Lessons From The Rivers State Rerun Election

By Moses E. Ochonu

INEC has declared the recent Rivers State rerun election inconclusive. How many inconclusive elections have we had under the new INEC chairman? How about all of them? I am not sure you can do your job so shoddily as many times as this rookie has and still get to keep said job, but he is new so I guess he deserves to make his mistakes and learn from them.

*President Buhari and Rotimi Amaechi

The conduct of the election aside, how did we get to a point where elections become wars of egos?

By the way, why did Rotimi Amaechi, a federal minister who was not running in the Rivers re-run election, relocate the perks, might, and intimidating aura of his office to his home state for an entire week for the election? Why the inflammatory, reckless statements designed to provoke, undermine, and challenge the authority of his successor? 

Why the personal abuse of Wike (“Wike can’t speak English”)? Why the thuggish behavior on the part of a federal minister (“I will flood Port Harcourt with soldiers”)? And why the bizarre boast about controlling the army, a boast so embarrassing the army had to issue a statement to refute it? What about the puerile demand for Wike’s resignation, among other comments unbecoming of a minister of the federal republic?

Quite frankly, Amaechi reflects terribly on President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB).

As for Nyesome Wike, well, Wike is Wike, a street politician given to gutter-sniping and uncouth outbursts. But he is governor and Amaechi should respect and accept that. Amaechi is already well compensated for helping to finance Buhari's campaign. Two of his political children have been appointed MDs of NIMASA and NDDC respectively, in addition to his own appointment as minister of transportation. In politics as in life, you cannot have it all.

It is political greed to insist on upending Wike by installing your stooges in the state assembly and as Rivers State's legislative contingent in the national assembly. It's a petty, narcissistic pursuit that is about personal ego and nothing more.

No wonder, even his former chief of staff, Tony Okocha, an APC candidate who lost to his PDP opponent, has railed against Amaechi's negative, counterproductive role in the election. He is right.

All politics is local, and if voters feel that someone is leveraging the power derived from an external source to force a particular political outcome locally, they often resist by voting in the other direction. 

Nigeria: Farewell To Fuel Scarcity

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Through the ages, peo­ples, including those currently occupying the space known today as Nigeria, who are faced with seri­ous challenges, naturally devise ways of mastering them. Yet, Ni­geria continues to groan under the weight of multifarious prob­lems that are, in truth, not intrac­table. Of course, there are prob­lems and there are those of them that are unquestionably knotty, including the task of building am­ity and unity between disparate peoples lumped together by the invasion of trans-Atlantic greed. When, in such a setting, it seems like the signs of enduring con­cord are in the offing, local greed – the insidious variety planted and nurtured by the trans-Atlan­tic original – rises and wipes away every vestige of hope. That is un­derstandable.

When, however, the problem has to do with fuel shortages, or the acute shortages of other goods and services, there is a fundamental reason why things permanently bad – to the cha­grin, utter pain and peril of Nige­rian peoples. Take the perennial shortages of petroleum products – gas, kerosene and petrol – in the country. These items are not scarce because they are not obtainable. They are invariably scarce because those employed to guarantee their availability have, through time, either shirked their responsibility or failed to under­stand what that responsibility entails.

This disgraceful situation criti­cally questions the nature of the essence of Nigerian peoples. It indicts Nigeria. Despite being the biggest oil nation in Africa, it remains the only one on the continent in which the discord­ant woes of fuel scarcity are regularly emitted. It is shameful that the mournful riff of lack of fuel, and the sorry sight of end­less queues at gas stations are Nigerians trademarks. Non-oil producing countries, including those in the Sahel region, hardly ever experience fuel shortages. But it is the lamentable lot of Ni­geria. Countries engaged in wars or afflicted by other tribulations manage somehow to meet their fuel demands. But not Nigeria, a country said to be benefitting from “relative” peace.

The reasons behind this blight are all too obvious. Corruption is one of them, as are ineptitude and negligence. So, the peoples suffer. The peoples suffer because of the long queues in the blistering heat of everyday. The peoples suffer because of the contrived delays by those operating the distribu­tion channels and the fuel sta­tions. The peoples suffer because artificial scarcities hike pump prices, which automatically im­pact negatively on prices and the availability of other goods and services. Without fuel there can­not be locomotion. Without this essential product, there cannot be power in homes and hospitals and factories; without fuel, what remain are jaded peoples.

Rivers’ Crisis As Rite Of Passage

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

What probably was the vestigial remnant of the hope that politicians in these climes would change for the better has been rudely ruptured by their quest for power in Rivers State. They have once again demonstrated their readiness for the ruthless elimination of any obstacle in their way. 

What ought to be a peaceful election to fill some vacant positions in the National and state Assembly has been besmeared with blood and tears. Scores have been killed and maimed. Hundreds have been rendered homeless.  And like the sword of Damocles, a pall of worse violence hangs over the heads of the citizens. But it is not only the residents of the state who have been traumatised by the grisly events.  For in contemplating them, hope has given way to despondency over the possibility of stabilising the nation’s democracy and making it benefit the citizenry.

But for the crisis in Rivers, we would still have held on tenaciously to the hope that we were transiting to a better political era, despite the plethora of the shenanigans of our politicians.  We would have hoped that our politicians would realise soon that the citizens gave them the opportunity to serve them. We would have hoped that our contemporary  politicians, through good governance, would make amends for their godfathers who have been rightly excoriated for frittering away the  opportunities to deliver transformational leadership . We would have thought that they would realise that if they were really keen on serving the citizens, they would not kill them first before bringing them succour.

Now that we have been jarred into reality by the bloodbath, we come to terms with the stark fact that we cannot have the power to solve our problems when we cannot resolve how to choose those who would provide the answers we need. No wonder that over the years, the warped  political system has not been able to throw up those men and women who would fix our decrepit national infrastructure and disentangle electricity, for instance, from its comatose course, and make it fast-track national  development  and improve the citizens’ lot.

Nigeria: Rivers Of Blood

By Chuks Iloegbunam

“When you use soldiers to kill, just to win a rerun election, just know that you will need the same soldiers to protect you while in of­fice. Or else, INEC will conduct a bye-election to fill your seat.” Sena­tor Shehu Sani.

*Gov Wike Nyesomof Rivers State

Looking at the weekend’s charade generally referred to as rerun elections in Riv­ers State, the profundity of Senator Sani’s statement strikes with the force of brutal truism. How come that a broad segment of Nige­rian politicians carry on with the mentality of creatures who possibly feed through their anal cavities? The imagistic representation out of Rivers State is a vast canvass of mindless violence by the two domi­nant political parties in contention. What was the objective of all the wantonness – a State Assembly to make laws for the living, or a fune­real conclave for cemeteries?

The following front-page story in the Sunday Sun of March 20, 2016, is entitled Rivers of Blood: Election Rerun Turns Deadly: “NO fewer than 10 persons, including one Immigration officer, were killed in yesterday’s Rivers State. Also, two National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members working as ad ­hoc staff were abducted at Abual Odua. But they were later rescued at 5 pm, by a team of mobile police­men.

“Meanwhile, heavy shooting marred voting in Abalama Town, in Asari-Toru Local Area. It was during the sporadic shootings that a bullet hit the Immigration officer.

“Sunday Sun gathered that some thugs had stormed the RAC centre and shot sporadically, after a disa­greement between supporters of two major political parties.

“Also, four persons were feared dead in Ogoni, in Rivers South-East, following late arrival of voting materials, which created tension in the senatorial district.

“Also, a soldier allegedly killed a young man who came out to cast his vote at Rumuokwuta area of Port Harcourt. In Nonwa, Tai Lo­cal Government Area, a voter, simply identified as Tombari, was shot dead by some hoodlums who stormed the area. The victim was said to be on queue, waiting to cast his vote before he was shot dead. Another person was also feared killed in Eleme, while two persons were reportedly killed in Abual/Odua and Ahoada West Local Gov­ernment Areas, respectively.

“Meanwhile, security men ar­rested over 32 persons for various offences. Of the number, 18 were arrested for being in possession of military uniforms and electoral ma­terials.”

Buhari: The Lying Overlord

By Iyoha John Darlington 

 I have always made plain my aversion to lies and falsehood and I dislike it as it constitutes a deliberate affront to my intelligence. As I navigate through life and encounter one who lies to me, which I honestly do not anticipate, I would be morally bound to lose my bearing thereby making it impossible for me to calculate my true position. This, I dare say, hurts my soul!

 

*President Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade is equally a war against lies in high places from which millions of our hard earned money was allegedly ‘siphoned’ from the national treasury. If the lies never existed no money would have exited the treasury. In a similar vein, in the run up to the 2015 general elections, one of the reasons given by  the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the ongoing insurgency was  youth unemployment. When people are unemployed they become potentially vulnerable to manipulations and this was exactly what they fell prey to when they were recruited and took up arms against the country in the hope of actualizing a sovereign  Islamic state.

Lying is tantamount to theft. When you tell me something which I take to be true and, as a result, I invest my time, or my money, or even my care, you have stolen these things from me because you obtained them under false pretence. That was how they shot themselves to power after false promises that they  only possess the magic wand to reconstruct the country – a country that  never stood  in dire need of their services after all!

APC with Buhari as the flag-bearer, we have it on good authority, promised  a N5000 monthly state stipend which was a welcome development considering the exchange rate at the time. I, too, in my ignorance applauded the initiative since that would put us on a par with the welfarist scheme here in the Old World where citizens enjoy unemployment benefits and the introduction of that package in my country of nativity would be a right step in the right direction, I opined.

Buhari, some people have often said, is a man of integrity and transparent honesty which of course is none other than a terminological inexactitude. His party’s partisans and diehard apologists often deify him as a Homer that never nods. But today he leads a government that shot its way to power by deceit, monstrous and hydra-headed lies; I have never known anyone who wants to be so deceived. For you to have campaigned and promised a monthly stipend to the unemployed to get their support and later reneged on the promise is nothing but a massive fraud!

The historic merger that gave birth to the ruling All Progressives Congress, I wrote in one of my pieces, was a massive fraud designed to bamboozle Nigerians by self-styled grandees who are bent on personal aggrandizement. The product of that merger is nothing short of a party founded on lies and deception – I had earlier written before now.

A fraud is a lie where the damage to me is quantifiable in money. Even those lies which the law does not define as fraud tend to fit the same definition: a knowing false utterance which the mark is intended to rely on to its harm. The only differences are of degree, for example, when we cannot assess the loss in money.

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.

Still On Buhari’s Al Jazeera Outing

By Ikechukwu Amaechi 

I am sure that when his aides bring to his attention the monthly performance survey carried out by Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria (GAIN), which showed that his job approval rating slipped for the first time last month, President Muhammadu Buhari will most likely shrug it off.

He does not care about public opinion.

 

*President Buhari 

That is scary. The most dangerous leader is that man or woman who does not care about public perception, who does not give a damn (apologies to former President Goodluck Jonathan) about what the people think.

This is a very dangerous curve for the country.

The monthly poll, which tracks the performance of governments at all levels in Nigeria, providing feedback from the public to their elected officials, indicated that for the first time since December 2015, more Nigerians score the president low on jobs, economy, power and rule of law. The most interesting outcome is that for the first time since he became president, many Nigerians now blame Buhari for the country’s woes rather than his predecessor, Jonathan. The February result showed that Buhari’s approval rating dropped from 63.4 per cent in January to 32.8 per cent and a significant 79 per cent of the respondents rated the government’s handling of the recurring clashes between herdsmen and farmers poor.

According to the poll, more Nigerians now hold him responsible for the terrible state of the economy just as many have been convinced that he may not have the capacity, after all, to do the job he sought for 12 years.

Of course, the Buhari apologists, just like their principal, will dismiss the poll result as the machination of agents of ousted Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) regime or the ranting of disgruntled elements – the wailing wailers. The more obtuse of the regime’s spin doctors will brandish it as one more evidence of corruption fighting back.

President Buhari's Aljazeera Interview 

But to dismiss this poll result with a wave of the hand is to live in illusion because for many Nigerians the result is hardly surprising. In fact, if there is any surprise at all, it is that there is still an odd 32.8 per cent of Nigerians who still believe in the capacity of the president to deliver on his mandate. 

Donald Trump: Real Threat To Global Peace

By Percy Okae

All over the airwaves currently it is Donald Trump making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Every now and again he makes one controversial statement after the other as to what he would do if he were to become America’s next leader. Foremost among his intentions is the policy he would immediately implement to deny prospective immigrants to America as well as so-called illegal immigrants he would want to ship back to their respective original home countries.

*Donald Trump 

What Mr. Trump forgets is that he is also indirectly an immigrant in America because that country is strictly a land of immigrants of which those of German descent are in the majority. Mr. Trump should know that his ancestors also immigrated to the then New World from Europe and so he is also strictly not a native of that landmass. The actual owners of America are the native Indians who as I speak are almost extinct following their deliberate extermination by the white Europeans when they arrive in the New World.

Today as we speak, the quadrennial ritual of selecting America’s next President is ongoing and as always, it has generated a lot of heat and already some candidates have fallen along the line. Foremost among such victims is John Edward Bush ((Jeb) Bush), a candidate who happens to be of the political establishment class and thus suffered as a consequence. However, given the happenings in the primaries of the Grand Old Party (GOP) — the Republican Party—the foremost heirloom by Honest Abe to his fellow Americans, it is very likely that another candidate of the political establishment, Hilary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, will likely become America’s 45^th President come next January, even though most Americans would not have wanted it so.

This is because the broader masses of Americans cannot fathom why those voting in the primaries of the GOP keep giving the baton to the vainglorious Donald Trump in almost all the state primaries, who though an astute business magnate of the global exclusive club of billionaires, has scored zeroes through his foul-mouthing this far. Every act of this man so far on the campaign trail, who looks lost to the realities of our present World, has been RACIST at best and utter DISDAIN for other demographics or persuasions at worst. Barring a miracle, his selection as the presumptive nominee of the GOP for the 2016 presidential elections is almost a done deal.

However, in case that happens, the majority of America’s non-party affiliated citizens will surely hand the presidency to Mrs. Clinton, in case she also becomes the Democratic nominee. And if that happens, the World will be spared the emergence of a certain incendiary of a Mr. President and the Commander-in-Chief of the World’s most resourced military and most likely, yet another unjustifiable invasion of another sovereign country on a non-existent excuse.

*P. OKAE
ADENTAN-ACCRA

My Distaste For Professionals’ Association Or Trade Union In Nigeria

By A. S. M. Jimoh

As a graduate of engineering, I have never had the interest of being a member of my professional body. Over time, I have scrutinized many professionals’ associations and their conduct, what I came up with is that trade unions in Nigeria are formed to promote misconduct among their members. Trade union or professionals’ Association is also a money making venture for its officials.

That is why people spend fortune or even kill to become the leader of these bodies in Nigeria. From the motor park union of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) or Road Transport Employees Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) to the professional bodies of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) or Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), it is same goal: to protect the interest of our members even if such a member is a criminal.

While I am not here to convince anyone to drop out from being a member of professional body or trade union, but I am going to demonstrate with specific events that have further alienate me from joining any Nigeria professional association.

In 2003, a group of nurse beat an old female patient at Okene General Hospital, hauled her from her hospital bed to detention at the police station. Her crime? Her grown up son had refused to participate in a so-called sanitation exercise organized by the hospital. The case got to the court as they insisted on teaching the woman and her son a lesson of life.  On the day of the court proceeding, the umbrella body of nurse and midwives, National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANMW) shut down hospitals cross local governments to attend the proceeding.  Nurses who were supposed to be at duty post abandoned patients to show solidarity with a wicked colleague. Is this what trade union is all about?  Instead of NANMW to sanction their members who proliferate pharmaceutical stores selling substandard drugs, they rather defend the wicked conduct of their members.

Fast forward to February 2016, a certain Ricky Tarfa (SAN) was charged by the Nigeria anti-corruption agency for obstruction of justice and for being a bribe carrier within the judicial circle. Instead of his professional body members, SAN, the very people who are to be more schooled in law, to wit, discipline and morality, to carry out an in-house investigation to ascertain the fact of the case, they rather trooped to the court to intimidate the judge and subtly obstructing justice, the very crime their colleague is being charged with. It leaves you with no hope when people who are supposed to be the personification of justice now congregate to pervert it in the guise of solidarity with a professional colleague charge in criminal suit. Well, more revelations coming out are that there are more Ricky Tarfas among SAN than there are the like of Femi Falana. Alas! Who our SANs are have been revealed.

Buhari: President Without Economic Think Tank

     By Omoh Gabriel

In this column in August last year, I had cause to ask how far President Buhari can go in managing a tough economy. There has been growing concerns about this government’s handling of the economy. At the moment, there seems to be no clear cut economic blueprint for which government policies are framed. It appears to me that every minister is working by intuition without any economic guiding principle.

*President Buhari 

The President is yet to appoint his Chief Economic adviser, have an economic management team or a think tank that meets regularly to discuss what is on ground, what measures needed to be put in place to address them quickly. It is like the focus is all about looking for thieves, catching them, and recovering what they have stolen. This is good and fair enough. After the President has finished the recovery of the looted funds, what next and how will the looted funds be channeled into the economy to benefit the ordinary Nigerian?

What the ordinary Nigerian is interested in is food on his table, good school for his children, good medical care and shelter and security of life and property.

In any economy, the goal of macro economic policy is to achieve full employment of resources, balance growth, stable prices of goods and services; and a stable currency through a healthy balance of payment.

As it is today, all four macro economic indices are pointing south. This government seems not to understand or know what to do to address the situation. The government does not need to go too far to know what to do. Nigeria has several development research documents that speak of ways to better manage the economy. But the problem has always been that leaders are often not focused enough to implement them faithfully.

In most countries today, the economics of the middle class has taken the center stage. This is because if the middle class is doing well, the purchasing power in the hand of this class will make the economy to grow. When in 1986, General Babangida introduced the famous Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), it was with good intention. But half way down the line of implementation, the programme was derailed by Nigerians who kept crying of the hardship the programme was putting the nation through.

President Babagida before coming up with SAP had a retinue of very bright minds as his advisers. Babagida had a team then that was called the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. This body was busy preparing documents and seeking informed opinion from operators in the private sector. He went to the point of instituting what was then known as Corporate Nigeria — a yearly gathering of captains of industry to tap their knowledge of the economy before any policy initiative.

Abbi Community: Another Hapless Victim Of Endless Attacks Of Suspected Fulani Herdsmen

By Sunday Onyemaechi Eze
The prevailing peace, harmony and brotherliness existing in Abbi community of Uzo-Uwani Local government Area, of Enugu State was shattered February 9 when assailants suspected to be Fulani herdsmen invaded the community. The quiet agrarian enclave had no inkling of the evil lurking around that fateful day as people went about their normal daily routines until the marauders struck. More than 150 precious lives were brutally snuffed out by the machete and vicious bullets of the assailants. Houses were torched and farm produces worths millions of Naira destroyed. Like a block buster movie, Abbi went up in flames and in a twinkle of an eye turned out a ghost town.  As reflected in one of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s popular rendition, the assailants left in the wake of the destruction sorrows, tears and blood.

Misery is written all over peoples’ faces and life will never remain the same in Abbi again. People are in dire need of water, food, clothing and shelter. Survivors are presently taking refuge in neighbouring communities of Ugbene- Ajima, Nrobu, Nimbo, Nkpologu and Edem.  Abbi community and others in Uzo-Uwani LGA are accommodating and peace loving people. They are hosts to numerous visitors including Fulani herdsmen who for years have been grazing in and around the local government without molestation.  Some Fulanis even speak local dialects while their children attend public schools with the wards of the host communities. “But the major challenge between them has been the issue of the visitors operating without restriction and even ready to kill anyone who questions their will.  The excesses of the Fulani herdsmen had been a burden on the community, even as they are tolerated among the natives. There have been successive stories of Fulanis grazing in their farms and intimidating them with firearms, raping their women as well as maiming anyone that dared challenge them.” said Felix Ugwoke.

The incessant attacks on innocent communities by suspected Fulani herdsmen have become one too many. From Abbi in Enugu State to Agatu in Benue, Plateau to villages in Nasarawa, the story is gory and the same. The chronicles of attacks unleashed on innocent people by these men are shocking. These attacks have assumed a frightening dimension. It must be addressed before it consumes all of us. In fact, this is the right time for owners of cattle to create farm settlements for their animals. Time for government to establish the much talked about grazing reserves. There is large expanse of land in the north suitable for any kind of grazing reserve. What is needed is the logistics to maintain and keep them going. Therefore, northern state governments should hasten to provide and equip them with the needed facilities to tame the movement of headers which is always the source of the conflicts.

Ghana @ 59: Surely, We Can Do Better!

By Stephen Agbai
Newly born babies bring unmatched joy to their families, especially their biological parents. Their births mark new beginning and new hope. Such was the case when Ghana, after decades of battling merciless and ironhanded colonial domination, successfully gained political independence.

Being the first nation south of the Sahara, and arguably with most of the leading lights in the global fight against colonialism being its citizens, Ghana’s Independence was most heartily welcomed by many freedom fighters — home and abroad. Ghana held the key to opening the floodgate of freedom for the rest of Africa and other oppressed peoples as succinctly captured by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah: "Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African Continent."

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in fulfilling this dream and vision to lead the path towards perpetual liberation of the entire African continent, inspired and reinvigorated the rest of Pan African freedom fighters — notably Patrice Lumumba, Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, W. E. B. Dubois, Ahmed SékouTouré and George Padmore. So strong and indomitable was the wave of change led by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah that within three years after Ghana's independence, many countries within the sub region — Guinea (October 2nd, 1958); Senegal (April 4th, 1960); Burkina Faso (August 5, 1960); Cameroon (January 1st, 1960);Congo (August 15th, 1960); Congo DR (June 30th, 1960); Cote d'Ivoire (August 7th, 1960) and Nigeria (October 1st, 1960), etc. — in quick succession had also gained their political freedom from colonial domination. This trendsetting effort is to be celebrated today by Ghana and the rest of the world.

Who Abducted This Lovely Child – Master Jonathan Suleiman?

Master Jonathan Suleiman was reportedly abducted this week at gun point in Okene on his way to School. 

If you have any useful information regarding his where about, please contact the nearest police station or call 07016479422 

Please Spread the Word...and Share Widely ...until this little, lovely, innocent boy is found and brought home to his parents...

Nigeria: Ese Oruru’s Mirror

By Okey Ndibe

I received a plaintive note last week from a young man who seemed rather shocked that I had not written about Nigeria’s scandal of the moment—the harrowing story of a 14-year old girl named Ese Rita Oruru, abducted from her home in Bayelsa State, transported to Kano by a 22-year old drifter, Yunusa (alias Yellow), who contrived her conversion to Islam and then made her his bride. My young correspondent then pleaded with me to write about the Ese matter, as if the burden of rendering whole again a world turned on its head rested with whatever I was going to say.

*Ese Oruru

The matter of Ese, even the fragment of it sketched out above, is a tragic story. But what makes the story truly, deeply tragic is far less the specific details of what happened to a solitary young woman than what the Ese Affair says about Nigeria, its institutions, its attitude to children, and the vexed subject of religion.

In short, the tragedy lies in the fact that Nigeria is a country at war with its most vulnerable, weak citizens. It is a country at war with its poor, its workers, especially those of them who are minimum wage earners, its womenfolk, especially those of them who are, in every important sense, children.

Speaking to a reporter, one of Ese’s best friends at school in Bayelsa State disclosed that her friend’s dream was to become a nurse. According to this friend, Ese excelled at math, integrated science and English. In her first interview with reporters, Ese corroborated the account of her dream. In a child-friendly society, Ese would have received encouragement to enable her to achieve her professional aspiration. But this is Nigeria, a country that’s turned into a killer of dreams, if not of the dreamers. Instead of being on her way to a nursing career, Ese, who is now five months pregnant, must become the charge of nurses as she, a mere child, prepares to bring a child into the world.

How did the young man who abducted Ese manage to pull off his crime—for crime it was—in broad daylight, without anybody, civilian or uniformed, to stop him? How was it that several adults presided over the farcical conversation of the young woman without one of them pausing to ask, one, whether she was competent to voluntarily understand said conversion and, two, whether she understood the implications of what was to follow?

In her interview, Ese described the process of her ostensible conversion. “They took me to one place. Before they took me from the house to Kura, they put me in hijab, then we went to Kura. When we got there, they went to one place, and one old man came there and he would say something and they would say I should repeat. Then I would repeat. If the man said something again, they would say I should repeat and I would repeat just like that.”

A conversion indeed, just like that!

Buhari’s Foreign Travels

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

 In arriving at the fact that the nation throbs with a plethora of questions over the necessity of the foreign trips of President Muhammadu Buhari, the presidency succeeds in feeling the pulse of the citizens. But it clearly underestimates the difficulty of stemming the impatience of the citizens by offering justification for the president’s travels. The citizens may not have wholly aligned themselves with the Emersonian disparagement of travelling as a fool’s paradise since those who made England, Italy or Greece venerable were not peripatetic. But the urgency of the need to solve the country’s myriad of problems at home and the unsavoury memories of the globe-trotting of past political leaders  have crashed what was left of the brittle confidence in our leaders’ fascination with overseas’ trips.

*President Buhari 

Our leaders have left the stark records of not sparing a thought for the suffering poor citizens. Instead of staying at home to consider strategies for taking the blight of poverty off the people, they are rather attracted to a life abroad at the expense of their states or the country. This is why they travel abroad to attend birthdays of their cronies and paramours. Some even travel abroad to organise weddings for their children or they are guests at the weddings of their friends which they have sponsored. In some worse cases, such travels have been used as opportunities to negotiate how to stash slush funds in foreign accounts. But our political leaders justify such travels as opportunities to bring foreign investments to the country.

Still, travelling abroad is a means of escaping from the problems at home.  Our political leaders have no problem with leaving the citizens to writhe and wither away under the weight of the crises sired by the former’s misbegotten governance. And when they are overseas, they do not bother to copy the good things they see there. They do not pay attention to how through transformational leadership, what would have been a barren country is turned into an investors’ delight. Nor do they observe how on account of the fact that leaders live by example, the citizens are ready to obey the laws of the country that would redound to the peace and good of all. What our leaders are only interested in as they travel abroad are the homes that are the exemplifications of modern architectural  ingenuity. They would come home and then loot the treasury in a bid to replicate these architectural masterpieces for their private use.

For a Nigerian leader who travels to the Vatican and takes a photograph with the pope, his or her day is made. Then such a leader would now strive to push the photograph to the front pages of major newspapers in the country. A political leader does this perhaps because he or she would like the citizens to know the opportunity he or she  has just got to put the name of their backwater carrying the beautiful title of a state or country on the map of the world. It could also be to gleefully announce to the hell-bound citizens that their leader is on the way to heaven.  For some politicians, putting the pictures on the front pages of newspapers is not enough. Billboards must be erected in every strategic corner of the state to announce this treasure trove. This was exactly what Governor Rochas Okorocha did in Imo State after taking a photograph with President Barack Obama during a visit to the United States.

Africa: Epitaphs For A Failing

By Dan Amor

Africa, my beloved continent, appears to have lost out in the world's debate. Aside from the achievements of its founding fathers, the continent which habours the largest population of the black race in the world has almost gone comatose politically and economically. Africa is indeed the only continent in the world in which it takes a fortune teller for its leaders (looters) to realize that something is really lacking in their character.

The black continent has been reduced to a guinea-pig laboratory in which wanton denigration of corrosive state power has been carried out in its unspoken barbarity. In no other continent than Africa have the citizens been so abused by the powers of the state. In their idiotic, shameless and sadistic mentality, our rulers think that the people are destined to last, unmoving throughout the cataclysms of the surrounding world in the face of national usurpers and foreign conquerors. With the physical exit of the whiteman, African rulers ostensibly formed a new generation rebellious at its inheritance of a cynical and hypocritical legacy.

Today, Africa has produced more treacherous dictators than any other continent in the world and even any other race in history that could even make the Age of Antiquity and tyranny of the Renaissance green with envy. Even as some of them now pretend to be democrats, they still cannot cover their inner colours with their new 'democratic' skin. Yet, how do we appreciate the nebulous fancy of the average African dictator? How do we extrapolate his consummate excesses? How do we vitiate the nuances of his personal pride and ambition? And, finally, how do we impugn the Johnsonian epigram about the innocuousness of corruption and the mentality of the African dictator? It takes only serious thinking for analysts to decode that much of the savagery connected with the African tragedy can be explained in the violence inherent in Western manners. African leaders are therefore hapless tools of that logic of history which leaves a minority determined to assert itself against the majority with no choice of methods than using terror as not merely an attendant phenomenon, but a vital function of insurrection.

Almost six decades after gaining political independence from European exploiters of their resources, Africa, easily the most naturally endowed region on the face of the earth, has been turned into a theatre of war no thanks to the lackeys who took over the mantle of political leadership from the colonialist. It has been a monumental tragedy that Africa is yet to find its bearings more than fifty years into self rule. 

Buhari: If We Were Truly In A Democracy

By Stephen Gbadamosi

Democracy! They say you are the government of the people, by the people and for the people; the government that is strictly built on the rule of law and adherence to the very minute tenet of the nation's constitution. Ok! In Nigeria, if we were truly in a democracy, would all these despicable 'peculiar mess,' as that revered South-Western politician of yore would say, be happening in Ekiti today, under the much-awaited change leadership of President Muhammadu Buhar? 

*President Buhari 

If we were truly in a democracy, would the Federal Government be brazenly disregarding the proclamations of the judiciary, courts, held as one of the three arms that is the last resort of the people in a people's government?

If we were in a democracy in Nigeria, why would the sanctity of the Ekiti governorship election be tested from the very first rung of applicable judiciary hierarchy to the Supreme Court (after which, in Nigeria's constitution, next is court of God), only for the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) to be employing every available subterfuge means to truncate the elected wishes of the people in the name of politics?

If we were truly in a democracy in Nigeria, why would the Department of State Security (DSS), an agency of the Federal Executive, storm the Ekiti State House of Assembly, a component of the legislative arm recognized by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and abduct four members of the House on trumped-up allegations, when the same constitution guarantees separation of powers?

To my consternation, I even heard that another Ekiti government official, secretly apprehended by the DSS, respected Chief Toyin Ojo, Commissioner for Finance, was asked by DSS what he contributed to Fayose's election to merit his appointment. What a mockery and rape of democracy, if that was coming from officers of the DSS. When did contribution to electoral finances become a criterion for holding professional positions in our governments? Why haven't the moneybags in this nation who have been known to bankroll governors' and presidents' elections been appointed to key government positions? And if they had been, in which statute book is it stated that they had no right to be so appointed?

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.

Fulani Cross-Country Cattle Grazing Menace

By Farouk Martins Aresa

Cattle grazing should not be a cross country menace across West Africa with Fulani’s philosophy that only God owns land. No ethnic group does in this century; because they only provide a marginal amount of Africa’s meat supply. It is about time their masters who are the real owners of the cattle measure up. They either provide modern facilities to feed their cattle where they are or face massive outrage in each of these countries treating them as cross-country terrorists.

The appeasement of granting grazing rights on properties that do not belong to them deprive the owners their wish to use their land as they see fit. It is myopic, dense and opportunistic. One would expect better cerebral solutions from the Schools of Agriculture in the universities and colleges of any country. Are they going to each country to negotiate land or just creating attraction for other Fulani into one privileged country until they run out of grazing land again?

Another philosophy within Fulani is that the life of a cow is more precious than that of human. If that philosophy is limited to their communities, as if that is not bad enough, extending it to their hosts in each of the country they invade raises a moral problem apart from economic and precious loss of lives. It becomes a clash of cultures, religions and laws.

The Hausa in Nigeria have been dominated by Fulani for over a century now. Hausa are proud people with their own indigenous civilized way of life and religion that ruled some of the Great Empires of West Africa. Today Hausa children of kings and queens are most of the impoverished talikawa in West Africa. Generally spread but mostly prominent in Nigeria as Fulani dominate the Hausa. Unfortunately, Hausa have taken to the philosophies and religion of their captors.