The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Condemnable

  • SANs: invasion criminal, treasonable, condemnable

    Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) yesterday condemned the disruption of Senate plenary by suspected thugs allegedly led by Senator Omo-Agege, saying seizing the mace was a criminal act.

    Former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Wole Olanipekun and a constitutional lawyer Sebastine Hon, both SANs, called for the prosecution of all those involved.

    Mallam Yusuf Alli, Chief Mike Ozekhome, Chief Emeka Ngige, Mr Ahmed Raji and Prof Yemi Akinseye-George, all senior advocates, said the developments were condemnable.

    Olanipekun said: “It’s certainly a dangerous development, which is very threatening, not just to our evolving democracy but also to the entirety of the nation. To me, it’s akin to treason. It makes us a laughing stock in the comity of democratic nations worldwide.

    “We shouldn’t allow history to repeat itself on us this time around, because this was how the infamous ‘fire on the mountain’ episode started in the House of Assembly of the defunct Western region.

    “Those behind this heinous and dastardly act must be apprehended and brought to book, but due process of law should also be followed. They shouldn’t be condemned without hearing, as this is the fashion in Nigeria now.”

    Hon, a renowned legal author, said those who stormed the Senate and removed the mace must be prosecuted.

    “This is a very sad development for our democracy. It seems the government at the centre has lost control, or it’s fast losing control. All Nigerians of good will must rise up to defend this democracy.

    “The suspended senator and his backers must be prosecuted without delay. This is simply intolerable. I condemn this dastardly act without mincing words,” Hon said.

    Ali said the development showed the kind of leaders Nigeria has.

    “If it’s true that a senator led hoodlums to steal the mace, which is the authority of the Senate, then our collective resolve to live as decent and civilised citizens is undermined! It speaks volume for the quality of leaders our system threw up in 2015!” Ali said.

    Ozekhome described incident as a “crude and barbaric” invasion of the hallowed Senate chambers, saying it was the civilian equivalent of a military coup.

    According to him, no democracy was complete without an independent legislature, in line with the principle of separation of powers, so as to prevent dictatorship.

    Ozekhome said Omo-Agege had no business in the Senate having been suspended, adding that the mace that was taken away was “a sacrosanct symbol of authority, integrity, dignity and power of lawmaking in the Senate.”

    On why he suspects executive collusion, he said: “For these hoodlums to have taken the mace out of the floor of the chamber into their car, in the presence of policemen and other security agencies that guard the National Assembly, it is simply a case of the witch crying last night and the child dying this morning, and we know who killed the child. I therefore suspect serious government conspiratorial collaboration.”

    Ozekhome said Omo-Agege, who went to court to challenge his suspension, should have allowed the judicial process to run its full course, but resorted to self-help.

    “This is unacceptable. It is a sad day for democracy. It is sad day for the Senate and National Assembly and for Nigeria. It shows that we’re not ready to deepen the tenets of democracy,” he said, adding that Omo-Agege could not claim that his constituency was denied of representation, having subscribed to the Rules of the Senate and was bound by its decisions.

    “I condemn what happened in the Senate. I condemn the intrusion, and the apparent half-powerlessness of the National Assembly security in guarding against this national embarrassment and national shame on our country,” Ozekhome added.

    Raji warned politicians to desist from acts threatening democracy.

    “The political class must get their acts together and must consciously avoid any action that will aid the fifth columnists to wipe out the little progress we have recorded in our democratic journey so far,” the SAN said.

    Ngige said Omo-Agege, despite the circumstances, was presumed innocent until proven otherwise. He urged the National Assembly to strengthen its security.

    “The leadership of the National Assembly should beef up its security and investigate why the thugs had easy access to the premises and to the hallowed chambers. All those involved should be severely dealt with in accordance with rule of law. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. National Assembly members should be vigilant,” he said.

    Akinseye-George believes that provocation could make someone to lose his sense of decency and self-control.

    “The suspended senator must have acted under the heat of extreme provocation. Authorities should avoid provoking people. This is the kind of response you get when people are provoked. They act in the heat of passion only to regret their actions later. He may also have other issues which are not known to innocent observers.

    “But, we must all avoid actions which can undermine democracy. Legislature is the epitome of democracy. Its independence must be respected and preserved at all times,” the professor of Law said.

  • Condemnable self-interest

    Condemnable self-interest

    It is sad that our House of Reps sees purchase of pricey cars for its members as something done in the national interest

    Obviously, “national interest” may mean different things to different people. Even then, the definition by the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, to justify spending N6.1 billion on procurement of 360 Peugeot 508 cars for members  of the lower house stretches the meaning of national interest beyond the realm of reason. Each of these cars costs N17 million. Indeed, in this context, national interest is equivalent to condemnable self-interest.

    Here is the explanation Namdas gave in an interview to show why the purchase is supposedly necessary: “People should get this thing right; the order for the cars was not recent. The issue of 360 cars has been there in the last nine months. We actually took delivery of 50 of the cars about nine months ago. The additional 200 cars that were supplied lately came in batches. It has been an ongoing process. The vehicles are meant for the utility services of members; for example, committee work. It is known everywhere that parliamentarians undertake what is called oversight functions. An oversight function requires moving from one place to another and, therefore, we need these utility vehicles.”

    Nigerians had condemned the plan to buy these cars at the beginning; why then is Namdas pretending he is not aware of this fact? A truly sensitive House of Representatives would have shelved the idea nine months ago.

     Interestingly, some of the legislators have complained about the allegedly slow process of delivering the said cars to the beneficiaries. Namdas reportedly “explained that instalment supply of the vehicles was due to the financial challenges facing the House leadership.”  He was quoted as saying: “But, since it was provided for in the budget, every member will get theirs before the year runs out.” With about four and a half months to the end of the year, it is understandable that the legislators who are still waiting to get their own cars are getting more and more anxious as the days go by.

    The difficulty in supplying the cars, necessitating the piecemeal approach, shows that the House is struggling in the pursuit of an objective that is objectively unreasonable in the prevailing economic circumstances.

    The hardest part of this arrangement is making it look reasonable to members of the public who consider it unreasonable and unfeeling, particularly as the country is still struggling to get out of recession and those in power are expected to demonstrate a sense of moderation.

    It would appear that the lawmakers are so desperately fixated on getting these cars that their understanding of a sense of moderation amounts to a misconception. Namdas said: “In fact, it is because of the recession that we opted for Peugeot 508 cars, rather than going for Prado SUVs (sport utility vehicles) and other higher vehicles. Even state legislators have Prado SUVs as their utility vehicles. We, in the House of Representatives, chose Peugeot 508 cars because of national interest. It is very important to emphasise this point.”

    It is equally important to emphasise the point that, at N17 million per car, these cars are high-priced and buying such cars at this point in time demonstrates self-absorption and insensitivity unbecoming of elected representatives of the people.

    Namdas struggled to make sense just as the public is struggling to make sense of this unconscionable car-buying arrangement that has justifiably attracted public ill will. “These vehicles are not official vehicles,” he maintained. “They are called utility vehicles…Utility vehicles are used to service activities or assignments that may arise, but they are not the property of the individuals. The cars are still the property of the National Assembly…At the end of every House, the vehicles are valued. This happens every four years. This is a standard practice everywhere in Nigeria: after the valuation, if you are interested (in keeping the vehicle), you are given the cost and you pay. They issue you a receipt and you take the vehicle. It is not free. If you don’t want the vehicle, you leave it for the National Assembly.”

    The question is: How many members of the National Assembly leave such cars behind when they leave the legislature?  Lamentably, what usually happens when legislators leave the legislature is that they leave with such cars, which are sold to them at ridiculously low prices compared with the ridiculously high prices at which they were bought. This kind of tradition necessitates rounds of mass purchase of cars for legislators by the legislature in a seemingly endless drama of dishonourable conduct.  This practice is not only wasteful; it may well be unsustainable in the long run.

    Namdas put up a sophistical defence that calls into question the value system prevailing in the National Assembly and how things are done there: “I wouldn’t know what happened in the past. This valuation is usually done by the bureaucracy of the National Assembly. It is not the lawmaker that does it. You need experts to value these cars. Now, what they are looking at is not based on the number of years but the wear and tear that a car has suffered.”

    In the final analysis, there is nothing in this narrative of insensitive self-aggrandisement that redeems the morally wrong move to buy pricey cars for lawmakers at the expense of the people.

  • Condemnable murder

    •The law must punish the killers of Mrs. Eunice Elisha, the Christian preacher

    On July 7, Eunice Elisha, Christian neighbourhood evangelist and spouse of The Redeemed Christian Church of God pastor, Olawale Elisha, was hacked to death in her Old NEPA Road, Phase 4, Kubwa neighbourhood, ln Abuja. She was on her dawn round of her “morning cry” (evangelism), armed with her Bible and microphone.

    The police found and evacuated her hacked body. Pastor Elisha said his children, two of whom always go to play morning football in a neighbouring pitch, got wind that a female preacher had been killed somewhere in the neighbourhood. The pastor’s initial reaction was that it couldn’t have been their mother. But the worst was confirmed when poor Pastor Elisha, and two children, saw the mutilated remains of the wife and mother, in a police van, en route to the mortuary!

    This is a murder too gruesome and grisly; and the murderers must be quickly apprehended and brought to justice. It is good the police say they have made some preliminary arrests, first of eight persons. But as at the last check, six had been released and only two detained.

    That is a good start. But that start would count for nothing if the police didn’t, with thoroughness and despatch, bring the criminals to prosecution and conviction. That would not bring back Mrs. Elisha. But it should serve as justice to her bereaved family, and the jurisdiction the felons so cruelly violated.

    That is as far as crime and punishment go.

    Still, why would anyone want to kill a defenceless woman, whose only crime was evangelising  and winning souls for her faith? That a mosque was around the neighbourhood introduces some even more sinister angle to the tragedy. Did the death have anything to do with misguided adherents of rival faiths in the neighbourhood?

    First, whatever the motivation, crime is crime; and must be promptly punished to serve as deterrent to future putative felons. So, ordinarily, any religious connotation to the murder should be immaterial. To start with, every faith worth its tenet should not sanction the reckless spilling of blood.  Outside the religious plane too, the law frowns at, and severely punishes, murder. So, both on the secular and spiritual front, murder has no reward.

    Still, in view of recurrent cases of faith- triggered killings, it is not out of place to warn that such execrable conducts should not be tolerated. Nigeria is by law a secular country, which nevertheless recognises the multi-religious reality of its citizens. So, the practice of every faith is guaranteed under the law. If that were so, why should a set of adherents kill simply because of the message of the other? That even makes it more compelling for the criminals involved in Mrs. Elisha’s murder to be unmasked fast and prosecuted accordingly.

    But even at that, preachers on every side should imbibe a thing or two on sensitivity and mutual respect. Pope Francis, the Catholic pontiff, just made a deep if sensational declaration: that every faith is real to the extent that its adherents believe in it, concluding that all of us are children of God, even if our faiths differ.

    We urge everyone to imbibe that credo. We urge preachers to factor in mutual respect and sensitivity to other faiths, while projecting the tenets of their own faith, and trying to win over fresh adherents. If every preacher, Christian, Muslim and other faiths, factor in tolerance and respect, then their proselytising would be shared love.

    Nigeria collectively diminishes each time a national is reported killed for his or her faith. The only explanation for this madness is intolerance, which breeds bigotry. No one has gained by Mrs. Elisha’s gruesome mother. We have all lost — and that is a loss too many.

  • Fayose’s order against herdsmen condemnable, says brother

    Fayose’s order against herdsmen condemnable, says brother

    Oluwasegun Fayose, the Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose’s eldest brother , has condemned the latter for instructing farmers to attack herdsmen.

    He said the governor’s directive did not portray him as a true leader.

    Oluwasegun, in an interview with The Nation in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, said his brother was embarrassing the family by some of his actions and utterances.

    According to him, “leaders are not supposed to make comments that are capable of inciting the public or bringing their family’s name into disrepute.

    “I totally disagree with him. I do not like what he is doing. He is dragging the family name in the mud. I read in national dailies that Ayo Fayose was inciting Ekiti people against herdsmen.

    “I have never seen where a leader talks like this before. I spent most of my life in Europe. I left Nigeria in 1976. My children are still there. I want them to be able to come home. I do not want to be harassed. Let it be on record that I do not support this kind of aggressive method of governance. He is too vulgar for my liking.”

    Rather than making utterances that do not portray him and the Fayose family as noble, Oluwasegun advised, the governor should keep quiet.

  • Condemnable impunity

    Condemnable impunity

    •DSS detention, without trial, of INEC’s smart card reader vendor, must not be tolerated in a democracy

    Is it a crime to vend smart card readers to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)? Law and common sense say no. But the Department of State Security (DSS) seems to say yes.  That is the odyssey of Citizen Sani Musa, in DSS detention since March 24.  It is politicisation of security taken too far.

    Mr. Musa has, therefore, approached the courts to press his fundamental human rights, in view of this cavalier assault, asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to order DSS to immediately release him, aside from suing the security agency for N100 million, as general and exemplary damages.

    Though the suit has been assigned to Justice Adeniyi Ademola, no date has been fixed for hearing.

    Mr. Musa’s DSS arrest burst on the Nigerian consciousness in the heat of the campaigns, four days before the presidential election of March 28. Femi Fani-Kayode, the Jonathan presidential campaign chief spokesperson, in his usual glib bluff and bluster, claimed Mr. Musa was a visceral hater of President Goodluck Jonathan, in his own way of justifying the man’s arrest.

    But even if he were so, and the man has not committed any crime, it is difficult to find a nexus between an allegation of presidential hatred and how his vending of smart card readers to INEC could possibly negatively affect the president’s chances at the elections. Yet, that was the fallacy Mr. Fani-Kayode was trying to establish when he claimed that though he had no information if Mr. Musa had been picked up, it was indeed good news that he had. Of course, Mr. Fani-Kayode’s was the language of power, hardly of reason — reckless power of those not only in government, but also in power (apologies to Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in his military presidential days).

    But it is exactly this recourse to raw impunity that must never be countenanced in a democracy.  The DSS, by law, has its functions. Ultimately, it is set up for citizens’ safety and security; and every citizen must appreciate that. Even its cloak-and-dagger operational modus operandi must be appreciated by all, in the context of collective security. Still, not even all these would justify the DSS swooping on a citizen, lock him or her up and virtually throw away the key.

    The position of the law is crystal clear in all this: the DSS can detain — but not beyond 24 hours, without arraigning the detainee in court. But that is exactly what DSS has done. To make matters worse, in an affidavit sworn to by Mrs. Sa’adatu Musa, wife of the detained citizen, she said her husband was just a consultant to Act Technology Ltd, the firm that supplied INEC the card readers. But even if he was not, DSS has no right to detain the man, except if it can prove such supply was tantamount to a crime.

    That is why the court should accelerate action on Mr. Musa’s suit and do justice to all the parties involved. If eventually DSS is found to have illegally detained Mr. Musa, then the body should receive the full sanctions of the law, to discourage any brazen future attempt to imprison the law and citizens’ rights, for the pleasure of the sitting government. In rule of law terms, such an act is execrable.

    Still, that such could happen in a supposed democracy is due to the notorious politicisation of the armed and security forces — a thoroughly culpable, despicable and condemnable legacy of the Jonathan presidency, especially at election times. Such executive outlawry must be rooted out, if Nigeria’s bourgeoning democracy must survive.

    Justice for Mr. Musa is justice for all. The courts must not tarry, to prove the point that law, not impunity, rules in a democracy.

  • Life pensions to presidents and others condemnable

    SIR: The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) condemns the recent passage into the constitutional amendment the granting of life pensions for Presidents, Vice President, Senate Presidents and House of Representatives Speakers by the National Assembly. It is another attack on an average Nigerian who has been made to wallow in poverty in spite of the stupendous wealth of the country. It is absolutely immoral and wicked of National Assembly whose members claim to be the representatives of the common people to elect to defraud the nation by committing public resources to the already rich few. Currently, Nigerian politicians, and especially National Assembly members, are the highest paid in the world. It is clear that the insatiable quest of politicians to loot the better part of the nation’s wealth is not quenched by the humongous amount politicians award for themselves at all levels, thus the new attempt to give politicians permanent wages, even after they have left offices.

    We call on Nigerian labour movement to reject this latest fraud, and mobilize its members, civil society and oppressed and poor Nigerians out in mass movement against this fraud. This should be linked with building mass movement against all anti-poor capitalist policies.

    It is worrisome that the same National Assembly members that found it difficult to legislate mere N30, 000 minimum wage for workers, found it easy to award several millions to bourgeois politicians as salaries and life pensions. Today, the education sector is in ruin as a result of chronic underfunding, but the National Assembly sees no reason to commit public resources to public education. Why should they, when they can easily send their children to the best schools around the world using public resources? Is it then accidental that Nigeria is one of the most unequal countries in the world with just one percent of the population cornering up to 80 percent of the nation’s wealth? According to statistics, more than 40 percent of the working population is jobless while poverty rate is more than 70 percent. Yet, every year, less than 18, 000 politicians in power take as much as over N1.3 trillion as salaries, allowances and perks of office; an amount that is more than four times the total budgets for health.

    It is condemnable that the same politicians who have severally and collectively ruined the nation’s economy and destroyed the country’s social fabrics, as a result of their corrupt and pro-capitalist rule, are now the one getting the choicest part of our economy. Today, most state governments and even federal government owe workers’ salaries, using the excuse of fall in oil revenue, itself a product of the gross mismanagement of Nigeria’s economy by successive governments. Yet, the same excuse is not applicable to salaries of politicians, and now life pensions for leading politicians.

    All of this shows that Nigeria’s capitalist political class, organized in the major political parties are united in their pro-rich, anti-poor neo-liberal policies that put public wealth in the pockets of the rich few. While they tell us to tighten our belts for economic prudency, they award themselves the juiciest of salaries and allowances, while committing public policies towards their private businesses.

     

    • Segun Sango

    Socialist Party of Nigeria

    Wuse II, Abuja      

  • 2015: Be impartial, Uche begs Jega

    THE prelateof the Methodist Church of Nigeria, His Eminence, Dr. Samuel Uche, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct free and fair election in 2015.

    Addressing reporters in Lagos at the anniversary of his one year in office, Uche said Prof. Attahiru Jega must defend the constitution rather than allowing the will of individuals who want to subvert the electoral process to prevail.

    He said: “Jega should be fair; he should not be bought over by any party. The police and soldiers should not be bought over.

    “They should know that the constitution is above any personal interest and should defend it.”

    Uche cautioned politicians against uncivilised conducts, noting that the level of decorum they display will determine the outcome of the polls.

    The cleric condemned acts that contradict the position of the Bible, saying that those who divorce and commit adultery were not good example of what Christianity stands for.

    He said: “At the conference we held, we condemned gay marriage, homosexuality and lesbianism.

    “Any minister that divorces should be ready to be excommunicated. We don’t tolerate polygamy.

    “Church leaders who commit adultery are wolves in sheep clothing, church leaders committing adultery is condemnable.”

  • Nyanya bombing condemnable

    SIR: The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) condemns in strongest terms the unfortunate and dastardly bombing of the Nyanya Bus station which killed no fewer than hundreds of unsuspecting commuters and petty traders early hours of Monday April 14. We equally decry the reported weekend killing of about 98 people and burning of properties in Ngoshe, Kaigmari and Achaka in Gwoza, Konduga and Bama Local Government Areas of Borno State.

    We consider these horrendous, senseless and barbaric killings and maiming of innocent lives as attempt to destroy the peace and unity of Nigeria; and most importantly a calculated attempt to abort the 2015 General Elections.

    Although no group or individuals have claimed responsibility of the Nyanya mass murder, the perpetrators are indeed the greatest losers of all time and bound for hell fire. The defenseless victims, who met their untimely deaths on their way to work in pursuit of daily means of subsistence in our harsh economic situation, are innocent, unsuspecting, and indeed victorious heroes and heroines whose blood must not be seen to be shed in vain. Dying, we all must, but these deaths must push all and sundry to play a role. This is not the time to sit on the fence, not a time to stand aloof or hands akimbo. All hands must be on deck to confront this terror of our time.

    We call on Nigeria security agencies and the PDP-led government to summon the political will to expose the perpetrators of these heinous crimes and must not cover those that may be fingered one way or the other. Terrorism is not to be treated with kid gloves. The international laws on terror are no respecter of individuals no matter how highly placed and should start to take effect and take a toll on those deserving of prosecution and punishment. The government must stand up to its primary responsibility of protecting lives and properties. These killings can no longer be condoned and tolerated. Time has come for government; the legislature, judiciary and all security agencies and personnel, particularly the intelligence agencies to do things differently this time to prove their competence.  They must identify those behind the heinous acts, expose them, shame them and make them liable. We must dig deeper into every citizens or groups; be they in or out of government, past and present leaders, politicians, ruling party, the opposition, military personnel, the police, SSS, Navy, Air force, Civil Defense, Immigration, Customs, Traditional rulers, Religious leaders or adherents, and among ordinary Nigerians.

    Finally, TMG is disappointed that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has cut short the nationwide mourning of victims of Monday’s bomb blast to intensify their campaign ahead of 2015 elections. To overlook and ignore the loss of hundreds of lives and the mood of the nation at this critical time as done by the ruling party- PDP shows the light-heartedness, levity disdain and utter disregard to citizens lives and insecurity in the country.

    We condole with the family and relations of the Nyanya bomb blast victims and pray Almighty God to give them the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss. We call on the Jonathan administration to take inventory of all the victims and pay handsome compensation to the families and dependants. Those who sustained injuries and loss of properties should also be compensated.

    •Comrade Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi & Chief Eddy Ezurike,

    Transition Monitoring Group,

    Abuja

  • Condemnable intolerance

    Condemnable intolerance

    In the face of it, the rally by the Federal Capital Territory Authority (FCTA), to maintain the integrity of the Abuja master plan, by sealing off the Maitama Governor’s Lodge of Adamawa State, would appear dutiful, or even patriotic.

    The accusation, for the seal-off, was that the building was being used for political, instead of residential purposes, for which the Maitama district was designed. The lodge serves as temporary head office of a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    But if you look closely, you cannot but reflect on that quip, that states patriotism is the last bastion of the scoundrel! The FCTA legal rally is no more than subterfuge to clamp down on a rival faction of the party; using governmental force to cripple its operations.

    If you link the fact that the police, under the goading of the presidential faction of the federal ruling party, had earlier sealed off the first headquarters of the Baraje PDP faction, a pattern of provocation is established.

    Yet, the Jonathan faction could also, not illegitimately, claim counter-provocation from this splinter group that calls itself “New PDP”, a name a court of competent jurisdiction had disowned. Political splintering is recognised under the law. But not manufacturing a name, to parody the splintered party. That appears the logic behind the court’s decision that nPDP could not fly.

    Perhaps with the atavistic mindset triggered by a military era hangover, it might be too much for a Presidency that has exclusive control of the security forces not to be tempted to clamp down. But such reckless behaviours do nothing to ground the ethos of democratic tolerance that Nigeria sorely needs.

    The FCTA legal grandstanding, prelude to the seal-off, was therefore an illicit cloak masquerading as legality. The presidential faction of the PDP sadly resorted to self-help, in a democracy which ought to be grounded on the rule of law. That is not only bad behaviour from the highest quarters; it is also an act of gross corruption of the vital security institutions of state. Involving the police to settle factional scores in a party breaking up would invite nothing but further future abuses and the ensuing anarchy. That should be decried.

    Still, the situation would have been radically different if, armed with its regulations, the FCTA had gone to court and asked it to compel the Adamawa Governor’s Lodge to close down the PDP factional secretariat on its premises. That probably would have taken a longer time to effect.

    But if the action succeeds, the FCTA would have saved itself the legitimate charge that as a department of government, it is involving itself in factional political feuds. Yes, the Abuja minister is a politician. And he would probably not have been minister without his party card.

    Still, the FCTA is no factional PDP office; and strictly by law, it would appear to have no locus to twist its regulations to favour one faction above the other, no matter where its own sympathy lay. The most tragic thing about it all is that by conspiracy by the powers-that-be, it is yet impunity to undermine democratic institutions. Besides, how does such strong-arm tactics promote the so-called “reconciliation” the party crows about?

    This brazen power show also reflects, in dirty Technicolor, the abiding crisis of federalism in Nigeria’s troubled polity. Governors’ Lodges ought to be sacrosanct territory, not to be invaded at will by a bully Federal Government, because it monopolises the Nigeria Police. The building belongs to the Adamawa people and Adamawa ought to be a state, not inferior, but coordinate to the federal bully now turning itself the security village headmaster.

    Perhaps Adamawa should not have “abused” its territory, by converting part of it to the headquarters of its faction of the party. Yet, that territory ought to have been respected, as it is the convention with foreign embassies – or worst, call in the courts to adjudicate the matter.

    The federal authorities under Jonathan should resist cutting its nose in a fit of undemocratic temper. Each time it does that, it spites the face of our democracy. Believe us, it is grotesque!