Boko Haram, EndSARS and a tale of two countries
By Ladesope Ladelokun
ORDINARILY, freezing the bank accounts of terrorists should be greeted with cheers for money is the oxygen that gives terrorism life. Little wonder it is argued in some quarters that we are halfway to bidding farewell to the eruptions of Boko Haram if the sources of funds are cut off from the killjoys that get a kick from the sight of bloodied and lifeless bodies.
However, not a few Nigerians were thrown off balance when government officials linked the funds found in the bank accounts of EndSARS campaigners to terrorist activities. But the campaigners neither bore arms nor sentenced innocent Nigerians to the grave like the dreaded Boko Haram. They only found potency in their only weapon - voices. Patriotism was the common denominator.
For years, long-suffering Nigerians waited for the Nigerian government to name and prosecute the sponsors of Boko Haram without luck. Interestingly, help came from the United Arab Emirates. Those who have raised eyebrows over the failure of the Nigerian government to expose the sponsors of Boko Haram have a strong point. If it is a tall order to reveal the bankrollers of the scoundrels that are merchants of sorrow and tears, it should be concerning that a sledgehammer is literally used on peaceful protesters. Or, what else advertises hatred for democratic norms and the Nigerian people?
Since it took the UAE less than six years to prosecute and convict Nigerians who wired $782,000 to Nigeria in 2015 and 2016, we should be worried that for over a decade, Boko Haram, once described as the deadliest terrorist group, savaged the Northeastern part of Nigeria without a single sponsor prosecuted and convicted. Yet it is the heads of the leaders of a peaceful protest that are wanted on a platter. Not machete-wielding hoodlums who were allegedly contracted by the state to unleash mayhem on peaceful protesters in spite of the fact that their pictures saturate the cyberspace.
Understandably, the global outrage that greeted the role the Nigerian Army played during the EndSARS protest, especially at the Lekki Toll Gate, appears simmering. With the Cable News Network, CNN, releasing another report on the matter after the first report that got someone’s cage rattled in spite of the threat of sanction by the Federal Government and the sanction proposed by UK parliamentarians on Nigerian officials involved in Lekki shootings, it is crystal clear that the matter will not just blow away anytime soon.
Curiously, despite the shootings at Lekki Toll Gate that left protesters drenched in blood, going by the report of CNN, President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Femi Adesina, wants Nigerians to be grateful to his principal for not turning Nigeria to one sea of blood. Hear him: “If President Buhari hadn’t exercised the restraint and tolerance of a father at a time that even hitherto respected people instigated the protesters to carry on (and they promptly went underground when anarchy ensued), we would have been talking of something else in the country. The rivers of Nigeria could have turned crimson and mourning and lamentation would have suffused the land. But we are thankful for the father in President Buhari, patient and enduring, almost to a fault.”
But who told Adesina that it is the right of the president to spill the blood of peaceful protesters considered stubborn till the rivers of Nigeria turn crimson? Is it impossible that his principal will have a date with the International Criminal Court, ICC, if the rivers of Nigeria turn crimson at a time he should be enjoying his retirement?
We must remind Adesina that while the dust of #EndSARS protests is still far from settling in Nigeria, former President Merino of Peru had to resign because at least two people died after a police crackdown on protesters. Though it is true that the issues that triggered the protests in Nigeria and Peru are different, Peru provides a lesson in respect for the will of the people.
In that country, you would not see an APC and a PDP trading blames over the sponsors of protests. No one froze the accounts of protesters for daring to pour into the streets of Peru. But it would amount to flogging a dead horse to call for the resignation of Buhari because a dozen people died, according to Amnesty International, just for demanding an end to police brutality. It will not happen. Peru is not Nigeria. But, we can at least plead to be governed with a human face in a country that persecutes and kills her own for crying when severely beaten by injustice.
It is true that the Nigerian Army has denied opening fire on protesters, that it only fired blank ammunition. However, there are sufficient grounds to believe rights activists and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Falana, who accused the army of having a history of lies and deception. For example, didn’t the Nigerian Army lie that soldiers were not at the scene of the Lekki Toll Gate incident on October 20 before it backtracked when confronted with overwhelming evidence? In addition to its changing narratives, the army had said soldiers were not deployed to the Lekki Toll Gate, but were on patrol to clear up the Lekki, Eti-Osa corridor; something that contradicts its earlier submission that it was invited by the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
No doubt, the EndSARS protest across Nigeria mirrored the misgovernance and injustice that have over the years plagued the Nigerian state - but a clampdown on its promoters is impolitic. Counterproductive. Even irresponsible. Howard Zinn, American historian, and philosopher was not far from the truth when he said: "The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.”
Of course, it cannot be apposite to state that criminalizing protests can only tantamount to attacking the symptoms of a disease. We must banish injustice from our land and make Nigeria livable for all to give Nigerians fewer reasons to pour into the streets. *Ladelokun, a commentator on public issues, wrote from Lagos
Massacres do not necessarily produce corpses
By Owei Lakemfa
THERE is a sickening campaign by some unfeeling persons that those who claim there were killings at the Lekki Tollgate on October 20, 2020 or are searching for missing loved ones who went to the protests, should produce the corpses. To this group, unless corpses are produced, there could not have been killings.
This is like taunting the rest of the populace. These Trumpian propagandists are not even being fair to a government that says it wants to unravel the truth about what happened at the protest site. This campaign is shallow and unintelligent.
Murders do not necessarily produce bodies nor do massacres have to produce corpses. It depends on the plan, the perpetrators and the execution. This is why in court, circumstantial evidence can be used to convict a murderer even if the corpse cannot be found.
Murders and massacres can follow the Italian or American Mafia system of division of labour: those who shoot are different from the group that disposes of, while these are different from those who wipe the crime scene clean of any possible evidence.
One of the most powerful and certainly the most famous American labour leader was James (Jimmy) Riddle Hoffa. He was President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for 14 years from 1957. On July 30, 1975 he went to a restaurant in suburban Detroit to meet two Mafia figures: Anthony Provenzano and Anthony Giacalone. There are conflicting claims whether he arrived at the restaurant or not. But his remains have not been found to date. That does not mean he was not killed.
On October 2, 2018, Saudi journalist, Kamal Kashoggi went to his country’s Consulate in Turkey to collect his divorce papers. There was a 15-member killer squad waiting for him. Until today, his body has not been found. But that does not mean he has not been murdered nor does it exculpate the Saudi government.
There were massacres carried out in Srebrenica, Bosnia, and Herzegovinan in 1995, and to-date, over 1,000 corpses have not been found. That does not mean they were not killed. The Greenwood area of Tusla, Oklahoma, United States was a thriving Black community so renowned for its prosperity that it was nicknamed the Black Wall Street. On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a White mob attacked Greenwood with all sorts of weapons, including using private aircraft.
At least 300 people were killed and some 800 injured while the area itself was obliterated. The main issue of what is now accepted as the Tusla Race Massacre is neither the attack nor the destruction of a bubbling Black economy, but the carting away of the bodies. With no corpses or graves, the White establishment practically denied there was a massacre. The Black population was so intimidated that for decades, there were only whispers.
Finally, Oklahoma State set up a commission in the mid-1990s to verify if there truly was a massacre. Its 2001 Report confirmed the historical truth. As the centenary of the massacre approaches, the state on October 19, 2020 began excavating four possible secret burial sites. They were identified using ground-penetrating radar scans. So the absence of corpses does not mean the Tusla massacres, 99 years ago, did not take place.
My last example is the 1995 Patani Massacre which until today, the Nigerian government has refused to acknowledge. A team of anti-robbery policemen driving on the Patani Bridge which straddles Delta and Bayelsa states on the Forcados River, came across a youth, Akpos Ekiyor. They profiled him and concluded he must be a criminal. After roughening him up, the now frightened youth was ordered to take the policemen to the houses of his friends.
When they descended the bridge into the Ekise part of the town, Mr. Ekiyor took them to the home of the patent medicine dealer, Mr. Keboh. There, they met and arrested his three sons: Ebimobowei Keboh, Doreyerin Keboh and Goddey Keboh. Then he took them to the home of my uncle, Chief Ogini Fakrogha in the Taware end of the town. There, they met my first cousin, Mr. Ezekiel Fakrogha in his room and arrested him.
Along the Taware road lived a then 70-year-old Pa Flint Orugun, a security guard at the Public Hospital, Bulu Angiama. The team profiled him as an herbalist who must have been producing charms for criminals in the town; so they picked him as they did a road transport worker, Mr. Mathias Kemefasu Famous who worked at the Patani Bridge Garage.
A police officer, Mr. G.A., who was known in the town, was seen with the policemen. He confirmed the team was from the Ughelli Area Command. The Patani Community leaders and chiefs who had gathered decided that since it was getting dark, it was better to go to the Area Command next morning to secure the release of the seven men.
When the Patani delegation got to the Ughelli Police Command the next day, they were shocked when the police claimed no such arrests were made and that in fact, no patrol team from the station was in Patani the previous day. When the delegation insisted the men were brought there, the confident Area Commander told his men to take the delegation round the cells to see for themselves that no such persons were brought.
In going through the cells, the delegation called out the names of the men, and in the last cell, Mr. Famous responded. That punctured the lies of the police. He told the delegation that when they were brought to the Area Command the previous evening, he was separated from the rest perhaps due to overcrowding in the cell. He said later in the night, from his cell, he saw the other six men being led away.
He assumed it was for interrogation and thought he would later be called out, but nobody came for him until the delegation arrived. The truth was out: the police had executed the six other men! To worsen matters, it refused to show the families of the victims where the men were buried.
After a series of petitions which included the names of the police officers involved, on behalf of the families, I approached leading Human Rights lawyer, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi to take up the case. He assigned Mr. Festus Keyamo(current Minister of State for Labour) to handle the case. Together, we went to the Bomadi High Court, Delta State to file the case and commence proceedings.
Until this day, a quarter of a century later, we cannot produce the corpses of the six victims of the Patani Massacre, but it will be unwise to argue that this means there was no massacre or that the men summarily executed by the Nigeria Police Force, never existed.
Nigeria and her unending economic woes
By Dele Sobowale
“Nigeria suffers the worst economic recession in 36 years – W’Bank data.”
All the leading Nigerian newspapers conspired to ruin Sunday, November 22, 2020, for us and to start the week off by publishing what was in actual fact an economic disaster foretold. Economists working with reliable models knew at the end of the second quarter, Q2, that the third, Q3, was also going to be horrible. Only Federal Government officials, as well as those commentators wanting to please them, could have expected a different result.
At UniJankara, we remain firmly committed to publishing the truth as best as we can get it. Let Know-Nothings in government write rejoinders to earn their pay. The results, when published, will usually vindicate us.
“The more you look, the less you see.” - Prof, Moshood Abiola aka Peller. Peller, the magician was a delight to watch perform. But, as he plays each trick on his gullible audience, he would repeat “The more you look the less you see.”
Peller knew that a Nigerian fool is born every minute. Unfortunately, it is not only in the world of entertainment that you can fool some of people all the time. The government does it all the time. They actually play financial tricks on Nigerians and make us pay dearly for the deliberate deception or half-truths.
The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, disclosed that the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, “fell by 3.62 percent in the three months till September.” That was true enough. Nigerians were even told that “the Nigerian economy shrank in Q2 as the GDP fell by 6.10 percent, compared with a growth of 1.87per cent in Q1.”
Again, that was factual enough; but not good enough. Here is why.
Cumulative quarterly growths: 2019-2020; Q3.
First, after three quarters in 2020, cumulatively, the Nigerian economy had declined -7.85 percent. Thus, it is a safe bet that the result for the full year will be negative compared to 2019. That is the first thing we must get into our heads. Sometime in the first quarter of 2021 we should expect to be told that Nigeria experienced cumulative negative growth in 2020.
Second, the performance in the first three quarters of 2020, has wiped out all the gains in Q2-Q4 of 2019. Painful as it might be for all of us to admit, the Nigerian economy, by the end of 2020 might be back to where it was in Q4’2018.
A person condemned to fetching water and pouring it into a basket until it is full has a better chance of making progress than this country right now.
Reasons for the poor 2020 performance
Several reasons account for the 2020 results apart from the obvious – COVID 19. Nobody knows if a recession would have occurred without COVID-19. But, if the 1.87 percent Q1-2020 growth had been followed by slower growth in Q2, a technical recession would have been recorded all the same.
COVID-19 and the lockdown imposed nationwide made the severe downturn inevitable. We can take some comfort from knowing that our experience was not one of the worst in the world. That is all - negative comfort.
However, agriculture, being a major contributor to our GDP, has been assailed by many calamities which will not soon go away. Unprecedented flood ravaged farms nationwide in what some experts believe represent manifestations of permanent global climate change. If so, the losses in 2020 might be repeated in 2021.
Desertification in the North and Ocean surge in the South are reducing land available for cultivation. We have provided no adequate responses to all these challenges.
To natural disasters we must now add man-made calamities – herdsmen invasion of farms, kidnapping, murder and banditry now render farming in large parts of the country a worthless or suicidal undertaking.
There is no sign all these will stop in 2021. But, even if they do, hundreds of thousands of farmers will need to be convinced that it will be safe to be alone in their farms again. So, what various crimes have destroyed will not be restored soon.
If COVID-19 and lockdown slowed down farming considerably, it devastated the night travel, manufacturing, aviation, transport and entertainment sectors. I can state authoritatively that the Q4’20 results are already trickling in. It is bad news all around. The contributions for annual harvests are the worst anybody has ever known. A bleak Yuletide is expected – even if there is no second lockdown. It is a certainty that Christmas will be ruined if the country is locked down again.
Repercussions of the current recession
The report went on to say that “an indication has emerged that the government has recorded a 25.3 per cent shortfall in Company Income Tax, CIT, in the first six months of the year. Also, economy analysts say the sustained macroeconomic headwinds would likely worsen the CIT in the remaining balance of the year.”
Any half brilliant Economics level-100 student in a university could have predicted that sharply reduced productivity was going to be the logical repercussion of prolonged lockdown both in the private and public sectors.
What any student might not know was the fact that even before lockdown the Federal government had invariably failed to collect up to 65 percent of the budgeted revenue since 2016. COVID-19 merely added to the problem.
Right now, the forecast for the year is for revenue collection not to reach 55 percent of the budget. More bad news.
When that happens, government spending will fall far below expectations. Few people have even noticed that less than 30 percent of the 2020 capital budget has been released to Ministries as we approach the end of 2020. That has been the pattern since Buhari became President and it is not about to change.
Furthermore, as the government fails to achieve all the positive targets set out in the budget, it will surpass the negative estimates goals set for the year. The debt-service ratio will increase and exceed what we were led to expect.
At the moment, the country is generating just about enough revenue to pay its debts. There is little left for development or even maintenance. That explains why Ministers of this government all promise to deliver projects in the future. Completion dates of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and railroad have been shifted so many times nobody believes the Ministers anymore; and they are obviously no longer embarrassed by the repeated shift of timelines.
But, don’t blame the Ministers. They serve a government that obviously believes that “Promises like pie-crusts are made to be broken.” No major project will be delivered next year.
Finally, with GDP growth in negative territory, the government and Nigerians can write off 2020 among the years when 10 million people will be lifted out of poverty. Instead, when this year ends on December 31, at least six million more Nigerians would have joined those living in abject poverty at the beginning of the year.
Read other stories: theharbingerngr.blogspot.com.ng
Boko Haram, EndSARS and a tale of two countries
LASG probes death of student flogged to death
No agreement yet to suspend strike — ASUU
How Lady burnt to death on first visit to lover’s house
•Why I set my ex-boyfriend’s house ablaze – Jemila
•Man at centre of feud speaks from hospital bed
#EndSARS: How stray bullet fired by SARS operatives shattered my leg — Hairdresser
More revelations on the atrocities allegedly committed by the disbanded Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, emerged, yesterday, at the Lagos EndSARS panel, as a 35-year-old hairdresser, Mrs. Hannah Olugbodi, narrated how her left leg was shattered by a stray bullet fired by SARS operatives.
#ENDSARS: Widow of slain LASTMA official seeks scholarship for children
Boko Haram, EndSARS and a tale of two countries
Massacres do not necessarily produce corpses
Nigeria and her unending economic woes
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