Revealed: Why Fashola may deport more Igbo indigenes

Open Letter to the Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola: economic and policy saboteurs are on the prowl in the State. 

 

Your Excellency,

 

Would you believe it that I caught a group of men – a mixture of Igbo and Yoruba -- demanding for Wharf Landing levy from commercial drivers? Please follow my narratives.

With this letter, my primary intention is to bring to your attention a good bad experience I had on Lagos–Abeokuta Expressway, at Cement (Onilekere) Bus/stop to be precise, as commuter in a Lagos City commercial bus bounded for Oshodi from Sango. I actually boarded the bus at Meran on a return journey from a visit to an elderly friend, your friend too – that renowned Igbo indigene member of Awo Foundation who is also your party, All Progressive Congress (APC’s) chieftain in Agbado-Okeodo, LCDA, Chief Livinus Okwara, Founder of Rimax Institute.

This full disclosure of his identity is an important reference point to the issue being raised here because he just shared the result of his personal suspicions about the shenanigans of your alleged deportation of some Igbo indigenes from Lagos only few minutes past that day. He had alleged a tone of plots by some Igbo politicians with heavy presence in Lagos to sabotage your governance credit with a view to weaken the rising profile of your party, APC.

The bad experience was my encounter of full blown misconducts of a group of men about ten in all – including two of them in a type of security uniform (grey top on deep ash pair of trousers) who the team leader, a heavily built man addressed as ‘Olopa’ (meaning the Police) -- intercepting commercial buses and impounding them after discharging their passengers. The illegal operation, as I established it to be, was said to have been on for hours before my bus got to the bus/stop scene to meet its bad fate too. How much may had been impounded I may not say. But at the count from mine before they retreated in their operational bus, they impounded 12 buses which they drove away to unknown destination.

In fact, their modus operandi was barbaric: impounding with bullying in their large number. In commando-like, they would invade the unsuspecting bus from both the driver and passenger side, force both doors open; snatch the vehicle keys from the ignition knob, drag down the driver and a member of the team takes over the driver’s seat.

On my curiosity after observing this for a while, I sought their identity and the subject-head of their operation. The first person I approached claimed they were officials of the Ikeja Task Force on Road and Traffic Revenue. And on the subject head of their operation, he said they were acting against defaulters in Wharf Landing fees. But when I asked him if he knew more or how much fact he knew about Wharf Landing fees, he backed down and invited another person to "handle this I too know", referring to me

Feeling secured with the identity card to flaunt, the new person claimed they were members of Mobile Revenue Task Force for the Ikeja LG, which the Identity card truly revealed. My attention on the ID card revealed the bearer to be one Ogunlade Oluwarotimi. Nevertheless, he could not provide satisfactory answers to my enquiries in response to parts of his claims. For instance, after he could not defend his mention of Wharf Landing fees too, which I took time to enlighten his ignorance -- more embarrassingly to him anyway, he changed the claim of their operation to impounding vehicles of defaulters in purchasing the ‘Councils daily N200 Park Fees’.

 

To this again, I queried if that bus stop was a motor park and if commercial buses in transit through Ikeja LG Province from other LG provinces that had to discharge passengers at the bus stop were qualified to be defaulters too. He simply backed off from my sight, murmuring also, “all this na your gramma”.

My concern informing this open petition grew out of several factors. Foremost is that as that instant of these 'LG officials?' brigandage conducts, and of course in other related matters of public inconveniences perceived to a fall out of the State's policy implementation elsewhere and everywhere, the victims readily held you responsible. They held you accountable for such misconducts of public officials. And doing so, they discredited your government, condemned your governance style, and the whole consequence eventually may soon take its toll on your ruling party, APC. Such was the misinformed widespread animosity display against your rested Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) at the last local government elections in October 2011.

 

Unfortunately, saboteurs, fifth columnists, impostors, impersonators and fraudsters are compounding this problem on daily basis to much that it has become imperative for everyone to join hands with you to fight them on a holistic strength. However, good results can only be achieved in this wise if you take the necessary action when these unscrupulous elements are identified. Like one social advocacy advert posits; spirits: armed robber no be spirits, na human being. Ours is to identify, yours is to sanction after investigation. This is what I have done with this memo.

On this day in question, Friday, November 22, 2013; as this gang of saboteurs and fifth columnists combined discharged passengers from bus after bus. These passengers simply took the recourse to you with bad comments. One of them said, as I heard while standing amidst them: “Won ni Eko oni baje; Eko ti baje laye Fashola - meaning Lagos has since spoilt at Fashola’s regime. Incidentally, this was a comment obviously out of ignorant mind and misinformed disposition.

This leads us to the second reason informing this open petition against this saboteur gang caught in the act.  Just the preceding day, Thursday,I was at the Fifth Christopher Kolade Symposium straight from your wife’s essential social forum – the second edition of her Parenting Forum at MUson centre. Incidentally, you both presented speeches that were touching and  emotion-invoking about social roles of the Nigerian public needed to give our nation a positive rebirth. But while these didn’t catch me unawares, they nevertheless fired the subsisting passion of your leadership creed I have held sacredly from your 100 days-in-office celebration. “You don’t need a position to take responsibility”, you said then.

At that Kolade Symposium, your position was not in any way different when you said that everyone, especially the enlightened mind, must identify with a political party to ignite their interests in matters of State. Although I must say that I am not proud to flaunt apolitical card, as I do tell those doing so that if only they knew how much bad they were doing to themselves and their community. I take actions contributory to governance in this way more out of informed mind I am willing to share with practical example.

This of course, conforms more with your wife’s advocacy mantra introduced at her own event:: that I, as well as every other Nigerian, “must be ready to sweep the front of my house”. The consequence of this she meant was that a network of clean frontage of every housing unit would give a whole clean Nigeria. This as a metaphor to the purpose of this petition is that my knowledge of Wharf Landing fee got from the enlightenment at September 12^th Stakeholders Forum I covered for this magazine became the broom with which I had to sweep the dirts at that scene.

 

It must be noted that a full investigation could reveal that members of your party were collaborators in that obvious sabotage conducts. This is to say membership of political party, so vital as necessary for me to concur with you, could be limited by lack of knowledge of due rights. And to renegade card carrying member of ruling party, power abuse becomes the limitation. Therefore, mass enlightenment and empowering social education appears to be the answer to mass follower docility in matters of governance.

The third reason is the gravest concern for the sources of this deliberate sabotage to which a reference to Chief Okwara's reservations against your apology to Igbos becomes a point. In my chat with that pioneer of mass computer education in Nigeria, his position on the saga is explicitly captured in this excerpt of the interview.

“Fashola only displayed an exemplary leadership to scored a political point by apologising for an offence I feel strongly he did not commit”, he said.

“How do you mean? “I queried

“The information”, he began to explain, “I was privileged to access was that a Lagos commercial bus was said to have arrived a bus stop in Ojodu-Berger area, calling passengers to load. According to a pregnant woman who was a victim and narrated the ordeal, they were driven to an unknown destination where the Igbo indigenes were sorted out in batches of such raiding. They were collated together eventually and loaded into another bus to be deported back to Onitsha”.

According to the computer education guru, why he could not make the information an issue was that Fashola had already owned up to the ensuing blackmailing widespread condemnation. He also said despite this, he still wondered over the difference between the '12 Igbo destitute’ Fashola admitted and the over '72 Igbo' the woman claimed they were.

Giving further insight to the plots he claimed was intended to tarnish the APC's rising profile, Chief Okwara said: “We know the source and I suspect involvement of a candidate in the Anambra governorship election (name withheld) whose party is one of those ruling party in Southwest region.

Now your Excellency, taking a note form this; some materials of operation this gang of 'Ikeja LG officials?’ used could give a lead to suspecting sabotage and mischief. The operational vehicle was a white colour Volswagen bus which they parked in the adjacent street connect to the Express Way at the BRT Bus Terminal edge (see pix 2 above). Their Olopa were two and they sat all through the operation in the bus, which the gang leader (see arrow in pix 2) at first referred to as their mobile court to our driver.

On the driver’s inner mirror of their vehicle, a Mobile Police cotton emblem with insignia of two riffles crossed at their nozzles' end was displayed. In fact, the minibus is typical of those the serving military or mobile police use for commercial PP off duty in their Barrack provinces.

The gang leader and the purported Oluwarotimi looked more like police/military personal than civilian. Besides, the leader’s accent was laced with traces of Igbo.

With this information, I have played a part and hope that you pick up the next stage, which is through investigation.

Your Excellency, saboteurs are on the prowl in Lagos State. It is a fact we need to admit as a precursor to being vigilant, watchful and exert the desire to combat them. The desperate opposition party could do anything to … Sorry, I hold no institution responsible.

Eko o ni baje oo

Yours only,

Razaq Adedeji Jimoh

your admirer, friend; and ...member                      

A part in the many candals of proprietors of private schools

Parable of mighty oaks in Oduahgate as a flaw in scandal management

MEDIA values to the society have been underscored in so many ways that it will amount to flogging it if this piece would have to enlist samples. The end matter about it, however, is that somebody’s ox is often gored as a resultant post-script to the sector’s line of duty on daily basis, especially in a society with the misfortune of credit for being replete with scandalous conducts.

    In my years of service in news gathering and reporting I have come to realize that scandal has grown to become essential part of human schedule in freewill with which falsehoods is dominating our socio-economic interactions in ubiquity. Without adequate data for supporting evidence, I hold the hypothesis that every adult has a material of scandal lurking in a corner of his wardrobe. The irony is that it remains, as a constituent of the elements of that wardrobe, a legitimate dark spot of our life with residual presence in the pit our heart. It only changes status to scandal when wind of fate unsettles it place of rest to blow it into the open. This is the point a test of man comes, as the ultimate end is determined more by how the resulting crisis is managed.

    More often, with factual evidence littering the course of our nationhood, many scandals have consumed their principal out of their failed efforts to justify the scandals with threat and blackmailing, which often tempt to wrap a garb of imbecility around the blower or concerned public. The tendency of course, is for the stakeholders to say: ‘look, we are not stupid’. The matter then goes forth thence into a course of due process for the establishment of facts about the scandal.

    In this democratic dispensation alone, we have seen the Lawangate of bribe security against indictment for fuel subsidy fraud involving Farouk Lawan, the Adhoc Committee Chairman for Fuel Subsidy probe by the House of Representatives, and Femi Otedola, an oil mogul in Nigeria. Of course, it is now history that Lawan first denied that he demanded  $66million bribe from Otedola, adducing to blackmailing before he eventually owned up when emerging material facts began to cease his voice.

   Though still subsisting as scandal of the year 2012 like the Lawangate is the Mainagate of Police Pension Office probe involving N273billion. In senate probe of the activities of a Pension Reform Task Force (PRTF), the Chairman of the body, Abdulrasheed Maina was found indictable for mismanagement of this sum. Rather than honour the invitation of the probing committee of the Senate, Maina resulted to theatrics that eventually earned him a reprieve of an Abuja Federal High Court that quashed the senate’s warrant of arrest imposed on him.

    Of course, Maina is not yet cleared of this scandal and I do not intend to say he his guilty as charged either. But I may not need a pundit’s advice to know that a prima facie may exist against him on account of his accomplice’ confession to the crime.

   Found indictable in the Police Pension Office probe along with Maina were John Yusuff, Atiku Kigo, et al. Yusuff had since confessed to the crime of his N32billion share of the scam before a court of competent jurisdiction. So where lies the fate of Maina in all this? It’s a matter of time.

  The most recent scandal of scam at stake is the Oduahgate involving N225m. The Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah was alleged to have given approval to a subordinate agency to her Ministry, National Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), to purchase for her personal use, two amour BMW limousines at N127.5m each. The grounds of outcry and public rage against this were morally and statutory bounds.

   There were allegations that the price tag was grossly inflated and concession for import duty waivers were fraudulently obtained. In addition, the Minister was accused of approving the expenditure sum that exceeded her approval limit (being N100million) within a budget year. Since that renown online media, Sahara reporters, published to leak the story with hard core fact early October this year, the first official reaction form the NCAA had been a mix of feeble-laden defence aided with threat of arrest against the whistle blower for criminal theft of information in line with the convention of power abuse syndrome synonymous with Federal Government’s connects.

     As it stands today, however, the House of Representative’s probe has since established 12 grounds of indictment against Oduah. These include her technical supplication of righteousness in splitting the cost in spread over two years to accommodate her approval limit for legal bound.

    All of these foregoing scandals are matters of macro interests with insignificant bearing to our daily lives at the local levels beyond a reference point to our dismally moral decay. We celebrate such revelations with fanfare more as to be for enlistment into our records of justification to cite for our bad deeds in our neighbourhoods. It is the error of judgement we commit when we bother about the lion at far while feel unconcerned about the viper at our heels.

   What a scandal like the foregoing will establish is a parable of Mighty Oaks regressing to a rejected spring over an allegations rather than for substance of factual prove.

    If there is an allegation, true of false, that tends to diminish a Mighty Oak to the rumps of odourful spring, a reasonable action form the guard well grounded in virtues of substance of fact is to apply purpose of facts and facts of purpose to make statement that is pleasant and full of substances to restore the glory of the Mighty Oaks. It is the language of weakling to put threats before facts. And as a matter of fact, self defense with material fact is always laden with imperative but subtle latent threat a traducer could need for warning against mischief. This was the point a Lagos based school missed when this Magazine sought to crosscheck the facts about an allegation relating to the school being notorious for conducting West African School Certificate Examinations (WAEC for short) under inhuman condition.

  In the course of gathering materials of stakeholders input into a scheduled cover story in the area of private school education, this magazine stumbled upon reference to some schools in the habit of conducting WAEC/NECO under canopies in the open sun. For being specific with name mentioning by the source, we approached the school for clarifications in line with standard ethics of balanced reportage. What we got in return from the proprietress was a loathsome threats of police arrest to instituting a suit for libel should the story get published.

   The unfortunate thing was that the proprietress lost all sense of decorum to assault our intelligence even with twist of fact, at that instant, to accuse us of attempt to blackmail the school. Worst of all, she seized a copy of our past edition – Lagos Ring of Examination Malpractice – we held for introduction of the coming edition as to be sequel to. The dialogue illustrate the scene better.

   “I am not a member of NAPPS (National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools) or any other association. Maybe that’s why they want to pull down my school. God will judge the person doing this. I am a member of the Redeem Church. I have two schools and there are two halls: one in this school and one in the other. And I donate the one of other school's to the church to use without a fee”. She began after briefings that initiated the discussion..

   “That makes a good defense madam. These are just what we need…”, I tried to guide her right but she cut in.

  “if you publish anything about the school, we will sue your media. My husband is a lawyer with 20 years of practice at the Bar. In fact, he will like to meet you one on one. He asked me to invite you”. she continued.

   “Madam, can I go now because I have some other appointments to keep. Can I get back my magazine”, I asked to fill the pause in her talking.

   “No, I will have to hold this magazine. In fact, you are not going with this magazine”, she said bluntly.

   This was the time I knew I could be in for trouble and you never can tell what a woman like this could do at this time under such anger. “Supposing she accuses me of being a kidnapper with a shout for help, the mob lynching would have gone far before identity clarification could be possible -- that is if I am lucky to survive it”, I though with comportment that hid this fear.

   “Does that mean you intend to detain me here till your husband comes; against my will?” I asked.

   “No, my husband doesn’t come here everyday, you can ask anybody here. But he would like to see this magazine” she replied.

   “Do you know all these your conducts amount to threats. Look, let your husband be with the IG (Inspector General of Police) and give a me call for an invitation to his presence, I will come. So why all this fury?” I queried

    “We would like to know who gave you this information…” She interjected.

    “Good that you are coming clean with your interest. Your husband as a lawyer knows this is not possible even at the point of (putting the edge of my perm to denote) killing”, I said with restraints that checked my anger.

    “It won't get to that, she said and followed up with tutelage of quack journalism for me “But when you heard this, you suppose to come here like a parent seeking inquiries. You ask to see the facilities of the school and you will know the truth”.

    “So what are we here for now, when we told you to give your side of the story? I asked

   “You have come to blackmail us. We don’t do exam malpractice here. And during the examinations, the WAEC officials, the Ministry officials go round to inspect schools; even the head of WAEC at Ogba (name mentioned withheld) know us. They have never found anything against us", she said

    "But in all honesty Madam, have we made mention of any examination malpractice thus far in this discussion? I asked

   “And sometimes", she continued as her choice of answer to this, "your staff had been here to seek our adverts in your magazine and we have been planning to do this. A school that relies on examination malpractice will not bother to do advert”, She explained.

   “Well, you have made your point madam. It’s very clear you are not appreciating our efforts. Can I get back my magazine now?” I asked with finality.

She stood up at this point with the excuse that she was going to do the photocopy of the magazine pages. She returned after several minutes of delay only to put me on phone call to her 'husband'. Thence another round of threat began, but with sense of honour this time -- A factor of gender superiority at work, you may say..

   “I am a lawyer with 20 years post-call at the bar. I am a Pastor in the Redeem Church. I established this school for my wife. If you publish the story, I will bring the Police to arrest you first, then I will sue you and your company”, the voice on the other end said.

    After explaining the purpose of our visit, which the ‘husband’ acknowledged, he said we should be allowed to see the school hall and other facilities. But, to date, we were never allowed to see any hall or other facilities of the school. In the discussion with the husband, he claimed ‘though’ he was ‘planning to put a shade canopy in the compound soon where the children could play table tennis’, the aggressive proprietress had earlier tried to justify that the compound could not contain a canopy. This claim was at best a glairing falsehood as the frontage of the school premises will contain one large size and one medium size canopy conveniently. This nevertheless presupposes the allegation to be true in any way, but it could add up to circumstantial evidences when needful.

   The import of this is to make meaningful deductions from this for the public interests. The first is: what was the basis of flaunting the proprietors’ legal profession as a lawyer, as if being a lawyer confers a natural right to lawlessness or engagement in conducts of social vices. Besides, the threat must have come out of impression that the photograph of the scene of examinations under canopy could hardly exist, that is assuming they felt being caught unawares. So, granted that this is a fact, the purpose of court trial is the examination of the parties to a case for matters of apriori and possible inferences. To present 200 candidates by a school having a hall of 100 sitting capacity is a circumstantial evidence that a court may not overlook.

   Thus it rather would have done the school a good note if it had showcased the fact of the school's facilities than result to threats, which in other considerations, speaks of the danger journalists and media houses face in their line of duties. The threat could have been brutal assaults in another clime.

   Coming back to the macro case studies in sense of using substance of fact to defend an allegation, I will cite two more cases to justify that when threat is advanced against an allegation before factual defence, it often connotes, foremost, an hypothesis of some elements of truth in the allegation.

   The cases of Bode George’s eventual 2 years imprisonment and Barr Kunle Kalejaiye's Saga in the Justice Thomas Naron’s Scandal are well pronounced on this. When a news magazine published the filths of Bode George’s mismanagement of N85billion of Nigerian Port Authority (NPA’s) fund, his first reaction was a threat to sue for libel. Keeping to his threat he instituted the suit right. But when interrogation caused questions to jam questions during trials, fact surfaced and EFCC took over. The end was an added title of ex-convict to his profile.

    Justice Thomas Naron has since been convicted with suspension by the National Judicial Council (NJC) for his role in the underground mobile phone interaction with a lawyer, the Kunle Kalejaiye, in the case of Osun State First Election Tribunal involving Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. Kalejeiye first threatened to sue TheNews Magazine for publishing the story and the evidential call logs. He soon lost the liver to do so when he saw the case of Bode George.

    To the school in question, the message is that we fear no foe; and neither the school is a foe to us, as I assured the the husband. But press gag with threat! we say NO!  Rather we seek your cooperation in a cause for a new orientation for a merit driven society. This is just one in many ways to skin a cat.