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Tag: impunity

  • Lagos Solicitor-General deplores impunity

    Lagos Solicitor-General deplores impunity

    lagos State Solicitor-General, Lawal Pedro (SAN) has expressed concern over the increasing level of impunity in the society, lamenting that ‘’impunity appears to have become our way of life’’.

    He spoke at a briefing on the Annual Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch at the Bar Centre, Old Secretariat, Ikeja GRA. The theme is, ‘Curtailing the culture of impunity in our national life’.

    He noted that no one is exempted from the problem.

    Pedro, who is the chairman of the Law Week Committee, said: “Our challenge is the seeming acceptance of impunity as our way of life. Our worry is the lack of condemnation of instances of impunity by the society. It appears that our society has ‘normalised’ acts of impunity. We appear to have accepted that impunity is part and parcel of our society.’’

    “Rather than outright condemnation, we now appear to be glorifying disobedience to law and order. We celebrate corruption and applaud perversion of law,” he further said.

    He cited “elementary driving against traffic, failure to pay taxes, extra judicial killings, failure of governance, bribery and corruption, electoral manipulation, lack of access to judicial system as well as inordinate delay in the justice administration”as some instances of impunity.

    He said lawyers and judges, as officers in the temple of justice, have now become endangered specie as prosecution for corrupt practices was being regarded by the society as persecution.

    He explained that it was for this reasons that the Ikeja branch of the NBA decided to place impunity under its legal microscope and forensic x-ray emphasising , “the time has come to critically interrogate the role of lawyers in the society. Unlike other professions whose bottom-line is profit, legal practice has an additional responsibility of being the guardian angel of rule of law”.

    Pedro said there must be a change of attitude on the part of Nigerians. “We all know that a fundamental principle of rule of law is that of equality before the law. This principle is underscored by the provision of section 17 (2) (a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which provides that every citizen shall have equality of rights, obligations and opportunities before the law,’’ he added.

    On the Law Week, he said it would take off on Sunday with a church service at the Archbishop Vining Memorial Cathedral, Ikeja GRA, followed by a visit to the prisons and Law Clinic yesterday and today.

    He said the yearly Alao-Aka Basorun Memorial lecture would hold at the Bar Centre tomorrow, including the Variety Night at same venue.

    A lecture is slated for Thursday, May 14 at the auditorium of the LTV8, Ikeja; a Jumat Service would hold at the Old Secretariat Central Mosque and a dinner at Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Ikeja on Friday.

  • Ekiti lawmakers to Fayose: Impunity can’t save you

    Ekiti lawmakers to Fayose: Impunity can’t save you

    The 19 All Progressives Congress (APC) members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly yesterday  alleged misrepresentation of the  proceeding in the  ex-parte motion  filed by their  seven Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) colleagues at the  Federal High Court, Abuja.

    But they vowed that the “impunity and manipulation of facts of his impeachment case in the media” cannot save Governor Ayo Fayose from impeachment.

    Media reports yesterday suggested that the court restrained the 19 legislators from impeaching Fayose.

    However, Speaker Adewale Omirin in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media, Wole Olujobi, said there was no such pronouncement from the court.

    He said : “While the judge clearly ruled that it (court) could not stop Fayose’s impeachment without hearing from the APC lawmakers, the governor’s storm troopers went to town in a contempt of court to turn full circle the ruling by the judge.”

    The lawmakers expressed dismay over the ease with which Fayose is trampling on democratic institutions.

    Omirin said:”He first raided the courts and chased the judges under their tables and subsequently closed the courts. After that, he closed the House of Assembly and chased the lawmakers out of town.

    “Then it is the turn of the Fourth Estate of the Realm, the media, in a mindless fraud and manipulation of the press to have an upper hand in the face of flagrant trampling on the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    “Just  a few days ago, the governor’s agents hacked into Channels Television’s website to plant a story implicating Speaker Adewale Omirin and Senator Babafemi Ojuduý as engaging in impeachment funding fraud totalling N250 million.”

    Fayose, according to him, is now creating for himself a reputation as an enemy of the state by killing all democratic institutions and their supporting structures in a mindless pursuit of power.ý

  • Law supports impunity

    Law supports impunity

    That is the long and short of the INEC stand on the Rivers governorship and state legislature polls, despite observers’ verdict that both were charades  

    Legality aids travesty to trump electoral sanity. That is a fair summary of the April 11 electoral debacle in Rivers State.

    Yet, in spite of all we know, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), cites the law to say the elections were sane; or, in any case, it is legally taboo to pronounce them otherwise, without a court’s say-so.

    On Rivers, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the INEC chair, declared: “There is no evidence the elections in Rivers were flawed. Although allegations have been made, there is no evidence to prove those allegations.”

    Kayode Idowu, chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, also weighed in: “The law does not allow us to cancel any result, after it has been announced. Everyone knows this. It is only the election petition tribunals that can order that or even cancel the elections. We would advise anyone who is aggrieved to go to court.”

    And if the courts somewhat rubber-stamp an electoral heist? Too bad for the victims!

    Or more correctly: too bad for the democratic system — for the more electoral crimes that escape sanction, the more weakened the system is, the less potent Nigeria’s democracy becomes.

    The logical result of that would be underdevelopment and poverty. Now, if the best democracy could produce is structured underdevelopment, then there is fire in the roof!

    Still, our grouse is less the legalistic position the Jega INEC has taken. As far as the extant law goes, they are fully covered. In any case, it is trite to tell aggrieved parties to seek redress at the tribunals.

    It is rather, the crass institutional insensitivity that comes from the INEC stand. It suggests that no matter how bad electoral brigandage was, the moment it is beatified by the resident electoral commissioner (REC), it becomes as immaculate as snow! That is the legalistic folly, with all due respect to the immaculate INEC chair, in the Jega declaration on the Rivers polls.

    Almost to the last group, all the electoral monitors, foreign and local, returned damning reports on Rivers, with Akwa Ibom. An integral part of these unenviable reports was the alleged compromise of the RECs in these two states. To think the reports of these same RECs would be final in the INEC court of artificial legality, just underscores the ludicrousness of the present Electoral Law; and calls for its fast re-tinkering.

    The European Union Election Observer Mission (EOM), Independent Election Monitoring Group (IEMG), the Stakeholder Democratic Network (SDN), among others, were near-unanimous that the governorship and state assembly polls in Rivers (and even the presidential and National Assembly polls there on March 28) were grim travesties, that not only nailed, to the cross, the electoral system but also claimed innocent lives, aside from wanton arson.

    For starters, in INEC’s own preliminary report on the April 11 elections, it listed 66 reported cases of alleged violence and other electoral crimes, Rivers was top on the list, viz: Rivers (16 cases), Ondo (8), Akwa Ibom (5), Bayelsa (4), Lagos and Kaduna (3 each), Jigawa, Enugu, Ekiti and Osun (2 each), Katsina, Plateau, Kogi, Abia, Imo, Kano and Ogun (1 each).

    In its preliminary statement, released on April 13, EU EOM gave this verdict: “EU EOM did not find any evidence of systematic manipulation of results. However, the available presidential results from Rivers State include highly implausible data, such as zero rejected (invalid) ballots out of 25, 174 ballots cast in Omuma local government area (LGA), no difference between the number of accredited registrants and the number who actually voted in Emohua and Ogu/Bolo LGAs, and a 98% turnout in Emohua LGA. Such questionable data warrants further investigation, however following INEC’s dispatch of three National Commissioners to Rivers for some hours, the results were accepted by INEC and announced.”  This is suggestive of an INEC rushing to decision without carrying out a thorough investigation.

    If the EU EOM report appears restrained, even if still statistically damning, the IEMG interim report gave vent to the sheer horror that the elections were. Said a part of the report: “The mini-war situation in Rivers State, in the name of electoral process, is most troubling and must not be allowed to continue. This denied voters the expression of their will. What was observed in the state cannot be said in any reasonable manner to be a near-triumph to democracy, or an improvement on what this INEC has set out to do with the electoral process in Nigeria. It is rather a coup d’etat against the will of the voting public in the state.”

    The IEMG report also proceeded to name individuals who allegedly had subverted the electoral process. “Contrary to the guideline by the Inspector-General of Police that police officials should stay away from their political masters during the election, Dr. Tamuno Danagogo, Minister of Sports, was seen in his Abonnema, Akuku Toru LGA, in company with security agents, as he moved around the town.”

    And specific infractions and where: “INEC electoral materials in Akuku Toru Wards 15, 16 and 17 were hijacked at gun point. The attackers were led by two notorious cultists who were identified as Hope Dan Opusungi and kenneth Dan Opusungi. Having seized the materials, the armed men barred polling agents of other political parties from escorting the materials to the distribution centre.”

    Another report, by SDN, crawled with instances demonstrating the Rivers election as the “most extensively disrupted”, and showcasing the illicit and overbearing control of polling units, with electoral officials and even security agents in dread of alleged PDP armed thugs, ballot boxes and election materials snatched at gun point, the relative lack of confidence in the electoral system by the hard pressed All Progressives Congress (APC), manufactured votes for parties not on the ballot paper after reckless thumb-printing, the wilful shunning of card readers to aid election rigging, and a specific case in Obio Akpor LGA in Port Harcourt, “which did not see materials released from the ward centre till close to 2 pm yet still reported a 96% voter turnout”!  The caveat here though is that the delay was caused by protesting APC partisans over the non-availability of result sheets, who insisted no election would hold without that document.

    These then are damning allegations. Should a mere REC report blot out all these alleged crimes? That is the ludicrousness of the present INEC stand. Though it is constrained by law not to interfere, the law should adopt a more prevention-is-better-than-cure principle if only to prevent the needless waste of lives, by the perverse collusion of RECs and rogue security agencies, as it was the case with Rivers.

    It is unfair to push to the judiciary electoral cases that should have been averted, by everyone sticking to the law. The election institutions at every level must be immune to human manipulation, so that resort to judiciary is almost unnecessary. That is the direction the Electoral Law should go. For now however, the judiciary must rise to the challenge; and ensure every proven case of electoral criminality earns a harsh sanction. It is absolutely unacceptable that crass legalism should aid electoral travesty.

  • Condemnable impunity

    Condemnable impunity

    •DSS detention, without trial, of INEC’s smart card reader vendor, must not be tolerated in a democracy

    Is it a crime to vend smart card readers to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)? Law and common sense say no. But the Department of State Security (DSS) seems to say yes.  That is the odyssey of Citizen Sani Musa, in DSS detention since March 24.  It is politicisation of security taken too far.

    Mr. Musa has, therefore, approached the courts to press his fundamental human rights, in view of this cavalier assault, asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to order DSS to immediately release him, aside from suing the security agency for N100 million, as general and exemplary damages.

    Though the suit has been assigned to Justice Adeniyi Ademola, no date has been fixed for hearing.

    Mr. Musa’s DSS arrest burst on the Nigerian consciousness in the heat of the campaigns, four days before the presidential election of March 28. Femi Fani-Kayode, the Jonathan presidential campaign chief spokesperson, in his usual glib bluff and bluster, claimed Mr. Musa was a visceral hater of President Goodluck Jonathan, in his own way of justifying the man’s arrest.

    But even if he were so, and the man has not committed any crime, it is difficult to find a nexus between an allegation of presidential hatred and how his vending of smart card readers to INEC could possibly negatively affect the president’s chances at the elections. Yet, that was the fallacy Mr. Fani-Kayode was trying to establish when he claimed that though he had no information if Mr. Musa had been picked up, it was indeed good news that he had. Of course, Mr. Fani-Kayode’s was the language of power, hardly of reason — reckless power of those not only in government, but also in power (apologies to Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in his military presidential days).

    But it is exactly this recourse to raw impunity that must never be countenanced in a democracy.  The DSS, by law, has its functions. Ultimately, it is set up for citizens’ safety and security; and every citizen must appreciate that. Even its cloak-and-dagger operational modus operandi must be appreciated by all, in the context of collective security. Still, not even all these would justify the DSS swooping on a citizen, lock him or her up and virtually throw away the key.

    The position of the law is crystal clear in all this: the DSS can detain — but not beyond 24 hours, without arraigning the detainee in court. But that is exactly what DSS has done. To make matters worse, in an affidavit sworn to by Mrs. Sa’adatu Musa, wife of the detained citizen, she said her husband was just a consultant to Act Technology Ltd, the firm that supplied INEC the card readers. But even if he was not, DSS has no right to detain the man, except if it can prove such supply was tantamount to a crime.

    That is why the court should accelerate action on Mr. Musa’s suit and do justice to all the parties involved. If eventually DSS is found to have illegally detained Mr. Musa, then the body should receive the full sanctions of the law, to discourage any brazen future attempt to imprison the law and citizens’ rights, for the pleasure of the sitting government. In rule of law terms, such an act is execrable.

    Still, that such could happen in a supposed democracy is due to the notorious politicisation of the armed and security forces — a thoroughly culpable, despicable and condemnable legacy of the Jonathan presidency, especially at election times. Such executive outlawry must be rooted out, if Nigeria’s bourgeoning democracy must survive.

    Justice for Mr. Musa is justice for all. The courts must not tarry, to prove the point that law, not impunity, rules in a democracy.

  • Impunity is killing NSITF

    The organised labour in this country will recall with nostalgia the enactment of the Employees Compensation Act otherwise known as ECA, 2010. The Act, which repealed the Workmen Compensation Act, represents the legal instrument for the running of the Employees Compensation Scheme otherwise known as the employment injury scheme. The ECA, 2010 also saddles the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) management board with administering the scheme in such a way that an average injured employee with injury in the course of work or even at work will enjoy rehabilitation or compensation as the case may be.

    But so far, the scheme is yet to meet the yearnings of the Employees because of serious “Nigeria factor”. Immediately the Act was signed and ready for implementation, the first move by the board was to engage a consultant for recruitment. The consultant charged hapless prospective employees N1, 000 each. It was quite strange to see a social security organisation like the NSITF displaying such crude mercantilist tendency. Till date the millions of naira collected from the unfortunate jobless Nigerians in the name of providing jobs for them remain guesswork. What even makes the whole thing more grating to the ear is the alleged agreement by the NLC president, a member of the board of directors, to the job scam.

    With this loss of proper conception in the early morning hours of the scheme, the agency completely lost touch with what it is projecting to people and has since been mired in one mess or the other.  The Federal Ministry of Labour that should provide the necessary supervision by ensuring that the activities of the agency pass the litmus test of public service rules abdicated its role for alleged fear of losing face with the presidency.

    The recruitment that the consultant did was littered with anomalies so much that the in-house union was alleged to have cried blue murder. The in-house union was alleged to have complained to Management that contrary to the practice in NSITF and Public Service Rule; officers above the age of 50 years were given fresh and permanent rather than contract appointment.  And from what we gathered some pensioners were recruited fresh and have even been allegedly confirmed.  Quite a number of former retired or retrenched staff of NSITF receiving monthly pension were given fresh appointment and fresh confirmation of their appointments.

    The in-house union was alleged to have also complained that the post-qualification experience for the advertised vacant positions in national dailies in April 2011 was at variance with scheme of service of NSITF and Public Service generally as there was no explicit requirement for cognate experience.

    After the 2011 recruitment exercise, subsequent recruitments were allegedly carried out without interview as letters were just being issued either in churches, mosques and various cultural organisations. The recruitments are done without planning. Not even the top executive management made up of the MD/CE and three Executive Directors know the number of staff currently in the service of NSITF. The board has completely appropriated the functions of management. It was even alleged very recently that claims from employers in respect of their injured employees that is aboveN100, 000 have to be approved by a committee of the board. In the end, what members of the committee would take as sitting allowances would far exceed the figures they would be sitting to vet and approve.  And you say NSITF is not in a mess. How else would any sane Nigerian describe what is happening?

    While government appointed the MD and three executive directors to run the scheme, the board allegedly stripped them of their executive management functions and put the same in the hands of a serving police officer with power to fire and hire and transfer to “Siberia” without transfer allowance. In Abuja alone, there are four branch offices of NSITF in addition to the head office. The branches are in FCT, Mararaba, Kagini, and Gwagwalada with an average of 200 staff. Some of the staff allegedly sit on plastic chairs procured by themselves. Tell me how one branch manager can effectively manage over 200 staff in an atmosphere where there are alleged inadequate furniture and fittings?

    The medical histories of the staff are not known.  In the good old days when any of the agencies of government recruited, such workers were referred to government hospitals for their medical reports.

    Between 2011 and 2014, well over N12 billion was alleged to have come to the agency from the Federal Government as the ECS contributions for their staff. This is different from the alleged take off grant the agency received from government. Meanwhile, the ECS contributions from government have no accompanying payment schedule for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of the staff. The executive management team is not in charge and so the team is watching from the sidelines. And it is not because there are no experienced staff members in the agency. The few ones remaining are alleged not to be anywhere near where their input would matter.

    Now the same agency has been given additional mandate to provide unemployment benefit and benefit for the aged. The board as presently constituted is not technically sound to run this additional mandate. Modalities to determine the age bracket of the aged and employable unemployed are technical in nature and above the technical competence of the present board.

    The NSITF board is allegedly the board of Trustfund pensions plc- a pfa established by NSITF with other social partners. In the wisdom of the founding fathers the board of Trustfund pensions plc was to be chaired by the MD of NSITF, to be supervised by the board of NSITF as appointed by government.  But today it is no longer the case. With the alleged connivance of PenCom, the NSITF board is also the board of Trustfund pensions and of course every Nigerian knows that over N50 billion worth of pension assets is in the custody of Trustfund.

    Finally, another point I wish to stress is the issue of the recruitment of collecting agents by the board. The collecting agents are paid commission for their collections.  Now in the face of the unplanned massive recruitment of staff still going on, is there any need for such collecting agents? The monthly wage bill of NSITF is allegedly close to N1 billion. How does the agency meet the cost of industrial hazards?  Each time some of the pressmen on alleged monthly “brown envelope” sing the praises of an individual who in their thinking brought NSITF to life, it’s funny. The same individual is alleged to be choking the NSITF to death. Nepotism, mismanagement, vindictiveness and lack of corporate governance remain the new face of NSITF. If Nigerians know how much was allegedly invested on computerisation they would marvel.  Such expenses are secretly guarded. But one thing is very sure, the figure is not known to the Executive management team of the agency. The reign of impunity is killing NSITF.  Yes, the Jonathan administration has signed ECA, 2010, but are the right people managing it? Let an independent auditor look into the books of NSITF, and we shall see how much that place stinks.

     

    • Akerele sent this piece from Abuja.

  • PDP, military and audacity of impunity

    The curious union between the ruling People Democratic Party, (PDP) and the Nigerian military is one that should bother every well meaning Nigerian. The unfolding drama of the absurd, which has led to a shift in the much anticipated general elections, certainly poses great threat to the advancement of the cause of democracy in the country. It is one that calls for extreme vigilance by all Nigerians as the current thickening plot and ploy to subvert  the hard-earned democracy in the country is, in every sense, akin to what was experienced in the run off to the abortive June 12,1993 presidential election and the eventual termination of the Third Republic. One is worried that the desperation and power-drunken tendencies which is our president is now exhibiting may set us back and make us suffer another round of socio-political disorder as was experienced during the June 12 debacle.

    This is because never in the history of the country’s democracy has the military become so overtly partisan as it is currently doing. It is a strange development in our democratic voyage that the military will be covertly involved in a ploy to blackmail an electoral body into putting off an election some days to it on the account that it cannot guarantee security. It sounds ridiculous and unbelievable, but it actually happened that a sitting president superintended the passing of “vote of no confidence” on his own government as its security institutions declared that they cannot guarantee the security of Nigerians. It is sufficiently nauseating that professionalism and morale in the Nigerian military have sunk to an all time low under the Jonathan government. One finds it quite ludicrous and treacherous that our President and his party are doing everything to drag the leadership of the military into their deadly game of evil political manipulation.

    Before now, the trend used to set Nigeria back was a heinous alliance between the PDP-led federal government and the police, with the intent of intimidating and harassing perceived political opponents. But now, with the way things are, it is glaring that the PDP is not satisfied with compromising the integrity of the Nigerian police. The military and all other security agencies have, stylishly, been dragged into their grand plan to perpetuate the party in power for 50 years as once predicted by one of its former chairmen. The signs are ominous and makes me wonder if Jonathan and his selfish collaborators are really considering the negative implication of this on our nationhood.

    The noxious union between the PDP-led federal government and the military top hierarchy is one that could actually jeopardise our democracy. This is why one finds it baffling that those who ought to read between line and promptly act as conscience of the nation seem not to really see any need for such. It is only hoped that it won’t be too late by the time all of us wake up from our slumber because things may then have gotten out of hand.

    It is scary that the PDP-led government has started to clamp down on perceived enemies and those seen as thorns in their flesh in its desperation to scuttle this democracy.  Latest report has it that soldiers are laying siege at the Ikoyi home of the national leader of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Also, it was widely reported that a military team stormed the Imo State Government House in Owerri, deploying an armoured tank. The two incidents readily strengthened the fear of an imminent militarization on some political figures perceived by the PDP as the engine room of the opposition. It is rather sad and ironic that the PDP and its military collaborators, who have found it difficult for six years to dislodge the Boko Haram insurgents in the North, are now shamelessly flexing muscles against unarmed opposition arrowheads.

    Come to think of it, why has the military and the PDP not extended their current onslaught against opposition leaders to prominent Niger Delta leaders as well as ex-militants who have been threatening to bring down the nation if President Jonathan is voted out of power? In the first place, why bring in soldiers to harass civilians whose only weapon is the rule of law? Why expose such a dignified and universally respected institution, as the military, to such open ridicule?

    Thank God it is now coming out quite clearly for all to see, that President Jonathan is nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing. What we presently have on our hand is the manifestation of a despot. Yes, President Jonathan has finally bared his fangs. He has put off the deceiving garb of a gentle, harmless, innocent and shoeless next door guy. He has now come out in his real colour and, in the words of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, he might, indeed, be going for the broke and ready to damn the consequence. But, one really hopes he doesn’t toe such self-destructive and ignoble path because history has never been kind to those who once toed such pathway. One expects the president to know that destroying the integrity of the military to achieve parochial political ends only portrays him and the PDP as desperate co-travelers who could go to any dastardly extent to cling on to power.

    There is, perhaps, nothing that best demonstrate the scope of the damage which the PDP-led federal government has done to the image of the Nigerian military more than the recent Ekiti poll audio recording of the meeting purportedly held in Ado Ekiti between PDP chieftains and one General Momoh to perfect the rigging plot for the June 21, 2014, governorship election in the state. In the said audio recording, which was posted by online medium, Sahara Reporters, it was revealed that General Momoh was deployed by the military top brass to abet the rigging plan, using soldiers already positioned into the state for the purpose.

    When one adds up the recent clampdown by men of the State Security Service on the data office of the APC and its staff in Ikeja, Lagos, to all the aforementioned, it would definitely become evident, to dispassionate watchers of the unfolding political scenario in the country, that the greatest threat to our democracy today is the shameful marriage between the PDP-led federal government and the leadership of the Nigerian military. No amount of denials and deceptions by the President and his men would fool Nigerians into believing that the military leadership wasn’t compromised in the poll shift agenda. It was a coup that was plotted and executed by the Presidency and the PDP with the active collaboration of the military leadership. It will be recalled that the president’s National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, had initially flown the kite of an impending shift in poll. And it eventually happened!

    The Nigerian military needs to quickly detach itself from this unwholly alliance so as not to, in the language of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, bring about “degradation in the proficiency of the military”.  Hopefully, it will not be too long before the Nigerian military is saved from the suffocating arms of the PDP. Very soon, change will come. Very soon, the Nigerian military would have a feel of the much needed breath of fresh air. Very soon, we shall all heave a great sigh of relief.

  • Elections and Impunity of The Prince

    Elections and Impunity of The Prince

    SIR: When the news of the postponement of the elections went viral in the social media, I dismissed it as a canard disseminated by the disingenuous and partisan online media sites.

    However, the verity of the news became confirmed when INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, made an official announcement of the shifts in polls.

    I’m galled, and deeply saddened at the abrupt change in the election timetable; I’m disillusioned and disenchanted with the postponement and Jega‘s breach of the pledge to conduct the elections in February. In our society, and even on the African continent, it has become expedient and necessary to keep record of political leaders’ words and statements so as to make reference to them when politicians deviate from, or renege on, their pledges. Jega had, prior to the postponement, maintained swashbuckling resoluteness and doggedness towards conducting the elections in February. He had appeared as a disinterested judge bent on achieving fairness in the elections.

    I hate to believe that the shift is borne out of pressure from the Presidency and the service chiefs. I’m inclined to accept the fact that the sudden change in the election timetable, especially when so many plans have been made and huge sums of money have been dissipated, is a stratagem by the ruling party to carefully orchestrate massive rigging in the elections. It is obvious, even to the sightless. With the groundswell of opposition against his re-election and seeing the not much prospect of ascending the throne of presidency again, the president, through the National security Adviser, press-ganged Jega into shifting the polls by presenting a rather thoughtless reason.

    The need to subvert insurgency in the north-eastern flank of the country is the flimsiest and most asinine excuse to have been thought about. It is also laughable and smacks of muddled thinking.

    The Nigerian space has been beset by the scourge of insurgency for more than five years, and the federal government has demonstrated no success in its combat against it. Instead, the terrorists’ attacks have continued unabated and unchecked, with more orgies of barbarous killings and kidnappings on an unprecedented scale. Now the electoral commission wants to hoodwink the rabble into believing that the Nigerian troops will stem the tide of insurgency in six weeks!  Isn’t that laughable? If anything, it is crazy. Nigerians are not as gullible and credulous as they think.

    The words of the prophets of doom are coming alive, for our geopolitical landscape is coming to the verge of a political maelstrom.  But why would a man be overwhelmed by such devouring quest for power as to unleash destruction upon the state over which he presides?

    The demons which underlie all these political troubles must be exorcised willy-nilly. That is our passport to a new Nigeria.

     

    • Kingsley Charles

    University of Calabar

  • Cleric decries high level of corruption, impunity

    The Chief Missioner of Ansar-ur-deen Society of Nigeria, Sheikh Abd’rahman Ahmad has  condemned the level of corruption and impunity in government saying “corruption has been elevated to a state-craft” in the country.

    Sheikh Ahmad stated this at a lecture he delivered at the annual ‘Pray for the Nation 2015’ programme organised by Fatima Charity Foundation (FCF) which took place at Muson centre, Onikan, Lagos.  The lecture was titled ‘Committing Nigeria to the hands of God: What are the roles of the leadership and the citizenry’.

    He said Nigeria is in the present quagmire because the leaders no longer have the fear of God neither do they do things according to the laws and precepts of God.

    “God has a plan for Nigeria, a good plan for everything and everybody to be okay and happy, but we are not listening to God or doing His will thereby thwarting that plan.

    “Our leaders are so selfish and self-centred, they do things with impunity, they don’t care about the people, they want to stay in power by all means even when the people say they no longer want them. Even the people no longer have conscience, they have also forsaken God and when God wants to punish people for their sins He gives them bad leaders,” he said.

    According to the cleric, good governance means handing over the country’s affairs to God, “things are not going right, there is no trust among the leaders and the people don’t trust them either, we see them as looters, we don’t trust our government neither do our leaders care for us; 20 years ago we were better than now”, Ahmad said.

    “Good governance”, he said, “is inclusive of fair electoral process, justice, equity and fair play. When you have been chosen to lead don’t be self-centred, don’t do things with impunity because God will desert you. How can a leader say stealing is not corruption or query why somebody should be jailed for stealing small money? What have we become? Nothing is working, we have a full scale war on our hands and yet we pretend as if nothing is happening”, he said.

    Sheikh Ahmad called on every Nigerian to resolve to contribute their quota “then there would be a lot of difference. I am just saying that Nigerians must stop agonising and complaining, we must get organised, we must change our destiny with our own hands”, he said.

    In her welcome address earlier, President of FCF, Chief (Mrs.) Bintu-Fatima Tinubu said, “we want to see Nigeria a developed nation, prosper and become the pride of Africa. We are here because we know that change must come and that change will come because we are the hope of Nigeria and henceforth, we must pursue a desire to get it right”.

    She stressed on the need to contribute to the greatness of the country through prayers. She said, “we are very much aware of the many problems that have plagued the Nigerian nation which includes insecurity, corruption and general fall in the standard of morality. And if Nigeria is to fulfill her God-given mandate, we need to find urgent solutions to these innumerable problems confronting our nation”.

    She said after 100 years as a country and 54 years as an independent nation, little have been achieved despite huge human and natural resources, “Nigerians are now growing impatient with so much hardship in the land of so much wealth. Most Nigerians have remained stuck in squalor and hopelessness; while our value system has continued to crash with vices such as corruption and theft celebrated, true federalism has remained an illusion and development at all levels has continued to elude us.

    “It is paramount to submit ourselves in prayer for God to remove all the ills plaguing the nation. The world of politics needs to be sustained by fervent prayers, supplications to the Almighty God, to overcome various challenges and harmonise different political currents with a view to enabling growth and development in our dear nation”, Tinubu said.

    Decrying the loss of faith by many Nigerians in the ability of the country to govern itself, Tinubu said the citizens have lost faith and confidence in the leadership of the nation, adding that “without confidence in the system and its leaders, the democratic principles of the nation such as civic participation, voting and community involvement are eroded and further jeopardize the country’s future”.

    Assuring that Nigeria has all the ingredients for success, Tinubu called for concerted efforts of all Nigerians and their re-dedication to the culture of tolerance, eschewing violence, peaceful conduct during and after elections, “and to remember that political competition is not war but an avenue for people to peacefully express their choices through globally recognised democratic channels “.

    Different Muslim groups recited the Quoran and offered prayers for the nation, especially prayers for a peaceful and crisis free election this year.

     

  • Nigeria: The wages of impunity

    SIR: Recently, the Al-Shabaab the Islamic terrorist group in East Africa caused an outrage in Kenya on two occasions: the first was when a bus load of Kenyan  citizens was waylaid and 36 Christians were singled out and murdered in cold blood. The second incident took place late last November in a mining camp in the same country: while miners were soundly asleep, the same Al-Shabaab terrorists showed up and murdered dozens of Christians in cold blood. The terrorist said the deed was in retaliation for the Kenyan government’s participation in a combined military action to root out the terrorist group from that region. These two incidents led to the dismissal of the security chief as well as the resignation of the interior minister of that country.

    This is in great contrast to what obtains in Nigeria where we have a sit-tight Minister of Defence and the National Security Adviser who have refused to resign their positions despite the fact that they are clueless as to the best way to tackle the insurgency. Instead of resigning, they continue to give excuses for non-performance.

    Last October when the military launched a well co-ordinate attack on the Boko – Haram insurgents and were gaining on them, a cease-fire was inexplicably declared with a claim that the Boko Haram insurgents had agreed to negotiate for the release of over 200 Chibok girls abducted since last April. The group later denied any ceasefire deal with the government and the great price Nigeria paid for that ruse was the re-grouping of the sect to launch devastating attacks that led to the fall of Mubi and other towns.

    Up till today, those responsible for the so-called ceasefire deal with the insurgents never apologized to the nation for failing her neither did they take the honourable path of resigning their positions.a

    When the issue of the missing $20 billion came up and the NNPC could not give any satisfactory explanation as to how the money was spent, instead of resigning her position as the minister overseeing that parastatal, the lady had the temerity to go to court to stop the House of Representatives committee set up to investigate the matter!

    The same thing happened with the case of a  jet which the same minister was said to have appropriated ‘for her exclusive service and on which billions of naira was spent for the minister’s pleasure alone! That too has been swept under carpet as nobody is talking about the matter anymore.

    Also, last year, the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, organized a recruitment exercise into the immigration service that turned out to be a nightmare, claiming not less than 19 lives of the applicants. There was an out-cry of condemnations and the call for the resignation of the minister. But the man sat tight! When integrity and honour are set aside and impunity and corruption mount the stage, the country’s image receives a battering in the comity of nations. When you have a president who does not seem to care whether his ministers are corrupt or not but all that matters to him is how to actualize his second or third term bid, the nation will continue to be a huge joke amongst other country of the world.

    Is the President displaying the all pervasive third world leadership syndrome that when one climbs up to that high pedestal, one loses one’s sense of reality and immerses oneself in fantasy until suddenly, the reality dawns on one-as happened to Blaise Campaore in Burkina Faso recently? When is the bubble going to burst in the face of our president? Is the President so reassured of the impregnability of Aso Rock and so convinced of his messianic role that he has failed to take into cognizance what the masses of this country are going through right now?

     

    • Steve O.Attah

    Lokoja

  • Selenkere: Impunity consuming own children

    Remember Gabriel Selenkere, the Ekiti super cop?  Selenkere was  he, who days to the Ekiti governorship election in 2014, threatened to “arrest” then Governor Kayode Fayemi.  Selenkere was the commander of the local MOPOL who also happened to come from Bayelsa, the home state of the President.

    Selenkere also had other briefs — or so, it appeared.  To him, the governor and his gubernatorial court were nothing.  All that mattered was the Goodluck Jonathan presidential court in Abuja.

    “I don’t know of any governor,” — or something to that effect, he reportedly snapped, when Governor Fayemi asked him for explanation on the bedlam, which his MOPOL boys appeared to have aided and abetted.  The vice-president was in town — and that was the sole authority in the land!

    Meaning?  Nigeria might run a federation on paper, but the governor could go jump into the lake and get drowned for his pains, instead of asking stupid questions, of a super-cop, loyal to nobody but the central authorities!  It was the metaphysical ouster of the governor.  A few days later, he was out of office.

    That was the level of impunity in the run-up to Ayo Fayose’s election.  But though Fayose now sits pretty, impunity appears now consuming its own children.  Still, the grand irony is that Selenkere trip would appear for something not at all ignoble.

    To start with, MOPOL Commander Selenkere, a Superintendent of Police, reportedly had issues with his Commissioner of Police (CP), Taiwo Lakanu.  If that were true, that would appear like indiscipline, for SUPOL is some way off from CP.  But then, that is Police business.

    But his reported transfer stemmed from a much nobler act.  When Governor Fayose was making a public show of distributing his Christmas chicken, in fidelity with his stomach infrastructure policy, he had the conventional Police queue up publicly to received the largesse.

    It is unclear if Mr. Lakanu demurred.  What is clear is that policemen dutifully queued, received Fayose’s chickens and, in exchange, gifted the governor his glorious photo-op, as a benevolent Leviathan in the Yuletide season of goodwill.  But not a few stomachs churned — how could policemen in uniform possibly allow themselves the humiliation of being handed free chicken in public?

    That sentiment must have spoken to Selenkere, for he reportedly ordered his MOPOL men back to base, lest they too were exposed to such treatment.  Fayose, it would appear, did not like such temerity — not to talk of the vanished stupendous icing on the cake: the photo-ops of the all-mighty MOPOL queuing before the benevolent governor!

    To be sure, there should be no big deal about policemen, for good or for ill, queuing before a governor — after all, the governor is his state’s chief security officer, de jure, if not de facto.  But impunity is no respecter of persons!

    So, why did Fayose reportedly feel so piqued?  He probably remembered Selenkere’s Fayemi treatment — and probably felt it was a matter of time before he himself got something like that.

    Anyway, the news is Selenkere was awaiting signals to go build his empire somewhere.  Indeed, what goes around comes around.  Impunity, in Ekiti, is consuming its own children!