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Tag: Nigerians

  • Beware of fake news, Minister tells Nigerians in Diaspora

    The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has urged Nigerians in the Diaspora not to believe everything they read on the social media about happenings in the country, saying most of what emanates from the social media is fake news.

    The minister who was addressing the staff of the Nigerian Embassy to the United States in Washington, DC, at the weekend, said they should rely on credible sources for news from home.

    He said the federal government recently launched the National Campaign against Fake News in order to stem the spread of false and misleading information, which is capable of threatening the peace and security of the country.

    The minister, who was in the US to interact with past and current senior US government officials and stakeholders in the US policy on Africa, under the auspices of the think tank Atlantic Council, said the picture being painted in some circles of an ethno-religious crisis in the country was far from the truth.

    According to him, ‘’Despite such crises as the farmers-herders clashes and communal conflicts, Nigerians – for the most part – are living together harmoniously. Nigeria is not at war.’’

    He said the tempo of the killings arising from the farmers-herders crisis was going down, and that the government was committed to ending the incessant clashes once and for all.

  • Stranded Nigerians in Russia back in Abuja

    A nursing mother and 154 out of 230 Nigerian football fans stranded in Russia after the 2018 FIFA World Cup arrived the country on Friday night.

    The stranded football fans including a nursing mother in her mid thirties came through Ethiopian Airline flight number ET-ALP that arrived Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport Abuja at about 9.12 p.m on July 20.

    The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, who was at the airport to monitor their arrival, lauded President Muhammadu Buhari’s effort to ensure their safe return.

    He said that that the President directed that Nigerians, who were stranded in Russia after the 2018 World Cup tournament, should be evacuated immediately.

    According to him,  the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been monitoring the process of the evacuation, which is under the coordination of the Mission of Nigeria in Moscow.

    Pic.28. A cross section of the 155 Stranded Nigerian in Russia going through Immigration routine check during their arrival at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja on Friday (20/7/18) Anthony Alabi/NAN

    He said that 155 stranded Nigerians were cleared to board an Ethiopian Airline flight to Abuja.

    ”The aircraft departed Domodedovo Airport in Moscow with the stranded Nigerians in the afternoon and arrived in Abuja this evening.

    Onyeama said he had been working very closely with the Minister of State for Aviation following President Buhari’s directive on the exercise.

    Some Nigerian football fans who were stranded had besieged the Embassy of Nigeria in Moscow on July 12.

    ”They were among the fans who travelled to the Russian Federation for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Tournament and were stranded after the events due to lack of funds for their upkeep.”

    The minister explained that there was also an allegation that some airline travel agents cancelled return tickets of their customers without informing them.

    He said  President Buhari, however,  gave the directive that they should be evacuated with immediate effect at the expense of the government.
    Onyeama commended the good gesture of Mr President, saying those stranded were never part of government delegates to Russia.

    According to him, the Nigerian Mission had been supportive by making arrangements for the feeding and accommodation of the stranded Nigerians in hostels around Moscow.

    One of the returnees, Bamidele Fatai was full of praises to President Buhari for making their journey possible.

    He also thanked the Nigerian Mission in Moscow for giving them necessary support.

    Another returnee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was swindled by an agent who cancelled his return ticket.

    He said he was in Moscow to support the Nigerian Football Team and to catch fun only to discover that his ticket had been cancelled when he was ready to return home.

  • ‘Foreigners shocked by Nigerians raising millions for ransom’

    Founder, Crime Victims Foundation of Nigeria (CRIVIFON), Mrs Gloria Egbuji, was the only Nigerian among the 198 participants at the 16th International Symposium of the World Society of Victimology, which held at the City University of Hong Kong, between June 10 and 14. Its theme was “Victims and Victimisation: Moving Towards an International Victimology”. Egbuji shares her experience with ADEBISI ONANUGA.

    You recently came back from Hong Kong. Wwhy were you there?

    The Hong Kong trip was a world conference on victims of crimes across the globe. Usually, it comes up once in four years and at such conference, a lot of new researches, issues at international levels concerning crimes and victims are discussed. A lot of people have done researches. It is also a convergence of professors, practitioners in the criminal justice system, who meet to look at problems of crime and victimisation in the world and proffer solutions to them. It is usually an interesting summit because almost like about 198 people from different parts of the world were there and people, who knew crimes like cyber crimes, crimes against the elderly, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking, even refugees, migrants.

    New issues weighed up as to whether you can call a refugee or migrant people, who are running away from their country,  a victim or perpetrator of crime. So, it was a convergence of ideas and a lot of solutions proffered.

    What was the theme of the conference?

    The theme was: “Victims and Victimisation: Moving Towards an International Victimology”. It is an international view of victims, victimisation and criminal activities.

    How many people attended from Nigeria?

    Just me, but there were other people from Africa. From West Africa, were two, from East Africa: Kenya, Zimbabawe and Uganda. I saw people from some other African countries.

    So, what were the takeaways from the conference?

    There were a lot of takeaways. For instance, I presented a paper there on “Kidnapping for Ransom” and during my session people were asking me why and they came up with solutions on how we can deal with kidnapping for ransom. For example, they were shocked that in our country, people can muster $1 million cash, N80 million for ransom. They were thinking that in our country, we have a lot inequalities and that the financial policies of cash transactions also give room for that. And the issue of not being able to catch up with technology was another reason because they found it difficult to believe that they can kidnap someone for one week, with callings with phones, they were not trapped. So, they suggested that we should improve on our technology, tracking systems, improve on our cash economy and reduce cash system because if a kidnapper knows that they are not going to have cash, they would not kidnap people.

    They don’t kidnap in the United States and some western world for instance, they said they never paid money for ransom. And because we have easy way to get cash, that is why it is thriving. I am sure no kidnapper has time for you to go and start using credit card and all that stuff. So, those are some of the new things coming up.

    What about your core area, crime victims?

    Yes, they also came up with issues about victims of crime. They said the criminal justice system across the world focuses more on justice. They are not focusing  on victim justice because they feel that once a crime is committed against the victim, that it is a crime against the state. And once the state deals with the punishment, they don’t care about what happens to the victims of crime. So, they are now thinking that states cannot continue to spend money to arrest the perpetrator, prosecute the perpetrator, send him to prison while nothing happens to the victims. So, they are now saying that there should be a shift within the criminal justice system so that victims of crime can have what they called “Restorative Justice”. What we have in many countries now is retributive justice, which is punitive.

    They are thinking that those who become victims of crime, the state can go a step further to ensure that at least, a kind of compensation and psychological treatment are given to them because when you become a victim, you are so traumatised, you are going through a lot of things, things that can bring you back to normal situation when the crime has not happened, which is not done. So, they are now talking about victim’s justice. Restorative Justice was highly proffered, and the issue of canvassing for victim’s right, compensation for victims was also proffered.

    What other areas of criminal justice administration were considered at the world summit?

    They are coming up with how to reduce congestion in the prisons by making those convicted of minor offences go on community service instead of just piling people in prison. Like in Ikoyi Prison, you find that somebody is there because of his or her inability to meet options of fine of N5,000. I have handled a case involving option of fine of N10,000 and they have been detained for one month.

    So, in cases like that, you subject them to community services to, for instance, clean the High Courts, sweep the hospitals or the roads. They are punished this way because the offences are minor. They also looked at delay in justice delivery, which is more peculiar to us in Nigeria. Delay in justice delivery is not peculiar to most other countries because you can become a perpetrator and they delay you, keeping you in prison for three years for an offence that you were to serve for two years. So, all those issues concerning criminal justice administration were discussed.

    Any new area of crime?

    Yes. They also looked at upcoming crimes, crimes that were not there before like cyber crime, which is now a crime across the world. They still have not been able to nip the issue of cyber crime. Some areas are still left for more researches to be carried out. Cyber crime is an area that is worrisome. But the takeaway for us is that we should look at restorative justice, which our fore fathers practiced before.

    They used it to deal with criminal offenders and it yielded more results and it made for balanced justice for both the victim and the perpetrator. If somebody is stealing in a family, in the traditional setting for instance, the family is shamed and they are not going to allow it. In those kind of situation, they wanted to look at what works and what doesn’t so that there can be a shift and change of narratives in some of the things we are doing.

    On prison decongestion, what do you think of probation and parole system in our criminal justice administration?

    Emphasis was also laid on that at that summit, but in Nigeria now, if we talk about probation, we begin to ask about the facilities that we have to even reform prisoners that will not make them to go out and commit crimes again. Probation is very good, but again, we noted at that summit that in a country where inequality is high, you cannot stop crime.

    In Nigeria, we have a lot of inequalities. Some people are very rich and many people are very poor and when things get to a level, people have to survive and so you see a lot of survival crime. That is why people are creating all sorts of ways to survive because they want to survive. So, probation can be a very good thing if it works. But now, there are so many things within the prison system, which we don’t know, which we ought to do but we are not doing.

    At the Ikoyi Prison, whose capacity is supposed to be about 800, as at last month, they had over 1,400 inmates and out of them only about 400 are convicted inmates. So, when we talk about probation now, we have to deal first with awaiting trials, which is our major problem causing congestion in the prison. You can’t talk about these things without talking about the entire justice system. Decongestion of prisons starts from what the courts send to them. Most of the cases the courts are not dealing with would remain there waiting for Ministry of Justice’s advice. So, when you look at what is happening at the Ministry of Justice and at the judiciary, it affects the prisons. The prison is just a dumping ground. But there is no doubt that probation is a very good way to deal with prison congestion.

    How do you intend to ensure that all these takeaways get to the government and the public, especially as the government was not represented?

    I would have loved to have a conference to sell the ideas of what we got from the summit. I know we have to involve the mass media, but I know the media is not cheap. To get it out now is to continue to talk about it and maybe sometimes, like when we were talking about gunshot wound victims that hospitals should treat them, we waited for a very famous person from the media to be shot. Bayo Ohu, an Editor of The Guardian was shot and killed in his house at Okota, Lagos.

    He went to the hospital for treatment, but they refused to treat him. So, Bayo Ohu died and it became headlines. We used that opportunity to continue to raise our voice and we were there campaigning for victims of gunshot to be treated without police report and then report later. The President signed that bill into law last year which is good. People can now go to hospital and be treated without Police report.

    My intention is to make presentations to the Federal Ministry of Justice, but I would first of all continue to talk to the public through the media to see whether they can help me spread the news until it gets to the policy makers. They are things that they are not thinking about.

    The government is not concerned about victim justice just because they don’t understand it. Like you now, if you lose your phone and report it to the police, you don’t get your phone back. The people who stole it must have terrorised you, the police will just go and prosecute the case, they don’t care whether you got your phone  back, they don’t even care what happened to you, whether you went through trauma, nobody cares. They don’t even inform you about what is going on in your case. So, they need victims for success in criminal justice.

  • CBN to Nigerians: destroy, spray banknotes, go to jail

    THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)  has issued warning against spraying, selling and mutilation of naira notes, a criminal offence, which  the bank said attracts five years imprisonment.

    Expressing worry over the act, which it said is becoming common practice among Nigerians, the apex bank said anyone caught would henceforth be made to face the full wrath of the law .

    It  assured marketers, merchants, shopping malls and supermarkets of the bank’s continuous injection of huge volumes of banknotes into the circulation.

    The development, according to the Acting Director, Currency Operations Department, CBN, Mrs. Priscilla Eleje, was to preserve the pride of the country and  ease difficulties being encountered by the traders and customers occasioned by the inadequate circulation of the lower denomination banknotes like N200, N100, N50, N20, N10 and N5.

    Mrs. Eleje, who was represented at the public sensitsation and enlightenment campaign at Alesinloye market by a Deputy Director of the bank, Mrs. Olufolake Ogundero, added that the bank recognises the important role markets play in economic transaction, hence the need for ease accessibility of the lower denominations to carry out economic transactions.

    She said: “It is a criminal offence punishable by six months imprisonment or a fine of N50,000 or both to sell, spray or mutilate the banknotes. It is also a criminal offence which attracts five years imprisonment without an option of fine for anybody to counterfeit the naira. Naira is our pride as a country. So, respect it.”

    The leader of the market women, Mrs. Labake Lawal, assured the CBN of the cooperation of her members, stressing that “we will comply strictly with the agreed guidelines and utilise the banknotes for the intended purpose”.

     

     

     

  • If those Thais were Nigerians

    Sir: It happened in Thailand. A group of stubborn boys decided to go into a cave after football training. And their government deployed all resources needed to get them out alive. If it is Nigeria, we will sit down and analyse why those boys shouldn’t have gone into the caves in the first place. We will make plans to sack and punish that their coach for leading those small-small boys astray. We will wait and pray that they return alive.

    At the beginning of the rescue mission, helicopters were used for aerial surveillance in order to locate the best place to drill down to get the boys out. That wasn’t very helpful. Soldiers were then brought in to check for a possible passage down to the caves but the nature of the terrain rendered the foot-soldiers-option less useful.

    Again, this Thai government does not know what to do with taxpayers’ money. They resorted to using divers. With this option, they needed equipment to help pump out water from the cave.

    My mind raced to the Benue State University Teaching Hospital Makurdi the only teaching hospital in my state of Benue. Equipment there are virtually all broken down. I witness a case of a man who needed an emergency MRI Scan to determine the level of damage to his waist bones for treatment, only for the hospital to refer him to Jos or Abuja because the machine at BSUTH was broken down without a backup machine. The man asked his son to wheel him back to his village in Gungul and wait so he can die there in peace. He could not afford the expenses of travelling to Jos, paying for accommodation, feeding and then eventually doing his scan before returning to BSUTH for treatment.

    Back to our story of the 12 boys and their coach, the authorities didn’t hesitate to invite international divers to help with the rescue mission. Indeed they got help but ultimately, the Thai Navy was in charge. For my country, when disaster happens, we first deny it. Whether it is natural or manmade, we will initially deny it. When we finally accept that indeed, there was disaster, we must change the figures. The figure will depend on which divide we belong. If we are in government, we will definitely reduce the casualty figure so that it will not embarrass our government. When we are on the victims’ side, we will inflate the figure in order to corner more of the benefits of disaster such as relief materials. This is Nigeria!

    As I looked at the efforts made by the Thai government to get 13 of its citizens trapped in a cave out and alive, I became jealous and wished that the government of Nigeria at different levels will also stand up for its citizens in their moment of need to protect and rescue us from whatever danger that may befall us. Hundreds of citizens are killed in cold blood repeatedly across the country and nothing happens to those who commit such heinous crimes. No one is ever punished beyond the rhetoric of “we will bring perpetrators to book”.

    On Tuesday, all 12 Thai boys and their coach were rescued after 17 days in a cave. There were cheers around the Tham Luang cave system as the dozens of divers and hundreds of other rescue workers involved in the operation left the site. In the nearby city of Chiang Rai, the news was greeted by the honking of car horns while people gathered outside the hospital broke into applause. This is the kind of atmosphere that breeds patriotism. Citizens know that their government and people will give all it takes to keep them safe from harm.

     

    • Hangeior Degarr Benue State University, Makurdi

  • Coalition lacks agenda for Nigerians, says Moghalu

    Presidential aspirant of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) Kingsley Moghalu, has described the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) as lacking the agenda to improve the lives of Nigerians.

    In a statement yesterday, Moghalu said: “It is interesting to note the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and over 30 other parties. On the face of it, it is a legitimate move; after all, we are in a democracy.  However, we must be clear about what it represents: power for the sake of power, without any real agenda to improve the lives of Nigerians.

    “The question Nigerians must ask is this: How have the parties involved changed? Has PDP purged itself of its bad actors that led to its downfall in the first place? Have these other parties demonstrated any true commitment to an open or transparent democracy? asks Moghalu.

    He added:  “We’ve watched this film before and know how it ends. For those who want a true, lasting democracy, now is the time to join forces and square up against the old guard. It is time for those who truly want to fix this nation to realise we must build a coalition of progressives that can truly lead this nation, beyond any one person, beyond any one group. This is about a Nigeria that works for all. This is a Nigeria that – for once – will deliver victory for the people,” he said.

  • Winning the anti-graft battle

    Not a few Nigerians in the past three years have doubted the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption fight. They found it difficult to see its toughness and deep bite against corruption in the country.

    They could not help but compare Buhari’s fight against corruption under his military rule in the early 1980s and the fierceness of the battle in the past three years.

    This set of Nigerians believed that Buhari has really lost the steam to completely flush out corruption in the country. They have wondered that the latest Buhari’s anti-graft battle was essentially the exertions of a toothless bulldog. Their argument was based on the fact that no tangible number of corrupt Nigerians have been convicted and sent to jail in the past three years.

    This, they have noted, has made corruption practices to even fester under the current administration rather than subsiding.

    The fight has also been termed selective by critics, who believe that it is only targeted at members of the opposition parties.

    Apart from denying any selectiveness in the anti-graft battle, the Buhari administration has also continued to raise the alarm that corruption has been fighting back.

    The fight against corruption in the last three years, the government said had not really moved the way expected because of the enormous resources in the hands of looters, which have been deployed against the anti-graft war.

    The anti-graft battle, it also noted, could not move very fast like under the military rule because of the respect for democracy and the rule of law.

    To give the anti-graft battle more bite, President Buhari last week introduced another dimension: tracking the corrupt and their cash with a view to making it difficult for them to sabotage the anti-graft fight.

    He gave a hint of what was to come last week Wednesday while answering questions during the visit of Namibian President Hage Geingob to the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    Buhari had said, “We are pursuing people who have declared assets. But we find out that they have much more than they have declared. We follow them through their bank accounts to the companies they formed to the contracts they got. Sometimes they swear to Almighty God that their structures that cannot develop feet and run away does not belong to them. Then they are confronted with their bank accounts.

    “Again, using my experiences when I was arrested and detained, people were given back what they have appropriated. This time around, I said we are going to sell them and put the money into the treasury and I will see whoever comes after that will have the courage to take money from the treasury and give to anybody.

    “So, we are winning, but it’s very difficult under this multi-party democracy system. And we are getting the cooperation of countries.

    “We are trying to sell the assets wherever we find them and bring the money into the Nigerian treasury.” he said

    Noting that his administration would soon reorganize the nation’s judiciary to boost fight against corruption in the country, he added: “We are going to dedicate some judges to deal with corruption cases and try to put forward and prosecute all those that investigations proved that they have questions to answer.

    “So that is what I’m telling you that we haven’t given up; we are doing our best and we will recover as much as humanly possible,” he said.

    Barely 24 hours after that remark, the President took a step further by signing Executive Order No. 6 of 2018 ‘on the Preservation of Assets Connected with Serious Corruption and other Relevant Offences’ towards freezing assets  of suspected looters.

    While signing the order at the Council Chamber of the State House last Thursday, Buhari said “It has thus become necessary to re-kit and re-tool our arsenal to be able to effectively tackle corruption’s perilous counter-attack against the Nigerian State.

    “Accordingly, the Federal Government of Nigeria has declared a national emergency to deal with that crisis. In this regard, the Federal Government of Nigeria in line with its anti-corruption strategy seeks to ensure that the ends of justice is not defeated or compromised by persons involved in a case or complaint of corruption.

    “It is in consequence of this that I have decided to issue the Executive Order No. 6 of 2018 to inter alia restrict dealings in suspicious assets subject to investigation or inquiry bordering on corruption in order to preserve such assets from dissipation, and to deprive alleged criminals of the proceeds of their illicit activities which can otherwise be employed to allure, pervert and/or intimidate the investigative and judicial processes or for acts of terrorism, financing of terrorism, kidnapping, sponsorship of ethnic or religious violence, economic sabotage and cases of economic and financial crimes, including acts contributing to the economic adversity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria  and against the overall interest of justice and the welfare of the Nigerian State,” he said.

    The President went on: “Therefore, in order to preserve Nigeria’s political and economic systems, and the continuous progress of the Nigerian State from the serious threat of corruption, I call on all stakeholders, and indeed every Nigerian to give effect to this Executive Order.

    “Agencies of the Federal Government in consultation with the Attorney General of the Federation should identify and adopt best practices, and develop strategies for action.

    “The fight against corruption is one that must be fought by everyone wherever corruption rears its head.” he stated

    The leading opposition party in the country, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a statement on Friday by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, criticised the Executive Order.

    Describing it as illegal, unconstitutional, reprehensible and in total disregard to the provisions of the Constitution, he said: “Therefore, President Buhari’s unilateral Executive Order is a travesty of justice and rule of law, as it vehemently seeks to hijack and usurp the powers of both the legislature and the courts and vest it on himself so that he can use same at will, as a political instrument, to haunt, traumatize, harass and victimize perceived political opponents.

    “In other words, Mr. President wants to change our democratic governance to a military regime, in line with his lamentation, two days ago, that the fight against corruption will be better under a military regime than under a democracy.

    “It is instructive to emphasize that the PDP is not in any way opposed to the fight against corruption. Rather, the party holds that the imposition of this Executive Order, which is radically at variance with the provisions of the constitution, is totally unacceptable.

    “PDP takes this Executive Order 6 of 2018 as a reenactment of the obnoxious Decree 2 of 1984, which incidentally was also an enactment under then military Head of State headed by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, and this must not be permitted in our current democratic dispensation.

    “If allowed, this Order will confer limitless powers on Mr. President, whose administration’s penchant for violation of rules and order already suggests a readiness for autocracy and a drive towards fascism.

    “In a democracy, the role of the executive arm of government is to enforce court orders/judgments handed down based on the interpretation of existing laws. Any suggestion to the contrary, as clearly intended by this Executive Order, is totally an aberration and inconsistent with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    “We invite Nigerians and the international community to note the deliberate attempts by the Buhari administration to side-step the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), usurp the powers of the legislature, the judiciary and impose an autocratic regime on our nation.

    “The PDP therefore charges the judiciary and the legislature to save our dear nation and her people from an imminent fascism by rejecting this obnoxious Executive Order.

    “Nigeria is a democratic state run by the dictates of the law and the constitution and not by the rule of the thumb of any elected officer.

    “Already, our lawyers are considering legal action against the Federal Government on the illegality of Mr. President’s action in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.” he added

    While the battle against corruption in the remaining last one year of the first term of Buhari’s administration should not be selective and not for witch-hunt, corruption definitely cannot be allowed to kill Nigeria.

    The fight should be taken to a higher level where every Nigerian will be made to think twice before venturing to loot the treasury.

    The commonwealth of Nigerians must be preserved at all costs for the generality of Nigerians and development of the nation.

     

  • Nigerians urged to stop hate speeches

    Nigerians have been advised to stop hate speeches as the country approaches another general elections.

    The advice was given by the President of the Muslim Community of Lagos State,  Professor Tajudeen Gbadamosi, during the inauguration of its executive committee at the Lagos Central Mosque.

    He said  the country needed peace now and hate speeches could cause problems before elections.

    Prof Gbadamosi called for religious tolerance and challenged other states to copy Lagos where Muslims and Christians are doing everything together.

    Members of the committee are Prince Tajudeen Olusi, Bashorun Macfoy and Tajudeen Uzamat. Professor Gbadamosi also decried the high rate of consumption of hard drugs by youths in the country. He charged parents to find time for their children because they are the future of the family and the country.

    Professor Gbadamosi assured the Muslim community in Lagos that the committee members would do their best to their basic duty in promoting Islam in the state and country in general.

    In his message, the Chief Imam of Lagos, Sheik Sulaimon Abu Nolah charged the committee to serve with honesty and good intention.

    He reminded them that “people are expecting results from you, so you need to work arduously.

    Also, the Baba Adini of Lagos, Alhaji Afees Abu, described the work of the committee as that of jihad and prayed for Allah’s guidance for the committee members.

    Baba Adini charged them to make the proposed Lagos Muslim University a reality.

     

  • Federal Republic of I don’t Care people

    SIR: The growing fear of insecurity and the consequent worthlessness of lives of Nigerians have been further affirmed by the deaths recorded across the country last week: (Plateau (over 200 lives), Lagos (over 10 lives) and Ibadan (five lives).

    It is not the killings of people in Benue, Zamfara, Plateau, Ekiti, Ondo and Nasarawa that foreground the worthlessness of lives in my country; people are only alarmed by the daring nature that the serial killings have assumed following presidential lip service to checking it. If we are given opportunity to choose how we want to die, none of us will choose to die as experienced in the Plateau, or the Otedola Bridge way.

    In Nigeria, we experience the practicality of man is born equal but some are more equal than others. The foundation of future death is already laid by a government that pays less attention to the education of her people. The ruling class needs the children of the masses to be illiterate so that they remain unquestioned and silenced. Those that attend school are not catered for; they drop out of school, become useful pawns and fight back at the society that fails to cater for them. They are used as thugs and killed in battle by the state instrumentality that made them so. What a worthless life!

    Death is just everywhere! People die in their hundreds on poorly constructed or refurbished roads on a daily basis. To make matters worse, the police, FRSC, Customs, lurk around the bad portions on the roads where they unleash terrors on drivers not only because they do not have papers but because of what they must SETTLE them! Those who resist are shot dead and nothing happens afterwards! Passengers would rather ask drivers to pay and let them proceed. We have simply been reduced to ‘I don’t care people’. Wrongs have become normalised. In all these, the Aso Rock messiah can do no wrong even when the body language leaves a lasting impression of approval.

    What is life of a civil servant worth in Nigeria? N18, 000 ($50) poverty wage in a month! We are governed by legislators who take over N13.5million monthly and full compliments of security and severance allowances when they leave office. The executive and judiciary are yet to reveal their humongous earnings. The civil servant who after retiring is still doomed to queue in the sun has no money to access health facility. Many pensioners are owed for years. The point is that with N18,000 there is limit placed on the value of your life and life chances in terms of what you can become and enjoy and one is likely to die.

    Do you imagine how valuable our lives are worth in the eyes and heart of those who rule us? How many people die in hospitals daily for failure of government to provide basic hospital needs to cater for us? Hospitals don’t have electricity and drugs. Medical doctors are leaving in droves to countries where their skills are valued, and where their lives and that of their family can be better. In Nigeria today, the lives of the poor are used to nurture and service that of the rich and ruling class.

    What the state wants to do, it does; what it does not want to do, it does not do it. Is it not the same Inspector General of Police that transmitted special squad from Abuja to arrest the Offa robbery thieves that is finding it difficult to tame killings in the north-central? Beyond the face-saving, post-massacre deployment of security which is yet to stop the killings as more have been killed, the president needs to move beyond praying to solve security problems.

    Revenging the life of cattle with that of human beings only shows another dimension of life’s worthlessness in Nigeria. What is difficult in arresting rustlers and ensuring that they are made to pay double what they stole and jailed? What is difficult in arresting and making murderers face the law? What more describes failure other than when a government cannot protect the lives and properties of the governed?

    Let those alive till 2019 elections represent the interests of the dead by voting those who can protect and value us better. But I know these periodic losses will pass and we shall be back to our normal ‘worthless’ routines waiting for when it will be our turn. This is the story of Nigeria, the Federal Republic of I don’t Care People.

     

    • Dr Oludayo Tade,

    University of Ibadan.

  • Tax defaulters must pay arrears with interests, penalties – FIRS boss

    …Says no case of multiple taxation in Nigeria

     

    The Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler, on Wednesday said that Nigerians who defaulted in paying their taxes on the expiration of the grace given by the Voluntary Assets Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), would be made to pay the outstanding taxes with interests and penalties.

    The grace given by VAIDS expired on the 30th of June, 2018.

    Speaking with State House correspondents after a session with the Federal Executive Council (FEC), Fowler also said that there was no case of multiple taxation in the country.

    Read Also:Adeosun, Fowler for Kaduna tax amnesty symposium

    On update on VAIDS, he said “The update is that it expired June 30th. And anyone who has not come forth by now we shall use all the legal means to make sure that we bring them to book and make sure that they pay the appropriate tax with interests and penalties.”

    On how the people responded to the VAIDS policy, Fowler said “Well the response has been very good. We are collating all the figures both at the federal levels and the states levels and I believe that by the middle of July, we should be able to tell the nation the exact progress in terms of the numbers that have declared, amount that have been paid and amount that is going to be paid instalmentally.”

    He disclosed that the Council had ratified the automatic exchange of information with other countries.

    On the complaints on multiple taxation, Fowler said “Let me say once again that we do not really have a situation of multiple taxation. You only have multiple taxation when you pay the same tax to different tiers of government.

    “What we have found out is that a lot of people categorize any payment to government as a tax. For example if you receive fine, a penalty they call it a tax. If you pay for the parking space, they call it a tax. Those are the things you refer to as user charges and not taxes.” he said

    On what the government was doing to encourage the people to pay their taxes voluntarily, he said “The federal government has through the ministry of information and also through the office of the Vice President have been talking about the different projects that have been financed with tax revenues and I think as Nigerians begin to see those dividends of democracy, very good spending, people will be more encouraged to pay more taxes.”

    Speaking on why he appeared before FEC, he said “I was here today to attend the meeting with the minister of finance to ratify the automatic exchange of information. Basically what this means is that Nigeria as a country exchange financial information with other member countries which hopefully should improve our revenues and also ensure that all Nigerians that do have investments or businesses or incomes abroad will pay their taxes as and when due.”