The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Haram

  • Hunger haram

    It is a tragic fact that malnourishment is as formidable an enemy as terrorism in north-eastern Nigeria. The region is at the epicentre of a growing disaster as thousands of children are in danger of dying of malnutrition, no thanks to a shocking lack of governmental commitment to resolving a critical health emergency.

    In 2017, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimated that 134,000 children were dying of malnutrition in the region annually. Many north-eastern states have racked up shameful performances that do them absolutely no credit in the battle against child malnutrition.

    In five states in the North – Katsina, Kebbi, Jigawa, Yobe, and Zamfara – 58 per cent of under-five children suffer from the severe effects of malnutrition. In Katsina, 15 local governments were unable to commit N250,000 monthly for over nine months between June 2016 and February 2017 to the emergency interventions required to keep malnourished children alive.

    In Jigawa, Unicef estimated that 600,000 of the state’s 1.1 million children were malnourished in 2016, with 32,000 of them likely to die. The 2015 National Nutrition Survey ranked Kebbi as having the highest number of malnutrition cases in Nigeria, with 61 per cent. In 2017, the World Food Programme (WFP) handed that dubious record to Yobe, declaring that the state had a prevalence of global acute malnutrition of 11.4 per cent. About 34,000 cases of malnutrition were recorded in Zamfara in 2017; out of the N100 million budgeted for nutrition by the state in 2016, only N5 million was released.

    While it is true that much of these heartrending statistics are due to the Boko Haram insurgency, the abject failure of the federal and state governments to respond with the needed urgency has worsened an already-dire situation.

    Tales of diversion of relief materials abound, and when they are added to the many other instances of corruption and incompetence, it is difficult to see how the continuing tragedy of child malnutrition can be averted, even if the anti-insurgency campaign is won.

    The fight against malnutrition requires the total commitment of governments at all levels, pulling together in a coordinated response to the problem. In this regard, it is vital to properly synchronise the activities of the many governmental and non-governmental organisations working to alleviate the suffering in the north-east.

    Apart from the bodies like the federal and state emergency management agencies, there are Unicef, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Red Cross, Medecin Sans Frontiers, the WFP, Oxfam and Save the Children. These are only the more prominent examples of over a hundred NGOs working in the country’s north-east. If their activities are not properly coordinated, they are in danger of doing more harm than good. Some areas will be swamped with relief supplies, while others might not get enough; competing agendas could get in the way of humanitarian efforts.

    Just as importantly, government commitment to ending child malnutrition must include an unshakeable financial commitment. In particular, local governments must provide the counterpart funding required for the purchase of the high-nutrition dietary supplements, the so-called Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), that is vital in rapidly supplying the nutrients malnourished children are in desperate need of.

    In addition, more has to be done to involve local populations and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in devising strategies to tackle the malnutrition problem. It is only when they are fully involved in the decisions that will affect their own lives that they can develop the attitudinal and other changes that can facilitate the success of anti-malnutrition policies. A vital aspect of this measure is ensuring that IDPs and locals get the educational and vocational training they need to lead independent and dignified lives.

    Nigeria must understand that the war against insurgency cannot be won only on the field of battle. If the country does not make serious and determined efforts to combat the malnutrition which is ravaging the north-east, it will find that military victories are not enough.

  • Boko Haram members need to be re-educated, says Soyinka

    Boko Haram members need to be re-educated, says Soyinka

    •Amaechi: education reforms not yet effective •13,000 teachers to be employed

    Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka has an answer to Boko Haram– re-education of its members.

    Soyinka spoke in Port Harcourt yesterday at the opening of a two-day Education Summit organised by the Rivers State Government.

    He said it was regrettable that Boko Haram members do not have sufficient knowledge of Islam, which they profess.

    The Nobel laureate was the chairman of the summit, with the theme “Enhancing Sustainable Development in Education”.

    He said: “These killers roaming around, saying that they hate western education, they are uneducated because they have been taught on a one-track lane.”

    Lamenting the rot in the nation’s education sector, Soyinka said the fraternity he formed to checkmate the injustice being done to university students has now been turned to a secret cult.

    The Nobel laureate said the decay in tertiary education was succinctly captured in Prof Rogers Makanjuola’s book, “Water must flow Uphill”, an account of his stewardship as the Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

    “The book is the account of the stewardship of Roger Makanjuola as VC.

    “When things reached a stage where a vice-chancellor is dragged down, beaten up, kidnapped in a bus, things have reached a serious situation.

    “I was not embarassed at all when I said we should close down all tertiary institutions for two-three years and go back and start again. Things have improved slightly.

    “But why should a vice-chancellor be treated in such a manner? Each page I turned I found myself resenting the society that produced the students.

    “That is why I am here to support any effort to revamp education. The rot in universities is trickling down to secondary schools.”

    Governor Rotimi Amaechi said after five years of massive reforms in the education sector ,not much has been achieved.

    Amaechi said an impact assessment report on education service delivery was appalling.

    The governor said the state has scored only 50 percent in respect of teachers’ attendance in schools.

    He directed the Ministry of Education to issue employment letters to the 13,000 teachers, who had been interviewed earlier.

    Amaechi also spoke of impromptu visits to schools, which revealed management gaps.

    “If you ask me, not much has happened since the retreat in Calabar. If you see the impact assessment report, it is a bit appalling.

    “We shouldn’t be deceived by the facade of infrastructural development.

    “We should not politicise education at all to get votes. You go to our primary schools, they look beautiful outside. When you visit they put on the generator for you, when you leave they put it off.

    “The head teacher will tell you there is no diesel. This is no longer government because we have provided funds but a management problem.”

    Apart from challenges with the maintenance of facilities, the governor said he discovered sharp practices by head teachers.

    “I went to a school and met a man who said he came to pay school fees.

    “The head teacher denied, but after pressure said it was exam levy, which even the government has paid for.

    “ I entered into a classroom and all the children were sitting on the floor.

    “I asked them how many had not paid exam levy and they started crying because they said their parents could not pay.

    “I called the commissioner to suspend the head teacher immediately and I told him he would have to refund the money he collected.

    “Since I started visiting schools, teachers now stay in the schools because they don’t know when I will visit.”

    In his keynote address, Prof Ayo Banjo pointed out the need to revamp teacher training education, because of the lack of depth of trained teachers in their subjects.

    “If the standard of secondary schools are to be raised, teachers should be graduates in their teaching subjects before they train as teachers as was done before,” he said.

     

  • Boko Haram: Paralysis is not an option

    Boko Haram: Paralysis is not an option

    The Islamist sect Boko Haram has proved more resourceful in modifying its insurgency tactics than the federal government in adapting its law enforcement strategy to the modern era. First, the sect briefly toyed with conventional warfare in fighting the state, partly provoked by the extrajudicial murder of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf. But recognising that it could not hope to make a major dent in the federal capacity to fight back, the sect simply adopted guerrilla tactics, thereby positioning itself to inflict demoralising blows on the state. Second, after realising that its ability to attack prominent targets, such as the United Nations building in Abuja and the Police Headquarters in the same city, was limited and offered only partial public relations advantages, it began redirecting the enormous resources required for major operations to small-scale but more widespread attacks on a sustained basis.

    The sect has still not changed its guerrilla tactics, but it has managed to inflict embarrassing losses on the state. Scores are now killed in bomb and gun attacks nearly on a daily basis. A wide swath of the North has become nearly ungovernable, and federal forces not only have their backs to the wall, in spite of their positive confessions to the contrary, they also have been pushed into embracing terrible reprisal measures certain to alienate the people. Worrisomely, with each Boko Haram attack and consequent reprisal from the state, the morale of the insurgents seem to soar. All they do is simply spring a surprise, sometimes far away from the theatre of war. If a bus park bombing or razing of a school would satisfy today’s purpose, abduction and killing of foreign workers would take care of tomorrow’s bloody craving. Sadly, the sect’s manoeuvrability has been met by official inflexibility that often seems to punish the innocent more than the insurgent.

    The Goodluck Jonathan government should be worried more than it has let out. While the president has proved flexible and even imaginative in hatching 2015 re-election strategies, he has not been as forthcoming or resourceful in designing measures to defeat Boko Haram. He has rejiggered the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) structure and staff, replenished the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) with trusted strongmen, ruffled the feathers of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) by inoculating it against effectiveness, and manipulated executive clemency powers to sedate his home front against rebellion in the coming years. These tactics may prove dubiously effective in the long run, but they do not show lack of imagination and oomph. On the contrary, the war against terror has ossified into one brutal and retrogressive policy of pulverising the restive regions.

    The March 7 visit of Jonathan to Borno and Yobe States showed very clearly that no fresh thinking is expected from the government to fight the sect other than bluster and the continuing application of massive and sometimes undiscriminating force. This unfortunately is tantamount to paralysis. The more the state unleashes its fearsome arsenal, the more Boko Haram and its splinter groups are encouraged to keep on fighting, assured that in the long run their anarchist tactics would weary the government into submission or even achieve far more than they had hoped for at the start of their campaigns. It would not be out of place for the government to detach itself a little from the centenary project and 2015 re-election politics in order to concentrate its best efforts in formulating fresh initiatives to combat Boko Haram. Existing strategies have simply become impotent.

    The consequence of sticking to unworkable measures is to embolden the more flexible and proactive sect and its splinter groups and make the country dangerously susceptible to one fateful bombing that could push the country over the cliff and send the crisis spiralling out of control. While there is still time to tinker with solutions, let the Jonathan government come out with fresh options for consideration – anything but today’s paralysis; anything but waiting for the next attack and wondering for whom the bell would toll, the unwary citizen or the country itself.

     

  • Boko Haram wants me dead, says Suswam

    Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam has added a religious tone to last Saturday’s death of Kaduna State Governor Patrick Yakowa.

    Although the governor was not categorical on the involvement of the dreaded Boko Haram sect in Yakowa’s death, he said it was frightening that two of the four Christian governors in the 19 northern states have met tragedies in quick succession.

    Suswam spoke at the NKST Church, High Level, Makurdi, the state capital.

    The governor said he had security reports, which indicated that the Boko Haram sect might attack him soon.

    He urged Christians to pray for his safety and his family.

    Suswam said: “Going by security reports I receive daily, it’s clear that I may be attacked any day, anywhere, anytime. This is the reason I called on Christians to pray for me and my family.”

    The governor noted that the plane crash in which Yakowa died was a worry to northern Christian.

    He said the incident resembled the crash involving Taraba State Governor Danbaba Suntai, who is on receiving treatment in a German hospital.

    Suswam said: “Suntia’s condition was pathetically critical.”

    The governor was referring to the Taraba governor’s condition when he visited him in Germany.

    He said with Yakowa’s death and Suntai’s condition almost becoming hopeless, only two Christian governors are left in the North’s 19 states.

    Suswam urged Christians not to be carried away by the social aspect of the Yuletide but to pray to God for their leaders.

    The governor condoled with the government and people of Kaduna State over Yakowa’s death.

    He described the late governor as a bridge builder, adding that he has done his best to bring peace to his state.

    Suswam also described the late General Andrew Azazi, the former National Security Adviser (NSA), as an officer and a gentle man who served the country diligently in different capacities.

    Gen. Azazi died in the military helicopter with Yakowa.

    He prayed God to give the families the fortitude to bear the losses.