₦airaland Forum

naptu2: There's something missing in the article above & that's the voice of the people that were returned (note: returned, not deported). It also seems that people do not know the details of the Lagos State policy. Nobody is deported (that would be unconstitutional), rather, people are returned (which is constitutional and within the laws of Lagos State).

I'll be back with a description of the process that leads to someone being returned.

naptu2: I'm going to recount from memory because I'm on the move at the moment, but I'll try to get articles, etc when I get to a place of rest. The sources for my memory are newspaper articles, documentaries of Lagos Television, news reports and even nairaland.

[size=14pt]The Process[/size]

1)The environmental laws of Lagos State (laws against street trading, begging, etc) have been in place at least since the 1970s (probably earlier). They've been reviewed quite a number of times (Akhigbe, Rasaki, Tinubu).

2) The process was fully established by the Tinubu Administration.

3) Beggars, street traders, destitutes, area boys, psychotics, etc are arrested by the Task Force on Environmental Offences.

4) They are given a choice: (a) go to prison (b) go to rehabilitation centre (c) return to your state of origin.

A) The law stipulates punishment for those who commit these offences. They include prison term, fine, forfeiture of goods.

B) Rehabilitation centres were set up (the most famous/infamous was at Ita-Oko Island). At the centres the inmates are sorted. They are tested for drugs. Those who are drug addicts are detoxified. Those who have mental illnesses are sent to the asylum. The inmates (apart from the lunatics) are then taught skills (skills acquisition centre) so that they'll be able to earn a living. When they complete the course, they are given a loan with which they will start a business and made to sign an undertaking that they will not return to the streets.

C) Return: Those who choose to return are transported to their state of origin. The state government is usually informed ahead of time (although I know of 3 instances in which their state governments claimed that they were not informed) so that they can make arrangements to cater for the people. Most of the people who have chosen to return are from the northern part of the country (note: they chose to return).

[size=14pt]Press Releases



Feb 1, 2005 - LASG Completes N110 Million Ita-Oko Rehabilitation Centre[/size]

As part of efforts to offer comprehensive rehabilitation for social miscreants and youths in the state, the Lagos State Government has completed works on the Rehabilitation and Skills Acquisition Centre located at Tekunle Island (Ita Oko) near Ise along the Lekki Peninsula.


The 4200 square metre centre, has facilities for training residents in fabrication, carpentry weaving, an agriculture component (involving snailry, poultry and fish production), detoxification centre, clinic, and residence for 200 along with a staff quarter and helipad.


Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who along with his cabinet visited the centre yesterday noted that by the second quarter of the year it would have become operational once the new tools had been fully installed.


He said the pilot phase of the rehabilitation programme will exclude females and will be based on offering the youths a n opportunity for change.


Sounding a note of warning that government's gesture if shunned by "area boys" will lead to dire consequences, Asiwaju Tinubu declared "anyone who refuses this good gesture and our goodwill to offer him/her a new life must be ready to leave Lagos".


According to him, the six months period of residence will not only lead to a complete rehabilitation but also lead to the internationally recognized trade test certificate.


The Governor also said the administration had envisioned a two pronged plan for rehabilitation after graduation either to become self-employed with a financial bank or employable.


He further said his administration plans to have other centres at appropriate areas in the state adding that government will continue to dialogue with miscreants and offer them the goodwill to change.


In a report presented by the Commissioner for Works, Engr. Rauf Aregbesola said about N110 million had been expended by the government in both phases of the rehabilitation of the centre.


According to him, the centre had been established as a slave post but was rehabilitated as a detention camp by the military government in 1985 with such facilities as 12 wooden dormitories, dwarf walls, steel poles and sand screeded floor.


While also stating that the project will be fully delivered by mid-March, Aregbesola urged that the necessary deployments by the Ministry of Youths, Sports and Social Development should be concluded.


Earlier while conducting the Executive Council round the agriculture component Dr. Jide Basorun, Director of Agric. Services disclosed that the facilities have capacity to sustain the centre through the production offish, poultry products and snailry.


According to him with a 1000 layer bird poultry, 2000 fish capacity aquaculture and 1000 capacity snailry, the centre can not only expand but has the yield to make the centre self sustaining.

naptu2: I didn't post the link to the source of that article, but I'll tell you the source. It is taken from Bola Tinubu's website.

naptu2: Now, for a bit of balance, a more critical article. Written by Reuben Abati, the article provides a lot more information (including figures of people returned, etc)

naptu2: Before we go on, why is there so much emphasis on "Fashola"? These laws were inherited from previous administrations. The Tinubu administration also returned destitutes, etc and this action is being taken by the Lagos State Government (Ministry of Social Welfare).

[size=14pt]The beggars' opera in Lagos[/size]

⁠0 Comments

IT is difficult to believe the statement allegedly made by the Special Adviser on Youth, Sports and Social Development, Dolapo Badru, to the effect that there is a law in Lagos state which makes the giving of alms to beggars anywhere in the state, an offence punishable by two years imprisonment without an option of fine.

He said: "Lagos state frowns on giving alms to beggars. It is punishable under the law and you can get up to two years imprisonment for giving money to beggars. We have places where such money can be put to good use. The government is committed to best practices in social care." The places under reference we are told are "churches, mosques, registered orphanages, motherless babies homes or social welfare institutions." The law and the determination to enforce it, is obviously an expression of government's frustration with the growing population of beggars in Lagos.

In the past few years, successive administrations in the state have adopted a number of measures to check the menace of beggars including the establishment of rehabilitation and vocational centres (to provide shelter and skills acquisition opportunities for the destitute), the deportation of beggars from other states of Nigeria to their states of origin, and the demonisation of begging as a way of life. But none of these measures has worked. Lagos is perhaps the only state and city in Nigeria whose population increases on a daily basis in an exponential manner. There is hardly any Nigerian that does not have a relation, close or distant in Lagos, and there is arguably no community in Nigeria that does not have some of its people in parts of Lagos including beggars!

Beggars flock to the city every day, and like others, they have no intention of leaving. Even when they are arrested by the state authorities and shipped back to their states of origin, they still manage to return. Lagos in the popular imagination is the Nigerian city where anyone and everyone can make a quick buck. Since 2007, the Fashola administration has embarked on a robust urban renewal programme. Lagos is now a much cleaner city, with its parks and gardens and with tax payers' money being put to work in many ways. The position of the Lagos state government it seems is that beggars constitute a nuisance, many of them are part-time criminals, and if they would not relocate to vocational centres, they might as well face the wrath of the state government. Having failed to convince or intimidate them, however, the state authorities are now warning all persons to desist from giving them alms. I really do not see how the Lagos state government can win that battle. In the past year, the state reportedly "deported" over 3, 000 beggars from Lagos. NEXT Newspaper reports that out of these, Sokoto State had the highest number of 196 beggars, Oyo State (83), Kano (75), Osun (67), Ekiti (21), Ondo (7), and from other countries- Niger (12), Chad (2) and Cote d'Ivoire (1). The state government should redirect its energies to more purposeful engagements.

There are too many contradictions in its chosen path. One, it makes no sense to "deport" a Nigerian from any part of Nigeria to another, whether that person is destitute, able or not. The Constitution guarantees the freedom of movement, and that right extends to beggars. Yes, beggars wander from one location to another, transporting their nuisance across the city, but wandering is not an offence. The law prescribing a two-year jail term for alms-givers, if indeed it exists, is ludicrous. In a country where those who burn down houses, kill in the name of religion, rape women, kidnap children, and sabotage the state are walking free, in a society where those who loot the treasury collect national honours and chieftaincy titles, it is those who give alms to the poor that we seek to send to jail for two years without an option of fine? That law will be difficult to enforce. How do you identify a beggar? Do beggars wear uniforms, or do they carry identification badges? The Lagos state authorities should avoid the kind of human rights crisis that occurred when a directive was issued that indecently dressed women should be arrested: many housewives, accused of exposing too much flesh ended up in police cells, resulting in public outrage. With regard to beggars and the destitute, the enforcement agents could end up arresting and molesting physically challenged persons who are already badly treated by the Nigerian state, and that will be most unfair, for it is not every physically challenged person that is a beggar.

And can a man be punished for spending his hard-earned money the way he likes? I earnestly await the day when anyone in Lagos will be sent to jail for giving alms to beggars! To give teeth to the law could cause a social uproar for it runs contrary to the people's religious and cultural beliefs. The Lagos state Government could be accused of an assault on the people's faith and belief systems. The two major religions Christianity and Islam encourage their adherents to give alms, to help the poor and the needy in society. This is a sacred obligation in both religions, and that is why the most popular haunts for beggars are places of religious worship. So established is the culture of begging, that in Lagos, there are at least two major beggars' colonies: one in Ebute Meta/Oyingbo, the other in Agege.

But the bigger issue is how the explosion in the population of beggars in Lagos and elsewhere in the country, is a function of the economic dispossession in the land and the high rate of unemployment. In Nigeria, beggary has become a way of life. It is one of the easiest occupations in the land. In part because of the religious belief that beggars should be assisted, it has become one of such occupations where investment is low and return is high. Often on Lagos streets and elsewhere you are likely to run into able-bodied men and women, neatly dressed, soliciting for alms as the traffic crawls. Then you have the so-called "corporate beggars": he or she tells you he just lost his purse, his English is impeccable, he is a University or college graduate, he is so persuasive, he wants you to assist him with "a widow's mite" and he asks God to bless you abundantly. He may even entertain you with an informed commentary on the state of the nation, with stinging criticisms of the Nigerian dilemma.

Out of pity, you'd be tempted to part with some money. A few days later, you may run into the same fellow again. He knows you. This time, he would change the story and even struggle to give you a copy of his resume: if you could help him get a job. Confused, you give him some money just to get him off your back. Or is it the woman with twins or a baby, her flattened breasts hanging loose, bearing all the worldly scars of deprivation and the wickedness of men, running after your car and begging you to help her child or the "ibejis" – you give her money and go to jail for two years? Or it could be the physically challenged, blind like a bat, lame like a possum, assisted by a younger man, who should be in school, the two of them joined together by a long stick, navigating crazy Lagos traffic, and there you are in your air-conditioned car, wondering why this world is so unfair to some people, and then you take a N50 note, moved by the entertaining prayers being showered on you and your future descendants, and you go to jail for that, for being human?

The Lagos State government should leave the beggars alone. Lunatics are also being chased off the streets. Why are they on the streets in the first place? This is the question to ask. When beggars are taken to vocational centres, they run away because it is more profitable to be on the streets. They have no faith in the Nigerian system. They know that they could be treated as if they were prisoners. They know that government officials could turn the maintenance of the centres into a source of livelihood, and an opportunity for looting state resources. What Nigeria needs is to address the distortions within the system. Beggars may never disappear completely from our streets, but if the factories can begin to function again, if the government can check the misfortune of de-industrialisation, if those trucks which used to ferry workers to and fro in the 70s and 80s can return to our streets and the warehouses that have been turned into churches can become warehouses again, the population of beggars should reduce. Nigerians love to work. But when there are no jobs, they become desperate, and constitute themselves into colonies and families of beggars.

The Lagos State government is targeting the beggars on the streets: has anyone considered the army of beggars that exists in every extended family? If you have a job in Nigeria, that job does not provide for you and your nuclear family alone, it compulsorily takes care of beggars within the extended family who monitor your movement and the salary payment season; often they lay ambush by your door, sometimes as early as 5 am, or very late in the night, with the plan to sleep overnight: eat, disturb your peace and still collect your money. Like the beggars on the streets, these family ones are also very good at praying. By the time they finish telling you all the wonders God has decided to do in your life, you will be tempted to take a loan to help them sort out their long list of problems!

Nigeria needs a strong social security system that provides for the poor, the weak, the needy and the aged. Nigeria needs a functional healthcare insurance system that can take care of the army of the poor, who go onto the streets with distended scrotums, blood-soaked breasts, broken and rotten legs, smelly injuries, soliciting for alms and pushing their wounds in the faces of decent people. Nigerian beggars are the children of a system that has gone awry and is in need of urgent repairs. When next I see a beggar, I will give alms as a good Christian. A two-year jail term? What kind of vexatious law is that?

Reuben Abati Writes

naptu2: Now, my criticism of the article.

1) They did not interview Lagos State Government officials to get their own side of the story.

2) They did not interview the people that were "dumped" to hear their own side of the story.

3) It is clear to me that the story is designed to inflame passions (particularly with the use of the words "deport" and "refugees" ).

naptu2: By the way, this practice is not limited to Lagos State. Abuja has also returned people to their states of origin.

[size=14pt]Lagos, Abuja accused of dumping destitutes in Kaduna[/size]

September 18, 2009 | 12:02 am

By Emeka Mamah

Kaduna -  Kaduna State Government, yesterday, accused the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Niger State governments of allegedly dumping destitutes in the state.

The state Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Maryam Laka Madami made this known while briefing newsmen on the rationale behind the decision of the state government to repatriate destitutes in the state to their states of origin.

The state government’s joint task force for the relocation of the destitutes in the state evacuated about 2,000 destitutes from the streets and transported them in several truckloads to their states of origin, Monday.

The destitutes were escorted by anti-riot policemen to Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano and Jigawa states.

Madami, however, said that the Lagos State government dumped the 65 destitutes at the Kaduna end of the Abuja-Kaduna expressway adding that some of the affected destitutes were non-natives of the state.

She further accused the FCT and the Niger State government of similarly dumping beggars in the state.

According to her, it was the action of the Lagos and Niger state governments, as well as the FCT, that forced Kaduna to send away those destitutes from its territory  as the destitutes had constituted themselves into nuisance.

naptu2: These laws have been in existence since colonial time. Differennt administrations have adopted various strategies to combat the offences (Colonel Marwa used soldiers).

Begging = pan handling is against the law (in Lagos and most cities of the world)

Street trading is illegal (that's actually one of the first Lagos State laws that I learnt as a child).

Psychotics are meant to be in mental institutions

There are also associated offences (eg offences against the child rights act).

See environmental laws of Lagos State.

naptu2: I was about to provide some context and background on the story, when I heard something (very funny) on the BBC.

Chinese officials have devised a new method of dealing with street traders. . . They stare at them (yes, stare).

This morning, chinese law enforcement officials gathered on a certain street and stared at the illegal street traders. After a few minutes the street traders left in shame and embarrassment.

The time around 1975 and '77, police go seize expensive goods dem go start to burn burn them. Army go go market, anything cost money go burn burn dem (2x).

Why dem like to burn the things wey dey costee money? Government fit sell to people cheape cheape. Government fit dash people wey no get money.
And the burn burn na im dey sweet dem pass (burn and bribe). Na im dey sweet them pass. Oya oh, burn burn.

Billyonaire: I witnessed a miracle at Adeyemo Alakija Rd, VI-Lagos some weeks ago. A blind beggar was escorted to my vehicle window to beg for alms. Unknown to the begging crew, there was a Lagos state task force vehicle by the other side of the road preying on them. On sighting the task force, the blind man regained sight and ran with the speed of a cheetah. That was the fight non-religious miracle i witnessed in 2013. Praise be to God.

ypzilanti: You can always tell a lot about a society by the way they treat the weak amongst them. Do we have rehabilitation agencies? Are there enough low skilled jobs?

Everytime I see Lawma stsff doing their jobs, I feel so proud of them. I imagine the pay is so small, yet they would rather work than beg. If they were to strike for a week, you would immediately see the impact of their work to society.

There are many areas in Lagos that need cleaning up. Why dont they offer these people training and cleaning jobs before jailing them when they refuse the offer?

wellmax: This of course will be met with serious criticisms.

emmysenior: There's no analysis here, only the satellite images without keys/legends, you haven't really explained why there's going to be war. Could it be because of the lopsided rankings in the army or what? Or the distribution pattern? Always back your analysis with explanation.

Orikinla: . 56? How many years ago? She is more than 56. Some years have disappeared?

Afam4eva: It won't be the only mode of transportation but shouldn't even be discussed now that we have pressing transportation issues. We should focus our attention at the necessities.

naptu2: Exactly. This is the way it looks to me (from all my investigation).

1) Private company decides to invest in this (they are not in business to throw money away).

2) LAMATA, as the regulator of transport services in Lagos, approves and grants a license to the private investor to carry out the cable car business. LAMATA has a name to protect and would have ensured that it is safe.

3) African Development Bank gives the investors a loan to carry out this business. The bank is not in the business of throwing money away and also has a name to protect, so they would have done their own feasibility studies.

haruna1970: @ naptu2: Thanks for reminding us of our past. A good historian is the one that knows that of his people. You make me proud as a Yoruba man and more important as a Nigerian. Thanks once again.

[size=14pt]RIGHT TO REPLY – “We regret forming Pirate Confraternity”

NAS' Response To An Article Published by THIS DAY Newspaper[/size]

On 23 February 2005, you published an article headed “We regret forming Pirate (sic) Confraternity”. The article was written by one Adebayo Aderoju and appears to be anchored upon views that emerged from an interaction with Professor Muyiwa Awe. Professor’s Awe’s historical connection, from 1952, with others that led to the formation of the Pyrates Confraternity is common knowledge. So is the revered Professor’s own publicly expressed view about his parting of ways with the organisation. Adebayo Aderoju’s article, we may note in passing, also relies on yet another source, namely the book: Ibadan Voices: Ibadan University in Transition. This makes it all the more surprising that he failed to make use of the correct spelling of the word ‘Pyrates’ as deliberately adopted by the founders of the organisation, and maintained till now.

We have allowed some time to pass since the publication of that article in order to see whether there would be any further clarification from source, since we were at a loss to understand just who or what initiated this abrupt interest in the original fraternity. Since none has been forthcoming, we must conclude that the article sets out the views both of Mr Aderoju and Professor Awe. Our intention here is principally to draw attention not only to the inaccuracies in the said article but also to observe that it is a defamatory and irresponsible journalism. We believe that it would have been appropriate to have sought our views in order to present a corrective account of what has been gratuitously distorted by your writer.

We are sure that you are fully aware of this organisation’s distinguished antecedents particularly as you have, yourselves, covered several of our activities in the past. We remind you of some recent instances. In November 2004 you carried details of the petition we wrote and served on the Senate Presidency; Speaker of the House of Representatives and Governor Donald Duke of Cross River State urging the Federal Government to conduct a plebiscite to determine where the people of Bakassi wanted to belong (see This Day November 2004). On 31 December 2004, you covered our activities in relation to the memorial of 6 of our members who were slain by the police in unlawful circumstances in December 1983. This involved contributions made at a public lecture on that occasion in relation to the Police in Nigeria (see This Day, 31 December 2004). On 14 February 2005, you published our press release on the ongoing National Political Reform Conference entitled National Dialogue; How National? On 28 February 2005, you published coverage of our annual Feast of Baracuda in Enugu, Enugu State where the theme, Nigerian Criminal Justice System was extensively discussed and the case clearly articulated for an urgent intervention into the dehumanising conditions of prisons and prisoners in the country. The examples we cite are only within the last 12 or so weeks. We continue to declare ourselves ready, in the future, to assist you in presenting, as fully as possible, accounts of our activities that will truthfully educate the public regarding just what we are, and what we stand for.

Now, to the inaccuracies. First the claim that apart from Professor Wole Soyinka none of the founding Seven remains active in the organisation is, to say the least, astonishing. This, with respect, is a crass lie. We confirm that two other original members of the organisation continue not only to be linked with but also associate and remain active within the organisation. We can also affirm that the departed three – the most recent of whom was the famous broadcaster, Ralph Opara – died ‘in active service’ and was given a befitting send-off by the Confraternity, as can be attested by his widow and family.

Your writer’s comments that represent personal opinion strike us as narrow, unsubstantiated and sensation seeking. We are concerned however where such opinions are conveyed as seeming facts and create the unpleasant impression of an attempt to confuse issues in the public mind. We take issue with some of the factual accounts upon which the article is raised only to the extent that they appear to represent views other than the opinions of either the writer or his sources.

From that position, we call attention to two issues that have given rise to this article. [b]The first is discernible from the attempt to closely identify the organisation that was formed in 1952 in the University of Ibadan, one that now enjoys both national and international membership, with those unspeakable entities that exist in the tertiary institutions. The National Association of Seadogs has consistently proclaimed that it has no existence in schools or universities of any description. The decision to withdraw from campuses was made in 1984 and embraced both primary (campus) and national bodies. Do note also the national body of NAS came into being in 1978.

From 28 July 1984, the primary arm of the organisation was proscribed completely. The whole nation was put on notice as advertorials and news announcements were made. Simply put, our organisation does not exist in any form in schools, universities or any institution of higher learning and we challenge anybody to produce evidence to the contrary. Any campus organisations that claims association with NAS is illegal and should be firmly dealt with by university authorities. Since any such have no connection to us, we have no control over such a situation. To contend, by some perverse quirk of reasoning, that we could stop the acts of pervert clubs on campus is to arrogate to us responsibilities and control far beyond rational comprehension. It is illogical to suggest that there is any situation in which one can be held responsible for impostors. NAS deplores the existence of those organisations and, together with anyone else whose interest it is to see that this situation is brought to an end, would support any measures that are designed to achieve this result. As we stated recently (see The Sun of 28 August 2004); -

“it is illogical to expect that we can bear any responsibility for those who illegally put themselves forward as our members. That is a law enforcement responsibility. It is also incumbent on the institutions to take proactive steps to deal with those whose actions offend their rules and regulations. Those who break the law must, we have always insisted, be prosecuted to the full extent of the laws of the land, without exception”.

To place the burden of impersonation on the victim of such criminality is so warped as reasoning that we can only wonder that any thinking individual can attempt to sustain it. The nation is riddled with impersonators of police, military, customs, and religious entities. No one has yet taken the authentic bodies to task for the acts of such criminals. Those who seek to assert the opposite face merely raise question marks on their rational competence.

The prevalence of violence in the educational system in the country is to be seriously deplored and systematically confronted. It was the prevalence of this situation that constrained us to dissolve our existence in those institutions, remembering that at the time, membership of the fraternity on campus was less than 30 percent of the total membership nationwide. Our organisation foresaw the recent situation as long ago as July 1984, over 20 years ago. Those who suggest, without evidence, that there is connection between the formation of our organisation and what developed in the early 80’s and has prevailed, to date in waves of terror and wanton violence have failed abysmally to explain, with any lucidity, how our organisation has contributed to this process. The real reason for this failure is obvious, as Professor Wole Soyinka so aptly put it in the "Descent of the Barbarian and the end of the Collegial", a lecture he delivered in honour of the then retiring Justice Kayode Eso, when, in commenting again, upon the persistent linkage of the PC with the "cult culture", he said

"...Those who blame today’s advent of the barbarians on the first college fraternity –the Pyrates - that was founded in this nation, perhaps on the entire continent, merely advertise themselves as moral cripples who try to ward off bad news by fabricating distant alibis. It is far more honest to confess a failure of social will than to seek excuses in some distant origin, one that bears virtually no resemblance to the conduct of mimic upstarts. Such commentators may believe that they know their history, but it is fragmented and superficial history, distorted by the psychosis that goes with surrender to evil forces. Even more critically and relevantly to the collective responsibility of finding a solution, they acknowledge a dangerous ignorance of the society they live in, or the ability to situate a malaise in its appropriate social context. They ignore the contextual workings of social decadence, such as how even time-honoured institutions - philanthropic, cultural, all the way to the modern NGOs - are being impersonated by corrupt versions in tune with the total collapse of society. Nothing lasts in this nation, nothing. Religious institutions – be they Moslem or Christian – are filled with charlatan offshoots, many of which are demonic variants, or else purely commercial ventures, marketing sanctimoniousness with the same sales patter as the vendor of designer clothes or cosmetics…"[/b]

We take the view that this comment is one of the most mordant responses to those who hold those views about our organization delivered by its most influential advocate.

Professor Awe’s right to entertain regret about his involvement in the formation of the organisation is a position to which he is entitled. What we as an organisation do resent, in the strongest possible terms, is the attempt to create the impression that the organisation formed in 1952 metamorphosed into those responsible for perpetrating some of the most bestial acts ever experienced in our tertiary institutions. We will never tire of refuting this position or continue to demand the strictest proof from detractors. We have said enough in this respect to enjoy the entitlement of being left alone to continue to pursue our extremely noteworthy social objectives.

Let the nation also take note that it is on record that our organisation has spent time and resources in seeking to assist successive national and state governments by providing what we consider to be workable suggestions which, taken in tandem with others, would have introduced a more effective method of combating the problems of criminal campus cults. We expect to be making additional contribution to the ongoing national conference in this and a number of other respects. We also feel, additionally, that those who believe that the seriousness of the problem is such that functional measures should be implemented can and should be encouraged to do so without the necessity of demonising references to our organisation. Such activities are mere distractions, a cover-up for the lack of workable ideas. We are confident that such reference will have little significance on the viability of the proposals that emerge from such an exercise.

In this connection - and we state this in all responsibility - the government may wish to demand of our institutions how the funds that were disbursed to them some years ago for the eradication of campus cults were utilised. We shall have more to say directly on this issue. It is important that the nation be made aware how serious, frivolous or cynical has been the approach of some our institutions of learning to a menace that constitutes the greatest internal challenge that has ever confronted the university idea.

We express, in advance, our gratitude to you for giving this response the same prominence that you gave to the original article.

Signed:

ANDREW OBINNA ONYEARU
NAS Capone
National Association of Seadogs (NAS)
7th March 2005

naptu2: Wole Soyinka leads the National Association of Seadogs (NAS), which is a legitimate organisation that does not have branches on university campuses.

The "Pyrates Confraternity" (which is actually a youth gang, rather than a confraternity) on university campuses is an illegal organisation that has no connection with the National Association of Seadogs.

Ishilove: Craze people full NL sha.