The Chinese customs has suspended the import of products of 99 cold-chain food manufacturers from 20 countries that reported cluster COVID-19 infections among employees, according to the General Administration of Customs.
The Chinese Ministry of Transport also, on Monday, released a guideline to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 through imported cold chain foods in road and water transportation.
It urged all companies, docks, and freight terminals involved in cold-chain logistics to protect their frontline employees, stressing protective equipment distribution, temperature checks, and regular nucleic acid testing.
Stricter disinfection measures should apply to transportation, with transportation equipment for imported cold-chain foods, including vehicles, vessels, and containers to be disinfected regularly, according to the guideline.
The guideline also called for an information registration system to track and trace people, cargos, and vehicles more effectively.
According to the guideline, more efforts should go into emergency handling,
It added that immediate actions must follow to cut off the routes of transmission if any imported food or packaging test positive for coronavirus.
Risks of COVID-19 contamination through imported cold-chain foods are mounting in China.
On November 15, a packaging sample of imported frozen aquatic products and one from imported frozen pork were reported to have tested positive for COVID-19 in east China’s Shandong Province and northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, respectively.
To minimise importation risks, related government departments of the country have rolled out measures to strengthen epidemic prevention and control.
The State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19 has unveiled a plan to realise full-chain, closed-loop, traceable management of imported cold-chain foods.
They vowed to conduct complete disinfection of those products, novel coronavirus tests at the ports, and ensure all imported cold-chain foods entering the market are traceable.
Also, Chinese customs have suspended the import of products of 99 cold-chain food manufacturers from 20 countries that reported cluster COVID-19 infections among employees, according to the General Administration of Customs.
A former U.S. First Lady, Michelle Obama, Monday evening took aim at President Donald Trump for his refusal to concede after losing the November 3 presidential election.
In an Instagram post, Mrs Obama said the love of country required everyone to respect election results even when unfavorable.
She wrote: “The presidency doesn’t belong to any one individual or any one party.
“To pretend that it does, to play along with these groundless conspiracy theories, whether for personal or political gain, is to put our country’s health and security in danger.
“This isn’t a game.
“So I want to urge all Americans, especially our nation’s leaders, regardless of party, to honour the electoral process and do your part to encourage a smooth transition of power, just as sitting presidents have done throughout our history.”
The former First Lady recalled her struggle after Mr Trump defeated Hillary Clinton “by a far closer margin” in the 2016 presidential election.
Mrs Obama said although she and her husband were hurt and disappointed, they listened to the voice of the people and immediately set the transition ball rolling.
“The American people had spoken. And one of the great responsibilities of the presidency is to listen when they do.
“So, my husband and I instructed our staff members to do what George and Laura Bush had done for us: run a respectful, seamless transition of power – one of the hallmarks of American democracy.
“We invited the folks from the president-elect’s team into our offices and prepared detailed memos for them, offering what we’d learned over the past eight years.
“I have to be honest and say that none of this was easy for me,” she said.
Mrs Obama further wrote that Mr Trump had “spread racist lies” about her husband that had exposed her family to danger.
It was not something she was ready to forgive, according to her, but she mustered the strength and maturity to let go for the sake of the country.
“So, I welcomed Melania Trump into the White House and talked with her about my experience, answering every question she had, from the heightened scrutiny that comes with being First Lady to what it’s like to raise kids in the White House.
“I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do, because our democracy is so much bigger than anybody’s ego,” she disclosed.
The 2020 election was called in favour of former Vice President Joe Biden on November 7, after crossing the 270 electoral college votes required to win the race.
But Mr Trump, who has refused to concede, is claiming that the votes were rigged against him.
The president, who is challenging the election in court in key battleground states, is impeding a smooth transition of power to Mr Biden.
RIVERS State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has said the signing of the Executive Order 10 by President Buhari is a ploy by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to gain political mileage in 2023 general election.
The governor warned that the Federal Government would destroy the criminal justice system in states if the Executive Order 10 is implemented.
Wike said there is more to the Executive Order 10 which permits the deduction of funds from each state account to finance the judiciary than granting independence to that arm of government.
The governor made this assertion in his keynote address presented at the 3rd Annual Nigerian Criminal Law Review Conference organised by the Rule of Law Development Foundation in Abuja on Monday.
President Muhammadu Buhari had, on May 25, 2020, signed the Executive Order 10 to grant financial autonomy to the judiciary and Houses of Assembly in states.
Wike stated that by enacting Executive Order 10, the Federal Government which he said had been hostile to judges “now suddenly wants to lure the judiciary to assume it believes in the independence of the judiciary” ahead of the 2023 general election.
“Independence is not to take resources and preside over award of contract. If you cannot give judgment according to your conscience; if you cannot give judgment according to the law, then there is no independence. And this of course affects the criminal justice system,”
Wike further accused the Federal Government of politicising security, saying it would continue to negatively affect the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
He said the prevailing cases of kidnapping, banditry and armed robbery that threatened the very existence and stability of the nation clearly justified the establishment of state or community police.
He observed that while the establishment of state police may require amendment of the extant Section 214(1) of the 1999 Constitution, “the Rivers State Government is of the opinion that community police or Neighbourhood Watch could be established without constitutional amendment”.
“The truth of the matter is that with the current strength of the Nigeria Police Force which stands at about 372000 (Three Hundred and Seventy Two Thousand), the Nigeria Police Force lacks the operational capacity to fulfil its primary or core mandate of crime detection, crime prevention and maintenance of public safety, law and order or protection of lives and property of persons in Nigeria.
“To put it plainly, the Nigeria Police lacks the operational capacity to police the nation which is a federation of about 923.768km (356.669 sqm) with an estimated population of 195.9 million. It is this stark reality that informs call for establishment of State Police to provide complementary role to the Nigeria Police Force in crime detection, prevention, and maintenance of law and order.”
He explained that it was against this background that the Rivers State Government enacted the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps Law, No. 8 of 2018 which established the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps Agency as a corporate body and vested with power to establish uniformed Neighbourhood Safety Corps in the 23 Local government Areas of the State and to prescribe regulations guiding the operations of the Safety Corps and any other local government vigilante group in the state.
In furtherance of this law, he stated that recruitment and training of members of the uniformed Neighbourhood Safety Corps commenced at the NYSC Orientation Camp, Nonwa in Tai LGA, after obtaining all necessary approvals from the Nigerian Army and other relevant security agencies.
“But, unfortunately, the exercise was violently disrupted by the Nigerian Army, claiming it was illegal and unconstitutional,” the governor lamented.
Wike said despite a recent court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps, the Army has refused to allow it to carry out its recruitment and training of personnel.
The Lagos State Government has said starting from Tuesday, (today) the service lane inbound Maryland from the end of the Gani Fawehinmi Park to the end of the second pedestrian bridge in Ojota would be partially closed for six weeks.
According to the statement signed by the state commissioner for transportation, Dr Frederic Oladeinde, on Monday, the partial closure is to allow the contractor handling the stretch of the project from Ojota to Maryland to continue with the next phase of the construction, which includes the reconstruction of the Ikorodu road.
As a result of this new arrangement, motorists coming from Ikeja axis are advised to use 7UP road through Billings way to link Oregun/Kudirat Abiola Way inbound Ikorodu road by Ojota bus stop.
Oladeinde explained that traffic inward Ojota Bus stop/Maryland from the Ibadan-Lagos Expressway could either proceed to Oworonshoki/Gbagada or descend the loop by Abiola Garden to connect Ikorodu road (inbound Ketu).
He added that they could ascend the loop back to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway through the loop beside LAMATA Office to access Ikorodu road to Ojota.
Also, the commissioner assured that adequate road signs have been provided to guide motorists movement.
As her novel Half of a Yellow Sun is hailed as the Women’s prize ‘winner of winners’, the Nigerian-born, US-based author talks about her relief over Joe Biden’s victory – and the bittersweet highs of a difficult year.
Photograph: Manny Jefferson
A FEW hours before Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I are due to speak, the result of the US election is finally called. The Nigerian novelist, who is based in Maryland but is currently in Lagos, where she spends part of the year, had been on her way back from taking her daughter to a birthday party when she heard the news. “The moment that we’ve been waiting for,” she says. “Everyone was calling: my best friend, my mum, my sister called, we were all sort of screaming down the phone.” Her husband, a hospital doctor, had returned to the US the previous week. “He and I were going crazy,” she says. “I was almost close to tears because I thought this is really about people who just want decency back. I feel it is really not ideological, it is more about wanting something human and humane. I find it so moving.”
As it is for so many, her relief is tempered by disappointment at Donald Trump’s unexpectedly strong performance. “I’ve always felt that Trump is as much America as Obama,” she says. “People on the left like to say ‘This is not America’, but actually it is. If you look at the history of America, it is not that surprising that Trump is so popular.” People feel “very threatened” both by the idea of a more inclusive, multiracial politics and women having more overt power, she says. So the victory for Kamala Harris as the first black female vice-president-elect is all the more thrilling.
“It is impossible to talk about her, about what’s happened today, without thinking about what might happen in four or eight years – that she might in fact become president,” Adichie says. “Even if just for the symbolism of it, because the symbolic nature of leadership is important.”
The reason for our call is the announcement that Adichie has won the public vote in the Winner of Winner’s award, celebrating 25 years of the Women’s prize for fiction. She won the award, when it was sponsored by Orange, in 2007, for her epic war novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, beating many of the biggest names in contemporary fiction.
We are talking on Zoom, London to Lagos, a conversation repeatedly interrupted by a poor internet connection and children in the manner that has become all too familiar in 2020. It has been an especially difficult year for Adichie, who has lost two aunts and her beloved father, a retired statistics professor (Nigeria’s first), who died unexpectedly from complications of kidney failure in June. The pandemic meant she couldn’t return to Nigeria, and the funeral, a traditional Igbo ceremony, had to be delayed until October. In a heartbreaking piece entitled “Notes on Grief” in the New Yorker she describes a “surreal” Zoom call with her family after his death. “All of us weeping and weeping and weeping, in different parts of the world, looking in disbelief at the father we adore now lying still on a hospital bed.”
Today she is wearing a bright purple T-shirt with “My father’s daughter” emblazoned in Igbo on the front, one of several she had made. “I really found this so therapeutic. It is ridiculous how many T-shirts I designed. I wear them and I feel comforted.” Rather incongruous with her shorts and top, her hair has been elaborately styled for a photoshoot for the Women’s prize, a combination that sums up her overwhelming sense of “pretending through tears”. Earlier she was overcome by an impulse to call her father and talk to him about Joe Biden. He would have been the first person she told about this new award. But she was pleased to be able to call her mother “and have her look delighted, even if only briefly. But yeah I’m really happy,” she says, tearfully.
OVER its 25 years, the Women’s prize has set out to “reflect women’s voices from all over the world”, its watchwords are “excellence, originality and accessibility”. Adichie credits the prize with helping her find a mainstream readership: her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, about a young girl growing up with both a tyrannical father and a military coup to contend with, was shortlisted in 2004, “which really made people know that I existed”. When she won three years later for Half of a Yellow Sun, the book was received not as “an African novel”, or a novel “by a woman”, but simply as a novel, she says. “I’m just so damn grateful.”
Since then she has gone on to share a stage with Hillary Clinton and have tea with Oprah Winfrey; her books are a staple of school reading lists and she inadvertently found herself a poster girl for modern feminism after her 2012 TED talk, We Should All Be Feminists, went stratospheric and was distributed in book form to every 16-year-old in Sweden. It is hard to think of another writer whose words might be borrowed by Beyoncé for a song and by Dior for T-shirts. And now, aged 43, she has been chosen as the “best of the best” of a quarter of a century of women’s fiction.
She can’t account for the enduring popularity of Half of a Yellow Sun – a novel that, 13 years after its publication, readers voted for over hits such as Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, Andrea Levy’s Small Island or this year’s winner, Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet – but it is a book she loves. “It is the one that made me believe in this kind of mystical thing, that I was meant to write the story and that my grandfather’s spirit wanted me to,” she says.
It is especially pleasing that the honour has been given to a novel, “my most personal by far”, that couldn’t have been written without her father. Set during the Biafran war of 1967-70, in which both her grandfathers died, Half of a Yellow Sun grew out of the stories Adichie heard as a child growing up in the aftermath of the conflict, many of which were told by her father. “He was a very good storyteller”, she corrects herself after using the present tense. “I read a lot about that period, but I like to say that what I got from the books were the facts, but from the stories people told me I got the truth.” All of the horrors that happen in the book are based on real incidents, including the burning of her father’s books in their front yard. “It was just a very petty, ugly thing to do, to say ‘Fuck you’ to academics and intellectuals,” she says. “ I can’t imagine losing my books, the books I love.”
It wasn’t until she was at graduate school at Johns Hopkins University that Adichie finally started writing Half of a Yellow Sun, which then came in a rush of furious concentration. She would write all day, stopping only for occasional bouts on her skipping rope, barely leaving her tiny apartment in Baltimore except to stock up on snacks. One day she ventured out to the shop and was terrified to discover the city was in the grip of a cicada invasion, which had been in the news for days. Halfway through writing, she “needed to walk the paths that my grandfather had walked”, and so she returned to write at her parents’ home in Nsukka, the town in Igboland where she had grown up. Throughout, she was weighed down by responsibility, the awarenessthat for many “this book will not just be literature, it will be history. I think I’ve done with feelingthe dutiful daughter of history,” she says.
In what has become part of Adichie legend, her hero Chinua Achebe set the novel on its way when he christened her “a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers” before it was even published. Her editor read his words to her over the phone. “Honestly, I remember thinking, if nothing else happens with this book, this is enough.”
Her next novel, Americanah, released in 2013, is a warm, witty but angry look at what it means to be black in the States. “I went to the US and had to learn about race,” she says. The novel builds euphorically to the election of Barack Obama in 2008. “Oh my God, Pennsylvania!” one of the characters exclaims in a prophetic echo of the last few hours we have just witnessed. The scene ends with heroine Ifemelu mesmerised by the “resplendent crowd of the hopeful” welcoming the new president-elect. “There was at that moment, nothing that was more beautiful to her than America.”
Adichie shares Ifemelu’s respect for “the idea of America”, despite a “clear-eyed” awareness of its problems, and the way in which her admiration has been eroded by the last four years under Trump, as she has “watched America become ordinary. It felt almost like a personal loss. Suddenly the thing that I thought was shiny no longer was. Suddenly America was a place that we could laugh about and mock.”
She hopes that the election of Biden will usher in a return to public civility. “I’m really excited at the idea that the discourse across the country will not sound like childish name calling. There’s a sadness there that this is how low the bar has sunk,” she says. “When you are Nigerian there are things that are familiar to you. You don’t expect them to happen in America. Trump showed me how fragile democracy is, how fragile what we consider the norms are.”
Does she feel hopeful for America in general? “I can’t answer that now. If I answer that today because I have a bit of a high I would lie to you.” But one undoubted cause for optimism is the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. “At least the American left is willing now to really engage with racism,” she says. The protests have “forced the conversation and forced the shift to something more tangible, forced actions. It felt like a real, raw movement. I felt like young black people were letting the pain out.”
She is cautious to avoid what she regards as “a quickness to self-righteousness” on the left. She could write a character who would find Trump appealing, she says: “It makes a kind of emotional logic to me as a novelist.” She’s already “had fun” with Melania Trump (in a short story for the New York Times), for whom she felt a “kind of sympathy”, although she now thinks she was probably “too kind”.
WHEN I last spoke to Adichie following the paperback publication of Dear Ijeawele in 2018, her manifesto for bringing up a feminist daughter, she had recently been on the wrong end of what she calls “the American liberal orthodoxy” for comments she made arguing that the experiences of trans women are distinct from those of women born female. She has no truck with “cancel culture” (her quote marks). “There’s a sense in which you aren’t allowed to learn and grow. Also forgiveness is out of the question. I find it so lacking in compassion. How much of our wonderfully complex human selves are we losing?” she asks. “I think in America the worst kind of censorship is self-censorship, and it is something America is exporting to every part of the world. We have to be so careful: you said the wrong word you must be crucified immediately.” She was interested by “all the noise” sparked by JK Rowling’s article on sex and gender, “a perfectly reasonable piece” in her view, earlier this year. “Again JK Rowling is a woman who is progressive, who clearly stands for and believes in diversity.” She blames social media for this rush to censure, which she finds both “cruel and sad. And in terms of ideas, it is fundamentally uninteresting. The orthodoxy, the idea that you are supposed to mouth the words, it is so boring.In general, human beings are emotionally intelligent enough to know when something is coming from a bad place.”
DESPITE the political darkness in which she grew up, Adichie’s writing about her childhood shines with love and laughter; the clever young Chimamanda was always supported intellectually and emotionally. This helped to make her fearless. “Because I’ve had my family behind me I’ve never really felt that I cannot say what I think because I’m going to upset somebody.” Her brothers still laugh at the fuss that is made of her in Nigeria, rolling their eyes when people want to take pictures with her. In writerly circles in the US, she has found herself feeling “almost guilty”, and wonders how much the idea of the writer as the product of a joyless childhood is a western thing.“I feel like I have many many issues as I am, right,” she laughs. “I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if I had not had a happy childhood.”
But now her world has changed. “My father really was the loveliest man.” She looks back to a housewarming party her sister held in January. “Everybody felt really hopeful about 2020. My dad was there and my aunt was there. It is so strange to think that in only three months she would be dead and in five my dad would be gone,” she says. “I really do feel that I’ve been remade. I feel that I’ve been remade by grief.”
Even though it is late in Lagos, she is off to read her daughter a bedtime story and then she is going to start Half of a Yellow Sun, which she hasn’t reread for a longtime: “I want to go back and find the person I was then.”
• The Women’s prize for fiction will host an exclusive online live event with Adichie on 6 December at 7pm.
I have noticed much of cacophonic noises about the alleged shootings and deaths in Lagos Lekki Toll Gate by Nigerian soldiers. The voices are strange and confusing, but loud enough to cause insomnia even to birds of the air and cause disquiet in the abodes of ancestors in their graves.
Some people tell me, this land of Oduduwa has been polluted and defiled with blood seeking for the offenders. They say the gods are angry and seeking vengeance on the enemies. Others tell me, there were blood stains or dead bodies at Lekki. Unclear shaky fingers are pointing at massacres in Lekki, which are invisible in every sense.
The fury in me and my patriots is much; we must be our brother’s keeper; it’s a divine command. We are preparing for war to avenge the alleged brutal deaths of our beloved ones by the men in khaki.
But do we have a genuine reason to seek vengeance? The more I think, the more perplexed and forlorn I feel with my inner self. My dilemma is compounded by the lies told and retold by wisemen and women of today. They are unlike the wisemen of the Bible. There is a blend of darkness and light in an odd marital bliss. But can darkness and light co-habit?
Are my senses failing me? Did I hear some loud whispers saying, no one died? No! It is impossible! I beg to differ. Someone and something died at Lekki on that dark night of October 20. The screams and clatters shuddered even sleeping dogs into wakefulness. Anyone who says there was no massacre in Lekki must be day-dreaming and snoring. Yes! Something was massacred in Lekki.
Unfortunately, the only victim of Lekki “massacre” known to me, who died is TRUTH. And truth died with neither children nor relations to mourn his wretched soul. Yes, he is the only casualty in Lekki. His friends denied him; likewise, neighbours, but dirges resonated far into heaven to bemoan his innocence.
Truth, a poor and orphaned lad graced the world a loner and also, died a loner. I am not surprised because the modern world is complex. I begged to be his companion when he was alive, but Mr. Truth rejected me. But I will be his friend in death and mourn his demise wholeheartedly. I will invite kings and queens to his funeral. I will invite my friends all over Nigeria and abroad to the interment ceremony of Mr. Truth. I will wail until God Himself hears me out and send His angels to console me.
I will prove to those who said, there was no casualty at Lekki that Mr. Truth was murdered in cold blood. Oh, my dear friend, Mr. Truth, only God chases away flies from a cow without a tail. Mr. Truth roamed the world unnoticed. He came to Nigeria, but we never welcomed him with a sweet lullaby. We scorned and ridiculed him publicly. Bureaucrats’, politicians, activists and hoodlums jeered at him. Mr. Truth finally landed in Lekki, Lagos and coldly murdered by hired merchants of blackmail and hate.
But Mr. Truth was kind and generous. He was a protective shield for all. Everyone he met found his exemplary peace, love, compassion and consolation endearing. Mr. Truth fought the battles of others and neither demanded a penny nor appreciation from them. He risked his life to save others.
He played the sacrificial lamp all the times. Yet, he was unconscionably and wickedly massacred in Lekki. Such cruelty by humanity baffles me limitlessly. Surely, Mr. Truth shall reincarnate someday to savour the grace of Jehovah God and mock the callousness of his killers. I have no doubt that he will emerge stronger and sit on the throne of kings in the ambience of purity, deriding those who prematurely terminated his life.
I have extensively read and written on the alleged Lekki massacre many times since the incident occurred. I can comfortably claim a fair knowledge of what exactly transpired at Lekki. And I sensed a big gulf between reality and the spiteful rejigged narrations of the incident as bandied in public domain. Again, having attended all the sittings and listened to the actors at the Judicial Panel of Inquiry, so far, I feel obliged as a human rights activist to join other Nigerians and the rest of the world to satirically mourn the death of truth. Indeed, truth was massacred at Lekki.
The deliberate murder of truth was done not by the power of any gun nor any official authority. It wasn’t even the soldiers or other security agents. But the felonious instincts of #EndSARS protesters themselves and their sponsors. In killing the truth, the protesters murdered conscience; they strangulated Lagos to suffocation and rubbed mud in the face of Nigeria.
The protesters, their acolytes, conspirators and promoters fooled us to murder the truth. Our activists joined in the fray of murderers of the truth. Some of our celebrities chorused the antiphonies in loud jubilations after the death of Mr. Truth. A handful politicians and leaders sounded the death knell on the truth; they unabashedly passed a verdict of guilt on his innocence. The soil of the earth became hardened and refused to be excavated to host the cadaver of Mr. Truth. The labourers tried in vain. But the mystery must be unfolded.
The ghost of Mr. Truth is prowling the land hauntingly in search of the executioners of his innocent soul. The gods are angry. Time has come to invite the chief priest of Atakwu-enyi shrine to appease the gods for the great evil committed. The land must be cleansed of all filth.
Now, I agree with everyone that there was a massacre in Lekki. It was the truth who died in the hands of heartless people. Both the initiators of the actions leading to the gruesome murder of truth and the onlookers are guilty in same depth. What a perfidious generation passionately aloof to truth.
Quite ironic, we all like the truth elsewhere; but have refused to uphold his doctrines or preserve his antecedents in Lekki and Nigeria. Therefore, the US was fooled on Lekki. The United Nations (UN) was fooled. The UK was fooled. The EU was fooled. Even our Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were fooled in their multitudes. Royal fathers were deceived, likewise the clergy. Human rights bodies swallowed the pill of dishonesty and displayed a nauseating dose of intoxication.
Sacred pulpits of evangelism became campaign podiums for the sentencing of Mr. Truth to death. He had no protector or sentinel to shield him from the killer lies and menacing poisonous blades. The gullible amongst us experienced faked post mortem analysis and conversions like the Biblically prophesied apocalypse on why Mr. Truth was killed. So, indeed, the truth died by our collective actions and irritating indifference.
The day of Armageddon is knocking hard on our doorsteps. But are we sane enough to reminisce how we murdered truth? How was truth murdered? We were told lies that our troops were killing defenseless citizens and we sent it viral on social media platforms, without confirmation. We were told the Army interfered with a civil protest uninvited in brazen violation of extant laws of Nigeria. It was falsehood at its peak.
The haters lied to us that the Army Morgue in Lagos was the secret mass grave of the slain Lekki 78. We were told dead bodies of Lekki massacres were all over the streets of Lagos. But we woke up to a peaceful city, with no dead bodies or decomposing corpse anywhere. Only the deserted corpse of Mr. Truth was found abandoned in the morgue, in the media, on TV screens, in the open air, treetops and on the streets of Lagos.
But in truth, nobody died from gunshot wounds; no mortuary in Lagos preserved the corpse of the Lekki victims of the alleged soldiers’ barbaric brutality; no graves of the victims anywhere; no mourners or relations or siblings of the dead is known to date. We were told someone counted 78 dead bodies, but there were no missing persons at break of dawn.
And the pigheaded rights activists told us another fantastic lie again. They claimed relations of the Lekki victims dreaded coming out to testify at the probe panel for fear of intimidation and harassments. What a poorly crafted lie; a vicious cycle of rehearsed deceit.
However, can they show us the graves? Can they take the probe panel members to the graves of the Lekki #EndSARS casualties? These are questions the ghost of Mr. Truth is wandering the land restlessly and begging for answers from a humanity which terribly wronged him. Oh! May you Rest In Peace, Mr. Truth; Rest In Peace, Truth, the indomitable hero of our times! The fight is above me; it is only of the gods of the great shrine who have the prowess. Adieu!
Agbese is a human rights activist based in the United Kingdom.
I have noticed much of cacophonic noises about the alleged shootings and deaths in Lagos Lekki Toll Gate by Nigerian soldiers. The voices are strange and confusing, but loud enough to cause insomnia even to birds of the air and cause disquiet in the abodes of ancestors in their graves.
Some people tell me, this land of Oduduwa has been polluted and defiled with blood seeking for the offenders. They say the gods are angry and seeking vengeance on the enemies. Others tell me, there were blood stains or dead bodies at Lekki. Unclear shaky fingers are pointing at massacres in Lekki, which are invisible in every sense.
The fury in me and my patriots is much; we must be our brother’s keeper; it’s a divine command. We are preparing for war to avenge the alleged brutal deaths of our beloved ones by the men in khaki.
But do we have a genuine reason to seek vengeance? The more I think, the more perplexed and forlorn I feel with my inner self. My dilemma is compounded by the lies told and retold by wisemen and women of today. They are unlike the wisemen of the Bible. There is a blend of darkness and light in an odd marital bliss. But can darkness and light co-habit?
Are my senses failing me? Did I hear some loud whispers saying, no one died? No! It is impossible! I beg to differ. Someone and something died at Lekki on that dark night of October 20. The screams and clatters shuddered even sleeping dogs into wakefulness. Anyone who says there was no massacre in Lekki must be day-dreaming and snoring. Yes! Something was massacred in Lekki.
Unfortunately, the only victim of Lekki “massacre” known to me, who died is TRUTH. And truth died with neither children nor relations to mourn his wretched soul. Yes, he is the only casualty in Lekki. His friends denied him; likewise, neighbours, but dirges resonated far into heaven to bemoan his innocence.
Truth, a poor and orphaned lad graced the world a loner and also, died a loner. I am not surprised because the modern world is complex. I begged to be his companion when he was alive, but Mr. Truth rejected me. But I will be his friend in death and mourn his demise wholeheartedly. I will invite kings and queens to his funeral. I will invite my friends all over Nigeria and abroad to the interment ceremony of Mr. Truth. I will wail until God Himself hears me out and send His angels to console me.
I will prove to those who said, there was no casualty at Lekki that Mr. Truth was murdered in cold blood. Oh, my dear friend, Mr. Truth, only God chases away flies from a cow without a tail. Mr. Truth roamed the world unnoticed. He came to Nigeria, but we never welcomed him with a sweet lullaby. We scorned and ridiculed him publicly. Bureaucrats’, politicians, activists and hoodlums jeered at him. Mr. Truth finally landed in Lekki, Lagos and coldly murdered by hired merchants of blackmail and hate.
But Mr. Truth was kind and generous. He was a protective shield for all. Everyone he met found his exemplary peace, love, compassion and consolation endearing. Mr. Truth fought the battles of others and neither demanded a penny nor appreciation from them. He risked his life to save others.
He played the sacrificial lamp all the times. Yet, he was unconscionably and wickedly massacred in Lekki. Such cruelty by humanity baffles me limitlessly. Surely, Mr. Truth shall reincarnate someday to savour the grace of Jehovah God and mock the callousness of his killers. I have no doubt that he will emerge stronger and sit on the throne of kings in the ambience of purity, deriding those who prematurely terminated his life.
I have extensively read and written on the alleged Lekki massacre many times since the incident occurred. I can comfortably claim a fair knowledge of what exactly transpired at Lekki. And I sensed a big gulf between reality and the spiteful rejigged narrations of the incident as bandied in public domain. Again, having attended all the sittings and listened to the actors at the Judicial Panel of Inquiry, so far, I feel obliged as a human rights activist to join other Nigerians and the rest of the world to satirically mourn the death of truth. Indeed, truth was massacred at Lekki.
The deliberate murder of truth was done not by the power of any gun nor any official authority. It wasn’t even the soldiers or other security agents. But the felonious instincts of #EndSARS protesters themselves and their sponsors. In killing the truth, the protesters murdered conscience; they strangulated Lagos to suffocation and rubbed mud in the face of Nigeria.
The protesters, their acolytes, conspirators and promoters fooled us to murder the truth. Our activists joined in the fray of murderers of the truth. Some of our celebrities chorused the antiphonies in loud jubilations after the death of Mr. Truth. A handful politicians and leaders sounded the death knell on the truth; they unabashedly passed a verdict of guilt on his innocence. The soil of the earth became hardened and refused to be excavated to host the cadaver of Mr. Truth. The labourers tried in vain. But the mystery must be unfolded.
The ghost of Mr. Truth is prowling the land hauntingly in search of the executioners of his innocent soul. The gods are angry. Time has come to invite the chief priest of Atakwu-enyi shrine to appease the gods for the great evil committed. The land must be cleansed of all filth.
Now, I agree with everyone that there was a massacre in Lekki. It was the truth who died in the hands of heartless people. Both the initiators of the actions leading to the gruesome murder of truth and the onlookers are guilty in same depth. What a perfidious generation passionately aloof to truth.
Quite ironic, we all like the truth elsewhere; but have refused to uphold his doctrines or preserve his antecedents in Lekki and Nigeria. Therefore, the US was fooled on Lekki. The United Nations (UN) was fooled. The UK was fooled. The EU was fooled. Even our Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were fooled in their multitudes. Royal fathers were deceived, likewise the clergy. Human rights bodies swallowed the pill of dishonesty and displayed a nauseating dose of intoxication.
Sacred pulpits of evangelism became campaign podiums for the sentencing of Mr. Truth to death. He had no protector or sentinel to shield him from the killer lies and menacing poisonous blades. The gullible amongst us experienced faked post mortem analysis and conversions like the Biblically prophesied apocalypse on why Mr. Truth was killed. So, indeed, the truth died by our collective actions and irritating indifference.
The day of Armageddon is knocking hard on our doorsteps. But are we sane enough to reminisce how we murdered truth? How was truth murdered? We were told lies that our troops were killing defenseless citizens and we sent it viral on social media platforms, without confirmation. We were told the Army interfered with a civil protest uninvited in brazen violation of extant laws of Nigeria. It was falsehood at its peak.
The haters lied to us that the Army Morgue in Lagos was the secret mass grave of the slain Lekki 78. We were told dead bodies of Lekki massacres were all over the streets of Lagos. But we woke up to a peaceful city, with no dead bodies or decomposing corpse anywhere. Only the deserted corpse of Mr. Truth was found abandoned in the morgue, in the media, on TV screens, in the open air, treetops and on the streets of Lagos.
But in truth, nobody died from gunshot wounds; no mortuary in Lagos preserved the corpse of the Lekki victims of the alleged soldiers’ barbaric brutality; no graves of the victims anywhere; no mourners or relations or siblings of the dead is known to date. We were told someone counted 78 dead bodies, but there were no missing persons at break of dawn.
And the pigheaded rights activists told us another fantastic lie again. They claimed relations of the Lekki victims dreaded coming out to testify at the probe panel for fear of intimidation and harassments. What a poorly crafted lie; a vicious cycle of rehearsed deceit.
However, can they show us the graves? Can they take the probe panel members to the graves of the Lekki #EndSARS casualties? These are questions the ghost of Mr. Truth is wandering the land restlessly and begging for answers from a humanity which terribly wronged him. Oh! May you Rest In Peace, Mr. Truth; Rest In Peace, Truth, the indomitable hero of our times! The fight is above me; it is only of the gods of the great shrine who have the prowess. Adieu!
Even weeks after, the haunting ghost of the completely senseless and subversive #EndSARS protests have refused to desert me. I kept wondering why a sane man or woman would take a knife and consciously inflict a cut on his body in the guise of anything or for whatever excuse. That’s the highest grade of self-masochism. But some Nigerians excitedly did it to themselves.
There is no mystery I have found completely very complex to interpret in recent times like the madness exhibited by #EndSARS protesters, particularly in Southern Nigeria. Understandably and for these reasons, the reverberations of the destructive #EndSARS protests have refused to dissipate in my psyche.
It is basically because the overt and covert protagonists of the dubious protests have refused to bow to reason, more especially as they now sit back to take census of the awful ruins, they caused to themselves, states and the country. What is more baffling to me again is the actors’ thoughtlessly ruinous move to the next level of threats and intimidation of the Government of Nigeria led by President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigeria Army, who rather saved the day.
What keeps recurring on my mind is the name of rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) and his clan of street activists on human rights. I have not read of the history of any country where the bargain for the enforcement of human rights of citizens or a drastic change in an unpopular government policy should lead to such public roguery and destruction of national assets. I stand corrected.
But the Falanas are more comfortable with suppressing the truth and elevating lies to officialdom. Meanwhile, these are supposedly senior citizens of the country. In spite of the upbraids and the disfigured idiosyncrasies flaunted by some people, I have no modicum of doubt that justice still exists in Nigeria. Our leader, President Buhari still allows all components and institutions of a democratic nation function maximally and without interference.
That’s why I believe designers of Nigeria’s symbol of Justice must have been wisemen or people imbued with the Solomonic wisdom. The stature displays a blind folded woman, with a sword in the right hand, and scales in the left hand. In the ancient world, the fragrance of truth and innocence of humanity was more expressed by women. Our forefathers of whatever clime were right.
Let me remind that Nigeria’s Lady Justice represents this philosophical thought. Lady Justice derives her originality from the Roman Goddess “Justitia” who shares the same prowess with “Dike” the Greek Goddess. In the ancient Greek world, both goddesses were famed for truth regardless of whoever was involved. They had diabolical or superstitious influence to fish out a liar, extract the truth and severely punish the culprit for lying to the gods.
The contents of 1 Kings 3:16-28 reminds me of that profound virtues of truth embedded in women as reflected in the Holy Bible. In the Holy Scriptures, most episodes we encounter about women signifies them as a creation more amenable to truth and honesty than their male folk. Even in today’s adulterated world, true women of virtue still stand for truth and abhors injustice or falsehood.
A rewind of the expired #EndSARS protests struck me strongly about the Biblical story of the two mothers who lived under the same roof and gave birth to babies on the same day. One of the mothers mistakenly smothered her baby to death. But satanic instincts influenced her and dubiously, in the course of the nigh, she cleverly exchanged her dead infant with that of the woman whose baby was alive. A controversy and quarrel ensued between the two mothers.
The matter came before King Solomon of ancient Israel for Judgement as each of the mothers claimed ownership of the baby alive. The King called for a sword and thus, declared his judgment; “the baby would be cut in two, each woman to receive half.” The impostor mother consented to the decision instantly; while the actual biological mother hotly contested it and preferred her child’s survival in whoever’s hand’s than the killing.
The biological mother passionately begged; “Give the baby to her, just don’t kill him!” King Solomon thus declared the second woman the true mother, as the real mother of the baby alive. King Solomon was nowhere near where the evil was contrived and executed. But he sensed the truth in words and actions of the real biological mother of the baby alive.
These are lessons we must cherish and learn from it and Nigeria’s emblem of justice derives its potency from the purity of a virtuous woman’s heart. At its core is the touchy lesson that truth can never be concealed and buried forever. When the hour of truth comes, it exhumes it unexpectedly like in the case of the two mothers in the Holy Scriptures.
Falana and his apostates seek desperately to bury the truth about the Lekki Toll Gate incident, where they conspiratorially alleged, soldiers of the Nigerian Army opened fire on unarmed protesters; killing scores in the process. But the casualty figure and proof of it have remained a burden to the masterminds of the fake news. Every avenue of combing for evidence has been exhausted by that witch-hunting the Nigerian Army, but to no avail.
My greatest worry has been that for weeks now, no evidence to align soldiers under the leadership of the COAS Lt. Gen. TY Buratai to any killing has been found. Let’s ignore the desperation of other malicious hunters of Nigerian soldiers.
The anger in me bubbles more against Falana for specific reasons. I have noticed overtime that Falana is a clandestine third force assiduously working for foreign forces against the destabilizations of Nigeria. This lawyer freely aligns with any agenda hatched towards the destruction of Nigeria.
He is always ready to give the back-up force and with his credentials as a lawyer, and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). And because of him, his doomsday slayers and soulmates believe absolutely of their protection under the law.
Let’s forget his previous malfeasances in Nigeria coated in his darkened and defiled silk and gown. But a reminder to Falana again, that he had no reason to conspire with the lawfully detained leader of the proscribed Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) or the Shiites in Nigeria, Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky to mislead the country by feigning his severe sickness and endorsing his evil plot to escape from trial in Nigeria to either Iran or Iraq. These are countries globally acknowledged as the fountain and exporters of terrorism world -wide.
We have not known Falana and coy as the first and only human rights campaigners in Nigeria. But rights and social crusaders of the older generation before Falana, such as Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Tai Solarin (both of blessed memory) and even today’s Prof. Wole Soyinka never compromised patriotism to Nigeria despite the anger against Government.
No one is above the law. All of us are subject to the laws of the land, with Falana is also inclusive. Let him show Nigerians concrete evidence of the claimed shooting of #EndSARS protesters at Lekki in Lagos or else, some of us would be compelled to institute a suit against him for instigating national subversion, killings and destructions.
But if Falana fails to find a cogent and certified evidence, he can only return his honour, escape our retaliation and be pardoned, if he bows to nothing less than humility by apologizing for his wrongdoings against his own country. Falana has been getting away with so many instigations of the populace towards violence. So, #EndSARS protests is one wrong too many. He has the right like every other Nigerian to either love or hate President Buhari or Gen. Buratai. But he mustn’t tell injurious and public instigative lies to justify the hatred.
Mr. Rights Lawyer, Falana, time has come for you to take full responsibility for your actions. Already, I have learnt that some people have dragged him to the Internal Criminal Court (ICC) over the #EndSARS scam of Nigeria. It is my conviction that the only path of plain truth left for Falana is to apologize to Nigerians and the rest of the world for this crime and previous ones he has committed against humanity and his country, Nigeria.
Kalu Esq is a legal practitioner and wrote from Lagos.
Peru’s Congress has chosen legislator Francisco Sagasti as the Andean country’s caretaker president, in an attempt to defuse a sharp political crisis after angry protests and the departure of two presidents in the past week.
People waved the nation’s red-and-white flag and blared horns outside the gates of Congress on Monday as the 76-year-old Sagasti, from the centrist Morado Party, won enough votes to head Congress. This means he will assume the presidency of Peru before national elections called for April.
Sagasti will be Peru’s third president in a week, after interim leader Manuel Merino resigned on Sunday, five days after being sworn in following the impeachment of centrist Martin Vizcarra.
The removal of Vizcarra, who was popular with many Peruvians but angered legislators with his push for anti-corruption measures and attempts to curb parliamentary immunity, sparked days of protests that led to the deaths of two men.
“Today is not a day of celebration,” Sagasti said, striking a sombre tone in his first words after taking office in Congress. “We cannot go back, bring them back to life, but we can take action from Congress, from the executive, so that this does not happen again.”
Sagasti, a former World Bank official and engineer, faces a formidable challenge to bring stability to Peru, which was already hard hit by COVID-19 and heading for its worst economic contraction in a century.
#EndSARS frontliner, Eromosele Adene who was arrested few weeks ago for planning another demonstration has been arraigned in a Lagos court.
Adene was returned to Lagos on Sunday night to appear before a Lagos magistrate court in Yaba after being initially moved to Abuja for interrogation and detention.
He was charged with criminal incitement, cyber stalking, provoking breach of public peace and conduct likely to cause breach of peace.
