The Nation Newspaper

Tag: proliferation

  • ‘Proliferation of taxes our major challenge’

    School owners have decried what they called the proliferation of taxes imposed on them by local governments in Lagos State.

    The state chapter of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) said the taxes were the major problem facing the group.

    Its President, Mr. Wasiu Adumadeyin, was addressing reporters on the 2018 NAPPS banquet and award night scheduled for December 6 in Lagos.

    He said the association had sued local governments to challenge some of the taxes imposed on private schools.

    “We are not objecting that we do not want to pay our tax, but the ones imposed on us are too numerous and we are not expected to pay some of them.

    “We have written an appeal letter to the deputy governor to intervene, so that it can be reduced,” Adumadeyin said.

    According to him, the government must begin to see private school education as a social service and not a commercial venture, and must stop charging the operators outrageous taxes.

    He said in developed countries like Canada, government supports private schools by paying half of the students’ school fees.

    “We don’t get such support in Nigeria from the government; what we get is imposition of taxes and levies,” Adumadeyin said.

    He urged the government to extend grants such as free books and meals given to students in public schools to their counterparts in private schools.

    The NAPPS president said since parents of students in private schools pay tax, their children also deserve such benefits.

    He listed other challenges faced by the association as funding and poor participation of members in its programmes.

    “We have not achieved 100 per cent participation of our members in our programmes and this is because most of them are constrained financially and cannot pay their dues.

    “This development has not made us as buoyant as expected,” he said.

    Adumadeyin said despite the challenges, however, the current executive had broken new grounds in the last one year.

    He said they had organised workshops, seminars and retreats for proprietors, teachers, non-teaching staff and parents, mostly at no cost, to improve the quality of education.

    According to him, they have also developed a harmonious relationship with the Ministry of Education, which enables the association to be regarded as a partner in decision-making in the sector.

    He said NAPPS initiated a unified examination, teachers’ award and a game festival for private schools, to enhance education standard.

  • 2019 and arms proliferation

    “From records by the United Nations Centre for Peace and Disarmament, I understand that there are approximately 500 million assorted firearms in West Africa. Of these 500 million, 70 per cent, approximating 350 million of them, are in Nigeria”.

    Those weighty words came from the Minister of Interior, Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd), at a high level meeting on proliferation of small arms and light weapons as well as drug abuse in Nigeria, months back. He declared that this dangerous trend must be checked before the 2019 elections. But truth be told, those who should act and decisively too have not walked the talk. There, the problem lies!

    Yet, there is more to worry about. The minister went further to reveal the damning fact that Nigeria’s porous borders contributed to the proliferation of the illegal weapons. According to him Nigeria has 5,000 kilometres of land and the littoral border, all porous. “With these weapons and drugs smuggled into this country, if we don’t do something now, I am afraid things will be worse than it is now.”

    He is right on point.

    Perhaps, all these would explain the escalating wave of sundry crimes such as the spate of mindless murders by fully armed killer-herders, kidnappings, armed robbery, cultism and worse still, inter-religious mayhem that has reared its ugly head in Kaduna State. By the time we add these horrifying spectacles to the recurring insurgency in the Northeast and the supply of weapons, not only by trade-by-barter (with stolen oil), in the Niger-Delta, there is cause for serious concern.

    Politicians use these through paid thugs to harass, threaten, coerce political opponents to submission, as reportedly witnessed during the recent re-run gubernatorial election in Osun State.

    Desperation for political power and the personalization of same, here in Nigeria are at the heart of the series of clearly avoidable ethno-religious crises bedeviling the nation state till this day. Also to blame are the highly attractive apparatchiks of office. These are characterized by obscenely high pay package and the winner-takes-it-all mechanisms that place political appointees as demi-gods to be worshipped by the pauperized populace, rather than serve them. And when might is right, evil thrives, beginning of course, with the general elections.

    From records, violence affected more than 120 of the nearly 600 presidential and parliamentary elections held around the world between 1985 and 2005. That is according to UC Berkeley researcher, Leonardo R. Arriola, who led a Social Science Matrix prospecting seminar focused on “Electoral Violence in Developing Countries”.

    Amongst the African countries listed by Sara Birch and Muchlinski, in the Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence, Nigeria leads the pack when it comes to escalating wave of electoral violence. Others are Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Ghana and Tanzania.

    The bitter truth of the state of the nation today is that we are more divided than ever before, as opinions of the citizenry are bifurcated along political, ethnic/ religious lines. All of a sudden, not a few members of the ruling party, including the morally bankrupt defectors and overtly corrupt others have donned on the toga of saints, as if they arrived Nigeria in 2014 from another planet!

    Here, impunity rules as king as there is scare regards for the sanctity of human life, as it is for the rule of law. Who cares if the once beloved food basket states have become the theatres of bloodletting?  An elected leader could therefore, appropriate billions of bail-out funds and monthly allocations from the federation account to feather his nest while the mass of unpaid workers groan on every blessed day in unfathomable agony. Yet, these same people cannot explain what they have done with security vote.

    The situation is worsened by the enormous political powers vested on the executive arm of government. And in a weird scenario whereby military dictators of yesterday have suddenly metamorphosed into darlings of democracy today, what we have are the political aberrations that have come to define our experience since 1999.

    We should not be surprised therefore, that Nigeria, an enormously blessed country which should be the leading light in the comity of nations, on economic matters, especially on the African  continent is now home to the world’s poorest people, even as it also stands  ‘tall’ as one of the fastest growing indebted nations. As usual, there are always excuses for failure, either blaming the past governments for our present woes, blaming reports by independent international organizations as inaccurate or calling for more patience on the part of the traumatized citizenry..

    If democracy truly belongs to the people, then all efforts should be geared towards ensuring that the people’s votes count. INEC must be truly independent. The increasing fear is that no matter where the pendulum swings, there may be the devil’s alternative, with a groundswell of protests to trail the results. So, what should we as concerned Nigerians be doing?

    It is high time that the coterie of civil society groups, political and public affairs analysts and social commentators say it as it is, by speaking truth to power. That places the burden of sustained political re-engineering on their shoulders. They have to enlighten the citizenry, millions of who know little or nothing of the dictates of democracy, that they indeed should be the drivers of the vehicles of governance. That they should not bow to the pressure of vote-buying even in the presence of mass hunger. That they should not kowtow to the whims and caprices of their so-called elected representatives.

    As we raise concerns over the stark revelations of the incubus of insecurity by the Minister of Interior, we urge that more frequent meetings between security forces and the state governors, the legislative arm of government, the traditional institution and NGOs should be sustained.

    Nigeria belongs to us all and the time to pull the ship of state from capsizing over the precipice into the stormy waters of inequity, nepotism, tribal bigotry, religious intolerance and political tsunami is now, not tomorrow. 

    Baje, a public affairs analyst, writes fromLagos.

  • Parties’ proliferation and Wike’s troubling allegations

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently raised the alarm that the number of registered political parties in Nigeria had ballooned to 68. Its concerns bordered on the inherent challenges of such surge, which include complicated and expensive logistics. Newspaper editorials and Radio/TV flagship shows have subsequently followed suit, highlighting the implications of the proliferation and thus confirming INEC’s concerns. Indeed, the aggregate of opinions points to the same direction: the party system implosion would put a heavy strain on our already diminished public pulse and electoral process.

    But last week, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State took a reverse lane on the matter, alleging that the “mass registration of new political parties is a deliberate plan by INEC to manipulate elections in three states”, his state inclusive. The allegation, in my view, flies straight in the face of both fact and logic. My fear is that if unproven and wild allegations like this are allowed to fester ahead of the next general election, the outcome may be very sad. The political temperature is already getting high. We don’t need politicians to invoke a volcano, in the interest of us all.

    For starters, I will take a historical look at the implosion in our party system since the beginning of the Fourth Republic. In 1999, there were only three parties during the general election. It wasn’t that there were no agitations for more parties, but INEC refused to register them. Human rights activist and legal icon, late Gani Fawehinmi, had dragged the electoral body to the court for his party to be registered. On November 8, 2002, the Supreme Court finally granted his prayers and voided INEC’s guideline which had prevented the registration of more parties.

    The Supreme Court agreed with Fawehinmi that “INEC had no power to make guidelines on how an association can become a political party in so far as the constitution has covered the field in section 222”, stating that “to restrict the formation of political parties weakens the democratic culture”. This judgement gave birth to the surge in political parties ever since.

    Few months after the court ruling, INEC was forced to register 27 additional parties, bringing the number to 30 during the 2003 general election. In the next general poll in 2007, 20 more parties were registered, and by 2011, the number of political parties in Nigeria surged to 63! In an apparent bid to curb this galloping increase, the federal lawmakers empowered the electoral umpire to de-register political parties. Thus, on August 17, 2011, the election body delisted seven parties and on December 6, 2012, it ceased to recognise 28 more parties. This trimmed the number of parties in the country to 28. The action provoked reactions from the affected parties, some of them accusing then INEC boss, Prof Attahiru Jega, “of exploiting the deregistration exercise to settle personal vendetta with his foes”. Some of them actually challenged this action in court and defeated INEC. Ever since, the surge has rebooted.

    The registration of two new parties on August 16, 2013 brought the number to 30, ahead of the 2015 general elections. On October 21, 2016, INEC registered 10 parties. The latest registration of 21 parties, which increased the number to 68, understandably sparked debates about the challenges it portends for INEC in the next general election. Unfortunately, some politicians, such as Governor Wike, have feasted on this and included it in their ‘battle strategy’, should they lose.

    The reality is that the proliferation of parties will not abate unless an amendment is effected on section 222 of the Constitution. The requirements for party registration as contained in the section are so simple that nothing stops a family from registering their own party. According to section 222 of the constitution, all that a would-be party need to do is to ensure that, “(1) the names and addresses of its national officers are registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission; (2) the membership of the association is open to every citizen of Nigeria irrespective of his place of origin, circumstance of birth, sex, religion or ethnic grouping; (3) a copy of its constitution is registered in the principal office of the Independent National Electoral Commission in such form as may be prescribed by the Independent National Electoral Commission; (4) any alteration in its registered constitution is also registered in the principal office of the Independent National Electoral Commission within thirty days of the making of such alteration; (5) the name of the association, its symbol or logo does not contain any ethnic or religious connotation or give the appearance that the activities of the association are confined to a part only of the geographical area of Nigeria; and(6) the headquarters of the association is situated in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

    Those are the six requirements needed to compel INEC to register a political party.

    After the Supreme Court ruling in 2002, INEC can’t refuse to register any political association for any other reasons beyond the ones stated above.  It is sad that our lawmakers did not deem it fit to amend section 222 during the recent constitution amendment. Instead, they preferred to smuggle in the ‘order of elections’ for obvious self-interest, even though it was never discussed at the public hearing as specified by the constitution.

    In the United States, for example, for a party to be included on the ballot, it must meet specific requirements in the affected state. A requirement in some states is that you must have 10,000 registered members that are verifiable. So for you to have your logo in a presidential ballot, you must prove that you have 10,000 registered members from each state of the federation. That is why only the Democratic and Republican parties contest in presidential elections. Just imagine amendment to our constitution in the semblance of this proviso. How many of these mushroom parties in Nigeria do you think can show that they have at least 360,000 registered members, with 10,000 from each state? Until our laws are amended, the upsurge in party registration will continue unabated.

     

    • Ossai is an Abuja-based newspaper executive.

  • Arms proliferation, threat to national security

    SIR: When the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace Disarmament in Africa in 2016 raised an alarm on the spate of proliferation of illicit small arms and light weapons in Nigeria to the tune of 350 million, many dismissed it as lacking accurate statistical data for its verification. Although many Nigerians believe that the porous nature of the nation’s borders might facilitate this illicit and nefarious enterprise through activities of smugglers, but the recent discovery that some of these weapons could actually pass through the nation’s prime port –Lagos, was rather rattling

    In January, this year Nigerians were jolted by the breaking news that the Nigerian Customs Service intercepted 661 pieces of pump-action riffles from China surreptitiously concealed in steel doors and other merchandise goods. The fact that the consignment was purportedly cleared from Lagos port cast not a little doubt on the integrity and competence of officers of the Customs but in a swift move to purge itself of complicity, the Customs leadership dismissed the culpable officers.

    Four months later, in May, news of another seizure of a container with 440 arms and ammunition hit the newsstand. This time around, the consignment was disguised and declared as Plaster of Paris by the importer. The imports which were said to have originated from Turkey were intercepted even before declaration. Arrest was also effected and it is believed that the suspects are being prosecuted.

    This week, Monday, September 11, the Comptroller of Custom Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd) confirmed yet another seizure of 1100 pump-action-riffles in Lagos. This brings the number of intercepted pump-action–riffles within the last eight months to 2201. Already, the Customs officer and the clerk at the command which were found to be complicit have been promptly arrested for investigation.

    For a nation currently being polarized along ethnic divide with threats and counter threats, it calls for a national vigilance of not only the security operatives but by all well meaning citizens. With the recent rampant incidents of Boko-Haram insurgency in the North-east, militancy in the South-south, the herdsmen’s attack in the North-central and the agitation for secession in the South-east, the country’s security architecture should be repositioned and be battle-ready to square up with any  possible break-down of law and order. This is certainly not the time to rest on one’s oars.

    It is also not the time to revel in self-congratulations for effecting those few interceptions because one may not know how many of such consignments have successfully found their ways un-detected into the country through the ports and sundry porous borders across the country. The most baffling of this narrative is the fact that we still have officers in the Nigerian Customs Service who would not mind if the entire country is consumed in a conflagration so long as their pockets are stuffed with filthy lucre. It is equally pathetic since they have no inkling of where they would be, in event where these lethal objects of human destruction are put to use as they could be victims.

    Since the exporting countries of these fire-arms are already known, the Customs should interact and interface with the World Customs Organization to ensure the security of the nation’s trade supply chain and strengthen enforcement to combat all forms of illicit trade. It should also unravel the mystery behind these nefarious transactions and invoke extant legal framework to sanction the culprits.

    Nigeria’s firearms’ laws should be rejigged to deal with emerging security challenges in the country in order to curb illegal and abusive use of light weapons by unauthorized people.

    The revelation made by the presidential committee on small and light weapons in 2015 that about 60 percent of all illicit arms used in the South-east zone of the country were locally fabricated should provide a veritable template for holistic sensitizations, regulations and disarmament.

     

    • Itaobong Offiong Etim,

    Calabar.

  • TMG cries out over arms proliferation

    As the Kogi and Bayelsa governorship elections draw near, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has urged the Presidential Committee on the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, the police and other security agencies to implement modalities to stem arms proliferation in places, such as Ofu Local Government Area in Kogi State and Ekeremor and Kolokuma/Opokuma councils in Bayelsa State.

    TMG, in a statement in Abuja yesterday by its Chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, enjoined candidates and their supporters in Kogi and Bayelsa states to shun incitement and electoral violence by sticking to issue-based campaigns.

    It urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),   National Orientation Agency  and civil society organisations to broaden their voter education campaigns to cover local governments in Kogi and Bayelsa states in accordance with their mandates.

    The group cautioned politicians against use of derogatory languages and speeches, as the elections drew near.

    “TMG condemns the use of hate speech, derogatory language and intimidation of people because of their personal demographics in the lead up to Kogi and Bayelsa elections.

    “The fundamental human rights contained in Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, provide relevant safeguards to citizens in this regard,” the statement added.

  • Proliferation of fake phones worries Samsung

    Proliferation of fake phones worries Samsung

    Samsung Electronics West Africa has expressed dismay at the rate which mobile phones are being counterfeited in the country, lamenting that it has robbed many of their money and caused them trauma.

    Its Director, Information Technology & Mobile Division, Emmanouil Revmatas, said the firm is taking a multi-pronged approach to address the problem.

    Revmatas, who spoke on the sideline during the launch of Samsung biometric scanner enabled Galaxy Tab S in Lagos, said the firm was working with trade associations to find ways to protect the customers by way of “legitimising the business on the one hand and also working with the dealers to buy legitimate products.”

    He said: “We will also intensify our campaigns to get the customers educated that there are ways of checking their mobile phones before paying for them through checking the IMEI number. We are also working with the various agencies of government. It is a multi-faceted approach. The people engaged in this illicit business continue to be relentless.”

    He said the new flagship tablet, the Galaxy Tab S, is available in the country, adding that the Galaxy Tab S combines an advanced high definition display technology with a full range of premium content, aimed at providing consumers with an unrivalled entertainment experience.

    He explained that the Galaxy Tab S is Samsung’s thinnest and lightest tablet which features a 10.5-inch screen alongside the most advanced super-AMOLED display with a resolution that is twice the high-definition standard associated with other devices in its category. It is also powered with enhanced productivity features for effortless multitasking, all elegantly housed in a beautifully crafted premium design.

    Its Managing Director, Mr. Brovo Kim, said the device will redefine how technology innovation enhances the quality of life.

  • Community decries proliferation of arms, ammunition

    The President of Okposi Community Development Union in Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Dr. Eze Anoke, has cried out over insecurity, which he said has caused proliferation of arms and ammunition among youths.

    He decried the menace, saying it posed danger to the corporate existence of the community.

    Anoke said the indigenes are still mourning the abduction and murder of the former coordinator of the development centre, Ihebunndu Okorie.

    He spoke after the union’s extraordinary emergency meeting held on the premises of Enechi Ekuma.

    The union president hailed the community members for their maturity and peaceful disposition during and after the Ezeship election, which produced Eze Cosmos Agwu as the Enechi Ekuma IV of Okposi autonomous community. The poll was held 10 years after the death of the former monarch.

    Anoke identified mistrust, rumour mongering, jealousy, envy, pull-him-down syndrome, back-biting, lack of mutual respect and unhealthy rivalry as the causes of Okposi problems.

    Said he: “This avoidable ugly situation has given the Okposi community the nickname of Ovuruivuateweru, meaning ‘Big for nothing’, by the  neighbouring communities.”

    The president urged the traditional ruler to constitute his cabinet after 12 months of his coronation.

    He enjoined stakeholders, youths and good-spirited personalities to salvage Okposi.