BusinessDay 22 Oct 2017

SUNDAY
18 BD
Sunday 22 October 2017
S ketches
With Zebulon
Governors as Oliver Twist
Last Tuesday, a delegation of the
36 state governors on the platform
of Nigerian Governors’
Forum, led by Abdul-Aziz Yari,
Zamfara State governor and
Rebuilding the ruins
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP),
a onetime largest single party in
Africa, is trying to pick its pieces.
The party held the levers of power
for 16 straight years, but when it lost its innocence,
it died a natural death. Given the
calibre of men and women that were in PDP
and the deep pockets in terms of financial
wealth, it was inconceivable that by now
the party would be a laughing stock. Just
like a film, the party died. In 2015, it paid a
huge price for its pride.
Today, the party is so dead that it cannot
even speak to the ills in society, unlike the
vibrancy exhibited by the APC when it
was in opposition. It has so lost its voice and
emasculated that the ruling party, with its
excesses, is having a field day.
The PDP may just be living in name; it
has lost its soul. What is not clear is whether
election of a new national chairman and
other members of the national working
committee (NWC) will deliver the umbrella
association from the nadir of hopelessness
it has sunken. It has been said again and
Hunting the hunter?
These are perilous times indeed! The
Police in a civil society are saddled
with the protection of lives and
property. By their training, policemen are
supposed to ward off enemies.
Before now, in the days when security
was tight, robbers operated only at
night and fled whenever they sighted
the police. In those days, most robbers
did not have big guns. Such sophisticated
chairman of the Forum, met with President
Muhammadu Buhari to demand
for release of more Paris Club refund
to them.
At the meeting, Yari told the President
that they appreciated the financial support
he had given them ranging from
bailout, restructuring of their debts to
London-Paris Club exit payment.
Controversy has continued to trail the
use of the huge amounts of money that
has been accessed by state governments.
Some state governors are being accused
of cornering a large portion of the money
for their individual projects. The Federal
Government is aware of the diversion.
Yari began with sweet talk; lavishing
the President with encomiums. “…We
want to crave your indulgence so that
we can factor the numbers in our 2018
budget so that we can use it for projects
and other recurrent spending, according
again that PDP may not bounce back to
power even though the APC has proven
very disastrous. Observers say the best
thing that would happen to the party is for
it to change name.
Those who canvass the name change
say that the name “PDP” is now vibrating
a negative aura. The atrocities of the party
yesteryear are still fresh in the mind of
many a Nigerian. The fortunes of the party
is not getting brighter as big names have
left, leaving and will also leave.
firm arms were exclusively seen with
members of the armed forces. And the
security agencies had the capacity to
dispense brutality and brought criminals
into subjection.
Today, I can’t understand what is
happening any longer. Recently, the
Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris
got pissed off, castigating his officers for
being careless to the extent that they are
now being kidnapped by street boys.
The IG’s anger stemmed from a number
of abductions of some policemen in
the last few weeks. He challenged the
Commissioners of Police at a meeting in
Abuja to take the protection of their officers
seriously.
“You allow the useless kidnappers
to pick you and your orderly.
It is very embarrassing…”, he said. What
the development has shown is that no one
is safe. It appears everyone appears to be
on his/her own nowadays. There is fire
on the mountain and there is no brother
in this jungle!
For some time now, many indigenes
of Plateau State have been in a
mourning mood. Tears and loud
lamentation have become the order
of the day in a state that used to be calm.
Last week, blood suckers visited the state
and left anguish behind. What is baffling
is the ease with which the murderers sucto
the specification given by our respective
Houses of Assembly, and that’s why
we are here.”
The request was couched in an alluring
way that the President must be
ensnared. They talked about projects as if
they were speaking to aliens who did not
know what they do with public funds.
What manner of projects? How many
states boast of good and viable projects
or is it not the white elephant projects
that dot the landscape in many states,
through which they siphon money?
Recall that early in the life of the current
administration, the Federal Government
released what it termed a bailout
fund to the states. In December 2016, the
first tranche of the Parish Club refund
was also shared among the states; they
also received a second tranche in July
this year. With all these interventions,
many states are still grappling with nonpayment
of workers’ salaries leading to
endless industrial action and protests.
Nigerians lose confidence in govt
When a child sees his father and
takes to his heels; it means something
is wrong somewhere, particularly,
when that father is trying to give the
child something that is vital to his wellbeing.
It is not natural for a man to give his son a
serpent in place of fish. But when a child has
any cause to believe that his father is giving
him a suspicious offer, therefore, there is every
reason for investigation. For the greater
part of last week, parents in various parts of
the country were in panic.
Many of them rushed to their children’s
schools and withdrew them from classrooms
over rumoured vaccination that was meant
to introduce some forms of deadly diseases
into the children. It happened in the South
East, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT),
North Central; South-South and South West.
Rumours had spread that certain people
had perfected plans to carry out some fake
inoculation, with the intent to inject dangerous
disease-causing substances (Monkey
pox) into the children. It is unfortunate that
Nigeria is retrogressing rather than making
progress in terms of building bridges and
cementing the bonds of unity among the
Tears for Plateau State
On the day the governors visited to
beg for more money, the President lamented
that the Federal Government’s
intervention had not helped as workers
are still crying and suffering all over
the place.
Today, there are allegations that some
state governors bought houses with part
of the money and engaged in other mundane
extravagancies. It is sad that these
monies have not been able to take care
of the workers and pensioners in some
states. The more the money is released,
the more protests are staged by angry
workers. The President lamented the inability
of the bailout fund, the Paris Club
refund and other interventionist efforts
by the Federal Government to positively
impact the lives of workers in the states.
Now that they have gone to ambush
Buhari again, more money is as good as
released albeit to the celebration of the
governors and lamentation of the longsuffering
masses of the states. Mindless!
ethnic nationalities.
Nigerians have become detached from
one another and many are now living in mortal
fear of the government of the day. Enmity
is the order of the day. It is the government
of the day that has fuelled this and has sown
a terrible seed of discord among Nigerians.
When citizens begin to doubt the protection
from government, you know then that
things have really gone out of hand. I think
that the Federal Government must, and as a
matter of urgency, do everything humanly
possible to reassure the citizens that they are
secure in the country.
cessfully carry out their heinous mission
on the noses of soldiers drafted to the area
to safeguard the people since there was
curfew in the area.
Since the massacre, indigenes and the
soldiers have been embroiled in blame
game over whose fault. Although the
military has denied the allegation of complicity
in the reported killing of 29 persons,
including women and children in the
Nkiedonwhro community, saying it was
simply overwhelmed by the numerical
strength and tactics of the attackers, a community
leader in the area, Sunday Abdu,
was quoted as saying that soldiers deployed
in the community had a hand in the killings.
This was also what transpired some
months back when herdsmen were killing
some people in Southern Kaduna. It is not
possible to say that these Fulani herdsmen
are more powerful than the government of
the day, what may be lacking is the will to
end the orgy of blood-letting by the powers
that be. Too bad!