A fire outbreak has been reported at the ECOWAS Commission Secretariat in the Asokoro District of Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
As at the time reporters arrived at the scene, firefighters were seen putting out the fire that has reportedly affected the floor accommodating the Department of Finance and Account of the Commission, TVN gathered.
By Capt. Jauro Musa Liya (Rtd)
Security cannot be separated from good governance. It is therefore important to state here that without unity of purpose between politicians and security agencies, then every one on both sides will be left with bad taste.
Borno State has suffered for well over a decade from insecurity with its attendant consequences. I am writing as an indigene, a stakeholder and as one who served meritoriously in the Nigerian Army. Whatever we will say or do that will not bring peace, healing, reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation which the Nigerian Army is undertaking to ensure, is a crime against my people, my community, our state and Nigeria in general. When we are ready to tell each other the truth and put the nation beyond personal interest, sentiments and temporal partisanship, then shall we begin the journey to reclaim our collective destiny.
As Borno people, our ethnic cleavages are not just severe and enduring, they are our abiding source of conflict. As it is stated, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Until we appreciate the importance of working together as security agencies or politicians in our community, we will keep going round in circles of falsehood, blame game and denials as we cannot suppress the truth perpetually.
When an interest other than the security of the people is being pursued, it ridicule our gains and all the sacrifices so far made. Indeed, we may not be where we should be as far as our expectations are concern in Borno, but we cannot aggrandize our authority by talking down the gains made. It is an act of treachery to turn the sufferings of thousands of soldiers and other security agencies with some paying the ultimate price into a pecuniary political gain.
In as much as I join millions of Nigerians to condemn the attack on the governor of Borno state, I am also particularly happy that he came out unscathed. However, I will also use this opportunity to respectfully urge the governor to keep a tight reign on his emotions and unnecessary public outburst. As chief security officer of the state, having an open confrontation with soldiers does not make you a strong leader. It only win you a support that is not deep in the short run, but it exposes your weakness and portray you as one who is at loggerhead with those working at the risk of their lives to bring an enduring peace in Borno State
As chief security officer of the state, you are suppose to work as a team with the security agencies and not to be seeing to grandstand against your security agencies which are out there to serve you and our own people.
This development (open confrontation with security agencies) is worrisome and has far reaching consequences as insurgents and criminal elements get encouraged by infighting of the opposite side. Their aim is to instill fear through threat or act of violence, once the two partners in progress are at dagger’s end, which gives room or a fertile ground for the terrorists to carry out more havoc. It is therefore a poor strategy, except probably in the interest of politics to exhibit such outburst and unrestrained utterances before the world. For those of us who are trained in security and have practiced security at the highest level in this country, we find this ugly development as very scary and as a matter of urgency I urged that this trend should be resolved through internal mechanisms of dialogue rather than playing to the gallery, otherwise we will put Nigeria’s sovereignty, peace and security in a serious jeopardy.
It is worth a mutual respect to consider the sacrifices of the soldiers as a gag to unguided utterances and spontaneous reaction. By all means, it is for this effort and sacrifices that the governor is able to perform some of his functions and exercise his powers. Powers cannot be exercised in a vacuum, hence a governor cannot be a governor unless there is peace. This is why it is necessary to work together towards maintaining peace.
President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to pay the fees and stipends of scholars of the commission who are facing hardships abroad. The Director of Corporate Affairs at the NDDC, Charles Odili, disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday.
This followed a protest by the students recently in the United Kingdom who called on the President to intervene in the matter. “Senator Akpabio, the Honourable Minister, said President Buhari who has been briefed on the protest by students at the Nigerian High Commission in London, has ordered that all stops be pulled to pay the students by the end of this week,” Odili said in the statement.
He also has explained the rationale behind the delay in remittance of the fees of the scholars, saying their fees and stipends would be paid by the end of the week. Odili revealed that the delay was caused by the sudden death of the then acting Executive Director of Finance and Administration (EDFA), Ibanga Etang, in May.
By Sani Muhammadu
The seeming recent castigation of the military by Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum has revived new posers in Nigeria’s grapple with terrorism. That poser is: who is the Nigeria military fighting in its anti-terrorism war? The answer to this poser would be instructive in how Boko Haram’s campaign of terror would be ended.
The Borno State Governor’s convoy had come under attack from gunmen as he made his way to go distribute relief materials in a part of the state. The jury is still out as to whether that attack was the handwork of Boko Haram or something more insidious that could herald new variables in the security breaches that are plaguing the Lake Chad Basin.
If these new variables do arise, they will not be quite new in the sense that the people of Borno state and environ are no strangers to treachery from people who should ordinarily protect them by virtue of the responsibility imposed by their office. These leaders however turn around to be the very thorn in the flesh of their constituents. Scholars have traced the root of Boko Haram to the political class, which empowered fanatical hoodlums to advance their political fortunes; they engaged in treacherous acts like promising the strict implementation of Sharia code to impassioned youth just so that they can use these urchins to deal with political opponents, something that is not quite possible in a country governed by a secular constitution, only to walk back on the same promise when they have gained office.
It bears mentioning that opportunities were lost to tame the genie that was set free from the bottle in the early days of Boko Haram. Rather than owning up to the crime they have committed in producing the conditions that created the terrorists, politicians in Borno misled the whole of Nigeria until the terror group was born. Latter efforts by the military and security agencies to clear the state of these criminal met with all manners of resistance. Some of these politicians went as far as providing shelter for wanted Boko Haram members and this is not forgetting that under the previous administration, the political class in Borno state freed scores of high-profile terrorists by simply citing orders from above whenever troops arrested them.
The tantrum thrown by Governor Zulum is therefore worrisome because it flags other prospects in the nation’s anti-terrorism war. Just who is the Nigerian Army, the entire military, fighting in Nigeria’s northeast? This question is pertinent because there is more than meets the eye if the governor of Borno state is the one verbally, and even actively, putting the military down for terrorists. It raises the possibility that while the officers and men of the Nigerian Army and the other military branches are patriotically laying down their lives to defeat Boko Haram, politicians, with some as high ranking as the governor, are actually interested in sustaining the insurgency. Only such interest will make Governor Zulum diss the military to the point where he thinks local hunters could do the job.
Whatever support Governor Zulum plans to give local hunters to protect his state from terrorists would certainly lead to the total eradication of Boko Haram if same is extended to the Nigerian military. A quick note here is that support in this sense does not refer to buying Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), feeding allowance or mundane material support because giving those to hunters will not yield much. One can safely infer that the kind of support that Zulum has in mind when he mentioned hunters as alternatives will involve rallying the traditional and religious institutions behind them in addition to rapidly rebuilding communities so that the people will have the sense of purpose that will empower them to reorganize into societies that will contribute to defeating the insurgency.
But Zulum is not doing any of these in support of the government troops, rather he is pursuing an agenda that has all the markings of being inimical to the collective desire for peace by Nigerians. His attempt to set the troops up by crying about sabotage in the military when he is not the President or the Chief of Army Staff smells foul. It shows that something is wrong and curiously it appears he was given a script to act by those that have decided against the run of play that the service chief must leave office on the erroneous impression that they must be converted into civil servants, a position that has now been dismissed by better informed Nigerians.
The politicization of the terrorist activities in Borno state has taken a dangerous direction in that the politicians have become vociferous in attacking the military even when it is apparent that is they who need lessons in patriotism because if there is anyone that wants the crisis to continue it is Borno politicians with their associates and not a patriotic military. The extent to which they have thrown caution to the wind is such that one of them, Zullum’s cabinet member went on record to accuse that the the military is in Baga to trade in fish. While nothing can be farther from the truth than this, the damage is nonetheless done because the local population will withhold support from the military on account of spurious tales like this. It seems Governor Zulum’s outburst was not a spontaneous reaction but something that has been rehearsed to further sour relations between the local population and the military. He will have to prove that he did what he did without malice.
Even when malice has been ruled out for Zulum, his associates and the political class in the state, it becomes necessary to interrogate if and how they benefit from the insurgency. At the start of the insurgency, the political class had hired these terrorists to snuff the life out of opponents, they had used their “boys” to commit copycat opportunistic crimes that were attributed to terrorists, politicians have benefitted from violence keeping people away from voting so that they can win elections in which they are not popular, they have gained from collecting allocations that they not have to account for since they can use Boko Haram violence as justification for not executing contracts for which they and their cronies have taken money. None of these political criminalities diminished under Zulum, who may now be aiming to worsen the insurgency so that the political class of that state may further rape its treasury. Maybe unknowingly, the governor is caving into a political class that prefer that the state continue to remain in perpetual chaos than the peace which the military has continued to fight to gift Nigerians.
Unfortunately, this same military is now being accused of sabotaging government’s efforts in Borno State. One would be right to ask, “what efforts?” Can Zulum show his administration’s blueprint towards ending the insurgency? He should ask the neighbouring states what they did to make their states unattractive to Boko Haram terrorists. He should think of calling for a summit of Borno sons and daughters to debate the issues.
The Governor cannot take such proactive step as long as he continues to fraternize with Borno’s political class, the cause of the problem and fuel that has kept its fire burning. For him to marshal the bravery needed for such shift he must first stop his predisposition to blame game and addiction to lamentation. Borno might have been suffering for long but the solution lies within Zulum’s grasp alongside his associates in the state. Additionally, he must accept that the military, other security agencies and the Civilian JTF alone cannot solve the problem. There must be leadership and public mobilization against the Boko Haram terrorists and that is where he comes in as the Governor, in whom the electorate have entrusted the mandate to restore their lives to normalcy.
For the sake of the people of Borno state and families that have borne the brunt of the insurgency, let us all hope that Zulum does not get his wish of having the military leave Borno state for him and his hunters. Should that happen, Zulum will not have the luxury of staging an attack on himself because the beasts that the political class of his state has reared will tear him to shreds.
What the Governor should do is to play his own part, which includes learning to keep quiet and shun theatrics while calling his associates to order so that the military will know what enemies it is fighting on behalf of the nation.
Muhammadu is a public affairs analyst and wrote this piece from Abuja.
Lebanese Health Minister Hassan Hamad says at least 25 people have been killed and more than 2,500 are wounded in a massive explosion at the port in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.
The explosion released a shockwave causing widespread damage to buildings and shattering windows in different parts of the city.
The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the UK is ready to provide any support it could to help Beirut.
“The pictures and videos from Beirut tonight are shocking,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “All of my thoughts and prayers are with those caught up in this terrible incident.
“The UK is ready to provide support in any way we can, including to those British nationals affected.”
The pictures and videos from Beirut tonight are shocking. All of my thoughts and prayers are with those caught up in this terrible incident. The UK is ready to provide support in any way we can, including to those British nationals affected.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) August 4, 2020
Iran is ready to help Lebanon in any way necessary, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has tweeted.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the great and resilient people of Lebanon. As always, Iran is fully prepared to render assistance in any way necessary. Stay strong, Lebanon,” Zarif tweeted.
قلوبُنا مع الشعب اللبناني في هذه الكارثة الكبرى. الرحمة للشهداء والصبر والسلوان لأهالي الضحايا والشفاء للجرحى. سلامٌ من الله ورحمةٌ لهذا الوطن الأبيّ.
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— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) August 4, 2020
There are currently 34 States and the FCT on the program.
States indicate their interest in benefitting from the program through the signing of an MOU, which details the responsibility of the States and the FG.
Through the MOU, the States are responsible for the implementation of the program while the FG provides funding.
The program targets public school children in primary 1-3 and provides 1 free meal a day for the duration of the school term on school days at 70naira/ child/ day Each school term lasts approximately 3 months.
The program commenced in 2016 as one of the Social Investments under HE President Muhammadu Buhari, overseen by the office of the Vp.
During that time, it is reported that up to 9 million children were beneficiaries of the intervention. There are also less visible beneficiaries such as the cooks who prepare and serve the food and the smallholder farmers who provide the food items.
In order to institutionalize these legacies, Mr President Created a ministry for humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development in August 2019, 3 years after the programs started.
The School feeding program and the other SiPs were moved to the Ministry and have carried on without changes due to the fact that institutionalization takes time for the right structures to be put in place and also to avoid disruption to the pupils.
Plans had been developed to carry out massive enumeration of beneficiaries, facilitate legal frameworks and deploy extensive monitoring systems during the holidays.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 struck the world and Nigeria made efforts to modify its available social protection apparatus to respond to the glaring humanitarian crisis facing the country, especially on food security.
Mr president directed the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to liaise with State Governments and come out with modalities to continue the school feeding program even by tough schools were shut down.
Discussions were held through the Nigerian Governors Forum and plans were discussed and it was agreed that take-home rations would be provided to the beneficiaries of the program using the existing Structures of the program based on the urgency of the situation at the time.
It was agreed that State Governments would use their available resources such as school registers, specs and suburbs to identify the household of the children in the communities where the school feeding already exists. This is as Nigeria grapples with the paucity of detailed data on its citizens.
It is worthy to note that not all schools in each state participate in the program. State Governments are responsible for the expansion of the program to all the public primary schools.
The plan also identified that a typical household in Nigeria has 5.6-6 members in its household, with 3-4 being dependent and so each household was assumed to have 3 children. The data used is what was transferred with the school feeding program to the Ministry and is reported from validation exercises from NBS.
The cost of food rations is 4,200 and contains items that were assessed not just for sustenance but also for their nutritional value to children- rice for carbohydrates, beans and eggs for protein, salt for iodine palm oil and tomato paste for vitamins.
Knowing this was a novel solution in Nigeria although fairly common practice in other countries, the 3 most-affected states at the time, Lagos, FCT and Ogun were selected as pilots for the program so that lessons would be learnt.
The role of the FG was to fund and to monitor while the States Implement. The data of the beneficiaries were also collected as part of the monitoring process to begin to formulate a database for the Ministry.
So far only these 3 states have been concluded with beneficiary breakdown as follows;
FCT – 29,609 households
Lagos – 37,589 households
Ogun – 60,391 households
The Abuja to Kaduna train service had recommenced operations last Wednesday, four months after it shut down in response to the COVID-19 outbreak but only 5,000 persons have used the service nearly one week after.
Statistics by Mr. Victor Adamu, the Operations Manager, Abuja-Kaduna rail service of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), showed that five days into the resumption of train operations, less than 5,000 passengers have used the service from Abuja to Kaduna and from Kaduna to Abuja.
Previously, NRC carried between 4,000 and 5,000 passengers daily on the service.
The low passenger turnout was linked to the 100 percent hike in ticket fare.
At the Idu Train station, the usual pressure on the trains weren’t there, not even during the Sallah rush travel.
A traveller, Zeenat Ahmed, said she felt it was unfair for the fare hike. “So instead of putting everything on the passengers, both parties should lose 50-50. They shouldn’t have put the price at N3000.”
Mr. Kelechi John said: “It is like telling us to weigh the options between travelling by road and by rail. Why can’t the government subsidise the operations till November or December?”
Mairo Hassan said, “The increase in fares is not in the interest of Nigerians as not everybody can afford it, with the way things are right now together with COVID-19 pandemic.”
However, the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, said a coach of 88 passengers now takes 56 passengers. Although it generated N120 million before, now it’s making below N60m and running cost was about N90m to N100m.
“There are two things that could be done: increase the fares or government subsidise; and we gave the government the opportunity but there is no money so the government can’t subsidise,” he explained.
By Philip Agbese
The Nigerian Senate, and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), portrayed a lack of understanding of the security situation in Nigeria, when the two commented on the efforts of the Armed Forces and the current set of service chiefs towards combating insecurity in the country.
Our Senate had demanded that the service chiefs step aside over what it called the deteriorating security situation in the country following the consideration of a motion on the rising number of casualties among the Nigerian Army and other security services. While the PDP said in addition to his refusal to change his service chiefs and inject new blood into the nation’s security architecture, President Muhammadu Buhari had failed to lead from the front as he promised during his campaign.
The Senate, realizing it had goofed on the matter tried to make amends with the sponsor of the motion, Senator Ali Ndume saying that was not the intendment of his motion. But the PDP ever eager to latch unto any criticism of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, tried to make huge capital out of what it thought was an opportunity to ridicule the government and echoed what the Senate said.
But in a swift reaction, Special Adviser to the president on media, Femi Adesina said the president will do only what is in the best interest of the country at all times and that the prerogative to remove the service chiefs lies with the President.
It was a kind of retort, diplomatically telling the lawmakers and the opposition party, that they were ignorant of the matter and that it would be better left for the president, who is experienced in the field to handle. The positions taken by the Senate and the PDP on the matter however symbolizes the impulsive manner Nigerian politicians react to issues that require deep research and thorough investigation.
Unlike in other climes where basic parameters for assessing the effectiveness of the military are well stated and interpreted only by experts, in Nigeria, the parameters for such are drawn from the last combat engagement and interpreted by the general public without recourse to the basic yardsticks. That was why when between April and early July, when the Nigerian military sustained its onslaught against all forms of threats to national security that included terrorism, insurgency and banditry and killed many of the criminals, the atmosphere was a bit different as many sang the praises of the armed forces. The sustained offensive recorded a series of successes against the Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists fighting on the fringes of Lake Chad region such that in March, Nigerian troops eliminated not less than 20 top Boko Haram commanders including one Abu Usamah, and over 100 of their fighters who were hiding in Kwalaram, Ngilewa, Sabon Tumbu, Bukarmairam, Wulgo in the Marte and Gamboru Ngala axis as well as in Gorgi, Damboa local government of Borno State.
The troops followed up on that with the killing of 105 insurgents in Buni Gari and captured many weapons in April and on the heels of that in May, killed 134 of ISWAP and Boko Haram members and arrested 28 of their informants and overran their camps in Durfada, Allafha, Timbuktu, Bulajibi and Gonikurmi near the Sambisa forest. By the time the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai went to report to the President and Commander in Chief about what transpired at the theatre of operation, about 1400 of the criminals in the Northeast were killed while another 600 bandits were neutralized in the bushes of the Northwest where they were terrorizing people. This is aside the fact that the military had previously recorded other feats like retaking 20 local government areas taken over by the terrorists, freeing many captives held, repelling many attacks and destroying their camps.
But immediately the insurgents launched a surprise attack on communities in Borno and Katsina States, the applause was quickly replaced with calls for the removal of service chiefs.
These impulsive responses to military engagements, have not only misguided the thoughts of the public on the overall performances of the armed forces but has allowed mischief makers to mislead the public in terms of what constitutes the reality on ground.
A researcher once puts it that the ultimate yardstick of national power lies in its military capability because countries subsist in an environment where internal and external threats to security are both common and ever-present. Another researcher, Peter Paret wrote that “military power expresses and implements the power of the state in a variety of ways within and beyond the state borders, and is also one of the instruments with which political power is originally created and made permanent.”
Hence, the parameters used to gauge military prowess the world over are not based on perception but include the size of the country’s defense budgets, manpower, infrastructure, defense industrial base, war-fighting inventory and support as well as its conversion capability.
If one is to assess the Nigerian military on these bases, it is only fair to conclude that they have done well as all the parameters are blinking on the positive side. Since the coming of this administration for instance, the size of the budget allocated to defence has increased tremendously, while there have been conscious manpower drive that has increased the number of personnel in service.
The number of facilities to enhance efficiency and training have also been developed while the defence industrial base has been strengthened and now produces quite a number of sophisticated weapons.
The new strategies brought in by the service chiefs in combat operations have also proven the conversion capability of the Nigeria Armed Forces.
Security experts have explained that contrary to what people know, the person leading the war against terrorism and insurgency in Nigeria, is no other than the President himself but with the active support of the service chiefs.
One of the security experts who took his time to educate people on what is happening in the Northeast, said it is the Commander- in-chief of the armed forces who holds the coordinates that combine to determine the structure, approach, strategy and results on the battlefield hence every victory at the theatre of operation must be attributed to him.
“This is the reason why every planning starts with the Commander- in -chief while he is also briefed from time to ensure that the overall operation does not go out of his plan,” he stated.
He said the series of victories have restored peace in the Northeast and given the people hope that it remains a matter of time before the region would be permanently rid of the activities of the insurgents adding that any military operations won back to back must be as a result of careful planning and sophisticated strategies at the highest level.
Recently, another group, The Oduduwa Youth Vanguard, OYV, also commended President Buhari and the Service Chiefs for putting the heat on Boko Haram terrorists such that they are not able to operate beyond a tiny fringe in the Lake Chad region.
President of the OYV, Comrade Emmanuel Kolawole Abe,
said it is an indication of the sustained pressure against the terrorists that they have not been able to move about and cause havoc around the country as they wish but resort to hiding in border towns between Nigeria and other neighbouring countries to launch surprise attacks on soft targets just to give the impression that they exist.
The activist said anyone with fair knowledge of warfare would confirm that such tactics as deployed by the Boko Haram now are used by the losing side in a war as a means of propaganda.
The Institute for Peace and Counter-Terrorism Studies in a commissioned research into the operations of the Nigerian Military in North-East Nigeria for January to April, 2020 also gave the military a pass mark.
It said, “A critical survey revealed that between 2018, 2019, and 2020 the Nigerian Military rescued a total number of 12,500 people from the captivity of Boko Haram in parts of Yobe and Borno State.
“The Nigerian Military have been actively involved in the war against Boko Haram in North-East Nigeria, and that has seen several casualties from both sides. However, it was observed that the Boko Haram fighters have been at the receiving end of a continuous military onslaught that has led to the neutralization of Boko Haram terrorists, as well as other criminal elements.”
The institute said the sustained military operations against the Boko Haram group also led to the death of scores of Boko Haram fighters and said over 350 Boko Haram fighters were killed in the past month in North-East Nigeria, and over 500 sustaining life-threatening injuries.
It added: “Nigerian troops have been able to sustain the tempo with the introduction of additional counter-terrorism methods, as well as a boost in their military hardware that gave them the edge and with superior firepower over the Boko Haram group.
“It was also observed that the operational strategy of the Nigerian Military have indeed placed the Boko Haram fighters on the brink of defeat baring all unforeseen circumstances. As per the concluding part of the research work, it was established that 762 Boko Haram fighters lost their lives in battle with the Nigerian troops led by the Military Chief in Nigeria, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai as the odds are against it.”
The Chief of Army Staff, acknowledged this much in a speech when he reiterated the commitment of the Nigerian Army in winning the insurgency war in the northeastern part of the country.
He said the country had witnessed difficult and escalating security challenges with the Boko Haram insurgency being at its peak upon assuming office in 2015 but that the Nigerian Army has been at the forefront of combatting these threats of insecurity.
He said, “From 2015 when I assumed office, my immediate priority centered on modernizing the Nigerian Army by addressing the major challenges and fundamental areas. The measures put in place in the last five years have no doubt contributed immensely towards enhancing the efficiency of the Nigerian Army resulting in improved security across the country,”
No doubt, President Buhari has improved on the size, proficiency and intellect of the armed forces with the support of the current service chiefs.
The Nigerian military has moved from the point where it was five years ago when it was being helped by the personnel of other foreign countries to go into combat.
The boost in quality and personnel many say, is why Nigeria is no longer talking about hiring mercenaries to help it defend its territorial integrity and to assist the civil authority in maintaining peace.
It is projected that if the feat is sustained, President Buhari would by the end of his eight year tenure be leaving Nigeria with one of the most efficient and robust military in the world.
It is important that both the Senate and the PDP should take note.
Agbese wrote from Katampe, Abuja.
By Ernest Attah
I have watched in absolute disbelief the series of coordinated attacks on the personality of the Honourable minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. At some point, I got confused and wondered what her sins were and whether it was worth the scathing attacks on her person.
First and foremost, I must add that we are a country in need of help with the way and manner we have elected to destroy people and institutions whenever we are pursuant of our selfish desires, not minding whose ox is gored.
This is mainly responsible for the rot in the system because everybody wants a share of the national cake. Should you dare to stand out of the crowd by doing the right thing, you can be assured that your head would be used for sacrifice to the demons that have held this country down for so long.
I empathized with President Muhammadu Buhari when during the interaction with journalists after the Sallah prayers, he stated that there had been a betrayal of trust in some of the agencies that have come under public scrutiny of late. I could not but agree with him because trust is indeed a burden.
For these individuals that have betrayed the public trust, the society sees nothing wrong with their actions. But those that have elected to maintain that trust in service to the country, are indeed viewed as the villains that must be crucified at all cost. This is the starkness of reality before our own very eyes.
I have longed asked the question of who is afraid of Sadiya Farouq since I noticed the orchestrated attacks on her personality right from the lockdown period where she led her ministry to ensure the proper distribution of palliatives as well as the conditional cash transfers to vulnerable groups in the country.
I began to smell the rat from that period. I suspected that she ensured a transparent process and monies and food items didn’t end up in private pockets as it is the norm and for daring to do things right she must be crucified at all cost.
The recent one is by one Emmanuel Onwuibiko of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) where he made all manner of allegations against Hajiya Sadiya Farouq. I was worried not because of the half-truths, but with the fact that the majority of us have been blinded by filthy lucre that we elected to sell our souls to the demon.
The Emmanuel Onwuiboko treatise was very despicable even though he cleverly tried to veil his intent from the word go. He tried to come from the angel of a concerned Nigeria whose work at HURIWA revolves around the interest of the people. While in truth, it is evident that he has recently been conscripted into the bandwagon of those that have been detailed to demonize Hajiya Sadiya Farouq.
The series of coordinated attack is coming from a high place because of the financial implication of sustaining such a campaign week in and week out. I know what it takes to maintain such campaign of calumny in Nigeria today with the likes of Emmanuel Onwuiboko involved. I challenge him to prove me wrong as history is replete with tales of how the same HURIWA under Emmanuel Onwuibuiko has been the darling of agents of cheap blackmail.
I would guess that her towering credentials and impeccable track record has become a source of worry to some highly placed Nigerians, especially those who benefited from the old regime in the management of social intervention for citizens. These individuals might be livid that it is no longer business as usual, and as such, they must get their pound of flesh from the woman that has proved a hard nut to crack.
I think that the government should design a strategy where it would protect some of its star performers against the hawks that have fed fat from the system. If this is not done, I can bet that some of those that are passionate about service to the country might either get overwhelmed or join the bandwagon and open the treasury pot for hawks and vultures to feed fat while the rest of the citizens suffer in abject poverty.
If not for anything, the campaign against Hajiya Sadiya Farouq has made her resolute in the discharge of her duties. I say this because the attacks have not deterred her. She remains active and carryout out her duties with such finesse to the chagrin of those that have vowed to pull her down by all means necessary.
As strange as this might sound, I also have a feeling that there might be some insider conspirators in the campaign to discredit the minister. I say this because of how things work within the civil service circle. It’s either they do not like the transparent way she has handled the affairs of the ministry or somebody or group somewhere has eyes in the social intervention funds and the only way they can access it is either to blackmail the minster into submission or get her out of the way outrightly.
This is the order of the day, and it’s the new normal because those with the interest of the country are few and the likes of Hajiya Sadiya Farouq are also few in this country.
Back to Emmanuel Onwubiko and his marauding gang. He must retrace his steps at the risk of him bagging the title of strategic blackmail consultant. I say this because thinking that Nigerians cannot distinguish between the presentation of facts and character assassination would be the height of foolery.
Yes, I know his argument rests in the fact that he can ask questions which ordinarily should elicit a response. But a situation where you have drawn your conclusion before asking the question makes you the judge in your case. This is what Emmanuel Onwubiko has attempted to do by misleading the public through his HURIWA platform that begins and ends with him.
I must add that sadly, a large chunk of the members of the unsuspecting general public might believe his half-truths about Hajiya Sadiya Farouq. But again, that is the price you pay when you elect to stand upright in service to the country. The scavengers would come for you with their fangs and not until they draw blood, they won’t let go.
I can only but empathize with the Hajiya Sadiya Farouq as she receives the bashing of her life for daring to be different. My candid advice to her is to stay strong and focused. However, the day she buckles and plays ball with these individuals and groups that would be the beginning of the end of a once glorious chapter in service to the country.
On a final note, throwing stones at the minister is uncalled for and unacceptable. Even the pull-Down syndrome, in this case, has been taken too far hence the need for caution. If there is evidence to back up claims, the rational thing to do is to present to the relevant agencies of government and not this vicious campaign of calumny. Those afraid of Sadiya Farouq must be afraid of her.
Attah writes for TheNigerian News, London.
By Capt. Jauro Musa Liya (Rtd)
It is becoming a common knowledge that the unnecessary clamor and call for the sack of service chiefs has a hidden hand. If the call by Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) for sack of service chiefs is anything to go by, then we can point at where the voices of distractions and some actions that constitute security threats or compound the security challenges we are currently facing are emanating from.
The persistent and relentless call for the sack of service chiefs is tie to politics, forgetting that the problem of insecurity in Nigeria was created by politics with the army and other security agencies at the receiving end.
The so called Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) despite bringing over forty political parties to wrestle power in 2019 general elections, felt threatened by an obvious defeat by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and controversially announced the endorsement of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant as it’s presidential candidate.
The aforementioned coalition is simply a contraption to stop the ruling APC, but having lost roundly and squarely, it has become a lame duck and an agent of distraction. It keeps confusing it’s role for a pressure group with youthful exuberance and clear lack of forsight. It has since thrown caution and decorum to the wind and dabbles into everything except a better plan or solutions to their barrage of misguided criticisms. This time, it has dabbled into the debate on the tenure of service chiefs and threatened to sue the president for not sacking the service chiefs. This is particularly curious because a group of political parties who aligned to the opposition, and endorsed a presidential aspirant who once vowed to make Nigeria ungovernable, took this ignoble step hours after the convoy of the governor of Borno State was “attacked” along Baga road. I suggest that the deliberate timing for this ridiculous action of CUPP should form part of areas of investigation by any one interested to unearth the truth on the recent alleged or so called master minded attack on the convoy of the Governor in a town where peace has since been restored with normal life and socio-economic activities seamlessly taking place.
It should be noted that the tenure of Service Chiefs and the conditions for their appointment is provided for in the Harmonized Terms and Conditions of Service (HTACOS) 2017 for the Armed Forces. It spells out the ‘Tenure of Defence and Service Chiefs’. Section 11.08 stipulates;
“An officer appointed Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of the Naval Staff, Chief of the Air Staff shall bear four-star General and may hold the appointment for a continuous period of 2 years from the date of expiration of the initial 2 year period”.
Section 11.09 stipulates – “The foregoing notwithstanding;
“The President, C-in-C reserves the prerogative to extend the tenure of a CDS/Service Chief irrespective of his age or length of service”
It therefore very clear from the above, that there is no time or age limit on the tenure of service chiefs provided they are mentally and physically sound to shoulder the onerous responsibilities of the offices.
As President, Muhamnadu Buhari knows and understands the position of the law, and at his disposal is an array of legal luminaries. He equally has more information regarding the security situation in Nigeria as he gets his briefs directly from the service chiefs and other credible sources. He is therefore eminently the right arbiter and the most qualified authority to decide because he, more than any other person knows where the problems are.
We are dealing with a very serious issue than just collecting monies to organize press conferences and making bunkum calls for the sack of service chiefs.
This is why the call by CUPP is laughable and disgraceful. When some political parties say a particular crop of leaders in the military should be removed for whatever reason, it sounds very odd and amounts to reductio ad absurdum. We are dealing with a national issue, an issue of national pride and national interest and significance which shouldn’t be bastardise or stultify on the alter of politics, personal hatred and local rivalry at the detriment of national peace, security and development.
The desperation, politicisation and trivialisation of Nigeria’s security by vested interests and cohorts became alarming when the coalition of political groups called for the sack of service chiefs. It is embarrassing when the group didn’t deem it fit to commend the sacrifices and uncommon commitment of the security agencies and applaud them for retaking over lost territories as well as the successes recorded at various theaters of operations across Nigeria.
The fundamental strides of the army chief in particular, who restored the morale of the officers and men of the Nigerian Army in diverse ways which accounted for the noticeable successes recorded in the war against terrorism and banditry especially in the North East and North West operational arenas.