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Where Lies The Solution? – By Dele Momodu

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By Dele Momodu

Fellow Nigerians, this must be a most trying and harrowing period for most patriotic citizens of our dear country. Nigeria is under siege no doubt. The word “siege” was appropriately used to describe the horrendous situation by no less a personage than the embattled Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. Nothing could be truer. His ruling party is the root cause of the pestilence that has taken over the soul of Nigeria. When a political party jettisons its primary and traditional role of formulating good policies and producing competent, selfless and visionary leadership, everything must fall apart. Thus it is no surprise to normal and reasonable Nigerians that we’ve found ourselves in a cul de sac.

I sincerely sympathise with our President and Commander-in-Chief, Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, on whose shoulders the entire burden rests. What he’s carrying on his head must be heavier than an elephant. His critics will see him as incompetent while his supporters will see his enemies as working hard to make the country ungovernable. But we are tempted to ask why it is so difficult for him to win this battle of wits and war of attrition. Did he not envisage and prepare for the deep division amongst Nigerians after so many years of each ethnic group fighting for its own share of the proverbial National Cake?

I really don’t know how he hopes to wriggle himself out of this extraordinary mess. Somehow President Jonathan has become everyone’s cannon-fodder. The cacophony of ideas and proliferation of advices being pumped into him appear to have left him mystified and confounded.

How to treat the Boko Haram menace is the latest of his headaches. And this is the big one because the very soul of our nation is at stake. The conundrum for the President is that he now calls them ghostsbut he is the same gentleman who seems to have studiously forgotten that he once told us he knew some of the brains behind the daredevil sect and that some of them were even his own staff. They are yet to be identified and exposed! The security agencies had also regaled us with tales of how they arrested the arrowheads of this terrorist groups yet the carnage has continued unabated. The pitiable President has been forced to eat his words endlessly.

One day, he talks tough against terrorism and terrorists and sounds very confident in his conviction that they should not be treated with kids’ gloves. In a rare display of audacity and courage, he dares the Supreme Leader of Nigerian Muslims, His Eminence, The Sultan of Sokoto, by waving off the suggestion of granting amnesty to Boko Haram members as nonsensical and a non-event.

The next day we are hearing that our President has now been persuaded that the only way forward is to pamper and massage the ego of the terrorists for peace to reign.Where do we go from here? Trust me, if we must be fair to him, this cannot be an easy choice. Nigerians are too divided over this issue that the President has found himself at crossroads leading to nowhere.

For once, I seem to be on the same page with him and he enjoys my sympathy. The dizzying pace of unfolding events in Nigeria has left me totally confused on his behalf. Our President has been boxed into a tight corner. If he tries to come out of that suffocating corner, he may be pummelled into a state of stupor in the open ring. Head or tail, escape is looking impossible. He must take either of the two poisons and hope one or the other is less lethal or at worst provides a peaceful suicide.

The ruling party he leads has also not made matters easy at all. All his garrison commanders love and know how to do is to tear at each other’s throat and worry less about how to activate national integration and development. They fight over the spoils of their offices, competing for political appointments the way kindergarten kids agitate and fret over lollypops. It does not matter how old they are, no position is too big or small. The essential thing for them is to remain in government and power till death comes knocking. That is the biggest shame of our nation when geriatrics take over anything and everything and forget in the process that they ever gave birth to some children. In saner climes, these pensioners would stand back and every now and then allow the young ones to utilise their moments of honour and glory because of the belief that a successful man without a well-groomed successor is a useless being.

Everywhere I go, the questions being hurled at me are the same repetitive clichés: can Nigeria ever change?Who will change Nigeria?Will 2015 elections ever count?Are Nigerians ready for change?Do we have honest leaders in Nigeria? Is it possible for the opposition forces of APC to uproot PDP out of power?Is there any difference between APC and PDP? Should amnesty be granted to members of Boko Haram and other terrorist organisations? And so on and so on.

The truth is we all know the answers to some of these agonising questions and we seem to recognise the solutions to our intractable problems but not one of us is willing and ready to risk his comfort zone or downgrade his personal lifestyle. It is as if we are awaiting the coming of some Angels from heaven who would perform the miracle of extinguishing our humongous problems. As for me and my house I’m not so sure there are easy solutions again. I used to be one of the greatest optimists in Nigeria. I was as theoretical as they come. But seeing is believing.

I’ve since acquired enough facts and figures to educate and convince me that we’ve arrived at the brink of monumental disaster without giving a damn or even blinking an eye. What is baffling is the fact that Nigeria has waltzed its way into the bad books as one of the most dangerous countries on earth yet everything goes on as normal and it is business as usual. We’ve developed such thick skins that nothing moves us as long as the catastrophe has not touched us directly. Nothing could be much worse than a whole nation and its entire citizenry going schizophrenic. We do not seem to know the magnitude and enormity of the danger at stake. In our careless tradition, we ignore leprosy and start to treat not even ringworm but acne and eczema. The world is watching us with utter disgust while we continue to live in absolute denial. Lucifer has abdicated his evil throne in hell to naturalise and take permanent residency in our nation. We must tell ourselves nothing but the gospel truth. I have never seen the level of callous indifference that has descended upon us.

I hear such reckless and irresponsible statements like: let the Northerners kill themselves if they like and I ask, when did we become so cold-blooded that we care less if innocent people die in the hands of terrorists as long as they are Northerners?Such parochial sentiments have no place in a country which seeks to be a continental leader in the 21st century. It is a primordial sentiment only valid for the Dark Ages. In the senseless annihilation of this terrible moment, Muslims, Christians and animists are all targets. The old and the young are being killed. The Lords and Royals as well as commoners are all at par in this home-grown revolt that does not discriminate. So, please tell me why anyone should rejoice at the calamitous violence ravaging the North! Any sensible person would know that it is only a matter of time before this malaise spreads to the South. Better then to do everything to be our brother’s keeper and jointly seek solutions that will nip this scourge in the bud, although, it may be said, that it is no longer in the bud but has blossomed into something frighteningly ferocious.

I hear such incoherent talk like: Boko Haram should not make the mistake of moving down South, and I wonder what the South can do in case, God forbid, a deadly attack by terrorists is let loose on Southern Nigeria, as will surely happen if we do nothing soon! Who will spearhead the fight against a group of ghosts, a la Mr President? Who will boldly confront suicidal persons who are obviously willing and ready to die for their beliefs, whatever it is?

Is it the new billionaire militants who have supposedly paid and earned their dues in the creeks that would now be prepared to enter the trenches again? Does the South possess enough ammunition to fight a group that has shown sufficient capacity to hit highly-fortified institutions like the United Nations’ edifice in Abuja and several fortified police and military establishments in the capital and elsewhere? Do we have any group of the calibre of this shadowy group who have deployed weapons of mass destruction with incredible ease and speed? If the South can meet force with force in case of an explosive conflagration, why then did Nigeria commit so much money to the current South-South amnesty programme and apparently paid for a stockpile of the weakest weapons in their armoury? If the Odua People’s Congress is being empowered to police the pipelines as being rumoured, are we not laying a grand foundation for the Somalisation of Nigeria? Already, our territorial waters are being policed by militants. Very soon, we may have to galvanise the Egbesu boys, as a matter of their own right to police our motorways and genuinely protect the hapless citizens against marauders, ritualists and kidnappers. As they say, what is good for the goose must be sauce for the gander!

My observation and submission in all these is very simple and straight-forward. No miracle is going to happen soon. What the President needs to do is now beyond his scope and power. It is not too bad that he sees this challenge as a power game. If true that this plague is political, he should know that the politicians who may be fuelling this rebellion will not relent as we move closer to 2015. If it is religious, it is even more dangerous because a fanatic can never be persuaded to dump the God he worships. In that case, the President would have to reach out to the religious leaders who may be able to appease them.

If the terrorists are after money that is the simplest of things because we already have a template at the Ministry of Niger Delta. All he has to do is upgrade the Ministry to a full-blown Ministry of General Amnesty and Insurgency and allocate sufficient funding to it. But there is no guaranty that peace will reign even if all these appeasement methods are put in place as more warlords see the common-sense in waging war against a very weak country and leadership. But it is a risk the President must take. It is too late to seek or think through other options.

Perhaps, it is the opportunity Nigerians have been waiting for to terminate the PDP behemoth. In this season of superlative commotion, Nigerians are getting gradually united in suffering. The National Association of Sufferers is bound to hold its annual general meeting at some point sooner or later. That is when the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend.

What is my simple conclusion? It would no longer matter whether the APC represents our long awaited Messiahs. The people out of acute frustration may wish to try any alternative that presents itself even if they would regret it later. The PDP may decide to scoff at this possibility as is their practice. But the ways of God are not the ways of man. When the time is up for the reluctant market crowd to disperse, it is always very easy. All it takes is a heavy downpour.

What has befallen us is worse than a Tsunami.If this is not the end time, I wonder what it is.
Perhaps it is time for these over-recycled politicians to go home. They are tired and deserve to retire.

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: African Spotlight

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Nigeria News

Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.

The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.

Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.

Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.

Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.

Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.

In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.

Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.

Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.

However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.

Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.

 

Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria

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Nigeria News

COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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By Ugochukwu Alaribe

Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

The market women, said to be  from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.

Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.

A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.

Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that  smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.

 

Sourced From: Vanguard News

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Nigeria News

Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole

The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.

Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.

He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid  in January 2020.

‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.

She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.

He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.

The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police  Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.

Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.

He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’

He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.

Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.

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Tribune

Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend. 

He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart. 

Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.

The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad  problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”

The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad,  saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts.  This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”

When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose. 

Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them. 

Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter. 

“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said. 

 

Sourced From: Tribune

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