The Lagos State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, yesterday urged parents to ensure children under five years are immunised against polio.
Ambode, who spoke at the Flag-off of the Round One of the National Immunisation Plus Day at Ifako-Ijaiye Local Government Area (LGA), said parents should use the window of opportunity available to them between today and Tuesday to get their children immunised.
Ambode, represented by his Special Adviser on Public Health, Dr. Olufemi Onanuga said children from zero to 59 months, that is under-five, should receive two drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV) irrespective of the time they have taken the vaccine.
He urged the community and religious leaders to ensure children under-five avail themselves of the opportunity.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Lagos State co-ordinator, Dr Sunday Abidoye said the vaccine is a must take for children within the stipulated age range.
He said Nigeria has been declared polio-free by the WHO since 2014, adding that the immunisation programme was necessary to prevent the disease.
As the interrogation and frisking of economic predators get under way, Nigeria is awash in dark comedies. There are unconfirmed and unconfirmable reports of money hidden away in the most unlikely of places and in the most delicate parts of the human anatomy. As Ibrahim Magu and his people close in, cemeteries, forsaken graveyards, solitary grain silos, soak-away and abandoned water reservoirs are reported to be brimming with various currencies.
A notorious female socialite has let it be known that she is carrying an eight month pregnancy which will not terminate until the return of the great prophet. The Yoruba call such monster children, “Omopeninu”, (The one that tarries in the womb). It was also said that an infamous carpetbagger in one of the provincial capitals recently celebrated the “turning of the grave” of his parents by summarily exhuming and expelling the remains and reburying them in gold caskets filled with Nigeria’s looted patrimony.
Thereafter, the sepulchre Bureau de Change was walled round and electrified. Another was known to have hurriedly constructed a modern Plaza with a secret underground floor filled with cash. Another dug up the soak-away and replaced the human waste with more expensive inhuman waste. It doesn’t get more ghoulish and it all reminds one of the last days of the Roman Empire. If retired General Buhari is looking for a way of balancing the budget deficit, it is obvious that he doesn’t need to look farther afield. It can be internally sourced.
The Nigerian grave yard is an El Dorado brimming with filthy lucre. This is the way of Black people. Mother Nature has gifted them with prodigal resources. After clumsily extracting, they return to bury the proceeds alive. The grave yard cries, and so do the living dead. This is the sacred ritual of the eternal hunter-gatherer. With Nigeria in the last stages of a regression to the Stone Age, who will save the Black person from himself?
But how will the founding patron of private state banking in Nigeria view this development? Very dismally indeed. Barkin Zuwo would have dismissed these unworthy descendants as cowardly banza who could not make an economic kill and stand by it, waiting for any impudent state interloper to dare query them. These are not valiant repositories of state funds but ordinary garden variety robbers who could not hold a candle to their illustrious forebears.
So, God bless good old Barkin Zuwo, and may Allah grant his commodious frame a fitting repose. It was said of the late King Farouk of Egypt that he was a man of much weight but little substance. Farouk, it will be recalled, developed an enormous, Pavarotti-like girth and phenomenal bulk from polishing off a whole lamb at a single sitting. When Nasser finally overthrew him, the obese hulk had to be wheel-barrowed into a waiting ship.
Our own Barkin Zuwo cannot be accused of such gastronomic impunity. Although rumours had it that the late beloved governor of Kano was partial to a huge bowl of Tuwo Shikanfi which he munched with an agrarian relish, he could not be accused of gluttony. The second executive governor of old Kano might have been educationally challenged in the western sense, but he was nobody’s fool. He was as sharp and shrewd as a political marksman, and keen –witted to boot.
For the three months he governed good old tempestuous Kano, there was no shortage of drama, and of the electrifying stuff, too. With his furry Fez cap, the former NEPU stalwart of Nupe extraction could have been mistaken for a Black actor impersonating a pre-Gorbachev era Communist Party supremo, or a royal extra hand in the film, Trading Places.
It was however in the department of creative misprision that Barkin Zuwo courted real immortality. It will be recalled that when good old Barkin was asked about which mineral resources his state could boast of, he growled: “ We get am for Phanta, Coca cola, Sphrite and Miranda”.
Please recall that around the same time, another colleague of Barkin from the old wild, wild west, a dedicated strongman who could prise open an iron fortress gate with bare fists, was asked what he thought was behind the whole phenomenon of students unrest. Infamously, the celebrated stalwart from Erunmu agrarian community near Ibadan was said to have retorted: “How can they rest when they are always fighting?”—or words to that effect.
When the soldiers eventually struck putting an end to the shenanigans of the Second Republic, Barkin Zuwo marched to military detention camp with plenty of aplomb and pizzazz to spare. (Please note that snooper did not say pizza). Zuwo was not going to be fazed or cowed by some boy scouts pretending to be generals. He had after all known the dreaded and ferocious Abacha as a mere boy playing football in Kano, a feat that earned the future infantry general the appellation of “Obe the Pele”.
It was in brief detention that Zuwo finally earned his deserved place in the Guinness Book of records, and in the most bizarre of circumstances. It was put out to the world at large that a huge some of money was found under his bed. Zuwo could not understand what the fuss was all about. “It is govmen money in govmen house, shikena”, the old NEPU hell-raiser tersely noted.
The churlish press boys quickly nicknamed him “Banking Zuwo” to reflect his new status as the banker of the bankrupt. But Zuwo was not done yet. When it was let out what a staggering sum of money that was found in his house, Zuwo cried blue murder. “Barawo ne” (Thief!), he screamed at the NSO boys. According to Zuwo, there had been some creative accounting somewhere because the money he hid was far in excess of what had been declared.
Ibrahim Magu and the new firebrand no-nonsense EFCC should note this. Till date nobody has bothered to reconcile the differing accounts or the accountants for that matter. The man of the people chopped until the redeemer of the people came, oil flowed and blood flowed, but If anything, Nigerians had merely exchanged monkeys for baboons——apologies to Sad Sam.
Twenty five years later, in the year of our Lord 2008 the “Banking Zuwo” drama replayed itself, which shows that in Nigeria, the more things change the more they remain the same. Enter Joshua Chibi Dariye, the former governor of Plateau state and a celebrated modern-day Croesus and fugitive from Metropolitan justice.
Ousted twice from office by forces loyal to the implacable General Obasanjo, the dapper Dariye survived by the skin of his teeth, with his elegant French suit dripping with the dewy mush and manure of the remote plateau. The old EFCC under Malam Nuhu Ribadu, like a vicious rottweiler, went beyond the call of duty to nail him. Disobliging the tenets of democracy and the rule of law, it finally assembled six members of the assembly to commit executive regicide.
It is understandable, then, if there was no love lost between the EFCC and the then embattled Dariye. In the heat of battle, and in a gory turn of metaphor, Dariye likened the EFCC to dogs which he said constituted a mouth watering delicacy among his people. It will be recalled that Dariye’s sturdy tribesmen once made a mince meat of the invading caliphate forces in a memorable massacre which turned the entire plateau into a grisly fountain of blood. In the event, wiser counsel prevailed and a bloody show down was averted.
But that was only an inconclusive battle in an unending war. The gladiators eventually returned to the ring. This time it was an embattled Dariye who moved rapidly to the offensive against his tormentors. In an allegation all too reminiscent of the late Barkin Zuwo, Dariye claimed that there was a shortfall of 741 million naira between money actually impounded from him and money actually declared. Phew!!!. Zuwo would have been barking mad.
Now, in international gossip circuits, as snooper noted at that material point in time, the British journalist is often the butt of cruel jokes for congenitally fiddling with expense accounts. The rich Americans are openly and brutally scornful of this hand wringing petty thievery. Snooper was not sure whether this vice has also caught up with the metropolitan cops. The British High Commission actually confirmed that only part of the money has been returned even as the Federal government of that period chose to hide under empty technicalities.
This did not assuage Joshua Dariye, and neither would Barkin Zuwo ,his patron saint, have been too pleased. With or without metropolitan reassurance, Dariye cried blue murder. That seems like ages ago, but we are again at a similar conjuncture in this endlessly gory tale of the gang-raping of a nation by its own privileged children. The tribe of economic rapists has multiplied. With so many notorious Nigerian economic predators taking refuge in Britain, let the Metropolitan Police beware of Africa as the new ethical graveyard of the white man. There is an evil spirit abroad.
From tales of death, malnutrition and lack of access to education, the myriad of problems confronting children displaced by Boko-Haram seem enormous. HANNAH OJO who visited some IDPs settlements around Abuja reports.
An unmarked cemetery at Mandala Azoro houses the remains of thirteen children who went down like ninepins after a measles outbreak in Wasa, a Village in the FCT Abuja. They were aged five and below. The earth above their bodies still bore a fatal remembrance of the injurious loss; two months after they became victims to the twin inconvenience of poverty and disease.
The children in Wasa IDP location had survived the terrors of Boko-Haram in their home town of Gwoza only to come to a sticky end months later when the infectious but preventable diseases broke through their settlement at an uncompleted estate in the village.
When the news of their death broke in November 2015, the executive secretary of the FCT Primary Health Care Board, Dr Rilwan Mohammed, had given the number of the casualties as 10. The media quoted the same, but the secretary of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Wasa, Usman Ibrahim, confirmed 13 deaths. A personal visit to the grave of the deceased confirmed the accurate figure to be 13.
The measles outbreak, it was learnt, was transferred by the Fulani children to the children of the IDPs through interaction in the only primary school built by government in the village.
“There are no benches in the school so all the pupils sit on the floor. There is no hospital or pharmacy here so when the measles broke, we reported to FEMA (FCT Emergency Management Agency). FEMA called Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) to send us doctors. The measles had been ravaging for 11 days before the doctors came. The children died around November. Some died on the 15th, some on the 13th ,” Usman further submitted.
Sarah Andrew, 27, an indigene of Gwoza who has lost relatives and friends to the Boko-Haram insurgency, also confirmed the demise of the children stating the cause of their deaths as Kada (an Hausa name for measles).
Sarah Andrew
“The children died as a result of lack of immunization. I have been here for two years and I have witnessed pregnant women and children dying,” she said.
Measles is an infectious disease which leads to significant deaths among children in developing countries. It was after these deaths that other IDP children in Wasa were immunized; fulfilling the delayed promise of the health ministry to take measles campaign to the to the doorsteps of all Nigerians irrespective of their place of residence in the country.
However, despite this medicine- after- death approach, investigation by The Nation shows that children in various IDP settlements within Abuja may be in for other disasters judging by the poor sanitation conditions of the five IDP locations visited. The settlements in Wasa, Waru, Durumi, Kuchingoro, Karmajiji Tudun Muntsira are occupied mainly by people from Gwoza local government in Bornu state.
Findings show that the children usually come down with complaints of running stomachs. They are also susceptible to gastrointestinal infections like diarrhoea and Cholera. Polio and Trachoma, an infectious disease of the eyelid spread by poor hygiene and sanitation arising from lack of adequate safe water supply could also result in the future.
When The Nation visited Wasa village, the only borehole for the IDPs built by a youth corps member was no longer functioning. The children were seen fetching water from an infected pond, judging from the brownish colour of the water springing from it. Other children gathered at a well where their fetchers were already scratching the base of the well bringing out coloured water. The scarcity of water is made worse by the parching dust and dryness of the Harmattan season. The abandoned uncompleted estate they occupy has no toilets. They wade to the bushes not far from their surroundings to answer the call of nature. There is also no electricity supply.
The Worst Place to be Born
When the Economist Intelligence Unit, EIU, a sister company of The Economist magazine ranked Nigeria as the worst place to be born in 2013, it certainly did not include the plights of children born in IDP locations in the FCT as an indices for the projection.
The heat was intense on a Wednesday afternoon when the reporter called into Esther Tanko’s tent at the Durumi location for IDPs of Gwoza indigenes in the FCT. She radiates the warmth of a woman who just welcomed a bundle of joy. She is one of the lucky few who possess a mattress which lay on a bare floor. Her son, who is nearing two weeks, is yet to be named. His circumcised penis is still reddish from slow healing, made worse by the hot weather which permeates easily into the shacks used to build the tent. The heat pierces the skin of an adult.
The mother of seven, who spoke in Hausa, narrated her pregnancy ordeal: “This particular pregnancy was very tough for me. There is no hospital here and there was nobody to help. It was some members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG that I attended that took me to the Wuse General Hospital where my blood sample was taken and I was diagnosed of typhoid and malaria. The church paid the hospital bills and bought baby things for me.”
Esther gave birth with the help of other women in the camp. She said the baby, who is almost two weeks old would be named after the pastor of the church which helped her survive the pregnancy.
Unlike Esther, who was able to get help, many of the women in the camp had had to rely on traditional methods during the course of pregnancy. There is no clinic and the hospital they were directed to use by the FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is quite a distance and many are not able to cough out money for taxi. They have been forced to rely on traditional methods of pregnancy care and this had not been without casualties.
Esther and baby
Mrs Liatu Ayuba who lost her husband, a policeman, to Boko-Haram and also nurses a 21 year old son handicapped by a bomb attack, is the woman leader at the Durumi IDP camp. She said she has helped deliver about 23 babies in various shackled tents since they arrived the settlement over a year ago.
“There was a particular delivery experience that I won’t forget. It was raining heavily and we could not get the mother’s to the proper position because the floor was wet and flooded. That day I cried. We later carried her with the help of other women to my own tent where she delivered the baby.”
Asked of the health infrastructure put in place for women and children within the various IDP locations in Abuja, the head of Public Relations Unit, FEMA, Josie Mudasiru, said there is no health infrastructure on ground for the IDPS because they are squatting on land belonging to private Nigerians.
“We only have arrangements with health secretariat and various NGOs to visit with doctors who attend to their health needs. Arrangement is also on with government hospitals to attend to pregnant women”, she further said.
The Agony of malnourished children
A sight is quite familiar in most of the IDP locations visited: children with stunted growth and brown coloured hair. This is not only linked to the fact that many of the IDPs rely on handouts from individuals to survive but also traced to the tortuous journey of escape for survival.
Naheema Suleiman, 30, lost a 15- year- old daughter in Sambisa Forest when she was trying to escape from Boko-Haram members who threatened to marry young women in her town. Also a Gwoza indigene, she is one of the IDPs in Karmajiji Tudun Muntsira where 56 households and a total of over 248 displaced persons are trying to eke out a living.
She told the grim tales of how small children were fed at the time they were fleeing their hometown.
“We packed Tuwo grains and mix it with water to make it appear like a pap and put in pet bottles. When we are on the road and the children begin to cry for food, we will give them to drink. When we reached Cameroun, they did not help us; they were chasing us away to the camp. Even if a child’s pant is wet and you want it to dry, they will ask you to remove it from the line. They told us not to put bombs in their place.
“From there, those who had money were able to go get a vehicle to Yola. Those who had no money were forced to the Cameroun IDP camp where there is no food and children were falling sick and suffering. Some children fell sick on the road and some women died. A woman had to give birth on the road. We could not stay at the IDP camp in Cameroun because we heard there are no food and children were falling sick and suffering.”
At the Kuchingoro camp, the reporter met with Chonfilawos Danladi and Luku John, both 11 years old Primary 3 pupils of a school donated by an NGO in their camp. They confessed to not eating breakfast, but relying on the free food served to them during break time.
Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor, the Director of Consulting Services at EpiAfric, an organization involved in public health has worked in proving free medical services to displaced women and children in some IDP camps in the FCT.
His take on the health status of some of the children he has encountered: “Most children who were brought to the clinic showed physical signs of malnutrition, including stunted growth with signs of failure to thrive. The common complaints included abdominal pains, cough, catarrh and fever. The poor sanitation within the camp exposes all residents to infectious diseases. The rains also worsen the already poor sanitation within the camp and an outbreak of an infectious disease is just in the offing.”
Continuing, he said; “The pregnant women the volunteers saw have never attended antenatal clinics; one was in her 8th month of pregnancy. Most children had not been immunized and could acquire any of the vaccine-preventable diseases,” he submitted.
School without walls; emergency education for displaced children
IDP children at Kuchingoro
The bell tolled and the children swiftly move to form the assembly lines at the new Kuchingoro Camp. It was a sobering scene: some luck to get uniforms, while others wore dust-coloured house wears with feet adorned with slippers. Their faces were caked with Harmattan dust and a woman helped with cleaning their running nose with tissue. The reporter later learnt that she is the school nurse.
“We want to enforce some hygienic disciplines, but we don’t always have the water,” an anonymous source in the school confided in the reporter. Despite the obvious challenges, the children there are far better in terms of education than the other locations visited.
The school without walls is an initiative of Life Builders, an NGO coordinated by a management consultant and pastor, Sanwo Olatunji David. He confessed to being moved by the plight of the children who were not attending school when he visited them in 2013 for evangelism in the company of his wife. The school operates in two settlements of the IDPs in Kuchingoro.
“For the past 10 years, I fly business class or first class whenever I travelled overseas, but since the start of Life Builders, I now fly economy. It is not comfortable, but it is worth it when you see what your money does for the children,” he enthused.
The school, which caters to the educational needs of over 600 IDP children also provides feeding once a day for them. It has permanent teachers, three of whom are IDPs who were teaching in schools in their native state.
“It is capital-intensive, but you have to feed the children because if they don’t eat, they won’t be able to concentrate in class. It is like helping yourself because they could go round and become robbers to hurt you in the future”, the director of the project, Pastor David reasoned.
For many of the children who could not cope at the secondary level, the foundation is planning a vocational centre where they can learn skills in tailoring, welding, fish farming, carpentry and brick making, with which they would be able to use to sustain themselves when they return to their hometown after Boko-Haram had been conquered.
The NGO, it was learnt, also pay school fees for over 200 students in other IDP settlement in Nasarawa state. It is a huge project and the director said the organization is working on a sustainability plan of funding the project by organizing a stakeholders’ forum in February.
“ A good number of people have supported with books, school uniforms, but you can’t plan with it because it is not regular. The project has gotten to a point of no return. It is not like the days when we just started when I have to drive the car and my wife has to cook the food and my daughter who us an architect would also join in teaching the children. We were doing it alone until the number of the children got to a point where we had to call on God to raise our finances so could employ other people”, Pastor David submitted.
Cordelia Nyamsi, the proprietress of Golden Lamb Christian School, who volunteered to teach displaced children described her experience so far. “The experience has been challenging because of their background and the trauma they had been through. They are used to being taught in Hausa, so many of them don’t understand English; so the language is a barrier. Any time I teach and they respond, it gives me more reason to stay here.”
A teacher in the secondary section of the school, Sake Abdulahi, who left his local government in Bauchi due to delayed salaries, also shared his experience with the children:
“When we started this school, if you call one of the IDP children and say come, unless you use a sign language, they would run. But now, they can now actually understand the difference between come and go in English. They are assimilating knowledge and we are enjoying them.”
An estimated one million children have been forced out of school as a result of a violent attack by Boko-Haram, according to a United Nations report. Many of these children are cut off from education, but there is a semblance of educational of support for IDP children in Kuchngoro through the effort of one man who chose to see things differently. Unfortunately, other locations are not as lucky as the government schools where kids could be registered are located at far distances, out of the reach of the IDPs.
People without identity
To a large extent, IDPs in various settlements around Abuja are left on their own with no government help or recognition, a situation which further subjects them to poverty and squalor.
The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Muhammad Sani Sidi, declared that there is no recognized internally displaced person camp in the FCT, urging those claiming to be IDPs in Abuja on account of insurgency to go back to their states and get registered.
However, Dr Allen Manasseh, a humanitarian agent and director with End of Violence And Restoration Our Ancestral Home Organisation, EVRAH disagrees. Manasseh, a native of Chibok who had worked to profile and assist IDPs both in government recognized camps and host community camps said:
“Anyone that is saying they have no business being here (Abuja) should recover their homes for them and let them return. Do you think they are happy being here sleeping on mats and eating from handouts? They have been fending for themselves all their lives from their villages and farms.
“Today, if their territories are safe, they are happy to go back. Is Gwoza accessible up till date? Where do they want them to go? Bama is not accessible if not in full military movement. Let us see the apparatus of government in shape in all the recovered territories and all will return willingly. Government is not managing any IDP camp in Abuja, the IDPs are at the mercies of ordinary Nigerians and NGOS,” he submitted.
At the back end of a makeshift tent in an IDP settlement at Kuchingoro, two toddlers, excluded from the school crowd, sit on the bare floor. With mucus running down their nose and dust caked feet; they relish loaf of dry bread. They had survived the terrors of war, but now their future lies bleak and undecided.
This is the first part of a two part -series supported with funds by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Abuja through the ACCESS Nigeria Project.
Once again, Obasanjo did what he does best. Adorning a toga of the conscience of the nation, he embarked on a crusade on her behalf. In a letter dated January 13, he wanted Bukola Saraki the Senate President and his counterpart in the Lower House to look into ‘the mind-boggling expenditure going into cars, furniture, housing renovation which he said were ‘veritable sources of waste and corruption’; the ‘different disingenuous ways and devices the legislature employed to overturn the recommendation of the RMAFC in order to hike up for themselves that which they are unwilling to spell out in detail’; and challenged them to “have the courage to publish its recurrent budgets for the years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 to enable comparisons made between their emoluments and those of their counterparts in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and even Malaysia and Indonesia who are richer and more developed than we are.
Many have wondered what qualified Obasanjo for this periodic crusade which he first embarked upon shortly after handing over power voluntarily to Shehu Shagari in 1979. Fate ceded that role to Obasanjo. For instance others fought the civil war, he took the glory. The assassination of Murtala Mohammed in 1976 threw him up. He faithfully implemented the transition programme and thereafter became a respected international statesman. He was to later exercise tremendous influence on the administrations of Shehu Shagari, Ibrahim Babangida and General Abacha who sent him to Gashua prison.
Our country is also unique in many respects. Nigeria is the only known federation where you could become an elected president twice without being sponsored by any of the federating building blocks. With such a feat, akin only to climbing the palm tree from the top, leaders like Obasanjo can, in defiance of all known sociological state model builders’ postulations that a man is first a product of a family before becoming a member of a group, believe he can indeed climb the palm tree from the top by being a Nigerian first and Yoruba as an afterthought. Obasanjo probably actually believes he is ‘Mr. Nigeria’. Not his wife’s book that detailed his humble beginning or his dearest daughter, Iyabo’s public chastisement about thinking he owns Nigeria could cure him of the illusion that without Obasanjo, there will be no Nigeria.
And by virtue of being PDP leader in and out of office since 1999, Obasanjo can lay claim to the title of ‘ father of all the corrupt elements that have held our nation to ransom since 1999’. After all, the 22 elected PDP governors in 1999 out of which 17 were indicted for corruption by 2008, all the successive PDP chairmen, senate presidents and speakers of the lower house between 1999 and 2015 address Obasanjo as ‘Baba’. Of course Saraki and Dogara of the Senate and the House of Assembly are Obasanjo’s PDP grandchildren. His house was Saraki’s first port of call after trading off the victory of his party in order to usurp the senate presidency.
Obasanjo, knows Saraki the target of his crusade this time around like the palm of his hands in the same manner he knows his other illustrious, some will say notorious, children such as Diepreye Alamieseigha, Odili, Ibori, Igbinedion, Okupe, Fayose, Daniel, Jolly Nyame, Joshua Dariye, Boni Haruna, Mu’ azu, Chris Uba who locked up governor Chris Ngige, like a common criminal over the sharing of confiscated Anambra government funds and ex-president Jonathan who says stealing was not corruption. But does Obasanjo expect Saraki to give what he has not got?
Well, Saraki also seems to know his father and how to massage his ego. Like a son who knows how to manipulate his father, Saraki praised President Obasanjo ‘for his consistent role in always reminding those of us in government about our responsibilities to the general public and offering timely advice where necessary’. He was however silent on his father’s accusation of massive corruption, greed, impunity and lawlessness at the National Assembly as well as his claim that most members of the 469-member assembly were receiving constituency allowances without maintaining constituency offices as the law requires of them. Saraki then went on to speak vaguely about the senate’s commitment ‘to good governance, transparency, accountability, due process and responsiveness to the economic reality of our nation’.
On his part, Dino Melaye’s reaction to Obasanjo’s letter seems to reflect his special endowment-capacity to play the clown and the reflective. Unfortunately most people who watch his theatrics on television trying to justify abandoning his senate duties to accompany Toyin Saraki to EFCC’s office or to justify his role in the invasion of CCT along with 84 senators during the senate president’s arraignment for false declaration of assets will most likely associate him with the former. Few remember Melaye had the presence of mind during the obscene N8.64b National Assembly wardrobe allowance controversy to tell his colleagues ‘they cannot be talking about change and this kind of money in this country now when people are hungry.’
But tragically, following Obasanjo’s warning that ‘‘it will not only be insensitive but callously so for leaders, who call for sacrifice from the citizenry to live in obscene opulence’, the same Senator Melaye, like a clown comically says: ‘Our leader has mistaken the 8th National Assembly as the same National Assembly that defrauded him in 2007; that is those who collected his money and refused to implement the third term agenda… I appeal to Baba that we are not the ones please. After nine years of that bribery saga, the first of its kind, I expect forgiveness to have taken place”. He also said: “There was the case of bribery introduced by the Obasanjo regime in the desperate attempt to remove Speaker Ghali Umar Na’Abba from office then. In fact, there was an open display of that bribery money on the floor of the House”. Concluding, Melaye asks; “I hope this is not in an attempt to cover up and distract attention from the Halliburton and Siemens corruption allegations?’’ But if one may ask the irrepressible Melaye, what has this clowning got to do with the massive corruption Obasanjo claims is going in the National Assembly?
The truth however is that slippery Saraki, clowning Dino Melaye along with cunning Obasanjo, their father, are all parts of the problem and can therefore not be parts of the solution. The challenge before our nation is how to move beyond the baleful legacies of Obasanjo and those of his PDP children that breed nothing but corruption.
The starting point is for APC oligarchy to take control of their party and use it as weapon for development as has been done in all developed democracies. Nigerians voted for APC because it promises change. Their job will be made easier if they allow all the senators that do not share their party’s world-view to join PDP.
Now with the success recorded with the card readers, politicians now know Nigerians don’t actually suffer from collective amnesia as they had made us to believe. Those greedy clowning senators who want Nigeria taxpayers to cough out N8.64b as wardrobe allowance and the Saraki ‘like mind’ senators who think Saraki as number three citizen of the country owes Nigeria no explanation as to the source of the massive wealth he allegedly amassed between 1990 and 2009 should be given a choice to re-join PDP and await the verdict of voters in 2019.
Pa Kiagbodo Edwin Clark, an elder statesman and former Commissioner for Information in the Gowon’s post-civil war administration is an illustrious Nigerian. On account of his immeasurable contributions to the development of the country especially his Ijaw nation, as a teacher, bureaucrat and politician, he is in fact regarded a ‘Nigerian treasure’ by admirers of his brand of politics which thrives in the exploitation of the secret fears of his Ijaw people.
As a man who often prefers to swim against the tide of popular opinion, he encouraged and supported Gowon’s controversial unilateral declaration that 1976, the scheduled year for hand-over of government to civilians had suddenly become unrealistic. For betraying the commitment he made to the people, Gowon, a hero of war and peace and author of ‘no victor no vanquished’ was humiliated out of office.
Pa Clark has not changed much in the last 50 years. Ex-President Jonathan was his latest victim. Encouraged by Pa Clark to bite the fingers that fed him, he reneged on solemn promise and commitment he made to his party and Obasanjo his godfather to do only one term. Jonathan, who secured a landslide victory over Buhari in 2011, was humiliated out of office losing in four of the nation’s six geopolitical zones in last year election.
When Obasanjo who single-handedly made him governor, vice president and president wrote an 18-page letter accusing his godson of maladministration, corruption and incompetence, Clark left the message and attacked the messenger describing the letter as ‘contemptuous and treasonable’ and insisting Nigeria does not belong to Obasanjo. For asking Jonathan who weirdly claimed ‘stealing is not corruption’ to rein in his thieving subordinates, Clark, the self- appointed ‘President’s father’, asked Obasanjo who he claimed had only N20,000 in his account after coming out of Gashua prison, to explain the source of his wealth after eight years as President. He did not forget to remind Obasanjo of the Halliburton bribe scandal and the Siemens corruption cases’ that happened under him.
Last week, precisely on January 22, Edwin Clark once again chose to swim against the tide of public opinion. In the midst of sordid disclosures of how $2.1b ‘Dasukigate’ slush money meant to equip our out-gunned soldiers fighting insurgency was shared by PDP stalwarts, Clark wrote a 10-page letter to let President Buhari know why he must not humiliate his Niger Delta children notably Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo and embattled ex-NIMASA boss, Patrick Akpobolokemi, accused of mismanaging N3.4b of public money. He wrote glowingly about Tompolo who he described as ‘a civilized Nigerian who can never be part of the renewed bombing of the pipelines in the region’. He disclosed that Tompolo was the most level-headed of all the Niger Delta militants who but for his inadequacy in formal education would have been appointed into government. He admitted lobbying government to secure for him the lucrative multi-billion oil pipeline monitoring contract because of his experience of the creeks.
Then In the same letter, Clark tongue-in-cheek says ‘I totally condemn the vandalisation of oil and gas pipelines and will give you 100 per cent support for whatever action you take to bring the culprits to book’. The question Nigerians should ask Pa Clark is why he did not accord Jonathan his son such support to stop a daily theft of crude oil which Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , the former Finance Minister put at 400,000 barrels a day. And while Clark was blowing hot and cold, Tompolo who EFCC’s lawyer, Festus Keyamo claimed turned down EFCC invitation and court summons, chose to write a letter directly to President Buhari claiming he had no knowledge of NIMASA’s stolen N34b.
Unfortunately for father and son, when EFCC commenced trial of a Patrick Akpobolokemi, the former NIMASA boss and five others before Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court Lagos last Friday, Nigerians who thought they had seen the worst of PDP men in the sharing of Dasukigate’ blood money were dumbfounded with the testimonies of Chukwuemeka Benjamin, a fashion designer who told the court how his company, Extreme Vertex Nigeria Limited received N546,000,000 from NIMASA for a service that was never executed.
We are all victims of Pa Clark and his Niger Delta children – the errant politicians and the misguided youths, who cannot appreciate life is about ‘quid pro quo’, ‘give and take’ or service traded for something of value. The militants collect N65,000 for doing absolutely nothing. They are probably unaware that many youths in some parts of the country work in the farms or hawk pure water sachets to see themselves through secondary school, while many undergraduates of University of Lagos do laundry work at weekends to support themselves. Of course they are probably not aware many university graduates earn less than N50,000 in most places including newspapers houses in Lagos. Yet one of the apprehended armed gangs specialising in raiding of banks in Lagos last week confessed N65, 000 paid to militants was not enough to support his lifestyle without oil bunkering and armed robbery.
If Clark’s ill-educated militant children do not know they need to earn their N65, 000 pay, his senior errant children, the governors who collect the 13% derivation without accountability do not fare better. Why should some governors that collect in one month what some states collect in one year not guarantee the security of facilities located within their states? They along with Pa Clark who claimed Tompolo is deficient in formal education should be held responsible for the fate of Tompolo and his other deprived Niger Delta youths. It took Awo less than 10 years to implement free primary education and establish world-class University of Ife in spite of the impediments put on his way by Clark and his Ijaw elite he claimed chose to align with the north 50 years ago. It is not an accident that Niger Delta’s marginalised armed youths who engage in crime share the same fate with their marginalised northern counterparts who spend 10 months in the bush every year looking after cattle owned by the elite.
But how do we liberate ourselves from Clark’s children – the armed militants who not only destroy facilities they are paid to safeguard in the creeks, but also attack innocent people in Lagos and his governors who say stealing public fund is not corruption? As we have always said, we cannot reinvent the wheel. All we require is a leader who can properly articulate our crisis of nationhood. Federalism is the social philosophy that liberates groups and individual from the tyranny of state and selfish state actors.
With fiscal federalism, those who say stealing is not corruption can take control of their golden egg and pay 50% tax to the federal government. Those who cannot lay golden egg will revert back to land. After all Nigeria was once world greatest exporter of groundnut and palm oil and seventh in cocoa. The billions we currently waste on amnesty and for providing security by militants and soldiers to keep the restive Niger Delta youths under control can be deployed as agriculture subsidy. That is what happens in Malaysia and Thailand from where we import rice that had been kept in the silos for upward of 10 years.
With oil selling at about $31 per barrel, now is the time to call off the bluff of Clark’s subtle blackmail of ‘Niger Delta lays the golden egg’ and that of other Niger Delta irritants such as Niger Delta Patriotic Alliance (NPDA) who says Buhari must allow criminals to operate freely in Lagos. Clark’s friends in the north who he claimed own all the oil wells can relocate to Niger Delta or South-south when we restructure if they so desired. Restructuring is the only answer to corruption, violent crimes, fake drug peddling and other social ills in a multi-ethnic society where groups operate at different level of cultural development.
A retired branch manager, Ogun State Housing Corporation, Alhaja Kudirat Funmilola Bankole, has advised parents, especially mothers, to train their children in the way of the Lord when they are still young.
Alhaja Bankole, who gave the advice during her 70th birthday anniversary in Lagos, said training the young ones in the fear of God will give the parents peace of mind and bring delight into their lives when they are old.
According to her, parents who train their children in accordance to the norms of the society are laying strong foundation for the future of the family.
She said: “I thank God for all He has done in my life and for the power, wisdom and knowledge given unto me to train my children and for them to adhere to my training instructions. It is an epitome of good parenting when parents train and discipline their children at tender age.”
She regretted the current trend when many parents do not deem it fit to appreciate what God has done in their lives.
The event was well attended by politicians, business associates, captains of industries as well as families and well-wishers across the country.
Members of Lion Club across Nigeria and in the Diaspora were also present to share the joy of the ‘Fulani Beauty’ as she is fondly called by her husband, Chief J.O.T. Bankole.
The celebrator described the day as one of the most glorious and joyous days in her life, her children and entire family.
Her husband, Chief Bankole described the celebrator as most loving, caring and accommodating, even as he addedthat Alhaja Bankole loves to impact positively on the lives of people. This virtue, he said was appreciated by her friends and colleagues, especially members of the Lions Club.
One of her step sons, Prince Gbenga Bankole said they were lucky to have her as a mother. He said he found it difficult to understand the difference between stepmother and biological mother as she showed love and care to both her biological and step children without discrimination.
The Charter President, Ota Esteem Lions Club, Lion Dr. Juliet Osara-Opaleye, described the celebrator as dedicated and committed to the cause of Lionism, who derives pleasure in helping the less-privileged persons in the society.
According to Osara-Opaleye, Mrs Bankole’s famous maxim is “Lionism is in the blood; as you are serving others, you are serving yourself.”
The Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, yesterday in Abuja called on children to study hard to improve their learning skills.
The President’s wife, who was represented by the Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Aisha Alhassan, stated this at Christmas and New Year Children’s Party at the Presidential Villa.
She urged children to do all their homework given to them at all times to ensure that they become good students.
Aisha advised children to be obedient to their parents and teachers as well as be law abiding in order to make Nigeria a great nation.
She urged them toalso pray for the country to overcome all the challenges facing it.
“The party is to rejoice and show love to the children as we celebrate Christmas and New Year.’’
She said the present administration was committed to development of children as they represented the future of the nation.
Highlights of the occasion was cutting of the New Year cake and prsentation of gifts to the children.
The Christ Holy Church (CHC) International had held its maiden special Christmas party for mothers and their children. It was not all wining and dining. The women and their children also underwent free sugar, malaria and other medical tests at the party organised by the church’s women and children department, reports SUNNY NWANKWO.
The church auditorium of Christ Holy Church (CHC) International in Aba, Abia State was filled to capacity. Gaily dressed children and their parents attended a Christmas party organised by the leadership of the Women and Children Department of the Aba Superintendency of the church. The day was set aside to bring children from various stations under the Superintendence together to unwind and dine as part of the activities to mark this year’s celebration of the birth of Christ. It was the first time such a programme would be organised.
The Christmas party, which provided the children the opportunity to interact among themselves, was also used to provide the health and spiritual needs of the children as the organisers provided free sugar, malarial and other tests for the children and their parents.
There was lecture on the common cause and treatment of children’s cough from the health unit of the Children’s Department, drama presentation and song renditions, among others.
The Head, Aba Superintendence Women and Children Department and wife of Bishop of Province III CHC International, Senior Deaconess Christiana E. Umeh in a keynote address said the theme of the event, “Raising Godly Children in a Corrupt World” was apt going by the challenges parents encounter while training and raising their children and wards these days.
Deaconess Umeh urged parents to be mindful of the company their child/children keep. She also called on Christians to rally round the church in prayers if the country must be delivered from the ills and dangers which have bedevilled it.
In a chat with Southeast Report, the chairman Elder Reginald Umeike and Mr. Donatus Ikpeogu said they were excited over the party, saying that the event was the first of its kind since the inception of the Aba Superintendency.
Umeike and Ikpeogu, who expressed their happiness, commended the bishop’s wife’s initiative and vision in brining such event. They also expressed the hope that the event was going to be a yearly affair.
Senior Evangelist Alex Nwasa, who represented the Bishop of Province III, Rev. Nathan Okeke Ume said thanked wife of the bishop and all leaders of the Children’s Department under the Aba Superintendency for initiating such a laudable programme, adding that the initiative was in the interest and progress of the district.
According to Nwasa, the Superintendency’s leadership would seek ways to partner with the Children’s Department to ensure that the event was sustained.
One of the children, Miss Peace Kalu said she was happy and excited to be part of the Christmas Party, adding that she learnt being honest, truthfulness and to always listen carefully to recognise when God is talking as it happened between God and Moses.
Miss Kalu said she expects the 2016 edition of the party to be more organised and better, even as she called for more participation by children and their parents.
It was a day of fun and merriment for children in Yaba LCDA under the Mainland Local Government Area, Lagos State as its Executive Secretary, Hon. Bola Lawal-Olumegbon, hosted them to a Christmas party.
Children from different schools in the LCDA came out in their numbers to participate in the event which took place at the Main Bowl of the University of Lagos Sports Ground in Akoka, Lagos.
In her speech, Hon. Lawal-Olumegbon described Christmas as a season of joy during which Christians celebrated the birth of Christ and also a period when friends and families visit each other while exchanging gifts, adding that the event which was the first of its kind in the LCDA.
“It’s our little way of adding fun to this year’s festive activities for the children to make them happy.”
This she said was because before now, all the Council Development Area had been doing was about the parents and the elderly but the festive period provided an opportunity for them to celebrate the children. She therefore encouraged the children to have fun.
Parents, as well as staff of the LCDA, including the APC Leader, Mainland LGA, Hon Wale Osun, and other dignitaries, graced the occasion which featured dance, games, bouncing castle.
The celebration also featured dance competitions for children of different ages and for mothers too while gift items was presented to the children by Hon. Bola Lawal-Olumegbon.
The politician also spent time with autistic children and took photographs with them.
According to her, seeing them always makes her feel happy and fulfilled. She said even when they are not as physically stable as normal children, they could be helped to live a normal live.
A school proprietor, Mrs Abosede Yusuf, has urged parents to make sacrifice for the education of their children.
Education, she said, was the pivot on which nation-building rests.
She spoke last Saturday during the third anniversary and end-of-year concert of her school, Echelon Nursery and Primary Schools in Idimu, Lagos.
Mrs Yusuf, who said the school started as a coaching centre with five pupils in 2012, recalled: “I have always had the dream of establishing a school that will deliver quality education, but I had no clear idea of how to go about it. I started the coaching centre with five pupils; but today, it has transformed into a school and we have over 50 pupils. It is not by my power, but God’s might.’’
She said she had been able to imbibe a culture of academic excellence in the children, while also making positive impacts on their parents.
Mrs Yusuf said: “I feel great and happy. I am grateful to God for making my vision come true. When I started the school, I realised that it was not easy. In fact, I almost gave up at some point. I remember that when some parents came with their awards in 2012, they were not happy with the condition of the school. I, however, resolved to forge ahead. Today, the story is different. I have no doubt in my mind that we will grow bigger than this. I am glad that we are a step ahead.’’
The Head Teacher, Miss Oluwatosin Audu, said she had learnt to relate to children better since she joined the school.
A parent, who has two kids in the school, told The Nation that she has no regrets patronising the school.
The event featured dance, drama and music presentations by pupils who were clad in uniform native dresses.
