The Trumpet Newspaper Issue 620 (April 3 - 16 2024)

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Africans now have a voice... Founded in 1995 

V O L 30 N O 620 A P R I L 3 - 16 2024 

Jailed for 

unprovoked 

knife 

attack 

End FGM (Photo - Renew Europe - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) 

The Gambia may 

allow Female 

Genital 

Mutilation again 

– another sign of a global 

trend eroding women’s rights 

By Satang Nabaneh, University of Dayton 

Continued on Page 2> 

Aman who stabbed a man in a 

horrific unprovoked knife 

attack in broad daylight has 

been jailed after detectives secured 

vital evidence to charge and remand 

him within 24 hours of the incident. 

19-year-old Lewis Livingstone of 

Wellington Road, Enfield, was 

sentenced to six and a half years’ 

imprisonment at Hendon Magistrates’ 

Court (used as a Nightingale Court 

instead of Wood Green Crown Court) 

on Friday, 15 March, having pleaded 

guilty at an earlier hearing to 

attempted robbery and possession of 

a bladed article. 

He was also subject to a 

suspended sentence for a previous 

offence for which he will now have 

to serve the 18 month sentence, 

bringing the total to eight years’ 

imprisonment. 

Investigating Officer - Detective 

Constable James Hunt said: “The 

victim continues to suffer with the 

physical and psychological impact of 

this incident. He was going about his 

day, having just bought some food, 

when he was thrust into a terrible 

ordeal. 

“I know he is incredibly grateful 

to the people who came to his aid. 

Were it not for their bravery, this 

incident could potentially have been 

far worse. 

“It’s a good example of the 

community coming forward and 

working together with the police 

following a serious crime. Those 

valuable witnesses, combined with 

other investigative work, were key in 

helping us quickly charge and 

remand Livingstone.” 

The court heard that the victim, 

then aged 28, was riding his bicycle 

home when the incident happened at 

around 16:26hrs on Saturday, 1 July 

2023 in Fore Street, Enfield. 

Livingstone, who was stood at a 

bus stop, leapt out at the victim and 

kicked him, forcing him off his 

bicycle. 

Continued on Page 3

News 

Page2 TheTrumpet APRIL 3 - 16 2024 

The Gambia may allow Female Genital 

Mutilation again – another sign of a 

global trend eroding women’s rights 

Continued from Page 1< 

The Gambia’s ban on Female Genital 

Mutilation (FGM) since 2015 is 

under threat. Proposed changes 

before parliament could permit 

medicalised female genital cutting and 

allow it for consenting adults. 

This potential reversal has thrust the 

country into the global spotlight as the 

latest example of the backlash against 

gender equality. 

The Gambia’s criminalisation of FGM 

was not the first in West Africa but it came 

as a surprise. The President at the time, 

Yahya Jammeh, declared the rampant 

cultural tradition a non-religious practice 

that caused harm. There was some dissent 

within the country but human rights groups 

welcomed the ban. 

Jammeh, who was President from 1994 

to 2016, also oversaw the passage of other 

progressive gender-related laws. The 

Domestic Violence Act 2013 provided a 

framework for combating domestic 

violence in all its forms (physical, sexual, 

emotional, economic) and protection in 

particular for women and children. The 

Sexual Offences Act 2013 expanded the 

definition of rape, broadened the 

circumstances in which individuals could 

be charged, and reduced the burden of 

proof in prosecutions. 

Jammeh also outlawed child marriages 

in 2016. This was significant in a country 

where one in five young people aged 15- 

19 (19%) are married. 

In one of the world’s most aiddependent 

countries, these reforms were all 

central to international donor interests. And 

they helped to improve the country’s 

democratic reputation. But at the same 

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Female leaders 'Ngansinba' protest to end FGM in The Gambia (Pic - Dr Isatou Touray) 

time, they made it easy for the autocratic 

leader to get away with other excesses. He 

also mobilised religion to manipulate 

beliefs and sentiments, particularly 

affecting girls and women. For example, 

Jammeh mandated that female government 

workers wear veils or headscarves when he 

declared his Muslim majority country an 

Islamic State in 2016. 

President Adama Barrow, Jammeh’s 

successor, has emphasised religious 

tolerance and has refrained from 

employing religious symbolism. Unlike the 

State-sponsored homophobia under the 

Jammeh regime, Barrow has downplayed 

homosexuality as a “non-issue”. 

I am a legal scholar and human rights 

practitioner with published research on 

Female Genital Mutilation, gender equality 

and women’s rights and governance in The 

Gambia. It’s my view that Jammeh’s 

ostensible compliance with gender equality 

norms was selective and intended for the 

international gallery rather than a genuine 

commitment to women’s rights and 

democracy. 

His tactical stance highlighted a 

broader trend. Autocratic African leaders 

often accommodate global gender norms 

to maintain domestic power dynamics. The 

result, for example, is increased women’s 

political participation through quotas along 

with a conservative approach to sexual and 

reproductive health and rights. 

The Gambia experience also shows that 

Western donors and multilateral 

institutions need to go beyond just pushing 

for reforms. Once they have got the 

reforms they advocated for, they should 

have a strategy for sustaining them. Forces 

that were opposed to the reform often 

regroup to campaign for its removal. 

At its core, Female Genital Mutilation 

constitutes a violation of the human rights 

of girls and women. These include the right 

to non-discrimination, to protection from 

physical and mental violence, and to health 

and life. 

From a feminist perspective, the 

prevalence of FGM in numerous African 

nations revolves around upholding genderspecific 

norms and exerting control over 

women’s sexuality. 

Female Genital Mutilation in The 

Gambia 

Female genital cutting is a deeply 

ingrained practice. It is driven by cultural 

beliefs and often performed by traditional 

healers. According to the most recent 

national survey, a large majority of 

Gambian women aged 15-49 years (73%) 

have undergone female genital cutting. 

More alarming is an 8% increase in the 

prevalence of FGM among girls under the 

age of 14 – from 42.4% in 2010 to 50.6% 

in 2018. 

Numerous health risks associated with 

all types of the practice have been 

documented by the World Health 

Organization and systematic reviews. 

These include severe pain, bleeding, 

infections and complications during 

childbirth and elevated rates of anxiety and 

other mental health disorders. This has led 

to calls for the practice to be banned in 

order to protect girls’ health and wellbeing. 

The Gambia’s current struggle with the 

FGM ban reflects a complex interplay 

between cultural norms, religious beliefs, 

and the fight for gender equality. The 

potential repeal of the ban poses a threat to 

human rights of women and girls in The 

Gambia. 

Reversal of hard-won gains 

Though The Gambia is constitutionally 

secular, religion influences nearly every 

facet of society. Islamic fundamentalists in 

the country are known for attacks on 

religious minorities, including hate speech 

against the Ahmadiyya Muslim 

community and the Christian community. 

The main fundamentalist religious 

Continued on Page 3

News 

APRIL 3 - 16 2024 TheTrumpet Page3 

Jailed for unprovoked knife attack 


Lewis Livingstone 

He then unsheathed a large knife and 

chased the victim away from the bicycle. 

He mounted it and brandished the knife 

again at the victim when he reapproached. 

The victim tackled Livingstone to 

prevent his bicycle from being stolen. As 

they lay on the floor Livingstone 

retrieved his knife and stabbed the victim 

in the abdomen in front of scores of 

horrified onlookers. 

The victim screamed for help and 

sustained further knife injuries to his 

hands as he desperately tried to defend 

himself. 

Members of the public bravely 

intervened to stop Livingstone and he 

was held as police rushed to the scene and 

arrested him minutes later. 

When asked why he had done it, one 

witness said Livingstone simply 

responded: “Is he dead?” 

The victim was given first aid at the 

scene before being taken to hospital, 

where, thankfully, his injuries were 

assessed as not life-threatening or lifechanging. 

The investigative team worked 

quickly to charge Livingstone within 24 

hours. He was remanded in custody. 

Livingstone tried to claim he was 

acting in self-defence but this was easily 

disproved by detectives. Alongside 

CCTV, they gathered a wealth of witness 

statements and carried out forensic work 

that would prove his guilt. 

In a victim impact statement, the 

victim said: “I believe this man was 

going to kill me, had the people not come 

to my rescue. 

“I am still not over the shock and fear. 

I spent the night in hospital having 

nightmares. I still have a lot of pain on 

my side and hands as a result of being 

stabbed. I am now in the queue waiting 

for surgery on my hands.” 

The Gambia may 

allow Female 

Genital Mutilation 

again – another 

sign of a global 

trend eroding 

women’s rights 


actors draw inspiration from and still 

support the exiled former dictator Jammeh. 

They are at the forefront of the recent 

pushback against the anti-FGM law. They 

argue that the ban violates their religious 

and cultural freedoms as guaranteed in the 

1997 Constitution. 

On 4 March 2024, a strong supporter 

of Jammeh proposed a private member’s 

bill in the National Assembly that seeks to 

overturn the ban. 

The push to reassert traditional gender 

roles isn’t isolated to The Gambia. There 

is a global trend of rolling back progress 

on gender equality. This trend is 

characterised by attempts to limit women’s 

bodily choices, an increase in violence 

against them, as well as attacks on 

LGBTQI+ communities. It reflects a 

broader political climate of backlash 

against women’s rights and gender equality 

as a weapon in the reversal of democratic 

achievements. 

Attempts have been seen to reverse 

legal protections against women and girls 

in Kenya. In Sudan, State-sanctioned 

violence and societal pressure is aimed at 

restricting women’s public participation. 

Similarly, Tanzania previously enacted a 

policy barring teenage mothers from 

attending public schools, though this 

policy has been reversed. 

This global context highlights how 

anti-rights movements, undemocratic 

norms and gendered politics are working 

together to erode women’s rights and 

exacerbate inequalities. 

• Satang Nabaneh is the Director of 

Programs, Human Rights Center; 

Research Professor of Law, University 

of Dayton School of Law, University of 

Dayton. 

• This article is republished from The 

Conversation under a Creative 

Commons license. Read the original 

article.

Page4 


APRIL 3 - 16 2024 

Opinion 

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But what really 

is Nigeria’s 

problem? 

When, in 1814, Europe’s 

leading Statesman, 

Count Metternich, said 

that Italy “is only a geographical 

expression”, the former Deputy of 

the Kingdom of Italy and the Father 

of Modern Italy, Giuseppe 

Garibaldi, didn’t take it as an 

offence. Instead, the only question 

on his mind was how to create 

Italians. 

Take the recent detention escape 

Bola Ahmed Tinubu 

of one of the Binance Executives 

held in Nigeria for tax evasion, 

Nadeem Anjarwalla, as a case 

study! Anjarwalla’s escape from 

protective custody didn’t tell us 

anything other than the statelessness 

of the Nigerian State. In some 

countries, there would by now have 

been a gale of resignations. But in 

Nigeria, that has never happened; 

and may never happen! Instead, the 

country moves on, until the fire next 

BY ABIODUN 

KOMOLAFE 

time! 

Apart from the run-of-the-mill 

criminals, a jailbreak or detention 

escape does not portend anything 

other than a weak state, that those 

who aided and abetted it knew what 

they were doing, and that nothing 

would happen to them ultimately. 

Mayer Amschel Rothschild once 

asked that he be given control of a 

nation’s money supply and he cared 

not who wrote the laws. That the 

Binance Executive who was trying 

to undermine the control of the 

Nigerian currency could escape 

from custody at all was a national 

disgrace! It’s a telltale sign of failure 

of intelligence and it’s sad! It’s 

tantamount to America informing a 

stunned world that Osama Bin 

Laden had escaped from custody. 

For America, it’s not possible! 

The raging insecurity in Nigeria 

also says something about a brokendown 

State where lack of internal 

security mechanisms has become 

the norm. Take, for instance, Nigeria 

has 371,800 police officers serving a 

population of 213.4 million 

Nigerians. Regrettably however, 

half of them are already fanned out 

to political bigwigs. So, what do we 

expect? That’s all the more reason 

to devolve power to the States if 

Nigeria wants to stop terrorism and 

associated criminalities. Matter-offactly, 

the vigilantes involved in the 

war against terrorism and banditry 

deserve national awards because of 

the risks involved in fighting with 

Dane guns against men with AK 47 

and other sophisticated weapons 

and networks. Added to this is that 

Nigeria is currently ‘blessed’ with 

loads of ungoverned spaces. For 

example, Sambisa Forest alone is 

reportedly the size of Belgium. 

Niger State is also almost thrice the 

Continued on Page 5

Opinion 



Page5 

But what really is Nigeria’s 

problem? 


size of the Netherlands. However, 

while the Netherlands maintains her 

position as the world’s 2 nd largest 

exporter of food and agricultural 

products, what’s Niger State 

exporting? 

Nigeria is the world’s 9 th largest 

crude petroleum exporting country. 

Still, she is deep in the sea of 

palliative miasma. Dishearteningly, 

that’s emblematic of a dehumanized 

society and lack of transparency on 

the part of the organizers and it’s 

disheartening! Nigeria’s problem 

isn’t a question of not producing 

enough food. Rather, it’s that the 

country does not have the 

infrastructure to have stable prices. 

The truth is that Nigeria has 

antediluvian agriculture. It is 

primitive and rain-fed! She doesn’t 

have Commodities Exchange and 

Boards and/or storage facilities. In 

my considered opinion, the drivers 

involved in the movement of goods 

and services from the hinterland to 

the cities are risking their lives. So, 

how much are they going to be paid 

to compensate for the risks? 

Unfortunately, instead of building 

rural roads, our Governors are busy 

building flyovers and embarking on 

other vanity projects. 

On the whole, Nigeria’s problem 

is a defective constitution. If we go 

back to what was the cost-benefit 

analysis and general wellbeing 

under the 1960 and 1963 

Constitutions, what has happened 

subsequently is that Nigeria now has 

more than 133 million Nigerians 

battling multi-dimensional poverty. 

Under the 1963 Constitution, that’s 

not possible! For those who care to 

know, India, Australia, Canada and 

Brazil have been operating under 

the same kind of Constitution. Look 

at where they are, compared to 

where Nigeria is hibernating! 

While we cannot build a country 

without production, we cannot also 

build production on a defective 

Constitution in which every State 

goes to Abuja every month, cap-inhand, 

for handouts. The way out is 

for power to be devolved to the 

States, including powers to raise 

their own finances. It should be like 

the 1963 revenue sharing formula, 

which favoured 50% to the State 

and 50% to the centre. How can 

Nigeria have more than 68 items on 

the Exclusive List? For God’s sake, 

they shouldn’t be more than 8 or 9 

items; and they must have a revenue 

allocation formula that allows each 

State to carry out its responsibilities 

as a real sub-national. 

The key point here is that Nigeria 

is presently running on a very 

defective foundation and, until a 

Nigerian leader – and we hope that 

President Bola Tinubu would be the 

game-changer – is able to say what 

Massimo d’Azeglio said about Italy 

in 1861, Nigeria will remain 

captured. But the day a Nigerian 

leader possesses the interminable 

refinement and the presence of mind 

to emphasize that “we have made a 

geographical expression called 

Nigeria; now we must make 

Nigerians”, and he develops the 

capacity to do the needful, Nigeria 

will be free! And the only way to 

create Nigeria is to revisit her 

foundational defects, not by 

piecemeal constitution amendments 

but by writing a brand new 

Constitution that’s based largely on 

the spirit and letter of the 1960 and 

1963 Constitutions and have it 

passed by plebiscite. There and 

then, everything will change 

because the States can now have 

control over their resources. 

If California in the United States 

of America was a sovereign State, it 

would be the 6 th largest economy in 

the world as of today. Apart from 

having a fantastic, innovative 

income, California is a major 

contributor to the Federal budget. In 

2022, California had a record 

operating surplus of $97.5 billion, to 

which a special legislative session 

was called to debate the spending 

formula. Of course, that has gone to 

show the real essence of True 

Federalism. Until Nigeria develops 

that kind of framework, Nigerians 

will only be moving in circles, 

fantasizing and gambling about the 

naira-to-dollar exchange nonsense. 

After all, bandits were not born as 

bandits. They are bandits because 

they are produced from a factory! 

May the Lamb of God, who 

takes away the sin of the world, 

grant us peace in Nigeria! 

*Komolafe wrote in from Ijebu- 

Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria 

(ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)


Opinion 

The casualties of Okuama 

The casualties are not only those 

who are dead/They are well out of 

it/The casualties are not only those 

who are dead/Though they await burial 

by installment/The casualties are not only 

those who are lost/Persons or property, 

hard as it is/To grope for a touch that 

some/May not know is not there/The 

casualties are not only those led away by 

night/The cell is a cruel place, sometimes 

a haven/Nowhere as absolute as the 

grave/The casualties are not only those 

who started/A fire and now cannot put 

out/Thousands/Are burning that have no 

say in the matter/The casualties are not 

only those who are escaping/The 

shattered shall become prisoners in/A 

fortress of falling walls/The casualties 

are many and a good member as 

well/Outside the scenes of ravage and 

wreck/They are the emissaries of rift/So 

smug in smoke-rooms they haunt 

abroad/They do not see the funeral 

piles/At home eating up the forests/They 

are wandering minstrels who, beating 

on/The drums of the human heart, draw 

the world/Into a dance with rites it does 

not know./The drums overwhelm the 

guns../caught in the clash of counter 

claims and charges/When not in the niche 

of others left/We fall/All casualties of the 

war….” – John Pepper Clark, The 

Casualties (1970) 

These prefatory lines are taken from 

J.P. Clark’s “The Casualties” (1970), a 

most poignant poem written by one of the 

masters of the genre in Nigerian literature 

on the Civil War of 1967-70. Clark’s lines 

are simple and clear enough; relevant as 

they were in 1970, they remain just as 

relevant today, 54 years later, as they 

offer an apt description of the tragedy that 

occurred in the coastal community of 

Okuama in Delta State on Thursday, 

March 14, and the aftermath of that 

slaughter of 17 (initially reported to be 

16) soldiers who were reportedly on a 

peace mission. The fact that we have to 

go back to a 1970 poem speaks not 

simply to the eternity of good literature, 

but more to the fact that indeed the Civil 

War is yet to end. We remain perpetually 

in a state of war and we are all as the poet 

says, “casualties”. Both the men and 

women in uniform, sworn to defend the 

integrity, and sovereignty of Nigeria, as 

well as ordinary civilians are trapped in 

the vortex of centrifugal forces and faultlines 

which again and again, result in 

tragedy and anarchy. No one is safe. 

When a people turn against the same men 

who have been assigned to protect them, 

there can be no stronger proof of the 

failure of the State. The murder of four 

officers and 13 other ranks in Okuama is 

as President Bola Tinubu has pointed out, 

in a personally signed statement, “a direct 

attack on our nation”, and further, an 

affront on the very values that make us 

human. Murder was not enough for the 

killers, they reportedly went ahead to 

dismember some of their victims, and 

harvested their organs in what points to 

modern-day cannibalism and sheer 

cruelty. 

I am however shocked to no end by 

the kind of conspiracy theories that have 

been thrown up by some interested 

parties with necrophilous prejudices of 

their own. The most shocking is the 

suggestion that the men of the 181 

Amphibious Battalion asked for their 

own death because they went to the 

community without permission from the 

traditional rulers and elders of Okuama. 

Or that the soldiers and their Commander 

openly took sides with the Ijaw-Okoloba 

community in a land dispute with 

Okuama, hence they were not about to 

make peace. One spokesperson for 

Okuama has in fact alleged that the 

soldiers stormed the community and 

killed three persons, shot at anything on 

sight, and that the tragedy that followed 

was because angry youths of the 

community decided to fight back. Other 

persons who claim to know the politics 

of the area very well also argue that the 

soldiers in that area of responsibility, to 

use a military phrase, are corrupt and that 

the people know this for a fact and that is 

why the youths do not respect them. 

Within 72 hours after the murder, there 

were reports that Okuama had been 

besieged by unknown soldiers who set 

the entire community ablaze. These same 

unknown soldiers are said to be patrolling 

the creeks. The people of the community 

have fled towards Ughelli. They have 

become refugees away from their own 

land. Okuama is a ghost town. I have 

again heard some concerned parties 

arguing that the reprisal is unacceptable, 

because when soldiers are killed in the 

North, as in Niger State for example, 

Nigerian soldiers do not engage in 

reprisal killings, but if one soldier is 

killed in the South South, hell breaks 

loose as was the case in the Ijaw town of 

Odi, Bayelsa State on November 20, 

1999. 

I ask: how does any of these theories 

and arguments justify the cold-blooded 

murder of soldiers who were on active 

duty? Such views can only be expressed 

in a country that is on the brink of failure. 

The conflict between Okoloba (Ijaw) and 

Okuama (Urhobo) communities was said 

to have been caused by a dispute over 

land. Leo Tolstoy has asked “How much 

land does a man need?” in a short story 

of the same title written in 1886. But here 

in Africa, so much sentimental value is 

attached to land, not a little blood has 

been shed over the centuries for it. In 

Nigeria, conflict over land is at the centre 

of perennial communal border clashes, 

indigene/settler acrimony and farmerherder 

conflicts turning the entire country 

from the coast to the savannah into a vast 

theatre of war. What should bother us is 

why the military, whose functions are 

properly defined in Section 217 (2) of the 

1999 Constitution and the Armed Forces 

Act of 1994, would end up settling land 

disputes between communities! We have 

complained endlessly that there must be a 

limit to the use of the Nigerian military 

for police work. Nigeria has become so 

insecure; the internal war has gone on for 

so long, that soldiers now man checkpoints 

across the country. It is even not 

unusual to see soldiers in uniform 

BY REUBEN ABATI 

providing security at weekend “owambe” 

parties or serving as bodyguards to the 

rich. Familiarity breeds contempt. In 

other countries, soldiers are respected for 

their service to the nation. I once saw a 

group of Marines arriving at an airport in 

the United States. Everyone at the airport 

lounge stood up and applauded them – a 

grateful people appreciating those who 

defend the sovereignty of their country. It 

is unfortunate that here in Nigeria, we kill 

our own soldiers. This is strange and 

unacceptable. The children of those 

soldiers have now become fatherless, 

their wives have become widows, their 

families have lost their loved ones. “All 

casualties…” 

Those who argue that there would 

have been no reprisal if the soldiers had 

been killed in the North forget that the 

main issue is the erosion of human values 

in our country. We share a common 

humanity but the hardship and bad 

politics in Nigeria have robbed us of a 

sense of what it means to be human, 

hence the spread of violence, criminality 

and impunity from North to South, East 

to West. Those who seek to play politics 

with everything, including murder, are 

casualties of primordial emotions. They 

forget that there was a similar reprisal by 

unknown soldiers in Zaki Biam on 

October 12, 2001, when soldiers went to 

avenge the killing of their men in that 

community. The revenge mission was 

titled “Operation No Living Thing”. 

Some people claim that Zaki Biam is not 

Northern enough, and that is precisely the 

problem with Nigerians. We are too 

divisive. Just as the murder of soldiers is 

wrong and must be condemned, reprisal 

killing, resort to extra-judicial killing and 

jungle justice is also condemnable. No 

one, soldier or civilian, has any right to 

take the laws into their hands. The fact 

that jungle justice rules the land is indeed 

why we are all victims. The people of 

Odi, whose houses were razed, and their 

women were raped, and the people of 

Zaki Biam who were openly executed 

have not recovered from the horror of that 

experience. Okuama community in Delta 

State may never recover from the 

Continued on Page 7

Opinion 

APRIL 3 - 16 2024 TheTrumpet Page7 

The casualties of Okuama 


The 17 soldiers murdered in Okuama 

scorched earth attack inflicted on it. No 

citizen should be subjected to such agony. 

Where is the Delta State government? 

In a statement issued by Brig-Gen Tukur 

Gusau, Acting Director of Information, 

Defence Headquarters, we were told that 

the matter had been reported to the Delta 

State Government. Governor Sheriff 

Oborevwori would later condemn the 

killings as “despicable” and promise that 

the State Government will take “all 

necessary measures” to protect lives and 

property in the State. What could those 

necessary measures possibly be? The 

Land Use Act (1979) vests the ownership 

of land in State Governors as trustees, but 

in the event of land-related conflicts, 

State Governors are either totally helpless 

or even complicit as they surreptitiously 

try to defend the interests of their own 

ethnic groups. Conflicts in Delta State 

over the years have been far beyond the 

capacity of the Governors. It will be no 

different with Oborevwori, who himself 

needs as much help as the people. If he 

had any ideas about what to do, the 

tragedy at Okuama could have been 

prevented. The conflict must have been 

brewing over time until it reached a 

boiling point. 

President Tinubu has written as 

follows: “I extend my profound 

condolences to the families of these fallen 

heroes, their colleagues, and their loved 

ones. The military high command is 

already responding to this incident. The 

cowardly offenders responsible for this 

heinous crime will not go unpunished. 

The incident, once again, demonstrates 

the dangers faced by our servicemen and 

women in line of duty. I salute their 

heroism, courage and uncommon grit 

and passion.” He added: “The Defence 

Headquarters and Chief of Defence Staff 

have been granted full authority to bring 

to justice anybody found to have been 

responsible for this unconscionable crime 

against the Nigerian people.” Certainly, 

the President struck the right notes of 

empathy; signing the statement 

personally as President, Commander in 

Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal 

Republic of Nigeria is also a good gesture 

that matches the gravity of the problem. 

Morale must be very low among the 

troops - to be killed by an enemy on the 

battle-field is occupational hazard, but to 

be slaughtered at home by the same 

people they have taken an oath to protect 

and defend is worse. The families of the 

17 fallen soldiers deserve every support 

that they can get, including counselling. 

We mourn the fallen heroes: Lt. Col. AH 

Ali, Commanding Officer, 181 

Amphibious Battalion, Major SD Shafa, 

Maj. DE Obi, Capt. U Zakari, SSgt. 

Yahaya Saidu, Cpl. Yahaya Danbaba, Cpl 

Kabiru Basir, LCpl. Bulus Haruna, LCpl. 

Sole Opeyemi, LCpl. Bello Anas, LCpl. 

Hamman Peter, LCpl. Ibrahim Abdullahi, 

Pte Alhaji Isah, Pte Clement Francis, Pte 

Abubakar Ali, Pte Ibrahim Adamu and 

Pte Adamu Ibrahim. The President has 

called for “justice”. The investigations 

and arrests being carried out by the 

Defence Headquarters must result in a 

situation whereby the long arm of the law 

catches up with those who killed the 

soldiers, those who inflicted jungle 

justice on the community and destroyed 

lives and properties, those who caused 

the conflict between the two communities 

of Okuama and Okoloba, and any 

person(s), be they chiefs, youths or 

ordinary indigenes who may be trying to 

profit in whatever form from the crisis. 

The investigation must also address 

certain cogent questions: what was the 

peace mission all about? Who authorized 

the deployment of troops and under what 

circumstances? How did the youths of 

Okuama get the sophisticated weapons 

with which they waged war against 

Nigerian soldiers? Why is it that the 

soldiers could not defend themselves? 

How equipped were they, even on a 

peace mission, military work requires an 

advance knowledge of the threat situation 

at a chosen destination or is that not so? 

And how on earth did soldiers become 

involved in a land dispute? It would 

perhaps be advisable to set up an 

independent panel of inquiry, and for the 

military to review the scope of the 

involvement of its personnel in the Niger 

Delta. The Okuama narrative is at best a 

developing story, “caught in the clash of 

counter claims and charges.” In order not 

to keep ending up as “casualties”, the 

people of Urhobo Ewu Kingdom and the 

Ijaws along the Forcados River must 

learn to live together in peace. And as for 

the rest of us, the instructive question is: 

who really is safe when armed soldiers 

are killed so easily by irate youths? I 

guess not even the dead who are also now 

being kidnapped from cemeteries by 

graveyard bandits.


Opinion 

For Mama Ijesa 

North at 60! 

By Abiodun Komolafe 

On April 5, 2024, Nigerians from 

all walks of life will converge on 

the Cathedral Church of St. 

Matthew, Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, for the 

60 th Birthday Thanksgiving Service of 

Dr. (Mrs.) Margaret Olusola Oluyamo. 

Margaret Olusola is the wife of the Rt. 

Revd. Isaac Oluyamo, the Lord Bishop 

of the Anglican Diocese of Ijesa North. 

She’s a PhD in Yorùbá Literature from 

the University of Ilorin and lectures at the 

Osun State College of Education, Ila- 

Orangun. For some years between 2011 

and 2018, she translated Pastor E. A. 

Adeboye’s ‘Open Heavens’ into Yorùbá. 

Famously referred to as ‘Mama Ijesa 

North’, that Oluyamo has led a good life 

is not in doubt. So, she should thank God 

for His mercy as many have fallen by the 

wayside. 

Oluyamo is a woman of intellect, 

integrity and industry. His husband 

describes her as a “lovely, loving and 

beautiful wife; a caring, disciplined and 

sharply focused mother” and “a praying 

religious leader.” Olalekan, my worthy 

younger brother, describes ‘Mama 

Bishop’ as “an outstanding illustration 

of intellectual humility and transmissible 

optimism. She’s one leader who’s always 

as effective as the trust and confidence 

the people repose in her.” 

Oluyamo has done very well! But 

then, this ‘faithful at the frontline’ still 

has a historical duty ahead. The decades 

ahead expect her to be at the forefront of 

the much-needed rearmament and moral 

rejuvenation that a society in decay and 

fast falling apart like Nigeria vitally 

needs. 

May Dr. (Mrs.) Margaret Olusola 

Oluyamo’s years ahead be filled with His 

bliss and love! 

Mama Ijesa North

Opinion 



Counter-terrorism: Nigeria needs 

strategy overhaul! 

By Abiodun Komolafe 

Page9 

As of today, the basic problem with 

Nigeria on the war against 

terrorism is that she is following a 

defective strategic front. This is what the 

situation is and it is very sad! All the 

empirical evidence in the last ten or so 

years have shown that Nigeria has been 

following a wrong policy in her counterterrorism 

warfare and all eyes can see it. 

The problem is that we are fighting 

unconventional warfare in which our 

security forces are not trained in terms of 

equipment, strategy and mindset. To get 

things right, the reboot must start from the 

military academy and the method of 

recruitment, for the people who are 

recruited to fight unconventional warfare 

might not be exactly the same as those who 

are recruited to fight conventional warfare. 

In other words, it is a multi-dimensional 

problem which must start from the military 

and its structure. 

For Nigeria, her problem with terrorism 

dates back to the Maitatsine Riots of the 

early 1980s, during the Shehu Shagari era. 

A Judicial Enquiry was set up and its 

Report was prophetic. For example, it saw 

the plans being developed and suggested 

ways of ameliorating the social crisis 

which was bound to get deeper. Had the 

Judicial Report on the Maitatsine Risings 

been taken seriously and implemented, 

starting from the time of Shagari, Nigeria 

would most certainly not have gotten to 

where she is at the moment, if not nipped in 

the bud. It’s not possible! But the political 

will, even the interest, was not showing. 

That’s why we are now spending about 

20% of our national budget on something 

that was preventable. Regrettable, there is 

no end in sight! It is now inevitable for 

Nigeria to go back to the Maitatsine Report 

if she must find a solution. It is important 

dear fatherland learns from other places 

about how to prevent a never-ending war 

by engendering an effective Defence 

Budget. 

In 1959, General Dwight Eisenhower 

in his last major speech as President of the 

United States of America warned about the 

entrenchment of a military industrial 

complex. Of course, Eisenhower’s 

warnings foretold the future. 

Unfortunately, Nigeria is among the 

countries that are currently bearing the 

brunt of not taking his forebodings about 

the future seriously. The fact of the matter 

is that the military industrial complex, once 

entrenched, becomes self-perpetuating, 

leading to ever-increasing Defence 

Budgets and never-ending wars. President 

John. F. Kennedy, who succeeded 

Eisenhower, took the warning seriously by 

appointing Robert McNamara, the then 

Chief Executive Officer of one of the 

world’s largest corporations, Ford Motors, 

as his Defence Secretary. McNamara’s job 

was to devise and implement Planning, 

Programming, Budgeting Systems (PPBS) 

in order to streamline the Defence 

Budgeting System, eliminate waste and 

duplication and make it more effective. 

In 1983, President Shagari, in his 2 nd 

Term, brought in the late Omowaye Kuye 

as Director of Budget to work out a PPBS 

across the board, not just for the military 

but also Housing, Health, Roads and other 

sectors. Sadly, that regime did not last 100 

days! Basically, if Nigeria is to avoid the 

trap of a never-ending terror war, it’s time 

she devised her PPBS in order to have a 

more cost-effective Defence Budget which 

will at the same time robustly tackle 

terrorism. There is no alternative! The 

PPBS should also be applied to all the 

internal security mechanisms: Military, 

Police, Civil Defence, Intelligence Agency, 

even Customs Service. 

That 287 innocent schoolchildren could 

be kidnapped from a school and Nigerians 

are moving on as if nothing has happened 

is not only surprising but also infuriating. 

So, where are the Emirs and why are they 

keeping silent in the face of a deep cavity 

in their region’s future? For God’s sake, is 

there something the suffering masses need 

to know which successive governments 

have been keeping away from us? By the 

way, who says Kuriga cannot happen to the 

Southwest and who says Ekiti cannot 

resurrect, especially in the region’s lowhanging 

States? In rebooting therefore, it’s 

better for other regions to learn fast and get 

fully prepared. Since it may not be 

politically expedient to hire mercenaries, 

Nigeria must develop and equip Special 

Forces with the fierce urgency of now even 

as technology such as sensors, drones, 

aerial surveillance systems, magnetics and 

artificial intelligence must not only be 

incorporated but also be at the heart of the 

reevaluation of the Defence package. Data 

scientists and forensic experts such as 

Nigerian Army HQ Building (Photo - WikiCommons Naziftm - CCA SA 4.0 Int 

industrial chemists, biochemists and others 

in that mould must also be incorporated 

into the heart of the new strategic 

framework. 

Nigeria has to start anew as she has 

already fallen into a trap. Those in 

authority are well-advised to move into the 

realm of critical thinking and take more 

than a cursory look at the magnificent 

works of the past such as the former 

Commander of the British Land Forces, Lt. 

General Frank Edward Kitson’s pathbreaking 

‘low intensity operations’. 

Originally published in 1979, about 17 

contemptuous chapters of Kitson’s work 

are still not published and that’s on the 

orders of successive British governments, 

for it gives a valuable insight into the 

nature and strategies of the anti-insurgency 

warfare. 

Throughout history, once policy is not 

separated from procurement, a neverending 

war becomes an option because 

some people are bound to benefit from the 

spoils of a failed system. Tragically too, the 

more out-of-school children the country 

produces, the more it continues to feed the 

war machine because those untrained and 

uncatered-for children are ready recruits. 

Since counter-insurgency war in Nigeria 

has become as big a business as the 

Ministry of Works, the country must 

reevaluate its spending pattern if it must 

make headway. Feeding the procurement 

machine without working out the strategic 

imperative can only be likened to moving 

amiss. So, Nigeria must embrace a 

collective sense of responsibility and 

countermeasure devoid of ethnic and other 

primordial sentiments if she is to make any 

gains in the onslaught on the blood money 

merchants. 

One advantage that Nigeria has today 

is that she has as President and 

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces 

a man who came into office from the 

managerial background. So, President Bola 

Tinubu must see the current war against 

terrorism and banditry as a crisis of project 

management and strategy. Thus, Nigerians 

expect Tinubu as a proven manager of men 

and resources to deploy his proven 

managerial skills which he demonstrated 

as Governor of Lagos State into the war 

against terrorism and let the madness come 

to an end now. 

Well, yours sincerely has never been an 

apostle of the declaration of a state of 

emergency because its usefulness has not 

been felt in Nigeria. The more reason the 

Presidents has Tinubu also has to up his 

game for Nigerians will be disappointed if 

he goes the Muhammadu Buhari way. At a 

time like this, Nigerians need clarity on 

some burning issues and the national 

government needs to communicate to 

Nigerians but it seems as if the President’s 

men are not looking in that direction. The 

notorious truth is that we can’t keep talking 

about attacking insecurity in Nigeria 

without building trust and this is where 

sincerity of purpose on the part of the 

government is most useful. So, the 

President has to recalibrate his plans. He 

also needs to change his style, if need be. 

Tinubu will do well by suspending other 

not-so-important engagements for decisive 

decisions that will make his regime 

different from his predecessors. Nigeria is 

burning and the President needs to reassure 

Nigerians that he is up to the task. In sane 

climes, the police and army chiefs would 

have long relocated to the forests to rescue 

the victims. 

May the Lamb of God, who takes away 

the sin of the world, grant us peace in 

Nigeria! 

• KOMOLAFE wrote in from Ijebu- 

Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria 

(ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)


Opinion 

The abducted children of 

Kuriga and other stories 

On March 7, 2024, we all woke up to the crime of kidnapping – remember 

the bewildering news that students Chibok (2014), Dapchi (2018), Kankara 

of LEA Primary School and (2020), Kagara (2021), and Jangebe (2021) 

Government Secondary School, and at least before him, but it has since become worse 

one of their teachers had been abducted in under his watch. Large-scale, 

Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area of 

Kaduna State. The figure was put at 287. 

About the same period, 16 students had 

been abducted in Tsangaya, Sokoto State. 

Still in Kaduna State, just about a week 

earlier bandits attacked the Gonin-Gora 

community, a suburb of Kaduna metropolis 

and abducted 16 residents. We are in a 

situation in Nigeria today, marked by 

creeping anarchy and full-blown impunity 

unprecedented insecurity stalks the land. 

Just when Nigerians were grieving over the 

abductions in the North, it was reported 

further that 17 soldiers of the Nigerian 

Army had been killed in Okuama 

community in Ughelli South Local 

Government Area of Delta State. The 

soldiers were butchered. Also in Ohoro 

Forest, Delta State, six men of the Nigerian 

Police Force who had been deployed in 

whereby abductions, banditry, and search of their missing colleagues were 

terrorism no longer constitute any special 

news. What confounds is the seeming 

helplessness of the Nigerian State and the 

audacity of the criminals. The bandits who 

kidnapped 16 persons in Gonin Gora on 

February 28 in fact asked for a ransom of 

N40 trillion. Nigeria’s total budget for 2024 

is N28.7 trillion, and yet bandits are bold 

enough to ask for almost double that as 

ransom. Those who kidnapped the pupils of 

Kuriga and their teacher were a bit modest. 

They asked for N1 billion. The sheer size 

of the ransom demands points to one thing: 

that the crime of kidnapping is now a big 

business in Nigeria. 

There are persons among us who live 

off the proceeds of kidnapping, banditry 

and terrorism and they are unapologetic 

about it. They have become so bold they 

ambushed and killed. Six other policemen 

have also been declared missing. In 

Okigwe, Imo State, two more policemen 

were killed in the month of March. Anomie 

could not have chosen a worse time to 

manifest. 

It is therefore not surprising that 

President Bola Tinubu, Commander-In- 

Chief of the Armed Forces whose 72 nd 

birthday comes up on Friday, March 29, has 

now declared that he would rather use the 

occasion to reflect and rededicate himself 

to the service of Nigeria. I consider his 

chosen sobriety in keeping with the spirit 

of the times. No Commander-In-Chief 

should dance on the graves of his own 

troops. Indeed, times such as this call for 

sober reflection, not just on the part of the 

President alone but all of us. How did we 

March 29, this week falls on Good Friday, 

the Friday before Easter, the significance of 

which is the crucifixion and death of Christ, 

the Son of God who sacrificed his life, so 

that whosoever believes in Him shall not 

perish but have Everlasting life (John 3: 15- 

19). The key symbolism is sacrifice, the 

ultimate sacrifice of Christ, and the end of 

the Christian Holy Week. Thursday or 

Maundy Thursday is the commemoration 

of the Last Supper of Christ. On Friday, he 

was crucified, and He ascended to the 

Heavens. On Sunday, Easter Sunday, He 

rises, and the brethren break out in joyful 

ply their trade in the open, even in the Holy 

Month of Ramadan and Lent, something 

that was thought unthinkable in recent 

years. The bandits have lost their 

conscience. They are no longer touched by 

the spirit or season of Holiness. This is an 

indication of how bad things have become. 

It is in fact so bad that one report states that 

since President Tinubu’s assumption of 

office in May 2023, a total of 4,777 persons 

have been abducted. Tinubu did not invent 

get to this point that nobody is safe 

anymore, and the people are so opposed to 

the men in uniform that they even kill them 

for sport? President Tinubu has declared 

that there will be no drinking or dining on 

Friday. He has directed that nobody should 

place any adverts in the media to celebrate 

him. Whoever wants to mark the day 

should donate whatever they have to 

charity. I applaud the choice that the 

President has made. And incidentally, 

celebration. President Tinubu is well 

Kaduna State Governor - Uba Sani with the rescued Kuriga school children 

advised to set aside Friday, March 29, as a 

day of sober reflection even if he made no 

reference to Christian orthodoxy, or that we 

are in the Holy Month of Ramadan, as 

Nigeria has no State religion, so explicitly 

affirmed in Section 10 of the 1999 

Constitution. 

It is however, nonetheless a week of 

good news, with the rescue of the 

kidnapped pupils of Kuriga, and the 16 

abducted persons of Tsangaya in Sokoto 

State. The Defence Headquarters of the 

Nigerian Military had announced that due 

to the collaboration of the Federal 

Government and State/Local authorities, 

the latter had been rescued and handed over 

to the Sokoto State Government and that 

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By Reuben Abati 

the former, abducted on March 7 have also 

been rescued. Even in the face of the 

tragedy of the murder of 17 of their men in 

Delta, the Nigerian Army remains faithful 

in active service to its mandate of 

protecting the integrity and sovereignty of 

the Nigerian State. This is noteworthy. The 

pupils of the LEA school and the 

Government Secondary School in Kuriga, 

Kaduna State, were yesterday handed over 

to the State Governor, Senator Uba Sani 

and the school authorities and their parents. 

Kidnapping episodes in Nigeria do not 

always have happy endings, and even with 

this, there are unanswered questions. We 

were told on March 7, that a total of 287 

persons were abducted from the morning 

assembly in the affected schools. But now, 

nobody seems to know the exact number of 

the persons that have been rescued, other 

than that one teacher died, and that 137 

pupils have been rescued. 

The State government insists that this is 

the correct figure. But some other accounts 

are quoting 168. This is the terrible thing 

about Nigeria. In a country without correct 

population figures, and a proper 

identification system, we don’t know how 

many we are, we can’t account for goats or 

sheep, not to talk of human beings! Our 

schools don’t have a proper register of 

pupils or teachers. The students do not have 

identification numbers either. This is one 

country where human beings including 

uniformed officials of State can just 

disappear without trace, and they may 

never be found. It took the Nigeria Police 

Force, for example, a whole month to 

confirm that six of their men had been 

killed and another six were missing. The 

most ridiculous thing in Kuriga as of 

yesterday is that we were counting on 

parents to confirm if their missing children 

had returned. Some of the parents 

reportedly died during the agonizing 17- 

day wait, like one woman whose four 

children were abducted. Nigeria failed her. 

This should be a major point of 

Continued on Page 11

Opinion 

The abducted children of 



Page11 

Kuriga and other stories 


reflection for President Tinubu. He has 

promised that he understands his 

responsibility to make this country safe for 

all and that he will put mechanisms in place 

to that effect. He must. His opponents have 

even told him not to wait. I refer to the 

Waziri Adamawa, Presidential Candidate of 

the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), 

Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi of the 

Labour Party (LP). Every other group, 

including the Northern Elders Forum 

(NEF) and the Arewa Consultative Forum 

(ACF) has asked that Nigeria must be made 

safe, for everyone. Tinubu’s big problem is 

that whereas people were willing to make 

excuses for President Buhari before him, 

the story out there is that Tinubu must live 

up to his election campaign boast that he 

performed wonders in Lagos, and that he 

will do it again in Nigeria. Buhari’s odd 

reputation is that he sleep-walked through 

the eight years that he was President. 

Tinubu must avoid a situation whereby 

before his very eyes, Nigerians would start 

saying that they are now missing Buhari, 

and that they were better off during the 

Buhari years. The sad story is that this is 

beginning to happen. Somnambulism, 

better still, playing possum, cannot be a 

strategy of leadership. 

Under Buhari, people could eat bread, 

rice, beans, and plantain. In today’s Nigeria, 

even barbers and tailors are quick to tell 

you that the dollar has gone up against the 

Naira. Please what is a tailor or a barber 

doing with the foreign exchange market? 

The kind of thing we are beginning to see is 

that under Tinubu’s watch, a Binance 

Holdings Executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, 

one of two persons accused of financial 

crimes against Nigeria, has disappeared 

from State custody, in broad daylight. The 

man simply vanished, we were told, from a 

guest house and fled to the Middle East 

even when his British passport was in the 

custody of the Nigerian authorities. We 

can’t even secure accused persons? Oh, 

come on. What is this? I have heard some 

persons saying that one big lesson Tinubu 

and his team would need to learn is that 

Abuja is not Lagos. Please, can we all get 

serious and sit up straight? The President of 

Nigeria must ensure that whoever had a 

hand in the killing of uniformed men in the 

Delta or that helped Anjarwalla (the 

Binance Ajantala – that is - Yoruba folk 

phrase for an abnormal creation) is made to 

answer for it. That Ajantala must be 

brought back here to answer to the charges 

against him, and on no account must the 

other Binance man who is still in our 

custody disappear. Tinubu must not take 

any form of nonsense from those who 

intend to ridicule him and are beginning to 

show their hands. There is no way 

Anjarwalla will find his way to the 

proverbial Aja escape hatch without the 

help of Nigerian officials. 

Now back to the children of Kuriga that 

returned yesterday. The Federal 

Government has been making heavy capital 

out of the claim that the Federal 

government did not pay any ransom to get 

the children back. It is unfortunate that this 

seems to be more important to them than 

providing necessary counsel for the 

affected families and ensuring that this does 

not happen again in another school. If 

government officials think they are 

deceiving us, we are not deceived. The 

kidnappers asked for N1 billion as ransom. 

Yes, President Tinubu said the government 

will not pay ransom, but does anyone 

expect the sensible people of Nigeria to 

believe that the kidnappers who asked for 

N1 trillion just woke up on a good side of 

the bed and then decided to release the 

children, most of whom are between the 

ages of 8 and 15? When government 

officials feel like telling lies, they must 

learn to do so in an intelligent manner. The 

belief out there is that the real meaning of 

the collaboration between the Federal 

Government and State/Local authorities is 

that money exchanged hands, and that the 

kidnappers made good money. Please stop 

passing off a dog to us as a monkey. A dog 

is a dog. A monkey is a monkey. There is 

so much monkey business going on. 

Otherwise, the actual story should have 

been that in the course of the negotiations, 

Federal authorities arrested and 

demobilized the kidnappers and bandits, 

but that never happens. In Nigeria, 

kidnappers always come across as 

benevolent spirits who release the hapless 

victims that they capture. Someday, for 

sure, we hope that the names of kidnap 

chieftains will not make the National 

Honours List, and become a bad comment 

on the state of values in our land. 

There has been some talk about making 

our schools safe. A Commander of the 

National Safe Schools Response 

Coordination of the National Security and 

Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has been 

quoted as saying that the Federal 

Government is planning to deploy Civil 

Defence Officers in the 36 States and the 

Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as School 

Safety Protection Squad. We have been on 

this School Safety Programme for decades. 

It is just another monkey business. I don’t 

believe that we are serious about it. I think 

President Tinubu on release of Kuriga and Tsangaya school children 

that government thinks this is a joke. Our 

schools don’t even have blackboards. Most 

of them have no roofs. No fence. The 

teachers don’t get their salaries when due. 

In many public schools across the country, 

there are no desks, no windows. In parts of 

the North, students sit and receive classes 

under trees. Once upon a time in Kaduna 

State, the teachers were made to sit for the 

same examination with the students. The 

students passed, most of the teachers failed! 

That is the kind of ridiculous educational 

system Nigeria is running. Serious-minded 

and privileged parents have learnt to send 

their children abroad and to private schools 

at home. When President Tinubu begins to 

reflect, soberly on the occasion of his 72 nd 

birthday, away from the noisome crowd of 

sycophants and opportunistic aides and 

family members, let him ponder upon these 

things and how to help the various afflicted 

families of Nigeria from the Niger Delta to 

the North West and elsewhere regain a 

sense of true citizenship and value…Have a 

happy birthday sir. Best regards.


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