Is Bola Tinubu up to something?

---

Last week, former Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos State got the attention of Nigerian senators. In a comment he made at a public forum in Abuja, Mr. Tinubu proposed that the Senate be scrapped from the constitution, leaving the House of Representatives as Nigeria’s sole legislative body.
Mr. Tinubu’s words: “We have kept complaining about the cost of governance and the recurrent expenditure. But we have never examined the structural problem of even the constitution that we are operating. Why do we need two Houses of the National Assembly, whereas the House of Representatives representing the smaller constituencies is enough in the same number of population? Why not get rid of the Senate for a slim and better legislative activity? Let us start examining that.”
Well, several serving senators “examined” the proposal and failed to find it funny or impressive. As the Nigerian Punch reported last Sunday, numerous senators “excoriated” the former governor – who happens also to be a former senator – for his advocacy.
According to Punch, senatorial adversaries “questioned Tinubu’s logic, and stressed that his wife was a serving senator. Besides, his party, the ACN has 17 senators in the red legislative chamber.” For me, those broad objections are ill-thought and untenable. If anything, the fact that the proponent’s wife is a senator and his party, the Action Congress of Nigeria, occupies 17 seats in the Senate adds to the power and urgency of his case for abolishing the Senate. In fact, it won’t be odd in the least were a current member of the Senate to suggest that the body be expunged from the constitution.
It would be silly to respond to such a prescription by demanding that the senator demonstrate her/his seriousness by resigning. Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (PDP, Cross River Central) offered a more substantive and interesting response to Mr. Tinubu’s advocacy. He argued, as reported by the Punch, “that the multiplicity of ethnic nationalities meant that minority rights must be protected for democracy to function.”
He contended that a bicameral legislature “is adopted in a heterogeneous society,” that the “Senate is a representation based on equality,” and that scrapping it would amount to denying “minorities proper representation.” Mr. Ndoma-Egba’s is not an argument to be easily dismissed. Nigeria is a politically vexed entity, a harvest of ethnic, religious and social tensions and crises. As its two most important writers, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, have noted on different occasions, Nigeria is, at best, a space without a nation (Soyinka) or a nation that is yet to be founded (Achebe). Let’s put the issue of minorities aside for the moment. No Nigerian’s rights are protected in any effective way in the current arrangement.
Wait a minute, I must correct that statement. I meant to claim that the only people whose interests are served or protected in present-day Nigeria are the small number of political henchmen (senators included) and their cohorts in the business world.
These are the ones who reap without sowing, who do the big crimes but hardly ever do time in jail, who daily work to wreck Nigeria and, in return for their impunity, receive national honors and other rewards. If you doubt this conclusion, consider last week’s revelation that businesses owned by numerous members of President Goodluck Jonathan’s inner circle of friends, associates and advisers owe more than a trillion naira to Nigeria’s beleaguered commercial banks. The vast majority of Nigerians have no say in the affairs of the country, no way to register their voices, and no rights or interests that the Nigerian state is inclined to respect. And now, let’s talk about minorities. Senator Ndoma-Egba’s claim is hardly controversial: Nigeria’s minorities often have it worse than everybody else.
Still, one wonders whether the Senate as a body based on equal representation has any record of serving minorities. I seriously doubt it, but I’m willing to concede that Mr. Ndoma-Egba might know something that I don’t. In that spirit, I have a question for him. Pray tell: In what specific, concrete ways has the Senate advanced the interests of Nigeria’s plethora of ethnic minorities? I’d like to know how, and where, the senators have done battle for this country’s weakest elements. There are, it seems to me, two elements in Mr. Tinubu’s argument. One is the explicit contention that Nigerians spend far too much on their country’s law-making apparatus. By erasing the Senate from the constitution, we’d cut costs and have more funds to spend on infrastructure and other critical needs.
The second argument, which Mr. Tinubu merely implied but did not voice, is that the country’s legislators have been a terribly incompetent bunch, a high-priced collection of mediocrities who appear either ignorant or indifferent about the uses of legislation as a nation-building tool. I speak not only of the Senate or even of the National Assembly. One is hard put to it to find a single legislature in Nigeria’s thirty-six states that remotely measures up to the role that a law-making body ought to play in a vibrant democracy.
It’s often easier to focus on the failures of the president, governors and local government councilors. By comparison, the legislatures operate in relative obscurity, under the radar of public scrutiny. All too often, our inept, wretched legislators escape the censure they richly deserve. Perhaps because the Senate is expected to be the more august of the bicameral bodies, its ineptitude stands out. In recent times, it’s become a warehouse for former (incompetent) governors, retired (undistinguished) generals, and the politically connected – this category including Mr. Tinubu’s wife. In more than 12 years of our “nascent” democracy, the Senate has done little, if anything, to deeply affect the lives of Nigerians in a positive direction.
But, oh, all the ways these men and (a few) women have pitched hundreds of billions of naira into their private pockets! If there’s palpable frustration about the huge funds gobbled up by legislators, it is also because Nigerians hardly get anything in return. Nigeria’s minimum wage is less than N20000. Millions of Nigerians with families take home that measly sum that can’t buy meals and drinks for three in many restaurants in Abuja and Lagos. Yet, every three months or so, each senator in Abuja as well as each member of the House of Representatives haul away three or four times the salary of President Barack Obama.
And the only constant is that, each year, they demand – and receive – more! Even if these lawmakers knew what they were doing, Nigerians would still have a right to begrudge them their astonishing salaries and allowances. Once you factor in the fact that, with the exception of a smattering of men and women, Nigerian legislators are certified incompetents, you begin to understand why they are sometimes tagged legislooters.
In the end, Mr. Tinubu’s suggestion does not address the problem it presumes to tackle. Even if we sacked the Senate and cut the membership of the House by two thirds, the National Assembly would still remain an untenable burden.
There won’t be any guarantee of a wiser, more attuned lawmaking machinery. In short, Nigerians won’t get legislative value for their money. Nigeria needs to drastically cut the cost of our bloated, confused “democracy.” That would entail setting up independent institutions to scrutinize the activities of Nigeria’s public officials. It’s an open secret that the Nigerian president and each governor maintain a stash of cash in their office and dispense such funds to visiting traditional rulers, misguided student leaders, and sundry groups. That is proof that the system discourages accountability and transparency.
The Nigerian president, governors and local government chairmen should be denied fraudulent access to public funds in the name of “security vote.” If there’s a security vote, it should be handed over to the police, the armed forces, and the intelligence services concerned with security matters. Next, there’s no justification for feeding the Nigerian president and governors as well as their families from public coffers. The US president, governors and mayors pay for their families’ meals, toiletries and other personal expenses – and there’s no earthly reason for pampering their Nigerian counterparts.
With regard to legislators, Nigerians ought to be prepared to do something even more radical. Twelve years into the current “democratic dispensation,” there’s ample proof that full-time legislatures don’t make sense at all. The Nigerian constitution ought to be amended to allow for the National Assembly as well as state houses to sit only when necessary. Rather than their elephantine salaries and allowances, members of the various legislatures should receive sitting allowances for the days they are present to work.
There are two benefits from this adopting this prescription. One, Nigerians will see a dramatic drop in the cost of doing legislative business. Two, we would have removed the cash incentive from the legislative sector. There would be improved odds of attracting more enlightened, visionary and patriotic citizens into the legislatures. As for those who are in it for their guts, many of them would be forced to look for something else to do. Please follow me on twitter @ okeyndibe.

WATCH: “He gave me folic acid to swallow and abort the pregnancy” – Ex-wives of Frank Edoho and Zaaki Adzay narrate their sad experiences

by Reuben Dada

The Wellbeing Foundation Africa used this year’s edition of Peace Day which took place on September 21 to create awareness about the human and emotional cost of domestic violence. And what a splash the event made!
During the event, a short documentary was shown, which highlighted the scourge of domestic abuse, using the experiences of several abused women. Some of the ladies aren’t so well known, but there were of course the two poster girls of domestic abuse – wife of Frank Edoho, host of popular TV show, Who wants to be a millionaire; and wife of musician Zaaky Adzay.
The two women gave chilly accounts of their ordeal as wives of those two celebrities. It was painful to watch.
First Obiang, ex-wife of Frank Edoho:
“Just to dare to argue with your husband is like a challenge in your home,” she said. “The woman is challenging the man and tempers flay and then you snap, then there is a slap. He says ‘I am sorry it is a mistake’ then says ‘sorry I won’t do it again,’ then he does it again, again and again.”
The case of Zaaki Adzay’s ex-wife Hadiza was even more troubling. She recounted a particular bizarre experience. “He slapped me on the face so (and said) ‘get up you must abort this pregnancy today. Now that I am married to you, you want to hook me with pregnancy because I am a celebrity.’ Then there was a wardrobe in our room so I put my tummy in there and then he continued beating me. He had some folic acid in his hand and said I should swallow it and abort the pregnancy. When he gave me I said he should allow me take water, thank God the door was open so I ran away.”

We Won’t Allow Anyone To Insult The Presidency’–Okupe

September 24, 2012 at 12:27 pm

---

Dr Doyin Okupe has got his gloves off and is ready to spar with anyone who takes his boss to task disparagingly.
The President’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications had a few choice words for the duo of Wole Soyinka and Tunde Bakare who were scathing in their remarks of President Jonathan’s views regarding last January’s Fuel subsidy protests. Bakare had described the President’s comments as ‘bunkum’ while Soyinka had said the President “is lamentably alienated from the true pulse of the nation” and that “he was suffering from bad conscience”.
Dr Doyin Okupe will have none of it, however, and told Press men in Abuja;
“The office of the President deserves respect. To say the President is suffering from bad conscience as stated by Prof. Soyinka is wrong.
“His (Jonathan’s) action on the N5,000 note showed that he loves Nigerians and he is not alienated from them.
“We do not need to desecrate the office of the President. It is uncivil for Bakare to say that the President’s comment is bunkum, which means nonsense.
“We will not accept that; we won’t allow anyone to be insulting the office of the President. Bakare himself can be President tomorrow.”
Now we know why Okupe was hired.
Dr Okupe also said the friction between the Legislature and the Executive was normal in a Democracy but cautioned against the former using its oversight functions indiscriminately.
“We would want to appeal to our respected lawmakers to sheathe their swords. They should stop threatening the President with impeachment every time there is a disagreement.
“They should allow the temperature of the polity to come down. We will continue to have executive/legislative conflict, but we should continue to allow maturity to come in.
“Yes, the legislature has the power to impeach, but we should not be flaunting this every time.
“We should forget about impeachment in order to build this democracy; conflict will always be there, but we must manage it.”
Well, that was some advise

Jonathan’s 80 Pages Of Nothingness – By Chinedu Ekeke

September 23, 2012 at 6:58 am

---

He misses the presence of the past; when the world smiled at him and men bought his deceit. Huddled up over a heap of dusty files and abandoned sleaze reports, Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s president, grieves over the metamorphosis of goodwill; the sharpest and shortest in any recent political history. His friends, most of who, last year, helped cook up the lies to spite his electoral opponents, had swiftly become his critics, and even enemies. In his office, furnished to taste with a rich touch of royalty, he pores through the invectives poured on him daily by millions of angry citizens. In pains he let out a line of grief, of a heart broken, like a baby grieving lack of love from his parents; “I’m the most cursed president in the world.”
Cocooned by a retinue of aides trapped in the box of years of yore, when secrecy thrived in the seats of power and ignorance weakened the citizens of nations, he misreads the situation. Aides with mindsets more pedestrian than those of commoners, intent only on power, privilege and money, have sold him the commodity of perception. They said perception is the culprit. He bought it hook, line and sinker. He thinks very highly of them, as possessing more experience in politics of public relations than himself – the taciturn shy man who never was ambitious, and never aspired to play at this tough stage where the rule entailed slicing up people to remain sailing.
So their opinions are weighty. He fancies being dressed in the garb of a “listening president” by these aides. It’s one of their ways of warming up to his heart, his royal heart. He would have been a great president if they were right. But they aren’t. He listens, as the only choice he has, because no alternative thoughts ever emanate from him, with which to balance their views and schemes. These views become policies and programmes, unleashed on the public domain, and are pushed to become laws. You remember the 6 year single term?
The perception challenge is their view, and he bought and paid. The work has been done, they told him, but the people have yet to know. Let us change their perception, they agreed. As though the whole world suddenly went blind in one fell swoop, they proposed that the work they’ve done, which no other living soul has seen, be scribbled down in fancy letters and glossy images. The images are more of the workers –the president, his Vice, his over-bloated cabinet, and his aides – and less of the works.
In the computing cloud hangs the book, an 80-page book of accomplishments. We are dared to read, to find present the projects that are absent on the streets and in our homes. We are persuaded to share, to forward to contacts, to carry family and friends along. As we read, they hope for open-mindedness in assessments and fairness in comments. Here, there was a slight departure from their 19th century mindsets. They acknowledge the change in ways information is shared. The internet, that’s the new village square. They came to the square, to ring the bell.
But that’s selective appreciation of the powers of the modern world. We can read and forward, just like we can upload and share damning evidences of lies said by public servants. It works in both ways, and works more against one when one chooses to reside on the side of injustice. On this same cloud we compare notes on how our friends and brothers and neighbours remain unemployed after graduation, and how those who oversaw the biggest scams in our history, as well as the scammers themselves, remain unpunished. Before I began typing these lines, my friend in Abuja sent me a message. She was giving up on Nigeria. She couldn’t fathom why she couldn’t find fuel in filling stations in Abuja, but saw boys hawking them in gallons near the same stations, and with policemen looking on. Her friend, a close one with whom she had been at the forefront of the battle for the rescue of Nigeria from the gang of fuel subsidy thieves and their backers in government, just took a job with a wrong organization. She thinks she has lost the battle. She wept, and told me so.
A day or two ago, another friend on Twitter sent me a message. He got done with his Masters in the UK and returned home last year. Till date, he’s been unemployed. No jobs anywhere. But there’s a book, the book of accomplishments. The book says all is working, just that we’ve been blind to them.
Aha! Back to the book. I’d have loved to relish in the freshness of its smell were it physical with pages I could flip through. New books always smell fresh and predictably arouse the curiosity of the lover of reading. Sometimes, at the end of the book, you may discover that the only thing about it was actually the smell. In such a case, the book was a waste of one’s reading time. In Jonathan’s newly uploaded ebook, Sure And Steady Transformation, nothing was visible.
Conceptualized to serve a predetermined end, the book comes out vague and dry, unfortunately projecting us as a country that faces a million problems. It tries to cover everything and ends up covering nothing. It crawls from the shameful to the ridiculous, and then mocks us by its existence. That book shouldn’t have been published ab initio. It is another waste of our scarce resources.
Trust our brand of leadership. Perpetually mouthing a president’s campaign mantra is an unwritten law. That is why you will find “transformation” in almost every page of the book. It seems the president derives the power to become from the sound of that word; and the energy to live and act from its steady repetition.
“In support of Mr. President’s Transformation Agenda, the
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development developed and
is aggressively implementing an Agricultural Transformation
Agenda.”
Transformation. Transformation agenda.
In search of what to point at, we read meetings that were attended. In almost all the ministries, meetings that were attended by Ministry personnel were included as achievements.
In the Ministry of Health, we read; “Conducted 55th National Council on Health Meeting in Abuja 16th-20th July, 2012”
Another one, still on the Health Ministry; “Submission of report of Presidential Committee on a harmonious working relationship in the Health Sector.”
For the Ministry of Information, we read: “Refocusing of the Vision and Mission of the Ministry.”
The wonder is that somebody in the presidency proofread these things and approved their inclusion in the final draft. Another wonder is that they do not hope to persuade people to consider if the “achievements” are worth being so named, the surprise is the aggression with which it is being forced down our throat; “I have delivered!”
Part of the delivery is the type you will read on Page 43 of the report.
• Purchase of 3 (No) Staff Buses.
• Procurement of 2 (No) of Hiace Buses.
• Purchase of various office furnishes and fittings.

When the Federal Government boasts of 2 Hiace buses, then a Local Government Councilor has no business providing anything for his constituents. And it is rather troubling that nobody in the presidency cringed when 3 Staff Buses were being included amongst the list of achievements made by the president of Nigeria.
But we must find the courage to ask the necessary questions: how many jobs have been created – either directly by the government or by the private-sector as a result of employment-inducing policies of the government – in the last two years? If jobs were created, how did they affect the gross unemployment rate?
Are we aware that the use of okada as a means of transportation is a sign of a state that is failing? Movement of humans and goods is one of the essential indicators of a functional society. Why are our roads still in bad shapes? Olumide my friend recently spent 3 hours on a spot at the Lagos-Benin Expressway and witnessed 3 different auto accidents on the spot. That doesn’t sound like transformation. That is destruction. But we have a glossy picture of that same road looking well paved.
How many houses did the government build in the last two years? How many Nigerians now have access to decent and affordable housing? Where are these houses?
Have we upgraded the quality of our schools? We did expect that Almajiri school will litter the pages under the education ministry. We only wonder what state and local governments will showcase. I heard last night from the young Nigerian who has been moving our kids from the slums to schools that Nigeria has over10 million children of school age outside the school. What future does that leave for us?
If the image of improved healthcare published on the book is true, where is our First Lady? Why can’t she be treated here at the intensive healthcare units?
If someone says there’s no money, how many of the thieves who stole our billions have we prosecuted in the last two years? How many high profile corruption cases have we successfully pursued and brought to conclusion?
If there are achievements anywhere, Mr Jonathan will not need a book to show them to us. Our streets are where these achievements will resonate. All eyes will see them and lips will confess them. There was a relatively significant improvement in power generation for about two months, and everybody commented on that. Nobody needed a book to confirm that electricity supply in their houses had improved. The bulbs that were lit up for more hours were the books we needed. Our problems aren’t as vast as an ocean. Our challenges as a people are few, but fundamental. Once these few key ones are attended to, the rest naturally phase away.
Nobody enjoys a song without melody. Nobody enjoys a dance without motion.
A book in which nothing was written isn’t different. Nobody enjoys an 80-page book that says nothing.
Follow @ekekeee on Twitter

Open Letter To President Jonathan: How We Occupied Nigeria Last January–By Jude Egbas

To be read to the President and Commander in Chief of The Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by potty mouthed Dr Doyin Okupe in his Hotel Room in New York where he is attending the UN General Assembly; to the accompaniment of ‘African China’s’ Mr President, Lead us well…..

Dear Mr. President,

I hope this letter meets you in good stead. I am sure it will. You have never had a dull moment since you assumed the number one office in our land; ready to fly at the drop of a hat to saner climes at a moment’s notice. Accept also my deep concerns and warmest regards as it has to do with the health of your wife and our first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan. I hope and pray that she recovers in double quick time.
I have always felt like writing you a letter, Mr President. That moment had always petered out once I had realized the sheer futility of the act. I have always had this notion that deep down inside you, you really do not care about us. Please correct me if I am wrong, but your every step since you assumed office as our substantive President has been couched in several mis-steps. Your demeanor often betrays a certain non-chalance towards us. Last week, at a public lecture in Abuja, you gave my theory regarding your perceived non-chalance, several shots in the arm.
I was amazed as anyone else, Sir, that you believe that the Occupy Nigeria protests which you quelled by deploying armed Military personnel to the streets, was instigated or sponsored by people who harbor deep seated animosity towards everything with the Jonathan insignia. Again, I find your attempts to always point the finger, very effete and jejune. Time and again, you have been a lot more concerned with blaming everyone else but yourself for your inability to fix Nigeria. If this is not dereliction of duty on your part, nothing else will be.
You had alluded to the fact that the fuel subsidy protest, especially in Lagos, was bankrolled by your political opponents. You had wondered aloud in the following words: “Take the case of Lagos. Lagos is the critical state in the nation’s economy, it controls about 53 per cent of the economy and all tribes are there. The demonstration in Lagos… people were given bottled water that people in my village don’t have access to, people were given expensive food that the ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat. So, even going to eat free food alone attracts people. They go and hire the best musician to come and play and the best comedian to come and entertain; is that demonstration? Are you telling me that that is a demonstration from ordinary masses in Nigeria who want to communicate something to government?”
Mr President, you were wrong. Every time you have spoken extemporaneously, you have ended up shooting yourself in the mouth. But your harangue last week did not come to me as a surprise. As the protests gathered momentum last January, it was comical to hear some of your aides and a sprinkling of Senators who belong to your Political Party, dismiss the uprisings as the workings of the opposition. Even more comical was the fact that you bought this line of reasoning from these deluded persons, hook, line and sinker without doing any research of your own. Again, you have proven your disconnect with the people who elected you.
On the third day of the protests, Mr President, a certain Madam Toyin placed a call to our family home.Toyin was a family friend. She was co-coordinating attempts to help with food for the growing number of protesters. How could our family help? She enquired. Madam Toyin runs a Research outfit. Like other members of the middle class, she was disturbed by the insensitivity of your administration at the time and your growing intransigence, Mr President, at genuine dialogue. I do not think Madam Toyin was prodded to call our family home to ask for assistance by any member of the ACN, CPC or the ANPP.
The Occupy Nigeria movement, Mr President, was coordinated by ordinary Nigerians like Toyin. Most of the persons you saw amongst the crowd in Ojota, could afford their own bread or water in any case. Food vendors made brisk business from selling snacks, bottled drinks and water to the surging crowd. To dismiss all of these people as some paupers who could not afford bread and water, was derogatory and deprecating, Mr President. Why, in any case did you have to show your disdain for Lagos by that syllogism with your country folks? Again, your prognosis proved your worrisome insouciance towards the people.
I do think Sir, that you owe the likes of Tunji Braithwaite, El Rufai, Dele Momodu, Pat Obahiagbon, Dino Melaye, Seun and Femi Kuti, The Gani Fawehinmis , the artistes who performed in Ojota and all Nigerians, an unreserved apology for insinuating that they could not afford loaves of bread of their own. Mr President, most of the artistes who were considered not to belong on the side of the people were booed off the stage. Most artistes pleaded to perform because they wanted to participate in what was an epochal event in the annals of our country.
Mr President, Occupy Nigeria was a landmark historical event; and it will be foolhardy to attempt to reduce it to the level of mundane politics and brinksmanship. In Occupy Nigeria, our country crossed the Rubicon. In Occupy Nigeria, we realized that Nigerians were not as gullible as they had been perceived to be. Occupy Nigeria was a spontaneous Movement; riding on the psyche and crest wave of a people who have been pulverized and pushed to the wall by a heartless coterie who pretend to lead them.
Your aides and praise singers may have fed you with the wrong sequence of events all along, but you may want to take their shallow mindedness and capriciousness with several pinches of salt at this moment.
Yes, the likes of Pastor Bakare may well have headlined the protests in Lagos, but they were not the arrow-heads. The real arrow-heads of Occupy Nigeria were Sikirat, Bisi, Dapo, Mohammed, Chibuzor, Oghenebriore, Halimatu, Nsikak and Uduak—faceless and ordinary Nigerians who are bracing up for change come 2015. Be afraid…be very, very afraid, Mr President, of these young and faceless Nigerians. This group of persons can buy their bread and water and they can decide which way the pendulum swings next time out at the polls because Occupy Nigeria afforded them the opportunity to unite and to believe again.
Thank You Mr. President for taking your time to read this letter. Enjoy your brief sojourn in New York, interact with your more serious peers and pick their brains on how to lead a country. Thus far, your colleagues haven’t really rubbed off on you. In which case, you may consider changing your friends.
Yours Sincerely,
Jude.
The writer is on Twitter @egba

PHOTOS: Look, it’s Monalisa Chinda! Actress is all shades of sexy on new website

by Reuben Dada

Nigerian celebrities are beginning to consciously cultivate and harness their brand values. No one is leaving anything to chance.
One of Nollywood’s sweethearts, Monalisa Chinda, fresh from her exploits in various charity works culminating in her lead role in the Autism film ‘Silverlining,’ is stepping up her game in terms of ensuring her brand visibility.
The actress, whose Arise Monalisa Foundation was recently nominated for the Giama Humanitarian Award, recently began a branding process in collaboration with her PR agency, Isaac Oladipupo’s MediawisePR. Styled by Ezinne Chinkata, and photographed by the maverick Kelechi Amadi Obi, her photo shots were beautiful and stunning.
We’ve featured some of those pictures in the piece, but to see more, just head over to her new official website: www.monalisachindatv.com.

Sharp Warri boy? 17-year-old fakes his own kidnap to extort money from his dad

by Stanley Azuakola

That’s what happens in a country where young people see that many times, crime pays. A 17-year old boy, Daniel Akagbo, was arrested by the Delta State Police Command for allegedly arranging his kidnap and demanding a N20 million ransom from his wealthy father.
On September 10, the lad conspired with the supposed kidnappers to fake his abduction at Effurun, near Warri.
In line with the plot, he was reportedly whisked to a shrine at Obiaruku, Ukwani Local Council of the state by the gang members, from where they called the troubled father and broke the news of his son’s ‘kidnap,’ and made demands for ransom.
They had initially demanded for N50 million, but later reduced it to N20 million following negotiations.
Their plot ultimately failed when policemen from the state’s police anti-kidnapping unit stormed their hideout and arrested one Governor Ejiro who was accused of having a hand in the plot.
It was Ejiro who led the policemen to the hideout where Daniel Akagbo and eight of his accomplices were arrested.
According to the Delta Police Public Relations officer, Mr. Charles Muka, the police are on the trail of the at-large accomplices in the plot.