TheNewsGuru

Tag: Unpatriotic

  • Unpatriotic people fueling insecurity in the state – Niger

    Unpatriotic people fueling insecurity in the state – Niger

    The Niger State Government has urged farmers to ignore threats by bandits to pay levies and taxes to them before they can be allowed to harvest their farm produce.

    The Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy Affairs and Internal Security, Emmanuel Umar, urged the communities to ignore the criminal threats and go ahead to harvest their farm produce, adding that the government had put up security architecture to protect them.

    Umar stated that bandits in some communities wrote to farmers threatening them to pay some taxes and levies before harvesting their farm produce.

    “Some criminal elements in Rumbun Giwa in the Mashegu Local Government Area of Niger State recently wrote under the name, ‘Kungiyan Manuma’, ordering all farmers to pay some specific levies and taxes before they could harvest from their farm produce,” he stated.

    The commissioner said the state government had put modalities in place to ensure that those behind the threat were apprehended and brought to justice.

    He stated, “We are aware that God has blessed our farmers with bumper harvest this cropping season and the government is determined to support them.

    “These criminal are trying to extort the farmers; communities should support the security agencies; we are doing everything to ensure that criminals don’t have a space in our communities.

    “Some unpatriotic people are fuelling insecurity and crises in the state, but the government is up to its responsibility.”

     

  • How unpatriotic acts by Nigerian leaders fuel crime – Ebonyi Governor

    How unpatriotic acts by Nigerian leaders fuel crime – Ebonyi Governor

    Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State has called on the Department of State Services (DSS) and Nigeria Police to invite politicians and other Nigerians who make ‘unsubstantiated statements’ on social media to ignite violence.

    The governor made the statement on Thursday on a monitored Channels Television programme.

    “The level of crimes in the country is as a result of unpatriotic acts of a lot of us. We, leaders, we come out on television and then we speak, indict other regions, we speak against other regions, we pick on the leader of the country and then castigate the leader of the country. There is no patriotism at all.

    “The way to prevent this thing is that if you are making unsubstantiated statements in the social media, the police, the SSS, you should be invited to explain and this is no politics because the country cannot fold our hands and allow people to plunge the country into another war. This is very important,” Umahi said.

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) governor noted that these unpatriotic comments are capable of inciting division and might eventually plunge the country into a crisis or lead to war.

    “I was told that one of the world wars started with a family quarrel and so if you are making a statement on social media calling it freedom of speech, you must come to the law to substantiate it.

    “What I have in the (Ebonyi) State, the communal clash now should have stopped but for the politicians who are making unguarded accusations and statements in the social media and then people outside the state will just cash on that and emotions will arise and the problem will continue.”

  • No, Mr President: Your critics not unpatriotic, By Ehichioya Ezomon

    No, Mr President: Your critics not unpatriotic, By Ehichioya Ezomon

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s latest “Open Letter” to President Muhammadu Buhari has raised a lot of dust, with the president labeling him and other critics of his administration as “unpatriotic.”
    The question to ask is: What did Dr. Obasanjo say that other Nigerians, individually and collectively, had not said since the heightened insecurity in the land?
    He had written about issues in the polity, particularly concerning the governments after his military headship of Nigeria in 1979, and not a few Nigerians, though, found such commentaries as unsavouring and irritating.
    From the late Presidents Shehu Shagari and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, to President Goodluck Jonathan, and to Gens. Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Abdulsalami Abubakar; Gen. Obasanjo had “meddled” in their governments, such that Abacha had to hang a “coup plot” on his neck, and detained him.
    Friend or foe, Obasanjo never spared any administration and its leadership. To him, they either toe his line or be fed with the poisoned chalice of his pen and/or tongue.
    Seeing and viewing himself as imbued with Solomonic wisdom and Messianic fervour, his approach to his successors in office is utter condescension. Hence, his messages, mostly in open letters, have been acidic in content and patronizing in delivery.
    Obasanjo’s escape of possible death by execution for alleged “coup plotting” didn’t deter him from “riding on the tiger’s back.” And it’s the turn of Gen. Buhari to feel the drip of his pen in three consecutive “letters” within a few months of each other.
    While previous “leaked” letters detailed alleged failure of Buhari to fulfill his campaign promises, last week’s “open letter” was essentially an invite to a “National Dialogue” on insecurity.
    As he noted: “Since the issue (insecurity) is of momentous concern to all well-meaning and all right-thinking Nigerians, it must be of great concern to you (Buhari), and collective thinking and dialoguing is the best way of finding an appropriate and adequate solution to the problem.”
    Even as he conduced his “deep worries” to about “four avoidable calamities,” Obasanjo recognized the president as one of the “well-meaning and right-thinking” Nigerians that should be concerned about the nation’s insecurity.
    Frightening as his alarm bell was, not many would imagine an Obasanjo tempering his persona, and offering conciliatory counsel to President Buhari, whom he reckons as his subordinate in age, career, political standing, worldview and statesmanship.
    But does this make him, and others “unpatriotic” for criticizing Buhari and his handling of the affairs of Nigeria? Certainly not! What the former president did is what Buhari’s aides may not dare.
    So, instructive here are the immortal words of the reggae maestro, Bob Nester Marley, who exhorts that, “Your worst enemy could be your best friend, and your best friend your worst enemy.”
    Or as a local adage goes, “Only your enemy can tell you that you have mouth odour.” And they don’t mind telling you in public, whereas your friends, even in private, would tell you that your mouth smells like the roses.
    Simply put, those that President Buhari termed “unpatriotic” (betrayer, collaborator, deserter, renegade, spy or traitor) may actually be the “loyalists” to save him from himself in these times of grave insecurity in the country.
    No matter the criticisms, so long as they aren’t subversive, we shouldn’t pigeon-hole Nigerians into “patriotic” or “unpatriotic” elements. That would be a situation of “us versus them,” and therefore “enemies of the State.”
    Our diversity – and our freedom and ability to speak truth to power – is our strength, and the way to harnessing this great asset is through programmes and actions that do not stereotype and stigmatize citizens as non-patriots.
    In this wise, Obasanjo’s open letter to the president doesn’t belong in the realm of unpatriotic acts. Let his not be a matter of “calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it.”
    Nonetheless, it’s time President Buhari realized his problem – perception – and how to overcome it. In politics and governance, perception matters. Ordinarily, reality should drive perception. But most times, perception leads, and muddies the reality.
    For allowing perception, or “body language” to define him and his administration, the president has earned many critics, including from the corps of his followers and supporters.
    Rather than looking at the concrete, and tangible things his government is doing to revamp Nigeria’s socio-political and economic morass, the people would rather focus on his body language, as the best barometer for his actions or inaction.
    Take the issue of the herders-farmers clashes. When it was brewing in the early part of the administration, and the victims, mostly the farmers, cried out, the presidency accusingly never issued any condemnation.
    But if the farmers retaliated, the authorities would reportedly give a stern warning against such reprisal attacks. Curiously, security operatives could arrest the farmers for “defending” themselves.
    Besides, what did the president say when a group, claiming to speak for the North, gave a 30-day ultimatum for Southern states to implement the controversial RUGA Settlement initiative, or it would take “action” against the 17 states of the South?
    In any case, the presidency had said that RUGA was the brainchild of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. So, why was it its business, and not that of the ministry, to suspend the programme?
    Being silent or ambivalent on the issue created the impression that the Northern group had the presidency’s “backing” to issue its threats against the entire Southern Nigeria.
    But unprecedentedly, the presidency expeditiously “revoked” the directive by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) for Fulani herders to leave the South if their safety was no longer guaranteed.
    This should be the stand of President Buhari and his government at all times: Quick and undiluted intervention on all matters. No room for conjectures, speculations and reading of his body language that could be exploited to undermine his intentions.
    Importantly, the president needs to connect, personally, with Nigerians, by leaving the comfort zone of Aso Rock Villa, and pay regular visits to the states, to meet with his constituents – Nigerians – that voted for him twice, for the exalted office.
    Buhari is president for all Nigerians, and not only for occupants of The Villa, his friends and political associates. He should speak to, and meet frequently with the masses, as no platitudes delivered from the seat of power could suffice for such intimacy that’s capable of engendering rapprochement that Nigeria desires sorely!
    * Mr. Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

  • Evil, bitter, unpatriotic Nigerians angry at news of recession exit – Presidency

    …Says restructure your minds before asking for nation’s restructure

    The presidency on Saturday accused some bitter, unpatriotic and evil Nigerians of expressing sadness at the news of the country’s exit from recession which was announced on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.

    This was revealed by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adesina in a special piece he wrote to lash out at those expressing divergent views ever since the news of the exit from economic recession broke.

    The presidential aide urged those category of Nigerians to seek a restructure of their minds before demanding that the nation should be restructured.

    In his words: “The sing-song in the country today is restructuring of the polity. We want more states. We want a return to regional structure. We want a revision of the revenue allocation formula. We want six vice presidents, one from each geo-political zone. We want those zones to be the federating units, rather than the states. And so on, and so forth.


    In fact, so loud is the cacophony of voices over restructuring that if you ask 100 people what they mean, they give you 100 different explanations. But as a country, I believe we will get there someday. And soon.


    However, is political restructuring the most urgent thing Nigeria needs now? I don’t think so. For me, what is more urgent is the restructuring of the Nigerian mind. A mind that sees the country as one, that believes that we have a future and a hope, that believes that we are one people under God. But what we see now is ruinous for any country. It is hemlock, bound to poison the entire polity, and send it to a premature perdition”.

    Adesina explained that while these few but bitter Nigerians who are probably still pained by their 2015 political loss happily received the news of the nation slippering into recession in 2016 without questioning, they have however stoop so low to question the news of the exit from recession.

    “On Tuesday, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that we had exited from economic recession. It was cheery news for majority of Nigerians, save for those in the gall of bitterness. They spat in the sky, and collected the spittle with their faces. Who gave Nigeria the permission to exit recession? Who gave her the audacity of hope? How can the economy attempt to rebound, when it should sink deeper and deeper into the miry clay? They were in the doldrums, unhappy because good news came for the country. In their befuddled minds, Nigeria must never see a silver lining in the sky. The ravening clouds must ever remain victorious, must forever possess the sky, simply because of primordial reasons.

    The party in power is not my own, so why should Nigeria make progress under it? The President in office was not the one I voted for, so why should he succeed? He does not speak my language, he is not of my religion or ethnic stock, so why must Nigeria prosper under him? They, therefore, throw all sorts of tantrums, like a child whose lollipop is taken away, and attempt to rubbish the news on exit from recession. And those same people would canvass for a restructuring of the polity. Big mistake. Wrong priority. They need to have their minds restructured first, so that they have goodwill towards their own country, and towards all men. Left to them, they wish that when NBS releases results for the next quarter, Nigeria should have gone back into recession. Filthy dreamers! Awful imaginations! They need a restructuring of their minds, and quickly, too,” Adesina said.

    He noted further: “The National Bureau of Statistics announced our descent into recession. They embraced the news, almost with sickening glee. Now, the same agency has announced exit, and they begin to question its impartiality. What kind of people are they? They want to hear only bad news?

    May their minds be restructured, lest bad news dog their footsteps. Malediction? Am I cursing anybody? Not at all. Just a warning, and a call to new attitude, new thoughts, new conduct. The things we expect have a way of coming upon us. Ask the biblical Job. “What I feared has come upon me. What I dreaded has happened to me.”(Job 3:25).

    The seasoned journalist further explained that while the news of the exit from recession is cheering, President Muhammadu Buhari and the NBS had clearly warned that the nation’s economic team should not relax on their oars as there was still a lot to be achieved to finally put the nation on the path of greatness.

    “President Buhari says exit from recession is cheery news, but until the life of the average Nigerian is positively touched by the economy, he doesn’t consider the job done.

    Very good. Even the NBS, which brought the good news, says the economy is still fragile, and the good work must continue, so that we don’t slide back. That is exactly what this government would do. That is the motive behind the ERGP (Economic Reconstruction and Growth Plan). So, let nobody be filled with diabolic thoughts. Government does not feel it is there yet. Action stations! All hands on deck,” he explained.