Please, Scrap Or Restructure The FRSC

By Clement Udegbe

THE first deliberate policy on road  safety was with the creation of the National Road Safety Commission NRSC, by the then military government, in 1974, but they were scrapped. In 1977, the Military Administration in Oyo State, established the Oyo State Road Safety Corps which made modest local improvements in road safety and road discipline in the state, but it was disbanded in 1983.

The subsequent classification of Nigeria as one of the most road traffic accident prone countries worldwide, second to Ethiopia, led to establishment of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, in 1988, as the lead agency in Nigeria on road safety administration and management. It’s statutory functions included; Making the highways safe for motorists and other road users as well as checking road worthiness of vehicles, recommending works and infrastructures to eliminate or minimise accidents on the highways and educating motorists and members of the public on the importance of road discipline on the highways. Nigeria had well built, good, and smooth roads, and the major challenge was control and regulation of speed.

The Corps had vehicles with radar equipment to detect vehicle speeds, but as pot holes and craters took over the roads, especially in the south of Nigeria, due to years of neglect by subsequent governments, speed control became very unnecessary, and the FRSC started inventing ways to remain relevant. They first switched into Vehicle Drivers License issuance, without any known means of ascertaining that the drivers they license can drive safely. The result today is the preponderance of dangerous commercial and private drivers on Nigerian roads.

The Drivers license which should also act as a good means of identity, has no links with the national identity card data base. You own one if you can pay. The official price tag of the license is about N7,000 but it costs about N15,000 to get one in Lagos and most FRSC centres. While in other saner climes, the driver’s license is valid for life of the owner, it is a common piece of plastic card and expires every five years in Nigeria, no thanks to FRSC. About two years ago, they veered into the production and issuance of the Vehicle number plates, with a greater confusion. It is not clear if the number plate expires with the destruction of a vehicle or linked with the owner who can transfer it to another, if a vehicle is destroyed for any reasons. Yet, it is a very expensive item to procure, and you may have to wait for long to get one.

The official price to get one is about N20,000, but it costs not less than N40,000 to get one today. The often scarcity of vehicle number plates, has led to increase in fake number plates, complicating crime prevention and fighting for the Police Force. Their latest scheme is the Speed Limiter which they are now enforcing on commercial vehicles, and will soon extend to private vehicles. Like the driver’s license and vehicle number plates, this one will create another avenue to make money from Nigerians. How do they control speed on very bad roads?

Gov Okorocha’s Rough Treatment Of Pensioners

By Clement Udegbe

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become – Johann Wolfang Von Goethe.

If someone told Imo pensioners sometime in 2009, that one day, they would be pushed to the wall, and then made to forfeit part of their entitlements, they would say it was unthinkable. But that is exactly what they have been confronted with as we rolled on with the Change Agenda in the state.

*Gov Rochas Okorocha of Imo State

Yes, they wanted Change, but they have got chains as lamented by one of them last October. Since 1999, when this Nigerian new democratic experience started Imo, pensioners were paid their entitlements monthly without any hick ups, till May 2015, when government began to owe them, pension arrears started to build up, and by December 2016, most pensioners were owed 19 months arrears because some money was paid in August 2016. Some were owed for more than 20 months.

By mid last year, government started their dribbling, which we call mago-mago treatment of these retirees. First, without any consultations, or discussions with the pensioners concerned, they reduced the length of time of claim of each pensioner, and announced that those owed for 19 months would be paid only for 11 months, while those owed for 20 months and above would be paid for 12 months.

Government accepted to pay full entitlements to only those who retired at salary grade levels 1-7, the junior cadres. Second, after gauging the body language of these helpless, senior citizens, the state government considered it appropriate to hit the elders below the belt, by taking away a substantial proportion of their entitlements disingenuously.

They came out with a letter of set off addressed to the Accountant General of the state, a sample verbiage of which is reproduced here for understanding:

“I,… a pensioner, having retired on a salary grade level…from… with monthly pension of N85, 204.80; Being owed arrears of pension for 11 months which amounts to N937,252.80 do hereby accept, to collect 40% of the said arrears which amounts to N374,901.12 which represents the total accumulated arrears due to me up to December 2016, as full and final settlement of all other claims of which I am entitled to make against the State Government in respect of the said accumulated Pension Arrears. I voluntarily accept this payment due to economic situation in the country presently. I do hereby release and discharge the Imo State Government and his agents from all past, present, and future liability and from all actions and demands in respect of the said accumulated Pension Arrears.”

The pensioner would sign, thumbprint, and have his Traditional Ruler to sign as his witness, to the set off letter containing his bank details, and stating the name of his SDC Ward Coordinator, an APC creation. After owing them for 19 months, and more for some, many would have died in their thousands and now, those of them who refused to die, must forfeit a good portion of their claims or entitlements as a punishment.

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.

Ndigbo, Time To Think Eastwards!

By Clement Udegbe

The new plan by Governor Ambode of Lagos is to either force Igbos to go and start buying lands in Badagry, Ikorodu, Epe and other areas in the hinter lands, build houses and markets to develop those areas, or go back to the South East as Governor Fashola told them to do after the deportation of Igbos in 2013. The risk in this new plan is best captured by an Igbo proverb that says when a child starts planning to eat plenty fresh vegetable, the vegetable also plans how to give the child diarrhoea. No one, including the owners of Lagos, can say what Lagos will look like without Igbos, or what Igbos will do if they have to be forced to relocate.

 However, some Igbo traders may foolishly rush to those areas and start fresh struggles to own land and develop them, thereby repeating the same mistake they made after the civil war. These ones will always see themselves as wiser than the rest. They are the ones who often boast to themselves that they spent huge sums of money just to sand fill some deep swampy areas in Ojo, Abule Egba,Okota, Ejigbo areas, etc, before building. They forget that the cost of sand filling alone would have given them three mansions or more in their dry Igbo land. An Igbo proverb says that wisdom is like a hand bag: you pick up yours as you go about your affairs. But it appears many Igbos forget theirs in their villages with respect to Nigeria! They have this mind set, attributable to after effects of the civil war, to settle outside their state, no matter how close.

For example, Igbos strangely prefer to go and buy lands, build and live in Asaba and its environs, and commute to their markets stalls and shops in Onitsha, while neglecting all that vast good land from Ogbaru, to Aguleri and their environs. Many Igbo buy swamps from Port Harcourt, Elele, etc, in Rivers State and develop them, while neglecting the solid land around Owerri and Aba. They prefer to congregate again the same place where they lost abandoned properties after the civil war. The Imo State Governor is not ashamed of the craters that have rendered the Imo portion of the Portharcourt – Owerri Road   impassable since he came to power over five years ago. Similarly, his Anambra counterpart looks the other way as his people suffer untold hardship traversing just between Awka and Enugu, a distance of less than 80 kilometres. The governors of Enugu and Ebonyi have also failed to do the needful about the failed portions of their link roads.

Only God knows what the people of Ebonyi go through daily to link up with other parts of Igbo land, and Nigeria in general. Igbos participate and invest in huge sea port development programmes in neighbouring states, while neglecting the vast ocean front they have in Azumini area in Abia State. Indeed it is baffling why Igbos have failed or refused to develop their   own zone with the same zeal they put in other zones. While no Igbo man has made it to the list of the world richest, it is obvious that there are factors militating against them as a people. And until they wake up and address these factors, they will continue to run from pillar to post whenever their host governments sneeze! This is why the new Ambode plan against Ndigbo in Lagos is a welcome development. Perhaps it will make them to begin to think differently and to reconsider their ways in Nigeria. It will help them to rediscover that Igbo spirit that existed in the days of Zik of Africa, Dr. Michael Okpara, Dr. Akanu Ibiam and a host of other Igbo patriots who worked assiduously with other patriots from the South West and the South South to create the Nigeria that the Military and their political friends have worked equally hard to undermine since 1966, barely six years after our independence.

 It will perhaps make Igbos realise that no matter how long the crocodile remains in the water, it can never become a mangrove tree. No matter how long they may live in Yorubaland, Tivland or Hausaland, they will remain Igbo people. And until something fundamentally revolutionary happens, Nigeria, as I see it, cannot do without ethnicity and religion. I pray that a new movement that will not be polluted by these two cancers presently killing Nigeria will start someday. The Ambode plan is not fair and kind, and Igbos must take it seriously to avoid the enslavement it implies. The Holy Bible, which over 80 percent of Igbos believe in, declares that affliction shall not arise a second time against the righteous. And given the obvious religious agenda of the ruling APC, Igbos must find ways to re-engineer their own society and reduce the Pull Him Down Syndrome among themselves. The Lagos State government has not hidden its dislike for Igbos.

Ndigbo, Time To Reconsider Your Ways

By Clement Udegbe

A Yoruba proverb says that one does not keep silent when something bad is going on because a house does not burn and fill the eyes with sleep. I have been having sleepless nights because bad things are going on between the Igbos and their Yoruba brothers in Nigeria. And it troubles the hearts of those who love the peace and friendliness that once existed between these two tribes in Nigeria since after the civil war, which politicians for their very selfish reasons are determined to kill.

In the University of Ife (Now, Obafemi Awolowo University) in the 1970s, we did everything together with Yorubas, from football, student unionism, entertainment, etc. Of particular reference was in the Palmwine Drinkers Club, where they referred to themselves   as “carried fellows”, and non-members like me, as bearing very long tails, irrespective of tribe or circumstances of birth.

We enjoyed our differences and the unity that followed it all. They called us “Okoro”, “Aje okuta ma imu omi “, meaning: one who eats stones without drinking water. We called them “Ndi Ofe Nmanu”, meaning: people who eat too much red palm oil. Competition was healthy among us and you got what you deserved. For example, you could drive your ‘campus bus’, or ‘bush meat’ whether she is from Gbagan, Calabar, or any part of the globe, without qualms. Please get explanations from any ex-Ife around you. 

We were all simply Nigerians, and have remained largely so. I did my Operation Feed the Nation as a student in Iperu, a town in Ogun State and my National Service in Lagos. I love Yorubas, and my friends among them love me too. When I started work in 1981, two Yorubas who touched my life in an uncommon way were Chiefs Adeniran Ogunsanya and Harold Shodipo, both of blessed memory. They were completely detribalized men, proud of   their Igbo counterparts in politics.

Chief Ogunsanya proved to me how he loved Dr, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and he actually introduced me to Zik in 1984. A Yoruba Chief and Elder introduced me, an Igbo man, to Owelle Ndigbo. That was those good old days. I keep wondering what   those pan-Nigerian founding fathers of Yoruba land would have done with what is happening today between Igbos and Yorubas in the politics of Lagos State. So many things have started going wrong on between Igbos and Yorubas  that  things are now speedily falling apart. The foundation for Igbo bashing and phobia may have been laid during the tenure of Chief Bola Tinubu as the Governor of Lagos State.

That was when all Igbo core business areas began to be targeted for closure at the least provocation. Alaba International Market in Ojo LGA, the Auto Market at Berger Bus-stop near Mile 2 and the Ladipo Motor Parts Market in Mushin LGA were closed at different times and reopened after a governor from Igbo land came to plead. Former Governor Babatunde Fashola broke the pot and spilled the beans when he deported Igbos in 2013. It was a highly spiritual action which many did not understand. The message was clear –  Igbos are visitors and can be deported in spite of their investments in Lagos State. In 2014, a group of Obas and Chiefs in Ondo State denigrated the Eze Ndigbo title and called for its ban in Ondo State.

Buhari’s Isolation Of Igbo: A Blessing

By Clement Udegbe

“Facing it , always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it” —Joseph ConradMore.

Igbos have come to that point in the national life of Nigeria, where they just have to face it. They have to face the realities of these times. No one will develop the South East for them except they face it. No one will stop crime and kidnapping for them, except they face it. No one will spare their land from Fulani herdsmen, whether they play the politics or not, they just have to face it.

*Buhari

No one will terminate the buds of islamisation from growing in Igbo land for them, except they face it. No one will stop the killings at the least provocation in the north except they face it. No one will stop shooting at unarmed Igbo Youths under whatever guise, except they face it. Some Igbos think they have money, but none of them is on the Forbes list of  the richest 100  in the world, and none is on the list of the richest 100 in Africa, they have to face it. And to face these and many more, they must, if they will get the Igbo land they deserve from this Nigeria we live in today. Igbos have to face the fact that as a people, they got it wrong after the 1996 to 1967 civil war. They have to face the fact that dispersing like the oil bean seed all over Nigeria while neglecting their own region, and blaming all others is not the way to push forward your agenda in the new Nigeria.

None of them will become President without a solid political base at home, and joining other peoples’ base will never help them. The South East has many rich sons who started political parties perhaps just to access the money INEC was dolling out to political parties in those days. They had no intentions to develop their region politically, and they were not interested in forming any political base in that region. Thus, their political parties died as soon as the free money from Federal government for parties dried up. These Igbo men wanted quick money without power, and today they keep scheming to join and jostle for positions in main stream political parties that were formed by their colleagues who targeted power and money, and remained faithful to that cause.

The National Grazing Bill

By Clement Udegbe

A NATIONAL Grazing Bill which the leadership of Senate has said is not with it continues to generate heated debate. And for good reason. This bill should be questioned because of its ethno-religious implications. It is important that we know this bill, even if in a general way, so as to make useful discourse of it. The bill known as A Bill for An Act for the Establishment of the National Grazing Reserve (Establishment And Development) Commission for The Preservation And Control of National Grazing Reserves and Stock Routes And for Other Matters Connected Therewith,  was sponsored by Senator Zainab Kure.

Hajiya Zainab Abdulkadir Kure is a Senator, whose political career at the Upper legislative house started in 2007 elected for the Niger South constituency of Niger State on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). She represents Niger South Senatorial District alongside Senators Dahiru Awaisu Kuta (PDP) Niger East and Senator Ibrahim Musa (APC) of Niger North respectively. She has a BSc in Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1984, and is the wife of former Governor of Niger State between 1999 and May 2007. According to This Day Newspaper reports, she had sponsored the National Grazing Reserves Establishment and Development Commission Bill, 2008 and the National Poverty Eradication Commission Bill, 2008.

Born on November 24, 1959, Senator Kure’s dream as a youth was to become a top Customs or Immigration officer. This was however, not to be, no thanks to her father-in-law who put an end to that ambition. Today, she is making waves at the National Assembly in Abuja, with robust contributions. The National Grazing Bill has Seven Parts. Part 1, deals with the establishment of the national Grazing Reserve Commission, and it’s powers, to be should  controlled by a Governing Council whose membership tenure shall be four years, comprising a Chairman, one representative each from Federal Ministries of Agriculture Rural Development and Water Resources, Health, Environment Housing and Urban Development, and  National Commission for Nomadic Education.

 Part II, of the Bill deals with Functions of the Commission which includes, designating, acquiring, controlling, managing, maintaining, the National Grazing Reserves and Stocks Routes; Constructing of dams, roads, bridges, fences and infrastructure considered necessary; Identification, retracing, demarcating, monumenting, and surveying of primary, secondary, and tertiary stock routes; Conserving and preserving in its natural state the National Grazing  Reserves and Stock Routes; Ensuring the preservation and protection of any objects of geological archaeological historical aesthetic or scientific interests in the National Grazing Reserves and Stocks Routes; the development of facilities and amenities within the national Grazing Reserves; Fostering in the mind the general public, particularly the pastoral and transhumance population the necessity for the establishment and development of the National Grazing Reserves and Stocks Routes with the object of developing a greater appreciation of the value of livestock and environmental conservation; And doing all such things which the commission may calculate and consider incidental to the foregoing functions.

Part III deals with appointment of the Reserve Controller and other Staff of the commission some of which may be seconded from other government offices; their functions, and structure of the commission. Part IV deals with financial provisions for the commission including that the commission may, subject to the Land Use Act, acquire any land for the purpose of discharging its functions. Part V, is the source of concern, its states in part; “The following lands may subject to this Act be constituted as National Grazing Reserve and Stock Routes- Any land at the disposal of the Federal Government; Any land in respect of which it appears to the commission that Grazing on such land should be practiced, and any land acquired by the commission through purchase, assignment, gift, or otherwise howsoever; Any land in respect of which it appears to the commission that primary, secondary, or tertiary routes be established.

Kaduna Anti-Christian Bill: First Step To Islamisation

By Clement Udegbe

Nasir El Rufai appears to be one of the arrows aimed at making Christians very uncomfortable in Nigeria by anti-Christian forces of this country. In January 2013, the former FCT Minister wishing to please his godfathers in politics, as a governorship aspirant in Kaduna State, tweeted an insult on the person of Jesus Christ. 

*Gov Nasir el-Rufai

Christians reacted  to his insensitive, irresponsible and offensive saying about Christ, and his attack on the sensibilities of Christians globally, which betrayed his lack of respect for our Lord Jesus Christ and obvious hatred for Christians. His reply which added insults to the injury includes “I must say I am taken aback by the extent of desperate misrepresentation of what was an innocuous attempt to show the godlessness of the Jonathanians to denigrate anyone that dares to ask them to be accountable...To those who were genuinely offended by the retweet, I apologise. I did not mean to offend anyone. Jesus or Isa Alaihis Salaam is a respected prophet of Islam. Every Muslim accepts this in addition to his miraculous virgin birth. It is therefore absurd for any Muslim believer to disrespect Jesus Christ,” he added. 

The Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN) scribe said there was a portion of the response that insulted the Christian faith, pointing out that the association is convinced Mr. El-Rufai "is set on a war path with Christians in Nigeria.”  The association warned him to stop taking Christians for granted with such foolish comments. 

Unfolding events have confirmed that CAN was right, El- Rufai hates Christians! Malam El-Rufai was a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not a Minister of any person or party. The problem is godfatherism, and that is why such an uncouth comment could come from a Minister of this nation, and he went ahead to become a Governor! In Igboland, a proverb says that when a child is dancing on the main road, someone must be beating the drums for him in the bush. Someone must be beating the drum from a hidden position, to which Malam El-Rufai is dancing in the public.

 In 2013, the APC wanted to field a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the posts of President and Vice President. In 2014, they quickly abandoned a muslim-muslim ticket, and exploited an in road via the Redeemed Christian Church of God, where Vice President Osibanjo SAN, was a Senior Pastor, and that did the job for All Progressives Congress (APC). While the north voted massively for APC on both ethnic and religious grounds, votes were divided elsewhere in the country. The church had a distracted or shifted focus, and in what appears now like a compromise by the church, Kaduna state Governor became emboldened to unleash more insults on the Church of God. The fears expressed by Christians over APC and Buhari’s leadership persists, in spite of the campaign promises of a changed Buhari.