Will Internet forgive Isa Ali Ibraham Pantami? - ITREALMS

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Remmy NWEKE in this piece examined the case of Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami and the Internet. He reminded us that though as internet enthusiasts, we may have deleted some contents, the Internet does not really forget even if it forgives.  

In the past fortnight, the name of Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, the current Federal Minister of Communications and Digital Economy (MoCDE) has been trending across the media, especially on the Internet over his views and support on terrorism and for the Boko Haram among other terrorist organisations globally including Al Qaeda and Taliban.

Will Buhari ever call Pantami to order? - ITREALMS

Commentary@ITREALMS:

Telecoms Act and intrusive Ministers:

The Telecommunication Act of 2003 that empowered the regulatory rights, functions and composition of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) appeared to have envisaged that someone like Dr Isa Pantami would one day become the minister of Communications.

So, it set out in its provisions to put a check on such a minister who would attempt to interfere in the work of the Commission and the sanity of the industry.

It is such clause, conspicuously written in that Act that has put in check Pantami’s predecessors who made attempts to infringe on the statutory rights of the Commission.

When will Buhari call Pantami to order?

This is what the Act says in respect of the minister’s relationship with the NCC in Section 23, chapter 3, part 1 titled Functions Of the Minister And National Frequency Management Council: “In execution of his functions and relationship with the Commission, the Minister shall at all times ensure that the independence of the Commission, in regard to the discharge of its functions and operations under this Act, is protected and not compromised in any manner whatsoever.”

Parameters for Ministers:

The Act limits the minister to:

· formulation, determination and monitoring, of the general policy for the communications sector in Nigeria with a view to ensuring, amongst others,

· utilization of the sector as a platform for the economic and social development of Nigeria ;

· negotiation and execution of international communications treaties and agreements, on behalf of Nigeria, between sovereign countries and international organisations and bodies ; and

· representation of Nigeria, in conjunction with the Commission, at proceedings of international organisations and for a on matters relating to communications.

… Even on policy formulation:

Even on policy formulation and review for the industry the minister is requested to cause the Commission on his behalf to first carry out a public consultative process on the proposed policy formulation or modification.

And on formulating and determining the policy or amendments thereto, the Minister and the Council are compelled to take into consideration the findings of the consultative process under subsection (1) of this section.

On general policy direction:

The Minister is also empowered to, in writing, from time to time, notify the Commission or and express his views on the general policy direction of the Federal Government in respect of the communications sector.

There is nowhere in the NCC Act the minister is allowed to control the work of the NCC and infringe on its operations, as he is currently doing.

ALSO READ: Voicemail: ALTON accuses Pantami of meddlesomeness - ITREALMS

NCC has operated in the past without interference, especially under the times of Presidents Olusegun Obadanjo, late Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan who ensured the NCC was not impaired in carrying out its functions.

We’ve seen likes of Pantami:

Those who tried to interfere with the running of the NCC, notably, the current governor of Kaduna, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai and late Dora Akunyili were put under check by Obasanjo. El-Rufai was at the time he tried to challenge the independence of the NCC, a director-general of the Bureau of Public Enterprise, while late Akunyili was minister of communications.

Is telecom regulator walking in tandem?

Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, who was Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, from 2000 to 2010, told the story of the shinning regulatory successes of the NCC, in a book titled: Ernest Ndukwe & Telecom Regulation- A Walk In Tandem, written by Aaron Ukodie thus: “The relative shinning performance of the NCC currently could be attributed to the fact that my predecessors were not as fortunate as I am. One operated under late Sanni Abacha, where the supposed regulator was not allowed to act on its initiatives.

Democracy and liberalized telecoms industry:

“But here we are in a civilian democratic government and pioneering, as it were, a complete liberalization of the telecoms industry.

“Here we with a President who understands what the independence of a regulatory body is, and who is anxious to see winning actions. All this, put together, places us at a vantage point to perform creditably”.

Though Nigeria is still under a democratic government, at least on paper, the acts of the current minister seem to suggest that democratic ethos would not be adhered to in the management of the sector.

Ministerial infringement reverses 20-year gains:

The current Executive Vice Chairman, Professor Umar Danbatta and his board of directors, have carried out their regulatory functions creditably well before the coming of Pantami, who now appeared to be using his alleged closeness to the president to seek to upturn the best regulatory practices of the industry and the NCC. Those watching the ongoing trend fear that should Pantami continues in infringements on the right of the NCC, and the president does not call him to order, the 20 years gains of the industry may begin to reverse.

*First published in eWorld by Aaron Ukodie, author and ICT analyst.

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Will Trump unveil Leahy laws off Nigeria?

Commentary@ITREALMS:

It may not be news that the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari would today, Monday, April 30, in Washington DC, United States of America, meet President Donald Trump at the Oval Office, but the question remained if Trump will unveil the Leahy laws off Nigeria, writes ITRealms.

Top on the agenda of the meeting of the two presidents comprises matters on security and economic realignment and no society thrives where the security of the country is under-siege as seen largely in Nigeria today.

The past week, over 30 persons have been killed including two Catholic priests and Christian faithful in Benue State by suspected AK47 arm-welding herdsmen, while the Army claimed at the weekend a top Boko Haram commander has been arrested over the Benue most recent killings, thereby bringing a twist to the issues on whether those Benue attacks were actually by herdsmen or Boko Haram.

This led the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria to request President Buhari to resign with immediate effect, even as some section of the National Assembly made up of the Senate and House of Representatives have declare ‘no confidence vote’ on his administration.

Worthy of note is that on assumption of office in 2015, President Buhari visited US and held a meeting then with President Barrack Obama and reportedly requested what industry and security observers tagged “counterterrorism with minimal strings” for Nigeria, which was evidently turned down based on damning security reports.

Some of this reports included the increasing insurgency by Boko Haram in the northeast, stressing that the group was behind the kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014 as well as the abduction of more than 100 from Dapchi in February 2018, and subsequent return of some which was largely described as drama of the absurd, moreso, following insistence by the terrorist group not to release Leah Sharibu for refusal to convert to Islam.

The government of the day led by President Buhari seems helpless as they continued to claim making strides in the fight while more and more Nigerians are being killed if not slaughtered on daily basis.

ITRealms gathered that the US-Nigerian security cooperation was strained under former US President Barack Obama due to prohibition placed by the Leahy laws, which bar providing US military assistance to specific individuals and units of foreign militaries that have been credibly accused of committing human rights abuses.

The State Department at the time concluded that both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military had committed atrocities. Some Nigerian troops, specifically, were accused in a State Department report of committing extra-judicial killings, torture, rape, arbitrary detention, and widespread violence.

Acknowledging these human rights concerns, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, J. Peter Pham, who is also vice president for research and regional initiatives at the Atlantic Council, said: “I would make the argument not to allow the best to be the enemy of the good.” Stressing that “Absent of clear evidence of a systematically abusive regime, moral preening is of little utility in dealing with situations like this.”

Trump in contrast, had pushed ahead military cooperation with Nigeria with his administration in 2017 given approval for the sale to Nigeria of 12 military planes and security equipment worth $600 million; which is still a huge mess when it comes to due process as the National Assembly said there is no evidence such money was appropriated either in 2017 or 2018 budget.

Also, Trump had sought to improve relations with African countries which he allegedly referred to in derogatory terms in January this year, according to Pham. Incidentally, in March, Trump’s top diplomat, Rex Tillerson, then Secretary of State came to Nigeria only to spent a few hours as he was forced to cut short a trip to Africa. Trump fired Tillerson on his return from this trip.

With the above observations, industry and diplomatic watchers are still in awe why Buhari should trust Trump to change his mind so soon from the core ‘American first’ stanza, moreso, that the reasons adduced by the Obama administration under Leahy laws rather than change, but is getting worse.

For the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) over 300 Nigerians have been killed since January 1 and last weekend and specifically in Benue but no arrest has been made, and action to conclusively show determination by the government, rather the Buhari administration appeared helpless as it resorted to sending condolences.

All eyes is now on Mr. Trump to know if he will still proceed with 2017 approval to Nigeria, amidst alleged ethnic cleansing against President Buhari’s administration, although the reverse is possible if adequate homework is done to strengthen the ties between the two countries before the Oval Office meeting.

The prayer of every well-meaning Nigerian is for the government of Buhari to overcome insurgency and stand up against the herdsmen, which the government claimed came from aftermath of Libya civil conflict, yet the last weekend arrest of Boko Haram commander over the Benue killings in the last fortnight sends a wrong signal, according another school of thought; in that those Benue attacks may have been as well perpetrated by Boko Haram all this while, whereas the government and military search for excuses by tagging them herdsmen from neighbouring countries.

The fact that by the end of this Oval Office meeting between Buhari and Trump, a new security statistics could emerge to either justify the outcome or damn it.

The Leahy Laws or Leahy amendments are U.S. human rights laws that prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.[1] It is named after its principal sponsor, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont).

To implement this law, U.S. embassies, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and the appropriate regional bureau of the U.S. Department of State vet potential recipients of security assistance. If a unit is found to have been credibly implicated in a serious abuse of human rights, assistance is denied until the host nation government takes effective steps to bring the responsible persons within the unit to justice. 

While the U.S. Government does not publicly report on foreign armed forces units it has cut off from receiving assistance, press reports have indicated that security force and national defense force units in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Saint Lucia have been denied assistance due to the Leahy Law.

Senator Leahy first introduced this law in 1997 as part of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act. It initially referred only to counter-narcotics assistance for one year. 

The next year, with his leadership, Congress expanded it to cover all State Department funded assistance. This provision was included in all annual Foreign Operations budget laws until 2008. At that time Congress made the law permanent by amending it into the Foreign Assistance Act. In 2011, Congress revised the law substantially, seeking to enhance its implementation.

The United States government has long been a major, if not the largest, provider of assistance—funding, training, non-lethal equipment, and/or weaponry---to foreign military and other security forces.

 In 2012 it spent $25 billion on training and equipping foreign militaries and law enforcement agencies of more than 100 countries around the world.[6] Security assistance is driven by overriding U.S. national security objectives, including a desire to challenge/overturn communist regimes during the Cold War, counter drug trafficking in the 1990s, or counter anti-Western terrorism in the 2000s. Throughout the United States' long history of providing assistance to foreign armed forces, some portion of this assistance has been provided to forces that repress and abuse their own populations.

Before 1997, the primary U.S. legislation constraining aid to countries with poor human rights records was Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibited security assistance to “any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” This law was seen as too vague to be effective in cases where the U.S. government had an overriding interest.

According to Senator Leahy, his law “makes it clear that when credible evidence of human rights violations exists, U.S. aid must stop. But, it provides the necessary flexibility to allow the U.S. to advance its foreign policy objectives in these countries.”

As Nigerians hope for the best, may the best come out of the Oval Office meeting today.

Remmy Nweke/ED, ops

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Easter Message: Opara-Ndudu assures APGA will raise Imo again

ITREALMS:

An Imo governorship aspirant for 2019 gubernatorial election on the ticket of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Nick Opara-Ndudu, has sent an Easter greeting to Imo State citizens in the country and Diaspora, urging them not to lose hope as the state “will rise again” if given  the mantle of leadership of the state next year, reports ITRealms.

  In the Easter greeting titled “Imo Will Rise Again”,  which is contained in a video message now circulating in the country and other parts of the world,  Opara-Ndudu told  Imolites to emulate the virtues of Jesus Christ as epitomised by his passion, persecution, death and resurrection during Easter, and to pray to the Almighty God to give them the grace to come together to build a state that both present and future generations would take pride in, by taking inspiration from the teachings of Christ.

The former Imo commissioner promised quality and purposeful leadership that will bring about the transformation of the state and improved quality of the lives of the citizens, which he said has deteriorated in the last seven years, adding that the transformation would touch all sectors of the economy of the state.

 He pledged to overhaul the economy by reviving the agriculture and industrial sectors as well as providing quality education, security, health, housing, road  network, if given the mandate to run the state on the ticket of APGA.  All of these are contained in his blueprint which, he said  would  soon be unveiled.

A Chartered Accountant by training, Oparad-Ndudu, who spent over two decades in the banking sector and rising to the position of a Deputy Managing Director, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Accountancy from University of Nigeria Nsukka. He has also attended training programmes in  economics, banking and finance, as well as management  within and outside the country.

While in the banking sector, he provided useful financial advice and facilities that enabled many small and medium businesses, across the length and breadth of the country, to grow bigger and now adding values to the economy of the country.

This, combined with his public sector experience, the former bank boss said he  has the required experience of working in a structured environment and the disciplined approach to accomplishing tasks that come with such exposure and experience. These are qualities that would come handy in addressing the rapacious destruction of the civil service bureaucracy and non compliance with due process in the state.

A practicing Catholic Christian and an indigene of Emekuku, Owerri North Local Government of Imo State, Opara-Ndudu said   “I have spent the better part of the past six months building up a network of concerned Imo Citizens to confront the monster that is before us.

As a former student union leader and a veteran of such struggles, I am supremely confident that the will of Imo people (and not cash ) shall prevail in due time and season. And together, Imo will rise again.”

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Answer the call of Nineveh & May God's will prevail

Sunday Sermon@ITREALMS: 

In the first reading of today, from the book of the prophet Jonah, God spoke to Jonah, calling him to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. Though Jonah tried to refuse, God showed him that the will of God prevails in all, so he changed his mind and went and preached to the people of Nineveh.

In the gospel, we see Mark's version of the call of the first four apostles, all fishermen. According to Mark, they left everything they were doing and followed Jesus.

We might begin to compare the difference between the immediate and earnest response of these apostles on the one hand, and the reluctant response of Jonah on the other. But I see something much more happening here which I want to point out for our reflection. They were all ordinary men who were going about their businesses. There was nothing remarkably extraordinary about them. Bring them among us today, they will blend with us, in our churches, market places, schools, offices etc. We will not notice them. They were ordinary people like you and me who were called to serve. Jonah responded reluctantly, but others responded immediately with zeal.

Just as these men were called, so God is calling all of us to serve Him in the world around us. I am sure that someway, somehow, when we look around us, we can all see something that is not going as it should. It might be in our families, in our relationships and friendships, in schools, in our workplaces, in our neighbourhoods and communities, the killing of innocent people in other communities far and near. God is calling us to do something about that situation and change it.

Answering God’s call might require a change in career for us. But not necessarily; Like the four apostles mentioned in today’s gospel, for most of us, it will not require a change in career. It might only require a transformation of our present careers into a means of service. The same line of trade, but on a different level. This becomes possible if we move away from pursuing only income and personal enhancement to seeking the glory of God and the benefit of humankind and all God’s creation.

For some like Jonah, answering God’s call to serve might take us to places we never dreamt of going, and to things we would rather not do. Little wonder, he attempted to run away from God. Jonah could be seen from the lenses of our contemporary world, as one who refused to pick God’s call or switched off his phone purposefully. He went reluctantly, in answer to the call to serve. Nineveh in our world today is found in families and relationships that are dysfunctional. Nineveh is found in the backstreets and alleys that are festering with vices of various kinds. 

Nineveh is found in board rooms that put profit before anything else, no matter its impact on people and the environment. Nineveh is found in the ivory towers of corporate businesses where the fate and destinies of billions of the world’s poorest are decided. Wherever we see the Nineveh to which God is calling us, let us do our best to answer the call to serve, difficult though it will be. Repenting and believing entails liberation from and liberation for respectively, it has to do with being attached to the person of Jesus and to journey along with him. Happy Sunday

* Rev. Fr Simon Peter Dzungwe contributed this from Ibadan, Oyo State.

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