The Nation Newspaper

Tag: angry

  • When Jonathan gets angry

    The goings-on in the run-up to the elections must confound most Nigerians. Some aspects of President Goodluck Jonathan’s remarks while receiving a delegation of the Northern Elders Council (NEC) led by Tanko Yakassai at the Presidential Villa, last Wednesday, seemed not to have helped much.

    He was visibly angry with some unnamed elder statesmen whom he said were making provocative statements and want to set the country ablaze

    Jonathan said: “Some people call themselves statesmen but they are not statesmen; they are just ordinary politicians. For you to be a statesman, it is not because you have occupied a big office before but the question is what are you bringing to bear? Are you building this country? Or are you a part of people who tell lies to destroy this country to create enmity and make people who ordinarily would have been living together to fight themselves?”

    “Are you planning to set the country ablaze because you did not get that particular thing you want?”

    He went on: “At the appropriate time Nigerians will know all of us even though I know most of you know us but the younger ones do not know. Some people are hiding under some clogs, some big names and creating a lot of problems in this country.”

    “Making provocative statements in this country, statements that will set this country ablaze and you tell me you are a senior citizen. You are not a senior citizen you can never be, you are ordinary motor park tout.”

    “Because if you are a senior citizen you will act like one. It is not because of the offices we occupy, it is by divine grace and providence that some of us occupy these offices. But what role are you playing to build this country?” he queried

    An aspect of his remark which many Nigerians will be interested in knowing the answer is what the elder statesmen wanted from him, which he denied them and failed to disclose during the NEC’s delegation visit.

    Are the statesmen looking for contracts, oil wells or other benefits from the Presidency. Not too long ago, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, noted in an exclusive interview with Saturday PUNCH that some visitors to Aso Rock come to beg for one thing or the other.

    To digress a bit, not all visitors to the Presidential Villa are normally seen by journalists on duty as some of them drive into the forecourt, close to the President’s office, in tinted glasses far away from the prying eyes of journalists.

    They could even visit the President’s residence late in the night when journalists must have closed for the day. Since journalists don’t live in the villa, they could only rely on sources to fill in the gaps on who and who came to the Villa during the dark hours.

    A part of Abati’s interview in Saturday PUNCH published on October 12, 2013 reads: “The same people (critics) will wish to be on this side, they will wish to be in government, and I see many of these same critical persons, perpetually hanging around government looking for this and that, practically begging, soliciting, hustling, but they go out there and pretend to be otherwise. But that is a story for another day. And their story shall be told someday,”

    The growing confusion among Nigerians would have been doused to some extend if the President last Wednesday had hit the nail on the head by mentioning the names of the statesmen that wanted to set the country ablaze.

    It would also have been better if he had gone further to disclose to the nation what the statesmen wanted from him which he denied them. Or better still, he should have maintained his style by keeping cool on the matter.

     

    Escaping mob attack

     

    What would have been absolutely impossible for many Nigerians to imagine, happened last Tuesday at  the Presidential Villa, a highly secured area.

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Youth and Students’ Matters, Jude Imagwe barely escaped being mobbed and robbed.

    It all started with the announcement made by the Master of Ceremony after President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation at the Legacy House in Maitama, Abuja.

    The MC had announced to the gathering that all members of the campaign organisation will meet at committee levels in the Banquet Hall of the State House by 4.00pm the same day.

    The announcement, however, made those who do not have business with the meetings to throng the car park of the Banquet hall as they kept vigil and waited to get their share of politicians’ largesse.

    It was already dark when Imagwe stepped out of the hall after his committee meeting came to an end.

    As he was heading to where he parked his car, some of the boys sighted him and approached him shouting “our able youth leader.”

    They followed him to his vehicle while Imagwe initially tried to dismiss them with a promise to see them another day.

    But the young men were adamant, as they held him hostage in his vehicle, insisting that he must ‘perform’.

    The youth told Imagwe that he had no choice other than to settle them, saying: “After all, na you be our youth leader.”

    Imagwe retorted angrily and warned them not to talk as if they were commanding him.

    Sensing that he won’t be able to leave without doing something for the boys, Imagwe brought out few N1000 notes and gave them.

    In order not to be surchanged, they scrambled for the money and fixed their gaze on it as it was being counted.

    That was the saving grace as Imagwe, who was almost choked by the crowd of angry youth surrounding him, started his car and sped off while the few N1000 notes still engaged their attention.

     

  • Community angry over ‘illegal’ party congress

    Community angry over ‘illegal’ party congress

    Unless there is an urgent intervention by concerned authorities, the brewing tension in Ojodu Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Lagos, a serious crisis may erupt in the area soon.

    Amid outbursts of anger Friday evening, leaders and members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the area held their maiden meeting and inauguration of the LCDA chapter of the party, following a congress election held on April 5, which was adjudged free and fair.

    They are, however, bitter over a “needless” rerun poll allegedly spearheaded by the member representing them in the House of Representatives, Hon. James Abiodun Faleke – which has since created a parallel leadership for the party in the area.

    Party leaders present at the parley, which was held at the Agidingbi Town Hall, Ikeja, included: Hon Olori Lola Bashorun, a former Vice Chairman of the LCDA; Chief Joseph Olaseinde Famakinwa, chairman of Ward C; Elder Alade Solomon, party lear from Oke-Ira, Ogba; Alhaja Kehinde Quadri, chairman, Ward A, and Hon Azeez Adebayo, Supervisor for Works in the LCDA.

    The mammoth crowd of party members and supporters that thronged the venue of the meeting loudly expressed their anger over the unsavoury development as they urged the state leaders of the party to attend to their grievances to avoid imminent chaos and save the party.

    Hon Bashorun told The Nation: “The problem here is about somebody who claims to be our representative desiring to control the leadership of all the six wards here. Hon Faleke was at the April 5 congress which was free and fair. But because he could not realise his ambition of having his people in all the wards, he organised a bogus rerun and went to the state leadership of our party to lie that his own version was the authentic. Interestingly, the state leadership said there was no rerun anywhere. This is unacceptable. We just want to assure the party that we are on ground here. They have taken over the key to our secretariat; that is why we are he because we don’t want trouble. Let the state intervene and ensure justice now.”

    Famakinwa, who echoed Bashorun’s views, said the matter demanded urgent attention by the authorities in the party because of the imminence of the 2015 election, adding however, that they remained loyal members of APC in the area.

    Also, Alhaja Quadri said the rerun is illegal and unjust, saying: “I am the only elected woman in the free and fair poll. To now say that the same poll should be set aside is strange; it does not help the course of justice and ideal democracy. We need help here.”

    Both Solomon and Adebayo also expressed displeasure over the development, adding that it would be too much of a political risk to leave the area in the throes of the mounting tension.

    When contacted, Faleke, in an SMS, said: “I think you should contact the party secretariat at Acme. Why should I destroy the party we have built? Those that organised the parallel (congress) are Hon Oloro and sadly Baba Eto who incidentally is the deputy chairman of the party in the state.”

    However, Oloro (the LCDA’s chairman) exonerated himself and Baba Eto, saying it was the people that organised the congress. “I was Hon Faleke’s deputy for two terms when he chaired this council; I did not give him any problem. It is strange and unbelievable that today, whatever happens, he is always quick to mention my name,” he added.

  • ‘I was just angry that day’

    No leap of the imagination can conclusively clarify the mind-boggling assault perpetrated by 21-year-old Tolani Ajayi against his 64-year-old father.  It is enlightening that even Tolani himself is unable to fully illuminate his dark atrocity.   The 300-level student of History and International Relations at the faith-based Redeemer’s University (RUN), Ogun State, has been arrested by the police for the self-confessed murder of his dad, Mr. Charles Ajayi, a lawyer who had been decorated as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN); and, whatever happens, his history has been fundamentally marred by his unacceptably poor management of the son-father relationship.

    Perhaps wise after the fact of his scandalous act, he was quoted as saying, “He was a good father and actually took care of us well. I never lacked anything. I was just angry that day.” He also said: “I have prayed since I killed my dad and asked God for forgiveness because I actually regret that I killed him.” It was terrible enough that Tolani killed his father, but even more repugnant was the manner of the murder. By his account, “I used normal small kitchen knife. Later, I used a cutlass to attack him.”  He dismembered his father’s body and dumped the pieces in a bush. Just a thought: What if the butchered body was never discovered, and Tolani correctly linked with the killing?

    Ironically, these evils happened within the expansive Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.  Remarkably, only father and son can tell the sequence of events that culminated in the shocking death; and since dead men tell no tales, Tolani would want the world to believe his own version.  His narrative: “The incident happened around 1.00am…There was an argument between us and I stood up to him. He beat me with a stick and bit me with his teeth. Just the two us were at home…My father went to the kitchen and fetched a wooden spoon. He just used it to beat me repeatedly and I tried to defend myself. Then he bit me on the shoulder and I got angry.”  Faith may have been at the centre of the clash as Tolani reportedly elaborated that his father attacked him because he was allegedly cold during a prayer session on the fateful night.

    However, it is intriguing that Tolani said his father was not in the habit of beating him or biting him before that time, which seems to contradict the dramatic picture of beating and biting that he had painted; but this is not to deny the possibility altogether. It is understandable, and perhaps to be expected, that the narrator-participant presented the story to reflect provocation, as if that could be redeeming.  “Drugs did not push me to kill my father,” he declared, possibly in an effort to promote something akin to self-defence. There is no doubt that his denial of the suggestion that he might have been under an abnormal influence further complicates the case. Against the background of his admitted romance with drugs, it would have been easy to link his violence to mind-bending substances had he not emphatically denied such connection.  Or was he living in denial?

    Logically, questions about parenting and socialisation will arise from Tolani’s extreme and excessive expression of anger.  But, at bottom, his murderous rage must be firmly analysed within the context of personal responsibility. The truth is that whatever the inadequacies of his upbringing and the defects of his social integration, it should be reasonably expected that with his education and implied exposure to civility, he ought not to be associated with patricide.

    Interestingly, he claimed to have a girlfriend and other friends in school, which should be unsurprising; the real surprise would be if his friends can understand or explain his crime.  Not only his friends. What about the entire university community?  Many observers are likely to wonder why the Christian orientation of his university turned out to be insufficient as a means of humanisation, which would amount to undervaluing, if not overlooking, the more important dimension of personal accountability.  It is instructive that, in a moment of introspective insight, Tolani himself was quoted as saying, “It is not about church, but only God knows why.”  It can only be imagined how the members of his family would interpret this double tragedy, the murder and the murderer.

    If, indeed, anger was the determining factor in this tragic manifestation of unrefined bestiality, then it is most apt to reflect on not only the psychology of anger, but also  the sociology of anger, particularly in the Nigerian context with all its anger-inducing realities. It is noteworthy that a specific individual in power, speaking of Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, has focused his thoughts on this destructive phenomenon, which is generally understated until something as jolting as Tolani’s outrageousness surfaces. Uduaghan may be an unlikely source of a philosophically perceptive view on anger, particularly because of the political nuances of his position, with reference to the country’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he belongs, and the rival All Progressives Congress (APC), but his perspective is nevertheless useful.

    In a recent interview, Uduaghan said: “Now I am trying to organise a workshop or summit on anger management. We are a country today and virtually everybody is angry with the other person. People are angry with the president, they are angry with PDP, angry with APC, one ethnic person is angry with the other ethnic person. You are driving on the road and one driver is angry with the other driver, okada rider is angry with the police and the police are angry.” He went on: “So we are a country where virtually every person is angry with the other person. So what is happening? We need to sit down and look at why people are angry. Why are we angry with each other? When you read 10 columnists, you will see that eight are writing out of anger. We just get angry with one another.”

    Tolani, clearly now clear-eyed, can see the futility of anger. Sadly, it took patricide, in which he was the protagonist, to open his eyes. “There is no way Nigerians can help me,” he said with touching stoicism. “I am going to face my judgment. I am meant to pay for what I have done. It is not as if I am ready. It is something that is inevitable; something that is going to happen. I am just waiting for the time.”  The enduring moral of this sad and saddening story is: Control your anger before it controls you.

  • Why Ogboinbiri youths are angry

    Why Ogboinbiri youths are angry

    Charles Berebo is the Secretary, Ogboinbiri Youth Association. Seun Akioye met him. 

    The youths have been agitating for employment from the oil company, for how long has this agitation been going on?

    It has been more than a decade, since their operation started in Ogboinbiri; we have been agitating for employment from AGIP Oil Company. At the beginning, they said we didn’t have the skill and education, so our people went to school; we have graduates and Masters Degree holders now. We thought it will be easy to get employment now, but none of our resumes has been taken. Our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. If you look at this area, no Ogboinbiri indigene is doing oil bunkering; the oil company has smooth operations here. So what have we gained for ensuring they enjoy peace? Ogboinbiri people are very angry, even as I speak, I am very angry.

    Apart from that we are also suffering environmental hazards as a result of the activities of the oil company. There are sicknesses that we never had before the oil exploration but which is now commonplace. Our rainwater is not clean; the spillage has affected the atmosphere. You will see that if they put off the flare and try to put it back on there will be terrible black smoke covering the sky above the community. So many times we are afraid, so we say AGIP should find a way to give us some health infrastructure so we don’t perish from the flare but none has been done.

    How often does the company put off and on the gas flare?

    It’s not often, but when they do, you will see black smoke in the sky and it takes about five hours to clear.So they flare the gas all the time? Yes, it doesn’t ever go off, even when it rains they continue to flare it.

    Gas flaring has been condemned all over the world because of the serious health impacts to the host communities and its impact on global warming, what has been the health effects of that in Ogboinbiri?

    Actually, they have not built any good hospital for us, the cottage hospital we have is empty, no doctor, no equipment, we are just suffering, and that place is a disgrace.  You must go and see it.  The hospital was dumped there. We have called for them to equip the facility but they refused. Any small sickness, we have to charter a boat to take the person to Amasoma or Yenagoa and sometimes before we get there, the person has died.

     Really?

    Yes that is what is happening in this community. That is why we are very angry, even child birth complications we have to travel to Yenagoa.  We want a situation where this hospital will be standard so that it can also serve other communities along this coast. Our community is one of the largest around here. Sometimes the babies also die, that is what we have been facing in this community. So what has the community benefitted from being host community?

    The only benefit from the oil company is this light that is all and this long pavement which can happen anywhere. What efforts have you made to get the attention of the oil company?

    Let us go back to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed around 2005. Now it has expired for more than two years and we have been asking that we renew it, but the oil company refused. They said they must finish the pilling work they are doing on the shore line before they sign and it is not supposed to be like that. We know there was a contractor handling that work but it has stopped now. The contractor said AGIP refused to pay him. So is that a ploy by the company to delay signing the MOU.  How should the blame be laid upon the community?

    What is your message to the government?

    We want the government to hear our plea. We expect them to be by our side, it is because of how peaceful we are that this company is able to work. When there is spill, the company will abandon us, even the gas flare causing sicknesses. We want employment; AGIP is not even paying the community, nothing at the end of the month as welfare to our people.

  • ‘Why Okorocha was angry with exco’

    MORE facts have emerged on why Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha sacked the executive council during its meeting on Wednesday.

    A source within the Government House, who pleaded for anonymity, told The Nation that the attitude of most of the commissioners made the governor angry.

    The source said: “The commissioners were not servicing the political structures in their constituencies and this has created a gap between the people and the government, especially members of the ruling All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).

    He said this prompted the governor’s last public assessment to find out those who were representing the government.

    “His Excellency was worried by various complaints that the commissioners were selfish and always complained about paucity of funds. So, the governor summoned the commissioners and sought the people’s opinion; some were booed while others were applauded.

    “In less than two years, we will be preparing for another election and the governor wants to bring in competent people who can project the administration in good light. Core politicians will form the bulk of the next council.”

    New ministries are to be created and a new list will emerge next week.

    The dissolution has been attracting mixed reactions among civil servants.

    When our reporter visited some ministries at the state secretariat, some workers were celebrating the ouster of the commissioners.

    “These commissioners were very selfish. It has never been like this before, they keep complaining even when we are aware of their financial dealings,” they said.

  • What was the President angry about?

    What was the President angry about?

    SIR: The Police College Ikeja is a mirror of our 52 years of absentee leadership and 13 years of the Fourth Republic democratic shenanigans. What is more to say?

    With utmost respect, I submit that the rot and decay the Police College evidences, is nothing compared to that which lie frighteningly in several other sectors, erected copiously as the stark reality of our national story in this time and age. Thus, we refuse to be carried away by the President’s reported anger; rather we assert that the President should have been angry a long time ago particularly since he came to power.

    If the President is just angry now after spending more than 13 years in the corridors of power, after about two years as President, then ours is a much more dangerous state of affairs.

    So now that the President has visited the Police College, shall we still not wonder if his reported anger will survive the period after the President sufficiently regains his composure and returns to the air-conditioning comfort and staggering opulence of the Presidential Villa?

    Time to ask the President the following questions, questions that must certainly evoke a wave of sadness, a burden perhaps too easily faraway from those in power: How will the Police College not be in decay, when about 70% of the country’s annual budget goes into furnishing the belly and attending to the needs and luxuries of those in government in an unpatriotic spending styled “Recurrent Expenditure”?

    How will the Police College not be in total rot when the annual budgetary allocation to the Nigeria Police, a body charged with the core responsibility of securing the country, is a lot less than that continuously wasted on unnecessary foreign travels by government officials that adds no value to the prosperity of the country? How will the Police College not be on its knees crying for help, when about N16 Billion is being budgeted to build the Vice-President’s official residence at the moment?

    That is why the question again lingers, what is it that the President was angry about? Is it that as President, he has led by example in pruning down government’s bogus transformation team, thereby checking hundreds of pipelines of wastages in government, and channelling the rescued funds to critical Institutions of the state? Is it that as President he has relentlessly fought for increased allocation to the Nigeria Police and several other very sensitive sectors of the country, so as to help turn around their infrastructural facilities, but all to no avail?

    With utmost respect I submit, and again ask that profound question, what exactly is it that the President was angry about?

    • Olusola Adegbite, Esq.

    Abuja.

     

  • Nigeria @ 52: Students angry with govt on state of education

    Nigeria @ 52: Students angry with govt on state of education

    Last Monday, Nigeria celebrated its 52nd independence anniversary. The Federal Government marked the event on a low-key.

    As the celebration was going on in Abuja, some officials of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) were meeting at the University of Ibadan (UI) to register their displeadure over the state of education.

    Speaking after the meeting, NANS Public Relations Officer (PRO), Clement Olusegun, 400-Level Business Administration student of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), flayed corruption in the system, adding that the govrnment should devote substantial amount of its annual budget to education.

    “We can only count the days but nothing about achievemnet. We are not saying that the present regime has not performed but there is more to be done to salvage our country,” Clement said.

     

    Other students who spoke to our correspondents from campuses also charged the Federal Government to fund education.

    In Benin, NANS Vice President Ehimemenn Moreno, an Engineering student of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), wondered why government officials celebrated the Independence anniversary.

    “The state of our education is nothing to write home about. Standards have fallen in schools, from primary to tertiary; and I wonder how the money allocated for education was disbursed. Yet people rolled out drums to mark the independence. This is sad and it shows there is no shame in the country,” Moreno said.

    The immediate past Secretary General of NANS, Western Iyamu, said governments at all levels are paying lip service to education development, adding that the leaders’ insensitivity would only spell doom for the nation.

    “A visit to our campuses would show that all is not well with the Nigerian education system. We have desolate laboratories and workshops with outdated equipment; even libraries are not equipped with latest books. In such condition, what would one expect from students?”Western asked.

    According to Ihuoma Owuama, 300-Level Economics, Modibbo Adama University of Technology (MAUTECH), Yola, the condition of education in Nigeria at 52 is still very poor.

    She said: “The facilities we need as students are either inadequate, old or not present while most of our lecturers are not motivated to teach. What we need in Nigeria is knowledge-based educational system that provides an enabling environment for students to not only learn but maximally utilise their potential, and lecturers that are really interested in the progress and well being of students.”

    Another student said: “Government has to stand up to the challenges and equip our institutions. Our libraries and laboratories must be equipped if we are to compete with our peers around the world. Education must also be subsidised by the government in order to ensure every child is not denied his right to education.”

    Rilwan Isiaka, ND 1 student of Kwara State Polytechnic, said: “The country is celebrating yet a great number of its citizens has been affected by flood. Some schools have been closed down in Edo, Delta and Kogi states because of flood. Why should we celebrate? The challenges of education, health care system, and security must be addressed by the government.

    Rahphael Olasehinde, a graduate of the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), said: “There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria’s education system needs overhauling. This is the best time for our leaders to sit down and reflect on how to make graduates create jobs rather be job seekers.”

    The state of education in Nigeria, especially as we celebrate the 52nd independence anniversary, is nothing to write home about, said Benneth Essien. The 400-Level Information Technology student added that private organisations must collaborate with government to develop the education sector.