For the second time since it began its terror campaign, Boko Haram has scored another odious landmark mass abduction of schoolgirls. In an uncanny replication of the April 2014 kidnap of 276 Chibok schoolgirls, the Islamists raided the Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State last week Monday night. To the country’s dismay, the terrorists abducted 110 girls out of the 906 on the school’s roster, according to the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed. The repeat escapade in Dapchi, in spite of the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s cheap propaganda that it has “technically defeated” the Islamist sect, provides irrefutable proof that the terror group is still a force to be reckoned with. For the government to really decimate the murderous group, the time has come for stronger, decisive political leadership, a tougher and more effective anti-terror strategy and greater collaboration between Nigeria and other countries, particularly on intelligence gathering and sharing.

As usual, the latest abduction has clearly shown that many things are still awfully wrong with the Buhari government’s war on terror. Initially, the Yobe State Government, the police and the military denied the incident, claiming that the girls, who fled into the bush when the terrorists attacked the school, had returned in batches. This turned out to be false, much in keeping with the earlier mishandling of the Chibok girls’ abduction. It took the alarm raised by the girls’ parents for the government to own up to yet another strategic blunder. Reports said that the terrorists, during the invasion, fired gunshots and made straight for the food store, while some insurgents, dressed in military camouflage, waited outside the school’s perimeter fencing in their get-away trucks.

The incident has once more made Nigeria a laughing stock: an unstable country where insecurity and impunity are the order of the day. Since then, the global focus has rightly been on Governor Ibrahim Geidam’s insensitivity, Buhari’s cluelessness and the security agencies’ incompetence. Geidam exonerated himself, lamenting, “I blame the whole attack on Dapchi on the military and the Defence Headquarters, who withdrew troops from Dapchi. The attack occurred barely a week after the military withdrew the soldiers from there.” This is the fallout of government living in denial of Boko Haram’s dangerous reach.

What is most striking in this unfortunate incident is the total failure of the authorities to learn from history. Nearly four years ago, precisely on April 14, 2014, Boko Haram terrorists took advantage of the porous security in the rustic town of Chibok in Borno State to take into custody 276 schoolgirls. In one of the most tragic and heinous fates that could befall schoolchildren, the terrorists invaded the premises of the Government Girls Secondary School, in the dead of the night, just as the girls were preparing for their final examinations, and carted away truckloads of them.

Even more surprising is that the Dapchi schoolgirls were taken away in trucks that plied major roads that had no military or police roadblocks to prevent easy escape. Instructively, Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states are currently under the military’s redeeming Operation Lafiya Dole, just as they were under a state of emergency when the Chibok infamy occurred. Apparently, the security agencies have learnt no lesson in their nine years of counter-insurgency. Soldiers’ withdrawal from Buni-Yadi town in 2013 saw its secondary school attacked by the insurgents a week after, and 29 students killed.

These tumbles in military operational strategies deserve critical evaluation and remedial action. A former Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, in his valedictory speech, confirmed that fifth columnists in the military and other security agencies were making the war against the insurgency difficult. Operational plans and schedules have often been leaked to the terrorists, leading to soldiers being ambushed, killed and armouries looted since the Islamic jihadists seized the North-East landscape.

All diplomatic efforts should be made to secure vigorous military cooperation from Chad, Niger Republic and Cameroon. More crucially, it is essential to secure the assistance of friendly countries, especially the United States, France and Britain in liberating the girls. For Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, the states in the vortex of this terrorism, henceforth, every school should be provided with heavy security. Where schools are located close to external borders with no strong military fortifications, they should be closed and the students merged temporarily with others in safer zones and the extra expense should be fully borne by the state. Boarding schools in contested areas should be made day schools for now. Geidam bears responsibility for not protesting when the military withdrew from Dapchi.

Buhari should for once be shaken; he should critically review the performance of his security chiefs and the officers whose lapses, misjudgements and incompetence led to this debacle. US authorities fired two admirals and several captains after four ship collisions in the Pacific Ocean last year. Investigations should be launched to find out why Dapchi was undefended, why the military could not launch a swift response to recapture the girls, to verify the claims and counter-claims of troop withdrawals in Dapchi and Buni Yadi only for Boko Haram to strike, and ascertain who is responsible for the misinformation that fostered inertia in the critical first few hours and days after the attack. The 12-man committee set up to investigate the security lapse must get to the root of the abduction.

The police, State Security Service and paramilitary agencies that should have some presence in the area must explain their roles. The intelligence services – the SSS and National Intelligence Agency – need to be shaken up urgently. Nine years after the insurgency began, intelligence gathering appears to be still very weak and unable to adapt to the challenges. Defeating Islamist terrorism is not restricted to the battlefield as the world’s most powerful militaries have found out. The game-changer is intelligence and it is a long-drawn operation as Islamist terrorism is ever mutating. The use of technology is essential: drones, electronic surveillance applications and human  intelligence, using locals and undercover agents will help neutralise these depraved Islamist terrorists from our midst.

Punch

Transparency International (TI) revealed last Wednesday that corruption in Nigeria is now worse under President Muhammadu Buhari than it was before he took over. That was sad, but it was not as sad as the presidency’s response to TI’s verdict.

Surprisingly, but not uncharacteristically, the presidency released a statement with a thinly veiled accusation that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili, both conspired to use their influence as founding members of TI to prod the anti corruption watch dog to give the negative rating it gave on Buhari’s anti-corruption war.

President Buhari must move away from seeing leadership as something tied to an office or a position or a designation. Leadership is about influence and impact. If you don’t have both, you are not a leader, no matter how many titles come before or after your name.

If I was the president, instead of looking for scapegoats, I would be more concerned about the reasons why Nigeria moved 12 places backward from 136 to 148 in this year’s CPI?

And the thing is that going by the revelations that have been unearthed this year, Nigeria is looking like it may have an even worse CPI rating next year. For instance, I have heard of man-eating snakes but I have never heard of naira eating snakes before in my life! I have also heard of monkeys stealing food, but this new tale of a monkey stealing money is certainly strange.

In fact, it seems like providence just wanted to show President Buhari the limitations of propaganda. On a week after President Buhari boasted that he had fulfilled his two biggest campaign promises of security and anti-corruption, The #DapchiGirls incident and TI’s latest CPI showed him the limits of propaganda.

After the 2014 abduction of the Chibok Girls, how could we leave any school unguarded in the Northeast? Boko Haram precisely means that Western education is sin. These people were not cagey. They announced their intentions clearly and unambiguously. That 110 girls were kidnapped in Dapchi, Yobe State, is just unimaginable. It shows that we did not learn anything from the Chibok Girls saga.

If it happened to Chibok in 2014 then the shame was on Boko Haram, but when it happens again in Dapchi, the shame is on us this time around. This incident will be aired all over the world. It will affect investor confidence in Nigeria and portray us as an unsafe country. If we did not learn a lesson from Chibok, let us at least learn it from Dapchi.

I urge all Nigerians not to politicise this tragedy. We must unite to rescue the girls and defeat the ideology that is against education. The federal government must provide armed military guards at all schools in the Northeast. If this is not possible, then the students in such schools should be moved to safer locations nearer the state capitals.

Nigeria has spent literally hundreds of millions and perhaps billions trying to promote girl child education especially in Northern Nigeria. Incidences like Chibok and Dapchi have negated all that work and will set girl child school enrollment back several years. We must give citizens the assurance that when they send their children to school, the end result will be positive for both the students and their parents.

Having said this, I sympathise with the parents of all the missing girls. My thoughts are with you and I will do what I can to mobilise the world to look for and help return your daughters.

The truth is that if we are asking our youths not to make the perilous journey to Europe through the Libyan desert, we must give them hope in Nigeria. What hope is there when you can be kidnapped from school in Nigeria? What hope is there if you work and your salary is kidnapped by corrupt government officials?

And talking about salary, let me say that in the last three years, life in parts of Nigeria has become like in the Stone Age – short and brutish. With a minimum wage of N18,000 it will continue to be so. We must increase the minimum wage. If we can afford N1.1 billion to clean the National Security Adviser’s office, we can definitely afford to increase the minimum wage.

And we do not have to increase recurrent expenditure to increase the minimum wage. We only need to cut out wasteful expenditure that does not impact on the life of the common man like the afford N1.1 billion to clean the National Security Adviser’s office, and the N4.8 billion for electrical maintenance in the presidency.

For too long, Nigeria’s leaders have been thinking about the next election instead of the next generation. That is why our recurrent expenditure is huge and our capital expenditure is minute. If Nigeria is not growing or going backwards we must look at ourselves and make changes instead of looking at our predecessors and make blames.

Too many Nigerians climb the ladder of success and burn it. We need to have a paradigm change such that we help others climb the success ladder. Singapore was like us. Lee Kuan Yew took her from the Third World to the first in a generation. We need our own Lee Kuan Yew and it should not be a PDP or APC affair. We want the best Nigeria has to offer, not the best a party has to offer.

It is dangerous to be overzealous and to run too far ahead of the pack when there is social tension. In a democracy, it pays for government officials to consult thoroughly, think carefully through policies and apply circumspection in their execution to carry the public along. True democrats are always mindful of conducting public affairs in a manner as to maintain legitimacy and public approval.

Chief Audu Ogbeh, who is privileged to be appointed Minister for the second time, is repeating a mistake he made over 30 years ago when he was the Minister of Communications under President Shehu Shagari. At that time he had threatened to shut down the Radio Lagos FM station for reaching other states with its broadcasts.

Meanwhile, he ignored the Radio Rivers FM which could also be picked up in Imo, Anambra and Cross River States. But, Lagos State was under the opposition Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, while Rivers State was governed by the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, to which Ogbeh belonged. The legal battle which was brewing was only aborted when the military returned in 1983. Recently, Ogbeh announced the Federal Government’s intention to create cattle colonies which he claimed would be established in every state of Nigeria. Ogbeh ignored the fact that the state governors have constitutional powers over land matters in their states. He made it appear as if the states had no choice over the matter. His enthusiasm was buoyed by the response of the Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who quickly volunteered to make land available for the project, though several interest groups across Kogi State angrily kicked against it.

It was the same Minister Ogbeh who jumped into the fray as soon as he was appointed Minister of Agriculture, and promised that Nigeria would import grass from Brazil to feed our livestock without consulting stakeholders who would have told him that Nigerian researchers had already developed suitable improved grass varieties for the same purpose.

On Saturday, February 10, 2018, President Buhari put the nail on the coffin of Ogbeh’s idea of establishing cattle colonies by declaring that he had no powers to create them.  From all indications, the Minister acts alone on most of these knee-jerk plans. The result is always that he is forced to backtrack, and that is not a dignified way of exercising public authority.

Minister Ogbeh is advised to be more sensitive to public opinion. This is what comes of effective consultation. It is the height of insensitivity for him to even propose the cattle colony idea without caring about the way his people of Benue State and other Nigerians would feel about it, especially for someone who claims to be a seasoned democrat.

It pays to tread with caution.

Vanguard

The period allowed for 2019 elections campaigning is fast approaching and predictably the number of insults, threats, and dire predictions is increasing as is the degree of their severity. Detractors of President Buhari are demonizing him, rubbishing his appointees and not recognizing his successes, while his supporters are deifying him, denigrating all opposition and not recognizing his failures. In the growing political confusion talk of another “mega-party”, political decamping, ethnic violence and preparedness for election rigging, is making many people wonder if Nigeria is coming to its long predicted end.

The thing called an “end” doesn’t exist in relation to a country. Whether or not it still bears the same nomenclature, the land mass currently called Nigeria will still be here when all the major political actors of today are long gone. Former Military Dictator Ibrahim Babangida has said the path to a better nation is for people to support the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with their “Reposition, Rebrand and Regain agenda”. The problem with that suggestion is the adage in Nigeria that no matter how many times a snake sheds its skin, it remains a snake! The return of PDP cannot possibly be considered as a forward step or viewed with any positive anticipation.

Consequently the attempt to set up a “third force”. But in all truthfulness there is no need for another “Mega Party”. 

They have no illusions about the morality of governance, because they know that those who hold power in Nigeria do so for themselves, their friends and families.

The idea of the State being an instrument for people’s development is a Western concept. Intelligent Nigerians should stop talking as if the country is in Europe where the ideas of democracy have been refined believe over centuries. Nigerians are used to being ruled by paramount rulers to whom the idea of equality is alien. They do things the “Nigerian way” in which compassion and accountability are treated as inapplicable foreign western concepts. 

Nigeria is a typical African country and people must stop entertaining the illusion that a day is coming when the nation will look like America or Europe. Our future will be determined by our continuing mass illiteracy and the fact that our politics will continue to be driven by tribal sentiment. Those commentators forecasting that Nigeria is coming to the end don’t realise that we may be actually coming to the beginning of a real African country away from Western illusions of exceptionalism. Nigeria is not some outpost of European values, yet what makes people restless about the nation’s future is that they have western models in mind. The “end of Nigeria” is an expression of a Western value system where the rule of law, accountability, political morality, reason, and compassion, are absent. 

These are lofty ideals proposed by philosophers like Socrates and Hegel who were not Nigerian. Together with constitutionalism they are concepts far ahead of us as a people and are not part of who Nigerians are. The real hindrance to progress in Nigeria isn’t the number of political parties, it’s the absence of leadership. What needs to be replaced isn’t the APC or PDP, it’s the entire political class which has collectively failed and continues to take the nation for granted. A new political order is required because our current crop of politicians are short-sightedly only interested in their personal progress and winning the next election rather than national development. Nigeria is in dire need of farsighted leadership. 

In Singapore the Finance Minister presented a budget which proposed tax increases from 2021 to 2025 to fund the social services required to take care of their aging population. In Nigeria we don’t even have a 2018 budget! Those who claim to be trying to create a new Nigeria must not get starry eyed. Amilcar Cabal the liberator of Cape Verde used to tell his followers never to confuse the idea in their heads with the reality on ground. Nigeria’s problems are not only about political leadership.

There is no leadership from the clergy, civil society, intellectuals, or from businesses in the “organised private sector”. Nigeria is in decline because the likes of Volkswagen, Michelin, BATA, Nigeria Airways, and BEREC batteries are no more. 

Even though Nigeria is the fifth largest consumer of Japanese products there is no assembly plant for Toyota. Incredulously Nigeria doesn’t assemble any of the vehicles massively imported by government annually for their own use! In spite of Nigeria’s huge electronics market the nation doesn’t have a single production plant for Samsung, Sonny, Nokia, or HP appliances. Corporate executives and politicians prefer foreign training, foreign medical services and foreign clothing. All major software development contracts are farmed out overseas. 

Worst still Nigerian brands now sponsor foreigners. The voice over in Arik Airlines is done by an Englishman! Nigerians now prefer foreign football teams, foreign holiday destinations and foreign drinks to their own. It’s time to take a reality check and accept that the “Giant of Africa” nomenclature is simply a myth.

To reverse the decline in the nation isn’t a matter of increasing the number of political parties or altering election time tables, it’s about ensuring that those elected are not simply opportunists fighting for their personal interests, but far-sighted leaders who understand the problem and can provide a viable solution.

One of my many positive flaws is bursting the pipes of miscreants. Detractors have often complained about my hard-ball approach and the way I just rip off band aids without notice. It is not in my genes to dance around a bonfire or do the ring around the roses. However, to set a background for today’s discourse, I must tell a tale. It is a story not so quaint but bountifully apt for getting into the crux of today’s matter.

She would scream for help and our mother would come running. So much satisfaction I derived from it. I would guffaw endlessly into the night and my mom would pacify my upset and scared sister. This went on for years until one night; I became the centre of my joke. My mom and sister made a meticulous plot to give me a dose of my medicine. I would be writing a prolix to go into it but I learnt my lesson by having a taste of my own poison. That was the end of my night time pranks.

It was Nelson Mandela, in his autobiography the Long Walk to Freedom who said, “A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire”

Benue State is oppressed and has been oppressed by Fulani herdsmen for almost a decade. As a matter of fact, Governor Samuel Ortom in one of his numerous elegies sang, “for several years, these attackers have turned our beautiful and endowed land into their killing fields”. It is no longer news that Benue is under serial herdsmen attacks, but this did not start yesterday.

According to Governor Ortom, these attacks, which started since 2011 have led to the loss of illustrious sons and daughters of the state as well as approximately N95bn.

The manner in which Ortom now conducts and oversees mass burials like a priest amidst sobs and wailing, reminds me of the screams of my sister in the dark decades ago while I plagued her with my mischief.

Recently, he cried wolf while accusing the Federal Government and security agencies of abandoning the citizens of his state to be slaughtered by rampaging Fulani herdsmen. Didn’t Ortom hear the words of the great Madiba? The point has come when one can only fight fire with fire not, with salty tears or lamentations.

One would wonder, what was Governor Fayose doing with hunters? Is he planning to learn a few tricks with the Dane gun? The answer to these questions has been reported but I must again make reference to them to form another layer of substratum on this discourse.

Fayose, clad in camouflage to reflect the mood of the nation, urged hunters from the 16 local government areas in the state to defend their territory while explaining that, based on intelligence, some ‘Bororos’ have surreptitiously gained entrance into the state with the mission to maim and make a mockery of his anti-grazing laws.

His words were: “I’m not going to Abuja to start crying like a woman. I will take steps to protect my people. There is nobody that is greater than the laws of the land. We must stop the killers; they must not enter our land. My people arise and defend our land. It is those who want to take our land that will die for us.”

I wasn’t in great Madiba’s head when he wrote Long Walk to Freedom but I can place a wager that this was exactly what he meant when he talked about mirroring the methods of the oppressor.

Nigeria is under attack from Fulani herdsmen and like Noble Laureate Wole Soyinka pointed out, they have declared war against the nation using the weapon of undiluted terror. What can better quench terror than fiercer terror? What can better stop intimidation than a greater form of it?

If Ortom did not read Madiba’s autobiography, he could at least watch Fayose’s actions and take a cue from him.

In a failed republic like ours, waiting for help from big brother is as good as signing one’s death warrant. No, big brother would not be coming to fight off the bullies. The sad, hard truth is this; it has become an ‘On Your Own’ nation. So, if Ortom chooses to fiddle while Benue burns, I am glad for Ekiti that there is a Fayose who will face fire with reinforced fire.

On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2018, Jacob Zuma resigned as the president of South Africa. The resignation occurred less than 24 hours before his party, the African National Congress (ANC), was scheduled to debate a no-confidence vote on him by the parliament. He had been asked by the party a week earlier to resign or be removed.

These scandals provoked public opprobrium, which was expressed in the media, in litigations and street demonstrations by civil society groups. But Zuma tried to subvert the independence of key state institutions. For instance, he abused his powers by handpicking judges heading commissions of inquiry and hiring and firing the operational heads of the police and national prosecuting authorities. He also long employed a strategy of fighting judgments through the courts. As the leader of the majority party, he was able to subvert several no-confidence votes in the parliament. He virtually turned parliament into a rubber stamp, in spite of the persistent cries of opposition voices like Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters party.

Meanwhile, Zuma’s presidency had been devastating for the ANC. Disillusionment with corruption led to hundreds of thousands of ANC voters abstaining during the 2016 municipal elections. The party list (proportional representation) electoral system enabled opposition parties to win seats in Cape Town and Tshwane, in the biggest city, Johannesburg, and in the former ANC heartland, Nelson Mandela Bay. Thus, in the December 2017 elective conference of the party, Cyril Ramaphosa won the day after Zuma’s faction antagonised other members in an attempt to rig the vote through gatekeeping. Since then, resentment against Zuma within the party had deepened. Thus, the ANC leadership perceived victory in the forthcoming election to be clearly threatened by Zuma’s remaining at the helm. He had to go.

The recall of Zuma owes to the party’s view of all government officials, including the president of the country, as “deployees” of the party who are required to follow party orders. Thus, when the party leaders considered that  Zuma’s unpopularity had become a threat to the ANC’s electoral victory, they recalled him.  Even so, it took the threat of certain defeat in a no-confidence vote in parliament, to be brought by an opposition party, to force him to resign.  Given the institutionalisation of the party and the clear and direct threat to its victory in the forthcoming election, Zuma had to resign. Before the party’s move, he had resisted Constitutional Court orders, surmounted the vocal opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), ignored the media, and disregarded the protest by South Africa’s citizens and civil society groups in order to remain in power.

Although the parliamentary and proportional representation electoral system contributed to the centrality of the party and party discipline in delivering the eventual positive outcome, it is the collective force of these groups that prevailed on the party to put an end to Zuma’s calamitous and corrupt reign. Active citizens, persistent and courageous opposition parties, determined civil society groups, independent courts and the media united against corruption and irresponsible governance and forced the party’s hand. In Nigeria, parties have remained fragile and uninstitutionalised. Disagreement over matters of propriety and national values often end in schism within the parties. This is because such disagreements are quickly undermined by religious and ethnic cleavages.

The elite have not been able to uphold the morality, propriety and national values enshrined in the constitution as foundation for democratic governance. A president quickly rises above the party. Factional leaders and sections hold sway as the quest for power fails to reckon with the aspirations of citizens. These negative behaviours must be corrected for party discipline and party institutionalisation to occur. Upholding the values of integrity, discipline, social justice and rule of law, values that are enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, is essential to strengthening governance institutions for democratic advancement and economic prosperity.

Tribune

A SERAP report exposes the corruption underbellies in our higher institutions 

An unrelieved litany of woes: That, in sum, is what emerges from the report issued last week by the non-governmental organisation Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) on the condition of Nigerian universities.

In the main, it speaks of how corruption has stripped down the universities and “stolen the future” for which they are supposed to be preparing their wards, and how malpractices have been entrenched by a culture that neither investigates allegations thoroughly nor punishes substantiated malfeasance.

The 58-page comprehensive report, produced with funding support from the MacArthur Foundation, presented to the media by Bolajoko Dixon-Ogbechi, an associate professor of Business Administration at the University of Lagos, identified practices that call into question not just the integrity of the university system but the very purpose of the university.

Official Visitations to federal universities have highlighted many of these issues time and again. It is a measure of the stubborn persistence of those same issues that SERAP found it necessary to dwell on them so copiously in its report.

However, it is necessary to enter some caveats.

Only two of more than 40 federal universities figure in the report:  the University of Lagos – and not even the university proper, but its College of Medicine — and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, substituted for the University of Abuja in the original design because the latter was on vacation.

The findings may well be indicative of the problem with federal universities but they are by no means conclusive. A wider study may well come up with a more nuanced report, or one that may exculpate or censure more strongly some of the universities.

Just how much access to the various constituencies of the universities in the study, and to financial statements, official records of meetings of key academic and administrative bodies?  How representative of these constituencies are the parties it interrogated?

A response rate would have helped in evaluating how representative the data was. It should also be kept in mind that those  disaffected with the system for one reason or another are usually the most likely to respond in studies of this nature, even when controls are built into the design.  Convenience samples, such as were employed in part for the study, rarely conduce to reliable findings.

But even with these caveats, the SERAP report deserves close official scrutiny.

As was noted by the senior attorney Femi Falana at the presentation of the report, former vice chancellors of three federal universities are currently standing trial on fraud charges. Also, credible intimations of serious fraud have been uncovered at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), an important affiliate of the university system.

Overall, then, there is sufficient concern to warrant a comprehensive Visitation to the federal university system and allied institutions.

The Nation

The authorities could do more to contain the menace

The recent decision by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), to engage the services of native witch doctors to curb trafficking in persons, tells the enormity of the challenges and the urgent need by all stakeholders to rally round the agency in combating the menace. Expressing the agency’s readiness to confront the criminal activities of human traffickers head-on, the NAPTIP Director General, Mrs Julie Okah-Donli, said the agency had gathered “witch doctors’’ in Benin, Edo State capital and made them ambassadors in fighting against the menace. “When we gathered these witch doctors recently to sensitise them on what human trafficking victims go through in Europe, they were shocked. And they have made their commitments to work with us to fight the menace of human trafficking,” said Okah-Donli.

Instructively, the danger posed by human traffickers has also attracted the attention of the respected Benin Monarch, Oba Ewuare II who recently expressed concern over rising cases and illegal migration. Expressing surprise about the development considering the increasing number of religious worship centres in the society, the Oba stated that reports indicated that many of the clerics may have been encouraging human trafficking and illegal migration, instead of discouraging it. The Oba promised that the Palace would collaborate with security agencies to reduce the crime in the state.

However, human trafficking is both international and local – we have the source, the transit and destination states. Records have shown that the proportion of the local trafficking almost equal international dimension of the criminal act. Some unscrupulous Nigerians recruit from their villages and towns young girls with the promise of securing for them good jobs in urban centres only to turn them to prostitutes. That explains why it is urgent and important for the NAPTIP to partner with other organisations in tackling this threat.

The latest and most heinous dimension to trafficking is that it has gone beyond sexual exploitation. The traffickers now trade in human organs. They sell human organs for financial benefits. The harvesting of organs has become attractive to these criminals because there are so many people in need of kidney, liver and heart transplants, and records reveal that these organs are in high demand, especially in developed countries. There is therefore need for collaborative efforts by the relevant local agencies, state governments and the international partners in dealing with the issue.

The global community has already seen this act as a threat and many have expressed disappointment over the slow approach by the Nigerian government. A recent report by an organ of the UN on human trafficking rated Nigeria poorly in tackling human trafficking. Before the latest report, Nigeria got to “first tier’’ and later dropped to “tier-two watch list.’’ And one of the reasons given for the downgrade was that child soldiers were being used in the North-east.

While we condemn human trafficking, we are of the strong belief that a demonstration of political will to diligently prosecute offenders would serve as deterrent to those engaged in the nefarious trade.

Thisday

The construction of a $6.7bn Ibadan to Kaduna rail line was among some of the projects reported to have been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari’s Federal Executive Council meeting that took place recently. The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, announced that the project is expected to last three years.

Now this piece of news may appear like some positive news until one realises that, going by the antecedent of this government, this may just end up being what it is: Another piece of news.

Can’t I be excused therefore if I say this government is just chasing shadows and pursuing propaganda, a thing which many say it is very good at?

I will explain why I believe this is the case shortly, but not before sharing my opinion on the kind of projects that I think are important to this President, this government, than Nigeria’s development.

I made the point recently that if this government and indeed the APC were really serious about developing this great giant with feet of clay, they knew exactly what to do from the outset. But alas, it appears their intentions are of a different kind.

Although I supported President Buhari in 2015 -a thing I deeply regret today- his actions since have proved beyond doubt that just as a “rightist” cannot learn the use of the left hand at an old age, a leopard does not change its spots.

It is on record that in 1984, as then Head of State, Buhari promoted his Daura tribe to the most powerful force in Dodan Barracks, Lagos, which was then the seat of power.

To the utter disappointment of those who argued that the man has indeed changed, all the evidence today suggests that, far from a genuine interest in development, the real intention is to promote and entrench the power of a certain group. Some have even argued that tribe and religion have once again taken over.

Far from Amaechi’s announcement, recently, our President made what many believe was a real announcement when he said that: “Negotiations are also advanced for the construction of a rail line…, firstly, from Kano to Maradi in Niger Republic passing through Kazaure, Daura, Katsina, Jibia to Maradi…”

A close friend from the North once told me of how, with just less than N1,000, one could literarily evaporate in Daura, Nigeria and recondense in Niger Republic.

In fact, Daura Emirate stretches deep into Maradi and Zinder, both of them populated with the Fulani, a people that many have argued are a tiny percentage in the Nigerian population demographics.

During the 2015 general elections, there were reports of thousands of people crossing from Niger Republic, many of whom were underage voters as was recently reported in the Kano LG election, through our extremely porous borders to vote in our elections in favour of a particular candidate, without questioning from election officials.

As if to buttress this fact, recall how President Buhari, upon achieving his lifelong ambition, was received like a triumphant son of the land who just returned from a war,  when he visited Niger Republic, as his very first foreign trip after he was sworn in.

How many of us know that in 2016, the President of Niger Republic emblazoned Buhari’s photograph beside his own on vehicles during his campaign?

Any wonder then why some have argued that the planned railway network is a selfish project that has nothing to do with the interest of Nigerians?

What is so urgent about a rail line from Nigeria to Niger when as we speak, our education system in a shambles? We need not look far than the dilapidated infrastructure in our universities and the fall in standard of our morals and educational values in our pupils to know see this.

I am in my mid-thirties, and as I write, I have hardly witnessed a day without power cut in this country since I was born. And there are many more who go for months without it at a time where South Africa which is four times less than our population is generating four times megawatts more than us.

There are no roads, no security, God forbid that one is caught in an emergency situation and then one will know the bitter truth of this fact. Many times, we have seen how, in road accidents, our road safety officials pile human bodies in rickety wagons like meat sellers coming from their abattoirs.

As we speak, Nigeria does not have a standard airport, when the country actually deserves two airports of international standard, one in the North and the other in the South, both serving the entire West African sub region. Only one trip to a decent country, even South Africa, is enough to show us how much of a junk all our airports are.

If President Buhari is so interested in connecting Nigeria to another country, what stops him from initiating the process of building world class roads, connecting Nigeria, all the way from southern Nigeria, through coastal cities like Calabar and so on, through Lagos to economically viable places like Port Novo, Lome to Abidjan?

We are not saying Buhari should wave a magic wand and change the rots that have plagued this nation overnight, No. The point is that he should have started the process of healing, of accountability, of a massive investment in infrastructure, and opening up of the economy of this country.

But what did we get instead from a President who swore an oath to uphold the constitution of Nigeria and look out for the best interest of her people at all times?

In the face of the satanic killings going on all over the country, biting hardship,  an economy in a downward spiral, the suffering of the people emanating from increase in virtually every commodity in the market, and recent negative ratings coming from reputable international bodies like Transparency International etc, President Buhari has displayed his belief in acute tribal and religious politics.

Where does the APC hope to get the funds to execute the rail project to Maradi if not from borrowing or from an impoverished southern region whose people continue to be marginalised as we speak?

For all those still defending the APC and those still committing the sin of silence in the face of all this anomaly in Nigeria, for whatever reason,  especially the misguided youths still singing their praise, I hope you all choke on the pricking of your conscience.

Nobody, no matter how highly placed, should be allowed to take what belongs to all of us for himself and his kinsmen alone?

I was moved when I saw this same President cry in front of the cameras and promised he would not contest elections again if he failed the 2011 election, and was even more touched when he told a pressman that at over 70, he had less years to spend in Nigeria compared to the young man, in case Nigeria was not fixed. That was when I said to myself, this had to be the man. So, what is the point of the tears? Clannishness, tribalism and religious bigotry?

I won’t be fooled a second time…

Akanbi is a researcher and novelist

It is gratifying to note that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, headquarters has accepted the challenge of probing the alleged underage voters scandal, videos of which went viral after the recent local government polls in Kano State.

Chairman of the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission, KSIEC, Professor Garba Sheka, had expressed his Commission’s readiness to cooperate in any investigation of the incident. Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the National Chairman of INEC quickly empanelled the eight-man committee led by Abubakar Nahuche, an engineer, to “ascertain if the voter register requested by the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission, KSIEC, was actually used in the election,” and make any other recommendations towards unravelling the affront to our democracy.

Confusion arose following the broadcast of the videos showing scores of children well under ten queuing to vote in the election. INEC’s spokesman, Oluwole Osaze- Uzzi, had distanced the Commission from it, blaming the KSIEC and adding that the Commission has no power to conduct local government elections.

At a public function however, the Kano State Commissioner for Information, Mr Mohammed Garba, reported that the pictures and videos of the underage voters were captured during the 2015 elections which incidentally brought President Muhammadu Buhari, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and other currently serving elected officials to power.

All these disclosures make the investigation even more crucial because if it is credibly conducted, it will unravel a lot of truths hitherto hidden about the fidelity of our elections in the past and present, with a view to correcting them in the general elections which come up a year from now.

This issue might even necessitate an indepth probe on the circumstances leading to the death of the Kano State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Alhaji Mukaila Abdullahi, who after conducting the 2015 polls perished along with his family in a mystery fire which the police blamed on electric surge.

We call on the National Assembly, the media, civil society groups and the general public to keenly track this probe and ensure that the whole truth about it is unravelled to maintain the integrity of our electoral process and bring justice to those who might have been injured or cheated.

Vanguard