The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Lamentations

  • Lamentations of a grief-stricken father

    It was a sad and sombre atmosphere in Adagbrasa-Ugolo, Okpe Council Area, Delta State, last Sunday as a 100-year-old building of a parish of the Catholic Church collapsed on parishioners who were there for the morning mass, killing one and leaving tens of others injured. BOLAJI OGUNDELE captures the anguish and pains of victims and their relatives.

    THE day began like any other Sunday: a day devoted to worshipping God. Worshippers at St. Paul Catholic Church, Adagbrasa-Ugolo, an Okpe community, gathered for the morning mass. Even without a priest to lead the service, those that were present were in high spirits, singing hymns and getting on with other normal processions until some of them started sensing strange sounds and vibrations around the church building. Before anyone could really make out what was amiss, the walls had begun to come down on the worshippers.

    It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie. There was pandemonium and then graveyard silence as though the same space was not where sonorous hymns were wafting across only a moment ago. Everything went dead quiet as dazed worshippers tried to figure out what had just happened.

    Then came shrills, shouts and panic sprints. Those who were not held down by the rubble or collapsed furniture made for the nearest open space; the first thought being running for dear life. Then some who had gotten up and out of the billowing dust realised there might be others who were still held down where they had just managed to escape from; co-worshippers who had not been strong or lucky enough to come out like they did.

    This was when the first set of rescue workers, they also being victims of same disaster, resumed duty on the same site they had sprinted out from a couple of minutes earlier. People started calling out those they knew were with them in the church building before disaster struck—family members, friends, even not really close acquaintances—anybody you could call out, to be sure that they were safe. Then people started going in to pull others out. Before noon, everybody who went in for service had been pulled out, one way or the other.

    In all, close to 30 worshippers were rescued from the rubble while one was brought out dead. The unlucky victim, Jeffrey Enukanerhire, an 11-year-old instrumentalist, was busy playing the guitar as he usually did when the incident occurred. About 15 others who were writhing in pains, were later taken to various hospitals for medical care.

    Horror moments

    Reliving their ugly experiences during the unusual service, some of the survivors, including Jeffrey’s father, Mr Jackson Enukanerhire, said they had no inkling whatsoever of a looming disaster. It was all as sober and Pius as a morning mass should. Although the officiating priest was still being expected, the worshippers had launched into the preliminary rituals of hymnals and prayers.

    Describing the horrifying moment in a chat with our correspondent, a parishioner, Miss Elohor Amerotoraine, said the church members were holding the initial service rituals pending the arrival of the officiating priest, when they started observing cracking sounds from the walls around them.

    She said: “I was inside the church when it happened. It was between 7.30 and 8.00 am while we were having service. We are under Orerokpe (parish). They posted a seminarian to us, but the seminarian was yet to come when it happened. We had just finished sharing the rosary and were singing some hymns when we started hearing the walls cracking and falling.

    “At that point, everybody started running out to escape the falling walls. Before long, the entire church building had collapsed. It even killed an 11-year-old boy (Jeffrey). The five persons who got injured have been taken to the hospital. I don’t think anybody was trapped inside because we all came out.”

    A father’s grief

    Distraught Jeffrey’s father, Enukanerhire, a former councillor in Okpe Local Government Area and Speaker of the era’s legislative house, recalled that he was busy helping in the rescue operations because he was in the church when the incident occurred. It, however, did not occur to him that his resourceful, guitar-playing son was also in the rubble and in need of help.

    He said: “I was inside the church when it happened. I was at the back and my son was playing the guitar because he was an instrumentalist. It was between 7 and 7.30 am. Suddenly, we heard a noise and we all dashed out. I then joined other members of the church to rescue those who were trapped. Unknown to me, my son was also trapped in the rubble. It is sad.”

    Hon. Enukanerhire was then left with the onerous task of burying his beloved son in the afternoon of the incident. But he was not left to face the grief all by himself. He had the entire community by his side, including some of the wounded persons he had earlier joined others to rescue from the billowing dust and rubble of their fallen church building, as well as some government officials who had come at the instance of the state governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa.

    One of the survivors of the accident, a middle-aged man, Daniel Oghenekevwe Charles, who joined others to the home of the Enukanerhires to commiserate the family, thanked God for sparing his life. Although he was among the 15 injured persons helped out of the rubble and later hospitalised, he still found time to join others to mourn the dead.

    Narrating his experience, Charles said: “We give God the glory, because they say in everything, we should give thanks. We cannot question God. I thank God I survived it.”

    Why the building collapsed

    The incident, the type that has not been heard of in any part of Delta State in recent times, came to many as a surprise. It is still not clear what really went wrong, because, like most of the eyewitnesses said, the cracks and collapses were sudden. However, an eyewitness, who is the community’s vice chairman, Mr Daniel Egiwie, suggested that the church building had lasted a hundred years, adding that the weakness in the building’s structure might have been responsible for the disaster.

    Two other sources corroborated the age of the building and the fact that the church was at the point of celebrating its centenary anniversary. A social/environmental activist, Comrade Sheriff Mulade, whose organisation, the Centre for Peace & Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), is located at Ugolo, which is an adjoining community, attested to the age of the church, saying: “The church, I was made to understand, is preparing to celebrate 100 years of existence when this incident happened. It is a black Sunday and I just want to send my condolences to St. Paul’s Catholic Church over the incident.”

    Also, the Chief Press Secretary to the Delta State governor, Mr Charles Aniagu, while conveying his principal’s condolences and solidarity to the victims of the accident, highlighted the fact that the church building had lasted a hundred years.

    “The church is a 100-year-old building and in an attempt to rebuild and expand the church, the old church building collapsed as a result of being heavily soaked in water and the weight of worshippers who leaned against the walls while the early morning mass was on,” Aniagu had said.

    However, the people had not been left to bear their grief and losses alone. Messages of condolence and solidarity have since been pouring in from far and near, promising to provide succour for victims.

    The first of such was a promise to foot the bills for the medical treatments, given by the state government. The Commissioner for Special Duties, Barrister Ernest Ogwezzy, who visited the site of the collapsed building, said the state government would take care of the treatment of the injured victims.

    Ogwezzy said: “The Governor, Sen. (Dr) Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa, sent me here. He is sad about it. As soon as the incident happened, he called my line and directed me to come straight to see what happened and report back to him. He is sympathetic to those who were inside it.

    “I also want to sympathise with the church and extend the condolences of the governor of the state to the bereaved family and those that were hospitalised. The governor also assured me that he will assist with medical bills. We are going to take care of the medical bills.”

    To prevent a reoccurrence, Governor Okowa, speaking through his spokesman, Aniagu, in a statement, said the process of building would no longer be left unchecked as government would enforce that proper approvals are obtained before building projects are started in any part of the state.

    The statement reads: “While we pledge to pay the cost of treatment of the injured, people must ensure they seek necessary approvals before construction of buildings, particularly public structures, to avoid incidents like this.

    “On behalf of the government and people of Delta State, I commiserate with the family of the deceased; the injured; the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly; the Chairman of the Okpe Local Government Area, Chief Julius Scott; the Orodje of Okpe, HRM Orhue 1, Major Gen. Felix Mujakperuo (rtd); and the entire Ugolo community in Okpe Kingdom, on the unfortunate incident.

    “It is our prayer that the soul of the deceased will rest in peace, and that the injured will experience quick recovery.

    “Our thoughts and prayers will continue to be with the people of Ugolo in Okpe Kingdom over this tragedy.”

  • Fear, lamentations as Cross Rivers groans under the weight of cult killings

    One of the factors that stand Cross River out among other states is its peaceful atmosphere. It is widely reputed as one of the safest states in the country. But this reputation has come under threat with the growing menace of insecurity in the state, most significant of which is the scourge of clashes between different secret cults, which appears to be getting out of control.

    In every two to three months, the clashes rear their ugly heads, leading to many deaths between rival groups while innocent citizens are also caught in the crossfire. The latest clash, which occurred about two weeks ago, claimed about 10 lives.

    Investigation revealed that the clash between two rival cult group—Vikings Confraternity and Black Axe—was a reprisal over an attack on a member of one of the groups in March this year. The renewed fracas started penultimate Sunday but was put under control. However, residents are apprehensive about the likelihood of another outbreak of violent confrontation.

    The brutal killings that attended the recent clash have led residents to believe that it might be the worst the state has ever experienced.

    Many businesses, particularly those that operate mainly in the evenings, count their losses each time there is a clash of cults as the streets are virtually deserted in the evenings, especially in Calabar-South where the problem is more intense.

    Traders in the various markets like Watt, Mbukpa and Atakpa start closing shops as early as 3 pm, as sporadic shooting and violent killings often occur during the clashes.

    A resident who did not want to be named said: “Whenever these boys start killing themselves in the name of cult clash, no day passes that you would not hear someone was killed. The cultists just walk on the streets armed with guns, axes and machetes, looking for their rivals in order to In the process, they rob people and vandalize vehicles. We no longer feel safe.

    “They kill very brutally also. It is usually a massacre. Most of the pictures we see show how they hack and shoot their rivals in the most gruesome manner. They spill brains and blood as if they are nothing. They chop off body parts and even behead their rivals as if it is nothing. It is a terrible situation.”

    A resident of Calabar South, who identified herself simply as Faith, said she was traumatised by the experience she had when cultists killed her neighbour suspected to be one of them.

    She said: “The young man was always looking quiet, but some boys just came into our compound, shot him dead and cut him into pieces with their axes. There was blood everywhere. It was so horrible. I have not slept in my house since then.

    “I had to beg a friend to squat with her in another part of town. I have not been able to sleep again. I cannot believe that young man is gone just like that. Somebody I just saw and the next thing, they killed him like an insect. It has affected me so badly. I hope I would recover from this experience.”

    Another resident, Mr Effiom, urged that something be done urgently about the situation before it gets out of hand.

    “The situation is not good at all. We are supposed to be the safest in the country. investors, this is not good at all. We call on Governor Ben Ayade and all the security agencies in the state to do something about the situation which appears to be getting out of hand,” he said.

    Chinedu, another resident, also complained that “whenever these cult clashes happen and we don’t know when the next one will occur, we always live in fear. We are very worried the way these cultists operate freely when they start fighting. They kill brutally on the streets in the glare of everyone, including children. You can imagine how this would affect the psyche of witnesses, especially children.

    “I beg that the issue of security should supersede everything else at this moment in the state. The government should urgently do something. This is not the Calabar we used to know.”

    An elderly citizen, Chief Essien Effiom, urged the youth in the state to rather invest their time in fruitful ventures instead of killing themselves in what he described as unnecessary clashes.

    Effiom said repeated killing of young people in cult clashes had become a source of worry and should be given top attention by the government and security agencies.

    He said: “No doubt, security is everybody’s responsibility. But the security operatives in the state must sit up and be proactive to ensure that this menace is addressed.

    “For the young men, I have just one question for them: what is really the benefit they get from joining these cult gangs? If you say it is for security, then it is ironic and laughable, because whenever they clashes begin, they are always the ones with targets on their backs. They need to rethink and set their priorities right.”

    However, the Cross River State Police Command has assured residents that they will continue to ensure that the activities of cultists in the state are checked.

  • Lamentations of Gowon

    The former Head of State could have done something instead of being merely distraught about the state of the nation

    One feels the pain of former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retd), but we think he has not been of much help either. He can be described as a good man, an officer and a gentleman. Several accounts of Nigeria’s crises of the ‘60s show him as the temperate, stabilising hand who could take credit for not allowing the fledgling nation to completely fall to pieces.

    He is recorded to have tried as much as possible to avert the July 1966 revenge coup that toppled the Aguiyi-Ironsi government, but he lost control of the ‘boys’. And in the ensuing civil war, while he was head of state and commander-in-chief, he could not control, much else discipline his war generals. Thus, some of them misbehaved and went beyond the ethic of war.

    His amnesty of “No victor, no vanquished” allowed for expedited integration of Nigerians after the war. But his three “Rs” promise of reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation ended up as mere slogan.

    In the same manner, during his post-war years and long reign as a military head of state, he watched as some of his military governors got out of hand and became very corrupt. He also reneged several times on his promise to conduct election and hand over power to a civilian government. In fact at the last count, he had postponed the transition indefinitely.

    He was in power for nine years and he never got round to it until his government was toppled in 1975. History records him as having put up a modest economic development in the immediate post-war years. But it was also the early 70s, era of oil boom when Nigeria suddenly became awash with petro-dollars.

    He faithfully executed Nigeria’s initial development plans and laid foundations for social and infrastructure development. He even built a couple of bridges and high rise buildings in the burgeoning capital city of Lagos.

    However, it is considered that he could have accomplished much more were he so inspired and of higher motivations. Bureaucracy burgeoned and corruption thrived under his watch. The import licence scams and ‘Cement Armada’ illustrated most graphically, the rot of that time.

    It was a season of petro-dollar bazaar and the wayward nation fled the farms which was the mainstay of her pre-oil boom economy. The country and her citizenry lived like prodigals, acquiring exotic foreign tastes while productivity declined drastically.

    Values held dear began to disappear; people wanted to get rich quick, ostentatious living was the order of the day. The government of the day and her people turned to revellers relishing their new-found affluence and national ethos was kept in abeyance.

    After Gowon was edged out of office, he returned to school in Britain and earned a PhD in Political Science. He was named in Dimka’s coup of 1976 which toppled Gen. Murtala Muhammed but he denied any involvement. Thereafter he lived a long, quiet life there, returning during the Second Republic after he was granted pardon.

    Since then, he has taken part mainly in social and religious activities, refraining from participating in active politics. Unlike his other contemporaries like Olusegun Obasanjo and even juniors like Theophilus Danjuma and Muhammadu Buhari, Gowon could be said to have remained sedate with regards to the political affairs of the country since his return 34 years ago.

    He had paid more attention to his non-denominational organisation, Nigeria Prays, preaching peace, forbearance and forgiveness across the country.

    We have delved into this elaborate background in the light of Gen. Gowon’s recent lamentation about the state of the nation. On a visit to Gov. Olu Akeredolu of Ondo State, the former Head of State had expressed regrets that Nigeria is still embroiled in tribal, political and religious crises 47 years after the end of the country’s civil war.

    He said: “It is unfortunate that some of these things are happening. After the civil war, I had hoped and prayed Nigeria would never again go through the experience that we have gone through and you can now know how disappointed one is that all these sorts of things are happening in the Northeast, Southern Kaduna and the militants of the South.”

    We also feel the pain of the benign general but we must note that all through history, change never happened by chance. People lead change and build nations. Providence ensconced General Gowon on a pedestal to impact greatly and positively on the affairs of this nation but he could only do so much.

    Commissioned an officer of the Nigerian Army at 21, he led the army, then the country at 32 years. In the last four decades, he can be said to have remained passive over the county’s affairs. He neither drove change nor did he as much as throw in a vehement voice in the fray in reprimand of successive leaders.

    We think that merely lamenting the ills amounts to an exercise in futility. He could have done more.

  • May Day lamentations

    •If it’s time for workers’ welfare, it is also time for productivity

    Ordinarily, the annual Workers’ Day rallies commemorated across the globe on May 1 have most often been an occasion in Nigeria for the celebration of labour, with government identifying with and participating in the event across the country. May Day usually afforded an opportunity for chief executives of governments, both at the federal and state levels, to listen to the demands and grievances of workers while also explaining existing or articulating new labour policies.

    It is perhaps not surprising that this year’s May Day commemoration took a different turn across the country as neither President Muhammadu Buhari nor most of the 36 state governors bothered to attend the rallies personally. This is certainly not unconnected with the current severe downturn in the country’s economic fortunes, with workers being owed several months arrears of salaries. Many of the political leaders might, therefore, be unwilling to contend with the likely unsavoury reactions of workers to their present pitiable plight, thus their absence at the various venues of the event.

    In the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, for instance, President Buhari was represented at the rally by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige. National officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) regretted that the President missed such a unique opportunity to listen directly to, and interact with the workers. This was partly because Dr Ngige was obviously not in a position to speak on workers’ demand for a new minimum wage of N56,000.00. He therefore kept mum on the issue.

    For most of the states, it was lamentation galore by frustrated and angry workers who made demands and issued threats on the non-payment of their wages as well as the unbearable cost of living. One of the few governors who graced the occasion, Mr Umaru Tanko AlMakura of Nasarawa State did so in a rather dramatic fashion as he appeared wearing all-black attire symbolising a mourning. His reason was reportedly to decry the attitude of workers to his government, which he perceived as unfriendly to a government not deserving of opposition from the unions.

    Adamawa State Chairman of the NLC, Dauda Maina, for instance, revealed that almost half of the state’s workforce has not been paid their salaries for over four months. In Plateau State, representatives of organised labour demanded immediate payment of the five months salaries owed civil servants of tertiary institutions as well as the four-month salary arrears of primary school teachers.

    The Ndigbo Unity Forum Owerri, Imo State, issued Governor Rochas Okorocha a 60-day ultimatum to pay workers their outstanding salaries and allowances. And in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the labour leadership commended Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s impressive infrastructural development but insisted this must be complemented by human capital welfare to address the poverty of the workforce.

    With the exception of Edo State, where Governor Adams Oshiomhole personally announced an increase in the minimum wage of civil servants from N18,000 to N25,000 ‘with immediate effect’, it was a litany of workers’ woes almost everywhere else. But then, can the economy of Edo State be isolated from that of the nation? Is Oshiomhole’s new minimum wage offer to the state’s workers sustainable and is it the way forward?

    All said, we believe that there is no alternative to elected political leaders frankly discussing labour welfare and productivity with the workers. Keeping a distance from labour cannot be an appropriate response. If political leaders demonstrate a willingness to curtail their perceived opulent and ostentatious lifestyles, it is unlikely that organised labour will be unreasonable in its demands.

  • Lamentations for Durbar

    •How faulty privatisation and vindictive politics scuttled an otherwise promising venture

    It’s a sad memory when people like us now drive past Durbar Hotel to see it like this; I laugh to remember that once upon a time there was a place called Durbar Hotel. Today, I’m still alive to see Durbar in this deplorable condition and I weep for my country”.

    That was veteran journalist, Alhaji Tajudeen Tijani Ajibade, lamenting, in an interview with this newspaper, the pitiable sight that the once prestigious, multi-billion Naira Durbar Hotel, conspicuously located along the busy Independence Way, Kaduna, has become.

    “It was at Durbar Hotel” Alhaji Ajibade recalled, “that I first interviewed the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola when he came to Kaduna with his children…It was in Durbar Hotel in the Second Republic that Chief Obafemi Awolowo addressed the largest press conference. The same Durbar you’re seeing was where Alhaji Shehu Shagari was picked as the presidential candidate of National Party of Nigeria (NPN)…in the same hotel Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe met with the late Isaiah Balat and Madaki Ali to bring about the Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP)”.

    This gives an indication of the reputation enjoyed by Durbar Hotel in the 1970s and 80s as a first-class hospitality destination with qualitative facilities and services.

    Located on a land area of 400 by 600 square meters, it was built in 1977 by the then Federal Military Government as one of the structures to enable the country host the historic Festival of Black Arts and Culture (FESTAC). Having successfully served this purpose, the management of Durbar Hotel was transferred to Arewa Hotels, a subsidiary of the New Nigeria Development Company (NNDC), owned by the northern state governments.

    Though a publicly owned enterprise, Durbar Hotel ironically continued to be run as a viable and profitable venture until its privatisation, as part of the Ibrahim Babangida administration’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).

    The hotel’s lamentable fate is a graphic illustration of the flaw in the sweeping demonization of public enterprises that was one of the philosophical underpinnings of SAP.

    True, most of the affected public enterprises had become avenues of sheer graft that bled the national treasury.  Unfortunately, the privatisation and commercialization processes were themselves tainted by large scale corruption and abuse that aborted their much touted objectives of attaining efficiency and commercial viability.

    Thus, in 1992, the late Dr Hamza Zayyad bought Durbar Hotel from the defunct Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialization (TCPC) through his Kabo Holdings at a cost of N90 million, in circumstances that later turned out to be opaque and questionable.

    Reportedly unable to either fully meet its financial obligations to the TCPC or manage the hotel sustainably, Kabo Holdings in 1996 transferred its ownership, through a deed of agreement, to Nassimatune Investment Limited, a company that had Mohammed Abacha, son of the then Head of State, General Sani Abacha, as Chairman. The travails of the hotel, however, deepened with the advent of the Obasanjo administration in 1999.

    Citing irregularities and abuse of due process in the privatisation of the Hotel, the Federal Government seized the facility and took legal steps to recover ownership. But ruling in a suit by the Abacha family, a court in Kaduna decided in 2005 that the allegations could not be proven. Although the Federal Government has since appealed the judgement, the hotel remains dormant, overtaken by weeds, rodents and reptiles. It has been stripped bare of its valuables by hoodlums.

    Scores of its workers have been denied their jobs and the state of valuable tax revenue. Unfortunately, this is only one example of several such cases across the country.

    Urgent steps should be taken by the relevant parties to resolve the legal issues; and return Durbar Hotel and other similar wasting assets to viability in the national economic interest.

  • Lamentations, exhortations and emergent global order

    IN Nigeria this week the Arewa Consultative Council a leading socio – cultural caucus startled all of us when its leader, former Police Inspector General and lately a law maker, Senator Abidina Coomasie lamented that Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan had literally abandoned the Northern part of Nigeria in terms of his government’s economic development wlfare and security programme. Indeed, he literally accused our president of fuelling anarchy in the North and turning a blind eye to the atrocities of Boko Haram which he said had laid the North prostrate in terms of peace, security and the quality of human life. Indeed the former IG painted such a grim picture of the powerlessness and suffering of the North that was as laughable as it was sickening such that it was difficult to know whether to cry or to laugh.

    This is because if one did not know the history of Nigeria in the last 100 years one would think that he was talking of the pollution ridden Creeks of the Niger Delta from where the oil money that developed the vast North had come from. And not the North of Nigeria where most Nigerian leaders and heads of states had come from , and where the motto for grooming people like him for power had been – ‘born to rule.’ Indeed one can say wonders will never end on the Coomasie Arewa outburst.

    But then, we go on from there, in spite of the condemnation of Arewa’s lamentations by the Northern Elders Forum through its leader Alhaji Tanko Yakassai who took Coomasie and the leadership of Arewa to the Cleaners by saying that Arewa’s leadership had lost touch with ordinary Northerners and is no longer relevant. The NEL leader, an older and more polemic politician on controversies than the former IG Senator, accused the leadership of Arewa of being infiltrated by opposition politicians. But he said this in such vitriolic language that made it sound as if he had never been in opposition, when his pedigree as a well known Northern leader was that of someone perpetually anti government and anti establishment. That was until quite recently. In addition he made the work or the reaction of the opposition he lambasted so easy, in that he has killed all the birds with one stone where two would have sufficed for the opposition to respond to Arewa’s lamentations if, and, as necessary.

    All the same, the mood in the Arewa camp was not reflective of the mood elsewhere in other parts of the world this week. In the US I listened to a brilliant and vibrant President Barak Obama exhorting American troops at the US Army Central Command on the need for the air strikes against ISIS and telling them that the world respects the quality of their service, contribution and sacrifice because as Americans they are the best in the world to rescue the world from the bestiality of ISIS.

    President Obama harangued US troops this week like a Senator in the Senate of the Ancient Roman Empire with all the dignity, pomp and oratory of that ancient office, the only difference being that he was not wearing the purple toga of the senators of ancient Rome. But the spirit was there and his audience appreciated the respect and recognition of their Commander In Chief, which was the essence of his address and visit any way. In short the US president’s praise and thanks to US troops and their families, equalled that of British Second War PM Winston Churchill to the British Airforce when he famously said – Never in the history of human struggle have so many owed so much to so few.

    Yet if one was thinking that given the high sense of patriotism and sacrifice that the US pres, ident had engendered in his troops, the world was awash or pervaded mainly with such preparations and expectations to degrade or annihilate ISIS, that would be a serious mistake. This is because while the US was clearing the mess of its piece meal response to barbaric religious militancy in the Middle East and Nigeria, a new civilisation was appearing like a star from the east in terms of world economic leadership, cooperation and development. While President Obama was indulging in the braggadocio that the present world usually looked to America to solve its problems including that of Ebola in West Africa, the two most populous nations on earth were far away and unmoved by such sentiments or emotion, no matter how well meaning and how relieving it was to the rest of the world.

    On a visit to India, China’s President Xi Jinping and India’s PM Nasreda Morde signed 12 major economic agreements that would see China spending $20bn to improve India’s infrastructure over the next five years. Hitherto such agreements were a monopoly of the US, EU nations and India’s former colonial master, the UK. But this week these Western nations had other things on their mind while the Indian Tiger and Chinese Dragon forgot their traditional border wars and clinked glasses over what the Indian PM called – Borders of Peace. The agreements would cover costs of modernising India’s ageing Railways, create industrial plantations in parts of India and make India’s pharmaceutical, software, communications and Information Technology Industries have more access to China’s vast population and high demand market. Surely this rapproachment between China and India, whose combined population dwarfs that of the rest of the world, is as important as the US led Coalition against ISIS because the poverty level in the world would be greatly improved by the provision and exchange of jobs and skills between the two most populous nations on earth. Surely the balance of power is shifting east as these two huge nations seek to fend for themselves and contribute so positively to global economic equilibrium. And the US Commander in Chief has to acknowledge that, just as he faces the huge and laudable task of saving us from ourselves and Ebola, in our own little corner in the world.

     Indeed, we have to end on the situation of our tight corner over the abducted and yet to be found Chibok 200 girls as well as the performance of our armed forces in the bloody fight against Boko Haram. Of course I refuse to believe the media reports that Boko Haram has appointed two Emirs in two captured towns in our besieged North East. Also while I am a stickler for discipline I nevertheless find it horrendous that so many soldiers can be sentenced to death for mutiny in the middle of this Boko Haram war. Such sentence if carried out will diminish morale rather than deter which could have been its controversial rationale. The sentence is just too harsh and could have a polarising effect on the military. Similarly the retirement of the general involved creates a double jeorpady for someone who escaped death only to have his career truncated. Did the army wish him dead in the first instance? Surely the army leadership should temper justice with mercy and make a sense of belonging of its troops the priority policy in prosecuting this war for which it has the support and prayers of all Nigerians to bring to a victorious conclusion urgently. What Nigerians want and urgently too, is the sort of scenes in the newspapers this week in which jubilant Nigerians happily escorted Nigerian troops into towns they took back from Boko Haram in the North East. Not pictures of able bodied Nigerian soldiers bring tried for mutiny in the middle of a crippling religious insurgency. Surely something is very bothersome and worrying about such spectacles and trials and we should be spared such in this unusual war in this equally volatile election period.

  • Lamentations from Rivers, Zamfara, others over flood victims’ fate

    Lamentations from Rivers, Zamfara, others over flood victims’ fate

    The Rivers State Government is angry with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), it emerged yesterday. Reason: inadequate supply of relief materials for victims of flooding in the state.

    The Chairman of the Rivers State Flood Relief Committee and Deputy Governor, Tele Ikuru, at a news conference at the Government House, Port Harcourt, said eight flood victims died in Ahoada East Local Government Area.

    Ikuru said he was not sure of the casualty figure in the three other flood-affected Local Government Areas, such as Abua/Odual, Ahoada West and Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni. Some sources put the casualty figure at no fewer than 20.

    The deputy governor said the Rotimi Amaechi administration had spent about N300 million to provide relief materials for the victims. He said the N300 million promised by the Federal Government is still being expected.

    The relief committee chairman said the Rivers government spent over N24 million to buy wrappers for the victims.

    Ikuru said: “After many weeks of battling with floods in Rivers State, NEMA, a Federal Government’s agency responsible for emergency situations, only donated 500 mattresses and 200 bags of assorted food items. I insisted that a list of relief materials NEMA brought must be provided, for the figure not to change later.

    “The relief materials donated by NEMA to flood victims in Rivers State are grossly inadequate and ridiculous, given the level of devastation in the state.

    “Officials of NEMA are now going with cameras to camps we opened and running. This is absurd. We are mostly concerned with providing relief materials for our people in Rivers State.

    “We have been told that NEMA claimed to have set up camps in Rivers State. While we do not intend to take issues with the agency, we make bold to say that all the existing camps in the state are the ones set up by the Rivers government, through the committee. To the best of our knowledge, nobody or organisation has set up any camp anywhere in the state.

    “If anybody is doing anything anywhere in Rivers State, we welcome such contributions, because as a government, the welfare of our people is a collective responsibility. Hence, if anybody is doing anything, we will like to know who is doing what in our state, so as to be on the same page.

    “From our assessment and the reports we are getting, there is more to be done. We still need more relief materials, as the water is yet to dry up and there are more predictions that the experience of the last few weeks are not yet over, as water levels are expected to rise in the impacted areas.”

    NEMA’s Southsouth Coordinator, Mr. Emenike Umesi, denied the allegations leveled against the agency. He told The Nation on phone: “NEMA has been working closely with the Rivers State government. The allegations levelled against NEMA are shocking.

    “NEMA was the first to do assessment of flooded areas in Rivers State and we took officials of the state government to the affected areas. Rivers government runs the opened camps, while NEMA provides technical assistance. The relief materials were provided based on the assessment made by NEMA officials.”

    Ikuru said 183 communities were affected by the flooding, adding that the figure of Internally Displaced Persons had risen to 830, with some staying with their relatives in safer areas.

    He noted that the ravaging floods either submerged, destroyed or completely washed away property worth billions of naira.

    He said the committee has opened 26 resettlement camps to accommodate the displaced persons.

    Ikuru said: “Just on Monday, the committee members embarked on an on-the-spot-tour of the six camps in Ahoada East LGA: Ahoada, Edeoha, Odiabidi, Ula-Upata, Ogbo and Okporowo-Ekpeye to access the situation and as a clear indication of the committee’s commitment to deliver on its mandate.

    “We shall do the same for the other camps in the other LGAs, within the period of the Sallah break. So, to the members of the committee, there is no holiday, until our people regain what they have lost to floods.

    “The visit to Ahoada East camps also afforded us the opportunity to come to terms with some challenges being experienced in the different camps, which range from indiscipline among inmates of the camps, uncooperative attitude of some of the victims and of more serious concern is the overwhelming number of people going into the camps.

    “It is absurd for chiefs and leaders of some communities to bring their chieftaincy and communal problems to the camps and engage in the willful, illegal, favouritism and criminal diversion of relief materials meant for the floods’ victims.

    “Such acts of criminality will not be condoned henceforth and defaulters will be made to face the full wrath of the law.”

    The deputy governor also urged the displaced persons to cooperate with the relevant agencies managing the camps.

    Like Rivers State, the Kwara State Government has said it is yet to receive the N300 million flood disaster fund from the Federal Government.

    The Special Adviser to Governor AbdulFatah Ahmed on Emergency and Relief Services, Alhaji Musa Abdullahi, spoke in Kaima Local Government Area of Kwara while presenting relief materials to flood victims in the area.

    He condemned insinuations in some quarters that N25 million released by AbdulFatah Ahmed for the purchase of relief materials for the over 7, 000 victims of the flood was part of the N300 million being expected from the Federal Government.

    Abdullahi assured the victims that they would still receive assistance not only from the Federal Government but from wealthy Nigerians and spirited organisations.

    He advised the victims to keep-off from the river banks to forestall future occurrence.

    The governor’s aide later presented 100 bags of rice, 100 bags of cement, 100 mattresses, plastic materials and other valuables to the local government chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Sidiq.

    Receiving the items, Sidiq expressed appreciation to the governor for the kind gesture.

    He assured that the relief materials would be distributed to genuine flood victims in the local government.

    In Zamfara, crops worth N1 billion have been lost to floods in seven Local Government Areas.

    The Director of Information, Zamfara Emergency Management Agency (ZEMA), Alhaji Bello Na-Allah, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gusau that the destruction occurred between August and October in Gummi, Shinkafi, Maradun, Gusau, Maru, Kauran Namoda and Anka local government areas.

    He said that crops in nine farming communities were completely submerged or destroyed by the floods and listed the crops as maize, millet, sorghum, sugarcane, rice, cotton and soya-beans.

    “The disaster had devastating effects on the people of the affected communities, who were left without food and shelter,’’ Na-Allah said.

    He said, for instance, in Gutsura community in Gummi Local Government Area, farmers lost up to N300 million worth of crops, in addition to losing their houses.

    He said the flooding was caused by the collapse of some earth dams in the area, which caused rivers to over flow their banks.

    The director said the state government and National Emergency Management Agency responded quickly to the emergency in the state by providing relief for affected communities.

    The director said that the state government had taken proactive steps to manage future floods by mounting awareness campaigns through the radio and television.

    He said the measure was to educate flood-prone communities to relocate from “danger zones“ if the need arose.

    The director further said that ZEMA in collaboration with traditional rulers had consistently campaigned against people building on water ways.

    “Gutsura, Jangeru and Birnin Yero communities in Gummi and Shinkafi local governments are among communities provided alternative places for relocation as part of the state government’s efforts to stem occurrences of future flood disasters,“ he said.

    And no thanks to the floods, prices of food items have risen sharply in Awka. A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), who visited some markets in the state capital on Tuesday, reports that prices of staple foods such as beans and gari had increased by more than 77 per cent.

    The survey showed that a measure of beans which sold for N900 before the flood had risen to N1600 while the same quantity of garri now sells for N500 instead of between N250 and N280.

    According to Mr Charlse Odum, who sells food stuffs at the Eke-Awka Market, the negative consequence of the flood in the state had started manifesting in the hike in prices of food items.

    “The prices of food stuffs have gone up generally, beans and garri are the most affected. Before now, we sold a cup of beans for between N40 and N45 depending on the type but now the cheapest you can get a cup is N80 for the white variety.”