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Why I visited Soyinka – Obi *Insists, building a new Nigeria, collective responsibility

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Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), has explained the reasons for visiting Noble laureate, Wole Soyinka, citing his great respect for the renowned playwright and outspoken critic.

Obi, who made the visit about a week after explaining on Prime Time, a current affairs programme on Arise Television, had used his official Twitter handle to announce the meeting, which took place on Sunday, describing it as enriching, and useful.

“Today I visited one of Nigeria’s most revered figures and an international literary icon Prof Wole Soyinka,” he said, adding: “Prof Soyinka has been my father whom I hold in very esteem for what he has achieved and stands for in the struggle for a better Nigeria.

“His reputation as a fighter for justice and equity in our society has been legendary and we will NEVER ignore them. I had a very useful and enriching discussion about his aspirations for a better and greater Nigeria, and he shared a lot with me about his dream for a greater, and more inclusive Nigeria.

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“I reminded the Nobel laureate of the huge price he paid just before the outbreak of civil war, fighting for the cause of the Igbos. I cherish this Sunday visit which was intended to erase the needless misconceptions about the relationship between the great icon and the Obidient family.”

The Nobel Laureate, had sparked off a strong resentment from the supporters of the former Governor of Anambra State, after he criticised Yusuf Datti Ahmed, the running mate to Obi, of fascism, following his insistence that swearing in Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu without winning the 25 per cent votes in Abuja, as required by the constitution would “end democracy.”

Apparently undeterred by the barrage of attacks by the Obidients, after his interview which first appeared on Channels Television, Soyinka, in another interview with Arise Television, dug deeper and a day after released a statement to further lampoon them.

The LP candidate, had used the opportunity of his appearance on Arise interview to appeal to Soyinka, saying that apart from the fact that not all those who made the comments were Obidients, there should be an understanding that Nigerian youths were angry and mostly spoke from that perspective.

His words: “Prof is a well respected, revered personality in Nigeria and globally. And I have always respected him and he is a dear father to me. For me I was very very sad that there was such an exchange. Some of the ‘Obidients’, I must tell you, or people they mentioned that they are ‘Obidient’ are not entirely people who are with us.

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“The opposition have also come into it. We don’t worry about that. But I was very sad there was such an exchange. I respect a father, but you have to understand this, these young people are people who have been so deprived by supposedly a system that is supposed to care for them.

“They have been pushed to the wall. Even me, the way they even react when I say things, I could feel their pain. I could feel it because I live in the same system that they are living in. When we were young, things were working. All of a sudden, it became a worse situation.

“My own comment on that is that Prof remains a revered father, and I have kept respecting him for that. And of course the young ‘Obidients’ I feel for them, I wish you can feel what they are feeling, the pain. There is nothing the society is offering them, even when they try to do it on their own. This is a place you move around with a laptop, you will be arrested and labelled all sorts of names.

“This is a place where people are thrown into jail for even making comment, when people who have stolen billions of the country’s money, done worst things are moving around and celebrated.”

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BREAKING: Death penalty for fake drugs! *NAFDAC to push new law at NASS

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Those peddling fake and substandard drugs in Nigeria should be ready for the hangman’s noose, if the thinking of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), becomes the new law.

Mojisola Adeyeye, Director General of the body, who said on Friday that no other form of punishment is fitting enough, gave instances of where the application of such dangerous substances in form of health drugs, had led to fatalities.

Advocating that only stiff penalties would deter peddlers especially when deaths of children became involved, the NAFDAC boss, who appeared as a guest on The Morning Brief, a breakfast programme on Channels Television, said: “Somebody bought children’s medicine for N13,000 or something like that, another person was selling about N3,000 in the same mall. 

“That raised an alarm. Guess what? There was nothing inside that medicine when we tested it in our Kaduna lab. So, I want the death penalty. Because you don’t need to put a gun on the head of a child before you kill that child. Just give that child bad medicine.”

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Advocating that the National Assembly and the judiciary to make the proposal a reality, adding that the agency was open to partnering with lawmakers and other stakeholders on the matter, she added: “You cannot fight substandard, falsified medicine in isolation. The agency can do as much as it can but if there is no deterrent, there’s going to be a problem.

“Somebody brought in 225mg of Tramadol that can kill anybody, fry the brain and you give a judgment of five years in prison or N250,000. Who doesn’t know that that person will go to the ATM and get N250,000? That is part of our problem.

“There are no strict measures to deter [people] from repeating the same thing. We can do as much as we can but if our law is not strong enough, or the judiciary is not strong enough to stand up, we’re going to have a problem.

“So, our judiciary system must be strong enough. But we are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties very stiff.  But if you kill a child by bad medicine, you deserve to die. We have a lot on our plate in stemming drug peddling.

“Withe about 2,000 staff members nationwide and limited funding, NAFDAC is constrained in carrying out its activities. So, when it comes to staffing, you’re right on the point. We are short-staffed and I am hoping things will be better.”

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Give us electoral offences tribunal to take care of heist – INEC  

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Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday, made a fresh push for the creation of an electoral offences tribunal, to curb the cases of attacks on the Nigerian democratic system.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman, told reporters at the commission’s first regular quarterly consultative meeting with the media that the tribunal had become important owing to the backlog of electoral offence cases.

He said: “A major obstacle to the speedy dispensation of justice in this regard is that electoral offences are not time-bound as is the case with post-election offences through the tribunals. Furthermore, they are solely prosecuted by the Magistrate and State High Courts in the jurisdiction where the alleged offences are committed,” the INEC chief told the gathering.

“No priority attention is given to such cases as the courts deal with a variety of other cases. Consequently, electoral offences are carried over from one General Election to another which may sometimes affect the diligent prosecution of the cases. It is therefore imperative to renew our call for the creation of the Electoral Offences Tribunal that have a specific jurisdiction and limited timeframe for the speedy dispensation of cases.”

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Bemoaning the delay in the justice delivery system, citing the conviction of a returning officer in Akwa Ibom after six years in court, the INEC boss, said: “The recent successful prosecution of a Returning Officer in Akwa Ibom State is a case in point.

“The Commission has been diligently pursuing the case which arose from the 2019 General Election. In this particular case, it took nearly six years to achieve the successful prosecution at the trial court.

“Through our collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) cases involving 774 alleged offenders from the 2023 General Election are being prosecuted. So far, successful prosecutions have been recorded in Kebbi and Kogi States while our collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on vote-buying has yielded similar results in Lagos, Kwara, and Gombe States. Yet, many cases are still pending.”

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Again, terrorists attack Sokoto, kidnap 10 worshippers at a mosque

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A mosque in Bushe community, Sabon Birni Local Government Area of Sokoto State, fell into the hands of bandits on Friday, after which 10 worshippers including the Imam were spirited away, adding to growing cases of terrorist attacks.

Channels Television reports that the gunmen invaded the mosque on Thursday while worshippers were performing their early morning Subhi prayer, quoting residents as saying that the gunmen had been molesting the people of the community for some time now, even with the presence of security agents.

Ahmed Rufai, spokesman of the Sokoto State Police Command, who confirmed the attack on Friday, said the police authorities were working with other security agencies to rescue the abducted victims.

A member of the Sokoto State House of Assembly, representing the Sabon Birni B state Constituency who also confirmed the attack, commended the security agencies for their timely intervention.

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