INTERVIEW – No going back on Oduduwa Republic – Prof. Banji Akintoye; says calls for Nigeria’s breakup not treasonable

 

                                 Prof. Banji Akintoye, president Yoruba World Congress (YWC)

Eminent scholar and President of Yoruba World Congress, Prof. Banji Akintoye has declared that agitation for self-determination is a legitimate struggle, and not an act of treasonable felony as the federal government wants Nigerians to believe. As such, he vowed that there will be no going back on the renewed push for an Oduduwa Republic for the Yoruba nation, even as he advised against using force or taking any action that may cause harm to those calling for Nigeria’s breakup. He spoke further on this in this interview with TUNDE THOMAS.

On this agitation for Oduduwa Republic, some Nigerians are saying that it is a fluke, and another attempt ……

Cuts in…Those saying that should wait until October 1st to know whether it is real or not. But I want to declare here that nobody should harbour any doubt about the determination of Yoruba for self-determination. There is no going back, and come October 1st, we are going to make a formal declaration about it, and nobody including federal government can stop us. The whole world is already aware of our mission, and there is nothing federal government can do about it because what we are doing is not in any way illegal. It is within our legitimate right to determine whether we want to stay or not in the union called Nigeria. There is no way we can be held against our will if our people have already made up their mind to leave Nigeria. Nigeria is living on borrowed time, and it is just a matter of time before we all go our separate ways. There is no going back, Oduduwa Republic has come to stay. It has become a reality.

There is so much injustice in Nigeria, and it is only here you have this kind of injustice, and oppression. There has been so much Fulani domination, and oppression of other groups in the country, and we can’t continue this way and this is why we feel that the best option for Yoruba is to exercise their right to self-determination. A country where one group is always aspiring to conquer other sections can no longer be called a country. The situation in the country today is so bad that it has gone beyond restructuring, which some people are even calling for. The Fulani people have a hidden agenda, and unfortunately President Muhammadu Buhari is helping the Fulani to actualise their agenda of dominating other Nigerians through his political appointments and general ways he has been running his government, and other Nigerians can no longer fold their hands and continue watching things going on this way. Another annoying thing is that the Fulani in Nigeria are even bringing Fulani from outside Nigeria to participate in the conquest of other Nigerians. This is no longer acceptable. Countries fight wars but when they do so, it is against outsiders, and not against their own people like the Fulani are doing to others in Nigeria. A country where a section is aspiring to conquer other sections can no longer be referred to as a country. The Fulani say Nigeria belongs to them, and that they are going to take lands that belong to other ethnic nationalities, and this is why you have all these invasions taking place in the Middle-Belt, Southern Kaduna, and other parts of the country. The reality of the situation is that we the Yoruba can’t continue to live with another group that believes in the subjugation, and conquest of others.

Will you say this is part of the reasons why the clamour for Biafra, and North-Central Republic has been growing louder?

The Fulani invasion of other parts of the country has destroyed Nigeria, and majority of Nigerians no longer have faith in this country again. This is no longer the Nigeria of the dream of the founding fathers. Since majority of Nigerians no longer have faith in being together again, the best solution is for people to go their different ways but we don’t have to do it in a chaotic manner. The best way to go about it is to generate a process of negotiation, whereby we would sit around the table, and discuss in frank manners so that we won’t be enemies of one another for ever like the situation you have between Israel, and some Arab nations. It must be done in such a way that there will be no bloodshed or loss of lives. Other countries especially in Europe have done it that way, and so there is no reason we can’t do it also. There is nothing strange about Nigeria breaking up, and not only that, I believe the break-up can be done peacefully.

Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo recently convened a dialogue with leaders of five socio-cultural groups across the country where he raised the alarm that Nigeria was drifting fast to a failed state. Do you agree with him?

Nigeria is already a failed state, a country in which some citizens of the country are invading other sections, and the federal government couldn’t stop it. If this is happening, and those who are supposed to stop it are not doing so, then in what other way do you refer to Nigeria other than being a failed state?
All the indices point to the fact that Nigeria has not only failed but it is disintegrating, fast. Although I don’t know the time-line but definitely breakup is imminent, and there is nothing anybody can do to stop it. I also want to state categorically here that any attempt to stop agitating for breakup will fail. Already the United Nations, and other members of the international community are aware of what is happening in the country. Any attempt to suppress people expressing their interests to self-determination will fail.

Obviously, the former President is pushing for restructuring, and a new constitution rather than the amendment the National Assembly is working on, is that the way to go?

The National Assembly is not working on any amendment. They are just deceiving Nigerians. This is what they claim to be doing every year, and it has been discovered that this is nothing but deceit. Almost every year the National Assembly claims to be doing this but Nigerians have discovered that they are not being honest so there is nothing to talk about on that. And like I said earlier, Nigeria has even gone beyond restructuring. What we should be talking about now is negotiated break up. That is the only solution to Nigeria’s problems.
For those saying that Obasanjo is a hypocrite for calling for restructuring when he failed to carry it out when he was in power, I will just say that Nigerians should remember that Obasanjo is just a human being, and to err is human. Moreover, what is not clear to him that time may have been clearer to him now. For him to even have the courage to call for restructuring now shows that he is a patriot, and a man of honour. But for me, and some other Nigerians, the situation in the country today has gone beyond restructuring, it is only breakup that is the answer. Obasanjo is a citizen of the world whose opinions and views are taken seriously, so whatever he is saying I will advise those in authority to take him seriously.

Nigerians asked for deregulation of power, and fuel supplies, and now the government is doing that, it seems to be coming out with periodic hike in prices, what do you say about this?

It is very unfortunate. The aim and objective of governance should be to make life comfortable for citizens but in this clime, it seems to be the other way round. It is unfortunate that Nigerians are being overburdened. This is part of the reason why many are already fed up with the country. It’s sad that most of the policies of the government are making Nigerians to be frustrated, and when you add insecurity to all these, then you can imagine the pains Nigerians are going through.

Opposition and labour leaders are angling for protest over this, do you support their plan?

Although I would have preferred talking about the agitation for Yoruba self-determination, I believe it is within the democratic rights of those wishing to go on strike to do so. They have the constitutional rights to embark on that course of action. More so when you have a government that appears not to be sensitive to the plight of the citizens, then the labour leaders, and members of the civil societies can rise up to the occasion to be advocates for the masses, especially the poor Nigerians.

There have been recent concerns that Boko Haram is moving gradually towards South with the military confirming their presence around Kogi, and Abuja. How do you see that development, and how do you think Yoruba can protect themselves?

It is a shocking development. But in all this the question you ask is how prepared is government for such an ugly development? To make matters worse, it is not only Boko Haram that we have to contend with now as other terrorist groups from Syria and Libya have infiltrated Nigeria. You also have the Al-Queda from Iraq in the country now. All these terrorist groups have one aim, and their objective is to use resources of Nigeria to conquer other parts of West Africa. The situation in Nigeria today is dire and we should not deceive ourselves, and Yoruba, and other ethnic nationalities should be prepared to defend their homelands. Anybody or group waiting for government is deceiving himself. You will remember that there was a time General TY Danjuma warned that Nigerians should be prepared to defend themselves, that anybody waiting for government is doing so at his own peril. The federal government is not showing any inclination to defend anybody.

Why has it been difficult for the Armed Forces to defeat Boko Haram?

We should ask those in authority. Every time they keep on boasting that they have defeated Boko Haram, but we keep on seeing Boko Harm getting more ferocious, and deadlier. What we are seeing is the unfortunate situation where Boko Haram is getting stronger and stronger. To checkmate the ugly situation something drastic has to be done. What is the problem with our military? Is it that they are not getting the right equipment, and the logistics? Another factor we also have to consider is the issue of corruption being raised in the military, because we hear of massive corruption taking place within the military which many are saying is affecting not only the performance of the troops but also lowering their morale. Nigerians are tired of excuses, and propaganda but what they want is concrete action being taken to neutralize Boko Haram, and other terrorists who have infiltrated the country.

How effective can you say Operation Amotekun has been?

So far, those in charge across the states have been trying their best to protect the Yoruba homeland from terrorists, and other infiltrators. Although they are taking off slowly, they are demonstrating their resolve to live up to the task of protecting Yoruba from external aggressors. The South-West state governors are in charge, and my appeal to them is that they should do everything possible to give the outfit the support required to make it an effective tool in demonstrating to any external aggressors that the Yoruba have what it takes to defend themselves from external attack without waiting for the federal government.

So much fraud in billions is daily reported from probes into NDDC, Amnesty programme, and the EFCC, what do you make out of all these?

Corruption is the culture of governance, and leadership in Nigeria. It has become part and parcel of our culture. In 2014, when Buhari was campaigning to be elected, he made so much promise to tackle corruption, but today has anything changed? No. Corruption appears to be more thriving, and the situation is not helped by the fact that Buhari himself is not running a transparent government. He appears to be running a government with hidden agenda to promote the interests of one section of the country over others.

Although they’ve set up probe panels on some of these cases but what is going to be the outcome? Nigerians no longer have confidence in the government again. But Nigerians can’t continue this way. My fear for this country is that if we continue this way, Buhari may be Nigeria’s last President. There is a lot of bottled emotions, and anger across the country, and this is why the agitations for self-determination have become stronger today than ever before.

But agitations for self-determination, some have declared, amount to act of treasonable felony, what do you say to that?

It doesn’t, and I don’t agree with those saying so. Even the constitution guarantees freedom of association. It was the amalgamation of 1914 that forcefully brought different nations together. Nigeria is made up of so many nations. Moreover, this is not the first time that people have been calling for breakup of Nigeria if that will bring the desired peace. Notable Nigerians including late Chief Anthony Enahoro, and Prof. Ango Abdullali, the leader of the Northern Elders Forum have publicly done so, without anybody harassing them, and this agitation will continue as long as oppression and injustice continue to pervade the country.
• Source: https://www.sunnewsonline.com/no-going-back-on-oduduwa-republic/

PERSPECTIVE - Meanwhile, let’s solve the ‘Fulani Problem’

 

                                                                      The Fulani

                                                                     Mr. Idang Alibi.

By Idang Alibi

If I were in a position to advice and I was sure of a listening audience and was convinced in my heart that my intervention will influence a positive decision to act otherwise, I would have strongly advised against running the angry editorial entitled ‘’Obadiah Mailafia’s Outrageous Falsehood’’ which our paper, the Daily Trust, ran on Dr. Obadiah Mailafia on August 16. That editorial was written in extreme anger and was in very, very bad taste. The point it sought to make that a man of Mailafia’s standing ought to have been more circumspect in his public comments was completely overshadowed by every line of hateful and hurtful abuse it rained on him. The Trust pen simply dripped with venom.

 

In it, the paper lampooned Mailafia’s academic and career attainments and his claims that the sources of his allegations on a radio interview were market men. Even if Mailafia had goofed, and he has every right to goof because come to think of it, he is human after all, it was not in good taste to have spoken of him in such derogatory language. I have many reasons why I think it is improper for the paper to have done what it did to Mailafia.

 

Number one, Obadiah Mailafia was a member of the Daily Trust Editorial Board. He was recruited to be in that elite place in the newspaper house on the bases of those academic and career attainments now being called to question. And for the few months he was with us, he never disappointed. He made very insightful contributions and wrote several well received articles that promoted both the paper and the cause of humanity. To now use the same paper to question his credentials and his career attainments and to mock at him as a possibly fake person who was mistaken to be brilliant is rather hypocritical and in very bad taste indeed. It is not cricket. Mailafia is a solid intellectual, a ‘’brain box’’ as we used to describe some of our brilliant friends in the university. You cannot take away that from him even if he does not measure up to your expectations of him in his interventions in politics or other spheres.

 

If I get into public office or remain as a simple private citizen and the Trust writes against me the kind of editorial it wrote against Mailafia, who was one of their own, I will feel a deep kind of betrayal that will last me a life time. Crocodiles should not be seen eating their own eggs! As my Bekwarra people will say, if crocodiles eat their own eggs what will they not do to the flesh of other animals? Let other papers which I feel are not my own write anything negative about me but let it not be the Trust. I believe that if the Trust does not write and attack me its writers will not die and the paper will not fold up.

 

In my humble life I feel that a people need to sometimes keep quiet on issues of public concerns not because they do not have what to say but simply because intervening will not be perceived in good light no matter your objectivity. There are times when I keep mum telling myself that if I do not say something there are always people out there who can be trusted to say exactly what I would have said. What they say may not carry my significance but sometimes they will even do much more than what you will say because they will do it in a much cruder form! This wisdom has guided my interventions in our public life. You can call that the politics of writing because there is politics in almost everything!

 

Number two, the Daily Trust is founded and owned by some bright Katsina Fulani men in association with friends from elsewhere in the country. Rightly or wrongly, there is the perception out there that Daily Trust has been pressured and railroaded, much against its will, to support the Buhari Administration and that it has now adopted the government as ‘’our own’’. For the paper to therefore write an editorial using the type of foul language it did on Mailafia, a ‘friendly stranger’, showed that it was fighting the battle of the Buhari government. The best way Trust can help Buhari is to appear fiercely objective so that when it chooses to help the Administration it will not be obvious and therefore more effective.

 

Number three, to add salt to injury, my friend, the popular columnist and former Chairman of the Editorial Board, Mallam Mahmud Jega, who is not usually given to abuse or foul language, weighed in on the Mailafia controversy with a very acerbic and acidic outing in his column of Monday, August 24 entitled ‘’With Oxford PHDs Like Malafia’’ which thoroughly mocked at and savaged Mailafia. It now looked like a conspiracy of the big Hausa-Fulani –Muslim North to pummel a small Christian northern minority man to smithereens.

 

And other people begin to wonder: is there something else some of us cannot see beyond Mailafia’s allegations or is it merely the outcry of a man who feels he and his people are being persecuted without the protection of the governments that should save them from oppression? If there is nothing to Mailafia’s allegations why use a sledge hammer to knock him and if there are some elements of truths to them but he cannot just substantiate them why not look into the issue he is drawing attention to?

 

Number four: I have every cause to believe that it was mainly the hostile outings of my Daily Trust people which reflected official anger that led the DSS to extend another invitation to Mailafia to ‘visit’ them again over the whole issue. And in this, I feel very ashamed that in recent years, the DSS seems to have become the coercive wing of every administration that is in power rather than play its role as the objective, impartial, impersonal, conscientious defender and protector of the Nigerian state. In fact, if the DSS and other security organisations were playing their roles as objective and unbiased arbiters, the issue in Southern Kaduna and elsewhere would not arise at all. Whether the DSS and the Fulani Establishment know it not Mailafia is becoming a symbol of the oppression Northern minority ethnic groups say they are victims of. And as Maiafia is not tired of stating, his people are a warrior tribe who have never been conquered by the Fulanis. Any perception that Maiafia is being intimidated by the Fulanis or their agents will only harden their resolve never to bow.

 

Number five, as pointed out, the Trust is a Fulani paper. Mailafia is a minority from Randa LGA in Southern Kaduna. What got Mailafia into trouble with the Federal Government run by a Fulani man is that his people and other minority ethnic groups in Kaduna are allegedly being killed by Fulani people both native and foreign in mass numbers. In fact the people of southern Kaduna believe that the Fulanis are acting without restraint because they receive official backing of both the Kaduna and Federal Governments run by two Fulani men.

 

Whether this claim or perception is correct or not the fact remains that so many damn foolish things are happening n Southern Kaduna and many, and far too many, Nigerian citizens both Fulanis and minorities are getting senselessly killed there. Anyone whether Nigerian or a citizen of the civilized world ought to be outraged about news coming out about the pogrom going on there. As an enlightened member of one of the minority groups suffering the killings in Kaduna, Mailafia has the right and duty to voice out what he feels is the source of affliction of his people. Trust’s ‘hate speech’ against Mailafia tended to show that it was fighting the Fulani cause against Mailafia and his minority Randa people in Southern Kaduna and not doing an impartial, objective journalistic work.

 

For me, rather than lampoon or oppress or seek to humiliate Mailafia, the sensible thing this nation needs to do right now is to focus attention on what I choose to call the ‘’Fulani Problem’’ of Nigeria. From north to south and from west to east, the Fulanis are building up deep resentment against their group because of the way they pursue their means of earning a living. Their mobile herds eat up people’s crops. Some of them are engaged in kidnapping, rape and plunder. It is true that some of the natives steal their cows and also kill some of them but when they retaliate they do it way out of proportion to the original crimes or crimes against them. Whosoever are the culprits in this tense relation, the question is: must we continue to allow these foolish things to happen? Can Nigeria survive the daily hemorrhaging from these very ugly incidents? Is there no sheriff in this county called Nigeria? Should everyone do as he or she pleases? Can we survive a life under this setting? What is indeed the purpose of government amongst men? Is it to siddon look while the people are tearing themselves apart? Or worse, take sides as is alleged by some of the parties in the dispute?

Whether it is the Fulanis who are right and the natives wrong or the reverse, the fact now is that this nation has a serious Fulani Problem on its hands which ought to be our focus. In fact, I even want to humbly appeal to the Daily Trust to make this their topic/theme for next year’s Annual Daily Trust Forum.

 

Is it right and proper that in the 21stcentury the Fulanis continue to move about with their herds causing inevitable abrasions with their hosts and neighbours or is there an urgent necessity for them to be made to stay in one place to raise their cattle? You see, as a member of the sedentary tribe, my query here may contain a bias already but this is why this Fulani issue needs to become a topic of public debate so that a consensus can be reached on it.

 

Some of my readers may have become aware of the fact that I have now become a very serious farmer. Each day I go to farm and see the tender tendrils of my cassava, rice, oil palm and beniseed it pains me to see them eaten up by a goat, cow or any other beast. Just as the Fulani hold their cows as highly priced assets so do farmers regard their crops as their lives or what defines their significance.

I want to plead with Buhari and my many Fulani friends and acquaintances that deep resentment is building up against the Fulanis and they should not allow this to solidify. Nigeria fought its first civil war against the Ibos. Let it not be that the second one will be against the Fulanis. The Fulanis should reflect on the type of non-Fulani communal anger that was unleashed against them in Central African Republic. Let the Fulanis take care so that such a dreadful thing does not happen to them in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa.

 

·       Idang Alibi is an Abuja-based journalist, farmer and peace advocate.

 

Between ‘Dividers-in-Chief’ and Dividers-in-law

 

                                                                Prof. Wole Soyinka.

By Wole Soyinka

I am notoriously no fan of Olusegun Obasanjo, General, twice former president and co-architect with other past leaders of the crumbling edifice that is still generously called Nigeria. I have no reasons to change my stance on his record.

Nonetheless, I embrace the responsibility of calling attention to any accurate reading of this nation from whatever source, as a contraption teetering on the very edge of total collapse. We are close to extinction as a viable comity of peoples, supposedly bound together under an equitable set of protocols of co-habitation, capable of producing its own means of existence, and devoid of a culture of sectarian privilege and will to dominate.

On Africa Day, May 2019, organised by the Union Bank of Africa, I similarly seized an opening to direct the attention of this government to warnings by the Otta farmer over the self-destruct turn that the nation had taken, urged the wisdom of heeding the message, even while remaining chary of the messenger. That advice appears to have fallen on deaf ears. In place of reasoned response and openness to some serious dialogue, what this nation has been obliged to endure has been insolent distractions from garrulous and coarsened functionaries, apologists and sectarian opportunists.

The nation is divided as never before, and this ripping division has taken place under the policies and conduct of none other than President Buhari – does that claim belong in the realms of speculation?

Does anyone deny that it was this president who went to sleep while communities were consistently ravaged by cattle marauders, were raped and displaced in their thousands and turned into beggars all over the landscape?

Was it a different president who, on being finally persuaded to visit a scene of carnage, had nothing more authoritative to offer than to advice the traumatised victims to learn to live peacefully with their violators?

And what happened to the Police Chief who had defied orders from his Commander-in-Chief to relocate fully to the trouble spot – he came, saw, and bolted, leaving the ‘natives’ to their own devices. Any disciplinary action taken against ‘countryman’?

Was it a spokesman for some ghost president who chortled in those early, yet controllable stages of now systematised mayhem, gleefully dismissed the mass burial of victims in Benue State as a “staged show” for international entertainment? Did the other half of the presidential megaphone system not follow up – or was it, precede? – with the wisdom that they, the brutalized citizenry, should learn to bow under the yoke and negotiate, since “only the living” can enjoy the dividends of legal rights?

To reel off any achievements of a government – genuine or fantasised, trivial or monumental – is thus to dodge the issue, to ignore the real core concerns. No government, however inept, fails to record some form of achievement – this was why it were elected, and it takes real genius to succeed in spending four years actually doing nothing. What it fails to do, or what it does wrongly, deceitfully or prejudicially is what concerns the citizenry.

Across this nation, there is profound distrust, indeed abandonment of hope in this government as one that is genuinely committed to the survival of the nation as one, or indeed understands the minimal requirements for positioning it as a modern, functional space of productive occupancy.

Donald Trump is not without a governance pass mark here or there – indeed, he has been touted for the Nobel Peace prize in some quarters,  backed, predictably, by the quota Nigerian columnist – yet who dares deny, outside Republican diehard circles – that the great United States of American is brutally divided, and is even unraveling  under the Trumpian phenomenon!

Back to our own yaws however: Are pensioners still considered human, deserving the rewards of labour without further labour?  Many collapse from that extended labour of recovering routine entitlements. Even routine access to that basic human requirement – food – is now under question, as farmers are chased off their farms in large numbers. Instead of timely action – urged stridently by beleaguered governors and of course by ‘professional agitators’ — appeasement of the violent food saboteurs was the preferred route to food security – operating under fancy names like RUGA.

So how do you persuade graduates and young school leavers to try their hands at farming instead of flooding urban centres looking for non-existent white-collar positions? To get killed and dismembered?

And what is the score within those much-coveted urban precincts? Lop-sided appointments to crucial positions in Civil Service and parastatals!  Consider the prime economic cash cow – petroleum – exposed a few months ago as a reeking cesspit of nepotism. Who is the Minister of Petroleum under whose watch such an unprecedented contempt for geographical parity – uncontroverted till today —  became entrenched? That happens to be none other than the nation’s president – and he did make a show of astonishment at the gross disparities, promised to subject the anomaly to immediate enquiry.

May one ask what action has been taken to rectify that presumably “nation-unifying” compilation?  It all casts a long, unedifying shadow backwards to those days of agitation by Tai Solarin and the mercuric engineer, Awojobi when the same Buhari took forceful charge of that ministry, promised to get to the root of the  flying charges – anyone still recall the saga of the missing millions?

He made a beeline for the home of a prominent political leader and carted away loads of files in his illegal possession. In vain the nation awaited enlightenment – Nothing!

National divisiveness? Just where does culpability lie?  Does centralist usurpation divide or bind?

The answer is obvious in daily effects. We have even heard the charge laid at the feet of governors. When the constitutive units of this nation take steps to rescue themselves into the ‘unifying’ quagmire into which they have been plunged by a creaking, clearly unworkable centralised system, guess who squawk, gnash their teeth and threaten to call down thunder even where such remedies are backed by constitutional provisions! Alas, the dare of ignorance!  And after being confronted by the legitimate right of states to at least salvage their existence and protect their citizens, guess who trundles out constrictive parameters, and attempts to dictate to governors how such state prerogatives should be exercised! Come under the umbrella of a failed Inspectorate Usurper – ordered the Garbled megaphone. Just on whose authority?

We do know – let this be stated for the umpteenth time! – that the rains did not just begin to beat us yesterday in this nation. We know when the clouds began to gather, where the deluge began and turned to severe pounding. We can pinpoint the first trickle of the torrent of appeasement, of illegal extortions and concessions.

Past leaders will not be permitted to forget or gloss over own self-centred interests and nation corrosive lapses that brought us to this parlous present.

But we do endure in this here and now, in the immediacy of current governance, so let no uppity flunkey attempt to divert attention from current realities, realities that now clearly pronounce this nation of once promising prospects a basket case of abject penury and insecurity, where hordes of trained minds and sturdy limbs roam the streets as beggars, as haphazard vendors of the products of other peoples, other lands!

Inequity reigns, and solutions are trivialised. Again and again voices are raised to urge the dismantling of a crude, militarised centralist contraption – repeatedly exposed in illegalities —  and substitute a more efficient governance system, decentralised, providing  broader access to opportunities.

All such efforts are turned into opportunities for legislative junketing and budget padding. Legislators watch with indifference in this day of human advance, as individuals are sentenced to hang for expressing their views on the relative apprehension of religious avatars, not a squeak emerge from such lawgivers. Pedophiles and cross-border sex traffickers are honoured in the act, granted immunity on cooked-up alibis of religion. Is this nation a theocracy?

Nigeria is a suppurating slaughter slab, and it boggles the mind that supposedly wise and lettered men, sheltering under any religious mandate, would go into a solemn huddle to ‘legitimately’ augment the toll of mindless killings that now plague the land.

Presumably, the ongoing ‘national security’ persecution of Obadiah Mailafia is a sign of national unity? I invite our marionettes to read deeply into history.  Oh, excuse me, history has been banned from learning structures, so look not for history books! However, straightforward, first-hand testimonies abound, exposing structural flaws, deceits and conspiracies against this presumptive national edifice.

They are perpetrated by highly placed servants of the state, some of whom have since risen to even higher national positions. I draw attention, for instance, to detailed revelations of plots against the nation, plots that resonate in the present. Such is the two-year old interview of a former ambassador to the Sudan, Bola Dada – The Punch  Newspapers.  Archives remain ever obliging. They avail us vivid material to decide whether or not a sinister script is being acted out today with copious libations from Nigerian blood.

I think, in public interest, The Punch should re-run that interview, most especially in view of recent claims by a columnist in The Nation – Femi Abbas Sept. 4 — regarding how and by whom Nigeria  was corralled into the OIC. When you abolish History in institutions, you open the gates wide for rampaging  revisionism while the same gates are shut against a grasp, however tenuous, of why, for instance, a Mailafia becomes a target of serial interrogations and harassment,  rather than those boldly named in his revelations. Is it he who constitutes a danger to the nation, or the indicted fanatics of unlimited impunity and callous disregard for humanity? Why the ostentatious pretence of investigative zeal? The man has told you where to look. Well, look in that direction and report back to us! In the meantime however, ensure that he meets with no accident!

Still on security: any tear that is shed for the arch-bandit and multiple murderer Akwaza, known as Gana, is an obscenity.  However, tears of trepidation are falling fast and furious over the conduct of an army that eliminates a captive in cold blood, side-tracking the rationality of professional investigations and legitimate pursuit of felons and other enemies of society. The issue here is not one of the appropriateness of  a policy of Amnesty – that constitutes a larger debate in its place. The issue here – and a critical one —  is that a Wanted Man, on his way to surrender, has been killed in cold blood. I read yesterday that the Army has followed this up with a demand for the bounty earlier placed by the Benue State governor on the head of the WANTED man. However, all reports so far indicate that he was on his way to surrender? And so, is this bounty demand a joke? An end then to such gallows humour! And certainly not now, not while the nation is  freshly reeling from the latest horror of the targeting of unarmed Road Safety officials, gunned down in cold blood in their commuter bus, and the mass kidnapping of survivors.

Shall we presume that the surviving casualties of routine duty rosters are also nation-dividers if they scream out for protection and deplore a breakdown in the entire security architecture of the nation?

We must however concede one remedial initiative to this government. Perhaps it was a belated awareness that the roof of the national edifice was on fire that instigated the effort to appropriate all available water resources in the nation — a desperate move to put out the flames with one hefty splash!

Presumably, even the rains that fall on earth will belong to the Exclusive List?  We shall have to learn to gather such rain before it strikes the earth, or else queue for a licence to tap it later for domestic use. Get ready to pay stiff fines when we get rain soaked for lack of public transportation. Distractions upon distractions, but dangerous distractions! Provocative moves that deeply erode any lingering faith in the even-handed claims of governance, of respect for the rights of independent peoples that were brought together to form a nation, and the justice of equality of access to the land’s resources.

But the fault is not one-sided. Let governors also wake up to their constitutional rights and duties. There are vast areas of those rights that have been trampled upon, usurped for far too long.

Forget legislative jamborees of constitution reviews – we have had our fill of them – all the files are gathering dust. It is time for Reparations! Dust up those files and head for the courts. Prepare for name-calling, just as long as such names embody – Dividers-in-law!

Only then shall we uncover who are the real Dividers-in-Chief? If individual voices rankle, then perhaps it is time to convoke a Nation Survival Conference. Let all sections and group interests place their cards on the table and starkly articulate what we all know and endure on a daily basis, and proffer solutions, debate moves towards a collective – rational and sincere — undertaking  of nation formation.

The ongoing governance posture of aggressive evasion spells only one end: collective suicide.

Retirees to DELTA ALGON leadership: Where is our N5.9 billion unremitted deduction?

 

Retirees protesting non payment of pension and gratuities at Government House Asaba.

What did the leadership of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) in Delta State do with N5.9 million unremitted deduction that accrued during the zero allocation era to the Local Government Pension Bureau?

This is the puzzle that local government and primary school retirees in Delta State are asking Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to help them to unknot as they seek intervention of the state government during a long protest procession on Tuesday, September 8, 2020.

In the protest which took them to the House of Assembly where they met a locked gate and the Government House, Asaba where security operatives prevented them from gaining access through the locked gate, the aged men and women, otherwise called senior citizens who have retired from service having served 35 years or attained 60 years of age in service, they made a save our souls call to the governor and the speaker of the House of assembly, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, urging them to intervene urgently and save them from undue delay in the payment of their retirement benefits.

In their SOS to the Speaker, signed by Comrade Mode Augustine and Sir Henry Tukpe, they asked: “What then could be the reasons(s) for retirees in the local government and /primary schools in Delta State to be denied access to funds they contributed to from their salaries to save for old age after over four to five years after retirement.”

Reeling out various financial statistics to drive home their points, the retirees said it had become necessary for the government to look into their grievances and that one measure that could be used to assuage their feelings is to compel the state leadership of ALGON and the Accountant General to pay the sum of N5.9 billion unremitted deductions that accrued during the zero allocation eras. This prompted observers to ask: What did the Delta State ALGON leadership do with the accrued N5.9 billion unremitted deductions? And where is the money?

In a letter addressed to the Speaker and signed by Chief (Mrs.) Ejieh Helen C, Chairman Association of Contributory Retirees (ACR) and Prince Etuwede G.U., secretary, with copies made available to journalists, the retirees stated: “Between May 2015 –January 2017, a period of 21 months, nobody was paid his/her gratuity/pensions in the local government/primary school in Delta State. This situation led to the protest which was embarked on 3^rd October, 2017. During the protest the Head of Service met with the Executive members of our Association and assured us that His Excellency, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa has promised to remember the retirees when the Paris Fund is remitted to the state.

“Between 2017-2018, the Paris Fund that came to the state, none was paid to Local Government Bureau, for our gratuity/pension benefits.

“To worsen the situation, since the local government became autonomous, we became hopeful but unfortunately the opposite is the case. All the monies sent to the local government by the Federal Government to pay the local government primary school retirees in the month of June 2019 till date, that would have paid so many retirees has been withheld by the Association of Local Governments (ALGON).

“Consequent on this premise, we decided to write to the Local Government Bureau, the Chairman of all Chairmen of Delta State Local Government Council (ALGON) and His Excellency, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, through the Head of Service, Delta state to express our displeasure and plead for increase in the amount remitted to Local Government Bureau to cover more retires. All our plea was not listened to and as a result, we planned for another protest on the 14^th of July, 2020.

“When the Head of Service heard about our planned protest, he invited us to his office on 26^th June, 2020. There, we resolved not to go on the protest slated for 14 July, 2020 on the ground that our request will be looked into on or before the date of the propose protest.

“Till now the government has not done anything concerning all our plea and demands. The most annoying thing is that we all live in the same state and go to the same market. Our counterparts in government public schools who retired in 2018 have received their gratuity and receive pensions monthly. Why is the government treating us with disdain? A large number of our retirees have died and some have suffered ill-health unduly as a result of the delayed payment.”

   

Pay our benefits, retirees tell Okowa; accuse ALGON leadership of N5.9b unremitted deduction

 

Retirees protesting non payment of benefits at Government House gate, Asaba.

Aggrieved members of the Delta State Local Government/Primary School Teachers Contributory Retirees today, Tuesday, September 8, 2020 hit the roads in Asaba to make good their decision to do a peaceful protest to call attention of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and the public to their plights with a view to getting the governor to show compassion and benevolence to them in their predicaments.  

They are aged, fragile men and women, who wore black outfits chanting songs and carrying placards with various inscriptions to press home their demand for attention and succour.

As they sang the lyrics of their tunes read: “Okowa, pay our money o, Okowa’, while some of the impressions on the various placards read: “Okowa, where is our gratuity, pension?” “Okowa fear God.” Okowa, what will you gain if we die?” “Our pension matta, No retreat, no surrender.” “Don’t make us refugees in our home land.” “Yeye SMART Agenda, not for retirees”; “Governor Okowa stop campaigning in Edo, just do what Edo State did to her retirees to Delta retirees.” “Okowa, enough is enough, Pay us our money, it is our right,”  etc, etc.

Their first point of call was the Delta State House of Assembly, where the gate was shut against them, having sought to meet with the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori and the House members. But, after a long wait, a handful of civil servants, let by Mr. Ogheneraboke Ben, and who introduced himself as the Assistant Director, Legislative matters spoke to the retirees from the other side of the gate and received the letter addressed to the Speaker from them for onward transmission to him. Ogheneraboke said: “We are civil servants, we are just like you; we share in your pain.”

They then proceeded to Government House, on Anwai Road,  traveling in no fewer than 15 chattered commercial vehicles from across the three senatorial districts of Delta State, where they were stopped at the gate by security operatives, but after another wait, government officials including the political Adviser to the governor, Hon. Omimi Esquire, the Head of Service, Mr. Reginald Bayoko, and the Nigeria Labour Congress Chairman, Comrade Goodluck Ofobruku among others.

The retirees in their letter to the Governor, signed by Mode Augustine, and Sir Henry Tukpe, copies of which were made available to journalist, expressed dismay over the ways and manner issues concerning their plights were being handled by the state government. Pointing out that having served satisfactorily the 35 or 60 years statutory age requirement for retirements, and having met their part of the contribution of seven and half percent since inception of the Pension Scheme in 2011, they declared: “We have suffered enough hardship and humiliation since our retirement. Based on the above and the perennial delay in payment of gratuities and pensions to the local government staff and their primary school counterparts, we wrote appeal letters to you our Governor dated 27/01/2020 which was replied on the 26/02/2020 and a subsequent reply from this body dated 17^th June, 2020 and other subsequent meetings that have not yielded any results, hence our decision to protest to you publicly of our plight and ask you our governor to be compassionate and humane to our plights.”

The text of the letter continued: “This action has become inevitable after all negotiations with your agencies failed to yield results and we were not hearing any news of remediation. Our members have suffered untold hardship, humiliation and we have lost several of them to death due to ill health and disease, lack of care and money to purchase basic medication. We have suffered enough Sir.

“Sir, records from Bureau of Local Government Pensions show:

·        That backlog of unpaid accrued rights (value of past services, which was determined as at April, 2011) as at December, 2019 was N48,369,331,624.00 only; of which N8,137,909,068 was for local government retirees and N40,231,422,556.00 was for primary school retirees.

·        That there is an unremitted deduction from staff contribution that accrued during the zero allocation eras amounting to N5.9billion.

·        That currently, a monthly allocation of N300,000,000 is released to the Bur

·        eau and shared for the payments of the arrears between the local government retirees and primary school retirees at N114,000,000 and N184,000,000 respectively.

·        That as at today, local government retirees has been paid to the middle of 2016 and their primary school counterparts to the middle of 2014.

·        That currently, the numbers of local government/primary school retirees yet to be paid their gratuities and pension are 5,697. Of these, local government has 1,348 and primary school has 4,349.

“The question now is, how long will it take before these retirees will enjoy their pensions with the current release of monthly N300,000,000? With a monthly release of N300 million, which according to Bureau is shared thus:

·        Local government N144 million monthly, making a total of N1,368,000,000 per year, that means it will take about six years to offset the N8,137,909,068 backlog.

·        Primary school retirees N184 million monthly, amounting to  N2,208,000,000 a year and will take over 18 years to offset the N40,231,422,556 backlog.

“The above statistics shows that government wants her local government/primary school retirees to be without any means of livelihood for over 6-18 years after retirement done after 35 years of active service or 60 years of age. What is the average life span of Nigerians? – 54 years. For the state government to expect her retired senior citizens who left after 35 years of service  or at age 60 to wait for another six to 18 years before they can be paid their pension entitlements should not be allowed and condoned by men of good will. These are men and women who even contributed seven and half per cent of their monthly salaries to the scheme.

“We therefore appeal to you to save the local government/primary school retirees from untold hardship, pains and tears we are passing through while waiting endlessly to collect our pensions. Most of us have no other means of livelihood apart from the salaries that were stopped following our retirement; making the situation unbearable as some are on medications, others living in rented apartments, while many are struggling to pay children school fees, etc.”

In their plea to the governor, the retirees appealed to the Governor to look  into:

·        The possibility of increasing the monthly allocation from N300million to N2 billion, until the backlog is offset.

·        The need to provide some lump sums of payment, like N10 billion to the Burteau apart from the monthly allocation of N2billion. This is done by other states in the federation that are committed to the plight of their retirees.

·        The need to compel the state leadership of ALGON and the Accountant General to pay the sum of N5.9 billion unremitted deduction that accrued during the zero allocation eras to the Bureau as it may go a long way in liquidating the existing indebtedness of over N48 billion.

·        The possibility of the state government intervening with Pencom to see to how our retired members can access part of what they have contributed with their PFAs by writing to the PFAs to authorize them to pay from our savings that is in their custodies.

“Sir, it is the desire of the retirees to smile and be removed from hardship and perpetual sufferings, since the Delta State Pension Bill 2008 in Section 13 (8), 13 (9, 10) , 16 (5) and 16 (6)  is clear on this. We solicit the Governor’s understanding of our plea, as it will go a long way to saving lives and cushion the untold sufferings we are going through right now,” the retirees pleaded further.