Profoundly disturbing signals

The “Seventy Senior Elders” from Nigeria were accorded a rare honour by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.  Just before proceedings commenced, the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States of America persuaded us patriotic citizens to yield our slot to him in the interest of our nation.  We required no prompting to concede.  We remain eternally grateful to Nduka Nwosu who graciously took minutes of the epochal event.  Our envoy was in full flow:

“Obviously the matter of the moment is the missing Chibok schoolgirls.  They have been located.  We don’t want to lose a single one of them.  We have to be very careful.  We are using a multiplicity of tasks – negotiation, force, intelligence gathering and so on to counter this problem.  We know what it took you to negotiate with Iran.

Most of the suicide bombers are not Nigerian nationals.  As an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member, we guarantee free movement of people, and only recently, the National Council of State was satisfied with the progress made in trying to rescue the girls and the fight against Boko Haram by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration till date.”

On what the government was doing to contain tribal leaders and Muslims showing sympathy for Boko Haram, Adefuye said this was far from the truth because Boko Haram is an extremist organization with a strange agenda that neither spares Christians nor Muslims as well as northern traditional and religious leaders in their killing spree.

He said the war against Boko Haram was being championed by Muslims, referring to prominent emirs who had condemned the sect.

In particular, he commended the Sultan of Sokoto, who had severally denounced the terrorist organization and the National Security Adviser (NSA), who is the son of the former Sultan Dasuki.

“Is the military effectively fighting this war that has become a hydra-headed monster of a security challenge?”  Yes, Adefuye answered in the affirmative with a footnote saying:  “We are grateful to the various sections of the US.  On our own part, we are working towards a resolution.  Our forces are combating with issues of Boko Haram for the first time.

“We have excelled elsewhere but we are not perfect.  We were not prepared for what had metamorphosed into the current Boko Haram terrorist’s assault.

“We appreciate what the US is doing.  There is a threat to the rest of Africa because if Boko Haram succeeds, the rest of Africa is in trouble and also, it’s noteworthy that President Jonathan is working hard to fortify the armed forces.

“Do not forget that the political angle to this war was ignited in 2011 by some political leaders who lost out in the election.  They said they would make Nigeria ungovernable, some of them are deeply enmeshed in corruption and are unhappy with Jonathan’s reforms.”

What was amazing was that having listened with rapt attention to what our Ambassador had to say, the Chairman of the Committee was ever so respectful and courteous.

“Your excellency, you are free to leave.  We shall listen to the Senior Citizens of Nigeria who are here to protest the over domination of the accounting profession in Nigeria by just four international accountancy firms.  While we wait for our colleagues from the Banking and Finance Committee to join us, we are going to show a video of police stations and barracks in Lagos and other parts of Zimboda.”

It turned out to be a replay of the programme which was shown on Channels Television last year.  It was a shocking revelation of the horrible condition in which policemen and their wives together with children live.  It featured the police barracks at Ikeja, Lagos State.  It was worse in other police stations in Lagos – Falomo; Obalende; Bar Beach etc.  Police stations in other parts of Zimboda were also featured.  In one scene, the top floor had cracked and faeces were dripping down to the floor below.  The rest is too gruesome to bear repetition.  For the sake of our beloved country we must skip those shots of policemen openly demanding bribes or having their bath in the open.  What was most disturbing were the allegations by serving policemen that they have to risk their lives fighting armed robbers and Boko Haram who are far better armed with highly sophisticated weapons.  If they lose their lives, their widows would be ejected from the barracks within a matter of weeks.  Even more shocking was the allegation that policemen have to “settle” in order to be allocated the guns they carry and again “resettle” when the weapons are returned.  It is beyond belief.

The Senior Elder Citizens of Nigeria did not hesitate in joining the Nigerian Ambassador to protest that matters had been considerably improved since that Channels Television programme.

Where we had a serious problem was when we were shown a picture of a Colonel in the Nigerian army who had suffered a serious injury to his leg in an encounter with insurgents in Daura, Katsina State.

His identity was not revealed but he claimed that he was in charge of a battalion of 800 soldiers.  However, they had only 100 bullet-proof vests.  Thirty of them were allocated to soldiers guarding the Governor of the state; another thirty were allocated to soldiers guarding politicians and dignitaries, yet another thirty were allocated to the “Forward Position” leaving only ten bullet-proof vests for the rest of the battalion!!  We threatened to walk out unless the Chairman apologized that the country being referred to is Zimboda and not our own beloved country.

We as Senior Citizens of Nigeria left the Chairman of the Committee in no doubt that we stand four square with our Ambassador in defending the integrity and protecting the good image of the country we love so mush (even if it does not love us !!).  We shall not participate in washing our dirty linen in public.

When tempers had cooled own, the focus shifted to the front page report in “ThisDay” newspaper of July 18, 2014.

Headline: “BOKO HARAM HAS BURNT 900 SCHOOLS, KILLED 176 TEACHERS IN BORNO, SAYS GOVERNOR”

“Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State on Thursday said up to 900 schools have been destroyed and 176 teachers killed from 2011 till date by Boko Haram insurgents in his state.  Borno State is the hardest hit by the activities of Boko Haram.

Shettima disclosed this in Abuja at the inaugural meeting of the Steering Committee of the Safe Schools Initiative which was inaugurated last week by President Goodluck Jonathan.

The steering committee’s inaugural meeting was attended by co-chair of the Safe Schools Initiative, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Adamawa State, Alhaji Aliko Dangote; Nduka Obaigbena, Chairman of ThisDay; Sani Sidi, DG NEMA; representative of the National Security Adviser; Prof. Soji Adelaja and representative of the National Council of Women’s Societies, Edna Azura.

At the inaugural meeting, the committee was briefed by representatives of the emergency states, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa on the current state of education following the insurgency and all members restated their commitment to take all necessary actions to restore safety to schools.

The Safe Schools Initiative is considering a short, medium and long term strategy for making schools safer, especially in the North-East.

Several options discussed by the committee for immediate implementation include visual, temporary and mobile schools; school at home, in a box, container and tents as well as longer term strategies for rebuilding schools.

The committee under-scored the need to work with parents, the community and other stakeholders in designing sustainable safe schools solution.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, minister of finance, said at the meeting that the Victim Support Fund recently announced by President Jonathan would complement Safe School Initiative Programme in order to ensure safety of schools in the country.

She said that both the business community in Nigeria and Federal Government had paid up the $10 million each they pledged to support the programme.

“There are other components for a comprehensive approach to the programme and the president has also made some other efforts, the first one was that yesterday (Wednesday) the Victim Support Fund was launched.

“That is going to complement the safe schools initiative because; the parents, victims and other people who have suffered will now have a place to go in terms of support for them.

“At the same time, there is also the presidential initiative on the North East which will ensure that the emergency relief and other emergency support to people who are affected are also implemented,” she said.

She added that a component of reconstruction of damaged infrastructure under the presidential initiative on the North East would also work with the Safe School Programme.

According to her, the whole package is planned to complement each other to ensure that success is achieved.

The minister said that all of the initiatives were being carried out with the consent of the states involved and that in implementing the initiative, the states, local governments, communities, international partners and the Federal Government would work together.”

Proceedings moved briskly to the front page report of “Daily Independent” newspaper of July 18, 2014.

Headline:IT’S ABSURD ASKING SOUTHERNERS TO LEAVE THE NORTH”

•Aka IKenga

“Igbo think-tank organization, Aka Ikenga, on Thursday, described as a ‘preposterous order’ the call by a northern group directing all southerners, especially the Igbos to leave northern Nigeria within two weeks.

The group’s President, Goddy Uwazurike, in a chat with Daily Independent, said Nigeria belongs to all and no ethnic group has a greater claim to the country than others.

It will be recalled that the Arewa Youth Development Foundation, on Tuesday, called on southerners in the north to relocate to their respective states in order to make room for northerner who would be returning home.

This ultimatum was contained in a statement jointly signed by the group’s National President, Aliyu Usman, and secretary, Alfred Solomon, when the group visited the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, in his palace.

But Uwazurike, who described the group as hardliners out to cause trouble and confusion in the country, saying the call is strange for a northern group to ask the southerners who are major owners of the nation’s wealth to leave.

He however noted that the AYDF “is a tiny neglectable, nonsense group bent on causing problem for everybody.  They would hide their heads when the problem erupts.  They are people one can refer to as the hardliners whose sole aim is to make Nigeria look like Afghanistan or Iraq.

“Why should the Igbos leave?  What right do they have to ask the southerners to leave?  Do they have any greater claim to this country than any of us?  All the major resources sustaining this country are coming from the South and you are asking the Southerners or Igbos to leave.  It is a preposterous order” he said.

What was far more damning was the front page headline of “The Nation” newspaper of July 19, 2014.

Headline:“ASARI DOKUBO SPITS FIRE AS NORTH KICKS AGAINST

RESOURCE CONTROL”

Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, (NDPVF), Mujahid Asari Dokubo, has declared as unacceptable to the Niger Delta the refusal by Northern delegates at the National Conference to support the proposal by regions to control their resources.

An online medium, Starconnet, reported him as saying that the Niger Delta would rather return to the creeks than “allow the wealth of our people be used to develop” what he called the arrogant North.

Dokubo in a statement through Comrade Rex Emojite Anighoro, said gone is the era in which the Niger Delta sustained the North.

He expressed disappointment that the support of the Niger Delta for a Sovereign National Conference to “discuss our collective terms of our existence at the table of brotherhood has thoroughly enjoyed the, contempt and abuse of a people irrevocably determined to suffocate and confiscate our commonwealth and non-extinguished sovereignty.”

He added: “Let us state very emphatically that irrespective of the final determination of the National Conference our minimum expectation and demand as a people is and remains 100 percent control of our resources or nothing.

“Yes, the National Conference can go on and propose even one hundred states, agree to rehabilitate and develop areas ravaged by insurgency and internal conflicts, agree to develop solid minerals resources and whatever, but let it be known that not a dime of the resources of the people of the Niger Delta  should be factored into this odious compromise.

“We are fully ready to mobilize our people from across the Niger Delta and even in diaspora to stand up for definite showdowns and direct actions.

“Our God given resources belong to us and not Nigeria.”

Dokubo dismissed the amalgamation of North and South by Lord Lugard in 1914 as nothing but ‘a luciferian contraption’.

He warned representatives of the Niger Delta at the National Conference and the National Assembly who “continually compromise the interest of the Niger-Delta region that they would be declared persona non grata in the region and their sins visited on them in their own life time.  They would be treated as enemies of the region as the profanity of Esau can no longer be tolerated.”

When the Chairman of the Banking and Finance walked up to join his colleague, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he pleaded for calm.  The discussions on domination of the accounting profession by only four international firms would commence after a short adjournment.  For now, what was of interest to him was the front page editorial of “Daily Independent” newspaper of July 16, 2014.

Headline:“US INVESTIGATION OF NIGERIANS BANKS OVER TERROR FUNDING”

“Recent media reports indicate that the United States is investigating some Nigerian banks to ascertain their involvement or otherwise in funding the Boko Haram terrorist sect and other terror cells across the African continent.  This development is in sync with widespread suspicion that some Nigerian banks may have been involved in laundering funds for the Boko Haram insurgents whose violent campaign against the Nigerian state, particularly in the North East, has led to the death of over 10,000 people disabled, thousands and loss of property worth billions of naira.

This newspaper considers the probe a timely and necessary intervention that could cut off sources of funding for Boko Haram’s arms and ammunition as well as other supplies with which they have sustained their unjust war against the Nigerian people and humanity in general.  No doubt the success of this initiative would ensure decisive victory for the Nigerian government in the fight against the insurgents and their allies within and outside the country.  We therefore urge the Federal Government of Nigeria to give the US all the cooperation needed to unravel and block possible channeling of funds to Boko Haram from their sponsors through some Nigerian banks.

The monumental cost of funding the war on terror by the Nigerian state which is already taking its toll on the nation’s economy makes it imperative for the Federal Government to consider the US initiative as a wake-up call to widen the frontiers of the war against Boko Haram to include tracking, and blocking the funding sources of the insurgents.  Indeed, since the escalation of bombings and other fatal attacks in the north and Abuja, many Nigerians have been calling on the government and the military to pay more attention to military intelligence so as to unmask the sponsors of Boko Haram and their channels of funding.  But unfortunately, the Federal Government has not demonstrated the will to unveil these unpatriotic elements aiding and abetting Boko Haram insurgents, some of whom many believe may not be unknown to the authorities.  At the moment, Nigeria’s rating with global and regional anti-terrorism and money laundering watchdogs is anything but complementary.  For instance, the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) which regulates measures to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing in its report of February 2014, listed Nigeria as one of the countries lagging behind in taking adequate measures to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.  Again, the Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) had stated about Nigeria that “There are still gaps in the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT) regimes that require priority attention.”

This newspaper urges the Federal Government to urgently institute a scrutiny of Nigerian banks, bureau de change and other channels of money laundering for terrorists with the Central Bank of Nigeria as the pivot.  Certainly, instituting tight control on the movement of terrorist funds would fast-track the defeat of Boko Haram insurgents in the country.  The CBN should be encouraged to closely monitor financial market activities, particularly the bureau de change and black market outlets, which may be channels for laundering funds for terrorists in the country.  The Nigerian Financial Intelligence should be alive to its vital responsibility of monitoring and exposing the flow of money laundered through the nation’s banking system for various criminal purposes, to justify its quest to be upgraded into a self-accounting anti-financial graft agency.

Since terrorism is a global scourge, Nigerian authorities need to leverage on the country’s influential status in the African Union and the ECOWAS to persuade member states to partner together to fight terrorism on the African continent to a standstill through appropriate military, political and monetary policy options.”

The Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee must have inadvertently pressed the wrong button because what then showed up on the huge screen was a picture of the Commissioner of Police, Rivers State, Mr. Tunde Ogunshakin as he paraded an awesome gang of armed robbers, kidnappers, rapists and ritual killers who had been terrorizing the state and beyond.

This time, it was the Chairman of the Banking Committee who wanted to address us on the “Black Hole” in the global financial and accountancy system.  Instead what showed up was something entirely different.  It was the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka’s soul stirring recollection of his horrendous experience:

“THE BLACK HOLE IN DODAN BARRACKS”

(The torture and flogging syndrome by soldiers)

“The picture of sadists who dined and wined and talked themselves to sleep with sounds of the tortured.

I went and looked at a back of purulent sores.  There was no skin.  None at all.  It was a mass of sores which no longer had any different definition as each weal had merged into another.  My mind returned to the park I had seen, the still suppurating furrows, dark raised permanent swellings, the potholes where the tip of the whip must have dug more than once.  A few scabs that seemed an inch thick.  And his neck, even to the base of the head, covered in weal.”

J.K Randle