Chimamanda’s Chieftaincy Title Signifies Cultural Revolution

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

BY CHIEDU OKOYE

The chieftaincy title conferred on Chimamanda Adichie by the traditional ruler of her hometown, Abba, is significant because women are rarely given chieftaincy titles by traditional rulers in our society. The conferring of the revered chieftaincy title on her is, therefore, akin to an execution of a cultural revolution in her town.

But what is culture? Culture is defined as the totality of a people’s way of life. Our mode of dressing, religious beliefs, marriage ceremonies, funeral rites, music, proverbs, folklores, dances, artworks, and others are parts of culture. And it is broadly divided into two; material aspect of culture and the non-material aspect of culture.

While food, artworks, mode of dressing, and others make up the material aspect of culture, the non-material aspect of culture includes but is not limited to, songs, folklores, proverbs, religious beliefs, marriage rites, and others. Culture, which is the identity of a people, ought to be dynamic, and not static. That is why culture is said to be in a constant state of flux. So, progressive-minded people, who are living in a cultural milieu, ought to tweak some outlandish, outdated, and obnoxious cultural practices to suit modern trends. We should not be slaves to egregious and antediluvian cultural practices that rob us of our humanity and demean us as human beings.

If we keep on upholding bad cultural practices on the grounds that they are passed down to us by our ancestors, and if we feel that obliterating them will amount to committing sacrilegious acts, then we will remain trapped in a time warp. For example, in the time past, the killing of newborn twins was normative in Igbo land, the South-East region of the country. That detestable practice of killing twins was rooted in the religious superstition that newborns who were twins were portents of doom for their families. Then, the custodians of our culture stoutly resisted moves and efforts made by other people for the abolition of that cultural practice.


However, the white people who came to Nigeria for imperialistic reasons uprooted the inhuman cultural practice of killing newborn twins. Until then, our ancestors felt that twins, triplets, and quadruplets, who were born to people in our land were bringers and harbingers of evil happenings to their respective families. But are twin children truly the forerunner and bringer of evil happenings to their immediate families, as they believed, then? The answer to the above question is a categorical no. Contrary to the beliefs of our ancestors that twins brought ill luck to their parents, most children, who are twins, are the pride of their parents. Peter and Paul Okoye, who are ace musicians, offer us a good example of twin children who have excelled in their chosen musical career.

Peter and Paul used to have a musical group called P-Square. The twin brothers are renowned musicians, who sing soulfully and dance beautifully, treating us to lyrical songs and acrobatic dances. More so, the Aneke sisters, Chidimma and Chidiebere, who are renowned actresses, are twins, too. They have achieved renown through their acting prowess, which fascinates us to no end. There are other instances of twins who have pushed back the frontiers of their endeavours and careers.

But had we clung to the obnoxious cultural practice of killing twins, the Aneke twin sisters, and the P-Square musical duo would have died in their infancy, not to talk of them becoming musical superstars and ace actresses. So, as the killing of newborns who’re twins was abolished in Nigeria so shall we stamp out other cultural practices, which are obnoxious, inhuman, weird, wicked, and retrogressive. We should not forget that the bad aspects of our culture portray us as backward people and hinder our march to join the civilised world.

Regarding some of our egregious cultural practices which are in existence now, patriarchy readily comes to my mind. For example, in our traditional Igbo society, men and women are not considered equals. So marriage is not perceived as a partnership of equals in Nigeria. Here, women are seen, and not heard. Our African traditional culture and Christianity to which we proselytised give oxygen and leverage to the existence of patriarchy in Nigeria.

But nowadays, things are changing for the better for our women, culturally and otherwise. They are making their voices heard in many areas of human endeavours, being educated females. Nigerian women have broken the glass ceiling in diverse areas of human endeavours. Nowadays, we have female pilots, female vice-chancellors, and others in Nigeria. We have female lawmakers who can hold their own in the art and act of lawmaking. And have we forgotten that the Tolulope Arotile was the first female combat helicopter pilot in Nigeria? She died in 2020 at the age of 24.

And Nigerian female writers like Abimbola Adelakun, Nnedi Okoroafor, Akachi Adimora Ezigbo, Chimamanda, and others are reshaping our literary traditions and landscape through their qualitative, inspiring, and innovative creative works. They are using their art to fight for the obliteration of such bad cultural practices as inhuman widowhood rites, child marriages, female circumcision, and sexism. The aforementioned cultural practices harm and demean women.

Thankfully, today, Nigerian women have recorded tremendous success in bringing women problems to the front burner and addressing them. Those female champions of women rights, who assert that women rights are human rights, are being accorded honours in Nigeria and beyond. For example, the conferment of a chieftaincy title on Chimamanda by the traditional ruler of her hometown, Igwe L.N Ezeh, is the icing on the cake of feminists who want gender equality for women. The name of the chieftaincy title given to her is ‘Odeluwa Abba,’ which when translated to English means the writer of the world from Abba.

Chimamanda, a highly acclaimed global writer, said this about the award, “Custodians should honour men and women equally. I am the first woman in my town to be made a chief, and it makes me happy to know that more women will follow. Culture does not make people, people make culture. Cultures thrive when they reflect the people. Ours must be a culture that celebrates achievements, whether it comes from a man or woman.”

The conferment of the chieftaincy title on Chimamanda marks a significant milestone in the battle to dethrone patriarchy and achieve gender equality in our society. She is the first woman in her hometown, Abba, to be so honoured. And she believes that the conferment of the chieftaincy title, ‘Odeluwa Abba,’ on her will open the floodgates for the conferment of chieftaincy titles on other deserving women.

Our culture, no doubt, is undergoing positive transformation to reflect modern realities and transport us to the league of the civilised people of the world. Our abiding by obnoxious and retrogressive cultural practices demeans and portrays us as troglodytes, who are stuck in a time warp. So it is imperative for us to abide by Chimamanda’s timely and judicious admonition which states that “culture does not make people, people make culture.”

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INTERVIEW: How I Escaped Abacha’s Plan To Kill Me –Nosa Igiebor

Veteran journalist and Co-founder of Tell Magazine, Nosa Igiebor, speaks to ALEXANDER OKERE about his torturous career during the military era, including his arrest and detention by brutish regimes and how it affected his family

You clocked 70 December last year and many consider that a milestone, considering the risks you faced during the military era. Having been born before independence what kind of childhood did you have?

I had a very good, quiet life. I am from Edo State. I was born in Benin and I grew up there. Growing up, life was exciting. I was in primary school when Nigeria attained independence and I remember vividly that on that day (October 1, 1960), we lined up with the green-white-green flag in our hands. Benin City then was serene. People knew one another, depending on the quarters of the city they were living in. I think I grew up with the right values. Virtually everybody in my family was a Catholic.

You practised hardcore journalism in trying times. Was it your aspiration to become a journalist? Or could it have been something else?

In the course of my life, I have reflected on that again and again. My first love is engineering but in the secondary school that I attended, I never had the chance to study science subjects and even if I did, I think my obstacle would have been mathematics; I was never interested in mathematics. That is the irony of my life but one thing I learnt as a child was developing a passion for reading; that has been a life-long vocation. So, I won’t call myself an accidental journalist. As I said, I would have loved to be an engineer. After leaving secondary school, I wanted to study Economics but again, I could not discipline myself to sit down and learn maths, which was a requirement for studying Economics.

I was also interested in writing. I used to write short stories that were published in the Sunday Observer, which was owned by the (former) Mid-West Region, (the defunct) Bendel State, and subsequently Edo State. It was a classmate of mine, Dr Michael Ehima, who advised me to study Journalism since I had a problem with mathematics. I thought about it and that was how I got into the profession.

You worked in different media outfits, including the Nigerian Television Authority and Newswatch magazine, before co-founding Tell. In retrospect, will you say your career panned out the way you wanted?

To a large extent, I will say yes. I started my career in broadcast journalism at NTA Benin. But, again, I attended the Ghana Institute of Journalism and graduated in July 1976. While there, I had also developed an interest in cinematography. I wanted to be a cinematographer. When I returned from Ghana, I actually got a job at the Daily Sketch in Ibadan (Oyo State). I also got a public relations job but I was not interested in that; that was the same time I got a job at NTA Benin, so I opted for NTA Benin. I said being in broadcast (journalism), which is close to cinematography, I would go there (NTA Benin) and learn. Later, I was offered admission to study cinematography in the UK and I applied for the then Mid-West State Government Scholarship but unfortunately, I didn’t get it, so I closed that chapter (cinematography).

I spent about three years at the NTA and remembered that it was government-owned and the scope of journalism one could do there was limited and if I wanted to pursue a career in journalism, I didn’t see the NTA as the platform for me to achieve the height I wanted to aim at. When the late Chief MKO Abiola established Concord Newspapers in the early 1980s, I saw that as an opportunity; they were recruiting people, so I was one of the pioneer staff members.

You had, perhaps, the most challenging time as the publisher of Tell during the military regime of the late General Sani Abacha. What was it like operating in that era?

I am someone who applies himself fully to whatever he does. I took journalism seriously and I was also lucky to have worked with colleagues who shared a similar passion for good journalism. When we left Newswatch to establish Tell, that was the primary objective – doing that kind of journalism that will be impactful, one that was focused more on investigations, taking up issues that were germane to national development, and what Nigeria should represent for Nigerians. Before Abacha came, there was (General Ibrahim) Babangida’s (regime), the June 12 (1993) debacle, and the crisis it fostered. That was a moment that we thought we needed to rise up to the challenge and we were not the only ones; we had The PUNCH, The Guardian, and a good number of other private media outlets that rose to the occasion. We needed to confront the military dictatorship that was taking the people for a ride. So, we felt that was the opportunity to actualise the objective we set out when we established Tell magazine.

Also, the circumstances were such that we were compelled to do so; it was not a challenge we were, for any reason, prepared to be deterred from.

You were arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services in December 1995 and imprisoned for several months. What did the DSS tell you when they arrested you?

They never told anyone they arrested what the offence was but without telling one anything, one knew exactly why they were picked up once one was labelled by the state as an enemy and with the omnibus term that one constituted a threat to national security. It was only when the person arrested arrived at the place they were taking them to that they were told that they did a story critical of the government. So, it was clear to us that what we were doing was risky in the sense that we were challenging a military dictatorship that was ruthless and not prepared to accept any challenge from anywhere. They even saw criticism that was well-meaning as a threat. So, we knew the risk, and weighed the cost but we were not deterred.

How did you cope with being away from your family for that long?

The first time I was arrested along with three of my colleagues was after General Abacha sacked the Chief (Ernest) Shonekan interim government in 1993. When Babangida left, he put up the contraption called the Interim National Government, which was headed by the hand-picked Shonekan. Of course, in the eyes of Nigerians, including us (at Tell), that government was illegitimate because we had had a valid election but the outcome was aborted through the annulment of the election. Of course, there was no argument about whether MKO Abiola won the election or not. So, that hardened our position about the regime – that we would not allow it to stand. Luckily for us, we were not the only ones that took that stand. For instance, The PUNCH was one of the media organisations that were shut down repeatedly and their editors were harassed and detained.

So, my colleagues and I were arrested and detained for about a week pending when Babangida finally exited and Shonekan came in. When we were taken to Abuja, we were kept at DSS headquarters and later to their substation and thereafter transferred to a police station in Asokoro. We were just there. Nobody took us to court or told us why we were arrested. One important thing I would like to recall is that the Deputy Superintendent of Police who was in charge of our case told us to be patient, that he didn’t really see what they (the government) were going to do with us, in terms of taking us to court and what the case against us would be. He told us that he was very certain that once Babangida left (power) in the next few days, we would be released, and that was exactly what happened. No formal charges were filed against us, so we left. But after that, we were invited by the police for publishing certain stories.

By that time, most of the editors no longer slept in their homes because they were under constant watch. On December 23, 1995, I went home to see my family. Unfortunately, before I could leave, a group of DSS officers showed up in front of my gate and I was picked up and taken to their office in Shangisha in Lagos where I spent Christmas and New Year until they said the paper ordering my detention was signed in Abuja, so I was taken to the DSS office in Minna, Niger State, and later transferred to the Minna Correctional Centre where I was detained for months and released in June 1996. I was one of the lucky political detainees who were released through the intervention of the late Pope John Paul II when he visited Nigeria.

What went through your mind when you were released to reunite with your family?

Oh, my major concern was my family – my wife, children and my mother, who was old at that time. At that time, I was her only surviving son. I wasn’t really concerned about myself. My first few weeks in detention were tough but I adjusted to the condition there and ensured that I took care of myself. I didn’t fall into self-lamentation or depression. Fortunately, my wife was given access to visit me monthly and she brought books for me to read. I spent my time just reading and that helped me to take my mind away from worrying about my family. Seeing my wife every month was also very reassuring; at least, I got feedback about the situation at home, that my children, wife, and mother were okay.

One of your children, Obosa, told Sunday PUNCH, that if there was any time she wished you were not a journalist, it was probably during the Abacha’s regime because she would not have been held at gunpoint and you would not have gone to prison. Did you at any point at that time think it would have been better if you did not have a wife or children whose lives would be in danger because of the risk involved in the kind of journalism you practised?

She was three years old at that time. It was in 1997 that the incident she was referring to happened. Tell had written a story that Abacha was very ill, which was true, but the military government didn’t like it. The reason they didn’t like it was because at an African summit he (Abacha) attended with some African heads of state, one of the heads of state advised him to take care of his health because he was not looking good. So, we published that inside information and they (the military government) didn’t like it. The DSS, again, came to my residence but I was lucky to escape before they had access to my apartment and of course, the commotion woke everybody up.

My daughter, who you referred to, is my last child, and was just three years old. They barked and searched everywhere, including the ceiling. From the account I got, one of the soldiers,who was apparently drunk, pointed his rifle at my daughter’s head and shouted, “Where’s your daddy? Where’s your daddy?” Of course, the poor girl started crying; she didn’t know what was happening. I managed to escape and went into hiding for about two weeks before I went into exile. It was later that I learnt that I was lucky because if I had been caught that night, I would have been ‘wasted’.

What did security agents do when they could not get you?

They arrested my wife. As they were taking her to Shangisha, they got in touch with one of their officers and informed him that they arrested my wife since they couldn’t get me. But the officer told them to return her to the house to avoid embarrassing headlines in the media the next day. Did I, at any point, wish I was not a journalist? No, despite the difficulties I put my family through and all the inconveniences I suffered, I never regretted being a journalist because I was driven by the force of our moral conviction that Nigeria could be better and that it was time Nigerians stood up to the military dictatorship and enthrone democracy in the country. The essence of the objective overruled whatever personal concern we had.

Did you not feel sorry for your wife and kids who did not bargain for the intimidation and harassment they faced because of your occupation?

In war, there is collateral damage; when a bomb is dropped somewhere, people are killed. I regard what happened to my family as collateral damage from the high-risk job of journalism at that time but we all survived because of the tremendous support people extended to us. Many people believed in what we were doing; every edition Tell produced was a sell-out, despite the fact that security agents went to Academic Press in Ilupeju to seize the print run of different editions, sometimes 100,000, 200,000, or 150,000. But we were determined; when they seized them, we came out in a different way.

Generally, did practising journalism in the military era destroy any part of your personal or family life?

Sure! My long absence made my children live in constant fear that something could happen to their father – that I could be arrested or detained or killed. Naturally, they went through that emotion of fear and concern about what could happen to me. It also strengthened them. I can say without any fear of contradiction that one of the lessons all my children learnt from the experiences they had with me as a journalist is that it is a noble thing to fight for justice and stand for what is right.

Let’s talk a bit more about Tell and its operation. The magazine was founded by five veteran journalists who formerly worked at Newswatch magazine. Why did the other co-founders leave and how did the company handle its internal crisis?

We never had a crisis at Tell. I don’t know where the speculation that we had a crisis came from. Of course, we are human beings. We do have disagreements as to what direction we should go, what we should do, and how we should do it. The crisis I will say we had at Tell is that the company fell into hard times. The economic situation in the past 10 years impacted us. Again, one cannot ignore the global phenomenon of the digital platform adversely affecting legacy traditional media. In many parts of the world, traditional media organisations have been able to effect a successful transition to digital platforms and their businesses are thriving. In developing countries like Nigeria, due to a lack of investment, making that transition is always difficult.

We are trying to build a digital platform for Tell now because the print edition is no longer viable traditionally. The clear option for us is to go completely digital, which we are working on. Hopefully, we should be running on a digital platform in June this year. So, there was never a crisis (among the managers) at Tell.

But why did the other editors leave?

They retired. It was their decision to leave. We had five founding editors and out of the five, only two remain. The first one left in 2002; he said he was interested in a political career and wanted to go to the Senate. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. The second one left in 2010; again, he was interested in a political career and wanted to contest a governorship seat. The third person is still with us but has been battling some health challenges for some time, so he is in the US. Two of us are left; that is Onome Osifo-Whiskey and me. After the first two founding editors left, two other editors joined us at the editorial management level. They too opted to retire; they were pioneer staff members of Tell. They didn’t leave because there was a crisis.

Let me also say this and I think it is very important. One of the challenges we had, and I’m sure we are not the first to have that challenge, was that we were very committed, passionate, and professional journalists but none of us had business experience. Yes, we did good journalism and created a very powerful brand at Tell but we needed to create a model that will make it sustainable in the far future. Because we lacked that business acumen, we suffered and that is one of the bane of the media industry, especially when journalists start a company with little or no entrepreneurial skills. However, over time, we learnt from such a mistake and learnt to balance the two. For me, all I am trying to do is bring Tell back on its feet on a digital platform, and maybe after a year or two, I will step back.

In 2021, you scored the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) low. With less than five months to the end of that regime, has your assessment changed?

I think my assessment in 2021 is even more valid today than ever before. In my opinion, the Muhammadu Buhari interregnum has been a complete disaster for the country. It is a tragedy. This is not just making mere statements. The facts are unassailable. The question you can ask anybody is: are we better or worse off than we were in 2015? The answer is clear and categorical – every Nigeria is worse off than how we were in 2015. This administration failed woefully, no matter the indices you want to look at to measure the quality of life. If you want to be charitable, you can narrow them to the three areas the President said were going to be his focus – rejuvenating the economy, ending insecurity, and fighting corruption. Remember nobody is even talking about fighting corruption anymore in the last three or four years because it was clear to everybody from the beginning that the fight against corruption was mere sloganeering, media trials, and all that. I don’t want to go into that but that is not to say they have not had some successes.

In the economy and insecurity, scoring them an F is charitable. They never get tired of blaming previous administrations for their failure. In 2015 when Buhari’s tenure started, there was a global oil crisis which, of course, affected Nigeria badly. It was clear that many economies, including Nigeria, in the world would go into a recession. Ours was because we are a mono-cultural economy. Our economy depends majorly on exporting crude oil and earning dollars to run the economy. But what did this government do in 2015? They did nothing. They went to sleep. It was clear that there was a crisis coming and they did nothing to stop it. For six months, there was no government. If you recall, he didn’t form his cabinet until December 2015, and by that time, the recession had come. There was nobody in charge of the economy, and no policies to try and preempt the recession from coming.

If the first time, maybe out of inexperience or not knowing what to do, they failed, one would have expected that they would have learnt a vital lesson but as you know, we had another recession and the economy has been struggling ever since. Today, all Nigerians are impoverished; even the richest among us will tell you they are struggling because they worry whether their business will survive. What many are baffled by is the government’s lack of appreciation of the link between security and economic development. In a largely insecure environment, the economy will not thrive. There are investments people ought to have made but they are holding back because the environment is not secure.

What are your expectations from the forthcoming presidential election? Is there Uhuru in the offing for the masses?

I am not really excited by all the candidates running. We elect people but once they are sworn in, they put all the promises they made aside and they are not accountable to anyone. Has any state or National Assembly since 1999 been able to hold any governor or president, respectively to account?

The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, the Speaker, (Femi) Gbajabiamila, told us a couple of years ago that they don’t believe in confrontation but in cooperation with the executive and, therefore, whatever the President puts before them, they would approve it and they have operated on that principle – that the President is always right and can’t be questioned. To that extent, the National Assembly has failed this country woefully, the same way the state assemblies have failed the state woefully because the governors are little emperors in their states.

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NIGERIA: Banks Run Out Of New Naira, Demand Soars

•Cashiers ration new notes, lenders allot N100,000 per teller in banks

•Suspicious customers snub new notes as local traders reject new currency

•Court declines to stop CBN withdrawal policy, Emefiele meets Reps Tuesday

BY FRIDAY OLOKOR, NIKE POPOOLA, LEKE BAIYEWU, ANOZIE EGOLE, HENRY FALAIYE, DAMILOLA AINA, AND FUNMI FABUNMI

ABUJA, NIGERIA (PUNCH) -- Mixed reactions greeted the disbursement of the new naira notes that officially went into circulation on Thursday with many bank customers demanding for the new notes while a few others snubbed the latest bills in banking halls across major Nigerian cities.


The newly redesigned N1,000, N500 and N200 bills finally became a legal tender on December 15, 2022, over three weeks after the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), unveiled them at the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had on October 26 announced plans to redesign the N200, N500 and N1,000 notes, while also declaring that the old denominations would cease to be a legal tender by January 31, 2022.

Emefiele stressed that the redesigning of the local currency became necessary to tackle inflationary problems, currency counterfeiting, insecurity and other issues plaguing Nigeria.

He further noted that the currency redesign was aimed at controlling currency-in-circulation as well as ransom payments to kidnappers and terrorists.

Our correspondents, who visited banking halls in several cities across the country, especially in Lagos and Abuja on Thursday, observed that several bank branches had run out of the small quantities of the new notes allocated to them from their head offices as early as 12 noon.

Further findings revealed that several bank branches were yet to get their new note allocations with many bank officials informing our correspondents that the new notes were still being expected.

In bank branches visited in Lagos, a number of the bank branches had run out of their new note allocations when our correspondents visited the places. However, officials at some of the centres which still had the new notes told The PUNCH their allocations were very small.

An official of Access Bank Plc at the Ojodu branch in Lagos, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said, “Each cashier was given N100,000 of the new N1,000 bill for onward disbursements to customers seeking over-the-counter payments. We don’t have the other denominations of N500 and N200 yet. We don’t have enough supply of the new notes for now.”

Also, our correspondent observed that the ATMs at the bank branch were dispensing only old naira notes.

Customers were also seen depositing the old bills over the counter, while cashiers were paying out more of the old naira notes at the centre.

However, in a few instances, the cashiers were seen mixing a few new naira notes with the old bills in their OTC payments.

Meanwhile, in some of the banking halls visited by our correspondents, some customers snubbed the new notes due to reports that some local traders were rejecting them as legal tender.

As such, some of the bank customers refused to collect the new notes for over-the-counter payments.

Confirming the situation, a bank teller in Ogba, Lagos told one of our correspondents that, “Some customers have been rejecting the new naira notes whenever we give them; they said the new notes would not be collected from them in the market; they prefer the old notes.”

At the bank, a cashier told a customer demanding the new notes she had exhausted her allocation.

However, when the customer insisted on having his payment in the new notes, the cashier approached his colleague to demand for some.

“You are eager to get the new notes but many of the customers I attended to today refused to take it from me,” the cashier said.

Abuja banks

In the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, only one of the 10 bank branches visited paid their customers using the new notes. Also, only one of the ATM centre dispensed the new naira notes among the several ATM galleries visited by one of our reporters in the FCT.

The PUNCH visited the Guaranty Trust Bank, First Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, Taj Bank and Access Bank Plc situated at Jabi Garage and the Central Business District.

None of the tellers in the bank branches was seen paying their customers in the new notes via the counters.

However, only the Access Bank ATM in the area was seen dispensing new N1,000 and N500 notes.

Our correspondent observed that the ATM dispensed N1,000 in every N10,000 withdrawal.

At GTBank, Jabi branch, our correspondent observed that the ATM dispensed old N1,000 notes to customers.

At the counter of the same bank, a bank official who declined to give her name told The PUNCH that the new notes were not available.

She said, “No, you can’t make cash withdrawals of the new notes. The best we can do for you is to mix the amount you are withdrawing with old notes.”

When our correspondent approached another official of the bank, she said OTC withdrawals were still being honoured in the old notes.

At the Zenith Bank, Jabi branch, an official asked our correspondent to come back on Friday or Monday for the new notes.

According to him, the new notes have yet to be distributed to the branch, adding they are hopeful it will get to the branch soon.

Our correspondent overheard a customer complaining of not being able to get the new notes despite withdrawing a huge sum of money at the branch.

A similar scenario was witnessed at the First Bank and Taj Bank branches as officials said the new notes were not available when our correspondent visited the centres.


At Taj Bank, an official who refused to give his name, claimed the lender was disbursing the new notes to customers over the counter but not at its ATM stand.

However, as of 3:45pm when our correspondent visited the branch, only old notes were being given to their customers.

Lagos banking halls

Also, during a visit to some banks in the Ikotun-Egbe and Isolo areas of Lagos, it was observed that the ATMs were dispensing old notes.

A customer at First Bank ATM in Ikotun-Egbe said, “The ATMs are still not dispensing the new currency here, what we still collect is the old ones.”

A Point of Sale terminal operator in Igando area, who simply identified himself as Chibuike, said he could not get the new notes when he visited his bank earlier in the day.

Also, when The PUNCH visited the First Bank branch at Yaba, Lagos, the ATMs were still dispending the old notes.

It was also observed that OTC payments were being made using the old notes.

A bank customer Mr James Oni, told our correspondent he was anticipating to see the new notes, adding that he could not get it in the banking hall.

Also, when our correspondent visited the FCMB branch on Matthew Street, Yaba, only the old notes were being dispensed from the ATMs while OTC payments were also done using the old currency.

Meanwhile, our correspondent observed that several bank customers in Lagos and Ogun states could not access the new notes in their bank branches as of Thursday. However, others who were lucky got the new bills. Some customers expressed hope they would be able to see the new currencies in the coming days.

Emefiele for Reps

Meanwhile, CBN governor, Emefiele, will now on Tuesday appear before the House of Representatives to explain the new cash withdrawals policy of the apex bank.

The House was to grill Emefiele over the policy on Thursday but he failed to appear before the lawmakers.

The Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, CBN, Edward Adamu, in a communication to the House, told the lawmakers that Emefiele was part of Buhari’s entourage on an official trip to the United States.

The Deputy Speaker of the House, Ahmed Wase, read out the letter to members at the opening of plenary on Thursday.

The letter, with Reference Number GVD/DGC/CON/NAS/002/055, which was addressed to the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, was dated December 13, 2022, and titled ‘Re-Invitation for a Briefing.’

After reading the letter, Wase said, “Colleagues, the Speaker has already rescheduled to Tuesday, December 20th for the CBN governor to appear.”

The House had last Thursday summoned Emefiele to come and explain the policy to the parliament.

The resolutions were based on a motion of urgent public importance moved by a member of the House, Aliyu Magaji, while another member, Ibrahim Olanrewaju, raised a point of order urging the chamber to demand suspension of the policy until the lawmakers conclude their investigation, a prayer that was unanimously granted.

Other members of the House also alleged that the CBN breached the Act establishing the apex bank, especially Section 5 and Section 8(4), by failing to brief the National Assembly before rolling out policies.

They also queried how the CBN funded that naira notes change, alleging a breach of Sections 80 and 83 of the 1999 Constitution which mandates all government bodies to spend only funds appropriated by the National Assembly.

Court declines assent

Meanwhile, Justice Sylvanus Oriji of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja has declined to grant a motion seeking to stop the new cash withdrawal policy of the CBN.

The application was brought before the court by 10 named applicants for themselves and on behalf of 20 million Nigerian citizens who do not use banks.

The PUNCH reported that although the decision by the court was taken on Tuesday, the court processes were obtained by journalists in Abuja on Thursday.

Buhari, Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami and Emefiele were listed as respondents.

The applicants prayed the court to grant injunctions restraining the respondents from proceeding with the January 31, 2023 deadline for the use of the current N200, N500 and N1,000 notes as it affects the citizens without any realistic plans or workable guidelines to cover the over 20 million unbanked Nigerians who are vulnerable to information and the use of technologically driven platform without the possibility of financial inclusion.

They also prayed for an order restraining the CBN from the implementation of the revised cash withdrawal limits.

Furthermore, they asked the court to grant an order for accelerated hearing to the suit and also an order for substituted service on the parties while also praying for the order of court mandating the CBN to produce a detailed plan and guidelines covering the over 20 million unbanked citizens who are vulnerable to the use of telecommunication and technologically driven money platforms.

After listening to the counsel to the applicants, Justice Oriji declined the prayers for an injunction but rather directed that all the respondents be put on notice to come and show cause why the order for an injunction should not be granted against them.

The judge thereafter adjourned the matter to January 10, 2023, after granting orders for accelerated hearing and substituted service.

NIGERIA: Flooding: Experts Warn Of Pandemic As Corpses Float

PUNCH NIGERIA

By Okechukwu Nnodim, Chima Azubuike, Daniels Igoni, Matthew Ochei and Victor Ayeni

The Nigerian Medical Association on Wednesday raised the alarm over the floods across Nigeria, warning the country was at a high risk of waterborne diseases.

The President of the NMA, Dr Uche Ojinmah, in an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja, lamented that corpses were floating in floods, adding that the government should swing into action to prevent an epidemic.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund had a few days ago, said the floods, which had affected 34 out of the 36 states in the country, had displaced 1.3 million people.

The UN body said over 600 people had lost their lives, adding that over 200,000 houses had either been partially or fully damaged.

In the interview with The PUNCH, the NMA president said there were high risks of waterborne diseases in the country as a result of the floods.

Ojinmah said, “The wells and streams are already contaminated so there is a risk of waterborne diseases, especially in the affected states.

“Corpses are floating in the floods, especially in Bayelsa. The government needs to provide good camping, toilets, water and healthcare for them because they will need to be attended to medically for their health needs.”

Also, the President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, Dr Emeka Orji, told The PUNCH that there were immediate and future implications and threats of the floods in the country.

“I must confess that we’ve not conducted any study to find out the effects of flooding in the country. Unfortunately, floods can lead to waterborne diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, and typhoid fever.

“The state and federal governments must proffer preventive measures to prevent this disaster from reoccurring. Usually, there’s a warning that the flooding was going to happen but if we have an adequate emergency response team, this would have been prevented. So, I blame the state and federal governments.

FCT NMA

The Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Medical Association in the FCT, Dr Muyiwa Komolafe, on his part said the floods would lead to pollution and waterborne diseases.

He said “Floods are not a new thing but this year’s case is high and it will definitely pollute the ground waters. That of this year is astronomical because of the water released from the dam. But we could have averted the disasters because we have forecasters that have predicted this.

“There will be pollution because most filling stations have their fuel reservoirs underground. Don’t forget that toilets and septic tanks are there, so it is certain that there will be waterborne diseases like cholera, and typhoid and anybody around the waters is at risk.

“I will blame both the government and the people because there were predictions earlier.’’

A former President of the Association of Resident Doctors, Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital chapter, Bayelsa State, Dr Oru-Oru Inestol, said the massive flooding could pre-dispose the populace to the outbreak of water-borne diseases.

The Secretary of the Gombe State Chapter of the NMA, Dr Daniel Apollos, in an interview with one of our correspondents in Gombe said there were health concerns, especially cholera.

Meanwhile, the governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, on Wednesday, commiserated with his Bayelsa counterpart, Douye Diri, over the flood situation in his state.

Emmanuel, who led a delegation of his cabinet members to the Government House, Yenagoa, said his cabinet decided to visit Bayelsa based on the magnitude of the flood that hit the state.

Describing the natural disaster as pathetic, he applauded the relentless efforts of Diri in standing by his people in their moment of despair, stressing that his gesture was a mark of true leadership.

Emmanuel, therefore, presented a cheque of N100m to Diri and also announced that a truckload of relief materials courtesy of his wife’s Family Empowerment Programme Foundation was on its way to support flood victims in the state.

Lagos floods

In Lagos State, the state government, on Wednesday, said the flood incident at Oko Oba, in the Agege area of the state, was caused by property owners in the community.

The state Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tunji Bello, who made this known in his reaction to a viral video clip, added that all the affected structures were on a drainage channel alignment.

Bello said, “Contrary to impressions being created, the area which is behind Abimbola Awoniyi Estate by Agric Road, Oko Oba, Agege has always experienced a flash flood.

“The pictures which were taken two hours after the rain showed the culpability of the property owners who have limited the capacity of the Oko Oba channel by infringing on its setback and the pictures also showed the extent to which the setback has been turned into a refuse dump by the residents as well as new constructions.”

Also on Wednesday, the Gombe State government received items worth millions of naira from the North-East Development Commission to cushion the effect of the flood disaster which ravaged some parts of the state.

The items, which include rice, mats, shades materials, blankets, and dresses were presented to the state government by the Representative of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in the company of the Managing Director, North East Development Commission at their Central Stores, Bogo in the Metropolis.

10,000 households

The Chairman of Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State, Juan Governor, disclosed that a total of 10,611 households across impacted communities in the locality were displaced by the current ravaging flood.

The chairman, who disclosed this in his regular flood impact summary on Wednesday, said all the farmlands in the locality were devastated beyond remedy.

He said roads and other critical infrastructure, including the council secretariat in Aboh, were also submerged, as earlier reported.

The governor disclosed that the council so far received N1,500,000.00 in donations, which were lodged in the council’s account and earmarked for post-flood management plans.

In a related development, the government’s poor response and deaths caused by the flood sparked anger on Wednesday.

The All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa State sympathised with the people of the state over the loss of lives and extensive destruction caused by the recent floods in the state.
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It berated the Diri-led administration for not making adequate preparations, stating that the effects of the flooding would have been reduced if the state government put measures in place.

The APC, in a statement signed by its State Publicity Secretary, Doifie Buokoribo, on Wednesday said the natural catastrophe reached almost every part of the state and caused large-scale damage to livelihoods.

An environmental analyst, Mr Michael Simire, during a phone interview with our correspondent, said the government at all levels was to blame for the damage caused by the flood and the loss of lives.

He said, “This was largely the fault of the government at all levels because the flood was majorly caused by the Lagdo dam in Cameroon that was opened, resulting in the flood. This flooding incident had already occurred about 10 or 11 years ago and the poor response of the government has been the same. The Federal Government ought to have constructed a dam that would contain the effect of the opening of the Lagdo dam but they did nothing.

“The FG through the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, claimed that the Cameroon dam played a little role in the flood and that it was more a problem with the tributaries. Even that excuse is not strong enough to justify the inaction of the government.

There should have been proactive measures put in place over the years and even the state governments should have sensitised and alerted the people who resided in the vulnerable areas. There were annual predictions made by the Nigerian Metrological Agency which the state governments should have heeded because they predicted the flood. Nothing was done and it is worrisome.”

Another environmentalist, Mr Greg Udogwu, told The PUNCH that the flood wouldn’t have been severe if the government had prepared in advance through the construction of a dam since the 1970s.

He said, “Flooding is a natural disaster but it could have been well utilised, for example for irrigation of agricultural farms, but that entails a plan in place. In 1977 or thereabout the Nigerian government embarked on a dam but it was abandoned by 1982 and this was why up till today the effect of the opening of the Lagdo dam in Cameroon was so massive.

“If that dam had been constructed, it would have contained that water that came when the water from their dam was released. They released the water due to climate change and high rainfall which increased the water level but our country had no means of containing it. In 2012, over 300 lives were lost but this year it is over 600 because we have entered another phase of climate change and we now have more rainfall.

“So, I will blame the failure of the government to make use of the River Niger, Benue and the river in Taraba to effective use and here, flooding has now become a curse when we consider the damage done and the lives lost. This is why President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the Minister of Water Resources to come up with a plan, unfortunately, I think the 90 days is too long.”

INTERVIEW: Britain Owes Igbo Apology, Compensation For Biafra’s Destruction – Prof Anya

Prof. Uju Anya

Uju Anya is the Professor 0f Second Language Acquisition, Dept. of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University

BY GODFREY GEORGE

EXCERPT:

Were you born in Nigeria?

First of all, I would love to say I am Ada Igbo (the first daughter of Igbo land). They cannot deny me (my heritage) because I am a lesbian. I am a child of Igbo land – I am of an Igbo father, and that is who I am. I don’t disown them; they cannot disown me. I am also a child of Trinidad because my mother is from Trinidad. So, I am African and Caribbean. I have lived in the United States for almost 40 years now; I have been here since 1986. I came here when I was 10 years old, and I am now 46. So, I also consider myself American. I am a very proud mother of two intelligent, loving and kind children biologically and I have one stepson. I am also a professor and academic researcher of language learning and multilingualism.

Your tweet wishing the late Queen Elizabeth II an ‘excruciating death’ sparked outrage from many quarters around the world. Are you regretful you made that post?

No, I am not, I have to be very honest with you. I am not. My tweet came from a place of deep pain and deep emotions. It was not something that I planned or calculated. It was spontaneous and was part of my emotional reaction to the impending death of my oppressor. It was spontaneous at the time. However, it is not something I regret or something that I will ever apologise for. I will rest, sleeping every night, knowing that I told the truth.

You mentioned that your ancestors suffered in the Biafran war, for which you hold the British responsible. Can you give some details of the kind of experience your people went through?

It was not just my ancestors, but also my immediate and living relatives. There were family members who died but there are also people who are still alive today who survived the genocide. This is because this is a very recent history and a recent memory. The war ended in 1970, and many people who witnessed it are still alive today. I was born in ’76 and I lived in the aftermath of the war. My family suffered and some died. It was traumatic. My parents are dead now, but I have siblings alive today who went through Biafra as children. They were under the age of 10. Our family also has a war baby. My mother was pregnant during the war and gave birth to my second oldest brother in Biafra. So, this is something that is extremely close to me, and it is in my personal existence and in addition to the overall history of my family and the broader history of the Igbo people.

What stories did your family members tell you about what they went through during the war?

I am not claiming that I went through Biafra because I wasn’t born yet then, but it didn’t end in 1970. There were a lot of issues that we had to deal with. My childhood was filled with the reconstruction of war-torn buildings and sites and projects. My father was involved in such projects of reconstructions. When you think of people who went through a holocaust, then, you can imagine how traumatic it must have been. When I speak of ‘holocaust’, I am not speaking of the Jewish holocaust where we lost over six million people. ‘Holocaust’ itself means a ‘mass slaughter’, and what happened to the Igbo during Biafra was a massacre, where more than three million people were killed. All my family dinner table conversations were always about who ran where, who took cover where, who was buried where, who was lost and where the displaced people went. When people survive genocide and mass displacement, there is always going to be that shadow or spectre above surrounding everyone. To date, we are still mourning and talking about it. Ask any Igbo person, they are going to tell you that they are still affected by the war. This is something that is now a part of our legacy as a people; it was something that was done to us. This is something that the British did to us in the very beginning of how they orchestrated the division that caused the separatist movements or the formation of an independent country and how they supported those who committed the genocide by giving them weapons and military vehicles, hiring mercenaries to come and kill the Igbo people and giving the Nigerian soldiers bombs and military supplies, such as planes and whatever they needed to slaughter civilians. The three million people that died were not armed combatants; these were village people. All my life I have heard stories of my mother running with two children under the age of 10 and being pregnant with a third from village to village after they bombed each village that they ran to.

One of the most horrific stories that I will never forget for as long as I live is one my mother told me. She said the airplanes that were sent to bomb the villages flew so low that one could see the pilot inside the cockpits, laughing as he sprayed people with machine guns. These were villagers who were desperately running for their lives. My mother told me that it was a memory that was a part of her life. That was the grotesque nature of this attack on our lands. Where did they get those planes? Where did they get those bombs? Did Nigeria manufacture bombs and guns at that time? The British gave it to them, because of their interest in the oil that was in Igbo land. I also heard stories from the Ada of our family. She is 14 years older than me. She has stories of her own children, lying in a hole. She would run and jump inside a bunker filled with dead bodies. She would lie underneath dead bodies inside the hole to hide from soldiers. Can you imagine that for a child under 10 years old? This is what my people suffered in this genocide! Some of the people are still looking for their loved ones or where they buried them to date. Go to Enugu; there are still buildings that were destroyed and have not been able to be rebuilt after the war.

Many have said this happened a long time ago and that the Igbo should move above it and forge a better future. Don’t you also agree?

When people say the war happened ‘a long time ago’, I don’t understand what they mean by that. The Biafran war is a part of our modern contemporary history. ‘Long ago’, in historical terms, is not 60 years. That is not ‘long ago’ in the span of history. Not when you have people alive who went through that. So, when I expressed my deep and profound pain in that tweet, wishing the late Queen (Elizabeth II) a painful death, that is the pain I was speaking from – the pain of my people; the pain of knowing that she (Elizabeth II) was the leader of the people that did this to us, together with the Nigerian Army. I am not saying anything that is controversial or not a part of our historical facts. Everything that I am saying is recorded in history today and can be verified. The British involvement is being recorded; the British funding is also being recorded. The Biafrans would have successfully separated and formed their own country if the British had not interfered and supported the Nigerian army, funding them. So, the British caused this genocide by making sure that the people that were trying to separate were squashed.

The arguments with a lot of Nigerians and those in the Diaspora are that the Queen was just a ‘figurehead’ and couldn’t have done much in that situation. Don’t you think this absolves her of blame?

Absolutely not. Firstly, the Queen was not just merely a figurehead. They like to talk about her as though she were a statue or something like that that they have sitting in the palace. She was not just a figurehead. They can make the argument that she wasn’t involved in the day-to-day decisions that were made by her government. However, it is very well known that she got briefed every single day about what her government was doing. That is part of the palace proceedings on a daily basis. This briefing is one of the most zealously guarded secrets of Buckingham Palace. Since no one has access to that briefing, nobody can say what the Queen knew or didn’t know. But we know she knew something because she was told every day. She was not completely removed from the politics. On top of that, she sat on a throne of blood. She was a queen of a nation that has a treasury. Everything, down to the jewels that she wears on that crown, comes from plunder, theft, pillage and blood. Where does the world’s famous and gigantic treasure of the British monarchy come from? It came from the blood of the people they sold, enslaved and exploited, and the natural resources they stole after extracting from people. Even that throne that she sat on is supported and funded by blood money – our blood! So, I will hundred per cent reject any form of an assertion that the monarch of a kingdom is somehow removed or divorced from the actions or the government of that kingdom. She would not be able to live in the palace that she lived in if her government was not doing things to the rest of the world to keep her in that palace.

It is not true that she wasn’t actively involved in colonialism. She was touring everywhere, inspecting, and making speeches on behalf of colonialists and in colonised lands. She was directly there as both figurehead and symbol and as ruler of a very gruesome and bloody regime. I mean, there was a report by PUNCH that the president of Nigeria said the late Queen backed Nigeria during the Biafran war.

Do you take exception to the President’s statement?

I would not like to comment on the Nigerian government or any of the politicians or leaders on what they are doing and what they are not doing. I have not lived in Nigeria for almost 40 years. I am not registered to vote and I am not part of any political movement in Nigeria nor do I get involved in Nigerian politics. US politics is what I know and what I am involved in. Even in the US, I am a registered Independent. I neither support the Democrats nor do I support the Republicans or any of those parties. That is how strongly I believe in political independence and not being part of any party strategy whatsoever. All I can say is that I believe in a unified Nigeria. The wrong that has been done to the Igbo has to be compensated. At least, ‘sorry’ should be said. I expect this of the British government and the monarchy. No matter who you are or how big a government you are, when you have done wrong, hurt people, killed people, especially on a massive scale, I believe they must apologise and recognise that they have done something wrong. I also believe that Nigeria should be for all Nigerians. We didn’t have a choice for the country to be formed in the first place – the British did that, too, forcefully putting independent nations into one. Now that we are together, we must try to accommodate one another so we can thrive and not just one group over the other.

Will the apology by Britain lay the painful memories and emotions of the Biafran war to rest?

Lay it to rest completely? I believe financial reparation will go a long way to do that. We need justice and an apology; it’s very important for justice. Justice is what counts.

What do you make of the fresh Igbo secession agitation from Nigeria being championed by the Indigenous People of Biafra?

I am being unfairly roped into the issue with IPOB. They are impersonating and using my image and name for pro-IPOB comments. I didn’t say these things. They are harming me and putting me in tremendous pain. I am not involved in Nigerian politics. I have no political candidate that I am supporting and I don’t support IPOB. I am an independent person who expressed my personal pain about the injustice that was done by the British government to my immediate family and my people. I also expressed my pain about the global injustice of the British monarchy at the hand of the Queen in the exploitation, abuse, enslavement, genocide that she caused in many other places besides Igbo land. That is what I want to talk about.

You told some foreign media that you are being attacked because you are black and from a sexual minority. How?

Those attacks, especially by Amazon Founder, Jeff Besoz, are laced with racism. Besoz rarely tweets in his own voice, so for him to quote-tweet me to his more than five million obsessed followers was an attack on my blackness. For all his followers, he attacked me. He didn’t say my words were objectionable or things like that but he attacked my profession. He is insinuating that I should not be a teacher because of my tweet, and he did this as the second richest man in the world. This is simply because I told the world how my people suffered under the British monarchy. This is because of racism and misogyny. He knew that his followers would attack me. If you saw what happened to my email inbox after Bezos did that, you will not even think I was a human being with the things they were saying to me.

The Carnegie Mellon University where you lecture dissociated itself from your statement. Aren’t you afraid that the university may sanction you?

Amazon has donated billions of dollars to CMU and that was why Bezos did what he did. Who knows what is going to happen? What I do know right now is that my job is secure. There is no threat against my employment with CMU. The people that I have been talking to, who were in the room with the leadership of the school, when they were talking about me, never told me any word of CMU terminating my employment because of the tweet. I haven’t heard about sanctions either. Their reaction was what they did. The statement that they put out distancing themselves from my tweet was the only they have done. But it should be noted that while they disagree with what I said, they spoke up and defended my freedom of expression and freedom to say whatever I wanted to say on my own personal social media account. I am not a representative or administrator of my university. I don’t even have the name of my university in my bio and on my account. It says very clearly there that the views expressed there are solely mine. The university recognised that, knowing that I wasn’t speaking for them.

People have queried that you should have been tactful with your tweet because death was involved. Don’t you think the timing of your tweet was wrong?

You don’t tell people when to speak about their pain. It is offensive for anyone to presume to tell the child of survivors of genocide when and how to speak about the people who slaughtered their family and their group. Nobody has the right to tell me how to speak about my pain and how to express the profound rage that I feel about injustice in this world, not just about my family and the people, whom the British monarchy is responsible for. I don’t believe in the notion of not speaking ill about the dead. When the late Prophet T.B. Joshua died, I tweeted and called him a thief. This is not the first time and it won’t be the last.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

NIGERIA: Illegal Detention: AGF, Police To Pay Lady Accused Of Spying For IPOB 60m

Glory Okolie

ABUJA, NIGERIA (NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA) -- The lady was arrested and detained on the suspicion that she was spying for her boyfriend believed to be a member of IPOB.

Justice Adeyemi Ajayi of the Abuja Federal High Court has granted some mandatory orders empowering Gloria Okolie to get the sum of N60 million earlier awarded to her by the FCT High Court presided over by Justice Haliyu.


Justice Ajayi gave the orders during proceedings on Thursday, August 18, 2022, The Punch reports.


How things got here: It all started back in June 23, 2022, when Justice Haliyu granted every relief sought in favour of Okolie and awarded the said amount in punitive and general damages caused to her by the Nigerian police.


Despite several attempts by Okolie to enforce the judgement, including letters and official representations written to the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, the police continued to defy the court's order leading to her counsel to take further legal steps.


AGF's inaction: Okolie’s lawyer, Samuel Ihensekhien, told The Punch that the AGF's refusal to attend to the case forced them to seeking the intervention of a vacation judge.


Ihensekhien said, “The action by the AGF was what culminated into our filing of this case, where the court, today, being August 18, 2022, in an interim ruling, ordered and granted two reliefs.


“The court gave an order compelling the AGF to grant Okolie consent to enforce her judgement against the police, and aid her garnishee any of her awarded judgement funds in any public or financial institution owned by the Nigeria Police Force.


“Also, that on receipt of the above orders in the interim, the AGF should with immediate effect, commence the administrative steps and or the grant of the above orders shall be deemed grant of consent in line with section 84 of Sheriff’s and Civil process Act to enable Okolie garnishee or collect her judgement sum in any financial institutions, where the Nigeria police has an account.”


What happened: On June 17, 2021, officers of the Intelligence Response Team in Owerri, Imo State arrested Okolie, same day she sat for 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Exam (UTME) in the same state.


It was alleged that the Nigeria Police Force illegally detained Okolie for about five months, and turned her into a maid while in police custody.


The police had accused her of acting as a spy for her boyfriend who is a suspected member of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).


Okolie was later transferred to Abuja where she was accused of being a member of IPOB/Eastern Security Network (ESN).


Okolie was set free: Meanwhile, on November 23, 2021, a Federal High Court in Abuja granted bail to Okolie in the sum of N10 million with two sureties, but she was able to perfect her bail conditions four months later.


Okolie sued police: Following her release on March 23, 2022, Okolie instituted a fundamental rights enforcement suit against the police with the backing of more than 51 civil society groups.


In the case filed at the FCT High Court, she asked the court to mandate the respondents being the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Nigeria Police Force to pay her the sum of N100 billion as general and punitive damages separately for infringing on her rights.

Freedom Vs. Fatwa

BY ABIMBOLA ADELAKUN

Last Friday, author Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed at a literary event in New York. The attack culminated the many years of harassment by religious fundamentalists over his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses. When the book was published, Muslims took umbrage over its contents and demonstrated their feelings through public protests and book burnings. Several countries banned the book, Iran synthesised the rage into a Fatwa. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, head of the theocratic regime of Iran, sought a soft target after an attritional war with Iraq (and the resultant economic fallout had brewed domestic disaffection against him) and capitalised on the ongoing controversy. According to his own son, Ahmed, he never even read the book. Yet, he would go ahead and pronounce a fatwa on Rushdie in 1989—and on Valentine’s Day too—and urged Muslims worldwide to assassinate him for the promise of martyrdom, paradise and a bounty that steadily increased to three million dollars.

Rushdie went into hiding and those who wanted to take his life redirected their rage on bookstores, publishers, editors, translators and several others associated with the production and marketing of the book. By the 30th anniversary of the book, the memory of those events had mostly receded from the public domain. Reading the reports of the frenzy that followed the publication of The Satanic Verses would have been amusing if an attack on someone’s life were not involved. In retrospect, all the hysteria over the book seemed like the rage of people who did not have better things to do with their time. Even Rushdie himself thought events had overtaken the death threat. In a 2019 interview, he mentioned that the controversy had largely faded and those who would have him killed had moved to other targets. Ironically, the assailant that would eventually get close enough and harmed him was not even born when The Satanic Verses was first published.

While it raged 30-plus years ago, the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses became a litmus test for free speech, the free exchange of ideas and information as a universal heritage of humanity. The language of fatwa—despite its original meaning as an opinion on or an interpretation of Islamic law by a formal authority—became an internationally recognised lexicon of mindless indignation and a civilisational threat, a return to primal origins where barbarous people arrogate the power over other peoples’ lives to themselves. The Satanic Verses was banned in South Africa and Nigeria—under General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime. While South Africa would officially rescind the ban in 2002, I doubt that of Nigeria was ever revisited. Events might have overtaken the ban, but the vestigial effects of indulging the sentiments of those who claim religious disrespect is still very much with us in Nigeria.

With the attack on Rushdie, we are once again back to evaluating how liberal freedom—an ideal for many societies—is threatened by fatwas. The agents of repression never give up; they are always lurking in the shadows and waiting to strike. Unlike the last century though, one does not quite need a supreme leader to mobilise the primal energies of people who have no control over their emotions; these days, they are self-motivated. Water packaged into 50cl sachets is probably the cheapest item in 2022 Nigeria, but death threats have become even cheaper. The age of the internet has democratised death threats that issuing it has become almost recreational. Wanna be Khomeinis, lacking the wit to sensibly respond to any issue of the day, now merely bring out their phones and type out a death threat.

Death threats have now become the laziest means of contributing tension to public discussions, an easy resort for those moved by a public issue but cannot conjugate their own thoughts into any reasonable language. Beyond cranking out a few words on a keypad, death threats do not require much effort. In the pre-digital era, one at least had to either get someone’s phone number or meticulously craft a threat letter from newspaper cuttings. These days when you can easily reach the target of your ire online, making death threats is a default response for some. Comedian Debo Adedayo (aka Mr Macaroni) does not think the Lekki toll gate should be reopened? Send him death threats. Singer Femi Kuti has an opinion on next year’s general election? Grab your phone and make death threats. Someone does not like actor Eniola Badmus for whatever reason? Send death threats. Comedian Damilola Adekoya (aka Princess) outed a paedophilic colleague? What other response can anyone have to such a significant event than issue death threats, their own version of fatwas? Sending them has become a cheap activity for those loungers who perpetually roam the pathways of the internet seeking whom to devour. That must be the only thrill-seeking exercise they get every day.

We might come a long way from Khomeini’s fatwa because death threats are no longer as sensational but they are still no less of a threat. Probably 99.9 per cent of these threats are made by people, who are merely venting personal frustrations, but those impacted by these trolls are still right to worry about personal safety. One can never tell who will hide under the cover of those public death threats to harm one, which is why these low-budget Khomeinis must not be taken lightly. Anyone whom they threaten should not merely stop at making a video to explain themselves to the public or inform their online followers of the threats. They should also gather their evidence and report to law enforcement agents. Those affected should also endeavour to report online harassment to social media organisations; those companies have processes of suspending or shutting down the accounts of those who abuse the privilege of the platforms.

Meanwhile, Rushdie has—so far, thankfully—survived the knife attack. At 75, he is no longer a young man but I sincerely hope that he pulls through this traumatic incident. I wish for him to bounce back in ruddy health and live many more years, each day serving as a middle finger to those who assumed the task of defending God from his literary prowess. It must pain those who wanted him dead that a book—and its controversy—that had shifted into the recesses of contemporary history is making a resurgence in the market. The Satanic Verses is a bestseller all over again. The generation that did not read the book—and might never have—is now reading and buying for others. Let us now see which regime can successfully ban a book in a digital era. Even younger generation Iranians will read it to inquire what got the Khomeini’s goat. The book will live forever; those who want to see Rushdie dead will be forgotten.

More than the book’s contents that caused the furore, the controversy about The Satanic Verses should always remind us that the freedom to express our God-given imagination cannot be taken for granted; we will not win if we allow them to cower us into silence.

Hopefully, Rushdie’s attacker, too, lives long enough to learn that there is no fighting for God. If convicted, this assailant should—from his cramped prison quarters—learn that those who rush to defend the integrity of an eternal God by killing their fellow humans are the ones who disrespect God. Properly speaking, the very claim of religious blasphemy itself is blasphemous. Blasphemy is a sin contrived by humans who fear that the light of inquiry will upset the façade of their convictions. God cannot be diminished by the words of humans. An infinite God does not need any human defender. Humans can say what they will, but God will still be God and humans will remain mortal.

If God were angry with Rushdie, God would have killed him a long time ago. Rushdie has lived because God is not moved by the opinions of men. God is not that insecure; humans are the ones with the problem. They are the ones who resort to murder and death threats because challenging their pet convictions expands their small minds. Even God would respect a mortal who takes the things we call sacred seriously enough to joke about them far more than God would care about the worship of a person who cannot use their God-given mind to even interrogate what makes what we call sacred, sacred.

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Nigeria Has An Igbo problem

BY CHETA NWANZE

ONE of the best pieces written about Nigeria’s Igbo problem by a non-Igbo person was recently republished by David Hundeyin in his Business Day column. There are two parts to it— The conversation we don’t want to have about Biafra (1 & 2). I highly recommend that you read it.

Reading the article, no one should be surprised about the almost visceral reaction to a tweet I made a few days ago in which I quoted a statement written by Chinua Achebe in his 1983 book, The Trouble with Nigeria. Prof Achebe said, “Nigerians will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo.”

The interesting thing is that if all the people who predictably attacked me and talked about “victim mentality” and “bigotry” and “disunity” had bothered to look at the tweet I had put up just before that, they’d have realised that my tweet was actually addressed to my own people. But expecting people who are entering a discussion with predetermined opinions to bother to do basic digging would be expecting snow in the Sahara. Such people are so caught up in their own bigotry, that what they simply do is project their own mindset on others.

It is true that many Igbo in Nigeria have paranoia regarding our relationship with the country. But you really can’t blame them. Incidents of mass bloodletting in which Igbo people are the sacrificial lambs are still in living memory. I know people who saw first-hand the slaughter of 1966, and since my grandfather (and some of my uncles) were killed in the Asaba Massacre, only his wife (my grandmother) and his first son (who survived the Massacre simply because he was abroad when it happened) have passed away. In other words, there are people alive who faced a firing squad 55 years ago just because their ancestors spoke a dialect of the language that was classified as Igbo by TE Dennis around 1908. I have not talked about people who survived attacks in places like Kano and Kaduna in the 1990s and 2000s, again, simply because of where their ancestors came from.

You see, Nigeria has an “Igbo problem”and no matter how many times people try to deny it, it is there. It manifests in so many ways. Think about Danladi Umar (CCT Chairman Umar’s “Biaran Boys” insult part of Nigeria’s unofficial Igbophobia, Peoples Gazette, April 3, 2021); Abubakar Malami (Malami equates open grazing to spare parts trading in the North, Arise TV, May 20, 2021); Remi Tinubu (We don’t trust Igbo people – Remi Tinubu, NewsGuru, 2019), and the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), just as examples. Nobody has as much as censured any one of them, and more people are taking a lead from these rather bad examples as Igbo bashing is becoming more of a staple on social media.

Having said all of this, I must say that I am increasingly moving towards the view that even we, ndi Igbo, have some work to do on ourselves. There is a need for us to change our ways and adapt to our environment that is even more urgent as Nigeria is headed for an enforced renegotiation. We would be making a strategic error if we entered that renegotiation as the group that everyone loves to hate.

Something I have been consistent with is this: While the idea has some merit, I’d rather not have an Igbo man replace Buhari as Nigeria’s president next year, for the simple fact that the disaster the man has wrought on Nigeria is so great and it is his successor that will be blamed for it.

You see, aside from having a collective short memory and living in the moment, Nigerians tend to do collective guilt. This means that, more often than not, we blame the sins of one person on his entire natal group—ethnic or religious. It’s the way we’ve been trained since colonial times. Yes, all those “punitive expeditions” conducted by people like Hugh Trenchard trained us to hold a village responsible for the actions of an individual, and you can’t undo that in a few short years of concerted effort, which is something we have not even started. I struggle to recollect, ever, a period in Nigeria’s post-independence history where we have had a deliberate campaign to teach our people about the benefits of holding an individual, not his group, responsible for his actions. You see it in the way our security forces behave to this day: A man is accused of fraud and absconds, and police go to his house and arrest his wife. Some youths kill a soldier, and the army goes in and razes their village. This is how we roll, and this has affected the relationship of Nigerians with members of its third-largest ethnic group.

There are two counter-arguments to my argument about not wanting an Igbo man to succeed Buhari. The first one was made by my friend Tunde Leye, and it’s about how such a hypothetical Igbo president would use the awesome powers that the Nigerian presidency bestows on its holder. That argument is theoretical, but I’m certain that whoever succeeds Buhari will not have the goodwill that Buhari came in with, the goodwill that helps such a person harness the security forces to their max. Whoever succeeds Buhari will face all sorts of opposition, open and hidden, from day one. If he tries to clamp down, many of those who have hitherto been silent as Buhari unleashed security forces on Shiites, Indigenous People of Biafra and peaceful protesters at Lekki in Lagos State would suddenly find their voices. Buhari’s successor is going to have an uncomfortable time, of this I am certain.

The other counter-argument is that Igbo people should not be afraid of pushing our best forward to change things in the challenging environment that will be post-2023 Nigeria…

This argument has merit, and our culture encourages people to take on challenges. After all, our ancestors said, “Mberede nyiri dike, mana mberede ka eji ama dike (A hero is determined by the impossibility of the task before him).”

This is true, but our ancestors also said, “Ikpe aghahi ima 0chicha ebe okuko nuo (A cockroach is never innocent in a gathering of fowls).”

This brings the question, which will happen to a putative Igbo president first post-Buhari? The hero part, or the cockroach part?

Sadly, despite all the apparent suffering in the country, Nigerians are not quite ready to have that conversation about the hard decisions necessary to change the fundamentals of the country, so there is no point in putting one of ours in the bull’s eye to make those decisions. I am of the opinion that the whole thing has to run completely aground first, and stay aground for a while before people’s eyes will begin to clear. Nigeria is not there yet, and wouldn’t be for another five to 10 years. For example, whoever attempts to remove the petrol subsidy in June 2023 is going to face mass action. Whoever attempts to repeal the Land Use Act will face a massive kick. I’d rather it is not an Igbo person simply because we have the weight of history on our backs. An Igbo man making these tough but necessary decisions will have the blowback of the inevitable escalated short-term suffering that follows the decisions visited on the entire group.

Having said all that, if the rest of the country decides that they want an Igbo person to succeed Buhari, then I’ll go with the maxim that “vox populi vox Dei,” even though I don’t believe that God speaks through anyone in Nigeria any longer.

However, my point is buttressed by the attention, scorn, and near disdain that is greeting the opposition to Peter Obi’s attempts by various quarters, so let’s remind ourselves of a bit of fairly recent history. In 1999, a majority of the country accepted that the Yoruba people had been cheated of the presidency six years earlier, and as a result, for the first time in our history, every other group stepped back and only one group, the Yoruba, produced the candidates for the election. I was just a young man of 19 at the time preparing to vote for the first time ever, but I don’t recall anyone telling the Yoruba that “you are not united”, “give us just one person to vote for”, “but you have threatened to leave Nigeria”, and other such crap we’ve recently heard.

This is the kind of language that we have been hearing from a lot of quarters in this day, when many Igbo people and even non-Igbo such as my friends, Dapo Oluyomi and Gege Ediae, who both feel, rightly or wrongly, that it is time to “give” the presidency to the South-East.

Is that fair?

It is patently unfair that at various times, Nigeria has been able to agree that “it’s the turn of a group” Yoruba (presidency in ’99), Niger Delta (VP in 2007 with a view to replacing the North in 2015 before fate intervened), North in 2015, then suddenly when the Igbo use the same argument the rules appeared to change. But as I’ve pointed out, I don’t want an Igbo person to take this poisoned chalice because, for us, the rules change, and that is a reality we have to live with and plan according to.

For those who like to pretend that Nigeria has no “Igbo problem,” udo diri unu.

Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence

SOURCE: PUNCH

Hunger Spreads, Poverty Deepens As Nigerian Families Battle Skyrocketing Food Prices

Image: Punch

EDIDIONG IKPOTO and ANOZIE EGOLE recently conducted market surveys on the rising food prices. Traders and their customers share their pain as inflation takes its toll on households amid worsening poverty

Traders across various markets in Lagos State have lamented Nigeria’s growing inflation rate as food prices continue to record exponential increases.

The price hike is also affecting households as families are lamenting that it is causing hunger and deepening poverty in the country.

Checks by our correspondents at various markets in the state revealed that most food items recorded a hundred per cent increase over the last two years, a trend which aptly underlines Nigeria’s economic woes, particularly in the last six years.

According to her, most of the food items in her stall sold at less than half the current price as of two years ago owing to a spike in prices of food items post COVID-19 as well as Nigeria’s unending inflation problems.


“This vegetable oil we’re selling N7,500 today, before COVID-19 in 2020 we were selling it between N3000 to 3,500, but now, anytime we go to the market to buy, it is always a higher price than what we bought it the last time. It’s the same with most of the other food items here. A roll of tomato paste before is N200 for five, but now it’s N400. It’s difficult for us sellers also, but there is nothing we can do,” she said.

When our correspondent visited other markets around Ojodu axis in Lagos, there were few dissimilarities in the accounts of the traders, who corroborated earlier claims that rising food prices had been a result of Nigeria’s staggering inflation rate.

Another trader, who identified herself as Adeola, said the increase in prices of food items had been a direct consequence of surging prices by players higher up in the supply chain.

She said the rapid increase became necessary for the traders who had to maintain their profit margins to stay in business.

“Market has been very hard for us, and the thing is that customers don’t understand what we are facing. Anytime we go to market now we have to go with more money than our budget because the price of food items can go up anytime.”

Asked which food items had witnessed the most increase in the last few years, she cited melon, dried fish and stockfish as some of the items with the most price fluctuations.

“Before COVID this melon was N400 for one De Rica, but now we’re selling N900, very soon it will enter N1000. Even a bottle of groundnut oil was N500 before, but now it’s N900, almost going to N1000,” she said.

Also, Mrs Cynthia Nliam, lamented that the cost of things is higher than what it used to be before.

“Before now, if I went to the market with N10, 000 I knew what I would get and I knew the family was going to feed fat at least in the next two days or more. But now, just a kilogramme of fish is over N1000 as against N900 we bought e few weeks back. And the worst part of the whole story is that there are no plans for these items coming down in the nearest future. They will keep going up and there is no increase in the sales.”

Corroborating what she said, Nzeocha Prudence, who sells foodstuffs, said that there was a drastic drop in sales.

A housewife, who spoke to one of our correspondents on condition of anonymity, also said, “My husband is a low-income earner. As a security man in a private company, he earns N100,000 monthly. After paying our house rent in Agbado and the cost of his transportation to Ikeja, what is left for the upkeep of the family of six is not more than N50,000. Sometimes, we skip some meals.”


Meanwhile, in its recent report titled “Four paths to respond to the food price crisis,” the World Bank noted that as the devastating war in Ukraine raged on causing untold suffering, its impact was being felt far beyond its borders, battering a world emerging from a pandemic that has hit developing countries hardest. Among the most critical is the food price crisis, calling into question the affordability and availability of wheat and other essential staples.

The Washington-based bank said there was no downplaying the blow that the war had dealt to food systems, already fragile from two years of COVID-19 disruptions, climate extremes, currency devaluations, and worsening fiscal constraints. Because Ukraine and Russia account for over a quarter of the world’s annual wheat sales, the war has led to a significant rise in the price of food, not only wheat but barley, maize, and edible oil among others exported by these two countries. Global and domestic food prices were already close to all-time highs before the war, and a large question mark looms over the next season’s harvests worldwide due to the sharp increase in fertilizer prices as well.

Also, data from the National Bureau of Statistics has shown that in February 2022, an average price of 1kilogram of beans rose on year-on-year basis by 50.1per cent.

The report which was titled, Selected Food Price Watch for the month of February 2022, also showed that there was an increase of 3.34per cent month-on-month from N 481.47 in January 2022 to N 497.54 in February 2022.

According to the data, the average price of bread sliced 500g, also, increased year-on-year by 34.11 per cent from N 326.61 in February 2021 to N438.03 in February 2022.

“It shows that the average price of 1kg of beans (white, black eye, sold loose) rose on year-on-year basis by 50.1 per cent from N 331.48 in February 2021 to N 497.54 in February 2022. Similarly, there was an increase of 3.34percent month-on-month from N 481.47 in January 2022 to N 497.54 in February 2022. The average price of Bread sliced 500g, also, increased year-on-year by 34.11 percent from N 326.61 in February 2021 to N438.03 in February 2022. On month-on-month, the average price of this item increased by 4.63 percent (N418.65) in February 2021”

“Likewise, the average price of 1kg tomato increased from N367.01 in January 2022 to N393.08 in February 2022 indicating 7.10 percent rise. Year-on-year analysis shows that the average price also rose by 46.03 percent (N 269.18) in February 2021.

In the same vein, the average price of Agric eggs (medium size price of one) increased by 2.65 percent from N58.28 in January 2022 to N59.82 in February 2022. Also, the average price of 1kg Yam tuber rose by 39.92 percent from N242.82 in February 2021 to N339.76 in February 2022. Similarly, the average price of Groundnut oil: 1 bottle, specify bottle stood at N971.01 in February 2022; this shows an increase of 3.18 per cent (N941.10) in January 2022. In the same way, the year-on-year analysis shows an increase of 43.46 percent (N676.87) in February 2021.


State price distribution shows that Ebonyi recorded the highest average price of beans (white, Black eye, sold loose) with N880.59 and the lowest was reported in Bauchi with N243.67. Furthermore, the highest average price of bread Sliced 500g was recorded in Abuja with N630.33 while the lowest was recorded in Gombe with N255.2. Taraba recorded the lowest price of 1kg Tomato with N133.39 while the highest price was reported in Edo with N711.67.” ,,

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