TheNewsGuru

Tag: Criminality

  • Side-stepping criminality – By Owei Lakemfa

    Side-stepping criminality – By Owei Lakemfa

    I HAVE been to a number of budget ‘defence’ sessions in the National Assembly, and some were like bazaar sessions with buying and selling going on.

    On some occasions, I watched a ‘Distinguished Senator’ who was a Committee Chairman, perform. He was unperturbed that he was sitting in public with journalists present. He left no one in doubt that he was sitting, primarily to extract juice from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, appearing before him. Like a corrupt police officer at a counter, he made all sorts of demands, with members of his panel nodding their heads.

    He would ask what provisions in the budget had been made for him and his team or, how did the chief executive of the MDA expect them to work so hard on budgets and get peanuts in return? If, for example, the government official explains that there are travels, including overseas provided for in the budget for the ‘Distinguished Senators’, he would ask for an increase in the number of trips.

    He would then pause as if lost in thought, and then enquire how much foreign airline tickets cost and, frown that the proposed budgets do not adequately cover the cost of first class tickets. At the end of session, having hiked the proposed budget, he would assure that the new proposals would be passed and that he would soon visit the MDAs concerned. He was a sanctuary of corruption in the National Assembly.

    There is an ‘Honourable Member’ who uses his knowledge of forensic accounting to intimidate the MDAs who are, in many cases, led by chief executives who are ready to play ball. He would tear down particular budget proposals, engage the chief finance officer of the MDA in what may seem to be professional arguments on the budget proposals. After wearing out the confidence of the finance officer or intimidating him, he turns to the now hapless chief executive, offering to help the MDA with its seemingly tattered budgets proposals.

    Essentially, binary budgets are passed annually by the National Assembly; one submitted by the executive and the other, by the legislators. In considering the former, the National Assembly grafts its own budget on that submitted by the Presidency.

    While signing the 2018 Budget allegedly under protest, then President Muhammadu Buhari accused the National Assembly of ‘padding’ it by introducing 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.

    He wailed that the insertions “relate to matters that are the responsibility of the states and local governments, and for which the Federal Government should therefore not be unduly burdened.”

    Conversely, he said the National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration. He claimed that: “Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation. Some of the new projects inserted by the National Assembly have not been properly conceptualised, designed and costed and will therefore be difficult to execute.”

    He further revealed that “many of these new projects introduced by the National Assembly have been added to the budgets of most MDAs with no consideration for institutional capacity to execute them or the incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.” In other words, the new insertions were, basically, duplications, yet the funds are approved.

    As President, he clarified that: “The logic behind the Constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the executive is that, it is the executive that knows and defines its policies and projects.” Despite this, and his knowledge that the budget was packaged in criminality, Buhari signed it.

    The defence of the NASS by then spokespersons, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi and Abdulrazak Namdas was that it had the powers to do what it deems fit with the budget.

    Its argument was that: “Adjustments and reductions in the locations, costs and number of projects approved were made in order to address geo-political imbalances that came with the executive proposal. The introduction of new projects was done to ensure the promotion of the principles of Federal …Character as contained in Section 14, subsection (3) of the 1999 Constitution…”

    It added that: “The number of projects had to be increased in order to give a sense of belonging to every geo-political zone of the country to ensure socio-economic justice, equity, fairness, and to command National loyalty.”

    If the claims of the NASS were true, all it needed to do was to return the budget to the Presidency for necessary adjustments, rather than rewrite it or, write and pass its own budget.

    After signing such budgets annually, Buhari again, wailed openly while signing the 2022 Budget that 6,576 new projects had been smuggled into it by the National Assembly.

    Since I am not sure a gun was held to President Buhari’s head while signing those budgets which we all know border on criminality, my conclusion is that the racketeering was mutually agreed by both arms of government and was beneficial to the perpetrators.

    Interestingly, there is a continuum: then Senate President Ahmad Lawan, returned to the Senate albeit under controversial circumstances, while then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, is currently the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu.

    Given this culture of impunity, the claims by Senator Abdul Ningi of PDP Bauchi, that the 2024 Budget was padded by N3.7 trillion or over 10 per cent of the N28.78 trillion budget, did not come as a surprise. He, as an old Senator, has been part of this culture. Therefore, his claims or revelations must have startled his fellow ‘Distinguished Senators’. They neither gave him the floor to explain himself, nor provide facts why they think his claims were frivolous. They simply suspended him for three months. The sin Senator Ningi seems to have committed is that having been invited to the table, he did not observe the ethics that you do not talk while eating.

    A similar punishment was inflicted on Abdulmumin Jibrin in 2016 when as the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, he revealed that the 2016 Budget was padded. He had gone to the extent of naming the then Speaker, Deputy Speaker , Chief Whip and Minority Whip of allocating N400 billion to themselves in the NASS Budget.

    During the session on Ningi, another Distinguished Senator, Jarigbe Jarigbe, Cross Rivers North, was exposing some of his colleagues for collecting humongous amounts of at least N500 million each. His microphone was quickly switched off before he could inflict more damage.

    Some claimed such monies were for constituency projects. Who supervises such projects; who oversights them? Do they pass through the normal public procurement and contract processes? Side-tracking criminality does not change its essence.

  • Releasing Nnamdi Kanu is rewarding criminality, says Asari Dokubo

    Releasing Nnamdi Kanu is rewarding criminality, says Asari Dokubo

    Former Niger Delta militant leader, Asari Dokubo, has said releasing the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, would not ease the tension in the South-East. Rather, it would fuel impunity.

    Dokubo while speaking to state house correspondents after meeting with President Bola Tinubu on Friday, added that Kanu should face the law for the actions and instigations he has carried out.

    “During EndSars, Nnamdi Kanu was walking free. What did he do? He poured petrol on the flames of EndSars. Now, he has been caught. What of the people who have died? This is a criminal. He should face the law.

    “Releasing Nnamdi Kanu is rewarding criminality and rewarding gruesome murder of innocent people. He should face the law for the actions and instigations he has carried out,” he said.

     

     

     

  • It’s easy defending criminality when you’re not the victim – By Owei Lakemfa

    It’s easy defending criminality when you’re not the victim – By Owei Lakemfa

    I EXPECTED a backlash when on February 3, 2023, I published a piece: “Recreating the Holocaust in their own image.” It came as expected. The various reactions reinforce my position that our world can be a far better place if only otherwise decent humans would not rationalise evil. But it is quite easy to rationalise criminality, if you are not the victim. To such decent people, I usually say, please put yourself in the position of the victim and see whether you will still hold the same position. But such a plea is usually a tall order as many seem set in their ways, are socially or religiously indoctrinated. It can be explosive, potentially dangerous or almost impossible to ask somebody who holds religious beliefs on a matter, to rethink his position.

    Sure, there were many who supported my simple act of drawing attention to the issues in the Palestine, especially the on-going genocide and calling for a resolution in favour of a two-state solution in which Israel and the Palestine will live in secured borders, in peace and raise their families as good neigbours. The famous African novelist, Chinua Achebe wrote: “Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break.”

    There are people I will not waste my time explaining matters to for they are far gone in their ways or are direct beneficiaries of evil. For instance, why would I waste precious time and space trying to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop his philistine or Nazist approach of genocide to the Palestinian issue when that is his political oxygen? Why would Netanyahu allow peace when violence which he calls ‘security’ is the bait he uses to fish in Israeli political waters? Today, it is this criminal tactics that may save him and his wife, Sara, from going to jail having been indicted over three years ago, on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

    However, there are decent people I feel obliged to take up issues with since there is a chance they can rethink their ways and work for a better humanity. I will restrict myself to reactions on an international platform I belong to but will not mention names because I have not sought their permission to do so.

    One measured response was: “Using terms like genocide and extermination is so far from the truth that it amounts to slander.” This line of thinking continued: “What’s going on between Israel and the Palestinians isn’t genocide. It’s more complicated than that. Yes, you’re right about Israeli displacement going on there. But it’s nothing on a massive scale like what happened in other places in the region… that caused more casualties and destruction…”

    A grave mistake in this type of analysis is that it assumes that genocide is based on the number of casualties, not the act itself. The Oxford Dictionary defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.”

    It does not make sense to wait until a people are wiped out before we agree there is genocide. The French slaughter of about two million Algerians in order to stop that country’s independence and assimilate it, is no less a genocide than the Nazis massacre of six million Jews or the Belgian slaughter of 15 million Congolese. The first genocide of the 20th Century involved 100,000 persons in Namibia. But it was a genocide because the Germans exterminated over 60,000 of the total 80,000 Herero people; that was eliminating 80 per cent of the people. It also killed over 10,000 of the Nama people. That figure may seem ‘small’ but it was 50 per cent of the Nama people.

    In contrasting the Turkish genocide against the Armenians, he sought to rationalise it thus: “The difference with Israel is that it is also about its security. It’s a small country that also feels threatened. Much of what they have been doing in the last 75 years of their existence is out of security.” Incredible! So Israel wants security, but denies security for its Palestinian neigbours? The truth is that both peoples need security and one cannot be secured by denying the other security.

    On the continued theft of Palestinian lands, including East Jerusalem which has seen Israeli illegal settlements increase from 115, 700 in the 1993 Peace Accords to over 350,000 within 20 years, a rationalisation is provided: “They want to split the Palestinian lands in the West Bank with Israeli settlements in between because it also prevents any future Palestinian state from consolidating and be possibly a threat.” So, the plan is to deny the Palestinians a country in their indigenous homestead.

    While Israel brings foreigners, mainly Europeans to settle, it denies Palestinians forced abroad, their right to return home. A people who cried for centuries for a homeland, should not deprive other people a homeland which is what Israel is doing.

    The current Israeli State is quite simply an European enclave. What Europeans did was to create a new country in the Middle East in the name of Israel and systematically nibble Palestinian lands by creating illegal settlements, hoping in the nearest future to make the indigenous people landless.

    Doubtlessly, Israel has fought and defeated big armies but only the uncritical will ascribe this to spiritual reasons and the belief that Israelis are “God’s Chosen People”. The truth is that all humans: Jews and Gentiles, Christians and Muslims, African Traditional religionists and Buddhists, are children of God. So in reality, the Euro-Israelis are God-Choosing people who at the birth of their new state on May 14, 1948 told the indigenous Jewish people that God had done too little in their lives to deserve a mention in the constitution of the new state.

    As for Israel’s seeming invisibility in the battle field, more critical minds would look beyond the brilliance of its generals and the ‘spiritual’ to the enormous military and intelligence back up it receives from its mother continent and the United States. For the blind, especially in Africa who think the current Israeli state is the fulfillment of God’s promise, they need to think again because Israel is not a Christian state. Indeed, nearly all those who created the current state of Israel, were atheists. These included its founding father, David Ben-Gurion and former Prime Ministers Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir. We need to build peace in the Palestine, a land where three great religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam meet. We need a new world in which all are born free and equal.

  • Championing rule of law at home and criminality abroad – By Owei Lakemfa

    Championing rule of law at home and criminality abroad – By Owei Lakemfa

    Only a quarter of the eight million Palestinian people live in the Palestine; one million in Gaza, 750,000 in the occupied West Bank and 250,000 inside Israel. The rest, or over six million, are forced to live outside with at least three million of them classified as stateless persons with no legal rights. Yet these Palestinians in the diaspora are hunted like rabbits by the Israeli state.

    On September 28, 2022, two Palestinians were confronted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by four men working for Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. They snatched one of them, a programmer from Gaza while the second Palestinian escaped. The victim was then taken to a chalet where he was tortured and interrogated directly by two Mossad agents via video call.

    The New Strait Times, Malaysia’s oldest newspaper published since 1845 reported that for 24 hours, the Palestinian was interrogated and beaten by his Malaysian captors whenever the answer he gave were not satisfactory to the Israeli agents.

    It reported that the Israelis wanted to know the depth of the victim’s knowledge of computer application development, what he knew about the Palestinian group, Hamas’ expertise in developing software and information on its military arm, the Al-Qassam Brigade.

    Luckily for the victim, his colleague who escaped, alerted the Malaysian police which was able to trace the victim and free him. He had sustained injuries to his body, head and legs. Both Palestinians left the country, eleven Malaysians were charged with the kidnap while the Israelis remain free in their country to track down more Palestinians abroad for abduction or even murder. Israel at home, claims to be a democracy based on the rule of law, but believes it is licensed abroad to carry out brigandage and murder defenceless people who are given no chance to defend themselves.

    Nnamdi Kanu is the leader of the separatist Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. He was on bail in September 2017 when the military invaded his home in Afara-Ukwu, near Umuahia, Abia State. He escaped the bloody invasion and fled the country. On June 19, 2021 in Nairobi, Kenya, he drove himself to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport named after the father of the then Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

    His mission was to receive an IPOB leader. In the underground car park, he was abducted, and then, terrorised for eight days before his rendition to Abuja on Sunday, June 27. He was travelling on his British passport. So it was a case of a vising foreign national abducted by a third country. His lawyer in Nigeria, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, claimed Kanu was “mercilessly beaten and tortured” in a private residence before his extradition.

    It was a clear case of a government sworn to uphold the rule of law, constitutionality and fundamental human rights, caught abroad violently violating all these.

    But the Nigerian courts would have none of these. The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Thursday October 13, 2022 quashed the terrorism charges against Kanu, discharged and acquitted him because it was satisfied that the government flagrantly violated Nigerian, African and international laws in abducting him.

    The appellate court held that the proceedings against Kanu amounted to “an abuse of criminal prosecution in general”. It declared that: “The court will never shy away from calling the Executive to order when it tilts towards Executive recklessness”.

    In the criminality called extraordinary rendition, the abductors sometimes mix up faces and people. This was the case of Khaled El-Masri, a German who was seized by Macedonian agents on December 31, 2003 and held in solitary confinement for 23 days on suspicion of being a member of Al-Qaida.

    The Macedonians transferred him to the American Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, who flew him to Kabul, Afghanistan where he was detained and interrogated. Nobody was ready to listen to his explanations or cross check his claims. When after four months the Americans discovered their error, rather than apologise and return him home, they flew him back to Europe and abandoned him on a roadside in Albania.

    There was also the case of Syrian-born Canadian, Maher Arar, who was detained at the JFK Airport, New York while returning from vacation. He was first taken to a detention centre in Brookyln, then flown to Jordan before being finally dumped in a prison in Syria.

    In the last two decades, the Americans have illegally abducted over 150 persons across the world and dumped them in its detention centres in places like Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Diego Garcia, Guantánamo and Afghanistan – before the Americans were forced to evacuate that country.

    A former CIA agent, Robert Baer, said of the shadowy American programme: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear — never to see them again — you send them to Egypt.”

    Ambassador Alex Saab, a Colombian-born Venezuelan diplomat was flying to Iran to buy food and medicines for his country. On June 12, 2020, his aircraft refuelled in Cape Verde where he was abducted and detained. The regional Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, court ruled his detention illegal and ordered Cape Verde to pay him $200,000 in compensation. But rather than free him, he was delivered to the Americans who bundled him to their country where he sits in jail. The Americans accuse him of money laundry for violating unilateral United States sanctions against Venezuela and Iran.

    When the Americans tried a similar action against Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou in December 2018 by getting Canada to detain her preparatory to bundling her to America, the Chinese retaliated by seizing two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig and charged them with espionage. Wanzhou had been accused of having business dealings with Iran in violation of unilateral American sanctions. A deal had to be reached exchanging her for the Canadians.

    France is another player in the game. In 1994, Venezuelan internationalist, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez better known as Carlos the Jackal was visiting Sudan when French agents abducted him. Carlos who had led campaigns for Palestinian freedom, has since remained in jail having received three life sentences.

    France has a long history of such abductions. In October 1956 it hijacked an aircraft in which Moroccan-born Algerian freedom fighter, Ahmed Ben Bella was travelling. He was set free on July 5, 1962 and went on to become President of a free Algeria.

    Abdullah Ocalan, 73, sits in a Turkish prison for championing the minority rights of Kurds in Turkey. He was abducted in Nairobi, Kenya by a Turkish secret agent in February 1999.

    Countries cannot claim to operate the rule of law at home while committing criminality abroad.

  • Bizarre: Son hacks father to death with pestle in Yobe

    Bizarre: Son hacks father to death with pestle in Yobe

    A 20-year-old man, Mai Goni has allegedly hacked his father, Goni Kawu to death with a pestle in Masaba, Bursari Local Government Area of Yobe State.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the Police Command in Yobe made this known on Wednesday.

    The Command’s Spokesman, ASP Dungus Abdulkarim in Damaturu said the incident occurred on Tuesday at about 7: 30 p.m.

    He said Kawu, 65, sustained injury on the head as a result of the attack and was confirmed dead by a doctor in the hospital.

    Abdulkarim said the suspect fled the scene after committing the crime, adding that the command has intensified efforts to apprehend him.

    The spokesman advised residents of the state to be law abiding, saying the police would deal decisively with anyone that engaged in criminality.

  • Whenever universities commit criminality, the country dies a little – By Owei Lakemfa

    Whenever universities commit criminality, the country dies a little – By Owei Lakemfa

    By Owei Lakemfa

    It was a sobering moment for me. Processing the fact that a number of tertiary institutions in the country, from the oldest to the newest generation, are engaged in conscious criminality, especifically, admission racketeering.

    I had been part of a January 29, 2022 Stakeholders Meeting between the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, JAMB and Media Executives. It was billed to be a social event where there was to be exchange of ideas between JAMB and its guests, but the information provided by the former was more a wakeup call for the country because whenever universities commit criminality, the country dies a little.

    JAMB, the entrance examination board for all tertiary-level institutions in the country, is empowered to administer admission into all such institutions. For this, it conducts a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME for all candidates seeking admission.

    But what happens when about a million and half youths are made to undergo such standard entrance examinations, and a privileged handful do not need to meet the minimum scores, or even take the examinations, before being admitted? What happens when some of the institutions apparently sell admission spaces or are actively involved in massive admission racketeering?

    JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Olarenwaju Oloyede stood before the media executives reeling out figures of such criminal acts. They showed that in the three-year period between 2017 and 2020, there were 812,570 illegal ‘under-the-table’ admissions. This means that on the average, these educational institutions carry out 270,856 illegal admissions annually. While in the period, the polytechnics engaged in 533,494 illegal admissions and the Colleges of Education involved in 175,349, the universities fraudulently admitted 94,802 students to pursue degree programmes.

    Tertiary institutions are not just places students study for degrees, diplomas and certificates and engage in academic research, but are also where people are groomed and characters sculpted or polished to enable them play transformational roles in the society. They are designed to be where students fully appreciate being respectable, trustworthy, responsible, caring and having a sense of social justice and dedication to the universe. Yes, to the universe; that is partially why the university carries the name, universe. Each university is designed as a universe; the sum total of everything that exists in the worlds . So anybody passing through it, is expected to develop his inner and outer personality enabling the graduate play positive roles in society.

    Educational institutions are expected to also play moral roles and inculcate values. If a student is expelled for being a member of a cult gang, the message being sent is that it the institution does not encourage cultism in the bigger society or in the politics of the country. So, educational institutions are not just places to learn concepts but also build the human being to his fullest potentials. That is why the ethologist, Sathya Sai Baba cautioned that: “Politics without principles, Education without character, Science without humanity, and Commerce without morality are not only useless, but also positively dangerous.”

    The university of Ife (Now, Obafemi Awolowo University) which I attended, was not so much about passing examinations, it tried to inculcate in its students, the motto: “For Learning and Culture” Yes, it is for learning, but also, for African and universal culture; a culture that rejects oppression and stresses social justice. So a university like that cannot afford to be involved in criminality.

    But then, some other leading universities in the country according to JAMB, are implicated in such practices. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN which was established in 1960, the year the country got its flag independence, has a motto: ‘To Restore The Dignity Of Man’ This is quite noble. JAMB however discovered that while UNN had an admission quota of 200 for its Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, MBBS programme, it admitted only 106 legally, and rather than fill the balance vacancies from amongst the 342 other qualified candidates, it admitted an additional 448 other candidates. Also, while UNN has 250 official slots for law, JAMB claims it admitted 125 candidates and: “Released another 240 on University’s portal”

    The Mashood Abiola Polytechnic, MAPOLY, Abeokuta had an admission quota of 12,587, but JAMB said: “ Not a single candidate was admitted…” legally. Rather it: “Admitted’ over 10,795 and went on to receive acceptance fee from 5,950 candidates not yet proposed to JAMB.”

    The Nigeria Police Academy, POLAC, Wudil in Kano State was established in 1988 with the motto: “ knowledge for Service.” JAMB discovered that POLAC changed the: “… programme of candidates… through (the) Academy portal without the consent of the candidates; ‘Admitted’ candidates who were already admitted genuinely into other institutions (and) ‘Admitted’ candidates who did not choose the Academy as first choice.”

    In the case of the premier University of Ibadan established in 1948 with the motto: “Recte Sapere Fons” (To think straight is the fount of knowledge) JAMB discovered a number of discrepancies in its admission system. This included denying a qualified candidate with a high Aggregate Score of 66.25 admission to read Human Nutrition, rather offering her Agricultural Extension, while admitting candidates with lower aggregate scores. In another case, a student qualified to read Economics, was denied the course and forced to read Adult Education while another who was qualified to read Cyber Security was denied and forced to move to Physics.

    However, these admission rackets appear to be less scandalous than the admission fraud committed through the Interim Joint Matriculation Board Examination, IJMB and Joint Universities Preliminary Examination, JUPEB Programmes which are equivalent to an Advanced Level Certificate qualification

    In one uncovered case, a private coaching-centre operated from the bowels of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin without the institution’s officers being the wiser. The centre then began: “exporting candidates to Kabba, Kogi State for IJMB.” Such a centre is nothing but a ‘miracle centre’ where for fees, students are given certificates that enable them get Direct Admission into universities.

    JAMB revealed for instance that when a tertiary institution verified the IJMB examination results of 148 candidates admitted between 2019 and 2020, it found that only 6 results were genuine, the other 142, were fake. The Bayero University, Kano expelled 178 students for faking IJMB results. The response of the Education Minister was to establish an A/Level Task Force, to sanitise the process.

    However, given the serious damage admission racketeering does to the psyche of the country and its development, we need to take more drastic measures. Beyond getting the tertiary institutions involved in admission racketeering to account for their criminality, Vice Chancellors, Registrars and Admission officers of such institutions should be held individually liable even after leaving office. A few of them spending ‘sabbatical’ in jail will go a long way to sanitized the system.

  • Chile: Presidential choice between criminality and justice, By Owei Lakemfa

    By Owei Lakemfa

    Some of the most unspeakable crimes against a people was visited on the Chilean citizenry in 1973 with the nightmare continuing for about two decades.

    The Sunday, December 19, 2021 presidential election re-run between the beneficiaries of those crimes, and their victims, turned the elections into a stiff battle between barbarity and civilisation, cruelty and its victims, savagery and the people on whom it was visited. It emphasised the age-long dichotomy between fascism and democracy.

    The face-off in this year’s Chilean elections actually began in 1973 when the fascist forces in Chile and their American bosses concluded that with the popularity of radical President Salvador Allende, they had no hope of winning elections.

    So a coup by the Chilean Armed Forces led by General Augusto Pinochet was staged on September 11, 1973.

    But given the popularity of the government, the coup had to be one in which no prisoners would be taken.

    When it took place, President Allende, surrounded by vast enemy forces, refused to surrender and the plotters sent in the Air Force to level the Presidential Palace.Since resistance continued, the army resorted to shooting anybody found in the streets.

    Thousands of Chileans were detained in any available space, including the barracks, prisons, playgrounds and detention facilities.

    Then, the National Stadium was opened and detainees were cramped into it. In one of its most infamous actions, when the popular poet and musician, Victor Jara, who was detained in the stadium began to sing to cheer up people, the army ordered him to stop. When he refused, they started breaking his fingers. But he continued until all his fingers were broken. Finally, the army killed him.

    Thousands of Chilean were killed in the coup with over 40,000 detained. In the following years, many were detained and many in detention simply disappeared. This is the legacy of Pinochet.

    So the attempts to beatify Pinochet and get a party established in his honour elected was far worse than an attempt to present Adolf Hitler as a saint and get the Nazi Party in Germany elected.

    Indeed, apart from being a supporter of the late General Pinochet, José Antonio Kast, JAK, the presidential candidate of the fascists who had led in the first round, had a Nazi heritage.

    His father, Michael Kast was a German youth who on September 1, 1942, five months before his 18 birthday which would have made him eligible, had joined the Nazi National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP, with membership number 9271831.

    He also joined the German fascist army although he could not be held liable for this as there was a general call up of all German youths.

    The senior Kast migrated to Santiago, Chile in 1950 and the following year, his wife and two eldest children joined him. Eventually, the family established a restaurant chain.

    It is not certain under what political ideology Michael Kast, who died in 2014, brought up his children, but they turned out to be fascists.

    JAK’s brother, Miguel Kast, was the Chilean Governor of the Central Bank under Pinochet.

    JAK, himself the son of German migrants, campaigned in the elections to stop Haitian and Venezuelan migrants whom he accused them of being the criminals in Chile. He emphasised on a fascist control of the state and conservative social values.

    His campaign spokesperson was Macarena Santelices, a great-niece of General Pinochet. The Pinochet coup against democracy had been organised by the American Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, and bankrolled by the International Telephone and Telegraphic, ITT, Corporation.

    JAK, an admirer of the incumbent fascist President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who had assumed he was headed for a clear victory, travelled to the United States a week before the rerun to brief investors and Senator Marco Rubi on the policies of his in-coming ‘administration’.

    It is in Nollywood films, good always overcomes evil; in reality, it is often a savage fight between the two with no way of predicting the winner.

    In human history, and in more contemporary times, evil people have often won, and they almost did in the Chilean elections with the coalition which ironically called itself the Christian Social Front.

    This coalition included the Republican Party and the Christian Conservative Party. This front regards the Chilean fascist, General Pinochet, as its patron saint and wants to continue his Hitlerite legacy.

    This coalition had built up like a category five storm and was ready to sweep the polls, when the victims of Pinochet and their heirs harkened to the battle cry which resonated in the voice of a 35-year-old mass protest leader, Gabriel Boric.

    They then built the widest coalition of victims ever seen in the country.

    The movement simply called itself ‘Social Convergence’ as it was truly a convergence of all who want to bury the Pinochet legacy and re-orientate large sections of the populace which under Pinochet were fed diets of savagery and had been conditioned to accept brutality and criminality in governance as a normal.

    This progressive coalition included The Commons, Democratic Revolutionary and Common Force parties.

    In the November 2021 presidential election, JAK, the candidate of the Pinochet party, won with 1,961,779 votes or 27.91 per cent.

    Boric came second with 1,815,024 votes or 25.82 per-cent. With votes split in various ways and without a clear winner, a rerun had to hold.JAK assumed that with the rerun, he would rally other parties and secure a landslide.

    He told his supporters: “Chile deserves peace and freedom – and that’s what we’re going to give you…We are going to choose between freedom and communism – between democracy and communism”.

    On the other hand, Boric expressed confidence that “hope will triumph over fear.”

    In the rerun, the silent Chilean population especially in the rural areas woke up to the reality of another fascist government looming in the horizon; they turned out in record numbers pushing the voter turnout of 47 per cent in the first round, to 56 per cent.

    This secured Boric 55.9% of the votes and the Chilean Presidency which he is scheduled to assume in March 2022.In his victory speech in a country where one per cent of the population owns 25 per cent of the wealth, Boric declared: “We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding that our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business.

    “We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, but we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.”

    With the victory of progressive forces in the Bolivian, Honduran, and now, Chilean elections, the forces of fascism are in retreat in Latin America; once more, a demonstration that a people united can change their circumstances.

     

  • Removing criminality from our tertiary institutions, By Owei Lakemfa

    By Owei Lakemfa

     

    THE most exciting period for most humans is their youth. Many youths look forward to better lives. In fact, some wish they can grow faster and be independent of parental care. That is in a normal society. Many youths in Nigeria do not have such experience. They are either abducted, killed, intimidated or denied their fundamental human rights not just by terrorists but also government and school authorities.

     

     

    It can be argued that a lot of atrocities are as a result of cultism, banditry and terrorism over which the country seems helpless. But what about cases where our tertiary institutions are holding students hostage? For example, the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, has since 2017 denied its students their fundamental and constitutional rights to freely associate or assemble. Since almost all programmes in the university system are four-year, it means the OAU authorities, backed by the Senate, has denied a whole generation of the students the right to unionise, to experience governance at their union level, speak for themselves, represent their own interest, participate in national student unionism and play their role in national development.

     

     

    Tertiary education is not just academics, but also the moulding of youths for nation building and contributing to human development. It is a training ground to groom successor generations, preparing them to take their rightful place in society. It is even more perplexing that the OAU’s motto: ‘For Learning and Culture’, reflects this truth. So why would the current OAU authorities who inherited a vibrant institution be allowed to get away with such criminality? The ban is a brazen violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which in Article 20 states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.” Specifically on education, Article 26 (2) states: “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

     

    Secondly, it is a crime against the Constitution which in Section 40 expressly states that: “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any association for the protection of his interest.” Also, Section 34 provides that: “Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person.” By denying the OAU student his basic rights, including to representation and to speak for himself, the OAU authorities have stripped him of his human dignity. It is incredible that the institution has one of the oldest faculties of law in the country. What is that faculty teaching if basic fundamental rights are so liberally violated? Is it not better to scrap it?

     

    Thirdly, it is a defeat of why an institution is established as a ‘universe’ which is partly why it adorns the gown of a university. Fourthly, the actions of the OAU authorities, do not allow their victims the right to develop mentally because the conditions they are made to study are enslaving; only slaves have no right to associate with themselves or sit in a union.

     

     

    Fifth, the OAU tragedy speaks volumes of our state of decay; how come teaching and non-teaching staff are running their unions conscious of the fact that the students for whom they are employed are not allowed to have their union? Six, it is a sad reflection of the state of our student movement that students would allow the university run while it is dehumanising them. My seventh point is that the OAU tragedy, tells the sorry state and role of a university in an assumed democracy where the will of the people is supposed to prevail. How can a country claim that the Constitution is its grundnorm, yet allow dictatorial institutions like OAU to rape it serially over the years?

     

     

    While the OAU case is straight forward dictatorship, men and women robed in academic regalia trying to play god, that of the Kwara State University, KWASU, is a bit twisted. The university having made it compulsory for fresh and final year students to stay in the school hostel, put a princely price tag of N65,000 per bed space. Students who decide not to take up such offer were forced to pay a hostel exemption fee of N5,000. Then some weeks ago, the university increased the exemption fee by 300 percent, meaning students who opt out of hostel arrangement are fined N20,000. This payment was then made a prerequisite for the registration of courses for the semester.

     

     

     

    When the students protested the extortion, the university authorities threatened them saying: “We hereby remind the affected students of their Matriculation oath that they will be obedient to the rules and regulations of the university and to not disrupt peace and tranquillity on campus.” If a school makes it compulsory for its students to stay in the hostel, it must also provide the enabling environment. Having made such by-law and then imposing a hostel fee of N65,000 per student, is not only exploitative but also insensitive.

     

     

    KWASU cannot assume that parents and guardians who manage to keep their children in school, including feeding them and paying a sundry of levies, would also have such an amount to pay for hostel accommodation. But I am much more intrigued by the fact that the university imposes a N20,000 fine on any student not interested in its accommodation. This shows that the primary objective of the school is to squeeze money out of the students. This extortion is a crime for which KWASU authorities ought to be charged.

     

     

    Let me conclude with the private tertiary institutions where lecturers are denied the fundamental right to unionise, and many dehumanise their students. Yet, we have a Federal Ministry of Education purportedly supervising these institutions that rape the constitutional rights of Nigerians. In the on-going repression of the OAU and KWASU students and the denial of lecturers in private universities their fundamental right to associate, the state and federal governments behave like the policeman who despite being witness to crimes being committed, says he will do nothing to apprehend the criminals because the victims have not cried to him.

    The option for a country that wants progress is not just to enforce the rights of its citizens, including the youths who are its future, but also to bring to justice all those who violate fundamental human rights, rape the Constitution and commit crimes. We can start with the basic step of sending all those who have been vice chancellors, registrars or student affair deans of OAU since 2017 to prison. If we do not stand for something, we will fall for anything.