Police's Phoney Terror Suspects

The Nigerian Police must be eager to show some “performance” in the fight against terror that it took the whole country on a ride last week. The official line, as reported by the media, was: “3 ministers, journalists escape death as security operatives arrest man with grenades.” The police account was that “eagle-eyed” security operatives arrested a 39-year old man, one John Akpanum Anaku, with a bag containing 37 rounds of ammunition and three hand grenades on Monday, May 21, 2012 at the Radio House, Abuja, venue of a ministerial press briefing by ministers of Aviation, Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi; (then) Youth Development and Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi; and Information, Labaran Maku. The gentleman, whom the media naively rushed to proclaim a “suicide bomber” or “terrorist”, was arrested by security officers from the Nigerian Legion, according to one John Akindele, a police officer (as reported by the media) and chief security officer at the venue “when it was noticed that he was carrying explosives”. The report by ThisDay was just as alarmist: “Panic in Abuja as Police Arrest 2 Terror Suspects,” the newspaper loudly proclaimed on its front page the morning after the arrest. According to the newspaper, “The police in Abuja yesterday arrested two terror suspects at different locations in the city, thus averting what might have resulted in another bomb attack in the nation’s capital.” In what would have amounted to an amazing display of police dexterity and proactivity, were the reports not essentially a hoax, our newspapers unquestioningly reported apparent propaganda without any attempt at subjecting official storylines to deep rational analysis. The reference to the second “terrorist”, one Abdullahi Salihu, who it was reported “had laced his body with some explosives and hand grenades which he wanted to use to wreak the havoc, but was detected by the security gadgets mounted in FCT” was to another individual arrested same day as the purported Radio House “terrorist” somewhere in the vicinity of Force Headquarters. However, reading between the lines, the truth would soon be obvious to any discerning reader. The fellow arrested at Radio House was a frustrated and depressed individual who had brought ammunition found amongst his late brother’s luggage (the late brother was a former mobile police officer) and SMOKE grenades to the venue of the media briefing in an attempt to meet the minister of Information who was his kinsman from Nasarawa State. His objective appeared to be obtaining some sympathy and assistance towards collecting his late brother’s benefits. The poor gentleman in fact explained to journalists that he had been abandoned and frustrated in life and “so he came to Radio House to make his grievance known to government”. Confused, frustrated and incoherent John Anaku may have been, but he was certainly no terrorist. Even a police spokesman admitted the fact that the purported “grenades” were old, smoke grenades. And what about Salihu who was reported to have laced his body with explosives? Well, as police spokesman, Frank Mba, later admitted, “When we searched him, no explosive was found on him, but there were pieces of broken bottle, bottled water, five Automated Teller Machine cards and a vehicle number plate in the bag he was carrying.” Pray, how do you carry out a suicide bombing with these items? Mba, reluctantly, I imagine, agreed that “so far, there is nothing to suggest that he is a suicide bomber”. Again, poor Salihu may have been slightly out of his mind, a vagrant, an unemployed wanderer, or even a confused or frustrated miscreant or tout, maybe even a medicine man, but terrorist or suicide bomber he certainly was not. The surprising aspect for me, as I mentioned earlier, was the eagerness of the media and police spokesmen to report these two incidences as the busting of terror attempts when it was fairly clear that was not the case. How could the Nasarawa fellow carry out terror with any quantity of ammunition without a gun? Is there a means by which a “terrorist” could wreak terror with ammunition if he didn’t have a gun? Wasn’t it clear the State Security Services (SSS) account of the incidents was more believable? (Indeed, on the whole “Boko Haram” issue, I think the SSS and military have been more credible than the police!) Marilyn Ogar, SSS spokesperson, had cautioned against hasty commentaries and conclusions, explaining that what John Anaku had on him were tear gas canisters and not grenades, and that the fellow was simply trying to meet the Information minister who was his tribesman. While the whole nation was lured into an unnecessary voyage of distraction, substantive acts of terror of course went unchallenged! In Sulemanti ward, Maiduguri, Borno State, a group of gunmen attacked four residences, killing three people (Guardian, May 22, 2012) and destroying two vehicles with petrol bombs! The police spokesman in Borno confirmed the incident and noted that no arrests had so far been made. In another incident also reported in the Guardian, gunmen “sacked the Divisional Police Station at Benisheikh, 72 kilometres west of Maiduguri”. An unfortunate civilian was killed in the attack. While the attackers “used petrol bombs to burn down the whole police station”, the policemen were reported to have taken cover. Interesting! While the police were arresting phoney suspects in Abuja, real terrorists were working undetected elsewhere.

Our Wasting Sports Sector

An improbable Chelsea season It has been a good season to be a Chelsea supporter. And what a great season it has turned out to be, though mid-way through, nothing gave any indication that Chelsea fans were going to be happy when it started. Unfortunately for his reputation, Andres Villas-Boaz’s exit was the turning point! He was clearly too young, naïve and inexperienced to handle the Chelsea principalities – Frank Lampard, John Terry and others – as he rushed into trying to create a newer, fresher, younger and more creative Chelsea team. Even though AVB’s “project” must have been agreed with the management and owner, he alone would bear the consequences, and soon he was out and Roberto De Matteo, a man who had been fired at lowly West Bromwich Albion just last season, was in as interim coach. Since then, Chelsea’s resurgence began, and a quite improbable FA Cup and EUFA Champions League double have been the reward. From the moment the Champions League final against Bayern Munich began at the German team’s Allianz Arena, there was a sense of a certain Chelsea destiny. When Didier Drogba scored that stunning equaliser two minutes to the end after Bayern scored in the 83rd minute, I became convinced that perhaps the heavens were in Chelsea’s favour that night. Why else would we equalise if Bayern were going to win! The sense of positive Chelsea fate was reinforced when Arjen Robben’s extra-time penalty, conceded by Drogba, was saved by Petr Cech and I was no longer surprised when Drogba fulfilled destiny by scoring the winning goal and bringing the Champions League to Stamford Bridge. The real heroes that night included Roman Abramovic, who had invested so much resources into bringing Chelsea into the top tier of global football; De Matteo; Didier Drogba; Petr Cech; John Mikel Obi, who was fantastic in the middle (by the way, why is it that every single world-class coach at Chelsea – Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant, Gus Hiddink, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Carla Ancellotti and De Matteo – have all found Mikel indispensable in the team, while our local coaches continually seem to want to deprecate his value?); and Ashley Cole. But of course, every Chelsea player, particularly Gary Cahill and David Luiz, all rose to the occasion. So, Chelsea end the season as Champions of Europe and finally stamp their presence in the elite of European soccer. Congratulations to all Chelsea fans! Nigeria’s declining football fortunes In all the joy I felt as a Chelsea fan, there was a definite sorrow in my heart about the current condition of Nigerian football. As a child, the first team I supported was Rangers International of Enugu. Up till the 1977 confrontation between IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan and Rangers, my team was Rangers, and I have never been able to forget the image of that blockbuster goal scored by Ogidi Ibeabuchi in the Challenge Cup final replay in Kaduna. Later, for many years, as I grew into a full Lagos boy at Igbobi College, I supported Super Stores, and then Abiola Babes after Stores went into extinction. I have told the story in my facebook tribute to Rasheedi Yekini of watching Abiola Babes play New Nigerian Bank at Ogbe Stadium, Benin while I was a youth corps member in Benin in 1986/87. Not being very familiar with the stadium, I had entered through a “wrong” entrance and found myself in the midst of fanatical “Bendel” supporters of NNB. Of course, in the interest of my personal safety, I had to keep quiet and disguise my support for Abiola Babes. Unfortunately, Yekini endangered my life! As he released a fiery and ferocious shot from the centre which hit the bar, I forgot pretence, jumped up and shouted “goal!!!” As I landed, hundreds of NNB supporters chased after me and I ran for my life, never to return for the rest of the match. That was the passion and excitement of local football in Nigeria, until inefficient and visionless government, corruption, age cheating, incompetent administrators, mediocrity and putting people with no passion for the game in charge destroyed our football. Today, our football mirrors the national malaise – untapped potential, turning to foreign products as we have done for rice, medical diagnosis and treatment, education, clothing, shoes, cable television, phones, cars…virtually everything! Now we can’t even run football successfully. For me, the two critical factors we have to address are age cheating and government’s administration of football. Age cheating distorts the talent pool for generations as less-skilled older players deny better-talented younger ones their opportunity; incompetent government administrators who are only interested in the money compound the crisis with poor management and cronyism. The situation in other sports is even worse than in football. Come to think of it, why are Nollywood and Naija music booming, while our football lies comatose? Government! In Nigeria, every service controlled or managed by government is a failure – power, water, public education and health, refineries, security, prisons, public pensions and sports, while the few things that work, at least relatively, are provided by private operators – telecommunications, banking, airlines, private pensions, Nollywood, Naija music, private broadcasting, private education, etc? Sports is big business; it could generate huge resources and help in reducing unemployment. Instead of allowing interested private people create a booming sports business, our administrators, mirroring the rest of government, focus on sharing limited funds appropriated by government. Shame!

Corruption in Nigeria

Corruption in Nigeria, as I wrote last week, has reached epidemic proportions! The greatest evidence of this are the scandalous revelations that have been emerging from the ongoing Senate Committee investigation on pensions. At some point during the Obasanjo regime, someone said Nigeria’s problem was not just corruption, but the impunity with which it was carried out. Now the matter evidently has graduated beyond impunity-in volume, scale, breadth and depth and has now become, as Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin said to me on “The Policy Council” last week, a cancer! I completely endorse that characterisation of the current state of corruption in Nigeria! Everyone knows, or ought to know the features and consequences of cancer-it spreads very rapidly through the host, destroying cells, weakening the body and in due course, killing its victim. A cure from an advanced form of cancer, such as Nigerian corruption has become, is a rarity, and in the few cases in which that happens, it requires decisive surgical and other scientific or medical intervention, and some large dose of divine grace. Where cancer is treated with levity, the patient is a living dead! God forbid that Nigeria is just enjoying its last stages of mobile morbidity, but if we don’t engineer a quick and decisive onslaught on corruption, it will destroy Nigeria, sooner than later!!! The pension probe is not the only parade of unmitigated graft and brigandage on display in these times. The oil subsidy probe also shows, as we have all suspected that the subsidy rather than a mechanism to smoothen oil prices for the benefit of the poor, had become an oil industry bureaucrat’s (together with their allies and contractors’) source of massive enrichment. Though it seems clear enough to me that the House Committee’s limited knowledge of public finance, banking, international trade and shipping, and oil and gas transactions (as well perhaps as a little exuberance) meant figures may have been somewhat exaggerated, but it is still apparent that significant impropriety took place within the oil subsidy regime, particularly during the Yar’adua and Jonathan regimes. It is a mystery to me that the lesson our people learn from these is that subsidy must stay! The recent conviction of James Ibori (who it has been legally established was not qualified by reason of prior criminal convictions in the United Kingdom to be a state governor) in London after his wife, mistress, sister and lawyer also demonstrates the absence of moral scruples in current Nigerian sociology in relation to corruption. Corruption is no longer seen as crime in our country; otherwise Ibori wouldn’t have involved his entire household! For the Ibori clan, it was simply their entitlement from the opportunity presented by their kith occupying a high office of state. And they couldn’t be bothered to think up legitimate activities and services they could provide to Delta State which, subject to appropriate disclosures and abstentions from the process, could have entitled them like any other citizen to earn a living by offering some value to the state. More importantly the Ibori conviction illustrates how corruption has subverted our policing and judicial systems! While a London Court confirmed without prevarication that Ibori had two previous convictions for petty theft in the UK, Nigerian courts went through a protracted process right to the Supreme Court before concluding that one “James Onanefe Ibori” who stole building materials somewhere in or near Abuja, was different from “James Onanefe Ibori” who became Governor of Delta State!!! And while the London Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Services succeeded in convicting Ibori of money laundering, all 170 charges against him in Nigeria were summarily dismissed by one Justice Marcel Awokuleyin!!! During the Yar’adua regime, Ibori was one of the most powerful men in the country, just a heartbeat away from (and reportedly with designs of his own for) the presidency!!! There are others who have obtained permanent court injunctions against investigation and trial, and many whose trials have in effect become a charade!!! Today there are really no sanctions for corruption in Nigeria. Indeed it is glorified as the perpetrators strut across the land dispensing philanthropy from the proceeds of stealing from the common purse, while their victims hail them for their generosity and large-heartedness. In this land, there is no anti-corruption fight; the only war going on often seems to be a war on anti-corruption i.e. a deliberate and concerted effort in which the political class and their rent-seeking contractor and business colleagues systematically undermine any possibility of eliminating corruption. Part of the problem is that there is no longer any clarity about what “corruption” means and we do not view corruption in tangible terms. Corruption means that 100 million Nigerians live on less than a dollar/day; it means that thousands of infants die before their first birthday due to poverty and poor ante-natal care; it means that the life expectancy of the average adult Nigerian is less than 50 years; it means that millions of destinies are destroyed as lack of educational facilities ensures that individuals who have the intellectual potential to be university professors end up as primary school teachers! I am convinced that corruption has reached a stage in which if not drastically curtailed, will destroy Nigeria-and anger within the populace about the phenomenon seems to be reaching a tipping point!

Downside Scenarios

Nigeria seems to be marching determinedly towards downside political scenarios, and political risk is clearly elevated! The last one week has seen some lurching towards the brink. The attack on THISDAY’s Abuja and Kaduna offices on Thursday, April 26 symbolised a two-pronged attack – one, an attempt to intimidate the media into backing off reportage of the activities of Boko Haram; and two, it is legitimate to wonder if the timing of the attacks on the day the BRACED Commission of the “South-South” states was commencing its economic summit in Asaba (which was coordinated by THISDAY chairman, Nduka Obaigbena) was a mere co-incidence. The logic of Boko Haram’s attack on the media is clear and not unexpected – the media, if successfully cowed into taking a neutral, or perhaps positive view of their activities, will affect public and international perception of the group’s activities. The irony is that THISDAY, which it selected as its symbol, is one of those whom, of all Lagos-based newspapers, I have viewed as most willing to reflect the Northern/Islamic viewpoint as reflected in its choice of columnists and editorial board members, editorial policy and focus, as well as an elaborate Abuja office – another irony as that office became the bombers’ target. That is perhaps further evidence that appeasement (as Wole Soyinka stressed in his keynote address at the BRACED Summit) does not usually succeed. The more troubling possibility, however, is the second – the attacks were connected with the South-South Summit, a development that would represent a dangerous escalation in regional animosity and a signal of elevated potential for organised conflict. As if these were not enough, terrorists struck again last Sunday at the Bayero University Kano (BUK), attacking two Christian services –Catholic and Protestant worship sessions – and killing possibly dozens including two professors, and many other senior academics and non-academic staff. The final sign of impending trouble is the confirmation that questions around the source and rationale for Boko Haram and how to react to same may be causing tensions at the highest levels of government. Owoye Azazi, the National Security Adviser (NSA), provided the strongest evidence of this with his statement at the BRACED Commission Summit, blaming the intensification of terrorism on the PDP’s zoning controversy. Azazi’s outburst may be evidence of exasperation by the NSA that his views about how to deal with BH has so far not been acted upon by his boss, President Jonathan. It may also signify the imminence of a change in policy, possibly a harder line towards terrorism. Alternatively, it could suggest Azazi’s imminent exit from government as the presidency chooses an alternative route, perhaps the “poverty and appeasement option” propounded by some local and international lobbies. Meanwhile, my opinion sampling (from my more than 5,000 friends) on facebook suggests two clear trends – an almost total loss of confidence in the ability of President Goodluck Jonathan to resolve the Boko Haram crisis and other challenges of state AND a fraying belief in the sanctity of the Nigerian state. Most respondents of Southern origin attribute Boko Haram to Northern politicians and speak with increasing despondency about Nigeria, not surprisingly given continued casualty figures from terrorism in the North; while virtually all Northern commentators place all the blame on Jonathan and his “clueless and incompetent” government. Regional formations are solidifying and the rhetoric, especially from people like Junaid Mohammed, is sometimes delusional. I doubt whether Nigerian unity has been so intensely questioned since the civil war and the June 12 1993 annulment crises! At the moment, the government has returned to its silence and abdication of the space for public communication and citizen engagement, precisely at a time when government’s credibility has been severely eroded by scandalous revelations from the fuel subsidy probe by the House of Representatives, the pension probes by the Senate, and unending newspaper accounts that suggest that corruption has become an epidemic of gargantuan proportions, especially since the Yar’Adua/Jonathan years. Public anger in Nigeria over corruption is rising and may be reaching some tipping point. I am now convinced that Nigeria is unlikely to come out of this crisis without some structural change – a stronger federal structure involving some degree of regionalisation or even a con-federal arrangement, or tensions will persist. A reversal of the political order, which I am convinced some seek, and not necessarily by entirely constitutional means, will merely reverse the conflict, substituting previous complainants for the erstwhile respondents, while newly aggrieved ones start a new cycle of violence and agitation. I am convinced that the Niger Delta will never accept to return to the old Nigeria in which they basically watched as resources from the region were distributed and shared by other Nigerians; Western Nigeria will never be satisfied until a true federal structure is restored; the Igbos’ sense of marginalisation will only increase as they ponder why none of them is found fit to govern Nigeria; the Christian Middle Belt will never agree to return to subservience in aid of an illusionary “One North”; and core Northern quest for Sharia will increase rather than decrease. I suspect that even “Boko Haram” contains some seeds of a Kanuri Liberation Movement. The point is the current crises are symptoms of a fundamental reality – Nigeria must change to survive!