Point One

First, a statement of intent: It is consoling that the Enugu State House of Assembly has shelved parliamentary processing of a highly controversial law, the Gubernatorial Pension Bill, 2021 that scaled first reading by its members recently. Leading members of the state legislature seem to suggest, however, that further groundwork was needed before the proposed law is brought back for re-processing, whereas the bill is thoroughly odious and ought to be discarded outright. Returning that piece of legislation in whatever form is unacceptable and we must insist on it being dumped altogether. The Enugu lawmakers had on 12th March ticked off on first reading the bill prescribing life pension for former governors and deputy governors in the state, with bonus provisions for their close dependents. This was despite that the demands the controversial legislation made on the common treasury were so outrageous you would wonder what public interest considerations informed the articulation ab initio

 In the face of emergencies, Nigerian leaders must learn to hold up in reticent but principled accountability and not go sprint-shopping for foils to take blames. Taking responsibility in the heat of crisis signposts leadership integrity, whereas blame shedding fosters duplicity that compromises the integrity of leadership. Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle betrayed such duplicity in the contest of narratives that trailed the recent abduction by bandits of nearly 300 pupils of Government Girls’ Secondary School (GGSS), Jangebe in Talata Mafara council area of the state. Those abductions should never have happened, and so were obviously embarrassing to both the Muhammadu Buhari presidency at the centre and the Zamfara government within whose territory they occurred; but thankfully the girls were let off by their captors early last week reportedly without ransom payment. Matawalle, who champions a policy of amnesty for bandits, must have felt doubly embarrassed by the Jangebe abduct