The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigerian news

  • Tribunal okays Jibrin

    The National Assembly and State House Assembly Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Kano has dismissed a petition by Aliyu Datti Yako and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenging the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Abdulmumin Jibrin, for Kano Kiru/Bebeji Federal Constituency.

    In a unanimous decision, the three-man tribunal chaired by Justice Nayai Aganaba affirmed the victory of Jibrin in the February 23 election.

    Other members of the tribunal are Justices Ashu Augustine Ewah and Mustapha Tijjani.

    The tribunal held that the petitioners failed to prove the allegations as listed in their petitions against the respondents.

    The APC and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are second and third respondents.

    Yako and PDP had dragged Jibrin, APC and INEC before the tribunal, challenging the result of the Bebeji/Kiru Federal Constituency, alleging irregularities.

    Yako had alleged that INEC wrongly declared Jibrin as the winner of the poll with 41,700 votes, while he was said to have scored 40,385 votes.

    Read Also: Jibrin Abdulmumuni reveals next move

    In a petition filed before the tribunal on his behalf by his counsel, Chief M. N. Duru, the PDP candidate alleged that the results declared by INEC were fraught with vote-buying, violence, over-voting, inducement of voters with monetary and material gains, as well as campaigning and lobbying voters on the day of election.

    He said INEC ought to have declared him (Yako), the winner of the election instead of Jibrin, claiming that he scored the highest lawful votes.

    Yako alleged that the election and return of Jibrin was invalid by reason of substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) and approved Guidelines and Regulations for the conduct of 2019 general election.

    According to him, the election and return of Jibrin were invalid by reason of corrupt practices, which vitiated the election in the Bebeji/Kiru Federal Constituency.

    The petitioner said contrary to the result declared by INEC, he (Yako) won the majority of lawful votes cast and ought to have been declared winner and returned as the duly elected member for the House of Representatives for Bebeji/Kiru Federal Constituency.

    Other irregularities he stated in his petition include: non-accreditation and/or improper accreditation of voters by INEC officials, intimidation and arrest of his supporters and poll agents, as well as instigation of electoral violence by the agents of first respondent.

    The petitioner claimed that there were irreconcilable entries in the result declared and the number of votes recorded in favour of Jibrin by INEC in forms EC8A and EC8B.

  • Jime v Ortom: Tribunal reserves judgment

    The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, has reserved judgment in the petition by Emmanuel Jime of the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenging the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for returning Samuel Ortom as winner of the 2019 governorship election.

    When the petition came up for adoption of final written address on Wednesday, the lead counsel to Ortom, Sabastine Hon SAN, urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost, saying it ought not to have been filed.

    Hon said the petition is “bedevilled and riddled with fundamental errors and that no reasonable tribunal will grant any relief to it. It is self- contradictory in many respects in terms of the figures and scores of the candidates; it is also contradictory to the evidence led.”

    It was his contention that Jime, who contested the 2019 Benue governorship election, is different from the one that instituted the petition “because of variation in the scores at the poll and those complained of in the petition. As a matter of fact, in paragraph 5.06, page 37 of their final written address, the petitioners admit that there were errors in the petition. And in reproducing exhibit P2 (summary of result form), there are over 50 errors.”

    Hon said the law is settled that a mistake that is not corrected is fatal.

    Read Also: Ortom’s second term will be better, says Speaker

    Moving the tribunal to dismiss the petition, Offiong Offiong SAN, who is leading a team of lawyers for INEC, submitted that contrary to argument by Jime’s counsel that only minimal proof rather than balance of probability is required, the petitioners must prove their case on the balance of probability and not on minimal prove. He cited the authority of Ucha Vs Elechi 2012 13NWLR Part 330 at Page 359.

    Chief Chris Uche SAN, who appeared for the PDP, while urging the tribunal to dismiss the petition, said it was founded upon misconception of well-established principles of electoral jurisprudence.

    However, Yusuf Ali SAN, who appeared for Jime and APC, prayed the tribunal to uphold the petition, nullify the election of Ortom and declare Jime and APC as the rightful persons to be given the Certificate of Return as winner of the 2019 Benue governorship election.

    He told the tribunal that Ortom’s lawyers misconstrued the tables and figures in the petitioners’ final written address.

    “He (Hon SAN) seems to have forgotten that the contention in the petition is the incorrect figures recorded by INEC in Forms EC8A and the petitioners cannot rely on same. Where the tribunal finds that unlawful votes are credited to any of the parties, the tribunal has the powers under the law to nullify such votes,” Ali said.

    After hearing the lawyers, the Chairman of the tribunal, Honourable Justice Henry Olusiyi, held that judgment in the petition is reserved to a date that shall be communicated to the parties.

  • Bandits attack communities in Niger

    Armed bandits have attacked three communities in Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State.

    The communities are Rafin-wayam, Rafin-kwakwa and Gidan Dogo-Gurgu villages.

    This brings to four the number of communities attacked in the state in the last one week.

    The Nation learnt that the bandits, whose number could not be ascertained, invaded the town on three motorcycles.

    Read Also: We’ll continue to treat insurgents as bandits – Buhari

    The residents said they were forced to run to Kagara, the headquarters of Rafi Local Government.

    The victims alleged that their foodstuff and other belongings were taken away.

    Youths at Kagara town in Rafi Local Government have taken to the highway, protesting incessant banditry and kidnapping in the community.

    They blocked the Lagos-Kaduna Highway, lamenting that the federal and state governments have left them to their fate.

    The youth carried placards with inscriptions such as ‘We need help’, ‘Government save us’, Help us with food and water’.

    The police have confirmed the attacks.

    Spokesman Muhammad Abubakar said: “We are reviewing the security architecture of the communities. We have swung into action and will bring the situation under control.”

  • Bandits release 10 victims

    Bandits at Ruga forest on Tuesday night released 10 women and a baby to the Katsina State Government.

    This brings to 16, the number of kidnap victims who have regained freedom, as part of the swap agreement between the bandits and the government.

    A statement by the Director, General Media to the Governor, Labaran Malumfashi, said the women and the baby looked haggard and were brought to Governor Aminu Masari’s office by two representatives of the bandits around 5:30pm.

    The statement said: “The successful exchange of detainees between the government and the bandits represents a milestone in the efforts by Governor Masari and his colleagues from the Northwest, notably Governors Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State and Mohammed Matawallin of Zamfara to end banditry, kidnapping and rustling, which have assumed a frightening dimension in Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto states.

    Read Also: Armed bandits attack three communities in Niger

    “The release of the 10 women and the baby, the second time in a day, has also demonstrated the sincerity of purpose by the two sides, thus shocking sceptics who didn’t believe the arrangement would work.”

    Masari reaffirmed the commitment of his government to achieve result through negotiations with the bandits.

    He urged the outlaws to also fulfil their own part of the bargain.

    The governor said: “As soon as the exchange of detainees is completed, the second and third phases of the engagement will begin and focus on the voluntary surrender and return of arms and ammunition to the government by the repentant bandits.”

    The released victims include: Sa’adatu Garba, Dije Abdulmini, Dahara Garba, Salame Abu Musa, Rabi’atu Muazu, Shamsiyya Sabi’u, Halima Hambali, Barira Adamu, Mai muya, Manya Sani and Maryam Sani.

  • Soldiers rescue kid, six others abducted on Kaduna-Abuja road

    Seven persons including a seven-year-old girl kidnapped at Rijana on the Kaduna-Abuja highway last Saturday have been rescued by the joint Operation Thunder Strike.

    The victims, who were travelling from Ofa in Kwara State to Kaduna, said their abductors, who were dressed in full military camouflage, stopped them at Rijana at about 9:30 pm and moved them to the forest.

    They are: Aishat Bisola, 26, Ahmad Abdulrafiu, 26, Maryam Abubakar, 7, Suleiman Khadija, 25, Lawal Temitope, 23, Bala Abdullahi, 52 and Abdulrazak Okunola, 35.

    Operation Thunder Strike is a Defence Headquarters lead operation comprising the Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, DSS and NSCDC deployed to address security threats along Kaduna-Abuja, Kaduna-Birni Gwari and Kaduna-Zaria highways.

    The Force Commander, Operation Thunder Strike, Col. Ibrahim Gambari, said since the inception of the operation, they have been trying their best to end kidnapping.

    Read Also: APC condoles varsity community on death of kidnapped professor

    “Before the operation was launched, several cases of kidnapping on a daily basis were being recorded, especially during the day. But since the inception of the operation, we have been able to nip in the bud such incidents  and most of the cases that were recorded usually happened at night. That was why the Kaduna State Government stopped the mounting of roadblocks on the road,” he said.

    Two AK47, 130 rounds of ammunition, five magazine, two phones, N100,000 and three camouflage were recovered from the kidnappers.

    One of the rescued victims, Aliyu Aishat Bisola, said they were kept on a rock for the five days without food.

    “We trekked for over three hours before we reached the kidnappers’ den on a mountain top.

    “They collected our phones and money while they were negotiating ransom between N10million and N2million.

    “The kidnappers beat us everyday. They even covered the face of another male victim and threatened to kill him if he did not bring money.

    “They did not give us any food or water, we sat on the rock under rain and sun without any shelter from that Saturday till Wednesday when we were rescued,” she said.

    Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs Samuel Aruwan, who received the rescued victims on behalf of the government, hailed the Army for the successful operation that led to the victims’ rescue.

    Gunmen have abducted the Chairman of Kogi State Miners Association, Yunusa Oruma, from his home in Ankpa Local Government.

    The victim’s brother, Prince Oruma, told our correspondent yesterday that his brother was relaxing in his house when eight gunmen invaded the place at about 8pm on Sunday and began shooting.

    He said they seized his brother and drove away with him, adding that no information has been heard since he was abducted.

    Oruma said the incident has been reported to the police and other security agencies in Ankpa, and appealed for their efforts to secure his brother’s release.

    Police spokesman William Aya confirmed the incident.

    He said efforts are on to rescue the victim.

  • How Nigeria loses billions to crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism

    In spite of the efforts being made by security agencies, oil companies and other critical stakeholders, Nigeria is still losing thousands of barrels of crude oil daily to pipeline vandalism and theft, writes BISI OLANIYI, Southsouth Bureau Chief

    The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is planning ahead of Nigeria without crude oil, by heavily investing in agriculture, industrialisation and manufacturing, but the country currently depends mainly on funds from the sale of crude oil and gas from the Niger Delta for sustenance.

    The Niger Delta consists of nine states of Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Ondo, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Imo and Abia, but criminal activities, especially pipeline vandalism, illegal bunkering, sea piracy and crude oil theft are more pronounced in Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states.

    In the days of militancy in the Niger Delta, before the 2009 amnesty offer to the repentant warlords by the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, the camps of the militant “Generals” were more in the creeks of Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states, leading to heavy destruction of pipelines, stealing of crude oil, illegal refining of petroleum products, cultism and kidnapping.

    There were then frequent cases of fully-armed militants in military uniforms, who would storm flow stations and other facilities of oil companies in the creeks of Niger Delta, killing soldiers, naval personnel, policemen, officials of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), thereby carting away their arms and ammunition.

    There were also incidents of the militant “Generals” moving around the creeks of Niger Delta in gunboats and sophisticated weapons, which were either bought or taken from the killed security personnel.

    Activities of oil thieves and pipeline vandals in the Niger Delta led to a drastic reduction in the production of crude oil and gas, thereby affecting the nation’s economy and powering of electricity-generating plants across Nigeria.

    The timely amnesty initiative greatly addressed the challenges in the Niger Delta, with the warlords surrendering unbelievably large quantities of arms and ammunition, with peace gradually returning to the region, while the repentant militants are being empowered through various skills’ acquisition programmes and further studies in tertiary institutions in Nigeria and overseas, with monthly stipends still being paid to the ex-warlords.

    Despite the efforts of the Federal Government to restore peace to the hitherto volatile Niger Delta and boost the production of crude oil and gas, many criminals are still breaking pipelines and deeply involved in illegal (artisanal) refining of crude oil, to produce mostly diesel in the creeks, popularly called Kpofire, which easily damages engines, while the illegal refining destroys and pollutes the environment with spills, with many of the vandals also losing their lives in the process.

    There had been cases of some Niger Delta communities where almost all the residents would be involved in crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, thereby making it impossible for the crimes to be reported to the security agencies for arrest and prosecution.

    Some monarchs, chiefs and leaders of communities in Niger Delta are also involved in the criminal activities for pecuniary benefit.

    The oil thieves and pipeline vandals surely have very powerful and highly influential sponsors, considering the cost implication of the illegal activities, while the sponsors also influence the release of most of the criminals when arrested by security personnel.

    Most pipelines of oil companies are buried, but the criminals will still dig deep, mostly at night, to connect their pipes and hoses to move the stolen crude oil to their illegal refining sites or for loading into Cotonou boats and vessels, for sale to foreign collaborators, who are always on standby and are ready to offer cash or arms and ammunition in exchange.

    The security agencies regularly arrest the illegal bunkerers and pipeline vandals, who are always prosecuted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, with their expensive tankers, high-tech equipment, costly Cotonou boats, barges, vessels, generators and other items are regularly seized, destroyed or burnt, while the facilities and sites of the illegal refining are frequently destroyed/crushed with swamp-buggies, but the criminals are not deterred, in their desperation to make blood money.

    Worried by the sad developments in the Niger Delta, the Anglo/Dutch oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), on September 9 this year at the highbrow Hotel Presidential in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital, where the company has its corporate headquarters, organised a media workshop/engagement on pipelines’ Right of Way (ROW) encroachment and vandalism, with many resource persons in attendance.

    SPDC’s Lead, Right of Way and Encroachment John Okojie declared that the situation in the Niger Delta, concerning pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft, was not getting better, buy becoming worse, with more criminals getting involved in the illegal activities.

    Okojie added that in the last twenty years, crude oil theft had moved into organised crime, with various interest groups involved.

    He said: “There are markets outside Nigeria, with the operators looking for stolen crude oil to thrive. The crude oil thieves now operate and move with Nigerian security personnel as escorts. Illegal bunkerers are knowledgeable in the oil industry.

    “Legalising Kpofire (illegal refining of stolen crude oil) should not be allowed. If Kpofire is legalised, then we have lost it as a nation.”

    The oil giant’s Encroachment Management Lead, Ucheoma Amechi, warned against encroaching on pipelines’ right of way, considering the dangers involved, especially loss of lives and valuable property, in case of explosion or fire outbreak.

    SPDC’s Media Relations Manager Bamidele Odugbesan said the Anglo/Dutch oil giant was very strict about ethics, making it impossible for the staff to be collaborating with the pipeline vandals and crude oil thieves.

    The Deputy General Manager, External Relations of SPDC, Dr Alice Ajeh, described the oil thieves as criminals while declaring that Nigeria is bleeding from the criminality and urged Nigerians to be passionate about their reputation.

    The oil giant’s General Manager, Safety and Environment, Chidube Nnene-Anochie, noted that illegal refining and third-party interference with pipelines were the main sources of pollution in the Niger Delta.

    According to Nnene-Anochie, in 2018 alone, third-party interference caused close to 90 per cent of the number of spills of more than 100 kilogrammes from SPDC Joint Venture (JV) pipelines.

    The General Manager, Safety and Environment, who was represented by Shell’s Compliance Monitoring Lead, Temitope Ajibade, in her presentation, titled: “Crude Oil Theft and Pipeline Vandalism: Implications for our Environment,” declared that going into criminal activities, because of poverty, was not tenable.

    Nnene-Anochie said: “No spill is acceptable to SPDC. A key priority for Shell companies in Nigeria remains to achieve the goal of no spills from our operations. We work hard to prevent them (spills). However, SPDC cleans and remediates areas impacted by spills from its facilities, irrespective of the cause.

    “To stem crude oil theft, SPDC has enhanced its community-based pipeline surveillance, while promoting alternative livelihoods through Shell’s flagship youth entrepreneurship programme, Shell LiveWIRE.

    “Between 2003, when Shell LiveWIRE was launched in Nigeria and now, the programme has trained 7,072 Niger Delta youths in enterprise development and provided business start-up grants to 3,817.”

    Shell’s General Manager, External Relations, Igo Weli, revealed that there had been a daily loss of about 10,000 barrels of crude oil from the oil firm’s pipelines to crude oil theft, while crying out for help from government, communities and other stakeholders to stem the incessant attack on oil assets in the Niger Delta.

    He said: “These are critical national assets, with 55 per cent government interest and they produce the crude oil that accounts for over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange and the bulk of government revenue. Hurting these assets means hurting the nation’s revenue, the economy of the states, the health of the people and the environment.

    “Crude oil theft on the pipeline network resulted in a loss of around 11,000 barrels of oil a day in 2018, which is more than the approximate 9,000 bbl/d in 2017. Since 2012, SPDC had removed more than 1,160 illegal theft points on its joint venture pipelines in the Niger Delta.

    “In its June 2019 monthly report, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which controls Nigeria’s 55 per cent interest in the SPDC Joint Venture (JV), said there was a 77 per cent rise in oil pipeline vandalism and that 106 pipeline breaches were recorded in June, up from 60 in May.”

    Shell’s general manager, external relations, also stated that the oil company was concerned about the lives and safety of the persons who are involved in pipeline vandalism and crude theft, just as the firm was concerned about the environment.

    Weli said: “As a responsible organisation, we put safety first and have constantly made this appeal to those involved in crude oil theft in the Niger Delta to stop destroying their lands and heritage from the spill and pollution arising from their activities.

    “Crude oil theft and artisanal refining of stolen crude oil are criminal acts that are not only against the law but are also capable of mortgaging the future of the community.”

    Efforts must continually be made by all the stakeholders to quickly put an end to pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft, for the sake of the nation’s economy, the health of the people and protection of the environment.

  • Truth is in the telling

    After 100 days, our governors’ narratives sprout from a honeyed tongue, not the baleful patois of the boondocks. It is an aesthetic of seduction but like the sweet melody of the Sirens, it spirals like poisonous fumes, afflicting our land with a vapour of hanging participles and colourful hyperbole. The governors’ panegyric excites the passing tribute of a sigh.

    Of the numerous achievements spuriously cited as each governor’s selling points, the phantasm of road projects attains the pride of pitch. To mark their ‘first 100 days’ in office, several state governors boastfully published pictures and literature depicting their ‘widely appreciated and celebrated road rehabilitation’ projects.

    Like I said in last week’s piece, it defies reason and tact for a state governor or federal minister to roll out the drums to celebrate his commencement of repairs on a bad road, a decrepit school or public health facility – particularly when his claims are exaggerated or untrue.

    He is only doing the work for which he was elected and is being handsomely rewarded. Thus any governor that would commit the state’s resources to such fluff is in dire need of counselling and civic education.

    At the back drop of the specious figures being hurled around, Nigerians die for lack of good roads.

    On several highways, the random pothole becomes a vector of death. It attains urgent symbolism as a testament of neglect and element of Nigeria’s grotto of bad governance. Think of them as earth fissures detailing the 36 states’ mutation into varnished tombs.

    Several families have lost loved ones to avoidable accidents on the country’s bad roads. Many a job seeker have missed crucial interviews and lost promising employment opportunities because they got stuck in vehicle traffic caused by road craters.

    Lives are lost on the Bauchi-Alkaleri road as drivers and passengers die in accidents caused by potholes. Similar carnage occur on the Lagos-Abeokuta and Lagos-Ibadan highways; the latter, constructed in 1978 and said to be the busiest in Africa, has about 6,000 vehicles plying it daily according to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC). Due to government neglect, the road which connects Oyo, Ogun and Lagos States, leading to the northern, southern and eastern regions of the country, continually claims lives in ghastly auto accidents.

    Lest we forget the Enugu-Onitsha highway, the Calabar-Itu road, Calabar-Ikom, Kano-Kaduna, and the Bayelsa State axis of the East-West Road, where commuters extinguish in potholes and road craters.

    A tour across the states would avail our governors a more realistic experience of the inherent tragedy of plying bad roads, on which foul dust and mud spatter spring from the earth to discolour commuters’ vehicles, sully their clothes and corrupt their health.

    Governance in the country is literally grotesque. Like the deathly pothole or road crater, it is borne of a grotto of shady public officers, who like their predecessors, nurture a special affinity for ornamenting one hideous gaffe with another.

    They ignore crisis while it stews and hazard a knee-jerk reaction, when the crisis degenerates. Former Ogun governor, Ibikunle Amosun, and the Federal Ministry of Works, for instance, ignored the condition of the Lagos-Ibadan highway until a 20-feet container fell off a moving truck and crushed 12 students to death in a Toyota Hiace passenger bus, on a bad portion of the road.

    One would expect that frequent travel abroad would furnish our governors, among other public officers, with the necessary exposure about rehabilitating for the long-term, the country’s dilapidated road network.

    The value of good roads to a nation’s agricultural economy and financial regeneration cannot be overemphasised. The economies of the so-called ‘First World’ have been known to pirouette from a sound base of good roads and seamless transportation network. The evidences abound from Asia to Europe and America. In those climes, public officers walk their talk.

    Many a Nigerian public officer, however, would rather dazzle with talk while presenting what’s supposed to be a routine, official duty as stagecraft. It is part of our pagan heritage and rites of governance, our inherited artifice.

    The random imagery of a state governor donning a grim look while inspecting a bad road, predictably, excites applause among his lackeys and an illiterate populace. But it inspires in the observer, depending on his enlightenment, that stirring in the bowels identifiable as disgust or applause.

    The state governors parade a cabinet and coterie of spin-doctors adept at flipping over disgust to applause, by reportage. Truth is in the telling. Knowing this, they recruit a pliant press to entertain and hoodwink the citizenry with exaggerated accounts of their ‘sterling exploits.’

    The State House thus becomes our Versailles. Cradling doctored reports, the media evolves under its rule, into a class of courtiers; government publicists masquerading as journalists and pundits, cede their platforms to ‘friendly’ governors, for whom they spin, prevaricate and lie.

    Consequently, we hear little about the stories of pain and desolation afflicting the victims of bad governance and policy failure.

    In Lagos, however, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu supposedly means well; after all, he recently approved the commencement of repairs on bad roads across the state. And in fulfilment of his executive order on zero tolerance for potholes in the state, the Lagos State Public Works Corporation (LSPWC) has begun full scale routine repair and rehabilitation of roads across the state.

    The General Manager of the LSPWC, Engr. Olufemi Daramola, during an inspection of the ongoing rehabilitation of Iju-Fagba road, recently, stated that

    despite the incessant rainfall witnessed in the past few weeks, the state had been providing palliatives with the use of gravel and crushed stones on strategic roads across the state to ensure free flow of traffic.

    This is, no doubt, a temporary palliative and is grossly inadequate as the patched spots eventually cave in, in less than two weeks.

    Daramola cited rehabilitation works in 26 different locations across the state. It is, however, sad to note, that for the umpteenth time, the Lagos government has failed to treat the sad state of the Lagos-Abeokuta highway and bypasses with the urgency and care it deserves.

    Like his predecessors, Babatunde Fashola and Akinwumi Ambode, Governor Sanwo-Olu’s palliative effort cuts off this neglected terrain of the coastal city.

    The roads are very bad in Agbado-Kollington, Dalemo-Akera, and Ijaiye-Jankara axis. You need only travel the cratered paths and bypasses of Abule-Egba, Ahmadiyya, Meiran, and Alakuko to understand the extent of devastation and neglect afflicting the area.

    Governor Sanwo-Olu has certainly got his work cut out for him. Its about time he understood that good roads and development must be evenly spread across Lagos; they should never be exclusive to the state’s supposedly posh, popular and gated communities.

    Given the pride of place he occupies as governor of the state widely acknowledged as Nigeria’s commercial heartbeat, Sanwo-Olu must shun pedestrian praise and commit to his task with unparalleled gusto.

    At the moment, he unfurls like a newbie at the State House’s pageant rites. Let him remember that his lackeys might be saboteurs and his critics may be friends; together, however, they constitute the periphery of governance. He is the man at the centre.

    And he has less than four years to ennoble his office and dispel inherited stereotypes. This wisdom applies to his 35 fellow governors.

  • Tourist in xenophobic country

    How would Nobel Laureate and Nigeria’s treasure, Prof. Wole Soyinka, advise a tourist, set to visit a country of rabid xenophobes?

    Judging by his poem, ‘Death in the Dawn’, he probably would start: “Tourist, you must set forth/At dawn/… The right foot for joy, the left, dread/And the mother prayed Child/May you never walk/When the road waits, famished”!

    That prayer is taken from a Yoruba superstitious-powered belief, which holds that the road at some time is thirsty for blood; and may one never travel at such precarious times!

    For that, as part of that poem dutifully records, you even make some sacrifice, or some  caring family members on your behalf, for your journey to be when the road is sated, and you come back safe from your journey.

    But how does this prayer even hold, for a tourist bound for a xenophobia country, where the natives always prime themselves for foreign blood — and foreign shops for prime looting?

    That is the unflattering image South Africa paints with its xenophobic thunder, and its periodic volcano.  Though it  now consumes foreign blood, limbs and sweat, eventually it will consume South Africa itself.

    Take tourism.  That market is dependent on a relay of foreign visitors come to feel the pulse of your country, taste its flora and fauna, sample its cuisine and drink in its landscape.

    But no matter how beautiful your country might be, how do you convince visitors — tourists — to come, when you make a manic show as unrepentant and unapologetic xenophobes, badgering and slaying foreigners in your midst, sacking their shops, looting their sweat?

    That is the sorry pass South Africa is wedging itself but no one seems to care.

    True, President Cyril Ramaphosa has decried xenophobia, which is fine.  But the body language of many in the Ramaphosa cabinet has been, at best, mixed: if not condoning then regrettably justifying — which is quite awry, for a state that benefited from huge foreign support to spring itself from apartheid White minority rule.

    But this show of barbarism would hurt South Africa most in the long run.  Traditionally, South Africa has a strong tourism market — exotic parks, game reserves, water falls, not to talk of other post-apartheid historic troves like the Mandela centre.

    But with an increasing xenophobic image, who in his right sense would travel to South Africa?  And if the tourism sector continues to contract, where would be the tourism aspect, of the so-called jobs, be — after the hated foreigners had all been killed, for taking natives’ job away?

    The xenophobe kills his tourism market — how sweet!

    Weep not for South Africa, the country that in Nelson Mandela produced the finest of humanity but also cancelled that out that trove with the very dregs in xenophobes!

    A tourist in xenophobes’ country!  How sweet!

  • PHOTOS: Arrival of Nigeria returnees from South Africa

  • NiMet predicts rainy activities for Thursday

    Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has predicted favourable conditions and rainfall activities on Thursday.

    NiMet, in its forecast outlook on Wednesday, predicted partly cloudy condition with chances of thunderstorms over Katsina, Kano and Dutse of Northern states in the morning hours.

    It further predicted thunderstorms over most parts of the region during the afternoon/evening period with day and night temperatures of 31 to 34 degree Celsius and 22 to 23 degree Celsius respectively.

    “For Central states, cloudy condition is expected with chances of thunderstorms over Abuja, Minna, Yola, Mambilla plateau and Jos axis during the morning hours.”

    In the afternoon/evening hours of Southern states, it envisaged wide spread activities over the inland and the coastal regions during the period with day and night temperatures of 29 to 30 degree Clsius and 22 to 23 degree Celsius.

    (NAN)