Why, when guests are on TV, is the name runner left for such a short time for both local and international programming? If the foreign media does not leave the name of the person speaking for an intelligently long period of time, why must local Nigerian programming follow suit? How can a person who tunes in late watch for 15 minutes an interview with no name appearing, just because ‘That is how we were taught’? It is now obvious that you were taught wrong and should improve on your teachers’ efforts. Does leaving the name runner permanently hurt anyone or limit the view in some way?
Conclusion: Leave the name runner on the screen throughout the appearance so it can be read and remembered. It costs nothing! Why hide the name of your media guest during an interview in AFRICA? Both the viewed guest and the viewing public lose.
Murdering soldiers on peace missions…In a country in which no war has been declared, there can be no justification for the murder and capture of the weapons of 14 decorated soldiers and distinguished officers of the armed forces while on a peace mission between two communities. These soldiers and officers were already recognised for their dedicated combat experience in theatres of Nigeria’s many ‘We Are Not Yet At War’ combat areas in our over 20-year terrorist incursion mainly in the North.
Now it has been murderously shown that even where there should be relative peace, a war-like situation can arise in seconds and transform military peace path into a pirate or terrorist driven bloodbath and a watery grave. Even the hostage they sought to negotiate release of, was also found dead, executed and floating in the water with his hands tied behind his back and some of military bodies had been mutilated. Many mourning widows and children. Nigerians remember Odi, a town Bayelsa, in which 12 policemen were similarly murdered by local gangs on November 5, 1999. Under President Obasanjo the military went in on November 20, 1999 to reassert authority with many more casualties and homes lost. A court in 2013 ordered the federal government to pay N37b of a demanded N100b, as compensation, for completely destroying the town with loss of an estimated 60-100 civilian lives according to the court records.
It remains to be seen what lessons the federal government reaction will show have been learnt in 2024- 25 years later, as we struggle to understand this callous and needless loss of military lives and family men on national services at the hands of yet another gang or group of terrorists using villagers and townsfolk as human shields. Is there any ‘measured response’ to such mindless violence?
Will history repeat itself or will the real criminals be brought to book? Human rights are of maximum importance when human wrongs have been done on such a massive scale. It is reported that areas have been destroyed. We pray the gang was neutralised or arrested.
Note that those ‘We Are Not Yet at War’ skirmishes have still managed to have caused over five million Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in and outside camps and cost the blood of hundreds of thousands of murdered and millions of injured, physically and mentally abused suffering from PTSD and the scars of losing thousands of homes, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land – stolen and insecure-. Lost jobs, schooling and even identity and entire future.
The callous kidnapping of 280 children, a heinous crime, is still raw on our minds as the military grapple with the task of liberating them from their kidnappers who use the children as human shields who could easily become their killers as they have no human value of even children apart from cash. You cannot imagine the anger, terror, anguish and torture that child, parent and siblings are going through.
Have we lost the opportunity of a 280-child rescue without ransom and reward for the kidnappers? Every police and armed forces report and documentary earmarks the value of the first 2 and 48 and 72 hours. It is 10 years since Chibok more than 1400 children demonstrate that needed lessons learnt are yet to reach the classroom or they should have caused a different, more positive outcome from what we have seen.
What happened to the much talked about ‘SECURITY VOTE’ and the longed-for realisation of the apparently fictional tweaking of the mysterious ‘SCHOOL SECURITY ARCHITECTURE’. We had expected to hear of panic buttons, secret alarms, sirens, cell-phone spies, bush fires and even different colour of clothing as signs of passing terrorists should all be in place as well as drone surveillance. By now Nigerians hoped for an Emergency Elite Anti-Mass Kidnapping Airborne Brigade which can be flown to an advanced location to obstruct, encircle, redirect, restrict and contain such gangs of assassins and hinder their exit while larger forces quickly move up from behind to encircle the offenders. Even if the children were force-marched or forced to run, an immediate perimeter at 10 or 20 kilometres within an hour or two would have been able to cause disruptive release of many of them, without any shot being fired.
The whole country is praying in support of the 24 hours/ day efforts of the various political and security organs linked with international satellite heat-seeking surveillance to bring our children home alive. Amen.
