By Dele Sobowale

Well, my friend, get me out of danger. You can make your speech afterwards”.
Jean De La Fontaine.
(VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 68).

June 16, 2011, will again enter my short list of days to remember; it was a Thursday – a black Thursday for Nigeria. It was our own equivalent of the Al Qeda attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. To most Nigerians, it would only be remembered as the day the Police Headquarters in Abuja, the Louis Edet House, was bombed by Boko Haram muslim sect. For Fola Arogundade, former Sunday Vanguard Editor, and I, it will be long remembered as the day after we were in the same Headquarters with two messages.

Fola and I had for several months become concerned by the increasing attack on police officers by various groups and individuals and we felt that escalation, if not checked, will lead to disastrous results. After months of trying and beating our heads against, seemingly impervious, walls, we got a break to deliver our message on Wednesday, June 15. And, the message was simple, unless the police can very urgently enlist the sympathy and empathy of the people of Nigeria, they will become seating ducks for more attacks and assassination of their personnel.

After three hours at the Police Headquarters, we left with a promise to return on Friday, two days time, or Monday six days time. I was to leave on what turned out to be Black Thursday. But, being generally lazy and needing a lot of rest, I decided to take an afternoon flight. On Thursday, I got out of my hotel, not too far from the Force Headquarters, grabbed a taxi heading towards the Central Bank.

Two minutes after, a tremendous explosion was heard close by; it was quickly followed by smoke and other smaller explosions. Suddenly, there was total chaos everywhere as the location of the explosions became known. The taxi turned back to the hotel; I rushed up quickly to pack and check out and head for the airport. But, I was not fast enough. By the time I got a taxi, the roads leading from the National Stadium to the airport had become totally impassable.

Then, it struck me that the premonition that we had for months had become a reality. Even without waiting for the news reports, I knew that several police officers would have been killed and seriously injured; either by the bomb directly or through collateral damages. And, the enemy had struck with apparent impunity at the heart of Nigeria’s internal security apparatus because, like it or not, the police remain the backbone of security. If ever there is a time when all Nigerians must cast aside their anti-pathy towards the police and rally to their support, this is the time.

My sympathies go to the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, who, in my opinion, has been the best in a long time; my heart bleeds for the families of the officers who have paid the supreme price in the service of our Fatherland.

For them, especially, I plead with all well-meaning Nigerians to come to the aid of the police now and until this particular menace is removed. I have heard on radio and television; I have also read in the papers, various critical comments about the police. We, as a nation, have come to look on our officers as monsters when indeed, they are more like martyrs sent out; badly equipped; to deal with the likes of Boko Haram whose state of mind is more allied to madness than to religion. And, they have been dying, unnoticed by many of us, in droves nationwide. We don’t have to love them. But, we will be most ungrateful if we fail to recognize the sacrifices they have made in the past and which they continue to make everyday.

This first part in the series is deliberately designed to get us to start re-appraising our attitudes to our officers; human beings like us; not saints; performing near-impossible tasks everyday and to organize ourselves to protect them. That might sound funny. But, a society which fails to protect its own police will soon find anarchy starring it in the face.

AKWA IBOM: VICTIM OF OIL INJUSTICE – 3
“A’Ibom to pay Rivers N10.91bn”.
PUNCH, Friday, June 3, 2011.

The news report pointed out that the refund was ordered by the Revenue  Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC after an inter-agency committee set up following a Supreme Court ruling on the 86 wells in question. Membership of the committee was drawn from the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, CBN, National Boundary Commission, Department of Petroleum Resources, Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation and RMAFC.

By any measure, this is a formidable array of offices for any pen-pusher to argue against. But, without fear or favour, they represent a collection of offices which have demonstrated gross negligence of their responsibilities resulting in this mess. And, if there is any N10.91 billion  to be paid to Rivers State, it should be paid collectively by those offices. Let me explain why quickly before going on with this series started two weeks ago.

The first question everybody must ask is: How is oil revenue due to each state determined? Is it the states or some of the Federal Government’s agencies serving on the committee? Stated differently, can a state unilaterally grab 86 wells and force RMAFC and  CBN to pay revenue on the oil produced from those wells? The answer is so obvious, it makes one wonder how Akwa Ibom could have been collecting revenue on wells we are now being told belong to Rivers.

To the best of my knowledge, the offices of the Surveyor-General and the National Boundary Commission have the primary responsibilities of determining every state’s boundaries and the oil wells situated therein. Was it ever reported that Akwa Ibom marched into CBN to collect revenue to which it was not entitled? Didn’t CBN send its cheque as it does those of other 35 states? Where were these bodies when from April 2009 to April 2011 Akwa Ibom was collecting revenue from 86 wells belonging to Rivers? Was it benign negligence or pure incompetence? Either way they have created for Akwa Ibom contingent liability of N10.91 billion plus interest which the state has been gratuitously allowed to “pay in installments”. And which in my view they should pay.

More ludicrous is the basis of the Supreme Court judgment. Former Governors Peter Odili and Victor Attah had purportedly signed an agreement under which Attah ceded the 86 wells to Rivers State. We only need to remember that General Theophilus Danjuma, rtd, received only one well (don’t ask me how and why) and he confessed to making about N1 billion out of it.

Why should Attah, for whose sanity I can vouch any day, cede 86 wells to Rivers? And who was collecting the revenue from these wells before 2009 because Attah and Odili left in 2007? Secondly, an agreement of such magnitude must involve witnesses and must be filed in the appropriate courts of law? Who were the witnesses? Furthermore, why were Odili and Attah, not called to do two things? First, testify that they indeed signed the agreement. Two, why they exceeded their powers, under the constitution, by inferentially adjusting their state boundaries? Following from that another question needs to be asked” Can an agreement signed by people not empowered by the constitution to do so stand?…