Nyanya et al: Out of these Ashes…

Nyanya et al: Out of these Ashes…

“Out of the ashes of my dying today; I see the breaking of a brand new day…”

Chris Delvan Gwamna, singer

If one sits down and plans a project, it gets to the point when he begins the execution. Of course he sets out to achieve some stated goals with his project and by the time he finishes every bit of the project activities he is able to see whether or not he is on course. He continues if he believes he is on course until the end of such a project. Of course he is happy when he has achieved such stated objectives. Infact he is elated.

I have tried to imagine the feelings of the masterminds and executors of heinous acts such as the bomb blast we saw penultimate Monday at the commuter bus station in Nyanya on the outskirts of the FCT, Abuja, among hapless people whose only sin is that they woke up in the morning and set about to make ends meet. The explosion killed 71 persons with a couple hundred others left with different degrees of injury, some quite life threatening as it stands now. I still find myself unable to imagine that some persons that bear the semblance of or appear human are laughing or celebrating the horror. But then of course I also think to myself that events like that don’t happen by chance: someone actually sits down and plans it. Such a person expects the kind of outcome we saw. It is a project for him and, as with any other project, the success must be thrilling. So I am left with no other option than to reason that someone somewhere, guided by whatever interest, philosophy or belief, is jubilating at the success of a well planned and executed project.

The only problem, however, is that such persons or quarters have demonstrated themselves far beneath humanity; for, warts and all, humanity is beautiful and that beauty derives from the simple yet awesome fact that humanity itself is a product of God, the good God, and there is nothing that proceeds from this God that is not inherently good and beautiful because a product bears the imprint of its maker. For such quarters to be capable of such brutality, and with relish to boot, means that they have divested themselves of every shred of humanness and are only good to be, proverbially, trampled underfoot by all humans.

Humanity, therefore, must not succumb to anything subhuman! Clearly what these subhuman quarters want of humans in Nigeria is for them to rise against each other and when the state of anarchy is rife, they swoop in on all of us. Their reign can only but be a reign of terror and we are being generously dished out a foretaste; sure enough it is sour, foul and repugnant. Some Nigerians have already, rather erroneously, concluded that it is a certain section of the Nigerian population that has vowed to mar the government of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan by rendering the country ungovernable. Nothing is farther from the truth. These same subhuman quarters will hand the same deal to any other person on the seat of president regardless of where he or she is coming from or what his or her religion is, in so far as such a person does not fit their defined subhuman standards. By the way, no matter anything anybody wants to do or say today, the power matrix of this country has changed and it will never be the same again. Nigerians must get used to that.

Thus, Nigerians must perish the thought about some sections of the population working against the presidency of any other. No section is spared of this woe, hence we must all come together to ensure that humanity, good and beautiful that it inherently is, does not give in to evil.

We may weep, but let us never lose sight of the fact that evil can never win against good. For out these ashes of death, as the singer puts it, we must see the breaking of a brand new day, in which the name of the good God, the creator, alone is glorified.

May God receive and rest the souls of all who continue to die in this carnage. Nigeria will emerge better and stronger… but only if humans are determined to keep hope alive.

(Published on the BLUEPRINT Newspaper of Thur April 17, 2014)

Kafanchan: When Lady Justice Goes to Sleep

Kafanchan: When Lady Justice Goes to Sleep

Events unfolded last week in Kafanchan, a well known railway town in southern Kaduna, which would have turned out rather catastrophic if not because things were nipped in the bud. Southern Kaduna has been under Fulani onslaught for a while now. Some forty or so Fulani were apprehended in the town by security operatives with a variety of arms, such as AK-47 and the likes, and a handsome amount of ammunition. News quickly spread and many angry youths thronged the spot where these suspects were being held and demanded that they be handed over to them, by now an irate lot. Of course they were out to mete jungle justice on the arrested Fulani. But the military, as expected and rightly so too, would not hand them over. A serious altercation was by then brewing as the locals became insistent and the military stood their ground. Things began to get out of hand and the security operatives began to shoot into the air to disperse the mob, bent on their intent. Whether or not the vertical shots were having the desired effect is not clear, but a couple of shots turned horizontal with some persons felled and one reported dead.

The mob dispersed but there was a sense that all was not over, therefore, a twenty-four hour curfew was slammed on the town. By the very following morning, it was scaled down to fourteen hours, 4pm to 6am, so as to allow especially those young ones writing their WAEC school cert examinations to carry on.

The arrested Fulani have since been brought to the headquarters of the state police command in Kaduna. But in a rather interesting twist, Miyetti Allah, the pan-Fulani socio-cultural association, came out with a statement that those brothers of theirs arrested in trucks at Kafanchan were actually hunters on their way on a hunting expedition. We shall return to this.

It is rather sad that security operatives would arrest anybody and civilians will insist on taking over custody of such a person for whatever reason outside the decision of a competent court of law much less to want to dispense their own kind of justice. It never happens in any civilized clime and for it to happen here speaks volumes of what our society has turned into. Derisive as the actions of the Kafanchan locals are, it is necessary to interrogate their motives. These locals claim that people, whom they continually allege to have attacked them in those parts of the state, have severally been arrested with arms and ammunition, and even right in the act, only to be released without justice seen to be duly done. These locals claim to know some of these persons so arrested and released. Infact they claim to have either helped the security operatives in arresting some or even done some of the arrests themselves and handed to the security people only to hear nothing of their cooperation with the state or for such persons to be brazenly released. Frustration is bound to set in. Confidence, whatever modicum of it that remains, in the state and its organs is bound to deplete. People are bound to resort to self-help. Infact people are bound to even antagonize the state and its agencies, which is exactly what we have seen play out in Kafanchan last week.

The Nigerian state must walk to talk. Nigerians keep hearing “we are on top of the situation” yet they are decimated in their hundreds every other day with the perceived complicity of even the systems put in place to protect them. Self preservation is a natural human instinct to which people will resort.

Back to the claim by Miyetti allah that those arrested were on a hunting expedition: it is quite interesting that hunters now use sophisticated and lethal weapon like AK-47 for hunting. Hunting at that scale among Fulani is also novel! The group’s response to the security raid in Laduga, in Ikulu land, in the same southern Kaduna is also curious and probably even telling. One is tempted wonder: so, Miyetti Allah knows about the movement and motives of every Fulani person and group in Nigeria!

Regardless of claims and counter claims, rule of law remains the only way out for Nigeria. In as much as some persons or group of persons continue to subvert the law, Nigeria continues to inch to the precipice. That is the challenge that the President of this country must take up inspite of himself and his ambitions. Justice must be done. Justice must be seen to be done. Otherwise, Nigerians may as well conclude that this government is out to pontificate the decimation of this country.

(Published in The BLUEPRINT Newspaper of April 10, 2014)

Rule of Law and Jobs for Nigerians

Rule of Law and Jobs for Nigerians

About three weeks ago, a national tragedy happened when the Ministry of Interior conducted a recruitment exercise into the Nigeria Immigration Services (NIS) and over a score of Nigerians, determined to get a legitimate means of livelihood, were killed in the process. The tragedy sparked a justifiable outrage with calls for the sack of the concerned Minister, Mr. Abba Moro. Clearly, there are immediate reasons why the exercise went awry which border on the way and manner the Ministry went about the conduct of the exercise; but what concerns us here is why, in the 21^st century with all of the opportunities it offers, tens of thousands of young Nigerians will go fighting for only 4500 positions in the NIS. It only speaks to the fact that in Nigeria generally, people do not see how they can easily plug into the economy and make a reasonable and legitimate living outside government. The truth anywhere, however, remains that governments can hardly provide jobs for 20 percent of their population directly. This piece seeks to show how remotely at the back of disasters like this is simply the lack of rule of law.

The Duhaime.org online legal dictionary defines rule of law thus: that individuals, persons and government shall submit to, obey and be regulated by law, and not arbitrary action by an individual or a group of individuals. The World Justice Project sees the rule of law as a system of rules and rights that enable fair and functioning societies. It asserts that four universal principles are upheld in this system: first, the government and its officials and agents as well as individuals and private entities are accountable under the law. Second, the laws are clear, publicized, stable, and just; are applied evenly; and protect fundamental rights, including the security of persons and property. Third, the process by which the laws are enacted, administered, and enforced is accessible, fair, and efficient. And fourth, justice is delivered timely by competent, ethical, and independent representatives and neutrals who are of sufficient number, have adequate resources, and reflect the makeup of the communities they serve.

The World Justice Project goes on to point to some critical factors in an environment of rule of law, some of which include the following: constraints on the government; absence of corruption – conventionally defined as the use of public power for private gains; open government, which involves engagement, access, participation, and collaboration between the government and its citizens; order and security; civil justice, where ordinary citizens are able to resolves their grievances and obtain remedies in conformity with fundamental rights through formal institutions of justice in a peaceful and effective manner, rather than resorting to violence and self-help; and effective criminal justice, which constitutes the natural mechanism to redress grievances and bring action against individuals for offences against society.

Nigeria scores very low on the whole in the above context, and this has stifled investor confidence, especially with regard to SMEs which really form the rump of opportunities in terms of jobs in any economy. The big investors that have seemed to flock into Nigeria only do so for the entropy that reigns and their ability to further deal unfairly with the system. But the fact is that commitment to the rule of law is able to provide immense job opportunities for the teeming able-bodied and willing Nigerians so that they don’t have to go and get mangled to death for positions whose successful candidates have long been known. We will look at only one law, the Copyright Act.

One drives on the streets and sees, at hold-ups, books like Witness to Justice by Bishop Kukah being sold for N1500.00 as against the minimum of N5000.00 that it ordinarily goes for from the proper sources as yet. One also sees CDs and DVDs of Nigerian artistes and movies pirated thus, rendering many hardworking people hungry. Some years ago when the president gave a grant to Nollywood of N20 or so billion in a bid to boost the industry, I was pained because it was clear that the issues are not well understood. If the president had instead committed to fight piracy by enforcing the law as enshrined in the Copyright Act, he would be protecting investments in that sector and thus, giving it the opportunity to boost.

A simple example will suffice here. Nigeria has an estimated population of 170million. If an artiste retails a CD at N150 and targets only a quarter of the population, being 42.5million, in two years and makes a net profit of only N10 per CD, he will be raking in the sum of N425m in that period. That leaves the sum of N140 per CD, by 42.5million, to be shared within all the showbiz works which include the record company, the songwriters, the musicians, the PR people, the marketers, the lawyers and taxes. This is huge opportunity!  Banks and insurance companies will fall over themselves to have a piece of that huge cake. Writers and actors will be protected. Huge allied opportunities will emerge, only because one law – only one law – is made to work.

If we, especially the leadership of this country, want to be taken seriously, then rule of law must be enthroned. That way, young Nigerians will not troop out only to be killed for legitimately looking for means of livelihood.

(Published in the BLUEPRINT Newspaper: April 3, 2014)