The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Enough

  • Releasing terrorists’ list not enough

    Releasing terrorists’ list not enough

    • By Kene Obiezu

    Sir: On Monday, March 18, the Nigeria Sanctions Committee released a list of those accused of sponsoring terrorism in the country. The list which contains nine individuals and six companies has predictably set off a firestorm in a country riven apart by terrorism, but the fact that there could be more where it came from means that the days of terrorism may yet be numbered in the country.

    In 2021, the UAE was said to have handed over to the federal government a list of those sponsoring terrorism in the country. Nigerians immediately expected the names to be made public, but it was never done, as the list soon became one of the sorest points in a country where terrorism continued to do irreparable harm.

    But finally, knowledge should bring information and information, power. The traumatized victims of the Kaduna train attack in 2022 should know those who sponsored their nightmare. The children of Baptist High School Chikun, Kaduna State, who spent months in horrifying captivity should know those who purchased their tickets to such suffering. The villages of Southern Kaduna which have since lost count of their dead and missing should know those determined to annihilate them.

    The list which had gathered dust after the previous administration preferred to shield it should now give Nigeria leverage in the war against terrorism.

    Effective repair often begins from identifying the cause of the rupture. Knowing why something is broken and how it was broken aids repair and even reparation. Nigeria’s confrontation with terrorism started slowly but has since flared into an inferno.

    Now that the destroyers can be defined with some definiteness, maybe healing can start. Justice typically juts out from justification. For victims of heinous crimes, this justification means validating their pain, anguish, and distress. This kind of victim justification is impossible without proper accounting, putting names to faces and faces to names.

    The child who has lost both parents and limbs to terrorism should know at whose word and will his world was cut off. The children whose schools were razed and teachers beheaded should be able to pinpoint with piercing certainty those responsible for their broken dreams.

    Lists like this often become tiny lips of light, piercing hitherto impenetrable darkness and illuminating stories and sorrow. Nigeria is one gigantic station of stories and sorrows and to illuminate its struggle and validate its sorrows, more lists like these are needed.

    The list of those who have sabotaged the country economically is needed. Oil thieves, fuel subsidy scammers and even internet fraudsters should be included. The callous champions of Nigeria’s corruption should also have ample space to write their names in infamy.

    Read Also: Tinubu, grand master of progressive politics, says Speaker Abbas

    There should also be a list for the saboteurs of Nigeria’s democracy. All those whose death marks appear on the corpse of democracy in the country should feature on that list. Coup plotters, corrupt members of the executive, judiciary and legislature, and of course, all those who have scuttled previous elections in the country should all have notable mentions.

    A name nullifies ambiguity, brings identity to the fore, and engenders becoming. People and things often grow into the names they bear. In other words, they are defined by their names and come to define their names. That is the power of a name.

    A name also imputes responsibility, implicates people for accountability, and unravels impunity.

    In naming those who sponsor terrorism in the country, the current administration has shown that it may just have enough to elide the execrable excesses of the previous administration. It is a good sign because government is worse when it is governed by secrets and long shadows.

    Those named may argue that naming them has eroded their constitutional rights to presumption of innocence, as no court has pronounced them guilty of any crimes. They would have had a point had terrorism not become a national nightmare that justifies any minor inconvenience experienced by anyone else smeared by it anymore smeared by it in whatever degree.

    Whatever point they would have about constitutional rights must be circumscribed by national security and by the practical aphorism that there is no smoke without fire.

     They can go to court and obtain pronouncements. A more sensible course of action would be to cooperate with the authorities.

    For Nigerians, it is important that the authorities go beyond naming the monster to cut off its head so that families and entire communities can be spared further and future agonies.

    •Kene Obiezu,

    keneobiezu@gmail.com

  • Enough is enough

    Enough is enough

    • Supreme Court slams N40m cost on Ozekhome

    The Supreme Court appears to have exhausted its patience over obviously frivolous and vexatious petitions which clog the court’s docket, and deprive other litigants expeditious hearing of their cases before the apex court. In a rare show of anger, the court fined a legal practitioner, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, N40 million personally, in favour of the respondents, for bringing before it an application which it described as frivolous and vexatious.

    Justice Tijanni Abubakar who read the lead judgment said: “This is a calculated attempt to re-litigate the matter. The application is frivolous and vexatious. It is totally lacking in merit. Counsel for the applicant is hereby ordered to pay N40m to the listed parties in the matter.” 

    Before the judgment, Justice Inyang Okoro, quizzed the senior advocate over why he brought an election-related matter, nearly four years after, whereas the extant laws grant the apex court a 60-day window from the judgment of the Court of Appeal, to hear such matter.

    This newspaper has severally canvassed for such humongous costs against litigants and their lawyers who make a joke of the judicial process by filing frivolous and vexatious applications before the courts. As we have argued, such applications not only denigrate the integrity of the particular court, but the entire judicial process. They also deny other litigants with more important cases expeditious hearing of their cases. Even to a layman, it is ridiculous that a learned mind would canvass for a hearing of an application to bring back a candidate sacked by the same court nearly four years ago.

    The senior advocate had brought the application to argue that Governor Hope Uzodimma who has almost completed his tenure should be sacked, and Emeka Ihedioha, earlier sacked by the Supreme Court, be returned, to serve his tenure as governor. As Justice Okoro correctly posited, those who bring such frivolous applications before the court usually join the public to lampoon the courts when such applications are allowed by the courts. 

    The trending social media criticisms over election petitions justify the lamentation of the justices. Even lawyers join ordinary citizens not learned in law to ridicule judgments, on the premise that they are against public opinion.  

    Read ALso: NJC clears 11 Justices for Supreme Court

    Justice Okoro said: “In the atmosphere we are in now, we will not entertain speculative matters.  You must come to this court with a genuine matter. Counsel knows the truth before any matter is brought to court. Recently people bring in impossible matters to the judiciary then they go to social media to denigrate the court.  You know we do not have jurisdiction. This is an election-related matter; you know the 60 days given to us by the constitution had elapsed.” 

    Despite the lead, the senior advocate continued to seek a consequential order of the court, directing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue Ihedioha a certificate of return as the validly elected governor of Imo State, for the election held in 2019. According to media reports, the court slammed the SAN with the N40 million when he insisted that his application was meritorious. 

    We join our voice to ask lawyers to temper their quest to satisfy the whims and caprices of their clients at the expense of the judiciary.

    The example set by the Supreme Court in Ihedioha v Uzodimma should guide the lower courts when legal practitioners consent to their client’s request and bring forward applications that will make a mockery of the judicial process. While we do not support the stifling of jurisprudential enquiry, we join the justices of the Supreme Court to frown at manifestly frivolous and vexatious applications. Enough of such shenanigans.

  • When everything is not enough

    When everything is not enough

    Some people, many a time, expect women to be perfect. They don’t leave room for them to make mistakes, and be vulnerable, and they stereotype them. But, the truth is that they need to make mistakes, learn from the mistakes and emerge better.

    Those are my takeaways from the newly-released ‘Everything Is Not Enough’, the sophomore novel of Lola Akinmade Åkerström. The American edition came first on October 22. The UK and Europe followed on October 26. The Nigerian edition is slated for February 2024.

    The author has held readings in Washington and Richmond, Virginia and New York. The novel is a sequel to Lola’s ‘In Every Mirror She is Black’, which is about Kemi Adeyemi, a marketing executive, who is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, the CEO of Sweden’s largest marketing firm. Kemi’s immediate task is to help fix a PR fiasco about a racially tone-deaf campaign. It is also about Brittany-Rae Johnson who meets Jonny on the plane on his way to the U.S. This chanced meeting ushers the former model-turned-flight-attendant into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege. It is also about a Somali refugee named Muna Saheed, whose day job is cleaning the toilets at Jonny’s office.

    Their ordeals did not end in ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’. ‘Everything Is Not Enough’ tells us more about them and Sweden’s discrimination against black women. It contains twice the drama of ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’. 

    In this continuation of the stories of Brittany-Rae, Kemi and Yasmin, there is enough drama to keep the reader turning the pages.

    Read Also: Fubara: Rivers NASS caucus declares support for Wike

    By the time Yasmin and Brittany’s paths cross, the dramas in their lives are at their peak. Secrets are being unearthed, facts are surfacing and what used to be truths become barefaced lies. There are even suspicions that their men are mean fellows capable of violence of unimaginable proportion.

    At this moment, Kemi’s confusion has taken a leap so high it makes her fear about tomorrow, not just her tomorrow, but that of the significant other growing in her. 

    The men in the novel, like the women, are flawed but some of them are either outright racists or closet ones. Some of them objectify women, especially black women. One of them, despite all his wealth, shows traits of a mental health challenge. Or how else can you explain a man who keeps changing women like mothers change diapers for babies? His fetish for black women borders on the absurd. Simply ridiculous. He is so terrible that everything is not enough for him. 

    This novel also parades a number of memorable fringe characters such as Kehinde, Kemi’s twin sister and moral compass. Though predominantly set in Sweden, some key actions happen in London and Washington. Courtesy of those scenes, we see bits and pieces of these powerful cities. 

    The work also touches on the evil of conflicts, conflicts that displace people and force them to seek refuge in places where even when they spend decades, they will never fully be accepted but just tolerated. Through Ahmed and Afran, the author opens the sore that conflicts represent. Through Yasmin’s parents’ fate, we feel the senselessness in wars and conflicts of any kind.

    All in all, Lola Akinmade creates so much crises that one may worry about how she is going to resolve them. This is one of the aspects that a reader is likely to give her flowers because not only are all the seemingly scattered threads brought together, they are merged with panache and grace and the outcome is a fitting climax to an exhilarating ride!

  • Enough of senseless killings, group tells Federal Government

    Rising from its monthly central working committee meeting on Wednesday 11th June, 2018, the Christian Conscience,

    A non-denominational group, the Christian Conscience, has urged the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to stop what it called unnecessary killings of innocent citizens across the country.

    It cited the lingering attacks between farmers and herdsmen in Benue, Plateau and other communities in the North as well as other security challenges facing the country, such as kidnapping and political violence.

    Describing the killings as avoidable and unnecessary, Christian Conscience noted that if necessary steps had been taken, the right intelligence gathering process utilised and proactive approaches by necessary security agencies done, the challenges could have been nipped in the bud.

    In a joint statement after its meeting, the group’s National Chairman, Elder Enock Ajiboso, the National Secretary, Dr Kolawole Verrals and the Publicity Secretary, Mr. Tunji Oguntuase, reiterated that a nation can only enjoy peaceful co-existence among the citizenry in an environment of peace before the people could enjoy dividends of democracy.

    It said: “When farmers are disturbed from producing agricultural produce due to insecurity and the government at all levels are not protecting them, the ultimate result will be shortage of locally produced foodstuffs while unnecessary importation of food items, such as rice and other stable food items that can easily be grown and produced locally, are imported, thus depleting our external reserves.”

  • Enough is enough

    CJN is right in calling for the arrest of hoodlums who invaded Port Harcourt court

    Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen’s call for punishment for the thugs who on May 14 invaded the Port Harcourt Division of the Rivers State High Court is right and timely. A rival faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had filed an application in the court, seeking an injunction to restrain the party from holding the local government congress in the state fixed for penultimate Saturday. Not only did the hoodlums attack court officials, they inflicted injuries on some persons on the premises and disrupted the court’s sitting.

    The temple of justice is supposed to be sacred in the interest of the society and democracy. When hoodlums are allowed to seize control and dictate when the court could sit and hear cases, or disperse, just to ensure that parties to a dispute are denied access to justice, the society is in trouble.

    The constitution made no mistake by declaring the judiciary as the effective third arm of government saddled with adjudication of disputes and interpretation of laws made by the legislature and executed by the executive.

    Apparently at the centre of the show of shame in Port Harcourt were chieftains of the two factions of the APC in the state. Guns boomed and litigants, lawyers and judges scampered for safety.

    The unruly act must be checked immediately by fishing out the hooligans and prosecuting them. As Onnoghen noted, “This latest act of intimidation of the judiciary and the unwarranted violence against a peaceful institution of an arm of government is quite disturbing. More importantly, such show of shame ought not to be encouraged by right-thinking members of the Nigerian Public.”

    As the CJN observed, those involved should not go unpunished. “If the enemies of our peace and democracy succeed or get away with what occurred at the High Court in Port Harcourt, it would be a source of encouragement to them to do same to the Court of Appeal, and ultimately, the Supreme Court of Nigeria, whenever anyone of them perceives that a judgment may be delivered against any of them or the interests they represent.”

    The barbaric episode has once again painted the country in bad light in the comity of nations and the situation can only be partially remedied if the law enforcement agencies swing into action immediately.

    Regrettably, this would not be the first time courts would be sacked. In 2014, some thugs invaded a sitting court in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, and assaulted judges, with a view to obstructing justice. That matter was swept under the carpet.

    We agree with the CJN that enough is enough. The confidence of people in the courts must be restored. This is especially so now that the institutions involved in conducting elections and resolving political disputes begin preparations for the 2019 elections. The least the government, INEC and the political parties can do is eschew resort to self-help.

    Rivers State is fast becoming a metaphor for the bad and the ugly in political contests. This is not a good emblem that any state should be proud to wear.

    All those who have reduced politics in the state and other states in Nigeria to a do-or-die affair must be punished no matter how highly placed. It is only when this is done that political gladiators and their thugs will begin to respect the law and make democracy meaningful.

  • A list is not enough

    It is interesting that the list of alleged treasury looters when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in power is getting longer and longer.  Today, no fewer than 23 names of alleged treasury looters have been released by the agents of change. A report said:  “The list is made up of three senators, five former ministers, two former governors, three ex-military chiefs, three aides of former National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki, a former Customs boss and a former permanent secretary, among others.”

    The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the list was “based on verifiable facts, including the amount involved, the date the amount in question was collected and from where it was taken.” He described the names that have been released so far as “a tip of the iceberg.”

    Some of those on the list have protested, saying that their names shouldn’t be there. But there is no doubt that the treasury was looted and the looters should be identifiable and nameable.

    It may well be that the alleged treasury looters don’t consider wrongfully taking money from the treasury as looting. It may well be that those who steal the country’s funds believe it is the normal thing to do.

    This is why the war against treasury looting and treasury looters must not be a war without casualties. It is not enough to release lists of alleged treasury looters without ensuring that the guilty are severely punished.     A war without casualties cannot be a war properly so called.

    Why are these high-profile cases up in the air? As long as high-profile corruption cases remain unresolved, public confidence in the war against corruption will remain uncertain.

    Mohammed was quoted as saying: ‘’What was the PDP expecting when it challenged the FG to name the looters of the public treasury under the party’s watch?”  More important than what the PDP was expecting, the public expects that alleged treasury looters would be brought to justice without delay.

    What is the purpose of a list that only gets longer as if the purpose of the war against treasury looting is just to highlight the names of alleged looters for public awareness?  Naming alleged looters is simply a stage in a process.  It is not the be-all and end-all.

    Before more names are released to demonstrate that the anti-corruption war is in progress, it would make sense to show the progress of the war by what has happened to those whose names have been released.

  • Enough of abductions

    SIR: On April 14, 2014, Nigerians and the entire world learned that some female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State were missing. Almost four years after the abduction of the students, the total number of the girls abducted remains indeterminate.

    With what happened to the Chibok schoolgirls, one would have expected the six state governments in the northeast to beef up security, particularly in all the girls’ secondary schools in the zone.

    The recent abduction of 110 girls of Government Science and Technical College, Dapchi in Yobe State on Monday, February 19, is therefore sad and highly embarrassing. The incessant abductions of people by insurgents are at variance with the claim of the federal government that Boko Haram insurgency has been decimated.

    Frankly speaking, the six northeast states are to blame for not doing enough on the menace of abduction by Boko Haram. One would have expected the states in the zone to station at least an armoured vehicle manned by security operatives in boarding secondary schools for female students. One wonders at how the so-called security votes of each of the six state governments are spent!

    It is high time the six states started to have their respective security guards to complement the efforts of federal security operatives. The states in the zone should stop embarrassing Nigeria. The persistent abduction of people in the zone by insurgents must stop forthwith. Enough of abductions.

                  

    • Deacon Dapo Omotoso,

    Ado-Ekiti.

  • Enough of abductions

    SIR: On April 14, 2014, Nigerians and the entire world learned that some female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State were missing. Almost four years after the abduction of the students, the total number of the girls abducted remains indeterminate.

    With what happened to the Chibok schoolgirls, one would have expected the six state governments in the northeast to beef up security, particularly in all the girls’ secondary schools in the zone.

    The recent abduction of 110 girls of Government Science and Technical College, Dapchi in Yobe State on Monday, February 19, is therefore sad and highly embarrassing. The incessant abductions of people by insurgents are at variance with the claim of the federal government that Boko Haram insurgency has been decimated.

    Frankly speaking, the six northeast states are to blame for not doing enough on the menace of abduction by Boko Haram. One would have expected the states in the zone to station at least an armoured vehicle manned by security operatives in boarding secondary schools for female students. One wonders at how the so-called security votes of each of the six state governments are spent!

    It is high time the six states started to have their respective security guards to complement the efforts of federal security operatives. The states in the zone should stop embarrassing Nigeria. The persistent abduction of people in the zone by insurgents must stop forthwith. Enough of abductions.

                  

    • Deacon Dapo Omotoso,

    Ado-Ekiti.

  • George: Enough of drum beats of war

    George: Enough of drum beats of war

    Former Ondo State Military Governor and National Deputy Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Commodore Olabode George (rtd), highlights the disadvantages of a gradual regression to war to protest the lopsided federalism, instead of embarking on restructuring to correct the defective federal structure.

    There is a certain disturbing divisive temper across our nation today. Everywhere, there is an unfortunate passion of ethnic fixity. From the North to the South, there is that befuddled and reckless upsurge of ill-conceived provocations towards the abyss.

    From every nook and cranny, some people are hurrying and stampeding everyone else to a disruptive agitational campaign.

    From the Biafran young crusaders to the young Arewa reactive promoters of disunion and the Yoruba presumptive withdrawal into a fanciful Oduduwa republic, they are all wrong. We are all living in unpleasant economic season.

    We must all step away from the abyss. We must all sheathe our swords. Enough of this unrealistic war clamor. Enough of these provocations of national destabilisation.

    There is indeed no perfect Union. A nation is always a work in perpetual rebuilding and reformation. A nation is never a finished product. There are always rough edges. There are always areas of rectifications  and amendments.

    But, the ills of a society are not to be cured on the fields of war or the muddled recourse to the wielding of the cudgel.

    Nigeria as a Union has existed for 103 years since the 1914 momentous amalgamation of the North and South. Sure, we are all disparate and very diverse people with unique culture, with unique languages and with unique values and varied historical beginnings.

    But our strength and our invaluable profile as a nation lies in the collective totality of our size and in our various normative cultural portraits.

    There is no strength in disunity. There is no value in the rupturing of our national fabric.

    I do not say that there are no problems in the present composition of our union. But, I insist that these problems are not unresolvable. The perceived wrongs and the inequities in our national union must be resolved on a roundtable and never in the trenches.

    The last civil war which provoked millions of deaths and incalculable destruction both in physical and in the moral psyche of the survivors must never be repeated again. The American Philosopher, George Santayana told us that “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it” We must never repeat the darkness of our past. We must move forward with truth and certainty.

    There is no single nation in the history of the world that has survived two civil wars. We must stop and reflect. We must halt all these desperate agitations for mushroom ethnic colonies. The balkanisation of our nation will not bode well for anyone. The former Yugoslavia and the defunct USSR are classic examples of ill-conceived peripheral pigmy states that can hardly survive on their own. Is this really what we want?

    The greatness of America and Canada are invariably reflected in their diversity and in their enriching plural identities. For instance, the Continental United States, from the freshwaters of the New England states to the Redwood forest of Northern California, from the Allegheny mountains of Pennsylvania to the thickets and the swamps of Louisiana, America is a huge sweeping ambience of variegated norms and practices wherein a unifying national portrait of excellence, fairness and equitable fixity has emerged.

    Yes, the American collective value did not develop overnight. It was like a planted seed, well nurtured, consciously cultivated before it emerged and grew to a matured, sustainable presence.

    But, we cannot and we must not campaign for the dismantlement of our nation because we are not happy with certain aspects of our national union. No. That is not the way of progressive enlightenment. That is not the way to build a sustainable society.

    It’s about time that we shed and remove our ethnic toga. It is about time we remove our tribal fixation. I will never even support any supposed alliance of some tribal groups against another. Never! I stand for one, indivisible nation! Our primary advantage should reside first in our Nigerian identity instead of the recourse to provincial tribalism.

    I do agree that Nigeria can be an effective and successful project when everyone has a sense of belonging, when the Hausa/Fulani, the Yoruba, the Igbo and other ethnic groups are all given equal opportunity to realise their dreams; when everyone, regardless of tribal origin perceives himself in equitable accommodation within the Nigerian Union.

    The vast, instinctive accommodating nature of Lagos State is an instructive lesson to the larger Nigerian polity on the need for tolerance, friendliness and the embrace of fellow Nigerians.

    There is no discrimination or bigotry here. Everyone is welcome with open arms to contribute to the centrality of our commercial vision. As a trading post and the commercial nerve of our nation, the progress of Lagos with over N26 billion monthly internally Generated Revenue, is a collective contribution of everyone who calls Lagos home.

    The current consultations that our government has embarked upon across the tribal divide is laudable and exemplary. But they should do more. They should widen the consultation efforts by inviting the formidable elders and statesmen who were active participants, and managers of our Nation during the dark drama of our civil war.

    The chastening voices of General Yakubu Gowon, General Obasanjo, General T. Y. Danjuma, General Alani Akinrinade, General Alabi Isama, General IMB Haruna, General Babangida, General Abdulsalam, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, Gov. Udenwa, Col. Iheanacho (rtd), Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu and many others on both sides of the divide at that time, will go a long way in tempering the flight of fancy of the intemperate agitators who have never heard a gunshot in anger.

    The experiences of these statesmen and builders of our nation should be more than enough to caution those who are presently preaching politics of division.

    Our collective alliance now should be how we can remodel and restructure our nation for the collective benefit of all our people.

    I will equally suggest that as part of our remaking and rebuilding of the Nigerian project, each major tribe should be encouraged to learn the language of other tribes as a compulsory curriculum in our primary and secondary schools.

  • ‘We’ve had enough of Melaye’

    ‘We’ve had enough of Melaye’

    Reactions have continued to trail the purported endorsement of Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) by some political heavyweights and opinion moulders from Okun land.

    A group from the area, the Aggrieved Kogi West Constituents, maintained that the only umbrella body recognised by them remains the Okun Development Association (ODA).

    The group, at a news conference yesterday, denounced the purported endorsement, saying they would not have their names dragged into the murky waters.

    According to them, what is happening to Senator Melaye is self-inflicted, and he should not drag anyone along.

    Olowo Cornelius, who spoke on behalf of the group, said Melaye’s recall was initiated and pursued by constituents of Kogi West.

    His words: “The Okun Development Initiative is strange and unknown as an association in Okun land. We are aware of the counter publication, by some of Okun leaders, to the fact that they were unaware and were never contacted, nor did they make any statement on Melaye’s recall.

    “This recall was entirely initiated, and is being pursued by constituents of Kogi West, haven had enough of Melaye’s unbearable utterances, conducts and misbehaviour, both in and out of the National Assembly, coupled with his total disconnection from the people he claims to represent.

    “It is, therefore, a deliberate falsehood for anyone to allege that the initiators and instigators of the recall are not from Kogi West.

    “What is happening to Senator Melaye is a self-inflicted problem, which he has to tackle alone. Some of the elders erroneously mentioned as defending him were victims of his inglorious activities. It is, therefore, sinful for anyone, for any reason, to attempt to drag the respected Okun elders into controversies of fruitless efforts targeted at discarding a constitutional process of recalling a non-person representative.”