’s problem is essentially maintenance of law and order or rather lack of it. If our laws were enforced to the letter by the police in particular and other law enforcement agents, he reckoned that Nigeria would not only be better but also prosper.

    He reckoned that if the Nigeria Police Force is well funded, the officers and men properly trained and catered for they would be willing and even expected/compelled to ‘serve with heart and mind’, as our national anthem says, Nigerians and the nation and not the leaders who pay the piper. We couldn’t agree with him less.

    As he later became a close confidant of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and even a strong member of his kitchen cabinet, we expected that the Nigeria Police would fare better under that regime and serve Nigerians better. You all know the outcome of the NPF under Obasanjo.

    As the drama of the ongoing power struggle in Rivers State between the State governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and the Commissioner of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu reached a head last Thursday with the latter prevented from accessing his official residence through his normal route by policemen acting on the orders of Mbu, the question came to mind as to whether the police force as it is today is actually Nigeria Police Force or Nigeria’s President Police Force.

    And whoever has been following developments in Rivers State since Governor Amaechi contested and won the chairmanship of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum for a second term against the wish of President Goodluck Jonathan can not but (in good conscience) conclude that the Nigeria Police Force as it is today is working for and in the interest of Mr President. And this is unfortunate.

    It is not as if the situation had been different in the past, the NPF had always been serving their master’s voice, whether under the military or civilian government. But the appointment of Mohammed Abubakar as Inspector General of Police had raised hopes that with an officer and gentleman, at the saddle at the Force Headquarters Nigeria would finally have a police force to serve the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.

    The IGP actually started well and the Force could be said to be doing well but for the problem of the Rivers State command and CP Mbu. Abubakar’s order dismantling police checkpoints across the federation has not just brought so much relief to the people but has also left criminals confounded as to where and when they could encounter a police patrol. This has brought the elements of surprise and unpredictability which are essential to fighting crime.

    The Force has been engaged in some laudable things but which the politics it has enmeshed itself in in Rivers State could rubbish altogether. If the IGP does not know it, CP Mbu is damaging the Nigeria Police and he is a bad advertisement for a professional police force that Nigeria crave for and which we expect Abubakar to give us.

    Let us leave the politics of what is going on between President Jonathan, his wife Patience on one hand and Governor Amaechi on the other hand aside. Why should the police under the guise of enforcing law and order prevent a state governor from moving freely on any route in his state, especially the route that leads to his residence? What is that security situation that the governor does not know or should not know about that would warrant him being denied access through a particular route/road in his state? If there was such a situation and it happened suddenly as Mbu’s apologists may want to argue, why wasn’t the governor informed immediately and advised accordingly? And assuming the policemen around did not know the governor was the one coming with his guests, why wasn’t his convoy allowed to pass through once their identities were established if the police command was not playing politics?

    There are so many ifs and whys here begging for answers, but the truth is that irrespective of whatever Governor Amaechi had been or could have been doing wrongly in the current political crisis rocking his state, the police in particular and every other organ or agents of government anywhere in Nigeria for that matter, should give him the honour and respect as the elected governor of Rivers State. It is not necessarily about him, but about that office and the Nigerian constitution which the police are duty bound to respect and uphold.

    The argument that there was an alternate route he could have taken and chose that particular route just to give solidarity to the recently opened state headquarters of the new PDP which he belongs does not hold water. Even at that, when has that become a crime and what business has the police got in sealing off the headquarters of the new PDP in Rivers State? More shocking ad disgraceful was the fact that the team that sealed off that party office and forcefully brought down both the flags of Nigeria and that of the party was led by a deputy Commissioner of Police. What a shame? What kind of officers are these? These are the kind of things that bring public disrespect to the police. When the people see naked partisanship like this by the police, absolute partiality, they lose respect for the force. If President Jonathan had been on the other side of the party, say a member of the new PDP, would the police have prevented his faction from opening it’s office or even the president taking the road in front of the party office to wherever he wanted to go? When the Nigeria Governors’ Forum was factionalized and President Jonathan decided to back the minority faction why didn’t the police say NO? Why didn’t the Force send policemen to seal off the office of the Jang faction of NGF? Going by the police logic on the new PDP, Jang faction of NGF is also operating illegally, so, why not apply the law on that group. Was it because the president is involved? This is the kind of inconsistent application of the law by the police that tends to promote crises and anarchy in the land. This is the kind of things that the IGP should prevent if the Nigeria Police Force are to be respected by Nigerians. The truth today is that Nigerians have more respect even for the Civil Defence Corps than a policeman or woman. It is that bad. And it is politicians in uniform like CP Mbu Joseph Mbu that promotes this kind of low esteem and contempt that most Nigerians have for the Nigeria Police Force, in spite of the efforts of such gentlemen officers like IGP Abubakar and most of his officers and men, including some that had served meritoriously in the NPF in the past.

    Back to the Rivers issue, IGP Abubakar, apart from the image of the Nigeria Police, has his own personal integrity to protect in this matter and should not allow one incompetent CP acting at the behest of his paymasters outside the Force, to tarnish his own reputation and taint his tenure as IGP. Abubakar should resist the temptation of allowing the NPF under his watch to be used as the militant wing of the ruling party the way one of his predecessors Sunday Adewusi deployed the police in the second republic to serve the interest of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN). We all know the place of Adewusi and the NPF of that era in Nigeria’s history today, IGP Abubakar should not travel that road. He has a name to protect. Nigerians are watching.

  • Blame not Jonathan

    Proverbs in African culture speak louder and clearer than a thousand words. Among the Yoruba, it is often said that if a household is peaceful, the illegitimate child there has not reached adulthood.

    You may wish to interpret this proverb the way you like after reading this piece.

    Since the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election widely acknowledged to be the freest and fairest in the history of general elections in Nigeria by the then military rulers in 1994, the Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) had set aside June 12 of every year to commemorate this historic day that Nigeria’s democracy came of age with the jettisoning of ethnic and religious politics that had always impeded our development as a people and a nation. The day is always marked with a lecture among all other activities.

    The 2013 edition was not different and I could recall listening to the guest speaker, Comrade Frank Ovie Kokori, the General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) during that period in our history when Nigerians fought the military not only to restore our democracy but also to revalidate the mandate given to late Chief MKO Abiola in that election as Nigeria’s president-elect.

    Needles to recall here the heroic role played by NUPENG, Kokori and other pro-democracy groups and activists in the struggle that eventually culminated in what we have today, in Nigeria, as democracy.

    At the event also were Aremo Olusegun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State and erudite lawyer and activist, Chief Femi Falana (SAN). One after the other, they all lamented and expressed regrets that most of the major actors that fought and drove the military out of power in Nigeria then were nowhere to be found at the outset of this democracy in 1999, hence the problems besetting our democracy now.

    Before the politicians hijacked the struggle around 1998/99, the battle against the military junta and restoration of democracy was largely being fought by the activists working together with the Nigerian Press. When the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) came it was heralded across the land as the vehicle to rescue Nigeria from the military usurpers of power. Among the signatories to its declaration that included revered statesmen were some journalists including then rookie editor Labaran Maku. Yes, you guessed right, Labaran Maku, Nigeria’s current Information Minister.

    But because the “boys” so to speak were cruising home to victory in the battle to save Nigeria, the “big boys” had to step in and the politicians hijacked the process. In came second republic vice president Alex Ekwueme and some of his colleagues in that era including founding chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Solomon Lar. The G-57, a seemingly pan-Nigerian group, the mid-wife that gave birth to the PDP also sprung up with Ekwueme as the leading light, of course with former military president Ibrahim Babangida and his likes pulling the strings at the background.

    Virtually all the activists and the other patriots in the media, save a few, who actually fought the battle retreated to the background maintaining a puritanical stance, insisting on the military convoking a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) before participating in the emerging democratic process. That was the opportunity the politicians and some apologists of military rule were waiting for and they seized it with both hands. That was an opportunity missed by the pro-democracy groups and activists to shape the future of this country in their own image so to speak; to mould a better democratic future for Nigeria.

    This was the opportunity that Osoba and Falana were rueing at that June 12 lecture. They lamented not listening to the advice of former South African president Thabo Mbeki who came with a message then from then President Nelson Mandela to the pro-democracy camp in Nigeria not to boycott the emerging democratic process. They half listened.  They even ignored the time tested admonition of late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo against election boycott. Those old men; they stubbornly stuck to their guns allowing the political opportunists backed by their retiring or retired military rulers to take centre stage. Only a few, especially the younger ones among them shunned the boycott advice and embraced the then emerging democratic process. The rest as they say is history.

    But then with the seeming ‘A’ list of those that fought the military to surrender government to civilians sitting on the fence, what did we have?  The hijack of the process by those who sold their conscience to the military for a mere pot of porridge. Those that betrayed the people’s mandate of June 12, 1993. Reaping where they had not sowed, these people came together under an umbrella called the People’s Democratic Party and took over virtually everything, especially at the centre.

    Give it to them, the Chief Tony Aninihs of this world; they knew what they wanted and how to go about it.  They are veterans. They quickly sew together a pan-Nigeria coalition and easily grabbed power from the departing soldiers. They have since monopolized it to their advantage and almost total exclusion of the generality of Nigerians.

    But because their sole motivation was to grab power, they had no plan of how to use it to serve the interest of the majority hence Nigeria under their watch has been taking one step forward and two steps backward. Now there past is beginning to haunt them as Nigeria slip from one crisis to another as they bicker over who becomes Nigeria’s president in 2015.

    The house they thought they were building in 1999 when they dragged recently released from prison and hurriedly pardoned Olusegun Obasanjo into the presidential race and handed the presidency on a platter, is now crumbling. Obasanjo we now know was a mistake, even though not a few, especially those that fought the military for this democracy, warned then that the former military ruler was not the best to lead Nigeria into democracy in 1999. Now they have been proved right.

    But one would have expected that having discovered the mistake in the making of the Obasanjo presidency the PDP would think Nigeria before installing his successor, but no. In their greed to hold on to power they brought a dying man and paired him with another who didn’t and still doesn’t seem to know his left from right into the presidency in 2007.

    The story of the Yar’adua/Jonathan presidency we all know. It was one of those reluctant presidencies that Nigeria has been producing since independence. But if there had been relative peace with this kind of leadership since October 1, 1960, that ‘peace’ is about to be shattered now as that child, remember, the one I mentioned earlier, seems to have reached adulthood.

    The deception called PDP is unraveling and disintegrating now before our eyes not only because of President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2015 second term ambition, but also because the party was built on falsehood. And as the Yoruba would say, any house built with spittle would be demolished by dew.

    The founders of PDP never fought for this democracy and they and their party deserve what is happening to them now. And they deserve to be punished by Nigerians at the polls next time for reaping where they had not sowed. There is no way they would get it right because they are not deserving of the power they are holding. If they had fought for and earned the right to our presidency, they wouldn’t have punished us with an egomaniac as president in 1999, an infirm as our leader in 2007 and a colourless, clueless and dangerous man obsessed with power as president 2011.

    Those who brought him, first with Yar’Adua in 2007 and as the lead candidate in 2011 deserve what they are getting now. Don’t cry for them, but cry for Nigeria. Do we deserve a Jonathan and what PDP is doing to us now? I don’t know. But don’t blame the man, blame those that brought him. As the saying goes you can’t give what you don’t have. The man has given everything he has and capable of, but regrettably, his best doesn’t appear good enough for Nigeria. That is what you get when you promote someone beyond the level of his/her competence. Jonathan wanted to remain a governor, you promoted Vice President and mother luck made him President. And now he can’t live up to that office. What else do you expect?

    And with the handwriting clearly on the wall, the man, like the Biblical Samson, wants to bring down the roof on his/our head(s). God forbid. Nigeria will not die. PDP can disintegrate. Nothing spoil.

  • So Suntai is back

    So Suntai is back

    Taraba state in north eastern Nigeria is one of those rural states that offer natural attraction as a peaceful place to live. Surrounded by Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi, Plateau and Benue states and sharing Nigeria’s international border with Cameroon, Taraba is hardly in the (national) news, not for lack of nothing to report about the state but simply because there are too many much more important things happening in the region competing for national attention pushing events in the state down the pecking order in most newsrooms across the country.

    But that seems not to be the situation any longer following the surprise arrival on the scene penultimate Sunday of ailing Governor Danbaba Suntai after a 10-month medical holiday, first in a German hospital and later in another hospital in the United States.

    Governor Suntai, you may recall was involved in an aircraft crash last October as he was piloting a small jet towards the international airport in Yola, capital of neighbouring Adamawa state. He almost lost his life in the accident and is alive today simply due to the grace of God and the miracle called modern medical science.

    But while many Nigerians, especially his constituents are happy and grateful to God for sparing his life, Suntai, it does appear, is stretching his luck too far judging by the kind of activities he has engaged himself in since he was helped off the aircraft on arrival in Nigeria on August 25.

    The governor, evidently still very ill, is not content with looking after his ill-health and has been dabbling into the delicate and dirty politics of Taraba with the likely consequence of deepening the crises that have engulfed the state since that ill-fated flight to Yola. After a few months lull following the media frenzy that attended the aircraft crash, Taraba is back in the news and as it was then, for the wrong reasons.

    The man wants to take back the reign of government from his deputy, the acting governor, Garba Umar, who had been in charge since the accident. Nothing wrong with that you may say, but a lot is, considering the fact that Governor Danbaba Suntai, on the evidence of the pathetic picture of him being helped out of the aircraft on arrival and his hardly audible two-minute-plus video message to Tarabans last week, is not healthy enough to run the affairs of the state. Anybody saying anything to the contrary is definitely not being honest with the people. And until there is a verifiable and transparent medical assessment of his current situation any order or action purportedly taken by him stands the risk of being disregarded and thus plunge the state further into more political crises.

    Already the acting governor has called on the public to ignore Suntai’s dissolution of the executive council and appointment of a new Secretary to the State Government and Chief of Staff in the government house. The divided state House of Assembly had equally called on Garba Umar to continue as acting governor and urged Suntai to return to his hospital bed in the United States for proper treatment, promising him a return to his seat once he is medically fit to discharge his duties. The man or rather those around him whose political and economic survival depends on his seemingly remaining in charge, is not ready to give in and is digging deep to consolidate his hold on power even at the detriment of Taraba state. This is sad.

    Already the uncertainty this has created is beginning to get to the government’s bankers some of whom are reportedly rejecting transactions done by the acting governor. Though the government has denied this, the impression out there is that of a divided administration and this does not bode well for the state especially with the countdown to the 2015 general elections drawing closer. And that seems to be the cause of the impasse in Taraba state. With a dominant Christian population, Taraba has, not surprisingly, been producing a Christian as governor since the return of democracy in 1999 and the trend which has been designed to continue in 2015 now seems to be threatened except Suntai remains in charge. There is the fear that with Umar in charge in the run up to the 2015 polls, the role may be reversed and a Muslim in the saddle. This, to those fanning the embers of religious division in the state will be against their selfish interest. This is the crux of the matter and the main reason the cabal behind Suntai would rather have on the governor’s seat rather than his deputy, even when not fit.

    The question is where and how is the interest of the generality of the people of Taraba being served under this cold calculation of these grabbers of power? Does it really make any different whether a Muslim or Christian is in power in Taraba or any other state in Nigeria? What difference would it make if the Nigerian President were to be a Christian or Muslim? This was the religious card being played in Kaduna state before until we had late Governor Yakowa, a Christian and the heavens did not fall.

    It is about time we outgrow this kind of stupid sentiments and elect those who would serve the best interest of the people. Governor Suntai, if he loves himself and his constituents should not succumb to pressures from this cabal whose only interest is what they can profit from his governorship. He should without delay submit himself to a verifiable medical examination to determine the true state of his health. The Nigerian Medical Association has offered to do this for him. If he is not fit enough to rule, as it seems obvious, then he should not force himself on Taraba.

     

  • The Barber boy

    At the Barber’s shop at the weekend a young man, about my son’s age, was scraping what was left of the hair on my head amidst continuing ‘desert encroachment’ when he suddenly stopped, cleared his throat and said; ‘sir, may I ask you a question?’ Sure, I said, wondering what he had on mind.

    As you never can tell with the younger ones nowadays, my mind in the next few seconds before his question wandered far and near for a clue as to what he wanted to find out from me. But before my mind wandered too far, his young voice interrupted and asked; ‘sir, is it good to have higher (tertiary) education?’

    Immediately he said this I knew the young man is troubled. Ordinarily at his age (18/19) he should be in school instead of ‘barbing’ away his time to earn a living, but there he was, working as a barber. Why you may want to ask.

    Yes he is indigent; he’s been battling WAEC for his GCE ‘O’ Level for about two years now and decided to take a sabbatical so to speak from WAEC exams for at least a year to work and earn some money before attempting his GCE again and later JAMB, but he is confused and doesn’t really know whether that route is the best for his future.

    His worries are many, chiefly among which is the growing number of unemployed graduates out there, with little or no prospect of either securing a job or creating one for themselves. He wants to go to the university to study for a degree in civil engineering and become a ‘building contractor’ (using his own words), but he is afraid that he might end up with no job after struggling through university, as most of the unemployed graduates out there, and wants an assurance from me that tomorrow would be better and that he should go to the university.

    Though I tried my best to allay his fears of how bad Nigeria’s tomorrow could be with the way things are going in this country especially with youth unemployment, he didn’t look convinced that tomorrow would be better, President Goodluck Jonathan’s so called transformation agenda notwithstanding.

    I thought of how many of our youths, like him, are afraid of the future and what it holds for them. My mind quickly went to the ongoing strike by university lecturers and how ASUU and the Federal Government are toying with the lives and future of these young Nigerians forced to stay at home and be idle because they could not agree on how to fund tertiary education in the country.

    It is this kind of idleness and hopelessness about the future that drive some of our youths to either go into crime or run out of the country in search of a better tomorrow elsewhere.

    As I was talking to this young man, I remembered what I just read in the Sunday papers, few hours before, about a certain young boy, a teenager who hid in the tyre compartment of a Lagos bound Arik Air aircraft from Benin, the Edo State capital. The boy, Daniel Ihekina, wanted to fly away, or better put, stowaway to what he believes would be a better future than whatever he was experiencing back home in Benin.

    I am sure Lagos wasn’t his intended destination as he could have hipped a ride in the back of one of those trucks that bring goods to Lagos from the inter land daily instead of risking his life flying into Nigeria’s commercial capital in the belly of an aircraft. He probably thought that flight was headed for Europe or America where ‘they pick the Dollar or Euro on the street’ and the ‘roads are paved with gold.’ That seem to be the thinking of most of these young Nigerians, faced with a bleak future at home, who seek greener pastures outside Nigeria, even in place like Libya (albeit Ghadafi’s Libya) of all places.

    Some of them have lost their lives while attempting to cross the Libyan desert en-route Europe via Italy. Some are marooned somewhere in North Africa unable to cross to Europe and left with no money return home. Some, having sold all their belongings and investments or caused their families to sell all they have to fund their ill-fated and illegal trip are too ashamed to return home empty handed and have turned to either destitute or prostitutes (if they are females) to earn a living where ever they are holed up. Yet the stories of these unfortunate Nigerians have not deterred some of our youths from running away from the hopelessness at home.

    But is the situation so bad? The answer could be yes and no as one could argue convincingly on both sides. But suffice to say that Nigeria needs a sort of Marshall Plan for her youths in order to secure our future, a better future as a people and a nation. It wasn’t like this in the past, we are told, as the future was rosy for our youths then. They had everything laid out for them; good education; well paid jobs (they were spoilt with choices); and the right atmosphere to build a good family with African values. Can we say this about Nigeria of today? No. Why?

    It is easy to blame our stars for this but the blame really is in us. We have had bad leaders over the years, who have squandered all the goodwill and riches of the land to now impoverish us. When our elders remind us that it wasn’t like this before, they are quick to point at when Nigeria had to rely on revenue from agriculture to fund our development. They talk of the eras of cocoa in the west, groundnut in the north and palm oil in the east. They are right as then we were cutting our coats according to our cloth and things were running smoothly.

    But all of a sudden, oil money came and we became super rich without necessarily working hard for it. As stupid as they were, our leaders encouraged us to abandon agriculture for the petrol-dollar. It is a long story between then and now, but regrettably today, that oil money is at the root of all our problems and troubles

    You can give your own interpretation to it, but the truth is that greater troubles lie ahead in the next few decades when this oil will either no longer be in greater demand or would have dried up and we would be left with nothing if we don’t plan now for Nigeria beyond oil.

    Nigeria beyond oil: The role of the Editor was the theme of the recently concluded All Nigerian Editors Conference in Asaba, Delta state. From the presentations made by the invited guests who included some state governors and ministers, it does appear that our leaders are ready to wean Nigeria’s economy from over dependence on oil revenue and seriously planning a resuscitation of agriculture which has the capacity to create millions of self sustaining jobs for our teeming army of unemployed, especially our youths.

    If this can be seen through successfully in the next few years and a solid foundation laid for a multi product economy, may be the future would not look all that bleak for the likes of the Barber boy and Daniel Ihekina.

  • Toying with our future

    Once again the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has shut down academic activities in most of Nigeria’s public universities save in just a few where the local ASUU branches have broken ranks with the national body to assert their ‘autonomy’.

    And expectedly, both the union and the federal government have gone on the charm offensive to get the public behind their different positions which paint the other as the devil in the battle to save our ‘crumbling’ university education.

    While ASUU would want the rest of us to believe that it is fighting to restore the glory back to our universities, the government is convinced that the lecturers are only interested in their own wellbeing but using alleged infrastructural decay in the universities as a screen to push for better pay.

    It is over a month now since the students were asked to go home indefinitely and both ASUU and the federal government are nowhere near an agreement even as they were locked in another round of negotiation yesterday. But things could change for the better as news emerged yesterday that the government had approved about N400 billion for infrastructure upgrade in the universities.

    But if no agreement was reached on the N92 billion or so that the lecturers are asking for to augment their pay along with the approval for the infrastructure upgrade, the truth behind ASUU’s indefinite strike could soon be revealed. Should the government release the funds for the infrastructural development and stuck to its guns that it cannot afford the N92 billion ASUU wants for its members, Nigerians could be forced to ask whether the lecturers are truly interested in the health of the universities and the students or simply their pocket?

    But should government do this, it would only further damage its reputation as an unreliable partner in any agreement and further foul the already strained relationship the students and their parents are having with ASUU over the spate of strikes that have brought academics activities in our universities to their knees more often than not in the last decades or so.

    The federal government had reneged several times on agreements reached with ASUU in recent times, the same way it has done with similar agreements with several other unions. Even in the economic sector, the government appears incapable or unwilling to act its own part of an agreement or perform as expected. Joint venture partners in the oil sector have cried out several times that the government through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had been lagging behind in fulfilling its own side of the funding of the sector. Ditto with the health sector and virtually every other sectors where government counterpart funding was required. The Nigerian government it appears is good at entering into an agreement but unwilling or reluctant to fulfil it to the letter.

    The unfulfilled agreement that led to the latest strike action by ASUU was signed with the government in 2009. The federal government went into it with its eyes wide open. If it wasn’t willing to fulfil it or knew it wouldn’t be able to fulfil it, why did the government sign? Agreed that ASUU has a way of bullying its way through every agreement with government, but the government shouldn’t allow itself to be bullied. When ASUU wants something from government all it does is send the students home to put pressure on their parents who would in turn put pressure on government to accede to the lecturers demands. Nowhere in the world has the government or other employers met all the demands of workers. The best that had ever happened was reaching an agreement that satisfied both parties; an implementable agreement. Is the 2009 ASUU/FG agreement implementable? To the government, No, while ASUU says YES if the will is there.

    The union and its sympathisers are quick to point at the astronomical pay of our politicians especially members of the National Assembly to buttress the point that government could pay if it is willing. They could have a point here. But government that says it cannot accommodate N92 billion or thereabout that the lecturers are asking for as this would shoot the recurrent expenditure to an unbearable level also has a point here. So what do we do?

    Can or should we pay the lecturers all they ask for at the expense of other workers or we should pay all workers all they ask for at the expense of the health of the economy? Should we say because our politicians are paying themselves ‘too much’ all government/public sector workers should also earn ‘too much’?

    This is not a defence of irresponsibility on the part of government but a call for give and take on both sides for the sake of the students and our future. The health sector just like every other sector is not perfect, but if doctors shut down the hospitals (or mere consulting clinics as some would like to call them) as often as lecturers shut down the universities, half of Nigerians would be dead by now. There has to be a better way of resolving the problem of funding of our universities and other tertiary institutions other than strikes and ASUU’s arm twisting tactics.

    Think of the students and our future. On the average, students spend between five and seven years in our public universities for a four-year Bachelors programme, no thanks to ASUU strikes. Majority of these students either because of JAMB or WAEC disappointments or a combination of both don’t enter university until they are about age 20. They graduate at about age 26/27, if they are lucky. They spend one year on NYSC. So, by the time they are ready for the employment market, they are already in their late 20s, already overage, as most employers go for graduate under 25 years of age. So, these graduates in order to fit in to the requirements of the employers including government would now begin to ‘doctor’ their ages. So the system is forcing them to be dishonest. Imagine the multiplier effect of that on the society, no thanks to ASUU’s incessant strikes and our irresponsible governments that never kept to agreement.

    So as we continue another round of ASUU strike let whoever is responsible both on the part of the lecturers, university administrators and government remember that our future as a people and a nation is at stake. These children that are being half baked would be our leaders tomorrow and whatever we teach them now is what they would use to lead us when their time comes. We might be too weak to intervene then if they do the wrong thing. We’ll suffer then for the stupid things we are doing today. Let’s come together now and address the problem of the education sector for the sake of our tomorrow.

     

  • The other Omelezes in the Nigeria Police

    A friend sometime ago narrated this story to me. It was a personal experience. It happened a long time ago when he was still a bachelor.

    He had a girl friend who loved to party a lot which was in sharp contrast to his own quiet social life and this often strained their relationship. At one of such parties which as usual he was opposed to, she ran into a problem with a group of hoodlums who attempted to rape her. The matter eventually ended up at Oko Oba police station in Lagos.

    Her friend who attended the same party with her ran home to inform him of what had just happened and together they headed to the police station. He introduced himself to the desk officer as the lady’s lover and demanded to know what actually happened. The officer told him she was arrested and brought to the station for disturbing public peace (fighting) and causing destruction to property at the venue of the party. The owner of the event centre where the party took place had lodged the complaint against her that necessitated her arrest.

    My friend said he was confused as to what to do, but he sought the assistance of the officer to secure a bail for the lady. The officer not only obliged to help him, albeit at a fee, but handed over the statement of the original complainant in the case to him to go through and use the information to write his own statement accusing the first complainant of assault and such other similar offence(s) that some policemen have the capacity to cook up in an attempt to nail somebody.

    Upon payment of the agreed fee, the statement of the original complainant was destroyed and my friend’s statement admitted as a complaint against the owners of the damaged property. So, the complainant suddenly became the accused and the lady was released. The rest is history.

    I am sure this kind of story is not new in the Nigeria Police and not a few Nigerians will have similar stories to tell in their previous encounters with officers and men of the Nigeria Police. I am not saying this is the norm in the police but the recent case of one Sergeant Chris Omoleze who was caught on camera demanding a bribe of N25, 000 from a motorist over an alleged traffic offence has once again raised to the fore the issue of corruption and other vices in the Nigeria Police.

    With the video of the event released to the public via YouTube, the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar acted swiftly by ordering the Lagos State Police Command to put the Sergeant on Orderly Room trial, which the Commissioner Umar Manko did, and within an hour or so, it was over. Sergeant Omoleze was dismissed and thus ended his 21 years in service, in disgrace. He also stands to be prosecuted for the offence by the police.

    Good. It was about time the Police high command began to act and decisively too on some of its officers and men who have brought shame to the force as well as the nation. The IGP has promised that there would no longer be room for corruption and such vices in the police again. Bad behaviours he said would no longer be tolerated. Good also. But does he have the will to see through any house cleansing exercise that this his promise could entail? Yes, he does and can, according to those who know him well.

    Ummmm, that’s good. May be he should go the whole hog and kick out the other Sergeant Omolezes still left in the police. And he could do this by beaming his searchlight on not just those at the lower rung of the ladder, but also on some of his commanders who are more than an embarrassment to the Nigeria Police. One of such is Mbu Joseph Mbu, the incumbent commissioner of Police, Rivers State Police command.

    The story of Mbu Joseph Mbu we all know. But perhaps what is still baffling is why the man is still at the saddle in Port Harcourt as CP of the state police command, in spite of overwhelming public call for his removal. Not even the Senate or the House of Representatives is left in doubt about the need to relieve him of his appointment as Rivers state police boss. Yet the powers that be at the top are saying no, including the IGP.

    No matter the professional competence of Mbu Joseph Mbu as a police officer as his friends would want us to believe, his integrity as a public officer has been called to question and in the public interest and for the sake of peace he should be removed as CP Rivers state.

    I understand this was to be the case recently, but the ‘madam at the top’, who allegedly masterminded his posting to Rivers state command from Oyo State command in would have none of this. CP Mbu, sources say was to be redeployed on the orders of the President and Commander-In-Chief. In fact, he was billed to be redeployed to neighbouring Imo state as the Police boss while the man in Owerri was to cross the border to Port Harcourt and take over as CP. The ‘Oga patapata’ at the top was said to have given his orders to the IGP to do this and the man in Imo had been briefed. But somehow, the Imo state governor got wind of this and he allegedly protested.

    As CP Mbu had seemingly turned toxic, no state governor wanted him in his domain and Governor Okorocha allegedly made his move to stop Mbu from coming to Owerri. The embattled CP got wind of his transfer as well and ran to Madam at the top in Abuja seeking cover. But since the order for the move seemingly came from above, the story had it that Mbu was to be taken to a lucrative beat as a form of soft landing and the Port Police Command was to be his next port of call.

    The police hierarchy sources said kicked against this, the argument being that if Mbu is to be removed, those who sent him to Port Harcourt should remove him and once he is removed, he should be kicked out of the police and not redeployed.

    But who sent him to Port Harcourt you might want to ask? It is a long story. As I heard, our First Lady had a hand in it. She felt strongly that the former CP was working for the state Governor Rotimi Amaechi and she wanted her own person as CP in her home state, so Mbu who had barely spent three months as CP in Oyo state was found ‘suitable’ for the task, and you’ll agree with me he has been doing a ‘good’ for Madam at the top. You know the rest of the story.

    If this is exactly what is happening then IGP Abubakar must stand up and act truly as the Inspector General of Police. The rot, mess, corruption and all the other bad things happening in the Nigeria Police cannot and will not end until all the Sergeant Omolezes in the police including the likes of CP Mbu and other politicians in uniform are booted out. Not a few Nigerians have faith in IGP Abubakar; he should not disappoint the nation.

     

     

  • As al-Mustapha prepares to join PDP…

    As al-Mustapha prepares to join PDP…

    When Major Hamza al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to late Head of State, General Sani Abacha was recently discharged and acquitted of change of murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Bashorun M.K.O Abiola, by an Appeal Court in Lagos, it felt like somebody messing in ones mouth and putting salt as well, as the Yoruba would say.

    The mess, one can’t swallow, the salt one cannot spit out, if you understand what that means. It was a sweet/bitter verdict that could be described as both victory and defeat for justice at the same time. To al-Mustapha and family, it was victory for justice while the Abiola family naturally felt otherwise. I guess most Nigerians felt the same way as the Abiolas but because the appellate court had spoken, are resigned to leaving everything in the hands of God, the ultimate judge.

    But the Lagos state government (the prosecutor in this case) I guess, might not be inclined to handing over to God yet, as there is still one window of appeal to the Supreme Court left and might be willing to explore that, if only to be seen to have tried everything legally possible to get what the majority (at least in the South west) believes to be justice in this celebrated murder case.

    I deliberately refused to join the bandwagon in condemning or praising al-Mustapha’s acquittal for obvious reasons even though I smelt rat in the whole thing. I could see politics at play here even though one could not point at any particular politician as being behind it. But with speculations in the air that al-Mustapha is about to pitch his tent with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), coupled with the reception he got when he visited the Government House in Kano shortly after his release, one needs no soothsayer to conclude that the former CSO had the support of the ruling party while his trial lasted.

    It might not be out of place to also conclude that the powers that be in the north were sympathetic towards al-Mustapha’s cause as could be seen not only in the enthusiastic welcome he had received so far from his home region, but also in the shocking silence of that class on how to get justice for the Abiolas, after all somebody shot and killed Kudirat and the person was acting under somebody’s order. So, who did it and who gave the order? Until that person or those people are found and punished, al-Mustapha remains guilty in the minds of the people here, the show of shame by Dr Fredrick Faseun of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) hailing his acquittal notwithstanding.

    In spite of the court’s verdict, if al-Mustapha and his co-accused as they were then, had a hand in Kudirat’s murder or any of the numerous unresolved murders of the Abacha era, definitely they will not go unpunished, both here and in the hereafter.

    My concern here is not even about their punishment if they were indeed involved in the murder, but the red carpet being given to al-Mustapha in particular as if (the murder case apart) he was a honourable, just and competent officer while he held court as the unseen number two in the administration of the late maximum ruler. Don’t forget that al-Mustapha, a mere Major in the Nigerian Army was more powerful than most of his seniors, Major Generals et al including the official second in command in that regime, a three-star General, Lt. General Oladipo Diya. After Abacha, no other person was most feared than al-Mustapha.

    Have we suddenly forgotten all those revelations made at the Oputa panel about the activities of the death squad of that regime that were answerable only to al-Mustapha? Has anybody been punished? If al-Mustapha had no hand in the killing of Kudirat what of the other crimes committed under his watch as CSO? Are we sweeping such under the carpet or has he been cleared? Until we are told that the man is free of all the baggage attached to him as Abacha’s CSO, it would be wrong to parade him as a kind of a hero or victim of vendetta as he wants us to believe. It would even be worse if any political party should roll out the red carpet for him and admit him into its fold.

    It is unfortunate that the PDP already smells opportunities for electoral gains in the release of al-Mustapha, and the young man himself seems to wants to make political capital of it. Apart from visiting the Government House, Kano, controlled by the PDP, shortly after his release, he had been making some political comments and visitations as well.

    He was at the Abuja home of the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahideen Asari-Dokubo at the weekend where he was beating his chest as being the one whose actions shortly after Abacha’s death gave birth to this democracy. Can you imagine that, coming from an al-Mustapha? He wants us to praise him for not taking over power then, which he could have easily done according to him if he wanted to. What an insult? I think the young man is better advised to take it easy and lie low for some time and not reopen healing wounds. His choice of words and association tend to portray a man with an exaggerated view of his value. The Asari-Dokubo that he visited would either be in detention or a dead man under the Abacha administration that he served. We have not forgotten who killed Ken Saro Wiwa.

    In any case politics they say is all about interest. So, an Asari-Dokubo can hobnob with an al-Mustapha? Wonders shall never cease. All for a Jonathan presidency again in 2015? So all those derogatory things Asari-Dokubo has been saying about the north, what E. K Clark, the Ijaw leader has been saying against the Hausa/Fulani no longer hold water as long as al-Mustapha can help win the northern votes for President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015? Nigeria we hail thee.

    Since al-Mustapha’s release, different Ijaw groups and leaders have been failing over each other to outdo one another in hailing his acquittal, nothing wrong in that if only they are genuine and sincere, but we all know why; 2015. But al-Mustapha should remember the party story of the Biafran leader late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegu Ojukwu, who because he was granted pardon by the NPN government of President Shehu Shagari in the second republic, quickly joined the on his return from exile and took Ndigbo to NPN, thinking that the interest of his people, who had followed Dr Nnamdi Azikwe to NPP that time would be better protected in the ruling party, he was wrong. The rest is history.

    Nothing personal against al-Mustapha, but he should tread softly and realise that the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola is still fresh and hurting in our memory, beating his chest all over the place or jumping into the political arena would do nothing to heal the wounds, he needs to show remorse and seek ALLAH’s forgiveness for the pains he inflicted on so many Nigerians as Abacha’s CSO. This is more honourable than joining the political fray. A word for President Jonathan and his group as well, Nigerians are no fools again; our mumu don do.

     

  • That Port Harcourt mob attack

    An Ijaw friend of mine from Bayelsa state who has been living in Lagos for close to 30 years now shocked me recently when he made a strong albeit stupid case for a second term for his kinsman, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as Nigeria’s president post 2015 general elections.

    He pleaded that President Jonathan should be given another opportunity in 2015 to ‘wobble and fumble’ in the presidency again just like his predecessors did and were not denied a second term.

    And in case you think the man was joking, he wasn’t. He was dead serious. He listed former presidents Shehu Shagari and Olusegun Obasanjo who didn’t do well in their first term in office and were still allowed to continue after four wasted years.

    He argued that since every  elected president before Jonathan messed up the opportunity given to them to rule this country and were still given another chance to continue, then Jonathan should be allowed to complete his own ‘messing up’, so to speak before we clean up their mess. As he puts it ‘let the messing up go round’.

    Don’t cry for him or Nigeria. That is the level to which our politics has fallen since we elected to promote ethnicity rather than competence in our choice of leaders in this country.

    If not to appease the Yoruba for denying their son, Chief MKO Abiola the presidency of Nigeria in 1993 through the criminal annulment of his election, why on earth would any right thinking leadership hand over the rein of government to an Olusegun Obasanjo after he bungled the first chance he had as military Head of State between 1976 and 1979?  But that was what the so called cabal then did in 1999, when Obasanjo was ‘elected’ president, even against the wise counsel of his Yoruba kinsmen.

    And to complete the appeasement he was given another four years even when his first tenure was a monumental failure

    Was it not because the north must be allowed to complete its eight years at the saddle that President Shagari was given a second term in 1983 in spite of his glaring inadequacies?  President Umaru Yar’Adua would have asked for and given another four years if death had not intervened to cut short his presidency, even when the signs were there that things weren’t getting better. You could argue that Yar’Adua could have done better were it not for death, but on the evidence of his performance as a two-term governor of Katsina state, even ten more years wouldn’t possibly have changed anything.

    So if you look around you, it’s been one mess up after another for our presidents (including the soldiers), and this was probably why my Ijaw friend was arguing that his Ijaw brother, our president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan be allowed to complete the South-south turn.

    If we are to go by his argument, then the entire 500 plus ethnic nationalities in Nigeria should be allowed their chance to mess Nigeria up for eight years each. Did I hear you scream madness? Yes madness! Because that is what it is, but don’t laugh at him, rather pity him and some of his fellow Ijaw and South-southerners who are rabidly rallying behind a Jonathan-for-second-term project without a thought for the wellbeing of Nigeria.

    By the way, my friend used to be a critic of the lack lustre Jonathan administration, until his recent 360 degrees turn. Why I wouldn’t know. But I know for certain that he didn’t change because he had been paid, but I suspect blind ethnic solidarity which had never been part of him before but which has now crept in and is distorting his sense of reasoning and perception, a malady that is gradually blowing across the Ijaw nation and to some extent, the South-south geo-political zone.

    This malady is playing itself out in Rivers State where the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party is in a state of civil war which has the tendency to derail not only this democracy but also the fabric of Nigeria’s existence as a united nation. The war has pitched Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and his supporters on one side against forces loyal to President Goodluck Jonathan, led by the Minister of State for Education Nyesom Wike.

    The story of the unfolding war so far you know, but the whole story might not be known unless the key actors decide to open up. Governor Amaechi has promised to reveal all at a later date, sometime next year and he says Rivers people would be shocked. Wike in response says if the governor opens his mouth and says something, he too has a lot to reveal. But this is beside the point here.

    What is of greater concern here is the dangerous dimension the whole crisis has taken which portends danger for the country.

    Last week, four state governors from the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), decided to pay a solidarity visit to their colleague and Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Rt. Hon Rotimi Amaechi, who they believe is facing persecution from the federal government for standing up against a tyrannical presidency.

    The governors of Kano, Jigawa, Adamawa and Niger states who flew into Port Harcourt International Airport together with Amaechi were reportedly attacked by supporters of Wike (by extension supporters of Jonathan) and held hostage for hours at the airport by stone throwing thugs from the Wike backed Grassroots Democratic Initiatives (GDI), a group of political hoodlums that emerged from nowhere just as the Rivers crisis began.  Though unruffled, Amaechi and his guests had one of the vehicles in their convoy damaged by the thugs as they eventually made their way out of the airport for the Government House, Port Harcourt.

    But after spending some quality time with their host, the governors eventually left for home but not before having some harsh words for the Nigeria Police whose officers and men reportedly looked the other way as the hoodlums held sway at the airport. They reportedly expressed concern at the glaring partisanship of the police against the state government in the crisis and threatened that state governments could reconsider their funding of the police if the trend in Rivers continues. They also deplored the political crisis in the state urging their colleague to stand firm.

    The attack on the governors by Wike’s boys showed the level to which Jonathan and his band of supporters are prepared to go to achieve their 2015 objective. Thank God, at no time were the lives of these visiting governors put under serious threat. If all or one or two of them had been injured in the attack, only God knows what could have happened back home in their respective states. This is the kind of thing you get when thugs are allowed to walk the corridors of power.

    I recall in the run up to the governorship election in old Oyo state in 1979, the then Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the party that later emerged victorious in the gubernatorial polls in what was then known as LOOBO states, comprising today’s south west, Edo and Delta states, had its primary and it was deadlocked. Chief Bola Ige locked horns with his former teacher at Ibadan Grammar School, Archdeacon Emmanuel Alayande (believed to be Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s preferred candidate for the position) and the deadlock was broken by a certain thuggish looking politician by name Chief Busari Adelakun. Governor Bola Ige was to later reward Adelakun with a seat in his cabinet as Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, against the advice of Chief Awolowo who we were told, warned that Adelakun was a mere thug, not fit for any serious political appointment. Bola Ige did not listen.

    Those who know the story of the political crisis that engulfed Bola Ige’s Oyo state, or witnessed the mayhem that accompanied the National Party of Nigeria (NPN’s) determination to take over the state from the UPN would readily acknowledge, if they are still alive, the role the thug called Adelakun played in the blood bath. It might be necessary to add here that the crisis in Oyo state then was one of those crises that brought down the second republic.

    Another thug is walking the corridors of power now and at the national level. The trajectory of his rise and rise to prominence is probably the fault of his benefactors, including Governor Amaechi and now President Jonathan, who instead of rewarding Wike (for whatever good  he must done to them) with a position commensurate to his thuggish disposition promoted him beyond the level of his competence. And now he is causing all this trouble.

    Nigeria could have been on fire now if anything bad had happened to those governors. And nobody or only a few would remember that Wike’s ambition had a hand or even was the hand that ignited the fire, everything would be on Jonathan’s neck. The earlier the president knows this the better. He should call Wike and his band of thugs to order.

     

  • Rivers: Time to stop the slide

    Rivers: Time to stop the slide

    Not a few Nigerians, both at home and in the Diaspora were disturbed by the recent turn of events for the worse in the escalating political crisis in the Rivers State chapter of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    Not only were they disturbed, they were equally surprised and disappointed at the orgy of violence that attended the legislative session of the House of Assembly last Tuesday and the show of shame put up a day later by the Police which barricaded the Government House in Port Harcourt for close to three hours, firing tear gas into the premises.

    And most Nigerians are now not just ashamed of what politicians are turning this democracy into under President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch, but are also afraid that the 4th republic is in peril if the Rivers crisis is allowed to fester and spread to other parts of the country. They fear the Egyptian scenario could play itself out here if care was not taken. They could be right.

    In Egypt as we all know, the military had just kicked out the elected government of President Mohammed Morsi when the country was sliding into seeming unending chaos, replacing it with an interim civilian administration. The chaos though, is continuing and the military (mis)adventure looks unlikely to restore peace, stability and sustainable democracy any time soon.

    This is the path the Rivers crisis seems to be taking Nigeria. Remember we travelled this route before twice with disastrous consequences. The political crisis in the western region in the first republic over disputed election got to a head when opposing lawmakers fought one another in the Parliament building at Agodi in Ibadan, using chairs and other movable furniture as weapons. The photographs of members of the regional parliament escaping through the window are there in history books to remind us of that period.

    The rest of Nigeria practically looked on as the Western Region literarily burnt as supporters of rival political  parties engaged in arson and killing in what was known locally as “Operation  Wetie”, that is, wetting the subject or object with fuel before setting in fire. They thought it was a Yoruba problem, but they were wrong as the failure of the federal government then to contain it drew the attention of five Majors in the Nigerian Army who staged the first military coup in the country, thus terminating that democratic experience.

    And our politicians certainly did not learn anything from that experience as the south west again burnt in the second republic when disputed election in Ondo state in 1983, led to similar arson and killing which together with other political mayhem and similar crises elsewhere attracted the intervention of the soldiers and our second attempt at democracy was halted on December 31st 1983.

    Those who could recall these two past experiences have been drawing the attention of the political class to their similarities with today’s crisis in Rivers State and the need to avoid that path, but it does appear they are talking to the deaf.

    The crisis that culminated in the free for all fight inside the chambers of the Rivers State House of Assembly last Tuesday has its roots in the plans by rival political camps within the ruling PDP in the state to control the administration and resources of the state after the tenure of Governor Rotimi Amaechi in 2015. While the Amaechi group is intent on him seeing out his second term successfully, it also aims to produce his successor and therefore sustain his legacy of good work, performance and delivery of ‘dividend of democracy’ to the people.

    The other camp led by a former Amaechi ally and now a member of the federal cabinet Nyesom Wike, wants to be in charge and seems not willing to wait till 2015; it wants the governorship now and appears ready to do anything and everything that could bring about this. And it has found a willing ally in the wife of the president, Dame Patience Jonathan, an indigene of Rivers, who not only wants to build her own political followership in the state but also produce the next governor preferably from her Okrika ethnic group. Together they have sold the idea to Jonathan who has lent the federal might to their project with the selfish belief that that is the only way to guarantee him the two million or so votes from Rivers state in the 2015 presidential election.

    Both of them are using the presidential support differently. Wike, with ears of the president, is manipulating the party structure and with the help of a contentious court order has been able, for now, to wrestle the control of the PDP in the state from the Amaechi group, the intention being to either use the party to compel its members in the Assembly to impeach the governor and provide a window for the group to sneak into the Government House or deny Amaechi the party ticket in case a court invalidates his election and orders a rerun. They attempted to push through the impeachment and the outcome was the mayhem witnessed last week at the Assembly.

    The First Lady on her part has been using the security agencies especially the police to intimidate the state government to either run the governor out of office now or weaken him so much as to be unable to produce or influence his successor in 2015.

    The governor is expectedly not keeping quiet. In the face of the federal onslaught both against his government, his supporters and even the larger society in Rivers state, Amaechi has been fighting on all fronts to resist the other group and still be able provide leadership to his people and continue to deliver on his promise of good governance. This must be a tall order because the federal might arrayed against him is indeed awesome and powerful.

    To the chagrin of his opponents, the majority of the people of Rivers are with him, so also are most of his colleagues in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum where he remains the chairman, the presidency’s attempt to polarize the forum notwithstanding.

    But the effect of the ‘war’ is beginning to tell on the people. Security situation in the state is getting worse, no thanks to the Commissioner of Police, Mbu Joseph Mbu who seems to be more interested in playing along with the First Lady rather than working with the state governor. Militants, cultists and their likes that were driven out of town five, six years ago are back on the prowl, working for the anti Amaechi forces and terrorizing the people. Kidnapping we are told is on the increase, so are other crimes, but CP Mbu is unperturbed as long as ‘Madam at the top’ and the Minister are happy. He seems to be answerable to no one but the First Lady, not even the Inspector General of Police.

    In all of this the president is behaving as if all is well or Amaechi must be brought down to his knees and thought a lesson even if Rivers will burn. This is unfortunate. If Jonathan continues to fold his arms and allow events in Rivers to degenerate further to the point where things would begin to fall apart the blame would be on his head and nobody would cry for him. If truly he is the leader of his party, then he should be able to call all the warring groups in PDP in the state, including his wife to order in the interest of not just this democracy but also the country. He knows who and what is causing the crisis in Rivers state, he also knows the solution. He should stop playing politics with us. It is time to act as leader of the nation that his position has conferred on him He should resist the temptation to press the self destruct button. Nigeria can’t afford to travel that road again. NO.

    While this is not an attempt to justify Governor Amaechi’s actions or exonerate him from whatever blames he deserves, President Jonathan bears the greater responsibility to ensure the survival of this democracy and the country as a united entity.

     

  • Thinking aloud

    It is fashionable these days to blame all our woes as a nation on Britain, the colonial master that coupled together the northern and southern protectorates of the territory around River Niger in 1914 to birth a country christened Nigeria.

    The British no doubt have had more than a hand in our fortune or misfortune as a people since we were forced to be together as a country a century ago next year, but we should take the praise for what we have done well and accept the blame for every misfortune that might have befallen our dear country.

    Among the colonial masters that Britain sent to administer Nigeria before independence in 1960, one name stood out and will forever be remembered as long as we remain a country: Lord Frederick Lugard.

    He, it was that merged the northern and southern protectorates to create the country Nigeria, so named by his girl friend then (we were told) to describe the area and the people around River Niger.

    Down the years up till independence the British sent different officials to administer the country and their decisions had profound effect on us as a people. Independence did nothing to reduce the British tendencies to make policies and legislations that have impacted well or badly on us. Remember the botched Anglo/Nigeria Defence Pact immediately after independence that was fiercely opposed by Nigerians, especially students of the University of Ibadan.

    There had been more, and one in particular that is still with us today was the decision of the British under their iconic Tory Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher to impose visa restrictions on Nigerians traveling to the United Kingdom. Prior to that time, Nigerians, as citizens of the British Commonwealth (of nations) had easy access to the UK, but Thatcher changed that and today hundreds if not thousands of Nigerians queue at the gate of British High Commission every week day seeking entry visas into the United Kingdom.

    By the way, the visa is not for free and some of them even had to borrow to raise money to pay for the visa and even some among the very few that were lucky to be granted the visa had to sell or use their properties as collateral to raise money to buy air tickets and meet other sundry expenses. Some emigrated to seek better life in the UK only to be disappointed by the reality of the situation that the streets of London are not littered with Pounds Sterling. To come back home became a problem to them, not only because of the shame of being labelled a failure by their folks back in Nigeria, but most importantly because the resources to return were not just available. So they became a burden on the British.

    And now to heap more miseries on these unfortunate/desperate Nigerians who still believe they can’t succeed in life unless they get to the UK, another Tory Prime Minister David Cameron plans to introduce a £3,000 indemnity fee for all Nigerians seeking visa to enter the land of Queen Elizabeth. The money would be forfeited to Her Majesty’s government should they overstay the time on their visa. And if and when they are caught, its straight back to Nigeria.

    Immigration is a hot political/economic issue all over Europe and even the United States and Cameron might just be pandering to the extreme right of the political spectrum in the UK who blame every economic, social and even political misfortune of the British society on immigrants, especially those of Africa and Asian origins.

    While the British are within their rights to regulate entries and even departures into their territory, singling out Nigeria and a few other so called high risk countries for this new visa regime is discriminatory and smacks of racism. Are Nigerians the only people that overstay their visa in the UK?

    It is good that the Nigerian government has decided to fight this new British visa regime, but that is not all. Our government should vigorously pursue and implement policies and programmes that would make going to Britain unattractive to Nigerians especially our youths. It is a fact that most of these people emigrate for economic reasons. Millions of our youths are not employed and in some cases unemployable. I am sure if there is something good for them to do at home they wouldn’t be rushing and desperate to emigrate to any other country. So, while the federal government fights to get Britain to dump this new visa regime targeted at Nigerians, it should also fight to create employment, make our schools and hospitals better, world class, and make the roads and other social infrastructures better. We can start with uninterrupted power supply and we would be amazed at the number of jobs, especially small scale businesses that this would create.if we can achieve this it would be thanks and no thanks to Britain.

    May be we need to fight this battle harder so as to safe our youths in particular from being exposed to the kind of sexual culture that is so pervasive in the western world including the UK. The other day Prime Minister Cameron was chiding Nigeria for our government’s (national assembly) strident opposition to same sex marriage. Leaving the insult aside that Britain still believes she can dictate to us, especially our social life, same sex marriage is alien to our culture and it is those demented few amongst us who engage in it that wants to destroy our culture and the fabric of human existence. Under the guise of protection of fundamental human rights Cameron, Barack Obama and their co-travelers in Europe and America want to destroy us and our culture, tradition and existence, we should not allow them. They should let Africa be.

    The other day some of these demented Nigerians protested against the arrest and prosecution of some members of the so called Nigerian Gay and Lesbian community by the police in a Magistrate court some where in Anambra state. It was also recently reported that some of them had a meeting in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and even issued a press statement to that effect. What is this country turning into? Sodom and Gomorrah? I think the police should be alive to their responsibility here. Anybody that violates the law against same sex conduct or marriage should be made to face the music. The problem with our police is that before you know it, some bad eggs in he force would turn the law into an opportunity to extort and even frame innocent people. Yes our police men and women are poorly paid and badly treated, but extortion is not the way out of their plight.

    May be the government has found a way out of the problem of underfunding of the police with the recent decision to give one percent of revenue from the federation account to the police. The amount would be treated as first line charge, meaning that the money would be removed first before whatever is left is shared among the three tiers of government. This is good. But can we trust the Nigeria Police and indeed the politicians in the Ministry of Police Affairs, the Presidency and even the Police Service Commission to spend this money judiciously and for the right purpose?

    Over the years there have been reported cases of massive corruption in the police. Some former Inspector General of Police have been indicted and even convicted on fraud, in some cases, outright stealing of police funds. If they could do that with the ‘little’ that gets to them now, you can imagine when one per cent of our consolidated revenue is remitted to them in addition. But this is not enough reason to deny the Police better funding. One strongly believes that poor law enforcement and not inadequate laws is responsible for most of the crimes committed in this country, including fraud, election rigging, money laundering et al. If our police are well trained, remunerated, and properly quartered they will curb most of these crimes and our society would be the better for it. But if we leave them the way they are, then we should be pleased to live with the consequences of such a rotten system. The way you lay you bed is the way you sleep on it.

    Finally, the Sunday newspapers were awash with the photograph of President Goodluck Jonathan and Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi shaking hands at the Port Harcourt International airport. That the two are sworn enemies is not in doubt, but let’s hope this photo op is not a photo trick after all. This is hoping the hatchet has been buried. The better for the nation.