Viewpoint
Idayat Gbadamosi, an associate professor at the University of Ibadan, has written a yet-to-be-published paper on possible herbal ways of preventing the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Gbadamosi, a well-published expert in ethnobotany and medicinal plants, says her publication is “targeted towards boosting the immune system to help fight the coronavirus,” clearly stating that it is “not by any means a cure for COVID-19 infection”.
The reader, who has been published in the New York Science Journal and the European Journal of Medicinal Plants, argues that “while countries such as the USA and Europe are battling with insufficient testing equipment and space, Nigerians should turn to nature and explore the benefits of medicinal plants as immune boosters and anti-infectives with a view to mitigating the spread of COVID-19 infection”.
Based on her expertise, Gbadamosi says “the prevention of infectious diseases relies on the use of botanical detoxifiers, immune-boosting remedies, natural antioxidants, plant haematinics, and spices”.
“Based on the fact that COVID-19 is a viral infection, the use of antiviral medicinal plants might be useful in its prevention and management.”
Working with the symptoms of COVID-19 infection, which includes fever, cough, body pain, flu, cold and shortness of breath, Gbadamosi proposed “plants with antimalarial effect, cough remedy, herbal analgesic, and medicinal plants” that could be useful in the prevention of the COVID-19 infection.
Recommendations include:
Botanical detoxifiers: Two botanicals that are valuable detoxifiers are Neem (Azadirachta indica) and Turmeric (Curcuma domestica). Neem is a plant best known for its ability to cleanse the skin, the liver and controls blood sugar. It is readily available in Nigeria and it has a vast array of healing properties. It gently purifies the blood and promotes healthy blood circulation.
Turmeric is the king of all spices with powerful antioxidant properties. It has an array of pharmacological effects in the treatment of arthritis, rheumatism, cancer, obesity, infections, etc. It contains curcuminoids and it is a free-radicals fighter. Daily consumption of turmeric could prevent many degenerative diseases. Turmeric could be made bioavailable if prepared as a powder in combination with Aframomum melegueta (Guinea pepper).
Herbal immune boosters: Guava (Psidium guajava) leaf, mango (Mangifera indica) stem bark and leaf, lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) leaf, ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizome, garlic (Allium sativum) bulb and cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) stem bark are immune-boosting herbs that can be prepared in powdered form or as a decoction for oral administration. Generally, spices other than pepper are rich in antioxidants, antimicrobials; they also have anticancer properties.
Research has confirmed that eating a small amount of ginger (Zingiber officinale) daily for 11 days or more can reduce muscle pain and inflammation; ginger also aids digestion. Generally spicing food up a little adds more than just flavour. Other useful spices are onions (Allium species), black pepper (Piper guineense), guinea pepper, clove (Syzygium aromaticum) and green onions (Allium ascalonicum).
As an example, an immune-boosting recipe is as follows: Prepare a decoction of powdered turmeric (125 g), ginger (20 g), garlic (2 g), guinea pepper (a pinch), clove (a pinch), black pepper (a pinch) and coconut water (5 cups) by boiling for 20 minutes. Allow the extract to cool and filter using a fine sieve. Then add lemon (4 teaspoons) and honey (teaspoons) to the extract. Drink ½ teacup of the extract before breakfast or in between meals once daily. One preparation can last for a week if refrigerated.
Natural antioxidants: Fruits and vegetables have antioxidant properties. In addition to vitamins A and C, they contain a polyphenol (quercetin) that have strong H+ donating activity. Phenolic acids generally act as antioxidants by trapping free radicals and some plant-derived compounds are better antioxidants than BHA (Butylated Hydroxyl Anisole).
Consequently, natural antioxidants may be useful in the treatment and prevention of chronic infections and diseases. Some Nigerian vegetables are bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina), jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius), spinach (Senecio biafrae), African lettuce (Launnaea taraxacifolia), and pumpkin plant (Telfaria occidentalis). The message is let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.
Plant haematinics: Sorghum bicolor leaf (red guinea corn) and Theobroma cacao stem bark (Cacao tree) are used in combination as haematinics for the treatment of anaemia, menstrual disorder and other blood-related infections and diseases. The tonic is prepared in the form of decoction, in which the two plant materials are washed thoroughly and boiled in clean water for 20 minutes. The extract can be taken orally after food.
Antiviral botanicals: The indigenous people of Nigeria are knowledgeable in the management of viral infections. Cassia fistula (purging cassia), Phyllanthus amarus (stonebreaker), Lagenaria breviflorus (wild colocynth), Citrullus colocynthis (bitter apple) and Syzygium aromatic (clove) are used for the management and treatment of viral diseases.
Although there is a scarcity of information on scientific validation of antiviral activity of medicinal plants, information on the antiviral activity of some of the above named is available in literature. The plants are prepared as powder, decoction and infusion for therapeutic purposes.
Antimalaria and analgesic herbs: Chincona officinalis (red cinchona) stem bark, Nauclea latifolia (African peach) root, Alstonia boonei (stoolwood) root, and Morinda lucida (brimstone tree) root and leaf are used as antimalaria remedy. Chincona officinalis and other Chincona species contain quinine (hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine) and other alkaloids that are effective for the treatment of malaria fever.
The remedy is usually prepared as decoction or tincture for oral administration. Microdesmis puberula and Calliandra portoricensis (powderpuff) are used as analgesic in malaria, arthritis and rheumatism.
Herbal cough remedy: Garcinia kola (bitter kola) and Bryophyllum pinnatum (miracle leaf) are used traditionally for the treatment of cough. G. kola seeds are soaked in lemon juice in a bottle. One teaspoonful of the remedy is taken three times daily after food.
The leaves of B. pinnatum are put in hot water to make tender and squeezed. Add honey to the leaf juice and drink 100ml of the remedy two times daily after food.
Herbs for respiratory tract infections: Spondias mombin (yellow mombin), Garcinia kola, Calotropis procera (apple of Sodom), Nymphaea lotus (water lily) and Abrus precatorius (water lily) are used for the management and treatment of respiratory tract infections.
The remedies are prepared as leaf juice, infusion, decoction and traditional soup for therapeutic purposes. As an example, an infusion of bitter kola and garlic in clean water is used for the management of respiratory tract infections.
You can read the entire paper here.
Dr. Idayat T. Gbadamosi
Ph.D Botany, Reader
Member, UI COVID-19 Applied Studies
Ethnobotany & Economic Botany Unit
Department of Botany
University of Ibadan
Nigeria
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There is a natural mystic blowing through the air
If you listen carefully now, you’ll hear
This could be the first trumpet, might as well be the last
Many more will have to suffer; many more will have to die
Don’t ask me why
Things are not the way they used to be…
One and all, we have to face reality now…
- Bob Marley
Mystic, mystery and even a mystique the Coronavirus, otherwise called COVID – 19 is, no doubt and it is blowing through the air like the pestilence that it is. If it blossoms in its full plumule – God forbid – it may aspire to become the 11th of the already ten existing worst pandemics in world history. The Antonine plague of 165 AD which killed 5 million people was the first. Like the Coronavirus, it also sneaked into nations from abroad; first to Rome through returnee Roman soldiers coming back from Mesopotamia. It was the first experience for the world. Antonine not only wiped out the Roman army but spread to Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece and Italy. From Antonine, down to the most recent pandemic before the Coronavirus called HIV/AIDS, which has till date wiped out 36 million people from the face of the earth, like Bob Marley prophetically sang above, one and all, we have to face this reality. And further realities which the virus is provoking about who and what we are. The first and the most potent of the realities came from the church and mosque in Nigeria. The second is the social reality we face as Nigerians; the third, lessons that Providence is teaching us as we are all sequestered at home.
We accept the apologies of highly revered Bishop David Oyedepo on his unconscionable decision to gather his flock last Sunday, in spite of government’s ordered social distancing. However, by the time the apologies came, the eyes of the world were already opened to the calamity of Nigerian religious leaders. Nigerians had hitherto been blinded for over a century. Even with the reality of the destruction of COVID-19, church leaders especially only saw a viral attack “by the devil” on their milk cow. Mosques too initially spurned the order. Congregation at places of worship must continue to be gathered so as to reify the age-long belief that the mosque and churches are the only places where God hears His people. The wells of tithes and offering were drying up in their very before. Religious leaders’ immediate reaction was dissonance to this order. While some actually spurned the order like Oyedepo, some asked for skeletal attendance of churches while many ordered flocks to meet in cells of 50 each. Their immediate haunch was that if people were successfully turned back from places of worship for some consecutive weeks, it could be the point of their liberation from the Plato Café of a century-plus hibernation in a café of darkness. Returns to headquarters must not dry up, pastors panicked in frenzied frustration. The ultimate goal of this “episcopal wisdom” didn’t take long before the congregants saw it clearly: Worship centers merely wanted to keep alive century-old manipulation of people’s minds for pecuniary needs.
COVID-19 might have thus opened a new vista in religious worshipping orthodoxy in Nigeria. Eyes of worshippers may have opened to the selfishness of Nigerian religious leaders who see them more as wares to pawn than sheep to shepherd. For more than a century now, Nigerian religious faithful had been loyal to worship centers which they were told were the only sure routes to meeting God. Today is these religious faithful’s trying time, shut at home by a raging pestilence, a work-and-chop economy that is at best panting for survival and a government too lost in its own conceit to devise a way out. It should ordinarily be the time to requite their abiding followership, a time to throw the doors of those big tabernacles and big mosques as isolation centers. In the same vein, these religious centers should pawn people’s decades of investments in tithes/offerings to offer palliatives to congregants. These are worshippers whose forebears and they themselves had invested their ten per cent earnings in those centers for over a century now. It should be time now to pay back those selfsame people by rescuing them from the jaws of Coronavirus death.
But for flashes of pro-activeness, COVID-19 also unraveled the Nigerian government as effortlessly as the woodpecker pierces logs of woods for insects. While President Muhammadu Buhari, as usual, hibernates in his queer and taciturn cubicle, pummeling frustrated Nigerians with his artillery of silence, governors and other officials simulate positive actions by regurgitating orders already made by their colleague states. Sensational governance became the order of the day. In clear terms, COVID-19 caught many of the state governments napping. It also revealed the peremptory governance they had been running over the years. Common isolation centres were non-existent. A Nigeria that had been prone to epidemics over the years could only boast of isolation points you could count on your finger-tips. This trying time also raised the bar for some governors. Lagos’ Babajide Sanwo-Olu, hitherto profiled as laid-back and lackluster, took the shine as the people’s friend in time of distress. His novel approach to the epidemic is commendable as he was everywhere. Oyo gladly stepped into Sanwo-Olu’s erstwhile shoes as people lamented governmental absence at a time this critical. What all these reveal is the unpreparedness for office of some of Nigeria’s leaders, aside the sensationalism and glamour of political office that tickle them.
COVID-19, in some cruel manner, has also become a trope, a clarion call on, especially Nigerian political elite, to make Nigeria livable for all. Or else, we will be victims of this gulag. Trapped inside the dross they constructed as a country over the decades, we are all forced to live our choices. Hospitals have transmuted from consulting centers into mortuaries, medical equipment are as scarce as the excrement of the masquerade and medical thoroughness escaped our windows long ago. Those leaders can’t breakfast in Madrid, lunch in New York and dine in Munich today, no thanks to the global lockdown. How could they have imagined that a day would come that they cannot, at a jump into their private jets, access their world-class hospitals? An alleged friend of the Bauchi State governor who himself allegedly tested positive to the virus was said to have stormed out of the isolation center, saying “I can’t stay here!” We should ask if he ever advised his friend the governor to equip those hospitals and build more? Now, we are all lying on our beds as we laid it; both leaders and the led.
Unfortunately for Nigerian leaders, modernity has put them under very serious scrutiny. At the press of buttons of phones, Nigerians see unequal comparisons of leadership elsewhere. At this critical period, leaders of nations are offering verbal and physical succor. In Nigeria, we are afflicted with proxy leadership which is being glossed over by hired demagogues as subsisting for this trying time. Unfortunately for them and for us all, providence is blowing a strong wind to reveal their rumps. The proxy leadership erected by Buhari himself, in the person of his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, blew up in his face at the thick of the COVID-19 plague. Highly suspected to suffer challenges which have reduced his capacity to interface with the people to nil, Buhari literally relinquished governance to this unelected aide of his. In spite of this, Nigeria is still enveloped by a miasma of hopelessness while some favoured minions smile home with Nigeria’s patrimony. By afflicting Kyari with the virus that infects ordinary mortals, Providence told him in unmistakable terms that he is not different from the man on the street. He is capable of affliction, sickness and diseases like all of us. Now, even Aso Rock clinic, with billions voted but quaffed by rapacious political leaders, had no arms to embrace the Almighty Kyari. His is now sequestered in a God-knows-where. The gloat-like responses of Nigerians to this fate of Kyari’s, in the wake of his affliction by COVID-19, should therefore be expected. It is a natural reaction of a pauperized people in the hands of a rudderless and inept government.
The world should wake up from this COVID-19 to realize that togetherness is the only way out and that, rather than bickering and mutual muzzling, there is need for global collaboration. Past recriminations among powerful leaders of the world, even as pestilences raged, only yielded multiplications of graveyards. Between 541-542, the Plague of Justinian killed 25 million people and half the population of Europe. This outbreak of the bubonic plague which afflicted the Byzantine empire and Mediterranean port cities, like it is happening in Italy today, devastated the city of Constantinople and killed an estimated 5,000 people per day. So also was a pandemic that was mischievously labelled the Black Death which occurred between 1346-1353. It ravaged Europe, Africa and Asia and was reputed to have killed between 75 to 200 million people. Like COVID-19, it also jumped continents through fleas that lived on rats.
The period 1852-1860 did not fare better. The cholera pandemic, said to be the deadliest of cholera pandemics, ravaged a 19th century world. From India where it originated, it flew to Africa, North America, Asia and Europe, killing over a million people. Equally of no lesser devastation to the world was the flu pandemic of 1889-1890, also known as the Asiatic/Russian flu which also claimed a million lives, as well as the Sixth cholera pandemic of 1910-1911 which killed over 800,000 people, as well as the 1918 flu pandemic said to have killed between 20-50 million people. In the Asian flu of 1956-1958, the world lost two million people. Having infected the people of the Chinese province of Guizhou, it flew to Singapore, Hong Kong and to the United States. The ninth pandemic, which was just a little older than the HIV/AIDS, was the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic, killed one million people and, from its first strain on July 13, 1968 in Hong Kong, within 17 days, landed in Singapore and Vietnam. Within a space of three months, The Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the United States had offered the flu a honourary citizenship.
I went into this long history of global pandemic calamities to situate the fact that rather than the daily flexing of muscles by global leaders, global citizenship requires global comradeship to combat our common vulnerability. Nigerian leaders are good examples of how not to lead. We do not see in them those qualities of leadership that made First Republic leaders earn the immortality they have in our hearts today. No selflessness, thoroughness, foresight or vision but kick-and-follow, empty leadership. Going by realities, especially as prophetically projected by Marley, that “Many more will have to suffer; many more will have to die,” there is the need for world leaders to jointly and periodically meet to proactively invest in epidemiology. More attention should also be paid to the process of emergence of leaderships, especially in Third World countries. Leadership is needed at a time like this to rise up to global challenges. Just use the Lagos State example to extrapolate a Nigerian global template and you would see why the flight of leadership is more corrosive than the spread of the Coronavirus. Nigeria is hemmed in. God forbid an implosion in the COVID-19 pandemic. Where is the leader and the leadership that can rescue Nigeria from the hands of this global scourge?
Imam, Dabiri and the Twitter gangs
There are currently hot and subsisting engagements on Twitter, provoked by a man simply known as Nigeria Imam of Peace, @ImamOfpeace a few days ago. They are causing a seismic upheaval on this social media outlet. Imam has consistently tackled the Muhammadu Buhari government to its hilt, including calling for its resignation. His #BuhariResign forced Buhari out in flowing robe simulating action. In one of such, he tweeted, “Nigerians, your president is incompetent and extremely clueless; you deserve better.”
Each of those tweets has provoked uproar among his followers, as against the legion of Buhari’s recruits littering this social media platform who attempted to tackle him. When Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairperson, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, attempted to weigh in by congratulating what she termed “Great investigative journalism” in a Buhari hireling’s previous tweet which sought to discredit Imam as a “conman,” one lady, @estherolabisi01 gave Dabiri-Erewa a smudge on her face by tweeting, “This isn’t the newscaster I always saw as my role model. Please come and take the handshake you gave me in QCY 2002.” The ex-newscaster, @abikedabiri, who has become an unapologetic lapdog of the Buhari government on Twitter, also replied her, saying “This isn’t the proud girl I thought you would grow up to be. No morals. No values. But all will be well.”
On Twitter, it is a contest between Buhari’s paid recruits and swelling ranks of Nigerians who cannot stand how the Daura-born General has become a mere Egyptian mummy in Aso Rock, especially with his silence at critical junctures. He exhibits scant leadership feelings and contributes immensely to the literature of atrophy of good governance in Nigeria.
I’ve had hard conversations this week. “Look me in the eye,” I said to my neighbor Karen, who was spiraling to a dark place in her mind. “I make this personal promise to you — I will not let your children die from this disease.” I swallowed back a lump in my throat. Just the image of one of our kids attached to a tube was jarring. Two weeks ago our kids were having a pizza party and watching cartoons together, running back and forth between our apartments. This was before #socialdistancing was trending. Statistically, I still feel good about my promise to Karen because children do not seem to be dying from Covid-19. There are others to whom I cannot make similar promises.
A few days later, I got a text from another friend. She has asthma. “I’m just saying this because I need to say it to someone,” she wrote. She asked that if she gets sick and has a poor prognosis, to play recordings of the voice of Josie, her daughter. “I think it would bring me back,” she said. Josie is my 4-year-old’s best friend.
Today, at the hospital where I work, one of the largest in New York City, Covid-19 cases continue to climb, and there’s movement to redeploy as many health care workers as possible to the E.R.s, new “fever clinics” and I.C.U.s. It’s becoming an all-healthy-hands-on-deck scenario.
The sky is falling. I’m not afraid to say it. A few weeks from now you may call me an alarmist; and I can live with that. Actually, I will keel over with happiness if I’m proven wrong.
Alarmist is not a word anyone has ever used to describe me before. I’m a board-certified surgeon and critical care specialist who spent much of my training attending to traumas in the emergency room and doing the rounds at Harvard hospitals’ intensive care units. I’m now in my last four months of training as a pediatric surgeon in New York City. Part of my job entails waking in the middle of the night to rush to the children’s hospital to put babies on a form of life support called ECMO, a service required when a child’s lungs are failing even with maximum ventilator support. Scenarios that mimic end-stage Covid-19 are part of my job. Panic is not in my vocabulary; the emotion has been drilled out of me in nine years of training. This is different.
We are living in a global public health crisis moving at a speed and scale never witnessed by living generations. The cracks in our medical and financial systems are being splayed open like a gashing wound. No matter how this plays out, life will forever look a little different for all of us.
On the front lines, patients are lining up outside of our emergency rooms and clinics looking to us for answers — but we have few. Only on Friday did coronavirus testing become more readily available in New York, and the tests are still extremely limited. Right next to my office in the hospital, a lab is being repurposed with hopes of a capability to run 1,000 tests a day. But today, and likely tomorrow, even M.D.s do not have straightforward access to testing across the country. Furthermore, the guidelines and criteria for testing are changing almost daily. Our health care system is mired in situational uncertainty. The leadership of our hospital is working tirelessly — but doctors on the ground are pessimistic about our surge capacity.
Making my rounds at the children’s hospital earlier this week, I saw that the boxes of gloves and other personal protective equipment were dwindling. This is a crisis for our vulnerable patients and health care workers alike. Protective equipment is only one of the places where supplies are falling short. At our large, 4,000-bed New York City hospital, we have 500 ventilators and 250 on backup reserve. If we are on track to match the scale of Covid-19 infections in Italy, then we are likely to run out of ventilators in New York. The anti-viral “treatments” we have for Covid-19 are experimental and many of them are hard to even get approved. Let me repeat. The sky is falling.
I say this not to panic anyone but to mobilize you. We need more equipment and we need it now. Specifically gloves, masks, eye protection and more ventilators. We need our technology friends to be making and testing prototypes to rig the ventilators that we do have to support more than one patient at a time. We need our labs channeling all of their efforts into combating this bug — that means vaccine research and antiviral treatment research, quickly.
We need hospitals to figure out how to nimbly and flexibly modify our existing practices to adapt to this virus and do it fast. Doctors across the globe are sharing information, protocols and strategies through social media, because our common publishing channels are too slow. Physician and surgeon mothers are coming together on Facebook groups to publish advice to parents and the public, to amplify our outrage, and to underscore the fear we feel for our most vulnerable patient populations, as well as ourselves and our families.
Please flatten the curve and stay at home, but please do not go into couch mode. Like everyone, I have moments where imagining the worst possible Covid-19 scenario steals my breath. But cowering in the dark places of our minds doesn’t help. Rather than private panic, we need public-spirited action. Those of us walking into the rooms of Covid-19-positive patients every day need you and your minds, your networks, your creative solutions, and your voices to be fighting for us. We might be the exhausted masked face trying to resuscitate you when you show up on the doorstep of our hospital. And when you do, I promise not to panic. I’ll use every ounce of my expertise to keep you alive. Please, do the same for us.
Cornelia Griggs is a mother, writer and pediatric surgery fellow in New York.
NYTime
THE VIRULENT TRIO, THREATENING OUR LIVES
It has been long proven that the quickest way to have your pictures on the front page of tabloids, as a commoner and without paying a dime is by commiting a very serious crime.
The only exception to this is when you do something extraordinary, especially when you save lives in a dramatic fashion.
For the second time within the space of six years, pictures of Environmental Health Officers, EHO, graced the front pages of Newspapers in Nigeria. Not as criminals however, but as saviours of the Nation's health.
Unfortunately, both times were periods when we had outbreak of pandemic diseases. This is an indictment on the Nigeria Health sector.
First it was Ebola virus in 2014, now it is coronavirus in January 2020. In between the two we have had Lassa running the streets.
Environmental health is preventive health but it has been neglected for curative health which is celebrated by both the government and the governed.
In 2014 during the Ebola virus outbreak, some EHOs were brought to the fore to help as ad-hoc at the ports of entry.
These young guys and ladies risked their lives, even without proper health insurance to ensure that the likes of Patrick Sawyer does not come into the shores of Nigeria. They poured their heart into the work with the hope that they would at least be absorbed into the system at the end of the day. Till today, some of them were not even paid their stipends and like the proverbial handwash water, they were discarded after use by the various agencies.
Many of them weren't compensated in any way.
Here we are again today, with the outbreak of another deadly virulent disease and you know who the country wants to deploy to the ports again, EHOs?
In between Ebola and Corona, Lassa has become endemic here in Nigeria, rearing up it's ugly head every dry season to claim lives that hitherto would have been highly profitable to the Nation's productivity. This year alone, more than 30 deaths have been recorded, some of who are clinicians who work hard to save other people's lives.
All these just because we are a Nation that does not care to do the right thing at the right time.
When we had the major outbreak in 2015, Environmental Health Officers in Lagos and Ogun states expended their hard earned salaries to carry out massive deartisation exercises with huge successes recorded.
Rats running in several tens of thousands were eliminated from our various markets. Despite the reports from the media, the Various State governments didn't find it appropriate to engage services of more EHOs. They weren't concerned.
I could recall, how one Medical officer ignorantly asked if killing of rats was the issue. I laughed and wondered what the issue would have been. Then I remembered that killing of rats will not bring money to their pockets just as drugs would do.
Hospitalisation and procurement of several facilities would yield more perquisites. And then it dawned on me! Some particular set of people feed on outbreak of diseases. They make inordinate financial gains from huge and pandemic diseases such as this. And that is why they are not supporting prevention of diseases.
What a shame! If indeed we are after the saving of lives, it's high time we refocus our health system to give room for prevention.
The nation needs to prioritize disease prevention above and over disease control.
Thank God that even as highly virulent and contagious Lassa, Ebola and Coronavirus are, simple sanitation is enough to put a stop to them.
Sanitation is cheap when compared to treatment of diseases. Sanitation saves lives and prevents loss of productive hours. If only we can be proactive. These diseases will remain huge threats to us if we continue the same way. We can't continue to act the same way and expect changes.
What should be done?
In situations like these, once again I'll advise the government at all levels to employ Environmental Health Officers especially at the Port Health Authority to man our border posts not only during emergencies but at all times as required by the International Health Regulations.
State and Local Governments should as a matter of urgency also employ EHOs to continue to be the watch over the environment.
These diseases can be checked even before their outbreak. Our food, water, premises, air and others need continuous inspections to curb incessant pollution that can impair our health and living.
As for the practitioners, we must Iive to our calling and be proactive, doing our jobs as if our lives depend on it. Our lives actually depend on it since we do not have another planet that we live in.
Do you work with a clear conscience and in the fear of God? Citizens should note that whatever they do to the environment, will surely come back to them. Keep your environment clean, practice hand hygiene always and stay safe.
As we are in the dry season, ensure you don't have junks that can habour rats in your house. Fumigate your home as frequently as possible and please engage the services of professionals.
A word, they say, is enough for the Wise. A o ni s'oriibu o. May we never be unfortunate.
Femi Abolade | LEHO | WhatsApp +234807 427 5257
There is an alternative to trying to prove your partner wrong.
As a psychologist who works with clients, issues between romantic couples often come to life in session.
Recently, a client shared how her husband is unappreciative and critical of her, which causes her to become defensive and to prove him wrong through logic and data points.
Specifically, she'll recite the multiple ways she should be appreciated and provide examples of how he is regularly critical.
Unfortunately, her attempts to prove him wrong always fail, as her defensiveness causes him, in turn, to fight even harder to prove her wrong.
This cycle repeats across many couples. The problem is that the cycle is fruitless, with each member of the couple becoming their own attorney and generating arguments as if they are dueling attorneys in a courtroom.
What happens psychologically when a couple argues ineffectively?
Each member of the couple focuses on their own ego and gets stuck in a fight-or-flight, limbic mindset in which there is theoretically one winner and one loser.
Rather than see the partner as an ally, these types of arguments and the quest to prove the other wrong forces each to see the other as an opponent.
When this win-lose dynamic gets reinforced, the effect is simple: Rather than anyone winning or feeling more understood, each member of the couple feels further isolated and frustrated.
A new book by psychologist and meditation teacher, Tara Brach, provides a helpful tool in understanding why a proving-wrong, bent-on-winning approach doesn't work, and provides a simple model of how to make a shift to a more kind and compassionate mindset.
Brach, in Radical Compassion (2019), talks about the importance of recognizing and allowing the feelings that come up when you're emotionally triggered by negative emotions, and pausing before reacting.
Reacting too quickly and too emotionally, I find in my clinical work, is the primary problem that continues and strengthens conflicts.
Brach explains how finding compassion and kindness for yourself in those heated moments - allowing the disappointment, noticing how badly it feels - can set the stage to actually consider the other person's feelings, too.
The approach that helps couples navigate through hurt is one of understanding and investigating, not labeling and dismissing.
Think about it this way: No one wins when everyone gets too focused on how right they are and wrong the other is.
What must happen for couples to develop a stronger, more harmonious relationship is for each to start showing more care toward their own and their partner's feelings, as irrational or unfair as their partner's behavior may appear at first. (This model, it should be noted, excludes cases of abuse or overt maltreatment).
Ultimately, it's the working through an emotional issue together that yields the sense of support that allows a couple to flourish, both as individuals and as a couple.
Psychology Today
Everyone experiences stress. Stress can be physiological (due to infection, injury, disease), or psychological (due to anxiety, conflict, threats to safety or well-being).
Psychological stress is something that we contend with every day. It has negative connotations, but we also experience stress in response to positive life events, such as getting married or starting a family, in addition to emotionally challenging events, such as the loss of a loved one, divorce or financial problems.
Being newly diagnosed or living with a chronic illness, such as kidney disease, can also be a significant source of stress.
When channeled properly, stress can serve as a positive motivator for handling life’s challenges.
However, too much or constant stress can take its toll on your health. Physical responses to stress include faster breathing and heart rate, a spike in blood pressure, dilated pupils, tense muscles and increased levels of fats and sugars in the bloodstream.
This helps the body deal with immediate dangers and crises, but over time can contribute to health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, and place you at increased risk for kidney disease.
If you already have heart or kidney disease, then the body’s reactions to stress can become more dangerous.
While it is very difficult to completely get rid of stress, here are 10 ways to reduce stress, protect your kidneys and maintain your overall health:
1. Eat healthier foods. When you’re stressed, it may be easy to just grab for the potato chips, but junk foods are typically highly processed and high in sodium and phosphorus additives which can have negative effects on the kidneys. Consider following the DASH diet which focuses on eating fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and low-fat dairy products.
2. Limit salt and caffeine. High caffeine intake can lead to jitters and doesn’t always mix well with the physical signs of stress. Set aside the salt shaker and read nutrition labels to determine the amount of sodium in the foods and drinks you consume. Limiting salt and caffeine intake is especially important if you have high blood pressure, which is the second leading cause of kidney disease and also increases your risk for heart attack and stroke.
3. Set aside time to relax. Relaxation means something different to everyone. Carve out “me” time in your calendar to do something you find relaxing. This can include things you can do easily at home on a regular basis, such as yoga and meditation, or something that may be more of a special treat, such as taking a vacation or getting a massage.
4. Exercise regularly. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins – chemicals that have been shown to boost mood and reduce feelings of pain. Regular exercise can also help lower high blood pressure and even small amounts of physical activity have been proven to lower stress levels. Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, lift free weights while watching TV, and park your car further from the store or get off the bus a stop early to increase your steps.
5. Reduce the amount of sugar and fat in your diet. The average American consumes almost 152 pounds of sugar each year, the equivalent of almost 3 pounds (or 6 cups!) of sugar each week. Fat is an important and necessary part of your diet, but should be limited because at 9 calories per gram, it provides nearly double the amount of calories per gram of protein or carbohydrates. This makes it a frequent weight gain culprit. If you have or are at risk for diabetes, heart or blood vessel diseases, it’s particularly important to monitor your intake.
6. Maintain a positive attitude and outlook. How you think impacts how you feel, so maintaining a positive outlook and reducing stress can play an important role in staying healthy.
7. Get plenty of sleep. A good night's sleep goes a long way. Being well rested is more important than many people realize. Did you know that studies have shown that not getting enough sleep may lead to an increased appetite and in turn, weight gain?
8. Don’t keep your feelings inside. Talk to a friend, loved one, spiritual leader, or healthcare professional. Write about how you’re feeling in a journal. When you put your problems on paper, it’s easier to think about possible solutions. Making a list can help you evaluate and prioritize what issues need to be addressed, in order to calmly tackle the causes of your stress.
9. Set goals and expectations. Try using the SMART method so that your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Trackable.
10. Listen to music. Whether slow and soothing, or beats to get you moving, listening to music (and even dancing and singing along!) can put you in less stressed mood.
Culled from National Kidney Foundation, Inc., 30 East 33rd Street, New York, NY 10016, 1-800-622-9010.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has advised Nigerians to protect themselves against the new Chinese coronavirus disease.
First identified by Chinese researchers with the pathogen behind a mysterious illness that had sickened 59 people in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in Central China, coronavirus is a group of viruses common among animals but now confirmed that it could also infect humans.
The NCDC Director-General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, gave the advice during a public health advisory on Wednesday, saying the sypmptoms of the new coronavirus 2019nCoV appeared to cause mild to severe respiratory symptoms like cough and breathing difficulties.
He noted that “from current evidence, it appears that death is a rare outcome, mostly in patients with underlying illness.” Ihekweazu explained in the advisory that there was no specific treatment for disease caused by the novel coronavirus yet, but many of the symptoms could be treated.
He stated that “treatment is based on the patient’s clinical condition. In addition, supportive care for infected persons can be highly effective.”
The NCDC boss, who noted that the centre was currently coordinating a multisectoral technical group in assessing and managing the risk of importing the virus to Nigeria, said “NCDC is in close communication with World Health Organisation (WHO) which is closely monitoring the situation globally. “
He added that while the Port Health Services unit of Federal Ministry of Health had been placed on alert and had heightened screening measures at points of entry, Nigerians could maintain some simple hygiene measures to keep safe.
He advised Nigerians to adhere to the following measures to protect themselves:
• Wash your hands regularly with soap under running water
• Cover your mouth and nose properly with handkerchief or tissue paper when sneezing and/or coughing. You may also cough into your elbow if a handkerchief is not available.
• Avoid close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing
• Avoid self-medication, report to the nearest health facility when you experience any of the above-mentioned symptoms
• Healthcare workers should always observe standard infection prevention and control measures when attending to patients and take a travel history.
A Group named as the Builders of Nigeria has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to create solutions to work the Country as things continue to deteriorate, while more Nigerians now flee the Nation.
The advice which was contained in an open letter to the President and signed by the Group's Project Coordinator, Mr Yinka Quadri said "life in the Country has become sordid, scorched and desolate to an average Nigerian".
The full content of the letter is shown below:.
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI: JUST BEFORE THE STORM
(By Yinka Quadiri)
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Monday, October 21, 2019
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Rtd.
Aso Rock Villa Federal Capital Territory Abuja
Your Excellency,
NIGERIA IS NOT SMILING
Please, permit me to skip the usual courtesies, pleasantries and niceties in view of the dire, desperate and extraordinary state of emergency that this country, Nigeria has found itself in recent times. It is beyond any pretense whatsoever that all is not well with the Nigerian state. To an average Nigerian at whatever corner of the country, life has become one hell of an experience as things continue to deteriorate and oscillate between the unthinkable and the unimaginable. Sadness and sorrow have completely taken over the land as life and living have become sordid, scorched and desolate, and the singular ambition of the majority of the Nigerian people both young and old is to flee the country so as to escape the encircling catastrophe.
Your Excellency sir, while you may not be held solely responsible for this threatening state failure, you may be considered responsible for intensifying the mess that has become the lot of this country. Before your second coming as a democratic leader of the Nigerian nation in 2015, everything that could possibly go wrong with any nation had gone wrong with Nigeria including a deadly civil war that left everybody vanquished and the country terribly diminished. These were the challenges that the majority of those who believed in you thought you were coming to fix.
Unfortunately, up until this very day, the leadership of the country both past and present never learnt any lesson from those internal or external experiences as bitter and gory as they were hence the sustained naked dance at the market place. All the leaders that the country has produced in the last six decades have performed well below average to the dismay and disappointment of the expectant Nigerian people. They have all contributed their own quota to this overwhelming social degeneration and general dehumanization.
While we recognize the pivotal responsibility of the president in fixing the problems confronting the country, we cannot discountenance the complicity of state governors and Local Government Chairpersons across the country for worsening the fates and fortunes of their people particularly since the advent of democracy in the last two decades.
Today, nothing is working across the entire length and breadth of the country, with things getting worse by the day. How the people have been able to adjust to these unimaginable maladies remains a mystery to global observers who expected more from the people of Nigeria if not from their leaders. The Nigerian people, unlike most other peoples of the world have demonstrated extreme tolerance and long-suffering with regards to the ruthless and self-consumed leadership that has cannibalized them through the passage of time. For about sixty years, Nigeria has been a country on a gruesome hold with the entire commonwealth obscenely appropriated by acquisitive leaders while generations of the people abashedly and unfairly wallow in abject poverty and squalor deliberately designed by the governments.
THE CURRENT DANGER
The calamity foisted on the country by questionable leadership that has lorded over the Nigerian people since independence is today compounded and complicated by a new threat that portends the kind of tragedy that would devastate humanity, stretch human imagination and scathe the sensibility of the whole world. The dimension of this current threat to the peace of the Nigerian nation is grievously ominous and it is like such that only happens once in a global era. Nigeria is currently threading carelessly on very dangerous grounds and the Federal Government under your leadership is perceived to be the sponsor and facilitator of this imminent tragedy.
While delivering your first public address on August 21, 2017, two days after returning from a three-month medical leave between May 7 and August 19, 2017, you emphasized that the unity of Nigeria was ‘settled and not negotiable’ without making any reference to your journey, your absence and without offering any update. This needless statement to say the least was pathetic and it largely represented everything that is wrong with Nigeria as a country. That comment was not only largely unfair, it was also grossly insensitive.
Unfair and insensitive because having gone for a whole of three months to access the kind of medical treatment that an average Nigerian cannot get either at home or abroad, what Nigerians deserved was a bit of understanding and consideration from the person who was under the obligation to make life better for them. A similar experience repeated itself after your son had a ghastly motorbike accident on December 26, 2017 in Abuja. After taking initial treatment, he was subsequently flown abroad for appropriate treatment because such was not available in Nigeria.
How many Nigerians can afford even the inadequate treatment in Nigeria not to mention foreign medical services? Today, after four years of your presidency, the health delivery system of the country has not improved in any significant way only for you to assault our sensibilities with your non-negotiable unity of Nigeria because you and your family are enjoying the best of life in all areas of life. It seems your professed love for Nigeria is only limited to the name and not about the people that make up the space. These are some of the evident irreconcilable challenges that you face as a leader. If you love Nigeria, you must love the people that constitute the country.
WHAT MANNER OF LOVE?
If you love Nigeria Mr. President, you will love the entire people of Nigeria without a singular exception and you must be ready to sacrifice everything for their welfare. If you love Nigeria, you must love the Ijaw people, the Ibibio people, the Anang people, the Idoma people, the Tiv people, the Igbo people, the Birom people, the Nupe people, the Kanuri people, the Hausa people, the Igede people, the Bachama people, the Ogoni people, the Edo people, the Bassa people, the Koma people and the Yoruba people including all other unmentioned ethnic groups in Nigeria. Indeed, if you truly love Nigeria, you must love every soul that belongs in this country.
It is based on this foundation of love that we expected you to have declared a state of emergency on the critical areas of security, food, health, education, economy, employment, energy and infrastructure. With the promises and expectations of your campaigns and the presidency after handover, we did not reckon you will be like other leaders across the country spanning different eras in all tiers and sectors of the society who are happy to send their families abroad for the best things of life while the majority of our people wallow in poverty, penury and pains. If you truly love the country Mr. President, you will love every child as you love your sons and daughters; you will love every woman as you love your wife and sisters; you will love every man as you love yourself and your brothers.
Up until now, Nigerians have had to live with all sorts of harsh and unpleasant lives including injustices, wickedness, shenanigans and treacheries from their leaders who do not care about anything or anyone but themselves and their families. Nigerians are longsuffering and they have demonstrated a limitlessly elastic spirit of endurance and tolerance to the hostilities and brutalities that the leadership class of which you are a prominent member has ruthlessly visited upon them from independence till date. For about six decades, nothing has worked in a sustainable way in Nigeria to the delight of all the people. It has always been different regimes of self-serving opportunists and their cronies with Nigeria moving steadily from bad to worse.
THE NEW FRIGHTENING CHALLENGE
Today however, Nigeria has entered a new frightening season and Nigerians are faced with a new challenge altogether which makes past grisly experiences look like a child’s play. It is the Era of Death, an ugly epoch of unprecedented bloodletting, inhuman brutality and horrendous barbarity against the Nigerian people both at home and in the Diaspora. It is a terrifying era of suspected villainous and beastly agenda of conquest and colonization of the majority of Nigerian peoples from the north to the south by the Fulani Nomadic Oligarchy. It is an era that is promising to substantially put our humanity to the utmost test as partakers of the human fellowship. We must decide here and now to either pass or fail this historical test. There is no third option.
We will pass this test if this dreadful supposition is false, and we would woefully fail the test if this apparent impression is not immediately corrected and the fears of Nigerian peoples put to a final rest by reversing the hostile and aggressive tendencies of the marauding assailants who seem to be invincible to our security system and have significantly invaded every part of the country.
This unsettling threat to human civilization was brought to a head by the warning given to some state governments along with a 30-day ultimatum given to the federal government by some miscreants who addressed a press conference on July 4, 2019 under the aegis of Coalition of Northern Groups which was led by one Abdul-Azeez Suleiman claiming to represent the north while speaking specifically in the interest of the Fulani nation. One wonders which north the clowns were referring to, the northwest that is being ravaged by rampaging bandits either foreign or local; the northeast that is being vanquished by the invading evil Boko Haram; or the middle belt that has been wickedly decimated by marauding herdsmen?
In all of these scourges and killings perpetrated against the majority of the people of the north by people from the north or even aliens, what did the Fulani leadership do to sympathize and assuage the sufferings and suspicions of their compatriots? Nothing! It is the same people of the south that have been sympathizing and rallying round the besieged and terrorized majority people of the north.
Apart from the Fulani people, particularly of the nomadic stock who seem to be having fun, the rest of the northern people from all the nineteen states are living in extreme and unrelieved misery. Across the entire Nigerian nation and also beyond, it seems to be the Fulani people that are at war with every other group.
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF EVIDENT DISCRIMINATION
Looking back at history, it is evident that this agenda has been subtly pursued through many of the policies implemented by different governments often led by Fulani people and seeming Fulani apologists. It is now that a lot of government actions hitherto thought insignificant are making sense. For instance, on what ground should Arabic be written on Nigeria’s paper currencies and what logic can possibly support such extreme impunity? Why should the legend on the Nigerian Army emblem be in Arabic? What is the sense of Federal Character policy that subordinates better qualifications to inferior ones because of place of origin instead of building the capacity of all Nigerians from everywhere to meet global standards?
Is it not a collective indictment on all leaders in Nigeria that there is such a retrogressive policy that gives priority to a candidate who scores 20% over another that scores 80% because the candidate with the lower score is from a so-called educationally disadvantaged state instead of strengthening the education of the disadvantaged states? How did Nigeria get this low by putting mediocrity over meritocracy and why did all our leaders across all the geopolitical zones allow this aberration to be considered in the first place and perpetuated eventually?
Why should the Fulani herdsmen be allowed to bear military grade weapons like AK 47 while the generality of the Nigerian people are forbidden from doing same? Are we not all entitled to equal access to security? These policies and practices are not only short of justice and merit; they are also bereft of common sense and must therefore be discontinued forthwith.
When the Niger Delta agitation was pacified and the Biafra restlessness was ruthlessly confronted, it beats any human imagination that massive and extensive killings across the country can go on without any major intervention by the government in the form of stern reprimands, arrests and prosecutions where necessary despite the open confessions and identities of some of the culprits. It is unfortunate that until now, the rampaging killers across the country have not been dissuaded from their dastardly criminalities in any way. Rather, there are concerted efforts that seemingly urge them on.
On Tuesday, June 6, 2017, some groups from the North addressed a press conference at the Arewa House in Kaduna. The simple and direct message of the press conference was the decision to give all the Igbo and other southeastern people that are living in the Northern part of Nigeria an ultimatum to quit every part of the North by the 1st of October of that year. This mandate was according to the coalition informed by the persistent agitation by some Igbo for the breakaway of their ethnic group from the rest of Nigeria to form an independent and sovereign country of their own to be known as the Republic of Biafra. Despite the known identities of these rabble rousers nothing was done to discourage the continuing instigation of chaos and the breaching of the sovereignty of Nigeria through explosive and inciting statements.
In similar manner, another group called Arewa Youths Forum came out boldly on August 15, of same year to warn the political leaders from the South-West against plotting to take over power from the North in 2019. The group led by one Gambo Ibrahim Gujungu vowed that the North will resist attempts to remove President Buhari from power in the 2019 elections implying that they will not accept the democratic decision of the Nigerian people if not in their favour. Again, these people are known and they were not cautioned, they were not reprimanded and they were not prosecuted.
In a more brazen dimension after the January 1, 2018 attack on five communities in the Guma and Logo Local Government Areas of the state in which over 20 persons were murdered, Garos Gololo, the Chairman of the Benue State Chapter of another group calling itself Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) in an interview with BBC reiterated the herders’ position. He insinuated that the killings were in retaliation for the death of 207 cows and theft of another 1,000 by some people in the state. This fellow is not a spirit, and he was not known to have been reprimanded for this effrontery.
The instances are endless where some recalcitrant Fulani youths and elders supported by some Fulani leaders and tolerated by governments go about threatening fellow Nigerians simply because the rest of the country have been accommodating. In a seeming effort to hide the identity of these attackers, the government insisted that the marauding herdsmen were not Nigerians as if identity or origin is a defense or justification for the destruction of lives and properties.
In an extremely abnormal case that defies all logic, the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai claimed to have paid and compensated the assailants that were killing the people of his state on the pretext that the payment would discourage further attacks on the people. Should any compassionate leader be compensating such horrid barbarity and for how long would he continue to pay ransom for the lives of his people? Similarly in an unbelievable manner, the Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari on Thursday, August 29, 2019 held talks with representatives of bandits terrorizing the state supposedly with a view to finding a permanent solution.
As if this state surrender which is forcing governments in Nigeria to recognize, respect and compensate criminality was not bad enough, the spokesman of the President, Mr. Femi Adesina appeared on national television to warn Nigerian people to surrender their lands to the Fulani herdsmen and their cattle rather than get killed. That was a grossly shameful, insensitive and open encouragement of the onslaught against the very people that the government was established to protect. When you illegally, forcefully and aggressively take over people’s land, what life is left in them? Is Mr. Femi Adesina ignorant of the fact that in Africa, land is the foundation and sustenance of life and communal dignity?
SUSPECTED PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT
Mr. President, your government has evidently been extraordinarily gentle in dealing with all the numerous Fulani misdemeanors and criminalities that are destroying the country across all the geopolitical zones. We hear of amnesty for those who kill, maim and rape for no just reason. We have not seen an all-out war declared against those ferociously and violently overrunning the country. And we hear of plans to disarm peaceful members of the society who are only intent on protecting themselves. Is this not the time a caring government should be arming its vulnerable citizens in the face of an insurmountable and growing wholesale anarchy?
But what we hear are stories of Billions of naira largesse payed by the government to further the interests of these suspected and self-confessed attackers. We hear of a radio station to be specifically built for Fulani herdsmen and for their exclusive language and use. We hear of plans to deliberately integrate the military into the cattle business by attaching cattle rearing to barracks with the unimaginable claim by the military to have sent officers and men abroad to learn how to manage cattle ranches. Also not too long ago, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) through the Commandant General openly declared its plan to deploy its officers and men to protect and secure cattle and cattle colonies wherever they occur across the country. This is happening in a country where human lives are utterly unsafe and insecure.
It is equally astonishing that just less than the five years of your administration; your government has introduced five schemes to cater especially to the interest of the Fulani herdsmen alone. It all started with the Grazing Routes which was followed with the Grazing Reserve and the Nigerian people rejected these plans vehemently. This idea was further repackaged as the Cattle Colony that was also not acceptable nor accepted by the people. The Ruga Settlement was introduced clandestinely to the angst and chagrin of Nigerians concurrently with the latest one called National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) – all these for the Fulani herders that are most likely less than 5% of the Nigerian population. This is patently unfair Mr. President.
The suspicion of the supremacist agenda of the nomadic oligarchy bordering on conquest and colonization, and championed by some crude Fulani revisionists has been reinforced by the irritating statement of Abdul-Azeez and his co-travelers. Regrettably, this inglorious journey of perdition has been left unchallenged and unchastised by the federal government and other Fulani leaders… And this is one provocation too many. Nigerians across the entire country including the middle belt, the northeast and the northwest are tired of this offensive arrogance of some uncultured and over-pampered mischief-makers who are hell-bent on giving Mr. President a bad name and are determined to destroy our great country. Enough is enough of this impudent and provocative indiscretion. It shall no longer be tolerated or condoned.
Rather than continue to fan the embers of needless hostility, what is expected of responsible and patriotic citizens is concerted commitment to support the President to rescue Nigeria from becoming a failed state and transform Nigeria from a poorly rated third world country to at least second world if not a first world country. But today unlike any time before, the majority of Nigerians have lost hope in the viability of Nigeria and those of us who remain committed to the Nigeria Project are beginning to sound like broken records while we are understandably regarded as treacherous traitors, betrayers of our people and haters of our heritage. It is these ethnic rabble rousers and the continuing degeneration and growing insecurity in the country that have further reinforced this unfortunate perspective of an impending revolution and not the Revolution Now campaign and its youthful proponents who are justifiably feeling largely shortchanged by the society.
SEVERAL DEATHS TOO MANY
At the height of this breakdown is the conscienceless murder of the daughter of the Yoruba leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti on July 12, 2019. The lame retractions that Mrs. Funke Olakunrin was killed by armed robbers or some other hoodlums, is neither consoling nor reassuring. At least the sad incident speaks very clearly and audibly to the despicable insecurity in the country and it is a clear message to the Yoruba people that is duly and fully understood.
Sometimes in August of 2018, there was a report that at least 30 Nigerian soldiers died in combat with Boko Haram jihadists who overran a military base in the northeast near the border with Niger Republic. And just recently, Nigerian Army also confirmed that it lost two officers and three soldiers in the attack launched against troops by Boko Haram in Yobe State on Wednesday, July 17, 2019. All these are not cheery news. Indeed, they are scary news. If our military and security operatives are becoming easy targets of this stateless, ragtag bunch of ruffians, then something is not right because we know that our security men and women are parts of the best in the world if they were well managed, coordinated and catered for. Our officers and men are gallant indeed. It is leadership that must do the right thing for our security sector. Nigeria will never become another Afghanistan under any circumstance.
Democracy is also under unprecedented threats as of today in Nigeria and it is only God’s grace that has so far sustained the country. Everything that is undermining the survival and developmental growth of democracy, freedom, justice, equity and fairness must be done away with. This is the second greatest task that must be accomplished by the leadership of Nigeria now. Strengthened democracy and collective prosperity are the minimum requirements for the survival and unity of Nigeria and not any verbal declaration of the indivisibility of the country. The only condition that can keep Nigeria one is for the President to visibly cater to the interest of all and not a part. These discriminatory treatments will neither work nor reinforce the declarations of Mr. President to be a father to all.
In actual fact, current global practices are not supportive of the various government cattle plans in any way which is further fueling the suspicion of a hidden agenda, a fear which the President must strive to allay if Nigeria must remain one, with peace restored to the land. It is high time the President looked into the virulent allegation of nepotism with the intention to diffusing the negative feeling. The government should also begin to look at the critical sectors of the society including power, petroleum, infrastructures and economy, and integrate every ethnic group into its holistic development plan.
Almost every area of Nigeria’s national life has completely collapsed as things are getting worse. Apart from the less than 10% of the population in Nigeria made up those who have access to public coffers, outright criminals and a very few lucky ones, the rest of the Nigerian people are pauperized and impoverished, and are living in sub-human conditions. It is your primary duty and those of all your close personal and professional aides and allies to not only change this situation in perspective, but also in reality. There is an urgent need to commence full and unrelenting development across the entire nooks and crannies of the country to assuage the bitterness and anger of the people who feel that the Fulani people are determined to subjugate, dispossess and enslave the rest of the Nigerian people.
THE OMINOUS CLOUDS
Once again Mr. President, in the chequered life of this beleaguered country, the ominous clouds have gathered and it is threatening a hugely disastrous downpour that would cause a flood across the entire African continent that would sweep away the fragile civilization and flimsy progress that the black humanity has been able to attain. As the President and father of the nation, you have the preeminent responsibility to avert this looming catastrophe. If you summon the courage to be a true statesman and rise up now to this thoroughly challenging and distressful situation, you may not only still be able to redeem your name and legacy, you may still also be able to save the entire country and continent from the threatening colossal but needless apocalypse the magnitude that promises to be very rare in the annals of human history.
So far Your Excellency, you have ostensibly failed with regards to this expectation and worse still, you appear to be a vigorous party in this ensuing national imbroglio. Today in the court of public opinion, you stand accused of passive complicity, if not of active collaboration in the unholy agenda of conquest and colonization driven with the gruesome ongoing genocide that is promising to tear this country asunder and undo it. It is disheartening that rather than focus on these very serious problems, it is cattle business that has taken the whole of your attention and the devotion of your government.
Thank God for the matured composure of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Yoruba nation, and of all the other ethnic groups in the country who have been pacifying the younger and hot-blooded generations who are totally outraged by the prevalent political, social and economic oppression, suppression, repression and subjugation of the vast majority of the Nigerian nation by a few oligarchs. This is no longer acceptable and it is no longer tolerable. This is not a religious issue; it is simply more like one small group internationally inspired to enslave the rest. I am of no doubt whatsoever that the rest of the Nigerian people will not allow this to happen, whatever the cost. Any imaginary attempt by any one group or the look of it, to dominate the others shall be vehemently, unequivocally and defiantly resisted.
It is my hope and expectation that this wild but growing assumption is not the case and that it remains a figment of the imagination of its proponents. Mr. President Sir, you, the people working with you and any other person or group who might have been playing with such thought should know that this is an outrageous, unrealistic and illusory venture that would leave nothing but devastating and debilitating destruction in its wake. It is therefore not in the interest of anyone to harbor such archaic, anachronistic and monstrous intention. Indeed, the contemplation of it alone can be equally as catastrophic and disastrous as its implementation. It is therefore exceedingly important and imperative for you and your team Mr. President, to find a way to quickly douse the kindling spark of resentment before it becomes a conflagration that would consume all and sundry. I led a group to the north for several weeks last year and the fear is real and the tension is palpable. The time to act is now. Tomorrow is definitely too late.
THE RECOMMENDATIONS
In good faith, my advice to you, your inner circle and all those who love you is for you all, to quickly and collectively rise up to engage in the following recommendations:
1. Declare a State-of-Emergency on Development in Nigeria and begin the tedious task of building the country through active, impactful and integrated development masterplan that carries every group along.
2. Correct past anomalies including skewed policies, programs, projects and appointments that tend to favor one ethnic group over and above the others.
3. Initiate an extensive process of reconciliation and forgiveness among all Nigerians particularly with and between those who are feeling aggrieved including individuals and ethnic nationalities.
4. Build on the principle of collective love where all will have a sense of brotherhood and togetherness.
5. Become a father to all and demonstrate equal affection to all and sundry.
THE COUNTER ULTIMATUM
In concluding Mr. President, I wish to make it crystal and explicitly clear on behalf of the organizations I lead, and the entire Nigerian people that the exuberant carelessness and excessive indiscretions of some of your people led by Abdul-Azeez Suleiman and his kind have become completely intolerable and it shall no longer be tolerated. Because we are convinced that you cannot be part of their ridiculous and inglorious circus, we are hereby requesting you to use your good offices to call them to order and mandate them to tender a public apology to the Nigerian people for the effrontery of the ultimatum they gave, failure after which you should direct that legal actions should be taken against them. Nobody has the right to threaten other Nigerians; it is direct invitation of anarchy.
If either of these two suggestions mentioned above is not adopted and executed within thirty days of the release of this publication (I.e. Wednesday, November 20, 2019), we shall be forced to decisively demonstrate our resolve not necessarily against Mr. President, but definitely against the inchoate minds that issued the cheeky ultimatum in the following ways:
1. The respite enjoyed by the inciters shall be construed as an endorsement and a confirmation that the supremacist fear of conquest and colonization is real and the president is not particularly averse to it
2. We shall make a comprehensive representation to the National Assembly to commence serious inquiry into this combustible arrogance of these agents provocateurs who Mr. President is not seemingly willing to openly correct and reprimand for whatever reason
3. We shall also initiate litigation in the appropriate court of law against these incendiary statements, hate speeches and inciting representations that are threatening the unity and stability of the country
4. We shall commence immediate and aggressive local and international advocacy exposing general leadership failure in the country
5. Your government shall be held responsible for every life lost and every property destroyed henceforth due to the unbridled activities of the Fulani militias and marauding bandits
6. We shall initiate Free-Gun Law litigation at the judicial level, and a bill at the legislative level to augment the efforts of the security agencies who are too stretched and in need of support
7. We shall propose a bill to the National Assembly for one-year compulsory full military training for all Nigerians below thirty years of age and voluntary security training for Nigerians above thirty years of age from the date of commencement of the enabling law
8. Agitation and action for the consideration, adoption and implementation of the Reports of the 2014 Constitutional Conference as sine qua non to the continuous existence of Nigeria through all legal and appropriate means shall be relentlessly pursued
9. All necessary democratic instruments shall be deployed by the Nigerian people, youths, professionals and other stakeholders to ensure that the negligible minority is not allowed to manipulate, intimidate, frustrate and overrun the substantial majority
10. We shall inspire the activation of all available constitutional processes of enthroning and birthing the New Nigeria as visualized in the New Nigeria Dream
Mr. President, elections are over and even the election tribunal has ruled in your favour howbeit. It is therefore now time for serious work. So that your time and tenure may be remembered for good, let us pray to God to grant you the required courage and capacity to take the right decisions and work for the peace, prosperity and progress of Nigeria which some of us have been, and are still visibly and irrevocably committed to.
God bless Nigeria and God bless Nigerians.
Yinka Quadiri
Project Coordinator
21/10/19
BUILDERS OF NEW NIGERIA
ÌYÀYÍTÓ OMOLÚÀBÍ
(BNN SOUTHWEST OPERATIONS)
Copy:
The President of the Senate
The Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives
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In a memo by the Presidency to Mr Babatunde Fowler, Executive Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the revenue boss was asked to explain why “actual collections for the period between 2016 and 2018 were significantly worse than what was collected between 2012 and 2014.”
The memo also sought explanations for why actual revenue collections were consistently lower than projections in the three years under reference.
Fowler was appointed to the position in August 2015.
For the discrepancies between targets and actual collections, the numbers are N5.008 trillion actual collection against the N3.64 trillion targeted for 2012; N4.806 trillion actual collection against the target of N4.469 trillion for 2013; and N4.715 trillion against the N4.086 trillion targeted for 2014.
These give a total N14.529 trillion actual collection against N12.195 targeted for the three-year period. The extra N2.334 trillion represents 19 percent excess collection over projection for the period.
Under Fowler, actual collection in 2016 was N3.3 trillion against N4.2 trillion targeted; in 2017 it was N4.0 trillion actual against N4.8 trillion targeted; while in 2018, it was N5.3 trillion actual against N6.7 trillion targeted.
The N12.6 trillion collected contrasts with the N15.7 trillion targeted for the full three years under Fowler.
This represents 19.7 percent shortfall of target set for the 3-year period. In the 15-year period of 2000 to 2014, It was only in 2006 that failure to meet or surpass target occurred, despite the zigzag movement of GDP growth rates in that long period.
In gross terms, what Fowler collected between 2016 and 2018 was N1.869 trillion short of what was collected in the corresponding three years of 2012 - 2104.
In real term - that is, controlling for inflation - Fowler’s actual collection of N12.6 trillion is worth only N7.2 trillion in 2014, if we discount 13 percent average annual inflation rate from 2018 back to 2014.
It was for this dismal performance that the Presidency must have written to Fowler.
The parameters for assessing performance, to be sure, should be three: gross amounts actually collected, real value of actual collection (controlling for inflation), and target revenue set for the comparative periods.
In the three parameters, Fowler failed spectacularly. What was Fowler’s excuse for this failure?
Low crude oil prices, the brief period of recession, and low GDP growth rates after recession.
To start with, revenue targets are not set arbitrarily, but based on measurable indices as projected crude oil prices, GDP growth rate, inflation rate, Naira exchange rates, etc.
Targets are also not set and handed to FIRS by some external authorities, but arrived at in collaborative work between Federal Ministry of Finance and FIRS on the basis of the measurable indices cited above.
For Fowler to now seek to rationalise his failure on the basis of low crude oil prices and reduced GDP growth rates, both of which had been factored into the relatively low targets set for him, is to be clever by half.
When ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo assumed office in 1999, he met crude oil prices that went as low $12 per barrel.
Yet, actual revenue collections consistently exceeded targeted revenue in his 8-year presidency, except in 2006. In the same period, GDP growth rates were sluggish.
Since Fowler mentioned the fact of lower crude oil receipts in the period under him vis-a-vis 2012-2014, it is important that we disaggregate that also.
If, for instance, crude oil sold on the average of $100 per barrel in the period 2012-2014, while it sold for half of that in the corresponding period of 2016-2018, with the percentage royalty from the gross crude oil prices paid to Nigerian government kept constant, then, certainly the Petroleum Income Tax (PIT) paid to FIRS would be roughly half of what it used to be.
But between 2014 and 2018, Naira was devalued from N160 to N306 to $1. Since FIRS is paid in Naira and its collections denominated in the same Naira, what was lost in reduced oil prices and sometimes reduced crude oil quantities was compensated for by the more Naira volumes collected for lower dollar volumes.
Whatever gross shortfall that might still remain (I doubt if any should) should be made up for in the expansion of the base from the 10 million tax payers Fowler inherited to the reported 20 million under him.
Even if the new addition to the tax base paid only 30 percent of the extant amount paid by those inherited, the results posted by Fowler would and should have been far better.
In another defense of his performance, Fowler pointed out that non-oil taxes such as VAT, capital gain tax, stamp duties, etc, increased consistently on his watch. Good. But how did those other taxes increase steadily under the same inclement GDP and macroeconomic conditions that Fowler cited as his undoing? See the contradiction? So, if the macroeconomic circumstances cited by Fowler as cause of his gross underperformance are not the culprits, what then is the cause?
In a news report by The Sun newspaper of August 26, 2019, many cases of corruption reported by key staff of FIRS were cited. While I do not have means of getting foolproof evidence of those allegations, but those of us who knew the goings-on in Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) under Fowler and subsequently, as well as the Barracuda of a godfather who nominated him to the post, were certain that Nigeria would get the short end of the stick under him at the FIRS.
Fowler is too much of an establishment person, a social circle constant, to make any transformative contributions in FIRS.
Did anyone one hear of any prominent player in the private sector prosecuted for tax fraud under Fowler? Dogs don’t eat dogs! For a touted wizkid brought in time of crisis to make a fundamental difference in the revenue profile of the country to cite the same crisis that warranted his appointment in the first place as reason for non-performance is fraudulent and an insult to public intelligence.
Professor Ishaq Oloyede met a JAMB where his predecessor had been making a yearly remittance to the Federal Government of N3 million. In the first year of his tenure, he remitted N7.8 billion. Even after slashing the examination fee paid by JAMB candidates, and greatly improving both the processes and quality of the examination, Oloyede still remitted more than N5 billion after the last examination.
We’re also aware of the transformation Dr Dada is making at the Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Meta, Lagos with the same inherited staff and allocated resources. These competent and honest Nigerians, to cite just two of them, are operating under the same harsh socio-economic environment that Fowler is crying about.
I close by asking the Presidency to beam its searchlights on other revenue generating agencies as the Nigeria Customs Service, NPA, NIMASA, Immigration, among others.
A lot of incompetence and heists will be uncovered in them also. This is absolutely necessary given the alarm sounded by the Federal Government that the country is faced with the threat of a terrible fiscal crisis.
* Kawonise, a former Commissioner for Information and Orientation in Ogun state, is Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of NewsScroll newspaper
Hackers have now turned their criminal activities to WhatsApp Accounts with the aim of using the contacts of the owners to defraud innocent victims, and also used the hacked contacts to disseminate fake news and information across the globe.
Penpushing reports that, the modus operandi of the fraudsters is to change the phone number of the original owners, replaced with their own numbers and change identity of the owners, and thereafter exploit people on the list of the owners on the contacts.
The investigations conducted by Penpushing revealed that, number of innocent users of the WhatsApp have fallen victims of these fraudsters who contacted their friends and family members for dubious assistance.
The news medium further reports that, the hackers also used the opportunity to embark on fake business transactions with innocent victims in the number of the WhatsApp groups, while one of the discovered fraudsters was noticed to be using mobile number 08161721730 for the illegal operations.
However, to prevent these fraudsters, users should take the following steps through their mobile phones: *Go to the : on your right handside*, *Select settings on your WhatsApp*,*Click on Account*, *Click on Two- step verification*, *Enter pin* (6 digits pin you will remember), Confirm your pin, *Input your email address* (Valid Email address), Confirm your email and save.
With these steps, if anybody, particularly suspected hackers attempt to operate to change identity of the owner, WhatsApp will ask for the Two-step verification and without it the account won't open.
Penpushing
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Twenty-six years after the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, which was won by Mr Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, his first son and present head of the extended Abiola family, Mr Kola Abiola, has opened up on his father’s struggle to win the election and reclaim his mandate after the results were cancelled.
In this exclusive interview with The Sun team in his Lagos residence, he revealed what transpired behind the scenes before, during and after the annulled election and the role played by different persons and interest groups.
He said, contrary to widely held beliefs, Abiola never nominated anybody into the regime of the late Mr Sani Abacha, and explained that some of his father’s former allies who chose to serve the late dictator had already decided to be part of his regime and his father could not stop them.
Kola Abiola also denied accusations by some family members who alleged that they were living in penury because he cut off funds meant for them, saying he would soon address those allegations with facts.
He spoke with Eric Osagie, Onuoha Ukeh, Femi Babafemi and Chinelo Obogo.
June 12 has been recognised as Democracy Day in honour of the election your father won. How does it make you feel when you look back?
For me, it is the end of a long journey. We started this journey in 1991 at the Hilton Hotel after I sat down with my father’s personal assistant back then, Olu Akerele, who was trying to convince me to participate in the election. At the very beginning, I was not involved; I knew what my father was planning, but I just carried on like I didn’t know what was going on because he didn’t tell me directly. As a family, we had an understanding that he would let the Ibrahim Babangida transition programme go before we participate in any election. It was not the case of whether we should go into the contest or not; we wanted the transition to go through before we participated. I guess after a lot of pressure, he then went to Abeokuta to get the form to contest for the election.
Did he tell you what was going on?
He didn’t tell me, but I knew what was going on. I knew he had gone to Abeokuta to pick the Option A4 form, but I just played dumb since he didn’t talk to me about it. He went into the race quite alright but I stayed out of it and just watched. All along, I knew it was inevitable that it would come back to me. He then started sending people indirectly to talk to me because he wanted me to get involved. While we were in Abuja, he called me and said he wanted to see me. He asked if I would just stand aside and watch him without getting involved and I responded by telling him that he still hadn’t told me about the race. So, we sat down and I told him that I had a plan, which I would write out and discuss with him. I was in the lobby with Olu Akerele and I wrote out what I felt would be the best programme, what the options were, the problems we were going to face, whom his running mate should be, etc. After writing out the plans, I approached my father and presented them to him. Before then, he planned to use the state representatives of Concord as polling agents and I told him that would be a waste of time. After I presented the blueprint to him, he was very happy and said everything was beginning to make sense and everything happened exactly the way I said it would be. The only issues that I didn’t anticipate were the post-election problems. I was focused more on delivering the ticket and all the pre-election issues.
What was the blueprint about?
I felt that we needed to work with the late Shehu Yar’Adua group, which I was very much involved in. I also felt that I needed to stay out of the campaign and do the legwork, while I coordinated with the Yar’Adua group. I predicted that we didn’t have a choice than to pick a Muslim-Muslim ticket at that time. So, I had to broker an arrangement with Yar’Adua about Atiku Abubakar and my father; the deal was that Atiku would be the running mate.
How then did Babagana Kingibe enter the race?
We ended up with Kingibe because there was a lot of pressure on my dad to have a balanced ticket, where he would pick a northern Christian running mate. But events at the time didn’t make it possible for us to have that option and I will explain. We came in at the second leg of the election; the first leg was when the election of the 23 candidates was annulled, and then we stepped in. At that point, Kingibe was chairman of Social Democratic Party (SDP) and he was helped by Peoples Front (PF), which was the Yar’Adua group. All along, he had zoned every key office to all the other zones except the presidency. So, the Hausa-Fulani North didn’t have a stake in the entire political process. We coming in from the South-West was basically a coup on the process because they had assumed that they would have a northern presidential candidate. NRC (National Republican Convention) had a northern candidate (Bashir Tofa), so SDP assumed that their candidate would also come from the North. If we made the mistake of picking a Christian northerner, NRC would have had block votes from the Muslim North; so, politically, we had no choice than to choose a northern Muslim. If we had not done that, we would have given away a large percentage of the votes that would have come from the Muslim North. My father was being pressured by the Falae-Ajasin-Adesanya group to pick a running mate from the minority Christian North. Initially, they considered Dan Suleiman from Adamawa as running mate, but I kicked against it because I knew how politically strong they all were. In Jos, I also wanted to avoid a three-way race where you had two northerners against one southerner, so I had to broker a deal for Atiku to step down for my father and it became a two-way race, which gave us a better option. Part of the deal was to have Atiku as the Vice President.
What then happened?
After we scaled that hurdle, pressure started coming from other parts of the party and even Aso Rock, that we must have a balanced ticket. I kept on saying no because I knew that if we had a balanced ticket, we were going to lose the election. There was also pressure from the governors’ forum led by the late Olusola Saraki (Baba Oloye) and also Arthur Nzeribe was part of that powerful block. They had lost out at the time and they were pushing for a possible petition on the election process itself. So, I had to run to Alhaji M.S. Buhari, who was the number two of the PF. He later left the PF to move with Kingibe because they were both Kanuri. I rushed to him to appeal to Kingibe to cease the planned petition, so they met and they told me not to worry that they would cede. But the governors’ group kept on putting pressure, so you can understand where it was coming from. As party chairman, Kingibe had influence in putting all those governors in place, so they were loyal to him. But I always knew all along that if we had a free and fair election, there was no way that any of those governors would return. We had to pick a Muslim running mate and I had brokered a deal with Atiku, but then there was Kingibe on one side who was being supported by the governors. At the end of the day, rather than lose entirely, I now had to cede my commitment to Atiku, which was very unfortunate. Once we agreed on a running mate, I left Jos and met with Yar’Adua over the issue.
Didn’t that turn out to be a grave miscalculation because, after the annulment, there were reports that Yar’Adua was lukewarm towards your father’s cause?
I don’t think it’s fair to say that. When we sealed the deal to pick Kingibe as running mate, I was meant to go to Kaduna first thing in the morning and explain the situation to him. It was my duty to also speak with Atiku, but, unfortunately, immediately the plane took off from Abuja to Lagos, it was already in the media that Kingibe had been picked; so it was a fait accompli. I then had the responsibility to try to keep it together and explain to the PF group as a whole why we took the decision.
Were they disappointed?
Obviously, but I think we amended all that prior to the election to the point that the PF, led by the General himself, led the campaign committee. We had meetings at the presidential suite of Federal Palace Hotel on how to strategise and implement the whole plan, so they were totally involved. The General would always say that the best thing was always to have a strong party because that was the only legal entity that could challenge the government. Remember I was very young then, so I had to learn pretty fast. As far as delivering the ticket, my blueprint worked, but what we didn’t anticipate was that the government would not want to go.
Was there a time that your father had an agreement with IBB that he would actually leave, and did IBB ask your father to run for the election?
You can’t tell anybody not to run. IBB and my father were very close and we thought the man was set to go. On several occasions, I sat with IBB one-on-one and asked him some questions and he said he was going to go, and I believed him. Whether he went by choice is a different thing entirely, but the events made it difficult to do otherwise.
When you reflect on that election, what do you think gave Abiola victory?
He was the most detribalised person I know and we were all brought up that way. He was a pioneer in every business he set up because he always believed in indigenous talent. The bank we had used to be run by Pakistanis but it was my father who insisted that we would start having Nigerian MDs to run the bank. He believed that Nigerians could do anything Pakistanis could do and that was how we stopped having Pakistani MDs. By virtue of my father’s detribalised nature, he had been to every part of this country. If any of his workers had an event in their village, he made sure he attended, even if it was for two minutes, so that people would know that you are an important person by virtue of him being there. He did it for many years and he was welcomed wherever he went. He employed purely based on merit and not because you were from Abeokuta; so we had members of staff from every part of Nigeria. Part of that strategy I spoke about earlier was how to convert his popularity to votes because his name was out there but it would only count if it is converted to votes and we achieved that. Even in the military and the police, he trained many officers. But they said the military didn’t want him… Go to any barracks, they voted for him 100 per cent.
There have been reports that your mother, Simbiat, told Abiola not to venture into politics because of how difficult it could be. Is this a fact?
I spoke about it earlier on and she didn’t say so. She only told him to wait till the transition period was over. She was on her dying bed anyway and she must know why she said so. It was not a no from her; it was only a matter of when.
There have been several reasons adduced for the annulment of the election. In your mind, what can you pick out to be the real reason MKO’s election was annulled?
I am doing a documentary called ‘Hope Derailed’ in which I interviewed every post-election player and it would have been ready but for some delays. I interviewed everyone from IBB to Tinubu, Walter Carrington, Nzeribe, Susan Rice and every one of them who played a part post-election.
What were you able to deduce from your interviews?
At the end of the day, I didn’t feel that the government of the day wanted to go. One part of the government didn’t want to go; one part acted like they wanted to go and was playing pranks on the other part but, eventually, it was like they had a coup and outfoxed themselves. If you remember, there was a time my father called on General Abacha to correct the wrongs and I told him that that was a mistake because no military man will correct the wrong.
What were the mistakes Abiola made in the June 12 struggle?
Was he too trusting because of his simplicity or was it that he was not destined to be president?
I am a big believer in destiny, but I know that we ran the perfect election. The participation was totally across board; Nigerians of all tribes and religions voted for us and we broke all the rules. But after it didn’t happen, it means it is destiny. It is because he trusted people that made him very successful in life. If he didn’t trust people, many of those who worked under him would never have had the opportunity they had; he would never have given them the chance, so it is neither here nor there. You are who you are, period.
Did he make mistakes?
We all made mistakes. One mistake was calling on Abacha to come. You could call it a mistake even though my father’s reasons were genuine. Another mistake he made then was to fly out to America the time he did. We had the initiative totally in our hands and he didn’t need to leave because leaving meant he was handing the initiative back to the military. I tried to stop him but by the time I got to the airport, he had left. That same night, I took a flight to London to convince him that he needed to come back. He said if he came back, we would be arrested and I said I hoped we were arrested so that it would make amends for having left in the first place. He said he was going to the US and that I should come along, but I said no, that we both should not be away from the country. I came back and I walked through the airport and nothing happened. It is not every day you find a stupendously wealthy man, championing a cause that alters Nigeria’s history and later became a civil rights activist. He used to say that you do not stand in front of a moving train because you want to show bravery. But all of a sudden, here was a man standing in front of a moving train.
Would you describe your father as a reluctant hero?
For all that he did for individuals and for the country as a whole, Nigerians said thank you to him through that election. He didn’t get one single honour while he was alive and Nigeria used that opportunity to say thank you. The second point is that, through that election, he united the country, and he proved that, irrespective of where you come from, you can see yourself as one. After my father died, I continued the struggle for June 12 to be officially recognised; I started with Baba (Obasanjo) but I knew that I would not get anything done. When former President Goodluck Jonathan came, I started again with him. Even after he had lost the election, I felt that it was one last thing he could do to engrave his name in the history books of Nigeria but, for his own reasons, we fell short at the very last minute. When I met with Buhari in Kaduna as President-elect, I told him what I would like and, as God would have it, he had the strength of character to do it. It is a discretionary and not a political thing. Such an action is taken at the discretion of the President. I wanted three things: for my father to be honoured with the GCFR, so that Nigeria would accept that he won the election because that title goes to Presidents only. The second issue was that I wanted June 12 to be declared Democracy Day and I got that. May 29 Democracy Day was a fake date; that was just Obasanjo trying to re-write history. One thing I didn’t ask for but got and I’m very grateful to the President and Vice President was the apology made to my family; that was the icing on the cake. Some say it was political but anything about Abiola is political and that is why it took so long for him to be recognised by giving him his due place in the history of Nigeria. We didn’t expect the apology and I am very grateful to the President. For me, that journey ended that day even though it crystalised this year. It is for that reason that I have not been politically involved. I have received offers for ministerial appointments but I totally refused to take them because it is incomplete, but now I feel fulfilled.
Where were you on the night Abiola was arrested? Did you anticipate his arrest?
Yes I did. There was a particular day that we got supposedly credible information that they were going to raid the house and arrest him and the idea was for him to go to the American embassy to take refuge. When I was told about the plan to arrest him, I said, well, he is in his house; let us see what will happen, but my family members felt I wasn’t taking the issue very seriously. They said they wanted him to go to the American embassy and I asked why. I couldn’t convince anybody that it was a set up. So, we got ready for him to go to the embassy and when I saw lots of people around him, I then asked that if we are going to the embassy, why the convoy? I told them to leave him to me that I would personally drive him there. On our way, I told him that the whole set-up didn’t seem right because if I shot him there, people wouldn’t blame me, they would blame IBB. So, in order not to trivialise the issue, he should come and stay in my house. He agreed and we headed back to Anthony, where I lived, and he spent the night in my house. The following morning, all the papers carried reports that he was at the American embassy and my father told me that I was right that the entire American embassy thing was a set-up. When the issue of declaring himself president came up, I told him it was not a good idea but that if he insisted, he should make sure that every single person who suggested it to him would all be physically present when the declaration was made. I told him to announce his cabinet and let all of those cabinet members be there with him while he made his declaration. I told him that if they were not willing to do this, it tells us that something is wrong. He said okay, so I went home. The next thing I heard was that he was on his way there; then I knew that there was a problem.
So, you were not in support of his declaration at Epetedo?
There were so many other things we planned to do, like attending the constitutional conference. We had a meeting in Kaduna and we agreed that there was no way we could challenge this guy. Since he said the conference would determine his tenure in office, let us go to the conference and give it to him. I came back and told my father and advised that, as the leader of the democratic process, he should attend the conference, let us see how they will shave his head in his absence. But in the South-West, they decided to boycott the conference; I told my father that we were in a military regime, so whether we boycotted or we didn’t boycott, the military would do what it wanted to do. That was how people like Bucknor Akerele became members of the Assembly; she just walked into the place and they counted her among the members. When Abacha took over, my father met with him and asked when he would leave, but Abacha said he didn’t know. He then told him that if he wasn’t going to tell them when he was leaving, they would not participate in his administration and that was why there was no one from the PF group in that administration. We participated in the transition to make sure the man left because there could never be a vacuum in government and that was why they participated in that.
But there were reports that MKO nominated the likes of Babatope and Onagoruwa into Abacha’s government?
No, that is totally wrong. The guys that joined Abacha had committed themselves to being part of the government already. I told my father that these people were not committed to him and that they were going to join Abacha. I knew from the PF that these people had made up their minds already to go and because they just wanted my father to endorse the choice they had made, they called a meeting to make it look as if they wanted him to bless them so they could go. My father decided that maybe it was time for him to cut his losses and if the guys wanted to go and join Abacha, they were free to go. So he just left them to do what they wanted because they had already gone anyway.
Was he hurt when Kingibe joined Abacha’s government? Did he feel betrayed?
It didn’t surprise him because I had already told him. Knowing what I had known, I met my father in his room and told him to handle the situation right because if he didn’t, we would be the biggest losers. He then asked me what I meant. I pointed out people around him who were already gone; so he wasn’t surprised when it happened. When my father was arrested after the declaration, I went to see Abacha and I must say that he received me well. He asked me why my father declared himself President; I told him it was not a matter of why, but that the deed had been done already. I asked him what the way forward was and he said if I was able to correct it, that he was willing to let everything go. By correcting things, he meant that I should come out publicly and tell the country that my father made a mistake by declaring himself President, but there was no way I would do that. I had to stand by my dad and that was the beginning of his four-year incarceration.
Your father once said Abacha kept him in an open grave and what was left was to bury him. During that period, what condition was he in?
We never saw him where he was incarcerated in those four years. When we went to visit him, we usually waited at the police headquarters sometimes for two weeks. They usually brought him to the station at old CBN and allowed him to stay with us for an hour or more.
How was his spirit? Was he moody?
We carried on with courage as if nothing happened just to give him the strength to hang in there.
Was he hopeful that he would still become President?
At some point, he believed without a doubt that he would reclaim his mandate and that it was only a matter of time.
Did you ever have any premonition that things were going to go wrong?
Why would I want to? Life always comes to an end; it does not matter when or how, it always comes to an end.
How many times did you see him in four years?
Before he died, I didn’t see him for like a year and half because I was trying to change his counsel and we needed him to sign. We were going to change GOK and FR Williams and we needed to see him to sign it, but because of that they didn’t make it possible for us to see him.
How did you hear the news of his death?
They called us from Abuja collectively but, conveniently, I could not be found. So, other family members went. I indirectly heard that he had died and then I got a call from the Villa confirming it.
Did you see his body?
Yes, I saw it. It must have been really terrible… For me as the first son and the head of the family, I needed to be strong. They didn’t beat us and to do otherwise would make it look like we had been defeated. I went in there and saw the body and I asked if we could take him for burial. They told me that we had to go and meet with General Abdulsalami who pleaded that they should be allowed to carry out an autopsy. I initially said no because, as a Muslim, he should be buried immediately. But he pleaded and I later agreed and that was arranged. I had come to terms with it and, emotionally, I was strong because, before then, I had seen the death of my mum who died at 54.
Do you believe he was murdered or do you think he died a natural death?
I think that is very irrelevant, to be honest. If you know my father well enough, he walked with a first aid kit. He knew his body so well and when anything was out of order, he hopped into a plane and demanded to be taken to his doctor. If he walked past a clinic, he would stop and tell you to take his blood pressure. Now, if you lock up such a man for four years without getting him medical attention, you have already killed him. You don’t need to put a gun to his head or poison his tea, which was what he meant when he said Abacha had locked him in a coffin. We all knew he had high blood pressure, so it’s a given that such a person should have had frequent medical attention. I think, at a point, we were successful in getting him to go for treatment but then his lawyer came and decided to challenge the conditional release that was brokered. I did not see the sense in that.
Would you also blame his lawyer for being part of the conspiracy or not?
Abacha even said on live TV that he didn’t know what my father’s lawyer was doing but that he certainly wasn’t working for the government. You can go and check the clip.
Abacha died and Abdulsalam took over. There was an interlude of one month before your father died. Why was your father not released during that one-month interval?
From what I understand, it was a process and they wanted to bring the big fish last because they had released the likes of Diya and Obasanjo, so they wanted to release him last. Also, I think they knew that he had a health problem and they didn’t want him to be released spontaneously. They wanted to slowly re-integrate him back to the society. They moved him to Aguda House, where he got access to the likes of Kofi Annan and Emeka Anyaoku. They planned to finally release him thereafter, but the timing was wrong.
Were you allowed to see him during Abdulsami’s regime?
That was when they called the family to come and meet him, but they went without me for reasons best known to them.
At a point in time, we heard that you were married to IBB’s daughter. Was it true?
I think they put the cart before the horse; we never got married. I had known her way before politics and, if I wanted to, I would have married her long before the election, but it would not have made any sense because it would have looked like an arranged thing. One day, I was at a function and Baba Ayo Adebanjo accused me of not participating in what they were doing because I was collecting contracts from the government to print election materials. I told him that I was not involved in any contracts but that, even if I was, were the contracts not Nigerian contracts and am I not a Nigerian? His allegations were false. I grew up with his kids in Surulere, so for him to tell me that in front of people was embarrassing.
Are there moments that you have been faced with challenges and you wished that your dad was still alive?
My parents prepared us for when they would not be around. While our friends were playing around, we were working. They forced a level of maturity in us that was way more than our age at the time. We talked to our father as colleagues and friends. We all had our master’s degree by the time my mother died. We were not born with riches and even when the riches came, my mum made sure that we didn’t know we had it. We didn’t have a nanny in the house and my mum always sent me on errands to buy diapers for my younger ones when we were in Surulere.
Who was the MKO that the world didn’t know about?
My dad has always been an open book; what you see is what you get. He was extremely brilliant. He had a photographic memory and he never forgot anything, no matter how many years had passed. That was what endeared people to him and he had lots of friends. He and Olusegun Obasanjo came from Abeokuta and even attended the same school.
What do you think was the problem between the former President and your father?
I do not want to get into what the problems were. At my age, I have my own difficulties with my contemporaries. What I know is that my father was his senior in school and they both came from Abeokuta. He has been head of state three times and the he would not have been head of state the last two times without my father. It was my father who paid the price. So, whatever the differences, he owes it to himself and everyone to come clean on what the issues are. I am not going to speculate.
Abiola was a very rounded character. He was generous, very friendly and a man of many women too. You must have many siblings, some of whom you may not even know. How was he able to manage such a large family?
I think I know all of us by now. That was why I said that if I had seen him in the morning and at night they called me to say he was dead, I would have been in serious crisis. My father’s four-year incarceration allowed me to know everybody for whom they are and what they are. It made me know whom you could count on and whom you could not count on, be it wife, child or friend. It was a tutelage period for me, for something that you think would never come.
How many children do you think he had?
You can’t count the number of children one has. There was a lot of uniqueness in MKO; to him, nothing is a mistake. It may look like an excessive thing but, over the years, it turned out well. I have a sister married to a Deltan. I am married to a Deltan. I have a sister married to the Ijebu. I have a brother married to an American. I have a brother married to the Kanuri. I have a brother married to someone from Zimbabwe and, before you know it, we would be presidents all over the world. We don’t joke around.
Has the acrimony in your family been resolved?
One of your siblings accused you in the media recently that you are not letting them have the opportunity to run the businesses and that the businesses are in ruins.
I’m glad you brought it up. All these businesses did not start in one day but the government shut everything down in one day. A lot of these businesses were created by the eldest of Abiola’s children; Deji, me and others. My sentiment is totally different from any other kid who was just there spending money. If I was like them, I would have sold everything and nobody would query me but I need to leave a legacy beyond the fact that our father was a philanthropist and a creator of value added wealth. I kept quiet because it is a family issue and my responsibility is not to put the family out there. But it has gotten to a point that something has to be said, not so much because of them but because I now have kids and they are grown up and would also have their own kids and people would ask them questions about what they have been told about their father. I don’t play sentiments at all; so I am going to come forward with facts to show all that they are doing. I am not a lazy man that would hold on to what does not belong to me. I am going to address that issue and I will do it with facts for the sake of my children. Our father was a fantastic man and if you are serious enough to take advantage of his goodwill and the good education he gave everyone, you don’t need to start waiting for what he had or didn’t have. He gave me a good education and it is left to me to take advantage of that education, but if you don’t take advantage of yours, who is to blame for that? If you don’t know what to do with your life, then you have issues. No amount of what you take over can solve your problem. This is a topic I will soon sit down and address in its entirety and I have facts to go with it.
Has the debt owed your father been paid?
No it hasn’t.
How much is it now?
If you consider the interest accrued, it should be approximately $400 million and that is from one business alone. We are still in the process of recovering the money. I have cleared the June 12 issue, but I will now face the debt recovery issue squarely in the next four years.
It’s been said that while he was alive, MKO was one of the richest black men in the world, but then you read statements from his family members complaining that they cannot even afford to feed. Is it not a contradiction? Are his assets outside the country still intact?
Let them all go and get busy. Like I said, I would have to address this issue. There were so many things I had to do outside the businesses just to make sure things go on smoothly.
Did he have a will?
Yes, he had a will, which ought to have been executed by the bank, but the bank rejected executing it; so I had to take it on. We are still in the process but in the mean time, we had so many people suing over which will is fake and which is real. They said it was my idea but the truth of the matter is that when the man was alive, those kids were made to take DNA tests. Was I also the one that asked for it? The kids that took the blood test know and their mothers know that their kids took blood tests. Even in his will, he named a particular child from a particular woman, saying the child was not his. How would he have known if he didn’t do a blood test when he was alive? Is that also my making? All the payments to the wives and brothers have been made but when they were collecting the money, they didn’t tell me that it was a fake will. What is left to my mum, I couldn’t even collect because she died before my dad.
We cannot talk about MKO without talking about Alhaja Simbiat Abiola. We have read interviews where your father said your mother was the one that made him whom he was.
She made all of us but she left too soon. She was extremely religious and very enterprising in her own right. Whatever the five of us inherited today at all were gotten from my mother, not from our father. She was very industrious and she grew her business based on the level which my father was at any point in time. She started with importing trailer loads of shoes from Spain, and then she veered off into textile design business. When Obasanjo banned that one, she went into another business. For every business she sets up, MKO was always the chairman. Immediately she left, all of us knew that there was a difference. She loved my dad very much. If we are having any difficulty and we couldn’t get through to him, as long as you convince her, she will take up the matter with him and it would be resolved. If she is having any arguments with him and you interfere, she will leave him and ask what your business is. After God, the only hero we had was our father and we could not look at his face. If you take food to my father, whatever is left of the food, you would have to dish it into another plate because if my mother caught you eating from my father’s plate or using his cutlery, you would be in trouble. As far as she was concerned, we were not allowed to see his faults; she dealt with that herself. So in our eyes, our father was faultless. My mother had enough resources to leave and be on her own, but she insisted that she will remain with my father and that no one would take our place. She always said that as long as there is an MKO Abiola name, it is the names of the first five of his children that would always be mentioned.
Let me ask you an unfair question. Who was your favourite between your parents?
My mum moulded me, but my dad was my favourite. I could tell him anything. He began taking me for board meetings at a very tender age. He will tell me to sit at a corner while the meeting was going on. Whenever he looked at me, he knew exactly what I was thinking and vice versa. It didn’t start with my dad; it started with my grandfather. I was the first grandson on both sides. He was the Balogun of Ojo and a very tough man. He also allowed me to sit at meetings and that was how I learned many things.
During the four years of his incarceration, did you see members of his family and friends that betrayed him?
I would not put it that way. I said earlier that I had a four-year tutelage and I got to know everyone. I saw everybody for what they were. There were players who played pre-election and there were players who played post-election. There were some who played the pre and the post and there were others who joined post-election. Some people stayed with us till the end, while some came after the election.
What role did Bola Tinubu play in all of these?
At the very beginning, he was part of the Yar’Adua PF group from Jos. He was a senator then, and as far as the group went, we related. The crisis started post-election. When Abacha came, one of the things he wanted to do was to be the administrator for Lagos.
That is Tinubu?
Yes. I am sure you have seen pictures of him and my dad. He was hoping that there would be civilian administrators like we had under IBB but Abacha said no, that he was going to have military administrators. So he (Tinubu) said okay, in that case, can I be a deputy administrator? But Abacha said that there wouldn’t be deputies. Then he wanted the post of a commissioner.
He wanted to be a commissioner?
Yes. Then it was a choice between him and someone very close to Jakande who has passed on now. I can’t remember his name, but because Babagana was already in the government, that guy was picked as commissioner. But really, Senator Tinubu had lost out already.
Was Tinubu very close to MKO?
Yes, he was close enough. He and Adeniyi Adele, a very good guy, were close to my father. In fact, Adeniyi was closer to my father and more dedicated to the process than anyone of them. When my documentary comes out, you will see Tinubu’s take on issues. So once he lost out, automatically, he became a NADECO member and Adeniyi was incarcerated.
Was NADECO actually working for Abiola or for a different reason to just get the military out?
We heard that, at a point, they just wanted to get the military out and were actually not fighting for MKO. We remember that there were reports that some of them didn’t actually want him out of prison, because what they would tell Abacha would be different from what they would tell the public.
Did you have that kind of experience?
That is why I said that it was a collective conspiracy.
Do you think NADECO was actually working for Abiola?
Some were working for him. It is sort of like a pyramid. The bottom is used to feed the top; like a ponzi scheme. The bottom generates all the funds and comes all the way up and then they enjoy the loot. It is exactly the same process. In the process of taking the public sentiments of ‘oh, we want June 12’, they all appeared as if they were supporting MKO.
We heard some of the people the media celebrates today fed fat on the June 12 struggle. Don’t you feel sorry for the media when you read about such people because we really didn’t know what happened behind the scenes?
If you take the Yar’Adua group as an instance, which was the first lesson I learned, you never see their guys in the news. But you see all the PSP people all over the news, yet they could not win in their local governments. The Yar’Adua guys never spoke in the news but they were all very formidable in their own enclaves; they delivered on everything. If they tell you that they have 10 numbers, they will deliver on eight of that 10 for sure. See what happened in Lagos with Sarumi; those were the guys that were holding the horns of the bull. All the other guys were making noise in the media.
What kind of president would MKO have been if he were sworn in?
Some said he would not have been a good president because he was too generous. When it was clear that we had won the election, Kingibe came to me because I had a quiet place on Hilton where I used as my control room. When he came in, he said ‘congratulations Kola. Your room is very quiet.’ And I told him, ‘Sir, I am at work.’ The joke was that there were no ‘sleepovers,’ and we both laughed. He then asked me what exactly I would want from my father’s administration and I told him I didn’t want anything. My responsibility was to deliver on the election and I had done that. I told him he would not see me at the villa. I told him that what I wanted was good governance and I advised that they should use technocrats and not make the mistake of appointing politicians for ministerial positions; because my father’s biggest critics would come from the South-West first.
Would your father have withstood the pressure of not appointing politicians?
I’m sure he would have. When you come in with a momentum, whatever you do at that point, you would be given the benefit of the doubt. It is when you start messing up that you will be criticised. Because then, for the mere fact that MKO won the election, prices of goods were dropping; the dollar was crashing and things were looking up. It was not because he did anything, it was just the psyche of Nigerians who believed that they had participated in electing a government that they truly wanted and that was it.
Between June 12 and July 7 when he died, which date is more important?
June 12.
Why?
Because it is a national date. That date signifies a lot of things that does not exist today. First, he had a Muslim-Muslim ticket, which meant that religious bigotry is out of the window. We had a South West person country and people voted for him across ethnic groups. That date will always be relevant in this country as long as Nigeria remains one because it is the day the country came together as one tribe, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. My plea is that under the leadership of President Buhari, that irrespective of where we are coming from, we must come together and stop all the killings and the ethnic division. On June 12, people voted for a man that represented a true detribalised Nigerian. That is the significance of why he got the GCFR, anyway. When I started this process and the Jonathan government felt they could name University of Lagos (UNILAG) after him, I told the government that MKO was not a South Western man. Jonathan missed it because we already had Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in Ogun State and we have a stadium there named after him.
Did you deal with Arthur Nzeribe at all?
I did. I mentioned him earlier as part of the governors’ group. But he wasn’t a governor. He wasn’t, but he and the late Olusola Saraki were part of the core of the governors’ group. When they went to court and got that adjournment to stop the election, I found a way to get the information across through the system that we were going to lose the election and that was how I truncated their move to stop the election.
Was that why people believed that it was Bashir Tofa that was winning?
That was because of the information I sent through the system. I basically set them up using that information and that was why they allowed the election to go on. After the annulment, there was talk about us meeting with them and I asked, for what? At that moment, we were already at the rock bottom and they couldn’t make a difference. If during the court adjournment, we met with them and work out some sort of arrangement, I was willing and open to that. But since it was already annulled, what were we going to be discussing? I didn’t go to the meeting and I refused that my father also attended. It didn’t make any sense for him to attend.
From what you have said, we understand that Babangida didn’t want to go
That is my take, or rather, he didn’t know how he would go.
The second point we deduced from what you said is that Abacha played the double game. He promised to help MKO and he believed him. Absolutely. He also put pressure on Babangida to go. What role did Diya play as the most senior person from the South West in Abacha’s government? Did you have any interface with him?
I also interviewed him for the documentary to give him the chance to state his own side. When Abacha passed on and he was released from prison, I went and welcomed him and I told him that it was good he went through that process, because if he had stayed with Abacha till he died, he may not have been alive today. Or he may not be able to come back to the South West without being lynched. And he looked at me and said he thought he could come in quietly to Lagos but that he was shocked at the reception he received. It was the imprisonment process that cleansed Diya but God has a way of showing his power. I said what I said from what I know.
Do you think we can have another MKO?
I don’t think we can. Such a man comes once in a generation
You have a lot of political experience, especially in running your father’s campaign. Will you ever consider running for president?
My mother contested for Senate and my father started with NCNC; so politics is in the system. My sister was in the House of Representatives at some point but she didn’t make it this time. There are enough of us out there and I have no doubt in my mind that one day, one of us will be the president of this country and other countries.
Would you consider serving under Buhari?
Honestly, I don’t know. I have a few years to round off the family issues. I am 57 years old now and I don’t want to get to 60 without resolving these issues. I have made a commitment to resolve the issues, including the legitimate outstanding debts owed the family and I only have three years to achieve that.
What would you like to be written on MKO’s epitaph?
There is nothing else to write. There is no more May 29. June 12 will be remembered as the day my father won his election. What else can I write? My father became more powerful in death. Just watch it; things will begin to change for the better in Nigeria because the right thing has been done.
What are your final thoughts?
I want Nigerians to always remember my father and the significance of June 12 in the history of Nigeria. It is unfortunate that we do not teach History anymore in our schools and I am hoping that the documentary will teach us a lot of lessons. June 12 shows us what we are capable of doing with good leadership in this country. If we get our economics right, thing would be better.
Sun
Nigeria elections in 2019 that gave President Muhammadu Buhari a second term were marred by political violence, Human Rights Watch has said.
The report issued by the organisation on Monday said some cases of the violence were carried out by soldiers and police officers.
“Buhari should take concrete steps to address the widespread political violence, and to ensure accountability for human rights abuses by soldiers and police as he begins his second term,” the report said.
“The election period included persistent attacks by factions of the insurgent group Boko Haram in the northeast; increased communal violence between nomadic herdsmen and farmers spreading southward from north-central states; and a dramatic uptick in banditry, kidnapping, and killings in northwestern states of Kaduna, Katsina, and Zamfara.
“Security forces have failed to respond effectively to threats to people’s lives and security.”
The report quoted Anietie Ewang, Nigerian researcher at Human Rights Watch, as saying that, “Lack of meaningful progress in addressing the prevalent political violence, as well as lack of accountability for rights abuses, marked Buhari’s first term in office.
“He should put these issues at the front and centre of his second term agenda and urgently take concrete steps to improve respect for human rights.”
The statement said that Human Rights Watch interviewed 32 people, including voters, journalists, election observers, activists, and Independent National Electoral Commission officials in Rivers and Kano states, and documented 11 deaths specifically related to violent interference in the election process during the February 23 federal elections and subsequent state elections.
It said the elections contributed to the general insecurity across the country, even as politically related violence were reported in many states in contrast to the relatively peaceful 2015 elections that brought Buhari into his first term in office.
Citing a report by SBM Intelligence, which monitors sociopolitical and economic developments in Nigeria, the statement said 626 people were killed during the 2019 election cycle, starting with campaigns in 2018.
“Kano state, in northwestern Nigeria, has the highest number of registered voters in the country. Rivers state, in Niger Delta, receives the largest share of crude-oil-based national revenue, representing significant electoral value to any political party,” the report said.
“The history of elections in both states is replete with violence by state security agencies and criminal elements.”
The report noted that despite police claims of increased security measures to ensure peaceful voting, HRW found that there seemed to have been little or no police response to reports of threats and acts of violence by hired political thugs and soldiers against voters and election officials.
“Voters and election officials said that policemen either fled or stood idly by, fueling allegations of complicity, as perpetrators stole election materials, disrupted voting, and harassed voters,” said the report.
“Witnesses said that the police also shot live rounds of ammunition and used teargas to disperse people protesting voting disruptions.
“Witnesses said that after a soldier was killed in the town of Abonnema, in Rivers state, on election day, soldiers shot at residents, killing an unknown number of people.”
HRW said soldiers also carried out sweeping arrests and arbitrarily detained several people.
The report also cited a 37-year old man who witnessed the incident. He said, “Soldiers were on a rampage, shooting at anyone around. As I made my way to flee, I saw people dive into the river, many with gunshot wounds. The next day I saw three dead bodies riddled with bullets floating in the water… I heard many more bodies were later recovered from that river.”
The army, HRW reported, said in a statement that on election day, unidentified people attacked soldiers, killing one, and that the soldiers killed six of the attackers in response.
“On March 15, the spokesperson for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, accused soldiers of intimidation and unlawful arrest of election officials in the state,” the report further noted.
“Nigerian Army on the same day announced the creation of a committee to investigate allegations of misconduct against its personnel during the elections. The committee was given two weeks to produce its findings, but it has not published its report.”
HRW also reported the rising cases of Banditry and the recurring cycles of deadly violence between herdsmen and farmers, which it said had taken the lives of thousands.
Citing a civil society report, HRW said over 3,641 people have died from deadly clashes between herdsmen and farmers since 2015 and at least 262 people have been killed by bandits since the beginning of 2019 in Zamfara State alone.
“The government deployed 1,000 military troops to the state in response, but few of those responsible for the violence have been arrested or held to account,” it said.
PT
Senate president, Mr Bukola Saraki, has said that April 18, 2018 was the saddest day of his tenure.
Saraki said this Thursday while delivering his valedictory speech. The valedictory session marks the last sitting of the eighth Senate.
After other senators had taken turn to reflect on the eighth Senate, it was the turn of Saraki to deliver the last speech. Before reading his speech, Saraki asked his colleagues to observe a minute silence in honour of late Senators, Messers Ali Wakili (Bauchi South), Isiaka Adeleke (Osun West) and Bukar Mustapha (Katsina North) who passed away in the course of the eighth Senate.
Saraki thanked his colleagues for their support even in the face of trials. He noted that the Senate invasion, which led to the theft of the mace, would remain ‘saddest’ moment for him.
“Distinguished colleagues, let me thank each and every one of you for your contributions towards making this the historic Senate that it is. When I think of the many trials and tribulations we have faced as an institution, and my own personal travails, particularly at Code of Conduct Tribunal, I am humbled, because none of our achievements would have been possible without the support and cooperation of the entire members of this chamber.
“Invasion of National Assembly by armed security operatives in August 2018 will live in infamy. This way down the line, however, I realise that the day of that invasion was the saddest – but in many ways it was also a good day for asserting the independence of the legislature and the triumph of democracy.
“It also turned out to be a showcase of the special relationship between this chamber and the House, as Honourable Members stood in unison with their Senate colleagues in defiance of the invaders.
I thank House of Representatives for the remarkable unity of the two chambers of the 8th National Assembly, for it was only in unity that we could withstand the storm.”
Saraki boasted of the conduct of his colleagues who he said had no scandal in the last four years.
“In closing, distinguished colleagues, let me say that I am quite proud of the fact that there was not a whiff of scandal in this Senate. You carried yourselves with the bearing and sense of probity worthy of the office. You played your part in strengthening Nigeria’s democracy. May the work we have done here bear bountiful fruits in the length and breadth of this great country of ours, and may it be so for years to come.”
As part of achievement, Saraki mentioned the Senate’s effort on National Assembly Joint Public Hearing on the Budget, Senate’s roundtable, intervention in the North East, intervention in the two-year strike of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), engagement with the executive, among others.
Other achievements, he said, include making public National Assembly budget and setting aside of one per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) for Basic Health Care Provision Fund.
“Just the other week, Minister of Health called the 1 per cent CRF a ‘game changer’, no doubt because, by our activities in this chamber, we are touching lives of Nigerians and even those unborn.
“Speaking of commendations, our interventions on health also won plaudits from international philanthropists Bill Gates and Bono, as well as Director-General of World Health Organisation (WHO). Similarly, our amendment of the Universal Basic Education Act, guaranteeing free education for children aged nine to twelve, won praise from education rights activist and Nobel Laureate, Malala Yousafzai.
“We cracked the code of several Bills that had eluded Senates before us. We broke the decade-old Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into a quartet of workable bills including the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB), whose passage stands as a major achievement of the eigth Senate. Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) was the most comprehensive reform law governing Nigeria’s business environment in nearly 30 years. Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) Bill was one of the major anti-corruption laws we passed; and it saved the country from being expelled from the global body of the Egmont Group. And as recently as May 22, we passed Nigerian Football Federation Bill which had been caught in the legislative bottleneck for 15 years,” he said.
Saraki advised his successor to continue in that line. On the other hand, the Senate president urged a more cordial relationship between the executive and legislature.
“And as we say all the things we have done, we must also be reflective and candid enough to acknowledge the things we didn’t do. It is my hope that the ninth Senate will improve on our performance and deliver on those areas that we were not quite able to touch.
“It is also important that I make some comments about Legislature-Executive Relations. My own take is that if the Executive sees the National Assembly’s work on the budget as interference despite the provision of the constitution, then there will continue to be problems between both arms of government.
“If the presidency refuses to have engagements and consultations with leadership of the National Assembly before the president submits the budget to the legislature, then there will continue to be frictions.”
PT
No fewer than 25, 794 Nigerians may have died in violent crises in the first four years of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The figure was released by the Nigeria Security Tracker, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit think tank specialising in United States foreign policy and international affairs.
The number represents those killed by different insurgent groups and Boko Haram in the North, herdsmen, and people who died in extrajudicial activities of the military.
From June 2015 to May 2019, Punch correspondent observed that Borno suffered the highest casualties, recording 9,303 deaths.
The state was followed by Zamfara (1,963) and Adamawa (1,529). Others captured in the map are Kaduna (1,488), Plateau (771), Taraba (649), Benue (1,642), Niger (252) Rivers (730), Cross River (467), Ogun (301), among others.
Graphical illustration revealed that the highest casualties were recorded in July 2015 (1,299) and January 2019 (1,077). Within the four years timeline, Boko Haram was responsible for 5,598 deaths, while sectarian violence, including the herdsmen-farmers crisis led to 4,917 deaths.
State actors alone, including the military, were said to have killed 4,068 people.
During the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan (June 2011 to May 2015), a total of 34,884 people were reportedly killed across the country.
The highest record of casualties was in March 2014, when 3,456 Nigerians were killed. Boko Haram and the military were together responsible for 12,765 deaths.
The Council on Foreign Relations, while explaining the methodology behind the data, said it relied on media reports.
The report said, “The Nigeria Security Tracker tracks violence that is both causal and symptomatic of Nigeria’s political instability and citizen alienation. The data are based on weekly surveys of Nigerian and international media.
“The data start with May 29, 2011, the date of Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration as president. It was an event that highlighted the increasing bifurcation of the country on regional and religious lines. The NST is updated weekly.
“Relying on press reports of violence presents methodological limitations. There is a dearth of accurate reporting across certain regions, death tolls are imprecise, and accounts of incidents vary. There is the potential for political manipulation of media. Given these limitations, the NST makes every effort to collect information from multiple sources. Nevertheless, NST statistics should be viewed as indicative rather than definitive.”
The Presidency did not react when contacted.
Calls made to Presidential spokesmen, Mr Femi Adesina, and Mr Garba Shehu, were not returned.
Text messages forwarded to them were also not responded to as of 9.03pm .
Punch