I initially thought last week was going to count as a happy one in Nigeria’s recent history, what with the release on Wednesday of the 23 remaining train passengers held by Ansaru terrorists for 191 days. They were the last ones of the 61 passengers kidnapped on March 28 after an attack on the Abuja-Kaduna night-time train. According to the official announcement, the previously not known Chief of Defence Staff Action Committee [CDSAC] secured their release. No ransom was paid, according to Transport Minister Mu’azu Jaji Sambo. That makes sense because if government had intended to pay ransom all along, it could have done so much earlier, should not have allowed victims’ family members to shoulder the burden of paying hundreds of millions of naira to the terrorists, and probably would not have involved the military in a ransom-paying scheme.
During a meeting with editors and newspaper publishers in Abuja about a month ago, Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor dropped broad hints that the kidnapped persons will soon be out. It was confidential, so no newspaper reported it. It sounded as if a military operation was underway. We do not yet know exactly how this freeing operation was done, but it was the happiest national news in Nigeria last week.
Quickly overshadowed by four sorry events. Midweek, Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited [NNPC)] Mele Kolo Kyari announced that a 4-kilometre-long illegal oil pipeline connecting Forcados oil export terminal directly to the high seas was recently discovered. This pipeline, which could send out 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, went undetected for nine years, Kyari said. Depending upon how one tends to view things, this story caused both elation and shock in Nigeria. Elation, because theft of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of crude oil had been brought to an end. Shock, because for nine years, a pipeline that siphoned off more money than ASUU ever demanded operated undetected for a decade.
One online story last week suggested that ex-Niger Delta militant Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, helped make the find as part of his N4 billion monthly surveillance contract to police oil installations. If so, then Tompolo has proved that placing the fox to protect the chicken coop was not a bad idea after all. Pictures released by NNPC showed Kyari and Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor wading into oil soaked creeks while engineers dug up the illegal pipeline. Now, such a pipeline, buried in the creeks and far into the ocean, could only have been built by the most astute engineers. Who built it, who owned it, who protected it all this while, who knew about it but did not squeal, and who brought the ships that stood far from the shore and bought the stolen oil? The authorities promised an investigation; we are eager to hear the answers.
At least as shocking as the discovery of a nine-year-old illegal oil pipeline was the capture in Lagos of a nine billion-naira illegal drug consignment. On Tuesday last week, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency [NDLEA] agents stormed a mansion at highbrow Victoria Garden Estate in Lekki area of Lagos and found 13.4 million pills of tramadol 225mg worth N8.8billion in street value. The mansion was said to belong to Ugochukwu Nsofor Chukwukadibia, Chairman of Autonation Motors Limited, described by NDLEA as a “billionaire drug baron.”
NDLEA said preliminary investigation showed Chukwukadibia has six mansions within VGC. He lives in one, uses one as his office, and uses a third one to warehouse tramadol consignments. Five exotic vehicles were found in the mansions, including two Sports Utility Vehicles [SUVs] and a bulletproof jeep. We should not jump to convict this man in the media but a lot of Nigerians will say, if I have a fraction of that wealth, what am I doing with tramadol?
Two months earlier, NDLEA found a methamphetamine lab in another residence in the same estate belonging to Chris Emeka Nzewi. 258.74 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and various precursor chemicals used for the production of the toxic drug were recovered from Nzewi’s home during his arrest, NDLEA said. Questions begging for answers include, how did so much drugs enter the country; did they come by ship, air or land borders? How did they come into this estate and, did anyone designate Victoria Garden City as a drug depot?
Are we to celebrate, that so much life-destroying drugs have been found, or to cry, that some people do not care how many youthful lives are wasted as long as they can make money out of drugs? NDLEA under Brigadier General Buba Marwa is doing a smashing job. It is back in the good news for the first time since the days of Major General Musa Bamaiyi, and is at least erasing some of the national stain from the Abba Kyari drug involvement scandal.
An even more bizarre drama unfolded in Nigeria Wednesday last week when an estimated 500 vigilante agents of the Kogi State Government, in what one writer described as “Hollywood stunt fashion,” invaded Dangote Cement Company’s Obajana cement plant in the state. An altercation ensued; the company said seven of its workers were shot and many others were injured, that some of its machinery and facilities were destroyed and production was halted.
Dangote Cement said the thugs were sent by Governor Yahaya Bello, who did not deny it because he charged the company with tax evasion and also of “unresolved ownership” issues. Among the flurry of claims and counter-claims between the two, two issues stood out. KGSG accused the cement plant, the single largest industrial plant in the state after the comatose Ajaokuta Steel Company, of not paying tax. Dangote replied that it pays a billion naira in Pay As You Earn taxes to KGSG annually and does not owe anything.
The second, more complicated issue is ownership. Dangote says the plant belongs to it 100%, having bought it from federal and Kogi State Governments in 1992. KGSG says it cannot find evidence of payment or even the transfer of ownership. So as far as it is concerned, it owns 10% of the plant but has not been paid any dividends since the 1990s. Ego plays a part in this dispute. Kogi State Assembly invited the cement plant to discuss with it; Obajana Cement sent a senior manager but the Assembly said Aliko Dangote, billionaire chairman of its parent company, must appear in person.
We will only be able to sift the chaff from the grain in these charges and counter charges after a full public enquiry, by the National Assembly, another federal agency or a court of law. We can however say right away that it was reckless in the extreme for Governor Yahaya Bello to send thugs to close such a major industrial plant, which employs thousands directly and indirectly and is a major contributor to the state’s and national GDP. If the order to close it were legal, the police should be the one to do it, not thugs. In the event, police had to move in and disperse the thugs.
Governor Bello’s methods spoiled his case, if he has one. Has he tried the court option? If Dangote cannot prove in court that it acquired KGSG’s shares, a court can restore them, even though there is the question of why Federal and Kogi State governments stood askance for three decades when Dangote cement trucks can be seen on the road every day, ferrying Obajana cement to its depots. Bello’s method damaged the prospect for his colleagues who are travelling abroad every day, soliciting for foreign investment in their states. It also added ammunition to those who are skeptical about amending the constitution to allow for state police forces.
And then, to cap events of the last tumultuous week, there was the Court of Appeal order to striking members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities [ASUU] to return to work after eight months, empty handed as it were, because no agreement has been signed between government and the nation’s most restive union. To put matters in proper perspective, the Appeal Court didn’t say ASUU should return to work; it said it will not entertain ASUU’s appeal against a National Industrial Court order to return to work until it first obeys that court’s order [which, many Nigerians will say, amounts to the same thing]. Nor can this ruling be appealed to the Supreme Court, one lawyer said, because the Appeal Court is final judicial arbitrator in industrial matters.
It was the second body blow to ASUU in one week because Dr. Chris Ngige’s Ministry of Labour registered two new academic staff unions, Congress of Nigerian University Academics [CONUA] and Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics, NAMDA, with the clear hope of breaking ASUU’s ranks. Government may yet have more tricks up its sleeve, such as “signing an agreement” with CONUA and NAMDA in return for their “calling off” the strike.
The trickiest one is the Appeal Court order. Will ASUU obey it and return to classes “while negotiations [and the court case] continue,” when it previously said government did not fulfill even the agreements that it signed? Or, will ASUU leaders be sent to prison for disobeying a court order? Drama no dey short for Naija here.
