The Senate on Tuesday commenced the screening of the newly appointed service chiefs.
The screening, which is being held behind closed doors, follows President Muhammadu Buhari’s letter to the Senate, seeking confirmation of the Service Chiefs’ appointment.
Details later…
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I listened to a TV debate on the Boko Haram insurgency this week and I was impressed by the quality of the debate as well as the sincerity of the contributors on the floor of our senate. Indeed I was very pleasantly surprised by what I saw and heard. It reminded me of history and the famed debates of the Senators of Ancient Rome when Rome was a Republic under the Caesars who later subverted the senate and turned it into a Republican Monarchy with the help of the Praetorian Guards, the elite military corps then responsible for the personal security of the Emperor of the Roman Empire, which was the official title of the Ancient Caesars.
The Nigerian Senate later adopted a resolution that announced and accepted that Nigeria is at war with Boko Haram because it has seized swathes of Nigerian territory and all hands must be on deck to prosecute that war. The motion debated and adopted at the Senate was – Threat to National Sovereignty and Territorial integrity of Nigeria by insurgents. The Senate leadership is to meet the President urgently with the resolution adopted from the motion. At a stage during the debate the Senate President David Mark even said the issue of elections was not on the table as what was important was for Nigeria to prosecute the war successfully with all hands on deck. Which on the surface could mean that the
Senate was resolute and willing on prosecuting the war, a situation which the debate and events outside it would seem to contradict in a rather surprising way. This is because a war needs to be prosecuted by the army under the command of its Commander in Chief and the war performance of the Nigerian Army took such a battering from the comments of Senators at the debate such that it is apparent that there is no love lost between the two institutions to the chagrin of the Senate President who tried to paper the wall of senatorial disenchantment, with a dexterous use of his high office of coordinator and moderator of debate. I will shed more light on this later.
Let me bring in another global personality facing the dilemma of our Senate President in the prosecution of a war similar to that of Nigeria and Boko Haram. That leader is Turkey’s strongman Reccep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s new executive president and leader of the Islamist AK Party which has been the most successful Islamist party of modern times to have won elections back to back three times in Turkey since 2002. Indeed when the party he founded in 2001 won its first elections in secular and army protected Turkey in 2002, he could not become PM immediately because he was found guilty of having publicly recited an Islamist poetry and that was against Turkey’s law at that time. It was because AK had a majority in Parliament that the law was changed and he became PM while Abdullah Gul who was PM then became president, albeit ceremonial.
Now Erdogan’s party has silenced the army over its traditional secular watch on Turkey’s politics and jailed some former military presidents for staging military coups. Yet his AK Party kept winning elections such that he was able to get a referendum to change the constitution to a presidential one and now he is the executive president of Turkey. He has however never hidden his love of Islam and the fact that Turkey can be Islamist, European and modern. He condemned the regime of President Assad of Syria when it started killing its people and has passed resolution through Turkey’s Parliament declaring war on Islamic State. When asked to lead the way as a regional leader however, the bold and resolute Erdogan suddenly developed feet of clay this week. Instead he is finding excuses. He has asked the US to declare a no fly zone over Turkey to protect it from the Syrian Airforce. This was a Turkey ready before to take on Syria, solo, at the beginning of the Syrian crisis. He is reluctant to arm Turkish Kurds to fight Islamic State because he feared they may use the weapons against Turkey later. Which could be a legitimate fear but an expedient risk that he must take now given the location and theatre of war in the region. The truth is that Erdogan is yet to reach that breaking point that the Saudis, the Egyptians and the UAE have reached in not only drawing line in the sand for Islamic State but deciding it has breached it and fighting it to save the corporate and global image of Islam as a peaceful religion. Which really is a real pity for a man who has done so much to give Islam such a successful democratic image and competitive spirit in a region which is very replete with authoritarianism and violence.
This brings us back to the drift of the debate on the motion on war in the senate this week. There were three strands of contributions. One was from senators whose territories were under the siege and capture of Boko Haram. They begged the rest of Nigeria, the federal might to come to their aid and they said this with dignity and pride. They did not cry. They could have. But as a fellow Nigerian I wept for them. A Senator said Maiduguri is now the biggest refugee centre in the world from people fleeing into it from the Boko Haram ceaseless onslaught with all public buildings occupied. The second type of speech warned that it was the turn of the North East now but it could spread to the rest of the nation especially Benue the state of the Senate President. The third strand of contribution berated the army for not adding value in protecting the nation and prosecuting the war while it called on retired army generals to rally round to save the nation in prosecuting a successful war against Boko Haram. I am sure that you will agree with me that the quality of the debate was high and could rival that of ancient Rome. But then let us look backwards a bit in our history to see the way forward in fighting this Boko Haram war.
Ever since the civil war ended we have had coups led by army generals and the story is that the army has always been in control with the Airforce and Navy as supporting casts largely. There is no need to mention any particular junta by name. It is however sufficient to mention that the air force budget was generally muzzled to prevent the rise of air power for domestic coups. Now that airsrikes are the modern currency of air power as ably demonstrated by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE not to mention the Almighty US which calls the shots from the air while dodging land battles, the Boko Haram operates with the knowledge that we have no air power to destroy it and operates on our territory with impunity. A Senator at the debate said he can not say out what Nigerian soldiers guarding his area said of his area command. That really sums up our impotence in terms of air power and morale of our troops. How to resolve that should be a national political and military emergency.
There was no doubt that references to the military did not go down well with the Senate President at that debate. But I was impressed with his comment that election was not on the table which meant that this war took priority over the 2015 elections. I was therefore surprised no end to read that the Senate President, former Governor Gbenga Daniel and another person visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo a Board of Trustees Member of the ruling PDP who had developed cold feet over that role to ask him to forgive the party and resume that role. Of course in resuming the BOT role he will be expected to support the re election of the president which caused his hostility before. Or to tell the president to forget that and prosecute the war first? Now again General Obasanjo was a former head of state who although he never planned a coup but was a major beneficiary at the assassination of the late General Murtala Muhammed whom he succeeded as Head of State.
Undoubtedly between the Senate president and the reluctant BOT member of PDP there is enough military, business, political and strategic acumen to make Boko Haram a thing of the past sooner than later. Why the Commander in Chief who listens to both and is beholden to them and their experience for being in power in the first instance, still has to be consulted that we are at war, is still one of the wonders of the modern world to me . Some day I pray fervently that we solve urgently the Boko Haram riddle out of the enigma it has so much become before our very eyes, before it consumes all our thinking faculties. Amen.
Last week, I indicated in this place that the Nigerian Senate had unashamedly become a unit of the Jonathan presidency. I was led to that conclusion by the way senators spoke and behaved over the controversial removal of the CBN governor, not because any of them openly confessed to loving the unparliamentary tactics of hanging Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. But since I made what I at first feared was a sweeping conclusion, ranking senators have openly and proudly acknowledged their attachments to the Jonathan presidency, an identification they have neither bothered to conceal nor explain nor even anchor on any reasonable foundation.
We have both Senators Enyinnaya Abaribe and Victor Ndoma-Egba to thank for opening our eyes. If anyone should say Jonathan did not act within his powers in suspending Mallam Sanusi, argued Senator Abaribe disdainfully, they are making ‘spurious and self-serving’ arguments. Quite right, deadpanned Senator Ndoma-Egba combatively and with a barely disguised hint of exasperation. “Senator Abaribe is the official spokesman of the Senate,” he summed up. He obviously offered this reiteration for effect, in case anyone thought the jaunty senator spoke only his mind and not that of the majority of the Senate. Now that we know where the Senate stands, and how self-assuredly they array themselves against common sense and the people, it is up to us in the next polls to throw them out or watch our democracy get sucked into the autocratic vortex being created by the likes of Dr Jonathan.
The Sanusi affair is of course not the first time the Senate has acted with reactionary zeal and insouciance. They worked hand in glove with the president on the budget and confirmation controversy, and they angrily endorsed the president’s position on the Rivers State affair, even to the extent of turning a blind eye on the indignity meted out to one of their own, Senator Magnus Ibe. At first I thought there was no end to the Senate’s conservatism; now I think there is no end to its reactionary proclivity.
For mischief makers religion is always a useful tool. That point was hammered home again in the Nigerian Senate last week when in the course of retouching a section of the constitution dealing with citizenship lawmakers veered off course.
Today, senators find themselves battling the backlash from outraged Nigerians who say their action opened a loophole for people to legally take child brides.
Although they insist they didn’t lower the age of consent or amend the Child Rights Act, Senate President David Mark has admitted many of his Muslim colleagues were blackmailed into voting a certain way once former Zamfara State Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima introduced religious sentiments.
That a group of people at that level could blithely ignore the serious ramifications, and endorse a clause that is open to all sorts of interpretations, underlines the power of religion.
It is not only in the Senate that badly-managed religion is playing havoc with people’s lives. This Thursday, August 1, a Sharia Court in Bida, Niger State, will rule whether one Charity Uzoechina, a 24-year old student of the Federal Polytechnic in the town, will be allowed to return home to her parents.
The case has been rumbling for months, and revolves around Uzoechina’s alleged renunciation of Christianity and embrace of Islam.
Her father, Raymond Uzoechina, a pastor with The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Abuja, denies his daughter converted to Islam, alleging she was hypnotised and kidnapped, and is being held captive in the palace of the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar.
For his part, the traditional ruler claims Charity, or ‘Aisha’ as she’s now called, was not being held against her will. He has presented legal documents where Charity claims to have converted to Islam and says her father could kill her for the move. That threat ostensibly prodded her to seek protection from the Palace and the Sharia Court.
The court duly obliged, ordering “that the custody of the plaintiff be entrusted in the hand of Etsu Nupe for the time being and the Etsu Nupe should employ a qualified Islamic scholar who will be teaching her and showing her what the Islamic customs is all about and the plaintiff can even be watching and selecting a man of her choice whom she will want to marry as her partner.”
While the Sharia Court is already making marriage plans for her, Charity has dropped out of school and remains holed up in the Etsu Nupe’s palace.
Pastor Uzoechina vehemently denies the version of events as retailed by the palace and the court. On the day when that ruling was given he was not present. He rejects talk that the Emir tried to broker peace between him and his daughter – insisting that the last time he saw Charity she had an emotional breakdown.
“My daughter was crying when we saw her. They never allowed us speak with her. It is not true that the royal father invited me and the girl for talks, with the hope of reconciling us. On March 2, I came to the palace and was taken before the Etsu Nupe. The Etsu Nupe never asked the girl to go back home with me as claimed,” he said in The Nation this week.
In the four months over which this controversy has raged, virtually everyone has had their say. Charity’s father, as is to be expected, has been vocal in expressing his outrage. President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, to whom he ran for help, has been relentless in demanding answers.
His intervention provoked a response from the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). Both the Sharia Court and the Etsu Nupe have also tried to defend themselves. The only missing voice in the hubbub is the most critical – Charity’s.
Third parties have been regaling us with what she said or didn’t say. But this needless controversy can be cleared up in a minute if the lady at the center of the storm would be allowed by those in whose custody she presently is, to speak for herself.
Every side claims to be telling the truth and yet we know there can only be one version of the truth. The only person who can clear things up is not being allowed to speak. All those interested in the unvarnished truth ought to ask why?
Section 38 (1) of the 1999 constitution provides for freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change one’s religion or belief. It also allows us to propagate our religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
However, in canvassing one’s beliefs there’s no room for coercion. Uzoechina’s claim that his daughter was abducted is very grave. Kidnapping is a criminal offence. The fact that neither the parents nor the Etsu Nupe can agree on the circumstances that caused Charity to wind up in the palace ought to attract more than cursory interest from the police. That is assuming they can export the same zeal with which they are ‘enforcing the rule of law’ in Rivers State to probing a matter involving a high profile traditional ruler in Niger State.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) ought also to be very interested for we might just have on our hands an egregious case of violation of a citizen’s rights.
There are issues about the legal process that judicial authorities need to look into. For example, what notion of justice makes it acceptable to drag a Christian before a Sharia Court?
Does any court under our constitution have the power to circumscribe a person’s liberty just to propagate a religious belief? Does any court have the power to assume custody of an adult who has not committed any crime? Under which law can a court commit an adult into the care of a traditional ruler?
We need to understand whether justice is being served in this case or whether this is another manifestation of impunity for which present day Nigeria is becoming notorious.
Uzoechina alleges that he has not received fair hearing. He claims not to have been served notice of hearing and that the same day – March 4, the complaint was presented before court, judgment was given and executed. Those who exercise oversight over the courts ought to investigate this.
We must acknowledge that the individual involved in not a minor but 24 years old. Even then she was living with her parents and was still responsible to them. She may be old enough to take her own decisions – assuming she did indeed convert – but her father and mother were entitled to an explanation. The absence of such a discussion will make any parent suspicious. This is especially so given that reports of forced conversions are rife in the north.
Despite the Etsu Nupe’s protestations there are just too many unanswered questions and posers. As the girl’s father has pointed out, even if Charity wants to practice Islam, it doesn’t have to be under the Emir’s roof. His home is not a government remand center.
This whole business is not positive for the traditional ruler. The Etsu Nupe stool is one of the most respected in the country. He doesn’t need this messy controversy to drag on. He can control the damage being done to his image by setting Charity free.