What The Papers Say
Daily Times, Nigeria
Nigerians in British jails
There is no country on earth today that will have a hundred nationals of another country in its jails and not yell to high heavens that those nationals are from a nation of criminals. If, therefore, some countries regard Nigerians as pathological criminals, it is not because we have crime infused into our blood streams at birth, but that some of our sons and daughters who are supposed to be our ambassadors away from home have chosen to mess us up.That as many as 326 Nigerians have been detained in British jails is quite a pointer to why British immigration would harass anyone carrying a Nigerian passport. And that of the 326, as many as 275 were caught with drugs, explains why even at our own airport, our womanhood has been reduced to a vehicle that must stand the searchlight because of possible intrusion of discomforting drugs in cellophane bags. What a pity!
ARMED ROBBERY
If there must be a time that every Nigerian must be told, even with ruthless force, that crime does not pay, it is this time when patriotism and nationalism are pegs in our War Against Indiscipline campaign.Every country can say it has made it and has had its trying times, its very hard times. True, some lily-hearted citizens had taken to crime. But the system itself, bent on being built on more laudable props than the rot that is armed robbery, drug abuse and other crimes, had found itself driven to measures that are more than adequate to deal with those who would not face squarely the challenges of life.
And every system has always been run by the people having at the helms of affairs a government of men who may decide that their calling must be dedicated service to the cause of the people.
We salute Brigadier Idagbon's courage in releasing the names of Nigerians in British jails. But we call on the Chief of Staff and, indeed, the government of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari to take the evil bull of drug abuse and criminal tendencies of Nigerians by the horns, clip the horns with sharp steel clippers, subject the evil bull to preachments on how to love a domain and the candid examples of the preachers; and launch the bull on a more paying and praiseworthy course.
For now, the average Nigerian traveller is showing up as an evil bull and rubbing this evil on more than 90 million peace-loving and hard-working countrymen and women. This bull must be stopped by the Buhari Administration, now.
Sunday Concord, Nigeria
Open up to the media
The Nigerian Press in spite of its undeserved battering since the inception of the present dispensation in the country, has, without any guilt of self flattery, done enough to convince objective minds of its good intentions. It has demonstrated in more ways than one that it values the nation's security and the welfare of its citizens more than its detractors are prepared to concede.It is possible that even the government of the day is beginning to allow itself the recognition of the mass media as partners in efforts to make Nigeria a better place for us all. A pointer to this belief is the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon's frank dialogue with media executives last Tuesday in Lagos. It was not his first meeting with the group but coming after the bad blood which Decree 4 necessarily generated and apparently reflected on the overall performance of media practitioners, it is possible that we would all be turning a new leaf.
But even at that, the thorny issues which emerged from the interaction were themselves examples of what govern- ment needed no explanations about if it had intimated the press well in advance about them. Two such examples should suffice.
For instance, the chief of staff found it necessary to have to explain that no extra kobo was required to effect a change in army uniform and that it had in fact been approved since 1982. In the absence of such a background knowledge of the facts, it was impossible for the public to be informed by the media beyond the information at the media's disposal.
The same was true of the much trumpeted flying into the country of rams for the last Sallah. This was one of the doctors' most persuasive arguments for immediate drug importation during their last industrial action. It turned out, from Brigadier Idiagbon's explanation, that a desperate neighbouring country had offered the rams to us on our own terms, a situation brought about by a praiseworthy policy of our border closure. These vital information came to the media and therefore to the people only after an unwarranted damage had been done to the image of the government.
What the lessons from the chief of staff's luncheon dialogue boils down to is that no matter the good intentions of any government, a lack of articulated packaging and delivery only leaves the reignsmen frustrated and embittered for the people's seeming inability to appreciate goodness. The Buhari administration should therefore always keep under surveillance those whose duty it ought to be to do this packaging but are in fact unable. They usually are the first to do their finger pointing at the press to conceal their failings.
An open door policy is recommended.
