Nigeria News
Dele Momodu: Democracy In Search of Democrats
By Dele Momodu
Chief Dele Momodu
Fellow Nigerians, there is no place where democracy is desperately seeking and pleading for attention than our dear country. I will explain and demonstrate what I mean in a jiffy. Nigerians love the good things of life but oftentimes hate the process needed to attain them. We are a nation of miracle-seekers; the reason religion is very attractive here without commensurate piety and Godliness. A man who has just stolen his latest billions is not ashamed to run to his church and Pastor to offer a tithe on his loot. You recognise the important folks in your church as they scramble to take direct positions in front of the pew. Nowhere is ever too sacred for these guys. Their security goons with fully loaded guns often block the front, back and side views of the hapless congregation. This show of pump and power has become a veritable part of the Nigerian man’s appurtenances of office.
That supposedly meek Alhaji who has just slaughtered the treasury of the State is a regular visitor to the Holy Land. He never misses his spiritual obligations of praying five times a day with full ablutions to boot. The same man sits at ungodly hours with members of the Mafioso planning and plotting how to throw his country into a senseless orgy of violence and total mayhem. At that convenient moment, he forgets that Islam is supposed to be a religion of love and peace. A true Muslim is expected to be simple, humble and humane. Like his Christian counterpart, he’s not supposed to lay treasures on earth. His manner of death and unpretentious burial presupposes that he brought nothing to the world and he shall take nothing when he departs. Why then do we make all this fuss about power when we always act like we own God more than the Pope? The reason is simple. An average Nigerian loves God but his thoughts and deeds are far from His words.
If you’re a Christian, you must be familiar with the Biblical injunctions. The toughest and commonest of them all are: Love your neighbour as yourself; thou shall not steal; thou shall not kill; thou must forgive your enemy seventy times seven times; thou shall not lie, and so on and so forth. How many of us ever make any effort, much more strenuous attempts, to obey these commandments. Yet we all wish to enter the kingdom of God. We live like ostriches and still wish to walk tall like peacocks. In fact, one of the admonitions I find most confusing is the one that says: “Judge not lest you be judged…” Matthew 7:1. How’s that possible in our modern world, where everyman is a judge in his own cause? That’s why I chose to advise the people in authority rather than dismiss them totally. Let it be on record that I did my best to offer legitimate even if unsolicited counsel.
Unfortunately, we’ve chosen to turn many dictionary words and their meanings upside down. I think many years of military rule have finally taken their toll on us. Love has fled our land to other climes and most of us are doing nothing to woo her back. Brothers are turning against brothers. Sisters are bitching against each other. We sulk like babies over everything. Our nerves have become so raw and tender that we snarl over primordial issues. We have allowed money, ethnicity and religion, in that order, to tear us asunder. The immediate cause of my lamentation is the recent release from death row of former General Sani Abacha’s Man Friday, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha.
Some young friends had complained within 24 hours of Al Mustapha’s release that I had not commented on the judgment which most of them considered a miscarriage of justice. But it was not exactly true that I had not commented. I did but not in the elaborate manner they expected. My comment on Twitter was simply that God was the ultimate Judge. My reasons for this simple observation are even simpler. One, whatever may be hidden from man is very clear to God.
Two, I had not availed myself of a copy of the judgment and it would be foolhardy of anyone to arrive at conclusions based on hearsay. Three, no sensible leader of thought and moulder of public opinion would ever disparage a judgment of a Court law and those who occupy esteemed positions in the Judiciary even if he feels they have erred in the duty and responsibilities. The courts remain the bastion and the last hope of the people. We should not demolish a house because of the presence of a few irritants.
If we do, all the good people inside would perish. I cannot even say that these particular Justices can be referred to as irritants, simply because they have delivered a judgment that we may find unpalatable. Four, I personally feel the case had dragged on for too long and had become politicised and ethnicised like everything Nigerian. Five, if the judges feel the prosecution did not make enough effort to present a cast-iron case; I’m humble enough to acknowledge my limitations in matters and principles of law, and must therefore defer to their inexorable reasoning. Six, I will never support a kangaroo court treatment for anyone even if that person killed my mother and father. Seven, and lastly, we should know that legal matters are often tricky and if we doubt the decision we have the choice of challenging cases to their final destination but then we must accept the verdict at that final stage.
The tenets of democracy are tough and sometimes painful. There are too many dos and don’ts. Your freedom stops where mine begins. We’ve never really enjoyed the dividends of democracy in Nigeria. The same old warriors are still in charge manipulating all of us like the roulette wheel. It is the oldest casino game and we are their veritable instruments. Until the day something major happens, by whatever miracle or stroke of all, we shall continue this circus show of musical chairs. There is nothing to suggest that we’ve learnt anything tangible from our past. It is the same old song and chorus. It is as if there is a special liquid they inject into Nigerians that makes us lose our sanity the moment we lose power. I’m totally paranoid about that injection. I ask if one day I will become a stark raving lunatic animal like those before if ever I find my way to government and power. There are not too many good examples to suggest otherwise.
Even those on the periphery of power seem worse. No one talks about developing the nation. All we see are people tearing at each other’s throats. If we dismiss some as suffering from illiteracy, we cannot say the same of full-fledged Professors who threaten our corporate existence in the name of power shift. Let me be very direct. I was very disappointed when I read comments credited to Professor Ango Abdullahi that power must return to the North in 2015 at all costs and by any means necessary. He even boasted that the North has the numerical strength to win elections permanently. I do not know where he got his figures from but that is a matter for another day.
What quickly came to mind were the following. One, was how’s this man any different from those soldiers of fortune threatening that Nigeria must die if President Goodluck Jonathan does not win in 2015? Two, has Professor Abdullahi not given fillip to the argument of the militants and also enough notice for them to assemble their weapons of mass destruction? Three, which North is he referring to, North West, North East, North Central? What gives him the confidence that all of them would now vote as one, if they ever did before? Four, even if the North deserves to have another shot at the presidency, must it be put it so crudely and arrogantly as to provoke the South? Five, I don’t care where our next President comes from. Whosoever wishes to govern must be prepared to go through the electoral process. There is nothing in our Constitution that says power must rotate from North to South and vice versa. Every Nigerian has the legitimate right to aspire to the highest office in the land. The zoning agreement he claimed they had with former President Olusegun Obasanjo is not binding on the country. That was a private concoction between the convoluted Generals and their civilian allies in the People’s Democratic Party. That Party is not, and can never, equate to Nigeria.
Democracy can never thrive in Nigeria with bullies screaming their heads off all over the place. The first thing we must kill before it kills our country totally is this tribal nonsense. Even those in national positions are not able to think beyond the village they’ve done nothing to turn into a Dubai or Hong Kong. They speak with forked tongues, beating the drums of war yet talking about false peace. Tribalism is their only qualification for appointments and election. The irredentists know for sure that having power in their zone will never translate to much gain for their community in general. They only live on the perpetual hope that they will have some access to the national cake with their kinsmen in power. That is the tragic reality. The religious malaise is just as bad. Both tribal, parochial sentiments and religious opinions must be exorcised from our national consciousness.
As Nigerians, we must make up our minds that we are ready to put an end to the anomalies that have kept us backward and downtrodden. We must decide if this present shade of democracy is what we want or something else. Our intolerance of each other has reached atrocious levels. If Obama was a Nigerian, he would never have been able to contest Local Government elections let alone the Presidency. Yet were we not the ones that partied the loudest on his election as the first African American President. What have we learnt from that miracle to lead us to a desire to perform ours?
We are all celebrating the great Madiba, Nelson Mandela, today but is any of our leaders ready to pay such a personal sacrifice even at just the lower level of reducing the profligacy that has consumed us all? Are we ready to forgive our political enemies and march forward in a new season of true and total reconciliation? We obviously love the good things we see elsewhere but are never able to replicate same at home. It is high time that we made the necessary personal choices and sacrifices. Our nation will remain comatose and eventually die if we continue on this lethargic, apathetic path. The prediction of the doomsday merchants will have come to pass, not because it was meant to be but because we let it be.
Our journey is definitely longer than we know.
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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: Citizens Platform
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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
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
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.
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
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
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