Catch me if you dare!

by Eze Eluchie

Wonders, they say, will never cease.

I never thought the day will come when I will agree on anything with a major goon who has contributed immensely to the current nightmare living in Nigeria has become for all its citizens – Olusegun Obasanjo!

Obasanjo’s admonition to the Jonathan presidency to either hold him (Obasanjo) personally responsible for the mega corruption which occurred during the Nigeria’s ‘Reign of Evil’ (1999 – 2007) or forever shut up, receives my whole hearted support.

I hope someone will seize this opportunity to awaken the character presently collecting salary as Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Lamurde, to get up from his slumber and proof to Nigerians that the funds remitted to cover the running costs of the EFCC from the Federation account is not a 100% waste!

Nigeria MUST be restructured!

by Eze Eluchie 

Who will blame Goodluck Jonathan for the sentiments he is expressing when he says "Those seeking the disintegration of Nigeria are “lazy politicians seeking to be kings in tiny islands,” Perhaps Jonathan is confusing 'disintegration' with 'restructuring' and or 'renegotiation''.

If you are sitting atop cash pot of over 3-million barrels of crude oil per day and can spend the proceeds thereof without accounting to anybody but your henchmen for it;

If you get elected into the office of President by default;

If when your wife/kids/cronies fall ill, she/they will be flown to any hospital of your choice abroad for treatment at whatsoever costs all without a dime coming out of your pocket;

If your only qualifications to being president are your first name (goodluck) and your wife's first name (patience) and you do not have to bother about such 'frivolities' as track-record, performance, intelligence or any other virtue for that matter;

If you have a convoy of several bullet-proof Mercedes Benz limousines (paid for by public funds) at your beck and call when the rest of the population have to dodge bullets and terrorist bombs as part of their daily routine;

If you once had no shoes and you now have a million and one shoes and are unable to account to even yourself how the 'miracle' came about.

Oh yes, Goodluck Jonathan, Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida and others who have been opportune to fleece the cash-cow known as Nigeria can jolly well castigate those of us who want a renegotiation and restructuring of the contraption called Nigeria. But one thing they, as sure as hell, cannot do, is to stop the tide.

Nigeria will be restructured and renegotiated! Those who dare to stand in the way will only find themselves restructured and renegotiated in the process!

http://dailytrust.com.ng/index.php/other-sections/lead-stories/177366-nigerias-unity-not-negotiable-jonathan

Picture: Nigeria, crying for a peaceful restructuring and renegotiation.

Time to mourn the living

by Eze Eluchie

Anybody in doubt that our contraption as is, is irrevocably contaminated and in need of urgent rejigging needs only consider the reaction of the remainder of the population to the senseless killings which occurred in Baja, Bornu State yesterday.

With over 185 fellow Nigerians killed in a fracas between men of the Nigerian Army and Boko Haram militants, the rest of the country acts and feels as though nothing has happened.

The headlines of the newspapers continue to publish mundane matters; politicians are still struggling one with the other to seize access to seats of power and, invariably, control and ability to loot with impunity; the Bar Association is worried about a pending ‘Corporate Manslaughter Offence’ before the rubber-stamp Senate, and the looting goes on unimpeded.

Required: Rapid and Robust Response to Terror

by Eze Eluchie

One cannot but commend the Government and peoples of the United States for the timely and effective response with which the cowardly, senseless and heinous attack on the Boston Marathon was handled.

The speed and dispatch with which virtually the entirety of the American system was deployed to confront terror will obviously send a clear message to budding punks who may be thinking similar vile thoughts. The message was trite and unmistakable – there is no hiding place for terror.

Contrast that with how Nigerian governments respond to the various terror strikes that has rendered the core northern region of Nigeria uninhabitable and unsafe to all: 

a. A few minutes after the terror attack, the Media Assistant to the Nigerian ruler will release a poorly worded often recycled message assuring all that the government is on top of the situation and that all should go about their activities (perhaps pretending also that over a dozen of our fellow men did not just have their limbs blown across streets and life snuffed out of them by our local terrorists.

b. The President, by now scared of his own shadows, will cancel all official engagements for the remainder of the week and recline to the comfort of his fortress from where he will receive all guests and perform all State functions.

c. The hapless Media Assistant or spokespersons of our (in)security agencies will, a few days later, release yet another senseless statement, denying the involvement of the terror groups which have already claimed responsibility for the attacks – pray if these guys are so smart as to know who did not do it, does that not presume that they have a clue as to who did it?

d. Sensing yet another opportunity to fleece the national treasury, smart alecs masquerading as kingpins of ethno-religious subsets of our contraption, begin to campaign for an amnesty for terrorists – to these characters, it is immaterial that the terrorists for whom they advocate amnesty have repeatedly stated that it is the entire people of Nigeria who need and ought to be ‘praying’ for amnesty.

e. Pronto, an ‘Amnesty Committee’ is put together, comprised of persons with known history of fleecing the country, of. Millions of dollars gets released to the ‘amnesty committee’ – money which disappears before it even leaves the federal vaults.

g. If adequate tracing mechanisms had been placed on the funds released to the ‘amnesty committee’, it would really not be a surprise if it turned out that such ‘amnesty funds’ become monies used to fund arms purchase and training costs of the terror groups.

In the interim, many more of our nationals get killed by bombs placed by the same terror groups which had all along stated an express desire to destroy the federation as it is presently known!

What will it take to get it through the thick skulls of those in rulership in Nigeria that you simply do not negotiate with terror?

The weak, ineffective and myopic response to terror in Nigeria is most unfortunately fueling the emergence of militancy across much of West Africa. If adequate measures are not taken to nip this cancer in its bud, one shudders to conceive the implications in the very near future.

I extend my heartfelt condolences to the victims of the unfortunate episode at the Boston Marathon and once more doff my hat for the heroic and exemplary response of all who contributed towards putting an end to the unfortunate situation.

Once more the United States and its peoples have shown exemplary leadership

Picture: (c) Rueters - House near where 2nd bombing suspect was arrested

7.    

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Colloquium on Genocides, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

by Eze Eluchie

The quest to congregate global revulsion against the commission of mass murders, forced enslavement and some of the worst crimes conceivable, received a big boost with the convocation of the 1st International Colloquium on Genocides, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, on Friday, March 1st, 2013 at the McDonough Hall of Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC.  The Colloquium was co-sponsored by the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and the Human Rights Association-Amnesty International, both of Georgetown University and convened by Eze Eluchie.

The Colloquium’s theme was, “The Forgotten Genocides,” and had three core objectives:

  

1. Establish a platform where peoples who have been, and or are likely to be victims of or perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity (particularly genocides) can share experiences and ideas of preventing such dastardly acts.

2. Identify early warning signals and locations where similar crimes are likely to be committed across the world with a view to focusing global attention at such areas and preventing the commission of such crimes.

3. Explore avenues to ameliorate the adverse impact (psychological, physiological, developmental and otherwise) of war crimes and crimes against humanity on the victims and perpetrators alike.

The convergence of speakers and participants from across the world at the Colloquium, particularly representatives of nationalities which had experienced genocides, war crimes and other crimes against humanity in their history, indicated a willingness of peoples from diverse countries and continents to strive towards a better understanding of the causative factors of these vile crimes with a view to forestalling repeats. 

Our Oil, Our Life.

by Eze Eluchie

One more reason why we are where we are and the rest of the world are where they are: As a result of an oil spill at Chevron facility in Brazil, the Brazilian Government has halted all Chevron prospecting and crude lifting operations in Brazil. In addition to criminal and civil suits filed against British Petroleum by the United States Government over the 2010 Gulf oil spill, a U.S. District Court awarded well over U.S.$7 Billion in damages in partial settlement to some persons affected by the same spill – this figure is bound to rise astronomically as the total impact of damages gets assessed.

 

Faced with much larger oil spills and the worst environmental destruction in human history, what do the kleptocrats manning the Nigerian government do?

 

Our goons deploy Nigerian troops and security operatives to shoot, kill and terrorize locals who dare express disapproval for the inhumane activities of oil prospecting activities in Nigeria and intent on rubbing the injury in, award national honors to officials of multinational oil firms - a 'keep-up-the-destructive-work' kind of award. With millions of barrels of crude routinely being spilled all over the Niger Delta region, destroying our ecosystem, further pauperizing the locals in the areas in question.

 

Large-Scale Corruption is a Crime Against Humanity

by Eze Eluchie

TEXT OF PETITION TO CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT TO INVESTIGATE, PROSECUTE AND SEEK THE PUNISHMENT OF CORRUPTION AS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

The Chief Prosecutor

 International Criminal Court (ICC)

LARGE-SCALE CORRUPTION IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY AND OUGHT TO BE INVESTIGATED AND PROSECUTED AS SUCH BY THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT.

The efforts of your Office, in investigating and prosecuting of ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’, are laudable, as it serves to check excesses and punish misdeeds by authorities of States whose conduct tend to diminish humanity, increase human suffering and thwart efforts at human and societal advancement.

It is however a source of worry and concern that in the discharge of your duties as explicitly expressed in Article 15 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (The Statute), your Office has inadvertently or otherwise, omitted investigations into and or prosecutions for a crime that in most cases, founds and gives rise to a plethora of violent crimes which your Office has focused its enormous powers on – ‘large-scale corruption and corrupt practices’.

Definition and characteristics of ‘crime against humanity’:

Article 5 (b) of The Statute stipulates ‘crimes against humanity’ as one of the four categories of crimes your Office and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over.

Article 7 of The Statute goes ahead to list a series of items which “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack”, constitute ‘crimes against humanity’, these acts include:

(a) “Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid”;

Of critical importance however is Article 7 (k) of The Statute, which whilst recognizing the acts listed in Article 7 (a) – (j) above as being non-conclusive, further lists as a ‘crime against humanity’,

“Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health”.

Amnesty for terror?

by Eze Eluchie

The greatest beneficiaries of the rejection of offer of amnesty extended to the Boko Haram terror outfit by Nigeria’s government are, most ironically, the members of the northern oligarchy who had been positioning themselves as administrators of the multi-billion U.S. Dollar heist that would have accrued as a result of the ‘amnesty’.

These charlatans, who parade as opinion leaders-cum-rulers of Nigeria’s northern region, had been shouting themselves hoarse in a vociferous effort to stampede the Jonathan administration to releasing mega-funds in an amnesty package, ostensibly to appease/’settle’ the fighters of the Boko Haram (BH) Islamist terrorist outfit.  The real intent obviously had never been to pay off any terrorists but rather to fill up offshore bank accounts with easy loot from the Federation Account, as was the case with the funds doled out by Nigeria to appease the Niger Delta militants.

Nigeria: Good People, Bad Rulers!

by Eze Eluchie

In our everyday lives we encounter enduring testimonials of the warmth and beauty of the Nigerian mind which is daily obscured and tarnished by bad rulers. 

For me, one of such testimonials occurred a couple of years back, at an obscure Station of the Nigerian Police Force located in Ofosu, Edo State Nigeria. Whilst driving from Lagos to Imo State, my vehicle, at the unholy hour of about 19.00hrs, packed up. Aboard, I had my entire family: wife and kids and two others. Anybody familiar with the terrain knows full well that getting stranded, after nightfall, with a faulty car on the Benin-Ore road was as near a death sentence as one could get.

Lo and behold, out from the blues, come men of the Nigeria Police Force, who’s Station though nearby, had been out of sight, to the rescue. The Policemen assist in pushing the vehicle over to their Station and virtually roll out the carpet for yours truly and my household. The Divisional Police Officer (a man from a segment of Nigeria our warped political rulership will want to portray as being in perpetual conflict with my part of Nigeria), after advising that he could not vouch for the Guesthouses in the neighborhood, offers and does actually vacate his official quarters for the convenience of my family, On my part, I spent the night on 'guard duty' with the officers and men discussing Nigerian issues.

We die everyday

by Eze Eluchie

Every day that passes, Nigerians suffer the indignity and pay the hefty price of being citizens of a rudderless contraption.

All over the world, thousands of Nigerians languish in jails, often times on trumped up charges, or driven to desperate survival tactics in a bid to escape the consequences of maladministration foisted on our population.

The treatment Nigerians in diaspora receive is directly traceable to the treatment we receive from the characters who preside over our affairs at home.  With extra-judicial killings by (in)security operatives now the norm and over 90% of the inmates in our prisons merely persons who are being detained pending trials (often times, persons are detained awaiting trial for periods of upwards of 10 years), it is only expected that foreign authorities will take a cue and believe the life of a Nigerian may be of less value than that of a stray dog.

Marshall Plan for Africa

by Eze Eluchie

TEXT OF OPEN LETTER TO U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA       (first published June 2009)

The President

United States of America

White House

Washington D.C.

Mr. Barack Obama,

Dear Mr. President,

CALL FOR A “MARSHALL PLAN FOR AFRICA” TO CONFRONT THE MOTHER-OF-ALL- SCOURGES ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT – OFFICIAL CORRUPTION, AND FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL CORRUPTION CRIMES COURT

As you embark on your maiden visit (in your capacity as President of the United States of America) to Africa, the most exploited continent on earth, I am prompted to address this correspondence to your Office in the belief that your attention will somewhat be focused on African issues in the course of your brief sojourn through our continent.

Prime motivation to pen this correspondence emanates from the pivotal role your country has played, is playing and can play in global affairs. I admit to being further emboldened to write this letter by the fact that whilst your opponents in your quest to secure the mandate to lead your country had embarked on ‘presidential campaigns’, you had initiated a global movement for change predicated on the pillars of justice, equity, solidarity and sustainability.

I must confess to being further prompted to write you following the realization that the only mention you made of Africa in your groundbreaking address at Cairo University, Egypt on the was:

“ Around the world, we can turn dialogue into interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action -- whether it is combating malaria in Africa, or providing relief after a natural disaster”.

I was worried this was indicative of a further continuation of the stereotyped thinking in the west of seeing Africa only in terms of its diseases!

Grand Criminal of the Federal Republic (GCFR)

by Eze Eluchie

The culture of bequeathing National Honors and or Awards to deserving individuals who have contributed in one way or the other towards uplifting the circumstances of any country is a practice that dates back thousands of years.

The practice serves two primary functions, firstly to appreciate such individuals for their dedication, industry, service or whatsoever contributions they might have made to the society’s development; secondly, and equally important, to serve as motivation to others to strive to the extreme of their abilities, to be equally recognized and honored by the larger society.

Under ideal circumstances, the screening and selection processes of individuals who get nominated to receive national awards coupled with the accomplishments, integrity and contributions to societal advancement of selected awardees serve to enhance the stature of National Awards. The national Awards ceremony itself acquires a larger-than-life image as it is often a determining factor to gauge the direction towards which a society wants its youth (and invariably, its future) to be attuned.

Here in Nigeria, the annual ritual has come again and a date has been set when the Nigerian State has earmarked to dish out national honors to persons deemed to have contributed to Nigeria’s development. An event will be organized in a venue decked out with spectacular decorations at costs best left unstated (for a certainty, new millionaires have been created, and invariably prospective national honor awardees/honorees, from contracts awarded in relation to the events).

The awardees/honorees themselves will storm the venue, attired in a cacophony of colors and bedecked in all manner of jewelry and some adorned with the plumes from species of endangered birds. Platoons of operatives of security agencies will serve to cordon off the venue of the ‘national awards’ from the very Nigerians who ought to be ‘celebrating’ persons who have so contributed to our nation’s development. All manners of praise singers, hanger on and alms seekers will form an outer ring of perfidy around the venue of the national awards ceremony.

Though the criteria for dishing out national awards seem known only to a select few Nigeria (it is highly doubtful if any such objective criteria exists), from the list of awardees in the past few years, it is discernible that attainment of certain political offices and positions in the civil service, automatically guarantees a national honor. The Offices so entitled to automatic national honors include: President of the Federal Republic and his Vice, State Governors and their deputies, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Justice of the Federation and Justices of the Supreme Court, President of the Court of Appeal, Chairman of the ruling political party, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Service Chiefs and heads of para-military and security agencies, Permanent Secretaries of Federal Ministries, and a couple of other choice positions. Becoming a Chief Executives Officer or Board Chairman of firms which are able to secure juicy contracts with government also guarantees one a national honor. It is however instructive to note that the national honors are dished out irrespective of how some of these characters attained the various offices which ‘guarantees’ them a national honor.

We are thus faced with the unsavory situation where for instance, persons who shot their ways to becoming Heads of States, via coup d’état, or violently rigged the electoral process to become President of the Federation or Senate President or any other such political offices get these awards. Also given awards under our blanket system of honoring offices attained, as opposed to actual contribution made to national development, are persons who preside over security outfits that have attained global notoriety for extra-judicial killings and extorting the very citizens they are set up to protect, Senior civil servants who despite their modest salaries and emoluments are able to live the lifestyles of drug barons by corruptly enriching themselves from public coffers and executives of contracting firms whose main modus operandi and sole secret of success is bribe giving and blackmail. The Nigerian system chooses to close its eyes to the fact that if the coup plotter, election rigger, incompetent security chief, corrupt civil servant and mafia-like business mogul had been adequately prosecuted for their heinous crimes, such characters ought rightly be serving lengthy prison sentences or probably awaiting execution and certainly not fouling our national ethic with their incongruous presence.

Without any inhibitions whatsoever, officials of the Nigerian State publish to the international community, the list of personalities slated for national awards each year. The calamity of our situation is that when the list of candidates for the award of Nigerian national awards is juxtaposed with watch-lists of Nigerians at the disposal of international security organizations, such as the INTERPOL, Federal Bureau of Investigation (United States of America), the M16 (United Kingdom, Mossad (Israel) and other such bodies spread across the globe, for such crimes as Money Laundering and associated racketeering activities, there is a near perfect match. The prime immediate consequence of the publication of the list of persons to receive Nigerian national awards is the extra scrutiny and more thorough search of hapless Nigerians travelling through international border posts in Europe and the Americas – the logic, if your country honors and awards persons we have on our list as money-launders, drug traffickers and members of various international organized crime syndicates, ‘ordinary’ Nigerians need more thorough checks!.

Greater damage is impacted on our national psyche and sensibilities by the award of national honors to persons who least deserve such. The worst hit by these unfortunate misplacement of honors are our youths – the most impressionable segment of our population. As our various media houses (print and electronic) celebrate the award of national honors to these persons of unwholesome characters, our children and youth look on in perplexed amazement and bewilderment as they observe the celebration of vice and criminality. At the various places of worship and in their schools, these impressionable youths are taught that stealing and corruption are vices that should be avoided and yet they are graphically confronted with a nation celebrating the people who have stolen the most and benefitted the most from corruption.

In Nigeria, we seem to have perfected a penchant to transform virtue to vice, positive practices to negative nuisance, and the credible into the incredulous.

Apparently aware of the dilemma of its double-speak, the Federal Government has of recent embarked on rather desperate efforts to attract credibility to its national awards festivities and thus erase the fact that as it stands presently, the awards ceremonies engender and promote criminality and corrupt practices. The Nigerian State went out of its way to seek to ‘bestow’ ‘national awards’ on persons of renowned accomplishments and integrity to dilute the stench emanating from the bulk of the awardees. Unfortunately for our rulers, their overtures to bestow ‘honor awards’ on such personalities as the now late Chinua Achebe, former U.S. Presidents Clinton and others were rebuffed.

Whilst going through the list of recipients of national awards for the year 2011 as published by a national newspaper, a youth who had been glancing over my shoulders to read the tabloid exclaimed: ‘Sir, that man on that list was nearly lynched in our community for diverting resources meant for the community to his personal use, I believe C.F.R. under which his name appears must mean Criminal of the Federal Republic”. His friend who had been standing idly by chipped in:” Then going by the class of its recipients, G.C.O.N. must mean Grand Criminal of the Order of the Niger”  I could not help but inquire as to what the supposedly highest national honor in Nigeria meant, the G.C.F.R! The youths replied in unison, “Ahhhhhhhhh, he is the ababa nna of them all - “Grand Criminal of the Federal Republic”.

@#*

Picture: Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan decorates 'businessman' and acclaimed 'richest man in Africa', Aliko Dangote with the 'GCON'

Inspiring the future to loot - When criminality infiltrates the academia

by Eze Eluchie

Increasingly, the messages Nigerians are getting from their rulers include:
‘Steal or be damned!’
‘When stealing, make sure you do not steal peanuts. Go for the Bank vaults!’
‘If you steal well when offered a little opportunity, you are assured a bigger office to steal more!’
- we are encouraging a generation where fraud will not only be a national pastime, but probably be the national motto and mantra.


Every day, we are confronted with evidence of the institutionalization of crime, corruption and perfidy in our contraption. One day, it is the ‘State pardon’ accorded criminals who have not shown the slightest sign of remorse nor been relieved of the loot they amassed, the next it is the announcement of new rules that allow and celebrate looting of public funds.