No, I don’t plan to run through the horrible events of the week that ended yesterday. If the headline sounds like a memo from NTA circa 1980, it’s because of the many ideas I had for a creative headline, none was polite enough.
If you haven’t yet guessed it, this is about the protests by the Shi’ites in Abuja, during the week and how that’s been reported/discussed on air. There were varying casualty figures and depending on who you listen to, you’d get whatever version. But everyone does agree that some people were killed even though some were suggesting that those who lost their lives more or less deserved to die.
I heard a guest, Yomi Dare, on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily (Wednesday edition) saying words to the effect that, ‘Even catapult is a weapon’. Well, it has already been established that the stones allegedly thrown by the protesters are dangerous weapons of mass destruction. They now say they recovered some kind of bombs.
Before I go on, it is important for me to clarify my position: I don’t support anyone taking laws into their hands. I am certainly not holding brief for the Shi’ites and their ‘ultra-dangerous weapons’.
Still, the current campaign going on in the electronic media trying to justify the army’s murder of human beings is mind boggling. If you listen to more than one station, you would recognise a pattern and the talking points. The first line of argument is as I mentioned earlier: ‘even a catapult is a weapon’. This is coming from people yet to arrest any of the killer herdsmen who carry arms even more sophisticated than that of the army and the police.
The other popular talking point is that the FG’s refusal to obey the court’s order to release El-Zakzaky, the leader of the Shi’ites, must be informed by some high-level security considerations. According to the hymn everyone is singing, government, being such an all-seeing and all-knowing entity, must be privy to some sensitive intelligence reports which say the man cannot be let out on bail. Who cares about the rule of law anyhow?
So, all of sudden, government officials, who are forever unaware of events and who might soon launch “We Are Not Aware Inc”, are only privy to Shi’ite-related intelligence? Meanwhile, these are the same officials appointing dead people to government jobs! Why are we like this? Why do we defend the indefensible? Even the Christians among us forget the part of the Bible that talks about righteousness exalting a nation. This is the same way all other human atrocities have been rationalised and forgotten. It’s this same kind of mindset that made some people unhappy when Biafra marked the golden jubilee of the end of the civil war. A colleague wanted everyone to know that it wasn’t only Igbos that died. I had to remind him about the other 360+ days on the calendar.
The other event in the news is the minimum wage fight. As of the time of writing this, state governments had agreed to pay N22,500; while the NLC was still insisting on N30,000. The question is how governors are going to afford this. At the old wage of N18,000, some states were owing huge backlog of salaries. How will they pay these new salaries?
Come again?
Buhari sets up panel to probe NHIS crisis
-Channels TV, Sunrise Daily (repeat of Wednesday’s edition), 2.17am-ish.
To refresh your minds, Professor Usman Yusuf, the Executive Secretary of NHIS, was suspended by the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, sometime in 2017 after a panel found him guilty – the allegations against him are long but can all be fitted into the corruption basket. Yusuf was however reinstated earlier this year by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He was suspended again in October but he chose instead to ‘storm’ his office, protected by at least 50 policemen. The leadership of the Nigeria Police claimed not to be aware; in other words, ‘We Are Not Aware Inc’.
So, be mindful when you see screaming headlines such as, “Usman sent on administrative leave”, “FG finally wades into…” How do you wade into something you are already submerged in? But seriously, under what advice/due process was Usman reinstated earlier in the year? This appears to be just for political optics. Elections are around the corner, after all. For all we know, the man is on a paid holiday.
“Some of us have also been governors before…”
-Dr Chris Ngige, Sunrise Daily, Wednesday, October 31, 2018.
Does the honourable minister really want to go down that route? Since Ngige enjoyed someone else’s governorship victory, i.e. Peter Obi’s for three years before the court sent him packing, technically he may need his own classification.
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