Here, There and All

Cushion of Comfort

Wednesday, April 14, 2021 marked seven whole years that the Chibok Girls were abducted, and out of a total of 276 girls, 112 remain unaccounted for. It is more than heart wrenching, not to know the whereabouts of your child for one day, let alone seven years. My heart goes out to the Parents of the girls who are still missing. Our prayers are with you, as calling fervently on God may be the only way to rescue the remaining girls, since Government failed to do so, in spite of the fact that they undertook to return all of them within a couple of weeks of their assuming office in May 2015. May God keep the Chibok Girls, Leah Sharibu, and all those who remain in the hands of abductors too, safe, and may He free them Himself. Amen.

Gbatuèyò

At the 7th Bola Ahmed Tinubu Colloquium, then Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, SAN (Learned Silk) referred to some of the people in President Jonathan’s administration as “Gbatuèyò”, which in Yoruba means an Amateur, possibly one whose impact is not felt. Today, ironically, some of Learned Silk’s colleagues in this Government, are worse than Gbatuèyò(s) – even to compare them with Amateurs, is giving them too much credit. Apart from the fact that their own impact is felt rather negatively by majority of Nigerians, they are “A la i mò nkan e, a la i ni nkan e”, that is, those who don’t know how to do things, those who don’t know what they are doing, those who don’t want to do anything.

Minister of ‘Dis-Information’: Insecurity and Inter-Marriage

Last week, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw the television clip of the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, declaring at the Federal Executive Council Meeting (I think), that Government is taking the matter of security in the country very seriously, by encouraging ethnic and religious inter-marriage! Again, I must borrow from the Yoruba language – “Aa n wi rù, ohun wi rú” – we are talking about melon seed (irù), he’s talking about the tail of an animal (irú). Meaning his utterance was “OP” (Off-Point), unrelated. Peace-time talk, during this war time insurgency period – inappropriate and irrelevant. Pray tell, how will ethnic or religious inter-marriage bring back the Chibok girls? I had to rewind the news clip to listen to Alhaji Mohammed again, because I thought that I had heard wrong the first time.

By now, even a baby knows that the primary purpose of Government is the security and welfare of the people (Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution); and it is therefore, discouraging, to say the least, when someone who is one of the decision-makers in the country, shows such a blatant lack of understanding of the issue of insecurity that has pervaded our nation, or trivialises what presently seems like an insurmountable problem to such an extent. It makes one wonder where we are headed as a nation, when those who are ruling us do not even know or understand where we are currently. One cannot help but feel enveloped by a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.

While fighting insecurity is certainly not limited to military or law enforcement strategies alone, at the stage we are in, it is about concentrating on the root causes of the violence – like poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, lack of infrastructure, the depth of societal inequality etc, and tackling them head-on. General Yakubu Gowon established the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) after the Nigerian civil war to promote national integration and cohesion, after the strife and division the country had experienced during the war; he didn’t establish NYSC during the actual war itself. It would have been pointless to do so, while the war was ongoing. Meanwhile, inter-marriage in our children’s generation is not much of an issue; many of the weddings we attend these days, the couples are usually from different ethnic groups (see Section 15(3)(c) of the Constitution identifying ethnic and religious inter-marriage as a political objective, not a security objective to fight criminality like kidnapping). Even though from their actions it is obvious that Boko Haram are godless people, they claim to be Muslims; are they not killing their own people the most?

The Minister of Information is the official mouth-piece of Government, and so, we read the Government’s body language from his utterances. Is his recent statement on inter-marriage as a solution to insecurity, an indication that Government may be out of its depth when it comes to fighting it? Or is it that Government is just choosing to pretend that these root causes of insecurity in our country do not really exist, or that the root causes are not as serious as people believe they are? Either way, it seems as if Government may be taking many steps which aggravate an already bad situation – the whole scenario is downright disheartening, and dampens one’s expectation that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Minister of ‘Dis-Information’: Twitter

As for Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s mindless statement that the reason that Twitter did not locate its offices in Nigeria, is due to Nigerians de-marketing the country – it is beyond laughable, and can only be treated with the derision it deserves. This Government is unrivalled, when it comes to de-marketing Nigeria – (“Kosorogun” – no rival!).

Why would Twitter, a global, public, news, social networking company, come to a country where the Government has no regard for Section 39 of the Constitution, that is, freedom of expression and the press, and other fundamental rights? A country which attempts to cow the media into submission? A country where the media is vilified for de-marketing the country, when their news reports are an accurate account of whatever has transpired. Is the role of the media to report accurate news, or suppress the misdeeds of Government that the latter doesn’t want to come to light? A country where the Government has no respect for the rule of law, and does not obey court orders? A country where a court of competent jurisdiction grants bail, and Government refuses to release the detainees, despite meeting their bail conditions? A country where the DSS (a law enforcement agency which has no establishing statute, whose remit is at large) raids Media Houses with gusto and aplomb, on its whims and caprices? A country where the National Assembly is trying to reintroduce inter alia, the Military’s Decree No. 4 of 1984, by pushing the absurd Hate Speech Bill, filled with draconian provisions and punishments? A country whose Government agencies wake up regularly on the wrong side of their beds, and impose huge fines on organisations for no justifiable reason? A country that is fining its citizens for featuring advertisements of their products on foreign media, why should Twitter not take the hint? A country that has declared non-governmental organisations like Amnesty International and Transparency International as Public Enemy No. 1 & 2 respectively, because their submissions on Nigeria are not favourable to this administration? A country that condemned CNN because it revealed the truth – that the bullets used by the Army during the Lekki Tollgate #EndSARS protest incident last October were real live bullets, thereby constraining the Military to retract its earlier statement and confess that not all the bullets used at the scene were blanks, as initially maintained? A country where the security of the Twitter staff, or any other person for that matter, cannot be guaranteed? A country where Twitter staff can be arrested on a flimsy excuse, and the keys thrown away? The same Twitter that suspended the account of one of the strongest Presidents in the world, the President of the United States of America, former President, Donald Trump, for his extremely undesirable utterances and behaviour, and they suffered no sanctions for their action because of the freedoms they enjoy over there?

It beats me, how Alhaji Mohammed can ignore these glaring facts, and seek to lay the blame on Nigerians for de-marketing their country! The President of Nigeria travels to the UK for medical tourism; is that not enough to de-market the medical and healthcare facilities in the country as obviously lacking and inadequate? The bitter truth is that, as things stand today, the Government of Nigeria is not ready for a Twitter Office to be located here.

Zainab Ahmed v Governor Godwin Obaseki

Did the Federal Government print N50-60 billion to make FACC disbursements to the Governors in March 2021 as declared by Governor Obaseki, and denied by Zainab Ahmed, the Finance Minister? Who is telling the truth? The Governor of Edo State or the Minister? For the sake of Nigeria, with all due respect to the Governor, I hope that the Minister is the one speaking the truth.

It is a known fact that when a crime is being investigated, especially if there are no obvious suspects, the first thing the Police does (at least, in places like USA and UK) is to start from those closest to the crime, to try to establish a motive for committing the crime, and hopefully, try to trace the culprit from there. For example, a person is murdered by an unknown assailant. The first question is, who stands to gain from the death? Did the deceased have a will, life insurance policy etc? Who is the beneficiary upon death? Was the deceased into shady business? Was the deceased quarrelling with anyone?

Likewise, in this ZA v GO imbroglio, in getting at the truth, maybe we should start with establishing who has a better motive for lying? The Governor, because he is trying to discredit his erstwhile political party that treated him so badly, by denying him the ticket to contest for his second term? Or the Minister, considering the fact that this administration has not revamped the economy, having made that one of its main campaign promises during its initial election campaign, and is trying to cover up its mess? My dear colleagues, it’s up to you to decide which of these two motives you think is stronger!

Well, maybe we shouldn’t bother our pretty heads about motives, though I do agree that it’s rather embarrassing for a high ranking member of this administration, to label a colleague as a liar! More importantly, we should be bothered about the reason behind Government printing such huge sums of money, if indeed, it did. Governments do print money from time to time, to stimulate economic growth. But, when money is printed simply to fund Government spending for things which are not income generating and contribute nothing to GDP, like ‘Sharing’ money to Governors, using it to pay off debts, it will simply cause hyperinflation (inflation at a much faster rate) and depreciation in the value of our currency – with the increase in money supply, demand will also increase, driving up prices – even the basics will become scarce and costly commodities. Economic activity – increase in real output, that is increase in the production of goods and services should be commensurate to the money being created. Again, when money is printed without just cause, it may mean that the Central Bank may have run out of monetary policy ideas – another sad state of affairs.

JUSUN Strike

The Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) went on strike on April 6, 2021, to constrain the Governors to give their State Judiciaries their financial autonomy, by implementing the provisions of Section 121(3)(b) of the Constitution. If the Governors are unwilling to do so, that is, to pay to the heads of courts any amount standing to their credit in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of their various States, the Accountant-General should simply implement Paragraph 1(b) of President Buhari’s Executive Order No.10 (EO 10) and “authorise the deduction from source, in the course of Federation Accounts Allocation from the money allocated to any State that fails to release allocation meant for……the State Judiciary…..” – starting from the next FACC Allocation which should come sometime in April, until the Governors comply. Shi ke nan!

At the time the President issued EO 10, some believed it was unnecessary, seeing as the Constitution had already been altered to include Section 121(3)(b) which is unequivocal. But, today, it is obvious that President Buhari’s well-intentioned EO 10, which provides an alternative way of implementing the provision of Section 121(3)(b), has become vital. The failure of the State Governors to adhere to the dictates of Section 121(3)(b), is yet another show of the blatant disregard for the rule of law/the Constitution, which is binding all persons and authorities in Nigeria, including the Governors (Section 1(1) of the Constitution). A country where the Government is lawless – whether Federal or State. Yet another reason for Twitter, not to consider situating its offices in Nigeria!