The Nation Newspaper

Tag: tragedy

  • The Rann tragedy

    BORNO STATE has been through a lot since the war against insurgency started about eight years ago. The war was preceded by the dastardly activities of Boko Haram, which believes in the use of force to pursue its agenda. Villages have been razed and thousands displaced from their homes. Today, many internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps dot the landscape of the state. Some of these camps can be found in the neighbouring Adamawa State and other parts of the country.

    The Federal and Borno State governments are working round the clock to get these people back to their homes. Towards this end, many of the ravaged communities have been rebuilt by the indefatigable Governor Kashim Shettima, who also directed local government chairmen to live among the IDPs to enable them have first hand knowledge about their needs. The Boko Haram insurgency has virtually crippled Maiduguri, which is the epicentre of the sect’s activities, and environs.

    Borno can never be the same again, no matter what the Federal and state governments do to rebuild it. The state, like a burnt palace, will eventually wear a new look and become more beautiful, but there will always be something missing from it all – and that is the cherished relics of the people which can never be replaced. What about the lives lost? What about those maimed and raped? What about the minors put in the family way? But Shettima is striving to make the people forget this ugly past and look to the future with hope that things will be better.

    The IDPs camps have since become home to many, who lost everything to the Boko Haram insurgency. To mitigate their pains, Shettima is holding council chiefs responsible for their well-being. For the IDPs to feel the impact of government, he directed some local governments to maintain secretariats in their camps and also station officials there. Bama, Kukawa, Gwoza and Marte councils today run two secretariats – one in their headquarters and the other in the IDPs camps in line with the governor’s directive. Three others operate satellite secretariats in the IDPs camps in Maiduguri because of the ongoing military operation there.

    ‘’We will not have good reason to hold chairmen accountable if we sent them to their local government headquarters only whereas they have majority of their people in Maiduguri’’, Shettima said, adding : ‘’I will hold council chairmen responsible if I hear any complaints about shortages or lack of foods, water, access to primary healthcare and absence of teachers at any IDPs camp unless it is evident that they had made frantic efforts to bring such cases to the notice of the appropriate authorities. Chairmen must come up with rosters that would ensure deployment of their officials to all camps on rotational basis and anybody whose turn it is must be stationed at the camps…the presence of government officials in IDPs camps will help build the confidence of IDPs as they go through their healing process’’.

    The IDPs have gone through trauma from which many may never recover. What they went through in the hands of Boko Haram will live with them forever. They may find it difficult living like refugees in their own country, but they have no choice than to make do with what they have. There are millions of their compatriots who are not displaced, but do not have a roof over their heads. Having lost everything not because of their own making, the state is duty bound to come to their aid, help them to pick up the pieces of their life and gradually reintegrate them back into society. The idea of IDPs camps is not to turn those places into their permanent abode, it is a temporary sanctuary from which they will leave for the accommodation to be provided by government or good spirited Nigerians.

    The IDPs are already in a pathetic situation. Their case was compouded last week with the accidental bombing of an IDPs camp in Rann in Kala Balge Local Government Area of Borno State. Many of those killed were charity workers and civilians. Some soldiers were among the casualties. No matter how well planned a military operation may be, if an accident is going to happen, it will happen. Even the best armies in the world also experience such accidents once in a while. The Rann bombing was not premeditated; it was something that happened in the course of an operation to flush out Boko Haram insurgents suspected to be hiding in that place.

    The Air Force with all it has been doing since the war against insurgency started cannot with its own hands wipe off the gain so far made. It is with its help that Boko Haram was dislodged from Sambisa Forest last December. So, the Air Force  would not deliberately bomb a place inhabited by civilians even if it has all the intelligence in the world that Boko Haram members are there. In military operations, there is what is called collateral damage. Unfortunately, the bombing of Rann falls into this categorisation. It was an unforeseeable occurrence which is inexplicable. How do you explain the bombing of an IDPs camp, which is under the protection of the government?

    But something must have led to the bombing. What is that thing? Who gave the Air Force information that led to its bombing of the camp? Is the source credible? Has he ever given information to the military that helped in the war against insurgency? Was the source not aware that Rann harbours an IDPs camp? Does the military cross check such information before carrying out an attack? Couldn’t the pilot have distinguished an IDPs camp from insurgents territory? The questions are many, just too many. And answering them sincerely will ensure that such a tragedy does not recur.

     

    Dictators gone forever

    AWIND is blowing across Africa and it is the wind of redemption. Long condemned as the continent of bad, inept and rogue leaders, Africa is fast redeeming itself in the eyes of the world. It is no longer the region of sit-tight leaders. Those days when a leader will decide not to leave office after losing election are gone for good. Last December 1, former The Gambia dictator Yahya Jammeh lost the presidential election to Adama Barrow. He initially conceded defeat, but later changed his mind, alleging that the election was not free and fair. He filed a petition at the Supreme Court in order to stall the January 19 inauguration of Barrow. Despite all his tricks, the Supreme Court refused to be used to thwart the people’s will. His deputy and some of his ministers also dumped him when they saw the handwriting on the wall. His defence minister told him pointblank that the military would surrender if the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) forces entered the country. Jammeh, who was talking tough that ECOWAS could not dictate to him, quickly changed gear and fled into exile on Friday night, ending his 22 years misrule of the tiny and impoverished country. May other dictators still tormenting the continent go the same way soon.

  • Trailer crushes 3 in Ekiti on New Year eve

    Trailer crushes 3 in Ekiti on New Year eve

    IDO Ekiti, headquarters of Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State, was thrown into mourning yesterday after a trailer crushed three residents to death.
    The trailer apparently lost control at a major junction in the town at about 10.30 am killing two commercial motorcycle riders and a pedestrian.
    The truck, said to be coming from Lagos, crashed into two moving motorcycles in front of Ekiti Parapo College, mowing down three residents.
    Two others who sustained serious injuries were rushed to the hospital.
    Ido/Osi Local Government Chairman, Ayodele Arogbodo, told reporters that the Divisional Police Officer of the Ido Ekiti Division and the Ekiti Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) promptly visited the scene to ensure free flow of traffic along that route.
    Arogbodo said: “One of the ‘Okadas’ carried two passengers and another one carried three people. Three of these five persons died on the spot while the two other persons were critically wounded.
    “I visited the scene this morning and those wounded are now at the Intensive Care Unit of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti and the mangled bodies of those who lost their lives have been deposited in the morgue in the same hospital”.
    Arogbodo, who expressed sadness on the loss of the three persons called on motorists to always exercise patience while driving on the road to prevent loss of innocent lives.
    A resident of the town, who preferred anonymity, attributed the accident to brake failure that occurred after the trailer driver realised that he was too close to the bikes of the victims.
    He said: “the truck was moving down the hill when he drove very close to that junction. The driver wanted to apply brake but the brake failed and the two bikes were already at the centre of the junction when the truck climbed the median and ran over them.
    “The accident would have been worse than that but there were few vehicles on the road at that time. Even those who were coming from Ido Ekiti and were quick to recognise that the truck had lost control had immediately stopped their vehicles to prevent being crushed.”

  • Ordination tragedy

    •A/Ibom govt must get to the root of the collapsed church building

    What was supposed to be the ordination of the Presiding Pastor, Bishop-Elect Akan Weeks, of the Reigners’ Bible Church Int’l Inc, along Uyo Village Road, Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, turned tragic on Saturday when the church building, under construction, collapsed after the iron rafters caved in. The state governor, Emmanuel Udom, a special guest of honour at the event who had arrived at the church about 30 minutes before the incident was however lucky to escape with a minor injury even though some of his aides were injured. Apostle Weeks too was brought out unhurt.

    But about 30 people were officially reported killed in the disaster. A witness, Miss Uduak Effiong, a communication arts student of the University of Uyo, said that she lost three friends to the incident.

    It is sad that the country had to witness such a monumental, even if avoidable tragedy, more than two years after the collapse of a guesthouse in the premises of The Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) on September 12, 2014, killing about 115 people, 84 of them South Africans.

    The lesson from these two incidents is that our governments, particularly the state government agencies responsible for standards in the building sector have to be more alive to their responsibilities. All too often, they tend to look the other way when some institutions, particularly very influential religious organisations, flout building codes. Indeed, the impunity on the part of some of these organisations is benumbing. Sometimes they refuse to pay statutory taxes to government whilst some others engage in criminal matters, ostensibly while casting out demons, among other infringements. Worse is that even their members have been so indoctrinated that they become highly intolerant of and hostile to people and particularly journalists who want to cover disasters whenever they occur on their premises. We saw this in both The Synagogue and the Reigners Church incidents.

    But for the resoluteness of the Lagos State Government to prosecute those suspected to be blameworthy in The Synagogue incident, the matter would have been swept under the carpet as a result of pressure from those who felt the church was a sacred cow that should not be touched irrespective of whatever offence or crime was committed in connection with it.

    Some members of the church in Uyo reportedly seized the identity card of a newspaper correspondent and his computer tablet, saying he was a traitor as he tried to take pictures. Even the state commissioner for works, Ephraim Inyang, did not help matters when approached by journalists as he not only refused to speak with them but ordered them to leave the place.

    While we commiserate with the relatives of the victims, we urge the Akwa Ibom State Government to emulate the Lagos State example. It should set up a high-powered inquiry into the unfortunate incident as it promised. There are many questions begging for answers in the matter. A report said the iron rods used in holding the roofing sheets were twice heavier than the block used for the building. In other words, were professional standards compromised in the construction of the building? Did the church secure approval for the building and did the appropriate agency monitoring building standards in the state ever visit the church to ascertain the quality of work being done there? Then, why the rush to conduct the consecration there and on that day even while it was obvious the venue was not ready? These are some of the questions that must be satisfactorily answered in the course of the investigations.

    The state government has said there would not be cover up. We hope it would abide by this pledge because Nigerians are awaiting the outcome of the investigations and the prosecution of whoever was found negligent in the tragedy. This is the only way to stop such embarrassing and avoidable loss of lives.

  • Brazilian footballers among 76 killed in plane crash

    Brazilian footballers among 76 killed in plane crash

    • 76 die in plane crash

    The fairytale rise of Brazil’s Chapecoense — from small football club to national heroes — has been cut tragically short, leaving the country mourning the loss of one its most endearing sports teams.

    On Tuesday, the airplane carrying the Brazilian team to the biggest game in the club’s history crashed in Rionegro, Colombia, killing 75 people.

    Six people survived the crash and were taken to local hospitals, according to authorities.

    Defender Alan Ruschel was one of the players who survived the crash.

    “The dream is over,” Plinio David de Nes Filho, chairman of the club’s board told TV Globo.

    “Yesterday morning I was saying goodbye to them, they told me they were going in search of the dream, to make this dream a reality.

    “And we, very excitedly, shared this dream with them. But the dream was over this morning.”

    Tragic end

    Chapecoense was supposed to play the first leg of its Copa Sudamericana final today against Colombian side Atletico Nacional from Medellin before its plane came down.

    “Chapecoense was one of the most lovely fairy tales,” Argentine sports journalist Martin Mazur told CNN.

    “Unlike what happens with the big Brazilian clubs, Chapecoense’s humble story and its magnificent run in the Copa Sudamericana was naturally embraced by Brazilian football fans in general, becoming a fans’ favourite.

    “It was South America’s Cinderella — nobody could have predicted this macabre ending.”

  • Recession: Beyond the tragedy and pain

    In the 1960s, thinkers coined the word “Knowledge Economy” to announce a radical shift from traditional economies. It was an extraordinary gift by intellectuals of that era to a world that some people thought had become sluggish, uncreative and desperately in need of ideas.

    Today, more than 50 years after that intellectual uprising, many countries still drive their economic policies with huge emphasis on the power of knowledge and human imagination.  For these countries, there is a strong belief that any system of production and consumption that is not based on intellectual capital will fail.

    I decided to present this background because Nigeria at present reminds one of the pre 1960s knowledge revolution and the deficit of awareness.

    Nothing captures our nation’s knowledge paucity of ideas today like the controversial debate on the sale of our nation’s physical assets. But the question is: what exactly are we really selling? Where is the place of fixed and physical assets in today’s changing world that is governed by ideas and brainpower? And why would the sale of physical assets that are here today and gone tomorrow determine our economic direction? And if we sell now and recession continues, what happens?

    What I enjoyed most about the debate was the cacophony of voices that argued endlessly. Again, the arguments reinforced the benefits of public discourse which everybody agrees is missing in our country today.

    But this piece is not about public dialogue and its benefits. It is essentially about wealth from knowledge and intellectual property, which to my mind is the ultimate asset. There is no doubt that the world is undergoing tremendous change. And we are already witnesses to the transformation affecting production, distribution, trade, employment and life generally.

    Once upon a time, that was during the agricultural economy, land was everything. Also, during the industrial era, natural resource like coal and labour were the main issues. Today, all that has changed because in a knowledge economy, knowledge is the resource and not oil or solid minerals. But I hasten to add that from time immemorial, knowledge has always played a part, no matter how small in every economic activity. What is new today however is that there is now a phenomenal dose of knowledge and information that is fused into economic activity by individuals and governments.

    So when we make sale of national assets a talking point in a recession, we highlight our confusion, pain and misery. It also shows that not much of good thinking is going on at the right places. But we must not despair or even give a thought to the falsehood that the sale of national assets essentially brings about boom. Nigerians must look inwards and face squarely, this demon called recession.

    Anytime I remember Steve Jobs, Apple Computer’s famous co-founder, I also remember the hundred hopeless Nigerian versions of this great American inventor roaming our streets. The difference between Jobs and these hapless Nigerians is essentially environment.

    Therefore in this season of economic decline, everything must be deployed into saving our country and its future. And for me, young people should be the starting point. In line with our case for a knowledge economy, Nigeria must urgently take steps towards revamping education. Our schools must return to centres of excellence in learning and research. Technical and vocational studies should be reintroduced and strengthened for optimum results. And we must encourage and remind the youth once more on the virtues of hard work, fair play, principles and patriotism.

    I think it is imperative for Nigeria as a country to learn from the tragedies of other nations. But as I said earlier, there is hope. Recently, I watched with keen interest in Lagos, an event on October 1 as speaker after speaker, spoke on the colossal waste recurrent in running government. The optimism for me is that young people were enjoined at that event driven by a non-government organisation to be active and to question the actions of their political leaders. I agree with the speakers because the future belongs to the young and they must take the moment.

    For politicians, I am afraid that they may not have anything more to say in 2019 if living conditions today do not improve. Things must just get better or we will all have ourselves to blame. I am in agreement with those who insist that infrastructural decay must be urgently addressed. I also want the government of the day to create jobs and provide the enablement that would encourage entrepreneurship. In another breath, I support those who speak against the prevailing atmosphere of fear which naturally encourages capital flight and discourages investment.

    As citizens, we must continually be conscious of the fact that knowledge must be used for economic benefits. And for us to achieve the needed results, we must align with knowledge and technology because both are friends for growth and development. If we do nothing and pretend, then we will be deceiving ourselves because economy is already globalised. This is already evident as we have all seen that even our cottage industry is currently at the mercy of the dollar. This is the way to go and we must brace up and face the reality.

     

    • Lawani, former Deputy Governor of Benue State is an industrialist and philanthropist.

  • The tragedy in Turkey

    Turkey is the example of a largely Islamic country that has successfully reconciled democratic modernism with its Islamic tradition.This fact goes back to the deliberate action of Mustapha Kemal, the Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey on the ashes of the collapse of Ottoman Turkey after the First World War. General Kemal had come to the conclusion that the degenerate Ottoman Porte with its lavish palaces filled with wives and concubines from European subjects of Turkey had weakened the empire and that a non-hereditary regime fashioned after the victorious Allies that had seen the defeat of turkey was the way forward.He therefore designed a constitution that was to guide the Turkey of his dream and he made the Turkish military the guardian of the Turkish democratic secular constitution.He banned any external symbolism of Islam such as the kaftan and the hijab characteristic of Muslim men and women before his revolution. He wanted Turks to dress like Europeans and distance themselves from the Middle Easterners who were their subjects before the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire by the Versailles peace treaty of 1919.He wanted Turkey to emphasize its European geography even though the larger part of its territory is in Asia. This is why he bridged the straits of Bosphorus and Dardanelles with a feat of engineering to link the two parts of Turkey.This tradition had prevailed in Turkey since then and the military had jealously guaranteed the kemalist heritage and political order of separation of mosque and state until RecepTayyip Erdogan became Prime Minister and now president of Turkey. Erdogan decided to cut the military to its size and to remove the institution from most of its privileges as guardian of the secular state of Turkey. He decided to showcase the Islamic tradition of Turkey without apologies to anybody. He apparently sees himself as some kind of a reincarnation of the last Ottoman Sultan. He is determined to concentrate all powers into his own hand. He has been largely successful because until recently he has built a strong economy in Turkey and embarked on large-scale reconstruction works that has modernized the infrastructure of the country. With the help of its NATO allies, he has built a formidable military second to none in its area. Turkey has the largest army among its European NATO allies and its proximity to Russia makes it of vital importance to NATO and the United States. Erdogan had also hoped the European Union would accept Turkey as a member and the country’s application for membership has been pending for a long time. This is because some members are not too comfortable admitting Turkey a country of 80 million Muslims into a largely nominally Christian European Union. Some members also feel that Turkish democracy is superficial and not ingrained. The Turks have also not been able to resolve the ethnic problem tearing Turkey apart by pitching the forces of Turkish nationalism against that of the Kurds who form substantial portion of the Population of Turkey. The Kurds are an ancient people who are largely Sunni Muslims divided among Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran with the ones in Turkey being the largest segment.Refusal of Turkey to grant them a large measure of autonomy has led to a guerrilla war for decades and urban terrorism for longer before the current campaign of the ISIL (Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant). To compound the problem of Turkey, the wars in Iraq and Syria has led to substantial gains for Kurdish nationalism in both countries. The Kurds virtually now have their own state in northern Iraq while they are virtually free with their own army in Syria. These events have had considerable impact in Turkey where there is exponential rise of Kurdish nationalism to the chagrin and irritation of Erdogan and his fellow Turkish nationalists. He has had to intensify bombing of Kurdish guerrilla in the Kurdish mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan and northern Syria to the irritation and anger of the United States that has been propping up Iraqi Kurdistan against the forces of the Islamic caliphate and possibly as a counter-weight to the Shiite dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad that is now influenced by Iran. It is a complicated picture and jigsaw political puzzle. Added to the mix is Russia that is fighting on behalf of the Basher’s regime in Syria because of not wanting to lose a strategic naval base in a country that had been an ally of Russia since the Union of Socialist Soviet Russia’s days. Because of American pressure, Erdogan has had to allow American Air Force to use a military air base in Turkey against the caliphate forces in Iraq and lately Syria. Ordinarily Erdogan wanted the fall of the Shiite regime In Syria to the point of being tolerant of the caliphate before he was made to take a stand against them. He had earlier asked Turkish Air Force to shoot down a Russian plane that was menacingly bombing dissident forces near the Syrian-Turkish border.

    This is the political and complicated background of the situation in which Erdogan had to negotiate. His abrasive nature did not prepare him for compromise either with democratic forces or youths manifesting discontent with his rather draconian social programmes or building malls in parks favoured by young people or with the democratic Kurdish demands for autonomy and language rights.On top of this, he had to contend with the military that was increasingly worried by the outward Islamic tendencies of the Erdogan regime far away from the secularist tradition of modern Turkey. Furthermore was the disagreement with one of his previous supporters – the Islamic cleric  Muhammad Fethullah Gulen, founder of a movement called Cemaat with tremendous influence in academia, the civil service and the press as well as the military that tended to hark back to Turkish Islamic roots and tradition and supposedly championing the interests of the ummah in Turkey. Following a break with Erdogan, Gulen had gone into exile in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. But he still had a large following in Turkey.

    When there was an attempted coup d’état in Turkey recently, Gulen was fingered as the spiritual inspirer. The coup itself failed because the Turkish critical mass of students, ordinary people and the political elite including the opposition parties and Kurdish democratic forces rose against it by blocking military vehicles on the roads and challenging soldiers at the expense of their lives. Inability to kill Erdogan proved the undoing of the coup plotters. When the dust of the abortive coup settled, Erdogan struck back firing in one swoop about 100,000 civil servants, academics, teachers, judges, military and police officers and putting pressure on the press where he suspected there were gulenists. He also at one point accused the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) of complicity in the coup simply because America did not accede to his request to extradite Gulen to face trial in Ankara. It is surprising that he had expected America to send Gulen back to what would have been judicial lynching. Because of this, Erdogan has embarked on politics of brinkmanship playing the Russians against his long term friends and NATO member, the United States. He has gone to Moscow in a widely publicized visit to Vladimir Putin just to demonstrate his independence of the United States and its European allies who though supporting Turkey are a little apprehensive of Erdogan’s heavy post-coup high handedness. This has however been misconstrued by Erdogan for lack of sympathy for him personally and secondly for Turkey whom he has thought he personifies.

    There is now some form of a return to reality. In a recent statement by the same Turkish Prime Minister who had said America was behind the abortive coup, he is reported to have recently said the United States and Turkey remain eternal allies thus eating his own words.

    Turkey’s role in its area is just too important to be trifled away through emotional outburst or by playing the game of the enemy of my enemy is my friend as it tried to do with Russia, a foe of the USA. But the fact remains that Russia’s national interests in the Caucasus are directly in conflict with those of Turkey. Turkey is also a stabilizing force in the tender box of the Middle East where it has influence in the Sunni dominated region which is in contention with Shiite Iran and its influence in Iraq, Yemen Syria and among the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Turkey for years has also had some rapport with the Jewish state of Israel in spite of recent break in diplomatic ties which were restored on the eve of the attempted coup which made some to suspect that that may have had some influence on the minds of the coup plotters. It is therefore in the interest of peace in the area for stability to return to Turkey. But this will not come easily because of Turkish domestic problems which are almost unsolvable and added to this is the spreading suicide and terrorist campaigns within Turkey associated with either the so-called caliphate and or Kurdish guerrilla forces. With this in mind, it will be suicidal for the Turkish state to cut itself loose from its NATO security rampart no matter what Erdogan may feel or want. Above all the temperament and ability of Erdogan to compromise with his enemies and to bow out when the ovation is loudest and watch for a peaceful democratic succession may be in the overall and long term interest of Turkey.

  • There’ll be tragedy if Zakzaky dies in DSS custody -Shi’ites

    There’ll be tragedy if Zakzaky dies in DSS custody -Shi’ites

    The Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), otherwise known as Shi’ites, on Wednesday warned that there will be monumental tragedy if its leader, Sheik Ibrahim Zakzaky, who has since December 2015 been in detention dies in government custody.

    The movement in a statement signed by its Spokesman, Ibrahim Musa in Kaduna Wednesday also dismissed two lawyers, Sadau Garba and Bello Ibrahim allegedly standing for Zakzaky before Department of State Services (DSS) as impostors.

    According to the statement, “We demand that our Leader and the wife must be released unconditionally without delay.

    “It will be a tragedy of monumental proportions should our leader go blind in detention or suffer further physical disability due to him being denied access to adequate medical attention,” the movement said without giving details.

     “We understand those that sanctioned his detention and those detaining him want to humiliate him and make sure that he goes completely blind before he is eventually released thereby rendering him powerless the moment he is released from unconstitutional and illegal detention.

    “The health of our leader and the wife continues to deteriorate on a daily basis and those holding him in custody are playing politics with his detention and that of his wife.

    “We urge the Nigerian people and the international community to intervene in this crude violation of the fundamental rights of our leader,” the IMN said.

    On the lawyers, IMN said, “The Islamic Movement in Nigeria wants to make it clear that the said Sadau Garba and Bello Ibrahim can only be solicitors to the Department of State Services, with who they are in constant contact, and not that of the Movement or our revered leader. It is the Department of State Services that briefed the two and are giving them access to their facilities and encouraging them to pose as solicitors to our revered leader and urging them to write letters begging the Department to release our leader on compassionate grounds.

    “On the basis of this dubious alliance the Department has been giving the two unrestricted access and have been sending out dubious feelers that they will release our revered leader to the family the moment they are begged by the two to do so.

    “We recall that the said Sadau Garba has in the past attempted to swerve the course of the case involving Sheikh’s fundamental rights by claiming that that Sheikh told him that the DSS should be excluded from the matter as one of the respondents in the case which turned out to be contrived by those that briefed him,” said the IMN.

    It went on: “We want to make it abundantly clear that that the said Sadau Garba and Bello Ibrahim are not solicitors to the Islamic Movement in Nigeria and have not been briefed by our leader to represent him in any of the cases pending in court.

    “The said Sadau Garba and Bello Ibrahim are acting a script carefully contrived by those holding our revered leader and their claim to being our solicitors and that of our leader is baffling, erroneous, and mischievous and amounts to professional misconduct.

    “The two solicitors have been set up by the enemies of the Movement to give the impression that there is doubt as regards the true solicitors of the Movement and Shaikh and further prolong the detention of our leader.

    “The Islamic Movement in Nigeria therefore makes it abundantly clear that Femi Falana, SAN is the leader of the Legal Team and ably assisted by Festus Okoye Esq and Maxwell Kyon Esq,” the IMN posited.

  • Tragedy in Kogi State

    Tragedy in Kogi State

    TOMORROW, the Kogi governorship election tribunal sitting in Abuja will begin delivering judgement in the disputed November 2015 governorship election case. Hopefully, it should bring to an end the tomfoolery being displayed by Governor Yahaya Bello. The state awaits justice in the case brought by James Abiodun Faleke asking to be declared winner of the poll, which he argued had been concluded. The governor does not rely on law to sustain his rule; he relies on his backers in Abuja and elsewhere whom he believes have done enough magic to keep him in office. It remains to be seen whether magic will trump law.
    Meanwhile, it is estimated that since he assumed office, he had received from the federation account more than nine billion naira and an additional N20 bailout money. But he has declined to pay salaries; and from inheriting about three months salary arrears, he now owes about five months. In addition, his legislative subversion, once supported by the Attorney General of the Federation and the Inspector General of Police, is now given fillip by the Nigerian Army which has sent soldiers to bar the legitimate, court-approved 15 lawmakers from sitting in the House of Assembly, and to guard Mr Bello’s five lawmakers as they purport to make laws for the state and approve his list of commissioners. If Kogi lacks shame, what of the presidency that connives at this monstrosity?

  • Another avoidable tragedy

    •Time to fix the failed portions of Abuja-Kaduna Expressway

    Last Sunday was another sad and bleak one for Ekiti State and Nigeria as a whole. It was a day that the country lost six medical doctors in a fatal accident on the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway. There were 13 occupants of the 18-seater vehicle, including the driver who, incidentally, also lost his life.

    The doctors were among the Ekiti State delegates to the 56th Annual General Conference/Annual Delegates Meeting of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) holding in Sokoto. Those who died – Dr Alex Akinyele, Dr Tunde Aladesanmi, Dr O.J Taiwo, Dr Ogunseye, J.B, Dr Olajide, O. and Dr Atolani Adeniyi  – were from the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti, the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti as well as the state’s health management board, respectively.

    Interestingly, the accident reportedly occurred around the spot where the former Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Mr James Ocholi, as well as his wife and son died in a road accident on March 6. Again, just as in the Ocholi case, the bus conveying the doctors to Sokoto was said to have had a burst tyre. But a burst tyre can only lead to this kind of tragedy if the vehicle is on high speed. The implication of all this is that the relevant authorities did nothing to ameliorate that failed spot and other damaged parts of the road between Mr James Ocholi’s fatal accident and that of the six deceased doctors as well as their driver.

    It is a notorious and perennially lamented fact that inter-state highways across the country are in terrible shape. Most of them have become veritable death traps. It is only when prominent  persons are involved in fatal accidents that the news makes the headlines. Thus, the incidence of loss of lives on our deplorable roads nationwide is most likely grossly underreported.

    A strange and curious twist to the tragedy is the protest and strike by workers of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti (FETHI), who put the blame for the death of their colleagues on the institution’s chief medical director, Dr Lawrence Ayodele. The aggrieved workers claim that at least 42 members of staff have died during Dr Ayodele’s tenure and this they believe is as a result of rituals he allegedly carries out on the institution’s premises, with the aim of getting his tenure in office renewed. Vehemently denying this allegation, the FETHI spokesman, Mr Adeboyejo Adekunle, said “Some people are against the CMD’s second term. They are disgruntled elements and they are the ones behind all these”.

    It is a pity that this gruesome tragedy is being politicised in such a cynical manner that shows little respect for the memory of the dead. While we understand and identify with the deep grief of FETHI’s workers, we urge them to make claims that lie within the realm of reason and empirical verifiability. The allegation that rituals carried out by the CMD or his agents are responsible for the fatal accident seems far-fetched and is impossible to prove since such claims are essentially metaphysical. For us, there are practical steps that must be immediately taken to stem the rate of fatal accidents and avoidable tragedies on the Abuja-Kaduna Road.

    We call on the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to immediately fix the dangerous portions of the road and all other such death traps on highways across the country. It is also incumbent on the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) to engage in more aggressive public enlightenment campaigns to sensitise the public to dangerous portions of roads as well as stem the tide of over-speeding on the highways. We commiserate with the families of victims of what is another avoidable tragedy and pray that God grant them strength in this dark hour.

  • Road carnage and tragedy of Nigerian life

    Recently, a truck conveying people from the North to Lagos was reported to have fallen off the “long bridge” on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Dozens of people were killed in that disaster. Months ago, a truck which was reportedly “driving against traffic” on the Benin-Sagamu expressway had run into a bus conveying students of the Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State, killing them all. A few years ago, as a result of the traffic snarl caused by the barricade which police officers had set up on a highway in order to extort money from drivers, the brakes of an oncoming petrol tanker failed. It rammed into the long queue of vehicles and exploded, setting dozens of cars and their occupants ablaze. Only last weekend, there is a report of the death of a minister in yet another road mishap.

    In one picture, you see the gory remains of human beings strewn across the expressway. In another, you see beside the wreckage of vehicles, blood-soaked corpses on the roadside. Sometimes the famed “good Samaritans” cover the faces of such corpses with rags or even leaves.

    This is the curious story of Nigeria, where life appears to be worth nothing, judging by the nature and frequency of road traffic accidents and indeed accidents of any nature including those from low-hanging electric cables that fall ever so often and electrocute human beings. But even more curious is the fact that these incidents do not seem to rouse the authorities in any way. If the victims are lucky, a governor or VIP passing by may make a quick stop at the scene, with his publicity team ensuring that good photos of the VIP assisting accident victims are taken. Or as in our present circumstances, sundry eulogies that suggest that the victim was the best thing to have happened to mankind are mouthed by VIPs. Tragically, that is typically where the story ends, until the next tragedy.

    The only real tangible attempt to address the issue of road carnage in Nigeria on a national scale was that of the regime of Ibrahim Babangida who in the late 1980s, set up the Federal Roads Safety Commission, FRSC, modelled after a similar programme by the second republic governor of Oyo State, Bola Ige. Ige’s program had reportedly been very successful at reducing road carnage in Oyo State, largely on account of the zeal and innovativeness of Wole Soyinka who led it. Not unexpectedly, therefore, in setting up the Federal Roads Safety Commission, Babangida appointed Wole Soyinka as chairman.

    Under Soyinka’s oversight, the FRSC got to work very quickly and in a short while, began to tangibly entrench road safety awareness and practices in Nigeria. The FRSC officials themselves seemed to be in perpetual patrols and Nigeria’s perpetually over-speeding drivers would instinctively slow down on sighting them. Also remarkable was that Soyinka’s FRSC recruited hundreds of road safety volunteers whom it called “Special Marshalls.” These Marshalls synergized the efforts of the regular FRSC officials and were to be seen all over the country, flagging down over-speeding vehicles or even controlling traffic at notorious bedlams. All of these were done pro bono by these marshals, many of whom were professionals ordinarily engaged in different activities in sundry spheres of life.

    Even though there is hardly any data to support this, empirical evidence would suggest that the FRSC was very impactful in its early days and very visibly so. The master-stroke of recruiting “Special Marshalls” from the populace enhanced the social appeal and credibility of road safety consciousness and consequently buy-in by the public.

    But as with most things Nigerian, the FRSC has over the years tended to have lost focus. A few years ago, it decreed that all vehicle owners in Nigeria must buy reflective stickers and paste same on the rear of their vehicles. It refused to heed any alternative argument that today, vehicle rear lights come with reflectors anyway, making the reflective stickers superfluous and even grossly unsightly on vehicles. If I recall, it took the intervention of a minister to make the FRSC back down on this ridiculous “decree”. It later turned out that people with connection to the FRSC top echelon had imported container loads of these stickers and the new “all vehicles must use reflective stickers” directive by FRSC had simply been a ploy by the FRSC to help their friends dispose of these stickers profitably.

    Recently, the FRSC again decreed that vehicle number plates needed to be compulsorily changed across the country. Owners of motor vehicles would need to discard their number plates and pay afresh for new number plates, which it claimed would now come with “special security features.” As it turned out, the only difference between the old number plates and FRSC’s new plates was that the “new” ones had a map of Nigeria on them. Thankfully a court of law has since come to the aid of Nigeria’s hapless motorists by ruling that there is nothing wrong or illegal with using the old number plates.

    Today, rather than patrol our roads and help ensure that motorists adhere to the tenets of safe motoring including driving only at safe speeds, FRSC officials are more likely to be seen in street corners, obstructing the free flow of traffic under the guise of apprehending defaulting motorists. You are likely to see parked nearby, their weather-beaten pick-up trucks which appear worse than many of the vehicles they apprehend, one of the many tragic ironies of this once laudable institution.

    Yes, road carnage in Nigeria is often a fallout of sundry factors including bad and unlit roads as well as the typical lackadaisical attitude by Nigerians to safety and maintenance in general. But it doesn’t take genius to realize that the bulk of road traffic accidents arise from over-speeding. The average Nigerian driver appears to have a tendency to turn any stretch of smooth road, wherever it is located, to a race track. Again, tragically, government convoys are the worst offenders in this regard, driving as if they literally own the roads.

    Road carnage is at its peak today and our governments owe us a duty to address it squarely. It needs to very aggressively redress our attitudes to road safety and inculcate a new mindset that alerts Nigerians to the imperative of safety on our roads. Doing so will also mean that stiff penalties including jail terms should be paid where people wilfully risk the lives of other road users by driving badly or driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, among others. The Federal Government would also need to integrate road patrolling into its tolling programme for federal roads. Such patrolling should address road safety as well as road security.

    There is an imperative to re-awaken and aggressively reorganize the FRSC which seems to have gone the way of the typical rotten Nigerian behemoth. But while we await the effort of the Federal Government in this regard, nothing stops the various states from implementing something similar in their domains. Apart from saving the dozens of lives that are ordinarily lost daily, such initiatives will also help ensure that scarce resources including manpower in hospitals across the country are deployed to more pressing areas than victims of needless carnage on our roads.

     

    • Okoruwa is a business executive in Lagos