The Nation Newspaper

Tag: cry

  • Cry the beloved country

    The locomotive of state is grinding gradually but surely towards 2019 with politicians jumping from one cabin to another in political prostitution to hang on to where their bread would be buttered.  It is not certain how much longer we are going to wait till we get to the promise land.  The promised change has vaporized and we are looking for another Moses.  We may have been sustained this far on our journey as a nation by blind luck having been led by political deception.  As a nation, we set wrong priorities; as institutions and individuals we have misplaced priorities.

    Apart from the short interregnum of the first republic when the nationalists embarked on even development of the regions and the centre, we now have the misfortune of being led by a rapacious political class without any scintilla of morality.  After 60 years, we have not developed any technology in manufacturing and production that can benefit our people and the world.  Our leaders prefer to dump our money on foreign countries to acquire every merchandize on earth which are products and sacrifice of the efforts of other people.   We have mineral resources capable of driving the world economies but our ruling class are busy moving from coast to coast cutting the image of self-pity and soliciting for aids from countries and international financial institutions and donor agencies.

    African leaders are today throwing their doors wide open for Chinese aids and investment hoping that way to grow and develop our economies.  Our markets are flooded with cheap substandard goods and equipment that are hazardous to lives.  No nation ever develops through foreign aids and investment.  These countries and agencies are in business and they are coming with advanced technologies whose environmental impact have been discovered only leaves us with patched and scotched earth, killing our rich flora and fauna while they repatriate their profits.

    Today, the organs and agencies of government are in decline in quality of leadership and contribution to our national growth.  The judiciary has taken the most battering in its vacuity and capitulation to dictatorship.   In the golden age of Nigeria judiciary, our jurists were rated amongst the best and noted for courage and fearlessness in shooting down any draconian laws that tramples on the liberty of citizens during the military era.  But today, in the gathering of the crème la crème of the judiciary during the just concluded Nigeria Bar Association conference, the highest organ of the legal practitioners in Nigeria, the lawyers were clapping and cheering the president who was giving them lecture that the rule of law should take the back seat when national security in his definition is in issue. Who defines national security; is it the president or the executive arm of government? Nobody in that conference had the instinct to educate the president on the nobility of the rule of law and legal niceties.

    In the past, the NBA had shut the doors to our courts and invited the court of public opinion in protest when the government refused to obey court orders; the case of the legal icon, Chief Gani Fawehinmi readily comes to mind.  Today, the signature tune of the present administration is disobedience to court orders and lawyers only prefer to discuss it in hush tones because they want to be politically correct. Rather than engage the government in fundamental issue of state, the NBA would prefer to fight for the wearing of veil (hijab) in the law school or call to bar ceremony.

    The National Assembly is not any different; they smash chairs and cudgels on each other’s head when they struggle for juicy committee membership and negotiating increase in salary and allowances.  Our honourables cannot make a distinction between personal and public business and interest.  That is the reason why they will shut down the National Assembly in solidarity for members alleged to have been involved in graft and malfeasance.

    The executive finds it even more difficult to demonstrate some semblance of honour and integrity.  A minister was alleged to have either forged the NYSC discharged certificate or did not participate at all in the scheme.  The government did not see that a moral burden that could touch on the posturing on the fight against corruption and the minister herself did not show honour to resign and apologize to the people

    We appear to have lost it as a nation.  The anti graft agency, EFCC has now become a ‘bingo’ to chase and pursue the opposition, fair or foul.  Look at the recent case of the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, the agency suddenly discovered that he has misappropriated security fund meant for the state only the moment he defected to the opposition party.  Do we bring the Nigeria Police Force into this discourse?  It is a poor example any day, whether in professionalism, or with regards to respect for the right of citizens or the rule of law.  The Department of State Services (DSS) which should operate like secret service has nothing secret about its mode of operation.  They operate like the kill-and-go police while wearing hoods and brandishing weapons in the fashion of terrorists.

    Just point to one institution, standing and above board; is it the military?    One watches with amazement our military advertise physical fitness exercise as they march in their column on streets of major citifies every now and then as if that translates to combat excellence.  Physical fitness in any military should be a matter for granted because a military man must be physically fit.  There is too much misplacement of priority.   We hear that the Nigerian Army University in Biu, Borno State is coming on-stream before the end of the year.  We must tell ourselves the truth; the Nigerian Army does not need any university.  What she badly needs is a research institution to build Military Industrial Plant to develop weaponry for the armed forces and sell to the local market in the sub region.  What she needs is research to improve the army medical facilities to treat injuries sustained in combat and on the field.  The Nigeria Army has several training schools already and the Nigeria Defence Academy is a degree awarding institution and by all means enough for its manpower needs.  One would not be surprise that in the coming days, we will hear of a Nigerian Air Force University in Bauchi and the Nigerian Navy University in Calabar.  What manner of leadership do we have in this country?  Someone should please help, cry the beloved country.

     

    • Kebonkwu Esq writes from Abuja.

  • Restructuring: The cry of Owl

     “And fear a calamity that may afflict not only those who engineered it but also the innocent ones who had no hands in its engineering, and be assured that Allah’s punishment can be very severe.”                                  Q8 v 25              

    Preamble

    In the aquatic world, when a dragon dances ceaselessly on the surface of a brook, the wise sees it as a bad omen.

    The similitude of the dancing dragon in this case is like that of an owl. Anybody who is familiar with the lifestyle of the owl will know why that bird lives in isolation and depends on propaganda for survival. The current brouhaha on a dubious issue called restructuring is not in any way different from the meaningless and ineffective cry of the Owl. By implication, therefore, the callers for restructuring are most likely to end up in the ineffective lifestyle of the Owl.

    The Owl becomes an isolated entity in the world of Birds because of its hypocrisy and indefinable antics. Today, Nigeria’s callers for restructuring are like the Owl, in a confused state. They can neither define the meaning of restructuring nor specify its practical contents. To them, the unwarranted propaganda on restructuring is a means of getting their hidden agenda executed.

     

    Hidden agenda

    “Abstain completely from guessing, some of the guessings you are engaged in are iniquitous and do not be indulged in poke nosing…” Q49 v12

    For 18 years of Nigeria’s dispensation since 1999 till date, these same callers have been alive and available in the country. They were aware of the contents of Nigeria’s constitution with its positive and negative aspects. Yet, they were silent because it suited the purpose of their hidden agenda. They knew that the 1999 constitution which is in use in Nigeria today was imposed on the country by the military.

    They knew that that constitution which started with such a deceptive cliché as “We the people of Nigeria….” was fraudulent and undemocratic. Yet, they did not see any need for its amendment. They had known all along how the military changed the destiny of Nigeria from federal to unitary system and how the concurrent aspects of our 1963 republican constitution were decimated by the ruling  junta to the disadvantage of democracy. Yet, they remained silent because they enjoyed the benefits of that political absurdity.

     

    National Confab

    The callers for restructuring were also in the country in 2014 when a political demagogue in the name of President decided to constitute a National confab which was meant to accentuate his political agenda.

    They were aware that the process of that exercise was dictatorial and insensitive to democracy. They knew that the demagogue resorted to selection of participants in that confab directly or indirectly to the exclusion of people who mattered but did not belong to his camp. For instance, less than one-third of those participants throughout the country were Muslims in a multi-religious country like Nigeria where Muslims are in the Majority. That tragic antique was an obvious confirmation of a hidden agenda on the part of the initiator. To correct that obvious, bias and sectarian anomaly, The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) set up a powerful committee headed by its President-General and Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar. But after presenting its case with facts and figures the then president further exhibited his own restrained bias by trivializing the matter with another Religious bias. He queried the NSCIA which is a non-political body on why the Northern governors did not grant the Christians Land authority for building churches. Though, this same president knew that Land authorities were not granted to non-igbos in Eastern Nigeria for private or corporate business to build economic, political or religious outfits, yet he never asked the Easterners any question on that.

    It can be assumed that the so called National Confab was part of the then ruling party’s agenda for self-perpetuation in Governance. Now to rise up with Owls propaganda for restructuring on the platform of illegitimate National Confab and expect a new ruling political party that abhorred that confab is a parochial oddity on the part of the propagandist.

     

    Clarification

    As a matter of reality based on sincerity, this Columnist does not and has never agreed with the unitary system imposed on Nigerian people by the military junta. And I have written severally in the past calling for either a re-writing of the Nigerian Constitution by the people of Nigeria, or a fundamental amendment to the existing imposed constitution. It is therefore a deliberate accentuation of confusion by a political clique in the land to want to impose another subjective hidden agenda on the nation in the name of restructuring. The word restructuring cannot be found in the current Nigerian constitution and it cannot be smuggled into it through the back door by some human owls who are trying to overwhelm the populace with unpalatable media propaganda.

     

    Federal System

    Ordinarily, a Federal system in any democratic dispensation must have two wings which are technically called Exclusive and Concurrent lists.

    The Federal system used in Nigeria today is fundamentally different from the one adopted at the time of Independence in 1960 which was confirmed in the republican constitution of 1963. In that federal system, the Exclusive list which was to be maintained by the Federal Government contained only four items. These are The Central Bank, National Defense, The Foreign Affairs, and Immigration. Other issues such as education, prison, Police, and even constitution were concurrent. In other words, each region was entitled to having its own constitution, its own police, its own educational methodology and a substantial control on its human and material resources. Even the adoption of the American Federal System in 1979 was not supposed to make any serious difference from what had obtained in Nigeria. But like any other thing in Nigeria, the newly adopted Federal system became grossly abused through usurpation of power engendered by incessant military coups. Thus, the so called Federal Government based in the Federal capital allots much more percentage of the national budget to itself than to the states and the local governments. This is the main cause of the endemic corruption that we experience in the country today. The unwarranted enormous resources apportioned to the Federal Government are perceived as a fictitious booty by those at the helm of affairs at the federal level. And this has hindered any economic growth and infrastructural development at the state level where Governors and Civil Servants also want to live in affluence as much as those at the federal level. It was this scenario that created a platform for stealing competition and turned Nigeria into a nation of official thieves which could not be trusted with business transaction in the committee of Nations. The result is the pervading poverty and economic hopelessness which Nigerians are now passing through.

     

    Alternative to restructuring

    Calling for undefined restructuring at this time of Nigeria’s life is an obvious mischief indicating a hidden agenda. Rather than calling for unidentifiable restructuring, what reasonable people should advocate is amendment to the constitution. While the latter is straight-forward and constitutional the former is dubious and mischievous. Constitutional amendment has a legal procedure which can easily be followed on the basis of law; restructuring on the other hand is a confusion which cannot be authenticated by any sane law because of its tendency for misinterpretation and accommodation of hidden agenda. Calling for it therefore, is a glaring evidence of ignorance.

     

    The role of southern media

    The most disheartening and ridiculous aspect of the ongoing mischievous propaganda on restructuring is the role of Southern Nigerian media. In what looks like a professional bastardisation, the southern Nigeria media has thrown away the toga of professionalism and decorum while championing the propaganda on restructuring with shamelessness. The private radio stations and some state owned ones are the worst in this sphere. What they do on a daily basis is to constitute themselves into a court of law and invite sympathizers to their cause as prosecuting lawyers to discuss the matter.

    Incidentally, virtually all the invited discussants and the moderators are from the same tribe and the same religion. If you tune to 20 stations especially in Ibadan, the heart of Yoruba Land, you cannot hear a divergent opinion. They all sing the same tune and dance to the same music of their call for senseless restructuring. That trend only changed briefly when President Muhammadu Buhari went on a medical trip to UK and Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo acted as president. The trend of discussion in the Southwest media at that time clearly showed the Hidden Agenda of the mischief makers. And as soon as the President arrived in the country, the hatred for his person in this part of the country became manifest once again as evidence of the hidden agenda.

    The South-west media is therefore the prosecutor and the Judge on the issue of restructuring. If this kind of trend were to be followed in the Northern media according to the wish and desire of the people of that region, nobody would have been in a position to talk of peace in

    Nigeria. The southwest media is the main platform for promoting hate speech in Nigeria today and that is a misfortune of immeasurable stance. In any sane society, the media stands as a moderator of issues and an arbiter of conflicts rather than a promoter of hatred.

    “Surely Allah will not change the situation of a community until the people of such a community moderate their lifestyle” Q13 v11.

    If Nigeria must remain a country for all, the obnoxious stance of southwest media in Nigeria must stop henceforth. Criticism must be constructive and not destructive. A word is enough for the wise.

    Nothing makes America the obvious leader of the contemporary world than the great thought of some great American intellectuals and statesmen who from time to time encourage Goodness, Unity and Love among Americans irrespective of races, colours and religions. One of such men is Williams Webster who said as follows in one of his poems “If we work marble it will perish; if we rear temples they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instil in them just principles: we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time can efface but will brighten to all eternity”.

    That should be the principle with which to propel Nigeria from a country into a Nation that can raise its head in the committee of Nations. It is not enough to copy America’s constitution and its style of governance. To be great as a Nation, we must also copy the great principles that make America a great Nation. GOD Bless Nigeria and Nigerians.

  • ‘Still Water Runs Deep’: The strong also cry

    ‘Still Water Runs Deep’: The strong also cry

    This story of loss and emotion is Abbesi Akhamie’s directorial debut.

    Starring notable theatre actor, Toyin Oshinaike, this short film reflects the irony of life from two angles: that disciplinarians do have rebellious children, and that tough men do have emotions concealed in them.

    Here, the protagonist’s firm hand on his children’s upbringing is put to test when his eldest son goes missing.

    In this unsettling portrait of a man confined by his convictions about paternal duty, a father’s steely resolve to run his household with a firm hand is tested when his estranged son goes missing forever.

    Throughout his frantic search, the lead actor is seen fighting back tears, even snapping at people in the process.

    The filmmaker does not pretend that in Africa, religion is one of the means of resolving problems. We see that in a brief worship session in the victim’s home, even though the father had earlier reported at the police station.

    Produced by Melissa Adeyemo, Abbesi Akhamie and Lala Akindoju, this is a commendable effort by Akhamie who also explores the natural environment and the people’s local language in the conversations.

    However, it is a minus that the movie is not fully subtitled. Also, the filmmaker could have saved us the detail of telling us that the missing boy was never found, and simply allow the viewers’ imagination to run.

    Other actors in the film include Rita Edward and Yemi Adebiyi.

  • APC, hear the cry of the workers

    SIR: It is pertinent to remind the leaders of the ruling All Progress Congress (APC) that, that in spite of the effort made by the President Muhammadu Buhari in sending bailout funds to all states to offsets the outstanding salaries and arrears of the workers, the situation is still worrisome in some of the states. President Buhari once said, “I am worried that states are unable to pay workers’ salaries”. On that basis, he sent double bailout funds to all states to pay all outstanding salaries and allowances of the workers. The monthly statutory allocation from the Federation Account has also been regular since the beginning of this administration. Likewise, the recently released Paris Club refunds are meant to clear these outstanding workers’ salaries. But reports say no fewer than 12 states still owe their workers a backlog of salaries and allowances.

    It is very sad to hear that all these intervention funds have been diverted for other purposes by various states governors leaving the poor workers to suffer most. These people voted en masse for the ruling party in order to get rid of bad leaders created by the PDP who were less concerned about the welfare of the people. They think, things will get better in the new party and the leadership of the party seeing what is happening seems to be comfortable by not taking any action. There is no supervisory organ or monitoring group from either the government or party to look into the plight of the workers. And no governors have been called to order.

    Things now look as if the leadership of the ruling party is making mockery of the workers who voted overwhelmingly for the party.

    It is imperative for the leadership of the party to heed to advice by taking urgent steps to do needful. Constitute a monitoring team to checkmate these governors in order to settle all outstanding salaries arrears and allowances of these state workers as soon as possible. A stitch in time saves nine.

     

    • Adeyemi Omotunde,

    omodeyemi1@yahoo.com

  • Not too early to cry

    Not too early to cry

    MAY 29 is gone. Not so the deep emotions it evoked.

    Of all the Democracy Day goodwill messages, none was as touching as that issued by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the faction led by Ahmed Makarfi –many insist he’s a nice man in a bad company –  that is. It was a flashback to those good old days when life was like an endlessLagos owambe party, when the rich did not have to hide their wealth in cemeteries; when champagne flowed at parties as if it was rain water in June and former lords of the creeks became landlords of mansions, commuting in jets and partying like Hollywood stars.

    The message was as pungent as it was moving. Elegiac.  “APC has destroyed all we built,” one of the headlines screamed, quoting PDP spokesman Dayo Adeyeye’s acerbic statement to mark the occasion.

    Poor PDP. Nothing can be as painful as a legacy shredded like scrap paper. My sympathies.

    Consider one of the videos that made the rounds just before the 2015 general elections. It had a party scene in which the celebrator and his friends danced themselves into a frenzy. They sprayed dollar bills on their fellow revellers and the musician. At a point, they felt the confetti of dollar bills would not do; they started throwing up bundles of $100 bills from a steel box brought in by an aide. Soon the dancing floor was strewn with the  green back and the naira. The frolicking went on and on.

    Those were the days.

    To the well-connected, the dollar was the currency of first choice. Today, even factories are striving to keep their machines roaring as the exchange rate has refused to come down after being jerked up so violently by crashing oil prices.

    Isn’t this enough for the PDP, which superintended over high oil prices, more than $110 a barrel at a point, to look back and mourn its loss? Being human, the party’s loyal supporters and dutiful officials will surely have memories of those days when forex was not our problem but how to spend it. We imported toothpicks, handkerchiefs, eyelashes, eye shadow , eyeshades and such important goods.

    The other day when distinguished Senator Daniel Dino Melaye presented his book, “Antidote for Corruption”, there were few donors, despite the presence of an army of dignitaries, some of them victims of the war against corruption who should be  happy that at last a manual on the right way to wage the all-important  battle was finally available.

    Senate President Bukola Saraki bought copies for all 109 members at N5.5m. House Speaker Yakubu Dogara shelled out N18m for a copy for each of the 360 members. Can that be a reasonable  reward for such an intellectual exertion on a subject that has been such a difficult knot to untie even for renowned academics?

    In those good PDP days, the Senate President would have ordered copies for the Sergeant-at-Arms, all senators’ laundrymen, chauffeurs, stewards, gardeners and  just anybody who deserved to have one – in the national interest.

    The price?

    It would have been whispered in the author’s ears, lest the poor whom the lawmakers are dying to uplift feel offended.

    Instead of praising Melaye’s deep commitment to scholarship, many have been talking about the lexical shortcoming of the book’s title. Some, who like Alaba traders know little or nothing about our copyright laws, dismissed the work as a mere compilation of other people’s ideas. Others latched onto the debate to define corruption in contradistinction to stealing.

    One of such rationalisation: “Beat a Nigerian child. Console him/her with biscuits. Ask him/her: ‘who beat you?’ He or she will point to another person. That was how bribery and corruption began in Nigeria.”

    The other day when the Directorate of State Services (DSS) stormed the homes of some judges in the dead of the night, rousing their Lordships from sleep, there was uproar from some quarters. Don’t judges deserve some respect? Should they be hunted like common thieves? Who ordered the raids? Where is the separation of powers that we preach? Is this democracy? Don’t judges have a right to snore away the night after a hard day’s job?

    The operatives found troves of foreign currencies and huge sums in Naira.  The government hauled the judges before the courts. Some of them have been freed and restored to their offices. No apologies. No remorse by the DSS and any of its agents.

    In the days of the PDP, the thought of raiding a judge’s home, let alone seizing their hard earned hard currency, would have been considered sacrilegious, and would have attracted the highest sanction – like treason. If anyone dared to commit such an egregious abuse of the rights of their Lordships to earn, own and keep cash in whatever currency, the executive would have apologised profusely. Besides, adequate compensation would have been paid to the aggrieved parties. Not now.

    Oh, good old days.

    Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has approached a court to stop the DSS and the police from searching his house. Recall that His Excellency had to rush out of bed the other night to physically stop DSS operatives from storming a judge’s home. That heroic feat of protecting the right of a citizen was derided as obstruction of justice. They forgot Chief Wike is a lawyer.

    In those days he wouldn’t have needed the stress of filing an action. Who would have contemplated searching a governor’s home?

    When a court granted the former First Lady, Dame Patience “Mama Peace” Jonathan the right to her $15m accounts, the tension that had built up in the hearts of ordinary citizens melted like ice cream under the scorching sun. Relieved, Her Excellency hit the bank to withdraw some cash for a long overdue shopping spree.

    Unrepentant, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which insisted that the cash was a proceed of some unstated illicit undertaking, asked the court to stop her. It obliged.

    Only in the current atmosphere can such audacious affront happen. Not in the days of the PDP when the rule of law took preeminence over all other things and everybody was happy.

    Not even Dame Patience’s  passionate plea that the money was part of a fortune given to her by her aged mother could move the anti-graft agency. It had made up its mind that such a huge amount of money must have come from some crime.

    In its May 29 speech, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo urged Nigerians to make more sacrifices. Some cynical fellows who had taken up the unassigned role of public rights defenders tore at him. They sneered: “Sacrifices; what sacrifices? What else do they want, these change people? Haven’t we done enough?”

    Those were the objective critics anyway. The scurrilous ones recalled the good days of the PDP when “making sacrifices” had a meaning, when a former governor collected N4.6b for some spiritual exercises and nobody raised an eyebrow.

    Scarcity of funds never featured in the PDP’s deliberations. In fact, when prominent citizens raised the alarm that the economy was in trouble, the government, one of the most inventive that has ever taken office anywhere in the world, dug  deep into its bag of tricks, brought out some strange figures, juggled them and announced triumphantly that ours was the biggest economy in Africa. It called the magic “rebasing”.

    Those were the days when we had real experts. Take a bow Madam Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

    Before the Buhari administration took the reins, Boko Haram, the evil sect giving Islam a bad name, had already carved out of Nigeria its Islamic State. The Armed Forces were impotent. Soldiers were dying in hundreds. Civilians were murdered in an orgy of violence never seen in these parts. Funds voted for weapons were shared by PDP chiefs, their wards and friends. Anytime they ran out of cash, they rushed down to the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), which dished out funds in local and foreign currencies. Everybody was happy. Oh, the good times. Not anymore.

    Those who are lashing the PDP for crying too early, saying after all Buhari has done just two years out of his four-year tenure are sorely lacking in the empathy that the calamity that befell the party requires. Here was a party that boasted of being Africa’s biggest , a party that vowed to rule  for 60 years in the first instance and wowed us all with its vote harvesting gimmicks, now a shadow of its old self. A party wracked and wrecked by a feud that has turned friends into foes.

    I won’t join those castigating the PDP. It deserves our sympathy. Its leading lights should be allowed to mourn.   More tears gentlemen!

     

    NOT SO FAST, MAJOR

    After a short break, the Major Hamza Al- Mustapha (retd.) road show has returned. In Ibadan last week, the dreaded Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Gen. Sani Abacha (of dreadful memory) attempted to rewrite history by turning facts on their heads. He said he was bundled into detention because he had a video on the murder of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election – Nigeria’s freest and fairest ever – which was annulled by military leader Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Bababngida for no just reason.

    Nobody is fooled. The facts of the matter are clear. The charges are clear. Al-Mustapha, the prosecution believes, knew about the plot that led to the daylight murder of Abiola’s wife, Kudirat, the indefatigable defender of democracy.

    If Al-Mustapha has a box-office-hit -video, let him release it, if only to show that he is not a villain and a coward as charged. Otherwise, he should face his case forthrightly,  seek restitution and desist from offending people’s sensibilities.

  • Cry, the beloved country

    Until last Thursday, it was believed in certain quarters that nothing shocks Nigerians. No matter how serious an issue is, it was said, Nigerians won’t be bothered. It was argued that we have developed a thick skin to everything and that no matter how gargantuan an issue may be we will turn a blind eye to it and move on. I used to believe so too. If we are looking for a society where the people do not care about what is happening around them, Nigeria is it.

    Our leaders know us inside out; they know how to manipulate us and get us eating out of their hands. It does not cost them anything to sway us to their side. All they need do is to throw a few wads into the air and we will go rushing for the cash like kids scrambling for candy. Even kids will join in the mad rush for these crumbs from the so-called leaders’ pockets. Yes, these are crumbs compared to the billions now being recovered from them.  Are they really leaders or looters?

    They are more of looters than leaders from what we have seen in the last 21 months. In less than two years in office, President Muhammadu Buhari has exposed some of our past leaders for who they really are. These leaders  were chosen to be the custodians of our patrimony, but  they opted to be destroyers of the economy they were expected to protect. The immediate past administration, especially,  failed the country in every area of human development despite having high calibre professionals to run the economy.

    But I daresay, the ruination of the economy did not start with the Jonathan administration. The question is what did it do about the mess, if any, that it inherited? Did it just keep quiet in order not to ruffle feathers? Did it help the country by sticking to the age-long practice of business as usual? Has it not shot itself in the foot by upholding that asinine policy under which a past  administration covered up its predecessor to enable it commit greater evil against the country during its own time? It takes a determined administration; an administration with the love of the people at heart to break from the past to expose the evil deeds that have kept us underdeveloped for ages.

    The Buhari administraton has chosen to tread this path and from revelation so far, it is a step in the right direction. Our country has been stripped bare by those who should manage it. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo left $45billion as external reserve for the late President Umoru Yar’ Adua in 2007. The late Yar’ Adua grew the reserve to $64billion before he died in 2010. But when former President Goodluck Jonathan was leaving in 2015, the reserve had been depleted to $32billion, despite having some so-called World Bank experts working with him. It was not only the reserve that was depleted, many in the administration helped themselves to public funds. They turned the whole thing to a bazaar of sorts. It was as if they were in a competition over who will steal the most from the public till.

    The military too joined in the looting. Some Service chiefs diverted billions of naira and dollars meant for the purchase of arms and ammunition to their personal use. They built exquisite houses in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna and their hometowns, while they sent their men to fight Boko Haram insurgents with bare hands. It was the height of  sheer wickedness. Their ongoing trial is quite revealing. It shows how they used our money to acquire properties all over the world. Many of them stole money which their generations yet unborn will never finish spending.

    We have heard of the Abacha loot stashed in different parts of the world, thinking that we will never travel that road again. But here we are today confronted by another set of perverts probably worse than the late Gen Sani Abacha, who held power between 1993 and 1998.  What has so far been recovered from former Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke alone is mind-boggling. Then there are others like former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, former Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh, former Air chiefs Dikko Umar and Sola Amosu, former National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki, some former governors and ministers and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains. And what about the $151million in a fictitious bank account?

    The latest recovery is from the former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu, in whose house in the slum of Sabon Tasha in Kaduna State, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) found $9.7million and  £74,000 cash. We should not be surprised that such a huge sum was found in Yakubu’s house. Those who should know once told us that the ‘’GMD’’ as the NNPC boss is called in government circles is the supplier of cash for all the needs of government. The NNPC, which should be bothered about ensuring all-year supply of fuel nationwide is saddled with other responsibilities, such as meeting the cash needs of the ruling party and top government officials.

    In such a situation, why won’t the GMD help himself? The GMD cannot be watching, while others are looting, abi. On a more serious note, what this shows is that our leaders and public officers are more interested in feathering their nest than looking after the interest of the people. For all they care, the people can die of hunger and illnesses for lack of money and good hospitals as long as they have the means to take care of themselves and their families in some of the best hospitals in the world. Yakubu sought refuge in a slum because he thought nobody will ever think of looking for such cash in such a place.

    The dour looking Yakubu may have seen himself as wise by taking the money to that out of place community, but his wisdom did him in. The same people he relied upon to cover his track may have betrayed him because he never took care of them. He did not take care of them because he did not want them to know that he is keeping what the EFCC describes as ‘’proceeds of crime’’ in their community. This shows how greedy and inhuman our public officers are. They are only interested in themselves and are not concerned whether people are dying beside them or not.

    How do we stop this mindless stealing? It is by holding all public officers to account at the end of their tenure. We, the people, should also open our eyes. When we see evil, we should talk evil. We should not help looters to cover their tracks. By helping them, we re killing our country slowly. The result of all these years of looting culminated in the recession we are in today. In a recession when the country is looking for $30billion to borrow, someone has $9.7million stashed away in a slum, and others have $151 million hidden in a bank, not to talk of the various sums hidden in other places here and abroad. And they say Buhari should not fight corruption. Haba!

  • Cry, Beloved Confluence State

    The event was planned as a grand celebration of some sort. But before it ended, the chief celebrant converted the arena to a mournful spectacle. That was on Wednesday, January 27, when Yahaya Bello took his oath of office as governor of Kogi State. The 40,000 capacity International Confluence Stadium, Lokoja was reasonably filled with guests made up of party members, government officials, religious leaders and a very large contingent of cultural groups and masquerades. When it was time for Bello to deliver his inaugural speech, he suddenly remembered his father who died when he was a toddler and inappropriately chose the occasion to cry openly in his memory, as if he was freshly bereaved. While many people called it tears of joy, others tagged it crocodile tears. Showmanship or not, and whatever the motive of the weeping governor, the ironical funeral dirge of that day, has turned out to be a perfect prelude to the tears his ascendancy has brought to the people of Kogi State. Tears heralded his coming and most of his actions or inactions, like canisters of tear gas, have continued to make the people cry, cry, and cry.

    The epitome of the governor’s thoughtless policies is the removal of all road roundabouts in Lokoja, the state capital. Operating with the type of energy found in a demented soldier, Bello ordered the demolition of the roundabouts within days of his assumption of office. The order was carried out in a jiffy with clinical precision. In most cases, the demolitions took place in the dead of night. Thus, most residents woke up with rapture-like experience to find the roundabouts gone with the winds. The affected roundabouts are Paparanda Square, Kogi Circle and Lugard Circle. Others are Kogi Hotel, Welcome to Lokoja, Zone8, NTA and Ganaja roundabouts. With their removal, motorists now regularly overrun the crossroads with the attendant risks to life and property.

    The governor’s media aides offered incoherent, indolent and lack-lustre explanation for the demolitions. When tongues began to wag, they said that the roundabouts were unfit and too old for the anticipated modern state capital Lokoja is supposed to be. However, there may be other reasons. Unofficial sources claim the demolition exercise was at the behest of marabout and voodooists who advised to that effect. Their reasons? The roundabouts were evil and have been used as vaults for dangerous charms and amulets which past governors kept hidden under them. If Bello must have a successful tenure, he therefore needs to first smoke out the powerful charms from their comfortable zones beneath the roundabouts!

    Such thinking is certainly anachronistic in today’s world. Without doubt, the governor’s religious and spiritual persuasion or the lack thereof, is part of his privacy. Nevertheless, this privacy should not be a drawback to his public life. It is worrisome when governance degenerates to the level of diabolism or witchcraft. Government’s ostensible reason is a misadventure in the extreme. The roundabouts are legacy projects that commemorate the history of the state. While some of them like Paparanda Square and Kogi Circle were as old as the state, others like Lugard Circle and Zone 8 were constructed by the immediate past administration headed by the aviator, Capt. Idris Wada. They were all constructed with taxpayers’ money. Painfully, they have now also been destroyed with the same taxpayers’ money. No doubt, it will take far more than the original cost to reconstruct any of those legacies. People are now asking, “What manner of governor, who is an accountant, is this new Sheriff?”

    The governor does not leave anyone in doubt that he is in charge of the cluelessness in the Confluence State. His obsession with power is stupefying. On becoming the governor his first assignment was to convert the double lane road along his private residence and adjacent to Lugard House, into a single lane. His arbitrary and retrogressive blockage of the road inflicts pain on road users who are forced to endure harrowing traffic delays. The state chapter of the People’s Democratic Party shouted itself coarse about the impropriety of the blockage and called on the governor to dismantle the ‘illegal barricade’.

    Policy somersaults and the over amplification of powers of the governor have defined his incursion to power. Two issues will drive this point home. In his first week in office, Bello exercised the powers of his office retroactively by directing that all appointments and promotions approved by his predecessor since January 2015, one clear year before the end of that tenure, be reversed. Included in this category were about 1,000 teachers employed by the state Teaching Service Commission TSC, much needed engineers employed by the Ministry of Water Resources and other professionals validly appointed by his predecessor. The policy has effectively pushed back these people into the saturated labour market from where they were only recently liberated. This has caused much pain and gnashing of the teeth for the affected families.

    When he came on board, he considered a reformed local government administration as soft target to impress the grass roots. In truth, years of maladministration and nepotism have kept the third tier of government prostrate in the land. Bello frowned at the tradition of percentage payment of salary in that tier, blaming it on the meddlesomeness of his predecessor. Summarily, he cancelled the Local Government Joint Account and promptly announced full financial autonomy for the councils. The decision was praised to high heaven. In spite of this however, no council has been able to pay full salaries since the so-called approval of autonomy. It is also gathered from the grapevine, that the aforesaid autonomy was fake. Most of the deductions he frowned at have been restored through the back door, with a few others added.

    That is not all. The governor has now arrogated to himself, the power to seize the funds of any ‘offending’ council. That is the experience of Ofu and Ijumu Local Councils for their February allocations. The governor was said to have ordered the withholding of Ofu LGA’s allocation because of gross insubordination by the cashier of the council. The said official allegedly flouted the governor’s directive that all cashiers, treasurers and other top level finance staffs proceed on indefinite compulsory leave to give room for a thorough checking of the books. To enforce compliance by this erring official, the governor ‘wisely’ held on to the allocation of the whole council thereby denying the entire LGA its due financial accrual.

    The case of Ijumu, home of Hon. James Faleke, the governor’s formidable political opponent is more worrisome. The governor’s wife, Hajia Rashidat Bello was said to have been embarrassed during an ill-advised visit to the council. She had gone to Ekinrin-Adde, Faleke’s home town to re-commission a community-initiated and financed health facility that was first commissioned in 2007. Apart from the charge of giving her imperial Excellency cold shoulders during the all important engagement, a grotesque masquerade was said to have scared the First Lady away from the community. Now, the chairman of the council has been asked to produce the daring masquerade or forfeit the council’s monthly allocation! Bello at his tyrannical best?

    It is clear that there are issues in Kogi State. Salaries are not being paid, yet government officials are acquiring the most exotic SUVs – the types never seen in the state. The House of Assembly is functioning with only five members while 20 others are being denied the ability to function as elected official of their respective LGAs. For a governor still grappling with legitimacy as a result of challenges at the electoral tribunal, his abrasive style does not bode well for him on the long run.

    It may be too early to evaluate the new Sherif in Lugard House. But since morning shows the day and his tenure is absolutely circumstantial, an early appraisal of this style and nature may be an effective remedy to halt the free flow of tears.

    Weep not, dear fatherland. For though weeping may endure through the night, joy comes in the morning.

     

    • Abudu writes from Lokoja, Kogi State.

  • Oye Nigerians, cry!

    When the pendulum swings to leaders and governance, Nigeria is grossly unfortunate. Though blessed with abundant means to prosperity, evil men are the ones who rose to leadership positions among us that upon assuming power, they turn themselves into monstrously greedy self-seekers and destroyers of their own land and people.

    Governance, which is said to be a social contract between the elected and the electorate incorporating sets of rules and laws that govern a society, guarantees equal rights and opportunities to every citizen irrespective of his or her economic or social status. It specifies the roles and responsibilities, which require the exhibition of ethical behaviour that demand transparency and accountability of citizens and government officials – elected or appointed. Nevertheless, when the elected indulges in corruption in preference to upholding the social contract, governance fails in its purpose and responsibilities, as has been the sad story with Nigeria. Hence there has been failure of governance in a nation that abundantly flourishes with wealth of finest natural and human resources quantifiably measured in comparison with the wealthiest nation on earth.

    It is a basic social responsibility of governance to deliver social infrastructural amenities to enhance citizens’ wellbeing and alleviate their standard of living. To deny a people the comfort of life is nothing but a hideous crime against humanity and God. On this note, if you join them in saying that cases of Sambo Dasuki, Olisa Metuh, Raymond Dokpesi, Diezani Allison-Madueke and every other person who personalised our national cake is witch-hunting, you are no different from the thieving politicians.

    What exists in Nigeria I could say is a government of irresponsibility, and this could not be portrayed more as reflected on state of roads that have become death traps to motorists, dual carriage ways have been turned into single-lanes because motorists avert bad spots, such as that of Port Harcourt to Enugu, the Lagos to Benin, and many more. What motorists see on these roads are occasional patchy works, which are broken soon completed, thereby making the patch work a never-ending activity and a calculated conduit for stealing tax payers’ money.

    So politicians in the country are concerned with how to loot through spurious contracts that leave Nigeria bleeding. I see a nation where stealing and looting is the main objective of going into politics, so that even when the treasury has been suckle-dried, they borrow money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, etc, just to steal.

    Families, on a daily basis, lose their loved ones to road accidents and armed robberies on these roads, yet regime after regime remain insensitive to the suffering of the people. A recent casualty of our failed state is Doyin Sarah Fagbenro, the 25-year-old Nigerian lady, who spent 23 of her years in the United Kingdom, upon concluding her First and Second Degrees in Law, she decided to return permanently to Nigeria. But Nigeria killed her on the Lekki Expressway some weeks after she returned. She was a great potential.

    A look at history shows countries which were warned frequently and persistently about their impending collapse as Nigeria is being warned. Both at home and in the diaspora, very many persons, ranging from statesmen, intellectuals, journalists, diplomats and custodians of history have warned and emphasised that Nigeria could soon disintegrate all in the name of corruption. Unfortunately, the men and women who guide the Nigerian ship chose to ignore all these warnings. They are determined to continue managing the affairs of their country in their accustomed destructive ways. It looks like a huge and malevolent force had held Nigeria in its grip, pushing and pulling Nigeria through an evil whirlwind towards some sort of predetermined cataclysm.

    Mahatma Gandhi could not have thought less of the Nigerian society in his philosophical mind when he warns against “seven social sins”, namely: politics without principle, wealth without work, commerce without morality, pleasure without ‘conscience, education without character, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice. According to Gandhi, corruption triumphs where these sins exist. So has been with Nigeria where politicians throw morality to the dogs and cover faces with pig’s shame in competition for who loots more.

    These days, the unbelievable drama of influential Nigerians raping and degrading Nigeria is alarming.  It is as if we Nigerians are a sub-human or sub-species of the human-species, incapable of recognising, appreciating or desiring the higher values of human life, and confidently absorbed in snatching at, scrambling for whatever is low and degrading, and only doomed as eternal slaves to the pursuit of vanity. Because our leaders and rulers are too busy salivating at the sight of the enormous cash flowing daily from our revenues, and too engrossed in schemes for stealing the money, they have no room for concern for the destruction of this country that has become a national culture.

    Funny though, Metuh, alleged of stealing from our commonwealth, was brought to court handcuffed, then it was we poor masses that started crucifying President Muhammadu Buhari; accusing him of ethnic bigotry. Did we lose our senses? When shall we start looking at things with a common perspective as citizens of one country bound about by the same narrative? So, it’s now a thief that determines how he should be dressed and addressed? Even in the history of slavery, the slave that threatens his is lord often gets severe punishment.

    Where are the rights and liberty of Nigerians? Have Nigerians been intimidated to the point of “zombie” mentality that they do not question unethical acts? Why must Nigerians be frightened like caged animals to speak out or protest for their God given human rights? Sadly, the people have unfaithfully accepted that life is nothing but worthy of living in crawling poverty and crippling diseases – the notion of fear and defeat.

    Nigerian citizens must be responsible for their development and wellbeing to attain freedom and dignity. Citizens must be willing to stand up for themselves. The solution to corruption cannot be found in never-ending prayers without works, but in actions by citizens who are alive to the challenges of the moments; awakening the ir faith to bring about change that would reset the tide of corruption that rapidly destroys a people and a continent. A people may be politically oppressed and deprived of freedom and liberty to share in equal opportunities of the wealth of their nations, and economically inflicted with poverty, but when the thirst for change takes centre stage, the demand for good governance and freedom comes to the fore. That has been the kernel of social revolutions sweeping various countries across the world – from east of Europe in the heartland of the Baltic to north of Africa in the fringes of the Mediterranean.

    Above all, the ordinary people on the street must begin a march to save the country so that our children’s children will eventually have a remnant piece of a landmark to pledge allegiance to as a country. We must recognise the fundamental truth that development depends on good governance.

    Sometimes, it’s safe to wonder whether President Muhammadu Buhari would bring about the change he promised or whether he would restore the battered image of this nation. But a plethora of examples have shown that government does not have good intent for probe panels; it is only a smoke screen to appease the masses when outcry against corporate corruption becomes loudest. The big question is how different Nigerian people will respond this time.

    The previous administration clearly did nothing to arrest the whirlwind of corruption sweeping through the country. And that is enough reason for anyone to be happy that the Otuoke boy did not find his way to Aso Villa.

    The key objective of political leadership must remain the need to influence our communities and country positively, not to make money or shatter the dreams of an entire nation.

     

    • Burhan is a 300-Level History and International Studies student, UNILORIN

  • Cry, his beloved country

    “You see this card [PVC]? It is what we shall use to sweep out this government of thieves. If the coming government is not better, we shall use it to sweep them away too” — Two unlettered Nigerian female voters, as captured in Prof. Niyi Osundare’s May 17 lecture in Lagos.

    It wasn’t quite Alan Paton in his 1948 classic, Cry, the Beloved Country; on his native South Africa, soon to formalise apartheid, to which, though White, he was uncompromisingly opposed.

    It is a big irony though, that South Africa survived apartheid, only to convulse in murderous Black-on-Black xenophobia.

    It was rather Niyi Osundare, professor of English, ace poet and 2014 Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) laureate, rhapsodising Nigeria’s new-found voting power, which the two unlettered women quoted above enthuse.

    But even as the rest of Nigeria rejoice, can Osundare’s native Ekiti, in all good conscience, join them?

    That was why, even with his Nigeria civil rhapsody, Osundare decried the haunting evil, gripping Ekiti under Ayo Fayose.

    Cry, his beloved country!

    Prof. Osundare’s lecture was in 21st century Lagos.  Yet you could swear Plato, the old Greek and democracy cynic, was ensconced, having a wry laugh, in that Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) hall, that Sunday evening.

    Plato, the philosopher, had no faith in democracy.  He would rather have philosopher kings, high in wisdom and deep in knowledge, rule over the rabble.  To him, the borderline between electoral sovereignty and electoral captivity was a spider’s web too thin to risk!

    Contemporary Ekiti provides both the Plato dream and Plato nightmare.  That would appear glaring — at least to the perceptive — at that May 17 lecture.

    Osundare, himself an alumnus, spoke to the cream of Ekiti, distinguished alumni of the elite Christ’s School, Ado Ekiti and friends; men and women of solid achievements and refinement.  They would have been Plato’s contemporary dream crowd: philosophical kings — and queens.

    All too fitting, Kayode Fayemi, former governor of Ekiti, was among the high table.  When called to make a brief remark, his elocution, poise and gait were simply imperial — and Plato would have cheered, despite his grim misgivings about democracy.

    But Fayemi’s imperial governorship only grated as imperious, on the Ekiti electorate; hence the Fayose comeback.  So came Plato’s worst democracy fears: a rude mob just sacked polite government, simply because they had the numbers!  It is the fatal cross-over from electoral sovereignty to electoral captivity.

    Anytime that happened, as Plato feared, the first scalp the mob claimed was polite society.

    That would explain Ekiti today.  In Fayose’s Stone Age “democratic” empire, Okada riders, burly transport union stalwarts, with weather-hardened denizens of the street and allied muggers, not coffee-sipping policy geeks of Fayemi’s ilk, rule the roost.

    In Osundare’s own words, it was “ruling one of the nation’s most enlightened states like a medieval jungle”!

    The pro-Fayose lobby would scoff: despite Dr. Fayemi’s much vaunted policy brilliance, his politics, to both friend and foe, was toxic.  Anti-Fayose forces would gamely counter: despite the Osoko’s brilliant demagoguery, all is assured is Ekiti’s future toxicity, the Ekiti electoral captives with it!  So, the proverbial slip from fry pan to fire?

    The paradox of the putative regress of his native Ekiti, even while hailing the probable advance of Mother Nigeria, both hinged on conscious and deliberate electoral choices, was not lost on the distinguished lecturer and stubborn believer in Ekiti as “one of the nation’s most enlightened states”.

    But again, to him, it’s all a throwback to the basis.  An illegitimate foundation, even with the mediation of the vote, seldom anchors a legitimate fortress.

    “When the governorship race was about to start in Ekiti and Osun states, and the ruling party’s field was swarmed by all manner of gubernatorial hopefuls,” Prof. Osundare delved into very recent political history, “the largest political party in Africa reached out for the most tainted of the lot and told the bewildered world: these are the two sons in whom we are well pleased.”

    These two sons, also named in the Ekitigate audiotape rigging scandal, were Ayo Fayose (Ekiti: who won) and Iyiola Omisore (Osun: who lost).  So stunning was Fayose’s grand winning philosophy of stomach infrastructure that corn-grubbing Candidate Omisore presented himself as the ultimate cynical man of the people.  Still, Osun rejected him.  Now, Ekiti and Osun live with the consequences of their electoral choices.

    But that is cold comfort to the Ekiti Plato philosophical school, to which the professor counts himself an esteemed member, who believe — and rightly too — that “stomach infrastructure” maroons you in the past, even as “mind infrastructure” catapults you into the future.

    That probably explains Osundare’s pithy wailing of the dire symptoms of Fayose’s pact with the past and the conspiratorial support from the Jonathan Presidency, with uproarious cheer from Fayose’s Ekiti electoral captives.

    “Today, one of those two sons is living out the vote of confidence … There is no crime of his that is wrong in the president’s eye, no violation by him is considered outrageous,” he rued in his lecture.  “As governor-elect, he led a crowd of ‘party faithful’  (called thugs by some ignorant opposition media), beat up judges, tore up their robes, destroyed their dockets, trashed the proverbial temple of justice, and got all the workers fleeing in different directions”.

    Even as governor, Fayose has moved from outrage to outrage, sacking parliament and even suborning a segment of the thinking class and elders, royal and common, to cohabit in his Mephistophelean empire.

    Even the bluest of Ekiti blue bloods and most iconic of its legal icons, appear more impressed with “amicably settling the problem” than lambasting Fayose’s constitutional outlawry”!

    But again, Ekiti would follow the natural order: stimulus and response, acts and consequences, crime and punishment.

    Goodluck Jonathan exits in a haze of total paralysis: no fuel, no electricity, no movement, no nothing — a complete gridlock!  It’s the telling result of a daft electoral choice, four years ago.

    The poet was right: “Every thinking and feeling human being knew for sure,” he said in his lecture, “that four more years of the PDP government would reduce Nigeria to a state more horrifying than the one the world had ever witnessed in the failed states that litter the African landscape.”

    But the pan-Nigeria electorate has at least made amends for its gargantuan mistake of 2011.  Yet, it is still conked by Jonathan’s gargantuan exit paralysis.

    The reverse, however, would appear the Ekiti case.  While Nigeria, ceteris paribus, has tried to negotiate itself out of a cul-de-sac, Ekiti appears to have rammed itself straight into one.

    Pray, ace poet: will Ekiti still be “one of the nation’s most enlightened states”, after four years of Fayose?

    Cry, his beloved country!

    “Goodluck Jonathan exits in a haze of total paralysis: no fuel, no electricity, no movement, no nothing — a complete gridlock! It’s the telling result of a daft electoral choice, four years ago”

  • Students cry out over ‘grounded’ van

    Students cry out over ‘grounded’ van

    Students of the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUT MINNA) are not happy over the condition of their union’s official vehicle. The vehicle has been abandoned for over two months by Students’ Union officials, reports UCHECHUKWU EKWUEME-DURU (400-Level Industrial Technology Education).

    WhAT is the state of the official bus given to the Students’ Union Government (SUG) of the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUT MINNA) in Niger State? This is the question students are seeking an answer to from management.

    The condition of the 2000 model Toyota Sienna is generating ripples, following an allegation that it has been in bad shape since the school resumed last year.

    The bus, CAMPUSLIFE gathered, was donated to the union by Governor Aliyu Babangida Muazu three years ago, when the then union leaders had an accident with the 2002 Honda Civic official vehicle.

    Students were prompted to ask questions when the union officials could not use the bus for functions on campus. The bus, students alleged, may have been in bad shape because of improper maintenance.

    Some students claimed that the bus engine has been damaged by the carelessness of union leaders. Some alleged that the bus could not be repaired, adding that this may be why it was abandoned at the Students’ Union office.

    “The current state of this 12-seater bus is not only discouraging, but also annoying,” a Chemistry student said, adding: “The car has been parked and abandoned for two months.”

    When CAMPUSLIFE visited the union building to assess the condition of the vehicle, our reporter found dents on it. A patch of engine oil spread under the vehicle. Also, there was dirt underneath the bus, indicating that it may have been grounded for long. The upholstery was also covered with dirt.

    Students criticised the union officials for poor maintenance, asking the SUG to repair the bus or face students’ wrath.

    A SUG official, Justice Nwaigwe, a 400-Level-Physics student, told CAMPUSLIFE why the bus was abandoned for so long. “We have been explaining to students why the bus is left in the condition it is. We feel the pain more than the rest of our colleagues. We know it does not speak well about the union, especially under our leadership, but