WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia, Ukraine report six civilians killed in attacks on Kherson, Horlivka

Russian attacks on southern Ukraine's Kherson region killed five civilians on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said, while Russian-installed officials in the eastern town of Horlivka said one person was killed in result of Kyiv's shelling.

Russian forces abandoned the city of Kherson, the administrative centre of the Kherson region on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, and the western bank of the River over a year ago but have since subjected many areas there to constant shelling from their positions on the eastern bank.

The deaths in Kherson occurred in an incessant Russian shelling of the city and the region over the preceding 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said.

Regional police said three people died in shelling of an apartment building and a private home in Kherson city. A woman died in a drone attack in a small town south of Kherson and a second woman was killed when a town further north came under heavy fire.

Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, head of the press office of Kherson's regional military administration, told the Ukrainian public broadcaster that gas and water supplies were partially cut off due to the attacks, which also hit a medical facility.

"The windows were broken, the building was damaged," Tolokonnikov said.

Some 600 km (400 miles) northeast of Kherson in the town of Horlivka, in areas of Ukraine's Donetsk region under Russian control, Ukraine's shelling destroyed a shopping centre and several other buildings, a Russian-installed official said.

The attacks killed one woman and wounded six civilians, the Russian-installed mayor of Horlivka, Ivan Prikhodko, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters could not independently verify the Russian and Ukrainian reports.

While Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched on Ukraine in February 2022, both sides have carried out numerous strikes on each other's infrastructure that is critical to their militaries.

** Russia, Ukraine exchange claims over downed military aircraft

Russian and Ukrainian military officials both reported downing enemy aircraft on Sunday in different areas of the 1,000-km-long (621-mile) front of their 22-month-old war.

Commander of Ukraine's air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said Ukrainian anti-aircraft units had struck a Russian Su-34 fighter bomber near the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine.

Oleshchuk, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the aircraft had not returned to its base, but gave no further details.

Russia's Defence Ministry said earlier that its air defence systems had shot down four Ukrainian military aircraft over the past 24 hours -- just two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv had downed three Russian aircraft.

In its daily dispatch, the Russian Defence Ministry said its air defence shot down three Su-27 fighter aircraft and one Su-24 tactical bomber in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions of southeastern Ukraine. The dispatch provided no further details.

On Friday, Zelenskiy said the country's forces shot down three Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber aircraft on the southern front, hailing it as a success in the conflict.

Air Force commander Oleshchuk also said the planes had been downed.

Reuters was not immediately able to corroborate the battlefield reports from either side.

** Ukrainian investigators say they uncover fraud in arms procurement

Ukraine's SBU security service and the Defence Ministry said on Friday they had uncovered a scheme for fraudulent purchase of artillery shells that involved embezzlement of the equivalent of nearly $40 million.

Corruption in Ukraine, more than 30 years after the end of Soviet rule, has become an even more crucial issue as Kyiv proceeds with its application to join the European Union.

Incidents of corruption in the military, including in procurement, have sparked several prominent scandals.

A statement issued by the SBU said the corrupt scheme focused on contracts to procure artillery shells.

A contract to secure the shells at higher than market prices had been abandoned by the defence ministry's recently created procurement agency and a new deal struck eliminating intermediaries and significantly reducing the price.

But a senior ministry official, it said, had extended the previous contract and funds totalling nearly 1.5 billion hryvnias ($40 million) were deposited in accounts belonging to the intermediary firms.

The official, the main suspect in the case, was removed from his duties, legal proceedings have been launched against him and attempts are under way to recover the money.

A Defence Ministry statement said the scheme was uncovered last week and an audit confirmed the illegal activity. Searches were conducted within the ministry and at other premises.

($1 = 37.5200 hryvnias)

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian troops destroy over 10,000 Ukraine’s drones during special op — Defense Ministry

Russian troops have destroyed over 10,000 drones of the Ukrainian army since the beginning of the special military operation, the Defense Ministry said.

"A total of 558 aircraft, 261 helicopters, 10,040 drones, 442 anti-aircraft missile systems, 14,299 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,189 multiple rocket launchers, 7,479 field branch artillery weapons and mortars, as well as 16,660 units of special tactical vehicles have been destroyed since the beginning of the special military operation," the ministry said.

Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours, the Russian army has intercepted three HARM missiles, three HIMARS rockets, a Neptun anti-ship missile, as well as shot down four Ukrainian aircraft and 49 UAVs of the Ukrainian army, the Defense Ministry went on to say. "Air defense systems shot down four Ukrainian aircraft: three Su-27 and one Su-24 planes of the Ukrainian air forces near the settlements of Shirokoye, Odarovka in the Zaporozhye Region and Grigorovka of the Dnepropetrovsk Region. Three HARM anti-radar missiles, three HIMARS rockets and a Neptune anti-ship missile were intercepted," the ministry said.

According to it, 49 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed in the area of the settlements of Staromikhailovka in the Donetsk People's Republic, Zolotaryovka in the Lugansk People's Republic, Vasilyevka, Golaya Prystan in the Kherson Region, as well as Berdyansk, Novogorovka and Mirnoye in the Zaporozhye Region.

Reuters/Tass

Rivers, a state so rich because God blessed it with an abundance of crude oil and gas, is named after the many rivers that border its territory. Forty per cent of Nigeria’s output of crude oil is produced in the state. It also has deposits of silica sand, glass sand and clay.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), ₦1.93 trillion was raked in, in 2022 as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) across the 36 states in Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory. Out of this, Rivers State generated ₦172.89 billion, second only to Lagos, with ₦651.15 billion.

And despite a 12 per cent decline in the overall allocation in the second quarter of this year, Rivers State was third with N69.73 billion. For December 2022, shared in January this year, for instance, the state received ₦13,700,878,221.58 (N13.7billion).

Despite its vast resources and strategic positioning as the nation’s goose that lays the golden eggs, Rivers State, created in 1967 with the splitting of the South Eastern State, had always been a calm state with level-headed people as its governors.

Apart from military administrators and governors, seven democratically elected governors have led the state since 1979. Among them is its first civilian governor, Melford Okilo, who governed for four years and 91 days, from 1 October 1979 to 31 December 1983.

Rufus Ada George was next and was in office for one year and 320 days, i.e. from January 1992 to 17 November, 1993. Peter Odili was governor between 29 May 1999 and 29 May 2007, or eight years, and was the state’s first civilian governor in the current Republic.

The state started its journey to its current ‘ignominious’ status with the ascendancy to governance by Celestine Omehia, who was there for just 150 days, between 29 May 2007 and 26 October of that year.

Omehia, on the platform of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), won the governorship election but Rotimi Amaechi, also of the same party, went to court claiming to be the candidate of the party and so his name ought to have been on the ballot paper.

Amaechi, the speaker of the state House of Assembly, was duly elected at the party’s primaries as its gubernatorial flag bearer. The PDP leadership substituted him “in error” in the state on the orders of the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo. The substitution was done without the due process of informing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

And so the Supreme Court removed Omehia from office in October 2007 after he had been in office for five months. It ruled that he had usurped Amaechi’s ticket for the election, and accordingly handed Amaechi the top job. In any case, the principle is that the party owned the votes and not the candidate, and so even though Amaechi was not on the ballot, he inherited the votes cast for the party as its valid candidate.

From that event when the court gave the Rivers people their governor, a seamless transition vacated the state.

Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, who also served for eight years from 29 May 2015 to 29 May 2023, grabbed the ticket from Amaechi’s hand with the help of the sitting president, Goodluck Ebere Jonathan, and his wife.

But that is not the case with Siminalayi Fubara as he was handpicked and bankrolled to the office of the governor by Wike.

Of course, Wike did not do that out of altruism, but for him to have a firm hold on the government of the rich state.

Now, barely 200-odd days into office, his anointed Fubara wants to be allowed to breathe. Sources have it that almost all appointees of the governor came from his godfather. All major contracts are being approved and dispensed by Wike and any transaction above ₦50 million must have his seal of approval. According to Dele Momodu, a chieftain of the PDP, Wike usually screamed at Fubara in front of subordinates.

Fubara's determination to escape Wike's influence has led to a fierce battle between supporters on both sides, who are fighting to keep their leaders relevant in the political landscape.

This has drawn up issues, many of which are testing the elasticity and resilience of our constitution, even threatening the spirit of that constitution.

Some 27 members of the State Assembly loyal to Wike left the party, on whose platform they were elected, for the All Progressives Congress (APC), the party ruling at the centre. This made Fubara, his loyalists and the PDP, struggling to regain its foothold in the state, declare their seats vacant.

Unfortunately for both gladiators, their party, the PDP, made toothless by no other than Wike with expressed support from his erstwhile minions like Fubara and others, could not help.

Perhaps concerned with the happenings in Rivers, and worried that what seemed like political pugilism for dominance may overflow and spill over to God knows where, President Bola Tinubu called a meeting of the key actors and sought a détente.

Coming out of that gathering, a truce was reached, and an agreement signed, with the 27 members of the state House of Assembly back and calling the shots as bona fide legislators.

But this is where the problem is. Some stakeholders have already started calling on the president to approach the matter differently.

For instance, Robert Clarke, an elder and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has said the president had no constitutional right to intervene in the Rivers State crisis. He suggested that if the situation in Rivers State escalated, the president should not intervene but consider declaring a constitutional crisis, pointing out that the only historical instance where the federal government intervened in a state’s affairs was during the 1st Republic when a state of emergency was declared in the West.

On his part, Ben Murray-Bruce, the commonsense senator, has commended the president and the national security adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu “for bringing peace in Rivers State.”

According to him, their intervention was timely, prudent and statesmanly, adding that it behoves on the disputing parties to abide by the resolution.

Others, however, see it differently.

Six elders from the state have dragged Tinubu to the Federal High Court in Abuja, for allegedly “compelling Governor Siminilaya Fubara into an unconstitutional agreement.”

Led by a member of the Rivers State House of Assembly representing Bonny State Constituency, the other five are Victor Jumbo, Bennett Birabi, Andrew Uchendu, O. P. Fingesi, Ann Kio Briggs and Emmanuel Deinma.

To them, the agreement, which was signed on December 18, was not only “illegal but amounted to an usurpation, a nullification, and undermining of the extant/binding relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.”

They prayed the court to determine whether Tinubu, Fubara, and the Rivers State Assembly had the right to enter into any agreement that had the effect of nullifying or undermining the constitutional/legal potency of Section 109(I)(g) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

Wherever one finds himself on this divide, this Rivers crisis is one that all sensible Nigerians who love our democracy will want to see resolved according to the letters and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution that the president, Fubara and Wike (who at some points) have all sworn to uphold and protect without fear, favour or ill will.

Nigerians, and possibly others, are waiting and watching.

** Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime.

In a remote village in Borneo, Fatimah wonders what shoes to wear to her cousin’s wedding. For as long as she can remember, buying footwear meant an hour-long, wooden boat ride to a market. That changed a few years ago, when mobile phones arrived. Now, almost every day, she scrolls through Shopee, a shopping app. It connects her—and the 130m Indonesians who use it every month—with merchants thousands of kilometres away, and causes packages to appear, as if by magic, at her door.

Of course, it is not magic. Behind the luminous icon on Fatimah’s phone is a vast network of makers, packers, truckers and shippers, who don’t know Fatimah or each other but seamlessly collaborate to bring her what she wants. And they do it across the world’s biggest archipelago, a country of 13,000 islands and hundreds of languages, wider than the continental United States and far harder to get around: Indonesia.

E-commerce helps bind together a nation of skyscrapers and jungles, miniskirts and hijabs, software engineers and tribes who still hunt with bows and arrows. So the journey of a pair of shoes from factory to Fatimah reveals a lot about how the planet’s most populous Muslim country is changing. The Economist decided to follow those shoes.

The story starts with a wish. The shoes Fatimah wants are white and camel, open-toe sandals. They sit patiently in her online shopping cart. But at $25, they are more than she can afford. Her husband sells pentol, a meatball made mostly of flour and peanut sauce, at the market. He gives Fatimah $3 a day to run the household. Whatever is left, she saves as pocket money. Ping! The app notifies her that the sandals are on sale for $12. Fatimah grabs the deal.

Her click sets off a process 1,000km away in Bogor, a city outside Jakarta, the capital. The shoes are made by Patris, a family firm that started selling online in 2020, during the covid-19 pandemic. Three years later Ricco Antonius and Maria Putri Anastasia, the married owners, employ 50 staff (up from zero) and shift hundreds, perhaps thousands of pairs a day. Most of their customers are women under 40, like Fatimah.

On a Thursday afternoon your correspondent climbs a flight of stairs to a two-storey warehouse: on the top floor, shelves of shoes are stacked. The bottom floor hums with young women checking, boxing and wrapping footwear.

E-commerce helps bind together a nation of skyscrapers and jungles, miniskirts and hijabs

Initially, Patris didn’t know how to sell online, says Ricco. Now, it is all about live-streaming. Ten young women, working in shifts 24/7, flaunt sandals and slippers, mules and platforms, low and high heels, open-toe and closed-toe pumps, black and brocade shoes with fleecy, pillowy or puffy soles. They sit in brightly lit booths answering customers’ questions, and gently persuading them to tap “buy”. “Everyone has their own style, some of us are enthusiastic and bubbly, others are calm and slow,” says Siti Zahra Amelia, one of the sales staff. Most customers who watch her live-streams are young women. But occasionally, men ask Miss Siti for advice on what to buy their wives.

Fatimah’s order arrives digitally and instantly. Fulfilling it will take rather longer, however. In the past decade, Indonesia’s physical infrastructure has improved hugely. The president, Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi), sees pouring concrete as a path to prosperity. In the past decade the country has built more than 300,000km of roads, over 1,500 ports and 25 new airports, spending almost $180bn on infrastructure. Delivering goods is thus easier than it was, but still mind-bogglingly complex.

E-commerce firms everywhere fret over how to handle the first and last miles of deliveries. In Indonesia, the middle mile is also a challenge, says Handhika Jahja, the head of Shopee Indonesia. Parts of the country still have no proper roads, postcodes or addresses. Local couriers must know how to find the house three doors down from the blue mosque or by turning left at the big tree. They must ride their motorbikes onto sampans, balance on narrow, rickety boardwalks and sometimes wade through swampland on foot. Still, as investment pours into e-commerce in South-East Asia’s biggest market, Indonesia is a testing ground for the rest of the region, says Handhika.

Fatimah’s shoes are first loaded onto a van, which takes them to a hub in Bogor. From there, they go by truck to a multistorey car park the size of a football stadium in Depok, a city south of Jakarta. This hub comes alive at night, from 10pm to 5am. Young men in fluorescent vests toss packages of everything from nappies to noodles into blue crates bound for different corners of the country.

Herman, the truck driver for the next leg of the journey, is impatient. It is 10pm and your correspondent’s questions are delaying the first of three trips he must make during his shift. Jakarta’s traffic is bad, and Herman worries about arriving in Kapuk, a suburb on the outskirts, in time. Eventually he races off into the night. In the early hours of Friday, Fatimah’s shoes arrive at Jakarta’s Halim airport.

Forest fires are burning across Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo), filling the air with smoke and reducing visibility for pilots. Yudhianto Prihantoro, who has to fly Fatimah’s shoes 900km from Jakarta to Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan, fears he may not be able to land his cargo plane. Around 85% of Shopee’s packages heading from Java, Indonesia’s main island, to Kalimantan travel by ship, which takes an extra three days, but some go by plane.

Yudhianto, a former air-force pilot, has flown cargo planes to remote airports for years. He has steered around clueless locals who wander across the runway. He has had a pilot’s-eye view of Indonesia’s breakneck development. One airport, at Wamena in West Papua, used to be a ramshackle affair of corrugated iron and wooden poles; now it has high ceilings, bright lights and a slick, steel skeleton, he says. Alas, this hasn’t stopped fighting in the province between the Indonesian military and separatist rebels, who kidnapped a pilot in February and burned his plane.

Yudhianto lands safely in South Kalimantan. It is Friday afternoon. The air is thick with a haze that smells smoky and tastes metallic. In just one month, 33 forest fires have raged across the island, which is about as big as Texas. The hot, dry El Niño weather pattern has made it harder than usual to control fires from traditional slash-and-burn land-clearing for palm oil, pulp and paper plantations. But locals say this year’s haze isn’t as bad as it was in 2015, when they had to turn lights on during the day to see anything.

Despite the slashing and burning, Kalimantan is still mostly covered in thick jungle. So the main highways are rivers, which connect most of its towns and villages. Shopee first built its sorting hub in Banjarmasin (“the city of 1,000 rivers”) in 2021, processing fewer than 10,000 parcels a day. Now it handles 60,000. Labourers roll crates of floorboards, kitchen appliances, clothes and smartphones into vans.

One, with a purple air freshener in the shape of a penguin, is driven by Muhammad Faizal, a 23-year-old Banjarese. His ancestors have plied the rivers of South Kalimantan for centuries. Around the time the Saxons invaded Britain, Banjarese sailed 7,000km across the Indian Ocean to what is now Madagascar.

Faizal isn’t travelling quite as far. Most days, he drives packages from Banjarmasin to Marabahan, 70km to the north. He looks forward to catching up with his friends who work as local couriers. A few speak Bakumpai, a local Dayak language. Not many speak Banjar, Faizal’s mother tongue. Most speak Javanese, as their families were part of a transmigration programme run first by Dutch colonists and then by the Indonesian government, to relocate people from more populous islands, such as Java, to more remote areas like South Kalimantan.

This sparked all kinds of trouble. Between 1996 and 2001 thousands of Dayaks and Muslim migrants from the island of Madura massacred each other. Some beheaded their enemies and even ate their organs. The area is considerably more peaceful today, but remains tense. When Faizal cracks a joke that is received with a blank look, he quickly makes the switch to Indonesian, a language that everyone speaks.

By Saturday morning, on day three of the journey, Fatimah’s shoes rumble across a new bridge on the Alalak river, connecting Banjarmasin to the rest of Kalimantan. Jokowi opened it in 2021. In the province of East Kalimantan next door, he is building Indonesia’s new capital city in the jungle. Shopee constantly has to update its delivery routes to include new roads, bridges and ports.

At night, the roads in these parts are often only lit by fireflies. Superstitious locals find them spooky. Once, Faizal was driving home from a wedding with leftover cakes and sticky rice in his van, through an area believed to be full of spirits. His van broke down. “I had enough petrol, I was in the right gear, my engine was running. But the car refused to start,” he recalls. Mindful of a local tradition, he offered his cakes and sticky rice to the bushes. “Grandfather, have some food and please don’t disturb me,” he whispered. His van started again, he says.

After an hour and a half winding past rice paddies, Fatimah’s sandals reach Marabahan, a sleepy riverside town. Juliansyah, one of Faizal’s friends, loads them, with 27 other parcels, into the saddlebags of his motorcycle. He sets off past single-storey houses spread across the plain. After almost two years in the job, he knows his customers well. Many are young mothers who order nappies, bottles and baby food, and often invite him in for tea. Knowing how to cut short such chats politely is an essential skill.

The brown waters of the Barito River come into view. Juliansyah pulls into a wooden hut that shelters people waiting for the perahu (a small, wooden ferry). A boatman rides the motorbikes on board, one after another, along a narrow wooden walkway, expertly stacking them by the bow. Little mosques with silver turrets dot the river bank, alongside wooden houses on stilts with red and blue roofs.

The ferry rattles off, dodging bigger boats carrying coal and wood, and wobbling in their wake. Reaching the other bank, Juliansyah flicks away the sweat on his forehead, starts up his motorbike and winds down a narrow dirt path lined with drying laundry. He stops, flipping down his kickstand. He is nearly there. He jogs past a shed full of seeds and comes to a house with buckets and brooms stacked on sacks of fertiliser on the porch, and a dozen pairs of sandals out front.

After three, sweaty, sleep-deprived days, the journey is over. Fatimah pushes aside the blue and yellow netting that serves as her door and invites us in. Images of the “nine saints” who brought Islam to Indonesia in the 15th and 16th centuries adorn the walls of her front room. She tears open the purple wrapping paper and holds up her new sandals for inspection. Then she rushes off to fetch the blue and white dress she plans to wear with them to her cousin’s wedding.

She is delighted, and enthuses about the wonders of online shopping. She rushes around the house grabbing everything she has previously bought on Shopee to display for her unannounced guests: lip gloss, moisturiser and her baby’s milk bottle.

In some ways this is a story of globalisation’s triumph. Without the spread of smartphones, e-commerce would barely exist in Indonesia. And Shopee is a truly international firm: it operates in eight countries. Its parent company is headquartered in Singapore and is part-owned by Tencent, a Chinese tech giant.

But the story is more complicated than that (a phrase Indonesia-watchers use a lot). The country simultaneously embraces globalisation and resists it. Jokowi has protectionist instincts and is wary of China. In October, his government banned TikTok Shop, Shopee’s main rival, which is affiliated with TikTok, a Chinese social-media giant. It also banned the sale of imported goods worth less than $100 on all e-commerce platforms, hoping that this would boost local businesses like Patris.

The people in Fatimah’s village are only dimly aware of policy decisions made in the distant capital. But they appreciate the stunning variety of goods that e-commerce makes available in remote places, some of which bring real joy. And they see, in the spread of technology, new opportunities to earn a living.

Near Fatimah’s house lives Rizki Nur Annisa, a young woman who makes fish crackers. For generations her family would dry the fish, turn them into crispy snacks and take them by boat to the local market. When the pandemic hit, they could not leave home. But Rizki knew what to do. She logged on to Shopee and sold the crackers online.

The Economist

Federal Government said it will take possession of two banks that were allegedly bought at a major discount by former Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele, according to a report by a special investigator appointed by President Bola Tinubu.

“We have completed our investigation on this acquisition and we are on the verge of recovering these two banks for the federal government,” the report said.

Emefiele was suspended shortly after Tinubu took office in late May, and was later arrested and detained on charges including fraud. The Nigerian leader subsequently ordered an investigation into the monetary authority’s operations and instructed it to work with security and anti-corruption agencies.

Emefiele met his bail conditions and was released Saturday, Punch Newspapers reported, citing a correctional spokesperson.

The former central banker acquired two banks including Union Bank of Nigeria and Keystone Bank through several proxies from “ill-gotten wealth” and “without evidence of payment,” according to the report by Jim Obazee submitted to the president and seen by Bloomberg.

A preliminary review of the cases showed that Keystone was “acquired for free,” according to the report. “Some persons were used as proxies with the connivance and assistance of Godwin Emefiele and the CBN to acquire” the two banks.

Emefiele has denied wrongdoing. His lawyers declined to comment on the investigation’s findings and a government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Bloomberg

Federal Government has instructed that Nigerians with expired passports who are planning to return to the country to celebrate the yuletide be allowed in without any hindrance.

In a letter dated 22nd December 2023 by the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Wura-Ola Adepoju, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, through the Office of Assistant Comptroller General, Border Management, the NIS asked that Nigerians “be admitted into the country with their expired Nigerian passports”.

“l am directed to refer to the above subject matter and to inform you that the Federal Government of Nigeria in her efforts to make life easy for Nigerians in the diaspora has approved that all Nigerians returning home can be admitted into the country with their expired Nigerian passports.

“I am further directed to inform airlines coming to Nigeria to allow holders of Nigeria expired passports to board without let.

“In furtherance to the foregoing, all Nigeria Embassies and High Commissions are advised to give this directive the highest publicity it deserves.

“Consequent upon the above, all entry/exit points are by the copy of this letter directed to open a help desk for all Nigerians in this category and direct same to passport offices where their passports will be reissued within a maximum of two (2) weeks,” the letter stated in part.

Meanwhile, the media aide to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alkasim Abdulkadir, could not confirm receipt of the letter, adding that he was not in the office at the moment.

The phone number of the NIS spokesperson, Dotun Aridegbe, did not connect when the Daily Trust correspondent called to confirm the authenticity of the letter.

However, a reliable source at the NIS who wouldn’t want to be named confirmed that the policy was not new as the Federal Government did the same last year.

Daily Trust

Israel strikes 2 homes, killing more than 90 Palestinians. Biden says he didn't request a cease-fire

More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes in Gaza, rescuers and hospital officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned that nowhere is safe in the territory and that Israel’s offensive creates “massive obstacles” to distribution of humanitarian aid.

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, calling it a long and private conversation a day after the Biden administration again shielded Israel in the diplomatic arena. On Friday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution that calls for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza, but not for a cease-fire.

“I did not ask for a cease-fire,” Biden said of the call. Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister “made clear that Israel would continue the war until achieving all its goals.”

Also Saturday, the Israeli military said troops arrested hundreds of alleged militants in Gaza over the past week and transferred more than 200 to Israel for further interrogation, providing rare details on a controversial policy of mass roundups of Palestinian men. The army said more than 700 people with alleged ties to the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have so far been sent to Israeli lockups.

Israel declared war after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostages. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war to destroy Hamas and more than 53,000 have been wounded, according to health officials in Gaza, a besieged territory ruled by the Islamic militant group for the past 16 years.

The Health Ministry in Gaza on Saturday evening said 201 people had been killed over the past 24 hours.

Airstrikes on Friday flattened two homes, including one in Gaza City, where 76 people from the al-Mughrabi family were killed, making the attack one of the deadliest of the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense department.

Among those killed were Issam al-Mughrabi, a veteran employee of the U.N. Development Program, his wife, and their five children.

“The U.N. and civilians in Gaza are not a target,” said Achim Steiner, the head of the agency. “This war must end.”

And a strike pulverized the home of Mohammed Khalifa, a local TV journalist, killing him and at least 14 others in the urban refugee camp of Nuseirat, according to officials at the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital where the bodies were taken.

Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, citing the militants’ use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel has launched thousands of airstrikes since Oct. 7, and has largely refrained from commenting on specific attacks.

Israel’s offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history, displacing nearly 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and leveling wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave. More than a half million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving, according to a report this week from the United Nations and other agencies.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, men walking through the rubble tried to shoo away cats feeding on unclaimed bodies. One man covered a body with a blanket. Another wished to call an ambulance but had no phone signal.

The Israeli military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said forces were expanding their offensive in northern and southern Gaza and troops were fighting in “complex areas” in Khan Younis.

The army’s statement on detentions followed earlier Palestinian reports of large-scale roundups of teenage boys and men from homes, shelters and hospitals in northern Gaza where troops have established firmer control. Some of the released detainees have said they were stripped to their underwear, beaten and held for days with minimal water.

Channel 13 in Israel showed new footage of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear and walking in single file, with soldiers nearby. It was not clear when the footage was taken. In response to widespread criticism, the army has said detainees are stripped to check them for weapons. It has denied abuse allegations and said those without links to militants are quickly released.

Hamas called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations to pressure Israeli authorities to reveal the whereabouts and conditions of people detained.

Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, including about 2,000 in the past three weeks, but has not presented evidence. It says 144 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.

Following the U.N. resolution, it was not immediately clear how and when aid deliveries would accelerate. Trucks enter through two crossings — Rafah on the border with Egypt and Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel. On Friday, fewer than 100 trucks entered, the U.N. said — far below the daily average of 500 before the war.

Both crossings were closed Saturday by mutual agreement among Israel, Egypt and the U.N., Israeli officials said.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan criticized the Security Council resolution that called for aid into Gaza without suspending hostilities, calling it “weak” and “insufficient.”

Ahead of the council vote, the U.S. negotiated the removal of language that would have given the U.N. authority to inspect aid going into Gaza, something Israel says it must continue to do itself to ensure material does not reach Hamas.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that it’s a mistake to measure the effectiveness of the humanitarian operation by the number of trucks.

“The real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza,” he said.

Netanyahu and his government also faced pressure at home, with calls to get the remaining hostages freed. “Bibi, Bibi retire. We don’t want you anymore,” a crowd of thousands chanted in Tel Aviv.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian shelling kills one, injures seven in southern Ukraine, officials say

Waves of Russian shelling and drone attacks struck the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson on Saturday, killing one person and injuring seven, officials in the region said.

Russian forces also shelled a power station closer to the front lines in eastern Ukraine, injuring five workers and knocking out electricity to the town of Kurakhovo.

Russian forces a year ago abandoned positions on the western bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson region but constantly shell areas there from new positions on the eastern bank. Ukrainian troops have established beachheads on the eastern bank.

Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said a drone attack killed a man in the town of Stanislav, southeast of the city of Kherson, which for the past year, has been under Ukrainian control but subject to constant Russian shelling.

The city came under several Russian attacks throughout the day, including one sustained assault on residential areas in the early evening, and Prokudin said seven residents were hurt.

In the east, Russian shelling of a thermal power station in the town of Kurakhove injured five workers and triggered a power cut, the head of the local administration, Roman Padun, told the Suspilne public broadcaster.

Residents were leaving the town en masse, he said.

Kurakhove is a short distance from Maryinka, a town on the 1,000-km (600-mile) long front line virtually reduced to rubble after months of heavy fighting.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in its evening report, said Ukrainian forces had repelled two attacks on the town and more assaults on the nearby town of Avdiivka, focus of steady Russian attacks since mid-October.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia repels seven Ukraine’s counterattacks in Kupyansk area, hits two Leopard 2 tanks

The units of Russia's Battlegroup West have repelled seven counterattacks by the Ukrainian armed forces in the Kupyansk area, eliminating two Leopard 2 tanks, Battlegroup Spokesman Sergey Zybinsky told TASS.

"Motorized infantry units of the 6th general troops army supported by the artillery repelled five counterattacks by assault groups of the 14th and 115th mechanized and 95th air assault brigades near the lake of Liman, as well as Sinkovka and Ivanovka. The enemy was forced to retreat in the southern and south-western directions," he said. Near Zheglovka and Terny the enemy made two more attempts of counterattacks, which were also repelled, Zybinsky added.

The team of the self-propelled artillery system Msta-S eliminated a Leopard 2 tank near the settlement of Terny, he said, noting that the Ukrainian army’s losses totaled "up to 55 troops, two Leopard 2 tanks, two М113 armored fighting vehicles, two mortars, four pickups and D-20 weapon.".

Reuters/Tass

After President Bola Tinubu intervened in the seismic crisis that rocked oil-rich Rivers State last week, one thing and two people unraveled. By their unraveling, pretentious veils were lifted off their faces. They were, the president himself, the nature of Nigeria’s presidential democracy and the governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara. Nigerians distrusted the piece of paper that emanated from the Tinubu intervention. To them, it reeks of the proverbial partiality of one entrusted with the task of deploying their incisors to halve a piece of meat called the “af’eyin pin’ran”.

Let me break into granules who the Yoruba af’eyinpin’ran 

is. Whenever there is a tie in the need for an equal halving of a piece of meat, Yoruba are often suspicious of the human teeth being able to dispense equitable justice. Their fear is that, hiding under the cavalier clouds of the mouth, meat justice, with the incisors as the gavel, often results in inequity, tyranny and cheating. In their resignation to this incisors tyranny, they say only God can judge the af’eyinpin’ran.

There is often a cache of assumptions in cases where an af’eyinpin’ran’s equitable justice sense is sought. One is that they are older in stature and wisdom. Second, that they are assumed to be reputably impartial arbiters, and third, that the meat to be halved is beyond the oesophageal lust of the one to share the meat; that is, they are not greedy. But in most cases, the dental-judge, an alagata, is the arbiter who no one trusts. He is guilty, ab initio of hiding chunks of meat inside own mouth. 

This same Yoruba, in their extreme sense of empathy, reserve ample space in their hearts for one who is down. So they say, even if you are as unfeeling, uncaring and beyond bother as to be able to crush the ugly, meatless head of a tortoise with your teeth, you must wail on behalf of the mother who begot the person undergoing travails. “Eni ba j’ori ahun, yio se’daro alabiamo” they say. I mean, the matter of Governor Simnalayi Fubara of Rivers State and his abductors deserves our wails. Yes, Simnalayi has been abducted. No, there are no physical manacles around Sim’s feet and hands; yet, he is in chains. Or, forgive the disgusting epithets it evokes, but no pun or alliteration is intended, Sim is in deep shit. His situation can be compared to that of little Alice and her adventures in strange wonderland. In that famous and widely burnished 1865-written children’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, authored by Lewis Carroll, a pot-pourri of fantastical tales and riddles are cobbled together to explain Alice’s dilemma. The young girl, Alice falls asleep in a meadow and begins to dream that she accompanied the white rabbit into its hole. In the hole, she encounters several wondrous, bizarre and illogical encounters with strange creatures which changed their sizes. Alice attends strange endless tea party in the company of the Mad Hatter as well. She then gets to the presence of the Queen who calls for the execution of almost everyone present. Later, the Queen ordered for Alice to be beheaded even in her presence. She then wakes up.

In that Aso Rock resolution, Simnalayi was literally beheaded on the request of FCT Minister Wike. It reminds one of biblical Herod Antipas. Antipas had ordered the beheading of John the Baptist on the request of Herodias' daughter. The head was subsequently placed on a platter. If you don’t want to go that Alice or John the Baptist extreme to describe the Simnalayi fate in Aso Rock last week, think up the fable of Tortoise the trickster and the Squirrel. Justifying the need for the evocation of the Tortoise to explain contemporary phenomena, Alice, in the same Alice in Wonderland, had asked, “Why did you call him Tortoise if he wasn’t one?” and the reply she got was, “We called him Tortoise because he taught us.” Tortoise teaches us that we have contemporary tricksters scattered in every plane of life, at the political, leadership, governmental and all existential levels. The wary enter their traps and some never return. So animals are deployed as metaphor for life, simply because in them is an embodiment of human potentials. They also mirror the vagueness and vagaries of life and the tensions that we encounter in the daily struggles while journeying to the top.

Last week, perhaps assuming that the race for the jugular of Rivers State was a duel between gentlemen, Simnalayi was in Aso Rock, with Peter Odili, the state’s first Fourth Republic governor. It was a meeting most probably called by Tinubu. Rivers had fluctuated dangerously in the past couple of weeks, so much that if not tamed, the oil-rich state could implode and explode. In an act reminiscent of pressing the nukes, Simnalayi had ordered the demolition of the State House of Assembly while the 24 defecting lawmakers from the PDP, in cahoots with Wike, had begun to march Rivers towards the precipice. The resolution, which later turned out to be an autocratic military decree from Aso Rock has received scalding criticisms from Rivers people and Nigerians. Ijaw youths held a public protest against it while some of their leaders have threatened court action against Tinubu and Fubara. The general belief that originated therefrom was that the age-long Tortoise trickery was deployed to wangle the way for Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Wike’s continued Adolf Hitler hold on the oil-rich state.

The tortoise trickery? So, one day, there was a contest for animal leadership kingdom in the forest. Tortoise and squirrel hit the finals of the contest. The ageless trickster, Tortoise put forward a suggestion of a race to determine who the rightful animal leader was. Other animals were astounded. Tortoise runs in a crawl and is reputed to be one of the most snailish of all animals. The Squirrel was in high spirit, persuaded he would win the race. The night preceding the race, however, wily Tortoise went to the proposed race track and decorated its strategic paths with noticeable palm-nuts. He also dug a hole beside the last track by a bush path, decked it with grasses and decorated the holes with palm-nuts. As all animals gathered the next day for the race, the two sprinters were invited. And the race begins. In a jiffy, the Squirrel sprinted off like a cheetah. However, at each stop where Tortoise decorated with palm-nuts, Squirrel stopped, looked sideways and not seeing Tortoise, assumed that he had enough time. He then began to feast on his favourite nuts. He stopped at every intersection the nuts were placed and when he got to the final one, he began to eat the palm-nuts and fell into the ditch. Struggling to wriggle self off the entanglements, by the time he came out, Tortoise had beaten him to the race and emerged winner. The slowest animal, Tortoise thus emerged the fastest and leader of the animals.

The piece of paper claiming resolution of the crisis was audaciously one-sided. In one of the issues, while ordering lawmakers who had earlier defected to the APC to be recognized by the governor, it didn’t ask the defected lawmakers to return to the political party under whose banner they secured membership of the House. Hitler couldn’t have authored a more tyrannical verse.

David Briggs, member of the Rivers Elders’ Forum and former Rivers State Commissioner for Works, last week tremendously helped to unravel the nature of the Tinubu presidency that we will have to grapple with. In an interview, Briggs, who claimed to be present at the Villa reconciliation revealed that Fubara signed the resolution under veiled presidential threat and without a single input into it. “I was there, so what I say is primary not secondary. We were invited for a meeting, but that was not a meeting. What happened is that Mr President walked in with a written resolution, addressed us and declared that what he had in his hand is a presidential proclamation, therefore he can whip. He emphasised the fact that he is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and anybody who tends to say no to what he is saying, it has consequences. That in a simple lay man’s word is a threat. He (Tinubu) wrote the resolution but refused to read it. He handed the resolution to Odili to read,” Briggs said.

Now, apart from his presidential powers, Tinubu possesses a Janus-faced political pedigree that makes him both wrong and the best person to be entrusted with the task of impartial arbitration of the Rivers conundrum. What seems to qualify him for the arbitration was that, Tinubu’s rising profile in Lagos politics was amplified by his rebellious elbowing and subsequent vanquishing of his Afenifere political godfathers in Lagos. The elders had thought they could hold a toll to him having made him governor. Again, when President Olusegun Obasanjo attempted to subjugate Lagos as one of the stools of his southwest fiefdom, Tinubu audaciously repelled his quest for conquest and made nonsense of Obasanjo and his presidential powers. With this pedigree of standing up to a self-imposed titular, it must have been expected that Tinubu would queue behind Fubara against the menacing principality of Wike. How come such thinking didn’t factor in the fact that, conversely, having conquered godfatherism, Tinubu installed himself as the numero uno godfather of Lagos politics with dystopian consequences for the good of that state in generations to come. While the warring stakeholders sympathetic to Fubara felt that Tinubu was qualified to bring equitable justice to Rivers because he suffered the deleterious consequences of godfatherism, the Wike faction didn’t think along that line. It must have encouraged Tinubu to use his incisors to halve the Rivers meat inequitably due to his recent past medallion as a Lagos godfather whose godfatherism tickles Wike’s fancy. Didn’t it occur to the Fubara group that the dalliance with the Rivers godfather may have a lot to do with the wealth of the oil-rich state and its link to the 2023 presidential campaign? 

To confirm how fatal it was to take the dispute before Tinubu as an Af’eyinpin’ran, the reported reply of the president when former Attorney-General of the State and Justice Commissioner, Adokiye Amiesimaka, allegedly confronted him with indubitable facts of his partiality speaks volume. Amiesimaka had reportedly asked him, “Fubara should do this, he should do that. You (referring to the president) have not said what those 25 or 27 Assembly members that defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress without consulting their constituency and constituents… should do.” In the words of Briggs, Tinubu’s reaction was, “I’m the leader of the APC in Nigeria. And you are telling me when babies are born into my family I should ask them to go.” Thus, it is obvious that the Rivers meat to be halved is not beyond the oesophageal desire of Tinubu, who incidentally was the one they took the meat before for sharing.

Siminalayi has received tomes of incendiary comments on account of appending his signature to the Villa resolution. He has been called simpleton, lily-livered and cowardly. Briggs’ intervention has helped peer searchlight into the fact that, beyond the meek-like bespectacled visor of Tinubu lies the tendency to, like a deadly viper, spit cold-blooded poison of power that can meander into the heart and kill its victim. Anyone who thought that African wielders of power are democratic, off the klieg of cameras, is mistaken. In their closets, they constrict their preys like a viper and are reincarnates of Idi Amin Dada and Emperor Haile Selassie. Many African leaders are despots and tyrants, cloked with such totalitarian inclination by the raw powers at their disposal. They romance a one-party state like a dog coddles its puppy. This fact is corroborated by Tinubu’s reported reply to Amiesimeka in his babies allegory. I know of a 4th republic governor of Nigeria who Obasanjo rose against with orchestrated plan of impeachment simply because the governor was tape-recorded as calling the president “senile old man.” The rhetoric from Briggs speaks volume of how Tinubu could go down this despotic route. Briggs had asked in the interview, “If you were in the position of the governor, what will you do? Get up and go? Say no to Mr President with that kind of subtle but energetic threat?”

This is why, as I said earlier, even if you are as unfeeling, uncaring and beyond bother as to be able to crush the ugly, meatless head of a tortoise with your teeth, you must wail on behalf of the mother who begot Siminalayi. In his agreement to be placeholder for Wike as third term governor of Rivers, Fubara has found himself in the belly of the whale. What he obviously won’t be able to confess to the people of Rivers is that he had the pre-governorship agreement to keep Wike belching behind the till of Rivers and ensure his hold on the levers of power even while in Abuja. Only a fool would continue the perpetuation of this slavish status-quo.

Those who subscribe to the Wike ladder theory are those who encourage despots to grow out of the ashes of governorship succession system. A couple of weeks ago, apparently upbraiding Fubara, Wike had asked those who climbed up by the leader not to break it. Their eyes permanently fixated on the bolts of the maggoty wardrobes they left behind in the Government House and which are fastened securely to avoid spillage to the eyes of the public, governors would always skew their succession in favour of their placeholders. They look for the most pliable person as successor to do their dirty deal. For the sake of the states, we must encourage the rebellion of these placeholders against their governor taskmasters. Not doing this will ensure that the resources of Nigerian states would continually be siphoned into the greedy purses of governors’ predecessors. What Tinubu did last Monday by that veiled threat to Siminalayi was to brusquely assist in the return of oil-rich Rivers to the insatiable pocket of his consort.

When Tinubu on Friday at the Surulere Ansar-Ud-Deen mosque promised to be fair to all Nigerians, the Briggs revelation should nudge us to ask if that fairness has same colour as the Fubara Af’eyinpin’ran fairness. The reality of that Briggs revelation is that we should prepare for the dystopia to come in Nigeria. Those who shout “On your mandate we stand” should also prepare to stand on the wings of the Fubara treatment to come.

The Emefiele execution in China

We wait to hear what the fallen former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele has to say on the lurid report of a probe of his years at the apex bank. The report was leaked on Friday and is the sensation in town. Emefiele himself is said to have perfected his bail conditions and has been released from prison custody. Whatever it is, we are sure of weeks of circus shows akin to that of Sambo Dasuki. 

Meanwhile, all manner of epithets are today being used to describe Emefiele. The latest is the scathing attack on him by the Nigerian presidency. Unearthing virulent details of the Jim Obazee’s Report last Friday, the presidency descended on Emefiele like a cruel matador. Apart from telling us of the several unauthorized accounts he opened and the banks he covertly acquired for himself, the presidency suggested that, were Emefiele to have committed the alleged theft of public funds in China, he would have faced execution. The China reference is very instructive. Only a few years ago, China executed two officials from its eastern cities upon conviction for corruption. They were Xu Maiyong, a former vice-mayor of Hangzhou, and Jiang Renjie, vice-mayor of Suzhou, who were both put to death after the rejection of their appeals. Xu and Jiang were accused of stealing about 300m yuan ($46m; £29m) through embezzlement and receiving bribes, crimes that have become regular occurrences in Nigerian government. In China, the corruption these crimes that have become commonplace in Nigeria are the main causes of public discontent leading to hundreds of officials being convicted yearly.

The only thing we remember vividly is that, as Nigerians, we have travelled this Tinubu government demonization route before. At the end of the day, it was a barren and lean road that led to nowhere. When Major General Muhammadu Buhari forcefully took over the reins of power in 1983, sending elected the civilian government scampering and groveling for its under-wears in the dark, Buhari leveled very crowd-pulling allegations against the Shehu Shagari-led government. One of such was that Chairman of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) AMA Akinloye had his photograph embossed on champagne bottles, as an underscore of the profligacy of the government of the Second Republic. Fast-forward to 1999 when the military was handing over the reins of power, men in khaki had sufficiently engrafted their names in halls of infamy. Allegations of enriching themselves with Nigeria’s money and mis-governance were so rife that the allegations against the Shagari government were child’s play.

Buhari cyclostyled that same propagandist condemnation when he took over government in 2015. Sambo Dasuki, former National Security Adviser (NSA) was so dirtily tar-brushed that no one would buy him for a farthen. He was accused of colossal theft of Nigeria’s national patrimony funneled into several individuals for the prosecution of Nigeria’s 2015 elections. A viral video soon emerged of an alleged dalliance with a girl in detention. Till today, Dasuki roams about a free man and after the ice of power arrogance had thawed, no reference is ever made to the Sokoto prince any longer.

It will seem that immediately governments in Nigeria take over, they look for scapegoat to serve as escapism for their governmental inadequacies. Right now, there are massive grumblings in Nigeria. Hope is turning into despair. It was so bad that, at the public presentation of a book entitled, APC and transition politics in Abuja last week, former Ekiti state governor, Kayode Fayemi, told the APC chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, to be bold enough to report the correct state of despondency on Nigerian streets to Tinubu. “The party leader should be the one to tell our President this is the feedback from the communities and constituencies out there. Not what he is hearing in the villa where he is locked out,” he said. The walls of the Villa and the drowning choruses of sycophants are deafening enough to block the ears of a president from the true rendition of events.

In the bid to escape condemnation and favourably recontextualize the cries of the people for its adulations, governments are known to deploy what is called in Latin argumentum ad misericordiam to shore up their sagging pride. It is one of the major pitfalls in arguments which is appeal to emotion or literally, argument from pity. It is an emotional appeal that tugs at people’s pity and emotions, rather than through logical reasoning or argument.

We all know that Emefiele was at the top of a band of men and women who grossly and wickedly misused presidential powers during the Buhari government. Emefiele was audacious, power-hungry and dangerously fiddled with CBN policies to benefit hirelings of the Buhari government and members of his family. This didn’t bother the Nigerian people that much. When he however began to tinker with the policies, like the Naira redesign policy, which pauperized, hungered Nigerians, he became a pariah. No one was considered greater in notoriety in that government like Emefiele.

If this government is so afraid of its own shadows that it cannot call a spade a spade, it should however not insult the people of Nigeria. When the Tinubu-appointed Special Investigator on the Central Bank of Nigeria and Related Entities, Obazee, said that the redesign of the Naira by the Buhari government was not expressly approved by the president, he was obviously saying one or two things. One, he was confirming what many have always said that Buhari was just a figurehead president for eight years who had no idea of how government under him was being run. Second, that Nigerians are purely stupid. Obazee had said that the approval for the redesign came from Buhari’s aide, Sabiu Tunde ‘Yusuf’. Obazee said this while presenting his final report tagged, ‘Report of the Special Investigation on CBN and Related Entities (Chargeable Offences)’ to the president last Wednesday.

If Buhari didn’t run a figurehead government, or wasn’t a placeholder for some vermin whose aim was to use his name to suck the Nigerian blood, how would such a massively consequential policy which eventually dragged people to their graves, be taken by an aide of no economic or fiscal consequence, a Personal Assistant?

If Obazee’s role in making that statement was to appeal to Nigerians’ emotions, he failed woefully. This is because, a few weeks ago, in an interview with the NTA, his first since leaving government, Buhari confirmed that he approved the naira redesign policy as a way of ensuring that his “integrity became unquestionable.” On November 23, 2022, Buhari even unveiled the redesigned naira notes earlier than scheduled and was shown in pictures taken with Emefiele giving his imprimatur to the policy, the two grinning from ear to ear. At the launch of the Naira notes which preceded the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, Buhari expressed his happiness that the notes were produced in Nigeria and were well-fortified. If this government is afraid to hold Buhari accountable for his sins of silence, collaboration or abetment of Nigeria’s past fiscal woes, it should not hoodwink us with those illogical statements. More instructively, why would Emefiele be accused by the CBN investigator this massively in crimes that the presidential office said would earn him public execution in China and the Smart Alec ex-CBN governor is merely being charged for procurement fraud. 

By the way, does the presidential office realize that if the China model were to be in place in Nigeria today, where bribe receivers and embezzlers are executed at the drop of a hat, we may probably have no government in place as virtually everyone would have faced a squad of nuclear warheads?

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord ~ Luke 2:10-11.

Introduction

It’s that time of the year again — Christmas season — when people from all walks of life take time to rejoice and celebrate,  commemorative of the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

In many parts of the world, every nook and cranny is lit up and decorated in brilliant colours. However, the unfortunate note here is that, in many cultures and sub-cultures as well, Christ has been thoughtlessly displaced from His own “Mass”!

It not uncommon nowadays to actually see people refer to “Christmas” as “Xmas”, thereby bastardizing the significance of the season. Very painful indeed!

Now, the word "Christmas" doesn’t actually occur anywhere in the Bible! It is an old English word that basically means "Christ's Mass", which refers to the celebration of the Lord's Supper, called “the Mass”.

Historically, the earliest occurrence of the word, “Christmas” on record is 1038 A.D. Christians at that time considered the Lord's Supper to be the most important part of the celebration of Christ's birth, hence it was called Christmas.

However, since that time, there have been diverse arguments and perceptions about Christmas, especially its origin and timing. Nevertheless, the unarguable fact is that Christ was born, and in the annals of history, it was an epoch-making occasion. There's no greater gift than the Saviour given!

Moreover, in our modern secular era, the glitter and shine, the wining and dining, the shopping and the exchange of gifts, the media commercialization, the brisk business activities and the general funfare that typically characterize Christmas everywhere are, though stealthily, fast displacing Christ in many hearts.

Meanwhile, the greatest tragedy of all time is not so much the commercialization of Christmas, etcetera, but its trivialization!

Many people have now forgotten the Person to whom they owe so very much, and have unwittingly removed Him from the event that supposedly commemorates His birth.

Just imagine that someone celebrating his birthday is somehow locked out of the event center. It is even more serious and more cruel than that when we realize what we do in shutting Christ out from Christmas.

Some people till today relate with Jesus as with a little child over there in Bethlehem lying in a manger. What a grievous mistake!

See, that little child then, Jesus, really grew up and waxed strong in the spirit, and He is now the Christ and the Only Saviour of the world (Luke 2:40). We had better come to terms with this truth, and settle down to enjoy His everlasting lordship.

This Jesus that’s being celebrated at Christmas is the same God that created the heavens, and spoke the worlds into existence (John 1:2-3). He is the same Ancient of Days that parted the Red Sea, and made an expressway in its bed, just to deliver His people from slavery.

He’s the Mighty God that made the blind to see, and the lame to walk. He healed the lepers, walked upon the sea, stilled the storm, and raised the dead. He is the same “God now with us”, Emmanuel!

He is the indisputable Saviour of the all mankind (Acts 4:11-12). His lordship is unarguable and His dominion is undeniable. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

If you're a lord in any circle on earth, He's your Lord; if you're a king in any domain, He's your King. Take it like that. He is the blessed and only Potentate. His lordship is forever and it extends from coast to coast (1Timothy 6:14-16).

Nevertheless, the love of God ever remains the real essence of Christmas, and its truest story is revealed in the giving heart of the Father-God (1John 4:16; James 1:17).

Hence, over the years, Christmas has become the sole global event to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ the Saviour, the greatest gift of God to mankind.

He is the epitome of God’s love for us, and anybody that hopes to enjoy the fullness of God’s matchless goodness today must bow to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Let’s Put Christ Back Properly Into Christmas

As believers, it behoves us to put Jesus Christ and the loving redemption He brought back into Christmas. He is truly alive, and we must remember to keep Him in His own show.

In the least, we must take the opportunity of the Christmas season to openly celebrate Him as our triumphant Savior and King. We must seize the moment to also witness and reveal Him to the world as the Mighty One, not as a "Baby-in-a-Manger!"

Again, as our very important decision, we must intentionally worship Jesus Christ for who He is, and praise Him for what He has done. We must soberly search our hearts to be sure that there are no areas of our lives that won't stand up to His divine scrutiny.

We must genuinely repent of our sins, spiritual lethargy, apathy, idleness, laziness, lassitude and drowsiness, being truly baptized into the fullness of Spirit of Jesus Christ, obeying Him implicitly and doing only those things that please Him, daily.

We must love God passionately, and get seriously involved in the ministry of relaying His love to others, reconciling lost souls back to Him, and remembering that the true story of Christmas represents the redeeming love of the Father (John 3:16).

Yes, this is the time to be merry, to share joy, to love and be loved, in the spirit of giving. God so loved us, that He became love-personified through the Incarnation (John 3:16). Hence, we must fully determine to reciprocate this matchless and unfathomable love of God.

You will certainly be happy and thrilled when you reciprocate His love. The love of God is the master key to exceeding grace (1Timothy 1:14). When you love God sincerely and overwhelmingly, you are translated from the terrestrial realm to the struggle-free celestial realm (1John 4:17).

More so, charity never fails. When your love for God, and His kingdom cause becomes your waking thought and your walking passion, then you can never fail.

The biggest gift we can offer the world this season is Jesus Christ (2Corinthians 5:11). When He is received in the hearts of men, He becomes enthroned and assumes His rightful place in their destinies, for time and for eternity.

This same Jesus, the Good Shepherd of our souls, Who was gentle, mild, meek and compassionate and Who became God's Paschal Lamb is coming back again.

However, He is coming this time around as a Judge of all. He will be unrelenting and unsparing in judgement, because the timeline for grace would have elapsed.

Friends and brethren, please let’s celebrate Christ responsibly during this Christmas season. Repent and believe the gospel today, if you’re yet to be born-again. Awake, be revived and turn on your light again, if you have backslidden.

Let’s altogether arouse the world that this same Jesus we are celebrating in this season will soon come back for judgement of sinners, and for rewards of saints. You won’t miss it. Happy Sunday, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year in advance, in Jesus name!

 ____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bishopakinola

SMS/WhatsApp: +234 802 318 4987

Paul’s credentials were exemplary. He was a pure-blooded Jew from the tribe of Benjamin. He refers to himself as a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was a Pharisee, an esteemed group that demanded the strictest obedience to Jewish law. He was so zealous that he led the persecution of Christians. He obeyed the law very strictly.

These were his prized credentials. They were the things that gave meaning to his life. But when he met Christ, he realised that these credentials that he once considered valuable were worthless because of what Christ had done.

Called To Suffer

Jesus sent Ananias to Paul, saying: “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 5-16).

That was a watershed in Paul’s life. It turned his life upside down. Past gains suddenly became losses to him. As a result, he says: 

“What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:7-8).

Jesus Himself forewarns us about this. He says:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 12:44-46).

When he sold all he had, he lost all he had. When he sold all he had, he suffered a loss. But then, he gained a kingdom. If we are not prepared to suffer this kind of loss, we cannot be disciples of Christ. Jesus says: “Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:33).

Fellowship of Sufferings

We suffer by the denial of things (good and bad) that the world offers for our enjoyment and self-esteem. These include our pedigree, credentials, fame, fortune, success, status, wealth, spouse, family, friends, children, sexual life, good health, and so on.

When we are denied any of these, we suffer loss. However, the value of knowing Christ surpasses all these things. So, if He asks us to give up or do without any of them, we must do so readily. We do not do this as a sacrifice. We do this as an act of love.

Winning By Losing

In the world, we gain by winning. In the kingdom of God, we gain by losing. We trade earthly gain for spiritual knowledge. 

30 years ago, I was attacked by armed robbers and shot in the leg. That incident introduced me to the Lord. He intervened, rescued me, and gave me His proverbial peace that surpasses all understanding, even during the attack. He insisted nothing was wrong with my leg, and then, a little later, healed my wounded leg.

He told me He was the One who sent the armed robbers to attack me. That was the only way He could get me to be still and know that He is God. (Psalm 46:10). Then He told me to read Matthew 13:16, where He says: “Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”

What finally opened my ears and my eyes? Adversity! As we share in the sufferings of Christ, our eyes open. Then we see Him as our Saviour, as our deliverer, as our healer, as the Person who rescues us from the ordeals of life.

Jesus is the Great Physician, but I would not have known this unless I fell sick with a bullet-ridden leg and He then healed my leg.

When His disciples asked Him about a man who was blind from birth: “‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.’” (John 9:2-3).

God is glorified in the healing of the sick, and the sick get to know the God who heals and to see Him at work first-hand. And then they also receive the commission to heal the sick.

This is the process as described by John. First, we hear, then we see, and then we practice:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1).

Many are the afflictions of the righteous (Psalm 34:19), and righteous Job went through a lot of afflictions. But when God finally intervened on his behalf, Job saw God in a completely different dimension. He exclaimed to God: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6).

There is nothing like adversity to open the eyes of the blind. The difference between what we know about God in prosperity and what we know about Him in adversity is the difference between hearing and seeing. For this reason, Jesus declares: “For judgment, I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” (John 9:39).

Affliction brings us to a more intimate knowledge of God. This is the promise of God: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.” (Isaiah 43:1).

Accordingly, when the three Hebrew children were thrown into the burning fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to bow down to and worship the golden image that he made, Jesus appeared to them as the fourth person in the fire and they were not burnt.

The evil king himself confirmed this. He exclaimed:

“‘Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?’ They answered and said to the king, ‘True, O king.’ ‘Look!’ he answered, ‘I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.’” (Daniel 3:24-25).

Similarly, when the Jews were stoning Stephen to death, his eyes were opened, and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the throne of God:

“When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, ‘Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’” (Acts 7:54-56).

From Doctor To Nurse

In 2002, I felt an unusual lump in my groin while having a shower. Just as soon as I detected this, the Lord spoke to me. “Femi,” He said, “It is a hernia. Go and see a doctor.” 

I was excited that the Lord, Himself, had revealed this to me. But I could not understand why He would then tell me to go and see a doctor instead of just healing me. He healed me with the bullet in my leg. What was so different about hernia?

This became a big trial of faith while I argued that, rather than consult a doctor, the Lord should just heal me. When I finally went to the doctor, he worsened matters by informing me the hernia would have to be surgically corrected. In the end, after arguing with God for over one year, I succumbed to surgery.

After I left the hospital, the Lord told me to read this scripture:

“God blesses those who are kind to the poor. He helps them out of their troubles. He protects them and keeps them alive; He publicly honours them and destroys the power of their enemies. He nurses them when they are sick and soothes their pains and worries.” (Psalm 41:1-3).

Then He said to me: “Femi, you know Me as a doctor. But I also want you to know Me as a nurse.” 

Blessings of Covid-19

In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, my Nouveau School was closed for seven months. I lost a lot of money and ran into debt. My wife and I were stuck in the house for months because our ages put us in the most vulnerable category statistically.

But in the middle of that affliction, God gave me a mighty blessing. With the advent of ZOOM, He told me to start Midnight Prayers. This quickly included participants from Nigeria, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Great Britain and the United States.

For the past three-and-a-half years, we have met non-stop every midnight to pray for one hour. That prayer meeting has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. It was born out of the adversity of Covid-19.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

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