Sack These Incompetent Security Chiefs Now!

By Tayo Demola

For several months now, some parts of the nation have been boiling with hostilities. We have since lost count of the number of killings that have taken place. We have lost count of the number of innocent Nigerians that have been killed in one of the most dastard and mindless killings in the history of Nigeria. I can’t believe that this is happening before our own very eyes and nothing has been done about these killings up till now!

President Buhari and Service Chiefs

It seems as if the government has now accepted this as the norm because I’m yet to see any drastic step taken by the President to address these urgent issues and put a permanent stop to these security challenges.  President Muhammadu Buhari should realise that the primary responsibility of government is to protect lives and property and to care for the welfare of the people. The government has failed to provide these for the people.

President Buhari, Before You Seek Reelection

By Matthew Ozah

I write not to dissuade you from running in 2019 elections just like two notable statesmen in the country and others did the other day.

Nevertheless, you have done well to ask the messengers of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ intention to give you some time to think about a second term.

*President Buhari 

As you may know, many Nigerians were charmed to ride that gravy train with you because of your pedigree, captivating campaign promise to fight corruption and other miracles that you pledged to perform during your election campaign in 2014/2015.

The recent corruption rating of the country by Transparency International (TI) triggered this letter. From the foregoing, it seems obvious that corruption has taken an armchair in your administration.

Nigeria Police And Audacity Of A Squealer

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

After years of a tempestuous relationship with the police, the citizens have become very familiar with a plethora of cases that reify the ignoble identity of that security institution of government as a site of unbridled corruption. Thus, they were by no means suddenly hoisted onto an uncharted territory when the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last month alerted them to the egregious indices of the corruption under which the police chafe. Nor did the recent allegation by Senator Isah Misau that the police reek of corruption expressed in cronyism, patronage and financial misdeeds come to them as a surprise.

*President Buhari and IGP Idris

Indeed, Nigerians live daily with a catalogue of woes the police inflict on them. We are quite familiar with these: the police shoot to maim or kill commercial bus drivers or motorcyclists popularly referred to as okada riders because of their refusal to part with N50. They do not respond to emergency calls when the citizens are under the siege of armed robbers. It is only when the armed robbers have finished their operations and gone that their victims would be harassed with the sounds of police sirens. And that is if the police come at all. In most cases, they place obstacles in your way: they tell you that they cannot respond to your call because they have no vehicles; if they have, they are faulty; and if they are not faulty, there is no fuel in them. If you go to make a report at their station, the police would ask you to pay for the pen and piece of paper with which to make your complaint. After the complaint, you need to give them money to investigate your case. On the walls and doors of a typical police station would be emblazoned the warning: bail is free. But you must pay for detainees to secure their freedom. 

Biafra Haram And The Rest Of Us

Onuoha Ukeh

In the last couple of months, what could pass for President Muhammadu Buhari’s phobia for Biafra has been apparent. These days, he seems to always use every opportunity to talk about the failed republic. The vehemence with which he talks about it sometimes leaves one wondering what it is that makes him mad about Biafra. Is it the fact that the thought of Nigeria breaking up frightens him? Or that he thinks that if the agitators are left, they could actualise their dream? Or that he feels insulted that some people will have the audacity or effrontery to talk about a separate country when he is in charge?

*Buhari

Indeed, President Buhari may have talked about Biafra more than any other single thing. Three days ago, he took up the Biafra issue, yet again. Speaking at the breaking of fast for members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, he had stated: “We need to reflect very seriously on what happened between 1967 and 1970, where about two million Nigerians lost their lives. At that time, as young military officers, you hardly heard of anything about petroleum or whatever money you got from it.

“Look at what Gen. Yakubu Gowon said: ‘To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done’ and every soldier, whether he had been to school or not, knew what the General meant. But we were quarreling with our brothers; we were not fighting an enemy, and somebody is saying that once again he wants Biafra.

“I think this is because he was not born when there was Biafra. We have to reflect on the historical antecedents to appreciate what is before us now and what we intend to leave for our children and our grandchildren.”

Last May, President Buhari also talked about Biafra. Speaking at the palace of Emir of Katsina, during his official visit to his home state, he referred to the promoters of the Biafra agitation as “kids” who were not born during the civil war.  According to Buhari, “today, Nigeria is a strong and united sovereign entity because some people laid down their lives for the country…At least, two million people died during the civil war, but, today, some people who were not born during the civil war are agitating for the division of the country. We will not let that happen.

“For Nigeria to divide now, it is better for all of us to jump into the sea and get drowned.”

On many other occasions, President Buhari had talked about Biafra. Each time he did, his impatience and anger were always betrayed. This, for instance, showed during one of his presidential media chats when he was asked about the detention of Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, even after he was first granted bail by the court. He had lost his cool and made pronouncements that directedly “convicted” the accused of the charges he was facing. He had said that what Kanu did was treason, even when trial was still on and verdict not delivered by the court.  As it stands, it is obvious that in Buhari’s world, Biafra, in thought, dream and action, is haram (taboo). In fact, sometimes I suspect that he wishes he could, with a stroke of the pen or brute force, erase Biafra from the consciousness of those who talk passionately about it.