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Tag: Nigerian Newspaper

  • Clean power generation for Nigeria

    Nigeria is wasting away gift of nature (rivers, sunlight, wind, tide, wave and thermal) on daily basis looking for solutions outside whereas the solution is within our reach. We are spending billions of dollars annually trying to fix this major challenge for more than 40 years due to tribalism, gender status, ethnicity, religious and political differences, selfishness and greed.  Nigeria has remained stagnant for more than 40 years due to the instability of electricity for this great nation.

    Harvesting the water energy (kinetic energy) through introduction of tide, wave and hydro technology hardware will reduce the dependence on federal national grid for the public use.  Creation of solar and wind farms in each state will lead each state to self-sufficiency for power generation including the installation of gas turbines, generator will change the focus of federal and state governments on annual budget implementation. Converting the flaring exhaust gas in the Port Harcourt refinery into power turbines engines would have been another major power generation contribution to our national grid if the company’s operators look into means of renewable energy.

    I am saying all these because of my major experience during the Rural Energy 2016 conference which I attended in Fairbanks, Alaska in United States.  During my feasibility study after the conference, I saw the setting up of their power generation setup in each district/local government. Each district/local government are using coals to generate their power supply by converting the coals to steam which is atmosphere friendly. They are making good use of nature by turning them into renewable energy power generation including the winds, rivers, sunlight and thermal heat from the ground.  Networking with others delegates from other nations who attended the conference shows that Africa, especially Nigeria is lacking behind and if care is not taken the next generation will curse this generation for failing!

    By: Abiodun Abraham Adebanjo, research@gsgtechltd.com

  • Turning nasty and brutish life into profitable living

    While education in developed countries rely on values and formal framework, that of developing countries is wholly deficient in both.

    This column is today ceded to Ile-Ife based Adekola Junaid PhD, as he takes us through a ‘raconteur’ on the Nigerian condition (not his title).

    Happy reading.

    NIGERIA’S CONTEMPORARY CONDITION

    Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe says H.G wells. Consequently both developed and developing countries continue to invest massively in education so as to evade dastardly consequences.

    While  education in developed countries rely on values and formal framework, that of developing countries is wholly deficient in both. Thus Nigeria, as a developing country, faces the impact of an education that lacks morals, resulting in such negativities as banditry, cultism, ritual killings, rape, unnecessary and illicit accumulation of wealth, money laundering, high unemployment and a general lack of vision.

    That is the Nigerian condition today whilst the developed countries, having substantially conquered the crave for needs and wants, have turned their attention to, among other things, probing into outer limits of space. Our current circumstances, therefore, remind one of the story of the City of New York, United States of America, at a point in time, as captured in Neil Postman book: “A Student’s fable”, published in 1970.

    In the city of New York, civilised life very nearly came to an end. The streets were all dirt with nobody to clean them up. The air and rivers were polluted and no one could cleanse them. The schools were rundown and no one, any longer, believed in them. Crime was rife and disorder reigned supreme. The Mayor was completely lost regarding what to do.  He met severally with his council but they could suggest no cures because their moral was just too low and their imagination dulled by the confusion that overwhelmed them. There was nothing else for the Mayor to do other than to declare a state of emergency. He had done this before during snowstorms and power failures, but now he felt even more justified. “Our city”, he said, “is under siege.” Our enemies, he declared, are sloth, poverty, indifference and hatred.  He knew all the problems, but the solutions simply eluded him. He was at his tether’s end. Though a state of emergency officially existed, neither the Mayor nor anyone else could think of anything to do that would  ameliorate their condition. Then, literally from nowhere, an extraordinary thing  happened.

    One of his aides, knowing full well what the future held for the city, had decided to flee with his family to the country side. But preparatory to that, he began to read David Thoreus’ “Walden”, which he had been told was a useful handbook on survival. While reading it, he came across the following passage: “Students should not play life, or merely study it while the community supports them at this expensive game. Rather, they should  earnestly live it from the beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live, than by at once trying the experiment of living?” Believing he had a good and exciting idea, he reached out to his boss, the mayor, showed him the passage and convinced him that was the solution to the city’s problems.

    He went on to suggest that students in the public schools had been part of the problem, whereas, with some imagination and change of perspective, the students could become part of the solution. He pointed out that from junior high school on up to senior high school, there were approximately 400,000 able-bodied, energetic young men and women who could be used as a resource to make the city liveable again.

    “But how can we use them?” asked the mayor, “and what will happen to their education, if we did?” Replied the aide: “They will find their education in the process of saving their city”. Continuing, he said there were ample evidence that the students no longer appreciated education and were, in fact, now turning against their teachers. The aide, who  had come armed with statistics pointed out that the city was spending $5 million dollars a year merely replacing broken school windows and that almost a third of  the students no longer showed up on any given day.

    “Yes, I know, “, said the Mayor sadly. “Woe unto us”. “Wrong said the aide brashly. The boredom and affliction we have now, can all be turned to our advantage”. The Mayor was not quite convinced, but having no better idea of his own, he appointed him to chair the Emergency Education Committee to put all his suggestions into action. That was how 400,000 students were removed from their dreary classrooms and drearier lessons, to where their energies and talents could be better used to re engineer the decrepit city.

    As should be expected, there was a great hue and cry against the innovations. Teachers complained that their contract contained no provision for such unusual procedures. To this the aide replied that the spirit of their contract compelled them to help educate the youth and that their education can take many forms. “It is not written in any holy book”, he told them, “that education must, willy nilly, occur in a small room with chairs in it. To complaining parents, he replied that American founding fathers used such practices to control the harsh environment they met in order to ensure their survival. To the students’  complaint that their God-given right to spend the first 12 years of their lives at public expense was being trampled, he replied that they were confusing a luxury with a right, and that, in any case, the community could no longer afford either.

    Subsequently, all the children became part of the programme. Monday mornings, they helped to clean up their neighbourhoods, swept the streets, canned the garbage, removed the litter from empty tots. Wednesdays were reserved for beautifying the city. Trees and flowers were planted, grasses and shrubs tended; dilapidated public buildings were repaired, starting, with their schools. Every day 5000 students in high schools directed traffic on the city streets such that policemen had more time for criminals. Another 5000 students helped in delivering mails such that mails were promptly delivered twice daily. Several thousand students maintained day care centres so that mothers on welfare were able to find gainful employment. Students were also assigned to publish a newspaper in every neighbourhood of the city to inform the public about all the gongs on. University students also participated voluntarily in various ways.  These include putting in place a short distance transportation system with their cars fuelled partly by the city. They gave parking and litter tickets thus freeing policemen to do their work. They also ran drug-addiction rehabilitation centres, legal rights centres and nutritional and medical bays.

    That was how New York City came back to life.

    Young people who were hitherto alienated from their environment assumed a proprietary interest in it. The older ones now respected them instead of labelling them unruly and parasitic. Crime reduced, courtesy improved inter personal relations, and students began to live the education they missed in school. Later the school program was resuscitated after the emergency, and everybody lived happily,  thereafter.

    And now to the crux of this story.

    At this point in Nigeria why would  students in professional courses – Agriculture, Pharmacy, Engineering, Journalism Communication, Education, Medical courses, Science and Technical Programmes not be made  to  do a compulsory one year “Industrial attachment”, or whatever name so called, instead of having to do “literary projects”, for the completion of  their courses? Why teachers at all levels of our educational pyramid but, especially, our over paid legislators,  would not think out of the box, and let us have policies in place that would turn our huge schooling population to advantage rather than being a massive ticking bomb can only remain a surprise. Policy should also be enunciated to get them paid handsomely for such national service which should, of course, be a far cry from what NYSC has become after its several decades of non re- engineering.  Inclusive in his programme, secondary school students should be exposed to farms for chicken, fish, fruits, maize, cassava, tomatoes cultivation in rural areas, and proceeds should be used to fund our kwashiorkor – like Education.

    Columnist’s comment

    Students at all levels of our educational system must be made to take a compulsory course in Morals and Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities which will aim at birthing a new generation of Nigerians different from today’s yahoo, yahoo boys, thieving politicians, a lecherous police force, and a citizenry consumed with money, to have which, they steal, kidnap and kill.

    May God help us.

  • Demonstrate democracy now or quit trying

    It is a true axiom that we learn most through experience. For example, by experience, I have since learnt not to initiate any conversation with a snake, scorpion, or bees. They have very little tolerance for English. Once I tried to reason with a scorpion and came away with a nasty sting resulting in screams that could be heard for miles. Through experience, I have also learnt that my dog, or any dog, can only take this much taunting. Hurl sticks at them, they can take; but hurl abuses at them and out comes their weapon of single destruction: the nip. Nah, nah, I don’t want to regale you with the tales of the so many nips that have come out of those four-legged things. By far the most important lesson I have learnt – no it’s not quite the most but it nears it – so far through experience is that you never, just never, leave your favourite pot of stew on the stove and pick a call from your favourite friend. The two favourites never mix – a little like introducing your favourite friend to another favourite friend. You’re the common denominator and they’d both rather talk only to you. I’m sure you know I’m really talking about the stew.

    Life, you find, is full of little lessons, if you would only learn them. I have been told endless times by the maintenance officer in my house to always look out for things in the car before zooming off: do the tyres look normal?; what is the fuel gauge reading?; is the oil screaming at you ‘change me, change me’?, and another long list of things. Well, I think he has since learnt that the only item on that list I am able to cram into my over-filled head is really the one about the fuel gauge, and that too came from the experience of finding that it is possible for cars to stop in the middle of nowhere and refuse to go further. Before that experience, I honestly never suspected cars to be capable of treason.

    Just the other day in May, we celebrated the national democracy day, and now, we are learning that the world is celebrating it too. Now, what am I to make of this – that democracy is that important to the world? Going by its ideals, I would say, yes. But going by its practice, I would say, naaaah. Just look at its ideals: a government chosen by the people themselves and expected to be accountable to the people; a government imbued with internal checks and balances; a government deliberately purposed for good things for the people. If democracy was such a good thing and half the world is going for it, how come then that the world is in such a sorry state? How come we the people are always so short-changed? How come I have so much to complain about? How come all these how comes?

    The reason is not so far-fetched: the way it is practised. Just look around the world and tell me, which democracy is really working at full capacity? What in truth do people get when they go for democracy? For democracy, most people get governments of people who have no idea what to do with their mandate, like watching monkeys on trees. Now, you know what those are, don’t you? Monkeys are that breed of animals that deftly move around the world, your legs, and the treasury with incredible nimbleness. They generally do not do any work, eat voraciously, are forever picking out lice and are attracted to shiny stuff. Don’t they just remind you of a group of people we know so well in Nigeria?

    Honestly, we just cannot write enough about Nigerian politicians’ interpretation of democracy. Going by their antics, I sometimes believe they have never even heard the word, let alone what it means. You can certainly say about them ‘they have got the wrong end of the stick, alright’. Now, let’s examine their work ethics. I have always wanted to trail a Nigerian politician on his/her typical day just to find out what their work ethic looks like; just that dear reader, nothing else. Failing that, I am left to my imagination. I am therefore seriously tempted to believe that most politicians’ days are filled with anything but work. The men get busy on little things and the women among them get busy on littler things and well … shopping. Just look around you. How many areas of Nigerian life have been impacted by this group of people? We have asked this question before, yet no answer has been forth coming.

    Listen till I tell you, the voracious appetite of politicians is sure staggering. Funny thing, I am thinking they consume all in the name of democracy. In my town, presently, a certain party chieftain is said to be in the process of buying up an endless number of properties, and all within a spate of a few months of ascending a particular throne in the party. And the country is paying for everything. I honestly do not know what they want the rest of us to do: knock our heads against our puny brick fences while they keep acquiring? I believe one of the things this country needs is a law that limits this particularly sickening, indiscriminate property ownership. Sadly, that is one thing I know this breed of politicians will not get round to. They are much too busy acquiring.

    Well, for one thing, democracy gets politicians busy picking out lice, mostly from their own breed, (smile) just like monkeys. Have you seen the way these people have been going at each other in this country? If they are not busy inanely counting votes of no more than thirty-five upside down, then they are busy chasing each other across the pages of newspapers. If they are not busy hacking each other down with machetes, they get down on the hack job of literally picking out lice from the deep folds of their agbada and babanriga. And the serious business of governing? If you don’t know, that is the serious business of governing – bringing down the opponent.

    All of that rigmarole of playing politics is to one end really (and this is so hard for me to write): to acquire the shiny stuff that life has to offer. This includes acquiring million dollar personal houses at home and abroad, shiny new cars for wives and girlfriends and friends of girlfriends (somehow, that never gets to me), shiny new islands in Dubai and environs where they think the long arm of the law and, God forbid, that of God Himself, cannot reach. All those shiny stuff allow them to bring up their children in the opulence of a workless environment where those children’s heads are filled with nothing but how to pilfer more from the world in greater style of … guess, opulence! There, was that so hard?

    We need to demonstrate that we understand democracy now or quit trying. Clearly, in the hands of this present breed of politicians, it is patently endangered. In itself, doubtless, it is one of the noblest pursuits of man. Democracy allows government to be unobtrusive and minimally involved in man’s daily life as it quietly directs national activities for altruistic goals such as building structures for the benefit of mankind. Democracy is worth pursuing because it allows man to reach that basic and minimum level of life required for the pursuit of happiness. If only we did not have all these politicians standing in the way of our pursuit of democratic happiness. Now, what do we do? Just what do we do?

    ***First published 15th September, 2013 to celebrate Democracy day. Unfortunately, nothing has changed.

  • Crime as rationale for xenophobia and hysteria against Nigerians – South Africa and beyond

    Most Nigerians have neve seen and will probably never see the 2009 South African-made film. “District 9”. A sci-fi fantasy thriller that was immensely successful at home and abroad, the film depicts a South Africa invaded by two alien groups, one comprised of Nigerians and the other of giant prawn-like extraterrestrial beings from outer space. The ugly, misshapen and menacing aliens from outer space have their abode in a huge spacecraft hovering over Johannesburg. The other alien group, the “Nigerians” are quartered in a crime-ridden, drug-infested area of the city over which they exercise uncontested but severely confined control. Their leader is a hoodlum whose name is – Obasanjo! Remember this, dear reader: in the period when the film was written, shot, and edited before being released in 2009, Olusegun Obasanjo was the president of Nigeria. And given the fact that “District 9” adopted a pseudo-documentary narrative style, its allusion to Nigeria as an object of its devastating negative critique is unmistakable.

    It was bracing for me to watch “District 9” when it was released to wide critical acclaim and huge commercial success. For this reason, I have never watched the film a second time. Its critical and commercial success is based on the fact that whatever I or any Nigerian may say about it, it is a very entertaining film. The naïve, anti-heroic “hero” of the film is an ordinary, likable guy who tries to understand and bond with the menacing aliens from outer space. As a matter of fact, in the course of the film he gradually metamorphoses into one of them after he is accidentally bitten by one of the aliens. And it turns out that the extraterrestrial aliens come from a civilization that is far in advance of our own earthly civilization. At any rate, the prawn-like aliens manage to repair their damaged spaceship and at the end of the film depart from Joburg, from our planet, leaving us to our phobias, our inanities, our fears and hatred of the “other”. Everyone is relieved to see them leave.

    But not “Obasanjo” and the “Nigerians”! They want the aliens handed over to them to be killed and consumed in the atavistic belief that the aliens’ power will be ritualistically transferred to them. This is beside the fact that the aliens are, after all, giant prawns – what do you do with prawns? This is the ultimate coup de grace in the film’s racist and xenophobic assault on Nigerians and black people: as the whole world marvels at the advanced civilization of the aliens, all the “Nigerians” care about is a cannibalistic ritual transfer of the aliens’ knowledge and power to them. This brings to my mind a forgotten or little-known fact about Olusegun Obasanjo. What is this fact?

    Well, at the height of the armed struggle phase of the continent-wide anti-apartheid movement, Obasanjo, the real Obasanjo, our own Obasanjo, once infamously boasted that with a single battalion-strength force of the Nigerian army, he could invade South Africa and conquer the whole of the army, air force and navy of the apartheid regime because he had the charms and the supernatural fortifications to effect such a victory. It is tempting to see the director and writer of the screenplay of “District 9”, Neill Blomkamp, going back to this story of our Obasanjo for inspiration in the depiction of the “Obasanjo” of his film who wants to cannibalize the aliens in order to absorb their power into his person. Of course, far beyond the real and/or fictional Obasanjo, “District 9” gestures toward and recycles enduring apartheid myths of black African primitivism and savagery. The film’s “success” in this regard was to have successfully displaced to “Nigerians” the inferior and savage “otherness” which had been directed at black South Africans for centuries but which could no longer be continued openly in the post-apartheid era. In other words, “District 9” found in the xenophobia and hysteria against Nigerians in South Africa the means through which it could make black and white South Africans “comfortable” with an open, even blatant display of residual aspects of apartheid-era anti-black racism. Crime or, more generally, criminality, is the foundation of the enabling xenophobia and hysteria. And indeed, “District 9” is stunning in its assumption that all South Africans, black and white, could be counted upon to accept that “Obasanjo” and the criminal gang of “Nigerians” in the film constitute an accurate reflection of widely held perceptions of Nigeria and Nigerians in South Africa.

    We must brace ourselves, compatriots, to confront this terribly confounding idea that the crimes and criminality of some Nigerians in many countries and regions of the world come from and are lodged in Nigeria itself. Let us not make light of this fact: in the recent xenophobic hysteria in South Africa against virtually all the nationals of other African countries, Nigeria was singled out and the basis for this was the alleged dominance of the criminality of Nigerians over that of all the other national groups combined. The assumption behind this belief or perception is that the alleged Nigerian exceptionalism in criminality could have come from nowhere but Nigeria itself.

    We must of course completely refute and reject this idea. This is because no matter how seemingly ‘true” the idea may be, it amounts to nothing more than the literal observation that since Nigerians come from Nigeria – and can only come from Nigeria – the crimes and criminality they might manifest in other parts of the world come from Nigeria. But this is ridiculous and it is tautological. Does the altruism, the brilliance in the arts, sciences or technology that many Nigerians show in many parts of the world also come from and are lodged in Nigeria itself? What is peculiar about crime in general and the criminality of Nigerians abroad that so many people, including Nigerians themselves, trace its origin, its essentiality to Nigeria itself? That is the nature of the problem that we face in this issue, compatriots. When Nigerian criminals abroad are deported back to Nigeria – as has happened on countess occasions – that is the imputed belief: go back to where you brought your criminal propensities and acts!

    No single event is more indicative of this issue than that of the notorious CNN “60 Minutes” broadcast about two decades ago on corruption by Nigerians and in Nigeria. Led by the late Mike Wallace, the “60 Minutes” crew came to Nigeria and with hidden cameras and microphones recorded high public officials demanding and receiving bribes from members of the crew. In the most astonishing episode of all, the broadcast showed Mike Wallace, a white Jewish American, paying for and receiving a Nigerian passport which stated that his state of origin was Ekiti State! One secretly recorded episode took place at the Head Office of the Central Bank, then still in Lagos; it showed Wallace bargaining with an official of the bank on how much a transaction involving forex would cost the American and his putative Nigerian principals. The official involved was apparently so secure in his nefarious practices and so complacent in his belief that he could and would never be caught that he divulged to Wallace all the means by which the American could obtain clearance or certification for any deal he wanted to make in the country, no matter how illegal and improbable it was. Indeed, it was from this experience of the secret filming of Nigerian criminality at home, official and non-official, that Wallace later made his infamous declaration that Nigeria was the most corrupt country in the world. Unfortunately for him, Wallace made the declaration while doing an interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam who was so outraged by that declaration that he countered that not Nigeria but America was the most corrupt nation on the planet. Kudos to Minister Farrakhan, but alas, many Nigerians too think, like the late Mike Wallace, that their country is the most corrupt country in the world. And if that is the case, can you blame South Africans for thinking the same thing?

    My response to this question is unequivocal: yes, you must blame South Africans, you must blame Americans, you must blame Filipinos, and you must blame Nigerians themselves who think that Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world. There is simply no such country in the world where corruption and/or criminality is at its unquestionable highest. Yes, Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. But so is South Africa and the USA and Brazil and Afghanistan and many countries in Africa and Latin America! Right now, at this very moment in time, which country in the world is close to the level of corruption of great impunity that it tolerates in its leader and head of state as Donald Trump’s America? And beside Trump himself, what of the uncountable cases of corporate greed and corruption in the US? This is well-known and no one has ever used it to stir up hysteria and xenophobia against Americans as Americans the way Nigerians, simply for being Nigerians, have been targeted with hysteria and xenophobia in South Africa and other places in the world.

    This last observation brings me to my closing reflections in this piece which pertains to benign and even humorous forms of hysteria and xenophobia against Nigerians and their presumed national penchant for corruption and venality. The aforementioned “District 9” is a vintage example of this kind of “benign” hysteria against Nigeria. This is because while no physical violence and no forceful expulsion are urged against “Obasanjo” and the “Nigerian” criminals in the film, they are nonetheless consistently depicted as objects of absurdity and derision. The same principle or logic applies to the profiles of Nigerian criminality in American television, radio, newspapers and social media: the depiction is so full of real or feigned surprise at the temerity of Nigerian fraudsters and scammers that you begin to think that there is a secret admiration for the criminals! On many occasions, I have heard jokes on Nigerian “419” and other online or Internet scams by standup comics and even the iconic “Saturday Night Live” of the NBC. Indeed, so widespread is this phenomenon that one colleague at Harvard once asked me why, since Nigerians were apparently so “clever” they did not apply that “cleverness” to other things? My response to him? I said: “you mean you have not noticed that at Harvard and other Ivy-league universities and their public counterparts second-generation Nigerian Americans are second only to Asian Americans in performance and achievement?”

    In the early 1970s when I was a graduate student at New York University, there were many other Nigerian students at NYU itself and other universities in New York and around the country. We were very noticeable too then as a high-performing national group among other nationals from the African continent and other parts of the developing world. “419” and other infamous frauds and scams were nowhere yet in sight. Thus, our achievements did not have to be measured and balanced against the dubious “cleverness” of fraudsters. Criminality is not an essential or permanent aspect of Nigerianness. This era of the PDP-APC kleptocratic predatoriness shall pass. Ergo: Nigeria will not always be one of the most corrupt places in the world. For those who would use the facts and the perceptions of Nigerian criminality at home and abroad – be they Nigerians and/or Non-Nigerians – as the measure of the country’s essence, we must say a resounding “No’! In other words, take away the excuse, the rationale of criminality and xenophobic hysteria will have no legs on which to stand – in South Africa and other parts of the world. If you ever get to watch “District 9”, keep these admonitions in mind, compatriot.

    • Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • 250 kids get school supplies from church

    The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Light House Parish Lagos has donated free school shoes to 250 children in Bariga community in Lagos.

    Pupils from over 10 public and primary schools in Lagos benefitted from the scheme.

    Children thronged into the premises with their parents, and teachers with great excitement.

    One of the parents, Mosorayo  Banju, expressed gratitude for the  gesture.

    “I came with 10 children and they were all attended to. It is great effort and I must commend the church for this initiatives.

    “I will implore other individuals and corporate organization to show more support to the less privileged in the society,” she said.

    The Parish Pastor, Olalekan Koya, said the annual event was designed to give back to members of its immediate community.

    The Second Vice Chairman Somolu Parents School Forum,  Moshood Onifade, commended the church for the initiative.

    The gesture, according to him, will instill the virtues of love, compassion and patriotism among children who benefitted.

  • Fire in the house: Oil, war and Iran

    Conflict is assured once power is in the hands of the greedy and the absurd.

    This week was to feature the last installment of our trilogy on the global economy. However, the flame of momentous events hijacked that plan. First there was the ouster of the maniacal John Bolton as the National Security Advisor to President Trump. Bolton’s exit demanded a sigh of relief. The man was a ceaseless merchant of war; his departure hopefully diminished the American rush to military conflict against any number of possible targets from Venezuela to Iran. Trump has named another NSA. The new pick will never be mistaken for a pacifist as the current American government is nothing if not a machine of war; but the incoming advisor will find it nigh impossible to surpass the fidelity the rapid Bolton paid to his favorite deity, Mars, the god of war.

    Then came the attack against the Saudi Abqaiq oil facility causing such damage as to cut by half Saudi’s enormous 10 million barrel daily oil production. This audacious breach of the world’s largest facility panicked oil markets, shaking an already wobbly global economy. Worst, it seemed to pull an already tense region onto that narrow perch separating war from peace.

    Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility and recounted how they did it. United States Secretary of State Pompeo publicly disbelieved them, instead pointing an accusing finger directly at Tehran. President Trump hectored that he was ready to strike Iran once given the green light from Riyadh.

    Afraid that oil supplies might dry, the Europeans, who were previously trying to mediate between the United States and Iran, got weak in the knees. They quickly moved to express support for the Saudis. All prior wrongs, including the ghoulish beheading of people for relatively harmless offenses from drug possession to advocacy of Shi’a Islam, were washed clean on the altar of oil.

    The Saudis were no longer unpleasant ogres to be tolerated because of their indispensable economic function; economic necessity had magically transformed them into sympathetic victims. Warms the heart to see that European leaders remain as pragmatically nimble and short-sighted as their predecessors who a few generations ago arbitrarily carved from the rotting Ottoman Empire the contentious nation states we see today.

    The Saudi Defense Ministry gave a long September 18 press briefing to assert Iran was indeed the culprit. Pointing to an array of scrap metal that would make an energetic, self-respecting junkyard owner proud, the Saudi spokesperson claimed the attack did not come from the direction of Yemen; thus, the Houthis were not source. Instead, he said it came from the north, meaning either Iraq or Iran was the launch site. He also asserted the evidence adduced from the ballistic fragments suggested Iranian manufacture.

    The aggrieved Saudi leadership adeptly reached out to any government that would listen, contending the attack was not only against Saudi but the whole world. Witnessing a nearly 20 percent spike in oil prices, few nations were in a position to argue with that statement. Iran had effectively been placed in the docks as the accused and accursed for a crime it vehemently denied.

    It would be easy to join the growing congress of those blaming Iran. However, let’s not be content with doing what is easy. Let’s seek to do what is right.

    We must start with what we know then seek to answer what we don’t. We know the facility was damaged. What we don’t know is who did it and how. (Once you know who, you will easily determine why!) Notwithstanding the adamant nature of Saudi and American claims, we cannot take such claims at face value for three reasons. First, both Washington and Riyadh have blatantly misled the world community in the recent past. Second, the attack does not conform to Iran’s traditional caution. Iran has assiduously avoided the military offensive precisely to avoid giving the stronger U.S. a pretext to launch a broad strike against it. Iran well understands the power differential it suffers compared to the U.S. Iran has played the role of the weaker antagonist with skill and patience. There is no discernible reason why Tehran would deviate from this tried, proven policy in such a reckless manner.

    Third, the muted, relatively diplomatic response of Saudi Arabia and the softening of America’s initial martial vocalizing are out of character. The leaders of the two nations are both impulsive men inclined toward rash action. Instead of gathering around the negotiating table, they would rather throw bombs — or resort to a hacksaw if the victim is within arm’s reach. This is the same Saudi government that lured the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi into a consulate to torture and dismember the man for merely publishing a few harsh words against the government.

    Given the lack  of mercy shown Khashoggi and the benighted tactics applied in the war in Yemen, the Saudis now show an extraordinary restraint in the face of a provocation that will costs billions of dollars and that dwarfs any insult the now dismembered Khashoggi or the  straggling Houthis may have tossed at them. For them to hew the route of diplomacy at this instance is as much out of character for the Saudis as committing the attack is against the grain of normal Iranian behavior. The near preternatural calm exhibited by the Saudis seems almost pre-planned, leading one to, at least, question whether they knew beforehand what was to come.

    For now, the Saudis eschew military retaliation and that is a good thing. Their present goal is to isolate Iran diplomatically which has always been a prime goal. Some nations will be so relieved the Saudis did not pine for war that they will unquestioningly support the Saudis on this more modest objective of isolating Iran. The fact that there is no compelling evidence against Tehran will not bother most nations; they just want to get back to a normal flow of oil. Ostracizing Iran seems a rather small price to pay to secure this essential.

    To the extent the Saudis can isolate Iran, the world will be assured that, at some future moment of their choosing, the Saudi government and its American ally will use force against a friendless Iran. As such, the Saudi government is using this incident to construct an elaborate, delayed trap for Iran, not dissimilar to the one used to fatally snare the contumacious journalist.

    Like most aggressive governments, neither the Saudis nor the Americans are to be taken at their word. Any nation willing to transgress another will not allow the truth to prevent the incursion. A discerning person must remember the outrageous explanations issued regarding the Khashoggi murder. America’s perfidy in fashioning pretexts to launch war is the meat of legend.  From Vietnam to Iraq, almost every major American military engagement was based on one false premise or another.

    More recently, America created the perverse tale that Gaddafi was so wickedly prescient that he stockpiled stores of Viagra in Libya. He then dispensed the pills to his youthful fighters so they could inflict themselves on women. This canard was published by senior American officials as a rationale to bomb the once prosperous nation. Gaddafi did not send his fighters to rape women. However, America spread this tale that it might rape Libya of its independent future.  On more than one occasion America fudged the truth about chemical weapons attacks in Syria, blaming the Syrian government when it knew others were more likely at fault.

    Before we summarily conclude on such an important matter, we should more closely analyze the political terrain. Instead of focusing solely on one player, let us expand our study to encompass all the usual suspects.

    1. The Houthis: They claim responsibility and they have strong motive to inflict pain on Saudi given the cruelty of Riyadh’s hand in Yemen. On the other hand, one must question how the Houthis acquired the aerial weapons used in the attack. This attack was significantly more complex than any the Houthis had before tried against Saudi territory. Either the Houthis purchased these weapons from the illicit market or obtained the assets from an ally. It is possible that ally was Iran. Whether the supplier knew the specific target that was envisioned is another material question to which there likely will never be a clear answer.
    2. Iran: This nation had little to gain and much to lose from the brash attack. Causing no long-term damage to the kingdom, the attack risked precipitating a full-fledged military retort by the American-Saudi alliance with Israel sure to join the fracas for good measure. Such a muscular response could cripple Iran’s defensive and other national infrastructure. This, in turn, might foment internal instability by weakening the government in the eyes of the people.

    Moreover, Iran and Russia are helping Syria break the last extremist redoubt in Syria. A cautious Iran would hardly embark on the Abqaiq caper when so close to long-awaited victory in Syria. The Iranians also would have gauged that the attack would dangerously isolate it by undermining the ability of Russia and China to offer them needed diplomatic support and cover. The attack would also alienate European opinion, thus chasing Europe into the hands of the Americans. This would contravene the established, partially successful strategy of exploiting the policy differences between the US and Europe.

    For these reasons, it seems unlikely the Iranian civilian authorities would have embarked on this unwise roll of the dice. Iran’s posture has perennially been a defensive one. Noting in the alignment of the stars or of that nation’s vital interests recommends such an abrupt change of policy. Like any nation, Iran has hardline war hawks.  These ruffians have been effectively caged and seem not to be on the ascendance. Possibly a group of frustrated hardliners went rogue and engineered this attack in hope of actually sparking a generalized war. Or perhaps they may have reasoned they could get away with such an attack because President Trump would recoil from a protracted military engagement due to next year’s election in America. While this cannot be ruled out, the gamble is so reckless as to be unlikely.

    1. Saudi Arabia: A false flag against its most vital facility? At first flush, the idea seems preposterous. The more thought it is given, the less far-fetched it sounds. This would help to explain why Saudi’s vaunted, costly billion dollar air defense system failed to detect this attack.

    At first, the Saudis claimed the damage from the attack was vast; repair would take the longest time. Once those statements had the desired effect on world opinion and global energy markets, the Saudis walked back the story. Now they claim the fixes will be completed by month’s end. This means the attack was not as destructive as initially asserted. It is within contemplation that the limited damage was because this was a controlled attack.

    The theory of a controlled attack also explains the measured, diplomatic Saudi response, traits not ordinarily attributed to the current Saudi leadership. The aim of the operation would be to isolate Iran. If the world community can castigate Iran for this attack, the world will more readily indict Iran when the next inexplicable attack takes place. Having cornered Iran like a hunted animal, Saudi and its allies hope to later pounce on the harried nation without so much as a finger or a plaintive word being lifted by another nation to protect Iran from the coming onslaught.

    1. United States: Much the same as 3 above.
    2. Israel: Much the same as 3. Also, the Israelis have the capacity to mimic Iranian weaponry so that the remnants of the assets used in the attack bear a distinctively (but forged) Iranian signature, thus implying Iranian guilt.

    Before us stands one of the most extraordinary alliances of all times. Pundits speak daily of a clash of cultures and civilizations. The truth is more nuanced. This tripartite grouping features America, where right wing Christians are a major wheel of the ruling party, Saudi Arabia where extremist Wahhabism has great say in governance and Israel where secular and religious Zionism are the most potent political notions in the land.

    Christian, Islamic and Jewish extremism meet and support each other, especially in their animus toward the descendants of the Persian Empire, that bastion of Shi’a Islam.

    However, it is not the Persians’ choice of religion that is the grist of contention; the heat is caused by the inevitable consequences of Iran’s geopolitical position. The combine of America, Israel and Saudi is glued together by oil, land, money and power. These things trump faith. In fact, they are the faith of the amorally pragmatic and of those overly driven by a sleepless ambition.

    Nestled beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf between Iran and Qatar, sits a rather large reservoir of natural gas. Iran wants to construct a pipeline north through its territory then west through friendly Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean to feed European energy consumption. This would strengthen Iranian influence in region and also in Europe. Saudi wants none of this. It wants the pipeline to drive south into its lands. To halt the Iranian plan, the Saudis financed and supplied the radical extremists fighting Syria’s Assad government. A pipeline cannot be constructed through a nation seemingly at war with itself. Saudi engagement in Syria was to stop Iran; its opposition to Assad was a mere byproduct of this larger game. One of the unstated reasons America reneged on the Iranian nuclear deal was to turn the proposed Iranian pipeline into an empty pipe dream.

    Israeli interests coincided with Saudi’s. Israel seeks to hold the Golan Heights, partially as a security buffer and an imperfect roadblock to Iranian supply routes to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli interests also focus on water resources and now the significant oil reserves discovered in the Golan. Unsurprisingly, and though the land is not theirs, the Israelis granted oil exploitation rights to a recently-formed American firm owned by former VP Dick Cheney and other influential members of the American national security establishment.

    Much like Saudi, Israel believes if Syria cannot be engineered into friendly hands then it should forever be in turmoil. America has always reserved Syria for the chopping block. Thus, it was willing to join forces with any group, from the Saudis to Al Qaeda affiliates, to overturn the Syrian government.

    However, due to Russian and Iranian support for Syria, the plan to break that government seems headed toward resounding failure. With that, attention will refocus on Iran as a source of the failure in Syria and as an ever present threat to other aims in the region. Joining them again, America has a longstanding grievance with the Iran. Washington would like nothing better than to cart away the extant Iranian government in a tumbrel.

    The lesson from all of this is that nothing is at it seems. Iran possibly could have authored the Abqaiq attack. However, Tehran’s culpability is not a foregone conclusion. It is also plausible the event was a false flag caper intended to secure the diplomatic isolation of Iran so that it can later be attacked without so much as a whimper from the world community.

    President Trump seeks to avoid war for now. A military excursion would hurt his reelection bid next year. Thus, there is time and space to avert conflict. However, the clock is ticking and the door is closing on the prospects for peace. Somewhere John Bolton sits quietly, smiling to himself, secure in his belief that blood as much as oil will eventually flow. It would be nice I peace prevailed to wipe that smirk from the warmonger’s visage.

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  • ‘Church leaders should allow members know God on their own’

    Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Christian Benefits, Pastor Wole Olarinde, spoke with Sunday Oguntola on the 20th anniversary of the publication and sundry matters. Excerpts:

    How has it been running a Christian magazine in the last 20 years?

    The experience is exciting and intriguing. It is exciting in the sense that the publication has afforded one the opportunity to know more about the Church, church leaders, the Christian faith of diverse denominations, practices and beliefs.

    Another exciting aspect of the one year experience is that it has helped one to develop a passion for souls, particularly the unreached souls on missions, the poor and the dejected in the society. It has widened my horizon on missions and deepened my interest in missionary activities.

    This has given me further challenges to extend the scope of the magazine coverage beyond those areas where the gospel is already known by most people to the areas where the gospel has not been heard at all. The intriguing aspect of the experience includes the lack of interest of most Christians in reading or buying Christian news publications.

    This is quite discouraging, particularly if the publication does not belong to their church or does not put the photograph of their General Overseer on its cover, most of them won’t buy it. This is why Christians Benefits often loads its cover with many photographs of pastors. All the same we thank God who has given us the grace to press on irrespective of whether we put the photographs of some G.Os on our cover or not.

    But why do most church members want the photographs of their general overseers on the magazine cover?

    This is not far from the posture of most general overseers. Directly or indirectly, many general overseers make their followers reverence them as God. It’s a pity most Christians today worship their general overseers instead of God. They see their GO as the only person whose messages they should read, whose photographs alone they should see, whose prophecies alone they should believe, whose teachings alone they should imbibe and whose warnings alone they should yield to.

    It’s quite disheartening that most Christians today don’t know or enjoy their liberty in Christ Jesus through the knowledge of the scriptures Even, when some general overseers preach messages out of the flesh instead of the spirit of God, they would believe everything rather than searching the scriptures on their own or by reading Christian news publications to verify the spiritual truthfulness of those messages from the flesh.

    They are simply satisfied with whatever the GO feeds them; even it they are errors. 11 Timothy 2:15 says “Study to shew thyself approved unto God….” And what are we to study as Christians to show ourselves approved unto God if not the Bible and evangelistic Christian publications like Christian Benefits magazine?

    But some churches feel that they must protect their members from reading publications or sermons that are against their doctrines? Isn’t that proper?

    It’s sheer hypocrisy. If they want to monitor what their followers read, would they be with them in their houses where they read anything that catches their fancy? Many churches promote and encourage pretenses and hypocrisy. And that’s why lots of Christians have dubious or camouflage personalities.

    The characters most Christians put up in the church are quite different from the one they put up outside the church. God has given everyone the will power to make independent decisions and form individual opinions based on personal convictions. Churches should not only allow but also encourage their members to read any Christianity-oriented publications to help develop themselves in areas their churches are lacking.

    Church leaders shouldn’t enslave their members to their ideologies without their individual convictions. Joshua allowed the Israelites to exercise their self-will (conviction) in Joshua 24:15, when he told them, “And if it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day that ye will serve….. But as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

    It is when the people are convicted by certain doctrines that they can be self-willed to take decisions. But when you want to force one belief or doctrine on the people by monitoring or guiding what they read without their own personal conviction by studies, you make pretenders out of them. You cannot compare a student who reads only the books his teacher recommends with a student who reads other books, journals, notes, periodicals and other materials that are relevant to his studies beyond what his teacher recommends.

    Churches should encourage their members to exercise their self-will independently. After all on the judgment day, they are not going to be accountable to their pastors but to God, based on their individual decisions on earth and not the decisions of their pastors.

    Churches should allow their members to enjoy their liberty in Christ Jesus instead of the idiosyncrasy of my pastor says, my pastor says that is enslaving many Christians. Lots of Christians can’t pray alone without their pastors. They can’t worship God without their pastors.

    Whenever their pastor is absent in church the congregation drastically reduces because most pastors have built their churches round their personalities. And when they die their flock scatters. Several vibrant churches have died with their founders/pastors.

    How has publishing widened your horizon on missions?

    When I discovered how rural missionaries suffer hardship on mission fields whilst winning souls for Jesus with inadequate funds and ill-health, I wept. My heart bled. They are people who are really doing the work of soul winning (evangelism) unlike town and city evangelists who are merely engaging in recycling activities as evangelism. As a result of my encounter with rural missionaries I developed a passion for missions.

    What do you mean by recycling activities?

    What I mean is that in Lagos and other big cities across Nigeria, most of the new converts in many churches are not actually new converts. Most of the supposed “new converts” previously belonged to some churches as members.

    So they have heard the gospel before though they may not have a serious walk with the Lord. So, what one sees in town or city churches is movement of people from church to church in cycle seeking miracles, healing, prosperity and breakthrough from one church to another.

    The so-called “new converts” in the churches are recycled converts who had previously been converted in other churches. You don’t call such people new converts but backsliding or miracle-seeking converts. The new souls that should be evangelised as new converts are on the mission fields. Unfortunately the people who are making efforts on mission fields are not being encouraged

    Why are you so emotive about the plight of rural evangelists or missionaries?

    First, unreached souls that should be converted are on the rural mission fields. Unfortunately, most of people who are making efforts towards the unreached in rural areas are not being encouraged, especially by most city churches. Most city churches are only committed to wasting fund to building magnificent cathedrals and camp grounds and competing with one another; whereas most of these hapless missionaries to rural fields lack even microphones to preach the gospel to the lost souls.

    Most city churches have fleet of missionary buses with missionary boldly inscribed on them but only use such vehicles for transportation of their members to the Owambe parties of their rich members.

    Many churches collect missionary offering but how many percentages of such offering do they channel to rural missionaries to support their missions? Some churches collect missionary offering, yet they don’t have a single rural missionary they sponsor.

    All these irk me and opened me up to what missionary activities mean in relation to the propagation of the gospel. As a Christian media ministry it is our duty to awakening churches to their primary responsibility of getting the gospel preached to everywhere according Jesus’ commandment to us believers in Mark 16:15-20 and not church conventions or anniversaries and others that are not the basic cause of the gospel.

    Churches should channel their energy to conversion of souls in the rural fields by encouraging rural missionaries with adequate funding. Instead, some wealthy town or city preachers would prefer organising Church growth seminars, Leadership conferences, Anointing Impartation, Breakthrough services etc without such programmes aimed at winning the lost souls even those in their midst.

    Rural fields are full of missionaries toiling in pains yet some church leaders in town and cities are sitting atop billions of dollars; building parishes and branches like bird nests and universities that the poor member of their churches cannot afford for their children.

    God is laying something in my heart to assist missionaries in raising funds for them to enhance missionary activities to the unreached in the rural fields.

    So, how did you conceive the idea of publishing a Christian magazine?

    God works in mysterious ways. Immediately I finished my NYSC programme in 1998, I went into a private marketing communication business with some close friends. After a year doing the business, the youth fellowship of my local church invited me to develop and edit a journal for the church.

    Incidentally, I’m always critical of some activities in churches generally. And here is an assignment given to me to promote my church activities. However, I accepted the assignment. And along the line God launched me into his purpose my life with the vision of Christian Benefits magazine.

    The Lord first arranged my engagement by Media Review magazine. On my first day at Media Review, God drew my attention to a book on the desk of my editor, Mr. Lanre Idowu, on how to run a small newspaper business with a little capital base. I digested the book and it was helpful in starting Christian Benefits magazine few months after my appointment at Media Review.

    I started Christian Benefits with my next salary of N5, 500 at Media Review.

    How is that possible to start a newspaper business with such meagre capital?

    All I did was as soon as God laid it upon my heart to start the magazine, immediately I collected my next salary of N5, 500 I started running around for the materials, interviews, articles, news and testimonies etc for the maiden edition of the magazine. Until I left Media Review few months after I started Christian Benefits, I sunk my salaries into running the magazine.

    How was that convenient, considering your other needs that required money?

    It was just the grace of God.  I had to deny myself comfort. God instructed me in September 1999 to start the magazine and I launched the maiden edition in January 2000. Few months later, I was relieved of my appointment at Media Review. I started as the only reporter, researcher, circulation officer, re-writer, proofreader, librarian, marketer, advert canvasser, editor and everything of the magazine.

    I avoided engaging staff because I didn’t have money to pay salaries. The only time I employed three people to assist me in the circulation I got my fingers burnt as I couldn’t pay their salaries any longer two months after I engaged them. So I had to disengage them and continued carrying my cross alone. I’m very popular with my flowery circulation bag that I sling on my shoulders to churches sell the magazine.

    Wasn’t that cumbersome for you alone to perform all these responsibilities?

    One should just thank the Lord for His favour and grace that gives me the strength and good health to do all these alone. I will repeat. The life and story of Pastor Sunny Obazu-Ojeagbase on how he started his chains of magazines really encouraged me.

    I don’t believe one should wait till he has millions before one can venture into any business, especially if the venture has the backing of God like Christian Benefits. With focused determination, absolute faith in God and his favour, self-denial and perseverance, one can start any business, no matter how the little capital base is

    Don’t you sometimes feel scared of the preponderance failure of Christian news publications to survive for long before they disappear? Also, don’t you sometimes feel threatened by already established Christian news publications that boast of strong capital bases and resources to operate with?  

    I have never for once felt scared of anything whatsoever because I’m called of God. The Lord who commissioned His assignment into my hands has always been with me. I’m a die-hard and rugged optimist. I don’t believe that because some people failed in some certain ventures, the same may be my own plight.

    No, I don’t nurse such fears! Again, I avoid competitions. I don’t compete with anyone. I don’t envy anyone. I walk at my own pace. I keep to my originality. I don’t listen to criticism or condemnation. All these do not make me get scared of whatever any other person is doing or make me feel threatened.

    When some people compare Christian Benefits with others, I don’t bother myself. I just concentrate on doing my best within the available resources at my disposal. Most of these publications people tend to compare Christian Benefits with operate with millions, adequate personnel, materials and other required resources.

    Christian Benefits started with N5, 500 in 2000 and it survives till now. If we had similar opportunities in terms of funds and personnel like the mentioned publications, it will sure do better than what its situation.

    But all the same Christian Benefits has its own faithful and loyal readers.  So, we are not threatened by what other Christian news publications are doing. I’m not competing with anyone because I’m called of God.

  • Fowokan emerges chairperson of SWIT

    Mrs. Titilayo Fowokan takes over the mantle of leadership at the Society of Women in Taxation (SWIT) as the third chairperson of Lagos state chapter.

    Speaking at the investiture ceremony, Mr. Albert Folorunsho, Managing Consultant, Pedabo, said global tax drive has become a necessity because multinational enterprise are taking advantage of loopholes in local laws as well as exploiting gaps in taxation treaties where they exist for their benefits.

    Folorunsho stated that each country has its own tax system defined by its jurisdiction and national tax laws and the organisation of economic cooperation and development (OECD) and the United Nations tax model convention provide guides on how sovereign state should interact with each other.

    Speaking further Folorunsho said that dividend tax, multiplicity of taxation by various organs of government, lack of advance tax rulings on certain issues to provide to investors, wrong interpretation and application of tax laws, ambiguity in tax laws are some of the issues negatively affecting foreign direct investment in Nigeria.

  • Army begins trial of Ex-GOC over missing 400m

    Army begins trial of Ex-GOC over missing 400m

  • Politics of police and policing

    The matter of state police is, in every sense, political and should not be joined by the IG.

    Words that have been in circulation almost daily in the last one year include security, police as a system, and policing as methods of sustaining law enforcement and public order round the clock. For example, since June, state police and community policing have formed substantial part of public discourse. In June the governors went back and forth on the importance of state police and even met with President Buhari on this matter. At this meeting the governors demonstrated that not all the 36 governors have agreed on establishment of state police.

    Further, President Buhari himself set up a special Panel to investigate allegations of human rights abuse by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad. The committee recommended among other things establishment of state and local government police to address security challenges in the country. Later, the federal government set up another committee on Strengthening of Internal Security and Community Policing in Nigeria. This committee submitted its report a few days ago, at a ceremony that included the Inspector General of Police (IGP), also a member of the committee.

    At the ceremony, the IGP doubled as police professional and policymaker when he stated: “Because the advantages of community policing outweigh the idea of state policing, the disadvantages of state policing are more than the perceived advantages. So, the way to go is by community policing, which will take care of all the demands and agitation for state police.”  This statement brings to a head several side comments by the IGP since his appointment to show opposition to multilevel policing or establishment of state police. Such statements by the IGP are likely seen to be needless meddling in political issues.

    Given that the country has had 20 years of post-military rule, it is not too soon for citizens to become sensitive to increasing to propensity of public servants to act as politicians or policymakers. In the last one year, the IG has done so much of that, and more so when he made the statement that community policing is better than state police or that the recommendation by the Committee on Strengthening of Internal Security and Community Policing to adopt community policing system in response to rising insecurity is an indication that such recommendation has put paid to the matter of state police.

    The tendency by public servants to appropriate the authority of elected politicians should be diminishing rather than growing in a post-military democratic dispensation. Inspector-General’s statement that commencing community policing automatically renders calls for state or local government police superfluous is an illustration of a public servant acting in the capacity of politician or source of public policies.

    In a democracy, politics, in respect of police systems or organisation of police, is concerned with functions and activities of elected officials involved determining best options for police systems for the country and its constituent groups. In The Politics of Policing: Between Force and Legitimacy, Mathieu Deflem argues in the introduction to the book, “The Perpetual Politics of Policing,” that political influence on police is a moving target and will always involve questions regarding the authority of police to rely on force and its legitimacy in terms of the support police enjoy from the citizenry. He further argues that police legitimacy can be enhanced by greater alignment of the police with citizens.

    With respect to the controversy over the need for multilevel policing and for state and local government police, it is premature for anybody to claim that community policing as currently conceived by the National Police is more efficient and effective than state police, as the IG has done recently. First, a nascent community police system could not have experienced the level of latitudinal and longitudinal research needed to make such claims. Second, what constitutes legitimacy in the organisation of a police system lies more with citizens than a single person or a group of persons engaged in policing or other paramilitary engagements. Logically, organisation of police system precedes policing, its operations, and personnel appointed by political figures to drive such operations.

    We may be at the risk of miseducating younger generations about the culture of democracy and good governance if our political leaders fail to refrain technocrats, at whatever level and in whatever agency, from appropriating the power of elected officials on matters that are constitutionally best determined by democratic debate. Nothing is impossible in democracy except things that citizens declare to be impossible. It is thus wrong of the IG to use recommendations from a committee of which he was a member to dismiss the importance of calls for state police by stating that a committee’s recommendations are enough to make demands for state police futile. Though the IG is free as a citizen to express his view on any public issue, modern statecraft and ethics demand that he be neutral on debates by citizens for new additional levels of policing. The boss of a police system created by political figures ought to refrain from comments that are likely to present him as partisan in a nation-wide search for the best form of policing.

    Operationally, the IG may have total control over the way the police act but as a professional he has no power to dictate on ideological matters, which the choice of police systems in a multicultural polity is. The basis of legitimacy for any form of policing does not and should not end with what the IG thinks about any debate about what types of police exist in a country; it is the degree of agreement among citizens or communities about the relevance of existing organisation of the police to citizens’ values. This is more important in a multicultural society where policing is also a part of the culture of those being policed.

    There is need for a clear dividing line between playing operational and political roles. Leaders of agencies deserve to be given all the autonomy they need to play the role of law enforcers and public order sustainers. But they should not be made to feel that they can make political statements about what concerns citizens, more so when such concerns address lack of capacity of the central police to protect citizens and their property.

    The IG ought to limit himself to operational matters where he is the boss, without meddling in political matters. A presidential committee on any aspect of public life in a democracy is political even though it may concern the matter of law enforcement. Joining in the debate about state or local government police is a political matter reserved for the presidency, Minister of Police, and the legislature and the citizenry. The matter of state police is, in every sense, political and should not be joined by the IG. The IG’s statement: “The disadvantages of the state police are more than the perceived advantages so the way to go is by community policing, which will take care of all the demands and the agitations of state police” is rather partisan in a country where even governors are calling for state police.