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Ten days ago, David Mark, the
senate president, was palpably enraged during a plenary session. Mr.
Mark’s anger was directed at senators who were members of the senate
committee on communication which was supposed to have screened the new
management team of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC). The
senators had publicly accused the committee chairman, Sylvester Anyanwu
of fraud over the screening exercise.

“This is an embarrassment to the
entire senate and I feel very sad about this; a senator accusing the
other publicly,” Mr. Mark said angrily. In that rage, he promptly
disbanded the committee over allegations that its chairman, Mr Anyanwu,
carried out the exercise alone at night, and forged the signatures of
two other members of the committee, claiming that six of the members
took part in the exercise.

For a nation that has increasingly
loathed the unending wrongdoings of federal legislators, that seemed
like a welcome decision and the general consensus seemed to be that Mr.
Anyanwu deserved what he got.

However, a more thorough
investigation of the events that led to Mr. Mark’s show of rage
indicates that the senate president’s furious display that day was the
final act in the drama he scripted the previous night.

It was also established that
although the screening of the new Executive Vice Chairman and chief
executive officer, and three other management staff of NCC took place
in the night as claimed, the nominees were vetted only by Mr. Anyanwu
and his deputy, Joseph Akaagerger (PDP Benue state) because of
pressures from the senate president. They had allegedly acted in
response to an earlier threat by Mr. Mark who directed both Mr Anyanwu
and Mr. Akaagerger to produce the report of the screening that night or
lose their plum positions.

Abubakar Argungu (PDP, Kebbi
state), a member of the committee who broke the scam on the Senate
floor narrated how six members of the committee converged for the
screening the previous evening but the event had to be postponed
because the security report and the Code of Conduct Bureau reports on
the nominees did not reach the committee before dark.

“The point Argungu raised is a
very serious one. I sent the security reports from my office,” the
Senate president said. But officials close to Mr. Mark’s office who
would not want to be named, said the senate president sent the crucial
reports later at night, after the committee members had left, and
threatened that if the assignment was not carried out by the committee
that night, it will be dissolved.

“It appeared the senate president was in haste to confirm the nominees,” one of the officials said.

But for the emergency plenary the
senate will hold on Tuesday, the day of the screening debacle was
supposed to be the last one before 29 September when the senate was
scheduled to return from a two month vacation.

“If the nominees were not
confirmed that day, they would have waited till the senate resumed at
the end of September,” Mr. Anyanwu, the chairman of the committee
confirmed in an interview.

Some in the National Assembly
spoke of the intersection of personal interests in an establishment
viewed in legislative circles as influential. “The senate president had
issued the threat apparently because he sensed the committee was
reluctant about the job because of their personal interests,” one
official said.

Loose funds

The Nigerian Communications
Commission is seen as a crucial government agency which averages N45
billion in subventions from the federal government and N18 billion from
external revenue annually. Another layer of pork is a seemingly loose
fund called Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). It was established
“to facilitate the rapid achievement of national policy goals for
universal access to telecommunications, information, and communication
technologies (ICTs),” says the Communications Act of 2003. “It is a
honey pot which invisible hands lick from without trace,” said a staff
of the Commission.

It is managed by a secretary who
reports to the Executive Vice Chairman and the CEO who is under the
authority of the commission’s board chairman. It was not confirmed if
the propelling force for the battle over the fund’s control is because
of the approaching 2011 general elections.

Clash of Interests

There are clear indications that
the whole screening exercise was marred by the selfish desire of a
number of people to place ethnic sentiments ahead of national
interests. There were efforts to ensure that the next executive vice
chairman comes from a particular zone. The south east zone apparently
considered the position to be zoned to their area, while a section of
the north was bent on wresting it away for the first time.

The fierce campaign for who
succeeds Ernest Ndukwe, NCC former CEO, started shortly before he
retired last April. There were five contenders for the office, all
engineers, including two executive commissioners in the Commission,
Stephen Adedayo Bello and Bashir Gwandu. Others were Eugene Juwah, Umar
Garba Danbatta, and Johnson Asinogu, a former employee of the
commission.

When Mr. Ndukwe was leaving, he handed over to Mr. Bello, the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management.

However, two months later, Mr.
Gwandu took over, as the acting CEO, from Mr. Bello who attained the
compulsory retirement age of 60, last June.

Immediately Mr. Gwandu took over
office, Funsho Fawemi, the secretary of the Fund embarked on a
compulsive annual leave of absence, although Mr. Gwandu has denied that
he ordered that.

Despite being recommended by Dora
Akunyili, the Information Minister, Mr. Gwandu was reportedly not
favoured at the presidency because Mr. Ndukwe who has more influence at
the presidency, had another preference.

“Mr. Ndukwe promoted Eugene Juwah, – former executive director of MTS First Wireless – to the presidency,

through Mike Oghadome, the chief
of staff to the President and former deputy governor in Edo state,” a
presidency source said. “Remember Ndukwe was arrested by EFCC (Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission) last year and Gwandu is his antagonist
and believed to be capable of throwing open some secrets if he was
retained as the Executive Vice Chairman. The senate president and his
deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, were then lobbied with an opportunity to
appoint the chairman and one Executive commissioner respectively,” the
source said. “The senate president nominated Peter Igoh from his
constituency and Ekweremadu nominated Okechukwu Itanyi, his former
senior colleague.” Mr. Itanyi was until 2007, the deputy governor of
Enugu State where the deputy senate president also served as
commissioner and chief of staff.

On 22 July, the letter nominating
the new management arrived in the senate and was read by Mr. Ekweremadu
who presided that day and referred it to the senate communication
committee. The committee was given four days to turn in a report.

Ethnic bias

At the committee, three members
were from Kebbi State; Mr. Gwandu’s home state. They were perhaps not
happy with the presidency’s choice and favoured Mr. Gwandu. Some
reports had also accused Mr. Gwandu of bribing the committee chairman
with N230 million to frustrate the screening and subsequently elongate
his stay in office.

Mr. Gwandu who was earlier
adjudged to be the most qualified for the job was considered to be the
first northerner to head the commission since its inception, 18 years
ago.

There was visibly a clash of
multiple interests, few options and little time left for deals before
the day the committee was disbanded.

When the ethnic argument was no
longer tenable, Mr. Argungu’s revelation of a scam at the screening was
the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I am a member of the committee
and there was no screening,” Mr. Argungu said. “I am surprised the
chairman is presenting them for confirmation this morning.” Tanko
Ayuba, also from Kebbi state reacted sharply saying the committee
chairman approached them to sign the screening report that morning.

“It is time for us to own up on
this matter and say exactly the way it is” Mr. Ayuba said. “We signed
only this morning.” When the scandal took an explosive turn, the senate
president called for a closed door meeting where frayed nerves were
calmed.

However, before the closed
door-calming-meeting, the senate president had taken the hard line
option of disbanding the committee. “The senate president overreacted,”
a senator said in an interview.

Denials all

The players in the debacle
however denied they played any dirty role. In an interview, Mr. Gwandu
said he did not bribe Mr. Anyanwu or any other member of the committee.

“I know Sylvester (Mr. Anyanwu)
very well, of course, and I have cooperated with the committee whenever
required,” he said. “But I have never given money to him or anybody to
influence anything. Where would I even get that kind of money from? The
biggest contract I have given is for my complimentary cards.” He also
denied influencing the decision of the northern senators to prefer him.

Mr. Anaynwu, on his part, denied receiving any bribe from Mr. Gwandu ascribing the allegation to his political enemies.

Media assistants to the senate president also denied his involvement
saying the dissolution of the committee that day was a spontaneous act.

“We do not know who
is giving us the documents and we do not want to know.” These were the
words of Daniel Schmitt (not his real surname), the co-founder of
Wikileaks, the whistle-blower on-line media portal that has exposed
national secret files on the Internet.

Call it a bluff, but one cannot help but wonder at the driving force behind this organization.

Addressing young
journalists participating in the 2010 International Institute of
Journalism (IIJ) Summer Academy in Hamburg, Mr Schmitt – the only known
identity associated with the website, aside the founder of the
organization, John Assange – commanded rapt attention from everyone
present at the meeting; even as he boasted that his organization is
“the most aggressive press agency in the world.”

“We publish the
unpublishable documents and are ungagging the media,” he said. “We have
no political agenda, not right nor left or anywhere. We are just a
relay for neutral sources. What we do is to disclose what creates
transparency.”

Wikileaks has, in
the last two years, published classified documents released to it by
unknown sources on the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This
highlights crimes committed by the coalition forces in the war-torn
countries. It has also published a number of documents that revealed
details of corruption in governance and the financial sector in several
countries.

The latest of such
publication, the ‘Afghanistan war log,’ a 90,000 page document released
a fortnight ago, detailed how the coalition forces in Afghanistan were
responsible for the deliberate killings of civilians in the war with
the Talibans. It also revealed how the Pakistani Intelligence service
(ISI) is funding the Taliban insurgency in the country. Wikileaks gave
a new twist to its model and journalism with this release by liaising
with three leading media organization: The Guardian, The New York Times
and Der Spiegel to analyze and publish the report on the same day.

The US government
claimed that Mr Assange now has “blood on his hand” by revealing names
of US secret agents in Pakistan in the report. However, Mr Schmitt told
the audience that the US is the guilty one if anything happens to the
secret sources.

“Prior to our
release of the documents, we approached the US authority and asked to
check the document so that they can take care of their agents, but they
told us they have no interest,” he said. “We are no more responsible
than the US government which says that they are not interested in
removing the names. It is very unfortunate. We did our absolute best to
minimize any possible harm that was there.”

Mr Assange; the founder of the website, has alleged that “crimes against humanity are clearly being committed in the war.”

Focus on human interest

When questioned on
the risk of threats to national security via the publication of
government secrets, Schmitt, who described himself as having a
background in information technology, responded that it is time the
world focuses on human interest and not on national interest. “We all
operate on a basis that is sick and seeks the welfare of just a few in
the name of national security while lots suffer,” he said. “Never in my
life, have I slept so well. I am happy and free and started the project
because I believed I am involved in a good project and doing anything
to me will not change anything.”

Ridiculing the information act

Interestingly, Mr
Schmitt has little regard for the Information Act, which is gaining
grounds in more countries. “Wikileaks has showed how useless the
freedom of information law/act is, which claims to provide a lot of
information but still strongly holds down information with the
different styles of laws in various countries which impedes the
validity of the law,” he said. “What is best kept secret… if
revealed, has the most potential to reform.” He also called on
journalists not to waste time on something everyone knows already.
“Help us publish history, as history is the only guidebook civilization
has,” he said. “Every good story is always controversial as it gets
people talking.” He further stated that the organization will be
building more collaboration with other media organization on how to
build a new system of information dissemination.

Donation from terrorist

As a non-profit
making publishing portal, donations are received by a German foundation
from anonymous donors whose identity they “don’t want to know”. NEXT
asked Mr Schmitt if the organization feels justified to spend donations
that might come from terrorist groups or drug cartels.

“What better thing
will they be spending their money on?” he asked. “I will feel good if
donations come from terrorist groups. That will be the best thing for
them to spend their money on. We cannot control who gives us money, but
we are going to use the money on something very good.” Asked what
Wikileaks wanted the world to do with the information it’s releasing,
the bespectacled man, took a deep breath and said: “in the long run, we
want people to take information seriously and focus more on information
than infotainment. To determine what to do with this information as a
people is very imperative because we have to learn how to deal with the
deluge of information out there. That is why we provide for the public
to decide.” A member of the audience then asked Mr Schmitt, on the
state of emotion of the whistle-blower who earns no glory whatsoever.
“We urge anyone submitting documents to Wikileaks not to talk to
anyone, but we absolutely understand the natural urge for recognition
and that is why we have the chat box on Wikileaks for people to talk
about whatever they want to talk about anonymously.” Citing the example
of a US soldier arrested for the leaking of the Iraqi collateral damage
video, Mr Schmitt said the soldier’s cover (which he said Wikileaks
cannot ascertain) was broken because he confided in a friend. “We have
never lost a source on a mistake that we made,” he said.

Leaks on Nigeria

NEXT asked Mr
Schmitt why nothing tangible is yet to be leaked on Nigeria, despite
the massive level of corruption that pervade the country. He assured
the audience that, pretty soon, the website will be releasing a lot of
information on the African continent. He also explained that the
website, in 2007, published a document on the Kenyan government, which
affected the nation’s election.

Mr Schmitt was also asked why the Wikileaks website looks so much
like the popular on-line search website: Wikipedia. “We decided to use
the same layout because Wikipedia is the most popular website in the
world and easily navigable for anyone, so we copied this format for
easy navigation for everyone” he said. “Aggressive nature of news
publishing is in humanity’s interest.”

The
Action Congress (AC), one of the foremost political parties in the
country, on Friday said that it will make public its decision on the
issue of the mega party proposal by Monday.

Bola Tinubu,
former governor of Lagos State and a chieftain of the party, while
speaking to correspondents at the presidential wing of the Murtala
Mohammed Airport (MMA), Lagos disclosed that the party, which is one of
the formidable oppositions to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), is doing all it can to claim victory, come the 2011 general
elections.

Admitting that he
is not the national chairman of the party, Mr. Tinubu disclosed that
his party is interested in ensuring the survivability of Nigeria,
adding that the PDP has not delivered in its promises to Nigerians.

“Just keep
looking, by Monday you will know what the party decides. I mean I am
not the national chairman or a member of the national working
committee, for we are looking at a country that is stable and
progressing and we want to work hard as the opposition party to wrest
power from this Poverty Development Party that has not done any
Nigerian any good,” he said. “At the last, they have drifted completely
from government and now it is all about zoning, running, they have
personalised Nigeria.” Outlining poverty, unemployment, poor
educational standards, amongst others, to be the characteristics
attributable to the Peoples Democratic Party, the former governor said
that a nation that is attaining 50 years of age is expected to be
making considerable improvement.

“Poverty is on the
line, unemployment is rife in our youth, education of our youth is
poor, as well as the opportunities in this country; last minutes of
fifty years in our independence and we are still talking about our
potential and not reality – the progress that a nation is made,” he
said.

National Assembly as an ‘imperial court’

Mr. Tinubu also
called on the National Assembly to allow the Independent and National
Electoral Commission (INEC) to act as an autonomous body and not to
interfere in the conducts of the elections.

“It is not about
the merger of which party or not. You look at the National Assembly
making laws in a customised and personalized form and not by the
constitution. Taking away the independence of INEC, when you say this
is an independent institution.

You are taking
their independence away by ordering the election, organising the order
of elections, making laws, legislating for the order of election and so
on and so forth. All sort of charade by the majority party in power.
You could see a National Assembly that is now an imperial court,” he
said.

Explaining that
the call for President Goodluck Jonathan to contest next year’s
election has nothing to do with the Action Congress, and that the party
is working towards changing the way things are being done by the PDP,
Mr. Tinubu disclosed that Nigeria is far from being a country with only
one party.

“We will not allow
this country to become a one party state. I don’t want to talk about
Jonathan running, or sitting down or broken ankle. No, that is their
problem; that is the problem of PDP,” he said.

At
last, Kano State governor, Ibrahim Shekarau has formally opened his
campaign to rule Nigeria. Last Thursday, the governor, at a rally held
at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, made known his intention
to contest the 2011 presidential election on the platform of the All
Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). He became the first presidential aspirant
in the country to declare his intention to contest in the election.

In his speech, Mr. Shekarau berated the PDP
government, which he did not only say is inconsistent in policy
formulation and implementation, but has failed in the 12 years it has
controlled the government at the centre.

“The PDP has ruled this country for almost twelve
years, but they have nothing on ground to show, apart from
inconsistency,” Mr Shekarau said. “Day before yesterday it was National
Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy where the states were
asked to be benchmark for best practice and federal government itself
refused to be benchmarked; yesterday it was seven point agenda and
today what? Nobody knows. You may ask what about tomorrow.”

The governor, however, promised that, if elected, he would turn things around in the country.

“I will do everything towards the realization of
our common aspiration for a better Nigeria,” he told his supporters. “I
will focus on ensuring security of life and property; making the right
move to provide reliable electricity supply; attaining self sufficiency
in food production; and improving schools to meet the standards of
quality for which Nigerian education was renowned.”

“It is time to ask Nigerians to participate in
shaping the future of our nation. It is time for transformational
politics, which is about electing someone committed to doing something
about the challenges facing our country; and not transactional
politics, which is about electing someone on account of instant or
future personal advantage,” the governor said.

But the large crowd that gathered in the
prestigious conference centre to listen to Mr Shekarau unfold his
agenda, may not be a sign of his smooth sail to Aso Rock. Undoubtedly,
there are bumps and potholes on the way that may not be easily filled
and are capable of halting his ambition.

First, the ANPP is practically non-existent in
most states from which Mr. Shekarau is expected to draw his votes to
power. As of today, the party controls only three states, namely Kano,
Yobe and Borno.

On the return of democracy 11 years ago, the ANPP,
then known as All Peoples Party, produced nine governors, all in the
north and over 30 senators and over a hundred members of the House of
Representatives drawn from both the northern and southern part of the
country. It also had a sizeable number of lawmakers in state
legislatures in the south. Today, the party can hardly boast of more
than five senators and 50 members in the House of Representatives, no
thanks to the defection of party faithful to other parties.

The ANPP, presumably the largest opposition party
in the country, has had the misfortune of being used by politicians to
ride to power, after which it is dumped. This occurs both at the level
of government and within the party. As a result, the party’s support
base is diminishing by the day, an ugly development that may affect Mr
Shekarau’s outing.

Closely related to that is the Muhammadu Buhari
factor. Although, Mr Shekarau is perceivably credible, not many can
deny the fact that he rode to power in 2003 on the popularity of the
former military head of state. Against all permutations, Mr Shekarau
dislodged the Musa Kwankwaso PDP administration and went ahead to
secure a second term in office, an achievement no Kano governor ever
made.

Mr. Buhari, the ANPP presidential candidate on two
occasions – 2003 and 2007 – has since the beginning of this year
floated his own party, Congress for Progressive Change, under which he
is expected to contest the presidential election. His supporters have
followed him to his new party abandoning Mr Shekarau. The CPC is not
only creating upset in Kano, but the entire north.

Cracks in unity

Yet, the crack in the Kano chapter of the ANPP is
another factor that may work against Mr. Shekarau. In Kano State, the
governor cannot claim to have full control of the party machinery in
the state he has ruled for about eight years. His “sin” is the
anointing of one of his commissioners, Salihu Sagir Takai as his
successor without allowing a free primary contest. To many, this action
did not provide a level playing field for all aspirants.

Already, some unhappy members have moved over to
the PDP and CPC where they hope to realize their ambitions. Indeed,
some say it was the major reason why Bashir Othman Tofa, also from
Kano, came out with his presidential campaign posters on a day Mr
Shekarau had his rally in Abuja.

Even the ANPP states of Yobe and Borno may not
work for Mr. Shekarau. The governors, Ibrahim Geidam and Ali Modu
Sheriff are reportedly not comfortable with Mr Shekarau’s ambition, a
reason they did not send representatives to his formal declaration for
the race.

Messrs Sheriff and Geidam may not be willing to
deploy their machineries to support the Kano State chief executive. And
if they do, they will not be committed to cause.

At the national level, Mr Shekarau cannot also
claim to have a granite support of the executives. Already, the party
is in disarray over the zoning of party offices, a reason attributable
to the frequent postponement of its national convention.

The Kano governor is said to be backing Harry
Akande, a billionaire businessman from Oyo State, for the position of
chairman as against the choice of other top notchers and members of the
party.

It is also believed that the outgoing national
chairman, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, who is insisting that the chairmanship slot
remains in the South East geo-political zone, is rooting for the
incumbent national publicity secretary, Emma Eneukwu from Enugu State.
Others, including the former governor of Zamfara State, Ahmad Sani, a
senator, want the position zoned to other parts of the country.

With these problems and many others, it is not
clear where Mr Shekarau will garner votes to dislodge the PDP
administration from Aso Rock.

Bolaji Khaleel, Mr. Shekarau’s campaign Director
General, thinks otherwise. He told NEXT last Friday that Mr Shakarau is
not depending on the votes of only members of the ANPP to emerge
President.

“Our chances are as bright as ever. We are not
relying on party members alone to win but Nigerians. How many
politicians are in the country; they constitute about five percent of
the population of Nigeria. You are not a politician and there are
millions like you who want good governance. Our well wishers are there
to vote and so we are not relying on the party members,” Mr Khaleel, an
indigene of Kwara State said.

The ANPP National Director of Publicity, Sabo
Mouhammad agrees with him. “He (Shekarau) is a party man and has
contributed immensely to the growth of the party.

Although, the party is yet to come out with
guidelines, the coming of Mr. Shekarau is a good omen. The party’s
chances are bright in view of the crisis in the PDP and also because
the PDP government is not performing.

On May 26, 2006,
Augustine Igbokwe penned a sombre four-paragraph letter to the
Commissioner of Police in Imo State where he lived, complaining about
grave threats to his life and that of a kinsman.

“If this incessant
threat to my life and that of Sebastine Dike is not checkmated,” he
said, “it may tantamount to loss of our lives.” He told the police how
his alleged attacker openly threatened to kill him at a funeral for not
supporting the emergence of the accused person’s brother as a local
chief in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area, where they all hailed
from. Whether the police responded to this citizen’s anxiety is neither
stated nor claimed anywhere, but based on testimonies from relatives,
community members and police documents, no arrest, warning or an order
for an undertaking was executed.

Nearly a year
later, in April 2007, while attending a political function in a nearby
location, Mr Igbokwe lost his life, allegedly in the hands of the same
assailant he warned against – a 49-year-old former member of the State
House of Assembly, Jasper Ndubuaku.

According to police
documents and eye witnesses, he was shot and killed by Mr Ndubuaku,
currently an aide to the state governor, Ikedi Ohakim, opening a
homicide case that fortifies a long-standing concern about the rights
of ‘ordinary’ Nigerians to police protection, or justice in the face of
mortal danger.

It is not clear how
the two parties lived for close to 12 months after that notification,
but on April 14, 2007, during the state governorship and House of
Assembly elections, the police document says Mr Ndubuaku shot and
killed Mr Igbokwe.

Several police
correspondences on the matter, obtained by NEXT, do not point to any
action on the solemn warnings, neither have they been denied. But
somehow, the security records, in a rambling pattern, chronicle events
observed through investigations that have run for more than three
years, with the victim’s body unburied throughout the period.

Mr Igbokwe’s
brother, Eugene, said the case has gone through a “lengthy and windy”
investigation, but has only succeeded in failing to prosecute the named
suspect. “It is a long matter that cannot be discussed in a rush,” he
said.

After the prolonged
period, which saw the family and community leaders repeatedly accusing
the police of a cover-up, the matter drew renewed attention under the
new Inspector General of Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo. Now, although
investigations indicted the accused, prosecution is yet to be initiated
by the state Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for such
arraignments.

Political storm

After the office of
the Attorney General had been requested by the police to charge the
case to court, in a memo (CB:3514/X/LEG/FHQ/ABJ/VOL.II/44), K.C
Nwokorie, the assistant chief state counsel in a letter he signed on
February 12, 2010, for the Director of Public Prosecution, Imo State
Ministry of Justice, requested the original case file from the police,
after which nothing has since happened.

The Commissioner of
Police, Legal/Prosecution section, ‘c’ department, Abuja, B. A Hassan,
also on March 25, 2010, wrote the Commissioner of Police, ‘A’
Department, Imo State command, reminding him of the case and his
readiness to provide necessary resources to facilitate the arraignment.

Over phone with
NEXT, the state Attorney General, K. C. O Njemanze, denied knowledge of
the case, citing the high volume of criminal files his office attends
to daily. Like thousand others, he said, if the case involved murder,
the suspect cannot be spared prosecution.

“If it involves
murder and armed robbery, which are very sensitive, we must charge
those concerned. Nobody is above the law here,” he said. “We charge the
person straight, no matter whose ox is gored.” He, however, promised to
provide further details if the particulars of the case were sent to him.

Many about turns

In a March 19,
2010, letter, endorsed by S.U. Onuoha, the state solicitor general, on
behalf of the AG, the police was asked to discountenance a previous
request made by the state Director of Public Prosecutions asking for
the original case files and the arrest and arraignment of Mr Ndubuaku.

Mr Onuoha wrote
that the Attorney General was yet to vet the case, three years after
the incident, and that he would inform the police of other developments.

But the victim’s family seem determined not to let go.

The deceased today
lies in the Aladinma Hospital mortuary in Imo State, partly as a
preserved evidence for this yet-to-be completed investigation, and also
as a heartbreaking memento of a horrific pursuit of justice by a family
bereaved by a murdered son. The victim’s mother, relatives say, later
died inconsolable after her son’s tragic death.

As the family
endured an arduous process which involved the relatives often
travelling to Abuja to keep appointments at the police headquarters,
the suspect was never arrested or arraigned, NEXT understands.

“There have been a string of arrests in this case, all of which have
targeted persons with very remote bearing to this case and have yielded
nothing,” said Access to Justice, a rights campaigning group, in its
December 2007 letter to former Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro.
“All of those arrests have been one-sided, extending only to relatives
of the deceased person. The principal suspect of this murder has
enjoyed some kind of arrest and detention immunity.”

One too many Nigerians are carrying scars from police brutality
and extra-judiacial killings. One such person is 16-year-old Godwin Joshua, an
SS1 student, who was shot by yet-to-be-identified police officers on April 3,
2010 in Ajegunle.

April 3 was the day almost 2,000 youth marched the streets of
Ajegunle, protesting the death of another youth, Charles Okafor, who died two
days earlier following alleged police harassment and brutality.

Godwin remembers that day clearly. He remembers he did not pray.
He remembers when he woke in the morning, his plan was to do “my duty at home
and later I’ll go to work then go and play ball”. He even remembers the black
pair of jeans and blue shirt he wore on the day. And he remembers it was a
little after 10am when he became a victim of police brutality.

“My dad sent me on an errand so when I returned I took up my
tools to go to where they called me to work because I do furniture work. But
when I got there what I saw was unbelievable. People were running here and
there. The police were shooting and everyone was running. I also ran but the
next thing I found myself…,” Godwin pauses and shakes his head. It’s obvious
the memories are still fresh. He says the next thing he remembers is the pain
he felt in his legs and being at a police station and a group of Police
officers deciding his fate.

“Some of the police were saying that they should give me a gun
or machete so that they’ll take my picture, so that they will say maybe I am
among those that are fighting,” Godwin recounts, “but one of the police man
said I am too small for such a thing that they should just throw me somewhere
or take me to anywhere”.

The bullets had hit his right and left thighs, barely missing
his penis. Assuming he would not survive, he said, the police took him to the
Isolo General Hospital where they abandoned him. Family members found him three
days later.

Pain untold

“He was lying down on the bed. All his legs were swollen. I felt
serious tears in my eyes. I said to myself how can a man live like this in his
own country, not America, or anywhere else, but my own country. I don’t want to
say I regret being a Nigerian,” said Godwin’s father Udofia Joshua.

Godwin says “for those three days the only thing that came to my
mind was just for God to take my life because I was going through pain. Nothing
on earth amused me during that period.”

Unable to pay for hospital treatment, Mr. Joshua took his son
home and resorted to use of traditional medicine and family care.

Godwin’s cousin, Magdalene Joshua, a nurse, attended to him for
the four months, giving him injections and dressing his wounds. She wonders why
the police carried Godwin to the Isolo General Hospital instead of either the
General Hospital in Ajeromi or Apapa.

She recounts her experience attending to Godwin. “If you entered
the room (where the victim lay for months), it would be smelling due to the
odour. If you see the leg that time when I was doing the dressing. My
instruments like forceps, I used to put rope to pull it out. That time he could
not do anything,” she said.

“It is God that did it because for those four months, there was
no money. It is only if people come around they’ll give us small something,”
she narrated.

For the victim’s mother, Magdalene Joshua, her days of “worrying
sick and thinking a lot” are over.

She says she is thankful because other youths, like Babatunde
Olotu, were killed on the day of the protest. She says wants to see her son
“walk better like before, finish school and further his education.”

Godwin believes “only the rich can get justice in this country”.

But as he manages to walk, he says he doesn’t forget to pray
every day. He sees life as having given him a second chance. He is, however,
worried for his family.

“The Police abandoned me so I cannot count on them. All I can ask is help
for my family because they are down. Even the money they have spent on me they
borrowed it and till now they have not paid back. But I don’t trust the Police
to help.”

Last
week, the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg, South Africa, told a
Nigerian woman she cannot apply for her children without a letter from
the children’s father, and kindly offered to issue the documents as
soon as the paternal endorsement is received.

The shocked woman
asked the reason for her denial and the reason given by the immigration
officer at the consulate was that “in Nigeria, the children belong to
the man.” This incident is a pointer to the series of institutional
discriminations against women in the country, including the lack of
opportunities for men married to Nigerian women to take their wives’
nationality if they so desire, while foreign women married to Nigerian
men have no such problem.

Immigration
officials at the Lagos Passport Office, Ikoyi, confirmed that the
father’s consent is indeed a prerequisite while applying for the
passports of minors.

A senior official
at the office, who doesn’t want to be named because he did not have
clearance to speak on the issue, said this is done to prevent
situations where the mother of a child might want to take such a child
away from their father without the father’s knowledge, for instance,
while divorce is being ironed out.

“I have had cases here where fathers have denied being aware that their children have applied for passports,” he said.

However, Chibogu
Obinwa, the senior programme officer of BAOBAB, a women’s human rights
advocacy group, thinks the reason given by the Immigration Service
cannot hold water.

“It does not take
into consideration the circumstances which may have led the woman
wanting to take the children out of the marriage,” she said. “It could
be that the woman is in an abusive marriage, (to her and the children)”.

Another senior
official at the office of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) at
Alagbon Close, Lagos, who also requested anonymity, corroborated what
the officer said at the Passport Office.

“It is purely for
security reasons,” he said. “It is intended to check crimes such as
human trafficking and child labour.” When asked if the mother’s consent
is required when a father is the one applying for their passport, the
immigration official said this may not be necessary since Nigeria is a
patrilineal society.

“You must
understand that Nigeria is a patrilineal society and the child belongs
to the father. In a country like Ghana that is a matrilineal society,
this may be possible.”

Jiti Ogunye, a
Lagos-based lawyer, expressed displeasure at the practice of government
officials in the application of laws, which he said reinforce the
patriachal posture of the Nigerian society. Mr Ogunye said such
practices are unconstitutional, as they negates the principle of
equality of sexes and the abhorrence of discrimination enshrined in the
country’s constitution.

“It is
unconstitutional, because there should be equality of treatment of both
gender by the law and in the application of all laws and regulations in
Nigeria, discrimination should be avoided. You can’t discriminate
anybody on the account of sex, circumstances of birth, state of origin
and religion. The constitutional provision in section 34 of the
constitution writes against discrimination.

However, Mr Ogunye
believes that while the immigration has the power to request for the
father’s consent to corroborate the mother’s claims if she shows up
first at the passport office, such treatment should be meted out to the
man also if he is the one that shows up first at the passport office.
This, he said, will justify the principle of equality as stated in the
constitution.

When asked if the
immigration is not deliberately negating the tenets of the constitution
on equality of sexes, the senior immigration official at the
immigration office at Alagbon retorted, “Our job is to implement
government policies. It is the job of a court of competent jurisdiction
to decide what is constitutional or not.”

A history of discrimination

The Nigerian
immigration law has a long history of discrimination against women in
its administrative policy on the issuance of international passports.
Prior to June 2009, when Priye Iyalla-Amadi, the wife of the famous
Nigerian writer, Elechi Amadi, got what is being regarded today as a
landmark judgement against the NIS, even adult women were required to
get their husband’s consent before they can apply for international
passports.

In the case
between Priye Iyalla-Amadi versus the NIS, a federal high court in Port
Harcourt declared as unconstitutional the policy of the NIS which
compelled a married Nigerian woman to produce a letter of consent from
her husband as a condition for issuance of international passport.

NEXT can confirm
that since the judgement was issued, the NIS has jettisoned the policy
that requires married women to get their husband’s consent before they
are issued passports.

“I have not been
asked to produce any such thing. Not at all,” said Mrs. Osinsanya, an
applicant at the Lagos passport office in Ikoyi.

Abdullahi Isa adjusted the helmet on his head for the umpteenth
time. It was his first week at work as a commercial motorcyclist and, besides
struggling with communicating with passengers in English language, he was also
having problems fastening the oversized head gear on his head. Although, he
could not work out how old he is, he said he was sure he was born the year the
late head of state, Sani Abacha, died (that is, 1998). According to him, his
sole purpose of moving to Lagos, where he had been for two months, was to
search for greener pastures.

The rising cases of road accidents in the state, which are
traceable to underage commercial motorcyclists and bus drivers who ply the
roads, have become a cause for concern.

Young and driving

Penultimate Wednesday, a diesel-laden tanker overturned and
exploded into flames on the Liverpool bridge, Apapa. Two occupants, including
the driver were instantly roasted to death.

Although he could not determine the exact age of the tanker
driver, Wale Olayiwola, a fire officer who was at the scene of the inferno,
attributed the cause to the situation where “very young boys” are allowed to
drive tankers and articulated vehicles.

“It is disheartening to see these young and inexperienced boys
driving trailers and tankers. I don’t know who granted them driving licences
that allowed them to drive vehicles loaded with sensitive and highly volatile
products,” said Mr. Olayiwola, the chief fire officer of the Nigeria Ports
Authority.

A public analyst, Gabriel Giwa-Amu, said that it is unreasonable
for an inexperienced person to ply the highways. “But if you say the
youthfulness of the motorist, the driver, or the commercial motorcyclist is an
issue, I will say no. The fact that the man is young does not make it a crime
or improper to ply the road because there is an age limit to which a person can
be said to be allowed to drive,” said Mr. Giwa-Amu, a Lagos-based private legal
practitioner.

Road safety awareness

The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), in conjunction with
celebrity special marshals and four nongovernmental organisations had, on
February 20 this year, initiated the child-safety campaign in Lagos State.

“It was because of the concern over the safety of younger people
like that, we call them under aged people who, of course, have a right to ride,
drive or be driven. And the whole essence of that is how do we raise
awareness?” Said Jonas Agwu, the Lagos State Sector Commander of the FRSC.

“What we were trying to emphasise was that the family, religious
organisations and everyone in the society has a responsibility to ensure that
these young people are properly guided.

“Nobody should capitalise on the fact that because you want to
do business, you take a child that is under aged and ask him to do certain
things,” said Mr. Agwu.

According to the National Road Traffic Regulation Act of 2004,
it is illegal for anybody who is under 18 to drive a vehicle or to ride a
motorcycle. But being able to determine the age of a driver or motorcyclist by
looks seems to be a major challenge for the traffic officials.

“In keeping with that,” Mr. Agwu continued, “we carry out our
enforcements targeting under aged drivers and riders. Of course, we know that
sometimes there are challenges because you cannot determine the age of a person
by merely looking at the person,” said Mr. Agwu.

“In most cases, when we suspect that the person is under 18,
what we do is we impound the vehicle, impound the bike, and insist that the
person should bring proof, so that we have a document that we can use in
determining whether the person who is arrested is truly under age or not before
we go ahead with enforcement.”

Monitoring road users

Mr. Giwa-Amu blamed road accidents on irresponsible road users
and poor monitoring from road monitoring agencies. “The commercial motorcyclists
are the most reckless beings that ever exist. Not because of the area they are
coming from, but because once they are able to step on the clutch and the Okada
moves, they feel that they can ride the Okada anywhere anyhow. But normally,
these people are supposed to be subjected to training and evaluation,” he said.

A major area that needs to be looked into, according to Mr.
Giwa-Amu, is the tendency for drivers to jump into any type of vehicle,
irrespective of the class of vehicle under which their licences were issued.
“If you say you are licenced to drive a lorry, it does not give you the licence
to drive a truck of a higher weight. If you are 18 years old and you are
licenced to drive a car, you are prohibited from driving a truck, especially
one carrying fuel or any inflammable object, because it endangers the public.

“And then there is always this periodic test the vehicle
inspection office is entitled to carry out for a truck driver to ensure that he
is still of that mental competence or ability to drive that truck of that
grade. But all these things have collapsed, once the road safety issues a
licence, it is presumed to be for three or four years, they are not concerned
about your mental stability.” According to Mr. Agwu, the agency comes down hard
on drivers who possess invalid driving licences.

“When we ask do you have a valid driver’s licence? A valid
driver’s licence could be regarded as an ambiguous question in the sense that
you might be thinking that all we are saying is that, do you have a current
licence? But much more than that, we are asking do you have the licence that
truly specifies and gives you the right to ride that thing that you are
moving?” Stressed Mr. Agwu.

He also said that the FRSC has started a programme which
specifies that anybody who is applying for a licence must have attended a valid
and approved driving school.

“As I speak to you now, if you apply for a driver’s license here in Lagos
and you are applying for the first time and you never went to a driving school
approved by the government, you will not be able to pick a driver’s licence.”

It is exactly a week since Comfort Monday, an inmate at the
Female Kirikiri Prison, Apapa, Lagos State, gave birth to her son at the Lagos
Island Maternity Hospital on August 1, 2010. Both mother and child are
scheduled to return to prison, where she has been since January 2010, courtesy
of the man she says is the father of her child.

But while Ms Monday might be nursing her child within the four
walls of the prison and pondering what the future holds, a NEXT investigation
reveals she may actually be a victim of injustice. Evidence currently at the
Kirikiri Magistrate court, Apapa, suggests Ms Monday’s age was purposely
manipulated to ensure she gets remanded in prison.

In May 2009, Nadum Nwitua, the alleged father of the baby,
travelled to Elele Alimini, Rivers State, where he met Ezekiel Monday, a poor
and single father barely managing to raise his nine children at a time, his
wife having left him over five years earlier. Mr Nwitua expressed his fondness
for his daughter and promised to give her a better life in Lagos.

“My pikin na 16 years when he come carry am say he go train am
for Lagos. Na because she no dey do anything for village, people talk say na
big man, that she go go better school, say make I let am follow am go,” said Mr
Monday in a telephone interview.

Altered court documents

From Mr. Monday’s account, his daughter is 17 this year.
Semi-literate and unable to write coherently, this was the age she told the
Investigating Police Officer (IPO) at the Oko Oba Police station.

James Dakarin, a police constable with force number 252661,
wrote her statement when she was arrested on January 24, 2010, after Mr Nwitua
alleged that she conspired with his security man, identified as Dala, and a
neighbour, Kennedy Enoma, to steal N295,000 from him. On the typed charge sheet
presented at the court in which Ms Monday and Mr Kennedy were accused of
conspiracy to steal and stealing, Ms Monday’s age was visibly altered with a
black pen from 17 to 18 years. This same alteration was discovered to have been
made on her statement paper which had the original age visibly cancelled and
replaced with 18 years.

For Lucas Koyejo, the South West Zone Head of the Legal and
Investigating Department of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC),
changing a word or figure in judicial documents is an offence “where the
intention is to falsify the document. If it can be proved that it was done unlawfully,
then it would amount to giving false information to pervert the course of
justice”.

Joseph Otteh, the executive director of Access to Justice, an
advocacy group promoting equal rights and justice, thinks the same and adds:
“If her age was falsified, it is to draw the court’s attention to the fact that
she is a minor fraudulently being tried as an adult. The court needs to see the
misrepresentation and take the matter through a juvenile track.”

Both lawyers say if the seeming wrongful detention of Ms Comfort
at the prison is established based on the fact that she is a minor, the next
step is “to know the extent of involvement of each party to the detention” and
appropriate punishment meted out. They also agree a civil suit for damages
could be considered.

This view is shared by the Lagos State police spokesperson,
Frank Mba. He said handwriting experts would be called to determine the
authenticity of the documents before the court.

“At the end of the day, if found to be altered, this would
amount to gross misconduct on the part of the officer and he will be tried in
orderly room and punished accordingly,” Mr Mba said, but did not clarify the
degree of punishment such an offence carries.

Another child marriage?

Mr Nwitua, in his statement, confirmed he was given the
responsibility of Ms Monday’s wellbeing by her father. He goes further to say
he brought her to Lagos for the purpose of marriage.

In his words: “I was given Comfort by the father, Monday, to
take to Lagos for marriage/training.” And according to Ms Monday, immediately
after they returned to Lagos, “that is when he started sleeping with me. It has
been long. At first, I was going to school but, after, I stopped. I was doing
housegirl for him.” By the time she told him she was pregnant, she said he had
become physically abusive.

The alleged sexual escapade was known by other members of Mr
Nwitua’s household located at Plot 2, Owode Street, Abule Egba, Lagos State,
which doubles as Mr Nwitua’s residence and business address – Gbedeco (Nig.) Ltd.
This was reported to the police by Mr Nwitua’s 15-year-old niece, Princess
Nwitua.

“She refused to go to school and when I asked, she said is not
feeling fine. She came to my room and said that she wants to go back to her
place in Port Harcourt. She said she did not want to live with my uncle again,
that my uncle is an evil man and that my uncle is sleeping with her,” Miss
Nwitua said.

Mr Koyejo says if Mr Nwitua has “actually been sleeping with her
as an underage, then his action amounts to rape, which carries a sentence of
life imprisonment under the Child Rights Law of Lagos State,” and “will be made
to face the full wrath of the law”.

A case of victimisation

On the instructions of Mr Nwitua, who had travelled to the
northern part of Nigeria on January 17, 2010, Ms Monday sold some compressors
to one Wahab, as identified by Mr Nwitua, for N95,000.

She handed the money to the security man, Dala, who Mr Nwitua
acknowledges kept his money and had access to the office drawer; who he “always
sometimes asked to collect money from there”; and where he alleges the N200,000
was stolen from.

When Mr Nwitua returned on January 23, 2010, Dala had packed his
belongings and absconded with the N95,000. He got Ms Monday arrested and told
the Police that Mr Enoma “is a bonafide friend of Dala and at the same time the
boyfriend of Comfort.” He said both Dala and Kennedy “always meet regularly and
sometimes for a long meeting either on my premises or at my gate”.

But this is at variance with the statement of his younger brother’s
daughter, Miss Nwitua, who told the police “I have not seen Ken before in our
compound before”.

A threatening
complainant

Through all this, Mr Nwitua, who instituted the case asking the
police to recover the money for him “and of course investigate any allegation
raised against me by all the parties involved”, has refused to talk to the
press and repeatedly threatened this reporter.

“Don’t go and publish anything that will cost your company a lot
of money o! Otherwise, I will not spare anybody in this matter,” Mr Nwitua at a
time said. The last time NEXT reached him, he said “Look, I warned you before.
You are looking for trouble. You are not listening,” before cutting the line.

Meanwhile, Ms Monday’s case has been adjourned four times and is
yet to be heard at the Kirikiri Magistrate Court, Apapa. No reason has been
given each time for the magistrate, Ope Agbe, not showing up in court.

It appears Mr Nwitua’s intention was to ensure Ms Monday
remained incarcerated for eight months, thus ensuring she gave birth to her
child away from public view and his wife and children, who are said to live in
the United Kingdom. The question remains, what’s next now that Ms Monday has
given birth?

Her case comes up September 27, 2010.

A 30-year-old woman, Mutiat Lawal, on Thursday
pleaded with a grade A Customary Court, in Ikorodu, Lagos, to dissolve
her marriage to Saka Lawal, as she is married to another man.

The petitioner told the court that
Lawal had not been taking care of her and the three children of the
marriage aged six, five and two years.

“My husband divorced his former wife
who had five children for him and I trained all the children, including
our three children, but in spite of this, he refused to support me.

“I married another man just last week
because he gives me attention although he lost his wife recently, but
he has three children,” Mutiat said.

Lawal, 56, a textile worker, consented
to the dissolution of their six-year-old marriage. He told the court
that his wife packed into another man’s house last week with their
three children. “The court tried its best to reconcile our differences
but my wife has an ulterior motive. Apart from the court’s effort, she
delivered a baby on July 20, and packed into another man’s house.

“I regret ever marrying her because she is lazy and never appreciative of all my assistance towards the family,” Lawal said.

He offered to pay the N6,000 proposed
by the respondent for the upkeep of their children to facilitate the
dissolution of their marriage.

The Court President, Remi Adesanya,
said all efforts by the court to reconcile the couple had become
abortive, since the petitioner had married another man.

“The court has no option than to dissolve the union,” Adesanya said.

He, however, adjourned the case till August 12 for judgment.