The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Editorial

  • Your editorial on Hijab

    SIR, unable to steer clear of bias, The Nation wrote an editorial on June 16, titled That Curious Verdict on the court verdict delivered by Justice Jide Falola on June 3, in Osun State. The court had held that the Muslim female students in public primary and secondary schools in the state are free to wear hijab in their schools. The editorial gives an unreliable interpretation of this landmark verdict and ceaselessly put forward wrong examples to justify the misinterpretation. For instance, in the 4th paragraph, the editorial asks a rhetorical question: What has human right got to do with the dress code adopted by organisations? In the following paragraph, the editorial continues: We cannot pretend, as a nation, to be oblivious to developments on the global stage. Do police women wear hijabs? Do judges? Yes, police women and judges are allowed to wear the hijab in many Western countries, and so are students in public and some private schools. Also in the northern part of the country, and in some states in the western part, Muslim students are already allowed to use the hijab in public schools by government directives. Nothing more than a few clicks online would have revealed this to The Nation. What The Nation should be doing is advocate to secure the rights of those kids that are being forced to make a choice between education and a religious observance.

    It is definitely not for The Nation to state the legal position on the issue, the court reserves that right. The newspaper remarkably erred in surmising that religious mandated dress code has got no connection with human right. In the abstract of a paper titled “Moslem Women, Religion And The Hijab: A Human Rights Perspective” in the East African Journal of Peace and Human Rights (Vol. 14 (1) 2008: pp. 148), M Ssenyonjo, Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Brunel University, London focuses on the status of the hijab in Islam and selected recent cases concerning the wearing of the Islamic dress in schools: “On the basis of these, two conclusions are made. Firstly, to prevent a person from making a choice to wear religious clothing (like the hijab) in public or private schools or institutions, in the absence of justification compatible with human rights law, may impair the individual’s freedom to have or adopt a religion. Secondly, the general exclusion of women from schools or work on account of the Islamic dress might lead to further discrimination against girls and women in education and employment. A human rights perspective to the Islamic dress should involve as a starting point respecting choices of individual Muslim women to wear or not to wear the hijab.”

    This editorial and other comments like it are over-simplifying the substantive issues surrounding the hijab crisis in Osun State and the historical background to it.

     

    • Disu Kamor,

    Muslim Public Affairs Centre, Lagos.

  • Editorial on ICPC off the mark

    SIR: The Nation’s editorial comment of Monday, January 6, titled “We need to fight corruption with more seriousness” raised some concerns on the prospects of a successful prosecution of the new anti-corruption initiative of the present administration. However, many of the issues it raised appeared to have been borne out of some misconceptions.

    Kicking off from a familiar rendition of failed attempts by previous successive administrations to curb corruption, the editorial rightly observed that those administrations merely played to the gallery and consequently, their avowed fight against corruption “ended not only in futility but in compounding the problem.”

    The Nation also rightly noted that President Buhari has brought in the much needed sincerity and commitment, which the anti-corruption war lacked under some of his predecessors.  It said: “ The ‘new’ anti-corruption ‘war’ under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is obviously more purposeful and under an overall leadership well known to be averse to corruption.”

    Having recognised the importance of the commitment or otherwise of the political authorities to the success  or failure of the anti-graft war, the editorial curiously turned round to heap the blame of the failed anti-graft efforts of the past on the two major anti-corruption agencies, namely the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which it  said “have apparently proven to be organs for furthering untold official graft”.

    Not only is this allegation serious, it is unfair to the anti-graft agencies for the simple reason that the editorial neither substantiated it nor offered any reasonable explanation, throughout the 11-paragraph comment to justify it.  More worrisome was the attempt to dismiss, off hand, the well known and publicly acknowledged constraints such as paucity of funds and slowness of judicial proceedings which had hitherto hindered the capacity of the agencies to deliver to the fullest.

    It is particularly surprising that The Nation was enraged by the submission of  the chairman of ICPC, Barrister Ekpo Nta, on these two hindrances when he appeared before a committee at the National Assembly. It is equally incredible that the editorial claimed ignorance of previous efforts by the ICPC to bring to the attention of the authorities these two and other critical issues militating against the anti-graft war such as lack of real independence in the years past to intervene in any case of corruption without being petitioned. The editorial particularly berated the ICPC for having over 400 unresolved corruption related cases in court as if the commission was responsible  for the inability of the courts to decide those cases with despatch. In its bid to condemn the ICPC roundly no matter what, the editorial refused to acknowledge the commission’s successes already in the public domain.

    Is the newspaper really unaware of ICPC’s high rate of conviction and the fact that some of its convictions challenged by the convicts were sustained at the appellate court?  Is The Nation unaware that the ICPC under Barrister Ekpo Nta secured a landmark decision of the Court of Appeal to wade into any suspected cases of corruption without petition?

    All told, that editorial comment smelt more like a case of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. It fell far short of an informed opinion expected of a reputable newspaper like The Nation.

     

    • Oladapo Adebayo,

    Ilorin, Kwara State.

  • Your editorial on Envoys missed it

    SIR: After reading your editorial entitled Envoys Visits, I came to the conclusion that though your newspaper has taken a firm position on the developments in the Senate, it has also decided to stand the facts on the head, in order to make your unjustifiable conclusions believable.

    While your newspaper is free to assume the position of counsellor to the US and UK on which Nigerian official to visit and what position they should take on issues arising in Nigeria, I believe that an editorial must dish out only facts and nothing but the facts.

    The editorial stated that “ Senator Saraki teamed up with the PDP senators and about eight from the APC to get the position at a time that about 51 other members of the of the APC were at the International Conference Centre in Abuja to attend a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari”. It continued that “as part of the trade-off by Senator Saraki, Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP was elected Deputy Senate President. Not a few wondered how a man could have stabbed his own party in the back the way Senator Saraki did, just to realize his ambition”.

    The rest of the editorial is based on the statements above. However, the editorial chose to ignore the fact that the candidate of the section of the party leadership which continued to claim that it is representing the APC, Ahmed Lawan, enjoys the support of only 27 senators out of 108. Thus, the so-called meeting purportedly convened by the President was planned by the same section of the party leadership which now flagrantly used the name of the party to legitimize its scheme. Its aim is to use the gathering to railroad and coerce the Senators and Representatives to go and rubber stamp its decisions.

    This is against the position of the entire Senate that members should be left to decide their leadership. If it is true that Mr President conveyed the meeting at ICC by 9a.m., how come that by 10. 05 a.m. when the Senate began sitting on the strength of the proclamation issued by the same President stating that the inauguration should be done by 10a.m.the same day, Buhari had not arrived the venue of the meeting at ICC which they claimed he convened?

    The editorial conveniently omitted the fact that the APC members present in the Senate Chambers that day fielded Senator Ali Ndume for the position of deputy senate president and voted for him but were defeated by the 49 PDP Senators who were all present as against the  25 APC senators present. Thus, instead of accusing Saraki of back stabbing his party by helping Ekweremadu to win, those who kept APC senators from the chambers and did not realise that they ought to change the time on the presidential proclamation sent to the Clerk, made Ekweremadu the Deputy Senate President by default.

    It should be noted that if the Clerk of the National Assembly had conducted the elections of the leadership of the House of Representatives before or at the same time as that of the Senate, we would have ended up with a PDP Deputy Speaker as it happened in the Senate. The two hours in between the time he concluded the election in the Senate and when he started that of the House of Representatives saved the day in the House as it allowed members of the party to return from the aborted meeting to the House chambers. Otherwise, the PDP would have been in the majority on the floor in the absence of the APC members.

    It is heartwarming that The Nation conceded that “there is no doubt that the Senate President met the legal requirement of a simple majority that he needed to emerge as the senate president”. This singular fact, combined with the fact that he enjoys support across party lines because majority of the senators believe in his capacity and capability to protect the independence of the legislature and nurture the principle of separation  of powers which undergirds the presidential system, justifies the endorsement by friends of Nigeria especially the countries from which we copy the essential elements of our democratic system.

     

    • Bankole Omisore,

    Special Assistant to Senate President(Media),

  • Spirit of activism

    ONE thing is certain: people will not give up arguing about correct usage in English. Happily, the spirit of (language) activism is alive and well. As a word-watcher (from the Word Watch School), how do you feel or react when you read: “…expired politicians, court jesters and political fuddy-duddies parade themselves as icons?” (THE NATION ON SUNDAY EDITORIAL, August 31, 2014). Yes, “expired politicians” are dead politicians! Do the dead come back to parade on the political scene? Only in Nigeria! Holy terror!

    Another note: “sheathe” and “sheath” are both verbs in American English (AE); you can sheathe a knife, a cutlass and a sword, but, in practical terms, you can’t sheathe a machete!

    “Mail”, meaning “letters, parcels, etc by post”, is an uncountable noun—it has no plural form. “Mails” is a piece of Nigerianism, Nigerian English (NE) or English made in Nigeria!

    Evidences? “…but fails abysmally in giving concrete “evidences” (evidence) of such claims.” “Evidence”, meaning “information that gives reason for believing something; proof “(e.g. in a law case), is an uncountable noun. It has no plural form. We correctly say or write: enough evidence, some evidence, a mass of evidence, a piece of evidence or pieces of evidence.

    Standard-bearers or flag-bearers? “Group insists PDP, APC should pick Christians as “flag-bearers” (standard-bearers). In politics, music, etc, it is “standard-bearer”, in games, sports, etc., it is “flag-bearer” or “torchbearer”.

    “Know/Knowing full well” is Briticism while “Know/Knowing fully well” is an Americanism.

    Work harder and keep watching, brother!

    (Bayo Oguntunase/Language Activist/Adoro62@yahoo.co.uk) 

    COLUMNIST’S ADDENDUM: Some dictionaries could be misleading. When I saw ‘evidences’ in one of the extracts published last week, I immediately knew that something was wrong with the word, as now pointed out. I told my son to check up the word in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010 Eighth Edition). We discovered that it was both countable and uncountable. Based on this, I allowed the entry to go! When Mr. Oguntunase intervened, I checked dictionaries and discovered that it was non-count! In fact, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English New Edition for Advanced Learners, 2013 Edition) declares categorically: “Evidence is an uncountable noun and has no plural form. Use a singular verb after it: Vital evidence was destroyed.” The reaffirmation I get from this revelation is that it is not everything that is in some dictionaries that is correct! So, there is need to critically and selectively drink from the fountain of as many dictionaries as possible in order to be on the safe side. We must therefore develop circumspective and interrogative capacities in the use of language.

    From last week: “…but fails woefully (abysmally) in giving concrete evidences (evidence) of such claims.” (NATIONAL MIRROR, September 11)

    Do not say ‘true evidence’, but ‘reliable evidence’. (Longman)

    SUNDAY ADESINA (08029955388): You are right on ‘outright’ being both an adjective and adverb. ‘Outrightly’ is not just uncommon, but queer and unknown to standard etymological entries.

    “Boko Haram peace talks reopens” Why the disagreement? This kind of ‘schoolboy howler’, in the words of Mr. Oguntunase, should not be seen in standard publications.

    “CBN intervention bouys naira” Get it right: buoys.

    “You must be matured and in love with jazz music.” (Lifestyle) Just ‘mature’.

    The next three errors are from NTA Network News of September 18: “…who presided at the occasion.” NTA correspondents should be refreshed: the preposition that goes before ‘occasion’ is ‘on’ (not ‘at’)

    “He said that the ministry intends (intended) to restore back….” ‘Restore back’ shows unintelligibility. With ‘restore’, you can’t have ‘back’. We shouldn’t use words we don’t understand their meanings (or implications). The English language has evolved from the old period to the modern era. So, journalists must avoid Anglo-Saxon expressions.

    “Each of the stadia was provided with practicing pitch.” It is not the pitches that practise as implied in the statement. Therefore, the sensible phrase ought to be ‘practice pitch.’ Lexical and semantic appropriateness demands this line of thought.

    “Captain…wedded former Miss…in Lagos over the weekend with pomp and pageantry.” ‘Pomp and pageantry’ is not an accepted phrase. The standard expression is ‘pomp and circumstance’ or ‘pomp and ceremony.’ It can simply be left as ‘pomp’. If you don’t remember these forms, rephrase. At least, you can always recollect that the Nigerian creation (pomp and pageantry) is uneducated.

    “Truely, Jos is a home of peace and tourism.” Correct form: truly.

    “This development is unlike in some states where education have (sic) died a natural death…” (DAILY CHAMPION) Indeed, education has died in Champion House!

    “Public affairs analysts of the most diverse persuasions are agreed on one thing: the world is at a crossroad (a/the crossroads).”

    “It is therefore noteworthy that the AU has now seen the wisdom in pooling the resources of member-states together to prevent ugly incident (sic)….” (NIGERIAN TRIBUNE, September 19) When resources are pooled, there is no need for ‘together’.

    “The hopes of millions of our countrymen are centred around us.” (THISDAY, September 19) ‘Centre’ admits ‘on’, ‘round,’ ‘upon’… never ‘around’.

    “Unclaimed properties of accident victims”  ‘Property’ in this context is non-count. It can only take the plural form if buildings and acres of land are involved—or for scientific references.

    “Yes, Nigerians love to eat traditional meals with their bare fingers but that is not to say we can’t provide foreigners with cutleries.” (Tourism & Hospitality) ‘Cutlery’ is uncountable.

    Wrong: very unique; Right: unique; Wrong: transport fare; Right: fare;

     

  • Not yet there

    Not yet there

    •Amnesty has not lived up to its promise as integration programme

    The recent announcement by the Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, that the much-touted scheme has produced 9,912 graduates in a variety of fields may seem to be a success on the surface, but when it is considered in greater detail, it is clear that the programme has clearly failed to live up to its ambitious aims.

    Those aims include the introduction of a comprehensive training programme for ex-militants who laid down their arms, and their integration into the larger society. The integration was to be based on their employment in decent, well-paying jobs which would simultaneously eliminate the joblessness that served to motivate militancy, as well as give them a greater stake in ensuring that their communities remained peaceful and stable.

    It is obvious that, regardless of Kuku’s explanations, the Amnesty Programme has been reduced to a vocational and degree-acquisition scheme instead of a comprehensive reintegration programme. The graduates emerged in fields like medicine, law, agriculture, welding and electrical installation. Others have become licensed pilots, while many have been trained for careers in the oil service sector.

    Laudable as these achievements are, they only amount to the production of individuals whose training is, in many cases, yet to be matched with jobs. In other words, the Amnesty Programme’s main achievement has been to contribute even more young Nigerians to the millions of unemployed school-leavers and graduates currently roaming the streets.

    The inability of the programme to include a comprehensive job-placement programme as an inherent part of the policy is a pointer to the very flawed nature of the Amnesty Programme itself. In spite of the laudable aims of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, it is clear that far too much money was thrown at the programme than was desirable. While they were in various forms of training, thousands of ex-militants received handsome stipends that rivalled the salaries of many full-time workers. Unnecessary expense was incurred by sending many of them abroad for courses that could have been more profitably done at home.

    Some of the courses, especially those related to the aviation industry, did not take the doldrums of the local aviation industry into consideration. Many ex-militants simply took the cash and returned to illegal activities like petroleum theft and oil bunkering. In some tertiary institutions, such as the College of Education, Akoka, Lagos, militants have clashed with other students.

    To make matters worse, the Amnesty Programme appears to have entrenched a social apartheid that does nothing to solve the underlying problems of the Niger Delta. Those who are in the programme are widely seen as the pampered favourites of the Federal Government, for whom no expense is too much. Those who are not in it complain of being shut out of their entitlements and are furiously agitating to get in. This division has also taken an ethnic tone as some groups believe that it is their entitlements while others feel shut out. Thus, the divisions which the resource control campaign caused remain unsolved, and have indeed been worsened by new grievances.

    Four years into the Amnesty Programme, it is obvious that there is the pressing need to review it, with a view to enhancing its strengths and minimising its weaknesses. Its greatest advantage is the achievement of relative peace in the Niger Delta, and the concomitant increase in the nation’s oil export receipts. This should be built upon by ensuring that the programme is run economically in order to accommodate as many ex-militants as possible. Every effort should be made to reduce cost by ensuring that they are trained in local institutions. Their training should be incorporated into established job-placement schemes which could be gradually enlarged to include youths who are non-militants. Nigeria gains little if Peter is robbed to pay Paul.

  • Off the table

    Off the table

    •Mr Cameron should be told in clear terms that Nigeria won’t go back on same-sex marriage

    We are not averse to foreign countries making inputs on policy matters in Nigeria if they must because no country is an island unto itself. Moreover, the world has become a global village and one in which policies made in one country could have consequences far beyond its borders. To this extent, countries should be amenable to constructive criticisms of their policies and programmes by other countries. But it is something else when such criticisms or suggestions border on meddlesomeness.

    This is exactly our concern about the statement by British Prime Minister David Cameron, that Britain would seek audience with its Nigerian counterpart on the same-sex marriage bill already passed by the National Assembly. The legislators spoke the minds of Nigerians by prescribing 14 years imprisonment for same-sex offenders. All that is required is the president’s assent for the bill to become law.

    Apparently, Mr Cameron has forgotten that Nigeria and Britain have no cultural affinity; otherwise, he would not be recommending that Nigeria toe the line of Britain in matters relating to same-sex marriage. Indeed, his country’s proposed engagement of the Nigerian authorities towards swaying them on the stance of the National Assembly on the matter is taking meddlesomeness too far.

    “With countries like Nigeria, where we have a very good relationship, a very strong relationship, nothing should be off the table”, the prime minister said. He added: “So, when we meet with Nigerian politicians and Nigerian leaders, we should be very clear about those things that we agree about and very clear where we disagree.” Mr Cameron said further that the UK has a “very good record on equal rights for lesbian and gay people”, adding: “we believe that’s right for every country in the world.”

    This is where the British prime minister missed the point. How can he assume that what is good for Britain should be good for Nigeria, or other countries for that matter? If same-sex marriage is food for Britons, it could be poison for Nigerians. As a matter of fact, contrary to Mr Cameron’s belief that “nothing should be off the table”, same-sex marriage is off the table”. And this is the point that Nigerian officials must make clear to him whenever his proposed ‘consultations’ with them take place.

    In Nigeria, nay Africa, we cannot “have proper equality for lesbian and gay people”; it is only in Mr Cameron’s imagination that such rights (that is if at all that is a right) “should apply everywhere in the world.” That is the height of ethnocentrism which Nigeria should not take, whether from Britain or any other country for that matter.

    As we said earlier, there is nothing basically wrong in one country seeking policy change in another country, but it must give convincing reasons to justify its position. Mr Cameron has not told us how Nigeria’s same-sex bill will affect either his country as an entity or its citizens; here we are talking about enlightened self-interest. It is insufficient to hide under a nebulous concept of ‘fundamental right’. Even if Nigeria’s position is going to affect whatever comes to it by way of British aid (because Mr Cameron made a veiled threat when he linked the issue with aids), we have to stick to our position. In any case, it is better to be rid of Mr. Cameron’s aids than to be slapped with the AIDS of sodomy, which the West, the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, now deodorises as “same-sex marriage”. If on that score Britain and its fellow travellers are beyond redemption, Nigeria is not. So, President Goodluck Jonathan must make the point that we cannot trade virtue for money by assenting to the bill, immediately.

    Nigeria is a sovereign nation, and this fact has to be respected by other countries, the same way Nigeria should respect the sovereignty of other countries. To compare sexuality with religion, race or lifestyle, as Mr Cameron has done, is disingenuous. If the British do not care about whether people are gay or straight, we do. And that is also a fundamental right that should be respected.