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Have sex, entertainment, and cruise become Nigeria’s national character?

By Reno Omokri

True story: I take brain-enhancing supplements. And I wanted to market them in Nigeria because they help me think deeply. I mentioned this to a friend who owns malls across Nigeria. He told me not to waste my time. He said if I want to make money in Nigeria, I should sell sexual enhancement.

It made me sad, but can I say he was lying ? I asked some other people, and they all said the same thing to me differently.

And then I began to think deeply about this. Do we, as a society, value pleasure over treasure ? And is that why we are almost always under financial pressure ? We are multiplying our population without multiplying our remuneration. And until we reverse this, we will not fulfil our potential.

I still wanted to investigate this matter some more. My mind is analytical, and until I have empirical data, I am not sure to accept a premise.

So I thought to myself, what can I investigate or invigilate to either lend or take away credence from these assertions about our contemporary values as a people?

So, I decided to investigate the biggest YouTube channels in European countries and African nations and was stunned by my findings!

There are loads of Nigerians doing skits. It’s probably one of the biggest things online for Nigerians. We are inundated with entertainment and cruise. But you hardly see Nigerians doing ‘How To’ videos. How to start a business. How to get a scholarship. How to build a drone. How to start a cucumber farm. Our passion is to be entertained.

The biggest YouTube channel in Sweden is PewDiePie, with 111 million subscribers. It is about using humour to teach gaming, investments such as NFTs, and new digital technology. In Germany, it is Kurzgesagt, with 22 million subscribers. It is about science and focuses on education. In France, it is Squeezie, with 18.7 million subscribers. Squeezie is basically a French version of PewDiePie.

In contrast, in Nigeria, the biggest YouTube channel is Mark Angel Comedy, and the next top five are comedians, rappers or singers.

In Ghana, the biggest channel is Sarkodie’s. He is a Ghanaian rapper. In South Africa, it is Trevor Noah, the comedian. In Ethiopia, it is Hope Music, a music group.

Next, I investigated countries with the most significant traffic on a particular p*rn-graphic website called Pornhub. And lo and behold, Nigeria topped their visitor traffic.

I found this hard to accept and reconcile with our outward appearance of religiosity. Nigeria is perhaps one of the most religious nations on Earth.

Who are the people visiting these pornographic websites ?

The most important job in Nigeria today is not being president. The Director General of the National Orientation Agency has the most vital job in Nigeria, because Nigerians need a change of attitude.

We need to be reoriented towards patriotism and wholesomeness.

Nigerians delight in running down Nigeria on social media and even try to outdo each other on who can do it better. And it is not just young Generation Z. Elders do it. Clerics too. Supposed statesmen engage in it.

Recently, a Russian woman who now lives in Nigeria said she loves Nigeria because “it is just a cruise country.”

Let me translate that for you. She admires Nigeria because we are an unserious country, with unserious people, who do not take important matters seriously but major on the minor. That was an insult.

We need to grow a new mindset. We must move towards being a country that is focused on growth and productivity, not a country of natural complainers, who have one of the lowest tax-to-GDP rates on Earth, yet want our government to do for us what governments in nations where they pay taxes do for their citizens, while we all sit down and are entertained and use whatever money we can find to buy imported goods and services then blame our government when our national currency refuses to rise.

Nigerian lawyer turned caregiver slumps, dies in UK

With the stinging hardship in Nigeria, a young Nigerian lawyer relocated to the United Kingdom (UK) to work as a caregiver to the elderly. Sadly, that quest for a better life ended tragically for Barr. Chidimma Susan Ezenyili who collapsed and died on duty. All efforts by neighbours to save her life failed.

The 37-year-old mother of one who is also known as Suzy was said to have gone to work despite being ill because she was resolved not to abandon her elderly client, Ian Hale in Scott Road, but slumped at her duty post in the street of Bishop’s Stortford and passed two days later.

Prior to her migration to the UK, Suzy reportedly qualified as a lawyer in Nigeria. She had been caring for the 86-year-old Hale for the past five months.

Speaking about Suzy’s demise, Hale’s daughter, Catherine Segal, said, “She was driven there by her husband with their three-year-old daughter as she wasn’t feeling well but didn’t want to let my dad down.”

Suzy and her husband Friday left Nigeria in August 2023 for the UK, and both have been working as caregivers on sponsorship visas to give their toddler daughter, Mandy, a better life.

When Segal was recounting the said incident, she said Suzy collapsed on Thursday February 22, and stopped breathing and did not have a pulse.

“Naturally, her husband started shouting for help. The neighbourhood raced to help. Myself and my husband ran outside along with our next-door neighbour and our neighbour from across the road.”

While Hale’s daughter dialled 999 and took instructions from the emergency services, the deceased’s neighbour Tracey Clarke took little Mandy into her home to shield her from the unfolding tragedy, before returning to help.

Another resident in the area, Armando Villa, ran to Havers Community Centre to get a portable defibrillator and Segal’s husband, Saul, performed chest compressions in a desperate attempt to revive Suzy.

Segal further said, “We had two GoodSAM first responders arrive shortly after to assist. The community first responder along with several ambulances, police and the critical care team arrived to take over attempts to save her life and were successful in getting her on life support in the ambulance.”

Suzy was taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where doctors at the neurosciences critical care unit discovered she had suffered a severe brain haemorrhage.

Segal and Suzy’s manager from Harlow-based Care at Hand Ltd, Elisha Newberry, went to the hospital with Friday to support him.

In his narration, Segal’s husband, Saul said, “Sadly, life support was turned off two days later, on February 24, and she passed with her husband by her side.”

But Segal said, “Suzy came here as a career to fill a need in our community. She was qualified in law in Nigeria and was planning to attain her qualifications to practise law here after her sponsorship as a career finished.

“She was a really good carer. Kind, considerate and always willing to help no matter what the circumstances.

“Her dream was for her daughter, Mandy, to attend school in the UK and to make a new life here where she would have the opportunities that Suzy and Friday never had growing up in Nigeria.”

Meanwhile, Segal has helped set up a JustGiving appeal to help Friday and Mandy. She said: “They’re here on their own and will struggle without access to public funds. Friday is also working on a sponsorship visa but their family has no access to public resources to help them during this tragic time.

“As a lone parent now, Friday will struggle to work and care for Mandy without any support.

“Friday has constantly expressed his gratitude to the community and first responders who helped on that tragic day. He has given us permission to set up the JustGiving page.”

Suspected armed herdsmen continue deadly attacks on Benue communities

In a renewed vicious attack by suspected armed herdsmen, a soldier and two farmers have been killed with several others injured in separate attacks on Ochumekwu and Udedeku communities in Apa and Kwande Local Government Areas of Benue State.

Vanguard reports that the military personnel, attacked Sunday afternoon were part of the troops of the military spike operation, code named Operation Whirl Stroke, OPWS, deployed to the state to stem the activities of armed herdsmen and bandits terrorising the locals.

They were said to have come under attack while on patrol in the community.

The attack came as two others were killed and several others sustained injuries during a raid on Udedeku community of Maav-Ya, Mkoonmom district of Mbaikyor Council Ward, Turan Jato-Aka in Kwande LGA.

In a tweet lamenting the situation, Ier Jonathan-Ichaver, Co-Founder of Sesor Empowerment Foundation cried out that terrorist herdsmen at the weekend “continued their genocidal crimes against humanity in Kwande LGA of Benue.”

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According to Vanguard, a source in the area said the armed herdsmen, who had already taken over five council wards in Turan and the three wards in Ikyurav Ya, invaded Udedeku community, where they ambushed the victims and slaughtered them like animals.

He said: “Apart from the two persons they killed, several others sustained injuries in the attack.
“At the moment, all the five council wards in Turan and the three in Ikyurav Ya, in Kwande East are occupied by the Fulani herdsmen.

“The people have fled their homes to seek refuge elsewhere for fear of being killed by the well-armed herdsmen.”
Confirming the attack on his troops, Force Commander of OPWS, Maj. Gen. Sunday Igbinomwanhia, informed that three of the marauders were killed in the offensive and several of their arms recovered.

He said: “The suspected armed herdsmen attacked the soliders deployed in Ochumekwu, Apa LGA. They killed one personnel and wounded one.

“The troops in response killed three and injured several of them. They recovered one AK-47 rifle and rounds of ammunition from them.”

On the incident in Kwande, he said: “OPWS is currently carrying out a clearance operation to flush out suspected armed foreign herders who have invaded the LGA.”

The International Crisis Group (ICG) which has long urged the Federal government to prosecute perpetrators of violence insists that the escalating conflict between herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria is “six times deadlier” than Boko Haram-related attacks, posing a great threat to the country’s stability.

Afenifere: The Tinubu Administration’s ₦1trillion contract, personal interests, amidst starvation

Afenifere: The Tinubu Administration’s ₦1trillion contract, a tint of personal interests as his policies continues to starve the country

There was a brief renewed hope on Monday 26 February 2024 that President Tinubu was about to curb the rising wasteful high cost of governance by promising to implement the 2012 Steve Oronsaye Report commissioned by President Jonathan. Even though there was some justified skepticism since Buhari’s APC had also used the same report as a distraction. However any glimmer of hope that president Tinubu had turned to true progressive change was extinguished when he awarded the N1 trillion Coastal Highway project to Hitech Construction Ltd owned by Chagoury his bosom friend. A brazen conflict of interest and corrupt abuse of power?

How would President Tinubu award to his bosom friend a Trillion Naira contract while the lives of millions of our people and their livelihoods are systematically being destroyed in the name of cost cutting by removing subsidies and the devaluation of the Naira?

This paradoxical situation raises a number of questions to whether the huge project is justified in our development plans, and whether a proper competitive tendering and bidding process was conducted before such a huge contract was awarded to HITECH, a construction company, known for one of the highest rates, several times the world benchmark. President Tinubu has been perceived to have been behind the award of juicy road construction projects for Hitech in most of the Southwestern states where the APC has being in government.

Aside querying whether the contract was nepotistic and not conforming with the best practices all over the world, We, The People of Nigeria, must ask whether the contract has any productive added value and multiplier effects, even at these precarious times

First and foremost, there is already an uncompleted dual carriageway all the way from Lagos to Port Harcourt known as the East-West Road, which runs parallel a few kilometers alongside this new proposed coastal highway. The East-West Road goes from Lagos to Shagamu to Ore to Benin to Warri to Ughelli to Elele to Aba and finally to Port Harcourt, which is a pertinent and productive project, designed to ensure economic connectivity and growth, weaving through the largest industrial hubs in the southwest, southeast and the southsouth zones. However, the Tinubu’s Administration’s proposed Coastal Highway appears to pass through Igbokoda in southwest, and probably Warri before getting to Port Harcourt, a trifling venture not showing any worthwhile incremental benefit or development to industrial towns and cities along its way.
A safely international comparison with best practices using The USA, UK and other Developed Nations reveal the use of interstate trunk roads linking coastal cities from the interior like the originally intended East-West Road — In The USA there is the I-95 (Maine-NY-Florida) along the interior of the East Coast, I-5 (Seattle-LA) along the West Coast interior, AI (M) from London to Edinburgh. None of these countries builds a strictly coastal highway of few tows and cities like the one proposed by the Tinubu administration because it is simply wasteful!

The most important economic empowering infrastructure needed by the South is the Lagos-Calabar railway, not another new highway. Along with modern practices, the railways to carry heavy haulage is always going to be the best infrastructure compared to roads which in Nigeria do not appear to last half their lifetime due to heavy trucks and trailers with their weights, more than a little too much for our roads, mostly built without adequate drainage systems.

President Jonathan in 2014 signed the Lagos-Calabar railway contract to be financed and built by the Chinese, but the APC sabotaged and cancelled the contract. Apart from being a more efficient transport mode, the way towards industrialization is a comprehensive railway system that must be initiated with three East-West railway lines – Lagos-Calabar, Ilorin-Yola and Sokoto-Maiduguri, which will enable states, towns and private sector build feeder routes to every nook and corner of Nigeria. Railways are the launchpad for industrialization in every developing country seeking to pertinently industrialize after identifying the active and potential hubs, bearing in mind that iron, metal, heavy manufacturing are part of its huge multiplier effects that will spur rapid growth within a decade. With further huge employment and income multiplier effects in other sectors adequate measures must be taken to include the growing number of automobile assembly plants, particularly in the southeast, incorporating the access to the seaports and railways the need for transportation to and fro of spares and assembled products with minimal ease.

The Newly formed Economic Advisory Council and The Oronsaye Report

It appears once again that this administration never truly prepared for governance. What we see time and time again is management of the reactive kind. For a president elect that had a period of three months before Inauguration to rustle up, in panic, a so-called tripartite economic advisory team amidst a tanking-out of the national economy only shows that:

  1. Showmanship, a la “fuel subsidy is gone!” disguised as action precedes thought and reflection in the rule book of this regime;
  2. The regime had no economic plan worth the name, ab initio; and
  3. In the past eight months, the economy had been left in the hands of incompetent economic gamblers, bootleggers and buccaneers and mere bag carriers, toying with the lives of 200 million Nigerians.

It is not when a vehicle stalls or runs into a ditch that you start to ask if the driver was drunk or not, or to frantically go searching for where the toolbox is. Eight precious and irreplaceable months have been lost already, when party hacks bumped into each other, pretending to be running an economy. We can only hope that the remiss does not prove fatal…

President Tinubu is showing himself to be hardly up to the task of running the affairs of our country. Even the touted “Full adoption of the Oronsaye Report”, as announced by his government, is believed to be insincere and a distraction from his economic policy failure. Rolling from two popular but disastrous economic policies – subsidy removal and Naira devaluation – he will be worsening the economic situation by laying off hundreds of thousands of Nigerians, without creating alternative jobs. And so, the question arises:

  1. Did the president not know he will be implementing the Oronsaye report before creating new ministries!??
  2. The president it appears could not have been committed to “FULL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ORONSAYE REPORT”, when he appointed 48 ministers…. Or he was!??
  3. Are we not being sent on yet another “Àródan”, a wild goose chase. An administration, adroit at gaslighting the people with self effacing policies, hardly capable of being straight, faced with a day before a nationwide strike, did the usual distraction by dropping the promise of implementing the Oronsaye report on the laps of hapless, quick-to-fall-for-the-flair citizenry!??
  4. A day after the “Full implementation of the Oronsaye report”, same government also announced that, “no one will lose his or her job”, is it not imperative therefore to ask, is it possible to commit to the Full implementation of the Oronsaye report, without downsizing!?? And to also ask, is not not because of the over bloated civil service and to curb the wastage in the system that the Oronsaye report states clearly as at then that the full implementation of the report will lead to government saving ₦Billions of Naira!??
  5. The Tinubu administration also announced the setting up of an 8 man panel to come up with recommendations on how to fully implement the Oronsaye report. Is this not tantamount to the issuing of another “White paper”, the third to be issued on the same report since 2014!??

A Government White Paper is a document putting forward proposals for law-making in a policy area. It serves as a way the government comes up set a set of rules to regulate and implement a decision. President Tinubu’s White paper is going to be the third with yet a large sums of money set a side for yet another exercise that may yet turn out to be a mere distraction.

Chief Femi Falana has pointed out that the policy is outdated, Otiose since at the time it was written, it “recommended the reduction of 263 agencies to 161″, but now twelve years after, ‘the number of ministries, departments and agencies have increased to 1,316”, with even Tinubu creating new ministries and agencies. Tinubu must ensure he does his homework, unlike with fuel subsidu removal and floating Naira, he should analyze the socioeconomic impact including multipler effects of laying off hundreds of thousands people on the economy.

It is true that the Civil Service is bloated with 1.5 million workers but in the absence of industrial jobs, it is like an employment subsidy to spread income. Just like the subsidy issue is tied to government inefficiency in building and operating local refineries and corruption in subsidy payments, the government failure to lay an industrial foundation to provide employment resulted in the over-absorption of labour into civil service.

Signed:
Mogaji Gboyega Adejumo
National Publicity Secretary, Afenifere.

Prince Justce Faloye
Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Afenifere.

There is total lack of sanctions and accountability at the bar and the bench —Okutepa, SAN

[S]ome lawyers are agents and promoters of practices that obstruct the doing of justice in its purest form. They do everything and just anything to obstruct evidence and justice just for fees…

By J.S. Okutepa, SAN

The profession that God blessed me with to be a member of is the legal profession. I am a happy and proud member of that noble profession. It is a profession of light of considerable antiquity with defined code of ethics and or code of conduct and etiquettes. It is a profession of light.

But in today Nigeria, a lot is happening in that noble profession currently. There are many self inflicted challenges facing the profession today. There is a challenge of some lawyers preaching purity in public speeches but act contrary to what they preach in conduct and practice in and out of courts. These sets of lawyers have polluted the stream of justice with wicked sets of principles and practices that have lowered the profession considerably in the estimation of reasonable men and women in the society.

The legal profession is a profession that shares no boundaries with darkness and it should not and ought not to be seen in and around darkness. It is should be practiced with purity of conscience and thoughts. And by the behavioral ethical standards of the profession nothing should be done or seen to be done by any members of the profession to bring the profession into total odium and disrepute. Today some lawyers are agents and promoters of practices that obstruct the doing of justice in its purest form. They do everything and just anything to obstruct evidence and justice just for fees. That is the reality of our state in the profession.

The purity of the profession is seen in the well defined code of conduct that spells out what a lawyer ought not to do and what he or she ought to. The legal practitioners Act gives power to the legal practitioners Disciplinary Committee LPDC of the Body of Benchers to discipline erring members of the profession.

But like anything in Nigeria there is lack of or near total absence of the rule of law and accountability in the legal profession. We have decided to accept as normal most absurd abnormalities. We now have well dressed mode of jankara practice that appears to cut across board in legal practice in Nigeria. Look at the flagrant Ex-parte orders and motions filed by lawyers and entertained by judges.

The legal profession seems to be in the league and conspiracy with those who do not mean well for the profession. It appears now that the legal profession too has embraced the rewarding system based “who is prepared to be a compromiser of purity and nobility of the profession”.

Like I have always said any society that rewards based on who you know, the connection you have, and how prepared you are ready to compromise or been compromised” cannot hope to be great society. Nigeria appears to be deeply rooted here. Great societies are ruled based on uncompromising standards. But we seems to have lowered standards in everything in Nigeria. Everyone is law unto himself. Nobody is ready to be accountable.

Beginning from our code of dressing to outright dishonest and infamous conduct in the professional respect some lawyers are just simply thou shall not touch and not sanctioned. Those who have been heavily indicted by persons and group of persons and were brought before LPDC, tried and sanctioned are in most cases set free on appeal on technicalities that did not examine the merit of the allegations of infamous conduct in professional respects brought against them.

We seem to have confused morality with technicalities and utopia human rights at the expense of the code of ethics and conduct in the legal profession. The code of conduct in the legal profession is rooted in morality and moral ethical standards. It is not code of legality. That is why appearance of improprieties are not tolerated in the legal profession but are highly defended in the school of legality. Today many ethical wrongs are defended in the school of legality and that has brought the legal profession to its knees.

On daily basis you see senior lawyers showing junior lawyers bad examples and the junior lawyers behaving in total disregard of the rules of professional conduct. Check the hairdos of most of our female colleagues and you wouldn’t know the difference between some of them and street ladies of lowly esteem.

The legal profession in Nigeria is what it is now because of who we are as a people. In the climes where we inherited this profession from many legal practitioners in Nigeria will never get admitted to the bar not to talk of getting licensed to practice law. We have destroyed the nobility and dignity of the Legal profession. On daily basis you either see or you hear one absurdities of misconduct of monumental dimensions or the other and nothing happens to those involved.

There is total lack of sanctions and accountability in the legal profession both at the bar and on the bench.

I have said before and I say it here again that the legal profession in Nigeria is being destroyed by the members of the profession and nobody is prepared to deal with those who are destroying the profession on daily basis.

Those who have the duties to do what is right are not ready to do so because they cannot in clear conscience prosecute those who commit infractions against the ethics of the legal profession. Yes, they cannot because he who comes to seat of equity must himself or herself be clean. The legal profession needs to thoroughly purge itself of bad eggs if we must earn the deserved respects of members of the general public.

The slow pace of justice delivery system and the jurisprudential antics of lawyers routed in injustice to pollute the stream of justice must be exposed and dealt with. Lawyers and judges or justices whose antecedents have brought justice to its knees in Nigeria must be investigated and published. We must also check the backgrounds and characters of the would be lawyers admitted to the Nigerian Law School.

Lecturers in our universities and campuses of our law school must themselves show and teach the students good moral and character and must not exhibit conduct and character that demean the nobility of the legal profession. The foundation of the legal profession is completely almost being destroyed by the kind of things some lawyers and judges do in Nigeria. There are no consequences and there must be consequences for deviant behaviors if we hope to restore the legal profession to the deserved lost glory.

Nobody takes the legal profession and indeed lawyers and judges serious again in Nigeria because of what the bad eggs amongst us have caused the profession to look like. Many litigants and business people no longer believe that you can get justice in Nigeria unless you are highly connected or meet lawyers who can reach out.

We cannot be tolerating intolerable behaviors and expect Nigeria to develop. All over the world the legal profession is the leading profession of development and fighter for sustainable democracy. But in Nigeria some members of the Bar and Bench have constantly conspired to destroy the profession to the prejudices of justice and economic development of this nation.

We must all come together to fight the cancerous cankerworms of corruption and pollution of the purity of justice in Nigeria. International community does not take us serious anymore. They see Nigerian lawyers and legal profession as crooked and corruption infested and are afraid of doing business in Nigeria. We must re-organize the legal profession and allow those who have no skeletons in their cupboards to lead the profession.

It cannot be business as usual. Enough of these shenanigans in the legal profession in Nigeria. There must be accountability and Nigerian lawyers must not be treated as if they above the law of the land. There must be no sacred cows.

Democracy or Demo Crazy?

charles Okeibunor

By Charles Okeibunor

In my time as a student in the University of Benin, many of the public toilets were less than charitable, you combatted flies in other to find your posture and rhythm as you answered the inevitable call of nature.

It was in one of such toilets, I saw a curious inscription written on the wall ostensibly by one of its previous users…, the author scribbled 1million flies cannot be wrong, eat shit today!

Those words have gotten me thinking.

I no longer believe in Democracy ipsissima verba. It is a model that works sometimes for some people in some cases. It is not a silver bullet.

A misguided mob can rob the whole group of progress because they constitute the greater number than the informed few.

Leadership therefore is the sanity that checkmates any shade of democratic insanity.

When there is superior established knowledge, it is the role of the leader to avoid the risk of subjecting it to democratic choices.

Rather he/she must go with the knowledge because democracy can invalidate that knowledge and leave everyone helpless or hopeless.

This is why Leadership is sacred. Don’t lead because you desire the allure of authority or because you are popular.

Lead because you have the mental, physical and spiritual capacity to make decisions bearing in mind that you are willing to lay down your life first when the consequences of those choices arise, without trading blames.

History has shown that man needs subjective guidance. And cannot be left to himself by himself.

For example, in the Holy Bible, God gave Adam and Eve democratic abilities to exercise their freewill within defined boundaries, yet they chose to touch and eat from the self same fruit to their pain.

He had to step in, ameliorate the consequence of their choice and subjectively guide them out of Eden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life lest they be damned beyond redemption.

I perceive that a significant amount of societal pain today is traceable to according democracy as a model more responsibilities than it can possibly handle.

Democracy of opinion, Yes. Democracy of Choice, No.

In other words, a leader must objectively allow the democracy of opinion to accommodate every view at all levels, from where he can make a subjective informed choice.

And that choice must not always return to plenary, lest it be defeated by democracy😊😊.

Majority may win the day only to ruin the year, decade or century.

Let’s moderate democracy before it becomes demo crazy.

C’est finis.

©Charles Okeibunor

Abortion is now constitutional in France

French lawmakers have approved a bill that will enshrine the right to an abortion in the Constitution of France in a joint session of Parliament at the Palace of Versailles.

The bill was approved in an overwhelming 780-72 vote on Monday, and nearly the entire joint session stood in a long-standing ovation.

There were celebratory scenes across the country as women’s rights activists hailed the measure promised by President Emmanuel Macron following a rollback of abortion rights in court rulings in the United States.

The move makes France the first country in the world to offer explicit protection for terminating a pregnancy in its basic law.

Both houses of Parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate, have already adopted a bill to amend Article 34 of the constitution to specify a woman’s right to an abortion is guaranteed.

“France is at the forefront,” the head of the lower house of Parliament, Yael Braun-Pivet, said as she opened the joint meeting.

“I’m proud of this Congress, which will say that the right to get an abortion will now be part of our basic law,” she said.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal had earlier said: “We’re sending a message to all women: your body belongs to you and no one can decide for you.”

The US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to reverse the Roe v Wade ruling that guaranteed women’s access to abortion prompted activists in France to push for the country to clearly protect the right in its basic law.

A general view shows MPs and Senators during the convocation of a congress of both houses of parliament in Versailles,
MPs and senators during the convocation of a congress of both houses of Parliament to anchor the right to abortion in the country’s constitution in Versailles, southwestern Paris, France on March 4, 2024 [Emmanuel Dunand/Reuters]

“Unfortunately, this event is not isolated: in many countries, even in Europe, there are currents of opinion that seek to hinder at any cost the freedom of women to terminate their pregnancy if they wish,” the introduction to the French legislation says.

“This right [to abortion] has retreated in the United States. And so nothing authorised us to think that France was exempt from this risk,” said Laura Slimani, from the Fondation des Femmes rights group.

“There’s a lot of emotion, as a feminist activist, also as a woman. And there’s a lot solemnity in a certain way, since we’re going to live through a historic moment, I hope,” she added.

Criticism

The response to the vote also included criticism from anti-abortion groups and far-right leaders, including Marine Le Pen.

Le Pen said Macron was using the legislation to score political points.

“We will vote to include it in the constitution because we have no problem with that,” Le Pen said.

But it was an exaggeration to call it a historic step because “no one is putting the right to abortion at risk in France”, she said.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is applauded by members of parliament after his speech during a special congress gathering both the upper and lower houses of the French parliament
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (left) is applauded by members of Parliament after his speech during the special congress gathering [Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters]

Pascale Moriniere, president of the Association of Catholic Families, said the vote was a result of “panic”.

“We imported a debate that is not French, since the United States was first to remove that from law with the repeal of Roe v Wade,” she said. “There was an effect of panic from feminist movements, which wished to engrave this on the marble of the constitution.”

Women have had the legal right to abortion in France since 1974.

Source: Al Jazeera and News Agencies

Nigeria: A corrupt nation in depression

By Richard Odusanya

Nigeria is the second most corrupt country in West Africa ahead of Ghana, according to the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The level of public corruption witnessed in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999 in general and over the past couple of years in particular is unprecedented and is believed by many to be the worst ever in the modern history of nations. That alone can destroy an economy. There is no public economic sector in the country which corruption has not threatened. The virus is noticeable and eaten deep in the Executive branch of government to the Judiciary and the Legislative arm.

Corruption or the term “bad leadership” bothers me. Nigerian society is pervaded by an obsession with money (materialism). That has been at the expense of the glorification of duty, temperance, prudence and justice. Fortitude we possess in spades, but that is more a function of circumstance than of a virtue deliberately cultivated. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Therefore, leadership is a product of the society – hence, the situation we find ourselves as a nation. Sadly, we deserve the leaders we have presently because they are full reflection of who we are as a result of our traits.

Leaders do not appear in a vacuum. People often think that having good or bad leaders depends on the individual. The notion that If the person at the helm is good, he will do good. If he’s bad, he will do bad. But that’s a simplistic, wrong view of leadership and what ruling a country entails. The way to solve bad leadership lies in institutions and the rules and laws that the ruler must obey, which are, after all, what will determine the political landscape of the country. What matters it’s the political process, not the individual.

For example, in the Nigerian situation and problematic business environment; the banking sector regarded as the live wire of the economy is sufficiently primed for manipulations going by recent revelations of underhand dealings in that sector. Unarguably, there is a very strong evidence that corruption between private and public sectors is complimentary and substitutive. We have scores of multi-billionaires in our nation – only a handful are into manufacturing of goods – the rest are businessmen of forex (FX) and importation. This is the sad reality of our beloved country Nigeria.

Again, the perpetual low ranking of Nigeria in the annual Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is an indictment of the private sector culpability and also its vulnerability. Over 200 million Nigerians are entitled to God-given resources of this nation but rogue Public office holders/Civil servants, Bankers, Oil importers, Forex speculators, Rent seekers etc that are less than 1% of Nigerians have cornered the commonwealth! Leading to the “Great Depression”.

Moments ago I listened to the speech of the current Senate President Sen. Godswill Akpabio. He was speaking at a thanksgiving service on Sunday covered by Channels TV, Akpabio acknowledged that “there is hunger today because of the policies and actions that they (Messrs Buhari and Emefiele) took.” This is similar to the blame game, with its finger-pointing and characteristics of the same method of Muhammadu Buhari’s era when a bewildered nation is regaled with Jonathan’s era malfeasance.

The Senate president’s statement absolved the lawmakers of blame, even though himself was a principal character including former Senate President Ahmad Lawan and the former speaker and now President Bola Tinubu’s chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, served in the previous assembly (9th NASS), that approved the massive loans Muhammadu Buhari took from other nations without demanding accountability if the debts amassed served their intended purposes.

It is, therefore, expected that during the “Great Depression” when citizens were at bottom zero, what is expected of a serious minded people is not the blame game. In contrast, President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), didn’t give excuses, blame others, or asked Americans to be patient, He rolled up his sleeves and declared several relief packages that brought succour to the poor. In a speech at the University of Michigan in May 1964, Lyndon Johnson laid out a sweeping vision for a package of domestic reforms known as the Great Society. 

Speaking before that year’s graduates of the University of Michigan, Johnson called for “an end to poverty and racial injustice” and challenged both the graduates and American people to “enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.” At its heart, he promised, the Great Society would uplift racially and economically disfranchised Americans, too long denied access to federal guarantees of equal democratic and economic opportunity, while simultaneously raising all Americans’ standards and quality of life.

Similarly, Franklin D Roosevelt helped the American people to regain faith in themselves. Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

In conclusion, permit me to share with you the golden words of Stephen John Fry, an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer. Fry, profoundly posited: “If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”

Richard Odusanya

[email protected]

IMF/World Bank and the rot in our banking sector

By Richard Odusanya

Let us begin with the profound words of Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo, a Nigerian nationalist and statesman who played a key role in Nigeria’s independence movement (1957–1960). Awolowo, in his book, “Voice of Courage” Awo, remarked as follows: Africa’s Dependence on Former Colonial Masters “Today, Africa is a continent of COMPETING BEGGAR-NATIONs. 

“We vie with one another for favors from our former colonial masters; and we deliberately fall over one another to invite neo- colonialists to come over to our different territories to preside over our economic fortunes…Unless a beggar resolutely shakes off and irrevocably turns his back on, his begging habit, he will forever remain a beggar. For, the more he begs, the more he develops the beggar characteristics of lack of initiative, courage, drive and self-reliance.”

Similarly, George Pratt Shultz, an American politician, economist, statesman, and businessman. He served as the United States Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970, as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974, and as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1982 to 1989. Shultz remarkably posited: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and a willingness to act in its defense.” In my humble opinion, eternal vigilance is not only the price of liberty; eternal vigilance is the price of human decency.

A characteristic feature of Nigeria’s post-independence economic/industrial policy was deregulation and the monetary policy in our beloved country Nigeria. I will be very frank: it has been a very distressing period for us as a nation, under a different constitution. Thus, we have now lived over six decades of nationhood without clear direction. IMF/World interference, sharp practices, compromises, and unethical practices in the banking sector have been having negative multiplier effects on the cost and standard of living of Nigerians. 

To be honest, our Constitution and Monetary policies have become a doubtful experiment, and at the end of over half a century, we find that it has not been able to preserve the liberties of the people, secure the rights of property, and that our country has not improved and is yet flourishing beyond any former example in the history of nations. In our domestic concerns, there is everything to discourage us, and if we are true to ourselves there are so many impediments on our march to the highest point of national prosperity.

Furthermore, the current crisis of deregulation in Nigeria is generated by the pervasive impact of yesterday’s Recklessness and Profligacy. For example, the sums of $43.4m, 27,700 British pounds ($36,000), and 23.2 million naira ($74,000) were found by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) at a private residence in Lagos. Sadly, like many others, it may have been swept under the carpet as they say in the local parlance.

Additionally, in response to allegations by the current governor of Edo State Godwin Obaseki that money was being printed indiscriminately under former president Buhari. The former Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed had dismissed the claim by Obaseki as false. Zainab Ahmed said no money was printed for sharing. Whereas the former CBN Governor Godwin  Emefiele contradicted the minister. However, Gov. Godwin Obaseki reiterated his position, asking the Nigerian government to end the current monetary rascality and stop playing the ostrich.

Let me, therefore, continue with the position canvased, some three decades ago by no less a personality than Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (MKO), the President whose mandate was truncated by reactionary forces. MKO profoundly posited: “…every effort have been made in the past to shave people’s heads in their absence; the cumulative wisdom of all the bankers would have seen us out of the trouble. 

“Some people came from the IMF and World Bank; what do they know about Nigeria? You see…the most brilliant doctor in Norway may not have seen MALARIA before. Therefore, imposing such will be tantamount to sending our people to their early graves.  You see…we will rely on Nigerians to keep things running, not those who will be imposed on us by foreign authorities. We are an independent entity under God, ain’t we”? This is where I personally questioned the wisdom of both former president Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, under whom Ngozi Iweala a certified imperialist agent begin the dislocation of our economy.

At this point, permit me to share with you one of the feedbacks from my recent article “A CORRUPT NATION IN DEPRESSION” 

Richard, g’day. “This is a good article. I would like to add that ours is not a country with leaders – instead, we have RUINERS of various generations.  They are made up in the form of a hydra with five legs: political, religious, Civil (evil) servants, 99% of so-called businessmen/women, and judicial imposters (law careerists of all categories).”

“I do not like comparing Nigeria with America or any other industrialized countries on earth as it amounts to false and erroneous pursuits. You can only give relief to your people if you have the funds to do so. Welfarism requires money to implement and where your country is in the “valley of death” money-wise, you have no way out or the capacity to provide hand-outs to any masses.”

“If I get it right, we service our debt with over 80% of our GDP, how do you provide for a people that produce practically, nothing of much value and breed like a rabbit? We are in a deep-rooted mess, and no government can quickly resolve this matter.” 

“This is why I produced a simple economic model that is based on the Malaysian Mahattir Mohammed’s model. You cannot use the established Western economic models – our past and current governments have continued our enslavement using the IMF/WB models, and the approach would not work. Please, look at my model again as I am convinced that it is this model or its tactful variation that could pull us out of the current mess! My regards.”

These are the profound word, eruditely posited by Prof Kunle Oloyede, the first African professor of medical Engineering. 

Likewise Steve Biko’s Black Theology of Liberation from the Perspective of Ubuntu – “If one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude”.

Conclusively, I should note, at this point, that Nigerians were treated to a comical show of ignominy when it came to light that some criminals inside Emefiele’s CBN forged the signature of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari to steal $ 6.3 Million. It was more comical when “Big Masquerade” Boss Mustapha, former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), said the recipient of the $6,230,000 from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is not a staff of the SGF office. What a country, what a system! Who does that? Where would you forge the signature of Vladimir Putin in Russia and still be walking on Mother Earth?

Characteristically, in the pitfalls of unbridled self-promotions; Godwin Emefiele and Zainab Ahmed, former finance minister, had jointly signed a statement advising the then President Muhammadu Buhari to restructure the Ways and Means of N23.71 trillion “a different figure presented to the National Assembly on the same date”.  On the contrary, Buhari presented N22.7 trillion to the National Assembly in December 2022. This shows conflicting figures within the same system.  Hence, this is part of the Ways and Means of fraud in the banking sector under a government that prides itself on “Anti CORRUPTION”.

Richard Odusanya

[email protected]

Intimate Affairs: When ‘sorry’ means nothing

By Funke Egbemode

We called them the ‘happening couple’. Flex (real name was Felix) was a 500 level Medicine student while Tunrayo was a 200 level Law student. Though the two of them were very busy ‘effico’, they spent every free moment together. They went to the bukateria together, walked hand-in-hand to the library and the cinema. They were a reference point especially when we girls wanted to ‘yab’ our NFA male classmates who were in the habit of giving excuses to their girlfriends as to why they couldn’t take them to see a movie at Oduduwa.

We simply sneered at them.

‘If a ‘medical’ student could make out time for his girlfriend, please what is a Philosophy student reading?’

Stuff like that.

Anyway, shortened version of the story of Flex and Tunrayo was that their love was not hidden, at least not to those who lived with or knew them. Those who didn’t know soon did when tragedy struck. Yes, death, avoidable death, came too soon, before their story got to a happy ending.

Tunrayo ‘somehow’ got pregnant and Flex metamorphosed into a guy she couldn’t believe existed somewhere inside the fine-boy-no-pimples doctor-to-be she fell in love with. Flex didn’t want the pregnancy. Indeed, he told Tunrayo to ‘let them remove’ it. There were hospitals that would do it in minutes. There were pills. Pregnancy will slow him down. In fact, it will destroy his life. The two of them did not need the distraction of a pregnancy, least of all a baby at that point in their lives.

True, neither Law or Medicine will nicely make room for pregnancy or a nine-month vacation without a major breach in the course-calendar. Happening couple or not, both Flex and Tunrayo were young. Flex was 22 while Tunrayo was 19. Of course, things fell apart. The ‘Baby Doctor didn’t want a baby and so started avoiding Tunrayo. No more lunches at ‘Forks and Fingers’ or dinner at ‘New Buka’.

Flex stopped going to the movies altogether and avoided the library like it was a lepers colony or a tuberculosis ward.

Love left the Garden of Eden and Tunrayo was inconsolable. She became a shadow of herself. And as the semester break approached, she became really afraid and distracted. How do you face your parents with a teenage pregnancy and disappoint your mother whose friends were already calling ‘Mama Lawyer’. Going home was like being sent to the Guillotine. So, out of fear, Tunrayo stayed back on campus and as we later heard, she turned up dead in a quack hospital in town. She died alone, along with her dreams, her parent’s dreams, with her unborn baby.

Flex wept and mourned. We were told he got there just before Tunrayo’s body was taken to the morgue and that he kept saying he was sorry.

Dear Mum and Dad, telling your girls ‘sorry after an abortion had gone wrong means nothing’. If she does not die, she may be scarred, irreversibly. My dear girls, don’t put yourself in a meaningless sorry situation just because you think it would please the man or make him stay. Do not put your life and future on the line just for a man to say ‘sorry’ and move on while you carry the scar and bear the trauma.

Too many times, the words and emotions backing ‘sorry’ don’t mean much or anything at all. It’s okay to be sorry, feel remorse and apologize but the man or woman who has inflicted the pain cannot erase the affliction. The scars sometimes are life-long ones. That’s why it’s better to stay safe than to be sorry. Be careful what you promise. Be wary of what you are promised. Think of the consequences before you lay yourself bare to the situation that might lead to gnashing of teeth. Do not forget yourself in the ecstasy of the moment and let someone else take and take and take until you are spent, only for him to come back and say sorry when it no longer matters.

What about husbands, fathers, wives, mothers who leave for greener pastures letting their partners raise their children all alone? And then they come back 20 years later when the ‘soup don done’ and the children are all made, bearing ‘sorry’ as if it is ‘aporo-epa-Ijebu’, the solution or mixture that cures all ailments. Excuse me, who sorry hep, please?

Do not be like Mama Titi whose husband left with three children only to return 18 years later, his amputated tail in between his ungodly legs and bearing a dammed and cursed sorry bouquet. And I repeat, ‘who sorry hep?” Unfortunately, Mama Titi did not move on. She pined and waited for that ‘sorry” for all those 18 years. One day turned into one decade but she trudged on, taking on extra jobs, doing all kinds of petty businesses to feed and put the three children through school. All she did was work and cry. Of course, 18 long years of pity party will take a toll on even the strongest healthiest woman, and it did. She had a mild stroke just before her last child graduated. All the years of hustle and hassle have impacted her body. Let’s not talk about what the loneliness did to her mind and spirit. The years of hard grind and heavy lifting left its mark, leaving her looking older than her 60 years. And then Baba Titi returned profusely apologizing.

‘It was the Devil’s work’

‘My eyes are open now’

‘She used juju to cage me’

‘I have wronged you and your Ori’

‘I’m sorry’

Annoying sorry, who needs it? What can roll back the 18 years of tears. Who will take away the toll of playing Father and Mother to the children on Mama Titi’s health?

Who am I to say don’t take your prodigal wife or husband back? It’s not my decision or anybody’s for that matter.

That’s not even the point of this piece. The crux of this article is what you do while waiting for the return of the prodigal.

If your wife left you with the children and went off with a richer man, should you just cry, pine away and wither with the years? If she bleached and partied 10 or 15 years away and then returned with a skin that is looking like yet-to-be-cleaned Shaki (tripe), offering you a bouquet of sorry and tears on her discolored cheeks, what will you do? Everybody will probably beg a deserted spouse to welcome home a deserter, right? Even the children most likely will join the plea club. Not a problem. The decision is solely yours.

My own sermon and view is this: do not let a deserter find you on a dung heap when he or she returns. Take care of your health. In fact, pay extra attention to your health. Live, laugh, move on. Do not waste years you cannot retrieve, crying and beating up yourself with what-if-whips. If he or she is having a blast wherever they are, please enjoy yourself at least if you cannot afford a blast. Bond like never before with those children he or she abandoned for you. Live, I repeat, live. Add values to your life. Let the deserter not meet you at the same spot he or she left you. Develop yourself. Enrich your life. Make sure you can see through tears of loneliness. Do not become a heap of ruin and rot because your partner chose the easiest route. Make your own luck. Enjoy as much as you can while fulfilling your parental obligations. If he’s having a blast, have a blast too. If and when he decides to return with ‘sorry’, meet him with ‘sorry’ too, in case he finds evidence of your ‘blast’.

I came in peace.

I’m going in peace.

Funke Egbemode can be reached via [email protected] 

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