’Tunji Ajibade
tunjioa@yahoo.com 08036683657
The Nigeria Air Force has got a new job in Zamfara State. An officer in the theatre of operation said a few days ago that they were involved in a battle against bandits in the area. But he admitted the Air Force couldn’t combat bandits alone, they needed intelligence as such residents should offer information. “People should just go to the barracks” to say what they know about the bandits. Once they did, the Air Force would take action, he added. I waited to hear this officer mention a dedicated, toll-free phone number that civilians could call in order to give information. There was nothing.
On the surface, what the Air Force man said was alright. A little scratch would however reveal fault lines. There was this tone in the officer’s voice that, to me, sounded dismissive, light, unappreciative of the burden the military was placing on civilians each time such a request was made of civilians. He sounds as though there’s no personal cost to a Nigerian who has to find his way to military barracks that may be some 60 kilometres away in order to offer information. Aside from what it may cost a person to offer information, the attitude of officials in our institutions to people who come forward hasn’t been encouraging. I have several experiences to back up this view (See, “Do NSA and CPC mind victims of fraudsters?”, The PUNCH, November 23, 2018). Here, I cite another example. Not long ago, a TV decoder company began to switch off signal at 12am in a town where I was. Since I watched the news late at night, this mattered to me.
I called the company several times and submitted a complaint. Soon, it blacklisted my number rather than deal with the issue I raised. This kind of response is rampant in companies or government institutions run by Nigerians. For more than three months, I continued to record the time that signal was switched off. I made my enquiries and I discovered that the decision to switch off signal was taken by the management of the company. I learnt the reason was that fuel needed to power the company’s generator at its substation in this town was scarce and costly. I was shocked that a company could do this to its product and customers. So, I promptly got a TV decoder from another company. For the simple reason that I didn’t get a courteous response from the customer relations department of the other company, I wrote to the Consumer Protection Council in Abuja six months after the signal issue surfaced. Weeks later, the company in question called me to say it got my letter through the CPC, and that they were sorry, and would ensure it didn’t happen again; (it’s the reason I don’t mention their name here). What is it that I want to point out? The efforts made, the time, the focus, and the energy put into compelling the company to acknowledge its error. Not many other victims in the same town took steps to lay a complaint. Not many wanted to go through the stress, or bear the cost in resources, time and energy.
When the Air Force asked civilians for information in Zamfara, it didn’t seem they considered what people would have to go through to get across to government officials. One doesn’t ever get the impression that the military factors in the difficulties people, especially rural dwellers (who are more likely to see bandits and their hideouts), would pass through in order to offer information. This Air Force officer seemed to take it for granted that farmers or petty traders in a village would find it attractive to abandon their task and spend money to go in search of military barracks just to offer information. In terms of assisting the military with information, our security formations generally don’t make it easy for our people. This makes one wonder if military officers saddled with the responsibility of thinking for the nation on security matters sincerely consider carrying civilians along in the first place.
The aforementioned Air Force officer said they constructed new houses for officers in Zamfara, complete with air-conditioning systems so that they would operate effectively. As for civilians whose cooperation they needed, nothing was done at least in the form of providing dedicated toll-free phone lines to make it easier for them to offer information in real time and with little stress. Meanwhile, with the fat allocations that the military gets, it costs security formations next to nothing to make dedicated phone lines available in a national crisis such as the one being experienced in Zamfara State. If our security outfits don’t want to continue blaming civilians for what should primarily be their responsibility, if they want civilians to really assist, then they have to do more than rhetorically and off-handedly tell civilians to give them information about criminals.
To other matters. The other time, the AIT showed live how the Federal Capital Territory authorities demolished structures on the TV station’s Abuja premises. The reporter said this wasn’t the first time, that it also happened in 2011. He said the AIT had, days earlier, held meetings with the FCTA on the latest matter and they thought it was settled. A few days later however, they saw bulldozers demolishing their structures. I don’t know the details of this matter. But one wonders why, if this happened to the AIT once, it was allowed to happen the second time. What process should the TV station have followed that it didn’t, which made the FCTA to adopt this extreme measure? What did the AIT mean by saying they held a meeting over the matter with the FCTA and they thought it had been resolved? Did the meeting take place because the AIT had already broken an extant rule regarding such structures? Why did the FCTA wait until the AIT completed the structure before it came in to demolish?
I’m for this nation’s government assisting private companies, especially media houses, rather working against them. It’s because I tend to think of power dynamics in the context of our external relations. Media houses such as the AIT that operate outside our shores are channels for exercising soft power that Nigeria needs in diplomacy. But I also think private companies should be mindful of what the rules say regarding every step they want to take. Corporate bodies are best positioned to comply with statutory rules that guide their operations. For they have the capacity to engage professionals who can help them navigate those fine lines in statutory rules- legal or administrative. It doesn’t make any corporate body look good that it runs afoul of government rules so often. Our nation should be a nation of law and order, and no organisation should go about doing things with the belief it can get away with anything. Doing otherwise is an invitation to anarchy. Henceforth, the AIT needs to ensure it is clear about the mindset of any authority concerned before it goes ahead to erect structures.
A few days ago, the All Progressives Congress’ Senator Smart Adeyemi of Kogi State spoke on TV about the case he took to the election petitions tribunal. His grudge was that his opponent, Senator Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party, didn’t fairly win the Kogi West senatorial seat. One of the allegations he made was that the Independent National Electoral Commission did the collation of results in Lokoja, not in the senatorial zone where the election took place. This he said was against the rule. It’s noteworthy though that Adeyemi was outsmarted this way in the state where his party was in control. It’s a state where the APC governor and Melaye are enemies. It’s a state where Adeyemi and his party could have security outfits deployed (as was done elsewhere) in such a way that the opposition party didn’t do anything clever. Now, he approaches the election tribunal, and possibly higher courts, to give him victory. Yet, these are entities that have mostly given judgment in favour of the announced winners, using the principle of ‘substantial compliance’ with statutory requirements. It is incomprehensible that Adeyemi lost election in a state where every essential factor was in his favour, only to seek victory based on technicalities from the same judiciary that threw out his case against Melaye in 2015. Could it be that Adeyemi found it unbelievable that voters actually preferred Melaye to him?
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