by Cheta Nwanze

 

It should come as no surprise that tensions in the Borno area have gone up as the lake has receded. Lake Chad, which used to provide livelihood for a good number of the denizens of the Borno area, receded by a factor of 17 in just 38 years. 

So the state governors will meet with the Prez today (this meeting was eventually postponed) over the deteriorating security situation in the country. What one hopes is that during the tête-a-tête, they will gist about the economic situation. Make no mistakes about it, when you have a scenario in which 48,000 souls have been added to a labour market that is already bursting at the seems, then your security situation can only go south. Our biggest national security challenge in Nigeria, is the unemployment situation and we are tired of hearing statistics about “the number of jobs created”. The truth is this: if those jobs have really been created, no one will need to announce it.

Sadly, our state governors seem to have found an easy cop out in laying everything at the feet of a hapless FG. Thus it was that when the FG a few days ago, contributed $5 millions for a study on how to restore the receding Lake Chad, it somehow passed under a lot of people’s radars. It should come as no surprise that tensions in the Borno area have gone up as the lake has receded. Lake Chad, which used to provide livelihood for a good number of the denizens of the Borno area, receded by a factor of 17 in just 38 years. In that time, the idle hands around it in Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria, have found some other use for their time. Killing people.

The argument has been made a lot of times in the past that most of our insecurity problems in Nigeria are economic, and a lot of events bear that belief out. Thus it was that the booming economic activity of cattle rustling got a boost over the last three days as 625 cattle changed hands in often violent fashion, with, err, even more violent sounding threats made. I wonder what Comrade Nyako will say about this one when he meets with the Prez later today. Maybe he will ask the help of a famous seer…

Bits and Bobs

• There’s a move to withdraw N285 billions of police pensions from the current, independent, administrators, to the supervision of, the police. Expect more videos of angry men-in-black hitting the airwaves.
• Speaking of men-in-black behaving badly, an unnamed man-in-black wasn’t given the memo that Anambra signed the Child’s Rights Act in 2012. He “married” his pastor’s daughter, and after an initial denial, offered N20,000 for upkeep, which pastor has turned down. Negotiations continue.
• We’ve all seen that video of the babe who got a drink of muddy water because she forgot to give a man-in-black some fish. Turns out that the incident actually happened last year, the family reported it and were ignored, and action only commenced after the video surfaced and went viral. I need to improve my video recording skills as a matter of urgency.
• Finally, rice millers in Ebonyi want to go on strike. They feel betrayed by the state’s old chap. Will it make a difference to us? Now if rice millers in Thailand threatened a strike…

Right of Reply

Hassan Awodi wrote,

Regarding the iPhone shared at the wedding, a friend of mine ushered at the wedding and she did confirmed that, gold plated iPhone was shared at the wedding. It may be true that the president may not even be aware of such gifts but it was given out.

Dapo Okubanjo wrote,

Sad that you allowed the same fellows who see Nyako as a hero to fool you with the false iphone story.Anyhow,I’m fully in agreement with your position on the Nyako comment.This is a chap that benefitted from the same democracy he and his gang(as service chief) cold bloodedly truncated now preaching hate. His rant just showed how some of the political elites in the North have been giving covert support to the insurgents. As for the abducted girls,I’m still confused on how as many as 50 of them “escaped” from BH camp. Have the insurgents suddenly gone soft or are they releasing the girls in batches after collecting ransom?(Remember the governor’s N50m offer for information on their whereabout)

Azubike Emodi wrote,

JUst fell in love with AbdulRahman’s submission. So true, yet we are all so blind to see it. We should tackled the problem fro the source. Our criminal Governors (especially the APC ones) blame the Government and lead us in the blame game. We verlook them and they bleed us dry. Kidnapping in Anambra was a daily tonic. Peter Obi did not blame FG. He tackled it. Same in Enugu.

Cyebog wrote,

I shudder when an (s)elected governor comes out to the public with immature statements. More horrifying when the governor has been in higher positions in the Military (an area where gentlemen are born). It is very easy to point fingers at someone’s failure. What I cannot understand is the statement; “the present administration has failed”. I ask my self if the governor isnt part of the administration. If such words of hatred can be uttered by a “gentleman”, I wonder what the response from the “rascals” would be like. Already, a prominent personality didnt go all too well with the statement and back-lashed the governor. As usual both political parties will play to the gallery with this publication and lay blames while we Nigerians sit helplessly. Once you have the opportunity to make a good name using HISTORY, make sure you take advantage of it. I dont how IBB, OBJ would feel when they know they would have steered Nigeria to greater heights. I just feel saddened for those who cant read between the lines in Nyako’s letter

Geneva wrote,

I usually desist from commenting on Nigerian politics, but having read Nyako’s letter, I just felt that I should lend a voice to this. The general tone of the letter is one that urges a concerted action on the problem of terrorism as we currently see it in Nigeria. He urges us to put up a united fight against the hoodlums, and in so doing, tries to “de-ethinify” and “de-religion(ize?)” the issue. A laudable objective. However,he tended to ramble from time to time and the phrase you quoted is simply an example of the unfortunate and ill-timed digressions. I do not think we should quote that out of context.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.