The Nation Newspaper

Tag: inhuman

  • Death rumour about me inhuman, says Bamidele

    The Director General of Kayode Fayemi Campaign Council, Opeyemi Bamidele, has urged the public to discountenance the rumour that he died in a London hospital where he has been receiving treatment in the past six weeks.

    Bamidele said the rumour was aimed at botching the ecstasy of victory recorded by the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in last Saturday’s election, Dr Kayode Fayemi, and turned Ekiti into a battle ground.

    The former House of Representatives member adverted the public to the already mounting tension in the state, saying it is a fallout of the election that went against the PDP government.

    He urged those he called evil doers to refrain from peddling information that could increase tension than what the people could contain.

    On June 1, Bamidele sustained gunshot wounds from an alleged mishandling of firearm by a policeman during a rally organised for Dr. Fayemi.

    A statement yesterday in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, by his media aide, Ahmed Salami, branded the rumour as an evil intention of the wicked.

    It said Bamidele is not only hale and hearty, but had greatly recuperated due to intensive medical treatment he had received and buoyed by fervent prayers of Ekiti citizens.

    The Fayemi campaign chief said the death rumour became worrisome due to his concerns about the already mounting tension in the state, which he believed such misinformation could aggravate.

    He said: “I spoke as a director general of the victorious campaign outfit for over 10 minutes in an audio clip I sent during the mega rally attended by President Muhammadu Buhari, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, governors and other party leaders in Ado-Ekiti.

    “I believe the evidence would suffice to convince anybody that I am still alive. Could it mean that these mischief makers thought such an audio address was fabricated?

    “I expect every Ekiti man to pray for my survival rather than wish me dead. In what way would they profit from my demise? Were they doing it for politics or to amass public sympathy?”

     

  • Karimi to Bello: your administration is inhuman

    Karimi to Bello: your administration is inhuman

    A lawmaker, Sunday Karimi (Yagba Federal Constituency), Kogi State,  has described the administration of Governor Yahaya Bello as “inhuman and wicked”.

    He advised Bello to start packing his belongings from Lugard House because the suffering masses, those he has inflicted with poverty, are set to vote him out of office in 2019.

    Karimi spoke at the home of Musa Ahmadu, former secretary to the state government, during a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders’ meeting. He lamented the level of poverty, hunger and deaths, due to hardship, recorded under Bello’s leadership, and boasted that PDP will take the state in 2019.

    According

    The lawmaker noted that suffering, as is currently witnessed in the state, calls for worries, with people dying daily owing to pain inflicted on them by the government. He said the PDP is tired of complaints about the government’s lack of focus and direction.

    The meeting, Karimi said, was to educate members of happenings so as to be ready to chase the APC out of Lugard House.

    According to him, members should begin to spread the message that the present administration is out to inflict hardship on the people, and that only a change with the PDP will remedy the situation.

    His words: “I want you to assess your lives; are you progressing or retrogressing under Bello? He is busy acquiring properties, yet, he can’t pay salaries, leading to the death of our people. Bello, get prepared and pack out of Lugard House.”

    In his welcome remarks, Vice Chairman of the PDP West Senatorial District Kola Ojo, said the meeting was geared towards intimating members on development and the need to reunite for victory in 2019.

    He said the ruling APC has failed, describing the leadership of Bello as lacking the needed bite and purpose.

    The governor and his spokesman could not be reached for comments as at last night.

     

  • Casualisation, outsourcing inhuman, says ASSBIFI

    Casualisation, outsourcing inhuman, says ASSBIFI

    The President of  the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI), Comrade Sunday Olusoji Salako, has described outsourcing and casualisation as inhuman.

    Speaking at the ‘2016 Decent Work’ organised by the association, Salako blamed the three tiers of government for not making the war against the menace easy, noting that governments  also encouraged the  use of contract staff, outsourcing and casualisation.

    Salako, who described outsourcing and casualisation as modern slavery that should be eschewed from the workplace across the country, noted that the 2016 edition of decent work was very crucial based on the danger casualisation and outsourcing posing for workers’ wellbeing.

    The Deputy President of the Union, Comrade Oyinkan Olagunsoye, urged union members to strive to always protect the interest of one another.

    Speaking on the topic: “Building Workers Power Against Corporate Greed and Week Corporate Governance”, the Guest Speaker, Mr. Martins Smart, said: “Majority of corporate bodies and some government agencies regrettably use work force as tool to remain afloat without putting in place good welfare package that will cater for the interest of the workers.

    Smart said the question is should workers pay the price for the greed and weaknesses of organisations and the utter failures of regulatory bodies to monitor corporate organisations more effectively by ensuring that policies and guidelines laid down in corporate governance template are strictly adhered to?

    Martins, who is the MD/CEO, Martco Consulting Services, said it was time workers no longer be used and dumped by employers.

    He called on union leaders to always be seen as useful tools in the workplace, saying workers need to be more involved in taking decisions at all levels where welfare matters are to be discussed. He said organisations, on their part, should regard people as the greatest assets they cannot treat with levity.

    “The issue of corporate governance should be properly enforced by various regulatory authorities to the extent that they should have zero tolerance for defiance, corporate greed and weak corporate governance. The leaders of workers’ unions should embark on aggressive mobilisation or unionisation of all companies in Nigeria,” he said.

    Worried by the lackadaisical attitude towards workers in the country, Martins said the only way workers could guide against employers’ weak corporate governance was through strict implementation of statutory framework for corporate governance.

    He urged the three tiers of government to ensure the enforcement mechanism are dully carried out so as to safeguard the interest of workers. This, according to him, will encourage more investments in Nigeria and help tackle the current economic recession.

  • Inhuman exploitation

    Inhuman exploitation

    •Nigerian couple enslaves man for 24 years in Britain!

    It could be considered as just another story of man’s inhumanity to man, but this doesn’t make it any less appalling and condemnable. Indeed, in a world of escalating evil, stories like this one should prompt further reflections on the values that separate humanity from beasts.

    How a British–Nigerian couple, Emmanuel Edet, a 61-year-old obstetrician, and his 58-year-old wife Antan, a hospital worker, enslaved Ofonime Sunday Inuk for 24 years belongs to the realm of the surreal. Inuk, now 40, was made to work “up to 17 hours a day” without pay for almost quarter of a century. He was forced to look after the couple’s two children, cook, clean and garden for free.

    The victim, who was 14 when the couple took him to the UK from Nigeria in 1989, told his sad tale in a UK court where he gave his evidence from behind a screen so that he could not see his tormentors. He had believed the Edets would pay him for his work as a “houseboy” and had dreamed of getting an education in Britain.

    The Edets reportedly changed the victim’s name and added him to their family passport as their son to facilitate his entry into the UK. The fraud was bad enough. It was worsened by the victim’s enslavement.

    It was evidently a bad case against the Edets. Harrow Crown Court found husband and wife guilty of cruelty to a child, slavery and assisting unlawful immigration.  Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Damaris Lakin described the abuse as “a shocking case of modern-day slavery which has no place in our society.”

    She said: “Not only did the defendants have total psychological control over the victim, but they also had control of his passport and identity documents. He was told by the Edets that if he left the house and reported matters to the police he would be arrested as an illegal immigrant and sent back to Nigeria. He believed this and felt trapped and completely dependent on the Edets…He was made to sleep largely on the floor in hallways despite there often being a spare bedroom in the houses where the family lived.”

    The Edets’ conviction and imprisonment for six years leave no doubt about how the society in which they live views their wrongdoing. Their punishment makes a powerful moral statement that should be endorsed by civilised humanity.

    Regrettably, given the Edets’ Nigerian roots, their beastly behaviour is bad publicity for Nigeria.  Nigeria doesn’t need negative ambassadors like the Edets. It is noteworthy that the local conditions which made it possible for the Edets to take Inuk to the UK as a “houseboy” still exist. Also, the practice continues till today. So, there is always the possibility of the kind of inhuman exploitation that the Edets’ case highlighted.

    What makes the Edets’ example particularly tragic and terrifying is that they betrayed their medical background, which should have made them more empathetic than their conduct showed. They had no excuse for what they did, and it was inexcusable.

    Inuk’s redemption is a positive ending.  Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Phil Brewer said: “Today the victim is living a new life in the UK. He has a job, a home with his own bed and freedom to move, and he is studying. While he will never fully overcome what happened during those 24 years, he is determined to make the most of the rest of his life…”

    Any decent society must continuously enforce civilised standards through the justice system. This case should serve as a lesson to local authorities on the need to focus more intensely on child trafficking and child abuse issues.

  • Obasanjo’s recipe for Boko Haram is inhuman

    Obasanjo’s recipe for Boko Haram is inhuman

    SIR: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his latest blistering public criticism of the Federal Government, said President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency was slow. This is, no doubt, arguable. He spoke in Warri as the moderator of a public lecture by former External Affairs Minister, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, in honour of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who was marking his 40th anniversary as a pastor. He seemed to have chosen theright forum to express his concern over a scourge that has become a national security problem, but his position was defective. The former president reportedly accused his successors of allowing the Boko Haram insurgency to fester. But Obasanjo retains the unenviable record as being the only former Nigerian leader (apart from General Muhammadu Buhari who is understandably an oppositional presidential candidate) who relishes open castigationof the seeming actions or inactions of the government of the day. The impression Obasanjo creates about himself is that he is not happy to see the other man in the leadership saddle. This tends to confirm the views in certain quarters that he has the penchant to destroy people than to build them. At a point, he donned the garb of a conciliator by going to Maiduguri amid the escalating Boko Haram insurgency to seek to broker a truce. He claimed to have obtained the permission of President Goodluck Jonathan before embarking on the enterprise. At the end of the day, the move turned awry when his host in Maiduguri with whom he sought to kick-start the process of reconciliation, was killed about three days after he (Obasanjo) left the town. But today, it is convenient for Obasanjo to wrongly accuse Jonathan of slowness in responding to the Boko Haram insurgency simply because he wants to portray the current administration as weak and incompetent. It is also game for Obasanjo to stomp on the Jonathan presidency just because he was instrumental to the political arrangement that threw up the Umaru Yar’Adua-Jonathan presidential ticket in 2007.

    The truth, however, is that Obasanjo cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time on the same issue as he has tended to do in the Boko Haram case. Here is a man who went to Maiduguri purportedly on a reconciliation mission now turning round to recommend the Odi treatment for the town of Maiduguri and perhaps other towns in the North just to nip the Boko Haram insurgency in the bud. He would have loved to see Jonathan deploy soldiers to the flashpoints to level the places – annihilate the innocent and the ‘criminals’ in a military action. To Obasanjo, this is pro-activeness. This is how to show that the Federal Government or the President is not weak. This approach does not accommodate rationality that is grounded on humanity: how can you commit genocide because you want to take out some criminals? While reflecting on the crisis at Odi, Obasanjo had said at the Warri forum: “I attended to a problem that I saw; I sent soldiers. They were killed, 19 of them (were) decapitated. If I had allowed that to continue, I would not have the authority to send security anywhere again. I attended to it…. If you say you do not want a strong leader, who can have all the characteristics of a leader, including the fear of God, then, you have a weak leader and the rest of the problem is yours.”

    Obasanjo claims Jonathan’s response is slow. He also claims that his successor, the late Yar’Adua, was soft on corruption; but I ask: when he (Obasanjo) became president and inherited the problem of militancy in the Niger Delta region, what did he do very quickly to end the scourge? Was it not the late Yar’Adua who ended it with his famous Amnesty deal?

    Indeed, on both scores, Boko Haram and corruption, Obasanjo has been unfair to his successors. It is in his character to be so disposed; only that I am surprised that he is behaving as if he has fallen out of favour with the government he helped to enthrone. But then by recommending the Odi recipe for the Boko Haram insurgents, Obasanjo has succeeded in showing to the world the inhumanity and irrationality of his presidency. He cannot in a self-ignited frenzy railroad a cruel recipe on Jonathan; and, as far as I am concerned, the president’s systematic and multi-faceted approach at tackling the Boko Haram insurgency, which factors in the innocent civilian population, is the best in the circumstance and should therefore be sustained.

     

    • Callistus Omoregie,

    Benin City, Edo State.