The family of the late Gani Fawehinmi has welcomed the honour bestowed on the late iconic rights activist President Muhammadu Buhari announced on Wednesday that Mr Fawehinmi would be posthumously conferred with the Grand Commander of Nigeria (GCON) at a colourful ceremony in Abuja on June 12.
Mohammed, eldest son of the late activist said in a statement that the family would accept the GCON because it truly honoured the memory of the late legal icon and rights activist.
Fawehinmi, senior advocate, died in September 2009 after a prolonged battle with lung cancer at the age of 71.
Fawehinmi said the association of late winner of the June 12 poll with the latest offer made it difficult to reject like the previous ones.
“Accepting the award is a fuller affirmation of the commitment.
“The award is coming at the same time as the recognition of Abiola as the winner of the June 12 election.
“This would have been my father’s happiest moment, because what he had canvassed for is the now being done,” Fawehinmi said.
Nigeria is on the road to Babylon: a place of confusion. Three years ago, the people were convinced that they had found a messiah who will lead them to the Promised Land, and meet all their expectations.
Today, everyone is speaking in different tongues; “turning and turning in the widening gyre…the falcon cannot hear the falconer… things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/The blood-doomed tide is loosed, and everywhere/the ceremony of innocence is drowned…surely, some revelation is at hand…” But just may be, there is still, no cause for despair.
The good thing about democracy is that it teaches people lessons – ask them in Malaysia and the United States – and even when the people refuse stubbornly to learn – ask them in Syria, Venezuela, and Libya – the lessons exist nonetheless. But it is a very bad thing not just for democracy but the entire society when the leadership elite ignores apparent lessons and fails the people.
About 23 years ago, we did a series of editorials titled “To save Nigeria.” As our country continues on a journey towards Babylon, such editorials may again be necessary. The pity is that those who are in charge at the centre do not seem to understand this. I once wrote that persons who wield power like a whip – a dated military strategy – that is completely out of place today in a democracy, have surrounded and “captured” President Muhammadu Buhari. But as we can see, their strategy of alienation has failed.
This is the biggest challenge facing this government. Each time their strategy fails them; their standard response is to say that the President is not “aware” of whatever transpired. They have been so adept in selling this line to the boss, that the President himself once declared publicly that he was not aware that his Inspector-General of Police ignored, perhaps modified, or changed his instructions and went on a frolic of his own.
Things have not only gotten worse since then, the entire country is in a state of shock, and I won’t be surprised if a funny character shows up before this week runs out to tell us, again, that President Muhammadu Buhari is not aware that the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, the Chairman of the 8th Assembly has been summoned to appear before the Nigeria Police under the authority of the same Inspector-General of Police who has been having a running battle with the National Assembly and its members – first Senator Isa Misau, then Senator Dino Melaye and now Senator Bukola Saraki.
It doesn’t take much intelligence to figure out the script: what has happened between the Senate and the office of the Inspector General of Police is much less about the personalities involved but a lot more about the intra-governmental and intra-party crisis that continues to pose a threat to the Buhari government.
No other government in recent times has been this divided and suicidal. I won’t be surprised anyway if some vocal, genetic trouble-makers on social media (specially made in Nigeria since 2015) argue otherwise but let the point be made that President Buhari’s problems have all been self-inflicted, and his loss of favour within and outside government and the party have been due largely to the saboteurs within.
And if indeed President Buhari is not suffering from what Nigerians call “home trouble”, let someone explain to me why the EFCC is fighting the Department of State Security and the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, why the woman who sees the President first thing in the morning and last minute at night inside “the other room” is fighting a so-called cabal and has had cause to chide her husband publicly, why the legislative arm of government has been systematically sabotaging the Executive arm of government and vice versa, why the security agencies have been busy making enemies for President Buhari, and why the judiciary behaves like a frustrated arm of government, and civil servants have had to condemn the government they should serve as obedient servants. I believe that the chickens have now come home to roost with the latest attack on Senate President Bukola Saraki. The drama has reached its climax.
The Inspector-General of Police has summoned Saraki. It is pubic knowledge that this same public officer, Ibrahim Idris, publicly shunned the Senate when he was asked to appear before it.
Now, exploiting the powers of his office as the country’s chief police officer, he has declared that Bukola Saraki has a case to answer at the police station in a typical my-Mercedes-is-bigger-than-yours fashion, or for the benefit of those who will remember, if you Tarka-me-I-will-Daboh-you. Senate President Bukola Saraki has been called a thief by this administration.
He is now being indicted as the Godfather of Offa Armed Robbers. When a government advertises its No. 3 citizen as a thief and an armed robber, whatever happens, it is the country that loses at the end of the day.
It is good news that Saraki has agreed to appear before the police to clear his name. It is also good news – coming in as I write – that someone with some grey matter has quickly intervened and introduced a face-saving measure to wit: Saraki no longer has to go the police, instead, the police will go to him and take his statement.
Before that spoilsport intervention, I was already imagining very ugly optics. Imagine: Saraki would have gone to the Police in Abuja with about two-thirds of the National Assembly of Nigeria in tow. Dino Melaye would have led the pack and organize placards. He and the dancing Senator Adeleke could have added a special dance and song to create colour and tragic melodrama.
Without knowing it, the Inspector-General of Police would have created a popularity contest between Saraki and Buhari and between the Executive and Legislative arms of the Nigerian government. In the eyes of the world, that will amount to a serious crisis in Nigeria. So, how does the public disgrace of Senator Saraki help us as a country, or Buhari as President?
Somehow, despite the last minute adjustments, President Buhari’s managers have turned almost the entire National Assembly against him. The Speaker of the House of Representatives who has been so far supportive has also been alienated. The days ahead will not only be very interesting with the do-me-I-do-you tango that has been initiated at the highest levels of this government, the developments will have serious implications for the politics of the 2019 elections.
The Executive arm of government, for sure, has alienated the Federal legislature; it has similarly done the same to the judiciary. The humiliation of judges and lawyers was meant to be part of the war against corruption by the Buhari administration but the selective nature of that assault on the judiciary, and the brazen disregard for the rule of law, has left the entire establishment bruised. Not even under the military were the Bar and the Bench so badly treated. It is obvious that the judiciary is beginning to take its pound of flesh especially at the appellate courts. What kind of government would go out of its way to alienate other arms of government?
The media is the fourth estate of the realm. It has not been spared either. In three years, the Buhari government has managed to intimidate, harass and frustrate the Nigerian media, including freedom of expression on the social media. The relationship between this strategic institution and the government of the day has been propelled more by fear and caution rather than respect. Those media houses that used to be very aggressive under the previous administration have gone into a sit down and look mode. I can reveal for free that although a few sections of the Nigerian media are beginning to crawl out of their shells, the prevailing attitude is rooted in the belief that the media will always have the last say, and what we have is a media establishment that is waiting for the right time to take its own pound of flesh. Obviously, nobody is thinking of President Buhari’s legacy and how it will be remembered. “Making Enemies for the President: How President Buhari Won and Wasted the Presidency” would probably be an appropriate title for a future book.
Just imagine the number of enemies that have been made, and how the number increases almost weekly. Do these guys really want a second term? In 2015, the likes of Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who had contested against President Buhari during the primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ate the humble pie and supported him. Today, Atiku has left the APC. He is a leading critic of the same government and party that he helped to create and bring to power. Kwankwaso has been declared a persona non grata in the same state of Kano that he delivered to Buhari during the 2015 elections.
In 2015, President and elder statesman Olusegun Obasanjo wanted President Goodluck Jonathan out of Aso Rock by every means possible. He wrote letters, de-marketed the man locally and internationally and he told the whole world: anyone else but Jonathan. Three years later, Obasanjo is an unwanted guest at Aso Rock.
The man he helped to bring to power has publicly dissed him. He has himself had cause to offer Buhari a compulsory reading lesson by referring him to a trilogy: My Watch written by him. Buhari’s attack dogs have warned Obasanjo to keep quiet or he would be dealt with. That is like asking for “double wahala” because Obasanjo is also obviously ready for a show-down. He is leading a Nigerian coalition whose ambition is to do in Nigeria what Mahathir Mohamad has done in Malaysia and if he succeeds, he has enough clout to do far more damage with his pen and mouth, than the entire Nigerian media.
So, who is left with President Buhari? Definitely not President Goodluck Jonathan the man who lost power to him in 2015, and who quietly and dutifully handed over, only to be harassed and hounded later. Not the army of Nigerian youths either who supported Buhari and the APC in the 2015 elections only to be dismissed as an idle and opportunistic lot. Definitely not the social media crowd that carried Buhari on its head as if he was a crate of eggs. Many are those who have since apologized openly to Jonathan and Nigerians for allowing themselves to be misled. And certainly not Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the man who corralled the entire South West into the APC alliance in 2015, and who has been rewarded with ingratitude, insults and marginalization.
His relevance in his own immediate political constituency has just been queried with the rejection of the results of the recent APC party congress in Lagos State on wait for it – constitutional grounds. The APC National Working Committee has the guts to tell Tinubu that he is a law-breaker, and if he is not careful, he too will get the Saraki treatment? Really? The same man who risked everything to make the APC possible? But he knows what is good for him though; he has been wisely quiet. The South East has since turned its back on the Buhari government. Rochas Okorocha, the pro-Buhari governor of Imo state has been shown the handwriting on the wall. Other Igbos having seen how their region was turned into a battle-field are quietly waiting for 2019, to use their voters cards in a more informed manner than they did in 2015.
So, really who is left with the Buhari government? Bukola Saraki, with all the humiliation he has received would have to be an “ogbologbo omo ale” (let some twitter trolls translate that for me), to deploy his political structures in support of Buhari in 2019. He won’t anyway. Already, his political group in the APC alliance- the nPDP has declared that it is no longer interested in any further dialogue with the APC Federal Government. They have opted out. As for Tinubu, he would have to be really naive to go before the Yoruba people in 2019 to ask that they should vote for Buhari again. Rotimi Amaechi who was a leading gladiator in 2015 is still hanging in there, but it would be most strange if he were to be seen acting as he did in 2015. Even up North, the APC is in deep crisis in Benue, Kogi, Bauchi, Kano, Adamawa, Kaduna, Taraba, Sokoto, Kebbi and elsewhere. Last week, in Oyo State, the APC lost the bye-election in Ibarapa East and the ones gloating are not PDP members but factional members of the APC! Where the APC and the Buhari government are right now is not a good place to be in the people’s reckoning.
One Jonathanian phoned me the other day and said this is the God of Jonathan at work! I told him: “I won’t talk like that, I mean: #se-o-mo-age-mi-ni”. But I made this point: that it is the dew that will certainly destroy a house made of spittle; as a man sows so he reaps, the laws of nature are constant and immutable and the ways of God are forever mysterious. Nobody is shaking the Buhari-APC table. They are the ones who have on their own removed the legs from their own table. I have said my own. If some herdsmen are looking for me, tell them I am currently in Abeokuta enjoying Iya Sunday’s amala and ogufe! But also tell them that some of the boys at this table are very angry that Buhari has increased the cost of beer, water, and “smoke”.
Online Media Practitioner Association of Nigeria (OMPAN) meets with Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) on the 6th of June, 2018 towards the forthcoming Rivers State election.
The Chairman of RSIEC, Hon Justice Chukwunenye Uriri (Rtd) who was represented by Prof James Jaja, Chairman Political Parties Monitory, stated this while having a meeting with Rivers State chapter of OMPAN. Other executives with Prof James Jaja were Dr Anthony Nwiaudo ( Commissioner In Charge of Works And Field Service), Reginald Amadi (C.I of Transport and Sports) and also Prof Ekpette Uzioma.
The chairman of OMPAN Rivers State Chapter, Comrade Flamboyant Chidiebele Okoye thanked and congratulated the newly appointed excos of RSIEC and also looked forward to a working relationship with the body especially during and after the June 16th election in Rivers State.
Prof James Jaja in his statement stated that the roles of the media are quite enormous and the RSIEC Chairman is determined to make sure the forth coming election is a success as all parties will be well carried along and the security of the adhoc staff will be the body’s primary obligations.
” OMPAN is very important in this coming local Government election and the association should educate, sensitize and prepare the masses towards the forth coming election.” -Prof Jones Jaja added.
Prof James Jaja also thanked the Rivers State Chapter of OMPAN for recognizing them and looked forward for a more working relationship and also urge OMPAN to help in informing the masses about their roles in casting and participating actively in the election.
He also stated that OMPAN should endeavor to practice developmental journalism.
Today, 7th of June 2018, The Supreme Court struck out GTBank’s motion for stay of execution of the Enugu Court of Appeal Division’s order that GTBank pays over N6 Billion into an interest yielding account at the Court of Appeal. Innoson’s legal team which was led by Prof McCarthy Mbadugha ESQ told the Supreme Court that the Judgment debt which arose from excess and unlawful charges which GTB took from Innoson’s account now stood at over N14billion.
The Supreme Court decision follows GTBanks motion for stay of execution at the Supreme Court when the Court of Appeal Enugu Division ruled on 9th Dec, 2014 that the appellant (GTB) is hereby ordered to pay the sum of Five Billion, Nine Hundred and thirty Six Million, One Hundred and Twenty Six Thousand, Two Hundred and Nineteen Naira, One Kobo (N5,936,126,219.01k) to the Deputy Chief Register of the Court within 14 days from the date of ruling and which the Deputy Chief Register shall pay same into an interest yielding account in a reputable bank other than Diamond Bank or Mainstreet Bank Plc pending the determination of this appeal. The money together with whatever accrues thereon shall be paid to the party who wins the appeal.
GTBank not satisfied with the decision of the ruling of Court of Appeal, filled a motion for stay of execution at the Supreme Court, however Supreme Court today struck out GTB motion for stay of execution and maintained that it will not hear GTBank’s motion for stay of execution until it obeys the ruling of Court of Appeal to pay the said money into an interest yielding account.
By Supreme Court decision today, GTB is expected within 14 days to pay the sum of over N14Billion judgment debt to the Deputy Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal Enugu Division and which will now be paid into an interest yielding account in a reputable bank. The money together with whatever interest accrues thereon shall be paid to the party who wins the appeal.
1. The River Niger Bridge at Onitsha was constructed between 1964 and 1965 by Dumez- a French construction company and cost £5 million.
2. Patience Jonathan is one of Nigeria’s most-educated First Ladies, with an NCE, a B.Ed, and a PhD from University of Port-Harcourt.
3. The highest peak in Nigeria is located in Taraba and is called Chappal Waddi which means “The Mountain of Death”.
4. There are 196 countries in the world and at least one Igbo person from Nigeria lives in every one of them.
5. The Pidgin word ‘Sabi’ came from ‘Saber’, Portuguese and Spanish for ‘to know’. Both country’s ships traded slaves from the Bight of Benin.
6. Katsina College (now Barewa College in Zaria) has produced 5 Nigerian Presidents/Heads of State since it was founded in 1921 in Katsina.
7. Ojukwu taught Murtala Mohammed and Ben Adekunle at Regular Officers Special Training School, Ghana. Both ‘fought’ their teacher during the civil war
8. At Nigeria’s independence in 1960, there were 41 Secondary Schools in the North and 842 Secondary Schools in the South.
9. In 1983, Senator Arthur Nzeribe spent $16.5 million to win a Senatorial seat in Orlu (in Imo State).
10. In 1973, the Federal Government of Nigeria considered officially changing the name of “Lagos” to “Eko”. Regarding “Lagos” as a colonial name.
11. The geographical area now referred to as Nigeria was once referred to as ‘Soudan’ and ‘Nigiritia’.
12. Offences punishable by death sentence after the 1966 coup included embezzlement, rape and homosexuality.
13. MKO Abiola was named Kashimawo (Let us wait and see) by his parents. He was his father’s twenty-third child, but the first to survive infancy.
14. Jaja Wachucku was the first person to refer to Lagos as a “no-man’s land” in 1947, provoking a national controversy.
15. Jollof rice, chicken breast, serve of ice cream, tea, coffee or Bournvita, with full cream milk and sugar: Meal Cost = 50Kobo- Unilag in the late 1970s
16. At the point death in 1989, Sam Okwaraji was a PhD candidate and qualified lawyer with an LL.M in International Law (University of Rome)
17. When British Bank of West Africa (now First Bank) opened a branch in Kano in 1929, Alhassan Dantata (Dangote’s Grandfather) opened an account depositing 20 camel-loads of silver coins.
18. Jaja Wachuku is reputed to have owned the biggest one-man library in West Africa. Balewa sometimes referred to him as “Most Bookish Minister
19. The colonization of Nigeria took more than 40 years to achieve and the territories were integrated by the use of force.
20. Yoruba is spoken as a ritual language the Santeria cult in Carribean and South-Central America.
21. Slavery existed in the Nigerian territory before the 15th century and was abolished in the 19th century- 1807 by the British.
22. At least 55 women were killed in South-East Nigeria, in 1929 when the women forced the Umuahia warrant chiefs to submit to their rule.
23. The coinage ‘Supreme Court’ was first used in 1863 by the colonial administration through the enactment of the Supreme Court Ordinance No. II.
24. MKO Abiola died suddenly on July 7, 1998, exactly one month after General Sani Abacha died mysteriously on June 8, 1998.
25. Agbani Darego was the only one to wear a maillot as opposed to a bikini during the Miss Universe contest in 2001.
26. The ‘Ankara’ material is not indigenous to Nigeria. Our indigenous textiles include the Akwete, Ukara, Aso-Oke and Adire.
27. Aloma Mukhtar is the first female lawyer from the North and went on to become the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria.
28. The area known as Makoko town in Lagos was first a swamp, later sand-filled by the colonial government and served as the first bridge to the Island.
29. Esie Museum is Nigeria’s first museum, established in 1945. Once reputed to have the largest collection of soapstone images in the world.
30. Aminu Kano formed the Northern Teachers’ Association (NTA) in 1948, the first successful regional organization in the history of the North.
31. George Goldie, who played a major role in founding Nigeria, placed a curse on anyone who attempts to write his biography.
32. In 1996, John Ogbu, a Nigerian Anthropologist firmly advocated for the use of African-American Vernacular to teach in the U.S
33. Hausa Language indigenous to Northern Nigeria is spoken in 11 African States. Germany, French, U.S., and British International radio stations broadcast in Hausa.
34. The surgeon who ‘killed’ Stella Obasanjo was sentenced to 1 year in prison, disqualified for 3 years and fined €120,000.
35. The word ‘asiri’ means ‘secret’ in Hausa, Yoruba, Nupe and Igarra. It also means ‘gossip’ in Igbo.
36. Igbo-Ora in Oyo State, Kodinji in India and Candido Godoi in Brazil are the towns that produce the highest number of twin births in the world.
37. Bishop Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba, in 1857 produced a reading book for the Igbo Language and a full grammar and vocabulary of NUPE in 1864.
38. The first TV broadcast in Nigeria and Tropical Africa was on October 31, 1959.
39. In 1978, a 50Kobo increase (from #1.50 to #2) in the cost of University Students’ meal per day caused the ‘Ali Must Go’ protests.
40. Albert E. Kitson discovered coal in Enugu in 1909. This discovery led to the building of Port-Harcourt town in 1912.
41. Today, only Nigeria has a larger black population than Brazil. More than 3.5 million Africans were captured, enslaved and transported to Brazil.
42. Groundnut pyramids were the invention of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata to stack bags before export.
43. In 1967, old traditional ruler, Oba Akran and A. Ademiluyi were jailed for 14 years (7 each) for stealing £504,750 (#2.5b).
44. Since 1960, Nigeria has been either ruled by an ex-lecturer/ex-teacher or military man. The only exceptions are Azikiwe and Shonekan.
45. If you visited Lagos in 1975, you could spend a day at the Presidential Suite of Federal Palace Hotel for #100, single room for #19.
46. The first aircraft to land in Nigeria landed in Kano in July 1925. A British fighter jet flew from Khartoum (present day Sudan).
47. In 1895, Koko of Nembe (now in Bayelsa) took 60 white men hostage. When the British refused his demands, more than 40 of those men were eaten.
48. The ‘Naira’ was coined by Chief Obafemi Awolowo when he was serving as the Federal Commissioner of Finance.
49. Koma Hill (settlement in Adamawa where people lived and practised the killing of twins) was discovered in 1986 by a NYSC corps member.
50. The pilot (Francis Osakwe) that flew Ojukwu away from Biafra (1970) was the same pilot that flew Gowon to Uganda (last flight as Head of State).
51. In 1986, Shehu Shagari was banned from participation in politics for life. The ban has still not been lifted.
52. As the wife of the deputy Head of State (Vice President of Nigeria) in 1984, Biodun Idiagbon personally ran a small ice cream shop in Ilorin..
53. Koma Hills (Adamawa State) inhabitants when discovered were observed to engage in the practise of borrowing wives among themselves.
54. Juju, Dashiki, Yam and Okra are words in the English dictionary that originated from ethnic groups located in present day Nigeria.
55. Nigeria has more English speakers than England, and more Muslims than Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) has sent a letter of congratulation to the Coordinator of ADF Legal Bureau-Barr Maxwell Ozoaka on the passage of the Anti-Open Grazing Bill by the Abia State House of Assembly.The letter was signed by the ADF President -Prof Uzodinma Nwala and The Secretary- PROF NATH ANIEKWU.The Letter reads ‘On behalf of the ADF Working Committee, we write to congratulate you, the entire members of the ADF Legal Bureau, the ADF Secretariat and all those who have helped to motivate the formulation and transmission of the ADF Draft of the Anti-Open Grazing Bill which has just been passed by the Abia State House of Assembly.We have no doubt that the Governor of Abia State, His Excellency Chief Okezie Ikpeazu, shall sooner than later give his assent to the Bill and thereby making it a subsisting law of Abia State.Only a strategic and patriotic mind can appreciate the magnitude of the implications of the Law on Anti-Open Grazing on the protection of the lives and property of our people in Abia State, their ancestral homes, the honour and sanctity of their wives and daughters as well as their fundamental rights of freedom of movement and pursuit of their daily bread.We also hereby register our ‘big thank you’ to the leadership and members of the Abia State House of Assembly. By this singular act they have registered their names in the history of not only Abia State but also of the entire Igbo race as leaders with enough courage and patriotic spirit to rise in defense of their people at a most critical period in their history.It is important, however to note, that the passage of the Bill is one thing, the implementation of the Anti-Open Grazing Law is another. With the passage of the Law, we expect the State Government shall provide the citizens the legal modalities to enable them work with other statutory institutions that may be required for the implementation the Law to defend both the law, on the one hand, and the lives, property, ancestral homes, agricultural and other economic resources of the people, as well as the lives and sanctity of their wives and daughters.It is at this point that ADF appeals to the Churches, the traditional institutions, the Town Unions, Youth, student and women organizations to rise and help to ensure the full implementation of the Law.
ADF calls on the remaining States in the Igbo-Speaking areas of Nigeria to follow suit and pass the Bill whose Draft was sent to them by ADF since February 2018.We appeal to all the Governments in Alaigbo, all socio-cultural organizations in Alaigbo, especially Ohanaeze Ndigbo and other pan-Igbo organizations to rise as one united people to defend this Law and thereby protect our people and their property and ancestral homes as well as the sanctity of their wives and daughters. We appeal especially to the youth organizations including the pro-Biafra and other patriotic self-determination organizations in Alaigbo to commit themselves to the defense of the law prohibiting Anti-Open Grazing in the Region’ The letter concluded.
A Federal High Court, Lagos, today, convicted Ms. Ibukun Awosika, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, the chairman and Managing director of First bank Plc, respectively, as well as the bank for their refusal to honour the payment of N122 billion bond guaranteed by the bank.
The N122 billion bond, is in respect of the judgment debt against Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), in an oil spill suit instituted by Ejama community in Ogoniland, Rivers State.
The court presided over by Justice Ibrahim Buba, however suspended the serving of their conviction, for three months, to enable them to purge themselves of the contempt. The judge however stated that if by September 6, 2018, the convicts failed to purge themselves of the contempt proceedings, they shall immediately be sent to prison.
In convicting First Bank, its chairman, and managing director, Justice Buba had dismissed all the applications filed by their Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), describing contempt proceedings as abuse of court process and been statue bar.
It would be recalled that 10 indigenes of Ejama community, in the substantive suit had sued Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Netherlands, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, United Kingdom, and SPDC, over alleged oil spills that occurred when Shell operated in the community at the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt. Justice Buba had in his judgment in 2010, awarded N17 billion to the representatives of the Ogoni people.
Dr. Adesola Adeduntan
The court equally granted the Ejama Chiefs 25 percent interest charge on the principal sum of about N17 billion. SPDC had then appealed against the judgment and applied for a stay of execution of the judgment pending the appeal.
As a condition for granting the stay of execution, the court required Shell’s bankers, First Bank Plc, to provide a guarantee of the judgment sum. This condition was complied with. But Shell’s appeal failed at the Court of Appeal on technical grounds, ostensibly because it filed its processes out of time and without regularising them.
Consequent upon the failure of the appeal of SPDC at Appeal Court, and the refusal of First Bank Plc, to honour the payment of judgment debt which the bank had early guarantee through a bond, the applicants, through their lawyers, Chief Lucius Nwosu (SAN), A.A. Salawu-Rabana (SAN) and Ken C. Njemanze (SAN) filed Form 48 and Form 49 (committal to prison) against the bank, its chairman and managing director.
However, ruling could not be delivered in the contempt proceedings until today, due to several applications that were filed by the contemnors, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which sought to join as party in the suit, and SPDC.
Meanwhile, Justice Buba, has adjourned ruling on the garnishee proceeding against First Bank till June 19.
Femi Fani-Kayode, former Aviation minister, has described the statement by President Muhammadu Buhari that the Nigerian Army was “soft” on the Biafrans and “restrained” during the civil war, as a lie from the pit of hell.
However, Fani-Kayode, in an opinion piece on Wednesday, accused the President of telling wicked and despicable lies about the Igbo during the civil war.
He maintained that nothing was more painful to victims of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide than the denial by its orchestrators and perpetrators that the massacre never took place.
The former minister, while raising some unanswered questions during the civil war, wondered where Buhari’s humanity and sense of decency is.
He wrote, ”One of the most wicked and despicable lies that President Muhammadu Buhari has ever told is that the Nigerian Army was “soft” on the Biafrans and “restrained” during the civil war, implying that our soldiers did not indulge in genocide and mass murder.
”A few questions will suffice. Was the Asaba massacre in which thousands of innocent and defenceless young boys and old men were slaughtered an act of restraint?
”Or was the killing of two million innocent and defenceless Biafran civilians and the premeditated and contrived starving to death of one million innocent Biafran children an act of restraint?
”For God sake where is our humanity? Where is our sense of decency, our sensitivity and our sense of remorse?
”Must we lie about our history and must we always deny the truth and attempt to revise it? No wonder they banned the teaching of history in our schools. We simply have too much to hide!
”We forget that without contrition there can be no remorse, without remorse there can be no repentance, without repentance there can be no forgiveness and without forgiveness there can be no truth, reconciliation or progress.
”Justice and decency demands that we must collectively get off our sanctimonious and all-knowing high horse and stop behaving like the infallible and almighty conquerors that we think we are.
“Whether we are willing to admit it or not, the fact of the matter is that what we did to the Biafrans during the civil war was as bad as what Hitler’s Nazis and the German people did to the Jews during the Second World War. And had the civil war gone on for another three years it would have been worse!”
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday seized the opportunity of his investiture as grand patron of the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) to relive some of his civil war experiences between 1967 and 1970.
According to Buhari, the Biafrans would have suffered more casualties were it not for the restraints handed down to the federal troops by former military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon.
Going down memory lane, the president said every military commander was issued instructions in dispatches that they should take it easy on the Biafrans as they were not enemies but brothers and sisters of the rest of Nigerians.
Buhari, however, pledged to assist the organisation secure permanent office accommodation in Abuja.
The president praised Gowon for that gesture, adding that the role of the Red Cross in bringing succour to victims of the war even in dangerous circumstances was immeasurable.
He equally noted that the pathetic pictures of war-ravaged Biafrans were always heartrending.
“Earlier in my profession, during the civil war, I know how much sacrifice members of the Nigerian Red Cross and their international counterparts did both in the real front of operations and at the rear, on both sides. I think it is a lot of sacrifices because anything can happen to you in the operational areas.
“The risks they faced were real and I admire their courage and commitment to helping people who were in distress and were virtually in millions. Those photographs of people from the Biafra enclave spoke a lot.
“I remember with nostalgia the performance of the commander-in-chief, General Gowon. Every commander was given a copy of the commander-in-chief’s instructions that we were not fighting enemies but that we were fighting our brothers. And thus, people were constrained to show a lot of restraint.
“The international observer teams were allowed to go as far as possible within and outside the front and I think this was generous and very considerate of General Gowon. He is a highly committed Nigerian,” he stated.
On his promise to assist the organisation secure permanent office accommodation in Abuja, Buhari said, “I have taken note of your logistics especially your (request for) office here.
“I assure you that the government will do its best when you decide to build such facilities in terms of securing an area here within the Federal Capital Territory and we hope you will not do the Nigerian ways of doing things.
“To use the words of famous Nigerian minister, ‘I hope you will not build an elephantine headquarters’ which is going to be functional because we have seen your activities throughout the country,” he said.
In his remarks, the head of delegation and National President of the NRCS, Chief Bolaji Anani, said the organisation has over 800,000 trained volunteers based in communities across the 774 local government areas of the federation.
He pleaded with the president to assent to the Bill amending the Red Cross Act of 1960, whenever the National Assembly, which is debating it, eventually gives its approval. The Act has not been reviewed since it was passed in 1960.
“A review is long overdue. We note with pleasure that the current National Assembly is in the process of doing that. In fact, the revision has already undergone public hearing.
“We hope when the revised Bill is passed by the National Assembly it will be graciously assented to by Mr. President,” he said.
He also appealed to President Buhari to restore Federal Government’s grants, subventions and programme support to the society to enable it discharge its mandate diligently.
Anani also demanded for operational vehicles for ease of the work of the Red Cross in Nigeria; restoration of annual grants from the Federal Government; and special government recognition and awards to Red Cross officials and volunteers who have exceeded in service or even paid the ultimate price in service to the fatherland and humanity, in a bid to motivate more humanitarian gestures.
He further lamented that the Nigerian Red Cross has been operating from rented premises since it moved its headquarters from Lagos to Abuja, saying there is inadequate space to store relief materials and equipment.
The NCRS is the Nigerian arm of the global humanitarian Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement present in over 193 countries and played a major role in providing relief materials to beleaguered and starving Biafrans during Nigeria’s civil war when the South East and South-South parts of the nation sought to break away to form an independent country.
Let me quickly dismiss certain lingering pernicious fallacies that have dominated all discussion about the coup of January 15, 1966 and the Biafra War. First, there has been allusion to the January 15, 1966 coup as an Igbo coup that, according to them, was replied by the Northern coup of July 29 1966.
Let it be said loud and clear that that coup, namely January 15, 1966 coup, was not an Igbo coup. It was a coup led by certain Igbo and Yoruba Officers, involving the active participation of soldiers from the North. The aim, as has been stated again and again, by the leaders of the coup was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was in detention at the time and install him the Prime Minister of Nigeria.
That coup was foiled by Igbo military officers. Igbo political leaders and activists knew nothing about the coup.
Again the Incursion into the Mid-West by the Biafran troops was not a quest for territorial grabbing by the Igbos. Ojukwu sent troops under the Command of Col, Banjo in response to Chief Awolowo’s request for troops to help liberate Yoruba land from the occupation of soldiers from the North.
By the time Col Banjo got to Ore, the British had gotten Gowon to offer Chief Awolowo Vice Chairmanship of the Nigerian Government. Awolowo, therefore, asked Banjo not to proceed on his mission.
General Yakubu Gowon knows the truth of all these things. And that is why the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) had written him and asked him to tell Nigerians and the whole world the truth about the January 15, 1966 coup and the Biafra incursion into the Mid-West, and to stop all the lies against Ndigbo, which have been the basis of the burden they carry as a nation within the Nigerian Federation.
Secondly, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Head of State and a frontline commander on the Federal side during the war, said that they (the Federal military leaders) conducted the war without any hate or vengeance because it was a quarrel between brothers.
To this, one is constrained to ask a few pertinent questions: How did the world come to describe the conduct of the war as POGROM? What about the policy that hunger was a legitimate weapon of war and so was justified in its application against the Biafrans? What about bombing of refugee camps, market places, churches, etc?
Again, when Chief Obasanjo said that they, “the victorious side”, have been more magnanimous than the victors in the American civil war, where, according to him, those who lost the war never had a chance to be President of America until several decades if not a century later, I would ask him – WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA? WHAT ABOUT NELSON MANDELLA?
Such assertions rather than heal the wounds of the war, keep the wounds aglow, rather than reconcile, it runs pour raw pepper of unjustified arrogance on the wounded hearts of the Biafrans. How can you genuinely talk about reconciliation with that kind of mind-set. The truth is that for General Obasanjo, the Biafrans are defeated people. Period!
Indeed, before we can talk about reconciliation, we must accept that grave wrongs were done to the Biafrans, Before, During and Since the end of the war.
During the ‘fictional’ trial of Adolf Hitler after Germany and her allies lost the war to the Allied Forces, the following exchange took place between Hitler and his interlocutor –
Interlocutor to Hitler: You were responsible for the Second World War?
Hitler: No! The Versailles Treaties was.
A similar question can be posed to the Biafra Self-determination Agitators in Nigeria today as to whether they are responsible for the renewed Agitation for Biafra.
I imagine that the Biafra Freedom Agitators, just like Adolf Hitler, would emphatically respond NO! They would rather blame the present upsurge for Self-determination and Biafra and all its fallouts on all those leaders on the “victorious side” who, rather than pursuing the path of genuine Reconciliation, pursued the path of punitive retributions against those who “lost” the war.
Unfortunately, as it was in the case of the defeated Germany that was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened, so do we find in the case of Biafra, that despite all the retributive measures against her people, Biafra and the Biafrans, have neither been pacified, nor conciliated, nor have they been permanently weakened.
Unlike the Treaty of Versailles that exerted bloody pound of flesh on the side that lost the First World War, the victorious side in the Second World War padded their retributive actions with the Marshall Plan.
And thus unlike the intended Carthagenian peace of the Versailles Treaty of 28 June 1919, the Marshall Plan brought a relatively permanent peace to Europe that withstood the shock waves of the cold war including the Cuban Missile crises.
In pursuing the lessons of the retributive post-war treatment of the Biafrans, I would ask the leaders on the victorious side –
When you took all their financial deposits in the banks and paid them only £20 (twenty pounds), what did you expect the result to be – pacification, conciliation or to have them permanently weakened?
When you allowed massacre of unarmed soldiers and leaders even when they had declared their return to Nigeria, what did you expect? I mean when you murdered Prof. Kalu Ezera or when you killed unarmed Col Onwuatuegwu in cold blood, what did you expect?
When you killed and also buried alive thousands of innocent civilians in Asaba, was that a circus show?
I escaped being killed at the end of the war through the mysterious intervention of my college mate, Mr Nwogugbe from Asa in Abia State who was a member of the Nigerian battalion that overran my area on that fateful day of January 8, 1970.
The solders had sent for me and when I arrived at Nkwo Mbaise their base, Nwoguegbe instantly recognised me and shouted Nkume! I responded Nwoguegbe!
Despite being introduced to his commander, Captain Jibowu, the later took him to one corner, asking to be convinced why I should not be treated in accordance with the official instructions, namely to waste any such able-bodied young-man who may have been an actual or potential Biafra soldier.
I was lucky. Nwoguegbe saved me, but several of my mates from my community were not. Cornellius Oguikpe, Michael Osuagwu, Efriam Chukwunoyerem, Echewodo Onwunali, all were murdered at the end of the war by the Nigerian soldiers.
Yes, post-Biafra was not attended by any genuine efforts to seek reconciliation nor even to find out what led to the war. Rather, what we have witnessed is decades of vengeance, arrogance and conspiracy against Alaigbo and Ndigbo –
Yes these are on record –
Immediate post-war punitive massacre.
Dismissal of some officers on the losing side, reduction in rank of others.
Dismissal of civil servants.
Secret Execution of some officers (Col. Onwuatuegwu, Prof, Kalu Ezera)
Abandoned property seizure of Igbo property.
Punitive boundary adjustment.
Closure of the Eastern Sea Port and Railway lines.
Deliberate policy of encirclement of Alaigbo, inciting Igbo outside Igbo heartland to reject their Igbo identity.
Deliberate policy of exclusion from the governance and power equation i Nigeria.
Deliberate policy of destroying Igbo businesses.
Continued massacre, lynching of Igbos in many places in the North
Insensitivity to the plight of the IDPs of Igbo extraction who were initially the major targets of Boko Haram bombings and killings.
No serious effort at post-war reconstruction and reconciliation
Have we forgotten that Biafra was a collective guilt and that those who created the Nigerian Federation did so to satisfy their own agenda. They designed a local agenda for the same purpose?
Have we forgotten the cause of Biafra and the war? Have we ever come together to examine why Biafra? Who was the aggressor in that war?
What about the several efforts to sit down and dispassionately examine the fate of the Federation and how to heal the wounds of the past. Several aborted historical opportunities for peace and stability, or a genuine democratic system include –
Ibadan Conference of Sept/Oct 1966
Aburi Accord.
Abiola’s election that would have set a precedent.
1994-5 Constitutional Conference and the 1995 Draft Constitution, the best Constitutional Draft in the history of Nigeria.
Conferences organized by the Obasanjo regime.
President Jonathan’s 2014 Conference.
Current Ferocious opposition to restructuring.
The only road to Reconciliation is
not Restructuring but Renegotiation of the basis of the Nigerian Federation.
