Winnie Madikizela Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid campaigner and wife to Nelson Mandela when he was imprisoned on Robben Island has died, aged 81.
Mystery Snake And A Nation’s Comedy Of Errors.
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare’s early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and wordplay.The play tells the story of two sets of identical twins that were accidentally separated at birth but were eventually united after a series of witty events.Today, the phrase ‘a comedy of errors’ is often used to describe a situation that is so full of mistakes and problems that it seems funny. On that premise, it won’t be out of place to tag our nation as a ‘Land of Comedy of Errors’. Things happen in our clime that you cannot but remember the famous ‘Charley Boy Show’ where anything can happen. Ours is a land of lots of comedies. Hardly have you finished savouring the amusing effect of a particular national humour than you are faced with the prospect of another rib-cracking one. So, it is more of a one day, one comedy scenario.
A few months back, the whole world was given a dose of our characteristic hilarious shows when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC discovered a large sum of money in a house in Ikoyi, Lagos. EFCC operatives allegedly found the cash during a sting operation. Specifically, the operatives uncovered about $38m, N23m and £27,000 from the apartment. This comes two days after EFCC operatives recovered €547,730 and £21,090 as well as N5, 648,500 from a Bureau de Change operator in Balogun Market, Lagos. Six days earlier, the EFCC had recovered N449, 000, 860 hidden in an abandoned shop also in Lagos. Prior to these discoveries, several millions of cash in different denominations have been discovered in bizarre places such as water tanks, burial grounds, farmlands among others.
While the foregoing scenario might look odd to those in other climes, it isn’t to us here. It simply follows a well-known tradition of carefully keeping government fund in ‘choice’ places. Years ago, during the Second Republic, a huge amount of money was discovered at the Government House, Kano. It was then such a big scandal. But, typically, the man at the centre of it all, Barkin Zuwo, the then Kano Governor never saw anything strange about the discovery. In his words: “It is simply a case of safekeeping government money in government house”.
While he was still in the saddle as the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, current Emir of Kano, Lamido Sule Lamido, once alleged that of the $67 billion crudes shipped by NNPC between January 2012 and July 2013, only $47 billion was remitted to the Federation Account. According to him, given all the issues raised, the NNPC needed to produce the proof that the $20billion unremitted either did not belong to the Federation or was legally and constitutionally spent. This was an era when there was a presidential pronouncement that stealing was not corruption. So, it was not really surprising that rather than paid him up for being a patriotic whistleblower, everything was done by the powers that be to get rid of Lamido.
Ours is a nation of unending jokes. Many have insisted that our survival instinct, in the face of so many mounting pressures, is deeply rooted in our national comedies that are so numerous that it is difficult to arrange them in order of prominence. Years ago, the country’s senior soccer side, the Super Eagles became a butt of joke across the continent when its players had to improvise by cutting off their tracksuits in order not to miss a match against Burkina Faso. It was later discovered that officials who were to come with the team’s jerseys forgot them at the hotel and unsuccessfully made efforts to retrieve them. To others from different climes, this is odd. But to us, it is good comedy.
As if to authenticate the high rating of the country as a land of plenty comedy, new kid on the block, Philomena Chieshe, a sales clerk in the JAMB office, Makurdi, recently added to our long list of rich comedies when she could not account for N36 million she made in previous years before the abolition of scratch cards. While trying to exonerate herself of any claim of complicity in respect of the missing money, Chieshe alleged that her housemaid connived with another JAMB staff, Joan Asen, to steal the money from the vault in the accounting office through a weird snake.
A few months back, the whole world was given a dose of our characteristic hilarious shows when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC discovered a large sum of money in a house in Ikoyi, Lagos. EFCC operatives allegedly found the cash during a sting operation. Specifically, the operatives uncovered about $38m, N23m and £27,000 from the apartment. This comes two days after EFCC operatives recovered €547,730 and £21,090 as well as N5, 648,500 from a Bureau de Change operator in Balogun Market, Lagos. Six days earlier, the EFCC had recovered N449, 000, 860 hidden in an abandoned shop also in Lagos. Prior to these discoveries, several millions of cash in different denominations have been discovered in bizarre places such as water tanks, burial grounds, farmlands among others. While he was still in the saddle as the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, current Emir of Kano, Lamido Sule Lamido, once alleged that of the $67 billion crudes shipped by NNPC between January 2012 and July 2013, only $47 billion was remitted to the Federation Account. According to him, given all the issues raised, the NNPC needed to produce the proof that the $20billion unremitted either did not belong to the Federation or was legally and constitutionally spent. This was an era when there was a presidential pronouncement that stealing was not corruption. So, it was not really surprising that rather than paid him up for being a patriotic whistleblower, everything was done by the powers that be to get rid of Lamido. Ours is a nation of unending jokes. Many have insisted that our survival instinct, in the face of so many mounting pressures, is deeply rooted in our national comedies that are so numerous that it is difficult to arrange them in order of prominence. Years ago, the country’s senior soccer side, the Super Eagles became a butt of joke across the continent when its players had to improvise by cutting off their tracksuits in order not to miss a match against Burkina Faso. It was later discovered that officials who were to come with the team’s jerseys forgot them at the hotel and unsuccessfully made efforts to retrieve them. To others from different climes, this is odd. But to us, it is good comedy. As if to authenticate the high rating of the country as a land of plenty comedy, new kid on the block, Philomena Chieshe, a sales clerk in the JAMB office, Makurdi, recently added to our long list of rich comedies when she could not account for N36 million she made in previous years before the abolition of scratch cards. While trying to exonerate herself of any claim of complicity in respect of the missing money, Chieshe alleged that her housemaid connived with another JAMB staff, Joan Asen, to steal the money from the vault in the accounting office through a weird snake.
Now, while it is true that ours is a land of bountiful comedy, this latest episode seems to have been a joke taken too far. How did the snake manage to swallow such a huge amount of money? How did it unlock the vault? How did it move the money away from JAMB office? Did it crawl or fly? These are logical questions that every sane mind would want to ask. But then, the situation is an illogical one. It is one that defies logic. This is because a ‘spiritual snake’ is involved, and in the spiritual realm anything can happen!
In an obvious response to the weird Makurdi snake event, the EFCC on its official Twitter page @officialEFCC added its own colourful dimension to the issue when it twitted that: “an eagle (EFCC) shows no mercy for money swallowing snake(s)”. What the EFCC might, however, have to be really cautious of is that a spiritual snake that is so audacious to have defied a ‘safe’ JAMB vault and could swallow N36 million in one full swoop would be a tough one for any ‘natural’ eagle to contend with.
Since ours is one huge comedy enclave, before long, we shall have another hilarious funny story to deal with. Gradually, the world seems to be taking note of our breathtaking brand of comedy. This is partly why we were once ranked the happiest people on earth.Joshua Beats Parker To Unify WBA, IBF, WBO Belts.
Anthony Joshua unified the WBA, IBF and WBO world heavyweight titles as a controlled performance saw him earn a unanimous points win over Joseph Parker at a tense Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
Travellers to the US to be asked for their social media history.
TRAVELLERS TO THE United States will soon have to submit their social media identities, previous telephone numbers and email addresses, a measure that could touch 10 million people per year.
Unarmed black man killed by police was shot 7 times in back, autopsy finds.
A PATHOLOGIST HIRED by lawyers for the family of an unarmed man killed by Sacramento police says an independent autopsy shows Stephon Clark was shot seven times from behind and took up to 10 minutes to die.
Gun! Gun! Gun!': Body Camera Video Shows Sacramento Police Officers Shooting Unarmed Stephon Clark.
The two Sacramento police officers who shot Stephon Clark this past Sunday followed the unarmed black man at night into his grandparent's backyard.
UPDate:Sharda University suspends 7 guards for throwing out Kenyan student.
GREATER NOIDA: Seven guards hired by Sharda University from a private agency have been suspended after a video purportedly showed them lifting a student of African origin by the hands and legs and throwing him out of campus.
Photos/Videos: Outrage over clips of an African student being manhandled by University security guards in India.
A young student of African origin was manhandled by security guards at Sharda University Campus Greater Noida, India
Remembering Wangari Maathai the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize.
Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize, died at the age of 71.A towering figure in Kenya, Maathai was renowned as a fearless social activist and an environmental crusader.
Nigeria a Nation Saddled by Corruption and Stealing -Tunde Omisore.
When former Nigerian President,Dr Goodluck Jonathan affirmed a few years back that “corruption is not stealing”, he was crucified and vilified. Perhaps, among other things, that statement cost him the presidency. Also, once upon a time, a former British Prime Minister of Britain referred to Nigeria as “a fantastically corrupt nation”. Angered, by this declaration, many came out to condemn the former Prime Minister’s frank assessment of our country’s corruption status. As if to further validate the truth about the nation’s corruption situation, Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics’ recently reported that a total sum of N400 billion is spent on bribes each year since 2015. Wow!. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2014, Nigeria is up eight places to 136 out of 175 countries ranked by the index. As a matter of fact, Nigeria shares the 136th position with well-known corrupt countries like Cameroon, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, and Lebanon.
The CPI ranks countries on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean). More than two-thirds of the 175 countries surveyed, including Nigeria, scored below 50. Nigeria is clearly not the country with the lowest score on the index (its score was 27%), but according to Transparency International, any country that scores below 50% on the index is still considered “highly corrupt.
Stealing is just one of the branches of corruption just like gynaecology is a branch of medicine. Corruption is an abuse of power; it is the father of stealing. Werlin described corruption as the “diversion of public resources to non-public purposes,” in which the public office holder illegally appropriates public resources for personal use. Earl J. Friedrich called corruption a deviant behaviour associated with selfish gains at the public expense.
In Nigeria, corruption manifests in diverse ways. For instance, it could come in the garb of a policeman demanding for a bribe from offenders or a public official trying to cut corners in awarding a public contract or even a religious leader or body soliciting for a favor from public office holders towards building a mega cathedral. Corruption in Nigeria is a national culture, a way of life that has been endorsed by institutions and supported by all and sundry. It does not matter how you make your money in the country whether you are a drug baron or ex-agitators, traditional rulers would offer you chieftaincy titles, religious leaders will offer you prominent roles and even make prominent mention of your name from time to time as a pillar in the ‘House of God’. Among all countries of the world, the cost of construction of a road in Nigeria is the most expensive. A careful assessment of road projects in Nigeria shows that averagely a kilometre of road costs N1bn. Road projects are also constantly being reviewed with the government increasing the contract sums either biannually or once in five years. A recent report indicates that even in Africa, the cost of constructing roads in Nigeria is far higher than what is spent on constructing roads in other nations on the continent. The minimum wage as at now is #18,000 but our lawmakers are paid huge sums of money that makes other hardworking compatriots cringe.
But the truth is that almost every segment of the country is corrupt. From the least to the greatest, the young to the old, Nigerians have become fantastically corrupt people, almost without conscience. This is why it is sometimes amusing to see so-called analysts and critics always blaming political elite for our corruption status.
The reality on the ground is that almost every professional in the country has one or two things to do with corruption. Teachers in higher institutions either sleep with female students or demand for financial inducement before they could scale through in examinations. Parents connive with officials to procure admission into tertiary institutions for their wards.
Personnel in public hospitals either hoard or illegally sell drugs that are procured by the government for patients. Members of the informal sector such as tailors, mechanics, builders, plumbers, painters etc end up buying inferior materials when they were actually given money for ‘original’ products. And they swear to high heavens that what they have is original. The list is endless. There is also the high incidence of “ghost workers,” in the public service which was estimated at 60,000 in 2014, in addition to 50,000 fictitious workers in 2013. Undaunted by the anti-corruption credentials of the current government, civil servants, in connivance with politicians and crony-contractors, have continued to “pad” the federal budget.
Sadly, in our tertiary institutions of higher learning, where ‘future leaders’ are being produced, the situation is even more alarming as student union election become a bloodbath. Unlike in those days when student unionism was quite vibrant, the reverse is now the case. Student union leaders have somehow mastered the art of corruption more than their seniors across the country. They give phantom awards to the political and economic elite in the country with the sole intent of collecting from the (suspecting?) awardees their own part of the commonwealth. It is that bad. Money is now our God in Nigeria. And unsurprisingly, animals in the country are closely watching. From the look of things, it won’t be long before snakes, monkeys, fowls, lizards and other animals in the country would outdo their human counterparts in the area of undue love and craze for money.
On a serious note, every Nigerian must understand that corrosive effect of corruption on the country as a whole. We need to understand that the current trend of unbridled theft, greed, selfishness and illegal acquisition of wealth would lead us to nowhere. We must take a cue from other countries in the world where common resources are judiciously used for the good of all. For instance, to really drive its economic miracle that has made it the fifth least corrupt country in the world with per capita GDP of $53,053, Singapore made the elimination of corruption from its public service a top priority, kick-start reforms that raised pay, attracted the best hands and punished graft with zero tolerance.
If we want Singapore results in our country, we must be ready to go the Singapore way. We cannot make omelettes without breaking egg; we cannot eradicate corruption without sacrifice. I hope in our generation we will witness the day when we can truly say, “corruption, not in our country”. God bless Nigeria! 
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