Demons on the prowl

The discovery a few days ago, by the Lagos State police command, of a shrine in Ikorodu area of the state where human rituals are taking place is just an indication that there are thousands of similar covens across the country.  A man said to be an independent oil marketer, who also owns the coven conducted the police round the area. In the course of the tour, some graves, including a fresh one, were seen. For some time now, a cult group in Ikorodu which calls itself Badoo has been terrorising innocent people. A number of families had been wiped off by the cultists and ritual killings have been on the increase. Every day, every moment, people are missing in many parts of Nigeria. In some cases, full bus-load of passengers is ferried to unknown places by ritualists who pose as transporters. We hear stories from a few lucky people who miraculously escaped from the grip of such blood-sucking vampires, of the existence of slaughter slabs located inside thick forests in some states. This is indeed a perilous time as some people have elected to eat their fellow human beings to acquire more power and money. Beware, the person standing next to you may be a ritualist.  Ama ndi ana eze!

It looks like whistle blowers are tired?

Since May 7, 2017 when President Muhammadu Buhari jetted out of the country on medical tourism, Nigerians have stopped hearing the sound of whistles. Everywhere is calm. Does it mean those who specialised in blowing the whistles are no longer interested or they are tired, or nobody is selling whistles anymore? It beats me hollow that this fight against corruption has also gone to sleep or rather travelled with the President. For close to three months now, neither the Magu’s EFCC nor Itse Sagay’s presidential advisory committee on corruption has exposed any huge hidden money anywhere as was the case when the president was intact at home. The whole thing is beginning to look as if the fight centres on the Katsina-born soldier-turned politician.

What this shows is that it is only the character of the president that is driving the fight. It appears that if the president should for any reason resign his position today, no one would be talking about corruption. It is a shame! It means Nigeria is a doomed nation, always building institutions around individuals. It is a shame that up till this moment Nigerians are yet to know what happened to the recovered loots. Despite the huge amount of money that was bandied as recovered loots, we are still talking about borrowing at impossible interest rates, mortgaging the future of generations unborn. When can we grow up as a nation? No one knows what has happened to that huge “deposit” of foreign currencies found in an apartment on Osborne Street, Ikoyi, Lagos. The Osinbajo-led panel has since ended its investigation and we have seen no heads rolling; we are waiting for President Buhuri when we have an acting president. Can’t Osinbajo declare to the country the details of his panel’s findings? If I know Nigeria too well, the “Osborne-gate” is as good as forgotten. A nation that does not take serious matters seriously can never make any meaningful progress. No wonder we are tottering, decades after our so-called independence.

The bitter truth

The observation last Tuesday by Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC), that the ruling party was a bullying organisation, has continued to generate controversy. Atiku, had, while speaking at an event in Abuja, observed that the failure of the leadership of the APC to convene meetings of its Board of Trustees (BoT) and National Executive Committee (NEC) in line with the party’s constitution amounted to impunity. But like in everything Nigerian, rather than see the merit of that truth being told by an insider, some people are picking stones against him. SKETCHES believes that such an observation could only make the desired impact coming from, not just anybody in APC, but from a person of no mean status of Atiku’s standing. He knows what he’s saying and believes that those who have continued to be the troublers of the party, nay, Nigeria, through their impunity should realise that people are seeing their shenanigan.

The former vice president has continued to trumpet the need for restructuring of the country to the chagrin of some stalwarts of his party. His crusade in this regard has attracted to him more enemies than friends; and now some critics say he is lashing out at the APC to make himself relevant for 2019. But the truth be told, the APC has taken to impunity and has since derailed from the roadmap that endeared it to the Nigerian electorate. Atiku and Muiz Banire (SAN), national legal adviser of the APC, appear to share the same sentiment about the leadership problem in the party, particularly as it relates to allowing the will of the people to count. Recall that Banire has continued to condemn the lack of internal democracy in the party, particularly in relation to picking who represents the people. His observations and condemnation of the acrimonious primaries that preceded the just concluded local government elections in Lagos State enlarged the colony of his political foes. But on a serious note, APC must prove to Nigerians that they did not make any mistake in voting it into power in 2015. Patience is waning!

Prospecting for oil in Lake Chad Basin, like building the Tower of Babel

It appears that those insisting on continuing the search for oil in the Lake Chad Basin despite obvious indications that the project may not be a viable one and also the inherent dangers associated with it, may be inviting upon themselves the kind of punishment that was rained upon those, who willfully, against advice and warnings, tried to build the Tower of Babel.

Those who are conversant with the story of the Tower of Babel project, the conception, the near success and the calamity, would agree that the project failed because the motive was faulty abinitio.

Those behind the Tower of Babel project wanted a tall building as high as the heavens that could enable them meet the Creator and probably have a handshake with him. Initially, it appeared they were succeeding until things snapped. They were not only thrown into utter confusion, the project got stalled. It appears history is on playback in Nigeria, by other means. The Federal Government has commissioned some project to prospect oil in Lake Chad Basin, to make the North join the league of oil producers in the country – at all costs. The project, we are told, has already cost Nigeria a princely sum of money, yet the geologists have not even started. The Boko Haram insurgents attacked them. While several were killed, a good number got kidnapped and have remained in the captors’ den up till the point of going to press. In what appeared a grandstanding, the vice chancellor of University of Maiduguri has insisted that despite the ambush and the massive attack, the project would continue. This is in spite of the fact that many countries are saying bye-bye to crude oil.

The project in the Lake Chad Basin was ill-conceived just to see a way to break loose from the Niger Delta. One would have thought that with the huge money spent so far in that wild goose chase, government would have ordered a stop to it, but it is still continuing. Experts say that even after the project must have been completed, the entire crude is still infinitesimal compared to the deposits in the Niger Region. With the onslaught by the Boko Haram, and their vociferous efforts to withstand the activities of foreign geologists from continuing that project, it appears it won’t be anything better than the experience at the Tower of Babel, at best.

Zebulon Agomuo