By Ray Ekpu
In the last one year I must have written up to a dozen articles on the intractable problem of insecurity in the country. How can I stop when insecurity has not stopped harassing us. It has become a daily nightmare because nowhere is safe today, neither the road nor your house.
By Ray Ekpu
It was an unmitigated disaster. As Christians were preparing to mark the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, tragedy struck in three local government areas of Plateau State. Over 20 villages in Bokkos, Mangu and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas of the State were attacked, almost 200 persons, men, women and children, massacred and 1300 houses set aflame while at least 88 persons were rushed to hospitals with varying degrees of injuries. About 10, 000 of the survivors have been displaced. They are now refugees in their own country, uncertain where their next meal will come from or whether the attackers will come to where they are to complete their devious assignment.
Those who survived the pogrom can thank Mother Luck but most of them lost their relations. Here are the wailings of some of the survivors. One of them said: “My entire 21 relatives were wiped out.” Another said that as they attacked “We pretended to be dead but as my son tried to crawl away the Fulani attackers noticed that he was not dead, they killed him.” One woman said: “While escaping with matchete cuts I didn’t know that my baby had fallen from my back.”
By Ray Ekpu
Last week my colleagues in the media industry bestowed on me the treasured trophy of honour twice, first on Thursday in Lagos and next on Friday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. The Lagos event was organised by the National body of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), led by its president, Mr. Chris Isiguzo.
About 20 of us were given what was elaborately called media icon awards. And the awardees included such a renowned journalist as Senator Bala Mohammed, Governor of Bauchi, a former minister and a former Senator, Mr. Henry Odukomaiya who in addition to being a well-known practitioner was also a creative manager of the newspaper business and Professor Ralph Akinfeleye, an eminent teacher of journalists, among others.
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
“Death is…the absence of
presence…the endless time of never coming back…a gap you can’t see, and when
the wind blows through it, it makes no sound” – Tom
Stopard
In the morning of Monday, October 20, 1986, I was preparing to go to work when a major item on the Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS) 6.30 news bulletin hit me like a hard object. Mr. Dele Giwa, the founding editor-in-chief of ‘Newswatch’ magazine, had the previous day been killed and shattered by a letter bomb in his Lagos home. My scream was so loud that my colleague barged into my room to inquire what it was that could have made me to let out such an ear-splitting bellow.
We were three young men who had a couple of months earlier been posted from Enugu to Abakaliki to work in the old Anambra State public service, and we had hired a flat in a newly erected two-storey building at the end of Water Works Road, which we shared. My flat-mate, clearly, was not familiar with Giwa’s name and work, and so had wondered why his death could elicit such a reaction from me.
By Ray Ekpu
Recently, the world marked the International Day of the Girl-Child. Who is the girl-child and why is she singled out for attention throughout the world? That is what we plan to deal with here today. A girl-child is a biological female child who is any age from zero to 18 years. She is not only different from a boy-child but her needs are also different; her level of vulnerability is higher and many families and communities tend to treat her differently from, and in a manner that is inferior to, the way they treat the boychild.
Nigeria is regarded as a country of the young. About 46 per cent of Nigeria’s population are under age 15 and about 51 per cent of that population are said to be girls. Nigeria accounts for more than one in five out-of-school children anywhere in the world and more than 50 per cent of that number are girls. Even though primary school education is largely free and compulsory in Nigeria’s public schools about 33 per cent of eligible children are out of primary school.
By Ray Ekpu
Most literate Nigerians have heard or read about gas flaring but it may not mean much to them. Some of them may know that gas flaring is done in the oil producing states of the country but they may not know what it means to Nigeria or Nigerians who live in those areas.
Even though it is a very important subject in economic terms it is not a subject that most people talk or write about. But it is a subject that has featured in the lives of some Nigerians since oil was discovered in 1956 in Nigeria. That is because gas flaring brings a lot of misery to those who live where the gas is flared. We will come to this later.
By Ray Ekpu
There are two groups that seem to be badly treated in Nigeria’s political space: women and youths. In virtually all the political parties, there are phenomena called “women’s wing” and “youth wing.” There are also “women leaders” and youth leaders.” You may wish to ask why there are no men’s wings and men’s leaders in these parties.
The answer is that these parties are dominated by men, big men, rich men, ambitious men, men who are ready to fight and possibly kill for what they want in these parties; men who are ready to break a bank and bring money for the running of these parties. And because money talks, and talks loudly, money gives the men all the important offices in the parties.
By Ray Ekpu
When Mr Godwin Emefiele announced in October last year that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would be redesigning the N200, N500, and N1000 notes many Nigerians might have thought that they would have an opportunity to touch clean naira notes. The truth is that the common people of Nigeria never have a glimpse at clean naira notes in Nigeria.
This is my fifth lifetime achievement award, two of which came from non-media outfits while the other three including this one came from media organisations. A few years ago I received one from the Nation Newspaper in Kenya when it marked the 50th anniversary of its existence. A couple of years ago I was also honoured with the award by Diamond Media run by one of the respected journalists in the country, Mr Lanre Idowu.
By Ray Ekpu
The descent by Nigerians into the poverty hole seems very rapid despite the country’s fabled wealth. In the 70s we were swimming in wealth. That was why the Yakubu Gowon government approved the windfall called Udoji awards. With the Udoji bonanza, workers were catapulted from being pedestrians to the adorable class of car owners in one swift jump.
The government spread its wings to the West Indies as a Father Christmas picking up the bills of civil servants in a couple of those countries. That was the time that the government felt that money was not a problem. What was a problem was how to spend it. And did we spend it? Yes, we did. That is how we had the rice and cement armada, which choked our ports and proved to be a curse rather than a cure for our existential problems.
By Ray Ekpu
It is only one month since INEC blew the whistle for the campaigns to begin. And within that one month there have been serious cases of campaign violence and related incidents. The most prominent is perhaps the harassment of the campaign convoy of the former Vice President and presidential candidate of the PDP, Mr Atiku Abubakar. The thugs pelted the Atiku’s convoy while on its way to the Palace of the Shehu of Borno. Several vehicles were said to be vandalised while 70 persons were hospitalised. The Borno State PDP Chairman, Zamna Gaddama alleged that the attack was carried out by some miscreants from the APC.
He said that the attack occurred at three points from the airport to the Shehu of Borno’s palace. On the other hand the Director of Media and Publicity for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Bayo Onanuga said that the attack could be the result of the infighting in the Borno State chapter of the PDP. He insisted that the APC had no hand in the attack.
By Ray Ekpu
The United States and United Kingdom embassies in Nigeria have raised the alarm over possible terror attack on facilities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. Other countries have followed suit. These include Denmark, Bulgaria, Germany, Ireland and Canada. Although these countries are addressing their message to their citizens living in or visiting Nigeria, it is obvious that the message is also for the benefit of Nigerians and the federal government.
The United States advisory says that the terrorists might target such places as government buildings, places of worship, schools, markets, shopping malls, hotels, bars, restaurants, athletic gatherings and transport terminals, facilities belonging to law enforcement agencies and international organisations. The American embassy therefore directed its non-essential staff and their family members to either leave the FCT or avoid public places. Many of the places mentioned by the embassy have been attacked by terrorists either in Abuja or elsewhere in the country so they are all potentially vulnerable.
By Ray Ekpu
When Nigeria lowered the Union Jack and raised the green-white-green flag that heralded its coming of age on October 1, 1960, there was boundless joy in Nigeria. It seemed like the unwrapping of a gift because you knew it was a gift but you did not know what kind of gift was wrapped inside the gaily decorated wrapping paper.
The soldiers thought they knew what was the problem. They came breaking the soil with their big boots and in the process, they also broke our hearts when they killed some of our leaders which in turn led to revenge killings the revenge killings dragged us into a war that lasted 30 months and consumed one million lives. As it is often said, the rest is history.
By Ray Ekpu
Going through the newspapers last week it seemed as though the Nigerian world was crashing, ready to come down and bury all of us. And it is not as if we are strangers to bad news; we experience it every day, every week and when a new piece of bad news comes it is easy for people to say nonchalantly “what is new?” But last week took the trophy. It was like the coming of the apocalypse, an Armageddon, some kind of tsunami.
Let
us pigeonhole the news into three sectors. First, the national strike by ASUU
was joined last week by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and its affiliates.
The strike had gone on for about six months without the government being able
to resolve it.
How can any government worth the name allow its tertiary institutions to be shut for nearly one semester? It has never happened in this country before. And the amazing thing is that as NLC threatened to join the strike in sympathy, President Muhammadu Buhari, as evidence of taking action, commanded the Minister of Education, Mr Adamu Adamu, to end the strike within two weeks. I am sure that the minister who knows that resolving it is a matter of forking out a lot of cash, and he doesn’t mint money, must have laughed haughtily at the impossible directive.
By Ray Ekpu
The crowd that is chanting Run, Jonathan, Run is a composite contingent made up of greedy and hungry fellows, rented fellows, political flunkeys of the basest type and those who think that Nigeria may be ready for any kind of political tomfoolery at this time.
*Jonathan
Ordinarily, a man who had risen from the position of a Deputy
Governor, Governor, Vice President to the apex of his country’s administration,
the presidency, ought to be happy that he had done, without being harmed, a
marathon that most Nigerians only dream about.
In that case, he would be expected to play only the role of a statesman who would seek to contribute his ideas to the resolution of his country’s and continent’s existential problems, some of which had haunted his country since the days that he grew up in his village without the adornment of even the cheapest pair of shoes. Now he is in a position to acquire the most expensive pair of designer shoes ever made.
By Ray Ekpu
President Muhammadu Buhari fought for the presidential diadem with the tenacity of a war horse. He went into the field three times, campaigning in various parts of the country to become the president of Nigeria. Three times he failed but didn’t stop there. He took his fate into the hands of the courts as a true warrior. On all three occasions he had his grouses against the electoral system. Then the fourth time he got lucky.
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
“Death is…the
absence of presence…the endless time of never coming back…a gap you can’t see,
and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound” – Tom
Stopard
In the morning of Monday, October 20, 1986, I was preparing to go to work when a major item on the Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS) 6.30 news bulletin hit me like a hard object. Mr. Dele Giwa, the founding editor-in-chief of ‘Newswatch’ magazine, had the previous day been killed and shattered by a letter bomb in his Lagos home. My scream was so loud that my colleague barged into my room to inquire what it was that could have made me to let out such an ear-splitting bellow.
We were three young men who had a couple of months earlier been posted from Enugu to Abakaliki to work in the old Anambra State public service, and we had hired a flat in a newly erected two-storey building at the end of Water Works Road, which we shared. My flat-mate, clearly, was not familiar with Giwa’s name and work, and so had wondered why his death could elicit such a reaction from me.
But later that day, as he interacted with people, he realised that Giwa’s death was such big news, and by the next couple of days, he had become an expert on Giwa and his truncated life and career. Across the country, Giwa’s brutal death dominated the news not just because of the pride of place he occupied in Nigerian journalism practice, but more because of the totally novel way his killers had chosen to end his life.
By Yakubu Mohammed
Remembering Dele Giwa? No, we have not forgotten him. How do you forget a colleague and a friend who was more like a brother? How do you forget a co-conspirator with whom, in 1984, we decided to quit our comfort zone in Concord where he edited the Sunday Concord and I, the National Concord, to venture into an uncharted waters that in no time birthed the trailblazing Newswatch?
How can you forget the iconoclastic reporter and editor who took
exceptional delight in speaking truth to power? How do you forget? Like we do
for the dead, we remember him every day and, as enjoined by our religion,
we pray for the dead every day.
But Dele Giwa lives in every journalist who pursues
professionalism and extols the virtues of excellence, not the one who enthrones
cant and hypocrisy and worships them like an ancient deity. We remember
Dele everyday. As we did yesterday, October 19.
When they snuffed life out of him on October 19, 1986, the novelty, even the senselessness, of his assassination through a parcel bomb was a mortal mistake. By that method and its cowardly means of delivery, they had made an immortal hero out of Dele. And forever he has to be mourned. As we do even now.
By Tony Eluemunor
When I think about my big brother, Mazi Chuks Iloegbunam, what readily comes to mind is the timeless Abba song, “Move On”. Its opening lyrics truly capture the essential Chuks Iloegbunam.
Here we go: “They say a
restless body can hide a peaceful soul. A voyager and a settler, they both have
a distant goal. If I explore the heavens, or if I search inside. Well, it
really doesn’t matter as long as I can tell myself I’ve always tried”.
The Iloegbunam many know could be that one that never, never, repeat never, suffers fools gladly. As we all know, if you do not suffer fools gladly, you are not patient with people who you think are stupid.
By Ray Ekpu
Since 1992 when the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was established its modus operandi has been basically kill-and-go. This was during the military era where a military ruler arrogantly told Nigerians during a peaceful protest that they were trained experts in the domination of their environment.
When a leader says that to the hearing of people who carry weapons they take that message to heart. The SARS people may have fought armed robbers viciously but they also fought – and killed – many innocent persons. The reports of their atrocities which include extortion, torture and extra-judicial killings have appeared in the media regularly but it has never been manifestly clear to the public that the offending personnel are often brought to justice. Perhaps, some victims with high visibility or influential connections have had their cases pursued to a logical end.
