₦airaland Forum

According to Mr Afunanya, the SSS is a responsible organisation that adheres strictly to the rule of law and standard operating procedures.


I smell a lie

“Does this sound believable? That SSS operatives threatened to kill anyone is unfounded and such fake news and misinformation should be disregarded in its entirety. The SSS is a responsible organisation and adheres strictly to rules of law and engagement and democratic principles. It has Standard Operating Procedures on all its activities; internal and external,” he said.

If you believe this SSS operative, OYO is your case when "Babylon" come calling.

Audio crowd!!!!

"Faking it until you make it" gone awry .

statistical comparisons between 2 nations in different social structure and with dis-similar economic variables can sometimes be confounding.

making matters worse still would be comparing the daily allowance of Nigerian prisoners to workers on the minimum wage of less than 30,000 and you will pity you freedom.

Her yansh, her life.

We don't give a hoot!!!!

Hope they realize that he pays the piper to whose melodious tunes they dance energetically

Another banking sector mergers and outright hostile takeovers possibly in the offing

Sometimes, those "paintings" do more injustice to women's beauty.

god of men !!!!!

Mannerism

The acclaimed "ranting of a rat".

Better do the needful and appease the sensibility of the governor or else, your lot shall be worse than Emir Sanusi.

The military always leaves us with more rooms for suspicion. It looks preposterous that 3 BH suspects accused of planting IEDs will be displayed with 4 AKs and some expended anti aircraft munitions and the recovered IED not in sight.

Infact, where is the anti aircraft gun that fired those 4 expended shells ?

We are not so daft anymore!

#ourmumudondo

Can you deliver to Makurdi @ 500k

stagger:
If you had studied ballistics, you would know than an exit wound is far larger than an entry wound because of the transmission of kinetic forces from the impact, especially if this was as a result of a high velocity round such as is used in an AK-47 rifle. So I do not see any volumes being spoken from the wounds I see there.

I have not said anything concerning the caliber of the weapon used or the range from which the round was discharged.


I only discerned from the pictoral evidence the submission you were so hasty to rubbish.

The small entry wound is obviously at the back of the head (occiput) and the exit wound is clearly the larger wound close to the ear (temporal).


For your information, I am a trauma surgeon but will not use this forum to spew Highfalutin medical jargons that may not be educative to the teaming nairalanders.

Let it be known again that the principles of a missile injury be it low velocity or high velocity is the same,
( Penetration, Cavitation, Vacuum effect and secondary projectile injury) it is the energy transfer to tissues and the missile speed of 750 meters per second that differentiates them.

In recent times, we have seen local contraptions(hand guns) by our blacksmith capable of firing high velocity rounds (7.6mm rounds) thereby antiquating the notion that high velocity weapons must be rifles.

Back to work, see you later!!!!!!!

You don't retreat from a mob with your back turned against them. This is one of the tenets of crowd control for law enforcement agencies.

This man was definitely killed by friendly fire until proven otherwise.

The entry (occipital) and exit (temporal) wounds speaks volumes!!!!!

grandstar:
Same person. One before he was burnt and other after the roasting

Look well

One is charred and lying prone while the bloodied one is lying supine.

By Reuben Abati.

Nigerians were left speechless on May 29 when after taking the oaths of office and allegiance, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo left the Eagle Square, the venue of the Presidential Inauguration ceremony without uttering a word. The President had nothing to say to Nigerians. He simply went back into his car and returned to the Presidential Villa. I thought that was an anti-climax. It was such a beautiful ceremony, what with the prayers, parades, gun salute and the symbolic retirement of the Defence flag and the national flag and the hoisting of new ones to signal the end of a term and the beginning of another.

The Constitution does not outline how an inauguration ceremony should be conducted, except that in Nigeria’s case, a President, who has been elected for a first term, or re-elected for a second term in office, must take an oath of office. It would amount to an illegal extension of tenure to shift the day and date. Over the years, certain traditions have also developed around Presidential inaugurations; these may vary from one country to another. In the United States, an inaugural speech is standard practice. Every US President, with the exception of about eight Presidents whose predecessors suddenly died before completing their term, have delivered an inaugural speech since George Washington (1789). Be it in Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa or India, Presidents or Prime Ministers use the opportunity of Inauguration Day to set the tone for their administration, by articulating their vision and mission. A well-written inaugural speech should capture the mood of the nation, reassure the people, connect with them, stir hope and build confidence. The beginning of a new administration provides an opportunity for the leader to give the people something to look forward to. It can also be used as a platform to send a strong message to the international community and assert leadership. Great speeches have been made on Inauguration Day particularly in the United States.

Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural speech (1861), Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inaugural speech (1933) and that of John F. Kennedy (1961) are among some of the most quoted and referenced inaugural speeches ever. Some American Presidents to deepen the event have even added a touch of poetry to the occasion as President Barack Obama did with Maya Angelou in1993.

On May 29, 2019, President wasted a good opportunity to reach out to Nigerians. He made it look as if the whole event was a distraction if not a piece of inconvenience. And yet, the occasion called for a speech given the state of the nation. On Friday, May 29, 2015, the then newly elected 15th President of Nigeria, and the 4thsince 1999 seized the day when he made that famous statement: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” He tried to reassure all Nigerians who had been entertaining fears that he would be vindictive as civilian President. He told Nigerians: “..There will be no paying off old scores. The past is prologue.” He reminded Nigerians of the glory of the past and the nobility of our ancestors. Then he defined the priorities of his administration and his vision for the future. For weeks, Nigerians analysed and debated the President Buhari’s 2015 inaugural speech. There was hope in the air. President Buhari promised Nigerians he would deal with the security challenge in the country, strengthen the economy and also wage war against corruption. Those who voted him into power were excited. Every country needs such a moment of re-awakening. So why would the same man treat Nigerians with such contempt on May 29? A Presidential speech is not just words. Thousands have gone to war to defend their nation by just listening to the words of the leader.

Winston Churchill was most effective in using his gift of the gab to mobilise an entire nation in pursuit of defined goals.
In the 2019 Presidential election, over 15 million Nigerians voted for President Buhari. Even if he did not have a written speech, he could have spoken ex tempore, on May 29, if only to thank his supporters and all the party members across the nation who worked hard to ensure his re-election. A day after the inauguration, the President left for Saudi Arabia to attend a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation. He could while speaking ex tempore refer to that meeting and assure Nigerians work had indeed begun. There is no rule prescribing the format or nature of a Presidential inaugural speech. During his second inauguration in 1793, President George Washington’s speech was just 135 words long!

Nonetheless, President Buhari had every reason to talk to Nigerians. There is widespread insecurity in the land, far worse than the situation Nigerians faced in 2015. If President Buhari inherited certain challenges in 2015, those challenges have become worse, four years later. Insecurity is no longer about Boko Haram but banditry, farmers-herdsmen clashes, kidnapping, and the reign of impunity in parts of the country. The Buhari government may have taken Nigeria out of economic recession, but we have also been told by those who should know that we should expect slow growth and the months ahead may bring greater hardship.

The evidence is already available: the spate of suicide cases in the country continues to rise. The people are depressed, there is hunger, poverty and despair. On May 29, the President had an opportunity to talk to the people he leads and allay their fears. What the people need is someone to give them hope and who will back that promise with action. As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the President could also have addressed the troops. Too many innocent lives have been lost in the battlefields of Nigeria: young men and women – military officers, the police, security and intelligence agents generally, whose duty it is to keep Nigeria safe and secure in the face of the assault on the integrity of the Nigerian state by bandits and terrorists. They deserved the President’s recognition and appreciation on the occasion of his swearing in for a second term in office.

Some of the President’s handlers and supporters have tried to dismiss objections to his failure or is it refusal (?) to make a speech on Inauguration day as much ado about northing. They argue that the government had announced previously that May 29 would be a low-key ceremony and that the main celebration would be on June 12 which has now been declared a Federal Holiday for the celebration of Democracy Day. We have now been told to expect a speech on Democracy Day. This sounds like some Presidential staff making an excuse for their own laziness. Inauguration Day and Democracy Day are two separate and distinct events requiring two different kinds of speeches. It is not as if the President even gave a national broadcast on May 29. If he did, then those who dropped the ball on May 29, could easily offer that as excuse. The President of a country cannot be accused of talking too much. President Ronald Reagan addressed the American people virtually every week, on television, on radio or through direct communication and appeal. Jeffrey K. Tulis in his book, The Rhetorical Presidency (1987) says the essence of the modern presidency lies in “rhetorical leadership”, that is power of words, engagement and connection with the people who the President has been elected to lead and serve. Charles O. Jones in an essay titled “The Inaugural Address: Ceremony of Transitions” (2010) argues that “the inaugural address is the most exclusive of presidential speeches.”

Those who have been defending President Buhari have also argued that the President has invited 90 or more world leaders to come and celebrate Democracy Day with Nigerians on June 12. Those world leaders who will attend the June 12 event obviously understand that they are not coming for President Buhari’s inauguration, but an entirely different event. It is up to them to decide whether to attend or not. In 2015, Nigeria invited 54 African countries to President Buhari’s inauguration. About 32 African Heads of State or their Deputies, and at least one King (the King of Swaziland) attended the event. The First Lady of Namibia, and the second Lady of Tanzania attended too; there were over 22 Foreign Ministers, the US Secretary of State, Heads of Parliaments and Heads of International Organizations including the then AU commission Chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. On that occasion too, President Buhari enjoyed the solidarity of all living former Nigerian Heads of State. This year, only General Yakubu Gowon was in attendance. Nobody has told us whether other former Heads of State were invited or not, and even if they showed up on June 12 at Democracy Day celebration, it wouldn’t make up for their conspicuous absence on May 29.

In the absence of anything concrete to hold on to, Nigerians have resorted to speculations and the ridiculous about what happened on May 29 at the Eagle Square in Abuja. There are those who insist that the President indeed said a lot with his silence and body language. I don’t quite understand what that means. Every President can make a difference with his or her own style, but body language is such a confusing style that may be appropriate in the 19thcentury but certainly not in this century. It was US President Woodrow Wilson who observed in 1907 that “the President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.” Richard Neustadt tells us: “But nowadays he cannot be as small as he might like” (1960). Neustadt is right. The people ordinarily expect the President to rise to every occasion. When he fails them, they opt for the mundane. Heavy weather has been made out of the absence of former Heads of State at this year’s inauguration day in Abuja. There has also been some tittle-tattle about the supposedly brand new Mercedes Benz that brought President Buhari to the Eagle square. That is idle talk of course – should the President have gone to his own inauguration in a rickety vehicle?

During the Presidential campaigns, the key message by President Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is that if given a second term in office, he the President will run a government that will take Nigeria to “the next level.” He is yet to define the content of that “next level”. He could have done so on May 29. Weeks after the dissolution of the Federal Executive Council and one week after his swearing-in, President Buhari is yet to take any step to indicate that the promised journey to “the next level” has begun. The minimum that Nigerians expect by way of difference is that by now, President Buhari would have announced some key appointments, even if all he does is to reappoint the same persons. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was sworn in on May 25, three days after he was elected to his first full term as President of South Africa, with his party gaining a majority in parliament with 57.5% of total votes cast. In his inaugural address, President Ramaphosa promised South Africans “a new era.” He told them: “There shall be no longer be any person in this land who will be unable to meet their basic needs.” He invoked the name of Nelson Mandela. He paid tribute to him. Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Mr. Jacob Zuma did not attend the inauguration. He said he did not have time. This has not stopped Ramaphosa from “hitting the ground running.”

He has taken some important steps including the announcement of a cabinet within four days after he was sworn in. He has used the composition of his cabinet to make some statements. He reduced the size of the cabinet from 36 to 28 Ministers. He has also appointed a member of the opposition, Patricia de Lille (GOOD party) to head the Ministry of Public Works and Infrastructure. He got rid of persons in the former cabinet who had been implicated one way or the other in acts of corruption, except perhaps Vice President David Mabuza who seems to have been retained in order not to further factionalize the ANC. There are more young persons and women. Women constitute 50% of the new South African cabinet. Ramaphosa says: “In appointing a new national executive, I have taken a number of considerations into account: including experience, continuity, competence, generational mix, and demographic and regional diversity.”

I believe there are lessons here, that can be learnt from South Africa and also from India where Prime Minister Narendra Modi also provides a good example of how a leader can send the right signals. Modi was sworn in on Thursday, May 30. He announced a new cabinet immediately. Like President Buhari, Prime Minister Modi has been elected for a second term. Unlike Ramaphosa’s cabinet, Modi’s cabinet is big – 58 Ministers – and out of these, only six are women, and only three have been appointed to full Ministerial positions. It is not necessarily an inclusive cabinet. There is even only one Muslim Minister and he is Minister of Minority Affairs! Every country has its own politics. The Indian election 2019 was a referendum on Modi’s leadership. He has proven to be the main issue in Indian politics. He ran a Presidential-style campaign. He won by a landslide because the people trust him.

He continues to build on that trust, like Ramaphosa in South Africa, by settling down to work quickly after election and swearing-in. In Nigeria, that has not happened. One week after inauguration, we are still in the dark, stuck in a limbo. Meanwhile, some aides of the President continue to work for him. By the sheer effluxion of time, the assignment of those aides automatically ended on May 28. If the President wants to reappoint them, it is within his prerogative to do so, but they cannot continue to work for him by conduct. This would amount to a violation of Sections 151 and 171 of the 1999 Constitution. President Buhari should quickly emulate the examples of President Ramaphosa (South Africa) and PM Modi (India) and get this “next level” thing off the ground. Getting the momentum right is an essential part of Presidential power.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/06/04/the-speech-buhari-didnt-make/?amp

There is no objection here to the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari as President two days ago; given the verdict of INEC after the last general elections. There is also no objection to the legal steps being taken by those who are challenging the INEC verdict. That is the beauty of democracy and we applaud it, to the extent that its processes are followed. But there is an objection in principle here to any action or policy initiatives of the government, the President or his proxies that may not serve wider, long term, national interests. In this regard, and especially since there is the suggestion of continuity in the just-inaugurated government, Mr. President may wish to advert his attention to some matters of state to which one may be justified in raising some mild objections.

The first is the decision of the recently-dissolved Federal Executive Council (FEC), three weeks ago, to spend the sum of 4.7 billion on the construction of seven Models Schools in the six geo-political zones of the country. The federal government can choose one Unity School from each of the geo-political zones and upgrade it to a Model School, or school of reference of some sort, instead of starting fresh school projects. A simple costs-benefits analysis shows that 4.7 billion Naira will go a very long way in rescuing the 104 now-decrepit and derelict Unity Schools in the country and increasing their carrying capacity. The old students associations and the parents of the current students who are now maintaining and sustaining these schools in the critical areas of infrastructure and learning environment should be relieved of a burden that a distant Federal Ministry of Education, a consummate cabal with impressive credentials that no minister of education can easily see through of dislodge, claims to be handling but is not.

To build new model schools is to award building contracts to “reliable” contractors. Construction of the schools will probably take some two years, or more, to be followed by the provision of state-of-the-art amenities; which essentially boils down to a series of procurement contracts. The seven Model Schools will not make any impact whatsoever on human capital development, or contribute to the growth of education, one way or another in Nigeria in the next five years. But upgrading some Unity School will do just that within the same timeframe. So the proposed new schools will be nothing but a major capital project, resting on the mistaken assumption that the provision of learning infrastructure is the same thing as sustainable investment in education.

It is not right that we should have a huge budgetary provision that will go down on record as proof of government commitment to education when it is not. We should not be content to celebrate cash evidence of massive government investment in education, when in fact the name of the Nigerian child is being taken in vain by contractors and government jobbers. Who builds models schools without simultaneously training Models Teachers? Should part of this freshly budgeted sum of 4.7 billion not perhaps go into strengthening the National Teachers Institute (NTI), the Teachers Registration Council (TRC) and probably reinvigorating the academic content and quality of various faculties of education nationwide/ do our teacher-producing facilities not need specialized short courses on contemporary teaching and learning paradigms and much more?

The school system is like a “factory” producing human capital for the nation. It needs “factory workers”, as well as facilities and the physical infrastructure housing all activities. Investment that focuses on factory machinery and the premises of our education industry is not the best approach to improving the quality of citizens (or “products”) we turn out. It is not enough for an investor to procure and install fine “machinery.” The equipment will not translate to quality products, or even any products at all, except there are also competent people to handle them. A man who builds a bakery to the best global standards, complete with a service and marketing template that even the Jews would envy, but who fails to train bakers and install an efficient and effective management has invested in folly. He will have impressive installed capacity, but pitiable capacity utilization. Incompetent staff will quickly destroy the unfamiliar equipment and ruin everything.

That Mr. President must, in this his second term, come to terms with the fact that there is a difference between “investment in physical infrastructure for education”/learning environment and investment in teacher education/knowledge upgrade, up-scaling of learning outcomes and other measures that would impact the quality of products of our schools. The expenditure of most states of the federation on education over the last twenty years of our democracy shows huge budgetary allocations to education, at the same time that we also show a precipitous decline in educational standards and learning outcomes. Some states with very high records of expenditure for classroom rehabilitation, the supply of desks, books, etc., also have the worst teacher training, school enrolment and retention records. Check the investment of the federal and state governments on the training of teachers, provision of teaching aids and more in the last 20 years. So, let us pull the blinkers off our eyes and get real.

Let us recall that the introduction of the 3-3-3-6 secondary school template was predicated on the expectation that the products of our secondary schools would be eligible for some form of employment, based on a “technical” education of sorts. Introductory Technology (Intro-tech) came on board as a subject in our secondary schools because of this. Impressive machinery and other infrastructure for teaching the subject were also quickly imported (procurement contract). Some of the “Jakande Schools” in Lagos with their low walls had to build new halls for safe storage of the equipment. But there were practically no teachers for the new subject anywhere. So while we cheerfully planned for a revolutionary national human capital development outing and procured the equipment for it, while we celebrated the expected outcomes a very sound education policy, many schools could not even install the equipment, to say nothing of using them.

The equipment procured and given to schools all over Nigeria for that revolution are nowhere to be found today. The products of that revolution are also nowhere to be found today. Worse still, there is no impact on national development, technological evolution and unemployment.
It is against the background of the foregoing that one fells constrained to say: “Objection Mr. President to the proposed Model Schools.” Increase the number and quality of teachers, expand the carrying capacity of the existing schools, and provide the necessary contemporary teaching aids and ensuring security of lives and property for the students, teachers and contiguous communities. The nation is yet to recover from the debilitating impact of the brand new universities of questionable authenticity established by the Jonathan administration. Record of expenditure is not evidence of impact.

BA Myetti Allah Et Al

A meeting between the umbrella body of some cattle herders in Nigeria and the leadership of the Interior Ministry and other major national stakeholders was rumored to have come up with the idea of “settling” some people in the name of national security. No deal of this nature will impact positively on, or ameliorate, the spate of kidnapping, cattle rustling, the periodic invasion of many villages by marauders, killings by herdsmen, etc. we now have several freelance stakeholders in the kidnapping and sundry crimes industry. The downstream and retails sector of this industry is now fully deregulated and democratized. If Myetti Allah is at best a trade Union with members in the cattle trade, its very limited membership (when compared to other trade unions) makes it a player of questionable overriding credentials.

We must distinguish between herdsmen, who are essentially people who herd cattle, and kidnappers. The latter are criminals, while the former are not. It is the “mobility of labour” across both frontiers, arising from poverty and poor security, which has led to the anomalous concept of killer herdsmen. We have had herdsmen without kidnapping for decades in this country. The recent development is not just because there are Fulanis, or herdsmen, in Nigeria. The spread and innovation now evident in this “industry” whittles down the imagined relevance of Myetti Allah.

The kidnappers in Port Harcourt, Abuja, Edo, Kano, Sokoto, Katsina, etc. are not taking instructions from Myetti Allah. The small bands of murderers and robbers who are taking over parts of the South East, who are freelance operators, may also demand accommodation in the government deal. The scores of occupied villages in the Middle Belt, some of them occupied for over a year now, will not be released to the indigenes because the federal government had a conversation with Myetti Allah. The angry, hungry and roaming Almajiris in Kano, Sokoto, Katsina and other northern states will not fit into the government`s alleged deal, especially as they are now forming quasi leadership structures, sharing territories and determining which dust bins may be visited by whom among them. Then there is IPOB, OPC and the Arewa youths, whom no one has consulted to find out their views on paying those who are bringing the entire northern establishment into disrepute, by making the entire region look like a clan of benighted murderers.

The Nigerian State should not lie flat on its tummy, under the leadership of a General of the Nigeria Army, begging suspected, presumed or known criminals to have mercy and accept a group ransom. Mbanu!

The submission here is: “Objection, Mr. President, to any line of action that may make you, or the Federal Republic of Nigeria, look weak, irresponsible, partisan or ill advised on a matter of critical national security and national survival.” In case Mr. Presidents is not aware, there is an Igbo saying to the effect that whosoever sets out to catch a slippery snake with a soapy hand has set himself an impossible task. Ekwuchakwaa m!

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/05/31/objection-mr-president/?amp

Last Friday, the Supreme Court sent a strong statement to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as well as the entire political class in Nigeria. In declaring ‘wasted’ the votes secured by APC candidates in gubernatorial, national and state assembly elections in Zamfara, the message is simple: Only when rules and regulations governing elections are binding on political parties and critical stakeholders can Nigerians begin to repose confidence in the system.

Ordinarily, the essence of primaries is to strengthen the democratic process by giving party members the opportunity to have a say in their representation. But over the years, governors and godfathers have circumscribed the element of choice by imposing unpopular candidates. In the particular case of Zamfara APC, the entire exercise was marred by arbitrariness and lack of respect for democratic norms and competition. Hijacked by Governor Abdulazeez Yari, who shunned the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) and threatened their members with violence, all efforts made to conduct credible primaries were rendered impossible until the date for submission of candidates lapsed. Of course by then, Yari had come up with a list of his anointed candidates.

Since a free and fair process in electoral matters is a basic requirement of democratic governance and an antidote to civil disorder, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had to intervene, following the violation of its guidelines. The commission announced that it would not allow the APC to field candidates for Zamfara State. Yari would not have that. He procured a black market judgement from a high court in his state which compelled INEC to put the party and candidates on the ballot. Meanwhile, in February this year, the Court of Appeal sitting in Sokoto had dismissed an earlier judgement of a Zamfara high court which granted APC the right to field candidates for the election. “Domestic affairs of political party activities must act within the confines of the law in dealing with party members and elections” said the court which held that the Zamfara lower court failed in its duty to properly evaluate the evidence before it.

That was the verdict affirmed last Friday by the Supreme Court.

Apparently in an effort not to be contaminated by people he described as ‘fornicators’, Yari has hardly spent three days a month in Zamfara. But when he wanted to install a successor, he never left the state. His desperation was not for the promotion of public good but rather to control state resources. This is the tragedy of Nigeria today. With everyone trying to take as much as they can for themselves, even an ‘executive’ prisoner, who probably still enjoys jumbo pension from the state he looted for eight years, is drawing a monthly N13.5 million salary from the National Assembly.

Bolstered by the frequency with which they are elected or appointed into various public offices, many of our politicians see no problem with profiteering from deliberate misrule. Contempt for the system, which they use for self-gain, is evident in the manner they sabotage its functioning. That has been the case in Zamfara State for the past eight years. But, as it most often happens, Yari ultimately overreached himself. Not only did he fail in his desperate bid to install a puppet governor, he can no longer join his colleagues in what has become their retirement home.

As we therefore mark 20 years of unbroken democracy, it is important for all stakeholders to reflect on how we arrived at the current sorry pass and where we are headed. Despite being blessed with abundant human and material resources, the ‘whole’ of our country is far less than the sum of its parts due largely to the unbridled greed of the leadership elite in a society where citizens are left to find a way to ‘survive’. Everybody generates their own power, provides their own security, erects boreholes for water supply while those who have the means conduct their medicals abroad where their children also school. With that, the communal sense to build a functioning society is lost.

When you have a nation where the accumulation of individual greed far outweighs the collective need, it is easy to understand why the law of the jungle has become the defining ethos, even for ordinary citizens. From man hole covers to electricity and pipeline cables to street light bulbs to bridge rails, pilfering of public properties has become the norm. Criminals operate in broad daylight without being challenged. During civil protests, public properties are often targets of arson by citizens who see them as belonging to ‘government’ from which they feel disconnected.

That our society is imperiled if we continue on the road we travel, is exemplified by a story told by the (former) Education Minister, Mallam Adamu Adamu at the prize-giving ceremony organized by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) last Thursday. Although Adamu’s anecdote was meant to show the interrelationship between Islam and Christianity, essentially for the benefit of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (who is a pastor), the unintended lesson that came out clearly is how a society where everybody thinks only of their own interest is endangered.

According to Adamu, Jesus (Prophet Isa in Islam) and a traveling companion had three loaves of bread and at a point in their journey, they stopped to eat. When the companion brought out the loaves of bread, there were only two. Despite prodding from his master, he could not account for the third. After eating, they continued their journey until they encountered an antelope. Jesus reportedly bid the animal to come and slaughtered it. After cooking, they ate part of it and then Jesus commanded the antelope back to life. As the animal stood and was leaving, according to Adamu, Jesus turned to his companion and said, “I ask you by the One who has shown you this miracle, who took the third loaf of bread?” The companion answered, “I do not know.”

The journey continued until the duo reached a big river. Jesus, Adamu said, took the hand of his companion and they walked on top of the surface of the water. Jesus then said again, “I ask you by the One who has shown you this miracle, who took the third loaf of bread?” The companion repeated his earlier answer: “I do not know.”

They moved on until they stopped in the middle of a wide plain where Jesus gathered some sand and ordered it to become gold. When the sand became gold, Jesus divided it into three parts, and said, “One part is for me, another for you, and the third part is for the person who took the loaf of bread.”

At this point, Adamu said, the companion, with everything to gain, confessed: “I am the one who took the loaf of bread!” In fulfilment of the pledge, Jesus handed not only the third portion of the gold but his own. “You can take everything. But from now on, you can no longer be my companion.”

This is a metaphor for the way too many leaders in our country take public service while the promotion of self-interest has almost become a national ideology. Our society is now governed by the philosophy of Ayn Rand in which every man is “an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others”; and exists only for his own sake while “the pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.” Yet, if we pull resources together, we will have a more prosperous and peaceful society.

Let me conclude with Adamu’s anecdote. As the errant companion of Jesus was still rejoicing over his fortune, two armed robbers came upon him. To save his life, he offered each a third of the gold, leaving him with the remaining portion. When they became hungry, one of them was chosen to get food from a nearby village. Scheming to take all the gold, he poisoned the food. But when he returned, the other two (who also had their own scheme) attacked and killed him to appropriate his share. Afterwards, they ate the poisoned food and died themselves. So when Jesus returned, he met the entire treasure out in the open, surrounded by three corpses.

The moral: A society where everyone thinks only of their own interest will sooner than later end up in ruins. The greater lesson of course is for those who hold positions of public trust. While human nature predisposes people to act mostly in pursuit of self-interest, the essence of government is to subordinate the personal greed of individuals to the imperatives of the common good. The crisis of present day Nigeria is the absence of a code that makes it difficult or even impossible for that personal greed to override public good. Zamfara therefore provides a ready example of what can befall a state when a leader’s greed for absolute power and wealth overwhelms public interest. Fortunately, the Supreme court has stepped in to redefine the boundaries in favour of due process and rule of law.

It is a lesson that will serve all our politicians and public officers in a season such as this. I congratulate President Muhammadu Buhari and the governors, including Hon Emeka Ihedioha—since I am writing this from Owerri where I witnessed the Imo State inauguration ceremony—and others, who were yesterday sworn in, either for their first or second terms in office.

Ministerial Yahoo Yahoo

That some of our young artistes glorify advance fee fraud known as 419 or ‘yahoo yahoo’ in their songs does not sit well with many Nigerians because it presents us as a people who believe that only the end justifies the means. But when a serving minister acts in a manner that suggests we are a nation without abiding principles and values, there is a problem. More than two years after the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) account was wrongly credited with the sum of $150,000 (instead of a $15,000 donation) by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the $135,000 difference is yet to be refunded, despite repeated promises.

Sadly, the (former) minister of sports at the centre of the sordid drama, Mr Solomon Dalung, is blaming the victim. “Did we steal money from them? Did we ask them to transfer money to us? They transferred money to us, they confirmed the transaction to us, then after two months, they woke up from slumber,” Dalung said in words that could easily be mistaken for the lyrics of a yet-to-be-released song by Naira Marley! Perhaps the only thing Dalung forgot to add is, ‘The money don enter voice mail’.

With Dalung now out of office, the presidency should intervene by returning the sum of $135,000 to the IAAF coffers. It is in the interest of our nation to do so.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/05/30/metaphor-of-the-missing-loaf/?amp

By Tony Eluemunor

It is amazing the amount of acrimonious, malicious and vindictive argument that came in the wake of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s outcry that Islamic Jihadists/terrorists have deliberately marked out a large swat of African land from Mali to Nigeria for the establishment of an Islamic State after their failure to defend the Islamic state that they had declared around Iraq and Syria. The bitterly spiteful debate shows the nature of the ruling party and its supporters; they are not ready to take corrections or criticisms as though the All Progressives Congress is a religion and not a political party and President Mohammadu Buhari has become a god who can do no wrong.

If we were engaged in a debate about a less severe matter here, I would have left the insecurity of life and property in Nigeria, to mock Obasanjo, after all, he played totally personal and dastardly politics instead of addressing the beginnings of Islamic arms slinging in Nigeria, when the chance came. Pan back to 2004 please.

THE KANO DEBACLE

President Obasanjo, acting under an ultimatum by the Council of Ulamma to ‘deal’ with Plateau State, tried to rationalize his declaration of State of Emergency there in 2004 when he unconstitutionally suspended Joshau Dariye, the Governor.

Obasanjo even went to the extent of justifying the riotous decimation of Christians in Kano (yet again) where about many Christians were slaughtered as a reprisal killing in reply to the killings in Plateau state within the same time frame. Then, he suspended Dariye for failing to keep his state peaceful…but he failed to lift a finger against the Governor of Kano state… after all, he too failed to maintain peace in his state. But Obasanjo forgot that he had the duty to maintain peace in any part of Nigeria—as he controlled the Police and the Armed Forces as well as the Department of State Security, etc.

Obasanjo said that the situation in Yelwa threatened peace in Nigeria, forgetting that Kano had by then acquired the reputation as the fertile state for frequent ethno-religious strife. Really violent clashes had been taking place in Kano in the three years preceding the Plateau State riots, and those were three out of Obasanjo’s then four years in Aso Rock Presidential Villa. In those three years Kano people killed Christians, burnt their churches and houses and looted their property while protesting the staging of ‘Miss World’ beauty pageant in Nigeria, American invasion of Afghanistan, in support of Osama bin Laden, and against American attack on Iraq.

Indeed, the particular Kano killing Obasanjo had pretended to be a reprisal killing for the Yelwa crisis in Plateau state, was in protest against American continuous presence in Iraq; according to newspaper reports of the violent demonstration and the setting on fire of the Kano branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Acknowledging the problems posed by Kano, The President wrote in a letter to the Sultan of Sokoto:”You will agree with me that what we have in Kano is a chronic situation whereby when there is an ethnic dispute or clash anywhere bordering on religion…Muslims of any sect and at any level in other parts of Nigeria, but particularly in Kano take it upon themselves to slaughter innocent people from other parts of the country based on their ethnicity, religion and social situation as reprisal.”

Obasanjo did not ensure that any participant in the killing orgies in Yelwa or Kano was charged to court. Blood-letting had become a normal thing in the North. It is like the present situation where rampaging Fulani herdsmen attack and wipe out whole communities, and the Kaduna Governor, Nasir el-Rufai would joke that the Fulani never forgets a wrong—as though the Fulani has the right to kill at will to avenge any evil—real or imagined. In that same lackadaisical way, even the President has called upon the people of Benue to be more accommodating to their neighbours just when 77 dead Benue people killed by suspected herdsmen were being buried.

Obasanjo who suspended Dariye, set up a State of Emergency in Plateau, failed to release a report on the Yelwa killings over which he suspended Dariye.

Dariye was punished for national crises which Obasanjo as the President should have been held responsible for. In fact, Dariye was punished for his anti-Obasanjo and pro-Atiku Abubakar politics; he was one of the James Ibori-led PDP Governors who openly opposed Obasanjo’s re-election in 2003. The core leaders of that opposition—Dariye, Bayelsa’s Dipreye Alamieyesigha, Abia’s Uzor Orji Kalu, Adamawa’s Boni Haruna, Benue’s George Akume and Delta’s James Onanefe Ibori would be relentlessly pursued, some weeded out of PDP or even impeached by Abuja-manipulated kangaroo panels. Alamieyeseigha suffered the worst fate; he was murdered when he was not allowed to receive adequate medical treatment for the surgery he had in Germany.

The second leg of this article is that crime, random crime as opposed to religious-induced one, has long made Nigeria unsafe. As David Kaplan wrote in “The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet” in the Atlantic Monthly of November February 1994, “The cities of West Africa at night are some of the unsafest places in the world. Streets are unlit; the police often lack gasoline for their vehicles; armed burglars, carjackers, and muggers proliferate”

Kaplan wrote: “In cities in six West African countries I saw similar young men everywhere—hordes of them. They were like loose molecules in a very unstable social fluid, a fluid that was clearly on the verge of igniting. He argued that in the villages of Africa it is perfectly natural to feed at any table and lodge in any hut. But in the cities this communal existence no longer holds. You must pay for lodging and be invited for food. When young men find out that their relations cannot put them up, they become lost. They join other migrants and slip gradually into the criminal process.

In the poor quarters of Arab North Africa,” he continued, “there is much less crime, because Islam provides a social anchor: of education and indoctrination. Here in West Africa, we have a lot superficial Islam and superficial Christianity. That is why there is less crime, especially riotous killing in the Islamic country of Turkey than in Northern Nigeria.

Martin van Creveld, a military historian at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in The Transformation of War, stated: “so fighting in many ways is not a means but an end. Kaplan wrote a far back as 1994: “When I asked Pentagon officials about the nature of war in the 21 century, the answer I frequently got was “Read Van Creveld.” The top brass are enamored of this historian not because his writings justify their existence but, rather, the opposite: Van Creveld warns them that huge state military machines like the Pentagon’s are dinosaurs about to go extinct and that something far more terrible awaits us.”

Debunking the great military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, Van Creveld, who may be the most original thinker on war since that early-nineteenth-century Prussian, writes, “Clausewitz’s ideas… the period of the “threefold division into government, army, and people” which state-directed wars enforce is ending. Now, political, social, economic, and religious motives were hopelessly entangled and the new armies consist of mercenaries, all were also attended by swarms of military entrepreneurs (who buy guns for the herdsmen, for example). They robbed the countryside on their own behalf”… like the herdsmen and bandits or kidnappers

David Kaplan’s article appeared in 1994. Martin van Crevid wrote even before that, but the Nigerian military was unprepared when Boko Haram or Zamfara Bandits appeared decades later.

The most important of life’s battles is the one we fight daily in the silent chambers of the soul—David O. McKay

Following the death in March 2017 of a medical doctor who jumped headlong into the lagoon off Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, I argued on this page that because some wounds can easily be covered up, we do not always know what people around us are going through or what action they might take when pushed to the edge. I used a two-minute Youtube clip titled ‘Silent Battles’ to illustrate my point in a piece titled ‘The Silent Battles of Life’. Recent developments in our country indicate that many of our citizens do indeed need help without knowing where to turn. That makes them susceptible to depression, a state that has been described as being surrounded by a thousand people yet feeling completely alone.

A 25-year-old graduate of Madonna University returned home from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme to stab himself to death, following signs of depression which his parents noticed and actually did all they could to help. A night guard at the Ekiti state scholarship board hanged himself with clothing material tied to the railing of a building at the ministry of education, after telling his sister-in-law that he was tired of life. A middle-aged man walked into the premises of Wema Bank in the Sango area of Ibadan, stripped naked, climbed the network mast and jumped to his death. A 400-level student of the Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (UNN) posted a revealing suicide note on his Facebook wall and then drank two bottles of ‘Sniper’ to end it all. Faced with the prospect of being withdrawn from the Niger Delta University, a medical student plunged into a river in Ammasoma, Bayelsa State.

From failing examinations to being dumped by a lover to desperation resulting from the biting economic situation or health complications and peer pressure, far too many Nigerians are reaching their breaking point and taking their own lives through various means. Although there is really no credible data with which we can ascertain the magnitude of the problem, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put the number of suicide cases in Rivers state in 2017 at 105 with attempted cases at 112. If we extrapolate that for the entire country, we will be looking at very high suicide rates. And if there is anything that recent tragedies have taught, it is that there are many otherwise normal people who nurse a feeling of emptiness and despair that could in turn trigger what is almost becoming an epidemic in our country.

More worrisome is that there is now a body of research that suicide can indeed be contagious with the reported death of one person contributing to such decision by others. In her thesis on this issue, Dr Madelyn Gould puts the blame partly on the media. Even in our country, you see in some publications distasteful photographs of victims dangling on the rope. “Media coverage of suicides has been shown to significantly increase the rate of suicide, and the magnitude of the increase is related to the amount, duration, and prominence of coverage”, said Gould.

Suicide of course is not peculiar to Nigeria. It is a global challenge. In the last 45 years, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), suicide rates have increased by 60 percent globally and now a leading cause of death among young people–the group at highest risk in a third of all countries. In the US, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the third leading cause of death among people between the age of 15 and 24 while, going by WHO estimates, nearly 30 percent of all suicides worldwide occur in India and China.


In South Korea, Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, suicide is also the leading cause of death among young people. In fact, a recent government report says that more Japanese children and teenagers killed themselves between 2016 and 2017 than in any year since 1986. “We’d love to eliminate such tragedies altogether, but the reality is several hundred children are taking their lives (each year),” an education ministry official reportedly said. “It’s important to teach children how to get help as soon as possible … because it becomes harder and harder to find help once they’re already suffering. The light at the end of the tunnel gets darker and darker until they begin to start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as death.”

While other societies recognise the problem and are designing solutions to deal with it, the online debate as to whether or not to ban ‘Sniper’, a pesticide that has become the main weapon by which many now terminate their lives, appears our only response. In as much as I have nothing against such a proposition, it will take more than banning ‘Sniper’ to reduce suicides in our country. The president of the association of psychiatrists of Nigeria, Dr Taiwo Sheikh, recently put the number of psychiatrists in Nigeria at about 250. “We are training psychiatrists, both at the West African College of Physicians and the National Postgraduate Medical College, but three out of every five psychiatrists we produce leave the country for greener pastures. One major thing that is eating the field of mental health is brain drain”, he told PUNCH newspaper which did a detailed report on suicide cases in Nigeria.

The implication is that even for those who want to seek help, there may be nowhere to go in a nation that has ‘surplus doctors’. But it is also reassuring that many Nigerians are now speaking out on how those going through any form of stress, personal losses, heartbreak, frustration, grief or experiencing depression can be helped. On Monday, the publisher of Genevieve magazine and a newspaper columnist of repute, Mrs Betty Irabor, used Twitter to share both her personal story and a warning. “Don’t label or judge what you do not understand. If you haven’t walked in a man’s or woman’s shoes you cannot make assumptions about what they do or why they do it. At the time I attempted suicide, I was sick and in pain. There was a volcano somewhere inside of me that needed to erupt and suicide seemed like an option to avoid the eruption. Don’t trivialize anyone’s pain just because it’s not physical and you cannot see it,” she wrote.

What the intervention by Mrs Irabor reveals is that like other societies, we need an urgent national conversation on mental ill-health which might be more prevalent than we imagine because the system makes it difficult for people to even acknowledge they have such challenges to avoid stigmatization. The most famous psychiatric hospital in the country is in Aro, Abeokuta, Ogun State. Yet, ‘Aro’ or ‘Aromental’ has for decades been the name with which we tag anybody who may have issues that ordinarily deserve a duty of care. Also because there is no support system, many cannot optimize their potentials. So, beyond counting the body-bags of suicide victims, we need to de-stigmatize the challenge of mental ill-health.

In October 2015, the ‘New York Times’ published a lengthy feature story titled, ‘The Chains of Mental Illness in West Africa’ which speaks to how countries within the sub-region, including Nigeria, maltreat people with mental ill-health. We see it on the streets of major cities in Nigeria where people who ordinarily should be helped are paraded in chains. “Every society struggles to care for people with mental illness. In parts of West Africa, where psychiatry is virtually unknown, the chain is often a last resort for desperate families who cannot control a loved one in the grip of psychosis. Religious retreats, known as prayer camps, set up makeshift psychiatric wards, usually with prayer as the only intervention,” wrote New York Times in the report which also revealed that “at last count, Liberia had just one practicing psychiatrist. Niger had three, Togo four and Benin seven. Sierra Leone had none.”

The report also stated: “Surveys, like one by psychiatrists at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, put the prevalence of schizophrenia, characterized by hallucinations and delusions, at 0.5 to 2.5 percent, roughly the same as the global prevalence. That is at least a million people in countries where chaining is common, like Togo, Ghana and Nigeria.”

In contrast to how we deal with mental ill-health, especially in Nigeria, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) last Sunday aired a special programme titled, ‘A Royal Team Talk: Tackling Mental Health’ in which the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Williams had a roundtable discussion on a football field with Thierry Henry, Gareth Southgate, Danny Rose, Jermaine Jenas and Peter Crouch on depression and suicide. “Men are the hardest-to-reach audience on the subject of mental health. Suicide is the biggest killer of young men under the age of 45”, said Prince Williams who also shared his own harrowing experience following the death of his mother, Princess Diana, which he described as a “pain like no other pain”.

Meanwhile, I commend Mrs Irabor for using her Star Power to help on an issue in which the society is not only failing but becoming part of the problem. If there is any lesson from recent tragedies, it is that we should be sensitive in how we respond to the plights of others, even in the social media. Although the concern of Dr Robert Brandt was more about professional colleagues in the field of medicine in his piece, “Silent Battles that cannot be Won Alone”, his admonition is nonetheless useful for us all: “I know from multiple friends who have been in that dark place that healing often starts with finding a person who will listen to them. Spouting advice and saying ‘just get over it’ cures nothing. Be kind and listen, truly listen. It can be the start of the healing process.”

The Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) and other similar non-profit organisations can be found online, raising awareness on mental health issues in our country and how people can be helped. But sometimes the choice as to whether to carry on or give up is ours to make. In the difficult times in which we live, it is easy to yield to some dark inner pressure when confronted with problems for which we have no immediate solution. In such moments, we must always remember that life, as one writer aptly captured it, is not about waiting for the storm to pass, “it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”


https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/05/23/of-suicides-and-the-sniper-debate/?amp

By Ben Murray-Bruce

Anyone thinking they can stop the rise of electric cars by ignoring it or wishing it away is burying his or her head in the sand like an ostrich and hoping that others do not see them.‬

Electric cars are the future. There is no stopping them. It is not enough to be up to date in this game. We have to be up to tomorrow. The era of the internal combustion engine is gone. And it is now a case of if you can’t beat them, join them, because the only way we can beat them is by immediate local production and exportation to the world of petrol cars that are cheaper in the long run and more environmentally friendly than electric cars.

I do not see that happening. So we are left with only one viable option, which is to join the world as it transits from petrol cars to electric cars.

Take Germany as an example. Germany has gone beyond just electric cars. They now have an electric freeway where cars are charged while driving, without needing to stop.

People think I am disappointed that the Senate killed my Electric Car Bill. I am not disappointed as much as I am flabbergasted. You can’t stop the future! And let me tell you, electric cars are the future.

The reality in the world today is that electric cars are outselling regular cars. This will continue until those countries that depend on regular internal combustion cars will be isolated. They will be like people who are still using video cassette recorders in a world of streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu and amazon prime.

Yet, Nigeria refuses to plan for this inevitability on the pretext that we are an oil producing nation. Norway is an oil producing country. Norway produces 2% of the world’s crude oil and 25% of the EU’s LNG Gas. But beyond oil, Norway is also a sensible nation with sensible leaders.

That is why Norway has set a deadline to ban the sale of regular petrol powered cars by 2025. That is why in March 2019, Norway became the first nation on earth were sales of electric cars have overtaken sales of petrol cars. 58% of all cars sold in Norway are electric cars. Who wants to buy something that will be obsolete in 10 years?

Electric cars are the future. Any nation that refuses to see that will be stuck in the past. It is a failure of leadership to shield yourself from the future. Yesterday has no letter O in it because there is no opportunity in the past. Tomorrow has three letters Os because it is pregnant with opportunity.

As the great Physicist and scholar, William G. Pollard said, “the arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.”

Nigeria is preparing for yesterday when we should be preparing for today.

2019 is a pivotal year for the electric car industry, not only because it is the first time ever, electric cars are outselling the internal combustion engine cars, also known as gas or petrol powered cars, but because it is the year when other continents outside Europe and North America are accepting this new reality.

The Automobile industry is already taking steps to wean itself off fossil fuels with Volvo, Peugeot, Saab and announcing announced plans to stop the production of petrol and diesel cars.

I warned about this for years. I tried to encourage the Nigerian government to see the future by driving in an electric powered Kia car on national TV and encouraging the government to promulgate policies to prepare Nigeria for a world without oil.‬

I was not doing this for my benefit. I was doing this for Nigeria’s benefit. This nation is spending more money paying fuel subsidies than on education and infrastructure combined. Yet, we are rejecting electric cars! We are just like a drug addict. Fuel subsidy is our drug. And those behind it will fight anyone trying to stop their drug supply.

With electric cars, Nigeria will free up resources for desperately needed social intervention. Fuel subsidies will be a thing of the past. We can spend the money on free education instead. We can use the money we are currently spending on fuel subsidies to provide free healthcare.

What is more, adopting electric cars will finally force us to fix our power infrastructure which will itself have multiplier effects for our economy because it will provide power, which is the lifeblood for a modern economy. Honestly, I am surprised that my colleagues in the Senate and the Executive branch have not seen this potential.

Water we do not want to become is a dumping ground for petrol powered cars, which we will soon become if cars is not taken.

I have suggested all these privately and publicly before, but those at the helm were not prepared to be forward thinking. They felt that this day would never come.

Now it is finally happening. Oil is a relic of the past. Nigeria cannot rely on it. We must start investing in our people as we once invested in oil or not only will we be a debtor nation, we will also become a beggar country.

Our population is growing faster than our economy, and with this new revelation about the automobile industry, it is only going to be worse if we do not act now.

I look at the 2019 budget for education and it is not even close to what we are spending on fuel subsidy, not to talk of what we are spending on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

We are even spending more money prospecting for oil in Northern Nigeria at a time when the world is phasing out crude oil. Venezuela, the country with the largest crude oil reserves in the world, is bankrupt! Oil cannot save Nigeria. Let Nigeria prospect for knowledge by investing that money on educating Northerners.

We must start subsiding education instead of petrol.

And we must make a shift from investing in oil to investing in gas. Liquified Natural Gas has a future. Crude oil does not.

Which is why I advise the federal government to do Two things.

One, increase the budgetary allocation to education and make our curricular targeted at graduating job creators rather than job seekers.

Two, the federal government should complete the final investment decision on the Brass LNG in Bayelsa so that our future income from LNG from Brass will replace what we shall be losing from crude oil.

Let us remember that a prudent man sees the future coming and prepares for it, but an unwise man carries on as if the present will continue forever.

The future is not something we just await until it comes and then we adjust to it. No. No. No! The future is something that we must anticipate and prepare for. In fact, some people no longer anticipate and prepare for the future. They now create it. By creating inexpensive electric cars, the West has ultimately killed petrol cars.

Nigeria is holding on to a corpse and we think we have a living breathing baby. We need to wake up and smell the coffee or the joke will be on us when we are stuck in a 19th century paradigm in a world that is in the 21st Century.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”. Let us prepare now by passing appropriate legalisation to prepare Nigeria for the coming world of electric cars. That is my admonition to the incoming ninth National Assembly. A word is enough for the wise.

Ben Murray-Bruce is the founder of the Silverbird Group.

TUESDAY WITH REUBENA BATI abati1990@gmail.com

In the lead up to the May 29, 2019 Inauguration Day, after the general elections in Nigeria – the end of a four-year term (2015 – 2019) and the beginning of another cycle of four years – as constitutionally prescribed -certain notable developments have occurred in the last few days, involving places, events and personalities which require a quick review, lest they are overtaken by time or sheer serendipity.

I begin with the report that Aisha Buhari, the First Lady of Nigeria, the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari has come out openly to tell Nigerians that the Social Investment Programme (SIP) initiated by her husband’s administration is nothing but a scam. I have watched the video that is available online, and I am not aware that the First Lady of Nigeria has denied making the statements attributed to her. In summary, she raised questions about the management of the N500 billion set aside for the administration’s much-touted Social Investment Programme (SIP), which indeed the Buhari administration promoted as one of the flagship initiatives under the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) designed to bring government closer to the people, and to alleviate poverty.
Anchored majorly by the Office of the Vice President, the Buhari administration made a song and dance out of what is called TraderMoni and School Feeding Programme. We have seen Vice President Yemi Osinbajo talking about loans and grants of N10, 000 for owners of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. We have also seen him in photos and videos, from one school to the other, eating from plates with young Nigerian students. The optics is good, the messaging strategy is smart: a humble Vice President, a government that cares and a government that helps the poor. Nigeria’s largest opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of course cried foul, alleging that the entire SIP package was a vote-buying scheme and that TraderMoni in particular amounted to illegal, extra-budgetary spending. The PDP was asked to shut up by the Buhari propaganda machinery.

However, if the PDP’s catcalls about the Social Investment Programme could be dismissed as partisan, Mrs. Aisha Buhari’s latest outburst cannot be so dismissed. At an interactive session with Nigerian women ahead of May 29, Mrs Buhari pointed out that she has never asked how the money is being used (Madam, that is not your call!). She then added: “I do not want to raise the alarm that my state does not benefit from it …” – (and that is Adamawa State), the state of the SGF and the wife of the President. We may well say that the First lady should not worry so much about her personal interest. But she is a Nigerian isn’t she? We all know the sentiments: “My husband will approve N500 billion for a project and my state, Adamawa will not benefit from it?” She then quickly corrected herself: “Maybe it worked in some states…In my own state, only a local government benefitted out of the 22. I didn’t ask what happened and I don’t want to know but it failed woefully in Kano, it’s not a good sign and it’s not a good thing…Most Northern women are not benefitting from it.”

At this point in the video posted on YouTube by Channels TV, the narrative gets even more interesting. Mrs Buhari says the method adopted in the South may not be the best suitable method for the North “because most Northern women do not belong to market associations”. She talked about the need to use a different method in the North but apparently her advice was ignored. She said: ‘the method may differ in the North, and to use different methods…Most of the Northern states did not get the money.”

The First Lady would also go on to complain about a certain $16 million approved for the purchase of mosquito nets. She is not too sure that the money has been properly spent. “I have heard about mosquito nets. Nigeria paid its counterpart fund, $16m. I asked them to give my own share of the net to send to my village people. I didn’t get it. They have spent $16m on buying mosquito nets. I did not get it, maybe some people have gotten it…”

These allegations and revelations by the wife of the President of Nigeria are serious indeed and should not be swept under the carpet. She is practically accusing the Vice President’s office of wrong-doing. Because funds are involved, the allegations are damning. She is not just defending the interest of her state and the entire North, the video even showed her calling up potential witnesses: “How many of you get it in your state? My state did not get it.?.” Coming shortly after the 2019 Presidential election, the wife of the President openly pointing accusing fingers at the Vice President’s office is an open indication that something may have gone wrong in Aso Rock. There may well be an on-going battle within the Presidency, the nature and depth of which we may not yet know. Coming to the surface, more or less on the eve of the Inauguration of President Buhari’s second term, we may be permitted to say that something is fishy.

This is a perfectly reasonable deduction considering the fact that Mrs. Aisha Buhari has a reputation for speaking her mind no matter whose ox is gored. Just before she threw the bombshell about the SIP and mosquito nets, she also reportedly posted a Julius Malema (EFF leader, South Africa) video on twitter warning about the menace of “bad advisers”, which has been interpreted to mean that her husband, President Buhari should stay away from bad advisers and those who turn Presidents into “prisoners.” Before now, she had complained that her husband’s government had been hijacked by “a few persons”. She and her daughter, also once protested publicly about the mismanagement of the State House Clinic. I wrote once in the face of all that, about what I thought was an unusual development: the spectacle of a wife of the President as a whistle-blower.

I suggested that Mrs Buhari was breaking every known norm and convention about the position she occupies. Before her, every Nigerian First lady either supported their husbands (Victoria Aguiyi-Ironsi, Victoria Gowon, Ajoke Muhammed, Stella Obasanjo, Maryam Babangida, Maryam Abacha, Turai Yar’Adua, Patience Jonathan), or they were unknown (Tafawa Balewa’s wife, Shagari’s wife) or they just faced their own careers (Chief Shonekan’s wife, Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar’s wife). I argued further that the doctrine of the unity of spouse requires Mrs Buhari to support the President at all times. As I see it, today, however, Mrs. Aisha Buhari falls into the category of Presidential wives who are interested in power and are determined to get involved. She once threatened that if her husband went beyond a first term in office, she would not campaign for him. She ate her words on that score. She campaigned for him. She clearly loves power and the glamour of it, and she clearly wants more. Where is Chinweizu, please? Anatomy of female power?

President Buhari once told Chancellor Angela Merkel (of Germany, not West Germany!!!), in a historic faux pas, that his wife’s place, that is Aisha Buhari’s place, is in the “sitting room, the kitchen and the other room”. Aisha Buhari is making it clear that she is nobody’s slave. She is showing a determination to assert her stake in the Nigerian power game. She is up against “bad advisers” and those who mismanage resources. Will she prepare a petition against those who have mismanaged the SIP and the mosquito nets? Or is she just sending a signal that this time around, this second term of her husband’s Presidency, she is not prepared to take nonsense from anybody, including the Vice President’s office? It will be useful to watch “the other room” politics of Aso Rock closely beginning from tomorrow. It was, partly, yes, partly, the battle of the wives and of “the other room” that catalyzed the crisis of the Western region in the 60s, but that is beyond the purview of this present commentary.

What we know is that the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Social Investment, Mrs Maryam Uwais, who is directly in charge of the SIP, has replied Mrs Buhari. I was amused watching Mrs Uwais saying “…if she were to check on our data…” Imagine that tone. A Senior Special Assistant to the President working with the Vice President publicly dismissing the wife of the President as uninformed and ignorant. She then delivered the killer-punch – out of the 4.2 million Adamawa state indigenes, 290, 000 – 300, 000 beneficiaries from 12 Local Government Areas have benefitted from loans and cash transfers under the SIP. Maryam Uwais didn’t pull the punches. But what the heck? She is a successful lawyer and a well-known social activist, and the wife of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria. She sounds like: “Aisha, what the hell are you talking about? What do you know about SIP? And mosquito nets? What do you know? Because you are Buhari’s wife?”

I don’t want to get into the battle of the women of Aso Rock under President Buhari, his wife who is probably for all we know reporting pillow talk, Mrs Uwais who is probably speaking as a proxy for the Osinbajos and Mrs Osinbajo who would not dare raise her voice because she doesn’t want trouble for her husband. But I am amused that a staff of the President would have the audacity to challenge the President’s wife and accuse her of ignorance. No staff, I repeat, no staff, could ever have tried that with some of Mrs Buhari’s predecessors. By now, Mrs Uwais’s Villa pass would have been withdrawn with strict instructions that she must never be seen anywhere near the perimeter fence of that seat of power. There would also have been drama “in the other room” to remind the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of where real and sustainable power lies in Nigeria.

This columnist respects other people’s privacy, so in keeping with that principle, let me not thrust my pen into the President’s other room, but I am of the firm belief that we have not yet seen the end of Aisha Buhari’s politics. We intend to take her seriously as she issues commands and comments. She says: “Can you please monitor the money? The Ministers are going very soon and the money is being released” (money for the anti-drug committee and treatment of trauma cases). She also wants the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to refund money to female aspirants who bought nomination forms for the 2019 elections. Hello oh: Aisha-Buhari-is-not-joking!

As the President takes the oath of office on May 29, 2019, we can be certain to see her by his side keeping an eye on him and the future. The Nigerian Constitution does not recognize the wives of elected persons but our constitutional democracy does not consider being married a crime either. In a sense, May 29 is a special day for the families of those who will be taking the oath of office tomorrow. I was at an event on Monday where I introduced myself as a failed Deputy Governorship candidate. Every one laughed but I knew what I was saying. If our party had won, I would have been somewhere in my state double-checking clothes and attending to visitors and well-wishers, preparing to wear the best smile for D-Day. Someone suggested, in consolation, that in Nigeria, losing an election is a good item for the CV, and that a day may well come when defeated political aspirants may be given chieftaincy titles and national honours. I believe: Anything is possible in Nigeria! So whatever may be the difficult situation in which we have found ourselves, we should congratulate all the persons who will be sworn in tomorrow as Governors and Deputy Governors across the country, and that includes Zamfara State where power has descended on candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) like manna from Heaven at the eleventh hour, courtesy of the apex court and the G8-APC.

Tomorrow is a day for winners. It is also a day for losers. Many who have lost power and influence, whose parties have been asked to leave, those who have literally come to the end of the road because they lost, would be very lonely indeed. I have been through that path before. In 2015, immediately after power was won and lost, Aso Villa became ghost town. Those who used to hustle to see the President kept their distance. We watched painfully as power slipped and influence ebbed away. I ran into one of those businessmen who used to hang around the Villa and asked him if he was going to see the President. He told me he was not there to see…which President? I was terrified. “My brother, wake up”, he told me, “I am a businessman. We businessmen don’t have friends. I come here to do business. If your oga can give power away, he is on his own. We will do business with the next man.” Indeed, that was exactly what happened. Many of the people who would book private jets to Abuja tomorrow to celebrate with the Buharis will be there, not because they like President Buhari, but because they are just doing business. If Vice President Atiku Abubakar had won, the same persons will be there too, grinning for ear to ear, breaking fast, doing business. The story will be the same in the states. Everyone, doing business, with the people’s lives.

Those who can tell how it is are the losers whose phones by now would have stopped ringing. Once you lose power in Nigeria, you become very lonely. The bell at your doorstep will go silent. Mrs. Aisha Buhari, complaining about the Social Investment Programme and the cost of mosquito nets is probably not as ignorant as we have been told. She probably knows that everyone around her husband just wants to do business. That is the sad part of the Nigerian story.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/05/28/aisha-buharis-politics-and-may-29-blues/?amp

If Nigeria were to survive the ticking time bomb of the rigged 2019 presidential election, one of the prerequisites would be that there cannot be a Yoruba president in the country for at least another 20 years. Otherwise, we would be further stoking the flames of disintegration. The Yoruba have provided the president in 8 of the last 20 years. They have also held the vice-presidency for another 4 years. That will do for the next 20 years.

Our country is the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not Oduduwa Republic of Nigeria. Neither is it the Federal Republic of the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba. Nigeria is bigger than the North-west and the South-west, no matter what the bogus population figures used for elections in these geopolitical regions indicate. Therefore, the choice of president cannot be reduced to a ding-dong between them.

Ethnic jingoism

During the 2019 election campaign, Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo tried to seduce Yoruba votes for Buhari on the promise that their vote for him would be rewarded with the presidency in 2023. Since the election, a bogus group calling itself the Afenifere Renewal Group has also come out to say the Yoruba will produce the next president in 2023.

We have also witnessed already a lot of jockeying by self-styled Yoruba presidents-in-waiting for strategic positioning vis-à-vis the 2023 presidential election.

This is the height of deceit and irresponsibility.

What, if I may ask, did the Yoruba man-in-the-street get for having Obasanjo as president for 8 years? The answer is nothing: Zilch! Nada! Niente!

The people who are already projecting a Yoruba president in Nigeria for 2023 are charlatans. They are up to no good and only hankering after juicy appointments for themselves or their godfathers, the better to rob the country blind. Believe me, they could not care less about the Yoruba.

Ask the Almajiri in the North what they have benefitted from the last 4 years of Buhari’s presidency. If they are sincere, they will tell you it is also zilch, nada, niente!

Moreover, I don’t remember Nigeria passing a constitutional amendment now zoning the presidency exclusively to the North-west and the South-west. These irresponsible people don’t mean Nigeria well. Their ethnic jingoism, greed and selfishness is part of what is killing Nigeria today.

Turn of Ndigbo

The democratic experiment has been ongoing now in this fourth republic in Nigeria for 20 years since 1999. In that period, the Yoruba have provided the president for 8 years and the vice-president for 4 years. In the unlikely event that the doctored results of the 2019 election are confirmed by the courts, by 2023, a Yoruba vice-president would have been in power for 8 years.

Therefore, it is preposterous to still insist that the same Yoruba should simply transition from vice-president to president in 2023. What then is to happen to the other ethnic groups in Southern Nigeria? When did they become consigned to be only the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Yoruba?

The Igbo, one of the three major tribes in Nigeria, have provided neither president nor vice-president in the Fourth Republic. An Igbo man has only ever been head of state in Nigeria for merely six months, after which he was assassinated with extreme prejudice. Nigeria then fought a civil war for 3 years during which the Igbo made an unsuccessful attempt to secede. In that calamity, over a million Igbo were slaughtered and killed.

Accordingly, even the blind must know that it is in the interest of national unity and cohesion for the presidency to go to the Igbo in 2023, after a denial of over 50 years. In the intervening period, the other two major ethnic groups of the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba have had their share.

If federal character is an indelible principle of the Nigerian Constitution, that principle must also find expression at the presidential level. If it does not, it is tantamount to consigning the Igbo to the status of second-class

That is why the statements already making the rounds about a Yoruba president in 2023 needs to be stopped immediately before even the mere expression does irreparable damage to the fragile Nigerian psyche.

Rotational presidency

There is an unwritten understanding in this fourth Nigerian republic that the presidency should rotate between North and South. We started with Obasanjo, a Yoruba man from the South in 1999. That election was a straight contest between two Yoruba candidates; Obasanjo and Olu Falae. Obasanjo won that election and was president for 8 years.

Thereafter, it was the turn of the North and the 2007 election was essentially a Northern affair. Yar’adua ran primarily against Buhari and Atiku. He won but, unfortunately, he died in office after barely 2 years. Goodluck Jonathan, his vice-president, then became president. However, he was from the South, so there was hue and cry in the North that he had usurped the Northern slot deemed to be for 8 years.

Jonathan served for two years and was elected for another four years. Thereafter, the North cried enough and Buhari was elected to replace him.

The just-concluded 2019 election was also essentially a contest between two Northerners from the two major parties of the APC and the PDP: Buhari and Atiku. Whatever the conclusion of the tribunal about the fraudulent nature of that election, a Northerner would nevertheless have served as president for 8 years by 2023.

This means it will be the turn of a Southerner to be president again in 2023. That Southerner must, without controversy, be an Igbo man. Any right-thinking Nigerian must see that it is not only high time for this to happen, it is essential for our national integration. It will also signal to all intents and purposes that, after 50 years, the civil war is finally truly over.

So this is my reasoning. Before it can be the turn of a Yoruba man again, 20 years should elapse. This is the breakdown: 2015-2023: Northern president. 2023-2031: Igbo president. 2031-2038: Northern president. That is 20 years before you can get another Yoruba president from the South.

Even then, there is no guarantee that the 2038 president should be a Yoruba man. There are other tribes in the South that can also come into contention in that year. So, in the interest of national unity, 2023 is out of the question for the Yoruba.

Party of enemies

Even though we have yet to completely settle the matter of the 2019 presidency, the struggle for 2023 is already tearing the APC apart. The party is not and has never been cohesive. It is a collection of strange bedfellows who came together for the sole purpose of wresting the presidency from the PDP in 2015. Having done that, the party has been undergoing internal combustion; with its members have been at daggers-drawn ever since.

The only glue still holding APC together is the fact that the current president is from the party. Once Buhari goes, whether now or in 2023, that would be the end of APC. Already, the nPDP component of Atiku, Saraki and Tambuwaal have returned to the PDP. The ACN component, under the leadership of Bola Tinubu, is now at loggerheads with the North-west redoubt, now spearheaded by Nasir el-Rufai.

Everybody knows that the fight for speaker and president of the Senate is a fight for the soul of the APC with an eye to 2023. But the Yoruba are using the excuse that the Igbo did not vote for Buhari and the APC in 2019 to lay claim for the presidency again in 2023. The assumption, of course, is that whoever secures the APC presidential ticket in 2023 is a shoo-in for the presidency, after all, the election can always be rigged again as it was in 2019.

As a matter of fact, the Tinubu-led Yoruba faction in the APC is not only insisting on the 2023 presidency, it is also laying claim now to the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2019. This greed is so way out of control that Tinubu’s wife in the Senate also has her eyes firmly trained on the post of the Deputy Senate President.

The long and short of this inordinate ethnic monopolistic ambitions is the belief in some quarters that, because of current APC political supremacy, which is actally the result of outright fraud, Nigeria now belongs to the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba and no one else. The rest of the people in the country are simply their political subalterns or houseboys. They are only useful at presidential election time to make up the number. Thereafter, they go off the political radar.

The question needs to be asked: are the Igbo Nigerians or are they not? If the answer is yes, as it must be, then we need to ask further: are the Igbo never to be president in Nigeria? 2023 is the year to answer this question once and for all. It is the year when it is so obviously the turn of Ndigbo. The Hausa-Fulani have had more than their fair share. The Yoruba have had their turn. Ditto for the Niger Delta. What excuse then can there be for denying the Igbo their turn in 2023? Only nonsensical and self-serving ones

Death of the godfathers

Those who insist there is some agreement between Buhari and Tinubu that will propel Tinubu to the presidency in 2023 must be dreaming. Just ask El-Rufai. He will tell you Nigerians will never accept Tinubu as national godfather or president. The template he has used to hold Lagos to ransom cannot be duplicated elsewhere, not even in the South-west.

Tinubu could only hold on to Lagos for Buhari in 2019 by mobilising bullion vans. APC resorted to bribing voters with trailers filled with rice and garri, snatching ballot boxes in Igbo-dominated areas and suppressing opposition votes. If Tinubu can no longer hold the South-west without these shenanigans, he does not have a hope in hell in the rest of Nigeria come 2023.

The riggers of the 2019 election not only rigged out Atiku; they also rigged out the Southern politicians in the APC. They made sure Osinbajo lost his polling unit in Lagos. They ensured Fashola lost his local government. They double-dealed Akpabio by not rigging the election in his favour in Akwa Ibom. They buried Adams Oshiomhole in Edo. They refused to give a certificate of return to Okorocha in Imo. They could not help Rotimi Amaechi secure Rivers for the APC.

In effect, all the APC iroko trees in the South have been cut down. They no longer have to be seriously reckoned with.

http://www.femiaribisala.com/no-yoruba-president-in-nigeria-for-another-20-years/

brenister10:
Coward die many times before their actual death. Your statement just show that you are a coward. If he believes in what he stands for, posterity will remember him for good

You are rude!

Bad.


That guy was plain daft.

It's not every time "you see something that you must say something ".

While whistle blowing on the opposition is welcomed, doing such on members of the ruling party may land you in "hot soup" even if you back it up with VAR evidence.

Congrats!!

Madam "reverse pilot cowgirl"

School her please!

I commend your courage in using such a formidable medium to clear her "miss yarn".

Maryam Uwais has "got no chill"

That's what happens when hypertension meets frustration.

A cerebrovascular accident

This is Nigeria........ Falz

I'm happy that they could spare some time to celebrate the children and put smiles on their faces inspite of the harsh reality of living in such environment.

Nigerians are innately a happy Lot but have consistently been let down by the leaders they are cajoled to elect over them.

Since the government has distance itself from them by way of development, they have decided to make good a bad situation in celebrating this auspicious holiday.

Kudos!!!

Are these miscreants also Muslims?