Mbaise. Imo State. Nigeria

..The war was fought over 40 years ago ..i saw this sign in Mbaise,near Owerri in Imo state

Nigerian flag designer,Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi in Ibadan

The man in the middle designed the Nigerian flag.

Millitants burlesque

NIGERIA A trap for the juggernaut by Africa Confidential

The governing party has taken a hit in the National Assembly but Goodluck Jonathan remains favourite to win the presidential vote

Parliamentary elections on 9 April showed that Nigerians are no longer willing to be taken for granted by the People’s Democratic Party, which has towered over the political scene for twelve years. Indeed, the PDP’s dominance of the National Assembly was the main casualty. Most observers think this a good start in moving towards greater accountability. The PDP could well lose its overall majority in the Assembly but many results will be disputed. In the 2007 polls, the PDP had won 87 of the 109 Senate seats and 263 of 360 in the House of Representatives: that will be sharply cut.

Logistical problems meant the polls had to move from 2 April; in 15 senatorial districts and 48 federal constituencies, the vote will be on 26 April. Yet the Independent National Electoral Commission emerged with credit. The European Union’s Chief Observer, Alojz Peterle, commended INEC for a job well done, as did Johnnie Carson, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.

The presidential poll is on 16 April but many who voted against the PDP in the legislative elections may still vote for PDP candidate Goodluck Jonathan, according to independent opinion polls, which forecast that the President should get about 60% of the national vote. Certainly, Jonathan will top the poll but, after a lacklustre campaign, he may not win the minimum 25% in two-thirds of the electoral districts needed to avoid a second round.

Jonathan will be strongly challenged by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Labour Party (LP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the south, and by the All-Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) and Congress for Progressive Change in the north. His probable second-round opponent would be the CPC’s candidate, the former military leader Major General Muhammadu Buhari, with strong support from the ACN. Unlike his predecessors, Jonathan has so far proved willing to give INEC’s Chairman (the democracy activist Professor Attahiru Jega) the independence to do his job thoroughly.

There were last-minute talks about an ACN-CPC alliance this week, and there was some basis for agreement between Buhari and ACN candidate Nuhu Ribadu but the negotiations may prove too late in the day. The anti-corruption enthusiasm of both Ribadu and Buhari worry the northern elite such as the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, and former President Shehu Shagari, who was ousted by Buhari in a military coup in 1983.

Kaduna problems for the PDP
The PDP did well in some northern states, such as Sokoto and ANPP-governed Kano, which has long been a flashpoint for election disputes and political violence. Yet in Kaduna, from where Vice-President Namadi Sambo hails, the CPC appears to have trounced the PDP, a worrying sign for Jonathan’s support-base before the presidential vote.

President Jonathan is the frontrunner and Nigeria’s first Ijaw and Niger Delta leader. High oil prices are helping him and he has plenty of money with which to bolster support. Business magnates, keen to profit from the sale of oil blocks, are backing him, as are some foreign investors. They like power supply reform and the sovereign wealth fund, both recently passed into law. Passing the long-delayed Petroleum Industry Bill will be harder, however, given the PDP’s weakness in the Assembly. Strong US and British endorsement of Jonathan in May 2010 has weakened over the past year, as progress on greater accountability and economic reform has faltered.

The power behind the throne was another ex-President, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo. He hails from Ota in Ogun State in the Yoruba-dominated south-west, where economic and demographic power will concentrate in coming decades. In the 18 districts of the six south-western states, the PDP held on to just one senatorial seat. Indeed, Obasanjo’s daughter, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, failed in her bid in Ogun State to get into the Senate in PDP colours amid bitterness from the party’s Gbenga Daniel faction there. The sweeping defeat of the PDP in the south-west could weaken Obasanjo’s influence over the party, yet he will still keep his authority as a trusted advisor to Jonathan on foreign policy and military matters.

For the south-west, the new king-maker is Obasanjo’s sworn enemy, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ACN. Tinubu, who had a chequered career as a businessman in the US, is a sworn enemy of Obasanjo and inspires loathing and respect in almost equal measure. Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos State is highly rated for his work there but has also had differences with Tinubu. Sweeping victories for the ACN in the south-west challenge the PDP seriously but it will struggle to present itself as a national party. That seemed to be the logic behind selecting Ribadu, from the north-west, as ACN presidential candidate, with his running mate from Lagos, tycoon and democracy campaigner Tajudeen Afolabi (‘Fola’) Adeola.

Even after a year in office, Jonathan is yet to acquire the presidential gravitas that would make it easier to deal with Nigeria’s insistent and well resourced vested interests. His emergence as presidential candidate for the PDP juggernaut and his defeat en route of four rich and powerful northern contenders suggested that many had underestimated him. Nevertheless, he is one of the least experienced politicians to have held the presidency: for some, his lack of status as a professional politician may be part of his attraction, for others it may conjure a vision of a naive or malleable figure who won’t be able to stand up to powerful political and business lobbyists.Whoever wins the presidential vote will face strong lobbying by groups such as the Arewa Consultative Forum in the north and the South-South political organisations under the tutelage of veteran campaigner Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, from the Niger Delta, whose access to some of the militants has helped Jonathan to subdue some of the festering unrest in Nigeria’s main oil-producing region.

A big question is whether the winner will follow the example of Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the former military head of state who presided over the enlightened ‘no victor, no vanquished’ policy after the civil war in 1967-70 and appointed a cabinet of the most able, possibly future presidential, politicians, alongside technocrats. On all sides, that would mean a president who was prepared to break with precedent and not allocate the key ministerial portfolios such as petroleum, works and housing, water resources and internal affairs to close political and business associates.

IBB and OBJ fear revenge
Former leaders such as Ibrahim Babangida and Obasanjo will seek to win over the successful candidate to ensure they are not called to account. Of the two leading candidates, Buhari looks more likely than Jonathan to delve into allegations of impropriety. Babangida overthrew Buhari in a coup in 1985 and Buhari believed Obasanjo had cheated him of victory in successive elections.

The new president will have to balance such imperatives as dealing with demands for justice and accountability along with pressure for economic reform. After the election, there will be growing pressure for the presidency to cut state patronage and to push ahead with critical reforms in the oil industry and financial services. A key partner here will be the radical Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, with whom all the candidates say they want to work. Already Mallam Sanusi is speaking of a second round of sweeping reform in the banking system; the last round in August 2009 resulted in the sacking of six bank chief executives.

Cleaning up the political system may prove tougher still. The habits of rigging, vote-buying and intimidation still abound but pressure from the ballot box should make the PDP more amenable to change. Nigerians are generally fed up with the party and a more aware and vocal civil society, aided by technology, could keep the excesses of the politicians in check.

All the same, says a leading politician, ‘blood will flow’. In the south-east, Akwa Ibom and Delta states are vulnerable, with police clamping down hard on activists. The heated election competition has thrown up dangerous operators such as Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State. During the governorship electoral rerun in Delta State, Chief Great Ogboru was leading until polling officers in Koko, near Warri, were forced at gunpoint to thumbprint extra ballots.

There were disturbances and ballot-snatching in the Delta, bombings in the outskirts of the federal capital, which left 13 people dead in Suleja, Niger State, and two bombings in Maiduguri, Borno State, home of the Boko Haram sect of Islamist radicals. Yet even after the initial problems that caused the postponement of the poll, INEC Chairman Jega looked heroic for organising what many believe to be credible National Assembly elections. The comparison starts with a low base with the 2007 elections, when only 20% of votes are believed to have been counted and less than a fifth of the names on the electoral register were genuine.

A big loss for the PDP was that of Dimeji Bankole, the Speaker of the House, in Abeokuta, Ogun State. Governor of Abia (and publisher of The Sun newspaper) Orji Uzor Kalu lost the Abia North senatorial constituency to the incumbent, Uche Chukwumerije. Maryam Yar’Adua, daughter of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, lost her House of Representatives contest for Katsina to the CPC candidate, Mohammed Tukur.

For political insiders in Abuja, developments after the elections could see a trade-off between political reform and democratic freedom on one hand and the sense of a strong, national, political direction from the centre. The devolution of power, helped by four years of a relatively weak presidency and more strident national legislators and state governors, has been happening for much of the past decade. This means a more pluralistic and less predictable polity: it will also accelerate the weakening of the PDP’s national muscle. For those business people who have attached their banners to the PDP, there may be efforts to build new relations with other parties. Foreign companies which had lobbied the PDP will have to handle the new government with more sophistication.

The growth of the ACN in the south-west, the CPC and ANPP in the north, the LP in the south-centre and the APGA in the south-east will weaken the PDP nationally but open up new avenues into politics for the non-PDP elites. Under the evolving electoral picture, the south-west will become once more an enclave of regional opposition, since the ACN and LP swept the board there, far into mid-Delta. The region had previously voted PDP because Obasanjo was one of its own. That might reduce the region’s muscle at the federal centre but some argue that Lagos and Ondo State are rich and can carry the other south-western states along. The revenue base of Lagos alone is bigger than that of ten northern states put together.

Bombings and political instability continue in the Middle Belt and the north-east, as well as the Delta. None of the bombers has been caught since Jonathan became President and he may not be able to rectify that. The President visited the hospitals for photo-opportunities with Suleja bombing victims but there are worries about the police’s lack of capacity to make progress with the investigations.

In Maiduguri, two bombings on the same day targeted INEC collation centres and Boko Haram is believed to have links with local politicians. The bombings in the north could continue over the next two weeks of elections and even after the presidential inauguration. A raft of issues infuriate the militants: the conservative elite feels cheated by the unresolved north-south issues in the PDP and the talakawa (working people) face higher prices, lower wages and rising unemployment, amid often bitter disputes over land.

Those grievances are repeated in the Middle Belt in confrontations in states such as Plateau and Benue, with added polarisation between Christian and Islamic fundamentalist sects and opportunist politicians seeking to exploit the divides.

Other parties and their candidates are manoeuvring for position. Ndutimi Alaibe, formerly of the PDP and former Special Advisor on the Niger Delta, is now in the LP and running for the governorship of Bayelsa State, Jonathan’s home ground. He joined the LP less than seven months ago, when the PDP found it awkward to dump Governor Timipre Sylva. Some believe that if Jonathan is elected, he will welcome Alaibe back into the PDP family. Such scenarios may unfold in many areas where the PDP has lost ground. If Jonathan wins, politicians in smaller parties will defect to his PDP. No fewer than 45 parties have endorsed him for president.

The holding of this election is the first step towards reintegrating the people of the oil-rich Delta into mainstream politics since the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 and the start of militant insurgency there. Now Jonathan, one of their own, is set to win a presidential election.

Nigerians have a new bounce in their step as they realise that their votes actually count, giving credibility to the democratic process – and keeping the military in their barracks for now. However, Nigeria’s complexities and deep social inequities mean that no one, least of all the victors after the current round of elections, can afford to be complacent.

LEONARD LAWAL REPORTS: Stop sending girls to Europe to be sexually used and abused

LEONARD LAWAL REPORTS: Stop sending girls to Europe to be sexually used and abused

Stop sending girls to Europe to be sexually used and abused

Friday, 08 April 2011 09:02

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It is shameful to see how families in Nigeria collude voluntarily in a new slavery

Barcelona August 2002: A long, lonely, lingering illness in a Spanish hospital, a once beautiful young body, wasted and emaciated by contagious diseases, a recent past that had included horrific sexual mutilation of her genital and anal areas and finally, death alone one morning and burial by strangers in an unmarked mass paupers grave on the outskirts of Barcelona. This was the fate of one of the hundreds of young Nigerian girls who have flocked to this part of Spain over the last 10 years.

Who was this young woman? Why did an educated 23 year old Nigerian woman end her too short life in this manner? As I sat, looking at the pitifully few personal belongings the hospital handed me - a pair of small silver earrings, two cuddly toys: a pink elephant and a grey dog, I wondered. She was, of course, someone’s daughter and granddaughter. Surely also, someone’s sister, cousin, aunt or niece. She would have had friends and schoolmates. Was she mourned? Did those who encouraged her to come to Europe care that she is dead? Or have we become so dehumanised that the death of one of our children, our relatives, our friends, as long as it happens in Europe, happens in the struggle to make a living, is now acceptable?

What did I know of her? She had been admitted to the hospital six weeks before, suffering from Tubercular Meningitis. When I was contacted by the hospital and went to see her for the first time, she was painfully thin, emaciated and so weak that I had spent a large portion of the time scratching her head and moving her legs to a more comfortable position, because her muscles were so wasted she could not move any of her limbs. Her eyes were always unfocused – seeing into a distance that I couldn’t begin to understand or reach. She cried out often that she just wanted to die. She was confused and disoriented.

Sometimes her name was J, another, E and then again, M. She couldn’t say where she had been living before she was brought to the hospital, or remember phone numbers of any friends or the people she had been living with. She spoke sometimes in English and sometimes in Bini. She couldn’t remember or wouldn’t give the address of her family in Nigeria. The hospital was concerned that someone so ill appeared to be so alone and were hoping I could help to find some family or friends who would visit her.

I returned a few times with some Jollof rice and fruits like mango and pawpaw. Eventually, the hospital told me she was cured of the illness and should be moved to a rehabilitation centre to undergo physiotherapy to help her regain use of her limbs and build up her strength. She was beginning to have more confidence in me and told me her surname and the secondary school she had attended in Benin City. With this information, I contacted our Embassy in Madrid, hoping they would have the resources to put an announcement in a newspaper in Benin, so her family could be informed. But they seemed to be inundated with similar cases and were impatient: “How did she come to Spain? How can a 23 year old not know her own address in Nigeria? Was she registered with us? Tell the hospital to contact the Ambassador.”

The last time I saw her, she promised that the next time I came she would tell me more about herself and her story of how she came to be here, so I hoped I would be able to make contact with her family myself.

But here was to be no next time. As I was preparing some more food to take to her one morning, the hospital Social Services telephoned. “We’re very sorry, but X died about an hour ago. Can you come to the hospital to see the doctor and help with the paper work?” I saw the doctor who told me they would have to do an autopsy because they really did not know why she died. She was cured of the Meningitis and they were planning to discharge her once they had found a centre that would accept her. This was when I learnt of the terrible sexual mutilation she had suffered.

So why did she die? Had she been so abused and degraded that she had lost the will to live?

I have to admit I am angry. I am extremely angry with those in Nigeria, especially in the Benin area, where the majority of young women walking the streets of Barcelona come from (some who appear to be as young as 13). Do not pretend you do not know that when you send your daughter, your sister, your niece to Europe, you are sending them to be sexually used and abused. Do not be fooled by talk of training in hairdressing or fashion design. There is no training other than learning to say the price for sex in Spanish.

It is shameful to see how families in Nigeria are now colluding voluntarily in a new slavery. The worst kind of slavery - sending young women to be the sexual slaves of the same people who enslaved our ancestors all those years ago.

What a waste of the future of Nigeria. This young woman is not the only one, nor the first. Many die in the desert on their way here. Others die as she did, in a hospital, like chickens, with no names, having been given all kinds of diseases by the men who pay them about the price of a drink and a packet of cigarettes to have the freedom to do all kinds of practices their wives or girlfriends would not condone. Is this why you had children? Was it for this that you sent your daughters to school?

Perhaps even worse is the unbelievable, degrading type of prostitution they are forced into. They are not even worth the price of a room in the cheapest hotel. Not even worth finding somewhere slightly private or hidden from view. No, men have sex with them in full view of anyone on Barcelona’s most iconic street, Las Ramblas. Men simply drop their trousers and underwear for quick oral or full-on sex. See some terrible, degrading and distressing images here:
http://www.elpais.com/fotogaleria/Prostitucion/calles/Barcelona/elpgal/20090831elpepunac_2/Zes/4

The police have responded recently to resident complaints and now many of these young women are forced to ply their trade outside towns, on the highways. They sit all day on white plastic chairs waiting for passing motorists or long-distance lorry drivers to stop and take them by the side of the road – again in full view.

It takes great courage for these young women to say NO, to resist being forced into this sexual slavery perpetuated by their own people. Many do believe in the power of Juju and are told that a Juju spell has been put on them and so terrible things will happen to themselves or members of their family if they refuse to be prostituted.

Three years ago, I met another young woman, J, who refused to be intimidated and managed to have herself accepted as a refugee. I was able to help her with a six month apprenticeship in a hair salon. During that time she told me that the people who had brought her here were still trying to force her into prostitution to repay the $60,000 they insisted she owed them. They threatened to kill a member of her family in Benin if she continued to refuse. Sometime later, her father was murdered on his way back from his farm, by persons unknown. Brave J went to the police believing her traffickers were responsible. Her apprenticeship finished and I lost touch with her, but a year later I was summoned to court to give evidence on what I knew. The case continues as I have now been recalled to court next month, as a witness against two named people, F.O and M.J. However, the brave young woman herself has disappeared.......

Let me tell you how it works. A sexual pyramid system has been created. Your daughter or your sister is brought here. She already owes money to the mafia that made the arrangements. Once here, she finds that what she earns is not enough to live on and to pay the mafia that brought her. So she is encouraged to find friends who also want to come to Europe. She is promised a small commission for putting friends in contact with the mafia who will then bring them to Europe. Her friends, having to pay her commission and the mafia, find that they also can’t make enough money, so they try to get more friends to come, in order to also earn some commission.... And so the pyramid is created. Meanwhile, with all of this, the market becomes saturated so the price of each sexual service goes down - your daughter needs to work harder, more often. To attract customers, your daughter has to offer either more or more way- out practices, or provide them for less money. Who benefits? Not your daughters, but the men who can demand more sex for less money and the mafia who can demand more money for less ultimate income.

Back to the young woman who died. As I began to get to know her, I saw that as she got stronger, there was a certain strength and determination in her eyes and voice as she expressed frustration when she wasn’t understood; there was a beauty in her face the few times she smiled. She was a young woman who, in another era, could have contributed to Nigeria economically, politically, socially. Although I didn’t really know her, I mourn her passing and the waste of her life and of all the others. Do you?

Judi Oshowole

Lagos law says :Wear crash helmet