The Nation Newspaper

Tag: casualties

  • A war without casualties

    Where are the casualties of Nigeria’s noisy war against corruption?  A war without casualties cannot be a war properly so called?  The Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu may well be aware of the oddity of a war without casualties. Perhaps this is why he declared during a visit to The Nation headquarters in Lagos on September 7:  ”We’re now going to declare total war on corruption. It is our responsibility to crush corrupt practices in this country.”  This suggests that before now the war against corruption wasn’t total or was near total.

    What does “total war” mean in this context? A report said: “He described the biggest challenge to the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s anti-graft crusade as “corruption fighting back”. “It’s real and they (those fighting back) have all the money,” he said. Magu said there were no fewer than 125 high-profile corruption cases still “hanging in court.”

    Does “total war” mean the completion of prosecution? Why are these high-profile cases up in the air? As long as high-profile corruption cases remain unresolved, public confidence in the war against corruption will remain uncertain.    Magu’s visit shed light on the slow pace of prosecution of corruption suspects. The report said: “On the delay of such cases, Magu blamed it all on Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), who he said were used by rich and powerful suspects to frustrate cases.”How can 31 SANs go to court to defend one (suspected) looter? Sometimes judges are intimidated. Why should 31 SANs appear for a suspect? We need to ask questions,” Magu said.”

    The report continued: “He said such lawyers adopt several strategies to delay cases, some of which have spent nearly 10 years in court. “They abuse the court process, file all kinds of applications and go on appeal, which goes up to the Supreme Court and back.

    They adopt different technicalities and delay tactics. Sometimes they provoke the judges and write petitions against them. “But I don’t control the judges. We don’t have control over what happens in court. Our role is to investigate,” he said… “We investigate better than any other law enforcement agency in this country, including the police,” he said.”

    Two months after he became acting EFCC chairman, Magu on January 20, 2016, described corruption as “deliberate and calculated wickedness” against the country’s existence, meaning against the people, during a visit to the headquarters of The Nation in Lagos. “The impunity is too much,” he declared. Then he painted a picture of personal pain. He said:”Sometimes I shed tears in the morning before I go to the office. It is just unbelievable; the rot is terrible.” When the arrowhead of the anti-corruption agency is overwhelmed to the point of tears by the sheer scale of confirmable corruption, it is a telling statement about the place of conscience in the anti-corruption war. The fight against corruption is ultimately a fight for conscience, and a fight against the enemies of conscience.

    A portrait of corruption in the temple of justice was painted by no less a person than the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption War (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), in an interview. Sagay said: “When we talk of the judiciary, we are talking of judges. As far as I am concerned, the judiciary is not the most blameworthy. That is the truth of the matter. The most blameworthy are senior lawyers – a number of senior advocates who have made it a speciality; who have developed particular skills to kill corruption cases so that their clients, after many years of delays and frustrations of prosecution, end up going away with their loot. And such lawyers, of course, share in the proceeds of crime. They get a part of the loot and that is why you see them buying private jets and so on. That amount of money from the proceeds of crime has completely blunted their consciences and they are as active as the accused persons – the looters – in trying to protect the loot because part of the loot now belongs to them by association.”

    Sagay added: “What I am saying, therefore, is that this is where it starts. These are the people who carry huge sums of money behind chambers to judges. They are the ones who corrupt judges. Really, if the struggle is going to be effective, we have to mark down the lawyers who are behind all these, not just judges. In fact, there are some retired judges too that are in the game. They are called consultants and they carry huge sums of money to their juniors they left behind in the judiciary and use their influence to get them to simply abandon justice and do the bidding of corrupt persons. It is a very serious situation. But, as I said, the very first port of call would be the lawyers that are behind it. Right now, they are doing it without control; they are doing it without consequences…”

    It is thought-provoking that these two major anti-corruption warriors, Magu and Sagay, accused senior lawyers of working against the anti-corruption war. If it is the case that senior lawyers are frustrating anti-corruption efforts because they gain from the ill-gotten gains of corruption suspects, it means that such lawyers are no better than those accused of corruption.

    The accusation against senior lawyers who play the unflattering role of justice delayers in the war against corruption is too serious to be trivialised. Magu said during his latest visit to The Nation head office:  ”Corruption is the worst developmental problem we have in this country. We need more support. This fight is for our collective good. We should not allow ourselves to be purchased to the detriment of our co-existence. We need to mobilise everybody. Let’s do it together.”

    Those who behave like friends of corruption are enemies of society. Those who behave like enemies of society deserve to be condemned by society. Magu reportedly said he “duly handed over the list of high-profile cases as requested by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Abubakar Malami (SAN).” The public expects convincing action by the authorities to show that the war against corruption is a war properly so called.

  • I’m yet to be briefed on the number of casualties, says Police PRO

    I’m yet to be briefed on the number of casualties, says Police PRO

    The Akwa Ibom State Police Command yesterday said it could not ascertain the number of people that lost their lives following the collapsed church building at Reigners Bible Church in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital.
    Unconfirmed report said the death tolls had risen to 50 but the police said only the medical doctors that attended to some of the patients would be able to tell the casualties figure.
    Speaking on behalf of the command, the State’s Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Cordelia Nwawe, said: “Some people are in the hospital. I am yet to be briefed on the number of casualties. The doctors will be able to tell us the number of people that died. I don’t have the figures.”
    But the Akwa Ibom State Government has commiserated with the families of those affected by the collapse building this afternoon, of a church building along Uyo Village road.
    The statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Ekerete Udoh, reads: “His Excellency, the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Udom Emmanuel was present at the church service during the incident and thereafter personally supervised rescue operations and the evacuation of the injured to the hospital. He has directed that the full resources of the State Government be made available for the treatment of those who were injured in the unfortunate incident.
    “A high-powered panel of enquiry is being constituted to ascertain the immediate and remote factors leading to the collapse of the church building with a view to forestall the reoccurrence of any such incident and bring to book any persons found to have compromised professional standards in the construction of the building.
    “In the meantime, the Government of Akwa Ibom State is appealing to all citizens of the state to remain calm and pray for those injured while avoiding undue speculation as the situation is being given the best possible attention.”

  • Syrian casualties surge as jihadis consolidate

    MORE than 2,000 Syrians – almost half of them pro-government forces – have been killed in just over two weeks of fighting in Syria, marking one of the worst death tolls in the country’s three-year civil war, opposition activists said Monday.

    The reports reflect a recent surge in deadly attacks by the al-Qaida-breakaway Islamic State group targeting President Bashar Assad’s forces, signaling shifting priorities as Sunni militants seek to consolidate their hold on territory and resources in northern Syria.

    Assad’s forces have gained momentum in the fighting with rebels seeking to topple him from power. Infighting also has hurt the rebel cause, with Islamic extremists battling more moderate fighters who have been greatly weakened by lack of weapons and clashes with the militants.

    But a series of recent setbacks for the Syrian government at the hands of the Islamic State group threatens to overturn government successes, pitting the Syrian army against a formidable force that now controls large chunks of territory in the country’s north and neighboring Iraq.”Now that they’ve mopped up rebel resistance to them in the east, the Islamic State (group) can turn to the regime,” said Aymenn al-Tamimi, an expert on militant factions in Syria and Iraq. “It may have been a benefit (to the Islamic State) to deal with rebels first, but the assault against the regime was inevitable.”

    The recent attacks came after Assad was re-elected last month to a third, seven-year term in a vote that was confined to government-controlled areas and dismissed by the opposition and its Western allies. In his inauguration speech on July 16, he confidently declared victory and praised his supporters for “defeating the dirty war.”Since then, fighters from the Islamic State group have launched attacks against army positions in three different provinces in northern and central Syria. In the past week alone, the militants captured a government-controlled gas field and two major army bases in three different provinces.

    More than 300 soldiers, guards and workers at the Shaer field were reported killed by Islamic State militants in a three-day offensive to capture the field.

    The army recaptured Shaer this past weekend.Militants last week also overran the sprawling Division 17 military base in the northern Raqqa province, killing at least 85 soldiers inside.

    Amateur videos posted online by activists showed more than a dozen beheaded bodies in a busy square said to be in Raqqa.

  • Jonathan probes high civilian casualties

    President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday ordered a full-scale investigation into reports of high civilian casualties in the confrontation between soldiers and insurgents at Baga, a border community in Borno State.

    The presidential order followed preliminary briefings from the military high Command on the incident,

    A statement from the Presidency said: “While the preliminary briefings indicate that the casualty figures being reported by the foreign media may be grossly exaggerated, President Jonathan assures Nigerians and the global community that the Federal Government of Nigeria places the highest possible value on the lives of all citizens of the country and that his administration will continue to do everything possible to avoid the killing or injuring of innocent bystanders in security operations against terrorists and insurgents.

    “Rules of engagement for the military and security agencies are already in place for this purpose and the investigation ordered by President Jonathan into the incident in Baga is to amongst other things, determine whether or not these rules were fully complied with.

    “The President has also ordered the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) and federal health agencies to liaise with the Borno State Government and take urgent steps to provide immediate relief and medical support for all who suffered losses and injury in the fighting at Baga.

    “He commiserates with all those who have regrettably lost their lives in the fighting, including the soldiers who gallantly made the supreme sacrifice in the operation against terrorism, insurgency and insecurity in Nigeria.

    “The President is deeply pained by the continuance of these needless deaths and will continue to do all within his powers to achieve lasting peace, security and stability in all parts of the country.

    “It is his hope and expectation that the national committee which he will inaugurate on Wednesday (tomorrow) for dialogue and the peaceful resolution of security challenges in the North will contribute significantly to ending the continuous loss of lives to wasteful violence.”