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Tag: Frivolous

  • In defence of the “frivolous”

    In defence of the “frivolous”

    Ray Ekpu

    A couple of readers have reacted negatively to the article I wrote last week titled, “Chidimma’s real beauty is her resilience.” They think that a writer of “your calibre” should not write on beauty pageants because that has a border with frivolity. They think that “hardship” that is affecting millions of Nigerians should be the primary focus of writers like me.

    My response to them is that (a) I cannot shy away from writing on a Nigerian girl who has done Nigeria and Africa proud in a global competition involving contestants from 130 countries; (b) in my life as a journalist, I have written a lot about hardship, political, economic and social hardship and how to overcome it. (c) Hardship is not the only subject to which a writer, any writer, must pay attention. Many other subjects are equally important to readers of newspapers because newspapers are general interest publications not specific journals dedicated to single subjects only. (d) The various governments, federal and state, have been alerted by the violent protests that took place in August in various parts of the country and are already taking action to alleviate hardship in their domains. (e) Alleviating hardship is not a one day’s job. It is a long road on which we must all travel. No country in the world has been able to eliminate or eradicate hardship because it is a complex matter that involves government policies and programmes and the readiness and willingness of individuals to leave where they are to the comfort zone that society prescribes for them.

    That is why despite the provision of social security benefits in a number of developed countries, a lot of their citizens remain poor. The reason is that you can take a horse to the river but you cannot force it to drink water. Ironically, for the poor to step out of their poverty zone, they must allow themselves to be taken out of that zone. A few examples will help.

    In several European countries where the governments provide social security benefits, there still exists a group of their citizens who are called winnows. They sit in street corners, play some musical instruments, drink beer or wine and people just drop money for them. They seek no higher life than that. They are simply satisfied with staying where they are. You cannot blame the government or anyone else for their station in life.

     I have lived in Lagos since 1980. Over time, various governments have made attempts to take beggars off the streets of Lagos, camp them somewhere and train them in various occupations at no cost to them. They often spend a few days in those designated centres and then vanish without learning anything. They simply get back to the streets to pursue a life of begging. It has happened several times in the past. That is why beggars are still a phenomenon to contend with in Lagos today.

    That is also why we have the extreme hardship that we have in the northern region. Education is the quickest route out of poverty for individuals and for society in general. That is why the Southwest is thousands of kilometres ahead of the rest of the country in every development index. The lack of it, also, is the reason that the north is far behind the rest of the country in every development index. Almost all the governments in the northern states provide free education for their citizens but most of them are not interested in going to school or in learning a trade or vocation. They prefer to get married and after marriage they breed children like mushrooms and get stuck. Unfortunately some of their leaders also mischievously push them along the path of marriage even though they know that marriage cannot feed them and their families.

    My reading of the situation is that these leaders prefer to keep their people on the ground floor as their slaves rather than give them the liberating influence of education.

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    I have said it before and it bears repetition that the reason Boko Haram thrives in the north is not because of Muslim religion. It is because of illiteracy. How can people talk down on western education when everything they are using in their lives are the products of western education? How can anyone tell anyone who has gone to school that he will go to paradise if he wears a bomb, goes out, detonates it and kills some people and himself? The Boko Haram fellows are able to tell youths in the north this – and they accept it – because they are illiterate. The Southwest has a sizeable Muslim population. But Boko Haram has not been able to make any penetration in that region whether among the elders or youths because of education. I have not heard of any youth from the Southwest who has agreed to carry a bomb to use in killing innocent people and himself in the hope of going to paradise.

    Education makes that crude talk sound very stupid. That is why Boko Haram has not made any impact on the Southwest. That also explains why Boko Haram has also not been able to make any impact in the North-central zone where there are also pockets of Muslim communities. So for us to tackle the problem of poverty and hardship, the starting point has to be education. We must seek to educate all our citizens in all parts of the country.

    It is also evidence of poor education for people to think that writing about beauty pageants is frivolous. It is not. Such competitions help young Nigerian women in the pursuit of self-development, good mannerisms, resilience, competitiveness, relationship building and the pursuit of excellence. Women have always been badly treated in Nigeria because of some so-called customs, tradition, religion and patriarchy. Young women are sent into marriage early instead of going to school. Boys can be sent to school but not the girls because the girls will get married and the family name will be lost. What illogic? So, if girls have opportunities to benefit from God’s gift why shouldn’t they be encouraged to embrace such benefits that beauty pageants provide fully? Apart from benefits that winners get from such competitions, they also have the opportunity to engage in public causes that benefit society. Such causes include health issues, minority, child and women’s rights, racial issues and climate change issues etc. My advice to women who have been given special gifts by God is, use it to maximum advantage. If you have the height, play basketball, volleyball or lawn tennis. If you have the curves go into fashion or modelling business or pageantry. Don’t limit yourself.

     We have had a number of young women who were hitherto unknown but who have through beauty pageantry received a warm embrace from the public. They later on went to make a success of their lives. Such women include Julie Coker who became a famous broadcaster; Helen Prest who is now a lawyer and author; Ibinabo Fiberesina who is now an actress; Linda Ikeji best known today as a blogger. There is also Adewunmi Adebowale who won the Miss Nigeria crown in 1988. Now known as Wunmi Ogunbiyi, she is a manager with Zenith Bank. There is also Bianca Onoh, now Bianca Ojukwu, who serves today as Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. She had earlier been Nigeria’s ambassador to Spain.

    So I say to young women with hour-glass figures, personable personalities, graceful manners and quick wit: if you have the opportunity to display your talent go ahead. Don’t let the naysayers be a stumbling block to you. Let the world be your oyster.

  • Frivolous, flag-waving senators

    Frivolous, flag-waving senators

    President Muhammadu Buhari will be presenting the 2016 Appropriation Bill next week at a joint session of the National Assembly. That is not quite as exciting as the news suggests. What is curious is that the Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha (Taraba South), has sponsored a motion to get the Senate to support the federal government’s anti-corruption efforts. This motion in turn fired the fertile imagination of the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, to present a proposal to get all senators to carry and wave the Nigerian flag as a sign of that support. Senator Ndume says he will produce and distribute the flag. Nonsense.

    Not only is Senator Bwacha’s original motion nugatory, Senator Ndume’s superfluous proposal is both wasteful and mediocre. The Senate is not in a position to oppose the president’s anti-corruption war, given the foul mood the country is in at the moment. Moreover, even though the anti-corruption war is desultory and not as profound as many Nigerians would have hoped, the Senate does not have the courage to oppose anything other than simple and trivial omissions in budget appropriation. The Senate is itself fighting a war of self-discovery, to know itself and find some focus for its struggles. Until it finds a purpose for its existence and a great and noble future for the legislature, both of which past Senate leaderships were quite unable to decipher, it is hard to see it giving purpose and meaning to the Buhari presidency’s battles.

    Senator Bwacha’s motion was innocent and emotional, but doubtless misplaced. Yet, the Taraba senator did not attempt to swaddle his emotional proposal offensively in bales of money. But Senator Ndume, rather than find an inspiring use to put his enormous wealth, has decided to embark on a frivolous and wasteful escapade. Flags? What is the meaning of that when the task is nothing more than the president reading the budget? Flags? Is that the most complex task Senator Ndume’s mind is capable of performing? Could that in fact be a measure of the depth of his understanding of the grave moral, economic and social crises the country is facing?

    The Senate is accustomed to trivialising many issues, and will do so with aplomb anytime the country is not vigilant. In the name of God, senators should spare the country this latest tomfoolery of flag-waving. And, please, let the wealthy Senator Ndume find a noble cause to engage his money. If he can’t, let him have the humility to ask. He will be advised.

     

  • Frivolous law to stop frivolous petitions

    The bill sponsored by the Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, titled: “An Act to prohibit frivolous petitions and other matters connected therewith”; should take the gold prize for the most frivolous bill since 1999. Considering that I knew Senator Na’Allah back in the day as a senior colleague when he practised law, I was miffed to watch him on prime time television last week proffering preposterous arguments to support his extremely frivolous bill. As if to add salt to my injury, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, representing my constituency, stood up to lend his weight to that anti-democratic bill.

    Unfortunately, Senator Ekweremadu too, is a lawyer. This jejune bill, as reported by this newspaper, last Friday, “recommends jail terms ranging from a mandatory six months to up to two years or fines of between N200,000 and N4 million for petitions written or published through any medium of whatever description, against public or private individuals without a sworn affidavit in a Federal or State High Court”. The whole essence of this frivolous bill is to make it unattractive for private persons with information on the rampant sleaze in our public service, to report such public officials to the law, or at least expose them to public ridicule and odium.

    The learned counsel in the Senate chambers, and their colleagues, instead of pushing for the enactment of the Whistle Blowers Act, and the strengthening of the Freedom of Information Act, to aid transparency in public service, decided to wear the garb of anti-democratic elements, to criminalise what can at worst, be a libel. In their unreasonable haste to protect themselves and their colleagues in high offices from public scrutiny, they forgot that there is a constitutional guarantee of the fundamental right to Freedom of Expression and the Press, clearly, manifestly, unobtrusively, provided for in Section 39 of the 1999 constitution.

    In case the luxury of office has affected the learned counsels’ interest in constitutionalism, let me quote the relevant provisions of Section 39, to help the Deputy Senate Leader and his supporters appreciate that they are working against the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which they swore to uphold. Section 39(1) provides: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference”. The requirement of an affidavit on oath, by some misguided senators, before a citizen can impart information, as sought by the dubious bill, is therefore non-sequitur.

    To ensure that constitutional provisions remain sacrosanct and are not dealt a sleight of hand by misguided legislators, Section 1(3) of the constitution provides: “If any law is inconsistent with the provisions of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void”. I hope this attempt to gag the press, or to further discourage Nigerians from reporting on our rapacious and thieving elites, will fail. If perchance this bill becomes a law, I have no doubt the courts will strike it down.

     

    Quelling unlawful assembly unlawfully

    As feared, the brazen match by some youths for a new Biafra, championed by a nascent group called the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and a faction of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), turned bloody penultimate weekend. According to reports, two police men, five members of the group and two other persons lost their lives in the fracas, following efforts by law enforcement agencies to dislodge the group from barricading the Onitsha end of the River Niger Bridge.

    Of note, while Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution provides: “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons….”; Section 45(1) warns: “Nothing in Sections 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41 of this constitution shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society”. The forceful insistence of the champions of a new Biafra, that Onitsha town must be shut down until the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is released, in the least, amounts to riotous assembly. But the security agencies, acting within the law, can only use reasonable force to disperse the protesters. To find out what happened in Onitsha, and in the long term interest of Nigeria’s peaceful co-existence, I urge the federal government to set up a public enquiry over the incident and the unabated protests.

    As I have argued previously here, the absence of critical infrastructure, general development and opportunities in the southeast, as in many other parts of Nigeria; more so, as our leaders, engage in licentious orgy of criminal aggrandisement, is a time bomb. But a violent agitation for a new Biafra, I dare say, will not solve the problems.

     

  • Allegations against me frivolous, says VC

    Allegations against me frivolous, says VC

    The VIce-Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), Ekiti State, Prof. Isaac Asuzu, has described last Thursday’s protest by academic workers as “instigated”.

    The workers were protesting alleged poor working conditions and Asuzu’s leadership style.

    Asuzu described the allegations of corruption, lack of transparency, high-handedness, illegal deductions from workers’ salaries, imposition of outrageous taxes, selective promotion of staff and non-payment of allowances, as “ frivolous and flying in the face of common sense”.

    At a briefing at the weekend, the VC accused the workers of conspiracy, saying they were being used by fifth columnists to destabilise the university.

    Asuzu maintained that he had not done anything against the law, contrary to the claims of the protesters.

    The VC said the workers’ demands contravened the extant laws governing the university’s administration.

    Asuzu, who insisted that “things must be done properly”, said he could not afford to be sent to jail because he was protecting workers’ interests.

    Shedding light on the alleged illegal deductions, the VC said they were done in line with the Personal Income Tax (PIT) law.

    He said the law stipulated that the gross or consolidated salaries should be taxed; rather than the basic as agitated by the aggrieved workers.

    According to him, the workers’ agitation that pension contributions should be based on the Consolidated Medical/Health Salary Scale , CONTISS and CONUASS with the exclusion of Rent Subsidy and Peculiar Allowance, contravenes Pension Reform Act.

    Acceding to the workers’ request, the VC said, would amount to illegality which he would not subscribe to.

    “We don’t have enough money to be paying all these demands and they have to show understanding”.

    The FUOYE boss also pointed out that the Federal Government only fund Hazard Allowance for university health workers.

    He said universities paying across board have been doing that from their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

    Asuzu added that FUOYE lacked the capacity to pay “13th month salary” because of its lean financial resources and that such benefit was not funded by the Federal Government.

  • ‘Frivolous applications hamper administration of justice’

    ‘Frivolous applications hamper administration of justice’

    The Acting Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Ekpo Nta, yesterday said trivial interlocutory injunctions debar speedy administration of justice.

    He urged lawyers to desist from filing what she called frivolous interlocutory appeals before judges.

    The ICPC chairman noted that such actions do not only damage cases before the court but also run down the integrity of the Judiciary.

    The ICPC chair spoke in Lagos at a media roundtable with the theme: Promoting ethics and integrity within the courts system – Towards citizens access to justice, organised by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Embassy.

    Nta, who was represented by the Director of Legal Services of the commission, Mrs Christiana Onuogu, described the court as a major stakeholder in the fight against corruption.

    He urged lawyers to always advise their clients to tell the truth in court to ensure easy and quick dispensation of justice.

    The ICPC chief averred that delay tactics by lawyers in cases before the court should not be encouraged.

    Nta said: “Let me use this medium to charge all Nigerians to join in the moves to fight corruption head-on. I also want to call on the authorities concerned for the appointment of assistant judges in the Nigerian judicial system to help substantive judges in the dispensation of justice.”