Opinion
The Lies About NYSC
Published
3 years agoon
By
Emmanuel Onwubiko
“Lies run sprint, but the truth runs marathons.”-Michael Jackson
No doubt, we are in moments of anxiety and national outrage, no thanks to the unprecedented anarchy, chaos and doom caused by insecurity. In these moments of uncertainty even institutions that symbolise sublime goals of making Nigeria great are challenged by cocktails of externally generated speculative tails of fear, anxiety and apprehension. The National Youth Service Corps Scheme is not an exception. The institution is battling cocktails of lies, half truths and speculations and these are sowing seeds of doubts and anxiety in the minds and hearts of Nigerians. The good news is that the NYSC is under the tested and trusted leadership of Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim who holds a doctorate in education. Before putting pen to paper, I read few books to understudy the different ramifications of anxiety and these were my findings and summaries in the following citations.
“There’s no getting over the fact that high anxiety can be brutal, which is why our natural reaction is to fight against it. This is how we become quickly disillusioned; because it’s a battle we’ll never win. More importantly, it’s a pointless battle we shouldn’t be fighting in the first place. Anxiety is not your enemy. It’s your life companion. It’s essential to your survival, and if you didn’t have it, you wouldn’t be here today. By learning to live comfortably with it, and accepting it as part of your life, you will win – every time.
I’m continually shocked by the number of individuals who claim to be experts offering a ‘cure’ and ‘elimination’ for anxiety. It’s difficult to understand how anybody with a true understanding of anxiety could make such false promises.
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“It’s no coincidence that I spent so many years looking for answers, and why people suffering from high anxiety are constantly seeking a ‘cure’. It’s because it doesn’t exist! Anxiety doesn’t have a switch that you can permanently turn off. It’s well and truly implanted in us and forms part of who we are, just like any other emotion. When we feel sad or angry, our natural reaction isn’t to completely eliminate the emotions of sadness and anger – we accept them as part of our lives. We accept that it’s healthy to get angry and upset. If we agree that it’s healthy to get angry and sad, why are we led to believe that we should ‘eliminate’ anxiety, when it’s just as healthy to be anxious? All of these emotions might come with unwanted and uncomfortable feelings, but that’s part of the human experience. We would live in a very strange world if we felt happy every time we got dumped or fired, for example.
” Anxiety is what gets you out of bed in the morning. It keeps you safe when you cross the road. It provides the motivation to find a loving partner and friends. It keeps your children fed and healthy. It makes your life possible. Save yourself a lot of grief and stop fighting it. Put your arm around it, and thank it for being a loyal companion.
“I now accept that anxiety will always be present in my life, and by changing its meaning, I completely change the way I deal with it. I understand that overcoming high anxiety is a life’s journey, not a quick fix, and it’s not something I can turn off, cure or eliminate.
“Accepting anxiety as part of your life doesn’t mean being ruled by it. The concept of rebalance means that once you’ve achieved normal anxiety levels you can live your life without having to make decisions based around it. You will regain control, and be free to live a happy, active and fulfilling life, doing what you want, when you want”. (Anxiety Rebalance: All The Answers You Need To Overcome Anxiety & Depression By Carl Vernon).”
READ ALSO: The Power Of Positive Difference: Dr. Obadiah Mailafia And His Nigeria
Another author says as follows: “Leaders show their mettle in many ways – setting strategy and motivating people, just to mention two – but above all else leaders are made or broken by the quality of their decisions. That’s a given, right? If you answered yes, then you would probably be surprised by how many executives approach decision making in a way that neither puts enough options on the table nor permits sufficient evaluation to ensure that they can make the best choice. Indeed, our research over the past several years strongly suggests that, simply put, most leaders get decision making all wrong.”
The author stated also that: “The reason: Most businesspeople treat decision making as an event-a discrete choice that takes place at a single point in time, whether they’re sitting at a desk, moderating a meeting, or staring at a spreadsheet. This classic view of decision making has a pronouncement popping out of a leader’s head, based on experience, gut, research, or all three. Say the matter at hand is whether to pull a product with weak sales off the market. An ‘event’ leader would mull in solitude, ask for advice, read reports, mull some more, then say yea or nay and send the organization off to make it happen. But to look at decision making that way is to overlook larger social and organizational contexts, which ultimately determine the success of any decision.
The fact is, decision making is not an event. It’s a process, one that unfolds over weeks, months, or even years; one that’s fraught with power plays and politics and is replete with personal nuances and institutional history; one that’s rife with discussion and debate; and one that requires support at all levels of the organization when it comes time for execution. Our research shows that the difference between leaders who make good decisions and those who make bad ones is striking. The former recognize that all decisions are processes, and they explicitly design and manage them as such. The latter persevere in the fantasy that decisions are events they alone control.
“In … decision-making process – an approach we call inquiry-and outline a set of criteria for assessing the quality of the decision-making process.” (On Making Smart Decisions By Daniel Kahneman, Dan Lovallo, and Olivier Sibony).
Another illustrious author wrote thus: “We all have a backstory. It explains why we behave as we do. OK, it doesn’t always justify it, but at least it’s a reason for our behaviour. Of course, no one else ever knows all the details and complexities of your backstory like you do, but lots of people get the gist.
” There’ll be a reason why certain things make you feel more anxious, stressed, excited, cynical, depressed, relaxed, angry confident than other people do. It might be genetic, it might be because of bad past experiences, or according to Freud it might all be down to your parents. Friends might say that you shouldn’t stress so much about this, or be so suspicious about that, or be too laid back, or shout so much. But they don’t understand – if they’d been to the same school as you, or lived through the poverty you have, or had siblings like yours, or worked for your last boss, they’d realise why you behave that way.
“Listen, this is true of everyone. There’s no one on the planet who isn’t shaped by their personal experiences. So, when your colleague snaps at you, or your friend lets you down, or your partner forgets your birthday, just remember there’s always a reason. It might be a rubbish reason, but there’s a reason.
“And I’m telling you this because if you can understand the reason, it makes it easier to deal with other people’s negative behaviour.
Even if you can’t change the way they act, you’ll find it slightly easier to take if you get the reasons behind it. And often simply because you are prepared to understand, they can let go of being defensive and decide to change their behaviour.” (The Rule of People by Richard Templar).
READ ALSO: NYSC Not Death But Skills’ Sentence
We took a lot of time to cite authoritative submissions on anxiety because of the salient fact that due to the spread of fake news and rumors about one of the most successful public institutions, the National Youth Service Corps Scheme (NYSC), a lot of people may have developed anxiety and some are already believing these lies deliberately told to muddy the facts.
The truth is that: “Rumors. Gossip. Fake news. We’ve all heard these terms. While most consider them harmless, they can affect your health. Learning to tell the difference between fact and fiction can be a real boost — both mentally and physically. What happens when rumors aren’t harmless? What if they damage someone’s reputation, livelihood, or personal life? If you’re on the receiving end of untrue gossip, what do you do?”
On Rumors vs. Gossip vs. ‘Fake News’, the writer says: “Rumors are defined as widely spread talk with no reliable source to back it up. They aren’t always bad. Some rumors can even seem positive, like promotions, engagements, or awards. But until proven otherwise, they are just that — rumors. Gossip is when you take rumors — those unconfirmed pieces of information — and pass them along, spreading what may be ‘fake news.’ What may be surprising is how difficult it can be to tell rumor and gossip from truth. Even people who are Internet-savvy can have trouble telling what’s real and what’s not. It can also be tough to tell the difference between news and advertisement. As a result, people sometimes give more weight to what they see in their social media feed than what they get from more credible news sources.”
The author then posed the question to know what’s the harm in rumours and responded thus: “When it comes to ‘ fake news,’ the effects can be both immediate and long-lasting. In most cases, a ‘fake news’ story can rile up your emotions and change your mood. Depending on the strength of your feelings, the story, and the reaction it gave you, can stick in your head, even after you find out it’s false. You may even remember those feelings if you see another story about the same subject. On their own, rumors and gossip seem harmless; almost a fun pastime. But there’s a point where they can become harmful to your health. There’s a great deal of information out there about bullying among teenagers and younger children. What’s sometimes overlooked is that adults can be bullied, too. It can come in the form of untrue rumors or gossip about them or a loved one. It can also come through reactions to words or an image that’s been posted. Physical appearance, politics, and financial issues can all become the subject of online bullying, too.”
The author asked to know what you can do. And then responds thus: “Rumors, gossip, and fake news can make you feel helpless, angry, and very anxious. There are steps you can take to regain your power and your health. To avoid fake news, you can:
Watch out for sites that end in “.com.co.” Often, these are bootleg versions of traditional news services.Try to find other articles on the same topic from other sites, especially if the first article you read makes you upset. It’s possible that the anger-inducing story was created in a way to rile you up.
“Check another source if an article you read uses all caps, either in headlines or in the article itself. Click the “About Us” tab for more information about the source.
“Poke around a little to see if other, more-known sites are reporting the story. If it’s legitimate, at least one other site would cover it. Be careful about blogs, even if they’re tied to well-known sites. In many cases, blogs aren’t held to the same editorial standard as regular news pieces.”
“When you come across a piece of gossip, a juicy rumor, or an unflattering photo that clearly is aimed at hurting the subject, don’t share it, don’t comment, and don’t engage. You might be able to help someone who doesn’t know how to combat the problem by simply reporting it for them. If you’re the subject of a rumor, gossip, or bullying, it’s important to remember that not every bit of teasing is bullying. But when it escalates to that point, don’t respond. Cut them off — block the calls and texts, and block them on social media. Get in touch with your Internet service provider if the abuse is coming through a website or your smartphone. Chances are the bully is violating their terms of service. If so, the offensive posts will disappear. You can also contact the police. There are laws against harassment, stalking, and threatening behavior. Don’t engage with them. Don’t forward the messages to friends.
READ ALSO: Why Govt Shouldn’t Scrap NYSC – HURIWA
Most of all, don’t believe whatever is being said about you”( www.webmd.com). Here are some of the rumors so far spread about the NYSC. Luckily, the proactive managers of the NYSC have also ably provided the responses to these rumours and as someone writing from the background of an independent observer, I can confirm that what the management of NYSC have adduced as their responses are accurate.
Around July 31st 2021, the National Youth Service Corps, asserted that the reported story that 544 corps members were killed in the Northeast and Northwest in 2021 was nothing but junk journalism and blackmail by a section of the media.
In the report, the NYSC was also accused of risking the lives of 9,100 corps members deployed to the seven states in the North-West region; where at least, 189 persons have been killed and 376 persons were abducted in Zamfara and Kaduna states alone.
Reacting to two reports by a national daily, the scheme said the medium was losing grip on “balanced reportage, which is the hallmark of good journalism.”
A statement signed by the NYSC Director, Press and Public Relations, Adenike Adeyemi (Mrs), alleged that the unsubstantiated reports were published to create apprehension in the minds of parents, guardians and other stakeholders.
The statement reads in part, “No corps member deployed to the North-East and North-West geopolitical zones of the country was killed, neither was any abducted by bandits in July 2021, as reported.
“Management would have ignored these stories, but had to issue this rebuttal for the sake of undiscerning minds who may swallow the fake news, hook, line and sinker. Nonetheless, discerning minds know that they are a figment of the writer’s imagination, as nothing of such happened.
“However, it is imperative to restate that balanced reportage is the hallmark of good journalism. The integrity of information pushed into the public domain should never be in doubt.
“Management hereby passionately appeals to both the mainstream and new media, as opinion moulders and critical stakeholders in the polity to always place national interest above every other consideration in their reportage, as anything contrary has the propensity to create apprehension in the minds of parents, guardians and other stakeholders.
“The scheme is always open to enquiries, in order to guard against feeding the public with inaccurate, or completely false information.
“NYSC shall continue to prioritise the security and welfare of corps members which is the cardinal policy thrust of the scheme.
READ ALSO: NYSC To Add New Features On Certificate
“The scheme hereby reassures the general public that it will continue to work in concert with security agencies in order to ensure the safety of corps members across the nation.”
Around August 5th 2021, the National Youth Service Corps described as untrue claims of COVID-19 positive corps members.
The organisation said there were no COVID-19 positive corps members in any of the 37 NYSC orientation camps nationwide.
The NYSC Director, Press and Public Relations, Adenike Adeyemi, made the clarification in a statement in Abuja.
She said, “Please note that before any prospective corps member is admitted into the 37 camps, they must undergo COVID-19 test. Only those that test negative are admitted; the same rule applies to camp officials.
“Those that test positive are handed over to the NCDC for treatment and management. It is pertinent to state
that there is a gulf of difference between a corps member and a prospective corps member.
“One becomes a corps member after admittance to the camp, registration and administration of the oath of national allegiance.
“Anyone mobilised for service that has not gone through the aforesaid process is not a corps member.
“In view of the foregoing explanation, there is no red alert in NYSC orientation camps, as all corps members, as well as camp officials admitted in the camps are COVID-19 negative.”
In not too distant past, there was also a certain sinister effort to spread some toxic rumours that the DG of NYSC was against Christian worships within the NYSC camps. But ironically, the director general though a sound and good Moslem incidentally is married to a Roman Catholic Christian adherent and so cannot possibly be categorized as a hater of Christians.
I do think that this regime of rumours targeted at the NYSC which are meant to sow a sort of anxiety in the minds and hearts of Nigerians are really not strange. This is because of the recent move by a member of the Federal House of Representative to get the National Assembly to abolish the NYSC due to the unprecedented rate of insecurity in Nigeria.
READ ALSO: Governor Wants NYSC Extended To Two Years
The bill on the discontinuation of the National Youth Service Corps has reached the second reading in the House of Representatives.
Sponsored by the lawmaker representing Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency of Rivers State Awaji-Inombek Abiante, in the explanatory memorandum of the proposal, the bill listed various reasons why the NYSC should be scrapped. It said the NYSC had led to the “incessant killing of innocent corps members in some parts of the country due to banditry, religious extremism and ethnic violence; incessant kidnapping of innocent corps members across the country.
“Public and private agencies/departments are no longer recruiting able and qualified Nigerian youths, thus relying heavily on the availability of corps members who are not being well remunerated and get discarded with impunity at the end of their service year without any hope of being gainfully employed.
“Due to insecurity across the country, the National Youth Service Corps management now gives considerations to posting corps members to their geopolitical zone, thus defeating one of the objectives of setting up the service corps, i.e. developing common ties among the Nigerian youths and promoting national unity and integration.”
The bill is seeking the alteration of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Alteration Bill, 2020.
The youth service, which started on May 22, 1973, was established during the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon under Decree No. 24 of 1973. The whole truth is that the NYSC was established to reconcile and reintegrate Nigerians after the Nigerian civil war; traditions and customs of their host communities; providing the forum for corps members to experiment with ideas and translate them into concrete achievements thereby relying less on foreign technology and encouraging the use of local raw materials in the execution of projects; harnessing the enormous energy, talents and skills of corps members into an effective machinery or change in our rural communities; providing on-the job-training, skill sets and experience for corps members; providing complementary service in our national development activities, by ensuring that our underprivileged population learn basic techniques for self-help through the appropriate technology concept being promoted by NYSC; to instill in corps members the tradition of dignity of labour and productivity; to complement the activities of government at all levels in the stride towards national development.
So, do not believe the lies about NYSC!
Onwubiko is the head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and was a federal commissioner at the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria.
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By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha
One of the interesting proverbs I picked up in our General African Studies (GAS 201) course with the late Professor Jabez Olowo Ojoade in the University of Jos in 1979 was ‘it is a bastard child that points at his homestead with his left hand! The Akan people of Ghana put it this way: a bastard child points to his father’s house with his left hand’. The Yoruba say that ‘a person who points to their homestead with the left hand is not a good person’, while the Luhya of Kenya say that ‘when pointing to your village, use your right hand’. It is in the Swahili language that a sort of generalised use of the left hand is concretised when it says ‘the left hand is for personal hygiene, not for pointing!
Bastard child! Homestead! Pointing with the left hand! These three constituents and functional parts of the proverb tickled my teenage imagination to no end. What is it about the left had that it should not be used to refer to one’s family? Why is this metaphor common across the continent? Indeed, there must be something about the family, about the homestead, about one’s origins that deserves respect no matter the circumstances.
By the way, some Nigerians in the diaspora also point to Nigeria with their left hand. ‘That country’, is often used to describe the place where some spent eighteen or thirty of their lives as they tried to find their feet. So, in a sense, Kemi is simply doing what some full-blooded Nigerians do in reaction to the anomie which currently rules the land. Kemi stands out because of her delicate and prominent position in the world. We all took offence when Bully Donald Trump referred to ours as ‘shithole countries! At that level, who said what becomes very important, that is, the message is given prominence because of the stature and calibre of the messenger.
The proverb, according to Wikipedia, is ‘often used to convey that someone who is not respectful or grateful to their roots or heritage will eventually be rejected or ostracised by their community! The left hand, we are told, is for personal hygiene. We don’t use it to give or receive gifts; we don’t use it to serve drinks or for traditionally important functions.
In the African context, a bastard child is not one who was born out of wedlock or whose father is not known to the family. Bastard child represents a person who is disconnected from their family. Pointing to the family house with the left hand is indicative of disrespect.
These thoughts flooded my mind when I read recently elected leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, Kemi Badenoch, gave some hard and bad knocks to Nigeria, the Nigeria Police, and governance in her Nigeria, her ancestral home. To be sure, nobody who has encountered some men of the Nigeria Police in action can fault Kemi. Her chemistry of being brutally frank is what has taken Kemi to the heights in Conservative Party politics. Whether she can indeed lead the Party to victory in an election is a different kettle of fish. As the potential leader of the British government, all cards will count when push gets to shove. Which is why Kemi should remember that no well-trained child points to the family house with the left hand.
Nigeria is in process. It is a building site. And we started this project of disparate and different cultures fused together when the British pounced on our ancestors to create Nigeria. We look back to the years when a British monarch, King Henry VIII (1491 to 1547), who ate two of his six wives for breakfast and dinner. Wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were executed by beheading. Jane Seymour died under mysterious circumstances. Perhaps if Diana had emerged in the 15th century as wife to a British monarch, the reigning king would have sent her to the guillotine instead of the tunnel in Paris! Some British monarchs actively participated, supported, and profited from the transatlantic slave trade. British monarchs oversaw the colonisation of indigenous lands in Africa, North America, and Australia sometimes through genocide! No where in Africa, our dear left-handed and grandly insolent Kemi, would a Prime Minister allow his wife to remain in an adulterous relationship for decades as Harold Macmillan did with wife Lady Dorothy Macmillan did with the bisexual Bob Boothby in the 20th Britain!
We may need to remind Kemi that racism still dominated policing in Britain as it does in much of the Western world. Yet, we have not painted the entire police system as being racist. Indeed, Kemi, without officialdom around her can still be profiled by a police officer if she were found driving alone in some areas of London! Her skin colour, is not typically British, I dare say. Yet, we have not said that Britain is racist. The ‘how dark’ racist discussions which precipitated Harry and Meghan fleeing the British monarchy is still very fresh and raw in our consciousness; yet, Nigeria’s Vice President has not called the British monarchy a racist institution.
Time will fail me to discuss the Damilola Taylor case in year 2000 when the Metropolitan Police handling of Taylor’s murder was seen as slow and inadequate due to racial bias. By the way, Damilola was both British and Yoruba like our illustrious and petulant Kemi who believes in giving hard knocks! What about the Stephen Lawrence 1993 murder case which the Metropolitan Police badly handled owing to racial bias? In 1999, Roger Sylvester, a Black man, died in police custody and an inquest showed that the police used excessive force. In 2009, newspaper vendor Ian Tom died after being struck by a police officer during the G20 protests in London. The 1999 Macpherson Report, which investigated the Stephen Lawrence case, concluded that ‘the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist! As late as 2017, the Lammy Review which was led David Lammy (MP) concluded that “black and minority ethnic individuals were more likely to be stopped and searched, arrested, and imprisoned than their white counterparts! Need I say more?
So, our dear daughter and bright star Kemi in the British firmament, we shall not point to you with our left hand, because in spite of you, you are our daughter. We can only say that the Nigeria Police is in good company of the Empire of the Police system which was created in 1820 by your progenitors from the other side! Colonial vestiges are not easy to shake off!
Opinion
Afe Babalola And Dele Farotimi: On Justice, A Just Society And The Nigerian State
Published
15 hours agoon
December 22, 2024By Tunji Olaopa
The feud between elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola and civil rights activist, Mr. Dele Farotimi, is perhaps the most significant discourse that postcolonial Nigerian state has thrown up for the moment, one in a class of those grand defining disputations that surely will gather dust which will take some time to abate. And it is one case that is fraught with all sorts of legal, jurisprudential, moral and political traps and complexities that speak to more than the trivial interventions—leveraged around the David and Goliath motif—that are attending the matter. Those who have been able to go beyond the surface of the case will agree that it goes to the very foundation and founding of the Nigerian society, and the fundamental objective of crafting a good and just society for Nigerians. That the issue revolves around the dispensation of justice immediately alerts us to the deep insinuation about the idea of social justice itself, and how the conception of fairness could be written into the very fabric of the Nigerian society. And yet, the complexity of the case is what makes it a case that is too critical for a public servant like me to dabble in.
(Un)fortunately, my intellectual maturation, my political science education and my professional endeavor in institutional reform advocacy have prepared me to intervene in this critical matter. I have always been involved with Nigeria, and with reflective thoughts about how to reconstitute her greatness. Three learning encounters with three world-historic icons configured my passion for wanting to see that Nigeria becomes a state we all can be proud of. The first came from my reading of Plato’s Republic. There is a reason that the entire treatise commenced with the question, what is justice? Justice was a fundamental issue in the decline of the ancient Athenian democracy that allowed Socrates to be judicially murdered. The second learning derived from Wole Soyinka’s dense prison memoir, The Man Died. And like most who have read it, Soyinka was troubled by the idea of justice: “For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.” By the time I would be coming to Thomas More’s Utopia, I was already apprised of the connections between my political science education, my professional endeavor as a public servant, and the key elements of institutional reform as a cogent framework for transforming Nigeria.
From Plato to Soyinka, we have a trajectory of political reflection that takes justice seriously as the basis for organizing a just society. This is part of the intellectual frameworks for my undergraduate and graduate studies at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. In one of those explosive seminar classes that played some fundamental role in my intellectual maturation in the graduate school, I had proposed an argument through a seminar paper titled: “Is a revolution an option to fix Nigeria?” The topic was meant to titillate the collective yearning for revolution that would serve as the ultimate mechanism for social change that would flush off all traces of corruption and degeneration in postcolonial Nigeria. Revolutions seem to possess some allure for the masses because they constitute a framework of justice that the constitutional justice mechanism might not be able to handle.
However, as Wole Soyinka, Thomas More, Martin Luther and even Galileo Galilei would realize, the need for radicalism is balanced by the force of establishment orthodoxy. The Nigerian predicament has, as a fundamental foundation, a lot to do with the connection between governance failure and injustice in terms of the persistent and protracted class strife between the haves and the have-nots, between the rich and the poor, indeed, in the final analysis between the government and the governed. And in the case between Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi, the issues boil down to the administration of justice and the entire edifices and institutions of social justice and the rule of law in Nigeria. And so, in outlining the key issues involved in the matter, we must be careful enough to read between the lines and the noises of analysts who are eager to queue behind their favored protagonists.
First things first. Let us remove the surface debris. Indeed, and in this case, the debris points us in the direction to look for the rot within the matter. First, there is the matter of civil defamation and its legal ramifications. And second, there is the issue of the legal and moral protocols involved in dealing with the pursuit of redress by someone who knows and understands the law. Barrister Farotimi has a legal right to seek redress in court. Chief Babalola has a legal right to defend his reputation in court. In raising the specter of legal prosecution against defamation, I see Chief Babalola as being at the forefront of gatekeeping the legal establishment in terms of what is and is not permissible or possible under the law and its conservative tenets. If you are hurt or an injustice has been done to your person, then the best place to seek redress is not the court of public opinion but the constitutional legal establishment.
Unfortunately for him, Barrister Farotimi’s book, Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System, impugns the entire legal and judicial establishment up to its apex institution, the Nigerian Supreme Court. However, does radicalism preclude moral decency? A book could be written and allegations made without the complement of atrocious language. Or maybe the rot in the judicial system, and the need for a revolution preclude any niceties, especially with those who are allegedly at the forefront of perpetuating and protecting the rot. But then, how to prove what we all consider to be the norm in terms of legal prosecution of judicial corruption remains a hanging question.
No matter how we look at what we are calling the surface debris, we are redirected deeper and deeper into what lies beneath the surface. The ultimate question is that between Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi, what we are asked to contend with is the state of the Nigerian judiciary and the corrupt impediment of social justice, especially for an average Nigerian. What Barrister Dele Farotimi said about the Nigerian judicial system is not new. We are all familiar with the rot within the system. Indeed, this is not the first time an alarm would be raised about what we are all familiar with. Indeed, as far back as 1999, The News magazine carried a most unsalutary headline, “Crooks on the Bench: An Expose on the Rot in the Judiciary.” The magazine headlined the names of 47 judges indicted for judicial corruption. What is new is that Dele Farotimi dared to go so far as to mention specific names, and to confront the big players in the legal establishment. And he did this in a most scurrilous manner targeted at getting maximum traction and attention. It is as if Mr Farotimi, through the public sphere, is throwing the gauntlet to every Nigerian and challenging us on our collective responsibility to clean the Augean stable.
If Barrister Farotimi cannot prove his allegations in court, it would not mean that his charges are false. It might only imply that the system which is supposed to guarantee justice has become too corruptly dense to achieve its mandate. But there is also the chance that since the entire judicial system cannot be tarred so broadly with the same brush, Farotimi’s allegation might receive a dispassionate hearing that might deliver justice as we expect it. This might be a tall expectation. Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament has inevitable consequences on the capacity of the judicial system to facilitate the delivery of justice. And this failure also complicates the capacity of the Nigerian state to deliver on its social contract to Nigerians. This is what makes the Babalola-Farotimi case too complex to be decided either in the constitutional court or the court of public opinion. The burdens of postcolonial disruptions that the Nigerian judiciary system carries are enormous: judicial corruption, miscarriage of judgments, executive lawlessness, delayed trial due to insufficient infrastructure, financial dependence on the executive arm of government.
To outline the fundamental challenges of the judicial system in Nigeria this way is not to give in to cynicism and a deterministic mindset that we might be caught in a vice that is inescapable. It is simply to say that the ongoing uproar between the two dramatis personae demonstrates that the court has been given a chance to reflect on the role that (in)justice plays in the fundamental understanding of the Nigerian postcolonial predicament and the capacity of a democratic system to correct itself. When Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi are given their day in court, we will have no choice but to trust that same judicial system to deliver unbiased judgment no matter our misgivings about how objective and untainted that judgment could be. This is just a way of saying that though our judicial system is not perfect; it is still the best that we have.
The last words on this reflection on the connection between the ongoing feud between Babalola and Farotimi and Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament must be given to Haile Sellasie, former emperor of Ethiopia: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Olaopa is the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission,Abuja, and Professor of Public Administration.
tolaopa2003@gmail.com
By Leo Igwe
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is concerned over the reported arrest of two men accused of being ‘witchdoctors’ in Zambia. The arrest underscores the potency of witchcraft fears and the connection between occult anxieties and the country’s politics. These individuals were accused of trying to bewitch the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema. The police claimed that they had charms. They planned to use the charms to harm the president. The report says the two persons have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. The Act criminalizes “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft”, and “cruelty to wild animals”. The police found the two with assorted charms, including a live chameleon.
This development is utterly embarrassing and shows that the Zambian government is slowly losing its focus and bearing.The country has many socio-economic challenges. Suspicion of bewitchment or possession of charms should be the least of its worries at this time. There should be no place for witchcraft and possession of charms in modern politics because there is no evidence for these beliefs and practices. Zambian authorities should not weaponize the Witchcraft Act or use it to justify this incident. Zambian law does not recognize witchcraft. Zambia’s Witchcraft Act criminalizes naming or imputing witchcraft. It prohibits accusing or threatening to accuse any person of being a witch or a wizard. In this case, it is the police who are breaking the law.
Otherwise, how did they know the two individuals were ‘witchdoctors’? Did these persons identify as witch doctors? If not, the police are liable because they named and imputed witchcraft and have to prove that these individuals have witch-doctoring powers. The police claimed to have charged these individuals for possessing “assorted charms”, including a chameleon. Really?
The police in Zambia have questions to answer: What are charms? How did they know that what was in their possession were charms, not pets? Is a chameleon a form of charm? What makes possession of a chameleon possession of a charm? When and how does a chameleon become a charm? The police need to answer these questions and more before one takes them seriously.
Again, did the individuals describe what was in possession as ‘charms’? If they did, does confessing or designating something as a charm make it a charm? And if they did not, the police are liable because they need to prove how those possessions translated into charms.
In addition, the police claimed that the duo wanted to bewitch the president. What does that mean? How did they know? Are the police not contravening a provision under the Witchcraft Act by professing knowledge of witchcraft? Can one harm another person using a chameleon? They claimed that the two persons wanted to use the charms in their possession, including the chameleon to harm the president. How did they know that? What is the evidence for that?
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches calls for an end to this state-sponsored witch hunt. There is no evidence of harm through witchcraft or charms. The Zambian government should desist from witchcraft- related infractions and violations including arbitrary arrest, and detention of innocent citizens. These allegations are baseless and absurd. The arrest was politically motivated. This development demonstrates that Zambian authorities are out of sync with their duty and obligation to uphold the rule of law and protect accused persons.
Zambian authorities need to act in compliance with the 2021 UN resolution, which urged states to take measures to combat abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks. End witchcraft allegations in Zambia. End witch hunts in Africa now!
Dr Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.
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