The Nation Newspaper

Tag: tragic

  • This is tragic!

    •13.2 million out-of-school children in Nigeria is grievous indeed

    It is an index of shame for Nigeria and indeed the world. This may explain why United Nations agencies like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are seemingly acting in a frantic manner to wade into the matter. It is probably the highest such incidence of out-of-school situation in the world; a veritable index of failure of leadership and governance.

    The figure of children with no access to education in Nigeria is more alarming if we know that this population is larger than the population of 158 out of 233 countries and sovereign entities as listed by Wikipedia. More graphically, if these hapless 13.2 million young people were a country, it would be listed as 76th country in the world in terms of population size.

    This means it would be bigger than countries like Switzerland, Portugal, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, Tunisia, Belgium, Greece, Cuba, Denmark, Singapore and Norway, to name a few. This number coming from one country is indeed a matter of grave concern.

    It is therefore comforting that the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the Federal Ministry of Education in conjunction with UNICEF conducted the survey that has revealed that 13.2 million Nigerian children are bereft of basic education.

    The poll, which was carried out between 2012 and 2013, was released in 2015 with the necessary adjustments. According to Dr. Hamid Boboyi, executive secretary of UBEC, this sad statistic was the result of socio-economic factors as well as the effects of the Boko Haram insurgency which has displaced millions of children in the northern part of the country.

    Another dimension to the issue is that many states of the federation are yet to adopt the Child’s Right Act enacted by the National Assembly in 2003. The Act is sequel to the UN Child’s Right Convention ratified by the Federal Government in 2001.

    While all the 17 states of the south have adopted the legislation, only eight states of the north have keyed into it. Some states of the north are alleged to have declined assent to it on religious grounds.

    However, the Child’s Right Act stipulates that every child is entitled to free and compulsory basic education, from primary to junior secondary school.

    The Compulsory Universal Free Education Act of 2004 is sequel to the need to fund this basic stage of education. It is also instrumental to the setting up of the Universal Basic Education Fund. The Federal Government is required to allocate two percent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the UBE fund while the state governments, including the FCT, would contribute counterpart funds in order to access the fund.

    Sadly, there was about N67 billion of the UBE fund lying fallow and un-accessed in the vaults of the Central Bank of Nigeria as at the middle of this year. Many state governments have been unable to sign up to the fund.

    Indeed, only six states and the FCT have been able to access the fund up to 2017. There is no doubt that proper financial planning and prompt access to the UBE fund would go a long way in keeping more children in school.

    It is noteworthy that a Northern Nigeria Traditional Leaders Conference will be coming up in a few weeks. About 80 traditional rulers from the 19 northern states and Abuja are expected as well as religious leaders. Top on the agenda would be problems that pose barriers to education in the north.

    The situation is indeed grave, bordering on the tragic. We urge the conferees to, among other matters, look critically at the almajiri conundrum and possibly seek a legislation that would make parents to be responsible for their wards. And governors should be compelled to pay more attention to education by budgeting for counterpart funding for UBEC and other critical infrastructure of learning.

    The leaders of the north have a duty to stem what portends a major tragedy for the region and indeed Nigeria in the foreseeable future.

  • Buhari and the tragic federation

    SIR: It is two years already that President Buhari assumed office as President. He came in with high expectation on the demand side. CHANGE was the vehicle! It now seems that the road is either too rough/slippery for the vehicle or that the driver does not understand the signs on the dash board!

    The frustration-aggression space created by socio-economic cum political injustices has opened desperate vista for survival. The people live in wide unfilled integration–gap that has expanded the width, the depth and the height of their vulnerabilities. Religious and ethnic baits have become the snare for national death. It now fits into the assertion of Uvin P. that; ‘a population that is cynical, angry, and frustrated is predisposed to scapegoating and projection, vulnerable to manipulation, deeply afraid of the future, and desperate for change’. This is the nation that was handed over to President Buhari and he needs to understand this; and very fast too!

    The President needs help; urgently and swiftly too! He needs to be rescued; from foes and friends; and much more from himself! From foes, because of hatred without repentance; from friends, because of the dangerously expanding see-no-evil-cultism and from himself, because he does not understand the chemistry of a mentally broken country that he has the privilege of presiding over. The President might have inherited an economy poorer than he imagined before assuming power. He can be pardoned for that. However, it is an unpardonable oversight if the President was ignorant of the social state of nation when he assumed office. He ought to know by the callousness of the campaigns that were run by parties on the road to the 2015 elections. In character and contents, the campaigns were not only obnoxious; they were genocidal! They fed on ethnic and religious differences and feast on fratricidal faith and ethnicity.

    I wish Buhari had prioritised the people and regions that did not vote for him for re-assurance of one Nigeria, and more so in his first major appointment. I wish he fashioned his wonderful word line ‘am for everybody and for nobody’ into weapon that could make the Nigeria’s template for provincial thinking into article for spasm in deleted memory file. I wish he had fired the first shot for national integration by consciously mobilising diverse ethnic groups and recognising each as critical bloc in re-building a nation whose citizens have been lost to tribes, religion and political parochialism. No amount of good work will endure in a country with maximum mutual hate like Nigeria of today. Just imagine a cohesive nation that rises against Boko Haram together, uses tool of justice to frustrate opportunity for emergence of Niger Delta Avengers, makes irrelevant the continued existence of Biafra, OPC and Arewa fronts.

    As good as fighting corruption may be, it cannot replace the need to re-construct our ethnic diversity and mobilise it along national line; using the outcome of dialogue with the blocs as tools for addressing collective grievances and curtailing  individual greed.  Grievances are drifting us apart; and leaders must rise to address them.

    We cannot continue to create opportunities for flourishing Stock Market of violence by narrowly concentrating political power and economic opportunities in few blocs at the expense of others. Policies and practices must recognise our diversity, acknowledge our weaknesses and leverage on our capacity and strength to evolve a just and flourishing nation built on social justice.

    President Buhari must urgently come up with a working strategy that will counter the narratives of Nigeria being a mere geographic expression; a country without citizens! He must realise that to make a good President, there must be a good people; bound in unity! Unity is impossible in a country where some continually hold the horns of cow for others to do the milking! Nigeria is too structurally defective to carry the weight of justice.

     

    • Gbenro Olajuyigbe,

    Abuja.

  • Tragic reversal

    • Nigeria leaning on Chad and S/African mercenaries calls for urgent fixing of the country  

    On 18 April 1983 Chad, under warlord President Hissene Habre, invaded and seized 19 islands on Lake Chad, inside Nigerian territory.

    Nigeria’s retaliation, by 21st Armoured Brigade in Maiduguri, under the overall command of the then Brig. Muhammadu Buhari, General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3 Division, pushed the invaders some 50 kilometres deep into Chadian territory.

    Thirty-two years later, however, Chad, though under an international coalition of forces, would appear the game-changer in Nigeria’s bungled war against Boko Haram, plaguing Nigeria’s North East in particular, but planting morbid fear in the whole of northern Nigeria.

    Only a few days after Chad’s intervention, under an African Union (AU) conceived international regional force against Boko Haram, the integrated armies of Nigeria, Chad and Niger (Cameroun is reportedly yet to join, except in battling Boko Haram inside its own territory) have recaptured, from the Islamists, Malumfatori, Gamboru, Mafa, Abadam and Marte.

    Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has, of course, balked at the suggestion that Chad, not the Nigerian Army in its own territory, is calling the shot. Nevertheless, it is clear that Chad’s intervention has been decisive; and if the current successes mark the final turning point to eventually routing Boko Haram, Chad will, not unjustifiably, claim credit.

    The defeat of Boko Haram cannot be bad news — in any case, not to the luckless North East locals, whose towns had been captured, and people exposed to Boko Haram’s savage code.  But it is certainly sobering, if not outright bad news, that neighbouring Chad had to come to Nigeria’s rescue.  Pray, what plague has afflicted Nigeria and its military?

    That sobering question is imperative because, parallel to the Chad intervention, news came that Nigerian authorities had allegedly hired 100 South African mercenaries to help free the rump of the Chibok 276 school girls, who Boko Haram kidnapped in April 2013, to intense universal outrage.

    Executive Outcome, the mercenary company, is reportedly owned by one Lt. Col. Eeben Barlow, formerly of the South African Defence Forces; who from newspaper reports had previously fought in Angola, Sierra Leone, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. He was allegedly hired, aside from springing the Chibok girls, to “skill” Nigerian soldiers.

    So, Nigeria would spurn a military training offer by the United States, only to hire mercenaries to do the job? And these mercenaries, who their home government has disowned, with Maite Nkoana Mashabane, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, expressing sadness at the development; and saying there are enough laws to prosecute the alleged mercenaries, any time they set foot in South Africa?

    Nuhu Ribadu, former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) boss but now Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate for Adamawa State, has admitted Nigeria embraced black market arms because the Western countries were shunning it. So is Nigeria, though a democracy, fast sliding into a pariah state again? What really is happening to this country?

    President Goodluck Jonathan, on the virtual eve of a crucial election, stands legitimately charged with leading Nigeria to bust. Still, his tenure is only the culmination of a progressively decaying Nigerian state.

    Take the Chad intervention, which should really be counter-intuitive. Chad is less populated, less blessed with resources, less vital in regional standing in the context of global geo-politics, and has smaller military budget.

    Yet, it appears to suffer less corruption (than Nigeria, in any case!) and has somehow instilled more discipline in its army. It appears a long, winding road from 1983, when Buhari crushed the Chad invasion of Nigeria! And what if Chad, after its current help, suddenly develops territorial ambition, with Nigeria manifesting disturbing symptoms of a country unable to defend its integrity?

    Nigeria, from the saviour of West Africa to the wimp being saved by less endowed countries, is a tragic reversal of monumental proportion. But that grave challenge compels a solemn re-visit, to halt the decay in the Nigerian state, once and for all.

    By making the right choices, this election offers a historic opportunity for a rebuilding process, starting from the scratch.

  • Akeredolu: His death tragic in many ways

    Akeredolu: His death tragic in many ways

    A former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) said Aturu’s death is tragic in several aspects.

    In a statement yesterday on the activist’s death, Akeredolu said: “The news, yet again, of the sudden passing of one of the few genuine voices in the fight for the emancipation of the downtrodden, Mr Bamidele Francis Aturu, sometime yesterday after a brief illness, is tragic in many respects.

    “The fact that this uncompromising advocate of the masses died at a time when his seminal and forthright intervention is badly needed in the face of benumbing socio-economic problems which threaten to tear the country apart at present marks his departure as a colossal loss.

    “We are consoled by the knowledge that his short lifespan was eventful. We send our heart-felt condolences to his family. We pray that the Almighty grant them the strength to bear the irreparable loss.”