Lai Mohammed: A Haunting Past

By Amanze Obi

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is having a field day. It is savouring the absence of an opposition party in the country. As an opposition political party that wrested power from a ruling party, even if by default, the APC deserves a full dose of the arsenal, which it used to destabilise and decapitate the then ruling party. But it is not getting any of that. The opposition died because the forces that forced the former ruling party out of office also ensured that it does not rise again to constitute itself into a formidable opposition. What was supposed to be the opposition after the emergence of the APC, therefore, went comatose. It is in disarray today.

*Lai Mohammed 

The result is that the ruling party has no rival political party to keep it on its toes. That is why the APC is having a ball. The situation in the land is serving its purpose. But we cannot say the same thing of its effect on our polity. Whereas the APC is on a roller coaster, the country’s democracy is on a free fall. There is no institution to call the ruling party to order. The opposition, which ought to do the job, is non-existent. In the absence of a virile opposition, what we have are shrill voices of dissent, struggling to fill the gaping hole, which the absence of an opposition has created in our polity. The APC is certainly the better for it.

That is why an Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who, as an opposition spokesman, did his job with gusto, is not being called to account by anybody. As an opposition spokesman, Mohammed regaled the polity with propaganda. He was always in the news. He always joined issues with the party in power. He was always the first to take a position on any national issue.

Given this pedigree, the APC, which he helped to wrest power from the ruling party, did not have any problem appointing him as the chief spokesman of its government. The expectation was that with Mohammed in place, the government would not have any problem telling its story. Mohammed, they thought, could make the public to believe anything. That was the ideal. But the reality of the situation has given a lie to that fanciful expectation.

Nothing exposes the impracticability of that ideal more than the crisis the government is currently facing over the health of President Muhammadu Buhari. Since the health of the president became an issue for public scrutiny, the media machinery of the government has been in disarray. The interventions and interjections of the government’s media managers have been anything but coordinated. Each has tried to do better than the other. This has resulted in puerile contradictions. The public is clearly confused as to what is what. The situation we gave on our hands is that of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

In the face of the uncoordinated vibes wafting out of government’s media machines, some discerning members of the public have had cause to remind Alhaji Lai Mohammed of his past.  Some seven to eight years ago, the health of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s then president, was an issue. He was in Saudi Arabia where his health was being managed. The scenario was shrouded in secrecy. Nigerians hardly knew what the situation truly was. Tongues wagged. In the midst of the confusion, Lai Mohammed made a pointed demand of government. He demanded that the then Minister of Information should be briefing Nigerians on a daily basis on the health of the president based on authentic details provided by the president’s doctors. That was Lai Mohammed in 2009. His demand sounded so simple to him. He delivered it with familiar and accustomed self-righteousness.

When DSS Runs Amok In Calabar

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is immaterial whether this column’s warning just last Thursday that the Department of State Services (DSS) is on the prowl and it needs to be reined in was an act of serendipity. What matters is that the warning is increasingly becoming a frightening reality. We need not look far for the ominous signs of the cluelessness of the government mutating into dictatorship. If the trouble were only that the government has become clueless about managing the economy and snatching the citizens from the cauldron of poverty, we would not bother. But the government has repeatedly demonstrated its apparent antipathy towards the people by assaulting them.

We need not explore the unceasing cases of police brutality. These are familiar. They are apparently provoked by the citizens’ refusal to oblige police officers with the bribes they demand. We need not also be reminded of the military’s maiming and killing of Shittes and IPOB members. There was the official justification of such mowing down of citizens under the rubric of squelching threats to the peace and order in the polity. But we are deservedly outraged at the impunity of security operatives when their attacks on the citizens are not provoked by the latter’s actions which conflict with the presumed interest of the state and the collective good. And this happens in an atmosphere of democracy where the dignity of the citizens ought to be privileged. 

In October last year, an easy-going Joseph Izu, a footballer with Shooting Stars of Ibadan was killed by soldiers in Rivers State. Last month, Alex Ochienu, a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God was assaulted by two soldiers in Abuja for refusing to heed their cruel command to frog-jump.

There was also the case last month of a Nollywood actress and movie producer Jewel Infinity who was travelling from Port Harcourt to Onitsha. When she got to a checkpoint, a soldier said that she was gossiping about him. He did not accept the lady’s protestation of innocence that she was only engaged in a friendly debate with a fellow passenger in the vehicle in which they were travelling. The soldier demanded that the actress should knee down and apologise. Her refusal to do this was met with beating with wood and rod. 

The unprovoked brutality being meted out to the citizens by security operatives is in tandem with their reading of the body language of President Muhammadu Buhari. It is clear that Buhari either tacitly or directly endorses this brutality. This was why he approved the DSS raid of the homes of the justices of the Supreme Court over the allegations of corruption.

The Trauma Of Being Kidnapped

By Hope Eghagha

One of the most traumatic experiences anybody can undergo is to be violently abducted. Snatched from one’s regular, known serene world into a world governed by drug-controlled youths is a life-altering experience. I have been there. I know how it feels to be dispossessed of one’s liberty by criminals. I know how relations feel in the uncertain days of the abduction. I know how the kids feel that their father may never return. I know the emotions that run through a wife.

I also know how it feels to see one’s security aide killed with a single shot to the neck, blood gushing out in angry ferocity, how his widow and two kids look up to you for help. I know how it feels to be in captivity for 16 days without food, without one’s routine medication. I know how it is to be blindfolded for 16 days. It is not fun. It is not a party. It is deathly traumatic. It is deeply humiliating, bewildering and depressing. It is frightening.

A typical kidnapper is a violent person. There is verbal violence. There is of course physical violence. At no provocation, the victim could be slapped, kicked or given a blow to the head. The intention is to instill fear. So, fear is a constant when in the custody of kidnappers. They brandish their weapons – guns, knives, machetes. They use the gun-butt both on the victim and on the floor; at least my captors did. I was harangued, insulted, beaten for no other reason than I said that I didn’t have one hundred million naira to redeem myself. That though I was a government official at the time, I knew the government would pay no ransom. 

In the den, the victim loses a sense of time. Blinded-folded, day and night merge into one long experience. The weakness of the body at a particular time may suggest it is late in the night. Same with the eerie quiet of the environment, or the hooting of the night bird. Morning is heralded by birds chirping. Late noon is dictated by the languor of the late afternoon early evening sun. Time freezes, yet it moves. You try to hope, dare to hope really, that you would ultimately get out alive. The kidnappers say ‘if you leave,” not ‘when you leave. Death is a permanent presence. It hangs in the air. Even when not spoken, it is known as the ‘X’ factor. The uncertainty of it all is killing. Their occasional acts of kindness, like leading you blindfolded to use the urinary do not help. Or by the time you return from the urinary your bed has been re-arranged. They remind the victim that the situation is abnormal. Yet the victim shows gratefulness. A sinking man would clutch at a straw!

Guarding Against Cancer

By Adegbenro Adenekan

 AS the world marked the 2017 World Cancer Day on Saturday, it is imperative for the people to know what causes cancer and the steps to be taken to guard against the killer ailment. Cancer is one of the leading killer diseases in the world today. It leads to abnormal growth of a group of body cells and more than 250 diseases.

Cancer is malignant in nature and it claims many lives annually. It can be found in the lungs, breast, uterus, gall bladder, blood, prostate, thyroid, liver and tongue, to mention but a few.

This disease is sometimes characterised by pain, a lump or a sore that does not heal. There is also sometimes indigestion, difficulty in swallowing, a mole, a thickening or a lump in the breast, unusual bleeding during menstrual period, discharge, loss of weight, change in skin colour or a persistent cough, depending on the part  of the body affected by the cancer.

About 80 per cent of cancer cases can be attributed to the   violation of the natural law of cause and effect. Tobacco and alcohol are known cancer causing agents, while heavy consumption of the duo can lead to cancer of the tongue, lips, mouth, throat, liver, cancer, lungs and stomach.

Also, a major contributor to cancer is an exposure to industrial pollutants such as soot, high doses of x-ray, nickel, tar and asbestos. This can lead to cancer of the lungs, blood and the skin. Some viral infections, trauma and hormonal imbalances can also result in cancer.   Malnutrition, which compromises the body’s immune system, can also be a major contributor to cancer. Many biologists believe that cancer can result from a faulty diet.

Who Will Protect Nigeria’s Northern Christians?

Every week, there are more massacres, but nobody seems to mind — not even their own government

By Douglas Murray

Another day in northern Nigeria, another Christian village reeling from an attack by the Muslim Fulani herdsmen who used to be their neighbours — and who are now cleansing them from the area. The locals daren’t collect the freshest bodies. Some who tried earlier have already been killed, spotted by the waiting militia and hacked down or shot. The Fulani are watching everything closely from the surrounding mountains. Every week, their progress across the northern states of Plateau and Kaduna continues. Every week, more massacres — another village burned, its church razed, its inhabitants slaughtered, raped or chased away. A young woman, whose husband and two children have just been killed in front of her, tells me blankly, ‘Our parents told us about these people. But we lived in relative peace and we forgot what they said.’

For the outside world, what is happening to the Christians of northern Nigeria is both beyond our imagination and beneath our interest. These tribal-led villages, each with their own ‘paramount ruler’, were converted by missionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries. But now these Christians — from the bishop down — sense that they have become unsympathetic figures, perhaps even an embarrassment, to the West. The international community pretends that this situation is a tit-for-tat problem, rather than a one-sided slaughter. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, the press fails to report or actively obscures the situation. Christians in the south of the country feel little solidarity with their co-religionists suffering from this Islamic revivalism and territorial conquest in the north. And worst of all, the plight of these people is of no interest to their own government. In fact, this ethnic and religious cleansing appears to be taking place with that government’s complicity or connivance.

Every village has a similar story. A few days before any attack, a military helicopter is spotted dropping arms and other supplies into the areas inhabited by the Fulani tribes. Then the attack comes. For reasons of Islamic doctrine, the militia often deliver a letter of warning. Then they come, at any time of night or day, not down the dirt tracks, but silently through the foliage. The Christian villagers, who are forbidden to carry arms (everyone is, in theory), have no way to defend themselves.

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Nigeria: A Hell-Hole For Christians!

By Femi Fani-Kayode

“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism and we will not allow it to take root in our country…we will wipe it off the face of the earth.”            

– President Donald J. Trump.

Now that is a real President talking! Sadly our ailing Head of State does not possess such a mindset and neither does he share such a disposition. Unlike Trump he does not have an aversion to such evil.

Consequently he has refused to apprehend, caution, arrest or prosecute even one member of the radical Islamist Fulani supremacists and terrorists since he came to power just less than two years ago even though they have butchered thousands of innocent Christians, burnt their homes and occupied their land.

A few days ago, in a letter inviting President Goodluck Jonathan to make a presentation about the plight of Christians in Nigeria, the Chairman of the United States Congress’s Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Health, Human Rights and International Organisations, Congressman Christopher Smith, wrote the following: “my subcommittee has broadly investigated the crises facing Christians in Nigeria today. My staff director, Greg Simpkins and I have made several visits to Nigeria, speaking with Christians and Muslim religious leaders across the country and visiting fire-bombed churches, such as in Jos. Unfortunately, Nigeria has been cited as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world and impunity for those responsible for the killing of Christians seem to be widespread.”

When one considers the sheer horror that the Christians of northern Nigeria have been subjected to over the last 56 years can anyone dispute Smith’s assertion? Yet it did not stop there. Mr. Douglas Murray, an influential and respected columnist in the United Kingdom’s Spectator Newspaper painted a graphic picture of what has become the norm in northern Nigeria rather well. Last week, in a widely read essay titled ‘Who Will Protect Nigeria’s Northern Christians’ he wrote as follows: “A few days before any attack, a military helicopter is spotted dropping arms and other supplies into the areas inhabited by the Fulani tribes. Then the attack comes. For reasons of Islamic doctrine, the militia often deliver a letter of warning. Then they come, at any time of night or day, not down the dirt tracks, but silently through the foliage. The Christian villagers, who are forbidden to carry arms (everyone is, in theory), have no way to defend themselves. With some exceptions, they also tend to believe what they were taught about turning the other cheek”.

With contributions and interventions like this from our friends in the international community it appears that the world is finally waking up and recognising the fact that northern Nigeria is in the grip of a great, blood-craving and blood-lusting evil. The frightful events that took place in Southern Kaduna over the Christmas holidays are still fresh in our minds and neither will we EVER forget them.

Yet sadly the carnage did not stop there. It continues on a regular and systematic basis. For example 40 more Christians were killed and many of their houses were burnt to the ground by Islamist Fulani militias on February 1st in a town called Mummuye in the Lau Local Government Area of Taraba state. Little girls were raped and chopped up like barbecue spare ribs. Young boys were sodomised and beheaded. Grown men were castrated and hacked to pieces. Old men were gutted and sliced up like spring onions. And women, both young and old, were slowly tortured and violently violated in the presence of their husbands, children and grandchildren after which their throats were slit open and their blood drained into fly-infested gutters and the dark night soil.

This is the work of heartless vampires and demons in human flesh. This is carnage and butchery in its rawest and most primitive form. This is a festival of horror and a frightful testimony of man’s inhumanity to man. This is evil. This is unacceptable. This is barbaric. This is condemnable. And whether anyone likes to admit it or not, this is Nigeria today. The only thing left to say is to pray that the souls of those that were slaughtered in cold blood rest in peace. The Holy Bible says “fear not those that can kill the body but fear the one that can throw the soul into hell”.

Before We Crucify Apostle Suleman

By Solape Lawal-Solarin

Apostle Johnson Suleman of the Omega Fire Ministry recently hit national headlines when a video of him urging his listeners to “kill any Fulani that comes close to me” went viral on the social media. He immediately attracted the attention of the Directorate of State Security (DSS). It was a drama that saw the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, playing the super hero as his timely intervention stopped the DSS from swooping on Suleiman, who was on a crusade to Ekiti, and whisking him away to its office in Abuja.

*Apostle Johnson Suleman

Although, the dust has settled now as the pastor came out to ‘clear the air’ that he was only urging his listeners to defend themselves in the event of an attack, arguments are still raging over the propriety of the apostle’s statement and the response of the DSS.

While it is okay to condemn the apostle irrespective of the excuses he gave, the fact still remains that the Nigerian state for so long has paid lip service to the ills bedeviling the system. It is often said that history is the best teacher for today, tomorrow and the future.

However, the country has failed to learn. It has simply been an unwilling student. This apathy has created a vacuum, cum crater, that has now become a gorge, thereby making it difficult for the government to fill it up.

Many atrocities have been committed and have gone unpunished in Nigeria’s history of religious violence. Killings have been carried out by various groups under religious garbs with the government looking the other way. The government’s inaction somehow rubber-stamped the impunity of the killers and further reinforced their beliefs and confidence. It also strengthened their resolve to continue perpetrating the heinous crimes.

This is a dangerous situation that can only dent the peoples’ belief and trust in the ability of the Federal government to ensure their security. It also called into question the sanctity of the ‘one Nigeria’ mantra   being bandied in Abuja and further raised eyebrows on the country’s professed secular constitution.

In a diverse, multi-ethnic country like Nigeria, it is important for those that are saddled with steering the wheels of state to acknowledge and respect the multi-cultural beliefs and faiths that would always be embedded in such peculiar political entity. Even the democratic government and principle in practice recognises and accepts this fact.

Under its tenets, respect for the minority and religious faiths is an essential feature in its modus-operandi. Hence, fear of bias and marginalization by a group seriously indicts any government practising democracy.

The 1914 Amalgamation Remains Nigeria’s Bane!

By Charles Ogbu 

Every problem Nigeria has ever faced and will ever face can be traced to that demonic event of 1914 when the British merged the Southern and Northern protectorates into one country that is today known as Nigeria.
   

Britain had only one thing in mind while carrying out the amalgamation: Their administrative and economic convenience. Nothing more. The action of the British can be compared to a man who bought both herbivorous and carnivorous animals from the market and chose to put them in one cage to make it convenient for him to transport them home. This man knew that herbivores feed on herbs and are very harmless and easygoing while carnivores feed on flesh and are most times very aggressive and violent. In other words , the herbivorous animals in that cage might end up as meat for the carnivorous ones even before the man would reach his destination. He knew all these but still chose to put both animals together.
  
Do we need the brain of Albert Einstein to figure out the fact that the welfare of these animals was the last thing on this man’s mind? Rather, all he cared about was getting them all home whether dead or alive without spending extra money for another cage and extra  fare for that new cage. 

    

Even my three-month-old niece knows that the North and South have absolutely little in common. Not the same language, not the same culture, not the same religion, not the same ancestry, not even the same worldviews and as such, can’t possibly live together as one country.

Can President Buhari Tame The Buccaneers?

By Paul Orie

Buccaneering in governance of Nigeria at different times has constituted a major draw back to the economic development of the country. Painfully organised slaughter by raiders of the National treasury against the nation and her people has pushed the national economy crashing to the ground, with the Nigerian degraded on daily.

*Buhari

The startling revelations by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, coupled with the melodrama in Abuja and Lagos court rooms, have exposed the buccaneers who are mainly the shameless political class and their collaborators in the’ Federal Bureaucracy and parastatals. These are the personages who have deliberately plundered the economy in the most callous manner through official corruption, which is still alive, writhing and rendering Nigerians in agony.

The political class, later joined by the soldiers who criminally shot their ways to the seat of power in January 1966, in the name of rescuing Nigeria from social wreckage not only compounded this social malaice, but legitimised it. Late Major General James Oluleye, who was in the military cabinet, admitted sincerely in his book, Military Rule and Role- 1966 – 1979 that corruption was deeply rooted in the military, but ‘’we couldn’t do anything”. Politicians, especially key power holders have made politics the most lucrative business enterprise, thus attracting dubious elements to governance. It is baffling that corruption now thrives, growing  a wild plant and producing money bags who cannot use their brains to explore and exploit legitimate avenues to earn incomes.

With the absurdities going on since the end of the Nigeria Civil War, one keeps wondering, is this Nigeria that produced decent business tycoons who made fortunes without sucking government treasury dry. One readily remember Sir Louis Ojukwu of Nnewi, the late father of Emeka Odimegu Ojukwu, Chief Timothy Adeola Odutola of Ijebuland, who voluntarily handed over his vast school complex to the defunct Western State government without demanding compensation, and The Danta of Kano and several others to mention but a few. Today, we have Aliko Dangote, a serious investor whose business empire is creating wealth and jobs across Africa, he is worthy of emulation.

Nigeria can still proudly parade names of top politicians of first republic whose reputation remains undented with corrupt practices. They include Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Governor of Northern Region, Sir Tafawa Balewa, the first Prime Minister of Nigeria, Alhaji Ribadu, Defence minister of the First Republic, Dr. Akano Ibiam an excellent gentleman, one of earliest Medical Doctors of Igboland, Mallam Aminu Kano. None of these politicians left illegally acquired huge housing estates or humongous sums of money in their bank account for their children. We still have fine Civil Servants like Allison Ayida, late Peter Odumosu of Old West Region who left the Civil Service honourably.

Why do politicians continue to plunder the economy despite the seizure of their assets and clamping in prisons? First Military Regime seized their assets, Muritala/Obasanjo’ s regime seized several assets illegally acquired by politicians and military officers but all these  have not deterred the buccaneers. The scorched earth policy of General Muhammed Buhari of December 1983 to August 1985 as a military head of State instituted the Justice Uwaifo Commission of enquiry that found most of the public office holders guilty of corruption, thereby clamping them into prison. That was enough deterrent to halt larceny in national politics.

What is really wrong? Despite General Buhari’ s efforts then, corruption still thrives tenfold, primarily because the Ibrahim Gbadamosi Babangida’s regime truncated the crusade of  Buhari in the most unpatriotic manner. This action also pummelled the ethical Revolution started by the Shehu Shagari’s regime which Buhari came to revive with verve and intensity. Don’t forget Babangida’s regime in its quest to get legitimacy to rule or to shame General Buhari’ s Military regime also released politicians jailed by the Uwaifo’s Tribunal. The civilian administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo 1999 – 2007, saw the stunning acceleration of corruption with politicians and past military top brass elevating it to a high  art. Concerned about this Octopus called corruption, Chief Obasanjo’s regime established EFCC and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC.

Buhari: Address Nigerians On Skype Now!

By Chief Mike Ozekhome

Legal And Political Implications Of President Buhari’s Stay Abroad

*Buhari 

On the political implications of President Muhammadu Buhari extending his medical/holiday period abroad, it keeps the nation on ethno-religious tenterhooks, dangerous precipice, uncomfortable tension, anxiety and a dark pall on government and governance. It reminds one of the dark better forgotten days of the late President Umar Musa Yar’dua brouhaha when what late Dora Akunyilu described as “the cabal” unceremoniously seized the reins of government and held the nation to unspeakable ransom.

God forbid a repetition of history. God forbid us behaving like the Bourbons of European history who learnt nothing and forgot nothing.

On the legal implications, it is constitutionally provided that once the president transmits his absence or inability to act to the National Assembly, then the Vice president acts in his place.

Nigeria: Enough Of Blood-Letting!

By Gbemiga Olakunle

And God sent an Angel into Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he was destroying the LORD beheld and He repented Him of the evil, and said to the Angel that destroyed, it is enough, stay now thine hand. Chron. 21:15, KJV.

There is no doubt that violence has become the order of the day in Nigeria since the advent of Boko Haram in the Northeast and the increased militancy with some elements of criminality in the Southsouth. The situation has already been compounded and is getting worse by the day with the unprovoked attacks that are being unleashed on the citizens of this country by some rampaging herdsmen.

In Nigeria today, to know the real value of a cow, what a farmer needs to do is to kill just one for destroying his farmland. And he will be lucky if his whole community members are not compelled to pay dearly for such effrontery/audacity with their lives in form of reprisal attacks from the herdsmen.

Anybody who is still in doubt should please read the pathetic accounts of the Southern-Kaduna killings where nothing less than 808 people have been killed with several others injured and property worth of millions of naira destroyed. The affected communities were reportedly paying for the sins that their fathers allegedly committed against the cows of some herdsmen who were caught up in the riots that erupted in the aftermath of the 2011 Presidential Elections.

While the authorities, especially the Kaduna State Government are claiming that these assailants are foreigners, these merchants of death have continued to spread their unprovoked attacks to other parts of the country until the Governor of Ekiti State, Peter Ayodele Fayose, checkmated them in his own Area of Jurisdiction (AOR) and put a final halt to it through decisive actions including a legislation. On its own part in addressing the issue, the Nigerian Army has announced that it would send some of its personnel to Argentina to learn Animal husbandry with a view to acquiring suitable acres of land throughout the federation for the purpose of establishing ranches to raise cattle – a move that many have suspected to be another way of introducing the contentious Land Grazing Reserves Policy through the back door and riding on the back of the military.

Judgment Day For Kidnappers In Lagos!

By Jeddy Omisore

Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has signed the Anti-Kidnapping Law, which stipulates death penalty for kidnappers. The law recommends death for kidnappers in whose custody victims died and life jail for those who kidnapped for ransom. Espousing the importance of security to his administration, the governor has said: Security is of utmost importance to our administration and we are confident that this law will serve as a deterrent to anybody who may desire to engage in this wicked act within the boundaries of Lagos.

The Anti-Kidnapping Law is comprehensive as it prescribes punishment for the actors, the collaborators, and those who saw the kidnapping being perpetrated and did nothing about it. Certainly, the wave of kidnapping has gotten to a stage where the government can no longer fold its arms and watch as kidnapper terrorise the populace. Thus, the law is meant to send signals to kidnappers that an end has come to their filthy and criminal game.

It is not surprising that the Lagos State government is paying deserved attention to security issues. Lagos, being the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria, and indeed West Africa, has enormous security challenges bearing in mind its burgeoning population, its ports and waterways, its border with Benin Republic as well as its numerous banks, industries and other commercial enterprises.

With this peculiar status, the rate of crime in Lagos, over the years, has been relatively higher as it is in other parts of the country. Though, a national problem, topping the log of debated crimes among Lagosians these days is kidnapping.  Kidnapping was re-invented’ in the creeks of the Niger Delta by militants as a way of coercing government to meet their developmental demand. Later on it was ‘perfected’ in the South East for commercial purposes. Today, the crime has become converted into a top money-spinning industry by unscrupulous criminals who kidnap for ransom across the nation.

According to a Freedom House report, Nigeria recorded one of the highest rates of kidnapping in the world in 2013. Similarly, the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013 indicates that kidnapping and related violence were “serious” problems in Nigeria.

Today, in Nigeria, kidnappers spare neither the old nor the young. Their victims cut across age grades while hitherto considered sacred men have been touched. Father of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Pa Ebele Jonathan was kidnapped while his son was the Vice President. Senator Iyabo Anisulowo, Chief Olu Falae, and a traditional ruler in Lagos, Oniba of Iba, Yishau Goriola Oseni among other high profile personalities which included parents of footballers like Joseph Yobo and Mikel Obi had all been kidnapped in the recent past. Last year, three school girls were seized from Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary, Ikorodu, but were later freed by the police. And recently, students and staff of Nigeria-Turkish International School, Isheri, Ogun State, were kidnapped and later released after ransom was paid.

Please, Scrap Or Restructure The FRSC

By Clement Udegbe

THE first deliberate policy on road  safety was with the creation of the National Road Safety Commission NRSC, by the then military government, in 1974, but they were scrapped. In 1977, the Military Administration in Oyo State, established the Oyo State Road Safety Corps which made modest local improvements in road safety and road discipline in the state, but it was disbanded in 1983.

The subsequent classification of Nigeria as one of the most road traffic accident prone countries worldwide, second to Ethiopia, led to establishment of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, in 1988, as the lead agency in Nigeria on road safety administration and management. It’s statutory functions included; Making the highways safe for motorists and other road users as well as checking road worthiness of vehicles, recommending works and infrastructures to eliminate or minimise accidents on the highways and educating motorists and members of the public on the importance of road discipline on the highways. Nigeria had well built, good, and smooth roads, and the major challenge was control and regulation of speed.

The Corps had vehicles with radar equipment to detect vehicle speeds, but as pot holes and craters took over the roads, especially in the south of Nigeria, due to years of neglect by subsequent governments, speed control became very unnecessary, and the FRSC started inventing ways to remain relevant. They first switched into Vehicle Drivers License issuance, without any known means of ascertaining that the drivers they license can drive safely. The result today is the preponderance of dangerous commercial and private drivers on Nigerian roads.

The Drivers license which should also act as a good means of identity, has no links with the national identity card data base. You own one if you can pay. The official price tag of the license is about N7,000 but it costs about N15,000 to get one in Lagos and most FRSC centres. While in other saner climes, the driver’s license is valid for life of the owner, it is a common piece of plastic card and expires every five years in Nigeria, no thanks to FRSC. About two years ago, they veered into the production and issuance of the Vehicle number plates, with a greater confusion. It is not clear if the number plate expires with the destruction of a vehicle or linked with the owner who can transfer it to another, if a vehicle is destroyed for any reasons. Yet, it is a very expensive item to procure, and you may have to wait for long to get one.

The official price to get one is about N20,000, but it costs not less than N40,000 to get one today. The often scarcity of vehicle number plates, has led to increase in fake number plates, complicating crime prevention and fighting for the Police Force. Their latest scheme is the Speed Limiter which they are now enforcing on commercial vehicles, and will soon extend to private vehicles. Like the driver’s license and vehicle number plates, this one will create another avenue to make money from Nigerians. How do they control speed on very bad roads?

Overcoming The Power Sector Challenge

By Robert Obioha

The recent drop in electricity generation from 4,959 to 2,662 megawatts in January this year is an indication that the power sector challenge is seemingly intractable. It also shows that more work should be done to revamp the power sector and give Nigerians stable power supply. The 2,662 megawatts currently being supplied pale into insignificance when compared to our energy need of over 30,000 megawatts. We should emulate South Africa’s power generation capacity. South Africa, with lesser population than Nigeria, generates over 40,000 megawatts of electricity.

The development also shows that the power sector reforms have not been able to meet the aspirations of Nigerians. In fact, the power sector reforms so far have not significantly affected the generation and supply of electricity. It points out that the privatization programme still needs to be fine-tuned and the grey areas revisited.

Perhaps, the current power outage is the worst we have had so far in the last couple of years. The absence of steady power supply in the country is affecting manufacturing of goods and general business. Most business concerns in the country depend on generators for their power needs. This leads to high cost of production and invariably higher prices of finished products.

Poor power supply has also exacerbated the level of the nation’s underdevelopment. This situation is not helping cottage industries and small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) that depend on power for their effective operations. Companies that depend on their own source of power supply are likely to downsize when the business is not booming as in this period of economic recession.

This can possibly explain why the nation’s unemployment figure has, as at last count, risen to 13.3 percent while inflation is 19 percent. The power outage is so bad that Eko and Ikeja Discos in Lagos now receive about 200 and 206 megawatts of electricity respectively instead of former supply of 1,500 and 2,000 megawatts.  The current power outage, according to the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, is caused by liquidity problem, gas pipelines vandalism and inadequate transmission infrastructure.

African Children: Let’s Give The A Healthy Start In Life

By Matshidiso Moeti

This week, at the 28th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, we watched with pride as Heads of State endorsed the Addis Declaration on Immunization in support of ensuring that all African children – no matter who they are or where they live – can access the vaccines they need to survive and thrive. Vaccines are, without question, among the most effective and cost-effective public health tools available, saving between two and three million lives every year.

Vaccines have led to the eradication of smallpox, a 99.9 per cent reduction in polio cases worldwide and a dramatic reduction of other diseases like measles, diphtheria and tetanus. Immunization is also rooted in a commitment to equity and is among the simplest means to advance it. By ensuring every child, rich or poor, receives the same life-saving vaccines, countries can ensure that the next generation starts out on a more equal playing field in terms of their health. Beyond the individual, the positive ripple effects of immunization are enormous.

When children are vaccinated, families, communities and governments can save or reinvest the time and money that would have been spent caring for sick children. Vaccinated children are more likely to stay in school and ultimately enrich the economy. It’s no wonder that every dollar spent on childhood vaccinations yields $44 in economic benefits. This week’s commitment by African leaders to act on this wealth of evidence couldn’t have come at a better time. While many countries in Africa have made tremendous gains in immunization coverage in the last 15 years – contributing to child mortality being halved – progress has stagnated, leaving one in five of African children without access to life-saving vaccines.

Concrete actions are needed to achieve the targets of 90 per cent immunization coverage in every country and 80 per cent coverage in every district by 2020, as outlined in the Global Vaccine Action Plan. The stakes have truly never been higher for ensuring that every child in Africa has access to life-saving vaccines. The largest generation of young people that the world has ever seen is poised to come of age, and Africa’s youth population is growing faster than that of any region in the world. In 2015, 226 million youth aged 15-24 lived in Africa. By 2030, that number is projected to increase by 42 per cent. By 2050, the working age population in sub-Saharan Africa, will more than double. 

Gen Obasanjo’s Many Faces

By Ike Abonyi

Soon after the first National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Jos, Plateau State in 1998 during which Olusegun Obasanjo emerged the presidential flag-bearer of the party after defeating the bookmakers’ choice former Vice President Alex Ekwueme, I recall interviewing a top Igbo politician who later became governor to explain to me why he and some Igbo voted against Ekwueme, their kinsman.

*Obasanjo 

In his response to my question he smiled and said, “the only reason why vehicle manufacturers put various levels of gear is to enable the driver change when one gear is not coping.

"In politics there are various levels of gears, you as a good driver should know when to change to the next level.

“We all went to Jos, driving on one gear but as things unfolded we saw the need to apply the other gear and that was what happened.”

Since then as a political journalist I have always had this political education at the back of my mind when looking at the behaviour of every Nigerian politician particularly in studying the politics of Nigeria’s former President Obasanjo.

Over the years I have come to realise that one Nigerian politician you take for granted at your own peril is Chief Obasanjo.

All those who overlooked him politically paid dearly for it. The Awoists, the core Yoruba politicians under the tutelage of the late Yoruba political sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, took Obasanjo for granted and thought of him as an inconsequential politician.

But since he came to the scene the group never remained intact to make the desired and deserving impact. Instead it is he Obasanjo who has become the most successful Yoruba politician going by the records of his achievements and accolades.

The other person who took him for granted and got a thorough flagellation for it is his former Vice Atiku Abubakar.

Nigeria: DSS And The Politics Of Arrest

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

After President Muhammadu Buhari came into office in 2015, one of the measures he took seemingly to restore the professional integrity of the Department of State Services (DSS) was to overhaul it. The worry then was that the operatives of the security agency were politically exposed; a euphemism for the neglect of their professional duties while being steeped in corruption in the process of doing the bidding of politicians.

It was alleged then that at the height of their derailment, they were used to prosecute the re-election agenda of the former President Goodluck Jonathan in brazen violation of the rights of the citizens. Standing out of the alleged excesses of the DSS then was its raid on the office of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos. In the reorganisation, the leaders of the operatives were relieved of their jobs.

Thus, the citizens expected that a new DSS would emerge in the Buhari era. They expected a DSS that does its job professionally; operating with respect for the rights of the citizens. But in less than two years, the citizens have come to the grim realisation that this expectation is misplaced. This is because despite its so-called transformation, the DSS has not changed its crude method of operation.

One major area in which the DSS has failed to show that it is now a different organisation is in the arrest of suspects. It is puzzling why the DSS has demonstrated a proclivity for nocturnal arrest. We would have thought the DSS would simply invite a citizen to its office if he or she has questions to answer. It is only when the person fails that the agency may raid his or her residence any time. But what we see today is that the DSS arrests in the dead of the night people who would not have resisted its summonses. In this regard, the DSS shot into infamy through the nocturnal raid of judges. This method is fraught with many dangers. In the case of the arrest of the judges in Rivers State, the state governor had to intervene. If there were no sufficient caution by both parties, there would have been tragic consequences. The common reason given for such nocturnal arrest is that it enables the DSS to secure incriminating evidence before it is destroyed by suspects.

It is the same nocturnal method of arrest that the DSS also tried to use against Apostle Johnson Suleman. It was said that around 2:00 a.m. the DSS operatives raided the hotel room of the preacher who was in Ekiti for a crusade. But the timely intervention of Governor Ayodele Fayose saved him from being arrested. Still, this arrest could have been tragic. The governor’s armed guards could have confronted the DSS operatives. But thankfully, the DSS operatives fled when they saw Fayose and his team.

Dare To Dream And There Will Be Light

By Belije Madu

I had a dream. In my dream, Nigeria had uninterrupted electricity supply. Yes, Nigerian cities had uninterrupted and improved electricity supply. In my dream, the Nigerian electricity supply industry was fully functional, vibrant and employed thousands of young Nigerians. Electricity industry workers were like oil industry workers: well-paid and proud to be involved in the growth of their industry and country. There was constant electricity supply, during the day and at night. Remotely monitored prepaid meters were installed in almost all houses. Even houses that did not have pre-paid meters had some sort of collective pre-paid metering. There were only minor issues of outstanding or owed payment, as all metres were pre-paid and consumers had many options of buying electricity.

(pix: PR Newswire)

Additionally, different types of electricity packages were available for sale by the Distribution Companies. Depending on the type of electrical appliances one had, different quantities of electricity could be bought for varying periods of time. So, people generally bought and used electricity, based on funds available.

The local Electricity Distribution Company offices had evolved from being dusty and ill-equipped and staffed with ill-tempered persons, to customer care centres, similar to the customer care centres found outside Nigeria. Complaints from electricity consumers were quickly resolved, with respect. Illegal connections and illegal re-connections were things of the past, since the remote electricity monitoring systems, deployed by Distribution Companies detected illegal connections in minutes and since all electricity customers had been geo-spatially mapped by Distribution Companies and their premises could be traced electronically within minutes. Electricity outages were announced days ahead and were limited to a maximum of one hour per outage.

Generators, the previous best friend of every Nigerian home, including the famous I-better-pass-my-neighbour variety, could no longer be found and had become so rare, that school children had to visit facilities, which had emergency power supply, to see what a generator looked like; since, the only premises that bothered to buy generators were premises that could not operate without an emergency electricity supply back-up. Initially, when the price of electricity was increased, everyone complained, but the electricity prices were cheaper than the cost of running generators, so everyone adjusted and moved on. However, with the passage of time, electricity prices started falling. Things were now at a stage, when people went to work, only to come back home to notice that their pre-paid meters had been installed, with information on how to recharge the pre-paid meter from the nearest Distribution Company Customer Care Centre.

Nigeria: When Does A Leader Respond?

By Rotimi Fasan

It’s indeed a pertinent thing to ask when a leader should respond to a crisis situation. Perhaps, a more pertinent question is why a leader should respond at all. The simple answer is that by responding a leader shows he/she care for and understands his/her duty by their people.

 

*Buhari and El-Rufai 

Questions of this nature are especially relevant at a time Nigerians continue to debate the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to make his views known on the ongoing spate of killings across the country being perpetrated by so-called herdsmen. These marauding groups have apparently found better rewards in violent employment than in herding cattle. Yet, our leaders don’t have an answer to the question posed by the violence or occurrences that lead to loss of live. I shall return to this shortly, but first to the basis of what appears now to be a collective career in terrorism.

The cause of trouble, as always, is over land ownership and the right (or lack thereof) of these herdsmen to graze their cattle in other peoples’ farmland.  Even when it’s generally admitted or presumed that the roots of these violent eruptions reside in ancestral claims and counter claims of land ownership and the rights that come with this, ongoing killings by supposed herdsmen do not appear to have any connections to land issues. They are cases that border on pure criminality by blood thirsty hounds who wipe off whole villages or clusters of villages, killing the men, raping the women and destroying farmlands and animals.

The once innocuous image of cattle herders who went on long treks grazing their cattle has been replaced with that of gun-totting brigands some people now tell us are in fact aliens from foreign countries. But whether indigenes, aliens or marauding bands, the question is what is government, particularly our leaders, doing to address these growing cases of criminal impunity? In the many cases that were reported all through last year, not once did the country’s leaders demonstrate any sense of a coordinated response to the issue. What rings so loud is the dead silence that emanates from the corridors of power. The Buhari government seems to be very adept at this- playing dumb at a moment that demands eloquence, except when the president is abroad and is obliged to address foreign press corps.

At other instances, you hear some state official, usually a spokesperson, taking on roles one would naturally expect belong to the president, governor or any other person the matter concerns. Such responses are most times fire fighting measures meant to mitigate the aggravation and outcry that are the responses to the silence of our leaders in the face of terror that gestures at the failure of leadership. It’s a terrible reminder of such failure that since the latest spate of attacks that have increased since the last quarter of last year, including the Kafanchan killings which some call ethnic cleansing, not once have Nigerians heard President Buhari make his position clear on the matter.