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.