The Nation Newspaper

Tag: vengeance

  • Vengeance finds everyone

    What could be wrong in wishing that the Nigerian ruling class experiences the catastrophe it inflicts on the citizenry via bad governance? Consider for instance, the sad case of a man who loses his wife and three children to a fatal road accident caused by bad road; knowing that his state governor had persistently ignored pleas that he repaired the badly cratered road, could it be wrong for the bereaved to pray, that our Heavenly Creator, rewards the governor with similar tragedy?

    Would it be wrong to pray that divinely inspired vengeance, scorn all religious, anti-retributive rites by the governor, and wreak greater havoc in his life?

    How about the poor, helpless under-age girls abducted from Baga, Bama, Konduga and other parts of Borno State? If such girls – the survivors among them to be precise – eventually understand that they were labelled disposable integers, the casualties of dirty politics and a war of wiles by the political class, would it be wrong that they wished upon the men and women responsible for their plight, greater tragedies, in retribution?

    Maryam Alhaji-Wakil was abducted at the tender age of nine. In 2014, insurgents of the deadly terrorist sect, Boko Haram, invaded her town and burnt her home. They killed her relatives and decapitated her neighbours. Then they whisked her off to Sambisa Forest. There, she was forcibly married to Modu, a lustful and violent Boko Haram insurgent. In two days, little Maryam was violently thrust into womanhood. Modu, 35, forced his way into her unripe orifice, robbing her of innocence and the mystic pleasure of first and legitimate adult sexual experience.

    Modu was hasty and rough thus making her ‘first time’ bestial and replete with pain. Maryam screamed in agony but Modu didn’t care.

    “The louder I screamed, the more violently he shoved into me until I passed out,” she revealed to me in a personal encounter.

    Thus at the tender age of nine, Maryam was violently abused. When she could not withstand the misery of living as Modu’s sex slave any longer, she volunteered to serve as one of Boko Haram’s suicide bombers.

    Consequently, she was dispatched with a bomb to neighbouring Cameroon. She was taken on a motorcycle to blow up soft military targets in the country but Maryam had other plans.

    When the rider dropped her, she approached the soldiers and told them, ‘I have this thing on my body. It is a bomb. I was sent to kill you. Please, help me remove it.” Instantly, the soldiers sprung into defensive position but when they realised that she had come to surrender, they approached her and unstrapped the explosive from her body.

    Maryam spent several months in the custody of the Cameroonian gendarmes until she was handed over to the Nigerian Army. Hard as it is to picture the extent of bitterness devastating her heart, an intense gape into her eyes reveals a girl utterly torn apart. Beneath her pretty face lurks a battered soul.

    Now 12 years of age, Maryam is yet to break out the jailhouse of her past. She is still that abducted, frightened nine-year-old, who got whisked off to Sambisa Forest, after watching her relatives and neighbours fall in a bloody heap, to the bullets of Boko Haram’s terror squads.

    Maryam relives the days she went without food because her insurgent ‘husband’ was too lazy and poor to feed her. She remembers the excruciating nights that she laid captive and helpless under Modu’s massive bulk, while he violently plowed into her because she “was an unwilling bride.”

    When Maryam eventually discovers that the men and women, fathers and mothers, who were meant to ‘protect and serve her’ as all good leaders should, were responsible for her misery, should she simply ‘forgive and forget?’  When she discovers that they embezzled the £2.1 billion disbursed to procure weaponry meant to secure her release, should she seek them out for a hug?

    It is only just that Maryam utters, persistently, heartfelt prayers, that the Most High God, blesses the daughters and granddaughters of the men and women who triggered and accentuated her misery, with similar fate.

    Some would claim, that, it is wrong to wish such retribution on ‘innocent children’ of the predatory ruling class. They would counsel forgiveness saying: “Let the actual offenders be punished and not their bloodline.”

    Why? In a nation where rich, privileged criminals are given a slap on the hand and pat on the back, it is only just that the progeny and wives of such characters suffer same tragedies as victims of their inhumanity.

    After all, prosecutors have established that certain governors, senators, presidents and bank chiefs plundered Nigeria’s treasury with the assistance of their wives and children. Just recently, the anti-graft agency confiscated 20 expensive automobiles from the unemployed son of a military chief, who is under inquiry for corruption.

    If Nigeria’s leadership is just to the citizenry, the universe will in turn, be just to them. However, public officers responsible for the incessant disasters plaguing Nigeria, should get their just deserts even as you read. State governors and senators for instance, may remain rich, privileged and aloof, while electorate families perish on bad roads and rural kids die for lack of adequate care across Nigeria’s primary healthcare centres; very soon, they will watch their children and grandchildren suffer the same fate.

    Such is the working of divinely ordained retribution – I only give voice to the immutable.

    If as a president, state governor or legislator, you embezzle public fund and divert it to sponsor your children’s education overseas while the children of peasants and working class who voted you into power, extinguish in intellect and passion, across Nigeria’s underfunded schools, it is only just that those children of yours never amount to much or anything in life, like the victims of your greed.

    Sanctimonious faithful and intellectuals may condemn this because it is ‘religiously and politically incorrect.’ They would claim only the offenders deserve to get punished. Where the offenders are caught, they would suggest plea bargain, and urge that they get pardoned, in the spirit of godliness.

    To this, I say: ‘What crime did Maryam and her parents commit?”

  • Vengeance against my family, govt triggered recession, says Jonathan

    •‘Corruption has worsened after my exit

    There is no hold barred in the book written by former President Goodluck Jonathan. In the book titled: “My Transition Hours”, Dr. Jonathan, reflects on his last moment of decision to concede defeat to his challenger in 2015. YOMI ODUNUGA and TONY AKOWE, who were at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, venue of the presentation in Abuja, present excerpts from the book.

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the descent into recession by the country few months after his exit from office was self-inflicted by the APC government which came with a vengeance mission and name-calling rather than build on the gains of his administration.

    The former president said in his book, My Transition Hours, that the clueless tag given to his government was an attempt to denigrate his person and that of those who served under him, stressing that no government in Nigeria’s history has had the opportunity of having such array of person working in one government like he did.

    He said it is on record that several of his ministers and others he appointed into different positions are currently occupying plum positions across the globe, warning that people should stop digging holes for others to fall into.

    He wrote: “Recall that the opposition and their sympathisers and campaigners, both local and international, with their malicious propaganda, tore our economy to shreds, threatened our stability and existence as a nation and intimidated our citizens, all in the bid to take over power.

    “Nevertheless, we conducted ourselves in a manner that allowed a peaceful transfer of power from a ruling party to an opposition party, for the first time since Independence in 1960.

    “Rather than forge a coalition and build on the momentum we had gathered when they eventually took office, they went on a persecution spree and vengeance mission.

    “That the country slipped into recession soon after we left office was a self-inflicted injury caused by misplaced priorities. The narrative of inheriting empty treasury is a blatant lie.

    “Also, the excuse of the collapse of world crude prices does not hold water. This is because the Fourth Republic took off in 1999 with crude oil selling for less than $20 per barrel and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth at 0.58 per cent, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figures. Yet, the economy maintained a steady growth from that year, peaking at 15.33 per cent in 2002 when the average crude oil price was about $25.

    “It is also instructive that the oil and gas sector constitute about 11 per cent of our GDP. There had to be a wider causative factor than just the fall in world crude prices.

    “It also amounts to standing facts on their heads to continuously claim that recession was caused by so-called mindless looting. The truth is that the opposition, in a bid to undo our government, became its own undoing when it got to power, because of the burden of justifying deliberate misrepresentations.

    “There is wisdom in the saying that if you win a prize and get the crown, don’t go around destroying the person who previously held that prize; it will lose its value. Even after winning the election and forming the government at the centre, the blame game continued.

    “When two brothers fight to death, it is the neighbour that inherits their father’s wealth. And we have seen neigbouring nations like the Republic of Benin and Ghana reaping from the capital flight out of Nigeria.

    “Despite Nigeria’s attainment of Independence from Britain ahead of most other African countries, we have been increasingly conditioned to seek succour in the blame game. It is time for Nigeria to take responsibility. As Gen. Murtala Mohammed said while addressing the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU) in 1976 that ‘Africa has come of age’.

    “I add that Nigeria has come of age. We either live up to that or we don’t. I am convinced that we can, and we should. We must as a nation always strive to improve the quality of life of our citizens and make developmental plans that will focus on the younger generation. That way, Nigeria will not be a liability to the rest of the world. Our population will be an albatross to us and our allies if we do not take the necessary step to tum it into a great opportunity.

    “The sundry accusations by the new administration would appear to have baited the media. Media trials are entertaining, but have little or no effect in fighting corruption and improving the economy. Since I left office, rather than improve on our TI (Transparency International) corruption perception record, the situation has worsened with the nation going 12 places backward, becoming number 148 according to the latest CPI ranking for 2017, from 136 in 2014 when I was president.

    “It was bad enough that Boko Haram insurgents continue killing people and ruining businesses, but what is worse is when politicians downgrade the economy by demarketing the country internationally.

    “You should never try to slander your political opponents by destroying your country’s economy. Capital flight intensified and companies started laying off staff. In all these, I hope a lesson would be learnt.

    “If you embark on digging a hole for your enemy, you better make it shallow, because you might end up in the hole yourself. How do you attract investors you already repelled through your utterances? Investors are an ultra-sensitive lot. Money runs away from unstable societies.

    “Most painful have been the attacks on my ministers, aides and associates and even members of my family. There is an attempt to erase our legacy from history.

    “The good thing is that the unending barrage of attacks, deliberate misinformation and programmed media smear campaigns have failed to sway the opinion of those with a clear view of our beliefs, efforts and achievements.

    “There are millions of Nigerians and others around the world who are still impressed with our modest achievements in consolidating democracy and growing the nation’s economy.

    “They will continue to serve as my strength and encouragement. Sometimes, I laugh when certain propagandists attempt to stand logic on its head by maligning my administration as one bereft of ideas and ‘clueless’.

    “In assessing my administration, it is best to focus on facts. I cannot assess myself. I leave that to history. But I can assess my cabinet and I make bold to say that never in the history of Nigeria, till date, has the nation had such a star-studded cabinet, full of achievers and people who got to the top of their chosen fields by merit.

    “Just consider that my minister of State for Health, Dr. Muhammed Ali Pate, is now a professor at America’s Duke University, as well as a Senior Adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation based in Washington DC. My minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, is now the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

    My Co-ordinating minister, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, is the chairperson of the Board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and the African Risk Capacity (ARC). She also sits on the board of Twitter and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, just as she is a Senior Adviser at Lazard and a Director at Standard Chartered Plc in the United Kingdom, amongst others.

    My minister of Communication Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, is currently Chairperson of Custodian and Allied Insurance Limited as well as the Global Alliance for Affordable Internet.

    “And it is not just members of my cabinet. Others who served with me in different capacities are also soaring on the world stage. A good example is Ms. Arunma Oteh, who I appointed the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commissnon (SEC).Under her steady and skillful direction, Nigeria’s equity market grew in metric proportions, and by the time I left office in 2015, the market had tripled in size to $150 billion in value. Two months after I left office, Ms. Oteh was appointed a Vice President and Treasurer at the World Bank.

    “These are reputable individuals who served their country meritoriously and who, on the strength of their performance as ministers in my government, are now waxing stronger and valiantly on the world stage with only the sky as their limit.

    “With such personalities on my cabinet, no one can factually say we were ‘clueless’ or inept. The evidence of performance is simply overwhelming. We gave Nigeria an impressive and steady GDP growth rate at 6.7  per cent per annum.

    “We were officially cited as the third fastest growing economy in the world by CNN Money in 2014. We eradicated polio and guinea worm and became the first nation in the world to defeat the Ebola virus, such that the then richest man in the world, Bill Gates celebrated us for our prowess in the health sector. We reduced our food import bill by 36 per cent.

    “I did the best that I could to preserve Nigeria’s unity and ensure a brighter future for all Nigerian children. This remains my driving force even now that I am out of office. I can hold my head high in my post-presidential life to say that under my watch, no Nigerian was witch-hunted because of his or her views and not one political assassination occurred under me.

    “The momentum we built was a welcome development and a necessary boost which I recommend to other African nations as a means to help the continent expand capacity and reduce youth unemployment.

    “These are some of the positive steps I took to guide Nigeria safely to land during the difficult times she found herself. Looking back, I can say that I have a sense of fulfilment. It is said that a good conscience suffers no accusations.

    “I have served Nigeria with all my strength and God alone is the judge of the universe. I certainly hope that all those who cast aspersions at us can say the same about themselves because the end of a matter is better than its beginning. I had no enemies to fight; I have none still.

    Read also: Akwa Ibom PDP alleges plot to seal off Assembly

    “It is obvious that the world is happy with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. The country came out of genocide. President Kagame made propaganda his enemy and got to work. Although Rwanda experienced the worst genocide in Africa’s recent history, it is today the toast of the world.

    “My hope is that African leaders must embrace the concept of democracy that delivers purposeful leadership, improves the lives of the people and envision a secure future for the nation. Africa is critical to global progress and for that reason I urge all African nations to work with fidelity and commitment for the greater good of the continent.

    “Looking into the future, I see that our leaders can do a lot to eliminate ethnic sentiments in our societies, enthrone merit and build a system that gives citizens equal opportunities to excel.

    “A country that cannot use its best brains will lag behind in the comity of nations. African leaders should remove key impediments limiting our growth. When we build capacity in the youth, it will unleash the creativity that would catalyse rapid development.

    “Since after my handover, and as part of the dedication of the rest of my life to the cause of peace and good governance, God helping me, I have engaged myself in finding ways of advancing the course of democracy and good governance in Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world, through my Foundation, the Goodluckjonathan Foundation (GJF). The GJF will partner with all men and organisations of goodwill across the globes who believe in the ideals to which we have committed ourselves. We will seek to prevent conflicts, create conducive environment for businesses to thrive, work to advance the frontiers of education and create employment for the youth as well as encourage them to be self-employed. Millions of our people need help. We need to develop home-grown talents. We must aid educationally-disadvantaged children. Nigeria must become the beacon of hope in Africa.

    “I urge Nigerians and Africans to join me in the effort to create a fresh thinking and enlightenment of the people of this great country and our wonderful continent as we speak out against unrestrained and reckless craving for political office.

    “We have to rebuild our nations but we must start by rebuilding ourselves. So, let us roll up our sleeves and go to work, actualising our dream, hopes and aspirations for a prosperous and peaceful Nigeria and Africa.”

  • Vengeance finds everyone

    This piece too, should infuriate you, if you are of the scholarly divide that celebrates insults to God as ‘rational’ exercise. I am not some religious fanatic, I simply appreciate the might and existence of Edumare. If you don’t,  it’s your grief, not mine. However, you may define this piece too as a ‘human right’ to vent by eloquence of thought.

    If you are a public officer of the crooked divide, this piece too, should displease you. If you are an esteemed scholar with god complex, this commentary may injure your pride. It is never my intent to glorify your politics or preferred notion of the intellectual. I will not patronise you.

    What could be wrong in wishing that the Nigerian ruling class experience catastrophe it inflicts on the citizenry via bad governance? Consider for instance, the sad case of a man who loses his wife and three children to a fatal road accident caused by bad road, knowing that the State governor had persistently and criminally refused to heed pleas that he repaired the badly cratered road; could it be wrong for such a man to tirelessly utter heartfelt prayer, that our Heavenly Creator rewards the governor with similar tragedy? Would it be wrong to pray that divinely inspired vengeance, scorn all anti-retributive fetishism and religious rituals by the governor, and wreak greater tragedy in his life?

    How about the poor, helpless underage girls abducted from Baga, Bama, Konduga and other parts of Borno State? If such girls – the survivors among them to be precise – eventually understand that they were the disposable integers, the casualties of a war of wiles by a devious political class, would it be wrong that they wish upon the men and women responsible for their plight, greater tragedies and retribution?

    Maryam Alhaji-Wakil was abducted at age nine. In 2014, insurgents of the deadly terrorist sect, Boko Haram, invaded her town and burnt her home. They killed her relatives and decapitated her neighbours. Then they whisked her off to Sambisa Forest. There, she was forcibly married to Modu, a lustful and violent Boko Haram insurgent. In two days, little Maryam was violently thrust into womanhood. Modu, 35, forced his way into her unripe orifice, robbing her of innocence and the mystic pleasure of first and legitimate adult sexual experience.

    Modu was hasty and rough thus making her ‘first time’ bestial and replete with pain. She screamed in agony but Modu didn’t care. “The louder I screamed, the more violently he shoved into me until I passed out,” she revealed to me in a personal encounter.

    Thus at the tender age of nine, Maryam was violently used and sexually abused. When she could not withstand the misery of living as a sex slave any longer, she opted to serve as one of the terrorist group’s female suicide bombers. Consequently, she was dispatched with a bomb to neighbouring Cameroon. She was taken on a motorcycle to blow up any soft military target in Cameroon. But Maryam had other plans.

    When the rider dropped her, she approached the soldiers and told them, ‘I have this thing on my body. It is a bomb. I was sent to kill you. Please, help me remove it.” Instantly, the soldiers sprung into defensive position but realising that she had come to surrender, they approached her and unstrapped the explosive from her body.

    Maryam spent several months in the custody of the Cameroonian gendarmes until she was handed over to the Nigerian military. Hard as it is to picture the extent of bitterness devastating her heart, an intense gape into her eyes reveals a girl utterly torn apart. Beneath her pretty face lurks a battered soul.

    Now 12 years of age, Maryam is yet to break out the jailhouse of her past. She is still the starry-eyed nine-year-old that got whisked off to Sambisa Forest, while her relatives and neighbours fell in a bloody heap, to the bullets of Boko Haram’s terror squads. Maryam relives the days she went without food because her insurgent ‘husband’ was too poor and lazy to provide her food. She remembers the excruciating nights that she laid captive and helpless under his massive bulk, while he violently plowed into her because she  ”was an unwilling bride.”

    When Maryam eventually discovers that men and women who were meant to ‘protect and serve her’ as all good leaders should do, were responsible for her misery, should she simply ‘forgive and forget?’  When she discovers that men and women in the immediate past presidency embezzled the £2.1 billion disbursed to procure weaponry meant to secure her release and that of the 276 Chibok girls, should she seek them out for a hug and heartfelt blessings?

    It is only just that Maryam persistently utters heartfelt prayers that the daughters and granddaughters of the men and women who triggered and accentuated her misery, share similar fate with her.

    Some would claim that it is wrong to wish such retribution on innocent children of perceived bad leaders. They would counsel forgiveness saying: “Let the actual offenders be punished and not their bloodline.”

    I passionately object to such righteousness. Why? In a nation where rich, privileged criminals are given a slap on the hand and pat on the back, it is only just that offspring and wives of such criminals suffer same tragedies as victims of their inhumanity. After all, prosecutors have established certain governors, senators, presidents and bank chiefs along with their wives and kids.

    Just recently, the anti-graft agency confiscated 20 expensive automobiles from the  unemployed son of a military chief who is under inquiry for corruption. He is simply one of several rich, spoilt kids of the Nigerian ruling class misappropriating the wealth of the collective for the luxury of a few, privileged class.

    If the Nigerian leadership is just to the citizenry, the universe will in turn, be just to them. If public officers are honest, compassionate and enthusiastic in pursuit of the country’s progress and the citizenry’s happiness, may Edumare and His universe be just to them. May our Creator shower them with His infinite mercies.

    However, public officers responsible for the ceaseless disasters plaguing our lives, will get their comeuppance even as you read. Every president, federal minister, state governor, commissioner, legislator, council chairman, judicial officer and associate by whose greed, corruption and inhumaneness Nigeria careens in corruption while the citizenry perish in avoidable tragedies, will experience their due rewards, in time.

    State governors and senators for instance, may remain rich, privileged and aloof, while electorate families perish on bad roads and rural kids die for lack of adequate care, staff and facilities across Nigeria’s primary healthcare centres; very soon, they will watch their children and grandchildren suffer the same fate. Such is the working of divinely ordained retribution – I only give voice to the immutable.

    If as a president, state governor or legislator, you divert public fund to sponsor your children’s education overseas while the children of peasants and working class who voted you into power, extinguish in intellect and passion, across Nigeria’s underfunded schools, it is only just that those children of yours never amount to much or anything in life, like the victims of your greed.

    Again, self-righteous faithful and intellectual will condemn this because it is religiously or politically incorrect. They will advocate that only the offenders deserve punishment.

    To this, I would say: ‘What were our parents’ crime? What crime did Maryam’s parents commit, that made the ruling class treat her so?’

  • Anti-corruption: President on vengeance mission, says party

    Anti-corruption: President on vengeance mission, says party

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of going on vengeance mission, describing the administration’s anti-corruption war as vendetta against members and others associated with the  PDP.

    In a new year message signed by the party’s Acting National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, the PDP said the anti-graft war is meant to harass and intimidate members of the opposition.

    Secondus charged Nigerians to remain focused in the new year, even as he chided the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of feeding Nigerians with false propaganda.

    The statement said: “Nigerians have watched in bewilderment as the so-called change agenda of the APC has deepened the socio-economic problems in the country, instead of building on the successes bequeathed to them by the PDP

    “Today the APC has governed for seven months and PDP can confidently say without any fear of contradiction that the APC was not prepared for governance. The APC is just a gang-up of aggrieved people to take over the reins of power.

    “To date, APC does not have a clear agenda on how to bring about the change they promised. As a result, Nigerians have seen the APC for all it is worth -an ill prepared party with an ill prepared agenda for governance.

    “Nigerians have seen the chaotic situation at hand, orchestrated by the incoherent policy initiatives of the APC led government. Yes, this is the reality we face.

    “From the confusion in the subsidy question, to the insurgency conundrum; from the discredited anti-corruption fight, to the confusion in the government’s economic policy.

    “Yet the government has, by its own acts of omission and commission, presented itself as non-inclusive and sectional.

    “Consequently, we are now faced with worsening fuel crisis; free fall of the naira; job losses; worsening insurgency; the shiite/military clash; renewed Biafran agitation and general insecurity.

    “In the middle of all this, it is clear that the APC government is pursuing a one -party state agenda considering its inordinate schemes to take over PDP controlled states.

    “To worsen this state of misgovernance, the only active policy of this government, the anti-corruption fight, is being mismanaged. The PDP supports this policy wholeheartedly because it is fundamental to our drive towards national development as a country.

    “But it becomes counter productive if it is pursued without following the rule of law and at the same time selectively targeting members of the opposition party.

    “For instance, some former PDP members who defected to the APC a few months ago, some of them, former governors, who were indicted in their states, are not being investigated. Rather, they are appointed into cabinet positions”.

    The party observed that Nigerians have become despondent on account of poor economic policy of the administration, regretting what it described as the demonization of the PDP by the APC led government.

    The party called on Nigerians not to lose hope, as they boldly march into Year 2016.

    “We must repose our faith in God, the only one that can guide the leadership of this country to take actions that would genuinely correct past mistakes, rebuild our economy, give all Nigerians a sense of belonging and secure our country.

    “Our prayer is that in 2016 Nigerians will live in peace, love and brotherhood and would be alive to their citizenship responsibility of engaging the government so that it can work for national reconciliation, reconstruction and development.

    The PDP will be at the vanguard of this movement. We are already reforming our party in order to put us in good stead to play this role effectively”, the statement added.

  • Baribote: Vengeance is for God

    Baribote: Vengeance is for God

    Former Nigeria  Premier League boss Victor Baribote has said he got his wife to vacate the law suit against the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) because vengeance belongs only to God.

    “We looked at the situation and agreed that revenge belongs to God. And that it would be wrong for us to insist on our position to the detriment of millions of Nigerian youths and our country,” Baribote said.

    “So, we decided that we to vacate the case.”

    However, he also said his wife gave two conditions before the ruling was quashed.

    “Yes, she gave two conditions. That the board of the NPL be reinstated and allowed to run their term,” he said.

    “And the second condition is that my ban be lifted.”

    Baribote dragged Nigerian football to a civil court, which is against FIFA statutes, following his recent ban.

    The Jos High court ruling led to the country’s sports minister appointing an acting general secretary for the NFF and this in turn led to a FIFA ban on Nigeria.

    However, after the court ruling was set aside late Wednesday, the NFF led by president Aminu Maigari are expected to return to work for FIFA to lift the ban against the country.

  • ‘I arranged the kidnapping of my ex-boss’s wife for vengeance, not for money’

    ‘I arranged the kidnapping of my ex-boss’s wife for vengeance, not for money’

    An alleged sponsor and leader of a seven-man kidnapping gang, Chukwunonso Ejike (34) has confessed that he formed the gang in order to take a revenge on his boss and relation named Tony (not real name) for allegedly jeering at him when his child died. Narrating an incident that transpired between him and his boss, the indigene of Ekwulobia, Aguata Local Government Area, Anambra State said: “I worked in his (boss’s) company between 2004 and 2007. The woman I later married was also working in the same company as a sales representative. She later became the best sales representative in the company because she was hardworking and she generated millions of naira for the company every week.

    “She was later given an official car and her salary was raised to N90,000 per month. At the end of 2007, my boss settled me with N250,000. I later travelled to China on a business trip. I spent four years in China but was later deported to Nigeria because my visa expired. When I got back to Nigeria, I started my own company. I became an importer of jewellery.

    “Returning from China after four years of leaving Tony’s company, I thought it wise to marry the woman I loved and had worked with before I travelled abroad. I did not know that the marriage would ignite hatred from my boss. My wife is the kind of woman every man would like to have because of her beauty, intelligence and hard work. My boss became jealous and started insulting her.

    “At times he would bark at her, asking her why she did not see any other man to marry than me. He called me all sorts of degrading names like ‘never-do-well’ and ‘deportee’.

    “My wife later got pregnant but lost the pregnancy in the second month, which to me was spiritual. When she took in again, the baby died in her womb. I had already accepted the loss of my babies as the will of God or a natural thing when I heard that my boss, who is equally my relation, was making jest of me and celebrating the death of my children, saying my wife and I thought that without us, his company would fold up.

    “To add insult to injury, the company’s management collected her car and pushed her out of the company without a sack letter. It was two weeks after she was pushed out of the company that the baby died in her womb.

    “I felt bad about the way my wife was pushed out, having worked for the company for eight years and making sales between N10 million and N11 million every month. A person who is working hard and bringing in millions of naira monthly would most likely record bad debts. There was a time she complained that one of her customers ran away with N500,000.

    “Her monthly salary was N90,000, but there was no month she received up to that amount as salary. At times, she was given N26,000 as salary. She never received her basic salary since she started working there.

    “When the man started his evil plans against my family, the company’s lawyer wrote a nonsense letter that my wife was indebted to the company to the tune of N3.2 million. Eight years is long enough to get such amount as bad debt, because my wife generated millions of naira for the company