Tambuwal's Car Stopped for Search by Soldiers

Soldiers this morning insisted on searching the official car of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, before he could be allowed into an international conference in Kaduna, Metropole has gathered. 

 

Tambuwal drove in his official car with flag and insignia and in a convoy, an eye-witness disclosed.

 

Angered by the treatment of the soldiers, the Speaker reportedly stormed out of the car and trekked into the venue.

According to the source, the incident occurred at Hotel 17, venue of an  International conference on security and development challenges of pastoralism in West and Central Africa organised by the office of the National Security Adviser. The Speaker is scheduled to deliver an address at the conference.

Tambuwal,  who arrived the venue of the gathering at exactly 9.16 am for the 10.00 am opening ceremony, had his convoy stopped by soldiers who insisted they must search his official car before he could be allowed into the venue, the source said.

Despite much entreaties by security details attached to the Speaker, the soldiers refused, with some saying they have orders from above to search the Speaker.

 

The same treament was not given to other VIPs, especially Governors,  who  were allowed access into the hotel without hindrance.

 

The Speaker is the number four in protocol hierarchy in the Federation,  after the President, Vice-President, and the Senate President. 

 

When contacted for his reaction, Tambuwal's spokesman,  Malam Imam Imam, decried the conduct of the soldiers, saying their attitude undermines the institution of the legislature. 

"It is not about the person of the Speaker, but the office he is occupying," he said. "What we expect is for the security agents to show respect for the office of the Number 4 citizen of the country." 

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As a Generation, Can We 'Rice' to the Occasion?

A lot of people have reduced Ayo Fayose’s victory at the polls on Saturday to the politics of sharing rice to poor Ekiti voters. If that were the case, Fayemi would have at least had a close run because he did share his own rice too, but the results suggest Ayo Fayose, as much as this is difficult for me to write, did maul Governor Kayode Fayemi.

The intimidation of his governor friends and the arrests of his campaign officers on the eve of the elections apart, the Ekiti elections were a step above the usual rigging that have often characterized elections in Nigeria. Fayose had the might of the state behind him in the military; that power was used in harassing and intimidating Governor Fayemi’s supporters to no end, this of course was an unfair reality but it was only an episode in a process that revealed Nigeria to many in ways they probably never saw it or paid much attention to.

Friday 20th June I told a friend pointblank: any president who intends to start a genuine change process in Nigeria must forget about his/her second term or pretend in his/her first term, then get real in the second term. Deviance is our norm, impunity is our law, and absurdities are our way.

Ekiti is not the first elections in Nigeria where candidates had to share food and money to entice voters. This has always been a normal part of our elections. In fact, the smartest politician is the one who spreads the sharing over the period between one election and the next. Our people more often than not see that as their own way of sharing in the national cake. What set Ekiti apart is the mind-boggling fact that an incumbent who had actually performed and was seen to have performed was judged not based on his performance but based on how much he couldn't share directly with the people while in office.

So, as a Nigerian politician, Governor Fayemi goofed on deciding to go with technocrats as his commissioners instead of politicians. Other things being equal, technocrats focus on the job while politics could later be a distraction but politicians focus on politics while getting the job done is the distraction. Governor Fayemi's technocrats did get the job done. That was never enough.

Just a year or so into his tenure, he was already getting the vibes of the anger of those who preferred the Governor focused on ‘stomach infrastructure’ and not enduring physical infrastructure. It was a choice between directly giving the people fish or creating the environment where the people could fish and have sustainable income.

So then, if you were a Fayemi what would you do after losing elections? Get frustrated? This was out of his hands. He was a technocrat focused on getting the job done. He had no political figure in the state who managed the political side of things.

Governor Fashola survived in Lagos despite his reforms because former Governor Tinubu managed the political costs of his tough decisions. Where a Fayemi insisted on re-training and re-testing teachers to improve the standard of the educational system, he had no politician in place to manage the anger that'd naturally rise from such a bold decision. In the end, politics won and Governor Fayemi had to let go of some of his plans. It was too little too late. The people wanted business as usual, the Governor was too much of a by-the-book person.

What do Nigerians want? For all the cries about change, Nigerians do not want the change some of us in our idealistic state think they want. A lot of Nigerians actually prefer the status quo. This is a country where you can get away with virtually any crime. A leader who comes around to make the law count, to bring about costs to disobeying the law is not likely to be a popular leader.

Corruption and lawlessness have been entrenched in our society. What some other climes may see as corruption, we may see it as ordinary stealing. Anyone who intends to go head-to-head with these established unwholesome norms cannot have thoughts of second term in his or her head. Without a doubt, such a person is likely to be appreciated after office than while in office.

We want change but only when we are at the receiving end of the norm. When the norm favours us, we are just okay with the status quo.

Congratulations to Governor-elect Ayo Fayose. He is the man the people of Ekiti want and no one can say they don't deserve him. Didn't someone already say the people deserve the leader they get? As a Nigerian, one can only hope that politics does not continue to get in the way of genuine development. As for our mostly idealistic generation, how do we ‘rice’ up to this challenge? May God help Nigeria.

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India Replaces US as Largest Importer of Nigeria's crude

India has replaced the United States of America as the largest importer of Nigeria’s crude with China and Malaysia following closely.

 

This was revealed in a statement today by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Ohi Alegbe.

 

“The US which had traditionally taken the bulk of Nigeria’s crude has in recent months drastically reduced its demand which now stands at about 250,000barrels per day,” the statement said. “India however now purchases some 30 percent of Nigeria’s daily crude production which currently hovers around 2.5million barrels.”

 

The statement also quoted the NNPC’s Coordinator Corporate Planning and Strategy, Dr. Tim Okona, as saying at the World Petroleum Congress in Russia that Nigeria would not ignore any market in its quest to remain competitive in the global oil and gas industry.

 

 

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Terror Kingpin among 486 Boko Haram Suspects Arrested in Abia

A wanted terrorist is among the 486 Boko Haram suspects arrested on Sunday by the Nigerian Army in Abia State en route to Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

The Director of Defence Information, Major-General Chris Olukolade, in a statement in a statement yesterday said during the screening of the suspects, the terror kingpin who had been on the wanted list was identified and taken into custody.

“So far other security agencies including the para-military have joined the screening exercise to ascertain the status of the remaining suspects,” the statement said. “Those identified as possible security risks or illegal immigrants are expected to be identified for further action.”

The Nigerian Army had on Sunday arrested 486 persons who were travelling in a motorcade of 35 Totota Hummer buses along the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway. This came a few hours after a failed bomb attack on Living Faith church in Owerri, the Imo State. 

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A Return to Nigeria

When I was seven years old my father bought me a Bag of Laughs. It was the early 1980s and, as with most every school morning in Lagos, we were stuck in traffic. My father was at the wheel, listening to Bob Marley on the eight-track. I sat in the back, staring at the street peddlers walking in between lanes jostling can openers, batteries and other random items at car windows.

A boy, older than me but still young enough that he should have been in school, dangled a toy outside my window. It was a yellow cloth bag cinched at the top with a picture on one side of a cartoonish open mouth laughing madly. Inside the bag was a little battery-operated mechanism. If you pressed a button, the bag shook violently and made uproarious sounds like a guffawing crowd. My father slipped a few naira notes through a crack in the window in exchange for the toy. Sitting there behind my parents, I pushed the button over and over again, grinning endlessly at the obnoxious crowd contained in my little hands.

Until recently, that Bag of Laughs was one of the few memories that popped up whenever I tried to think positively about Nigeria, the country of my ancestors.

I was born in New York City and lived in Nigeria only between the ages of 7 and 9. That’s when my mother left my father, taking my younger sister and me to live in Ivory Coast, then England and finally the United States. We were not raised to imagine ourselves as woven into the fabric of Nigeria, let alone as lovers of it. As children our parents always spoke to us in English, reserving our indigenous language, Igbo, for the secrets that passed between adults over our ears.

Coming of age in foreign classrooms, my sister and I slowly shed our native skins. We let teachers mangle our names, then adopted their mispronunciations — introducing ourselves with syllables our own relatives tripped over.

At home we caught snippets of phone conversations between our parents and relatives still living in Nigeria. “So and so’s house has been attacked by armed robbers.” “The police do not do anything. Some of them are even in on it.” “You can’t trust anyone.” “There’s no hope for this country.” As the years turned into decades, Nigeria saw economic struggles, the rise of email scammers and Boko Haram, a terrorist group. Whatever childhood memories of birthday parties and schoolyard antics we had treasured were soon dulled by these new testimonies. Before too long we began to dislike and to fear our home country, to expect nothing but the worst from Nigerians. It most likely would have stayed that way, if not for my father’s sudden death.

When I was 29 my father died back in Nigeria, within weeks of a cancer diagnosis. My older brother, then living in New York City, and I left the States to go back and bury him. In accordance with Igbo custom we had to bury him in his ancestral village of Akunwanta in southeastern Nigeria. So we flew into Enugu airport, drove the two hours to Arondizuogu, and then down a red clay road to the enclave bearing our family name, Akunwanta village.

Akunwanta is the piece of land to which I can trace my paternal ancestry as far back as possible. It is the second part of a hyphenated last name I do not use. There was the dust from which my father came and the dust to which he was returning. I was returning. Suddenly, my life in the United States seemed like a storybook, so far away it didn’t seem tangible.

After that, I couldn’t get Nigeria out of my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that there was a land and a people that rightfully claimed me. Choosing to ignore that seemed oddly irresponsible in light of the genuine plight of illegal immigrants in America and across the globe, who reluctantly left their countries out of financial desperation. It seemed oddly disrespectful in light of the growing number of refugees who fled their countries because of war. And it seemed oddly confusing as a black woman to choose as my home a country with such a deep-seated history of prejudice and injustice toward minorities.

I started to imagine what it would be like to live in a place where you did not have to explain some aspect of your identity on a daily basis, where you did not have to offer people a reason, no matter how subtle, for why you were among them.

When I am in Nigeria, my name alone places me in recognizable context. A few years after my father’s funeral, I started going back to Nigeria for weeks and then months at a time, writing and working from there. I let myself be wooed by the little ordinary things: the bath towel sun-soaked warm through mosquito-netted windows; eating pineapples in season, cut round and sweet; the way women sway in form-fitting long printed Ankara skirts going to work or market.

Each time I boarded the plane to return to the States it was with a surprising hint of sadness. I became increasingly uncertain about what I was really going back to. Sure, there was the reliable infrastructure of basic necessities like electricity and medical care. Yet, back in Nigeria, I had the irreplaceable experience of feeling connected to an untapped part of myself. I was gaining insight into my ancestral and communal identity as a Nigerian, as an Igbo woman.

At some point I started entertaining the idea of moving back. Maybe just to try it for a few years. I spoke of it tentatively, trying to gauge reactions from friends and family. My mother considered it a miracle. My siblings were stunned, wondering why I’d leave for a country rife with corruption and ethno-religious factions. And I had my own concerns. What if I’d been away too long for Nigeria to ever really feel like home? Could I actually make a difference in the development of my country, or would I be just one more returnee, in for a rude awakening and endless frustrations? In my less introspective moments I simply wondered how I could give up my regular jaunts to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.

My questions were endless. But so was my desire to know the country that claimed me. So, finally, I bought a one-way ticket for this summer. I am moving to Nigeria. I say it aloud, mostly to myself. And I laugh at the surprise of it.

On my most recent visit, approaching Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, I looked out the plane’s window at the clusters of dry green bushes and the expanse of clay earth. The large mound of Aso Rock loomed in the background. I descended and walked to the line for those holding Nigerian passports. I no longer anticipated an airport official trying to redirect me to the line for visitors, those with visas, those who are not from this country. The passport control officers rarely change, and they remembered me now.

The man in the tan uniform flipped through the pages of my green passport and looked up at me. “My beautiful sister, you have returned.”

“Yes, ooo” I said.

“How was your journey? Did you bring me something?” he teased.

“It was well. Not this time, Oga,” I greeted him playfully but with respect.

“Oya,” he stamped the page and slipped my passport back to me. “You are welcome home.”

* Okoro is a writer, speaker and communications consultant whose website is:www.enumaokoro.com. This article was first published in The New York Times on April 23, 2014, and in The International New York Times on April 29, 2014. It is republished here with the author’s permission. 

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Youth Leader: The Joke is on APC

The position of “youth leader” in a political party would not be necessary in a party where age is not a currency for party leadership, but unfortunately, in Nigeria age is not only a currency, it is indeed one of the most valuable denominations.

Women would not be wrong to think they are the most disrespected political group in the country but when the numbers are crunched, it would not be shocking to discover that Nigeria’s young people are the most politically marginalized group.

Across all the major and minor political parties, you’d not find a man designated as “women leader,” while you’d be hard pressed to find anyone below 40 years of age designated as “youth leader.” That is not to say our women do not deserve a lot more than such limiting designations.

Until recently, the “youth leader” of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was closer to the age of 70 than he was to 40. That point marked the age of peak madness in the designation of men well past their 50s as party youth leaders.

Reno Omokri is never one to be believed, having said the PDP youth leader is now 31. Even if Reno Omokri, going by his Wendell Simlin-esque antecedents can never be trusted with the truth, it does appear that he was right this one time. The PDP has since corrected the anomaly.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Nigeria’s main opposition party unfortunately copied from the wrong PDP page, especially a page the PDP has since corrected, a page that once said the youth leader had to be an old man.

This is a most unfortunate situation.  On the question of appointing a man well past his 40s as “youth leader,” the APC has truly goofed! You cannot come preaching about change while continuing in the old order of youth disenfranchisement.

The APC seems to confuse the unpopularity of the current ruling party as a correlational popularity for itself. It is not. Nigerians are likely to be inclined to stick with their oppressor of the last 15 years than press their thumb for what continues to look like the soul and spirit of the old oppressor in a new skin.

It was inspiring to see the APC bypass an element like Chief Tom Ikimi as its party leader while going with Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, a respectable gentleman who though in his 70s, has the mind, character and personality to lead the Nigerian opposition party forward.

If the APC wants to be seen as the change Nigeria needs, the APC must first be that change in its way and manner of conducting its own party business before it can expect to be trusted by Nigerians as the change we really and truly need.

On a related note, it was inspiring to see young APC members take a stand while kicking against the decision by their party leaders to have someone out of the youth bracket lead them. In a country where some young people never see anything wrong in the party and political groups they support irrespective of what such parties or groups do, it was really inspiring to see the young APC members voice their disagreement.

Here, democracy has been assumed to mean, “support your party no matter what; oppose the other party no matter what.” This is the bane of our political conversations.  When the PDP had the aforementioned old man lead its youths, the same real youths in the party publicly defended the decision almost to death.

They probably thought they were taking a stand for their party but situations like that only show a zombie-esque membership status. If you cannot challenge your leaders when they are wrong, you are not their followers: you are their slaves. Only slaves are expected to voice support for the master, wrong or not, because the master is never wrong. Followership is a call to responsibility and self-assertion not a call to zombieship.

If young people had a fair ground to play in these political parties and are allowed the chance to contest and win the major positions in the parties, there’d indeed be no need for the position of “youth leader.” Check the Democratic and Republican parties for starters-- this anomaly does not exist within their main executive positions. The position of the “youth leader” looks like an attempt to ensure youth participation at that level seeing as the balance of power naturally plays the youths out.

So then, with this balance of power very much in place, why can’t these so called youths be allowed to be “youth leaders” in their own political party? Is it that our youths are needed just for the votes alone? Leaders of the APC openly made jokes about PDP’s then geriatric youth leader. So, who is the joke on now?

I am @Omojuwa on Twitter

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NYSC Bars Corps Members from Serving in Adamawa, Borno, Yobe

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has suspended the scheme in three North-eastern states, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States, due to the rising insecurity.

The Director-General of NYSC, Brig-General Johnson Olawumi, said this in Calabar yesterday at the annual management conference of the scheme in Cross River State capital.

He said until normalcy returned to the three states, NYSC would not post graduates of tertiary educational institutions there as the scheme was not ready to lose any corps member on national assignment to the activities of Boko Haram as it had in the past few years.

The director general warned the corps members posted outside the three states who sometimes travelled there to make more money.

“The NYSC is mindful of the security situation in the country. The states where we have security challenges we will deliberately not post corps members there. But any corps member who deliberately goes there to serve is doing so on his own volition. They do that on their own because we do not officially send corps members to those troubled states.

“I want to emphasise that those three states are part of Nigeria. Our prayer is that peace returns to those places as soon as possible so that corps members who want to explore those places would have the opportunity of doing so,” the director general said.

Mr. Olawumi stressed that the focus of the NYSC programme was to make corps members become self-sufficient, given the high level of unemployment in the country.

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Biometrics: MDAs Get December Deadline to Switch to NIMC Infrastructure

Federal government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDA), requiring identity verification services or are involved in data capture activities have been directed to switch over to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) infrastructure by December 31, 2014.

 

This was contained in a circular signed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, in Abuja recently.  It said necessary arrangement to achieve the set date has been put in place by the constitution of a Harmonization and Integration Committee in NIMC. The committee has members from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Communication Technology.

 

The circular noted that NIMC shall have the primary responsibility to deliver the processes and procedures for achieving a seamless integration of its National Identity Management System (NIMS) infrastructure, with existing infrastructures of other Agencies within the timeframe set by Government.

 

It added that all identity database-related projects and procurements shall be validated against the Harmonization and Integration Programme in view of the set deadline of December 31, 2014.

 

At the appropriate time, it said, government will publish the commencement date for the mandatory use of the National Identification Number (NIN).

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Gunmen Abduct Two Ladies from their Home in Abuja

Gunmen yesterday at about 5 p.m. stormed the house of Engr Samson Opaluwa, a Director in the Federal Ministry of Works, and abducted two of his daughters, Ejura Opaluwa and Unekwu Opaluwa.

An uncle of the abducted girls, Mr Atayi Opaluwa, who spoke to Metropole this morning, said five gunmen came in a Blue Honda with registration number HR152ABC and carried out a robbery attack on the family in their house at Associated Estate, No. 55, Impresit Camp, Karmo, Abuja. He said the gunmen were dissatisfied with the amount of money found in the house and on their way out picked the two ladies, demanding a N200 million ransom for their release.

The uncle further stated that the abductors called the family of the girls this morning and reduced the ransom to N150 million.

The incident, he said, has been reported to the police station at Life Camp.

He said Ejura is a medical student in the United States while her sister, Unekwu, is a student at Covenant University.

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#BringBackOurGirls: We Can't Afford To Move On

One must thank God for the kind souls that gather in Abuja everyday or so for the Chibok Girls. But for them, Nigerians and indeed the Nigerian government would have forgotten about the Chibok Girls altogether.

Asked about the point of a sit-out that has more or less failed to bring back the girls, since the government had already heard our grouse, one was quick to tell the journalist that the government heard the uproar about stolen subsidy funds in 2012, the government and the people have since moved on.

The government was privy to the uproar that greeted the minister of aviation’s N255 million cars, but the people and the government have since moved on. Nigerians never cared to ask what became of the cars and the government never cared to tell the people what became of its committee set up for that purpose. This is Nigeria, where, no matter how bad or heinous the crime, we move on and more often than not, we forget.

We cannot afford to move on from the Chibok Girls. If we do, we will be as responsible for whatever happens to them as those who abducted them and as the government that has seemingly abdicated its responsibility to rescue the girls. When the government started sponsoring protesters to call on Boko Haram to ‘Release Our Girls’ was the point a wise onlooker would know that the government was more or less shifting the responsibility of having the girls returned home alive to their abductors.

Our government expects a group of insane men who put all the plans and logistics in place to abduct over 200 girls to have a rethink and return them home just like that. It is like expecting a group of armed robbers who have successfully raided a house and carted away its most prized possessions to return same without being under pressure from the authorities. That is delusional. If our government does not do something about bringing back our girls, the girls will be gone.

Today is the 56th day since their abduction President Goodluck Jonathan has been everywhere for the most mundane reasons but has yet to visit Chibok to at least stand with the parents of the girls. Everything points to a government either desperate to shift responsibility or desperate to have the issue of the girls out of the minds of Nigerians.

Media houses are being clamped down. That way, apart from suppressing the press and intimidating its stakeholders, the government will be able to shift the issue of public discourse away from the Chibok Girls. Banning the Abuja advocates of Bring Back Our Girls from protesting earlier last week was another effort at killing the advocacy calling on the government to do something. People like Doyin Okupe weeping all over social media over a handshake that was rightly not returned is another way to distract from the girls.

Nigerians must understand that whether now or later, Nigeria will happen to most of us. That Nigeria has not reached your doorstep does not mean you should be disconnected from the unwholesome realities of our country faced by other citizens. As long as this country continues on this path, it will get to you. Our job is to remember that as a people, we are one. What touches one, touches all.

We cannot  afford to forget the Chibok Girls. We cannot afford to be silent about their plight. Several abductions have since happened since then as Boko Haram continues to unleash terror on Nigeria but we must remain resolute in making the Chibok Girls the focus of our campaign to get our government to take responsibility for its primary essence: the security of lives and property.

I tweet via @Omojuwa

 

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President Jonathan Mourns Emir of Kano

President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed grief over the passing of the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero.

This was contained in a statement this afternoon by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Reuben Abati. The statement said the president received with great sadness and a feeling of national loss, news of the passing away of the Emir. He therefore commiserated with the family of the late Emir and the people of Kano State for the loss.

“The President joins them in mourning the monarch whose uncommon leadership qualities and evident faith in the peace, unity, progress, and prosperity of Nigeria combined to make him one of the most respected traditional rulers in the country during his long and very successful reign,” it said. 

President Jonathan believes that Alhaji Ado Bayero will always be remembered and honoured by all Nigerians for his wisdom and competence as a traditional ruler, and also for using his position to build bridges of unity, friendship and harmony across the nation.

He prayed that the Almighty Allah will receive the late Emir's great soul and grant the good people of Kano a worthy successor.

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New CBN Gov’s 10-Point Agenda

The newly appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, yesterday at his maiden press briefing in Abuja, unveiled his agenda for the bank.

• Pursue a gradual reduction in key interest rates, and include the unemployment rate in monetary policy decisions;

• Maintain exchange rate stability and aggressively shore up foreign exchange reserves;

• Strengthen risk-based supervision mechanism of Nigerian banks to ensure overall health and banking system stability;

• Build sector-specific expertise in banking supervision to reflect loan concentration of the banking industry;

• In view of inadequate trigger thresholds from a macro-prudential perspective, consider and announce measures to effectively address this anomaly;

• Abolish fees associated with limits on deposits and reconsider ongoing practice in which all fees associated with limits on withdrawals accrue to banks alone;

• Introduce a broad spectrum of financial instruments to boost specific enterprise areas in agriculture, manufacturing, health, and oil and gas;

• Establish Secured Transaction and National Collateral Registry as well as establish a National Credit Scoring System that will improve access to information on borrowers and assist lenders to make good credit decisions;

• Build resilient financial infrastructure that serves the needs of the lower end of the market, especially those without collateral;

• Renew vigorous advocacy for the creation of commercial courts for quick adjudications on loan and related offences.

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Security and National Development

Globally, the strategic nature of security is constantly evolving. From the sea-pirates operating in the horn of Africa to the terror strikes in the Middle East to the Boston bombings in the United States, the challenge of security is global and no nation in the world is insulated.

Today in Nigeria, we are engaged in a counter-insurgency war against Boko Haram, an unprecedented challenge which requires a radical approach, a new way of thinking and a depth of understanding of the issues at stake beyond military operations or the efforts of the Federal Government alone.

 

Without doubt, security is an enabler of national development. There can be no sustainable development without peace and security. Increasingly, security and development concerns have become interlinked. Today, governments across the world and international institutions are becoming more aware of the need to integrate security and development programmes in their policy interventions.

 

Under the current Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan, so much is being done across sectors towards transforming Nigeria into one of the top 20 economies of the world. This is what makes the Boko Haram insurgency an unfortunate distraction in the efforts of our government to deliver dividends of democracy to the Nigerian people.

But a flipside to the foregoing scenario suggests that without development, there cannot be peace and security. Proponents of this school of thought believe that peace and security are a direct consequence of real development.

 

In 2004, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development observed that “Twenty of the world's poorest countries are engaged in an armed conflict. This statistic shows that the poorer a country, the greater its risk of violent conflict. Research by the World Bank and others also reveals that a country with an annual per capita income of 250 US dollars has a 15 percent chance of civil war within five years, whereas in a country with an annual per capita income of 5,000 US dollars, the probability is less than 1 percent.”

 

Whatever the perspective, the pertinent questions are tough and real, not just for the Federal Government, but for our state governments, local governments, community leaders, religious leaders, families and citizens in general. We must begin to ask ourselves; where have we failed? What is missing in our development efforts as a nation? Are the state and local governments doing their part to complement the efforts of the central government? Are we focusing on politics more than real development? What happened to our core values as a people? What amount of poverty, frustration or religious fanaticism justifies the mindless bloodshed we have seen in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency?

 

Putting our current challenge with the Boko Haram insurgency in context, our security challenges have become realer than imagined. Let me emphasise here that this is not about Muslims versus Christians or Northerners versus Southerners.

 

They say ‘Boko Haram’ means “Western education is a sin.” Nothing can be further from the truth than such an ideological reasoning clearly rooted in confusion. Boko Haram has slaughtered many children in their sleep in schools in the North-East in the name of hatred for western education. Yet, the guns and ammunition used by these terrorists are products of western technology. To stretch the argument further, the question is: what really is western about Mathematics, Science and Technology? The leaders and sympathizers of Boko Haram should take time to study the evolution of education in world history. Someone needs to educate them and let them realize that Islam has no quarrel with education. Historians have been able to establish that the first university in the world was the Sankore University in Timbuktu, capital of Mali under the reign of the Islamic Emperor, Mansa Musa who was renowned for his promotion of education, trade and commerce in Mali.

 

I am a Muslim and clearly, there is nothing violent about the practice and religion of true Islam. Those killing and shedding innocent blood in the name of Islam have not read the Holy Qu’ran. They are misguided and I am using this opportunity to call on all my true Muslim brothers and sisters to denounce them.

 

What we are dealing with is a mass illiteracy and development crisis that has festered for years but is unfortunately being manipulated and politicized at the moment by some individuals for their selfish gains. We must stand up to them and let them know that Nigeria is bigger than any individual.

 

More than ever before, what we are confronting has metamorphosed from a “Northern problem” to a “Nigerian problem.” Everyone is now affected. The consequence of years of mass illiteracy and the politics of underdevelopment in the North has contributed to birthing the scourge called Boko Haram. Perhaps, it is for this reason that Northern leaders continue to come under harsh criticisms for their failure to consolidate development in that region over the years in spite of the leadership opportunities that have come to that part of the country.

 

As we continue to explore the strategies of a military operation in putting an end to the Boko Haram insurgency, we must find a way to design a developmental rescue programme that puts education and agriculture at the heart of such an intervention.

In the area of agriculture, the north is blessed with hundreds of thousands of hectares of land that can be harnessed for farming with the opportunity of productively engaging hundreds of thousands of idle youths who have become willing tools in the hands of manipulative politicians.

 

According to the great Madiba, Nelson Mandela, “education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.” Nigeria can never achieve greatness if any part of this country is left behind in education. Statistics have shown that in the last ten years, Imo state alone produces more JAMB applications than all the twelve states in the North-East and North-West combined. Independent non-governmental researches have also established that Kebbi, Sokoto, Bauchi, Jigawa, Yobe, Zamfara, Katsina, and Gombe states have Nigeria's worst girl child education and highest female illiteracy. The ten states with the highest number of girls not in secondary school are found in the North, and these ten states, along with Kano, have the highest percentage of female ages between 15 to 24 years who cannot read or write.

 

Another example is the adult literacy level.  The adult literacy level in 2010, revealed that Lagos State had 80.5 per cent, Abia State with 78.2 per cent, Kaduna State with 53.5 per cent and Yobe State with 24.2 per cent.  It is evident from these facts that an educational vacuum may have been accidentally created and logical to assume that Boko Haram is exploiting the vacuum to pursue its subversive ideology.

 

Let me state at this juncture that security has evolved beyond a military responsibility alone. I want to use this platform to call on all Nigerians citizens to support the military by constantly exhibiting confidence in their abilities and providing them useful information that makes their work easier.

 

Our political leaders, irrespective of their party affiliation, must now band together to defeat what is clearly our common enemy. Politicians must begin to weigh their statements more carefully. Politicizing the war against Boko Haram is causing a lot of trouble for us as a nation. This is not a Federal Government war. This is not a PDP war. This is not a President Jonathan war. This is about every single Nigerian citizen!

 

The role of the state and local governments cannot be over-emphasized. I am particular about the local government unit of our national life, which is currently being eroded. For real development to cascade from the top to the grassroots, we must bring back the local governments and allow them the autonomy and financial independence that they need to thrive. With a functional local government in place, it becomes easier for our security agencies to work with our local communities in dealing with insurgency and other security challenges.

 

Our religious leaders, community leaders and our family systems have a key role to play. We must continue to demonise and condemn all criminal acts in our society, especially terrorism. Terrorism is alien to the true Nigerian spirit. Our traditional and community leaders, especially those in the North must take a cue from how Nigeria to a large extent, solved the problem of the Niger Delta insurgency. It would not have been possible without the support of the traditional and community leaders and other stakeholders in the Niger Delta.

 

For the media, their role is to be the watchdog and conscience of society. Every time we devote our front-page headlines to the activities of terrorists, we provide them the psychological impetus to continue in their acts of terror.

 

For us in government and the military, we must constantly remember that counter-insurgency is the art of winning public support. Therefore, we must be ready to work with civil society organisations and engage in community diplomacy and peace building. We must protect and defend the rights of our citizens to peaceful and lawful protests, and we must continue to ensure that we never harm civilians and show respect for our citizens in all our military operations.

 

Perhaps, more than ever before, the time has also come for us to review and rethink the Nigerian Military in order to reposition it to meet with the contemporary needs of military strategy. Our Government must continue to support the military in funding, efficient management, military hardware, capacity development and welfare. As I have recently advocated, I am committed to midwifing a reform process that will bring together key stakeholders in the military, the executive and legislative arms of Government as well as selected private sector people to help retool the Nigerian Military.

 

Conclusively, it is instructive to note that our military alone cannot win this war. Diplomacy alone cannot win this war. Development alone cannot win this war. Only a right combination of the politics of military tactics, diplomacy, true patriotism from every Nigerian and development can lead us out of this wilderness of terror and insecurity.

 

Excerpts from a Keynote Lecture on “Security and National Development” by Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Honourable Minister of State for Defence, on the occasion of The 2nd Professor Celestine Onwuliri Memorial Lecture on Thursday, 5th June, 2014, Owerri, Imo State.

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