The recent kidnap of over a hundred girls from a secondary school in Dapchi, Yobe State reemphasizes the upscale in the activities of the Boko Haram terrorist group. The dilemma here is how to juxtapose the increasing number of casualties, and the growing efficiency of the group, with the official claim that it has been technically defeated (after being degraded).

Regarding the Dapchi incident, the questions for us here are: (1) What has become of pre-emptive intelligence in Nigeria? (2) When can a city, town or village be said to be appropriately policed in Nigeria and how? (3) Does the Federal Government believe that it is seen to be doing enough about National Security today? If the answer to the last question is “Yes”, then we are in far more trouble than we can ever imagine. If, on the other hand, the answer is “No”, then the government is not doing enough to show this awareness.

Those who say that the primary purpose of government is the welfare of the people and the security of lives and property have long since scored the President Muhammadu Buhari Federal Government low on all counts. Hunger and inequity walk the land (negative citizen welfare); lives are being routinely lost in communal classes and herdsmen/farmer conflicts (negative personal security) and loss of farmlands and cattle to herders and cattle rustlers, respectively (negative protection of property). It therefore seems fair to assume that the Nigerian State as it exists today is a colossal failure.

While the army and police traded blames, they forgot that Nigerians know there are no off-duty provisions in the Service Rules that would leave a town made totally vulnerable for marauders to come in; spend hours locating their targets and spend even more hours hauling away over a hundred human beings. Think of the number of vehicles used and the time spent during the operation. Yet they were unchallenged!

One major but unfortunate issue that the armed forces and security agencies must admit, and which is not new, is that there has never been genuine and sustainable inter-agency collaboration in national security. Meanwhile, it is only with such cooperation that we can curb the purposeless and self-replicating malignity of Boko Haram. Will a government committee made up of security and government representatives, some of which have been trading blames, not be distracted by the efforts of some agencies to ensure that whatever report is turned in does not indict them? Besides, for a government notorious for abandoning its reports, is this not just another futile exercise just to be seen to be doing something while doing nothing?

Let us, for the record, take some time off and look at the activities of Boko Haram, the havoc it has wreaked and its reversal of all values, Islamic and Western. We shall, in the process, also note a few points about the growth of this insurgency and how it could have been contained long before now.

Local economies have collapsed in various parts of the North, traditional rulers have been killed, ‘replaced’ or driven out of their domains, bombings and the sacking of otherwise peaceful villages and neighbourhoods have led to the decimation and abandonment of farmlands, cash crops and fishing communities. The sugarcane trade, the mainstay of some of the local economies, has disappeared in many areas. Re-desertification has occurred in some places, after years of non-cultivation and irrigation. The traumatised lands show the absence of any meaningful productivity or economic activities.

The farmlands are desolate. The people have either fled to other parts of the country, or have been killed. Factories are shut down, many of them for over six years now. Most cottage industries are no more. Several of the schools are not in session; shut down by Boko Haram. Organised services, wherein labour is recognised and paid, are very limited. The absence of factories, farmlands and cottage industries automatically translates into lower productivity and lower input into overall GDP. Retrogression, or knowledge retardation, is only one of the consequences, with national development as the ultimate casualty in all of this.

Boko Haram started very quietly. Then it grew gradually for decades. While we can say that the negative social, economic, security and political activities that blew the lid, it was largely the inattention of the authorities to the progressive radicalisation of large sections of uneducated and economically vulnerable swaths of the population that got us where we are today.

With its claim to be focused on promoting purer and more spiritual values for a better humanity, the name, ‘Boko Haram` boils down to this: Western Education (boko) is sin (haram). It rejects every form of `modernity`, especially Western education, Western culture and science. The claim is that they pollute us, as human beings. But what does Boko Haram offer for its presumably superior moral and other values? Look around you. What you see everywhere is the group`s failings as a vehicle for genuine human development.

While it may not be true that the origins of Boko Haram can be traced to Mohammed Marwa, founder of an older militant Maitatsine religious group, it makes sense to argue that the circumstances that created this earlier group may have contributed to the emergence of the latter. The group`s goals includes the creation of an Islamic state in Nigeria and the achievement of an anti-Western education target by stopping all regular schools. Yusuf used a school in his mosque for the recruitment of jihadis, or warriors for Islam; wherein the far more ambitious goal of creating a team that would later fight for the creation of an Islamic state was a quietly pursued aim.

Denouncing official corruption, while promising better material welfare to the people, helped the Yusuf group to draw followers, while remaining largely peaceful within the first seven years. The group grew over the years, especially as it was providing stipends and jobs for the unemployed youths in its area of influence; where over 75 per cent of the people were said to live below the poverty line.

The Federal Government Committee on Security in the North-east reported that the critical propelling factors for the Boko Haram insurgency included high levels of poverty, illiteracy, massive unemployment of skilled and unskilled youths, the existence of private militias, failure of effective intelligence work which were set up, used and dumped by politicians. The ready availability of these abandoned militias of almajiris, in addition to the influx of illegal aliens through our porous borders, provides the needed cannon fodder for mischief. This is in addition to the provocative and inciting preaching of some religious leaders.

The dangers we now face in civil political stability because of Boko Haram are legion. The Dapchi Girls kidnap is symptomatic of a thriving trend that is becoming too frequent to count. For a nation in recession and desperately in need of resources, too much of our earnings are being deployed in the fight against Boko Haram. This leaves us with a lower GDP, lower expenditure on social infrastructure per capita and an unavoidable disregard for those essential economic activities and incentives that drive growth and productivity and national development. This cannot be right.

Regarding the Dapchi girls, we now have the first near-equivalent of the Chibok Girls saga by a “defeated” terrorist group. Coming in the midst of doublespeak and mutual recriminations among the security agencies, this is further proof that the Federal Government appears to be totally out of its depths on all fronts. These girls are not statistics and numbers, but fellow human beings: people`s children, who have friends, cousins and all. Added to the Chibok saga, this is one kidnap too many.

Today the issues go far beyond the Dapchi girls. The Nigerian State is under a grievous siege it appears unwilling to admit. Worse still, the government has a lousy and really pathetic information management machinery that does it no credit. Asymmetric warfare, wherein the enemy is not only mobile but part of the landscape, is not an easy engagement by any stretch of the imagination. But asymmetrical government reflexes, asymmetrical government communication and inter-agency interface, when put together boil down to one thing, namely, incompetent leadership. Wanted: some indication of focus, coherence and a problem-solving trajectory around here

Ahead of Thursday’s Premier League clash against Manchester City, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger didn’t want to talk about his future.

The Gunners face City at the Emirates Stadium just a few days after being thrashed 3-0 by them in Sunday’s League Cup final.

"My position is my position," Wenger said. "Honestly, that's the last worry I have at the moment. My focus is to get the team ready for the game.

"I just told you what my way of thinking is; it's the next game. We're in that kind of situation. I don't ask you if your position is reviewed at the end of the season. 

"My job is to perform. It's not for me to evaluate. If you need clarity, I can repeat exactly the same answer.

"Does it stop you sleeping that my position is uncertain or certain? The game on Thursday is what is important.

"I'm amazed I always have to answer things that are the same. I've been here 21 years and turned the whole world down to honour my contract.

"What is interesting in football is the performance, it is the game you will see on Thursday night. All the rest maybe makes headlines but it is not really interesting."

Sport24

There is urgent need for more voters’ education

In the wake of the nationwide outrage that greeted what transpired at the recent Kano State Local Government election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), last week, constituted an investigative panel to probe complaints of underage voters in its register. According to INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the eight-man panel would ascertain if the voter register requested by the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KNSIEC) was actually used during the election. It will also investigate widespread report of brazen violations of the electoral law as voters below the statutory age of 18 years allegedly freely participated in the poll.

Nothing less is expected on such a sensitive issue that can impugn the credibility of the electoral process and indeed put our democracy in peril. Video footages that went viral in the aftermath of the Kano council election had captured children participating and thumb printing ballot papers. The All Progressives Congress (APC), which controls the state, garnered about 2.6 million votes to win overwhelmingly in all 44 local councils, a result disputed as fraudulent by the main opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But INEC also doubted whether the register it provided KNSIEC was used during the election. A statement attributed to the KNSIEC partly clarifies that suspicion. “We are not a subsidiary of INEC,” said Professor Garba Sheka, chairman of KNSIEC. “The relationship between SIEC and INEC is that of partnership, not of leader or follower.”

It is thus clear that this is an issue that the authorities cannot afford to treat with levity because of its tendency to compromise the outcome of elections. Fortunately, the electoral umpire is acutely aware that the credibility if any election is contingent on the credibility of the voter register. Section 12 (1) of the Electoral Act clearly defines who is eligible as a voter. These are citizenship, residence and the attainment of the mandatory age of 18 years. During a workshop on Election Project Plan Implementation in Lagos last week, Yakubu vowed to clean and sanitise the voter register in all 1446 centres across the country and conduct the election which is due in 2019 in accordance with the best global professional standards.

In order to achieve this objective, INEC and other stakeholders should also ensure that forthwith, deliberate actions are taken to protect officials during the registration of voters just as it is done during the voting process. Reports are rife that many minors were registered because of threats to registration officers by many communities. But a more enduring solution lies in voters’ education and in securing the buy-in of community leaders and opinion moulders to drum to all that underage voting undermines the integrity of the electoral process.

There is no better time to clean up the voter register than now!

Thisday

Nigeria’s ranking in the recently released 2017 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), contrary to the headlines, does not show that the incidence of corruption in the country has grown worse since 2016. The CPI, published by the global corruption watchdog, Transparency International (TI), tracks the degree of perception of corruption in different countries as experienced by business people and analysts and scores each country between 100 and 0, where ‘100’ means completely free of corruption while ‘0’ means stinking corrupt. Following from this, that Nigeria scored 28 points in 2017 against the 28 it scored in 2016, means that its position was unchanged from the year before – not that it got worse. True, in 2017, Nigeria was placed at 148 out of 180 countries, besting only 32 countries compared to 2016 when it was ranked 136 out of 176, besting 40 countries. A country’s score will be more important in estimating its progress in the fight against corruption rather than its ranking in the CPI league table because the ranking is influenced by the number of countries being compared, the number of countries that tie at a particular rank and of course the fact that other countries may have also improved on their own score.

The above however does not imply a pass mark for Buhari’s War Against Corruption. What the ranking clearly shows is that there has been a steady but statistically insignificant ebbs and flows in Nigeria’s performance in the CPI since she was first ranked in 1996. For instance in 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012, the country scored 26, 27, 25 and 27 respectively, meaning that nothing significant changed in the perception of the country’s corruptibility over those years. The pattern is virtually the same for the periods 1996 to 2011. One of the things to be deducted from this therefore is that despite the small ebbs and flows in our ranking, nothing substantial has changed about the way corruption is perceived in the country. In practice, many will argue that the incidence of corruption is getting worse. This means that despite the grandstanding by such contraptions as the Economic Financial and Crimes Commission (EFCC) and its routine announcements of humongous sums it seized from “treasury looters”, the current approach to fighting corruption has not really worked.

Even before the current misleading headlines from the 2017 ranking of the country in the CPI to the effect that the incidence of corruption has increased under Buhari (as if it ever significantly went down under any government), Olusegun Obasanjo who created the ICPC and the EFCC in 2000 and 2003 respectively recently admitted that there has been no progress in the war against corruption despite the existence of these contraptions. In a lecture in Abeokuta, Ogun State, in April 2017, on “The Role of the Church in the Fight Against Corruption in Nigeria”, Obasanjo was quoted as saying:
“How far has this [the use of contraptions like the EFCC or the ICPC] actually helped in the eradication or better still, in reduction of corruption in the country? Unfortunately, the act [ of corruption] has continued to spread like a wildfire, from federal to the states, to the local government level and to other authorities, even within the educational sector in Nigeria – from secondary to university levels.”

If our current approach – which is based on seeing corruption as basically an issue of moral lapses – has failed, it means the need for a new approach, for as the wise ones would counsel, if you continue to do what you have always done, you will continue to get what you have always got.

I believe that a starting point for an effective approach to fighting corruption in the country will be to understand its root cause. I agree with Obasanjo in his lecture mentioned above that corruption could be traced to the rise of public administration in the country and the discovery of oil and gas which exacerbated the problem. I believe however that it was not ‘public administration’ on its own that was the root cause of corruption but rather the alienating character of the colonial state that created the public administration. The colonized people did not have any sense of co-ownership of the State and therefore did not have any emotional attachment to the state’s institutions, including its public administration. In fact in several Nigerian languages, the colonial civil service was translated in a way that expressed its alienating character. Among the Igbos, for example, the colonial civil service was called the ‘Whiteman’s work’, a terminology that implies exclusion or people’s lack of emotional involvement in the colonial state’s public administration. Precisely because it was seen not as their own but ‘Whiteman’s work’, ‘outsmarting’ the public administration system was seen as heroic by various in-groups.

The discovery of oil only increased the opportunities for State plunder by contending ethnic and regional factions of the elite. And because the State controls the oil resource, the struggle for State power itself also became anarchic. Apart from political power becoming a means for wealth accumulation and dispensation of privileges, there is a pervasive fear among the contending regional and ethnic factions of the elite that the faction that captures State power will use it to privilege its in-groups and disadvantage the others.
As it was with the colonial public administration so it remains today with the Nigerian public administration!  And the reason is because the project of nation-building, which would have changed people’s emotional attachment to the State and its institutions through creating a sense of co-ownership, has not been very successful.  If anything, it is now mired in crisis, creating alienation, which leads to several groups and individuals de-linking from the State into primordial identities. And contrary to what some think, it is not only groups like Boko Haram, Biafra agitators, Niger Delta militants, Oduduwa irredentist or those who talk of ‘the North’ as if it is a separate country that are de-linking but also the wealthy who have no qualms bribing their way out of situations and the law enforcement officers who do not mind turning the other way if they are offered little inducements.
Essentially therefore, any effective fight against corruption must address the question of the alienating character of the State. It is the root cause of corruption, not its manifestation in some acts of impunities and corruption by some elites. Have we wondered why the incidence of corruption is least in countries where the nation-building process is most advanced such as the Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland) and why it is most prevalent in countries regarded as failed or fragile states? The truth is that while nation-building cannot guarantee a corruption free society, it creates a durable template for attenuating the problem and for ensuring that other solutions proffered to the challenges in the polity do not quickly become part of the problem.

I believe that we need to stop the hype that corruption is the most urgent problem facing the country or that it is responsible for the current state of affairs in the country. It is clearly not. There is also the issue of the misnomer that we are waging ‘war against corruption’, which wrongly implies an expectation of a decisive victory over a relatively short period of engagement. This is unlikely to happen with corruption because of its systemic nature. I believe that it is this wrong expectation of a decisive victory over corruption that has led to erroneous belief in some quarters that we need a warrior to lead the fight against corruption and consequently celebrate the use of untoward tactics as evidence that the fight against the malaise is working.
We need to reset the whole ‘war against corruption’ by granting conditional amnesty to all those charged with corrupt practices. This will benefit the country in many ways:
First, with so many challenges facing the government, and the country more polarized now than ever before, the fight against corruption, using the failed approaches of the past, has not only proven to be distractive but is evidently not deterring corrupt practices. In fact the current system appears to appease only those baying for the blood of their perceived ethnic, political, regional and class enemies.
Second, managing the politics of fighting corruption using the current ‘gra-gra’ approach appears to complicate the nation-building process.
Third, a conditional amnesty programme will encourage the repatriation of much needed funds hidden in different parts of the world to help accelerate the economy. Such funds will be extremely helpful to the government in these austere times.
Third, countries all over the world have used amnesty programmes to deal with problems that appear intractable. In 2004 for instance, George W Bush enacted tax amnesty programme, which allowed US corporations to bring home, tax-free, the billions of dollars they stashed away in tax havens. Just before he became gravely ill and subsequently died, Yaradua also offered amnesty to militants of the Niger Delta in exchange for their laying down their guns. If we can grant amnesty to those with blood on their hands, I see no reason why a similar tool cannot be used to draw a line in the fight against corruption in the country.
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Twitter: @JideoforAdibe

After the recent fiercely contested presidential election in Liberia, world attention has turned to neighbouring Sierra Leone, which has its own crucial vote on 7^th of March 2018. Both countries share so much in common, not just political histories, but devastations of symbiotic civil wars.  

Following the American Revolutionary War of the 17^th century, and Slave Trade abolition initiatives, freed slaves from America and those “rescued” in the West African region settled with the natives of the two geographical locations known today as Liberia and Sierra Leone. While the American Colonization Society administered pre-independent Liberia, the British Crown held sway in the Sierra Leone Colony until the country gained independence in 1961 with Sir Milton Marghai, the last Acting Governor General as its first Prime Minister.    

Much earlier, in the 15^th Century, European contacts within West Africa were in the Sierra Leone, with Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, credited with mapping out and naming the Freetown Harbour, Serra da Leoa or Sirra Leoa (Portuguese for Lion Mountains), from which Sierra Leone derived its name. 

Like Liberia and many other African countries, Sierra Leone is blessed with natural resources such as diamond, iron-ore, titanium, bauxite, gold, and a vast agricultural land. It rains for much of the year in Sierra Leone, but ironically the country relies on food imports, and as is often the case with many developing African countries, instead being a blessing, diamond became cursed or so-called “blood diamond” for Sierra Leone, during its civil war which started in 1991.The war, which killed more than 50,000 people and displaced some two million others, was notorious for its savagery, ruthlessness and barbarism, involving the engagement of child soldiers and amputation of victims’ limbs among other atrocities.

Thus, Sierra Leone, the home of the famous Fourah Bay College, celebrated as West Africa’s first University and which once had a bragging right as the “bastion of peace and democracy" in the region, lost its glory days. The country today competes in the league of the World’s poorest nations with run down infrastructure and one of the highest rates of infant and youth mortality. 

But even without the civil war, Sierra Leone has always been a country of contrasting fortunes. For instance, air travel to the country still terminates at the Lungi Airport. The rest of the journey of less than 30 minutes by sea to the nation’s capital Freetown is completed on a ferry/boat ride across a short stretch of the Sierra Leone River. 

A helicopter shuttle service started as an alternative was abandoned in 2007 after a terrible air disaster that killed more than 22 passengers. Lungi-Freetown is a laborious six hours by road, so travellers prefer the ferry ride. This is because of the topography of Freetown, a port city on the Atlantic Ocean with undulating hills, mountains and valleys.

But if the difficult terrain is a natural phenomenon, the political instability, military coups, bad governance and corruption which have characterized Sierra Leone’s chequered political history are largely man-made. Following Sir Milton Margai’s unexpected death in 1964, his half-brother Sir Albert Maigai succeeded him as Prime Minister.

But barely six years after Sierra Leone's independence from Britain in 1961, and few hours after opposition leader Siaka Stevens was sworn in as Prime Minister after defeating Albert Margai in the 1967 general elections, he, was topped in a bloodless military coup. Although Sir Stevens was reinstated a year later, through a counter-coup, the brief military incursion became a benchmark for instability in Sierra Lone, where two political parties, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and the now ruling All People’s Congress (APC), have dominated political power.

While the Margais were of the SLPP, Stevens belonged to the APC. To his credit, Stevens initiated some socio-economic reforms and made Paramount Chiefs and the Provinces more prominent. He also tried to bridge the distance between the city and the provinces with the construction of roads and provision of social amenities. It was also under his administration that Sierra Leone became a Republic in 1971 and Stevens, as President, was pivotal to the creation of the Mano River Union (MRU), started as two countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but has since expanded to include Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire. 

President Stevens and his APC went ahead to win the 1972 by-elections, boycotted by the opposition SLPP, over allegations of intimidation and obstruction by APC militia. He survived an alleged coup plot in 1974, and another attempted putsch in 1975, which was followed by the execution of the alleged coup leaders.

He went on to win another five-year mandate in 1976, with his APC also victorious in a disputed parliamentary election in 1977, but amid growing discontent and allegations of authoritarianism and dictatorship against the government, which made Sierra Leone a single-party State under the 1978 Constitution. 

Stevens retired from active politics in 1985 with his anointed candidate Maj.-Gen. Joseph Saidu Momoh installed as his successor. But even with his military background, Momoh faced several coup attempts, but went ahead to become Sierra Leone’s second President following an election in which he was the sole candidate in 1985.

President Momoh took a hard stance against corruption with the launch of the Code of Conduct for political leaders and public servants, but an alleged attempt to overthrow his government in 1987 resulted in mass arrests of suspects including Vice president Francis Minah, who was convicted and executed along with five others in 1989. 

Bowing to internal and international pressures the Momoh government initiated what his critics called half-hearted political and economic reforms, including the re-establishment of multi-party system in October 1991. But by then, his administration had outlived its goodwill and with the raging civil war in neighbouring Liberia its days were numbered. 

There can be no better illustration of the link between the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone than the fact that Liberia’s ex-warlord and former President Charles Taylor is today serving terms in Britain for war crimes committed, not in his home country, but in Sierra Leone.  Taylor as leader of the National Patriotic Front Liberia (NPFL) launched the rebellion against then President Samuel Doe in December 1989.

He was also accused of helping the formation of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone led by British trained Corporal Foday Sankoh with the aim of dislodging the military base of Nigerian-led ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Sierra Leone, which was then fighting Taylor’s NPFL rebels in Liberia. This was after both men had undergone guerrilla training in Libya. 

In an ensuing political confusion, a group of young Sierra Leone Army officers led by Captain Valentine Strasser struck in April 1992, seized power, and forced President Momoh into exile in Guinea.  But after four years marked by several real and alleged coup attempts that resulted in further bloodshed, Strasser himself was toppled by his fellow National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) members and forced into exile in Conakry, Guinea in January 1996. Captain Julius Maada Bio, his former ally, and whom Strasser had promoted to the rank of a Brigadier, led the coup plot. 

The Bio-led junta managed to keep its promise and returned Sierra Leone to constitutional democracy by organizing general elections in 1996, which Ahmad Tejan Kabbah won to become Sierra Leone’s third President under the SLPP platform. 

But having tasted power, the Sierra Leone military would not let go. By May 1997 another group of soldiers, this time, led by Corporal Tamba Gborie, who was loyal to Army Maj.-Gen. Johnny Koroma detained over alleged coup plot against the Kabbah government, sacked President Kabbah and forced him into exile in Guinea, which was fast becoming the preferred refuge for dethroned Sierra Leonean leaders.  Despite Kabbah’s reinstatement by the Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces in February 1998, Sierra Leone’s vicious civil war and instability were far from over. 

When this writer visited Freetown on a reportorial mission after Kabbah’s reinstatement, the once bubbling Salone capital city was a shadow of itself with the war damage and destruction very much in evidence. To underscore the level of instability, that trip from Lagos was only facilitated by ECOMOG in a Lockheed C-130 Hercules military aircraft. Tourist centres in the city including then famous Mummy Yoko Hotel, where the Radisson Blu Hotel sits today, were in ruins with the only functional Cape Sierra Hotel serving as the temporary Command Headquarters of ECOMOG.

The regional force was then under the Command of Nigeria’s Col. Maxwell Kitikishe Kobe, who until his death in 2000, served as Sierra Leone’s Chief of Defence Staff in President Kabbah’s government in recognition of his gallantry and contribution to ending the RUF-instigated civil war. 

When embattled President Kabbah eventually requested for UN support, the Security Council in 2000 approved the deployment of an initial 6,000 Peacekeepers, later increased to a 13,000-strong force at the peak of the hostilities. However, following the withdrawal of Nigerian ECOMOG troops, the RUF seized some 500 peacekeepers resulting in Operation Khukri by the UN troops to flush out remnants of the RUF rebels. 

By January 2002, Kabbah declared the Sierra Leone civil war over and in May of the same year, he was re-elected with a wide margin against the opposition APC’s candidate Ernest Bai Koroma. 

The return of relative peace in the country in 2004 encouraged the UN-backed war crimes court to begin trials at The Hague of those with the highest responsibility for Sierra Leone’s civil war. This led to the conviction of Charles Taylor for his involvement with the RUF, whose leader Sankoh had died in detention in July 2003 while awaiting trial. 

Although ineligible to run again, having completed his constitutionally allowed two five-year terms, the August 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections in Sierra Leone, represented a referendum on the legacy of the Kabbah administration. The result was a resounding NO for the SLPP whose candidate Solomon Barewa was defeated in the presidential run-off vote by APC’s now outgoing Sierra Leone’s fourth President Ernest Bai Koroma. 

While the jury may still be out on the assessment of APC’s 10-year government under Bai Koroma, Sierra Leone’s post-war worries, were compounded by the Ebola virus pandemic of 2014, which killed more than 3,000 people from the estimated 10,000 reported cases in the country, part of a West Africa-wide affliction.  And as if that was not enough, Sierra Leone was hit by deadly mudslides from heavy rains, which claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced tens of thousands of others, with grave health consequences. 

It is under this grim context and prognosis that Sierra Leone holds the crucial presidential, parliamentary and local council polls on 7^th March. While the APC and SLPP, which have dominated power, are fielding Foreign Minister Samura Wilson Kamara and former junta leader Julius Maada Bio, respectively, as their presidential candidates, there has been significant realignment of political forces ahead of the crucial elections. 

Sixteen candidates are contesting for the Executive Mansion. But there are only two women flag bearers even though women account for 52.1% of the country’s population. The stakes are particularly high and whoever emerges winner has his/her job cut out. Kandeh Yumkella, the standard bearer of the newly formed National Grand Coalition (NGC), considered a “third force,” did not mince words, when he declared in a recent interview that “Everything bad is with us,” in a reference to various development indicators which put Sierra Leone on the bottom rouge of the ladder, with 70% of the population living under the poverty line.  

The constitutional requirement that a candidate must score 55% of the votes to win the presidency makes a run-off ballot almost inevitable. The contest for Sierra Leone’s unicameral parliament is no less competitive, with more than 795 candidates, including 101 women vying for the 144 seats, including 12 slots for Paramount Chiefs and with 124 of the seats filled by direct election.

Some 3.17 million registered Sierra Leonean voters, out of the country’s estimated seven million inhabitants will be casting their ballots in 11,122 polling stations to elect the nation’s fifth president, who will shoulder the responsibility of moving the country from the devastation of natural and man-made disasters to the path of national development if the “Lion Mountain” is to roar again. 

This would be the fourth multi-party elections since the end of the civil war, but it is the first time that Sierra Leone authorities would be taking full responsibility of the electoral process since the withdrawal of the UN Mission in 2014. One tribute which Sierra Leoneans owe the memory of ECOMOG fallen heroes, including the late Kobe, and gratitude to ECOWAS, the UN and the rest of the international community, for their sacrifices for peace in the country, is to conduct themselves responsibly and deliver credible and successful elections for the consolidation of peace and democracy in the country and the region as a whole. 

Winners of the March 7 polls must be magnanimous in victory, while the losers must cooperate and all work for Sierra Leone to put its dark past behind it in the interest of development and prosperity. 

*Paul Ejime is an International Media & Communications Consultant 

With love for our country and a fierce commitment to a vision of rapid progress for our more than 180 million citizens, and following wide-ranging consultations, I offer myself to serve you as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as from May 29, 2019.

I therefore intend to be a candidate in the 2019 presidential election. I seek the opportunity to offer our country visionary, purposeful, competent leadership to build our future.

Nearly 60 years ago, our Founding Fathers Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Chief Obafemi Awolowo envisioned a great country that would take its pride of place in the world based on the talents of its citizens and a constitutional federation that would ensure justice, equity, and economic productivity.

Their vision and hopes have yet to materialize—military rule, oil booms and busts, and the successive leadership failures of our civilian political class have combined to rob us of what seemed our destiny at independence.
I am standing here today saying that it is time we shatter the downward spiral to nowhere.

I am here today, standing with the 110 missing girls of Dapchi and their grieving family, and with the traumatized young women of Chibok, those with us and those still in captivity.

I am here today standing with 180 million Nigerians, in addition to thousands of businesses struggling to share a measly 4000MW of electricity.

I am here today standing with the 100 million Nigerians experiencing crushing poverty, living on less than 300 naira a day.

I am here today because 33 million of our able men and women are unemployed or underemployed, nearly 15 million children are out of school, and only 60% of Nigerians are literate.

I am here today because our hospitals are understaffed and mismanaged death traps, and women are still subject to horrific prejudices and devastating early marriages.
I am taking this stand, here and now, because Nigeria today is divided by ethnic and religious conflicts, made worse by corruption.

The government has failed in its very first duty of securing our lives as citizens, and we have lost our place in the world. The time has come for us to fix this.

We are collectively exhausted by these politicians who continually fall in and out of alliances with each other and care nothing for the ordinary Nigerian. They aggravate our fears in the hope that we will continue to keep them in power even though offer nothing new.

IT IS TIME for a radical change in the political leadership of Nigeria.
IT IS TIME for a visionary, competent and inclusive leadership that truly cares about our country.
IT IS TIME for a leadership equipped with the skills, intellect and competence to wage a decisive war against poverty and unemployment.
IT IS TIME for a Nigeria in which our youth can fulfill their full potential and our daughters can aspire to any opportunity they desire.
IT IS TIME for a 21st century leader to lead us into a new and different future.

What we need now is a REAL movement of the people, by the people and, most importantly FOR the people of Nigeria to move our country forward and break with our troubled past. I offer myself as part of that movement.
We are a nation of great people; as seen by the way Nigerians abroad are thriving. We hear the stories of those who leave home with little more than a hope and a prayer, change the world abroad.

Nigerians have smarts, ingenuity, drive, relentlessness, vision, and sheer force of will. We must be able to harness our strengths and make them work for us here at home.
My fellow Nigerians, to quote the immortal words of the late US president John F. Kennedy, “politics is too important to be left to the politicians.”

We must ask our government hard questions about the promises they made about our security, about power, about civil aviation, about healthcare, about women’s rights.

The world is changing: time and tide have in several countries swept away old orders and brought in new, more dynamic ones. Nigeria must not remain stuck in its past. We, you and I, can do it for our country too.

We need to modernize, and quickly. For instance, we know that women in leadership and in government can accelerate growth for any economy, yet only 6% of our legislature are women. There are many, many competent, smart women who are more than ready to dig in and work together to rescue this country. We must draw them out and ensure that their voices are heard.

We must stop recycling failed politicians and regenerate our leadership ranks with competent and experienced young men or women. Youth who have prepared themselves with the relevant qualifications must take over the mantle of leadership because this struggle is about the future of Nigeria, not its past.

The battle to reorient Nigeria into a strong, capable country requires competence, capacity, and character. And as a citizen who aspires to be President I possess all three.
If it is about competence: my work as a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who played a leadership role in rescuing and stabilizing the Nigerian banking system after the global financial crisis speaks for itself.

If it is about capacity, my work in the United Nations reconstructing countries torn by civil war or reforming the internal workings of the world body is there for everyone to see.

If it is about character, well, talk to my colleagues, mentors, friends, and of course my family and listen to what they have to say. Strong, knowledgeable guidance is needed as Nigeria navigates these difficult waters, and I offer myself for service with a solid track record of leadership.

I’m not here to tell you that there are quick, easy solutions to our nation’s problems. Far from it. Decades of economic and leadership mismanagement cannot be undone in a few short weeks or months. Things will be difficult and painful choices will have to be collectively made.

What I am here to tell you is that:

TOGETHER, we can choose a NEW path.
TOGETHER, we can set a BOLD agenda.
TOGETHER, we can deliver for ourselves a DIFFERENT outcome.
Nigeria will achieve greatness.

I have not announced today the party platform on which I intend to contest for the presidency. My focus for now is the people of Nigeria and not on party platforms that have in the past been mere vehicles for capturing political power.
While I have been approached by a number of political parties, the movement that I am part of will decide which one we will join. That decision will be based on commonality of vision and the IMPERATIVE of a generational shift in leadership, and we will announce this decision in the coming weeks.

Based on such a decision, we shall seek to build a formidable coalition of parties for the presidential election that together will represent a clear and credible alternative to the failed political leadership class that has enthroned corruption and incompetence in the governance of our country.

It is important that we begin to focus more closely on the individuals seeking elective office in our country and their qualifications in terms of character, competence, capacity, and track record.

We have traditionally focused of platforms and structures that, though a necessary part of the democratic process, in our national experience have mainly delivered the wrong candidates. Naturally, those candidates have gone on to be failed leaders. It is good candidates that will create credible political parties. Visionless parties cannot produce the best candidates.

THE POLICY AGENDA
My vision for our country is set out in my new book BIG (Build, Innovate, Grow) which was released two days ago. In summary, however, the agenda of a government under my leadership includes the following:

Leadership and Governance
• Compose a world-class, “first eleven” team based on merit and inclusive governance to drive government policy. We will be ready on Day One. The appointment of all senior officials of the Presidency will be announced within 48 hours. My government will enthrone evidence-based public policy, strategy and risk management as tools of effective and modern governance.

• Establish and propagate through the educational system a foundational philosophical worldview for the Nigerian state, around which all Nigerians will unite in a common purpose

Nation-building

• Lead a consultative political process, in cooperation with the National Assembly, to achieve a constitutional restructuring of Nigeria and return our country to true federalism for stability and prosperity by 2021.

• Implement a 50:50 gender parity policy in all political appointments – nearly double the ratio recommended by the National Gender Policy of 2008.

• Establish and implement a Diaspora engagement and return policy and strategy as a new, fundamental component of our national quest for development as has been the case in China, India and Israel. My government will build the Diaspora Commission approved by the National Assembly into an effective, world-class institution to accomplish this important agenda.

• Fundamental overhaul of the Nigerian Police Force that will emphasize training, equipment, and boosting the strength of the Force by recruiting at least 1.5 million policemen and women, up from the grossly inadequate present force strength of 350,000.

Economy
• Establish an innovation-led economy, with intellectual property and commercialization of local innovation as its bedrock.

• Establish a Venture Capital Fund with a minimum of N500 billion as a public-private partnership to invest in the creation of new businesses by presently unemployed youth in Nigeria; the new businesses created with support from this fund will in turn create new jobs. The fund will be managed by private sector partners while the Federal Government of Nigeria will be a core investor.

• Reform energy policy to create an enabling environment for Nigerian households to be powered by renewable energy while industrial zones are served by gas and hydro-powered energy.

• Fundamental reform of Nigeria’s healthcare system to assure quality healthcare for Nigerian citizens and remove the need for medical tourism abroad. Healthcare will have 15 per cent of Nigeria’s budget in line with the Abuja Declaration of the African Union in 2001. A world-class hospital will be established in each of the six geopolitical zones at a federal university teaching hospital.

• Fundamental reform of Nigeria’s education system to create skills and human capital that will drive Nigeria’s industrialization and job creation. Education will be allocated 20 per cent of the federal government budget, with a progressive increase to 30 per cent over eight years.

CONCLUSION
I am here today because I want what is best for my country.

We have no godfathers. We are just ordinary Nigerians who want a future that is very different from the sad reality of broken promises and unfulfilled national potential that has been the lot of the Nigerian people for far too long.
But we know that, with your support we can bring about real progress in our country. To accomplish this, however, every citizen aged 18 years and above must obtain his or her Permanent Voters Card (PVC) and vote in the 2019 elections.

Fellow Nigerians, this movement of the people, the REAL coalition of everyone and not a select few, belongs to you. Because it truly belongs to you, it will be accountable to you, the people. For this reason, we need to crowdsource our intellect and resources to move this country forward. To support the movement, go to www.tobuildanation.com
We must refuse to allow the political elite to continue to intimidate us with the idea that no one can displace them. They boast they will outspend us and more.

But we say to them: Nigerians will not be taken for a ride yet again. The time to sit on the fence is past, ladies and gentlemen.

I’d like to end my speech by thanking my family. My lovely and ever supportive wife, who always challenges me to be the best man I can be. Thank you, dearest. To my sons and daughter, continue to be the amazing, talented people you are. I am so proud of you.

Nigeria, we can do this. Let’s get to work!

The All Progressives Congress, APC, party is currently at a crossroads. And that is putting it mildly. Whether the party leaders and ordinary members recognise the state of their party as such is immaterial. The point is that the party as an organisation is bursting at the seams and all the ingredients necessary for it to implode on itself appear to be coming together at an alarming rate.

Not being a party member there is no reason why I should worry about what happens to a party that is determined to self-destruct. As such I am mindful of what I say, lest I be accused of or be seen to be crying more than the bereaved. In calling attention to what is obvious to many Nigerians my heart goes out to the people of this country, most especially the ordinary people who bear the brunt of political misrule, that the failure of the APC is a case of a hope betrayed- yet another indication of how Nigeria’s politicians have condemned the rest of us to the repeated cycle of failure; of taking one step forward and many steps backwards.

Here was a party, the APC, that rode on the gale of national approval to electoral victory just about three years ago following the sixteen years misrule of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. That the party’s candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a serial presidential-election manqué that had flunked three previous attempts at becoming the country’s president- the fact that a Buhari that appeared to have expired as an attractive presidential candidate would go on to win a national election was evidence of how disenchanted Nigerians had become with the PDP. By a deft reconfiguration of political alignments, the fact of the in-fighting within the PDP and God’s own intervention to take the country back from the brink of a political disaster, the APC was able to give the PDP a bloody nose in the 2015 elections in spite of the massive injection of money into the entire process by the party. Which is not to say that the APC was entirely innocent.

But PDP’s desperation led to a blatant manipulation and monetisation of the electoral process. This was in addition to a manipulation of the electoral date, a fact that is again threatening to pull the APC apart right from within its own living room as members of the party in the National Assembly are pitched against their counterparts in the executive arm. Or so the narrative goes. Which is why it appears that what happened to the PDP might turn out to be a child’s play compared to what the APC could yet go through in the event the Bola Tinubu peace initiative flounders. But as the elections drew near in 2015, practically anyone had their price from the perspective of the PDP, and anyone that could and wanted to be bought was handsomely bought.

It was an ‘open day’ for a few Nigerians who were either fortunate or unfortunate (depending on how they viewed their circumstances) to be part of or close to the PDP gravy train, to say nothing of members of the party who had a good time helping themselves to the free money that Goodluck Jonathan and his minders made easily available. Those who could helped themselves to the till, some worked on the side for the APC, already convinced that the PDP was a sinking ship, while assuring the ever incredulous Jonathan that he was ‘the man to beat’ as some are today assuring Buhari. Yet that did not give the PDP the day. If anything the party failed royally and handed the APC a victory many Nigerians deeply wanted, desired and prayed for. But that victory has since turned into ash in the mouth of many. We are back again to where we started from. This is the crux of my lament about the failure of the Buhari-led APC administration. Buhari has apparently frittered away a wonderful opportunity to turn things around for Nigeria. What we have now is more of the same thing. The reason Nigerians chose the APC over the PDP, the very reason most Nigerians wanted Goodluck Jonathan out now appears to be the same reason that will doom the Buhari government. Corruption was and had become an international embarrassment to Nigeria by 2015. Buhari promised to effect a change in this and Nigerians believed him. His reputation as an austere military ruler that dealt politicians of a different era a heavy blow for corruption preceded him and strengthened his aspiration.

But getting into office a strange concoction of nepotism, lack of will and inaction paved the way for corruption among members of the president’s own inner circle. The Buhari Nigerians thought they knew had been mellowed or simply went to sleep having gained the presidency. The verdict of that dereliction has come in the form of the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index that placed Nigeria at a dismal 148th position, 12 steps down from our previous position. All of this under a government that swore itself to an oath of anti-corruption.

Security is yet another electoral promise of the Buhari-led APC. Jonathan’s failure to rein in the activities of Boko Haram, indeed his less than enthusiastic response to the abduction of the Chibok school girls caused both national an international outrage. With between 250 and 350 school girls unaccountably driven into captivity in a country supposedly under the rule of law, the PDP government under Gooluck Jonathan had its days numbered. It tried particularly towards the end of its life but it could not live down that failure by the children of this country. Four years after, we are confronted with the abduction of over 110 schools girls of Dapchi by suspected Boko Haram operatives, even at a time the Buhari government had severally proclaimed victory over the murderous group. Now the government talks about an attempt to embarrass it where it is not accusing Transparency International of playing politics with its Corruption Perception Index about Nigeria.

On at least two keys issues that constituted the core of its campaign exercise in 2015, the APC has failed Nigerians. Many cannot see the justification for the continued retention of Aso Rock tenancy by the party or its leader, President Muhammadu Buhari. To compound an already abysmal situation the party cannot seem able to identify its centre.

Members are at loggerheads and there is no telling where the current struggle for the control of the party among it members would end. If Bola Tinubu could look beyond his relegation by Buhari’s relations and new found friends soon after he became president, it would be something close to a political miracle if he could soothe the frayed nerves of members of the party across the country. 

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian recently welcomed wife Serena Williams back to tennis with a series of billboards in Palm Springs, Calif.

Ohanian posted photos of his gesture Tuesday on social media.

"These just went up on alongside I-10 into Palm Springs. Junior & I wanted to welcome her back to tennis," Ohanian wrote on the posts. "Designed them myself, with some help from baby O [and assist from Initialized startup, AdQuick, where I searched + bought the billboards]. #GMOAT @ Palm Springs, California."

The billboards featured several photos of baby Alexis Olympia Ohanian, on a series reading "Greatest. Momma. Of all time." The final billboard he shared read "Serena Williams G.M.O.A.T. [Greatest Momma Of All Time] - Alexis Jr + Sr."

Williams, 36, will compete at the BNP Paribas Open from March 5 through March 18 at Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells. Calif. The 23-time Grand Slam champion returned to the court for the first time in December, losing in three sets to Latvian Jelena Ostapenko in Abu Dhabi. Before that appearance, Williams hadn't played competitively since winning the 2017 Australian Open. She was expected to participate in the 2018 Australian Open, but pulled out of the tournament before it began.

Alexis Olympia was born on Sept. 1, while Williams and Ohanian were married in November. Olympia and her dad were in the stands in early February to watch Williams and sister Venus Williams compete in a doubles match at the 2018 Fed Cup in Asheville, N.C.

UPI

We join other Nigerians and well-wishers in congratulating the foremost Labour organisation in the country, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, as it turns forty today, February 28, 2018. Its establishment in 1978 was a continuation of the enviable and progressive role the Trade Union Movement has played since the late 19th Century when mass paid employment was introduced in the country.

It has also built on the solid foundations laid by trade unionists like Chu Gogo Nzeribe, Michael Imoudu, Wahab Goodluck, Aminu Kano and Haroon Popoola Adebola. The NLC had as its founding President, Alhaji Hassan Sunmonu whose leadership  built the administrative foundations of the Congress, secured its first headquarters in Lagos, popularised the NLC in the consciousness of Nigerians, promoted the culture of collective leadership and won the first National Minimum Wage in the country.

His successor, Alhaji Ali Chiroma, fought titanic battles to resist mass retrenchment by the military regime, check unreasonable increases in the prices of petroleum products and mobilised the populace  against the repression of the Student Movement and  the entrenchment of military dictatorship.

Comrade Paschal Bafyau who succeeded Chiroma after a ten-month interregnum by a government-imposed Sole Administrator, was not a particularly popular figure given his pro-military regime politics. However, his administration had the distinction of building quite viable institutions and structures for the NLC including the Labour Transport Service (now, the Labour City Transport Services), the Labour Bank, LALICON, a huge Education Fund and the 12-Storey Labour House in Abuja which has The administration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole which came after another interregnum of government-imposed Sole Administrators on the NLC, returned the Congress to the path of mass popularity and support. That administration is noted for the numerous strikes it led against the constant increases in the prices of petroleum products. Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar who took over from Oshiomhole, with lesser effect, continued the resistance of its predecessor against unpopular government policies.

It, however, has the record of organising the largest and most effective street protests in the country’s contemporary history with its January 2012 anti-fuel price protests.

Unfortunately, due mainly to parochial and  individual interests, the NLC  split after the Omar administration in 2015. This  eventually led to the rise of the rival United Labour Congress  (ULC), the tragic consequences were noticeable in the abysmal failure of the 2016 fuel deregulation general strike. Today, the once vibrant trade union movement lays prostrate and workers are lacking the cohesive, pragmatic, vibrant,  principled and proactive leadership the NLC once offered.

On this occasion, we urge all groups and tendencies in the trade union movement to reunite and ensure that the next forty years are more glorious for workers and the toiling masses of the country.

Vanguard

Nigerians do not, and should not, expect their houses to be pulled down peremptorily by political opponents, deploying governmental power.  Thus, no matter how the Kaduna State Government headed by Governor Nasir El-Rufai spins the demolition of Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi’s storey building situated at No. 11B Sambo Street, Ungwar Rimi, Kaduna, it must take responsibility for what is clearly the most vicious and politically motivated administrative high-handedness in the country, in recent memory.

We had thought Nigerian politics had progressed beyond such narrow, despotic cruelties.  Alas, the demolition of the structure which houses an opposing faction of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state is a warning on the insidious despotism in the state.

It is no secret that the APC is factionalised in Kaduna State, and that a week or so ago, the faction of the party led by Senator Hunkuyi handed down a six-month suspension to Governor El-Rufai for “anti-party activities.”  Senator Hunkuyi’s property that was demolished was being used as the office of his APC faction in the state.  The demolition of that property by the Kaduna State Government cannot, therefore, be a coincidence.

We appreciate that the Land Use Act vests tremendous powers in the governor of a state.  It is the duty of the governor to issue the Certificate of Occupancy.  He could also revoke it for certain reasons.  But, the law also provides that before the governor takes penal action, he must give sufficient notice.  The Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Agency (KASUPDA) has claimed responsibility for the demolition on the claim that it was performing its normal functions.  The agency had invaded the property at the unnatural hour of 4 am.  The bulldozer was accompanied by armed soldiers who blocked both sides of the road leading to the building. The excuse for the demolition is that the property was allocated for residential purposes and not political activities.  The agency also alleged that the building was demolished for a flagrant violation of Land Use and non-payment of ground rent since 2010.

It is easy to see through the administrative fiction cleverly woven to justify this blatantly tyrannical exercise. According to the Kaduna State Geographic Information Service (KADGIS), the demolition was apolitical, and the land has now been allocated to KASUPDA “for the purpose of developing and maintaining a public park that will provide a green area and a serene place for recreation in that residential neighbourhood.”  The KADGIS is challenging the senator to go to court to test his rights, vowing to be vindicated by the courts.  Indeed, it also issued the senator a fresh N30.4 million ground rent bill for his private home, with an ultimatum to pay within 30 days.

Even if, for the sake of argument, the senator had violated some parts of the original purpose of the allocation, there is no provision in the Land Use Act for demolition as the sanction for such a violation.  And, it is inconceivable that the punishment for late payment of ground rent would be the demolition of the property.  Besides, the Kaduna State Government has not shown any proof that it followed the regular process, as the senator is entitled to fair hearing under Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, and should not have been deprived of it.

This ill-tempered, vengeful action is political vindictiveness at its height.  It is astonishing that Governor El-Rufai was tempted to resort to such an underhand tactic, in spite of his high education and experience.  The demolition is an indication of weakness rather than strength.  Nigeria’s politics degenerates into warfare because of actions like this, and Nigerians should in unison not just frown at such actions but actively protest against them, whenever they occur. Senator Hunkuyi should seek legal redress and compensation for the demolition of his property.

Sun