The Ozubulu Catastrophe And Governor Obiano’s Deft Hand

By Chuks Iloegbunam 

When news of the terrible development hit the Awka seat of power early that morning, many scenarios taxed the imagination. Nothing of the sort had previously happened in Igbo history. There was a bizarre angle to it, of course, that was of tremendous import: Anambra State, reputed to be an oasis of safety and security, peace and placidity in tumultuous Nigeria had taken a vicious bang on the jugular. 

*Gov Willie Obiano

Who had done the violent action? To what end? Since it is often the case that “when it hits, it reverberates,” was the impunity set to spread? These were some of the questions Governor Willie Obiano tried to think through while, at the same time, receiving Security and Intelligence debriefing. Taking little time, the Governor’s convoy negotiated the 48 kilometres from Awka to Ozubulu, and hit the scene of the bloodbath. 

Armed with both the truth of what had happened and the spins sprouting in the social media, Governor Obiano inspected the carnage inside the St. Philips Catholic Church, Amakwa, Ozubulu. Twelve congregants whose only “offence” was attending the 6am mass to worship their God had been brutally massacred in an orgy of gunfire. Eighteen others sustained gunshot wounds, some of them life threatening. 

The Trauma Of Being Kidnapped

By Hope Eghagha

One of the most traumatic experiences anybody can undergo is to be violently abducted. Snatched from one’s regular, known serene world into a world governed by drug-controlled youths is a life-altering experience. I have been there. I know how it feels to be dispossessed of one’s liberty by criminals. I know how relations feel in the uncertain days of the abduction. I know how the kids feel that their father may never return. I know the emotions that run through a wife.

I also know how it feels to see one’s security aide killed with a single shot to the neck, blood gushing out in angry ferocity, how his widow and two kids look up to you for help. I know how it feels to be in captivity for 16 days without food, without one’s routine medication. I know how it is to be blindfolded for 16 days. It is not fun. It is not a party. It is deathly traumatic. It is deeply humiliating, bewildering and depressing. It is frightening.

A typical kidnapper is a violent person. There is verbal violence. There is of course physical violence. At no provocation, the victim could be slapped, kicked or given a blow to the head. The intention is to instill fear. So, fear is a constant when in the custody of kidnappers. They brandish their weapons – guns, knives, machetes. They use the gun-butt both on the victim and on the floor; at least my captors did. I was harangued, insulted, beaten for no other reason than I said that I didn’t have one hundred million naira to redeem myself. That though I was a government official at the time, I knew the government would pay no ransom. 

In the den, the victim loses a sense of time. Blinded-folded, day and night merge into one long experience. The weakness of the body at a particular time may suggest it is late in the night. Same with the eerie quiet of the environment, or the hooting of the night bird. Morning is heralded by birds chirping. Late noon is dictated by the languor of the late afternoon early evening sun. Time freezes, yet it moves. You try to hope, dare to hope really, that you would ultimately get out alive. The kidnappers say ‘if you leave,” not ‘when you leave. Death is a permanent presence. It hangs in the air. Even when not spoken, it is known as the ‘X’ factor. The uncertainty of it all is killing. Their occasional acts of kindness, like leading you blindfolded to use the urinary do not help. Or by the time you return from the urinary your bed has been re-arranged. They remind the victim that the situation is abnormal. Yet the victim shows gratefulness. A sinking man would clutch at a straw!

Terror Nomads

By Louis Odion, FNGE
With the Boko Haram cauldron still smoldering in a corner, it does appear Nigeria is already choking on a much quicker poison: the cocktail of beef and bullet. Or, how else can one describe the apparition of a trigger-happy herdsman now at the national door.
The weapon his forebears carried never used to be more than a stick, to whip the herd into line. And maybe a dagger tucked in a scabbard, to scare potential marauder in the jungle. But the new cattle-rearer has added gleaming AK-47 to his cache. 

The fact that he is migrant makes his own franchise of terror more diffuse, more intimate in savagery. As he wanders day and night from his native dry land up north to greener pasture down south, he has scant regard for the territorial integrity of farm camps he finds on his way.

From the north-central down to communities across the entire south, the siege is complete. The rampaging Ak-47-wielding herdsman leaves a trail of plunder, rape, kidnap and bloodbath. The kind you find in a Grade-A horror movie. Consider a slew of reports in just the past few days. On Wednesday, the Taraba State Government confirmed no fewer than 40 persons were slaughtered allegedly by Fulani herdsmen (20 in Angai village, nine in Maisuma, eight in Dorei and seven in Fali). This time, the fight was not even over farmland. Trouble reportedly started after armed herdsmen were prevented from raping a lady somewhere which angered them and they responded with violence. 

Tuesday came a rather grotesque report from Delta State. A local vigilante comprising a member representing Ethiope East constituency in the state assembly (Evan Ivwurie), security agents and some volunteers simply resorted to self-help by turning the heat on the herdsmen who had formed the habit of attacking farmers in the locality. Dubbed "Operation Arrest, Meet and Engage Their Sponsor", the mission reportedly led to the sacking of herdsmen's camp and their flight deep into the Oria-Abraka forest, in so much panic and haste that they forgot their precious herd behind. 

Ivwurie shared his experience: "I had embarked on a preventive approach to this matter which is identifying the source and taking the battle to the enemy in their domain." (However, the lawmaker was silent on what becomes of the cows: booties or prisoners of war?)
On Monday, in Oyo State, Fulani herdsmen under the auspices of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria spent the better part of the day defending themselves against allegations of vandalizing crops of farmers in Ogbomoso and some parts of Oke Ogun. Rather, they claimed two of their members (Abdu Chika and Buba Kajere) were gruesomely murdered by the farmers. 

*Louis Odion 

A day earlier in Akure, a security guard at a farm settlement owned by a Yoruba leader, Olu Falae, was brutally murdered by suspected herdsmen as usual. This came when some other herdsmen are still standing trial for allegedly kidnapping and torturing the same Falae for several days in September last year.

Abia and Imo entered the radar last weekend following a statement by the Department of State Security that five Fulani herdsmen were killed in a forest along the border of the two states. They were allegedly buried in a shallow grave. Condemning the action at a joint press conference Monday, governors of the two states blamed it on "miscreants".

Few weeks earlier in Enugu, ethnic tension had mounted following the arrest and detention of 76 Agwu villagers who decided to carry arms against Fulani herdsmen who allegedly destroyed not only their farmland but also abducted two of their women. No sooner had the irate villagers formed a barricade than a team of soldiers (said to be of northern extraction) stormed the community and whisked some 76 men in army trucks to neighbouring Abia State.

Embarrassed by the reports, the Army high command later described the perpetrators as "fake soldiers". The puzzle then: how did they acquire military uniforms, officially issued FN 7.62mm military rifles and green-colour military trucks deployed in the "invasion"? So bold, the "fake soldiers" also had the temerity to head straight to the police command to hand over their 76 captives for proper custody!
It eventually took a court pronouncement in Abia before the Agwu 76 were set free after wallowing in detention for days.

However, the Abia/Imo killings are a child's play compared to the genocide perpetrated in the last two months by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue communities like Agatu, Buruku, Guma, Gwer-west, Logo, Kwande, Gwer- East and Katsina- Ala. At the last count, more than 1,500 had been butchered so far this year. On a single day in February alone, about 300 were murdered in Okokolo, Akwu, Ugboka and Aila villages (all in Agatu LGA). Entire villages were razed. On March 19, another 500 were butchered in 10 communities of the same LGA. 

Clearly, the nation is now under a siege of sorts. This writer has a personal experience to share. Two or three year ago in Benin, we woke up at my private home to find that the flower garden outside which had taken a fortune to plant and pains and years to cultivate had been completely destroyed by some cows that stomped past overnight. But should everyone resort to the Ethiope formula, there certainly would be no nation again.

Moving forward, I believe a more sustainable panacea to this festering crisis is to first recognize and appreciate the cultural issues involved. Beside immediate economic benefits, farming communities have emotional attachment to their land considered ancestral legacy. Just the same way the Fulani herdsman views his herd as his only store of value and the national landscape as his legitimate pasture. Lasting resolution lies in both parties understanding each other and the boundaries clearly demarcated.

Therefore, what is required at this hour is a leadership that is not only creative but also courageous. President Buhari's dilemma is understandable. Before the last election, the charter of demand by the Fulani included a request for the grazing reserves to hold and nourish their cattle and other animals. But the challenge of statesmanship is to pursue a course of action that also accommodates the interests of others.

To start with, the specter of the herdsman brandishing at all an unlicensed rifle - much less a weapon of mass destruction like AK-47 - constitutes clear and grave assault on public decency. Rushing to deploy such lethal weaponry without inhibition in otherwise civil dispute over right of way on farmland is, to say the least, taking the culture of impunity to a treasonable bend. 

Now is the time for President Buhari, himself a cattle farmer, to go beyond the normal call of duty to stave the dangerously growing perception that seeming official lethargy - if not indifference - to the continued killings is dictated by the spirit of kinship he shares with the rampaging herdsman or that the nomad's renewed audacity, this genocidal reflex, feeds on the opium of expected solidarity from the top. 

Stories have told that the rampaging Fulani herdsmen are not Nigerian. Given their ferocity and that similar incidents were reported even in core northern states, they are suspected to be migrants from Niger, Mali and so on. That being the case, why is the Nigerian nation still shy of responding more strongly? Such attacks ought to be viewed properly then as direct assault on our sovereignty as a nation.

A sure way to start is urgently enunciating a disarmament programme. The wandering herdsman first needs to be engaged to turn in his AK-47 as the minimum pre-condition. Relevant security agencies should be directed to enforce this. The mass killings cannot continue. 

It is commendable that President Buhari, by some policy steps already taken, has the clarity of mind to, at least, appreciate the real existential point at issue: the most sustainable source of pasture for the cattle. This had led Abuja to consult with states with a view to finding lasting solution. Borrowing from modern practices elsewhere, most stakeholders were said to have agreed that the option of ranch is the most feasible and sustainable. But the optimism that a workable solution was finally in sight seems vitiated with a statement credited few days ago to the Agriculture Minister, Audu Ogbeh (himself a successful farmer), that the Federal Government would rather set up grazing reserve. 

In fact, Ogbeh disclosed that based on Buhari's directive, arrangement had been concluded to import improved grass seeds to cultivate the proposed 50,000 hectares of grazing reserves within six months. Bold as the step may appear, the devil is in the details. While Ogbeh's enthusiasm is welcome, it remains to be seen how he hopes to secure the land to start with. The idea of grazing reserves runs counter to ranch which the states are understandably comfortable with. For the extant Land Use Act vests allocation and control of the land resource in state authorities. Besides that, the concurrence of affected communities and landowners also matters. Ogbeh's grazing reserve will, therefore, require a constitutional amendment to begin with. 

Really, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. Ranching provides more decency not only for the cattle-rearer themselves but also their herd. It enables the application of modern techniques in the animal husbandry. It provides clean water, hospital, schools and other facilities for the convenience of the dwellers. Studies have shown that the Nigerian cow suffers stunted growth partly because of the exceedingly harsh condition it is bred. For instance, it is estimated that the average Nigerian cow travels some 25 kilometers per day under scorching sun and is left to quaff polluted water.
If properly harnessed, livestock has potential to raise our national GDP, especially now that there is a renewed clamour to diversify the economy from oil as mono product. According to a 2008 survey, Nigeria's population of cattle was put at 14.7m, out of which 10 percent were classified as milking cows.

Today, no thanks to the herdsman's primitive rearing technique, less than one percent of the cattle population is managed commercially. It explains why the country still spends an average of N50b importing milk and other dairy products annually simply because the full potentials of cattle farming are left untapped. But a relatively smaller country like Uruguay today owes the bulk of its national wealth to livestock. In 2014, it exported $1.4b worth of beef, $800m of dairy products and $400m of leather goods. At 3.3 million population, its per capital income is a whopping $22,000.
Changing the Nigerian narratives for the better means rethinking the way we work and live.

*Odion is a former Commissioner for Information, Edo State

Are Nigeria's Problems Impossible To Solve?

By  Perry Brimah
It will soon hit the one-year anniversary of the new "change" Buhari government. And while there is plenty to rejoice over and much to thank God for escaping from; it appears that as Nigeria takes two steps forwards it also takes two steps backwards. This is quite commendable, don't get it wrong. Zero advancement is a good deal better than where the nation is coming from. Nigeria used to be in reverse (-). The nation was even speeding in reverse. So zero acceleration calls for celebration.

It is also important to mention that considering the challenges inherited due to where we were and the state of the global economy, zero is further commendable. But the question is: can we every do better and actually solve our problems faster than they are created to advance beyond this status?

Corruption And Padding Tins
As Nigeria addressed corruption, arresting tons of suspects from the old gang, so also did the nation face one of the largest scandals in budgeting history. Borrowing the President's words, "all my life I have never heard of budget padding before." Nigeria's budget was ridiculously padded. Government officials hid largesses that were not only humongous but also wicked. The Presidency's offices got larger allocations than the entire collective schools of the country; it's clinic got larger lots than all public hospitals combined. Ministers put projects like a single borehole at the cost of building a thousand. It was corruption at its finest.

Over a month later, no one has been arrested for this corruption, a few were simply moved to other departments, one or two were fired and implicated ministers and other officials are still in office. Unlike neighboring Ghana where corrupt Ministers are immediately sacked, Nigeria embraced its continued corruption. In fact, the new budget that just got passed still had most of the padding in it. The Senate reportedly just allowed it pass in the desperate need to move the nation forward at the risk of contractors of the government officials helping them swallow millions of dollars hidden in the padded allocations. The borehole is still to be built by the Minister of Works and Housing at $750,000. A world record!

Politics
President Buhari admitted today that he had failed as far as politics goes. He confessed that he failed with the Kogi polls, the Bayelsa polls and the Rivers polls. That's all the polls there have been since he entered office. The Kogi polls had the ruling party fielding a dying candidate simply to grab the spot. It also witnessed a never before-heard-of gymnastics of replacing a governorship candidate mid-race with another person all together. I am sure the Tribunal is going to knock that one out; but so far it has been a sham. Kogi State lacks a deputy governor and you cannot blame Faleke for that.

In do or die politics, Bayelsa State witnessed the APC embracing the same corrupt men from the PDP; fighting an impossible battle and refusing to accept that they can never win the State, most especially when all they offer the people is the same 'ol corruption as alternative with no thought of giving the people a chance with someone of decency.

Rivers was one of the most shameful political episodes in recent global politics. Dozens died including serving Youth corps members and soldiers. What a shame. For unexplainable reasons, the results are yet to be released. So one way or the other, these people died in perfect vain!

Soldiers were sent to Rivers, but what their orders were is in question. This is because there is a pristine video that shows an alleged above-the-law APC candidate brazenly storm an INEC office and openly demand a refund of the bribe money he paid . While the candidate vandalized the office, the police and soldiers stationed simply watched! What orders Buratai gave them is in question. Was it the type of orders given to officers who took part in EkitiGate? If these officers were dispatched to uphold justice and maintain peace, then they would have immediately arrested the alleged APC candidate who was terrorizing the center. What happened to Chief of Army Staff Buratai that he and his men are the trigger-eager defenders of Nigeria's democracy? As Buhari said, it is a failure.

President Buhari’s Interesting Interview With Al Jazeera

By Okey Ndibe

During his recent visit to Qatar, President Muhammadu Buhari sat for an interview with Martine Dennis of Al Jazeera. Last weekend, close to two weeks after the trip, I finally found time to watch the entirety of the interview. I found it enlightening, for two broad reasons.

President Buhari during the interview 
(pix:Punch)

The first and minor one was to remark the interviewer’s composure and confidence. She had a grasp of her subject (Nigeria’s economic woes, widespread disappointment with Mr. Buhari’s budget, and growing apprehension about the outline of his economic and security policies). The interviewer’s full-throttle style was in sharp contrast with the fawning and deferential manner adopted by many a Nigerian reporter when given the opportunity to interview an incumbent or former president—or even lesser ranking public officials. In question after question, Ms. Dennis zeroed in on specific details of Buharinomics and politics Buhariana. And she was rather quick-footed whenever the occasion called for a follow-up question.

My major interest in the interview was the opportunity it offered to take a measure of the president’s mindset. Buhari had a few fine moments in the interview, the hallmark arriving when—reminded by Ms. Dennis that the IMF was not enamored of his refusal to devalue the naira—he replied that his country’s interest trumped the IMF’s prescription.

On the whole, however, I came away with the impression that President Buhari’s interview was simply “interesting.” And I have borrowed the word, interesting, with all its freight of ambiguities, from Mr. Buhari.

He seemed uncomfortable when the interviewer touched on the subject of how the government’s forex policy was affecting parents who are paying school fees for their children studying abroad. Yet, when she reminded him that his own children were also studying abroad—implying that he was now among the super-privileged—he seemed unfazed.

Nigeria’s Killing Fields

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

If our claim to being an irreducible part of civilised humanity is to be validated, we must meet an acceptable degree of adherence to the norms that guarantee that level of life that is superior to that of a people at their inchoate stage of development. For what entitles us to be a part of civilised humanity when the robust allowance we ought to make for the sanctity of human life is non-existent?  

*President Buhari 

If we all take it as a given that  respect for human life is a fundamental principle   of  a civilised society, then we must come to the grim realisation that as a people we still have so much work to do to remain part of the civilised world. For clearly, the ascendancy of the disdain for the sanctity of human life in our society daily spawns crises with their attendant loss of lives. If these deaths were only caused by Boko Haram, there would have been the tragic consolation that the perpetrators are only irredeemable and blood-sucking lunatics on the fringes of humanity.

The first step towards retrieving the society from its self-affliction of the warped norms that nurture violence is that our political leaders must not recoil from the responsibility of admitting that they were the ones who  first torpedoed the rules of mutual engagement that foster trust between the leaders and the citizens. In them is reposed the trust of using the nation’s resources to improve the lot of all the people. But on almost every occasion, this trust is often injudiciously requited.  They cater to their selfish interest – buying mansions  they do not need, buying private jets to escape the pothole-ridden roads  they fail to repair  and acquiring wives  and mistresses in conformity with their sybaritic lives . 

This state of mutual distrust is expressed in an aggravated form through ethnic suspicion. The tragic consequence is that thousands are killed on account of unfathomable or  the  flimsiest provocation. It is this mutual suspicion that provides the ground for the perpetuation of the inter-ethnic feud as the case of the Agatu community where hundreds were allegedly killed by herdsmen. In the case of the people of Agatu and the herdsmen, we may make an allowance for the possibility that a lack of constant interactions  has over the years exacerbated   this mutual distrust. But how could there be mutual distrust among people who intermingle almost daily in the course of business or living in the same neighbourhood? This is the puzzle that the tragic clash between traders of different ethnic origins threw up in Lagos recently.

Stop Rationalizing Buhari’s Lethargic Beginnings

By Moses Ochonu

My friend, Professor Pius Adesanmi, set the tone for what I'm about to say in a recent Facebook update. If you have not read his update in which he makes a forceful argument for holding the Buhari administration accountable for the president's pre-election promises in the area of security and the effort against Boko Haram, please go and read it without delay. It is a prescient and timely intervention. Adesanmi was writing to bemoan the continued rampage of Boko Haram in spite of Buhari's promise to take away their ability to continue their murderous activities.

*Buhari 

Adesanmi's overarching arguments are 1) we should insist on Buhari fulfilling his promise of securing the lives and property of citizens from the menace of Boko Haram, a promise that the recent wave of bombings vitiate; 2) we should demand from this administration a clear articulation of its strategy for ending Boko Haram; and 3) what we criticized and refused to accept when Jonathan was president, we should not accept, rationalize, or fail to criticize in Buhari's administration.

I want to extend Adesanmi's treatise beyond the narrow domain of security. I want to broaden his contention to the entire gamut of issues and challenges confronting the country. I am arguing simply that, regardless of the issue involved, what we didn't tolerate from Jonathan and roundly criticized in his administration, we should also not tolerate from Buhari and should have the courage to criticize. Here is a list of things we rightly criticized Jonathan for, but which, for reasons I cannot fathom, we seem to have ignored or accepted in Buhari's administration.

Smuggled $9.3million Cash: Federal Government’s Cock-And-Bull Story

By Festus Keyamo

I have just read, with some amusement, the position of the Federal Government regarding the cash totaling $9.3 million that was seized by the South African authorities as an attempt was made to smuggle it into that country. from my little understanding, the Federal Government's position can be summarised as follows: 

*Keyamo

*That it is aware of the movement of such large sum of money by cash out of the country.
*That the cash is meant for the purchase of arms to fight insurgency. 
*That the transaction was done by cash to ensure the speed of the transaction. 
*That it resorted to buy from South Africa because of procedural bottlenecks in the purchase of such items from western countries.

The above position of the Federal Government is not only ludicrous, it is laughable, untenable and a story only fit to be told to the marines. The following rhetoric posers are germane to this issue:

Jonathan Will Not Interfere With Ongoing Investigation Against Ex-Gov Sheriff - Presidency

... Former Governor Did Not Accompany The President To Chad 

Former Governor of Borno State Ali Modu Sheriff, 
President Goodluck Jonathan and President Idris 
Derby of Chad in Ndjamena (pix: State House)


By Reuben Abati 

We have noted with surprise, the unnecessary hue and cry raised by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and other bigoted critics of the Jonathan Administration over the claim that the President is “hobnobbing” with the former governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was recently accused by the Australian, Stephen Davis, of being one of the chief sponsors of the terrorist group, Boko Haram.

The totally erroneous basis for that charge was the spurious claim that Senator Sheriff accompanied President Jonathan on his recent trip to Ndjamena as a member of his entourage.

Although Senator Sheriff himself has already given the lie to that claim through his Media Adviser, the Presidency wishes to affirm, for the purpose of emphasis, that the former Borno State governor was not on President Jonathan’s delegation to Chad.

Jonathan Orders Removal Of Offensive Bring Back Jonathan Signs

Press Release 

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has directed that the #Bring Back Jonathan 2015 signs and banners around Abuja which he and many Nigerians find offensive and repugnant  be brought down immediately.

President Jonathan wholly shares the widely expressed view that the signs which were put up without his knowledge or approval are a highly insensitive parody of the #Bring Back Our Girls hash tag.

Terror Sponsorship: PDP Replies APC

Full Text Of Statement Issued By the People's Democratic Party (PDP) Today 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has noted yet another failed image laundering stunt by the APC wherein its National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun cheapened his office and person by attempting to use an unempirical statement by Australian Dr. Stephen Davis, to absolve his party of blames for promoting insurgency in the country.

*Olisa Metuh
PDP's National Publicity Secretary

Whilst we recognize the right of citizens to hold and canvass opinion in a democratic setting such as guaranteed under the PDP-led administration, we hold, and strongly too that such rights must be properly and respectably exercised.

It is therefore shocking and worrisome that the APC National Chairman, in a frenzied effort to extricate his party, could issue a statement completely lacking in validity, character and intellectual content befitting of a National Chairman of a political party.

Oyegun’s statement rather than exonerate the APC has reinforced and underscored its true identity as a party of desperate politicians supportive of violence and disunity through their utterances and body language, a fact that is already well known to all Nigerians.