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Herdsmen Killings: Obasanjo, Soyinka Knock Buhari

Published

6 years ago

June 28, 2018

Eric

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Wednesday knocked President Muhammadu Buhari for doing little to stop killings by herdsmen amid the general insecurity in the country.

Obasanjo, who paid a condolence visit to Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State on Wednesday, said the magnitude of security challenge the country was experiencing under Buhari’s watch was on the high side when compared to what happened during his tenure.

However, Soyinka noted that killings by herdsmen had been persisting because the Federal Government under Buhari had been treating killer herdsmen with kid gloves.

Obasanjo challenged the federal and state governments to identify the root cause(s) of insecurity and deal with them so that people would get a reprieve from the incessant violence in the country.

Obasanjo admitted that although there were problems during his time in government, “but not in this magnitude.”

“Even in my time, we had problems but not in this magnitude; we thought we were dealing with them as of that time but the earlier we deal with it, the better. I believe we can find solutions, we must find solutions,” he emphasised.

The former President, however, expressed optimism that solutions could be found to address the challenges and extended his condolences to the bereaved families.

Obasanjo said, “I’m here (in Jos) to express my condolences; what happened is very sad that in this day and age, this type of barbaric act is taking place in our country. I have suggested and I will say it again that we should find out the root cause of this problem and deal with it.

“There must be the remote and immediate cause, if we deal with it; we are not going to be multiplying condolence visits. I believe that any human problem has human solutions, I do hope and plead with the government at the federal level, those of you in states and even local government level, to join hands even at the community level to find the causes and deal with them permanently. We offer our condolences to the bereaved families, all we can say is that God knows the best.”

In his response, Lalong appreciated Obasanjo for the visit, saying that a phone call would have been okay.

He said, “Insecurity is not new to me, we thought we could handle it. When we came in, we quickly put up a team including Berom and Fulani. They came out with a road map to proffer solutions, we adopted the recommendations and have implemented some and was in the process of implementing the remaining ones. We have done our best, we have learnt our lessons. We will be very firm.”

But Soyinka in a statement titled, “On Demand: A language of non-capitulation, non-appeasement,” urged President Buhari to make killer herdsmen pay for their crimes to send a strong warning that his administration would not tolerate forceful land seizure anywhere in Nigeria.

The Nobel laureate said Buhari’s claim that it was unjust for the public to accuse him of being silent on the killer herdsmen’s activities was based on their observation of his “erstwhile language of complacency and accommodativeness in the face of unmerited brutalisation.’’

He added that Buhari had yet to speak in the language that the “murdering herdsmen” understand by exhibiting that forceful seizure of land would not be tolerated in any part of a federation under his governance.

Soyinka said, “That the temporary acquisition of weapons of mass elimination by any bunch of psychopaths and anachronistic feudal mentality will not translate into subjugation of a people and a savaging of their communities.’’

The playwright noted that certain unconscionable events had taken place in the country which could not be ignored, adding that entire communities had been erased from the national landscape, thousands of family units in mourning and survivors scarred and traumatised beyond measure.

He stated that famine loomed in many areas, even in those lodged in acknowledged bread baskets of the nation, adding that “impunity, gleeful and prideful impunity substitutes for decent self-distancing from once unthinkable crimes – let us not even speak of expressions of remorse and human empathy. The instigators, increasingly fingered as directors of human carnage are strutting around, defiant, justifying the unspeakable, daring a nation…’’

Noting that land-grab must be reversed, Soyinka said the restored would still require to be defended and aggressors also served a lasting lesson both from the manifested responsibility of governance, and the resistant will of the people.

“Accounting for crimes is also part of that responsibility, and such criminality must not be seen to be rewarded through idealistic solutions that paper over crimes against humanity. For that is the present actuality. Crimes against our humanity have been committed, and restitution must be made. Nothing less will restore confidence in a government, and reassure the people of its integrity, its commitment to equity in internal relationships and the rightful custodianship of ancient resources,’’ Soyinka said.

The playwright said it was a time of far-reaching, yet immediate decisions, because the nation was dying.

According to him, the time for false pride is over and if the nation lacks the necessary technical resources, then there remains only one blameless, overdue recourse and it is for the President to ‘Get help.’

Soyinka, who bemoaned the recent attacks on Barkin Ladi council area in Plateau State, noted that five young men were recently sentenced to death by a high court in Zamfara State for allegedly killing a herdsman.

The playwright stated that though he was not condoning murder in any cause or by anyone, it was necessary to insist on transparent and impartial justice.

He said, “The agitating question then is this: since this rampage began, has even one herdsman been brought up before those same courts on a charge of murder, much less sentenced to death at such lightning speed? Shall we wake up and find that they have been hanged? Yet Zamfara has lost hundreds to the homicidal orgy of these same herdsmen. There is a skewed application of justicial proceedings here that baffles many, this writer among them.’’

He revealed that when he visited the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, some weeks ago, he bitterly lamented that security agencies had ordered his communities to surrender even the very machetes of routine use in farming.

Soyinka also said what he termed as ‘the Danjuma thesis’ that helpless Nigerians should defend themselves was neither new nor strange, but simply a restatement of the logicality of human response in the face of aggression.

He told the President that he strongly believed that the recent planned massacre had a numerical target which was the formal annunciation of a new law.

The playwright stated, “From now on, for every missing, maimed, even legally seized cow-perhaps for trespassing and damage-one human being shall die, and the commensurate land shall be forfeited. Make no mistake, that is the message! Berom or Ondo, Tiv or Efik. Egba or Igalla — it makes no difference — this is the language, and if your government does not understand it yet, we, whose field is language, both spoken and symbolic, must decode it for you.’’

Soyinka said he also learnt that a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, whose ordeal of being kidnapped by the “marauders was still fresh in the nation’s mind,” was still under siege by the same forces as neither he nor his workers could routinely attend to the farms.

“An aggressor who sniffs, however faintly, the permissive air of immunity, is near totally beyond recall. Only the stern language of reprimand, manifested in act, will deter him,’’ he stated.

He noted that the language of the leaders of Myetti Allah whom he described as ‘self-vaunting instigators’ in the nation’s herder colonisation was being promoted by the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, on behalf of the government.

Soyinka added that if an individual qualified to be the guinea-pig for testing the outrageous hate bill speech contemplated by the nation’s lawmakers, it was the ‘unedifying pronouncements of the Minister of Defence, who “continues to defend the indefensible through his arrogant, provocative dismissals of an agenda of ethnic cleansing, dehumanising the victims anew, and camouflaging the failure of the government by his gratuitous blame-passing.”

According to Soyinka, the language of the Dan-Ali is a language that is now being contradicted by the meaning of ‘land grabbing shall be reversed.’

The Punch

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Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway: Prioritize Existing Unfinished Projects, Peter Obi Tells FG

Published

4 days ago

April 22, 2024

Eric

Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, has advised the federal government to prioritize existing unfinished projects spread across the country instead of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project.

Obi, in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, stated that the project was a misplaced priority given the numerous unfinished roads throughout the country.

The former governor of Anambra State mentioned that the budget allocated to the Ministry of Works is insufficient for significant progress on the country’s various unfinished roads, much less their completion.

Obi therefore, advised that the government prioritize the existing infrastructural projects in the country before embarking on any new and colossal projects like the Lagos-Calabar super highway project.

“The Federal Ministry of Works 2024 capital budget of N892,461,262,656.00, additional funding from multilateral loan projects of N94,828,535,243.00, alongside other expected contributions from sources like the China-Exim Bank and the World Bank, will not be enough for serious work on all the critical roads, some of which I enumerated above, let alone their completion.

So, why embark on another huge project that will not be completed in the next 20 or 30 years?

“To do so will only exacerbate the problem of abandoned, uncompleted projects that are not contributing to economic growth and overall development.

“Therefore, while acknowledging the potential benefits of coastal superhighway infrastructure, I urge prioritization of our existing uncompleted projects. We must allocate resources towards repairing and completing existing infrastructure.

“In any development formula, the primary focus should be on completing and rehabilitating existing infrastructure rather than embarking on colossal new projects that may never reach completion within the next 30 years,” Obi said.

Back in March, the Federal Government began constructing the 700-kilometer Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, designed to extend through 9 states with two spurs leading to the Northern States.

Recall that former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, had earlier described the project as a fraud.

“Umahi had announced that Hitech would fully fund the project, and based on this, there was no competitive bidding. He (Umahi) then said that Hitech could only raise just 6% of the money for the pilot phase. This smacks of deceit,” Atiku said.

Headline

2027 Presidential Race: Opposition Parties Under Attack

Published

5 days ago

April 21, 2024

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

While it is still a whole three years before the next general election in 2027, The Boss has learnt that opposition parties in the countries are being muffled to pave the way for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to return to, and retain power.

From the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to the Labour Party (LP), and down to the New Nigerian Peoples Paty (NNPP), crises have engulfed the rank and files, in what a source told this paper was the attempt and making of the ruling party, APC, to decimate, destabilize and make redundant the machineries of the opposition parties.

It is believed that by 2027, the apparatuses holding together the various opposition parties would have weakened irredeemably to the extent the country would seemingly nosedive into the inglorious one party state that every civil right advocate and democrats abhor.

It is alleged that all the crises in all the opposition parties are being engineered by the President Bola Tinubu-led ruling APC, with the hope of getting the fibres of their system weakened, thereby luring the members of the crisis-ridden parties into the APC.

Slightly one year after the last presidential election, the two major opposition platforms, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party, have separately been embroiled in a crisis of confidence which has diminished their capacity to provide viable opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

The crises in both opposition parties got to a head. The Labour Party led by its national chairman Julius Abure held its much-opposed national convention which was boycotted by its 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi; its only governor, Alex Otti of Abia State; federal and state lawmakers elected on its platform, and the organised Labour.

In the Labour Labour, members have been embroiled in endless battle of supremacy with a faction led by Mr. Apapa steadily contesting the leadership of Julius Abure.

Consequently, the presidential candidate of the party in the 2023 elections, Mr. Peter Obi, reverence as a leader in the fold, noting that whatever the party faces presently, that Nigeria’s problems are far bigger than the crises in his party.

The LP has been embroiled in crises — ranging from allegations of misappropriation of funds, and leadership tussle, to calls for the resignation of the party’s national chairman.

TheCable reported that “On March 27, the LP conducted a national convention in Anambra state where Julius Abure was re-elected as its national chairman.

Obi did not attend the convention, fuelling speculations that he may be mulling over ditching the LP for another platform.

Speaking during an appearance on HaveYourSay247, an interactive online session hosted by Rudolf Okonkwo over the weekend, Obi said he is confident that the crises rocking the LP will soon be resolved amicably.

“Whatever is happening in the Labour Party is so minute compared to what is happening in the country,” Obi said.

“So, for me, it is something we will resolve amicably, and it is not anything to worry about. Let us worry about the country.

“Let us worry about how the average Nigerian would be able to have a means of livelihood to be able to eat, that should be our worry.”

Obi said he has no interest in being the party’s leader but only to make sure things are done properly.

“I don’t see what I do in politics as being the leader of any place or not. My position is that just like I always say, I am not desperate to be president of Nigeria, I am desperate to see Nigeria work because I know it can work,” he added.

“We have a more desperate situation. Parties are just a means to be able to contest elections. What is important is that being a leader of a party does not reduce the price of food.

In the PDP, the shenanigans of former Rivers State Governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike, has practically kept the party in constant crisis with many observers concluding that the now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is working for the APC, and is just a mole in the PDP. Wike has denied the allegation, however,

But news filtered in last week as that the immediate past Governor of Rivers State, and Minister may have concluded plans to attend the much advertised National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), billed to hold on Thursday, in Abuja.

Impeccable source, who is in the know, told The Boss that the minister, whose membership of the PDP is yet to be revoked even as he frolicks with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and serving in the President Bola Tinubu government as a minister.

The Source told The Boss that Wike’s impending presence at the NEC meeting on Thursday was not unconnected with plans, already hatched with some governors, to weaken the opposition PDP.

“Yes, we have on good authority that FCT minister, Wike is planning to attend the NEC meeting tomorrow all in a bid to weaken the fabrics of the PDP, and pave the way for the continuation of the Tinubu administration come 2027, and by extension, relapse Nigeria to a full blown one party state.

“From every indication, Wike and his co-travellers, are bent on unleashing the same crisis ravaging the third force, Labour Party, and Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso’s Nigerian National People’s Party (NNPP) on the PDP for the APC to remain the only political party in the country, and ensure that Tinubu has no challenger, come 2027,” the Source said.

It would be recalled that Wike has boasted over and again that there’s no opposition against Tinubu’s re-emergence in 2027, and that they have made sure of that. He has been compensated with the Ministerial job after he withdrew support for his party, and supported the APC and Tinubu to emerge as national government.

The Source further revealed that in the attempt to actualize the intended one party state, a lot of funding is ongoing to ensure that concerned stakeholders are ‘settled’ handsomely.

Wike, prior, during and after the 2023 general elections, has been floating in between the two major political parties; the APC and the PDP. While he claim to still be a member of the PDP, he is functioning as a minister in an APC government, mocking the inability of his party to discipline him.

While political stakeholders concluded that the outcome of the Thursday’s PDP NEC meeting will determine the path Nigeria’s political trajectory will take, and that it may portend the end of multi-party system and political democracy if Wike succeeds in his plan; every page of what finally transpired at the meeting pointed to the fact.

The much touted removal of the party chairman, who is believed to be a crony of the Abuja minister, Damagum, retained his seat, with his executives.

“It is very clear to everyone that a lot of money politics is being played to cajole many loyal members of the party, forcing them into frustration, and eventually it of the party. The option afterwards, will be the APC. This, will for all intent and purpose actualize the intended one party state as an APC agenda.

The Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso-led NNPP is not faring better either. The only governor under their ticket, Abba Kabir Yusuf, just had the confidence of their party on him withdrawn. He was fighting for his political life until suddenly it was announced the the APC in Kano has collapsed its structure into the NNPP.

“This is just another APC strategy to actualize their hidden intentions. Time will reveal the very sinister agenda they harboring,” an analyst said.

Much as 2027 is still three years away, but intrigues are in play to render Nigeria a one party state, and perpetuate the APC in power. The three other opposition parties are basically under attack to bring to pass this unpopular agenda.

Headline

Akwa Ibom Government, Governor Umo Eno Receive Top Honors at the 10th Wonders of the World Expo in Lagos

Published

6 days ago

April 21, 2024

Admin

The Akwa Ibom State Government and Governor Pastor Umo Eno were recognized with Travellers Awards at the 10th Wonders of the World Expo in Lagos for their sustained enhancement of infrastructure, support for local talent, and dedication to investment in the tourism sector. The ceremony took place at the National Museum in Onikan, Lagos.

While Akwa Ibom won the Most Active Tourism State of the Year, Governor Eno was adjudged the most Tourism-Friendly Governor of the Year at the event that had Minister of Tourism, Mrs. Lola Ade John in attendance.

According to Amb. Ikechi Uko, Founder/Publisher of ATQ Magazine, the organizers of the event which is in its tenth edition, Akwa Ibom State won the top prize “in recognition of its valiant and resourceful efforts to drive and sustain domestic tourism by promoting the industry.

‘In 2023, Akwa Ibom was one of the states that hosted World Tourism Day (WTD ) events. The state also organized the famous Christmas Unplugged, which featured music, food, and cultures from all 31 LGAs as well as ensured friendly policies.”

While hoping that the Travellers Awards would spur Akwa Ibom to do more to dominate the domestic tourism industry, the organizers hoped that the state would gradually evolve into one of Nigeria’s top international tourism destinations.

That was not all, the state Commissioner of Culture and Tourism, Sir Charles Udoh was also recognized as one of the Top 100 Tourism Personalities in Nigeria for demonstrating exceptional leadership and innovation in the travel and tourism industry, while other Akwa Ibom indigenes and entity were also celebrated: Mrs. Ime Udo, Honorary Special Adviser to the Governor( Tourism) won Tourism Promoter of the Year, Favour Udo won Tourism Photographer of the Year, Loretta Effiong and Prince Uduak Sunday (Qua Tours) were listed among the Tourism Personalities of the Year and Ibom Air won Airline of the Year International.

In his remarks, Sir Charles Udoh, who represented the Governor at the event, thanked the organizers for the awards and noted that Akwa Ibom is certainly enjoying the golden era when it comes to tourism development. He stated that Governor Umo Eno is very keen on making Akwa Ibom a leading tourism destination with his programmes and policies.

He revealed that with the new Victor Attah International Airport nearing completion, the purchase of a ferry for the Oron-Calabar route, new developments along its coastline and the restoration work that will be done at all its major tourism sites, Akwa Ibom is well on the way to becoming the number one destination for all domestic and foreign tourists.

In her speech, Tourism Minister, Mrs. Ade John hailed the organizers for hosting the Expo, where practitioners were lectured by top experts while also rewarding those who have excelled in the past year.

She affirmed that her ministry is open to partnership with public and private sector operators, adding that tourism development can only be successful through collaborative efforts.

The event, which attracted leading and budding tourism professionals, also featured interactive and entertainment sessions.

Apart from Sir Charles Udoh and Mrs. Ime Udo, the Akwa Ibom State delegation, also included: Mr. Michael Effiong James, Senior Special Assistant (Lagos Liaison) to Governor, Mrs. Eme Bassey, Special Assistant to Governor (Lagos Liaison) and Akparawa John Offiong, Deputy Director ( Culture) Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

More photos below: