The North East came into existence on the 5th of May, 1967 when, in his bid to check the influence of Odumegwu Ojukwu in the East, General Yakubu Gowon created 12 states out of the four regions in the country.

On the 3rd of February, 1976, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed divided the monolith North Eastern state into three – Borno, Bauchi and Gongola. These three states were further divided into six by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on the 27th of August, 1991. From Borno we got Yobe, Bauchi gave birth to Gombe and from Adamawa came Taraba.

From a part of the Northern Region to an independent state, the North East, which now boasts of six states, has always been number one among its peers in almost all aspects of human endeavour – but from the rear.

For instance, in 2017, Taraba State was number 21 in Nigeria in WAEC, Borno number 25, Adamawa 28, Bauchi 31, Gombe 34 and Yobe 37. These are the kinds of results we have been getting through the years.

But we all know that education is the foundation upon which individuals, communities, nations develop. Without it, no barriers can be broken.

When you look at the health sector, we have the least number of tertiary hospitals and research institutes in the country.

We have dilapidated infrastructure and a poor road network with a lot of hinterlands unopened, so our farmers have limited access to urban markets. There is currently no functional railway network in the whole of the North East.

All these have not helped because insecurity, fuelled by the Boko Haram insurgency, has ravaged the zone.

Despite all these disadvantages, we have the potential to feed the nation. We have some of the best agrarian fields in the country, with a plateau that boasts of the best temperate climate around.

We have produced some of the best brains in the country. The Golden Voice came from here. The North East has produced great technocrats, captains of industry, politicians and statesmen that have contributed to making Nigeria a great nation.

What many cannot understand is that it is the North East that has given stability to a political North that allows such to be translated into national stability.

In 1978, a son of the North-East, Malam Adamu Ciroma, despite being arguably better qualified, embraced a North Westerner to form the central government. When the opposition wanted to destabilise the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, a North Easterner, stood against that.

By joining the government of General Sani Abacha in 1993, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe yanked the carpet from under the feet of those who wanted to destabilise the nation because of the annulment of the June 12 elections.

One of the greatest North-Easterners of all time is Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. A true democrat if ever there was one. He, more than almost everyone, has deepened our democracy through seeking court pronouncements to restore his rights after his falling out with his then principal, President Olusegun Obasanjo, and many other democratic actions. He has pushed us towards democratisation and the acceptance of democracy.

Even though the North West and North Central are bigger than the North East, the zone has always acted as the big brother for peace to reign. Politically, we have always given in to the two other zones to produce the president.

This is not because of incapacity. No, we have always at all points produced capable people who could steer the ship of state successfully and to the satisfaction of all. We have always given in to maintaining our bond and ties. We view all as our brothers and we love being our brothers’ keepers.

We have never cried over this. While others may want to see it as marginalisation if it were them, we see it as a unifying gesture. But now is the time for them to reciprocate.

The North-East should henceforth mobilise and sensitise people on the fact that it is now its turn to produce the next president.

Another sound argument is that we have capable hands that can take this nation forward. We have them: those who will be fair to all and have the nation at heart; those who will give everyone their rights; those who can turn around the fortunes of this nation and make it into the great nation that it ought to be.

But we should not mouth such an agenda as a slogan. We have to be deliberate in working for it and working towards it. We have to start by empowering ourselves. Those with the opportunity to empower people should do so; those empowered owe it as a duty to build up others.

Some of the senior North Easterners have done so – building institutions and businesses that would take many people off the streets and thus cutting down on the recruitment base of insurgents and perpetrators of violent crimes.

Our political stakeholders must, as a matter of urgency, look into our political recruitment process. Governors should not be afraid of having capable hands in the houses of assembly in their states. A situation where nitwits, instead of brilliant young chaps, are pushed to the legislature will not augur well for our present and future development.

When a governor recruits those brilliant minds, they don’t take his glory away because he remains “His Excellency” in the state and any success must be linked to his name, but he gets them to apply their God-given resources to work for the people, the state and the region. They also learn the fine points of politics, leadership and governance which will prepare them for service to the people at local, state and national levels.

By surrounding themselves with such good heads, the governors and other political office holders will provide good leadership not only now but also in the future.

This is, however, a short, medium and long-term plan.

From now till 2023, we must mobilise the North-East to know that the presidency should come here. Not for any personal gain, but because taking Nigeria out of the woods has once more fallen on its shoulders.

Once more?, people ask. Yes, once more, is the answer. The North East is the hub of northern politics. Northern politics that reached out to dominate national politics started in this zone. The discussions for the formation of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) which culminated in its fruition in Zaria, started in Bauchi.

The first political party in Nigeria, the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) was founded in Bauchi and its intellectual fountain was Sa’ad Zungur. Malam Aminu Kano keyed in because he was a teacher in Bauchi then. We should also not forget Ibrahim Imam and his Borno Youth Movement.

Perhaps we do not want our brothers from the North West and North Central to think because Nigerian politics started in our zone, that’s why we want to Lord it over them. And so we always bend backwards for them.

People with vast resources, rich culture and history always make good leaders.

The North East is the richest zone in the country. The exploration of the Mambila Plateau will reveal one of the most natural resources endowed areas of the world. Apart from that, we have many other natural resources that can turn any nation into an economic superpower if harnessed.

We have had Mali and Songhai empires not to talk of the thousand-year-old Kanem Bornu empire. The Adamawa Kingdom is transnational.

When you look at it from the angle of national unity, the bulk of those who fought to keep Nigeria one were also from the Northeast.

Therefore, a North-Easterner coming out of such an endowed region will be a blessing to the entire nation.

As we leave this hall, we should all disperse into the nooks and crannies of this blessed country and call all to join us in producing a leader who will salvage this country. Tell them there is a Northeasterner that can.

•Being a speech delivered by Hassan Gimba, publisher of Neptune Prime online newspaper and magazine, chairman Northeast Publishers’ Forum, as the Guest Speaker at the 6th Annual Awards and Recognition Night of the Northeast Star magazine, held on the 21st of October, 2021 at the Conference Hall of AUN, Yola, Adamawa State.

I read Camara Laye’s ‘A Dream of Africa’ in secondary school. I still see the sky-high gate of his walled Africa; the murderous giants and guards; the cowering captives, terrorized and traumatized in their condemned prisoners’ cells. I remember the homicidal, militant ‘nationalists’ and the ‘revolutionary’ tyrants. I see homelands in the throes of fear and turmoil. The prisoners are many but the love of self won’t let them band together and throw off the yoke of their cruel keepers. The guards are hawkish but few, yet their many victims see no answer in rearing together to freedom. The African story is a dream of mass suffering, frustration, and fruitless flight from torture and death at the hands of terrorist giants. It is a story of certain disaster, a crash that would happen while the people abet their tormentors. The novel, published in 1966, says that was the future fate of Africa. That future is here, tragic and certain as the prophecy.

The hero’s dream genie was right and prescient; it was correct. The writer is always a dreamer; a prophet. And Camara Laye was not the first storyteller to see the future. George Orwell, author of ‘1984,’ like Laye, the African child, had a vision of sorrow in tomorrow. His own prescience, however, covered the whole of human skies and his rendition of that vision is grueling and painful in its reality. Hear him: “There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always, — do not forget this, — always, there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” Orwell’s 1984 was published in June 1949.

I hold, strongly, that the prophet’s vision was of today’s Nigeria. This is a very hard time to live. ‘The crime scene at the heart of Africa’ is the title of an editorial published last week by ‘The Economist’ to the discomfort of the Nigerian government. It is an attempt at dissecting the conundrum that Nigeria has become. I am interested here in the last of the 12 paragraphs of the piece: “The biggest barrier to restoring security is not a lack of ideas, nor of resources. It is the complacency of Nigeria’s cosseted political elite — safe in their guarded compounds and the well-defended capital. Without urgent action, Nigeria may slip into a downward spiral from which it will struggle to emerge.” Did you notice the warning in the last sentence?

Terrorist governance has mutated before our very eyes. The spiked boot of life is on the face of the helpless Nigerian. He is down and bleeding. The government is doing its own inadequate things in Abuja; bandits and terrorists are in the forests unleashing plagues on everyone of any value. They shot down a jet in Zamfara; they have paved almost all the roads as expressways to hell. Last week, they added to what we knew of their ruinous ability. They attacked a train and our rail lines in Kaduna. They have taken over the broad road to the farm and the narrow path to the stream. The question then arises: where now is the road to survival – and to escape? They are not done with us. Still last week, ‘unknown gunmen’ dashed across the Niger into Western Nigeria. On Thursday, they engaged soldiers in a shootout in Ikole Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The police said they abducted three persons during the confrontation. The following day, Friday, ‘unknown gunmen’ were in Akure, Ondo State where they abducted two schoolgirls at the gate of their home.

Later the same day, ‘unknown gunmen’ invaded a Nigerian prison in Oyo town, Oyo State. They shot their way in and freed over 800 inmates. What kind of country is this? The state knows only what it wants to know. Shall we ask: who were those villains of the night who outgunned the Nigerian state in Oyo? Are they really unknown? Should they be unknown for more than 24 hours to a 21st-century state? Reports said they were many and they came heavily armed. Was that not how Boko Haram started in Borno and Yobe; and the bandits in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna, and Katsina? How did the gunmen arrive in Oyo town undetected? Yorubaland is a very urbanized part of Nigeria. Oyo town, surrounded by a tangle of towns and villages, is just 51 kilometers to Ibadan, the state capital. You cannot travel five kilometers along that route and around Oyo Alaafin without entering a major settlement. And there are police checkpoints everywhere. Yet, no one saw the slithering terror as it came visiting. Is Nigeria so sure these are mystery men?

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the 19th-century Russian novelist, and essayist has a bit of advice here: “above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect, he ceases to love.” Amidst all the horrendous happenings being harvested daily, the Nigerian state has a solution: It is asking the media and all storytellers to stop writing bad news about bad things – because they are no longer bad. In his Eid-el-Maulud message last Monday, President Buhari called on the media “to address the tone, content, and standards of reporting into security and safety measures.” He said “time has come to revise the prefix ‘rising insecurity’ with ‘declining insecurity.’”

He added more sternly that “the reality of ‘declining insecurity’ should replace the inaccurate narrative of ‘rising insecurity in the country.” I do not seem to understand what the president is asking the media to do here. It is not raining, it is pouring; and we are out here with no roof over our heads. How do we then deny that we are drenched? Where I come from, there is a bird called Ayekooto (the world rejects truth). It says it at it sees it. But truth-saying has always been dangerous. And you remember what happened to Cinna the Poet in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? On Saturday, a journalist, with cynical satirist fingers, typed a private message on the Oyo prison attack: “The correct headline of this story should be, ‘Firecracker men visit Oyo prison, take all prisoners out for a picnic.’ What happened in Oyo on Friday was not a jailbreak. It was a terrorist attack. How do we ‘manage’ that story?

There is this character in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’ He is asked if his name is really John. And he answers, standing rather proudly: “I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.” That is the character that has wormed itself into the heart of our state and its operatives. Did you notice how the government scrambled to play down the terror attack on the Kaduna-bound train and the rail line? How will a denial prevent the next attempt from an unrelenting enemy? This government denies anything it wants to deny. If you caught it in bed with its neighbour’s wife, it would shout: “it is not what you think.” It has no trouble calling its dangling dick corncob. What the media gives to Buhari and his government is not hatred; it is duty. If the president gets up today and makes assessment tours of scenes of attacks. If he flies one of his numerous jets to Ibadan in sympathy with victims of the Oyo attack. If he goes to Kaduna and rolls out measures to prevent another attack on rail lines and passengers.

If he lands in the east with a message of peace, fairness, and justice. If he declares bandits of all tribes and tongues as terrorists and leads from the front doing the job of a wartime president, the media will clap for him. It was one of the reasons he became president in 2015. But he promised a secure Nigeria, and it is not happening and his people think that failure should be fatal and the fatality should go unreported. No. It should not happen if the living would live beyond now.

We all know this government needs help outside its circle of bumbling cousins and nephews. It is employing denial as a self-help strategy. Its operatives want a passmark outside the pigeonhole of truth. Like failing pupils, they are copying the correct arithmetic answers from the back of their Larcombe. They said a key solution to our insecurity is for the media to start playing down bad news. And, I fear, some ‘journalists’ are echoing that thinking already. “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another,” celebrated American novelist, Ernest Hemingway tells people who think exactly as our government does. We are in a ditch, the way out for us is not by being pentecostally ‘positive’ that we are out in the safe field. We are not. We are trapped in an interminable spiral of violence and bloodletting – and terrorism of the worst strain. We need a lot of noise and shoutouts to rescuers. The Federal Government should get up and work; the media is not the problem.

There are so many perks of office and enjoyment in the president’s office. Nigerian presidents (Buhari and his successors) need to take more than gold and diamond benefits from this presidential democracy. There are ropes of presidential empathy and responsibility with the Americans who gave us this system of government. Our leaders should learn leadership from the authors of what we run. In October 1983, a suicide bomber murdered scores of US Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. The lion of President Ronald Reagan roared out of the White House. He “stood in a downpour on an Air Force tarmac” literally calling the shots against the murderers. Reagan would recall this as “the saddest day of my presidency, perhaps the saddest day of my life.” That was a president. Let our own president – and those scheming to take over from him – go and read Bill Clinton, George W. Bush; Barack Obama; Donald Trump’s reaction to the many security challenges their country faced, home and abroad. They should read Biden’s tough take on the murder of American troops at Kabul airport in August 2021.

“We will not forgive, and we will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” vowed Biden. And it was not an empty promise. The murderers paid within that week. I listened to the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde’s broadcast to the state on the Oyo prison attack. He spoke well and I saw him doing what President Buhari ought to do. The governor said he was using the opportunity “to put the citizens on alert.” He said there was “no better time to repeat the call to action: if you see something, please say something.” Governor Makinde “directed the security agencies to deploy personnel to critical national assets within the state and to monitor all entrance and exit points across the state.” I think that was leadership, prompt and firm.

But how much control has the governor over the security agencies? Has Abuja, with all in its arsenal, said or done something specifically useful and impactful on this incident? Oyo is too far and too remote to Abuja for anyone in that city to feel the pangs of the carnage. Nigeria is a structural tragedy. A soldier was killed; an Amotekun operative was murdered. There are several others in the hospital critically injured so that we all may be safe. The governor has visited the injured; his government is paying the bills; he has mourned with the bereaved families. But, where is our Commander-in-Chief?

Inside Stuff With MARTINS OLOJA

‘When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe’.
― Frantz Fanon

The classic of Franz Fanon from which the dominant element in the title of this piece, ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ is taken, is quite instructive.

It is a 1961 book originally written in French. Let’s explore it for our understanding of the message here today.
‘The Wretched of the Earth’ (French: ‘Les Damnés de la Terre’) is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Franz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychological and psychiatric analysis of the dehumanising effects of colonisation upon the individual and the nation. The book discusses the broader social, cultural, and political implications of establishing a social movement for the decolonisation of a person and of a people. The French-language title derives from the opening lyrics of “The Internationale”.

Through critiques of nationalism and of imperialism, Fanon, a French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique presents a discussion of personal and societal mental health, a discussion of how the use of language (vocabulary) is applied to the establishment of imperialist identities, such as coloniser and colonised, to teach and psychologically mold the native and the colonist into their respective roles as slave and master and a discussion of the role of the intellectual in a revolution.

Fanon proposes that revolutionaries should seek the help of the lumpenproletariat to provide the force required to effect the expulsion of the colonists. In traditional Marxist theory, the lumpenproletariat are the lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat—especially criminals, vagrants and the unemployed—people who lack the class consciousness to participate in the anticolonial revolution.

Fanon applies the term lumpenproletariat to the colonial subjects who are not involved in industrial production, especially the peasantry, because, unlike the urban proletariat (the working class), the lumpenproletariat have sufficient intellectual independence from the dominance of the colonial ruling class, readily to grasp that they can revolt against the colonial status quo and so decolonise their nation.

One of the essays included in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ is “On National Culture”, in which Fanon highlights the necessity for each generation to discover its mission and to fight for it.

You know ‘the wretched of the earth’ in this milieu called Nigeria, currently one of the poverty capitals of the world. This is therefore another warning signal note to all the duty bearers and the authorities in Nigeria that the next revolution heat they will feel may not come from the ranks of the followers of Nnamdi Kanu, or Sunday Igboho, or unknown gunmen or even the terrorists we call bandits.

The rage next time may not be from the artistry of Omoyele Sowore’s ‘RevolutionNow’ operatives. The next revolt is not likely to be from the armoury of the experienced tormentors inside Sambisa Forest. The fire next time will come not from a particular culture but it will come in unexpectedly because ‘the wretched of the earth’ in Africa’s most populous nation will sooner than later scream, ‘we can no longer breathe’.

The oppressors in Nigeria should not ask me, for whom the bell tolls: hold your breath, it tolls for thee!

The two clear signals on the imminent fire have curiously appeared in the two capitals of Nigeria, Abuja and Lagos, one a political capital and the other commercial capital, where the oppression of the vulnerable and the oppressed ones, have become dominant. And so those who run Nigeria from these two capitals had better watch it as the dust of the aftermath of the first anniversary of the remarkable #EndSARS (20-10-2020) hasn’t settled. Here are the warning signal notes:

‘Lagos NURTW generates N123bn annually’
On July 22 this year, the International Centre for Investigative Report (ICIR) revealed in a major report that the Lagos chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, (NURTW) locally tagged ‘agberos’ generates about N123.08bn annually, which could service the annual budgets of Nasarawa, Niger, and Yobe states put together. The data released on Thursday July 22, showed that the money was realised through levies on passenger vehicles, motorcycles and tricycles. According to the reliable report, other sources of income not included in the report were money levied on hawkers, articulated vehicles, and persons who visited certain markets to buy goods.

The report recorded a total of 75,000 buses; 50,000 tricycles; and 37,000 motorcycles in Lagos.

It showed that on a daily basis, N3,000, N600, and N1,800 were levied on buses, motorcycles, and tricycles respectively. These levies sum up to N82.1bn for buses; N8.1bn for motorcycles; and N32.9bn for tricycles yearly; making a total of N123.078bn yearly.

Speaking on how the union could generate such money, a close associate of the NURTW who spoke to ICIR correspondent on condition of anonymity, said, “It is a highly connected and well-organised syndicate…Take Idumota, for example; some ‘agberos’ work in the office, others work on the streets; some work in the morning, some are constantly on afternoon shifts…
“Some also have days that they work. Although, there is a fixed price, the rule of the game is that the ‘agberos’charge the drivers based on the amount they charge the passengers.”

He added that in Idumota, there were over seven chairmen who get deliveries from the boys that work on the streets. “The boys have delivery targets, which is the reason they act rudely to drivers and passengers alike,” he added. He narrated further that to work with them, one must know one NURTW chairman or another renowned hoodlum on the street. The source mentioned the case of a young man who went to Badagry to get diabolic fortifications so that he could be effective on the job.

A passenger, Emmanuel Francis, expressed concerns over the activities of NURTW members. He urged the Federal Government to regulate their activities. When contacted by ICIR, a spokesperson for the Lagos Internal Revenue Service, (LIRS) Monsurat Amasa, said she could not comment on the amount the NURTW generates, but added that as a part of the informal sector, the body pays taxes to the government.

‘The Abuja multiple taxation on the poor’

Meanwhile, the same investigative report organ also revealed ‘how payment of multiple taxes has been frustrating ‘okada’ riders in Abuja’, Nigeria’s capital. Part of the fact file:

‘DANIEL Chogwu, 33, had moved to the Federal Capital City, Abuja from Kogi State in 2014 in search of a paying job with his high school certificate. Unable to earn a pay after being owed three months’ salary working as a security guard for a firm in Abuja, he started looking for his next best option.
Several of his friends who were commercial motorcyclists advised him to try Okada riding temporarily till he finds a better job. Fast forward to 2020, Daniel works from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days in a week as a full-time commercial motorcyclist plying the Nyanya – Mararaba axis. On a good day, he says he makes about ₦2,000 daily but on some other days, he comes home with as low as ₦800. Because of his meagre earnings from the “Okada” business, he spends frugally.

But no matter how small his daily income is, he is charged an average of ₦250 on taxes weekly, which he pays to the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC.
If he fails to pay the levy of ₦50 daily before 2 p.m., his motorcycle would be confiscated and he would have to pay ₦1,500 to get it back. “Since I started this business in 2014, I’ve been buying tickets and paying one tax or another but I don’t know why we are paying because it has not benefited me in any way. All they [the tax collectors] are after is to collect money from us, sometimes with support from the police, and they would seize our motorcycles if we don’t pay,” he said angrily (ICIR)

Daniel’s experience is not different from the plight of commercial motorcyclists operating in satellite towns and rural areas in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) whose motorcycling taxi business is stifled as a result of paying multiple taxes and levies enforced by transport unions and government agencies. This is happening in Nigeria’s capital where a policy on social protection policy at a perilous time such as this is being implemented.

Nigeria is generally believed to be the second-largest market for commercial motorcycling in Africa, providing an alternative means of employment for the 231,544 unemployed residents of the FCT according to a 2018 data published by National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. But this group of workers pays more in tax than their counterparts who earn better income.

Specifically, for authenticity of this intelligence, the ICIR operative visited five locations in Nyanya where tax agents of the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC operate. As early as 8:00 am, they are out issuing ticket and collecting daily levies from commercial motorcyclists. Mopol Junction, Redeemed Junction and Nyanya market are some of the popular routes commercial motorcyclists within Nyanya axis ply daily and tax agent are stationed at various spots to collect the stipulated ₦50 every weekday from Monday to Friday. Though the activities of motorcyclists are not allowed within Abuja’s city centre, they operate within the suburbs providing an alternative means of transport for ease of movement in areas where they are unrestricted. Curiously, checks have also revealed that at Nyanya Phase 4, policemen usually accompany the officials of AMAC to collect taxes from commercial motorcyclists plying the route. In Lugbe, the trend is the same except that there are three different bodies that collect levies from commercial motorcyclists namely Motorcycle Transport Union of Nigeria (MTUN), Amalgamated Commercial Motorcycle and Tricycle, Owners, Repairers and Riders Association of Nigeria (ACOMORAN) and Federal Capital Territory Authority, FCTA.
The levy ticket for “Okada” riders in Lugbe is accompanied with a printed receipt to acknowledge payment made by a commercial motorcyclist usually from Monday to Saturday every week.

In his early fifties, James Madaki, also captured in the scoop, is a tickets agent who rarely smiles while working for AMAC’s motorcycle revenue collection office in Nyanya. He struggles to wake up by 5 am daily and drags himself to the road, his job is to sell tickets to motorcyclists on AMAC’s behalf for a commission. James is not on the payroll of AMAC, if he does not go to the road to sell tickets then he will be broke. For every ticket he sells he earns a commission of ₦10, he acknowledges that this amount is small but it is better than being idle. If he hits the road very early, he could smile home with ₦1,200 for the day, which he says doesn’t happen often. “I always wake up very early so I can sell these tickets and get my money for the day. This job is very demanding because I have to be on the lookout for “Okada” riders and persuade them to buy from me so I can eat and government can eat,” he said.

However, the National Tax Policy recommends that tax establishments shall ensure that primary tax functions, which include assessment and collection of taxes, are only carried out by career tax administrators who are public servants and not by ad-hoc consultants or agents. There are different groups all collecting taxes and even when the police arrest a motorcyclist there is no group that will speak out for the person and they are all printing receipts to collect taxes. And when these motorcyclists default on paying the tax the police and agents will violently make life difficult for the riders.

***Let’s continue the discussion of the next revolt of ‘the wretched of the earth’ the government and politicians have been exploiting next week…

By Gbenga Ajileye

While commending the Nigerian government for their efforts in ensuring that Nigerians get all possible protection from the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic by making the vaccines available to Nigerians in all spheres of our national life, it is however crucial to quickly point out a very crucial observation, which may greatly embarrass Nigeria and Nigerians – especially those who might be travelling to other countries very soon. My observation is based on personal experiences on Saturday, 23rd October, 2021.

I was at the vaccination centre to get my second shot of the Moderna vaccine. The encountered bottlenecks in the procedure were nothing strange, considering our obtuse way of making every simple thing complicated. I managed to get the jab and left the venue. As soon as I got home, I decided to verify if all my data, especially my names and date of birth, were correctly captured. The card as designed has no space to indicate the owner’s date of birth. That and other details regarding the type of vaccine taken and number of jabs received are encoded in the barcode seal. I remember I had earlier installed a QR CODE READER app on my phone. I activated the app and scanned the barcode on my card. The result showed that my name was correctly captured, but my date of birth was 6 months and 5 days off. I quickly returned to the vaccination centre to demand that that crucial data be corrected. The officers politely agreed to verify from their databank. They discovered that the code reader was correct and immediately effected the correction. One young man who was there for his second dose approached me and asked how he could check if his own data were correctly captured too. I offered to scan his barcode and again his birthday was 3 years wrong. I scanned the cards of 4 others in the crowd and discovered that the birthdays of 3 were off on several scores. I returned to my Sports Club and shared the day’s experiences with friends and members. This started us off on another round of barcode scanning. The results were baffling: out of the 8 scanned only one was without errors in the date of birth. The most disturbing was the case of a 60-year old gentleman from Anambra State who had completed 2 doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine since June 2021 but whose data read that he is 40-year old Ahmad Sule who has taken only one dose of the Moderna vaccine.
The consequences of these errors are dire and are better imagined especially for travellers at the entry points of countries where the barcodes on travellers’ cards would have to be scanned for verification. My intention for sharing this experience and observations is to encourage everyone who has commenced the vaccination process to go through the following simple steps:

1. Download any QR CODE READER or BARCODE READER app from the Google Play Store or Apple Store.
2. Open the app and position the aperture in such a way that the barcode will be completely inside the aperture. Once the scan is complete your full details will appear on the phone.
3. Report any errors immediately at the vaccination centre.
   Note : I am posting this to my friends and groups in the hope that they will further share it across other platforms until the relevant officials get the message and take steps to correct possible glitches affecting people’s data on the platform.
   ©️ Dr. Gbenga Ajileye
   Email: [email protected]
   

On July 18, 2021, so-called bandits shot down an Alpha Jet belonging to the Nigerian Air Force on the boundary between Zamfara and Kaduna states. Then on October 7, 2021, the Wall Street Journal, whose news section is adjudged as one of America’s most credible, got a scoop that the Nigerian Air Force paid N20 million to bandits to buy back “an antiaircraft gun” that the bandits had seized from the Nigerian military in a clash.

The antiaircraft gun, the paper said, “posed a threat to President Muhammadu Buhari, who had been planning to fly to his hometown….”

On October 20, 2021, the bandits, whom the Wall Street Journal says have “collaborators inside the army” and who are “better equipped with larger-capacity advanced weaponry than national security agencies,” detonated explosives on the Abuja-Kaduna rail tracks and caused the indefinite suspension of rail transportation between Abuja and Kaduna.

What has become transparently apparent in the last few months is that the plague of so-called Fulani herdsmen banditry is way deeper and more complex than we have persuaded ourselves to believe. The menace we self-deceptively and simplistically attenuate as mere “banditry” is nothing short of well-oiled, deep-rooted, well-practised, and well-organised mercenary terrorism whose tentacles have spread to unthought-of social territories of the Nigerian society.

Early this month, I had a lengthy conversation with a well-placed Nigerian government official on a whole host of issues, including the escalating, never-ending scourge of mass abductions for ransom in vast swathes of the country. In the course of our conversation, he casually shared with me a disturbing story that, for me, strikes at the core of why terroristic banditry won’t go away anytime soon.

He was involved in negotiations for the release of abductees some months back. The multi-million-naira ransom paid to the “abductors,” he said, went through a tortuous chain of command that finally ended up with some armed, well-nourished, out-of-state individuals. In other words, although the kidnappers were bucolic Fulani, the people who finally received the ransom weren’t.

In any case, as most people know, most of the cattle that the Fulani herders rear don’t belong to them; they belong to wealthy city dwellers (and some prosperous rural folks) from all over Nigeria.

Well, the anecdote that the government official shared with me recalls a viral video of a “bandit” in one of the northwestern states swearing in Hausa that “bandits” aren’t independent actors, that they are armed and financed by well-placed people in the society who take advantage of their poverty and disaffiliation from mainstream society to recruit them.

To be clear, I am not by any means absolving Fulani herders from responsibility for kidnapping. I just want to transcend the surface on which we have dwelled for far too long.

I also connected the dots between what the government official told me and a message that trended in Nigerian social media circles in May 2019 about a woman who was threatened with abduction but given the option to pay N5 million into a bank account to avert her kidnap.

A portion of the narration is worth reproducing without authorial intervention: “She took it up. Went to the bank with some assistance from influential friends. They asked that the account be flagged…. Bank did checks. Bank said the account cannot be flagged else they will lose influential clients. How so? The names attached to the account are powerful names. That the kidnap ring pays some top persons percentage from the ransome [sic] paid. She was advised to jejelygoan [sic] pay her POTENTIAL KIDNAPPERS. I was speechless for over 5 minutes.”

If you think this is a made-up story, read Daily Trust’s July 28, 2021 story titled “Kidnappers in FCT Begin Collection Of Ransom Through Banks.” When a Mrs. Aminat Adewuyi was kidnapped in Niger State, the kidnappers threatened to slaughter her if her relatives didn’t deposit N5 million naira into an Access Bank account.

The amount was later scaled back. “The ransom payment slip, a copy of which was obtained by Daily Trust showed that Adewuyi’s husband paid N500,000 into an Access Bank account with number 1403762272 and the name Badawi Abba Enterprise,” the paper reported.

Also recall that late last month even the National Youth Service Corps advised youth corps members posted to abduction-prone roads like “Abuja-Kaduna, Abuja-Lokoja-Okene, or Aba-Port Harcourt” to let “family members, friends and colleagues to have someone on hand to pay off the ransom that could be demanded” in the event of their abduction. This piece of advice was frozen in a handbook distributed to corps members.

It’s easy to explain away the NYSC advice as merely an organisation being pragmatic and making peace with the ever-present reality of mass abductions in the country. But the listless capitulation to mercenary terroristic bandits by almost all segments of the Nigerian government, including security outfits, points to high-profile complicity, in my opinion.

The Daily Nigerian reported on October 21 that security agencies had intercepted communication between “a notorious bandit” and his “associate.” “The report, dated October 19, 2021 and entitled ‘PLANNED ATTACK ON TRAIN AROUND RIJANA, KADUNA STATE,’ said the terrorists were heard discussing about the planned attack by Darul Salam terrorists in concert with two bandit kingpins, Danlami and Lawan (not real names),” the news site reported.

It quoted the security report to have said, “Baffa informed Bala that members of Darussalam (Boko Haram) in collaboration with bandits led by Danlami and Lawan are currently on their way to plant a bomb at a bridge on the railway in Rijana to hijack a moving train and kidnap the passengers. Baffa said he decided not to participate in the operation because it is risky but believed that DANLAMI and LAWAN will blow up the bridge.”

Why was the report, which the paper said was “circulated across security agencies,” ignored? Was this complicity, incompetence, or indifference? I am inclined to think it’s complicity, especially in light of the Wall Street Journal’s not-surprising revelation that mercenary terrorist bandits have “collaborators inside the army.”

Here are my own extrapolations based on the facts I’ve encountered these past few months. While uneducated, pastoral, semi-nomadic Fulani herders are the public face of mass abductions for ransom in the country, they are just branches of a tree whose roots are buried deep beneath the surface. The herders are mere expendable foot soldiers of people who have privileged connections to the government and the private sector.

Peasant, semi nomadic Fulani herders who have lost their cattle have historically served as an inexhaustible pool of lumpen proletariat to conscript into all kinds of conflicts. In the early 1800s, for instance, they constituted a huge percentage of Afonja’s army in his fight against the Alaafin of Oyo. In “A Little New Light: Selected Historical Writings of Professor Abdullahi Smith,” the late Abdullahi Smith wrote that Fulani pastoralists who lost their cattle to tsetse fly bites in Yoruba land and “had nothing to lose” became Afonja’s mercenaries.

The domination of abduction for ransom by Fulani pastoralists who have lost their cattle seems to me like the recrudescence of what happened in the 1800s—and at other historical epochs. Killing the abductors will do nothing to stop the problem because they are merely the branches of a tree. You don’t kill a tree by cutting off its branches because new branches will sprout in time.

You kill a tree by uprooting it. That means identifying the funders and real beneficiaries of mass abductions in the country. From the information I am privy to, they are elites who are not necessarily Fulani. They are a pan-Nigerian gang of ruthless buccaneers who are united by rapaciousness and vileness.

But instead of confronting this grave existential threat to Nigeria, Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, is obsessed with blabbering about who the “sponsors” of Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu are.

This is the same guy who refused to name and identify people who have been exposed by the United Arab Emirates as sponsors of Boko Haram terrorists because, according to him, “naming and shaming of suspects is not embarked upon as a policy by the federal Government out of sheer respect for the constitutional rights of Nigerians relating to presumption of innocence.”

Naming and shaming of sponsors of terrorism is unconstitutional but the naming and shaming of the “sponsors” of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho isn’t. That is all you need to know on why mercenary terroristic banditry will endure for as long as incompetent hypocrites like Malami hold and control the levers of government.

By Sola SHITTU

Goro is the Hausa word for kolanut, the caffeine fruit commonly consumed in the tropical part of Nigeria. Gorontula therefore literally translates to Tula’s kookaburra, meaning that unlike the common kolanut, gorontula is only found in Tula communities in Kaltungo Local Government Area of Gombe State and Michika in Adamawa State, both on the mountainous belt stretching across the two states.

In English language, gorontula is known variously as tree hibiscus, snot apple or African chewing gum because it is sweet and chewy with lots of fibre. Botanically, it is known as azanza garckeana or azanza for short.

There are four Tula communities, namely Wange Tula, Yiri Tula, Baule Tula and Kaltin Tula, all located in the mountainous and rocky parts of the state. But for reasons that probably border on climate or weather of the mountain, gorontula can only be found in Tula and Michika and nowhere else around the world, hence the reason it is called gorontula; a kind of kolanut peculiar to the Tula tribe in Gombe State.

The Tula communities were predominantly agrarian until recently when Gorontula began to attract the attention of fun seeking men and women who are rushing to the affected communities to obtain the fruits in order to satisfy their sexual fantasies.

“Men who want to satisfy their women come from as far as Chad, Niger and Cameroon to buy gorontula because it makes sex sweet for both women and men. It also works for fertility, diabetes and high blood pressure,” said Heman Ephraim, the Seriki Gorontula.

Tula Entrance
“I have a history of high blood pressure, and each time I notice the sign, I just take the Gorontula and I will sleep and become normal,” he added.

Until 10 to 12 years ago, gorontula was just a fruit the Tulas took to the farm to assuage hunger and derive energy while working on their farms.

“We can work long hours on the farm taking only water and gorontula without feeling hungry,” said Salisu Malare, a gorontula produce trader in Tula.

According to him, the wide acclaim about the sexual ability of Tula women and men did not originate from Tula. “It was the testimony of men who married our women to confirm that they were brought up well,” he said, laughing.

Indeed, talks about sex usually elicits excitement from both sexes around Tula communities. Serah Jodah, for instance, said she had been eating gorontula from childhood and could not imagine that any other women could beat Tula women on bed. She said: “It is very true that gorontula makes our women sexually active and also repairs and cleanses the reproductive organs. We have been using it for long without even knowing the medicinal values of the fruit.”

On her part, Esther Umar said: “We took it for granted because we have always seen the gorontula as our own and it has become part of our daily food.

“Some women also use gorontula to cure infection, boost their fertility and increase libido.

“If a woman finds it difficult to conceive, we often take gorontula to enhance our fertility. Even those who experience dryness during intercourse use gorontula. And it is not only for women; both sexes use it. Men, in particular, come from different places to get it.”

gorontula is an essential ingredient of Kayamata, a popular sex enhancing herb among Hausa people.

“Its honey, seeds and leaves are extracted and used for various medicinal purposes. It is the mainstay of the economy of Tula communities. (The Nation)