Nigeria Is Under Attack!

By Anthony Cardinal Okogie

On a Monday in September 2015, former finance minister, Chief Olu Falae was on his farm in Ilado near Akure when some armed men came looking for him. At gunpoint, they abducted him and held him until the following Thursday. At the age of 77, he was made to walk several kilometres. He was made to sleep in the rain. According to his own account published in some national dailies, every half an hour, his armed abductors threatened: “Baba, we are going to kill you.  If you don’t give us money we are going to kill you.”

*Cardinal Okogie

By 2018, herdsmen were wreaking havoc in the states of the middle belt of Nigeria. Then, a retired Chief of Army Staff, a veteran of military intervention in Nigerian politics, General Theophilus Danjuma, warned that there was ethnic cleansing in the middle belt. Having lost confidence in the government’s willingness or ability to deal with the situation, General Danjuma called on the people of the middle belt to take responsibility for their own security. The reaction of aides to the President of the Federal Republic was to insult him and call him names he did not deserve to bear.

Nigeria: A Nation Without Leaders

By Anthony Cardinal Okogie  
When a nation is in turmoil, those who have faith in God must pray. Given clear indices that Nigeria is in turmoil, we pray: Gracious God, grant that our leaders become wise, and the wise become our leaders. But it would be irresponsible fideism to simply pray and fold our arms. Those who pray must think, and, having sought and obtained answers to right questions, they must act intelligently.

*Cardinal Okogie 

As Nigeria passes from one turbulent season to another, it has become inescapable to inquire: what is the quality of leaders—of the men and women at the helm of affairs—in our beloved Nigeria? Can it be said that those at the helm of affairs—at federal, state, and local levels of government—are sufficiently competent to navigate the ship of state? Do our leaders fit the bill?

The high level of insecurity in our land; the abysmally low quality of life of the average Nigerian, in scandalously sharp contrast with the opulence in which past and political office holders live; the self-serving and malevolent demagoguery that accompanies unitarist, secessionist, and xenophobic agitations in our country; the propagation of the stubborn myth that one’s ethnic community is marginalised by all other ethnic communities, when in fact every ethnic community is marginalised by the incompetence of our leaders; the acceptance of this myth by young, discontented but gullible Nigerians: these and many other indices offer little or no hope to even the most incurable optimist in the land. 

Nigeria: A Clear And Present Danger

By Anthony Cardinal Okogie

Does the life of the Nigerian have any value? If it does, can it be truly said that Nigerians appreciate the value of life? The questions are meant for all of us. We all have to take responsibility for protection of life and property in this country.

*Okogie

We live in clear and present danger. We are not safe when we are at home. Neither are we safe away from home. Life runs the risk of being cut short by armed robbers, kidnappers, dangerous drivers driving on dangerous roads, driving cars that are dangerous for transportation. And just when we thought we were gaining the upper hand in the battle with Boko Haram, violent herdsmen stare at our helpless faces while governors who ought to be at the vanguard of security, are accused of acting in ways that are prejudicial to security. Our politicians – our president, our governors, our legislators and judges, ministers and commissioners – are well protected. But we the citizens are not. What a nation!

Political leaders who cannot provide security are a total failure, their generation an unmitigated disaster. How then can any of them proudly introduce himself as President of Nigeria, or governor or senator or member of the National or State Assembly? How can they claim to be at the helm of affairs in a country so chaotic? To use a Yoruba expression, could it be that the average Nigerian politician is like the child who was miles away from home on the day shamefacedness was being shared?

Almost six decades after independence, almost 70 after the establishment of Nigeria’s premier University of Ibadan, we still have to rely on medical tourism. But how many poor Nigerians can afford to spend one day in a hospital overseas? How many can afford to be away from their work for three months? When shall we cease to make our country a laughing stock in the comity of nations? We cannot reasonably dictate to people where they are to seek medical attention. But we Nigerians have the capacity to run good hospitals. All we just need is a leadership that enables, not one that disables. 

Who Is Importing Arms Into Nigeria?

By Anthony Cardinal Okogie

It was reported, a few days ago, in almost all the national dailies, that the Nigerian Customs Service seized 49 boxes containing 661 pump action rifles unlawfully imported into Nigeria. The rifles were said to have been concealed in a container of steel products and other merchandise. Three suspects were said to have been arrested. According to retired Colonel Hameed Ali, the Comptroller-General of Customs, the arms were cleared at the port with the assistance of two customs officers who have since been apprehended and are now being investigated.

This is the latest in the series of unlawful importation of arms into Nigeria, and it raises a number of issues. First, who are those behind unlawful importation of arms into Nigeria and what are their intentions?

At a press conference, in which Colonel Ali triumphantly reported the arrest of three suspects, he also informed the Nigerian public that a team of customs officers on intelligence patrol had, on Sunday, January 22, 2017, along the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway in Lagos, intercepted a truck whose registration number he gave as BDG 265 XG, purportedly conveying the arms in a container whose number he gave as PONU/825914/3. Such news would have been sweet in the ears but for the fact that nothing was said of the owner of the truck and nothing was said of the owner of the container. That raises further questions: In whose name was that truck registered and in whose name was the container registered? Are they registered in the same name? Have their owners been investigated? When shall they and their foot soldiers appear in court?

Not to raise these and related questions, and not to address them, will leave us where we have always been, that is, a place where a criminal act is committed but there is neither trial nor conviction nor sanction, a country where criminals are phantoms, a strange land where there are crimes but no criminals. That is why the triumphant account of the Comptroller of Customs comes close to another episode in playing to the gallery.

But there is another issue to be raised, and that is, whatever happened to intelligence in this country? Newspapers reported that the Comptroller of Customs informed Nigerians that impounding the truck containing the unlawfully imported arms and the apprehension of three men suspected to be involved in the crime of unlawful importation was the achievement of a “roving team of the NCS’ federal operations unit, while on intelligence patrol.” But on closer scrutiny, this advertisement of prowess is in fact an advertisement of colossal but recurring failure of intelligence. A dictum has it that prevention is better than cure. Intelligence is crime prevention. Nigeria’s security agencies—the Customs in this case, the Police, the Army, to mentioned but these—have repeatedly demonstrated their ineptitude when it comes to preventing acts that are inimical to security. The Police arrive at the scene of a crime after the crime and after the departure of the perpetrators. 

2016: Year Of Hunger In Nigeria

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

If there were ever a time the famed resilience of the average citizen was lent full expression, it was in the outgoing year. It was a year the citizens were at the brink of despair over which they are still dangerously hovering on the cusp of another year. The year was rendered perilous not by insecurity that manifested through the officially trounced Boko Haram, increasing kidnapping and marauding herdsmen and their wanton killings. It was rather so by the failure to meet a basic need of human nature: food. From the east, west, south to the north, there was the heart-wrenching cry of the citizens for their hunger to be assuaged. But succour remained elusive.

It was not because the citizens were not diligent in the outgoing year. What rather provoked the hunger was an economic environment that was sired by an inept government. The stark upshot was that jobs were not created. Worse still, the available jobs were eroded as companies totally shut down or relocated to economically and politically sane environments for their operations.

Thus, in just one year, as the National Bureau of Statistics informed us, 1.7 million citizens lost their jobs. But this could only be a conservative figure since it could not have included the statistics of the job losses in the informal sector. Even those who still had their jobs were not better off since inflation rendered their wages meaningless. With a dollar exchanging for N500, whatever salary a worker earned could not buy much in an import-driven economy.

The danger of citizens eating from dustbins in an economically ruined state moved from a hyperbolic realm to reality. Indeed, with the increase of scavengers, the dustbins were not even enough. But even such scavenging conferred more dignity than begging. Stripped of the consciousness of their own dignity, many citizens took to begging. Emboldened by a combination of hunger and love, some who could not watch their children die took to stealing to feed them. Typical of this category of the hungry was the young woman in Lagos who stole rice to feed her baby. She was arrested, taken to the police station and detained. She only regained her freedom when the state police commissioner intervened and gave her N10,000. There were others who stole pots of soup while still being cooked. 

Those who could not tolerate the indignity of scavenging from the dustbins and begging took their own lives. But there were others who would have committed suicide too. But they lost their minds before they could contemplate or do this. Thus, the high number of the mentally deranged in the outgoing year. Others deployed prostitution as part of their counter-immiseration measures, while some took to crime. Of course, if the basic need for food was not met, why talk about the luxury of education? Hence, the high number of school dropouts in the year.

 Yes, amid the hunger, the efforts of Lagos and Kebbi state governments to sell a bag of rice for N13,000 are commendable. They well knew that a citizen whose minimum wage was and remains N18,000 could not buy a bag of rice for over N20,000. But was it a bag of rice that the citizens needed? In the first place, offering to sell rice to the citizens at N13,000 did not take into cognisance their poverty. How would a citizen who fed on less than a dollar daily get N13,000 to buy a bag of rice? So what the citizens needed was to be empowered economically so that they could conveniently buy their bags of rice at the appropriate market prices.

Gov Okorocha’s Unending Charade In Imo

By Clement Udegbe

Last December , Imo State built and commissioned a Christmas Tree at a whopping cost of over 600 Million Naira, and in 2016, teachers, government workers, pensioners were owed over eight months salary and pension arrears respectively. Life in Imo State is so rough and tough, yet many wear smiles around the place, hoping that all will be well soon, and some even say it is well.

 

*Gov Okorocha 

One then begins to wonder what has happened to most of  my people who follow the followers? Could it be as a result of  a resolution that they will deal with situation when the time comes, or that they have a clear plan to handle things at the appropriate time, or could something else be responsible?

Could it be the result of beer drinking? Yes, beer drinking. Imo State won the best beer drinking state award this year, and the monument is standing tall in their stadium. Meanwhile Montreal University scientists have revealed that beer contains female hormones called estrogen, and when men consume quite a lot of beer, they turn into women!

All of 100 men that drank large drafts of beer within one hour displayed the following behaviours:

They all argued over nothing, refused to apologise when obviously wrong, gained weight, talked excessively without making sense, became overtly emotional, couldn’t drive, failed to think rationally, and had to sit down while urinating! Drink on these brothers.

I do not mean to insult any beloved Imo man or any beer drinker for that matter, what borders me here is that page 15 of Vanguard of Friday, December 15, carried three very disturbing reports, concerning Imo State. While Anambra State was reported as spending N25 Million to de-worm their children, Imo Governor, Mr. Rochas Okorocha, was  accusing the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, Dr. Anthony .J. V. Obinna of  partisanship, and urging him to face his religious duties, for asking him to give governance a human face. Who does not know that it was a direct affront against the Catholic Church in Imo State, to mind their business?

Imo is  majorly a Catholic State. This same Governor recently produced documents for pensioners to sign forfeiting 40 % of their earned pension! Earlier this year he had forced health workers to sign off part of their salaries, paid civil servants for three days of the week, and asked them to go to the farm for the rest two days. When he won the elections for his first term in 2010, he and his followers trouped to the church for thanksgiving; perhaps they thought all the church cared for was their presence, and not their conscience.