Showing posts with label Owerri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Owerri. Show all posts

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Saturday’s Governorship Elections In Nigeria And The Credibility Of The Electoral Commission

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

As the November 11, 2023, governorship elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi states draw close, widespread and justifiable concerns continue to mount about the capacity and willingness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to organize free, credible and transparent polls to gratify the deep yearnings of the people to be allowed to exercise their constitutional right to choose their own governor.

*Oti and Yakubu: Tale of two professors 

Given the very demoralizing performance posted by INEC in the last general elections earlier in the year, whose glaring evidences are showing their egregious faces at the various Election Petitions Tribunals across the country, the people have every reason to be very apprehensive and distrustful of INEC under the leadership of Prof Mahmood Yakubu.

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Bank Officials As Public Enemy

 By Levi Obijiofor

When you hear about economic hardships battering the citizens of a country, you need go no further to search, locate and understand what the experiences might look like. We have the exact situation on the ground in Nigeria. The current cash crunch across the country, impishly engineered by the Central Bank and aided by commercial banks, has paralysed human and business activities in Nigeria and pulverised the welfare of ordinary citizens. This is an unsolicited experience no one in Nigeria would like to relive. 

There are visibly many players in the current game of infamy playing out in the country. At the head of the mischief-makers is Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele, closely followed by chief executives of commercial banks, and supported by point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) vendors. They constitute the merchants of evil. They have made life unbearable for ordinary people. More important, the CBN and commercial bank officials must take full responsibility for the current economic instability. Their reputation has been sullied but they do not care about reputation.

If you were a bank customer in Nigeria and were asked to rank the following people and professionals, in terms of unethical conduct and dishonesty, which of them would top your list? 

Would you pick the dishonest and unfeeling bank manager, the corrupt police officer, the strong-willed army/naval/air force officer, the dubious Customs officer, the morally despicable pastor or priest, the heartless lawyer, the unlicensed and unqualified medical doctor, the junk journalist, the crooked construction engineer, the callous nurse/midwife, the licentious and lecherous university teacher, the devious trader or market woman, the mechanistic carpenter, the unprincipled chef, the headline-chasing newspaper editor and publisher, the fraudulent accountant, the histrionic advertising or public relations manager, the coldblooded pickpocket, the penny-pinching and amoral prostitute, or the duplicitous commercial vehicle operator? 

The persons listed above are not exhaustive, but chances are that you might select the pickpocket or prostitute as the vilest, most unethical, most dreadful and most dishonest person. Your choice would have been made based on how these people are perceived in public. Regardless of what happens, the point to keep in mind is that person perception is often far from reality.

When a similar study was conducted in Australia in 1996, the outcome was a rude shock to everyone. The study requested respondents to rank various professions in terms of how they were perceived for ethics, trust and honesty. Surprisingly, newspaper journalists were ranked second from the bottom. That study revealed for the first time a terrible image problem for Australian journalists, despite the essential role they play in their society. In that poll, newspaper journalists were ranked very low – they managed to beat used-car salespersons. 

Follow-up studies have been conducted since that time but the image of Australian journalists has not improved significantly. A study of Australia’s most trusted professions conducted in 2021 showed that doctors were the most trusted, followed by nurses, paramedics, firefighters, scientists, police officers, teachers, pharmacists, pilots and veterinarians. The same study placed journalists second to last (number 29), just one place ahead of politicians who were ranked last at number 30.

In the perception of the Australian public, journalists are still seen as untrustworthy, dishonest and unethical. The underlying message is that Australian journalists are not regarded highly by the public.

Each society places a different value on its institutions. Consider the following. In December 2000, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, regarded as the world’s largest selling newspaper, asked 2,000 people to list the institution they trusted most. The prime minister was ranked last. That said a lot about the extent of confidence the Japanese people placed on their politicians. Imagine the kind of ranking President Muhammadu Buhari and his ministers would receive if that kind of poll was conducted in Nigeria. 

Still in December 2000, a Gallup Opinion Poll conducted in the United States about the most trusted institutions showed that the military were ranked top and television was ranked 14th. 

I do not believe that a similar poll to that conducted in Australia would produce a similar result in Nigeria in terms of the image of newspaper journalists. In Nigeria, the public image of journalists is yet to be tested officially through a public opinion survey. But for bank officials and particularly university lecturers who engage in frequent rounds of sexual harassment of female students, a practice that has become widespread, we do not need such a test because there is unassailable evidence that shows that the battered image of university lecturers and bank officials is a direct outcome of their unethical and dishonest conduct in their professional roles. 

I am reminded of what a recent female graduate of the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Owerri, said on video while thanking God for her success that was also attributed to the magnetic power of her sexual organ. 

For a very long time, we associated bank managers in Nigeria with honest and ethical conduct. Whenever you wanted to complete an official form (such as public examination form or visa/passport renewal form), you were directed to approach a bank manager or a police officer or a pastor to initial that application form. That requirement was based on the norms that existed and still exist in civilized societies where the bank manager or pastor or police officer represented in real terms an emblem of honesty, faith and good character. 

In Nigeria, the public no longer perceives the bank official as emblematic of honesty, integrity, principles or values. In fact, the bank manager and other bank officials are held in low esteem. They are demonised, derided, and portrayed as the ultimate agents of corruption and everything loathsome in the society. These perceptions are legitimate considering current experiences in which citizens are denied access to the new naira notes that are hoarded by banks, while members of the privileged class are given excess new notes. 

It is evident that bank managers are key players in illegal hoarding or stockpiling of the new naira notes. Investigations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), along with spot checks conducted by CBN officials have exposed the collusion by banks to deny citizens their right to access their money in the custody of banks. 

Similarly, I do not think university lecturers in Nigeria would stand the test of morality. Some of them see their female students as a kind of collateral or reward they should receive on earth. 

Corruption has eaten deeply into the souls of bank managers in Nigeria. The damage is beyond repair. Nobody can fix the problem. Training and character building based on ethical reorientation will not resuscitate the damaged character profile of despicable bank managers and officials.  

We cannot fight unethical and dishonest practices by bank managers and officials of other financial institutions. They are so deeply soaked in the ocean of corruption. Corruption is widespread in Nigeria, a dysfunctional society in which there is no law and order, a society in which people do things any way they like. In that environment, no one is accountable to anybody. No one is responsible to anyone. It is a country of “anything goes” in which the culture places a higher value on wealth and property acquisition. That is the pull or inducement that attracts bank managers and officials to continue to engage in corrupt practices.

*Dr. Obijiofor is a commentator on public issues

Monday, October 31, 2016

Nigerians, Beware Of Beauty Pageants!

By Uche Ezechukwu
I was billed to officiate at a beauty pageant-cum award giving ceremony, last Friday at Owerri, as keynote speaker. I had written what I considered a good speech and had got an expert to translate it into Igbo, as the entire proceedings at the Asa Igbo pageant would be in Igbo language. It was that refreshing departure from the norm, as well as the assurance by the organizers that it was not going to be like the run-of the mill pageants, about which I had since become suspicious, that had made me to agree to participate fully.
*Chidinma Okeke
I did not only agree to participate but had also made this newspaper, whose editorial board I chair, to throw its weight behind the planning and execution of the event with publicity. We had publicized and popularized the event as professionally as we could. We were convinced that we were supporting a good course, because the Asa Igbo pageant would be an occasion to glorify and promote Igbo language, values and culture.

The paper I prepared was directed at that noble theme. I had since started frowning at the promotion of female cleavages and nudity as signifying beauty. Hence, in the eyes of the different organizers of beauty pageants in the West and which has been copied line, hook and sinker by Nigerian organizers like Ben Bruce and co., the most beautiful maidens are those that flaunt their feminine attributes best and most alluringly before male audiences and judges and most audaciously. As a typical African, this definition of ‘beauty’ appears very defective to me, because in our African milieu, the beauty of a woman, especially the nubile female, is defined more by inside, unseen values than by the outward attributes which can be cosmetically achieved.

In the other words, many of the Miss This; Miss That which most of our beauty pageants have been turning out might, in fact, be painted sepulchers with stinking inside attributes, which to the ordinary African, does not constitute the beauty of a woman.

The organizers of the Asa Igbo pageant had assured us that they had the same lofty objectives as I was espousing when I first discussed with Mike Akabueze, the president of the Asa Igbo Foundation, as a condition for agreeing to the partnership with The Authority. They had assured me that their beauty queen would be one that could stand out any day as the ambassador of Igbo beauty as defined by Igbo culture and philosophy. I was completely bought over and made up my mind to deliver a paper that would add some colour to the event. The title of my paper was: The Woman as the Glory of Her Society, which I would have delivered in Igbo as: Nwanyi bu Ugo Mba.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Dele Cole’s Nonexistent ‘Igbo’ Slaves

By Ochereome Nnanna
On  Tuesday, 30th August 2016, at exactly 10.41am, I received a text from an unidentified frequent sender of messages to my platforms whenever he reads topics that agitate his mind, whether written by me or others.
He wrote: “Greetings. How can Dr. Patrick Dele Cole, in today’s Vanguard Newspaper…assert that the Igbo were slaves of the Ijaw? If, for the purpose of argument, one or two Igbo men were captured, held as slaves, or were sold into slavery in those days, how does that translate to the Igbo (an entire ethnic nationality) becoming slaves to the Ijaw…?”

Dele Cole’s article was entitled: “Nigerians And Their Origin”. He was displaying his rich knowledge of how people, not just in Nigeria but also in different parts of the world, acquired their current ethno-racial identities; how some powerful conquerors like the Jihadist Fulani, “dropped” their language and adopted those of their majority subjects, the Hausa, in order get assimilated and rule over them effectively.

Cole, at the tail end of his very interesting tapestry of sampling, however, made a conclusion I found both curious and contradictory compared to his earlier conclusion about the “Igbo” and “Ijaw” (I am putting these words in inverted commas for a reason that will be explained shortly). According to Cole: “Who are the Hausa-Fulani? The French of Normandy conquered England in 1066 and adopted their language. They were not known as French-English but English…Thus in the North of Nigeria they (Fulani) should be known as Hausa”.

Before I go on, let me correct Cole. The Fulani never dropped their language. Though they adopted the Hausa and other languages in areas they conquered (such as Nupe in Bida and Yoruba in Ilorin) they still maintained their Fulbe language and identity. In fact, former Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, a Fulani royal who hails from Bamaina in Birnin Kudu Local Government of the state, told me he did not “learn” Hausa until he went to school.