Poverty: Buhari Should Quit The Blame Game

 By Charles Okoh

These are not the best of times for Nigerians. There are several existential threats confronting the average Nigerian. A man, whose house is on a raging inferno, certainly cannot have any time to spare to chase rats.

*Buhari 

For about two weeks now, Nigerians have been trekking, sweating, thirsty and starving. No thanks to petrol scarcity and the high cost of living. The persistent fuel shortage has continued and people are left running from pillar to post seeking for what God in His infinite mercies deposited in large quantities in our land, yet we have been living in want and scarcity. The paradox is such that a people and nation that have no reason to be poor are wallowing in abject poverty.

Highway To Death!

 By Bianca Ojukwu

On Saturday, November 19, 2022, on my way back from a wedding ceremony late afternoon, I stumbled upon a horrific accident scene at the Ugwu Onyeama Enugu Expressway. A tanker had just collided with a coaster bus carrying passengers who were on their way back from an event.

Mrs. Ojukwu

Mangled bodies covered in blood were strewn everywhere, people had clustered around the scene and the sight was traumatic. I had to make a split second decision whether to move on or to stop. I noticed one of the victims was moving, and requested my drivers to stop.

I alighted from my vehicle with my aides, including those in my back up vehicles and approached the scene. To my shock and dismay, most of the people standing around there, who just parked their own cars by the side of the expressway were simply busy with their cellphones taking pictures and making videos of the gruesome incident.

Nigeria And The Politics Of Hunger

 By Sunny Awhefeada

My first generation’s experience of hunger and its attendant crises was in the mid-1980s. My genera­tion here refers to Nigerians born after the civil war and attained teenagehood from 1983 onwards. We have read in history books of how starvation was one of the major tools that was deployed to fight the Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970.

Pictures abound of chil­dren, youths and older people who suffered from the affliction of hunger. Not even the efforts of humanitarian agencies that tried to alleviate the hunger in the refugee camps that littered the secessionist enclave of Biafra alleviated the crisis. Hunger engendered dis­eases which in turn yielded deaths.

Poor Aminu And The Almighty First Lady

 By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo

The meek ones have, like Shakespeare, said, “The quality of mercy is not strained.” Other others have said, like Moses, “An eye for an eye.” In other words, “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Yet Others have, like Jesus, drawn the line and said, “He who has never sinned alike, let him cast the first stone.”  

*Aisha Buhari 

A student of a university in Jigawa insulted the first lady. Then he disappeared. According to the Student Union, for days, neither the boy’s parents nor the school authorities knew his whereabouts. The Student Union’s president said after a nervous search that exhausted the parents and the union for days, the boy was discovered.

Revisiting Laws Against Women’s Rights And Freedom

 By Adimula Oluwabukola

On September 16, 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances, potentially due to police brutality. The woman’s death led to countrywide protests by Iranian women against the government. It is worrisome that women can easily lose their lives by not covering their hair the right way. These absurd laws that dictate how a woman should live are common in most Asia and African countries.

Examples of such laws are the inheritance laws against women in Eastern Nigeria, money wives stories in South Eastern Nigeria, and much more. There is a need to tackle these issues through sensitisation, abolishment of harmful practices and enactment of laws.

Poet Of The People: Niyi Osundare

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu 

Poets from all over the world today do not come any loftier than Nigeria’s Niyi Osundare. In my book, he is the next poet destined to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

*Osundare 

Lovers of intellection are thrilled that on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, Professor Niyi Osundare will deliver his Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) Winners Lecture in Abuja. 

The lecture which is taking place within the context of the Annual Forum of NNOM Laureates is entitled “Poetry and the Human Voice”.

The significant event that is happening physically and virtually calls for celebration because Niyi Osundare is that one poet who speaks for the people. 

A personable mentor who jocularly addresses me as “The Maximum Metaphorist”, Osundare packs enormous craft and courage in his sublime verbs and profound nouns. 

ASUU’S Rightful Battle Of Moral Conscience Against Financial Realities

 By Tony Afejuku

I am suspending my focus on your Speaker of House of Representatives. I hopefully will re-touch next week, barring the un-expected, the first among equals in our House of Polifoolicians (H of P). For now I am yielding space to a reader who introduced himself to me as an un-employed Nigerian graduate – a delightfully articulate fellow. He is Dele Owolowo. Enjoy his peculiar rhythm on the ASUU-FGN’s intangible and tangible battle of wits and bluffs:

Hearty greetings to you, Sir and thank you, for the excellent pieces on ASUU.
On the ASUU-FGN issue ASUU would remain on the back foot while the government calls the shots. The main reason our education sector can be belittled and seemingly betrayed is because it is a sector with few economic aces to play and for this reason it brings little to the economic table (kindly clip the education sector I sent to your WhatsApp). We are running a knowledge-based rather than a productivity-based education value chain with the tertiary sector at the top of this economically unproductive value chain.

Abuse Of Power By Public Officers And Spouses

 By Femi Falana

Of recent, some serving and former public officers and their spouses have been using the police and other security agencies to intimidate journalists, students and other citizens for daring to expose them for engaging in corrupt practices and abuse of power. In spite of the several judgments of domestic and regional courts which have upheld the fundamental right of Nigerian citizens to freedom of expression, the anti-democratic elements have behaving like the former British colonial officials.

*Falana

Since the Attorney-General of the Federation and State Attorneys-General have failed to restrain the law enforcement agencies from from being used to harass the critics of public officers and their spouses it has become necessary to remind the Federal Government of its legal obligation to defend and protect the fundamental rights of the Nigerian people including the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by section 36 of the Constitution and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Cap A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

Bola Tinubu’s Verbal Miscues

 By Rotimi Fasan

The question of how age may have slowed down the physical and mental abilities of Bola Tinubu, the All Progressive Congress, APC, presidential candidate, rendering his claim to the presidency an untenable proposition, has continued to generate debates among Nigerians.

*Tinubu

While he has responded that he is both mentally and physically fit to take up the task of steering the ship of the Nigerian state as president, he has also not been slow to remind his critics that the presidency is neither about brawn nor is it a contest to choose the strongest man in the world. 

Does APC Deserve Another Tenure In Aso Rock?

 By Dan Onwukwe

It is not too late to begin to ask these questions: How does democracy protect itself against a ruling party that has almost ruined the country and destroyed lives and livelihoods of those it was elected to provide for their security and welfare and, yet is asking for their mandate for another tenure? Does that political party deserve your vote?

*Buhari, Tinubu and Adamu

Are you better off today than you were seven and a half years ago? Should you allow the same snake bite you twice? These questions should not be ducked. They are not rhetorical questions. At a time like this, what we need is truth simply spoken. That is why the forthcoming elections, beginning with the Presidential poll, are of critical importance. 

On The People’s Train With Peter Obi And Datti Baba-Ahmed For Nigeria’s Redemption

 By Sola Ebiseni

Our presence at the momentous OBIDATTI rally in Ibadan last Wednesday, November 21, was the ultimate evidence that we have boarded the people’s train with Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed for the redemption of our country.

*Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed 

To those who could not see beyond the conventional and are irredeemably fixated on the search for structures that have only held our nation and people hostage, let them know that the Obidient phenomenon is not a joke they thought would soon frizzle out. 

A brother and learned colleague, out of sheer love, described our move, after my initial television interviews justifying the Afenifere’s endorsement of the ObiDatti ticket, as a descent to political Golgotha. We are quick to remind him that the way to redemption is paved with torns and a burdensome cross that must be borne at Golgotha, which Nigeria must experience, willy nilly.

Is Sex Education Not Child Abuse?

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

It is not surprising that the recent directive by the Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, to the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) to expunge Sex Education from the basic education curriculum in Nigeria has been greeted with serious opposition from groups and persons who 0bviously derive some of benefits from the callous sexualisation of the tender minds of Nigerian pupils.

I am sure that many parents and concerned persons who have heard about the minister’s directive are highly relieved and happy and hoping that no amount of pressure from these misguided interest groups will compel the government to have a change of mind. Indeed, this is a major move towards sanitizing our primary and secondary education curriculum and salvaging the moral health of the younger generation which has been badly corrupted and diseased by very pernicious teachings that can only mould them into badly flawed characters.  

When some years ago I was shown the topics covered in “Sexuality Education” or “Sex Education” which was being taught as a compulsory subject in both junior and secondary schools in Nigeria, it was shocking to see that mere kids, some as young as ten or even nine, were put in the hands of teachers, who deploy every energy, talent and creativity to saturate their tender minds with every detail about sexual immorality and the use of contraceptives.  

When I first raised alarm on this issue in my now rested newspaper column, a concerned parent wrote me to say that the ‘Teacher’s Guide’ given to the Integrated Science teachers (who handled this subject) mandated them “to teach the children that religious teachings on issues like pre-marital sex, contraception, homosexuality, abortion and gender relations are mere opinions and myths! They are also to teach the students how to masturbate and use chemical contraceptives (designed for women in their 30s). The ‘Teachers Guide’ equally lays a big emphasis on values clarification; this empowers teenage children to decide which moral values to choose since the ones parents teach them at home are mere options.” 

It was difficult to imagine that any normal person could have the mind to design such a subject even for the children of his worst enemy! In my view, this clearly qualifies as child abuse, which, sadly, was unabashedly   endorsed by the authorities. But many Nigerian parents are highly elated today at the intervention of the Education Minister which has put an abrupt end to the whole sickening madness!   

How can parents and concerned citizens smother the tormenting fears that some of the Sex Education teachers might aim to deftly deploy this subject to titillate their tender victims instead of giving them healthy education?  One can imagine how easy it would be for a teacher who has been targeting a female student to use his creative elaboration of this subject, to get the girl so overwhelmed she would become easy meat.  

I am told that there are two main reasons for the introduction of this subject in our schools. One is to empower school children with adequate knowledge about their bodies and how to “safely” indulge in pre-marital sex without falling victims to teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.  

The second reason is to demystify sexual immorality, give it a positive image as something to be cherished and enjoyed without any fear, as long as it is done “safely” and consensually. The belief is that with the age-long “superstition” built around sexual immorality which ‘stigmatizes’ it as an evil and sinful activity, some kids tend to go into it with fear and dread, and so develop psychological problems arising from the guilt they feel afterwards.  

But these reasons are simply hollow and unconvincing. They are built on the assumption that in the present age, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for unmarried people to abstain from sex.  And so, instead of teaching the kids to place appropriate value to their bodies and maintain their self-esteem by abstaining from sexual immorality as our own parents had taught us, they are emboldened to behave like dogs. But the difference between human beings and animals ought to be the ability to reason and determine the consequences of actions, and then exercise discretion and self-control. Why not tell a kid the consequences of an action and use that to dissuade him from indulging in it? Has that not worked for ages? 

Looking at the earnestness with which this policy is being pursued despite oppositions from informed parents and other concerned parties, one is forced to suspect that there may also be some commercial angle to it. Are we sure that substantial profit is not   accruing to the initiators of this programme and their collaborators in government from the sales of the several books being written and printed on the vile subject? Support may equally be coming from manufacturers of contraceptives and the well-oiled NGOs they are promoting who certainly see in Sex Education a lucrative venture to promote and sustain. 

Now, how far has this subject helped in reducing teenage pregnancies and STDs in the Western nations where it has been taught, assimilated and practiced for many years now? It is a fact that these teachings have, for instance, been introduced in both the United States and Britain for many years now, but as I write now, I have before me, a BBC report saying that Britain has the highest record of teenage pregnancy in the whole of Western Europe. Also, another report has it that the United States has the highest number of teenage pregnancies in the entire Western world. Again, in the United States, it is reported that new infections of HIV are still on the increase. 

That naturally leads us to the contentious issue of “safe sex.”  So, what is all this fetish about “safe sex” and how “safe” can sex actually be?  The truth is that a lot of studies and findings have effectively punctured the dubious confidence built over the years on condom-use.  We know that with an effective magnifying lens, it is easy to see that several objects, especially rubber and plastics, have tiny holes through which very minute micro organisms could pass.  

I read somewhere recently that the “HIV virus is only 0.1 micron in size while the naturally occurring holes in a latex condom is of the order 5 to 50 microns in diameter.”  So where then is the “protection” we have heard so much about if the deadly virus can indeed pass through the wall of  a condom? Is this not why we have often heard reports of people contracting HIV even though they had practiced the so-called “protected sex”? This is the time to rethink all this stuff behind which some fellows have hidden to pollute the minds of kids with ruinous teachings.

Fortunately, we have one precaution that does not fail. And that is the good old abstinence, which has been proven and tested to be the only reliable protection against deadly STDs and teenage pregnancies? We must hasten to realize that what is at stake here is human life, and should not be toyed with, for whatever reasons. It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand this desperation to create an immoral and ungodly society by misleading the youths?  Now, if not for reasons that are less than noble and wholesome, why would Nigeria be eager to import a policy that is failing even in more advanced nations?   

Okay, here is another point to ponder: HIV is 500 times smaller than spermatozoa, yet research has established that spermatozoa are able to sometimes pass through the wall of a latex condom to cause conception. Now, if this is the case, are we not by this subject leading our youths through the minefield? The example cited earlier of the worrisome rise in fresh infections of HIV in a place like the US  where years of successful Sex Education has achieved overwhelming attitudinal change in favour of condom-use should serve to buttress this point. 

Now, with this policy in place and flourishing, where is this nation really heading to? What is the use living, if one must live like a dog? 

I would, therefore, want to advise the school boy or girl reading this piece to please pause awhile and ask himself or herself what the initiators of this policy hope to achieve in his of her life by giving him or her these teachings? Such a youth should wonder how they still expect him to concentrate on his studies after they have saturated his mind with filthy teachings that only fill his mind with distractive lusts.  

Now, if his instructors (who are mostly parents) are encouraging him to freely indulge in sexual immorality at this early stage of his life, what type of future leader do they expect him to become? After “empowering” him to go on the rampage, wouldn’t they have succeeded in giving him a disease deadlier than even the AIDS they are presuming to save him from – which is the destruction of his moral fibre?   

What is the guarantee that he would be able to build a healthy family afterwards by shunning the promiscuity that this subject is surely preparing him for, and which, as we all know, results in the proliferation of broken homes which has become the nightmare of today’s world?    

It is instructive that The Guardian on Sunday, July 18, 1999, carried a report that a cross section of American college (mostly female) students were regretting the limitless freedom their parents had allowed them and had resolved to devote themselves to pursue a “no-sex” campaign. But in Nigeria of today, sexual immorality has been deregulated and democratized. 

But concerned Nigerian parents cannot afford to be intimidated and just watch helplessly as some fellows whose intentions are less than noble go all out to ruin their kids for them. And so, they should be able to ask: To what extent should the government interfere in people’s lives and families?  

Where does the government derive the authority to invade somebody’s home with ungodly teachings and inflict them on the person’s kids, just because he gave his kid to the government to educate in its schools? Shouldn’t an open and clear expression of disaffection towards this gross violation by stakeholders have since led to its reappraisal and possible removal from the school curriculum?  

Again, and very importantly too; most people have strongly accepted and hold very dear to their hearts the teachings they have received from the religious faith of their choice (which we as civilized people must respect) that sexual immorality which is a grievous sin against God attracts eternal damnation; and they are eager to ensure that both themselves and their kids escape this terrible doom; how then can we accommodate and respect this their belief (which is sacred to them) in this unwholesome insistence on teaching and encouraging their children to freely indulge in fornication?  Should we just dismiss and callously tear down a belief they hold so sacred and dear, and with which they have determined to successfully raise their children to become morally healthy kids? As if it does not matter?   

It is heartwarming that, at last, the Minister of Education has agreed with those of us who have continued to insist that this policy is ruinous and has ordered its removal from the school curriculum since it denies a large a number of people the option of choice. Many parents are not even aware that such a teaching is being generously forced down the throats of their precious children, thereby destroying all they have taught them at home. 

Certainly, there are centres where some NGOs have established to propagate these pro-pre-marital sex teachings. Interested parents can take their children to those centres, while the objecting parents are spared the trauma of watching their kids being subjected to a menu they firmly believe is terribly unhealthy and ruinous. Their right to dissent must be respected.   

*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is a Nigerian journalist and writer. His book, Nigeria: Why Looting May Not Stop, is available on Amazon.com (scruples2006@yahoo.com)

*First published in The NATION (of Nov 30, 2022); VANGUARD and SUN (of Dec. 1, 2022)

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The Case Against Sex Education

 

The Story Of Media Leaders In Nigeria’s Construction And Reconstruction

 By Owei Lakemfa

Nigeria was partly built by journalists who fought the British colonialists so ferociously that Frederick John Lugard, their colonial poster boy who amalgamated the country in 1914, was forced out as Governor General within five years. The media campaigns for the soul of the country went on through the colonial period and into the new century.

But the country has been very badly used, so much so that today, it is in urgent need of reconstruction. The media, as one of the main builders of the country, convened a roundtable on Saturday, November 26, 2022, to examine its part in constructing the country and what role it needs to play in reconstructing it.

To do this, the Nigeria Media Merit Award, or NMMA  convened a conclave of experts led by Emeritus Professor Michael Abiola Omolewa, an education historian and diplomat who was the 32nd President of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.

Why Adamu’s APC Is Afraid Of BVAS, E-Transmission Of Results

 By Charles Okoh

“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.” – Georg C. Lichtenburg

It is no longer debatable that the only problem keeping this nation down is the problem of fixing the governance jigsaw. We have been held down by the fact that rather than a democracy where the wishes of the people reign supreme; we have practiced neo-feudalism where a few people lord it over the rest of us and dictate who gets what or into any office in the land.

Adamu

This has never been as bad and brazen since independence as they have been since the turn of the fourth republic in 1999.The result being that there has been a steady and ever-increasing level of apathy towards elections in the country.

For instance, in the 2019 presidential elections that secured President Muhammadu Buhari, his second term, only 34.75 percent of registered voters actually voted in elections, according data released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Rising Cases Of Suicide

 By Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh  

There has been a sudden rise in the incidences of suicide lately, to the extent that there is now a sort of panic feelings that has left many wondering who the next victim could be. Although, suicide is not entirely novel, its sudden prevalence – in my opinion – is due largely to the neglect of certain important facts of our physical health, namely our mental health.

To begin with, suicide – according to the World Health Organization – is a conscious and premeditated attempt by a person to take their own life. Suicide doesn’t just happen. In fact, what we see as suicide is only the end of a complicated process of emotional deterioration that started from unhappiness. Yes, suicide begins with unhappiness. And the state of unhappiness can be triggered by either the loss of a loved one, the loss of a breakthrough opportunity; or because of delay in getting married or due to a prolonged wait for conception.

AW Free Foundation, FactSpace West Africa Train Togolese Journalists On Fact-Checking

 PRESS RELEASE

Accra, Ghana (November 25, 2022) - AW Free Foundation in partnership with FactSpace West Africa have trained Togolese journalists on fact-checking techniques and tools.

The workshop was held in the Togolese capital, Lome, on November 22 as part of AW Free Foundation's media development initiative to impart knowledge of best practices to help improve media systems.

The journalists were taken through the fact-checking processes including identifying claims; verification of information; presentation of facts; diversification of sources and putting together fact-check reports among others.

The Executive Director of AW Free Foundation, Emmanuel Agbenonwossi said: “Francophone Africa has its own peculiar challenges which provide a fertile ground for the production and consumption of fake news.

Kumuyi In Ogoniland: A Crusade With A Golden Touch

 By Israel Mkpaoro and Banji Ojewale

Ancient Greece had a mythological king with a golden touch. The tale is that whatever King Midas handled became gold. It was a power he was said to have requested from a god. Midas enjoyed this boon until it threatened his sanity and humanity. He couldn’t eat food nor drink water because all turned into gold when he touched them. 

*Pastor Kumuyi in Ogoniland

The situation became tragic when, upon hugging his daughter, she was changed into a lifeless golden image. The monarch was sad. You can’t celebrate a possession that denies you life. Midas’ sea of gold was devoid of the true joy that should come with wealth.

But in our day, we have in our midst Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, a servant of Heaven who preaches that God’s abundant blessings come without any accompanying sorrow experienced by a king. This is what we see repeatedly at Kumuyi’s outreaches, which we have come to know as Global Crusade with Kumuyi, GCK. 

South West’s Forest Of A Thousand Demons

 By Festus Adedayo

From my personal ranking of their tragic imports, three events which occurred in the last week constitute leading narratives of where we are today. They are, one, the siege laid to Southwest Nigeria’s Lagos-Ibadan expressway by kidnappers and the suicidal plunge to death of an operative of Nigeria’s secret police, known as the Department of State Services (DSS), into the Lagos lagoon. 

The third was a video clip posted by Tolu Ogunlesi, Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Digital and New Media, in a Twitter post where details of what Buhari discussed with the British monarch, King Charles III, the aftermath of his visit to Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, were released. 

We Need Change Of Tactics In The Anti-Graft War

 By Dan Agbese

It would be uncharitable to suggest that successive Nigerian leaders have spoken from both sides of the mouth in tackling corruption in the land. Dem don try. It would be naïve, of course, for anyone to suggest that the longest running war in the land has either been won or there are prospects it will sooner than later. The fact is that corruption is at an all-time high. President Muhammadu Buhari is unable to kill it. It is killing Nigeria.

There is a need to change tactics in prosecuting the anti-graft war for purposes of obtaining better results. Corruption will not end but it should be possible not to make it a way of life in the country. We have used probe panels to unearth the corrupt in our public services; the landed and other properties of the guilty were confiscated to deny them the right to enjoy the fruits of their corruption. But the corruption grows stronger.

Buhari Women, Poverty And Budget Padding

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Two stories broke in the last one week that tend to amplify the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari’s goal of running Nigeria completely aground continues apace even as his administration, on the home stretch, and its vuvuzelas, continue to play the ostrich.

*Farouq and Buhari

First, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, disclosed on November 17, that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. That represents about 63 per cent of the estimated population of about 218 million people.

Ordinarily, this information shouldn’t surprise anyone considering that Nigeria had adorned the infamous ‘World Poverty Capital’ badge since 2018. World Bank data had shown since 2016 that four in every ten Nigerians live below the poverty line of $1.9 per day. Two years later, the country was declared world’s poverty capital by the Brookings Institution, knocking off India from the inglorious perch.