Decriminalising Nigeria’s Democratic Estate

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

A lot has been agitating my mind in recent times on the state of our union and why evil seems to continually thrive over good. Why is it that the things which disqualify people in other climes from holding public office are exactly what is needed by an average Nigerian politician to be considered astute?

In other climes, hardly will a certificate forger make a successful career in politics. In Nigeria the reverse is the case. Many of those in public office in Nigeria today forged their academic qualifications even when the bar is so ridiculously low that all you need to be president is the West African School Certification Examination, WASCE. You don’t even need to pass.

Remembering The 1986 ‘Ango Must Go’ ABU Students Protest

 By Ahmed Yusuf

Thirty-seven years ago, precisely on May 22-23, 1986, Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, students embarked on a peaceful protest against their Vice Chancellor, Professor Ango Abdullahi, who invited the police to quell the protest. The violence inflicted by the police is only comparable to that of the 1978 “Ali-Must-Go” nation-wide students’ protest against the increase in education financing.

*Ango Abdullahi

The Police brutalised, shot, injured, raped, murdered students and other citizens both on campus and the neigbouring Samaru community. The Academic Staff Union of the Universities, ABU Branch, wrote that the general conduct of the police “violated every known code of conduct for such operations”, adding: “To the police, it did not matter whether or not one was a ‘rioting’ student or a 13-year-old sitting quietly in a secondary school classroom; whether one was fleeing or refusing to disperse, whether one was armed with stones or not. It was as if they had a deep seated grudge against their victims.”