Nigeria has not been policed for decades and the evidence to prove it is everywhere. Rural Nigeria and increasingly, urban Nigeria, are mot governed spaces but are continuously rampaged by terrorists, criminals, bandits, kidnappers, secessionists and insurrectionists. No one in this country is safe as even a presidential convoy has been attacked on the road under President Buhari. The one good thing happening currently is that these criminals are encircling and moving into the Nation’s capital, Abuja, and members of the ruling class are beginning to notice that they too are no longer safe. We thank God for his mercies.
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As reporters and analysts, we must inform, based on trends, and where possible, raise the alarm, hoping that those in authority will heed. In 2018, six years ago, that was what I did. And so, this is just a rehash of my article “Insecurity, the North under siege” written on this page on 24 December 2018.
Forty-three years ago, on the 15th of January 1966 to be precise, a certain Major Chukwuma Nzeagwu addressed Nigerians through Radio Kaduna announcing martial law and the takeover of power by the Supreme Council of the Revolution. Their aim, he said, was to establish a strong, united and prosperous nation free of corruption and internal strife. Our method of achieving this is purely military”. By the end of the day, a significant part of the political class in the North and the West had been wiped out and the military had taken over the political system. In his column in Daily Times (3/2/1966), the late Tai Solarin blasted the civilian political class for destroying Nigerian politics through their twin evil practices of corruption and election rigging. He confidently boasted that Now we have been saved and we want to stay saved. Today, we are all wiser and almost nobody believes the military can save any country.
Professor Gbolagade Ayoola is an obscure personality among the downtrodden Nigerians, the category of people he has doggedly fought for all his life. If Nigeria is a country that recognizes and celebrates heroes and fighters of human rights, Ayoola would have been the Mahatma Gandhi of Nigeria; his portraits and objects immortalizing him would have littered every nook and cranny of Nigeria. Today, we are grateful for Ayoola’s success in drafting the Food Right Act, which allows Nigerians to hold their elected officials accountable and even take them to court if they go hungry. The government is not required to provide food for the people free of charge. However, the government has a constitutional responsibility to formulate and implement policies to ensure all Nigerians’ Right to food and food security. Failure of government policies to guarantee people access to qualitative food empowers the people to take the government into account. It means the government of Nigeria bears legally enforceable obligations to respect, protect, promote, and fulfill the Right to food for citizens based on treaty obligations and existing laws. The Right to food is in tandem with the Right to life, as access to food is necessary for human survival. It is also part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end hunger in all its forms worldwide before the year 2030. Prof. Ayoola resigned from his teaching job at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, when he realized the enormity of the fight to draft the Right to Food Bill and transform it into an Act.
On Monday, January 8, I lost my mother. She died at the age of 85. Despite the age being ripe, it was still a shock. It is normal for a child to see his parents as immortal despite an ingrained knowledge that every soul shall taste the inevitable – death.
Yesterday, friends, relations and colleagues of Salihu Bappa met at the Pavilion in Abuja in remembrance of his contributions to society, his commitment to progress and in recognition of the role he played as an anchor of networking across generations, disciplines and numerous associations. The memorial event was chaired by his friend and school mate Ahmadu Muazu, former governor of Bauchi State who emphasized Bappa’s role as a bridge builder across communities and networks since their childhood days in Gindiri where they grew up in a very mixed convivial Plateau State.
For instance, in October 2019, a tanker laden with petroleum products fell into a ditch in Onitsha, aspilled its contents and exploded. The subsequent inferno razed shops and other structures on Upper Iweka Road and at Ochanja market in the commercial city. As Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouk went to Onitsha, visited the site, sympathised with those affected and ensured the provision of relief.
Last week, we got a dose of what investigative journalism ought to be. Umar Audu, a promising young journalist, proved to be an outstanding student of his mentor, Ja’afar Ja’afar, an investigative journalist of the first order. Reporting for Daily Nigerian, Ja’afar’s online newspaper, Umar Audu went underground to bag a degree in Mass Communication from a university in the Benin Republic. It is a report worthy of the highest award in the land for investigative journalism.
The big story this week is that the Nigerian government has suspended the evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from universities in neighbouring Benin and Togo. The announcement comes a few days after an undercover report by Daily Nigerian exposed certificate racketeering from a university in Benin. The suspension, according to the ministry, stands pending the outcome of an investigation involving the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education of Nigeria and the two countries as well as the State Security Service (SSS) and the NYSC.
An Igbo adage says that when an anomaly persists for one year, it becomes the norm. So slowly, steadily but surely, it is becoming a norm, an accepted aberration, for a president in Nigeria to appoint himself as a minister. It is like saying in a country of 200 million-plus, there is no one good or capable enough to hold that particular office except the man entrusted with the running of the nation.