with

Ben C. Abraham.

COMMONIZING THE CHARGE OF TREASON;

My fleeting understanding of the criminal charge of treason and its kindred charges is that a common intention backed by action to subvert a sitting Government makes the charge complete. Understandably, where the intention and action succeed there would not be any charge. So treason usually arises where the planners attempt and fail as we see during an unsuccessful coup d’etat or mutiny. What we agree on therefore is that treason is not child’s play; it is not a walk in the park. So you can imagine how jolted people were when on Friday 1^st November about 75 men including 67 young persons and minors were herded into the Federal High Court Abuja and arraigned for treason. How? Where? When? Well, the August 1^st – 10^th #EndbadGovernance protests have ended but the reverberations from it are still on. And that is how these young men who dared complain about hunger were arrested and dumped in unkempt police cells for 90 days until that Friday. Videos of the protests showed people in the Northern part of the country flying the Russian flag and chanting. There was also destruction of infrastructure. An offence or series of offences can be established from the actions but for anyone to impute treason, I believe is clearly extreme. Flying another country’s flag simpliciter is not an offence, otherwise so many hoteliers and cab drivers would be in jail for displaying these other flags. The Government chose the charge of treason for these young men so as to pass a message to other would-be-protesters not to try. It is the usual subjugative tactics seen just before full blown dictatorship and that is Tinubu’s chosen pathway to deflect genuine angst and even National discourse on his lackluster regime. To confirm just how inept they are, the Police reacted to what transpired in the court where some of the young men collapsed and needed to be revived as a stage-managed show best suited for Nollywood. The statement betrayed a lack of empathy for the young men who obviously experienced harrowing ordeals in custody with minimal feeding otherwise they would not look so gaunt. The Police sought to command the Tinubu support orchestra so flawlessly that they even ventured to debate the age of the young defendants claiming that they were above 18 years with some even having wives and children. What a performance. Well it’s soothing that the Attorney General has taken over the file and that President Tinubu has ordered for the release of the minors among the defendants but that is not enough. There are so many other suspects in various police and DSS cells on this and other protests held in terrible conditions for daring to protest. They should be released or tried without interference. Let the President lead the way for renewed hope if there is indeed anything like that.

AS DANGOTE ANNOUNCES THE PRICE OF FUEL;

 Dangote Refinery finally announced its price for a litre of petrol after so much ping pong between the Refinery management and NNPCL. Even the independent marketers’ association joined the price fray. To Nigerians who had become hapless pawns on a petrol chessboard, one fact had become clear, which is that Dangote, contrary to what people had expected, was not being transparent in the whole saga. The Refinery kept quiet until NNPCL raised the price so much and so many times that Nigerians don’t even know what price currently prevails. The argument that it is NNPCL that fixes the price is hogwash because in announcing their own price, Dangote compared prices and wanted Nigerians to believe that their own price through shipping was lower than NNPCL’s; the familiar messianic tone that saw the group become a behemoth in cement production and instead of stabilizing the price despite the local availability of raw materials, the prices went over the roof. No one forgets the cement price war with BUA group, Dangote’s major competition. And so, having waited until NNPCL raised the prices for the umpteenth time, Dangote announced that petrol ex-depot via trucking is N990 and via shipping it is N960 per litre. When you factor in trucking and other add-ons you will understand why there may not be a reprieve for Nigerians despite the promise the Refinery held. And there is something else; the statement added that the pricing template didn’t consider the dollar rate of the crude oil which they would take from NNPCL. It is the typical Nigerian statement leaving a window open for review as things unfold. So? So prices could go higher soon. Forget the crude oil sale in Naira mantra. It’s just to ease the pressure of sourcing dollars on the system; it is not to fix the exchange rate arbitrarily. Whatever the dollar is in the market, that is what Dangote will pay in Naira. The exchange rate may drop minimally but has great propensity to go up. Nigerians need a reprieve and urgently too, not grammar and semantics, abeg.

……AND ONE OTHER THING:

NO ALLOCATION FOR LGs IN RIVERS STATE;

Hon Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court Abuja finally gave her ruling on the suit brought by a faction of the APC in Rivers State urging the court to order for a stop in the release and disbursement of statutory financial allocations to all the local Government councils in Rivers State. The court granted the prayers and ordered key Government and banking organizations to stop the allocations. The ruling further tightened the noose on the financial and political neck of Rivers State and Governor Sim Fubara. Few people looked out from FCT Nyesom Wike as the hand on the noose. Rivers State has appealed the ruling and anxiously waiting with bated breath to know whether any reprieve can come their way via the judiciary. Well not many Nigerians are as hopeful as they are, judging from the role played by the courts in the entire fight. The Court of Appeal which the Rivers State Government has appealed to earlier berated the Governor for daring to pass a budget with a house of 4 members. Few people are ready to agree that the group of 25 legislators who defected to APC had automatically lost their seats without ado. As it stands, no money for Rivers State Local Government councils. But many legal experts have weighed in to criticize the ruling because according to them no court can void the fact that as federating units in the federation, the Rivers State Local Governments are integral to the federation and their constitutional entitlement cannot be breached by a court of law. They argued that the Judge displayed a gross misunderstanding of the concept of federalism. Whaoo! Well, in Nigeria what the court cannot do does not exist. We recall that before the ruling, a militant group in Rivers State had warned of consequences if the court went on to do what it just did. They stated that the oil pipelines that crisscrossed the entire mangrove swamp land would not be spared. In the aftermath of the ruling, concerned elders of Rivers State also weighed in. They wondered how the State could be a major contributor to the country’s GDP but deprived of the fruits of their contribution. Our pipelines are still safe, save the routine hacks for theft of crude oil. For how long, we can’t say. Meanwhile it is Wike unleashed.