The civil rights movement in Nigeria has expressed solidarity with the Senator representing Ekiti Central, Babafemi Ojudu, for his continued battle with injustice in Ekiti state, the battle that has earned him hatred from high quarters. Ekiti is a small agrarian state that has thrown into turmoil after the June 21 election that saw Ayo Fayose emerging as the governor. In a statement issued in Lagos, the Nigerian Human Rights Community (NHRC), a coalition of 35 civil rights groups, praised Senator Ojudu for his long-standing record as a tireless defender of truth and liberty which had won him global fame. The statement, signed by the NHRC Director of Publicity, Akinola Gbadamosi, urged Ekiti State people not to be distracted by the conscious efforts of Fayose to discredit one of the most outstanding icons in the battle for liberty in Ekiti State and in Nigeria at large. “Senator Ojudu has a clean record spanning over three decades. He was the journalist that exposed Fayose during his first term in 2004. Senator Ojudu did not only write an investigative story that exposed the killing of a pregnant woman for rituals, an unspeakable crime involving top government officials in the administration of Fayose, he went the extra mile to ensure the arrest of those involved. “The stories were published in The News Magazine. The horrendous crime was swept under the carpet by the then authorities. From that moment, a seed of discord was planted between Ojudu and Mr Fayose.” According to the NHRC, Senator Ojudu should intensify the campaign for the impeachment of Fayose, adding that it is an historical calling that has the backing of the progressives across the world. The group said it is unfortunate that the Ekiti State Government under Fayose has dedicated huge sum of funds to malign, blackmail and destroy the reputation of one of Nigeria’s most remarkable heroes. “Senator Ojudu was detained for several years on account of being opposed to the late General Sani Abacha who persecuted Nigerians but who was Fayose’s benefactor. It is a subject of disgrace that Fayose with all the atrocities he has committed against humanity finds himself at the helms of Ekiti’s moral order. When he came to power last October, the first thing he did was to discredit his predecessor through lies and propaganda about the amount spent on the Oke Ayoba whereas within a short period he occupied the house after spending over N200 million on renovation. At present, Fayose is awarding contracts to his cronies without due while he took about 1billion being the September Federal Government allocation but has yet refused to release the money meant for workers salary. “We have a rogue and common criminal in power who nevertheless has been able to corrupt some of the elite in the state who now honour him. “We are following with keen interest the developments in Ekiti State. Fayose wants to do everything to destroy Mr Ojudu’s richly deserved reputation built with sweat and from the ruins of the battle for human freedom. This task will fail. We in the human rights community support Ojudu’s current crusade against despots in power in Ekiti State. It is a right step in the right direction. No amount of blackmail should stop Ojudu because his battle is righteous and just. History will definitely absolve him.” The group said the right violations by Fayose are being documented and would soon be presented to judicial authorities in Nigeria and within the framework of the United Nations. [myad]
Generations of young Nigerians in the northeast of their country are being shaped by the terrors of the war as the 16-year-old Babagana, a former Boko Haram child slave admitted: “I was asked to kill my parents on the day I was captured. I had no courage, so they killed them in front of me. “That is how Boko Haram operates,” he told me when I saw him in March in Borno state.
“They first take out your parents so you have no one else to fall back to.” This may be the most tragic fact about the fight raging in northeast Nigeria: It is a war waged by children against children. Minors make up nearly a quarter of Boko Haram’s soldiers. Some recruits are as young as ten and are inducted by raids on villages. They are brutalized and forced to commit atrocities on fellow kidnap victims and even on their own families. Militants kill children who attempt to escape from captivity. Recently village militias have been enlisting young kids to fight against Boko Haram, as well. And the plague is spreading. Earlier this week, the Nigerian army rescued almost 300 girls and women taken captive by Boko Haram, and even though they were not the Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped more than a year ago now, there was a great sense of pride and relief that the Nigerian Army was able to do this. But many stories have not had such happy endings. Last month the Chadian Army announced that it had rescued 43 children held by Boko Haram in Damask, Borno State. All had been soldiers in the Boko Haram ranks, but they were not from Nigeria. The news of the rescue had at first given hope to local people. In March, militants abducted over 400 women and children from the same town in Borno, and I spoke with Bukkar Hassan, who had two sisters among the 400 kidnapped. He was set to travel to Damask, thinking the girls could be among the rescued kids only to be told that the lucky children were all of Chadian origin. Hassan began to weep. For kids living in a state of constant fear, violence becomes a way of life and the psychological trauma is incalculable. Fearing abduction, streams of children, often with parents in tow, leave their homes every night and walk for hours from surrounding villages to reach the relative safety of major towns, only to trek their way home again by daybreak. “We’re seeing a high level of suffering,” says Musa Kubo, a senior government official in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State. “Thousands of people in the northeast, mostly children, are just struggling to survive.” Since the insurgency began in 2009, thousands of children have been abducted to work as child soldiers and porters, or to serve as “wives” of rebels and bear their children, like those hundreds of girls taken from Chibok school just a year ago. The numbers have soared, with nearly a thousand children abducted in the past 18 months alone. The Nigerian military, with help from troops from Chad, Cameroon and Niger, has claimed major gains against the Islamists in recent weeks, recapturing many towns held by the insurgents, and the newly elected Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is a military man committed to eradicating the insurgency. But the impact of the fighting and violence has caused the humanitarian situation in the area to deteriorate rapidly over the past year. And the contrast between the embattled northeast and the prosperous southern regions of the country grows more extreme all the time. The bustling commercial capital of Lagos, located in the south, exemplifies Nigeria’s transformation from a country plagued by economic decay to prosperity. With an average GDP growth of more than 6 percent over the past 10 years, Nigeria can come across as a compelling story of hope for other African nations. But the 6-year old uprising by Boko Haram militants, aiming to create a hardline Islamic state, has killed more than 13,000 people since 2009 and forced some 1.5 million others—half of them children—to flee to squalid and overcrowded camps in order to escape wanton attacks and killings. The number of internally displaced persons has almost tripled since 2012. Attacks on soft civilian targets continue, carried out by child soldiers much younger than their victims. The violence has, among other things, cut millions of households off from access to their farms, causing a surge in food insecurity. “We estimate that only about 20 percent of agricultural land in Borno State (the hardest-hit area) was harvested last season,” U.N. Assistant Secretary General Robert Piper told AFP in an interview, pointing out that “that leaves a massive deficit.” There are dramatic rates of acute malnutrition among the displaced children in Nigeria. In some areas, including Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, malnutrition rates as high as 35 percent have been recorded among children. Fear of militant attacks badly hit the planting season for 2014, threatening to aggravate the already severe food shortages in the coming months. In the same vein, health facilities barely function as stocks run out and health workers flee to escape Boko Haram attacks. During one peak of conflict in the region, a high number of deaths of children were caused by bacterial infection. Children suffer from lack of clean water and can quickly contract with bacterial diseases that threaten their lives. In Borno State an outbreak of cholera was declared last September. In under a month, there have been 4,500 cases and 70 deaths from the disease in Maiduguri, where the number of cases continues to rise. But even as the humanitarian needs increase, the security situation is making it far more difficult for aid workers to get in. Hoping to address some of these challenges, UNICEF has launched a new social media campaign—#BringBackOurChildhood—to highlight the plight of the over 800,000 young people who are missing out of their childhoods as a result of the conflict. “To tell the stories of the children who have fled the violence, UNICEF and leading Snapchat artists will share images based on drawings from children in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon,” UNICEF said in a media release. “The artwork reflects what children miss from home and the emotional wounds and suffering they have endured, including seeing their parents and siblings killed, tortured or abducted.” The violence wracking Africa’s most populous country is meanwhile sending shockwaves through the entire region. Militants have been increasingly carrying out cross-border attacks into Cameroon, Niger and Chad, which are also struggling to host around 200,000 Nigerian refugees. In addition, around 100,000 Cameroonians have been displaced further inland to get away from the volatile border areas. Despite the gravity of the humanitarian situation, less than 20 percent of the $93 million requested by the U.N. for Nigeria in 2014 was received. This year, the organization is asking donors to cough up $100 million for its 2015 operations in the country, a figure that represents only a tenth of the country’s humanitarian need, which is estimated at $1 billion. “The government will have to foot most of that bill,” said Piper, who coordinates the U.N.’s humanitarian work in Africa’s Sahel region. “Nigeria [Africa’s largest oil producer] is generally perceived as relatively prosperous, and it is hard to raise funds for.” Unfortunately, the “success story” that Nigeria represents in the minds of the world’s economic policy makers presents a jarring contrast with the tragedy of conflict in the northeast that shows few signs of abating despite improved military efforts against Boko Haram. As the country and its international allies continue to search for ways of reaching thousands of displaced persons in the troubled region, it remains to be seen how much can be done to protect children from grave violence and conscription.
Philip Obaji Jr. is the founder of 1 GAME, an advocacy and campaigning organization that fights for the right to education for disadvantaged children in Nigeria, especially in northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram forbids western education. Follow him @PhilipObaji. [myad]
Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers’ Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. May Day has its origins here in America and is as “American” as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.
In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Jack London’s The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860’s, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn’t until the late 1880’s that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class.
At this time, socialism was a new and attractive idea to working people, many of whom were drawn to its ideology of working class control over the production and distribution of all goods and services. Workers had seen first-hand that Capitalism benefited only their bosses, trading workers’ lives for profit. Thousands of men, women and children were dying needlessly every year in the workplace, with life expectancy as low as their early twenties in some industries, and little hope but death of rising out of their destitution. Socialism offered another option.
A variety of socialist organizations sprung up throughout the later half of the 19th century, ranging from political parties to choir groups. In fact, many socialists were elected into governmental office by their constituency. But again, many of these socialists were ham-strung by the political process which was so evidently controlled by big business and the bi-partisan political machine. Tens of thousands of socialists broke ranks from their parties, rebuffed the entire political process, which was seen as nothing more than protection for the wealthy, and created anarchist groups throughout the country. Literally thousands of working people embraced the ideals of anarchism, which sought to put an end to all hierarchical structures (including government), emphasized worker controlled industry, and valued direct action over the bureaucratic political process. It is inaccurate to say that labor unions were “taken over” by anarchists and socialists, but rather anarchists and socialist made up the labor unions.
At its national convention in Chicago, held in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), proclaimed that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.” The following year, the FOTLU, backed by many Knights of Labor locals, reiterated their proclamation stating that it would be supported by strikes and demonstrations. At first, most radicals and anarchists regarded this demand as too reformist, failing to strike “at the root of the evil.” A year before the Haymarket Massacre, Samuel Fielden pointed out in the anarchist newspaper, The Alarm, that “whether a man works eight hours a day or ten hours a day, he is still a slave.”
Despite the misgivings of many of the anarchists, an estimated quarter million workers in the Chicago area became directly involved in the crusade to implement the eight hour work day, including the Trades and Labor Assembly, the Socialistic Labor Party and local Knights of Labor. As more and more of the workforce mobilized against the employers, these radicals conceded to fight for the 8-hour day, realizing that “the tide of opinion and determination of most wage-workers was set in this direction.” With the involvement of the anarchists, there seemed to be an infusion of greater issues than the 8-hour day. There grew a sense of a greater social revolution beyond the more immediate gains of shortened hours, but a drastic change in the economic structure of capitalism.
In a proclamation printed just before May 1, 1886, one publisher appealed to working people with this plea:
Workingmen to Arms!
War to the Palace, Peace to the Cottage, and Death to LUXURIOUS IDLENESS.
The wage system is the only cause of the World’s misery. It is supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it, they must be either made to work or DIE.
One pound of DYNAMITE is better than a bushel of BALLOTS!
MAKE YOUR DEMAND FOR EIGHT HOURS with weapons in your hands to meet the capitalistic bloodhounds, police, and militia in proper manner.
Not surprisingly the entire city was prepared for mass bloodshed, reminiscent of the railroad strike a decade earlier when police and soldiers gunned down hundreds of striking workers. On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public’s eye. With their fiery speeches and revolutionary ideology of direct action, anarchists and anarchism became respected and embraced by the working people and despised by the capitalists.
The names of many – Albert Parsons, Johann Most, August Spies and Louis Lingg – became household words in Chicago and throughout the country. Parades, bands and tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets exemplified the workers’ strength and unity, yet didn’t become violent as the newspapers and authorities predicted.
More and more workers continued to walk off their jobs until the numbers swelled to nearly 100,000, yet peace prevailed. It was not until two days later, May 3, 1886, that violence broke out at the McCormick Reaper Works between police and strikers.
For six months, armed Pinkerton agents and the police harassed and beat locked-out steelworkers as they picketed. Most of these workers belonged to the “anarchist-dominated” Metal Workers’ Union. During a speech near the McCormick plant, some two hundred demonstrators joined the steelworkers on the picket line. Beatings with police clubs escalated into rock throwing by the strikers which the police responded to with gunfire. At least two strikers were killed and an unknown number were wounded.
Full of rage, a public meeting was called by some of the anarchists for the following day in Haymarket Square to discuss the police brutality. Due to bad weather and short notice, only about 3000 of the tens of thousands of people showed up from the day before. This affair included families with children and the mayor of Chicago himself. Later, the mayor would testify that the crowd remained calm and orderly and that speaker August Spies made “no suggestion… for immediate use of force or violence toward any person…”
As the speech wound down, two detectives rushed to the main body of police, reporting that a speaker was using inflammatory language, inciting the police to march on the speakers’ wagon. As the police began to disperse the already thinning crowd, a bomb was thrown into the police ranks. No one knows who threw the bomb, but speculations varied from blaming any one of the anarchists, to an agent provocateur working for the police.
Enraged, the police fired into the crowd. The exact number of civilians killed or wounded was never determined, but an estimated seven or eight civilians died, and up to forty were wounded. One officer died immediately and another seven died in the following weeks. Later evidence indicated that only one of the police deaths could be attributed to the bomb and that all the other police fatalities had or could have had been due to their own indiscriminate gun fire. Aside from the bomb thrower, who was never identified, it was the police, not the anarchists, who perpetrated the violence.
Eight anarchists – Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis Lingg – were arrested and convicted of murder, though only three were even present at Haymarket and those three were in full view of all when the bombing occurred. The jury in their trial was comprised of business leaders in a gross mockery of justice similar to the Sacco-Vanzetti case thirty years later, or the trials of AIM and Black Panther members in the seventies. The entire world watched as these eight organizers were convicted, not for their actions, of which all of were innocent, but for their political and social beliefs. On November 11, 1887, after many failed appeals, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fisher were hung to death. Louis Lingg, in his final protest of the state’s claim of authority and punishment, took his own life the night before with an explosive device in his mouth.
The remaining organizers, Fielden, Neebe and Schwab, were pardoned six years later by Governor Altgeld, who publicly lambasted the judge on a travesty of justice. Immediately after the Haymarket Massacre, big business and government conducted what some say was the very first “Red Scare” in this country. Spun by mainstream media, anarchism became synonymous with bomb throwing and socialism became un-American. The common image of an anarchist became a bearded, eastern European immigrant with a bomb in one hand and a dagger in the other.
Today we see tens of thousands of activists embracing the ideals of the Haymarket Martyrs and those who established May Day as an International Workers’ Day. Ironically, May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but rarely is it recognized in this country where it began.
Over one hundred years have passed since that first May Day. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the US government tried to curb the celebration and further wipe it from the public’s memory by establishing “Law and Order Day” on May 1. We can draw many parallels between the events of 1886 and today. We still have locked out steelworkers struggling for justice. We still have voices of freedom behind bars as in the cases of Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier. We still had the ability to mobilize tens of thousands of people in the streets of a major city to proclaim “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!” at the WTO and FTAA demonstrations.
Words stronger than any I could write are engraved on the Haymarket Monument:
THE DAY WILL COME WHEN OUR SILENCE WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VOICES YOU ARE THROTTLING TODAY.
Truly, history has a lot to teach us about the roots of our radicalism. When we remember that people were shot so we could have the 8-hour day; if we acknowledge that homes with families in them were burned to the ground so we could have Saturday as part of the weekend; when we recall 8-year old victims of industrial accidents who marched in the streets protesting working conditions and child labor only to be beat down by the police and company thugs, we understand that our current condition cannot be taken for granted – people fought for the rights and dignities we enjoy today, and there is still a lot more to fight for. The sacrifices of so many people can not be forgotten or we’ll end up fighting for those same gains all over again. This is why we celebrate May Day.
In memory of this struggle and the struggle of all workers for better conditions, May 1 was declared an eight-hour holiday in 1889, by the International Workers’ Congress in Paris.
In many countries May 1 is a workers’ holiday celebrated every year. In Nigeria, May Day as a holiday was first declared by the People Redemption Party (PRP) Government of Kano State in 1980. It became a national holiday on May 1, 1981. [myad]
Recently, the Distinguished Nigerian Magazine, at its 7th anniversary of publishing, honoured 15 Nigerians with merit awards, certificates and plaques for distinguishing themselves in their various areas of endeavours. One of the recipients of the distinguished Nigerian awards is Alhaji Ibrahim Mohammed Bomoi, the current Director of Treasury in the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Abuja. Bomoi is a bureaucrat whose efforts and altruistic spirit have distinguished him as a quiet but hard working civil servant. Like an ideal civil servant, he prefers not to be seen but to work continuously and silently to the satisfaction of his bosses. The award simply signifies Bomoi’s exceptional public service who could best be described as a role model and a patriotic officer whose wealth of experience and versatility has impacted positively on the activities of the FCTA. Since he assumed office in 2012, Bomoi, from Yobe state, has been identified with the virtue of commitment, trustworthiness, commitment, professionalism. loyalty and meticulous discharge of assignments. He transferred his services from Yobe/Borno state governments to the federal civil service several years ago and since then, had moved up the ladder to become the Director of Treasury. He has been able to reshape its financial base and meet up with the aspirations of the people in relation to the numerous projects being undertaken for the development of Abuja. Apart from this, Bomoi is a detribalized Nigerians who has assisted many youths to get jobs and admission into institutions of higher learning across the country and even outside Nigeria. Bomoi has actually done his job very well over the years and has received commendations from many previous FCT ministers as well as private and public institutions, for his professionalism. Ibrahim Bomoi who is famous for his simplicity has won many awards for his diligence in all the assignments he has handled. He is, indeed, an embodiment of humility, a personality whose success story is characterized by doggedness and integrity, a man who is always in the forefront when it comes to promoting truth, justice and fairness and in giving quality service to the society. Bomoi once confirmed to me that honesty is the bedrock to achieving greatness and that since he started his civil service career in Maiduguri, he had always strived to do his work very well. [myad]
A professor of Law and Political Science, Mojeed Alabi, has formally declared his interest to contest for the post of Speaker of the incoming House of Representatives.
Alabi, who was elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Ede North/ Ede South/ Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency made the declaration on Thursday in an expression of interest letter released in Abuja at the ongoing induction program for incoming members of the 8th National Assembly.
In it, the University don with vast practical and theoretical experience in lawmaking and parliamentary practice said ”The 8th House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is like no other. Majority of the Members are newly elected into the Green Chambers of the National Assembly, with the democratic dictate of having its way in the choice of the Speaker. ‘
He added that “While the Standing Orders of the House requires “legislative experience” in the National Assembly {Order II Rule 4(a)}, the Constitution permits the Members to elect the Speaker “from among themselves” {s 50(1)(b)}.”
The PhD holder in Political Science from University of Ibadan and PhD from University of Leicester added that” Honourable Members can, as a matter of necessity, avoid a possible collision between the majority ‘first timers’ and the returnees by electing a Speaker that not only meets the requirements of cognate legislative experience enshrined in the Rules but also capable of enjoying the confidence of his/her peers. Stability of the House requires nothing less.”
The former Speaker of Osun State House of Assembly stressed that ‘‘In the light of this, I hereby present myself to all the elected and re-elected members of the HRs, for an opportunity to serve you as Speaker, taking into cognizance my antecedents, viz:
“Training:
Lawyer, called to the Bar in 1993
Political Scientist: BSc (Ife), MSc (Ife), PhD (Ibadan)
Speaker, Osun State House of Assembly (May 1999-May 2003)
Trainer of legislators across the African parliaments as Head, Parliamentary Capacity Building Programme, African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development (CAFRAD), Morocco, 2008-2010
Speaking engagements as Resource Person/Facilitator/Trainer/Lead Presenter on legislative processes in the last 15 years by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), Actionaid International Nigeria (AAIN), Africa Leadership Forum (ALF), African Union’s Citizens and Diaspora Office (CIDO), African Parliamentary Knowledge Network (APKN),etc.
Member, Osun Schools Infrastructure Development Committee, 2012-2014
Osun Coordinator of Muhammadu Buhari Campaigns, 2014-2015
Member, APC National Presidential Convention Planning Committee·
University Lecturer (1990-98)· & 2005-11, and Professor since 2011
“Skills: Negotiation and conflict management; Expert drafting and letter writing; Training and Research; Oral and written presentation; Good working knowledge of ICT; Good command of the Use of English and familiarity with the French language.
Vision: A virile legislature that constructively engages the government for political stability and economic prosperity.”
PROFILE SUMMARY
Education:
Primary – Methodist School, N5, Agodi, Ibadan, Oyo State (1970-1971; Ansar-Ud-Deen Primary School, Ejigbo, Osun State (1971-1975)
Secondary – Ansar-Ud-Deen High School, Ejigbo, Osun State (1975-1980)
Tertiary:
– University of Ife (1980-1984), BSc Political Science
– Obafemi Awolowo University (1985-1988) MSc Political Science
– University of Ibadan (1986-1989) LLB Law
– University of Ibadan (1990-2000) PhD Political Science
– Obafemi Awolowo University (2004-2006) LLM Law
– University of Leicester, UK (2009-2013) PhD Law
Professional:
– Attended the Nigerian Law School, and called to the Bar in 1993.
Academic Distinctions/Awards:
The Best Overall Student in Political Science (University of Ife, 1984);
Postgraduate Fellowship Award (Obafemi Awolowo University, 1985-1988);
African Fellowship Award, American University in Cairo, Egypt, 1986/87;
Overall Best Student in Masters of Laws (Obafemi Awolowo University, 2005/2006)
Teaching and Research Experience:
Twenty (20) cumulative years of cognate teaching experience in three Nigerian universities in Political Science, International Law and Diplomacy, Public Administration and Public Law, with 1 authored book, 1 edited book, 1 co-edited book, and several academic papers in journals and books, in additional to many seminar papers and presentations on governance institutions, leadership and policy analysis;
He is the author of
The Supreme Court in the Nigerian Political System 1963-1997 (2002), co-author ofPerspectives on the Legislature in the Government of Nigeria (2010), and Editor of Unbroken Legacy of Service: Speaker Bello’s Twelve Years under Three Administrations in Osun State (2011)
Career Progression (Academic):
– January 1990 – Appointed Assistant Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University
– October 1992 – Promoted to Lecturer II, Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University
– November 1995 – Appointed Lecturer I, Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University
– December 1998 – Withdrawal of Service from the University for practical politics
– August 2005 – Appointed Lecturer I, Department of Public Law, University of Ilorin
– March 2006 – Moved to the Department of Political Science as Senior Lecturer
– 2006 to 2011 – Associate Lecturer, Department of Public Law, University of Ilorin
– September 2011 – Appointed Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Ilorin
– 2011/2012 – Adjunct Professor, Department of Public Law, University of Ilorin
– 2011/2012 – Adjunct Professor, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Redeemers University of Nigeria, Mowe
Community Service (University of Ilorin)
Head, Department of Political Science, August 2011- July 2012
Acting Head, Department of Political Science, 2008/2009 Session
Member, Committee on the University of Ilorin Strategic Plan 2008-2013
Coordinator, ·Masters in International Studies (MIS) programme, 2006-2008
Member, Editorial Board,
Ilorin Journal of Business and Social Sciences, 2006-2007
Member, Faculty Board of Law, 2005 to 2012
Member, Committee on Workshop, Faculty of Law, 2007/2008 Session
MOA Alabi_Profile Summary 3
Community Service (Obafemi Awolowo University)
Chairman, Departmental Examinations Committee and Member, Faculty
Examinations Committee, 1996-1998
Member, Editorial Board, ·Ife Social Sciences Review, 1996-1998
Representative of HOD Political Science on the Faculty Board of Law, 1995-1998·
Representative of the Dean of Social Sciences on the Faculty Board of Law, 1996-1998·
Public Service Appointments and Political Assignments:
Secretary to the Local Government (SLG), Ejigbo Local Government of Osun State (February 1991 – November 1993)·
Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly (May 1999-May 2003)·
Chairman, Osun Local Government Areas Creation Committee (O’Local Govts), June 18 – September 26, 2012;·
Member, Osun Local Government Area Creation Review Committee, April 2013 to date·
Member, Osun Schools Infrastructure Development Committee (O’Schools), February 1, 2012 to date·
Member, Committee on Resolution of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) Crisis, September 2011 – June 2012·
State of Osun Coordinator of Muhammadu Buhari Campaigns, 14 October, 2014 – 8 January, 2015·
Member, APC National Presidential Convention Planning Committee, November-December 2014·
Community Service (Foreign)
Member, Editorial Board, ·Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution (JLCR), 2009 to date
Member, Editorial Board, ·Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 2009 to date
MOA Alabi_Profile Summary 4
Head, Parliamentary Capacity Building Programme, African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development (CAFRAD), Morocco, October 2008-September 2010
Community Service (Private)
Legal Practice: Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, since 1993·
Policy Analysis and Consultancy: Regularly engaged as short-term Resource Person, Facilitator, Trainer, Keynote Address Giver and Lead Presenter by Actionaid International Nigeria (AAIN), the Africa Leadership Forum (ALF), African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development (CAFRAD), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), African Development Bank (AfDB), African Union’s Citizens and Diaspora Office (CIDO), African Parliamentary Knowldge Network (APKN), Conference of African Ministers of Public Services (CAMPS), and the Federal Government of Nigeria’s Department of Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA)
Has designed and implemented a number of training and consultancy programmes in the areas of governance, public service reforms and ethics, legislative process, conflict management, management practices, leadership, constitutional/electoral reforms, and finance, budget and audit practices
Community Service (Professional Bodies)
Member, International Political Science Association (IPSA-AISP)·
Member, Nigerian Political Science Association (NAPSS)·
Fellow, Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences·
Member, Society of Legal Scholars (SLS), UK·
Member, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)·
Member, Nigerian Association of Law Teachers (NALT)·
Bio: Born about 53 years ago, Professor Alabi is married to Alhaja Silifat Olarike Alabi (MPA, NIM), and the family is blessed with children.
Hobbies: Reading, Travelling, Photography, Web surfing. [myad]
President Goodluck Jonathan has promised to hand over a country free of Boko Haram to the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari on May 29. He made it lear that he will also do all within his powers to ensure that all Nigerian territory still held by the insurgents are totally liberated before the handing over. The President who received a delegation of Heads of Customs from the West and Central African Region of the World Customs Organisation led by the Secretary-General of the organisation, Mr. Kunio Mikuriya at the Presidential Villa, Abuja today, emphasized his determination to hand over a country completely free of terrorist strongholds to General Buhari. The President said that ongoing military operations in the North-East had already recorded huge successes, with two states completely freed from the control of terrorists, while operations in the third state had reached a concluding stage. “We can now say two states are completely freed from terrorist control, while in the third state, it is only in one Local Government Area that they are still present. That is in the Sambisa Forest.” President Jonathan noted that the military had already moved into the forest to seize the remaining camps of the terrorists, adding that the recent rescue of about 300 abducted girls and women was further evidence of the success being achieved in the ongoing operation. On his decision to concede victory to the President-elect, General Buhari, before all the results of the presidential elections were announced, President Jonathan said that elections must be approached from a nationalistic point of view. “Our elections should be about where Nigeria is going. If Nigeria is moving forward, it is for the good of all Nigerians. My children and grandchildren will live and grow in this country and contribute to it. “I always tell my colleagues to leave office when their time is up. We are trying to encourage African leaders not to remain in power as kings until death.” Leader of the delegation, Mr. Mikuriya commended the President for supporting the reform of the Nigeria Customs Service, saying that other African countries had already started emulating the vision, strategy, adoption to new technology and result- oriented training of officers that were captured in Nigeria’s reforms. [myad]
“Nigerian working class are among the worst hit social groups on account of poor living standards, a situation that is inconsistent with Nigeria’s vast oil wealth.” The President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari of All Progressives Congress (APC), who made this lamentation today in a solidarity message to Nigerian workers who celebrate May-Day tomorrow, added that the hardships being encountered by the Nigerian working class, is being compounded by poor governance and large-scale pervasive corruption in the country. The President-elect, who extolled the sacrifices of the Nigerian working class in the face of economic tough times in their everyday struggle to survive also expressed dismay at the paradox of Nigeria’s oil wealth, characterized by rising poverty while a few corrupt officials are making themselves very rich at the expense of people’s wealth. General Buhari equally regretted the fact that honest labour has been relegated to the background even as he warned that a country that sacrifices honesty in favour of quick wealth by whatever means cannot expect to achieve progress and respect in the eyes of other nations. He reassured the Nigerian workers that his incoming administration would be fully committed to boosting the morale of the Nigerian workers in order to increase productivity and their income. He explained that productivity is directly related to the development of the country’s economy, adding that his incoming administration would increase incentives for the Nigerian workers in order to boost their income. He, however, appealed to the Nigerian workers to cooperate fully with his incoming administration in order to tackle the monster of corruption, which he said is the greatest enemy of development. General Buhari advised civil servants against connivance with corrupt politicians and other public officials to divert public resources to private use. [myad]
President Goodluck Jonathan has said that his defeat at the March 28 Presidential election by the opposition All Progressives (APC) Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari was as a result of internal wrangling amongst the leadership of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) He said however that if the members of the party would remain committed to the vision of its founding fathers and work very hard, the party will return to power at the Federal level in 2019. The President spoke today after receiving the report of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organization at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. President Jonathan said that the electoral losses were most likely as a result of problems within PDP in many states of the federation. “Let us not judge PDP by the results of the presidential elections, because in some of the states where we saw the PDP score so low, it was probably due to problems within the PDP. “We must continue to be united as a party. And continue to work hard so that as we move towards subsequent elections in 2019 and 2023, PDP will come out stronger.” The President said that the party already had all that it will require to win the 2019 elections, but needed to return to the drawing board to re-strategize for the future. “Whatever happened was like a slip. You don’t need to travel to America to know how power moves from the Republicans to the Democrats and from the Democrats to the Republicans. “You can even go to Ghana that is very close to us. The present administration lost some years back and of course they came back, and won the elections. So the problem is not whether we lost or won elections, which is already history, but how we can reconsolidate our party. “If we are committed and we work hard, definitely the PDP will spring back.” He said that the outcome of future elections will be determined by the party’s preparedness, even as he advised members of the party to be more united and remain loyal to the party. “The party will come back stronger. PDP is still the most organized party. PDP is still the party that nobody owns. PDP is still the party that whoever you are, you can get to any level that you aspire to through competence. I encourage members of our party to remain faithful and not be disillusioned.” In his remarks, the Director General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Senator Ahmadu Ali, commended President Jonathan for putting the nation before his personal ambition. “Our great party will emerge from this debacle stronger, wiser and prouder. Even in defeat, we are able to impart some valuable lessons to the Nigerian electorate. “This is the first time in the history of this country that a sitting Government has handed over power peacefully to an opposition party after an election. We are proud of you.” [myad]
The President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari has expressed deep sorrow over the killing of 10 soldiers from Niger Republic by the Boko Haram terrorists. In a statement issued in Abuja on his behalf today by his media team, the President-elect said he was deeply saddened that soldiers from other African countries that came to help Nigeria to fight terrorism were targeted and killed by the terrorists. According to him, Nigeria could never forget the sacrifices of soldiers from other African countries, mainly Chad, Cameroon and Niger Republic, who are part of the African Union Multinational Joint Military Task Force. The President-elect said that the sacrifice of the soldiers from Niger Republic was a demonstration of their commitment to African peace and stability in the spirit of good neighbourliness. General Buhari warned Boko Haram that targeting Nigerien soldiers and troops from other African countries would only toughen the resolve of his incoming government to fight terrorism with all the resources at its disposal. He conveyed his heartfelt sympathy to the families, government and the people of Niger Republic over the murder of their soldiers by the Boko Haram bandits. [myad]
With the 2015 general elections over and winners emerged, it seems that some so-called senior journalists in some media houses are yet to get over the repulsive campaign hang-over. They not only continue to display their personal sentiment, via hate writing, but refuse to accept that Nigeria is still within the confines of democracy. And above all, some of these hate writers have even gone beyond the ordinary, of calling the leaders names and using insultive words on them. A back page columnist, Amanze Obi, with Broken Tongues as title of his column in the Sun newspaper, unfortunately falls in this gutter language usage category. Of course, like I said, in democratic environment under which Nigeria exists, Obi has all the rights to defend the current minister of Petroleum, Alison Diezani-Madueke, as he did in his write up in the newspaper’s edition of April 30 (today), over the alleged missing N20 Billion as floated by the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. He has all the rights too to question and even attack the pronouncement by the President-elect, General Muammadu Buhari, as he also did in the same write up, to the effect that he (Buhari) will probe the missing money (N20 Billion). But, Obi went wild and was obviously livid not only with anger, in the write up titled “Sticky Tales Around Diezani” but called Buhari all sort of names. One feels ashamed that a highly rated and respected writer like Obi would allow his sentiment and hatred to protrude like sore thumb from his thought, by referring to the President-elect as “Buhari and his gang,” and “Buhari and his cohorts.” It is obvious that Obi has lost touch with some vital aspect of African culture which prescribes respect for elders and of course, leaders. Or it is obvious that Obi does not know the meaning of “gang” and “cohort”? If he does and still went ahead to make such derogatory reference as “gang” and “cohort” on a man old enough to be his father or at least uncle, or his leader, pray, where is the sense of decorum? And, in any case, what is wrong in General Buhari saying that he will revisit the issues surrounding the alleged missing N20 Billion? What offense has the General committed by saying so and even doing so? Does mere move to probe the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) amounts to, as Obi said, witch-hunting? It is high time Obi and his gang of hate writers and or cohorts, began to understand that in democracy, there is limit to which freedom of expression can be used, beyond which you either incur the wrath of human and or God or drag one’s reputation as a writer into the mud. That exactly is what Obi is courting. [myad]
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Bomoi, A Silent Worker In Abuja Administration, By Ibrahim Biu
Recently, the Distinguished Nigerian Magazine, at its 7th anniversary of publishing, honoured 15 Nigerians with merit awards, certificates and plaques for distinguishing themselves in their various areas of endeavours.
One of the recipients of the distinguished Nigerian awards is Alhaji Ibrahim Mohammed Bomoi, the current Director of Treasury in the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Abuja. Bomoi is a bureaucrat whose efforts and altruistic spirit have distinguished him as a quiet but hard working civil servant. Like an ideal civil servant, he prefers not to be seen but to work continuously and silently to the satisfaction of his bosses.
The award simply signifies Bomoi’s exceptional public service who could best be described as a role model and a patriotic officer whose wealth of experience and versatility has impacted positively on the activities of the FCTA.
Since he assumed office in 2012, Bomoi, from Yobe state, has been identified with the virtue of
commitment, trustworthiness, commitment, professionalism. loyalty and meticulous discharge of assignments.
He transferred his services from Yobe/Borno state governments to the federal civil service several years ago and since then, had moved up the ladder to become the Director of Treasury. He has been able to reshape its financial base and meet up with the aspirations of the people in relation to the numerous projects being undertaken for the development of Abuja.
Apart from this, Bomoi is a detribalized Nigerians who has assisted many youths to get jobs and admission into institutions of higher learning across the country and even outside Nigeria. Bomoi has actually done his job very well over the years and has received commendations from many previous FCT ministers as well as private and public institutions, for his professionalism.
Ibrahim Bomoi who is famous for his simplicity has won many awards for his diligence in all the assignments he has handled. He is, indeed, an embodiment of humility, a personality whose success story is characterized by doggedness and integrity, a man who is always in the forefront when it comes to promoting truth, justice and fairness and in giving quality service to the society.
Bomoi once confirmed to me that honesty is the bedrock to achieving greatness and that since he started his civil service career in Maiduguri, he had always strived to do his work very well. [myad]