OCHENDO: ORJI KALU’S CURSE TO ABIA STATE


In the current wave of general national transformation and radical commitment to campaign promises, Abia state has remained in the gallows of perpetual dearth of development. It is in the public knowledge that the state government is about the worst performing in comparison to what is happening in other states of the federation (i.e if at all ‘performance’ could be used to qualify his dismal failure in governance).

Abia is in ruins. Abia is in total wreckage. The state defines clearly the exact meaning of abandonment by government. There are just a few indications that government exists in the state. The most visible signs of the presence of a governor are the posters and imposing billboards littered in the nooks and crannies of the state capital with bold inscriptions ‘Ochendo is working’. Then the rants and chants of the state broadcasting service (BCA). There are also the ‘state boys’ (thugs) who are used at will to command obedience, hatch down insubordination and possible opposition, and collect multiple levies for the further enrichment of the governor-figure.

I also recall the existence of a very big masquerade (nnukwu mmanwu), a governor-in-training by all standard and of course the revered hit man- Chinedu Orji (aka Ikuku) . Kanyi Okeke describes him as ‘one that is so reckless, harasses every Tom Dick and Harry and acts like a god. He calls the shots in the state and his father has no balls to check his excesses, simply because they are partners-in-crime: raping and killing and robbing Abians with impunity’

We have a serious problem in our dear state. I am not being an alarmist and I am not trying to depress you. I am just making my case based on facts currently in the public domain. Though an oil rich state yet hardship and infrastructural decay are daily companions of the people.

Every month the state makes more than 5billion naira from the federal government allocation and 4billion naira for Local Government allocation. There are also the SURE-P money, intervention fund, excess crude allocation, ecological funds, money from donor agencies and IGR. Records also have it that the state government collects school fees of about 450million per term.

Despite the huge monthly income to the state account, Abia still remains only but a paradise of poverty and a haven for thieves. The voice of opposition has been bought over, the needs and plights of the masses raped in broad daylight and the consciences of the elites cheaply captured by the snare of free lunch and freebies. With an offer of five hundred thousand naira, the traditional rulers have been confined to their rocky sofas and majestic regalia. The state assembly that should have been the last resort for ensuring accountability and probity has become familiar bed fellows with the incumbent.

ABA NEGLECT
Wikipedia records that Aba is surrounded by oil wells which separate it from the city of Port Harcourt, a 30 kilometres (19 mi) pipeline powers Aba with gas from the Imo River natural gas repository. Its major economic contributions are textiles and palm oil along with pharmaceuticals, plastics, cement, and cosmetics which made the Ariaria international market to become the largest market in west Africa seconded by the onitsha main market . There is also a brewery and distillery within the city. Finally, it is famous for its handicrafts’’. This makes Aba stand at par with the likes of China and Dubai.

Well, on the ground report will endorse the fact that Aba is gifted and enriched but is relegated and underdeveloped.

Indeed words are not enough to describe what Aba looks like today. A friend calls it ‘a forgotten City and the shame of Abia people’. A place that would have been the state’s major economic hub and world’s priority business stop over only grapples with petty traders from within.
When it rains be sure to have a personal canoe if you must move around. Pedestrian and vehicular bridges are non-existent, compounds without individual boreholes may just have to wait till it rains or spend the little they have buying water, electricity is given at the discretion of power operators and not serving the demands of citizens. Wastes are disposed everywhere and anywhere. Telecommunications, schools, hospitals, good markets and so forth only exist as 2007 campaign promises. The situation is simply chaotic.

THE GRAND SCHEME
As we speak there is a perfected plan for the incumbent governor to return to the government house, well maybe not directly but by deceptive endorsement. Ochendo has stated that he will support the Ngwa clan (Ukwa Ngwa) to produce the next state governor. Whether this is some sort of rotational arrangement conceived with the unholy motive of perpetuating T.A in the governance of Abia only time will tell.
But the people must realize that any candidate that is promoted and projected by the sitting governor is as good and as worse as Ochendo himself. He will just be a front man directed and tele-guided by the Orji’s family- just like what Orji Kalu did in his days by installing Theodore Orji- his political mentee.

Then also there is the tendency that Chinedu (Ikuku) Orji will become the running mate of the projected candidate. The implication of this therefore is that when the Ukwa Ngwa man becomes the governor, T.A’s son is the deputy. If care is not taken, before the first tenure elapses, the governor will be impeached or better still placed in the perpetual silence zone just like stubborn flies before him. Of course this will pave way for the grand return of the Orji’s family.

THE CALL
The question begging for answer is: for how long will the Orji’s reign of terror have to continue in Abia while we fold our arms and watch?
Now is the time. The solution to the woes of Abia is a rescue mission, not by the present political class but by the people. Only if the people can awaken from this sickening lethargic disposition and comatose. Only if the people will speak with one voice demanding accountability. If Abians can like in Osun, Ekiti and Lagos states make a statement with their votes and stand by their decision. No single individual can oppress the people for a life time, that is if the people in question will awaken to the consciousness that power belongs to them.

It is also time the status quo is challenged. This generation of aging-heads has perpetuated themselves in the politics of our dear state for too long. ‘Yesterday’ our leaders told us that we (the youths) were the leaders of tomorrow. That tomorrow has come. That tomorrow is today. Our time to chart a new and positive course and change the order of things. The youth must arise today to reclaim the destiny of the God’s own state. We must take it by force- legally, legitimately yet by force.

If we fail to rise to this clarion call, generations after us and indeed posterity will blame us for knowing what to do and not doing it.

Jerome Samson-Ukaoke is a writer and public affairs analyst. He nurses a special passion for the development of Abia State- the state of his birth. He writes from Abuja and can be contacted on Twitter: @jeromecares email: jeromecares@yahoo.com

NIGERIA SCHOOLS TUITION HIKE: WHO WILL SAVE THE POOR MASSES?


The beauty of every budding democratic process is in the extent of freedom of citizens to voice out, most vehemently, against governmental policies that appear to be distasteful and anti people. The Nigeria’s academic space serves as an ample litmus test. In recent times the country’s tertiary institutions have wit…nessed the blazing fierceness of fearless youths who can only be described as bulls pushed to the walls by the singular act of enacting insensitive academic policies by host governments.

In a clear statement, these youths take to street protest, chanting ‘we no go gree o, we no go gree’. These protests are carried out in such an organized way that it would attract the attention of policy makers and consequently buy their ‘sympathies’ for a possible review or better still reversal of the on-motion policy.

Many of these policies take the forms of incremental hike in tuition and admission acceptance fees. Most indicted, of course, are the state owned universities and polytechnics alike. By most, I do not intend to exonerate the federal institutions. Of course, they are all collaborators in this wanton usurping of the unsuspecting academic juveniles and the consequent embrace of the leapfrog largesse.

The resultant effects are the breakdown of general sanity in and around the schools, protests- sometimes harmless but many times with devastating effects, strike actions, and ultimately multiple impending losses. First, it was a wild and loud protest coordinated by the Student Union Government of Lagos State University, followed by Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), then the University of Port Harcourt and a number of others in the list.

For OAU, the management had increased the fees payable by the newly admitted students from #37,150 and #42,150 to #82,400, #92,700, #95,700 depending on the faculty. These new charges include a #20, 000 acceptance fees.

While the charges for the returning students of the institution were also hiked from #5, 300, #7,800, #10,300 and N12, 800 per session to #19,700, #30,700 and #33,700 for the different faculties respectively.

For Lagos State University, the hike is better described as unthinkable with an increment of over 600%. The students therefore engaged in a protest demanding for a revert to status quo. The fees had earlier been increased from an average of N25, 000 to about N350, 000.
University of Port Harcourt followed suit increasing its fee to N41, 000 as against N29, 500.

This is most surprising considering the fact that at a time in this country, school fees were paid in three digits and even less- say #500, #200. Yes! It’s true. Shockingly too, this good news-inversed, did not happen in the days of our ancestors but right in the full glare and stare of this conscious generation.

Gradually, yet steadily, it metamorphosed into a hydra headed monster that is fast eating down the zeal and capacity of everyone seeking to acquire a level of education beyond college.

This development, however is bound to escalate further with other higher institutions borrowing a leaf from their counterparts. The President of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. Nasir Issa Fagge said recently,
´´what is happening is a product of education policies allegedly imposed on Nigeria by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. This is why we have vehemently rejected the idea especially the so called introduction of the Nigerian University System Innovation Project. To us, this is a ploy aimed at turning the universities into commercial ventures.´´

As to the possible influence of this insensitive connival by the political class and various school administrators, one can only posit that detachment from the people and their suffering is a prime suspect in this regard.
Yes, if political office holders and administrators are acquainted with the level of hardship of the common man, perhaps they would be more reasonable in the way they throw around figures.

In a country where the citizens are said to live on below one dollar per day, it could have only been wise to work assiduously to ensure that the citizenry transits from the quagmire of financial mockery and incapacitation.
This action will apparently perk up the people and make them less hostile to the political class greedy quest for more.

Furthermore, there also arises the question of the justification for these unnecessary increments when in all the schools there are other ventures that generate huge income that no one often talks about? Call it IGR. What about the involvement of wealthy individuals and corporate organizations that, like in other countries, offer scholarships to cushion the effect of high cost of education.

Below is a face-glance of what is obtainable in some of our present day higher institutions in Nigeria (all in naira):
Olabisi Onabanjo University:Freshers: #110,000 TO #250,000 (STAYLITE- #42,000 UPWARD)
University of Benin: Freshers- #45,000 (Staylites Science-#14,000, Staylite Art-#12,000)
University of Calabar: #28,000
Federal University of Technology Owerri: #48,300 TO #49,000
Enugu State University of Technology: Indigene and Non-Indigene, 100L, 200L -#122,250
(300L-#102,000, 400L-#67,000 respectively)
Obafemi Awolowo University #37,150 and #42,150 to #82,400, #92,700, #95,700 depending on the faculty.
Federal University of Technology Minna: Freshers-#37,000, (Returning Students-#20,000)
Ladoke Akintola University of Technology: Indigenes-65,000, Non Indigenes-#72,500 (Staylite-300L Upward= #40,000 to #50,000)
Federal Polytechnic, Oko #22,000 and #28,000 respectively.
University of Nigeria Nsukka=#50,000
Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro=#59,530
Abia State Polytechnic: #56,550 and #61,000, (Depending on the department)
Plateau State University: Indigenes-#50,000, Non indigenes- #100, 000
Abia State University #150,000
Imo State University: Indigenes- *** Non indigenes- #50,000
( from unconfirmed source)

Let us juxtapose these figures with Mr. Francis Okon’s (not real name)#18,000 monthly minimum wage. A father of four, two in secondary school, one in the university and the other about to take common entrance examination.

With a barrage of bills to sort from NEPA, to Water, to rent, to refuse, and a host of others and not forgetting a budget for the wife. Even with my limited knowledge of arithmetic, I still know that this 1+1 cannot amount to 2.
Of a truth, if Nigeria must witness an unhindered development, education is one sector that must gain some boost and support from all and sundry. In the history of developed nations of the world is traceable great commitment in ensuring that their citizens received the best of education.

The people must be encouraged to embrace education.
Anything that bridges education stops development. Ignorance in part or in whole is a hindrance to national progress and diminishes the chance of individuals reaching their full potentials.

I have chosen to lean towards tertiary institutions, not with the intention of relegating primary and secondary education. In many states, education is free up to the college level. This is commendable. The choking difference is in the private institutions, which as you are aware are individual business endeavours.
As ‘companies’ duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), they would put in their front burner the quest to make profit, pay tax and other bills and most importantly keep the ‘company’ afloat.

This will as a matter of reason deter the government from wading in to regulate their operations. The consequent impart is the extreme high fees and charges from them.

However, the challenge in all of these is being able to reconcile high fees with quality. Employers of labour over the years have continued to raise concern over the quality of graduates Nigerian schools churn out annually. High fees do not automatically mean that the right tutors will be employed.

It does not also mean that the quality of educational materials and learning aids will receive a boost.

Today, larger percentage of our graduates leave the ivory towers without any experience whatsoever. Part of the reasons for going to school is to be equipped so as to pursue a career and escape the liability-zone. But disappointedly, many people have left the schools with larger baggage of liability.

How do you justify a Mass Communication graduate who for four years in the university never saw what a studio looked like not to talk of using the equipment. All he heard was the definition of a console, the functions of a microphone, camera movements, and how to plan a newspaper page- all on the white board. What about the one that flaunts a Computer Science certificate with the high sounding appellation ‘Computer Scientist’ who never saw what a computer looks like through his stay in school? Pathetic!
Regrettably pathetic!
But this is exactly the situation in our institutions.

I however submit that if indeed we must make progress in this country that Dora-Nigeria called a great nation, then we must as a matter of necessity take education seriously. Government must wade in to salvage this all important sector from collapse.

First, education must be made attractive to everyone. The policies that fan constant increment in cost of schooling must be reviewed. The different state governments also should make education a priority and perhaps offer free education up to the university level. To develop any nation, the development of human capital through the provision a qualitative education should be second to none.

Liberia’s President Closes Schools Amid Ebola

Liberia’s president late Wednesday ordered the nation’s schools to shut down and most civil servants to stay home as an Ebola outbreak that already has killed more than 130 people in the country deepened.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Peace Corps said it was evacuating its volunteers from Liberia as well as neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone as the regional death toll topped 670 people. The Ebola outbreak is now the largest recorded in history.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is skipping a summit of African leaders in Washington this week amid the crisis, also called for the closure of markets in an area near the borders with infected countries Guinea and Sierra Leone.

“My fellow Liberians, Ebola is real, Ebola is contagious and Ebola kills,” she warned. “Denying that the disease exists is not doing your part, so keep yourselves and your loved ones safe.”

Fear and panic over the mounting death toll has prompted some rural communities to accuse foreign aid workers of bringing the deadly virus. Others have kept people with Ebola symptoms at home instead of bringing them to quarantine centers. In anger, one man recently set fire to part of the health ministry building in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, after his teenage brother reportedly died of Ebola.

Sirleaf said that security forces would enforce the new precautions taken a week after an American man of Liberian descent boarded a plane in Monrovia and flew to Nigeria, where authorities said he died of Ebola. The fact that he was able to board a plane and traveled through a major airport transit hub in Togo has only heightened fears about Ebola’s possible spread in the region.

The airline involved, ASKY, has suspended its flights to both the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone, and said passengers departing from Guinea would be carefully screened.

Ebola has no vaccine and no specific treatment, with a fatality rate of at least 60 percent. But experts say the risk of travelers contracting it is considered low because it requires direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, sweat or saliva. Ebola can’t be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air.

Patients are contagious only once the disease has progressed to the point they show symptoms, according to the World Health Organization. The most vulnerable are health care workers and relatives who come in much closer contact with the sick.

Still, Liberia is among the poorest countries in the world, and the outbreak already has taxed the capacity of local health clinics and doctors, prompting concern for those who remain in the country.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Peace Corps said that 340 volunteers in the three affected countries were being evacuated and “a determination on when volunteers can return will be made at a later date.”

Two U.S.-based missionary groups also have ordered the evacuation of their non-essential personnel from Liberia after a doctor and a missionary both contracted Ebola.

SIM USA President Bruce Johnson announced Tuesday that his group and Samaritan’s Purse decided on the evacuation following an upsurge in the number of Ebola cases in Liberia. A Texas-trained doctor and a missionary from North Carolina have contracted the disease and are in isolation in Liberia.

-AP

EL RUFAI LOSES SON

The former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has lost one of his sons in a fatal auto crash. Hamza El-Rufai died Tuesday morning in Abuja.

El Rufai confirmed the incidence on his facebook page. In his words ‘From Allah we came and to Him we shall return. Please join our family in praying for the repose of the soul of my son Hamza El-Rufai who died this morning in a motor accident in Abuja.’

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER FIGHT OVER BOYFIREND IN ASABA


A 42-year- old housewife in Asaba, Delta State on Sunday, engaged her 17 year-old daughter in a fight for allegedly snatching her boyfriend.
Eyewitness said that a scene was created around St. Brigid’s Girls College, Asaba, recently after both of them exchanged blows.

As both of them engaged themselves in a fight, motorists on the popular busy ro…ad stopped to watch what one of them described as a show of shame.
The mother allegedly “snatched” the daughter’s boyfriend, who works in one of the oil companies in Warri.

The daughter was said to have become furious when she heard that her boyfriend was caught pants down with her mother in an hotel in the state.
The trouble between the mother and her daughter became aggravated when the ‘lover boy’ began to act in a strange manner towards the girl.

While the show of shame between them lasted, the daughter was said to have called the mother a shameless woman and a prostitute, who drove the father out of the house with her demands for too much sex.

EXPOSED: How Senator Ndume Allegedly Sponsors Boko Haram, Buys 400 Gulf Cars (DETAILS)

In some shocking revelation, Senator Ali Ndume, representing Borno South Senatorial District has been charged as a major sponsor of insurgent group, Boko Haram, investigations reveal.Rumours linking the senator with the group has been long coming, but no concrete detail has been given.

Senator Ndume is alleged to have been angered by the death of the real Abubakar Shekau, who was killed in Gwoza at the hands of Major Timothy Fambiya, a Christian officer from Gwoza in Gwoza Local Government Area. According to investigation, Senator Ndume, a muslim was unhappy that a Christian was sent in to take out a Muslim group, feeling it was war against Islam.

Senator Ndume was also said to have played a major role in the death of Major Timothy Fambiya shortly after the death of Shekau, allegedly paying Captain Ibrahim Jamare N60 million to eliminate him.

Reports also said the senator also aided Boko Haram by supplying them with about 400 Volkswagen Golf cars.

PointBlankNews reports:

New leads are emerging on the involvement of Senator Ali Ndume representing Borno South Senatorial District at the Nigerian Senate with the Islamic terror sect, Boko Haram.

Investigations have also revealed the role allegedly played by Senator Ndume in the death of Major Timothy Fambiya, who led the operation that led to the death of the leader of the Boko Haram sect, Abubakar Shekau.

Ndume is standing trial at an Abuja High Court over links with terrorists. He is accused of providing phone numbers of some government officials to the members of the Islamic sect.

The Nigerian Airforce in Borno State recently bombed Senator Ndume’s convoy of vehicles on his way to his village on suspicion that he was attending a meeting with the insurgents.

Pointblanknews.com gathered that the senator was angered by the deployment of Major Timothy Fambiya, an indigene of Gwoza in Gwoza Local Government Council of Borno State to eradicate the sect members and halt their activities in the area. The area falls within Senator Ndume’s Senatorial District and is predominantly Christian.

Ndume, a Muslim, could not come to terms with a Christian soldier routing a sect he sympathizes with. He believes a Christian soldier sent to lead the Government forces against the sect is war against Muslims.

Although there are many accounts of the circumstances surrounding Shekau’s death, he is believed to have been killed in Gwoza Hills by a contingent of Special Forces led by Major A.T. Fambiya. Fambiya is reckoned to be one of the best Special Forces officers in the Nigerian military, who grew up in Gwoza and understood the rocky terrain.

Further investigations revealed that it was Major Fambiya that delivered the fatal shot that sent Shakau reeling in Gwoza Hills during a fierce battle but the Boko Haram leader did not die immediately. He was severally moved to Mali and later Cameroon where he gave up the ghost. His aides, who sought to create the impression that he was still alive to sect members, hurriedly buried him.

Following Shekau’s death, an infuriated Senator Ndume had allegedly contracted the second in command to Major Fambiya, Captain Ibrahim Jamare, to eliminate him. Captain Jamare, who had briefed the Senator on the circumstances surrounding Shakau’s shooting , was allegedly paid N60 million by the Senator to eliminate the major.

While on a return mission to Gwoza Hills still in search of Shekau, Captain Jamare had shot Major Fambiya at the back of the head while he was observing something with binoculars.

The military had in a brief ceremony at the Nigerian Military Cemetary in Abuja declared that Major Fambiya was one of the best special forces officer in Nigeria. “He was killed in action on June 26, 2013 in a fierce encounter with Boko Haram terrorists”.

The Major’s suspicious killing had prompted his brother Iliya Joshua to call on military authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.

“We call on the Federal Government to investigate the rumoured cause of the death of the officers since it remains a mystery to our family. I made the call because he was supposed to be at the Army school of artillery. The last time I called him, he said that he was not part of those people that were going to Maiduguri for this operation. But later, I was told that he had been killed. He was not supposed to be on posting to that place,”he said.

Over 400 hundred people including women and children were killed last month in Ngoshe and Atagara by insurgents, who hoisted a flag at the Gwoza Local Government Area. The insurgents disguised as soldiers had called the residents to come out to discuss peaceful co-existence in the area. Unkonwn to the residents, they were sorroundedv by the insurgents, who opened fire on them killing all that gathered at the village square, who were mostly Christians.

The burning of residential houses, churches and schools have continued until a recent deployment of soldiers in the area.

Purchase of 400 Golf Cars

Security agencies are also working on the lead that Senator Ndume had purchased 400 Golf cars for insurgents disguised as empowerment for his constituents. Golf cars have been used in several bomb explosions in Maiduguri, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe and Abuja.

Further investigations revealed that insurgents and new recruits were offered a golf car or N500,000.00 to procure the vehicles themselves by the senator. The recruitment drive is disguised as one of his constituency empowerment projects.

Most of the insurgents are said to have migrated to Abuja and are now domiciled in Waru and Wasa villages, some kilometres from the National Assembly Quarters where they wait to be called upon to carry out car/suicide bombings.

National Cordinator of the Joint Information Centre on Security, Mike Omeri, had at Wednesday’s briefing of the media on government’s fight against terrorism said government was investigating some politicians following their links with terrorists. He said some of the politicians have been arrested.

He said the development followed information provided by insurgents in custody. He maintained that government would not condone involvement of politicians in security matters involving the nation.

Adamawa Assembly Impeaches Governor Nyako

The Adamawa State House of Assembly has impeached the state governor, Murtala Nyako, after reviewing the report of a panel of inquiry set up to investigate allegations of financial impropriety against the governor and his deputy, Bala Ngilari.

The Speaker of the House has been sworn in as the Acting Governor.

Earlier, the state Deputy Governor, Bala Ngilari, resigned from office to avoid being impeached.

Mr Ngilari’s resignation letter was read at plenary by the speaker of the Assembly, Umaru Fintiri, after which the lawmakers approved it.

The seven man panel, chaired by Mr Bala Kaigama, who submitted the report to the speaker, observed that the panel encountered initial problem of having a venue for sitting but eventually overcame the challenge and produced four volumes of the report on allegations levelled against the governor and the deputy.

Both the governor and the deputy did not appear before the panel, but it continued with the investigation.

Receiving the report, the Speaker of the House, Honourable Umaru Fintiri, assured the panel that the report would be given appropriate attention, considering the importance of the panel in shaping democracy in Nigeria and the state in particular.

One of the accused, the deputy governor, had expressed concern on the procedure that led to the establishment of the panel, citing it as his reason for not appearing before the panel to defend himself on allegations of improper conduct against him.

THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA … part 1

A couple of months ago over 40 innocent, helpless and defenseless school children were brutally murdered in their sleep by the Boko Haram terrorist group. This and other senseless killings that have defiled every sane attempt by the government are fuelled by the effort of politicians who have vowed that the nation will remain ungovernable if power does not return to ‘them’. More to this, the frontline political parties seem to be divided along this sentiments and tribal bias with attendant accusations, counter accusation and constant name calling.

The unfortunate reality staring us in the face is that we are unitedly divided and dividedly united. Call it a forced marriage made possible by lord Lugard and his wife on Lugard’s love bed decades ago. This forced espousal has led to a daily painful intercourse with strange bed fellows. And just like King Solomon may attest that anything (maybe not everything) could be possible under the intoxication of savoured feminine passion.

In the face of this quagmire, we can only identify one root cause of our national woes. Tribalism! We (Nigerians) are a cacophony of tribal singers! In a country with about 170 million people and more than 600 different ethnic groups, it has been impossible for us as a people to present a united front.

Tribalism means man supporting his people to who he belongs whether they are right or wrong, oppressing or oppressed; belonging to this group can be due to kith and kin, ethnicity, color, birth place, citizenship, school of thought, or a group of people with common interests.

Tribalism is the feeling of being better than others, and that others are of lower class. Like in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where we are exposed to the thought that all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. So, that person that has this feeling of tribalism thinks so highly of himself and of those to whom he belongs. This is not to say that such feeling of brotherhood is totally off base. Not at all. But where such fraternity becomes detrimental to unity of the whole, then it becomes corrupt.

In Nigeria, tribalism has become a force that is more ascendant than nuclear bombs. The emergence of Boko Haram in our present day society is rooted in it. Militancy in the Niger Delta is informed by tribal sentiments, the same with the OPC and Bakassi. Tribalism nourishes terrorism. We don’t need to look far, that is the root.

The selection of public office holders that have plunged the country into darkness is a twin brother of tribalism in the government circle. In Nigeria, you will find people in high places dolling out contracts to inept contractors because of tribal affinity instead of genuine qualification and competence. The present administration at some point had to face the problem of ‘how can a minority group rule over us?’ ( Note: them, us) A country should not make some to work extra-ordinarily hard just to get by while some are virtually given the key to the government coffers to enrich themselves at will in the name of ‘we are born to rule’. This is one of the major reasons why Nigeria is yet to achieve a true “one Nigeria.”

It was tribalism that indirectly engendered the Nigerian civil war and indirectly gives birth to the present evil called “quota system” and step brother called “state of origin.” These are direct products, consciously or unconsciously designed out of mediocrity to model the ruin of Nigeria. This fuelled the growth of National inequality and anger of perceived injustice. One of the unfortunate characteristics of tribalism is this unnecessary competition with other tribes.

The Yoruba becomes “us” and the Igbos and Hausas become “them”. The North says power must return to the region as if any tribe has a sole right to occupy the Nigerian seat of power. A Niger Deltan is elected and hell is let loose because he is not from ‘our region’.

This in truth is what led to most of our problems and in turn it leads to the most evil of Nigeria traits – religious clashes and most recently terrorism.

The belief in the superiority of one tribe and the weakness of others has led to various untold number of wars in Nigeria. To prove superiority and to consider other tribes as low-grades is actually wicked. The Igbo man is equal to the Northerner and a Yoruba man is equal to both. That is who we are, people of equal rights and status.

If the Boko Haram insurgence must come to an end, if ethnic clashes must be eradicated from amongst us and if Nigeria must progress beyond what we see, we must deliberately toll the path of being our brothers’ keepers. First by realizing that we are brothers. That is if such realization will ever exist. We must move from this thwarted thought line of enthroning evil by our actions and inactions.

We all have a common destiny whether from the north, the south, the east or the west. So it seems. The realization of the fact that we are all victims of economic imperialism and foreign vested interests should prompt and persuade us to educate ourselves by all means of the need for oneness of Nigeria, and realize that geography is no barrier to national cooperation and mutual understanding. Only in this can we successfully bring to an end the evil of terrorism, militancy, ethnic and religious hostilities.

We are all Nigerians.