CAN NIGERIA ABIDE BY THE RULE OF LAW?

Nigerian is a fascinating place and Nigerians are a fascinating people. The place and people are fascinating in the sense that they are mesmerizing, enthralling, captivating, and  absorbing all for the wrong reason; there is the absence of the rule of law.  That Nigerians are a lawless bunch is not debatable; no exaggeration or pun is intended. The law of the jungle operates in Naija.  In Nigeria, you can break any law, take the law into your own hands, and dish out judgment  as you see fit.

Breaking the law  is  a tantalizing entertainment.  You can’t resist saying “Shit”. It appears that lawlessness plays a significant role in a conundrum in reference to a riddle whose answer is a pun, a paradox, in a Nigerian political crisis whose answer is uncertain. For example, a group of rascals, the Arewa boys rose from a meeting and promulgated a jungle law that Anyamirins (the Igbos) residing in the North must vacate the area and return to the South.

Although members  of the Arewa have no legislative, judicial or executive powers , and although they  are an unemployed , uneducated deplorable group  from which riff raffs and Fulani cattle herders are recruited, equipped with incendiary materials, plus some powerful AK-47’s, and drawn in a taskforce whose primary function is to create disturbances . The Arewa boys are lawless people whose only aim is violation of rights of persons considered as infidels .

 Because they are lawless and lack respectability, Arewaens  could promulgate jungle laws, meaning they do broadcast, propagate, spread, arrogantly disseminate, transmit, or publicize the anti-Igbo statements with a total disregard for the rule of law. To deny Nigeria’s lawlessness as most of our corrupt politicians and I-don’t- care fellow citizens do or to defiantly ask “what about other countries like US and UK” is to dream that, in the flush of dawn, Nigerian sky glowed with empyreal beauty without a trace of corruption.

In Nigeria, although the law is in the books, it is bent so much that it appears either to be an afterthought, or forgotten at the Government printing shop. It is more likely than not that the rule of law is incomprehensible to the people of Arewa; jungle law has replaced legitimate law in the Arewa kingdom of Nigeria.      

In the United States, the law reigns supreme; no one is above the law.  In Nigeria, criminal cowards like the Arewa thrive in connivance with the bellicose Muslims and belligerent  Islamists to turn the Nigerian law upside down in order to have legitimacy. In Nigeria, everyone seems to ride high above the law, including not just The Arewa boys, but also every hoodlums (kidnappers  and highway robbers).  

Who can’t be above the law when respectable lawmakers and judges have their own Arewa Club. A true Arawe-minded  person flaunt any Nigerian law holding Nigeria together as a nation or does something the Constitution forbids and see what happens to the idiotic Arewean. If nothing happens to the Araweans,, they believe they are above the law, and therefore the law does not apply to Arewa boys. Flaunt the law in Araweland and nothing happens to the flaunterer who is considered a superhero.

On the other hand, try to flaunt an American traffic laws, such that you fail to  yield  right of way, or you speed  through a traffic light, and see what the police would do to your stupid ass. And if you refuse to sign a violation form, you are in trouble.  Telling the police your father is the Oba of Arewaland would land your ass in hot water in America. Dropping the name of your Nigerian family would not only free you from culpability or blameworthiness if you break a Nigerian law but it would earn you some respectability.

 Telling  the same stupid story to police in Washington DC or Atlanta, Georgia,  about your lawless Nigerian father being the Emir of Gwagwalada, would not prevent the police from placing metal handcuff on  your hands after beating your head down to the granite road. That is how the law is enforced in America. Nobody is above the American law.

Every one in America, even the former United States President Obama operated under the ambit of established law. Obama could not be above the law or do things the law prohibited. Obama simply  completed his second term as the law dictated and hurriedly left the scene as fast his two Kenyan legs could carry him .

Didn’t President Obama swear at his inauguration ceremony to uphold the Constitution, to encourage enforcement of the law, and to see that the law applied to everyone across the land regardless of one’s position in life? Every U S President is responsible for ensuring that everyone is respectful of and in obedience to the law.

Considering Nigerian ailing President Buhari, how many Fulani cattle herders beheaders of Christians have you heard have been brought  to the book? If you are a Muslim and you break the jungle law, you are practically unimpeachable; you are above reproach, or y0u are considered faultless, blameless, irreproachable, unassailable, and free  to go.

President Obama could be impeached and removed from office as assuredly as President-elect Hillary Clinton if she had won. So could the newly minted Republican President and  billionaire Donald Trump. Any American can be arrested and hauled away to jail if he/she willfully contravenes the law.

Can we say the same thing about Buhari? Obasanjo? Obiano? Surely, the same American law applies to any Nigerian American  as well as to the U S members of Congress and judiciary. Can we say the same thing about Nigerian laws and their application to all Nigerians, including the politicians, judges, or employees manning our ports and oil refineries?

The U S law is absolute, superlative, extreme, and placed on the highest pedal of honor. For example, Bill Clinton, former United States President, was faced with investigation and possible indictment for trespassing against certain ethical standards.

Wrong application of rules has consequences far more reaching and devastating than we can imagine. The effect of the American law is regarded as being dire, portentous, terrible, or horrible, isn’t it ? The American law is expected to protect and safeguard life and property.

 If you are a Nigerian governor known to steal and stash 2 billion dollars of public money in Swiss account, what punitive consequences would follow  you  in Naija, America, Europe or Britain? In Nigeria, what follows you is absolute nothing, zilch, naught, or nonentity in order to encourage more corruption. In countries outside Nigeria, a criminal stealing Nigeria’s wealth and bringing the same overseas receives a slap in the palm to send the message ”it is alright to rob your nation, but it is wrong to rob us the Britons, Germans,  or Americans.”

Nothing would happen to a big-time Nigerian governor carrying millions in a Ghana-must-go  sack to overseas because the world knows that the rule of law does not exist in the neck of wood the governor comes from,  in the jungle known as wild Ni geria. 

The sitting Nigerian  President’s Government would look the other way when a jungle law is broken. Townspeople may come to the house of the law breaking/robber governor to congratulate him and dance owambe and sweet Mother. They would eat bowls of fried rice and drink Heinekens. Breaking jungle laws is like eating foo-foo with ofe manu and ofe onugbu (oily soup and bitterleaf  soup); the food is sweet and has sweet consequences.

 What prevents a secondary school principal from embezzling the entire school fees the students have paid? Managers of the Ports Authority would overcharge customers in addition to seizing property of those refusing to pay the overcharge.

Police manning our Nigerian checkpoints would demand bribes from conductors and kill those who refuse to pay. Prices of garri at Ogbete, Lagos, or Port Harcourt  market would rise sharply when merchants conclude that “government is eating all out money, and we’re getting nothing.”

You are a Nigerian legislator and you have joined the syndicate of celebrated thieves raiding your country’s treasury and looting pension  funds . Aren’t you aware that the money you are stealing is beautifying other people’s land while the local constituency you are elected to represent in Koji or Enugu State is decaying and riddled  with ndi ori (armed robbers)?

There is ukpa ( extreme poverty), ugani ( severe starvation),   and  oyia (infectious diseases?  In many Nigerian communities, since we are sure no one is there  to enforce the law. No one cares where there is no enforcement of the law. No law means jungle law.

 Everyone knows the feeling of  guilty conscience, a sense of right and wrong, or the fear of being penalized for transgressing against a code of conduct. The American  law is said to have matchless supremacy. Words used to describe good, equitable laws include: without equal, beyond  compare, unparalleled,  unrivaled, incomparable, perfect, unique, inimitable. 

 Does the rule of law exist in Nigeria? Yes, it absolutely does exist.  Is the Nigerian law enforced and applied evenly across the board? The answer is emphatic no. The stark tragedy in the Nigerian context is in the application of the law.

You could wager or gamble all the dollars you have in the Bank Of America, including the Naira you have been saving at Equatorial Bank, Lagos,  that most citizens  in Naija know when they contravene or are in breach of laws criminalizing  certain behaviors, such as, bribery, stealing by the taking of property of another or killing by the taking of life of a neighbor, for example.

 Unfortunately, very regrettably, most Nigerians refuse to acknowledge the rules of law, We Nigerians have not been indoctrinated for we refuse to be indoctrinated into obeying rules. To be indoctrinated is to be trained, coached, instructed, made aware of, or programmed to do certain acts.

Nigerians have not been encouraged to assert their legal rights under the law after being intimidated by brutal leaders under military and so-called democratic administrations from the Day One that the law has escape routes and therefore can be subverted.

We Nigerian are awash in Jungle Law. Very regrettably, most Nigerians often notice that the laws promulgated precisely to govern them do not apply equally to each and every citizen just the same.

The Nigerian law has incomparable futility or ineffectuality, meaning it is regarded as being inconsequential. It can be stomped under feet  in the dust with shameless impunity and reckless abandon. The law can be battered with the fists of bribery and unabashed feet of  effrontery or impudence, meaning rudeness, disrespect, or audacity.

My country Nigeria has all the good laws on the book, and Nigerian law schools produce o good number of men and women wearing brown mops on their heads as lawyers, judges, and legislators.

Alas, unfortunately, just regrettably, it takes more than being on the book and marching around with dark suits and mops on head to have a stable civil society. We need obedience to and respect for our laws to escape being called “jungle people.”

 Was Chief Obasanjo under the law? Is he was, why did he attempt to seek (nay, usurp) the 3^rd term? Is Buhari under the law? If he is, why does he look the other way when Christians are being slaughtered by bad Boko boys? Didn’t the boko boys gain ascendancy or pre-eminence and notoriety after General Buhari lost the elections to the Ijaw man?

Were Igbo governors, such as  Peter Obi and Chris Ngige, acting  under the rule of law when giving out “dash” to promote church schools to the detriment of public education?  Haven’t Muslim governors of far North been lawless when they use government monies to establish sharia law systems  where women are stoned to death for alleged, self-styled adultery.

Quoranic schools are such that secondary school students have continuously scored at the  bottom of every West African School Certificate Examinations because education is considered to be evil (hence boko harram).

 Why must anyone, such as  Nnamdi Kalu, be arrested , detained, and denied  constitutional rights without a speedy trial? Why do some Muslims arrogate to themselves the vicious temerity to attempt to convert Nigeria to a Sharia Law state when the country is 50 percent Christians and 50 percent Muslims? Their attempt to intimidate Nigeria into becoming a member of the Islamic League without holding  a referendum is the worst demonstration of utmost disregard of the rule of law.

Is Babangida hiding from the law and did he respect the law while he was a leader? Did Jonathan get up from sleep one morning and decided to sign an edict instituting a laissez faire attitude toward national insecurity or whatever sentiment he dreamed of the night before? Do members of the Nigerian Senate and House of Representatives pass laws that apply to Nigerians with the exception of their own persons?

The current Nigerian law seems to be what the individual negotiates. What law enabled a Nigerian policeman to order a lorry conductor who refused to give a N100 bribery to alight from the bus and then proceeded to shoot the hapless soul to death in full view of terrified passengers? We can safely say that Nigeria operates under the Law of the Jungle.

 A few years ago, while this writer was teaching graduate programs at a state university in a southeastern American city, he came face to face with what most, if not all Nigerians in the United States can understand to be the interplay of running and being pursued.

A Nigerian male had committed a crime involving drugs and shootout with police, and was being sought by law enforcement. He ran to our city in southeast United States to hide from the law. He sought refuge or sanctuary and was harbored in the house of another Nigerian friend.

The alleged criminal was not just running away; he was doing more than the Olympic hop-step-and-jump. He galloped  out of sight in no small fear, refusing to venture out even to purchase his favorite beer.

He was dreadful, terrified, petrified, and scared stiff.  He was nervous whenever his friend drove in front of, beside, or behind a police vehicle. Looking behind or sideways at the approaching police vehicle, that criminally minded Nigerian would complain:”  Why are these ndi uwe oji (police in black uniforms)  following us?”

His complaints were insistent and  consistent with behavior of one who knew one had done a bad thing and was evading punishment. That Nigerian criminal’s complaints were adamant and persevering even when the U S police officers were obviously busy minding their mundane or humdrum business of maintaining law and order. This proves that Nigerians fear the U S American laws but trash the laws of their country.  What a tragedy!

Living in the United States brings every citizen, including every Nigerian-American, within the ambit  of the law. Ambit of the law is the realm, domain, field, territory, or influence of the law.  Good citizenship implies awareness of the sphere of influence the law has on citizens’ lives  and what lessons are to be learned  from awesomeness of the concept of law.

That we respect the law, fear the law, live in conformity with applicable rules, is evident in the daily lives of our law-abiding neighbors from Nigeria, living in America  and other foreign lands. Why can’t they have the same respect for our country’s laws?

The fear that this writer could be stopped by the police and taken to jail for driving under the influence of alcohol, for example,  should strike fear into the heart of this writer and the hearts of  most law-abiding citizens to observe  DDAAD (“don’t drink alcohol and drive”.

Yet, the fear of police and laws of the land should teach us about our own rights. Fear of the almighty law invariably confers or bestows certain advantages on law-abiding citizens. For example, you can sue and win monetary damages for false imprisonment.

Recently, a traffic policeman issued this writer a ticket for allegedly exceeding the posted speed limit of 65mph. The ticket alleged the writer was travelling at 81mph, in a 65mph zone. In Nigeria, the police would arrest the writer and extract a bribe that would set him free to go after payment.  In America,  the writer can elect to pay a fine at the court before court date in lieu of appearing in person. This writer chose to go to traffic court to challenge the traffic citation and argue his case.

There are a few possible lines of argument this writer could proffer in his culpability defense.  First, Officer was mistaken in his determination of the writer’s speed. Checking speed by radar is not faultless since the radar might be inaccurately calibrated. The radar can malfunction without warning while being used.

 Next argument is that exceeding speed limit was justified during the morning writer was ticketed for speeding because motorists were rushing to the work on that pleasant mid-morning sunlight, and writer was driving following the flow of traffic. Slowing down was risky and could cause a ghastly accident. Finally, Officer mistook writer’s car for another after spotting a vehicle that looked like writer’s. He could be spotting a man who looked my age or who was driving in a manner that resembled mine.

 It is up to the Judge to make impartial determination of my guilt or innocence. I would submit to the punishment an impartial judge recommends. In Nigeria, I would have as much chance as a snowball in hell to defend myself before a Judge who may not be uncontaminated by untoward influences (such as tribe, money, politics, etc).

 Almost every US citizen, including any Nigerian-American, knows his/her rights under the law. We constantly talk about suing someone for infringing upon our rights under the law, and we are apt to fight to defend those rights. The American law applies equally to you and me. Neither of us is above the law. We pay a fine or go to jail if we break the law.

We are encouraged to assert our rights and defend them in the courts of competent jurisdiction in the United States to the fullest extent o the law. The most bothersome aspect of most Nigerian laws is their ambiguity or vagueness.  The laws in Nigeria are not clear.

The Nigerian laws can be and are often circumvented with the impunity of a one-eyed bandit. That one belongs to a certain Nigerian tribe or has a certain amount of Naira at FCMB does influence the outcome of  a trial. Success at trial in Nigerian courts can be sold to the highest bidder.

We don’t fear good laws nowadays in America because a good law is our friend  when we comply with its terms. It gives us courage. Let the police stop you on the highway. You will almost shove your driver’s license and insurance card in his face. Then, you would almost stab a warning finger at the police’s chest  and sneer: “Officer, why are you now stopping me?  What probable cause? What law have I broken now?”

Perhaps, you have made an illegal u-turn, fail to change lanes properly, or forget to buckle up. The penalty is a fine which you would promptly pay before the court date, or you could go before the Judge. Breaking the law wastes valuable time. It takes money from your pockets. It inconveniences you and takes you away from attending to other more pressing tasks. Therefore, it is to our advantage and peace of mind to obey the law no matter how unfair we deem it to be.

The situation is different in my dear country Nigeria, isn’t it? I hear Nigerians with money or powerful political connections do feel or see themselves as being untouchable. They seem to live above the law with peculiar aggrandizement.

That’s why a man can go to his village,  and pay a policeman the sum of N50,000 (the equivalent  of 110 dollars)  to place a man he consider s to be a  threat in a slammer house for a few weeks until the briber is able to leave the village.

Unfortunately, a man caught red handed in the very act of killing his wife with a machete or taking someone else’s land will talk back at accusers. “So, what will you do about it?”

 He has no remorse or guilt because, according to him  (1) “The law does not apply to me since it doesn’t apply to the police or the president;” and (2)  “I can bribe the police or judge and be declared guiltless.” The Nigerian criminal can even stand before omnipotent  God and declare in his right mind: “ Heavenly Judge, I’m not guilty of breaking this law like other law beakers.”

Just consider former governor James Ibori ‘s innocence in Nigerian courts and guilt on every count in a London court. This gives me a sinister idea: if you do me wrong overseas and if I catch you at home, I will bribe a policeman/kotma/ndi uwe oji to lock you up on trumped-up charges until I am ready to release you or after I have  kicked you hard many times on your ass. Sometimes, I think the law of the jungle has some sinister benefits. Call them the JA’s, the  Jungle Advantages.

But the rule of law facilitates my peace of mind. When the law rules I sleep better, drive better, move around better, and talk to my friends better. I’ll have no need to build my house in Nigeria  and enclose it within the protection of high walls fortified with broken bottles or pointed jagged metals.

There would be no need to pay a dibia (witch doctor) a lot of money to provide me with some magical concoctions or drinks that would enable me to avoid being poisoned or taken hostage. There would be no need to seek a witch doctor to inject a mixture of water and powdered roots into my veins to protect me against gun shots.

When laws are good and evenly applied across the board, I will not have to give N100 to every thug that throws old tire and dirt across the road inside the Lagos market to prevent my exit  until I give a bribe to avoid being kidnapped . Why must I pay the official N200 road toll at a Lagos checkpoint at the mouth of the market and then illegal N100 illegal bribe to the head of a hideous robbery team inside the dusty market, who claims to be a market security?  

The market has Mr. Barawo, the dusty checkpoint man! But, when I poked my face out of the window into the dusty air and bellow at that Barawo Checkpoint thief: “Oya, I wan make I go. I beg-o take those stupid dirt out of my way. Driver, make we go.” The barawo would smile, pointing a dirty finger at his mouth and stomach and saying: “Oga, I wan make I chop small.”  He was  the perfect picture of a hungry/starving thief seeking food. God, forgive me for being uncharitable.

My heart would melt out of pity for that man, one of God’s wretched sons. “Driver, here, give-am  N100 and make we go.” Then , I wanted to slap the driver who kept reminding me, “Oga, dis no be America. Na Naija  you de. You go give this people something.” He is encouraging me to give bribes to a self-appointed traffic control thief. I am still upset about giving too many backhanders/bribes already.

I am still angry with my friend named Felix who is attempting to convince me that “In Nigeria, you have to give this people some bribes if you want anyone to work for you.” Shiege! So giving bribes and breaking the law are rights de passage demanded  by force? The role of lawlessness in Nigerian crisis is obvious. Everyone expects  breaking the law through bribery.

Bad laws make me lose sleep and hard-earned money as you can see. I had given N500 gratuity to a bank teller in Lagos to look up my bank number and account balance. I became impatient at a roundabout delay as night was falling. I beckoned the starving officer to approach the taxi I was riding in. I then slapped his hand and left dirty N100 in his clammy, greasy palm so my taxi would be allowed  to move on.

I had accompanied my friend Felix to NEPA office to pay for his overdue 2-or-3 months electric bill of N7,000. Felix and I walked behind the NEPA building to say a few words to a famished/hungry clerk. Felix handed the clerk N200 bribe, and Felix was issued a N2,000 receipt. We used the N5000 left over from the original N7,000 bill to purchase a quantity of fuel  for our Toyota and kerosene for the generator.  Felix also bought a few bottles of Heinekens. Shit!

The Jungle Law in my ancestral home can be so overpowering and frustrating particularly when you are dealing with a lawless people like Nigerians who know how to take undue advantage of the law meant to protect. My home in lawless society where citizens are always ignoring, bending, or circumventing the law promulgated to protect them.

Breaking the law  is  a tantalizing entertainment.  You can’t resist saying “Shit”. It appears that lawlessness plays a significant role in a conundrum in reference to a riddle whose answer is a pun, a paradox, in a Nigerian crisis whose answer is uncertain.

COPYRIGHTED  MATERAL. COPYING OR SELLING THIS  MATERIAL IS  A VIOLATION OF THE LAW.

Submited by Dr. James C. Agazie, jamesagazie@gmail.com; jamesagazies.blogpot.com

BIAFRA IS THE IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

How do we deal with the idea whose time has arrived?

Is it by bows and arrows, guns or by bullets?

Is it by lynching at the Senate or House?

No,  Biafra shalt rise in spirit and in authenticity

Thou Biafra hast recaptured the old glory sublime

Thou art inspiriting, inspirational, Awe-inspiring

Magnificent, Uplifting, Moving, Transcendent

Lemme be in Biafra! Lemme taste Biafuru

Gimme that old time epoch-making magic

Of the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu Era

That indomitable fortitude of a people displaced

Of men and women with heads bloody but unbowed

Of women carrying in sacks heads of husbands cowardly slain

Butchered in pusillanimous undeclared battle covertly devised

Of husbands gathering the remains of wives whose bellies were gutted

And neonates hardly able to survive outside wombs were littered

Of Uzuakoli and Abiriba dancers gyrate with heads scarfed neatly in baskets

And “omu” in pursed lips shrouded with magical silence only the dead understood

Brave Imo men in loin cloths wielding machetes willing to die for the cause

Tell me of the late Frank Anuebunwa of Nkwerre Orlu who declared

“Long live Ojukwu, for Biafra shall never die

I’m ready to abandon this body and fly with wings of light

To answer Ojukwu’s fatal call anew to spill precious blood if need must be”

What is man if he believeth not what he dieth for

Or dieth for that which  hardly stirred a shred  of conviction?

Can you declare in a nutshell what in essence this life encompasses?

And unravel the mystery of life and discern the unfathomable?

But Thou art the Biafra;

We worship Thee, adore Thee, and Thou art all we have

B stands for the barbarity and bellicosity of our attackers & their Betrayal

I is the Igboman, the Israeli war planes, our Idiosyncrasies and Ideals

A is our mission’s Awesomeness, the Apex of our pains, our Assiduousness

F  stands for fearlessness of our soldiers, the falafel,  the flibbertigibbet, the Faux pas

R Is Ratiocination and Reasoning behind our Rationale, Refulgent Radiance

A stands for the Assurance of our victory, our Audacity, Autochthonous voices

The Mystery of Biafra is a bottomless sea, soundless as light, boundless as echo

Can anyone forget events that took place in Biafra some 50 yesteryears

When Igbos, like lions,roamed  Eastern Nigeria, and Anyamirins developed the North

When  Zik  was at Lagos, Okpara in the East, and Mbadiwe’s opposition blast off

When Igbos were Igbos, pride was high, robbery and kidnapping very much unknown

When Igbo marriage was designed in heaven and destined to span eternity

Men planted yams and sat in circles around calashes of fermented palm wine

While pregnant prepubescent girls pounded foofoo with skinny pestles

Children hid away in corners with school lessons under smoking kerosene lamps?

Thou Biafra shalt surely rise again in spirit and reality

Surely, Thou shalt recapture Thine past glory, come what may;

Come high water or gusting wind, Gimme that old time Igbo spirit ere I die

Feed me Biafra till I thirst no more, till my mouth is filled with savory meat

Come,  Sweet Love, my Master, the Great Biafra

Aren’t Thou the Biafrans?

KEYS

Anyamirins: Drinkers of cool water in the hot Hausa summer

Lemme: Let me see or let me taste

Gimme: Give me

Biafra: the rebirth of the Eastern Region of Nigeria

Biafuru: Come and see

Barbarity: horrifying attacks on Anyamirins by Mr. Gowon and his Nigerian soldiers

Bellicosity: inclination or eagerness to fight aggressively in hostile, belligerent manner

Buhari: the chief Fulani herdman whose nama (cow)a Biafran stole and  munchi (chops or eats all)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

IPOB: the Indigenous People Of Biafra who engage in protests, demanding “dismantle this system”

Nnamdi Kalu: Igboman from Great Britain who wants to make palaver with Buhari   

Flibbertigibbet: Middle English word refers to a flighty or whimsical person, usually young women                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Foofoo: preferred meal of the Igbos, consisting ground flour and very hot water, usually swallowed

Zik: Nnamdi Azikiwe, the restful Zungeru Igboman whose first name our restless IPOB leader adopted

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu: the Oxford man who declared the State of Biafra  with ogbunigwe

Michael Okpara: Premier of the Eastern Nigerian Region that specialized in eba (garri) and achara soup

Mbadiwe: That colorful man, also known as that burly forward-ever-and-backward-never wrestler

Falafel: deep-fried ball or doughnut made from ground corn flour

Autochthonous: indigenous, native of the rainforest known as the Biafra

Ogbunigwe: the clever contraption the Biafrans developed to blow Nigerian soldiers up in the air

Omu: tiny leaf placed between lips as one engaged in a struggle that ended in death

Pusillanimous: timid, cowardly, spineless, faint-hearted, lily-livered, fearful

Refulgent: shining, bright, gleaming, like crystal chandeliers

UNLESS THIS HAPPENS, THINGS WILL CONTINUE TO WORSEN FOR BUHARI 

One courageous action by Buhari and the people of Nigeria could save the presidential life, strengthen the office of the presidency,  and get Nigeria moving on the right path toward healing and prosperity. The purpose of this essay is visionary, farsighted, or predictive.

The essay attempts  to describe one courageous action President Buhari  and the people he was elected to lead can take to prevent insinuations about  presidential death, improve presidential health and reduce the frequency of presidential trips overseas to seek treatments for  undisclosed illnesses.

It is advisable that Buhari performs  this act, deed, exploit, achievement, or feat  as a matter of urgency.

That action, if taken, would heal the psychic pains and anxiety Nigerians and their president as a whole are experiencing.  That action is concentrated in one simple word that is easier said than done.  We repeat that that action word is easier said than done. 

However, It can be said and done if Buhari and the people who elected him to office are interested in uniting the nation through tendering a appropriate apologies, seeking forgiveness, and making amends. Nigeria seems to be experiencing symptoms of untreated malaise.

That action that President Buhari and the Nigerians are urged to take is an action rarely practiced particularly in a nation like Nigeria where tribal allegiance is as strong as magnesium based alloy and as deep as Pacific ocean at the depth of 35, 837 feet or 6.79 miles.

President Buhari’s health and Nigeria’s malaise will continue to degenerate and grow worse unless  we do something to deal with the innocent blood spilled at Biafra and militant-controlled areas of Nigeria, including lives cut short, and ensuing devastation .

Prayers for presidency are insufficient; effective prayer ought to be accompanied by repentance and forgiveness. Prayer without seeking forgiveness is unsuccessful attempt to bribe God.

The secret lies in tendering sincere apologies, seeking forgiveness,  and making amends .  Stubborn arrogance and studied militarism shall give way to deliberate reconciliation.

No one is above mistakes and nobody should gloss over mistakes or sweep them under ute (a cheap mat) just to appear to be powerful or to make people think we are in tacit control.

No sin is so great it cannot be forgiven, and no one is so highly placed that one cannot tender an apology. We Nigerians must forgive in order for God and fellow citizens to forgive  us. (Mathew 6: 14-15).

The people of Nigeria do not really want Buhari to die. The people of Nigeria want Buhari to live to a ripe  old age to see his children and his children’s children. The death of one Nigeria depletes us all. We cannot rejoice over the death of one human. It is terrible as well as cruel.

Nigerians want a nation that is steady, stable, firm, fixed, solid, sturdy, standing on a solid rock, balanced, unwavering, established, or secure under a  leader who enjoys robust health and people’s support.

Nigerians do not pray for a hearse/large funeral vehicle or roller coaster/unstable military coup . We do not want to give up on our country and live elsewhere in shame and immigration limbo as rolling stones that gather no moss, do.

Nigerians  want Buhari or any other leader who has love in his/her heart for this great nation and its  diverse people and who is willing to lead us so gently that we Nigerians and our children can enjoy the benefit of being in  nation with a semblance of tranquility  like neighboring Ghana.

The Nigerians want leaders they elect to transform, metamorphose, transmute, or transmogrify.

These four verbs (transform, metamorphose, transmute, and transmogrify)  have a common meaning : to change or being changed into something different.  

Nigerians want Buhari and their leaders to remain healthy as well as to become more responsive to their needs as trusted public servants often do.

President Buhari’s health and Nigeria’s well-being are intertwined; each will take a dangerous turn for the worse unless the action this essay talks about is taken. 

Nigeria’s malaise will continue to degenerate until all Nigerians wish they had left in mass exodus as  Naira falls to the lowest level of every financial measure and prices rise and fall like a turbulent sea.

 Buhari and Nigerians ought to take some serious measures  that could redress inequality/disparity and save lives and heal old wounds. They shall learn to forgive and be forgiven, to apologize and have their apologies accepted.

Things will miraculously change when President Buhari and our leaders endeavor  to apologize to various groups in the nation for the glaringly, painfully, clearly, devastatingly, agonizingly, completely, utterly  obviously  missteps they had taken during previous administrations, for the lives lost and sufferings endured. 

No one is above mistakes and nobody should gloss over mistakes or sweep them under ute (a cheap mat) just to appear to be powerful and make people think we are in tacit control.

No sin is so great it cannot be forgiven, and no one is so important as to not apologize. We Nigerians should forgive in order for God and our people to forgive us; we ought to apologize in order to be forgiven. (Mathew 6: 14-15).

Written Sunday, May 20, 2017.  

by Dr. James C. Agazie, jamesagazie@gmail.com; jamesagazies.blogspot.com

COPYRIGHTED. ESSAY SHALL NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT BREAKING COPYRIGHT LAW

 GET THAT PhD

The Summer is almost over; the Spring is here. The smell of Fall is in the air. Time is flying, and you don’t have the doctorate degree yet? What? It is amazing why few Nigerians are not grabbing the PhD degrees. Are Nigerians lazy or have they lost the zeal we were once known for? Are they simply sidetracked by pursuit of other more pressing needs than reading?  Is it alcohol  or foo-foo?

A sidetrack is a digression, detour, departure, deviation. It is time we got back on course because our nation will need all hands on deck after the Buharians  have wrecked havoc on our economy and Nigerians are driven to flee on self exiles, leaving our nation without the needed manpower. It could be worse  than  living with crazy boko haram. Laugh all you want; it’s no joke.  Our consolation is our conviction that great success consists of developing the equation:  P =B + D.

Yes,  PhD  is  10% Brains and 90% Determination, no more and no less.

The 10/90 seems right in any human endeavor.

The purpose of this essay is to drive home the point home that what is popularly known as the terminal degree (PhD , EdD, DSc or D.A, MD , etc )is an endeavor to shoot for rather than to avoid .

The highest degree you can earn in most liberal arts disciplines is a PhD, or Doctor of Philosophy. However, clinical and counseling psychologists earn a PsyD, Doctor of Psychology nomenclature; medical students earn M.D (Doctor of Medicine).  Educators earn the EdD (Doctor of Education;  Pharmacists earn the Pharm D, and law students can earn J.D. (Juris Doctor) degrees.

In reality, the JD and Pharm D are sometimes considered terminal degrees. However, they are the first professional degrees, since a JD can go further to obtain the LLM, and PhD in some area of law such as international law, environmental, or marine law after completing an acceptable dissertation. Holders of the PharmD can continue work toward the MS and PhD in pharmacology

We say that the doctorate degree in all disciplines  is attainable rather than unattainable. It is regrettable that many Nigerians do not see the need for the doctorate degrees or perhaps  have negative things to say about the PhD. Some say the degree is not worth the paper the diploma is printed on. Some say it is not worth  the considerable time and pains invested in the pursuit or that  it does not worth much in terms of money generated after acquiring the degree.

Others say the doctorate is a waste of time, time-consuming, involves too much suffering, or it is not what it  is trumped up to be. Pessimistic Nigerians are of the mind that the PhD is unattainable. A thing is unattainable if the  person feels the task in unachievable, impossible, beyond one’s reach, unfeasible, or inaccessible. Impossibility is a state of the mind, much like fear.  Knowledge is power in most instances, isn’t it?

This writer feels Nigerians should not avoid the PhD because it is not  as scary as a terminal illness , such as cancer or HIV. In fact the PhD is quite attainable; it requires only a little bit of effort  beyond the Master’s. Whoever tells you that obtaining the PhD is an impossible task is simply telling a fib. A fib b defined as untruth, lie, falsehood, tale, or false story. The US President Donald Trump would say that news depicting the PhD as impossible is nothing more than fake news. Fake is counterfeit, forged, bogus, sham, okwu ashi (Igbo for a lie).

We ought to boycott anyone who tells us to not try a task  because it is unfeasible, impractical, impracticable, unworkable, not viable,  without a solution, or unattainable.  Ask, “Who tells you it is impossible? Are you God to determine impossibility?” Even our Bible say all things are possible for those who have the faith of a mustard seed. Faith is translated to mean hope, confidence, reliance, trust, assurance, conviction, belief, devotion, loyalty. This writer has a confession to make: the PhD is not for the faint-hearted and he says it unashamedly. Despite all your good intensions, you cannot make a person do something  that person feels deeply he or she cannot do. 

While you are there with your head screwed wrong and your self –esteem is as low as bodily waste in the latrine, some determined Nigerian  traders at Alaba market, Lagos,  are working towards  and obtaining law degrees  from Nigerian law schools. This  26-year-old girl of Nnewi family in Boston , Massachusetts, is graduating with the PhD in Microbiology. My father’s friend  Mr. Onyozili has a son Stanley who obtained Harvard’s PhD in political science.

Talk about determined Nigerians! Please move your sorry ass out of the way. Young Nigerian sons and daughters  are bagging the PhD in chemistry, physics, education, and mathematics. It is like “these people are picking  mangoes from the orchard behind Methodist Central School, Igumale, Idoma, Benue State.  

This woman from Sierra Leone did not go on to start coursework towards the PhD in Education after obtaining double Master’s degrees in Library Science and Educational Administration. She could have done so had she not been complaining about driving for hours in her vehicle out of town two nights a week to complete the PhD coursework.  She commuted twice a week from Atlanta, Georgia to East Carolina State University in North Carolina. The PhD demands energy, dedication, and tremendous efforts to overcome doubts .

This writer has encouraged four persons to obtain the PhD. They were Ugandan woman  at a university in Ohio, a Nigerian man and 2 African American women in Georgia, and African American man  in Florida. We have been trying to assist a medical doctor to complete the dissertation that would qualify her to be awarded the PhD in Nursing . She wanted the Nursing PhD in order to teach nursing and medical students intending to work with patients suffering with the Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). All of these people  were able to complete the dissertations and obtained the PhD  with various measures of encouragement.

The first was a woman from Uganda who had difficulty completing the PhD in horticulture which is the art or practice of garden cultivation and management. The Ugandan woman wanted to improve access of Ugandan women farmers to better seeds. She was particularly interested in the science and art of producing, improving, marketing, and using fruits, vegetables, flowers, and ornamental plants.

Horticulture differs from traditional botany and other plant sciences in that horticulturist incorporates both science and aesthetics or beauty of plants. The Ugandan woman had a large collection of data from home but had  great difficulty organizing a vast amount of data she collected form a survey of basically uneducated population.

One who says to you: “Why do you bother with the PhD when you don’t need that in Africa?” is a liar and discourager. He or she lacks ambitious, or does  not want to see you succeed. Do not believe such negative reasoning    Boycott such a cowardly person. Be in the company of birds of the same feather anxious to take off in clear night air over the mountain that  reveals  the celestial beauty of millions of stars.

 Picture yourself ascending to heaven to converse with your late mother who loved and sacrificed for you, and then returning to the Ogbete Market, Enugu, and ordering a leg of goat to be stewed into peppery pepper soup. You must be imaginative to survive in your quest for the PhD

.

First, sit down and make up your mind about what, how, and where you want to obtain the PhD, Questions to answer include reason you want the degree; how you plan to pay for it (scholarship or out of pocket); where you want to go (State school, private school, or online). Serious students prefer schools that have campuses rather than the online types because of 1, cheaper tuition; 2. Access to teachers and well  stocked  libraries; and 3.availability of scholarships, stipends, work study, grants, assistantship, fellowships, and other departmental monies.Money cannot deter a determined mind!

Pick up a phone. Call the Registrar. Go on a university campus.  Get that PhD before you die. The PhD students on physical campuses have opportunities to talk with other students  and learn from their experiences. We do not work on the PhD, burying our heads in the sand like South African ostriches without communicating with others.    Get that PhD, and celebrate, my friend!

Submitted by

Dr. James C. Agazie; jamesagazie@gmail.com; jamesagazies.blogsport.com

HOW MENTALLY HEALTHY ARE WE NIGERIANS?

The purpose of this essay is to decry bad attitudes of the Nigerians have toward mental illness and to promote awareness of diseases of the mind and available cures. The essay raises more questions than it  answers. Could bad governance at all levels coupled with massive unprecedented corruption that seems to offer Nigerians little hope of making it till tomorrow all stemming from mental illness? Could the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that Nigerian children and adults experience on a daily basis leading to low levels of self-esteem and drug use all be traceable to mental illness?

Could massive prostitution be related to attempts to deal with mental illnesses? Violence connected with cult, boko haran, witchcraft, kidnapping, MEND, and MASSOB all combines to render the average Nigerian susceptible to mental health issues. Could armed robberies and kidnappings be related to attempts to deal with mental illnesses? When this writer was Lecturer & Education Officer with the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), he was friendly with a colleague who had a “dangerous Child.”

The dangerous child was autistic and severely mentally retarded. Parents of this child did not understand what they were dealing with so their only option was to hide their child with special needs in the innermost part of the house away from everyone’s views.  Each time the child came out to the parlor where this writer sat with the parents, she was hurriedly chased back to the room that served as her permanent top-secret-security prison. 

This writer sat motionless, stationary, immobile, stock-still, apprehensive, worried, and fearful of this dangerous child. The visit was always uneasy. It was like “I-can’t-wait-to -get -out of- here” or  “I-can’t-touch-the food-and-drink-of-these–people-or-else-I-catch-this-disease.” Looking back, this writer is embarrassed since he had the Master of Science at that time and must have heard of or known someone who had taken advanced graduate courses in abnormal psychology and mental retardation.

 This essay underscores, accentuates, or calls attention to the fact that Nigerians  of today have many mentally ill subgroups in the population of 170,000,000 persons. Nigerians are not very much unaware of the causes and effects of mental diseases. We Nigerians don’t take the time or have the patience or capacity to deal with our mentally ill family members. At the end of this essay are recommendations included to assist in combating the scourge of mental illnesses in Nigeria.

Akula Owu Onyeara is a popular Nigerian Highlife music of the 70’s. The song is about the psychotic nature of mental illness and its pervasive effects on the sufferer and larger society. The sufferer is described as Onye Ara or the insane who lacks commonsense and the ability to discern between what is right and what is wrong, between what is to be done and what to avoid.

Translation of the lyrics goes like this:   Crazy man, please don’t fight with broken bottles. You are crazy. He is crazy. In the cold season, he bathes with cold water. In the hot season, he bathes with hot water. What do you call such a behavior? He is crazy. He’s mentally sick. If you give him a piece of cloth, he throws it away and goes unclad. What do you call such behavior? It is insanity. It is mental illness. If you keep him at home, he sneaks unclad to the open market. What do you call such behavior? He’s crazy. Crazy man, please don’t fight with broken bottles.

 

Nigerians have reasons to lament the increasing number of their neighbors with psychiatric problems. Robin Hammond observes: Where there is war, famine, displacement, it is the most vulnerable that suffer the greatest. Abandoned by governments, forgotten by the aid community, neglected and abused by entire societies,  Africans with mental illness in regions in crisis are resigned to the dark corners of churches, chained to rusted hospital beds, locked away to live behind the bars of filthy prisons. Read more: http://www.robinhammond.co.uk/condemned-mental-health-in-african-countries-in-crisis/

The Africa Today describes the number mentally ill Africans as being “frightening.” (Africatoday80gmail.com, November 29, 2011). Figures coming from Nigeria indicate that in a particular geographic area of Nigeria, the mentally ill patients increased from 28,000 in 2009 to 42,000 in 2010.  If the statistics accurately reflect the situation, then it is safe to say that Nigeria has an enormous number of mentally ill persons, perhaps in the millions. Could these statistics  be responsible for the high incidence of violent crimes, kidnappings, murders, corrupt politicians, and thefts in the country?  Shamefully, Nigeria has only 130 psychiatrists, 4 neuropsychiatric nurses, and 8 neuropsychiatric hospitals that attend to 180 million people.

The ratio of psychiatrists to patients stands at 1 per 1million (that is, 0.01 per 100,000) as against the following: 31.1 per 100,000 (Massachusetts); 16.5 per 100,000 (USA); 12.3 per 100,000 (Augusta); 12.14 per 100,000 (Arizona); 9.3 per 100,000 (Atlanta); and 4.6 per 100,000 (Idaho). That means that Atlanta alone has close to 1,000 times as many psychiatrists as the entire nation of Nigeria.

Even the small potato State of Idaho beats Nigeria 461 to 0 in the number of psychiatrists.  This is a shame on my country. It is shame on the Nigerian medical professionals residing in the Western countries. What an embarrassment on Atlanta’s or New York’s Nigerian communities for sitting dormant while our people are losing their minds.

It is urgent that the Federal Government endeavor to lure surplus psychiatric professionals home from the Western countries that include America, Britain, Canada, and France. Of the 506 African psychiatrists in the United Kingdom, 214 (40%) are Nigerians. Why can’t someone lure these mental health practitioners home to our country?

It is reported that Lagos State government has placed the number of its mentally ill patients at 2 million or 14.1% of the population. There are no figures for Anambra, Imo, Abia, or Ebonyi  but we would suspect that the number of psychiatric patients in the former Biafra would far surpass, double, triple or even quadruple that of Lagos State.

Why? Because the people in the former Eastern Nigerian were heavily desecrated by the killings the Igbos witnessed in the North; debased by sufferings they endured when they ran home with bodies of dead relatives; and further despoiled by malnutrition and kwashiorkor.

 Although the horrors of Biafra are real, yet there is no indication that the children in those areas (now adults) have ever been treated for post-traumatic syndrome. That some Nigerians, who have been through the tragedies are still suffering the devastating effects of the Civil War 50 years after Biafra, has not been investigated.

When we salute Igbos for overcoming the horrors of Biafra with no psychiatric evaluations, treatments or rehabilitation  offered by the Federal Government, we should be mindful that effects of untreated post-traumatic syndrome might be lingering and still influencing today’s Igbo people.

Experts blame the deterioration of mental health in Nigerian on “institution-based care practice” (involving hospitals, doctors, nurses and drugs), perhaps Nigerians would benefit more from the “community-based care practice “ of management of mental illness  (which involves health-care professionals, the patient, family, and entire community). There is nothing to be embarrassed of in mental illness.

Nigerians consider mental illness a source of shame and embarrassment; people hide their mentally ill relatives in the villages when they should be seeking help for them. Therefore, ignorance of the causes and treatments of the disease helps to render the situation more hopeless in the case of Nigeria. Other possible causes of mental illness among Nigerians can be a number of factors.

There are real stressful socioeconomic conditions of the country akin to running from one part of the bush to another during the Biafran War in order to dodge bombings, and avoid being killed by Nigerian soldiers.

Bad governance at all levels coupled with massive unprecedented corruption, seem to offer Nigerians little hope of making it till tomorrow. There are feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that Nigerian children and adults experience on a daily basis leading to low levels of self-esteem and drug use.

Could massive prostitution be related to attempts to deal with mental illnesses? Violence connected with cult, boko haran, witchcraft, kidnapping, MEND, and MASSOB all combines to render the average Nigerian susceptible to mental health issues. Could armed robberies and kidnappings be related to attempts to deal with mental illnesses?

Abject poverty or pennilessness ( $1 a-day wage)  pushes adults to engage in 419 and youth to robberies and extortions. Anxiety created by constant insecurity and apprehension can lead to depression or neurotic behavior. There are numerous cases where young college students suffer mental breakdowns that are popularly referred to as “brain fag.”

There is a superstition among Africans regarding mental illness in Africa. While Westerners believe mental illness is genetically inherited or caused by some chemical imbalances in the body, specifically, the African believes mental illness is caused by specific enemies or the ancestors, so you go after the enemy and kill him/her, and appease the ancestor through bloody sacrifices. One mentally ill Yoruba man was recently reported to have eaten the intestines of a woman on his witchdoctor’s advice ostensibly as a cure for his malady.

As you look around the Nigerian communities in Atlanta, Lagos, and Abuja you’ll see people trying hard to cope with mental difficulties the best they could, at exorbitant costs.  Some Nigerians drink large quantities of alcoholic beverages every day. These are alcoholics who go to their jobs with hangovers each day and manage to perform their duties and hold families together because society expects them to do so.

 Nigeria is the clearinghouse for various types of illicit drugs coming from Asia on their way to the United States, and the number of Nigerian young drug users is skyrocketing. There are thousands of “shanty” bars everywhere in Nigeria and people frequent these at odd hours of day and night to drink their sorrows away

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There are hundreds of brothels along roadways and private houses of prostitution in residential areas of Nigeria where people go to ease the pain of bewilderment. As a  man,  you go to “ashawo” (prostitute)  and complain about your mental problems and she tells you, “Oga, make you pay your money and  make you no worry, oh.”

Domestic violence is commonplace with men maiming or inflicting serious life-threatening injuries on wives (with fire, firearms, or machete) due to frustration;  loss of job. Divorces and separations are frequent and unreported and often blamed on emotional problems, as a man may kick one wife out and bring in another younger one in the attempt to resolve the issue associated to mental illness.

 People spend countless hours plotting  to amass wealth which they put to no good use other than to see money grow huge in account books and diminish anxiety created by poverty.  While constant pursuit of money seems to give one a sense of mastery over personal failures in some areas, incessant pursuit of wealth creates frustration and mental pains in other areas. Outdoor restaurants and beer parlors provide relief from worrying over personal and national problems: everyone aspires to the beer distributorship license.

It is gratifying to note that mental illnesses are treatable, and there are effective therapeutic interventions available, but the patient and family must seek help at the hands of modern professionals, not quackery. Why must we hide diseases of the mind when we openly treat malaria or headache? Ignorance is no longer bliss. Life is hard as it is, and every effort must be made to live it as comfortable as possible because “the mind is a terrible thing to waste”.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Nigerian Government should build more psychiatric hospitals, equip its medical schools to train more psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses and psychiatric social workers to deal with problems.
2. The Federal Government ought to have the Mental Illness Awareness Month on the calendar in which seminars are held throughout the country.
3. Efforts should be made to reduce the fear people have about mental illness by increasing the involvement of communities and family members of mentally ill persons in the diagnoses and treatment of the disease.

James C. Agazie (JD, EdD, MS, MA, BA) completed his primary and secondary schools in Nigeria before emigrating to the United States for advanced degrees in mathematics, education and law. His teaching and counseling experiences have taken him to primary schools in Nigeria, Enugu IMT, several secondary schools and undergraduate and graduate universities in the United States. Dr..Agazie lives in and writes from Georgia, USA.  Please visit his blog jamesagazies.blogspot.com for some of his other essays.

STORY BEHIND NIGERIA’S BAIL CONDITIONS FOR IPOB LEADER NNAMDI KALU

It is the popular opinion that the bail conditions given to Nnamdi Kalu  were an overkill in the sense that the conditions represented an attempt to catch a tiny fish with a massive net. Nigeria failed to look beyond a myopic, tunnel vision to see a larger picture that could have been exploited to unite the nation and pull us out of a conundrum.

A conundrum refers to a riddle whose answer is a pun or a paradox, or to any problem whose answer is uncertain. Some conclusions to be drawn from an analysis of the bail conditions can be seen at the end of this essay. This leads us to our earlier conviction: Igbos are gods.

Nnamdi Kalu was released from Kuje Prison on Friday, April 28, following the bail conditions  granted by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja last Tuesday, April 25. He spent one year and six months in detention after he was arrested by operatives of the Department of State Securities in Lagos upon his return from the United Kingdom on October 14, 2015.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the bail conditions Justice Nyako, sitting at Abuja Court, stipulated her fellow Nigerian citizen Mr. Kalu must agree to before the later could be released from prison to prepare for his defense.  There are some important conclusions to be drawn from the Kanu-Nyako episode. Read to the end of this essay to examine the conclusions.

Maintaining that the only reason she granted bail to Kanu was because of Kanu’s  ill health, Justice Nyako of Nigeria marshaled out about thirteen (13) conditions that must be met prior to (not subsequent to) Nnamdi Kalu’s release from detention. The conditions now follow below.

Mr. Kalu must not hold rallies. He must not grant interviews. He must not be in a crowd of more than 10 people.

Mr. Kanu must provide three sureties in the sum of N100 million each. Obne of the sureties must be a senior highly placed person of Igbo extraction such as a senator. The second surety must be a highly respected Jewish leader since Mr. Kanu said his religion is Judaism. The third surety must be a highly respected person who owns landed property and is resident in Abuja.

The IPOB leader must deposit his Nigerian passport. He must also deposit his British passport with the court. The order for him to deposit his Nigerian and British passports is meant to ensure Mr. Kalu the IPOB leader cannot travel out of the country to avoid prosecution.

He must provide the court with reports on the progress of his health and treatment on a monthly basis.

Justice Nyako however refused bail to the three other defendants standing trial with Kanu, namely Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and David Nwawuisi. All three prisoners were seen wearing handcuffs in court.  The following are observations this writer is making in reaction to the incidence of the stiff bail conditions offered to IPOB leader Nnamdi Kalu by the Nigerian government through Justice Nyako.

ILL HEALTH: The ill health of an accused is a tenable, reasonable, justifiable, defensible, rational, plausible reason  to grant temporary or permanent  relief from  prosecution. For this reason, we commend the learned judge, Justice Nyako and heap accolades on her for tempering justice with mercy. Judicial mercy is clemency, compassion, and understanding.

NIGERIA’S OVERKILL: Justice Nyako did overkill justice in the rush to demonize the prisoner. To demonize is to portray an individual or group of individuals as an evil, demonic, or a dangerous criminal; to make the IPOB leader look worse and more reprehensible or terrible/terrifying than he actually is.

Nyako does what she does perhaps to score a point, or perhaps to deal with pressure from President Buhari and the Buharians  who are bent on seeking  a revenge consisting of “Shakespearen pound of flesh,” in order to steady a rocky, rocking boat.  Nigeria is a ship, and at the helm is the Queen of Great Britain, wearing a crown. Therefore, treasonable phelony is a crime against the Crown, though the offense may take place thousands of miles off the shores of Great Britain.  Sometimes, the Queen orders an overkill to protect her Empire.

To overkill is to protect self through a revenge or to take punishment to such a comical level as to cause easy laughter or glee. An overkill can be seen in a soldier who shoots the victim down and continues to pour bullets into a lifeless corpse. An overkill is an overload, overstatement, heavy handedness, too much of a good thing.

We must respect the learned Judge Nyako, for she is learning the rope and she is not the boss in a bureaucratic nation where judicial independence is a fairy tale, and judges are hauled away to prison without due process, for failing to serve as gramophone that repeats “his master’s voice.”

As extensions or appendages of the power that be, judges can act without restraints. Restraint is the opposite of overkill, and Nigerians have an inverted notion of justice that lacks restraint in personal or public life as seen in the embezzlement of huge sums of money with uncountable zeros belonging to the people.

Can anyone see overkill in the murder a Christian woman whose corpse was paraded in the open market as if she were a trophy, simply because she happened to dance to a different drummer, to believe in a different onye nwe anyi (our Lord) than the terrorists’ Allah?

PUNISHMENT VERSUS REHABILITATION: While the rest of the free world subscribes to the humane rehabilitation which changes conditions that breed lawlessness and that attack  constituted authority (such as the Nigerian government, for example), Justice Nyako and the government she represents uphold cruel punishment and excessive force to control the expression of human liberty.

Cruel punishment is the use of sentencing, penalty, chastisement, castigation, reprimand, retribution, or death in its most extremely outrageous form to muzzle and silence citizens. Punishment is a form of cruelty. Cruelty is  meanness, nastiness, brutality, malice, spite, spitefulness, vindictiveness.

Rehabilitation, on the other hand, as contradictory to punishment, is the readiness to correct a behavior through the use of treatment, therapy, healing, cure, analysis, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, religion, or love.

BOTTOM LINE? Bottom line is  WHO WINS THE CONTEST? We say all these things to say that we need a WIN-WIN situation and that Nigeria  ought to win her citizens over. Mr. Nnamdi kalu could have been won over to Buhari’s side through rehabilitation, love, compassion, and concern rather than through hate, armamentarium, or intimidation.

Armamentarium is the effective equipment of a warship (Nigeria is always a ship at war), including the war planes, fortifications, guns, rifles, armory, My country Nigeria  is arming or being armed for war. Most of our so-called military might are purchased from white men with expensive price tags. where is the money left over to build roads and provide our electricity?  

What could a mere 40-year-old Igbo young man, filled with youthful energy,  and drunk with an inflated sense of self- importance  do to harm a nation of 180,000,000 people, a nation with fully functioning armed forces? Nigeria and her legal system overreacted with explosive force.

Nnamdi Kalu has no weapons other than onu, onu, ntaghari onu (mouth, mouth, and talking mouth).  A talking mouth demonstrates that democracy is well and alive in Nigeria.

This writer would rather have talking mouths without a government than a government without talking mouths. We ought to show the world that we are a democracy, the “indepanda.”  Nigerians are not caged animals who have no voices.

DOES THE GLOVE FIT THE HAND?: Readers need to be reminded that we are concerned with whether the drastic, heavy-handed bail conditions stacked up against a 40-year-old impressionable young man were fair, and whether Nnamdi Kalu’ s justice was delayed and his  freedom snatched away.

Justice delayed is justice denied. A denial of justice occurred when  young Nnamdi Kalu  sought   fame (even if the fame lasts for a fleeting second), and the Nigerian legal system responded with actions which were hampering, daunting, or fettering. The three verbs mean hindering of free speech.

Stiff bail conditions did not fit the alleged offense described as treasonable felony. That is the same mystery charge that landed Chief Obafemi Awolowo in jail and sent Chief Abiola to early grave.

CROWD OF 10 PERSONS: Restricting Kanu to a crowd no more than 10 persons means the man cannot go to church or visit his family members and he would avoid attending funerals of his deceased umu nna (kindreds).

THREE HUNDRED MILLION NAIRA SURETIES: Justice Nyako got it wrong when she attempts to force Nigerians into the pigeon-hole thought process where one is compelled to develop a tunnel  vision of Nigerian justice.  

Tunnel vision is the tendency to focus exclusively on a single or limited goal or point of view. It is an all-or-none solution to a complex issue. Tunnel vision is the one-size-fits-all market, where one buys a size 12 dress for a skinny, scrawny, skeletal, malnourished Fulani female (subsisting on fermented cow milk), and attempts to force the skimpy dress on the body of a fat, obose, rotunda Igbo akpu (cassava) eater.

A huge misgiving in the Nigerian society is the tendency to measure everything in life in terms of sums of money. My people have such a misguided notion of money when they talk obsessively of material possessions. It is terrible!

                                                                                                                                                                    We can sleep peacefully when you mention N100 (one hundred naira), N1,000 (one thousand Naira), or even N100,000 (one hundred thousand naira). Few people can sleep well without experiencing nightmares when Nyako talks about N100,000,000 (one hundred million Naira), and N300, 000,000 (three hundred million Naira). Many people are led to steal or resort to witch doctors who may demand human sacrifices. Love of money opens doors to many evils.

We ought to de-emphasize money and emphasize non-monetary values. We ought to refuse to tell our Nigerian sons and daughters “Baby, everything you see is  about money, money, and more money”. There is more to life than just money, and the best thing a Nigerian mother and father ought to give a Nigerian child is not money. The best gifts to give our children are positive values, not millions of Naira.

The best thing in life is life itself, followed by respect and love for the nation and being of assistance to others. The most valuable things in life are invaluable. To be considered invaluable, the thing must be precious, priceless, very useful, helpful, or important.

If Justice Nyako had been schooled in non-monetary values, she would agree with the proposition that invaluable items include but are not limited to life, health, freedom, love, altruism, and kindness. Service rendered to others is an invaluable gift that only Heaven can repay. Then, we can boldly say to our son or daughter: “Baby, money is not that important because the best possession your mother and I have is not money. It is the gift of you. Tell me this: now much is your life worth?”

ON JEWISH SURETY: One cannot fail to detect traces of poisonous colonial mentality in Justice Nyako bail conditions. Must Nigerians often run to foreigners to ask for favors? Is a Jewish rabbi a better surety than a Fulani  herdsman who owns a million heads of cows, or a Calabar  merchant who deals  in ahia iwu (merchant who deals in banned goods shipped from Fernando Po)? What about a Nigerian pastor who owns churches in every nation and a fleet of sleek jets?

THE ABCD OF NIGERIAN JUSTICE. A stands for Allaharization;  B stands for the Buharization of Nigerian politics; C stands for Cannonization; and D is Demonization. Allaharization is the habit of categorizing any offense or situation as a case involving Allah. Buharization is the messing up of the body politic whereby any disagreement or demonstration is seen as a decamp from Buhari’s Aso Rock.

Canonization is the declaration that a person who kills others or uses extralegal means to cause the death of someone opposed to Buhari’s views, is to be granted special dispensation, indulgence, allowance, special consideration, privilege, relaxation of rules, or exemption. Demonization is the habit of reducing persons opposed to Buhari’s government to the position of a demon, imp, evil spirit, Satan, or dangerous criminal.  

CONCLUSIONS: The Buhari government and Justice Nyako ought to learn from the Nnamdi Kalu episode as they retrace steps to move Nigeria on the path to true democracy

Mr. Nnamdi Kalu is a tiny fish that ought to have been caught with a tiny leafy bait woven with compassion, not a massive steel net. 

Kalu should have been marginalized, rendered a more potent contributor to governance if we can lure him into becoming a team player on the side the Federal Government and in the service of his fellow citizens.

Let us listen as Kanu expounds his youthful ideas on how to govern 180,000,000 diverse persons; he would be able to explain if given the opportunity, and would find it difficult to remain silent. We must encourage Kanu to talk and not remain silent. So long as the Kanus are silent or silenced Nigerian will ever “be developing” but never “developed.”

Therefore, we abjure/reject silence of the dead night. We want the robust speech; we want loquacity, communicativeness, talkativeness, garrulity, chattering, babbling, gabbling, volubility, and the effusiveness of one hundred million Nnamdi Kalus. We want freedom which silence cannot guarantee.  The Kanus must be allowed to speak without being disturbed.

Kanu ought to be trained, equipped, encouraged to carry out nation-building assignments on behalf of his nation to his constitueThe federal Government cannot claim to have all the answers .There are millions of  Nnamdi Kanus in a population of 180 million who may have better ideas on what the problems are and what solutions can serve our needs.  Let’s ask for and explore their suggestions rather than ostracize them.   To exclude a significant portion of Nigerian  population from the political process is not only bad government, it is impudence, effrontery, audacity,ncy, particularly to the Igbo youth who feel marginalized , disenfranchised, and alienated from the Hausa-Fulani-Muslim administration.

Nnamdi Kalu and followers who share his views ought to be involved in efforts to galvanize, fire up, and electrify, communication that would stimulate community efforts to solve Nigerian myriad problems of bad roads, inadequate electricity supply, gnawing hunger, unemployment, violence, and corruption.

Why aren’t the Nigerian youth involved in developing new inventions (gargets)? It is because nobody encourages them or provides incentives, and they are not allowed to speak.

The federal Government cannot claim to have all the answers .There are millions of  Nnamdi Kanus in a population of 180 million who may have better ideas on what the problems are and what solutions can serve our needs.  Let’s ask for and explore their suggestions rather than ostracize them.   To exclude a significant portion of Nigerian  population from the political process is not only bad government, it is impudence, effrontery, audacity,