Edo Sham Poll: UN Must Safeguard Nigeria’s 2027 Presidential Election

 By Olu Fasan

Outrageous! How dare you say the United Nations should help run elections in Nigeria, a sovereign state? That’s how some will react to this intervention. But leaving aside the fact that countries often seek United Nations electoral assistance, what’s truly outrageous and utterly shameful is that Nigeria, so-called “Giant of Africa”, cannot conduct free, fair and credible elections, something less endowed African countries do routinely and successfully.

*INEC Chair, Yakubu and Tinubu

This week, on October 1, Nigeria turned 64 as an independent nation. Sadly, it’s 64 years of sham elections and hollow democracy. As John Campbell and Matthew Page said in their book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, “massive election rigging has been characteristic of Nigeria since independence”.

Consumption To Production Is Mythical With Neglected Producers

 By Owei Lakemfa

It appears that Nigerians are fairly attuned to the new sing-song that the country needs to move from consumption to production. However, discussions at a conference on Wednesday, August 16, 2023 once again brought to the fore the belief in some government and employers circles that the wilful and conscious deprivation of workers constitutional and human rights would not affect production. In fact, in some cases, they believe that the abridgement of such rights is good for business and governance.

The setting was the 45th Anniversary of the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association, FOBTOB, held in Lagos, and the immediate trigger was the paper: “Enforcing Workers’ Right In Nigeria” by Mr Andrew Egboh, Director in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment.

As Nigerians Grapple With Escalating Poverty

 By Adeze Ojukwu  

The excruciating pain and penury arising from soaring food and fuel prices have left many Nigerians seething with anger and rage. 

Since independence, the country has had a history of bad governance, characterized by graft, tribalism and unrest, due to political, cultural and religious vulnerabilities. But never in its chequered history has the society been embroiled in such massive levels of imbroglio, which peaked during the eight-year devastating hegemony of the immediate past administration. 

Democracy In Africa Needs Help

 By Collins Obibi

It was in a policy development class many years ago that a teacher asked us to listen and understand what he was teaching and how to apply it to our work instead of thinking and focusing on how to develop a Political Theory since even our teachers are not developing any. Being a post graduate class, the statement was not very palatable.

I struggled with it for a long time. Over 25 years, though I have made some contributions to the world of knowledge by my writing and verbal expose on different subjects, I still have not been able to develop any Theory and it appears I have given up.

Achieving Zero Hunger And Ending Malnutrition

 By Emmanuel Osadebay

To gain the nutritional substances that provide energy for activities, growth and other functions of the body in keeping the immune system healthy, food is essential for a human being. The United Nations global facts show that in 2020, between 720 million and 811 million persons worldwide were suffering from hunger, roughly 161 million more than in 2019.

A staggering 2.4 billion people, reflecting above 30 per cent of the world’s population, were moderately or severely food-insecure, lacking regular access to adequate food; and globally, 149.2 million children under the age of five (22%), were suffering from stunting (low height for their age) in 2020.

John Nnia Nwodo: Orator And Apostle Of Restructuring At 70

 By Oseloka Zikora 

His oratorical skill is his spotlight, which catapults him mostly to dizzying heights sometimes not contemplated. Take Ibadan, for instance, where he was an economics student at the then premier university. He was contesting the students’ union presidency and he had a Yoruba student as the leading opponent. How would he, an “alejo,” that is, a stranger, turn the tables against such formidable opposition?

*Nwodo

 Then came the manifesto night: his opponent spoke first and against the rules of the contest concluded his address in Yoruba, appealing to ethnic sentiments and exhorting the predominantly Yoruba student population to vote one of their own. The chant was “tinwan tinwa o, je ka wole (our own, our own, …ours is ours)” and the atmosphere was charged. To make matters worse, the crowd was dispersing in the accompanying commotion. Somehow, confronted by a Yoruba student and chief campaigner of the disadvantaged “Omoigbo”, the electoral officer asked that the hall be locked, insisted that all candidates must be heard.

Why Climate Change Must Define Our Elections

 By Nick Dazang

Following unprecedented rainfall this year, the vast length and breadth of this country has been flooded. Most adversely impacted are Kogi and Bayelsa states. Kogi State, which is located smack on the confluence of Rivers Niger and Benue, has been submerged by water. Bayelsa, which is down stream, has been cut off completely from civilisation, with nearly one million of its citizens displaced.

It is a tale of woe for nearly all the states of the federation, including the Mambilla and Jos plateaux, which experienced the most torrential rains in a generation. Not less than a conservative 700 Nigerians have lost their lives. Millions have lost their properties and live in camps. And millions more are prone to diseases and hunger as a consequence.

Kofi Anan: Farewell To An African Peacemaker

By Adekeye Adebajo

Ghana’s Kofi Annan, whose death at the age of 80 was announced on Saturday, was the first black African to serve as Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), between 1997 and 2006. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the UN in 2001, though his most noteworthy mediation was in brokering a settlement in violence-stricken Kenya in 2008, failing in Syria four years later.

*Kofi Anan

During his ten-year tenure as Secretary-General, the Ghanaian diplomat courageously, but perhaps naïvely, championed the cause of “humanitarian intervention.” After a steep decline in the mid-1990s, peacekeeping increased again by 2005 to around 80,000 troops. African countries like Sudan, the Congo, Liberia, Ethiopia/Eritrea, and Côte d’Ivoire were the main beneficiaries.

APC: Govt Of Liars, By Liars And For Liars

By Dr. Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo
Recently, a senior official of the Buhari administration came out on national television to tell us that Nigeria is now the second largest producer of rice in the world. This is the most ridiculous claim I have heard in the last couple of years.

 

*Dr. Nwankwo

I know that the Buhari administration, even those that can be numbered among his kitchen cabinet, is full of clowns and morons bereft of intellect; but honestly I didn’t know that somebody can be this naïve and crass to come and tell us that Nigeria is a world class producer of rice.

Why do people lie so brazenly? Does he think that he is talking to kindergartens? I do not understand why this government has made lying an article of faith and governance. How can anybody in his right senses make such useless claim?

How and where did he get the statistics? If his claim is true why is a bag of local rice still going for between N18000 to N20000? If this claim were true why would the UN only a few days ago, include Nigeria among famine-threatened countries in Africa alongside Sudan and Somalia?

I know that Nigeria is not famous for statistical records. This is a country that does not know its population; the number of unemployed graduates; the number of the poor; does not even know the number of secondary schools in the country or anything for that matter.

Yet this is a country that wants to pay monthly stipends of N5000 to every unemployed graduate and the poor. As a matter of fact, I have come to the conclusion that APC is a fraud. Democracy is said to be government of the people, by the people and for the people.

But strangely, the APC government has become “government of liars and thieves, by liars and thieves and for liars and thieves”. I want you to understand that this type of APC government is the perfect setting that creates deep-seated social resentment and which also leads to the inevitable death of nations.

*Dr. Nwankwo, an eminent intellectual, author and publisher shared these thoughts on his facebook page

Dealing With The Vulnerability Of Widowhood

By Fred Nwaozor  

On June 23, the world over commemorated the annual International Widows’ Day as stipulated and observed by the United Nations (UN). The International Widows’ Day is a UN ratified day of action to address the poverty and injustice faced by millions of widows and their dependents in many countries. The event invariably takes place on every day of June 23.

The day was established in 2005 by Raj Loomba whose mother became a widow on June 23, 1954, and the bereaved woman experienced the social intolerance and financial adversity that can befall widows. The establishment was made under the aegis of The Loomba Foundation to raise awareness of the issue of widowhood, which was thereafter formally adopted and duly approved on December 21, 2010 by the United Nations’ General Assembly under the leadership of the present UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon. The proposal for the approval was tendered by President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon.

A widow is a woman whose husband has died, whilst a widower is a man who has lost his wife; thus, widowhood is a state in which a man or a woman, as the case may be, has lost his/her marriage partner. It is obvious that in any society in the world, anyone either a man or a woman found in a state of widowhood is regarded as a less-privileged, because his/her partner in whom he/she is well pleased has departed for eternity. But in Africa, particularly Nigeria, the most devastating aspect of widowhood is when a woman is passing through the ordeal.

In Nigeria for instance, on the average, a widow regardless of her status, is severely molested, intimidated as well as humiliated. The major plight faced by a widow in this part of the world is deprivation of her late husband’s property or possessions by her teeming in-laws. In this case, she could be banned from making use of anything belonging to the deceased, thereby making her appear like a mere slave in her matrimonial home.

In many cases, the widow in question could be accused of being responsible for her husband’s demise without minding the severe psychological pains and agony she is passing through. In some quarters, to prove her innocence, the poor widow would be mandated by the accusers to drink the water used in washing her late husband’s corpse; a practice that obviously seems highly irrational and barbaric.

Sexual Harassment ‎Bill: A Step In The Right Direction

By Cynthia Ferdinand

 The history of sexual harassment dates back to the pre-colonial era when women were accorded little or no rights whatsoever – they were often married out against their wish, sacrificed as virgins or married to deities where they became ready sexual preys to the chief priests or custodians of such deities.

(pix: nature)

While these repressive and degrading habits have abated following the introduction of Western education, it is unfortunate that the inhuman practice has not only crept into our citadels of learning but has continued to assume worrisome proportions to the consternation of parents and education authorities in the country alike. The effects of incessant sexual harassment of female students in higher institutions cannot be over-emphasized as it has continued to militate against the attainment of the educational vision and objectives of many a female folk in the country.

There have been overwhelming narratives on sexual harassment by victims such that researchers of international repute have described Nigerian tertiary institutions as sex colonies were rape and other forms of coerced copulation and sexual intimacy are practiced without sanctions. To many young Nigerians, especially female students in tertiary institutions, sexual harassment is something of a norm.

United Nations (UN) reports state that “one out of three women experience sexual harassment in their lifetime”. According to the European Union Commission recommendation: “There are also adverse consequences arising from sexual harassment for employers. In general terms, sexual harassment is an obstacle to the proper integration of women into the labour market.” It is further regrettable that over the years, aside provisions against rape and other untoward sexual behaviours in both the Criminal and Penal Codes, there have been no clear cut and effective legislation aimed at checkmating or eliminating this abhorrent practice from our institutions of higher learning.

 As a consequence, it is today difficult to explicitly articulate what constitutes sexual harassment and what sanctions there are to deter male predators. Another factor that has helped sustained this barbaric tendency, is the seeming societal indifference to the plight of victims due to discrepancies in views as to what actually constitute sexual harassment against the opposite sex.

Be that as it may, no matter the view we want to give to the menace of sexual harassment, its cumulative, demoralizing and harmful effect cannot be glossed over. It is unarguable that many academic careers of female students have been disrupted and frustrated and led inexorably to depression, ostracism, mental anguish and loss of self esteem on the part of victims of sexual harassment.

Libya: Getting Geneva Right

Middle East and North Africa Report N°157

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Libya’s deteriorating internal conflict may be nearing a dramatic turning point. Over six months of fighting between two parliaments, their respective governments and allied militias have led to the brink of all-out war. On the current trajectory, the most likely medium-term prospect is not one side’s triumph, but that rival local warlords and radical groups will proliferate, what remains of state institutions will collapse, financial reserves (based on oil and gas revenues and spent on food and refined fuel imports) will be depleted, and hardship for ordinary Libyans will increase exponentially. 

(PIX: AFP PHOTO/ABDULLAH DOMA)

Radical groups, already on the rise as the beheading of 21 Egyptians and deadly bombings by the Libyan franchise of the Islamic State (IS) attest, will find fertile ground, while regional involvement – evidenced by retaliatory Egyptian airstrikes – will increase. Actors with a stake in Libya’s future should seize on the UN’s January diplomatic breakthrough in Geneva that points to a possible peaceful way out; but to get a deal between Libyan factions – the best base from which to counter jihadis – they must take more decisive and focused supportive action than they yet have.

UN Celebrates Chinua Achebe

A Celebration and Tribute On The Occasion Of The Birthday Of The Late
Chinua Achebe

Music, Film, Readings And Recollections By Family And Friends

Friday, November 15th 2013, 1:30-2:30pm
 Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium
United Nations Headquarters
New York, NY

(Entrance on 47th Street and 1st Avenue)

 

Please RSVP here to reserve your seat or contact
darrel.holnes@rutgers.edu

This event is co-sponsored by
the United Nations SRC Society of Writers,
the United Nations SRC Film Society,
and the Rutgers University Writers House