Modupe Odele, a member of the Feminist Coalition, says the Nigerian Immigration Service stopped her from travelling out of the country.

The Feminist Coalition is the promoter of the #EndSARS protest and it raised about N147 million for the cause.

Odele, a lawyer who was actively involved in the campaign, offered legal aid to persons who were arrested during the demonstrations.

In a newsletter on Monday, Odele narrated how she was stopped at the airport while on her way to the Maldives to celebrate her birthday.

She said the officer who accosted her said the action was ordered “from above”, and that she saw a “wanted poster” of herself on the officer’s computer.

The lawyer said she was detained and her passport seized.

“For my birthday, I had planned a trip to the Maldives. It was really for a break as the events of the last three weeks have exhausted my mind and body in a way I have never been exhausted in my life,” she said.

“I went to the airport, passed through immigration, and while I was putting my bags through the body and baggage scanner, the immigration officer who had previously cleared me, called me back. He told me he had orders from above to detain me.

“Okay, at this point I’m like excuse me, my flight is in an hour. On what grounds are you detaining me?” He didn’t respond. Instead, he goes to his computer where he typed in my name and something that looked like a ‘wanted poster’ popped up on the portal.

“He blocked my view so I couldn’t see most of it but I saw some of it. And it read something like – ‘This person is under investigation by XYZ Intelligence Agency. If seen, they should be apprehended on sight.

“They held me for a little over an hour, seized my passport and I missed my flight. My passport is still seized up until this very moment and I have still not been made aware of what I am under investigation for.”

In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Odele said she is safe and that she has been invited back with her lawyers.

“Hello everyone. Thank you so much. I’m fine and I’m safe. We haven’t confirmed yet why I was stopped on Sunday or by whom. But I’ve been invited back in with my lawyers today. I’ll update when I have more information but please don’t spread false news. That is dangerous,” she tweeted.

*Says new guidelines will accelerate decongestion of correctional centres

The Attorney General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, has declared that “hoodlums” wearing military uniforms may have shot Nigerian protesters campaigning against police brutality in Lagos, adding that it was too soon to tell if soldiers were involved.

Malami has also said that the Consolidated Federal Capital Territory Courts Sentencing Guidelines and Practice will accelerate decongestion of Correctional Centres nationwide.

EndSARS demonstrations across the country turned violent on October 20 when witnesses in Lagos said the military opened fire on peaceful protesters in the Lekki district shortly after local authorities imposed a 24-hour curfew, drawing international condemnation.

Soldiers and police killed at least 12 people in two Lagos neighbourhoods on October 20, according to witnesses and rights group, Amnesty International. The army and police have denied involvement.

Reuters quoted Malami as telling reporters in Abuja yesterday, that the matter was being investigated and there was a need to establish whether the shooting took place, who was responsible and whether the people who were shooting were part of the military.

“You cannot rule out the possibility of perhaps hoodlums that set in to create a scene… could equally partake in the process,” Malami said at the news conference, which was also attended by government officials including the defence minister and finance minister.

He also said it was “pre-emptive” to conclude that there had even been a shooting.

Lagos state has ordered an investigation into the incident.

Last week the military said the Lagos state government asked the army to intervene to restore order, but soldiers did not shoot civilians.

Meanwhile, Malami has said that the Consolidated Federal Capital Territory Courts Sentencing Guidelines and Practice will accelerate decongestion of Correctional Centres nationwide.

Malami, while commending the introduction of non-custodial sentencing by the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015, said the recent provision of a clear legislative and institutional framework for the implementation of the ACJA by the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, 2019, were efforts by the Federal Government at addressing the colossal problem of congestion in correctional facilities in Nigeria.

The AGF spoke at the signing of the Consolidated Federal Capital Territory Courts (Custodial and Non – Custodial Sentencing) Practice Directions, 2020 at the headquarters of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Abuja.

He said: “The provision for non-custodial sentences such as probation, community service, restitution, compensation and suspended sentence by the ACJA 2015, was one of the main innovations of the Act”.

In his remarks, Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Ishaq Bello, said the signing of the sentencing guideline is a milestone achievement in the FCT Judiciary because lack of sentencing guideline in the past has led to misconception with the court often being accused of either being unduly lenient or of playing to the gallery by imposing severe punishment upon conviction especially in cases of public interest.

A trader, Mr. Ndukwe Ekekwe has recounted to the Lagos State Judicial Panel Investigating cases of alleged police brutality, how he was made a paraplegic by officers of the disbanded Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that wheelchair-bound Ekekwe told the nine-man panel on Tuesday that he was thrown from a two-storey building at the Alaba International Market by officers of the squad.

Accompanied by his aged mother to the sitting, Ekekwe, who was not represented by a counsel, narrated to the panel in pidgin English the events that led to his paralysis.

The petitioner said at 2.00 pm on Feb. 16, 2018, he was arrested at the Alaba International Market without charge by SARS officers .
He said that fellow traders asked the policemen to show their identity cards before Ekekwe could be handcuffed.

“They immediately removed their SARS shirts and began to shoot and everyone ran away. I asked them what my crime was and they said the arrest was an order from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).

“I was handcuffed in one hand because they noticed I wasn’t a troublemaker. On our way, they stopped at Igando and came down from the car and were talking.

“I used my other hand to reach my phone to try to call my mother, but the Inspector saw me, approached me and asked who gave me the guts to make a phone call and he took the phone, stepped on it and destroyed it.

“He stabbed me on my wrist and back and I was hit on the head with the butt of a gun and beaten. They collected the N58,000 that was for my shop,” he said.

Ekekwe said he was taken to the SARS office at Ikeja, Lagos, and at midnight he was stripped naked, taken to a torture chamber where he was beaten and tortured.

He said other SARS officers, who were torturing other individuals, also joined their colleagues in torturing him and the men even threatened to shoot him.

“I was left there till evening and I didn’t know my crime and till now I don’t know my crime. They kept saying that the intelligence report is on me.

“At the night of that day (Feb. 17, 2018), I was taken to my three shops where I sell phone accessories.

“They took away my goods worth N15million. I began shouting to attract attention and the commander told them to take me to the top of the two-storey plaza and I was thrown down from the building.

“The SARS officer that threw me from that building is Hamza Haruna. They took me back to their office in my injured state,” he said.

Ekekwe said that when his condition became dire, he was taken from the SARS office to the Police Hospital in Ikeja . He said was eventually referred to two other hospitals for treatment of his injury.

The trader said that he used to be the breadwinner of his family, but suffered a spinal injury from being thrown from the storey building, which led to his paralysis.

The petitioner said the police did not pay for his medical expenses and that he had to sell his house and landed property to offset the expenses.

The chairman of the panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi (Rtd) adjourned proceedings to Nov. 13 for the testimony of Ekekwe’s mother.

(NAN)

The Federal Government has declared it approved of the hostage rescue operation carried out by the United States of America Special Force for a kidnapped America in Nigeria at the weekend.

The operation, it said, was not a violation of Nigeria’s sovereignty.

There had been insinuation in some quarters the rescue of a kidnapped American citizen in Nigeria by the United States Special military Forces may have violated the territorial integrity of Nigeria.

But Minister of Defence Major General Bashir Magashi (rtd) on Tuesday clarified Nigeria was aware and approved of the operation.

He spoke while responding to questions from reporters after defending the Ministry of Defence 2021 Budget estimates before the Senate Committee on Defence, in Abuja.

The Minister said that Federal Government granted the USA permission to operate in the country being a “friendly country.”

Responding to questions on the need for the Nigerian military to deploy sophomore technology in the fight against insecurity; Magashi said Nigeria is handicapped at the moment by some “so-called developed countries who want the country to remain the way it is and keep running to them for help.

He however said the country was doing the best it can with what is available to the military.

The Minister further said that Nigeria will explore the current partnership with the United States to tackle insurgency in the country.

Magashi said: “The United States of America contacted the Nigerian government to undertake that operation.

“There is nothing wrong with a friendly nation taking permission to conduct an operation which is for the mutual good of the countries. That is why we allowed it to happen.”

Asked how far Nigeria has been able to exploit the friendliness between both countries to fight insurgency, the Minister said: “It is something that can be discussed later.

“It is not meant for the consumption of the public. To be honest but certainly we are making efforts and they have been helping us greatly in areas where we have difficulties and we are still asking for more.”

On comments that some countries were trying to block Nigeria from owning some technologies to fight insurgency, the Minister said: “It is natural. They want to sell their equipment so they will try to make it difficult for developing countries to have what they want.”

The Edo State chapter of the Nigeria Bar Association and the International Federation of Women Lawyers, (FIDA) Edo State chapter, yesterday, pledged their support to render pro-bono services to victims of police brutality in the state, just as the chairman of the Judicial Panel of Inquiry assured them of thoroughness, fairness and speedy delivery of justice to all.

The two bodies gave their pledges at the inaugural sitting of the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by the state government to investigate and give recommendations on how to compensate victims of police brutality in the state.

The NBA chairman, Pius Oiwoh, said they have been given a matching order by the national president of the association to render free legal services to victims of police brutality who might not be able to hire the services of a legal practitioner to adjudicate on their matters if need be.

Oiwoh said besides rendering pro-bono services to them, they have also been asked to be part of the observers of the proceedings.

He commended the state government for setting up the committee, pointing that it was the right step in the right direction.

He said the NBA has absolute confidence on the calibres of persons that have constituted the panel, given their pedigrees in the legal profession, adding that they are poised to assist and ensure that the panel succeeds in their mandates.

Also, the International Federation of Women Lawyers, (FIDA), Edo State chapter, represented by its Public Relations Officer, Florence Okundaye, said they would never hesitate to give free legal services to the victims of police brutality in the state and to endeavour that justice is delivered to them.

Earlier, the chairman of the 20-man panel, Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe (rtd), advised all persons who were victims to come forward with their petitions and concrete evidences with verifiable phone numbers and addresses.

She said the panel would perform its duty under the terms of reference which include to receive and investigate complaints of brutality by security agents, human rights violation or related extra judicial killings in Edo State.

She said the panel would also recommend measures of compensation, as well as suggest to Edo State government on how to ensure that security agents no longer abuse the rights of citizens.

She added that the panel is also charged to ascertain the officers responsible for the abuse of victims, and recommend their prosecution were applicable.
‎
According to the chairman, the proceedings would be opened between 10am and 4pm to every member of the public, urged all victims to submit their petitions on or before November 29, 2020.
“Physical submission of petitions or oral lodging of complaints shall be at the civic center between Block C and Block D, new secretariat complex opposite EFCC office, Benin City, Edo State every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” she said, promising that the panel would be thorough, fair and ready to do justice to all irrespective of who is involved.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has again questioned a former Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler.

Fowler on Tuesday returned to the EFCC office for the second round of questioning.

Fowler, who was also a former Chief Executive Officer, Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) was on Monday quizzed for several hours by the EFCC.

Spokesperson of the EFCC, Mr Wilson Uwujaren confirmed to newsmen that Fowler was allowed to go home yesterday and returned again today for further questioning.

According to Uwujaren, Fowler is being interrogated in connection to an ongoing investigation by the anti-graft agency.

Angela Nkwo-Akpolu and Faith Kalagbor

The Violence Against Persons Prohibition bill currently before the Imo State House of Assembly has generated so much dust over what some people have erroneously tagged “Abortion bill”. Unfortunately the bill does not even make a mention of the issues it is accused of.

The bill is sponsored by Rt. Hon Uju Onwudiwe, the member representing Njaba State Constituency and is scheduled for public hearing when the State Assembly reconvenes for sittings.

On her part, a Non Governmental Organization, Alliances for Africa (AFA) has brought together seasoned technocrats from diverse backgrounds to push for the passage of the VAPP bill under the aegis ISCEVAWG.

The Imo State Committee on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls (ISCEVAWG) are committed men and women passionate about the safety of people in Imo State.

Currently, Imo is the only state yet to domesticate the VAPP in the South Eastern States.

In the last one month, Church WhatsApp platforms have been awash with messages calling for rejection of the bill as it is considered to be anti Church values.

Specifically, the Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri Archdiocese, Most Revd. Moses Chikwe was quoted in The Leader newspaper to have said the bill seeks to ” turn society upside down because it will endanger cultural, traditional, and religious values”.

Further, he said the bill seeks to spell out prosecution of Clerics who refuse to join Homosexuals and Lesbians in Holy Matrimony in the State.

On his part, Revd. Ikenna Emmanuel of Faith House Transformation Assembly in Owerri sent out a message across the platform of the Imo Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) calling for stoppage of the Imo VAPP bill.

According to him, the “VAPP Bill 2020 Mandates Jail Sentence for Parents Who Scold their Children; VAPP BILL 2020 does not recognise the unborn Child in the vulnerable groups; will imprison Priests for preaching moral order; and seeks to destroy the Igbo Family and promise rise in poverty.

Further, he alleged in the message he signed on behalf of PFN Legal Forum that the VAPP bill does not protect the sanctity of life; does not protect the unborn child as a person; legalises same sex marriage; bans use of teachings of the Holy Bible in public.

According to Barrister Emmanuel, the VAPP BILL 2020 promotes deadly violence against women; and legalises Abortion and contraception to kill the unborn Child.

However, the truth is the VAPP bill does not even make a mention of all the aforementioned issues, not even one!

These are the provisions provided. Rape, inflicting physical injury on a person, coercion, willfully placing a person in fear of physical injury, offensive conduct, taking undue advantage of persons living with disability, prohibition of female circumcision or genital mutilation, and frustrating investigation.

Others are willfully making false statements, forceful ejection from home, depriving a person his or her liberty, damage to property with intent to cause distress, deprivation of right of inheritance.

Further, the offences listed include: forced financial dependence or economic abuse, forced isolation or separation from family and friends, emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse, harmful widowhood practices, abandonment of spouse, children and other dependants without sustenance, and stalking.

Others are sexual intimidation, intimidation of a person, spouse battery, harmful traditional practices, attack with harmful substance, incest, indecent exposure, posting pictures or videos of sexual violence on the internet, sexual blackmail, political violence, and violence by State actors.

The part two and three proposes protection order, while part four is about the regulatory body, and part five is about the investigation and prosecution of offences.

Part six highlights jurisdiction of the court, part seven is miscellaneous, part eight is consequential amendments, and nine interpretation.

From the aforementioned, it is obvious that all the issues bandied about the bill were not conceived let alone mentioned.

There is nothing in the bill that seeks to install females as Traditional Rulers or Priests.

The claims by Dr Phillip Njemanze that the bill promotes abortion or anything about tampering with anyone’s life is also not true.

Presently, Imo State following the lock down occasioned by the Covid 19 pandemic is bedeviled with rising cases of violence especially sexual offences involving blood relations.

Incest regrettably holds sway and most times involving minors who are forced to such acts.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a surge in the perpetration of these vicious acts as well as promotion of impunity for perpetrators due to the lack of legislative frameworks to adequately address the issues.

This has made difficult the work of our front line Women Human Right Defenders; because they face intimidation by some police officers. Such intimidations are also faced by the survivors who often times are even threatened to back out from seeking justice and encouraged to accept alternative dispute resolution by some corrupt officials.

Sadly, this doesn’t in anyway commensurate for the extent of damages caused especially where perpetrators violate under aged children or involve brutality in the act. The violations of our minors are the most reported within this period and has escalated which informs the need for systems to be put in place to put a check on these evil vices, particularly legislations.

Many people do not understand that under the present laws, a person cannot be successfully tried for sexual offences because proving such is herculean!

For instance, 12 years old Grace (not real name) had her pelvic bones broken by a man while being raped in Imo State.

For people especially children caught in the web of sexual violation, there is no safe space for them to hide from their abuser. After they report the incidents, they still have to return to the same house where their abuser lives!

Thus, such persons suffer repeated sexual and psychological abuses without reprieve.

Already, States like Ekiti and Lagos have passed their VAPP bill and protects her people, whether male or female, young or old.

Further, they have provided safe spaces where people abused can hide, heal, and recover from the abuse while the abuser is kept behind bars, away from other people lest they fall victims.

However, these are some of the concerns the bill by Hon Onwudiwe seeks to address. It seeks to proffer stiff penalties for offenders who consciously cause others harm.

Another concern is the obnoxious widowhood practices still practiced in some parts of the State like asking a widow to drink the water used to wash the body of her late husband. Acts such as this cause untold health concerns on the victims and that is what the bill seeks to address.

No woman is interested in seeking to be the Traditional Ruler of her community, rather we would love to enjoy thriving careers and or businesses. We do not desire to be the husband’s, we prefer to allow the men be the breadwinners and pay the bills, we will gladly support them.

However, it is obvious that many people have condemned the noble efforts of a committed lawmaker, who desires a safer space for all of us.

Many people have erroneously condemned a bill they have not seen nor read and are busy forwarding unconfirmed messages and inadvertently helping abusers to fight against a bill that protects everyone.

Facts about the Vapp Act and the Current Imo State Vapp Bill

The VAPP Act was signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan in May 2015 due to lack of uniformity in the law with regards to the battle to eliminate gender-based violence and sundry discrimination and abuses that the VAPP Act was enacted.

THE VAPP Act is a law that guarantees protection of the rights of victims of all forms of sexual and gender-based violence in the country.

The VAPP Act is the single law in place that transcends the criminal and penal code in guaranteeing justice and protecting the rights and properties of victims of sexual and gender-based violence by its expansion of the definition of rape, domestic offences, incest and several forms of violence.

Further, it ensures justice and protection of victims in a way that guarantees freedom, compensation and respect to human rights.
Under the VAPP Act, a wide range of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) including; rape/defilement forced financial dependence or economic abuse, harmful widowhood practices, genital mutilation, abandonment of children, harmful substance attacks, and incest are all recognized as punishable offences.

Only fifteen (15) out of the 36 states of the federation have domesticated the VAPP and in South-East Nigeria, Imo is the only state yet to domesticate the VAPP.

The Imo State VAPP Bill has been reviewed to integrate current trends of violence, roles and responsibilities of Key institutions based on the needs of survivors and for the effectual implementation of the provisions contained therein.

The Bill does not in any way support same sex marriage or Abortion as is currently propagated by Dr Philip Njemanze.

Call to Action:
We all must support the passage of the Violence Against Person’s Prohibition bill in Imo State as an institution charged with the mandate of protecting her citizenry and maintaining peace.

Sensitize the entire Church and citizens on the proscription and prohibition of all forms of sexual harassment and violation of women and girls and the need to support the passage of the VAPP bill.

Importantly, we must consciously disseminate only the right information via our different platforms and shun misinformation being propagated by those who are determined to frustrate the progress made by the ISCEVAWG Committee.

Together, let us collaborate to support the Imo State Committee on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls (ISCEVAWG) and see that the VAPP bill is passed to protect all of us.

Tatalo Alamu

From the volcanic meltdown of Nigeria in the past fortnight has emerged a unique species: Homo Nigerianus.  Homo Nigerianus has been long in coming. He does not speak Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba and does not partake in any of Nigeria’s multi-lingual riot of possibilities. He has been delinked from linguistic communion. His lingo is inarticulate rage which he spews out in sharp, stuttering and spluttering cadences of equal opportunity violence.

Social prophets predicted his arrival on the scene. Long before he was hatched like a monster animal in the fetid and festering bowel of harsh inequity that is modern post-Independence Nigeria, early precursors have been making some sneak appearance.  Homo Nigerianus is a product of complete de-socialization; a haunting throwback to the primitive caveman of human antiquity where wild men roamed the wild forests hunting for what to eat.

Like the old African savages in Joseph Conrad’s infamous novel, The Heart of Darkness, whose skills of communication never went beyond “catch am, kill am” or “Mr Kurtz he dead”, the linguistic ability of Homo Nigerianus is pared down to the barest minimum mode of self-expression. A fortnight ago upon sighting edibles in a warehouse that had been prised open by bare knuckles, Homo Nigerianus brayed: “See food!”

This is what happens when humanity has been reduced to the most feral level of existence, a condition which echoes the darker stages of the hunter-gatherer epoch of history. It is a Hobbesian hell; a state of nature in which everything is short, nasty and brutish. It is eat or be eaten alive. Beyond the common foraging for food, there is no solidarity of purpose. What is looted is easily re-looted and what is stolen is briskly stolen again.

How did a modern Nigerian society regress this far to the infancy of humanity? It has been said that humankind first civilized in Africa, but it has not continued to do so there. Like the rest of the world, Africa has also known great civilizations, mighty empires, notable kingdoms, remarkable city-states and globally recognized trading emporiums that date back to the Babylonian epoch.

But beginning from the thirteenth century African witnessed a steep decline. The people and their societies became very vulnerable to emergent European powers and Arab marauders that laid siege to them from greater Arabia. Portugal, Holland, France, Germany and Britain conquered and subjugated huge swathes of the continent while newly created Belgium was waiting in the wings.

The unending nightmare and humiliation culminated in the Berlin Conference of 1884/85 when the continent was parcelled out among the contending European powers. This was not just conquest in the ordinary sense of the word. It was conquest accompanied by a systematic political, economic, intellectual, spiritual and cultural annihilation in which a people and continent already at the end of its wits lost their organic essence.

To appreciate the colossal scale of depredation, the old Kongo kingdom whose entire inhabitants had been transported as slaves through the new slave port of Luanda underwent three different types of colonial rationalizations: Portuguese, French and Belgian. With its extant traditional institutions destroyed and the new colonial replacements stymied by host rejection, Africa became a land of anomic normlessness.

In such circumstances, it ought to have been obvious to the generation of African leaders involved in the independence struggle for Africa that to make a dent on the global scene, the nations inherited from the colonial masters had to be reinvented and forced to undergo a drastic reconfiguration in order to be able to stand up on their own. The colonial nation was not designed for Africans.

Those African leaders who grasped this imperative necessity for a comprehensive overhaul of the ticking time-bombs gingerly placed on their laps such as Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Obafemi Awolowo, Eduardo Mondlane, Augustino Neto and Samora Michel were either destroyed or prevented from coming to power. Post-colonial Africa is a blood-splattered canvas indeed.

It is a tragic pity that Nigeria which has been touted as the Black person’s last hope and the potential Mecca of the Black race as a result of its humongous size and spectacular endowments in natural and human resources has failed to live up to its historic billing.

After a costly civil war, several coups, civil uprisings, religious upheavals, organized banditry which has devastated the north central states and an on-going sectarian insurrection which has lasted eleven years, Nigeria is bleeding on all fronts. The nation has been in traumatic transition since independence.

In a strange irony, the post-military epoch seems to have sharply accentuated the debacle. Nigeria suffers from a double jeopardy. Military rule brought neither accelerated development nor national cohesion while civil rule has failed to throw up an organic and nationalist political class capable of squarely addressing the grave national problems.

With its economy devastated by a crippling war bill, dwindling revenues due to a mono-cultural dependence on oil, open mismanagement of resources, graft and spellbinding corruption in all arms of government, Nigeria’s woes have been critically compounded by the post-Covid-19 realities.

As a result of a run on the national currency due to state larceny and pressure on the external reserves, stagflation, which is a combination of rising prices and low purchasing power reigns supreme causing untold hardship to many Nigerian homes. With unemployment among the vibrant and energetic youth running at an all-time high, it is not a question of low purchasing power for the youngsters but no purchasing power.

With such a plethora of negative forces tugging at the national underbelly, no state diviner can predict when the tipping point would be reached. This is the fate that overtook Nigeria in the last fortnight.

Against a background of increasing despair and general impoverishment, the steep increase in the price of petroleum and the punitive tariff on electricity seemed to have pushed the public to a point of no return. The EndSARS protest against police brutality was just a pretext for a more massive social upheaval.

Enter Homo Nigerianus. Homo Nigerianus was not part of the EndSARS movement. On his own he could not articulate any social grievances and neither does he have the social clout or group cohesion to lead any mass protest. Only the articulate can call out the articulated. It was a case of the tail wagging the dog.

Homo Nigerianus does not belong to any social class. He cannot even be classified as belonging to an underclass. Classes are distinct social categories with their own unique identity. Being the wretched of the most wretched, hoodlums are declasse and unclassifiable.

The EndSARS protest people were leaderless by choice. The hoodlums were leaderless by vocation or lack of it. Criminal gangs have kingpins. But who ever heard of the leader of hoodlums?  Hoodlums are an amorphous mass distinguished by the brutality of dumb resentment against a system that has completely dehumanized them.

Drawn mainly from the rump of Nigeria’s old middle class and the emergent entertainment aristocracy, the EndSARS movement had no commonality or mutuality with Homo Nigerianus on the prowl. But the genuine protesters saw their nemesis too late in the day until it was ready to side line or steamroll them as the case may be.

Homo Nigerianus has now arrived on the scene fully dressed or fully undressed as the case may be. The genie is already out of the bottle and cannot be put back. Unlike the more disciplined proletariat of yore, the more class conscious artisan groups and peasant formations, Homo Nigerianus cannot be enlisted for revolutionary rousing or progressive politics.

But as we have seen, it will always be available where looting, anarchic mayhem and arson are being contemplated on a vast scale. The apocalyptic nightmare we have witnessed in the last fortnight will be a child’s play if we were to witness a repeat performance.

That encore may not be long in coming if nothing is urgently done to contain the menace. The hostile, inhuman postcolonial state that has spawned the monstrosity will have to give way to allow Nigeria to be made anew. As a first step, our sprawling anarchic metropolis, particularly Lagos, which are nothing but conglomerations of urban chaos will have to be urgently depopulated.

It is either we are going to be dragged into modernity or we choose to remain in our current neither-zone until it gets to us. A modern mega-city without a metro system, adequate sanitation, dwelling quarters, civic centres and a polite and people-friendly security service can only produce the type of dehumanized denizens that have been on rampage in our cities in the past fortnight.

Lagos needs federal help which will transform it into a fully functioning megalopolis and revive its shattered infrastructure. As a federal policy, there is an urgent need to revive the whole idea of satellite suburbia which will release our besieged cities from their current claustrophobic confines and drain them of their poisonous influx.

The whole concept of farm settlements, out of city hubs for emerging technologies, auto-polis, aero-malls etc can be fundamentally rethought and adapted to the needs of an emerging Third World economic power-house. However much we hate Chief Obafemi Awolowo as an avatar of emancipatory politics we can at least borrow from his brilliant Keynesian ruminations about redistribution of public wealth and amelioration of poverty.

This year has been quite momentous for Nigeria. Nobody could have predicted its unhappy trajectory at the beginning. Covid-19 emerged from nowhere to place the economy in acute jeopardy. As if this was not enough, the legitimate, well-organized but profoundly naïve EndSARS movement prepared the ground for the emergence of Homo Nigerianus who promptly incinerated the nation.

The monster we birthed has become a full grown hoodlum roaming the length and breadth of the country like an apocalyptic demon. He does not believe in anything or anybody for that matter. Having grown up in Nigeria’s vast orphanage of political and economic inequities, the hoodlums no longer speak our language. Like all nihilists, and with due to apologies to Oscar Wilde, Homo Nigerianus knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

His driving motive is sheer wilful destructiveness which is borne out of implacable social malice. But because he lacks both group solidarity and revolutionary cunning, he will be easily apprehended and neutralised by a police force buoyed and energised by group resentment and professional solidarity after being briefly overwhelmed. But like mosquitoes, they will continue to proliferate until the pond of filth that spawns them is drained.

We are very lucky that this time around that the police chose to abscond rather than join them. We have said it several times in this column that as long as we pretend to be paying the police, the police will pretend to be watching over us until some epochal event comes along to shatter the illusion of order. Next time around, the police having lost all illusions may be tempted to join. That will be real Armageddon.

We can only avoid this looming disaster if the rate of social absorption of the hoodlums through their economic rehabilitation outpaces their growth rate. For a society facing a drastic economic decline, this is going to be a tall order.

But there is no other way. Just as it amounts to sheer economic illiteracy to believe you can lift people out of poverty without economic production outpacing population growth, it is nothing but political delusion to believe that we have heard the last from Homo Nigerianus.

Thenationonlineng