“A Report Card Of Hope.”
Chuks can feel the sleep catching up to him, but he is stubborn. He is still filling out his public service form, again. It has taken three days already. He has a lot of assets.
On the pile to his left, he can see thousands of loose papers and most of them are memos he has requested but he does not care much for them either. He is drinking coffee but his hands are still shaky. He knows he should eat or sleep soon but he does not care much for either.
He barely hears the buzzer go off and he presses the button to open the door automatically, without thinking or composing himself. Thankfully it is only Tope and all the insecurities the media man brings into the room with him.
-I have the EU report
-why should I care?
-international image and…
-I was joking
-okay. The top sheet is commendable. Fairest elections since 1993. Top marks on the spread of the votes and the voters…look, Chuks, sir, if he wants me to resign
-no one wants you to resign. Do you want to leave us?
-of course not, but he frowns all day long when I see him
-all day long or only when he sees you.
-it is easy for you to make jokes. You are like his best friend.
-the man does not have best friends. Are we in primary school? I understand some of his moods. That is all.
-I heard he called me an idiot
-you made a mistake. He is terrible at letting go.
-it was an honest mistake. I thought she was a convert.
-Tope, let it go. What is the summary of the Onyibo people again?
-a report card of hope
-Jesus
Tope crosses himself.
-did you come up with that headline yourself? Chuks asks, opening his eyes for the first time.
-yes
-maybe you really are an idiot
-that is not funny
-well, it surely isn’t sad
Dramatis Personae
Chukwuma Nwachukwu-Chief of Staff to the President
Adetope Adesuwa-Director of Communications
Article in Daily Chronicle
Terror In Zuba: The Aftermath
Excerpt
By Anthony Nwabunor
“…most residents are still coming to terms with the latest taste of terror from up north. Kunle Adetokunbo, a resident of the FCT for over twenty years, is not sure he wants to be in the capital anymore:
‘I am seriously thinking of relocating to Lagos, but I hear this haram people are there too. I am just tired. We should kill them all before they finish our country for us.’
Some are even less diplomatic:
‘It is all this people from the north coming to spoil our country. Abuja belongs to all of us. They should stay over there and leave us alone.’
…The Government has been quick to round up many suspects and assure everyone that this is an exception and not the new norm. They will have a harder time convincing Nigerian citizens not safeguarded by a high fence and heavily armed security personnel that they too are well protected.”
Transcript
National Assembly Debates (Senate) Tuesday, 31st May 2011
Excerpt
Senator (Niger East): Madame President, this Motion has come at the right time but I was thinking that the mover of this Motion would have done so earlier than last Sunday. We are aware that on the 3rd of March 2011 during my flag off campaign in Suleja, there was a bomb blast where about 13 people lost their lives. A day or two before my election, there was another bomb blast in Suleja specifically at the INEC office where about 12 people lost their lives, and many people became physically challenge permanently. What bothers me so much is that up till now, nobody that has been connected to what happened at that time has been arrested.
The question one is asking is whether the Police or the Security Agencies are capable enough to find out exactly what is happening. If they are not, I think we need to sit down and find out how we will go about it because the image of this country is at stake and I think we need to look at it carefully. We also want to advise the politicians. When you go by the utterances of some of these politicians during the campaigns, it tells us that there was supposed to be a lot of violence during the election. and we saw all these things. Our political leaders must also come out and assist in finding ways to ensure that people who stand for elections and people who are actually interested in the security of this country should come together to ensure that we give maximum support to the security agencies if they are actually ready to do their work.
Most of these bomb blasts happened in Zuba and Suleja, all in Niger State. I think the security agencies and those who are in Niger State particularly must do more than they are doing presently to ensure that we have a way of finding out who is really involved and responsible for this. By the time we will finish here, I hope we will give the people the hope that one day, there would be security in this country. This is the first time we are witnessing this type of thing. Niger State has been the most peaceful state in the country, but because of what is happening, particularly during elections, many people refused to come out to vote because of fear of bomb lasts.
As a result, many people were disfranchised. I hope that this time around we would be able to get it right in ensuring that the country’s image is no longer at stake and that every person in this country is protected. Thank you very much.
Senator (Taraba North): Madame President, let me join my chairman and Senator Kuta in condemning the acts of violence by some people against innocent women, men, and children. A few months ago, the people of this country out of our own free will conducted an election and chose people who were given the mandate to rule us for the next four years. And as Abraham Lincoln said, no man or woman will rule another man without the consent of the other man. We Nigerians have given consent to this government and therefore these people that are bent on disturbing the peace are terrorists, no more no less. A terrorist is somebody that would intimidate people and government; and this act must not be allowed to stand. The long and short of it all is that of intelligence. If there is anything they will have to do, it is intelligence upon intelligence because the outside work of the uniformed men and women is only one tenth of security work. In this country, it would appear that our intelligence services are not sharing information. Information available to the police, NIIA and the rest needs to be sorted out and directed to the Office of the National Security Adviser. In this way we would be able to get the information we want. A bomb that explodes is like a pregnancy that takes nine months and then you give birth. These people planned and in the process of planning they can be intercepted. I agree Madame President that the world has changed so much, and perhaps, the budget for the intelligence services is not enough, but we need to do more. A lot of things have changed; you have to have some information gadgets to be able to listen to what people are doing. The long and short of it is to make sure that our lives are not disrupted. After all, we are in this business primarily pursuant to Section 14 of our Constitution to protect the welfare and the security of our people. The moment we appear to give the impression that we are not doing that, surely, it would appear that government is failing.
