On 10th September 2009, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FG) launched a 36 billion Naira project to dredge 572 kilometres of the lower Niger river. President Umaru Yaradua was quick to mention that this is merely the first phase of the project and a further phase to dredge the upper Niger/Benue rivers would commence immediately with express appropriation of funds.
In view of the overuse and inadequacy of our road network and the virtual absence of a rail system, it is certainly important to have a working inland waterway system.
This piece is however not about the tragedy that is the Nigerian transportation system. It is focused on a much sadder, but typical misfortune of the Nigerian polity.

For over six years now, the Cross Rivers State Government has expended a lot of effort, funds and initiative to develop the very laudable Tinapa project and Free Trade Zone. The project was initiated by the Donald Duke administration. It was finally formally launched by then president Olusegun Obasanjo on the eve of his departure from office in 2007. It is a sad travesty that this laudable project has since come to a virtual standstill and even seems to be on a reversal ever since the Yaradua administration came on board. There have been several clearly deliberate administrative bottlenecks placed on the way of the successful take-off of the Tinapa project by the Northern dominated Nigerian Customs Service. On the operational side, a further major setback for the take-off of the project is the refusal of the FG to dredge the Calabar Port which is less than 2 kilometres in length and which is directly linked to the very important Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of Guinea. It is a sad spectacle of ethnic and sectional bias to now see the same FG expend so many billions of Naira to dredge a river for a distance as long as 572 kilometres!! with the promise of funding for further dredging for many hundreds of kilometers more, while ignoring the dredging of a Port adjoining the Atlantic ocean which will not extend for up to 2 kilometres (less than 280 times the length of the lower Niger project!) and which is holding up an even bigger project that has already gulped millions of Dollars by local and international investors.
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It is obvious that the reason the FG has ignored the dredging of the Calabar Port while treating the much more expensive dredging of the River Niger with such urgency is that while the lower and upper River Niger project will boost Northern economic interests as its main catchment areas, the Calabar Port and Tinapa project will have its catchment area in the south, an area which is clearly not of interest to the FG of the North. This satanic trend of holding back the drive, initiative, and natural growth of the south to enhance the relative development of the north has been the true curse of the travesty of a Nation called Nigeria for close to fifty years already. It certainly qualifies as a crime against humanity.

It is not enough to keep dismissing the very blatant bias for the North at the expense of the South in Nigeria on paper and by mouth, while carrying out clearly unfair, biased and cruel acts of deliberate underdevelopment and stunting of the South in practice. The examples are far too many to discount and the refusal to dredge the Calabar Port or expedite the long overdue take-off of the Tinapa project is one more of several disgraces to the Yaradua FG of the North.
In conclusion, dishonourable mention must also be made of the pathetic Governors of some of these southern states who betray their own people and conscience by keeping silent in the face of such heartless tyranny. Liyel Imoke ought to be ashamed of himself. That is if he still actually has any shame or conscience.

A coup d'etat is a drastic act to take over a state or more usually a country POLITICALLY. An economic coup is one effected to takeover a society ECONOMICALLY. The new CBN governor Lamido Sanusi in one of his papers (KANO POLITICAL ECONOMY: REFLECTIONS ON A CRISIS AND ITS RESOLUTION , January 2004) stated interalia:



"Every economic decision, (every direction in economic policy, every budget) involves a choice as to, not just which needs, but also whose needs are to be satisfied with the nation’s limited resources. It is not just a matter of naira and kobo, it is, a fortiori, a matter of human beings, (or rather, different groups and classes of human beings), and their living conditions. Certain segments of the society will always benefit at the expense of other segments and thus a program may be for the rich or for the poor, for the political office holders or for the citizenry, for the manufacturer or for the middle-man, for the industrialist or for the commission agent, for the indigenous capitalist or for the foreigner, for the nation as a whole or for a particular region. These choices are political, not economic, and reflect interests that those who control the machinery of state are determined to serve. There can therefore be no discussion of the economic independent of the political".


He is correct. Economic and political matters are intimately intertwined.

On August 14 2009, Lamido Sanusi in his position as CBN governor and by the powers invested in that position, fired the first salvo in a planned economic coup d'etat against the Nigerian state. The facts of that salvo are already well known and have expectedly attracted lots of commentary. I was one of those that initially disregarded the comments of those who read a conspiracy theory into the whole affair. I have since changed my mind totally after further reflection as well as recent events and new information.

For clarity, here is a summary.

The CEOs and top directors of five banks which were said to be in ‘grave financial distress’ were fired and replaced by new management who were selected by the CBN. The new CEOs are to serve at the pleasure of the CBN until such a time as when the CBN regards that the five erring banks are stable. More significant, the CBN injected a total of 420 billion Naira to 'save' the said five banks. We are of course not told anything about the actual asset base of these banks that need saving so badly. Some of them were only given as low as 50 billion (Finbank and Afribank). Decades old Union bank (big, strong, reliable!) was given 100 billion in return for a total takeover of its management. There is no doubt in my mind that all the five banks are worth far more than the amounts they were given for the takeover. The value of a corporate entity goes far beyond mere balance sheets and loan portfolios. It includes tangible assets such as cash base, properties, staff skills, branch network, as well as intangible assets such as reputation and pedigree or what may be called brand or professional capital. By making such a public sensation of the so called 'sins' of the five banks, the CBN has deliberately eroded their professional capital and reputation, which was built over several years. This is most unfair of a CBN that is supposed to be a nurturer of all banks. The whole affair reeks of financial piracy. The latest news is that barely two weeks after infusing capital into the banks, the CBN is already looking for investors to buy off the banks!. If they are so hopeless, why put public funds into them? By giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it, the CBN, with meagre funds belonging to the Nigerian people, has taken over the far more valuable assets as well as brand name and reputation of these banks. Irrespective of the malpractices of these banks, the overall picture points to a grave injustice.

Names of the debtors with non performing loans of the five banks have also been published and the EFCC has embarked on a campaign reminiscent of a feeding frenzy by a pack of sharks to 'deal' with the debtors. Why should the EFCC be collecting cheques and property documents from bank debtors anyway. Is that not the business of the bankers themselves?. Knowing the level of corruption in Nigeria and the new EFCC in particular, one shudders at the amount of bribes such an organization could receive with this kind of leverage. It is notable that Farida Waziri, the EFCC chairman has relocated to Lagos to 'personally supervise the matter'. She must be licking her lips in ecstasy. I mean we are talking of billions of Naira and wealthy victims who have already been put in panic. Even the 'favour of not publishing your name' could well cost you a couple of million in 'settlement'.

The scheme is made even clearer by the latest worrying signals coming out from the CBN itself, that for the remaining 14 banks yet to be audited, no CEO's will be fired and no further debtor lists will be published for the other 19 banks apart from those of the condemned 5. In other words, we have partial (in)justice and differential punishment. So, CEOs of the other 14 banks who perhaps committed worse atrocities will be given a slap on the wrist while the CEOs of the condemned 5 have been publicly disgraced and their careers and reputations probably ruined. In addition, debtors with non performing loans from the other 19 banks will be able to 'reconcile' their debts with the dignity of confidentiality (under the close 'supervision' of the EFCC of course) while bad debtors of the disgraced five banks have been publicly embarrassed and might never regain their credibility even though some have given credible documented explanations for their indebtedness. Such a double standard is very unfair and smacks of premeditated dishonesty by the CBN. Justice is physically depicted as a blindfolded female figure that holds a balanced set of scales on one hand and a sword on the other. This means that justice recognizes no favourites (blindfold), regards all men as equal (balanced scales), and dispenses punishment evenly to the guilty (sword). If the other erring CEOs are not PUBLICLY sanctioned and if the other bad debtors are not PUBLICLY named, then the CBN has failed the test of justice and Sanusi Lamido and his management team should be seriously and PUBLICLY sanctioned.

I have just read an article published by the Vanguard newspaper on MARCH 23 2009 i.e. several months before Sanusi was made CBN governor. The facts are chilling in their prescience. It was as if the writers had already seen the future.


The article titled 'GROUP PLOTS TAKEOVER OF FIVE TOP BANKS' stated on March 23, 2009;

That mangement of five banks will be taken over by the CBN

In August, management of five banks were taken over by the CBN

The article said the plan is to cause panic in the banking Industry

In August there was panic in the Industry


The article said Soludo would not get a second term

Soludo did not get a second term


The article said Government would buy equity in the five banks to be divested later

In August, the Federal Government bought equity in five banks


The article said the problem would be as a result of non performing loans

The CBN said the problem is as a result of non performing loans



All these can not be coincidences. There is clearly a script being played out and it seems likely that Sanusi was given the CBN job with express instructions to effect this pre-written script


The header of this piece mentions a muslim economic coup. I will therefore conclude it by taking a speculative look into the future with that header in mind. This is my own attempt to emulate the writers of the excellent Vanguard article of March 23 2009. Perhaps people may use my words as a reference say by 2010, just as I am using the words of that article as a reference today. So here goes.


Sanusi the new Governor of the CBN is a muslim Fulani from Northern Nigeria. He has also done formal Sharia studies at a University in Sudan and has written several papers on Sharia and Islamic matters. In addition, both before and after his appointment as CBN governor, he has always publicly advocated Islamic banking in Nigeria. He has spearheaded a deliberately simulated crisis and wolf cry in these condemned five banks. He has used that 'distress' to inject public -and unappropriated - funds into those banks. I strongly believe that these five banks could have survived without these drastic steps AND SANUSI KNOWS THIS. The banks could have been asked to recapitalise and it is very likely that their shareholders would have been able to help. The CBN and EFCC could also have helped -as they are doing now for the other 14 banks- to collect the bad loans without making a spectacle and disgracing the banks, but this was not done. I believe that without the injection of public funds, the five banks could have stabilised if given a fair chance. The infusion of 420 billion Naira of public funds was done to set a precedent. This precedent has been set for a purpose. I predict that in the near future, our Islamic CBN Governor will propose (according to script) that commensurate public funds -say 450 billion Naira or so- should be provided to START UP some Islamic banks all over the Country. He will attempt to justify this by citing the fact that 420 billion was provided in August 2009 to shore up five 'ailing non Islamic banks'. He would be playing to a biased script, but in Nigeria, this is nothing new. Nigerians should watch out and mark these words. I can bet on them.

It is an interesting and saddening pattern with muslims in general but the Fulani in particular that while they always require special institutions set up exclusively for their own desires (sharia is a good example), they are also at the same time quite willing to benefit equitably out of what belongs freely to all in a secular world. In other words, a priori prividged status or 'born to rule' . There is little doubt that people of other faiths will have little or no chance of equity in banks designated as Islamic banks. It would be a crime against humanity to create such banks from public funds in a so called secular society. But then equity has never really been a concern for the Fulani northern muslims especially, whose philosophy seems to be "what's mine is mine but what's yours is negotiable!"

The latest crisis in Nigeria within the last two weeks or so has no doubt been the Boko haram uprising in a number of states in the north. It started almost immediately after the MEND Atlas cove attack and subsequent declaration of a 60 day ceasefire in their armed struggle.
The timing of this latest uprising in the north, the type of people involved and the unusual rapid response of the Federal Government (FG) should be suspicious to the discerning.
The FG of Baba 'go slow' Umaru Yar'adua has responded quickly and forcefully and all indications are that the uprising is over - at least for now. Also suspicious are the extra judicial killings in police custody, of two leaders of the insurrection; Muhammad Yusuf as well as Buji Foi. It is obvious to even a retarded child that they were both silenced to prevent them from revealing sensitive information such as who their sponsors are, how extensive are their branch networks etc.
The same FG has done nothing for example about the radical sharia, complete with an illegal hisbah force in the northern state of Kano. In Kano, the hisbah force is even more powerful than the constitutional Nigerian police force, yet the FG which chants the rule of law as a mantra, has not raised a finger against this act of treason. The same FG has been relatively slow to react against other forms of uprising in Jos for example.
So why this speed of response in the Boko haram issue especially at this time?
The first thing that becomes clear is that the Boko haram guys are expendable. They are like cannon fodder in a much bigger play; sacrificial pawns in a larger chess game. Their cause is also easy to dismiss. It lacks for example the long term domination and creeping boa constrictor effect of radical sharia rule on non muslims in a so called secular Country as obtains in Kano state; for make no mistake, the ultimate intent of the muslim north has always been to establish the same type of sharia as in Kano NATIONWIDE. The Boko haram boys let this much slip when they said they want sharia not only in the north but in THE WHOLE COUNTRY!. The much more long term and better organised Kano islamic domination and emasculation of fellow Nigerians of different religious persuasions has therefore been conveniently overlooked by our Federal Government of the North, while the crude, less efficient and expendable Boko haram boys have been crushed with military force.
The second and far more deadly reason is to create a precedent. This sacrificial precedent will be particularly useful for our FG in setting up a 'final solution' to the MEND Niger delta problem. It is important of course to stress that while the MEND struggle is a legitimate one, the Boko haram one is not so even by the wildest stretch of the imagination. The long term degradation of the Niger delta through oil spillage and gas flaring and the suffering of the people of the region which produces the bulk of national revenue surely qualifies as a crime against humanity which should be resisted. The Boko haram uprising of fundamentalist islamic hegemony cannot in any way be compared to the legitimate struggle of MEND for equity within the Nigerian polity. The MEND struggle is not a short term matter that can be solved by shallow placebos such as amnesty, or a 10 billion Naira emergency appropriation to be spent on anyone who claims to be a 'militant', or a meaningless Ministry of the Niger delta which is headquartered in Abuja and other inanities. The MEND struggle is a symptom of a much deeper disease that has plagued the Nigerian geographical expression for decades. A holistic solution is required and a serious and sincere Government would by now be urgently addressing and correcting the glaring anomalies in the system. I am referring to anomalies such as the signing of a Trans sahara gas pipeline deal to send gas from the Niger delta and up thousands of kilometres through NORTHERN Nigeria and as far as up to Algeria and Europe, at a time when there is not yet enough gas to power our gas thermal electricity plants at home and when the Niger delta source itself is in flames and the people alienated from the nation. Or the sacking of several top southerners from the NNPC and their replacement with mostly northerners. Or the publishing and sincere implementation of the Ledum Mittee led committee white paper on solutions to the Niger delta problem. Or inviting all stakeholders including Niger delta groups as well as Oil Industry professionals to have an input into a real people driven Petroleum Industry Bill as opposed to a Northern dominated executive bill. Or correcting such glaring ethnic bias whereby the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) as well as the Education Trust Fund (ETF) - both funded directly or indirectly by oil revenue from the Niger delta - are, and have been mostly headed exclusively by Northerners. Or a return to the true fiscal Federalism of the Nigerian founding fathers where each region kept a reasonable part of the revenue generated therein thus creating a situation where the true virtues of initiative, healthy rivalry, hard work and self determination moved each region forward to the realisation of their potential. And several others too many to mention,
Only a genuine and sincere addressing of these fundamental issues - as opposed to reactive and symbolic bribes designed to maintain a parasitic status quo - will bring lasting peace and progress to the Niger delta and to Nigeria.
The 60 day MEND ceasefire will end soon enough and it is conceivable that under certain conditions, MEND may take up arms again. The Umaru Yar'adua FG has cunningly used the Boko haram affair to create a precedent for military force by executive fiat. It is noteworthy to read these words of President Yar'adua about the Boko haram martial crackdown ; "I want to assure that this administration will not tolerate any arms insurrection ANYWHERE and in ANY part of the country. ANYWHERE ANY group of people begin to launch an insurrection and destruction against their fellow Nigerians they will be dealt with squarely and promptly." Strong preparatory words!
The Northern dominated FG is now in a position to claim that having used the military to crush the Boko haram boys in the north, the same military force should also be used to crush militants in the Niger delta. The door is now open for extra judicial executions of the likes of Jomo Gbomo, Asari Dokubo, Tom Polo and co., to 'balance the equation' of the extra judicial murders of Muhammad Yusuf and Buji Foi , much in the same way as Moshood Abiola was murdered to 'balance the equation' of the death of Sani Abacha.
It is also a crude attempt to retroactively launder executive genocides such as those against ordinary civilians at Gbaramatu, while preparing a ready made template for such martial action in other potentially hot spots such as Jos or maybe even Lagos in view of the Local Government issue.
This piece is basically a call to put the discerning on alert and on inquiry. It is more difficult for oppressors to effect their sinister plans when those plans have been found out and exposed well in advance. As Fela sang, "any time they want to hit you, na from back". It is not so easy to hit a man from the back if he has been alerted .
Umaru Musa Yar'adua and co take note. If this is your plan, we see you!. We are watching and we are ready!!.

On December 30th. 2008, Nigerian citizen Chijioke Stephen Obioha was convicted for drug trafficking in Singapore. Drug trafficking carries a mandatory death penalty in Singapore and so, Judge Woo Bih Li duly sentenced him to death by hanging. Chijioke was arrested in April 2007, some four months after another Nigerian, Tochi Amara Iwuchukwu was hanged alongside yet another Nigerian, Nelson Okele Malachy in the same Singapore, both for drug trafficking.

There are other sad similarities.

Nelson Okele Malachy was arrested with a fake South African passport and was subsequently often referred to as stateless. However, by merely looking at his name as well as the facts of the case, he was clearly Nigerian. Chijioke has been described in several media as Ghanaian. However, also by merely looking at his name as well as the facts of the case, he is clearly Nigerian. For example, his oral evidence during trial stated that he graduated from the University of Benin with a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Chemistry in 2003, completed his National Youth Service in 2004, worked for his elder brother (whom he named as Tochukwu Colinus Obioha) in Tochuckwu's electronics store at Alaba International market in Lagos, Nigeria until 2005 when he left for Singapore to seek a professional football career. Tochi, who was hanged in January 2007 had also allegedly gone to Singapore to seek a football career. During the Tochi/Malachy case, the South African Government naturally went to great lengths to affirm that Malachy was not a citizen of their Country, pointing out that he had a forged South African passport. It is obvious that such a situation will not endear South Africa to Nigeria and Nigerian citizens. The image of South Africa was smeared by a Nigerian. No South African will like this. It is no surprise that Nigerians living in South Africa as well as visiting Nigerian citizens and officials are often treated shabbily in South Africa.
The Government of Ghana will probably walk the same path concerning Chijioke who has been sentenced still fairly recently; a sentence which may yet take several months to carry out. During that time there will be a lot of negative publicity directed to Ghana. No doubt Ghana will then be forced to come out and deny his being a citizen of their Country, while their regard for Nigerian integrity which is already low will sink even lower.

The case of Tochi had garnered worldwide publicity at the time due to his youth (when he was arrested in 2004, his age as stated on his passport was about 19 years), his apparent talent for football (he had represented Nigeria in some youth tournaments and had also played professionally in Senegal) and some controversy about whether he actually knew that the package he was carrying contained heroin or not. Olusegun Obasanjo, then president of Nigeria, had in fact sent a letter to the President of Singapore pleading for clemency on his behalf on the eve of his execution. It is doubtful that Chijioke will get such sympathy. For one, the excuse of not knowing the contents of a package which eventually turns out to be narcotics has already gone stale and will barely get a yawn from the appeal court judges in Singapore. Secondly, the teary story of the aspiring professional football star who does not make it and subsequently gets in trouble in foreign Countries has also worn thin. Thirdly, his stated age was 29 when he was arrested; no longer a boy, but a full grown man. Finally, there appears to be very little doubt about his guilt as he was caught trafficking a large quantity of marijuana red handed.

Therefore, it seems more meaningful to use this situation to learn some lessons for future situations. Not that we have not learnt these same lessons before, but in Nigeria we seem to have a disease of repeating the same sad errors (must be deliberately) over and over again. So here goes.

While we should not excuse Nigerians (or anyone else for that matter) for committing crimes in whether at home or in foreign lands, we need to also examine the driving factors that lead to these things. It is becoming much too simplistic especially in view of clearly deliberate mismanagement of resources in Nigeria, to merely condemn the affected individuals without examining systemic factors.

In the case of Tochi, his evidence was that he had been playing football as a career since his early teens but got injured while playing in Senegal. After coming home to recuperate in Nigeria, he set out to continue his football career but opted this time to try his luck in Dubai. Through some unclear circumstances, he could not get a visa to Dubai but managed to get to Pakistan. He claimed he was told there was a direct train from Pakistan to Dubai. This information was false, there is no such train. Unable to get to Dubai both for lack of funds as well as lack of a visa, he got stuck in Pakistan. It was no doubt this desperate situation that eventually led him to the gallows through a series of unfortunate circumstances as well as some big mistakes on his own part of course. If Nigeria had a well organized National Football League, it is likely that Tochi may have opted to ply his trade at home instead of going on a clearly precarious trip abroad. While our Government officials are buying multi-million Naira mansions nationwide and worldwide through ill gotten gains or indulging in meaningless ego-trips, the untold other side of the story is that some of our people are being placed in tough predicaments, which when coupled with some bad luck and personal mistakes, are leading to dire consequences for them, including even ignominous deaths in strange lands.

As for Chijioke, he was arrested at age 29 after being in Singapore for about eighteen months. This implies according to his evidence that he came to try out for a football club in Singapore at about age 27. That is clearly rather late in age for a person of whom there is no evidence that he had a previous football career. It is also unclear that he had any real football talent. It is hardly a surprise that he was not selected to play for the club. It is certainly feasible that he may have anticipated this but just wanted to get out of Nigeria. Thus he found himself in a strange land, with an expired visa as at January 2007. These factors must have played a substantial role in his being involved and eventually arrested for drug trafficking in April 2007. Yes, Chijioke did wrong, but again we need to ask why a University graduate of Industrial Chemistry (he claimed he graduated with a second class upper degree from University of Benin) would be reduced to such depths in the first place. While he bears a major share of the blame, we must also put a solid chunk of this blame squarely on a Government and a system that puts down its people and gives them very little chance to grow and develop with any dignity. When basic infrastructure such as Power supply cannot be done right despite millions of dollars spent, when housing, water and good roads are luxuries, when jobs are simply not available for the people even after they have made strenuous efforts to educate themselves under harsh conditions, it is inevitable that some bizarre situations and predicaments such as that of Chijioke will arise.

I seize this opportunity to point out to President Umaru Musa Yaradua that his sleeping on duty is not some minor infraction but in fact an act of treason, first degree murder as well as systematic genocide. There is such a thing as criminal negligence.
Governors, Ministers, and other public and not so public officials who use positions of trust to loot or otherwise mismanage the commonwealth while creating a roadblock to the smooth flow of life are also guilty of treason, premeditated murder and genocide.

If or when the hangman pulls the lever to send Chijioke Stephen Obioha to an early death sometime later this year, you all have some of his blood on your hands. You know yourselves and while God Almighty may take His time, His judgement is inevitable.

Sentenced to hang in Singapore: The case of Chijioke Stephen Obioha

On December 30th. 2008, Nigerian citizen Chijioke Stephen Obioha was convicted for drug trafficking in Singapore. Drug trafficking carries a mandatory death penalty in Singapore and so, Judge Woo Bih Li duly sentenced him to death by hanging. Chijioke was arrested in April 2007, some four months after another Nigerian, Tochi Amara Iwuchukwu was hanged alongside yet another Nigerian, Nelson Okele Malachy in the same Singapore, both for drug trafficking.

There are other sad similarities.

Nelson Okele Malachy was arrested with a fake South African passport and was subsequently often referred to as stateless. However, by merely looking at his name as well as the facts of the case, he was clearly Nigerian. Chijioke has been described in several media as Ghanaian. However, also by merely looking at his name as well as the facts of the case, he is clearly Nigerian. For example, his oral evidence during trial stated that he graduated from the University of Benin with a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Chemistry in 2003, completed his National Youth Service in 2004, worked for his elder brother (whom he named as Tochukwu Colinus Obioha) in Tochuckwu's electronics store at Alaba International market in Lagos, Nigeria until 2005 when he left for Singapore to seek a professional football career. Tochi, who was hanged in January 2007 had also allegedly gone to Singapore to seek a football career. During the Tochi/Malachy case, the South African Government naturally went to great lengths to affirm that Malachy was not a citizen of their Country, pointing out that he had a forged South African passport. It is obvious that such a situation will not endear South Africa to Nigeria and Nigerian citizens. The image of South Africa was smeared by a Nigerian. No South African will like this. It is no surprise that Nigerians living in South Africa as well as visiting Nigerian citizens and officials are often treated shabbily in South Africa.
The Government of Ghana will probably walk the same path concerning Chijioke who has been sentenced still fairly recently; a sentence which may yet take several months to carry out. During that time there will be a lot of negative publicity directed to Ghana. No doubt Ghana will then be forced to come out and deny his being a citizen of their Country, while their regard for Nigerian integrity which is already low will sink even lower.

The case of Tochi had garnered worldwide publicity at the time due to his youth (when he was arrested in 2004, his age as stated on his passport was about 19 years), his apparent talent for football (he had represented Nigeria in some youth tournaments and had also played professionally in Senegal) and some controversy about whether he actually knew that the package he was carrying contained heroin or not. Olusegun Obasanjo, then president of Nigeria, had in fact sent a letter to the President of Singapore pleading for clemency on his behalf on the eve of his execution. It is doubtful that Chijioke will get such sympathy. For one, the excuse of not knowing the contents of a package which eventually turns out to be narcotics has already gone stale and will barely get a yawn from the appeal court judges in Singapore. Secondly, the teary story of the aspiring professional football star who does not make it and subsequently gets in trouble in foreign Countries has also worn thin. Thirdly, his stated age was 29 when he was arrested; no longer a boy, but a full grown man. Finally, there appears to be very little doubt about his guilt as he was caught trafficking a large quantity of marijuana red handed.

Therefore, it seems more meaningful to use this situation to learn some lessons for future situations. Not that we have not learnt these same lessons before, but in Nigeria we seem to have a disease of repeating the same sad errors (must be deliberately) over and over again. So here goes.

While we should not excuse Nigerians (or anyone else for that matter) for committing crimes in whether at home or in foreign lands, we need to also examine the driving factors that lead to these things. It is becoming much too simplistic especially in view of clearly deliberate mismanagement of resources in Nigeria, to merely condemn the affected individuals without examining systemic factors.

In the case of Tochi, his evidence was that he had been playing football as a career since his early teens but got injured while playing in Senegal. After coming home to recuperate in Nigeria, he set out to continue his football career but opted this time to try his luck in Dubai. Through some unclear circumstances, he could not get a visa to Dubai but managed to get to Pakistan. He claimed he was told there was a direct train from Pakistan to Dubai. This information was false, there is no such train. Unable to get to Dubai both for lack of funds as well as lack of a visa, he got stuck in Pakistan. It was no doubt this desperate situation that eventually led him to the gallows through a series of unfortunate circumstances as well as some big mistakes on his own part of course. If Nigeria had a well organized National Football League, it is likely that Tochi may have opted to ply his trade at home instead of going on a clearly precarious trip abroad. While our Government officials are buying multi-million Naira mansions nationwide and worldwide through ill gotten gains or indulging in meaningless ego-trips, the untold other side of the story is that some of our people are being placed in tough predicaments, which when coupled with some bad luck and personal mistakes, are leading to dire consequences for them, including even ignominous deaths in strange lands.

As for Chijioke, he was arrested at age 29 after being in Singapore for about eighteen months. This implies according to his evidence that he came to try out for a football club in Singapore at about age 27. That is clearly rather late in age for a person of whom there is no evidence that he had a previous football career. It is also unclear that he had any real football talent. It is hardly a surprise that he was not selected to play for the club. It is certainly feasible that he may have anticipated this but just wanted to get out of Nigeria. Thus he found himself in a strange land, with an expired visa as at January 2007. These factors must have played a substantial role in his being involved and eventually arrested for drug trafficking in April 2007. Yes, Chijioke did wrong, but again we need to ask why a University graduate of Industrial Chemistry (he claimed he graduated with a second class upper degree from University of Benin) would be reduced to such depths in the first place. While he bears a major share of the blame, we must also put a solid chunk of this blame squarely on a Government and a system that puts down its people and gives them very little chance to grow and develop with any dignity. When basic infrastructure such as Power supply cannot be done right despite millions of dollars spent, when housing, water and good roads are luxuries, when jobs are simply not available for the people even after they have made strenuous efforts to educate themselves under harsh conditions, it is inevitable that some bizarre situations and predicaments such as that of Chijioke will arise.

I seize this opportunity to point out to President Umaru Musa Yaradua that his sleeping on duty is not some minor infraction but in fact an act of treason, first degree murder as well as systematic genocide. There is such a thing as criminal negligence.
Governors, Ministers, and other public and not so public officials who use positions of trust to loot or otherwise mismanage the commonwealth while creating a roadblock to the smooth flow of life are also guilty of treason, premeditated murder and genocide.

If or when the hangman pulls the lever to send Chijioke Stephen Obioha to an early death sometime later this year, you all have some of his blood on your hands. You know yourselves and while God Almighty may take His time, His judgement is inevitable.