LAGOS AND HER INCESSANT FLOODING

         July 10th 2011 was a day Lagosians will never forgot in a hurry! The flooding killed many people as well as rendering thousands homeless. As the commercial capital of Nigeria,. Lagos inhabits fifteen million people who contribute to the growth of the country's GDP. There is a popular line from late Fela Anikulapo Kuti music that says 'lojo Monday, Eko oni gbagbakugba o', that means 'on Monday morning, Lagos won't take nonsense'. This is an understatement because Lagos doesn't take nonsense everyday [Sundays inclusive].  Lagosians go out everyday to eke a living as artisans, bankers, businessmen, make-shift portals, street sweepers, toilet cleaners and even baby sitters because it's only a lazy man that can't have a home in the city of Lagos!
       But the resilient attitude of Lagosians to fight poverty and hunger is always being marred and threatened yearly by incessant flooding that always follow heavy rains. Cities like Ajegunle, Mushin, Ikeja, Lagos Island and Mainland that have largest concentration of Lagosians are always flooded. A visit to any of these cities from May to August every year would be boring and tiring to a first time visitor to Lagos. Water covers homes, offices, roads, schools shops and even kitchens and massively destroy life and property around these places.
      There have been attempts by the state government to prevent or reduce flooding especially by routine maintenance of existing drainage channels and construction of new ones and also by using other methods to curb the destruction. The bitter fact is that the measures have not been helping in stopping this menace. The government recently embark on the construction of Alaba-Ijora road at the time when even an illiterate knows that it would soon be rained. The contractors delayed the tarring of the road after many houses and shops have been demolished because they were 'illegal' structures. The inhabitants of the road are now in the mystery as the road is now worse than it was before the start of the construction.  
   The commissioner for the Environment, Tunji Bello onced promised that drainage maintanance policy would lead to the de-silting of the major channels in all the local government and cuoncil development areas in Lagos but the silting is becoming too much that students, aged and women fall into clays, muds and gutters everyday. People have to cross 'rivers' to leave their homes for work everyday.

     Lagosians are given emergency numbers 767 and 112 and only machines answer us for not less than thirty minutes! The Emergency Management Authority is full of staff that got  their offices, not by merit but  through political favouritism. It think it's high time Lagosians started thinking of being safety conscious by not blocking the drain and canals with filth and waste. Lagos land owners are not even helping matter with their desperation to collect house rent by building houses on canals and drains. After all, it's all about money!

LAWAN/OTEDOLA BRIBERY SCANDAL: WHO IS THE THIEF?

      The fuel subsidy probe started as a result of people’s protest against the hike in price of fuel due to removal of subsidy earlier this year. Federal government claimed that the subsidy was removed because it is not yielding result as expected. This was because some marketers, with conspiracy from top government functionary, are milking Nigeria dry. The statement sparked off arguments and counter-arguments among eminent activists on why Jonathan could not unmask these saboteurs once and for all.

     Faruk Lawan, a highly respected law-maker who is always at the forefront of struggle for a better Nigeria, is indicted in the bribery scandal of trying to cover Zenon Oil  and Synopsis Enterprises by allegedly collecting $620,000 from Zenon chairman, Femi Otedola. On Tuesday, 24th ^April 2012, the matter was brought to the House and at the same time Otedola granted an interview with This Day newspaper where he said Lawan asked him ‘why are you being difficult? Others have been playing along.’ This means that Femi was accussing Lawan of demanding for bribe to de-list his company from those that will face probe.

     The fact that a small percentage of this country’s population has been living fat on oil subsidy, when the larger percentage is still suffering and smiling is something ridiculous. No wonder why Transparency International tags us the happiest people on earth! If Gani Fawenmi were alive today, he would have sued the whole House of Representatives member for culpability, conspiracy to loot and still public fund and other charges. The Hose is full of questionable representatives who joined to politics to loot. Though the speaker of the House, Aminu Tambuwal urged all the members not to be cowed or intimidated by anybody involved in this scandal, Lawan himself said he brought the offer of the bribe to notice of the House leadership.

   The leadership of the House is now denying such information but I believe there is more than meet the eyes in the matter. Lawan is a major player and it’s natural for the House leaders to back out when the chips are down thus leaving Lawan on his own after all he went to Otedola’s house on his own to collect $620000 at 4 am on that day. What about the video of how he put the remaining notes under his cap when his pockets were already full. If there is a proof of him informing the leadership of the house, then he is not alone in the boat.

     We should not forget in a hurry that it was this same house that passed vote of confidence on Dimeji Bankole before he was arrested after his tenure last year. They are now trying to pass vote of confidence on the present leadership!

   Zenon Oil are claiming innocence in the subsidy scam ; Lawan, as the chairman of Ad Hoc Committee on the probe, came out to appeal for the de-listing of Zenon and Synopsis from the companies to be probed; and now the bribery scandal from the same companies he appealed for! We do not need an investigator or specialist to know something money exchanged hands between the two parties.

  Faruok said he collected the money but he wanted to use it as evidence after he had earlier denied collecting the money. The big question is; why did he allowed Otedola to make the first move?, why did he delay his own announcement to the whole world to hear from 24^th April till the time Otedola granted interview? Where is the ‘marked’ money that he collected from business mogul?  If it was really a well contrived conspiracy, as being claimed by some people, against such a clean and sanitized lawmakers like Lawan, then he should have made the first move.

    Nigeria wears a toga of corruption and this is manifested everywhere you go in the country. Every thief wants to come out clean. Otedola claimed that his action was a ‘sting’ operation to nail Lawan after the latter had intimidated him and Lawan he wanted to use the money as evidence with the prima facie case around him. If Otedola is an ‘Agent Provocateur’ as he claimed that he was playing along, then he should have called for Lawan’s arrest at the point of giving him the money. Both are playing fast game because they know their ‘contract’ was not based on trust.

   Investigation should start to unearth what really happened. They are both playing their games at the detriment of the masses who are the end losers. Oil companies like Zenon obtained FOREX but did not import petroleum for the masses. These questions must be answered after the investigation; who made the first approach? Who deployed the State Security Service [SSS]; Is there any conspiracy from the Presidency to teach Lawn a lesson for being the most ardent opposition more than the opposition from opposition parties?; who se up the video?;the SSS, the police or Otedola’s private security?           

        

MKO ABIOLA DESERVES MORE THAN UNILAG

        The controversy that trailed the renaming of  the University of Lagos [UNILAG] after Moshood Aboila, the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993 presidential election was certainly uncalled for. The gallery games being played by Action Congress of Nigeria and the People’s Democratic Party shouldn’t be connected with the well deserved honour bestowed on Abiola post-humously by Goodluck Jonathan. Any objection to the president’s action should be settled in court and not on the pages of newspapers especially for political gains.

      Though I did not vote on June 12 1993 because I was not yet eighteen years, but I was not too young to recollect events on that very Saturday. I was in senior secondary school and I can still remember the ‘MKO is the man’ jingle on both radios and televisions especially NTA then. The voters queued at the polling booths and it was an instant declaration at various booths after headcounts. It was called option A4 by the then military president, Ibrahim Babangida who imposed National Republican Convention and Social Democratic Party on Nigerians in an American-styled Democrats and Republican. The NRC was in power in Lagos with Michel Otedola as the governor of the state while SDP controlled Oyo, Osun and Ogun states with late Kolapo Ishola, Isiaka Adeleke and Olusegun Oshoba respectively as governors.

       The Nigeria Television Authority was busy with the broadcast of the counting of election results conducted by the then National Electoral Commission that was headed by Professor Humprey Nwosu.Abiola was obviously winning when Babangida suddenly ordered for the counting to be stopped! The rest events were history. Many politicians and right activists were arrested and incarcerated. I remember the then publisher of The Sunday Magazine, Chris Anyanwu was arrested and partially gone blind in a very dark and decongested prison. Some activist went on exile till the death of Sanni Abacha. The so-called Emperor of Lagos politics who was in exile then was the first to enjoy from the Abiola’s martyrdom when he was picked by Alliance for Democracy as the gubernatorial candidate and eventually became the governor of the state.

       Moshood Aboila’s wife, Kudirat Aboila was killed in cold blood by Abacha’s agents of death; his media house, Concord Newspapers was proscribed and has never seen  the light of the day since then; he was arrested and later killed in the no victor/no vanquish game of conspiracy by the later ruler who then enjoyed the backing and conspiracy of international communities. The claim by Al-Mustapha that Abiola was beaten to death shouldn’t be overruled.

      Abiola invested his money in Lagos than he did in his home state, Ogun.  His financial assistance led to construction of 63 secondary schools, 121 mosques and churches, 41 libraries and 21 water projects in 24 states of Nigeria, and was grand patron to 149 societies or associations in Nigeria. Because of this, Abiola reached out and won admiration across the multifarious ethnic and religious divides in Nigeria.

     The election was conducted and won by Abiola 19 years ago and the majority of the protesting students of UNILAG were not born, or were toddlers, then. The public disturbance by the self-claimed pro-MKOs remind me of some lines in the fuji music icon,  Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister’s record ‘precaution’ that was released on the heels of June 12 struggle when he said that ‘Yorubas don’t love one another wholeheartedly. We are the one punishing Abiola and not other tribes’.    

      Obasanjo was in power for eight years and he never mentioned Abiola’s name [his kinsman] for eight seconds. May 29 was declared as Democracy day instead of June 12 that is the real one. I believe that if it was an ACN’s president that renames UNILAG, there won’t be much arguments and debates like these ones. The point remains that ACN leaders are afraid of Jonathan’s political point on this singular action! I am not a PDP apologist but I believe Nigeria has not reached her political destination where people criticize objectively and not subjectively. We need to applaud Jonathan on this action of renaming UNILAG as MAU-LAG. We should forget politics and strive to address the school as MAU=LAG like  University of Ife did after it was renamed Obafemi Awolowo University.