Femi Fani Kayode - Politically Hungry

   by Bernard Ezenagu Anyiam 

Reuben Abati was a man formerly, usually known for his firebrand criticism against the government. His insolent, denigrating verbiages against Dame Patience, isn't something to be easily forgotten.

Yet, suddenly, no sooner than later anyone could fathom it, Mr. Abati became an instantaneously, instinctive born-again, and transformed from a bashing critic, to an apostle of Goodluck Jonathan, even producing a ten-series epistle of the president. You can call it "praise singing"! He was finally rewarded with a position in the presidency, and his mouth ultimately shut up. An anti-government critic, became a pro-government attacking wolf!

Years before the advent of Reuben Abati on the list of serial "made in Nigeria" critics, there had been the likes of Tai Solarin, Dr. Beko Ransom-Kuti, Ola Onagoruwa, and of course, our ebullient prof. Wole Soyinka. All of these were compromised by the then government, with serious, lucrative appointments. A clear evidence that those men were apparently seeking political relevance. They certainly got it!

Today though, we have another person who for some time, has been politically isolated, and completely ignored. His name is: Femi Fani Kayode - a one time federal minister of aviation. A man who has since been known for his unrepentantly and now infamous "intimate relations" submission.

He has been a political flirt, changing political husbands and allegiance, as one changes hand gloves in a winter environment. Starting out with the ruling PDP, from which he was appointed by the OBJ presidency, which promoted the "politics of reward" and god-fatherism, he later prostituted with a new-born APC; daily bombarding his mentor party with opposition pronouncements. After a long wait for recognition, yet receiving none from Ahmed Tinubu, Femi (powder) Kayode, decided to make an "illegal" u-turn for a return to the PDP.

How best can one describe a doggy character in a human? A dog is well known for its filthy behaviour in vomiting, then turning round later to lick its vomit. It's not like calling a human being a dog, no, for that would amount to unparalleled denigration of a creature God made in His own image. But it won't be, and isn't out of place to compare Femi Fani Kayode's attitude to that of a dog.

Today, isn't it greatly ironical that, Mr. Kayode, whose short-lived allegiance to APC was highly celebrated by some supposedly honorable characters, is now praise-singing PDP, dancing makossa with GEJ, and ultimately labelling APC as "Almajiri United"? Note, some people made enemies for themselves in support or against Femi's switching. Today, how would these confront each other?

Practical advise is this: It isn't prudent for ordinary citizens to create unnecessary enmity amongst themselves for the sake of charlatans, jobbers, and shameless people who are ready and most willing to sacrifice their mothers for crumbs of bread. Nigerian politicians are Esau-like; a slice of bread and a red soup, is what it could only take to purchase their consciences. They are not for YOU!

Bernard Ezenagu Anyiam

Femi Fani-Kayode: the Hate Preacher and His Imaginary Audience

   

In all my playful attempts to pan the gimmicks of former presidential aide and Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, in social media, I was advised to redirect my interest to more profitable contributions to public discourse. A politically isolated man, clearly incapable of protecting the electoral deposit of any serious people or party, he seems permanently engaged in seeking whatever might pull him even a little bit out of isolation and attract the attention of both the people and the Establishment. The same Establishment to whom he remains, as I’ve heard members of it describe him, a drug-abusing desperado.
To refer to the politics and principles of Mr. Fani-Kayode as ”controversial” is undeserved praise, for controversy is often our perception of the things we do not understand. Nobody misunderstands this former Minister. For a man who wrote, without shame, actually unregretfully, that he had “intimate relationship” with women who are now other men’s wives, women who have now attained social relevance and political prominence, women who are now mothers training children to whom they hope to be seen as behaviourally perfect, women who are now role models and mentors to the younger generation, just to illustrate that he’s not a bigot since the ladies are from the ethnic group he was being accused of hating—there is only one adjective that accurately qualifies him: petty.
That Fani-Kayode and his ilk have found themselves in positions of power, where their decisions were relied on for policies to be implemented, is a scary realisation; they are responsible for the ruin that is our heritage. Their rise to relevance is a proof of the dangerous political opportunism in practice in Nigeria, one that favours a clique that comprises family and friends of families whose principals were once in charge of an affair in the country.
In his latest attempt to confuse himself, in one of his usually long, incoherent and verbose essays, “Goodbye Nigeria, Welcome Oduduwa Republic”, he took us down a memory lane that only exposes his absolute ignorance of the present trouble with Nigeria. He praises the Nigeria of Murtala Mohammed and Theophilius Yakubu Danjuma as the model, and of course he has every right to do that. Yet he remembers the middle-class, these are his family and friends, “whose wealth once knew no bounds and who . . . once owned the finest cars and properties in London, Paris and New York.” He also does not forget the globetrotting beneficiaries of Nigeria’s corruption who “once graced the streets of Belgravia, Chelsea, Hampstead and Knightsbridge.” Of the things that make a nation, or that are reminders that a nation has fallen, the former Minister highlights that our “ancestors studied at Oxford and Cambridge as far back as the 1800′s” and that our “inhabitants and various ethnic nationalities once ruled vast empires” and that our “progenitors contributed so much to the traditions, religion and culture of Ancient Egypt”. Of course, Ancient Egypt!
Perhaps his most embarrassing psychobabbles are those that come out in his quest to know “(w)hat has happened to our great intellectuals…” without even acknowledging that a Nobel laureate walks amongst us today and that there are many sound intellectuals at our ivory towers who, unlike him, haven’t been favoured to be invited for recognition or political appointments by the Establishment. Equally disturbing are his demands to know what happened to “…our men and women of courage and vision who once, like a collosus, bestrode the world” in a time where the Jelani Aliyus, the Chimamanda Adichies, the Abba Gumels, to name just a few, have made marks in inventions, literature and Mathematics respectively. Even at Facebook Inc., the owner of the social networking service, Facebook, where Fani-Kayode amuses his “friends” and followers, Nigerian-born scientists and engineers are employed to contribute to this evolution of the world’s biggest online community. That we have no institution to engage these masters of specialised disciplines for the development of our own country is a failure of this generation whose destruction, Fani-Kayode, and even his father, is a contributor.
But noteworthy in his thesis on a dysfunctional nation is where he, a threatened intellectual, propounds the reason we must see the existence of Nigeria as useless. Mr Fani-Kayode does not mention a single plight of the members of the lower-class who are the actual victims of mis-governance by the elite of which he is a member. What bothers Fani-Kayode cannot really be the “born to rule” posturing of the northern elite referred to as “the northern oligarchs” with whom he is close friends. What bothers him is obviously the fact that he’s been outsmarted in this political equation in which he has neither regional nor national value. His only value as a Nigerian is the fact that he’s the son of a one-time-long-ago Big Man who had afforded his son’s schooling at Redbrick institutions, easy wealth, globetrotting and, more than these, potential membership of the Establishment.
Fani-Kayode’s grouse is the impossibility of sharing a space in a nation “with religious extremists who slit the throats of children”, yet the security arrangements being undermined by these murderous terrorists were designed by the Establishment! As a one-time Minister of Aviation, he had his chance to collaborate with relevant agencies and organisations in building intelligent security systems through which these antisocials and terrorists could not have passed through without detection, talk less going on to threaten our existence as they are now.
Possessed by his characteristic bigotry, Mr Fani-Kayode, in disparaging the north and its intolerable terrorists does not admit that of the three Nigerian-born terrorists overseas, caught in the act, two are actually his kinsmen, fellow Yoruba who, like Shekau, have become throat-slitting Islamist terrorists. Last year, Michael Adebolajo, who asked to be called Mujahid Abu Hamza, and Michael Adebowale, who asked to be called Ismail Ibn Abdullah, were convicted of murdering – and I mean by slitting the throat – of a 25-year-old British soldier, Lee Rigby, in Woolwich, south London. The third, Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab, whose attempt to was foiled, is the son of a northern “oligarch”. Yet, as if these two kinsmen are not enough proof, in the same year, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja ordered the extradition of a Yoruba man, Lawal Babafemi, to the U.S. to answer terrorism charges. The 32-year-old tribesman of Fani-Kayode has been declared wanted by the FBI for membership of the terrorist organisation, al-Qaeda. He’s also reported to be friends with senior members of Al-Qaeda, Anwar al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan. And he’s a citizen of Fani-Kayode’s imaginary Oduduwa Republic. A few months after the Woolwich Murder, two Nigerians, Abdullahi Mustapha Berende and Saheed Oluremi Adewumi, were arrested by the Nigerian secret police and charged with assisting an Iranian militant cell in planning possible attacks in Nigeria. I don’t know who Berende is, but Adewumi is unmistakably a Yoruba, Fani-Kayode’s kinsman!
Violence is not a bigot. It consumes every ethnic group, race, religion and political party, indiscriminately where there’s no trust and communication. Consequently, every bigoted and extremist element in the society is potentially violent, and following Fani-Kayode’s antecedents as a hate-preacher who has no convinced audience (yet), he’s guilty of all he’s accused the “born to rule” northerners of. Violence is the aftermath of institutional destructions, of which Fani-Kayode who’s been a regular “customer” of the EFCC, is not innocent. An act of terrorism is the effect of an evil ideology that consumes even the Yoruba, that has consumed Adebolajo and Adebowale and Adewumi and Babafemi, whose yet-to-be discovered bretheren may end us as citizens of the proposed Oduduwa Republic!
Fortunately, the Yoruba are not sheep, and thus any opportunistic shepherd imagining to successfully lead them even one mile into the valley of deceit is only being delusional. On different occasions, I told my friends, many of whom are Yoruba, that the Yoruba people are my favourite in Nigeria, being the most educated as portrayed and the most enlightened as I’ve personally observed. I have absolute confidence in their resistance to being hoodwinked by an individual’s or a group’s religious and ethnic pettiness.
So, I’m not surprised to see that Yorubas are among the loudest critics of Femi Fani-Kayode’s relevance-seeking stunts. Of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria, none has ever been as vigilant and critical of amorphous ethno-religious advocacies like the Yoruba. Don’t misunderstand this, but if Fani-Kayode were a northerner or a “Biafran”, the foot soldiers of his delusional campaigns for secession may have already dominated our space, all fanatically and franctically in solidarity with ”one of their own!”
Nigeria is what it is today because of the “neutrality” of the south-western people whose son was denied Presidency and yet, despite their expressed bitterness, they remain trustworthy believers in One Nigeria. If Abiola were a northerner or easterner, a second civil war might have just been coming to an end now. It’s a pity that Fani-Kayode has no idea that he’s from an ethnic group hard to polarise and play. In my next coming, if that’s indeed possible, I wish to be from a people so sane and progressive.
Nigeria has never at any time been under the rulership of a single ethnic group. The destruction of this country is a collective effort of the political elite whose membership cuts across every ethnic group and religion and region. The Civil War, for instance, was waged when the leadership of Nigeria was under a Christian Head of State and a Christian Deputy. But, to an incurably bigoted Nigerian, the war was a design of the northern Muslims to kill the “Christian South”.
We’re are our worst enemies, and an experience this week confirms that: I read that one million Mexicans – yes, 1,000,000! – converged just to say “#BringBackOurGirls”, in solidarity with Nigerians. Yet, here, at a similar “mass” sit-out in Abuja, the conservative estimate of campaigners has reduced to about 100. Yet, elsewhere I read:”According to Dermographia, the population of Abuja’s Urban Area as of 2012 is 2,245,000.”
Ours is a nation of one-hundred-and-seventy-point-something million cowards of which only the negligible and statistically powerless “point-something” are patriotic. This is why I feel that we deserve what’s happening to us. A functional nation is not built by amens and tweets alone. As a representative of the new generation, my dream is to see Nigeria rescued from the Fani-Kayodes who have employed ethnic, religious and regional sentiments to keep us perpetually against one another. May God save us from us!
By Gimba Kakanda

The Real Losers Of The Ekiti Election

A voter holding Fayoye's rice

Ayodele Fayose , the winner of the election

By Sadiq Tukur Rogo

The recently concluded Ekiti Election was marred with voter intimidation, irregularities and above all use of money, gifts and food items to lure voters to vote in favour of a certain candidate. Ultimately, INEC declared Mr. Ayodele Fayose of the PDP as the winner with almost two third of the total votes cast.
From the results released, the PDP candidate won all the 16 Local Governments with a safe margin. How the good people of Ekiti turned against their incumbent Governor has everything to do with the way the PDP led FG used every machinery available at their disposal to trip the election in the favour of the PDP.
Over 36,000 Security personnel were deployed to the State which has roughly 360,000 voters which is an average of one Security personnel per ten voters. The massive number of the Security deployed was almost double the number of those deployed to the troubled and volatile North Eastern State of Borno. It is clear that the PDP led FG have sorted their priorities ahead of the up coming General Election come next year. The PDP oriented Security agents intimidated and antagonized the voters and also unconstitutionally, illegally and unjustly detained selective and influential APC leaders in the State that were presumed to be  threat to the success of the PDP. The mere presence of such massive Security personnel is a threat to the conduction of a peaceful and serene Election. So its safe to say that the Election was won by the PDP before it even started.
In addition to that, the PDP used money and other gifts including food items to the poor masses to vote for them. The good and innocent people of Ekiti should have collected whatever was offered and vote for the candidates of their choices, but that was not the case. Surrendering their mandates for a bag of rice was the most saddening of all. For sure, most of the people will finish the bag of rice long before the Governor-Elect is sworn into office. The people of Ekiti will now have to live with the consequences of their choices atleast for the next four years and all at the expense of a bag of rice which might turn out to be the most expensive bag of rice they ever bought in their lives.
The incumbent Governor, Mr. Kayode Fayemi of the APC on the other hand has performed decently in his first term as Governor. He has performed above average and is seen by many as an outstanding and selfless leader who has done a lot to better the lives of the people of Ekiti State. His projects have undoubtly spread across the  nooks and cronies of the 16 Local Governments of the State. He has no criminal or corruption records unlike his opponent. The ideal scenario would have been for Mr. Fayemi to get another mandate despite the huge external forces working against him all the way from Abuja.
To say the truth, if the three main contestants were given a fair and level playing field, PDP can only come a distant second not even a close runner up for that matter.  The Ekiti people have made their choice in exchange for money and bags of rice and they could yet end up paying the pRICE for their action. It will only be fair to say that the people of Ekiti might turn out to be the real losers of the Election.
SADIQ TUKUR ROGO

Femi Fani-Kayode: The Same Yesterday, Today and Forever

       

Like the Biblical saying which proclaims a God that changes not, not many were stunned at the news of a former Minister of Aviation, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, defecting back to the Peoples Democratic Party, as he was merely living true to type. Ojo M. Maduekwe writes

A certain man was told that “Femi Fani-Kayode has defected back to the PDP,” to which he replied: “I am not surprised; he’s done it before; he’s only being true to character by doing it again.” For the student of history, the former Minister of Aviation during former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode’s defecting back to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) does not come as a surprise.

Yesterday makes it two months that Fani-Kayode was at the Presidential Villa, where he reportedly met with President Goodluck Jonathan for roughly an hour behind closed doors.

The thrust of the meeting however remains secret. On his way out, an excited Fani-Kayode (one could tell from his response to the press), wouldn’t reveal why he met with the president. “I won’t go into what I discussed in there,” he said.

Even though he was not straightforward with a response, Nigerians knew his visit was preparatory to his leaving the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which he has done. What gave credence to this assumption then was that during his little hide and seek with the press, Fani-Kayode had described those who work in the presidency as “wonderful”.

In all of his many syndicated columns, Fani-Kayode had never used the word wonderful or anything near it to describe the president or those who work for him. Not long ago, both the president and the PDP were everything but right for Fani-Kayode. Once he described the party as a “sinking ship” and it’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, as representing a sinking ship. The APC until that day when Fani-Kayode first saw the light in Aso Rock was the party for Nigeria.

Expectedly, when he saw that his visit to the Villa was trending on the social media and had attracted negative reactions, he quickly put something forward. “I was at the Villa yesterday and what transpired there has been the subject of much online speculation. What I said to the media whilst there was very clear and I chose my words carefully. Let those that are interested read those words in today's newspapers rather than speculate. Other than that, I will say no more on this matter until I am ready to do so.

“A few days ago, all the APC governors from the South-west were in the State House where they held a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan. What they discussed has not been made public until now. Does that make them PDP governors?

“The presidency belongs to every Nigerian irrespective of religious and political persuasions. Again, General Buhari was recently honoured by the same President Jonathan during the centenary celebration which the APC did not support. Does that mean he has joined the PDP? Again the on-going federal government confab has some APC chieftains participating in it despite the fact that the party is against it. Does that mean that they have left the APC?

“People should get real and stop speculating. Meanwhile Biodun Ishola Ladepo wrote ‘If I were Femi Fani-Kayode and my party planned to field a Muslim/Muslim presidential ticket, especially in the age of Boko Haram, I would bolt faster than Hussein Bolt’. I am glad that someone is seeing things clearly.

“This is not about leaving parties but about principle. Let us hope that the leadership of the APC sees fit to clarify this matter at the soonest and assure us all that they will do no such thing. Their silence on the matter and their refusal to rule it out is simply fuelling more speculation and dissent from within,” Fani-Kayode had said.

Since the leadership of the APC won’t quell the speculation that was creating bad blood, Fani-Kayode has gone back to the PDP. In a press statement widely circulated, he said: “I wish to inform the general public that as at today, June 2, 2014, I have left the APC and gone back to the PDP”.

On the Channels Television programme, ‘Politics Today’, where he described Metuh and the PDP as “sinking”, Fani-Kayode said the PDP was a sad testimony of everything that is wrong with Nigeria. He said the PDP that existed during the administration of President Obasanjo was the good old PDP which redeemed the country from international debt.

“The country had since the Goodluck Jonathan era gone back to debts”. What has changed in the PDP that Fani-Kayode now finds it a better alternative to the APC?

Before he was appointed by Obasanjo, Fani-Kayode was a public critic of the former president. At the time, no living Nigerian was known for criticising President Obasanjo like he was known to do. To silence Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo appointed him his personal ‘attack dog’.

In fact, two of his interviews- one for and the other against- on Obasanjo were published at the time by THISDAY which questioned the honour in his stand. Judging from the Aso Rock visit and the different tune Fani-Kayode now sings in his defection, President Jonathan too has proven to be a student of history.

Forget Fani-Kayode’s excuse that the APC as a party is sympathetic to Boko Haram. While that is debatable, the immediate reason for his returning to the PDP is simply because the president, during his earlier visit to Aso Rock, must have made Fani-Kayode an offer he couldn’t refuse.

With Fani-Kayode, one finds it difficult differentiating between the definitions of consistency and inconsistent. Both words find meaning in the character of Fani-Kayode. Once he is inconsistent, another time he is consistent. He’s inconsistent in talking from both sides of the mouth, but consistent in the goal his doublespeak seeks to achieve. “I must talk my way into this government” seems to be his objective before he sets out to criticise any administration. He is simply consistently inconsistent!

The job Fani-Kayode has proven to do very well is to criticise, either in writing or by holding press conferences. Maybe the job most appropriate for him would be Special Assistant on Media since there is a Minister of Information in whom the president appears pleased. Before President Jonathan makes up his mind on how best to use him, Fani-Kayode would certainly live up to his billing in the coming weeks by engaging the APC’s publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed, in war of words.

In one of his essays about the sacking of the former PDP National Chairman, Bamanga Tukur, Fani-Kayode wrote: “May he enjoy his forced and long-overdue retirement from public office and partisan politics and may he live long enough to see the PDP defeated and an APC president sworn in 2015.” One wonders, therefore, what the former minister would be singing now. If anything, that position has changed completely.

In the said essay, if it qualifies to be called that, titled ‘Jonathan, Tukur and a Government of Jezebels’, Fani-Kayode after commending the president for Tukur’s sack and the “removing and reshuffling” of some principal officers in the military, maintained that the moves were commendable but “will change nothing because they are both too little and too late.”

According to him, “The PDP will continue to sink because it is a political party that has lost its bearing and its soul and it has mortgaged its conscience. It has also lost the source and strength of its inspiration and moral authority in the distinguished person of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who really was the glue that bound the party together and kept it going against all odds.”

Still in the same essay, Fani-Kayode said the PDP has become a party that is beyond redemption and that “the removal of Tukur cannot change that. I say this because no sensible person will go back to a stinking carcass simply because the head of the dead animal has been cut off and thrown away. A carcass remains a carcass whether you cut off its head, legs or any other part of its body or not. Whichever way, it remains as dead as a dodo and it only awaits a formal burial.

“The truth is that the vultures are already feeding fat on the rotting and decaying cadaver of the PDP and whether anyone likes to hear it or not, the truth is that the party can never be whole again. As I said eight months ago, it is a party that has been rejected by God and whose leaders are suffering God's judgment for their unjust, gluttonous, wicked, foul and evil ways.”

Now that he’s gone back to the PDP and taking a cue from his very own words, it is justifiable to conclude that Fani-Kayode has become a person without reasoning by joining a sinking ship and stinking carcass, with the intent of feeding on its decaying cadaver. Now that he’s gone back to his vomit, has he been rejected by God and awaiting judgment for being unjust, gluttonous, wicked, foul and evil?

Omisore’s Assasin Squadron: Omisore lied about using masked armed men

omisore and his assasins

The All Progressives Congress in Osun State has raised the alarm over the alleged use of masked armed men as security guards by the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Iyiola Omisore.


The APC, in a statement issued on Saturday by its Director of Research, Publicity and Strategy, Mr. Kunle Oyatomi, said that while security agencies were battling to free Nigeria from the grip of terrorists, the governorship candidate of the PDP in the state was encouraging terrorism by using masked ‘terrorists’ as his security guards in his campaign in Osun State.

A photograph sent to our correspondent by the APC showed a masked man with a gun behind Omisore.

The ruling party asked security agencies in the state to investigate the use of masked armed men by Omisore.

The statement read in part, “The PDP governorship candidate, Iyiola Omisore, has introduced the terrorist culture of armed masked men in his campaign in a flagrant public gesture intended to intimidate the electorate.

“Omisore was spotted during his campaign closely guarded by a masked, suspected armed terrorist, the first of its kind to be seen anywhere in the political history of electioneering in Yorubaland.

“The APC observes that while President Jonathan fights armed and masked terrorists in the North with Nigerian soldiers, the reverse is being done in Osun, by Jonathan’s man, hiding behind security cover to intimidate the electorate with masked and armed suspected terrorist guards.

“Political terrorism has arrived in Nigeria’s democratic space by the evil construct of the PDP.”

The spokesperson of the APC in the state alleged that the PDP’s “desperation to win by force of arms” rather than the votes of the people had begun to manifest clearly.

The APC stated that the PDP’s resort to terrorism and electronic manipulation of the voting process would fail because it was not the wish of the citizens of Osun State to replace Aregbesola’s excellence in governance with a clueless character.

The APC also said it heard through the grapevine that the PDP had brought bales of fake police uniforms with substantial arms into the state with the intention to attack party leaders.

But Omisore, in his response to SUNDAY PUNCH enquiry denied the allegation of using terrorists as security guards.

The media aide to the PDP candidate, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, said his principal’s security guards were policemen, operatives of State Security Service and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and not terrorists as being claimed by the APC.

He said, “We all know the style of APC is to accuse others whatever is their plan or intention. If they are really concerned about the security men in Omisore’s campaign, they should contact security agencies to find out and stop playing to the gallery.

“In the campaign train are men from the SSS, the Police, Civil Defence. PDP will never preach violence neither do we rely on thugs to win election.”

culled from Punch

By Femi Makinde

"High-level corruption rocks $470million CCTV project that could secure Abuja"

 Ibanga Isine
Since the installation of the CCTV cameras, criminals have launched violent attacks on Abuja without being detected.
The failure of the National Public Security Communication System, NPSCS; otherwise known as the CCTV project, has heightened the level of insecurity in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, PREMIUM TIMES checks have revealed.
The project which was initiated by late President Umaru Yar’Adua, was conceived to help security agencies in the Federal Capital Territory check the growing insecurity in the federal capital.
But since the installation of the CCTV cameras and allied equipment, criminals and insurgents have over and over again launched violent attacks on the city without being detected.
Between 2010 when the project was initiated and now, Abuja has come under seven deadly attacks, leaving scores of people dead and properties worth billions of naira destroyed.
The first bomb explosion in the city occurred on 1st October, 2010, a few meters from the Three Arms Zone, during the country’s 50th Independence Day Anniversary celebrations.
Three Arms Zone is home to the Presidential Villa, the National Assembly Complex and the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND claimed responsibility for the twin car bombs which killed 10 and injured many more.
On June 16, 2011, a suicide bomber drove a bomb-laden car and rammed into the parking lot of the Police headquarters, shortly after the convoy of the then Inspector-General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, entered the complex.
Two persons died, including the traffic warden who prevented the bomber from ramming the bomb-laden vehicle into the main building, while several cars at the parking were burnt.
On August 26, 2011, another suicide bomber rammed a bomb-laden car into the United Nations building along the Diplomatic Drive in Abuja, killing about 20 persons.
Another suicide bomber, on April 26, 2012, attacked the Abuja office of the Thisday Newspaper, ripping off the roof of the building and killing innocent staff.
However, on April 14, twin blasts rocked the Nyanya Motor Park killing 71, while 124 persons suffered life-threatening injuries.
Barely two weeks after the April 14 attack, another one occurred opposite the same Nyanya Motor Park on May 1, killing nine and injuring scores of persons.
On Wednesday, June 24, another bomb went off at Emab Plaza, a busy shopping plaza in the heart of the capital, killing 21 persons.
In all the attacks, the CCTV cameras installed across the city could not pick up images of the perpetrators of the dastardly acts.
PREMIUM TIMES has learnt that some of the CCTV cameras installed around the capital city are mere toys, ostensibly fixed to deceive the public.
Top officers at the Force Headquarters, who pleaded not to be quoted because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, said while some of the cameras were functional, several others, were dormant, making the task of policing the city a difficult and sometimes impossible one.
It was also found that most of the crimes in the city are committed outside the CCTV coverage area as most of the functional cameras are concentrated within the Three Arms Zone and some parts of the Business District.
One of our sources said, “The truth is that the CCTV cameras in Abuja are not helping us much in tackling insecurity in the city. It is like taking an inadequate dosage of a drug when you have a major health challenge.
“The drug will not work because it does not meet the required dosage. But when you take the required dosage, the drug will be able to deal with the ailment.
“That is the same situation we have with the CCTV cameras installed here in Abuja. Some of the cameras are working but a lot more are not working thereby creating many dark spots in the city.
“The camera is not helping much because most of the crimes occur in some of the dark spots. If a crime is committed in some of the coverage areas, it will be possible to detect them with the cameras.”
Another official revealed that the NPSCS project has been a subject of hire-wired intrigue and corruption by top officials of the Police Affairs Ministry and the Presidency.
“The contract was awarded and paid for, long before the present IGP came on board but a lot of people are trying to rope him into the problem when they know those who were responsible for the failed project,” he said.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the NPSCS project was initiated to help Nigeria tackle the increasing level of insecurity in the country as far back as 2010.
Investigation showed that late President Umaru Yar’Adua was persuaded by some of his powerful aides to award the $470 million project to the Chinese firm, ZTE Corporation, in August 2010 without carrying out due diligence on the company.
The project, which was funded through a $600 million credit facility obtained from the Chinese EXIMBANK, was slated for completion in May, 2011.
Part of the project consisted of the installation of Close Circuit Television Cameras, CCTV, in many parts of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
The NPSCS project is based on the Global Open Trunking Architecture (GoTa), a new technology that provides strategic telecommunications solutions to targeted clientele.
Olusegun Aganga, the then Minister of Finance, led the Federal Government’s delegation to Beijing where the loan agreement for the project was signed with the Chinese EXIMBANK in June 2010.
Former Minister of Police Affairs, Adamu Waziri and the then Inspector-General of Police, Halfiz Ringim, were also part of the delegation.
The $600 million financing portfolio for the project was secured as a soft credit loan with three percent interest repayable in 10 years after an initial 10 years of grace.
The project was expected to create a dedicated trunk system for inter-agency communications and linkages as well as remove critical national security agencies from private network operators and service providers.
Late Mr. Yar’Adua had during a visit to China on March 1, 2008, made a brief stop at Shanghai where he held talks with top executives of ZTE Researching and Development Centre.
The outcome of the discussion culminated in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Federal Government of Nigeria and ZTE Corporation.
The government, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, made a down payment of $70, 500,000 which is 15 percent of the total contract sum and signed a Sovereign Guarantee to the tune of $399, 500, 000 to enable ZTE source the loan from the Chinese Government.
However, the project was piloted with the installation of solar-powered security cameras and allied security infrastructure in many parts of Abuja.
But PREMIUM TIMES has learnt that some of the materials deployed for the critical national security infrastructure are of low quality compared to what those used in China. Yet Nigerian authorities are not known to have lifted a finger in protest.
This newspaper also learnt that the contract was signed and executed in secrecy based on the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed between the Nigerian government and the Chinese firm.
Article 4 of MoU specifically indicated that the terms agreed upon by the parties be kept secret.
“The terms of this MoU are agreed by both parties to be confidential. All confidential information shall not be disclosed to third parties or used for any other purpose or the possibility of a business relationship between the parties unless agreed by both parties,” the document read.
The secrecy clause in the MoU, PREMIUM TIMES gathered, was created to allow top officials of the Police Affairs Ministry and the presidency to negotiate away some of the critical elements of the project.
The source at the Presidency further confided in PREMIUM TIMES that the secrecy clause violated every rule of transparency and accountability and should not have been allowed in the MoU.
When contacted, the Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, told PREMIUM TIMES he was not competent to speak on the NPSCS contract.
The Chief Press Secretary at the Police Affairs Ministry, James Odaudu, told PREMIUM TIMES the CCTV project is a sensitive national security operation that should not be discussed publicly.
When further pressed for comments, he said, “It is not possible that the whole of Abuja can be covered in one phase of the project. It is an ongoing project with a lot of rooms for expansion.
“If there are challenges, we will sort them out with time. There are no projects without challenges.”
Mr. Aganga, the then Finance Minister, now Minter of Trade and Investment would not speak to PREMIUM TIMES or reply to an email sent to him on the matter.
When PREMIUM TIMES visited ZTE Corporation Nigeria at No. 5 Dep Street, Maitama, Abuja to speak with its officials on the matter, a security man at the gates said visitors are not allowed into the premises unless on invitation.
Attempts to convince the private security staff on the need to alert top officials of the company on the presence of our staff, also failed.
An email to the corporate headquarters of the company in China was not also replied, weeks after it was sent.

National Conference okays State Police

The National Conference sitting in Abuja on Thursday broke a generational jinx with a resolution that henceforth, any state of the federation desirous of having a State Police Force can establish, fund and control it.

This resolution, when enacted into law would put to rest the long debate and controversies over the establishment of state police. The state police when established by states that desired them are to compliment the efforts of the Nigeria Police Force.

The areas of jurisdiction of the Federal police will cover the entire country and on clearly spelt out matters and offences while the jurisdiction of the State Police will cover the state and operate within the laws enacted by the State Assembly.

The conference also resolved that in addition to establishing state police, states laws should also provide for community policing. The decisions were made while considering the report of the Committee on National security.

The Conference agreed with the report of the Committee that state governors should be involved in the running of the Federal Police in their respective states. It was also agreed that officers of the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police in the Federal Police should be deployed to their states of origin.

It was reasoned that this will address the concern of language and culture, as this group of officers actually constitute the operational component of the force.

To make the police more people friendly, the conference called for the amendment of section 214 of the 1999 constitution so that The Nigeria Police Force will be called The Nigeria Police.

A proposal for the establishment of a National Border Patrol Force to secure and protect the nation`s border was also approved by the conference. The Border Patrol Force is to be domiciled in the Ministry of Defence.

In mapping out security architecture for the country, the conference accepted the proposal for the creation of a Security and Intelligence Services Oversight Committee (SISOC).

The committee is to be composed of a retired Chief Justice of Nigeria as chairman, a former head of the Civil Service, and a former Director General of the State Security Service or National Intelligence, as members.

Similarly, the conference also accepted the proposal for the establishment of Water Way Safety Corps to man the waterways and riverine areas. The corps is expected to perform similar functions as that of the Federal Roads Safety Corps (FRSC)

The proposals mandating government to enact a law that would impose speed limit on convoys of government officials and limit to the number of vehicle to be in such convoys were also accepted by the conference.

The number of vehicles in the convoys is to be determined by Federal Road Safety Corps in consultation with the Police and the Department of States Security Service.

Such a law is expected to reduce the recklessness of convoys of government officials which had in the past led to loss of lives; it would also reduce wastage of government funds.

The conference also agreed that retired military personnel should be mobilized and trained to fight terrorism.

In addition, government was also mandated to set up Counter Terrorism Architecture to among others: harmonize national counter terrorism efforts; and provide the platform for foreign assistance.

It would equally interface between Nigeria and Africa Union (AU) countries especially contiguous states such as Niger, Chad, Cameroun and African Center for the Study and Research on Terrorism and engage the services of well trained counter terrorism operatives to work within the established in-country infrastructure.

The proposal that the federal character outlook of the military be reflected at the entry point into the Nigeria Defense Academy in cases of officers and at the recruitment stages and training depots, in case of soldiers, airmen, and sailors was also accepted by the conference.

Conference also agreed that table of equipment including clothing should be updated regularly instead of waiting for the declaration of a state of emergency.

The conference at its plenary also approved the proposal for the establishment of a Military Industrial Zone which will include but not limited to collaboration with the industrial and manufacturing sector in the area of research and development, production, use and support for military, training weaponry and equipment.

A proposal for a compulsory life insurance for all armed security personnel by government was approved by the government.

The conference also accepted the proposal that the Federal Government should set aside a special fund to rehabilitate and reconstruct the North East, which has suffered devastating attacks from Boko Haram.

Similarly the conference also agreed that all the communities such as Odi in Bayelsa State, Zaki Biam in Benue state and others that were destroyed in the process on restoring internal peace be compensated.

On gender issue, the conference agreed to the proposal that government should ensure gender mainstreaming with respect to recruitment into the Armed Forces and the various security agencies.

The Conference also agreed that there should be a compulsory life insurance for all armed security personnel by government as well as imploring the Federal Government to look into all pending Police Reform Committees/Panel Reports and implement their recommendations.

It was agreed also that the Inspector general of Police should be the accounting officer of the Nigeria Police and be answerable to the Nigeria Police Council on financial matters.

Delegates agreed that the government should review the procedure of using the military in the aid of civil authority in matters of internal security because the existing procedure referred to as the “blue and brown cards” which was signed by the Prime Minister in 1960 is obsolete.

The Nigeria Air Force, the delegates indicated, should be more involved in the management of Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) in partnership with the Civil Aviation Authority in securing the country’s airspace.

SIGNED

AKPANDEM JAMES

ASSISTANT SECRETARY, MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION