Less than two weeks after the commencement of business by delegates to the National Conference, a member from Bauchi state, Mallam Hamma Misau is dead, even as President Goodluck Jonathan hailed his contributions to the national unity.
Misau, who is a retired Assistant Inspector-General (AIG) of Police, died last night of an undisclosed illness at the National Hospital in Abuja, aged 67.
The deceased’s cousin, Barrister Mohammed Hamma who announced the death said that Muslim funeral prayer will shortly be conducted on him in Bauchi.
In a condolence message, President Jonathan said that Misau had served his nation, Bauchi state and community in his 34 years of distinguished service in the Nigeria Police Force and even in retirement.
Jonathan said that the deceased had continued to be actively engaged with efforts to move the nation forward as shown by his participation in the National Conference.
He condoled with his family, the government and people of Bauchi State, as well as the Chairman of the National Conference, Justice Idris Kutigi (rtd.) and all his co-delegates.
The President joined in mourn the death of Misau even as he enjoined all delegates to the National Conference to resolve to honour his memory by rededicating themselves to working conscientiously towards further strengthening national unity, and promoting peace, security, political stability and faster development in the country.

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto Diocess, has lamented that Nigeria is being ridden with leaders who are incompetent, lazy in taking action and who prefer to remain in office with inability to wield power positively.
Said he: “too many people from top to bottom are coming into public life with no preparation and no pedigree or evidence of exposure and success in any other form of endeavour beyond the patronage of politics. “Too many people are therefore in office but not in power. With too many key actors with limited capacity, ability and exposure, we see that our public officers are soon weighed down by raw power, leading to manufacturing of election results, tinkering with the processes and wanting to stay in power far too long.”
Bishop Kukah spoke at the Convocation Lecturer for the 43rd Convocation of the University of Nigeria yesterday, on a topic ‘After the insurgency: some thoughts on reconciliation in Nigeria.’
Kukah decried the current situation regarding the insurgents in the country, saying that Nigeria needs dreams and dreamers “to avoid nightmares like Boko Haram.”
The outspoken cleric traced the roots of anti-Muslem violence in Northern Nigeria to the British conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1903.
According to him, Northern leaders wrongly equated the Colonial mission with Christianity, thus breeding suspicion, adding that Boko Haram arose more recently from injustice due to failure of leadership at political and religious levels.
“What we call Boko Haram today is just a handing over the baton in a long relay race of injustice and incompetence in government. Yesterday Odua Peoples’ Congress burnt, killed, and ended up getting a President Obasanjo. Today, the Niger Delta think President Jonathan is a reward for their struggles. Why will Boko Haram not think that it is only violence that will give them a President or an Islamic State? We cannot go on this way and in our situation, perception is reality, tragic as it may be. What we sow is what we shall reap.”
He said that Nigerians have a wholly negative view of every past leader, even as he called for a more balanced view of Nigerian history and respect for facts.
“Nigerians like to think of their country and its past in such negative terms as if somehow, nothing has happened to us and no leader has done anything positive or worth celebrating or remembering. There is hardly a former Head of State that commands the required respect of Nigerians across the board. Our views about our former public officers are shaped by self-serving assessments, tainted by selfish, clannish, ethnic, regional or religious considerations. Thus, there can hardly be a common view about any single former Head of state or President that can command cross cutting respect and integrity.”
He decried the strident criticism of the inclusion of the name of the former Head of State, late General Sani Abacha in the centenary honours list, saying: “while history is a highly contested terrain, we must develop the capacity of managing the good, the bad and the damn ugly. “We can subject them to any interpretation but we cannot wipe them out of history.
“For whatever reason, had there been no Abacha, there perhaps would have been no President Goodluck Jonathan, no Governor Tinubu or my good friend, Kayode Fayemi, today. This is because there would have been no Ekiti, Nassarawa or Zamfara states. We can judge General Abacha over his theft of state resources, but try telling that to the people of Sierra Leone where he is revered.”
At the lecture, chaired by former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, Kukah cautioned against using the ongoing National Conference for the political ends of the leadership, doubting the utility of the conference and the document it would produce against the backdrop of history and current practices by politicians.
“There is now a conference to fashion out a new Nigeria. We have had all this before and been on this road before. Will anything be different? Will the conference really and truly be insulated from the ambitions of those who have set it up? Even assuming for the sake of argument that we really and truly manage to have even a perfect document, what will that mean? We have not been faithful over little things and indeed, we have governed our country more by unconstitutional than constitutional means. “We all know that there is no reverence for the document. All the stealing that is going on, all the high cost of governance, all the executive recklessness and individuals in public life treating public funds as if they are private, are any of these in the Constitution?”
In his address, UNN Vice Chancellor Professors Bartho Okolo said the institution’s Convocation Lecture has grown in stature and relevance due to the calibre of speakers it attracts annually.
He said that recent speakers have included former Vice President (Africa) of the World Bank, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, Lagos State Governor, Raji Fashola (SAN), former Information Minister, Professor Dora Akunyili and former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

As attacks on some communities in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba states by Fulani marauders continue, Tiv leaders in America have said that they are ready to fund their communities to defend themselves if the Federal Government failed to intervene.
The leaders added by threatening to draft their able body warriors into the war front to confront the fast invading Fulani herdsmen into their lands.
Vice President of Mutual Union of the Tiv in America (MUTA), Professor Joseph Zume said that the government at the centre has continued to look the other way while attacks targeted at Tiv communities are being perpetrated unabated.
“It seems there is a conspiracy to emasculate our people, make them not to perform their well-known vocation of farming very well, kill them, drastically reduce their number and possibly make them politically irrelevant.
“But the Federal Government has remained silent about it. We are therefore constrained to begin to fashion out a way for our people to be able to defend themselves if they are attacked.”
Also in a statement jointly signed by the President, Joseph Unongo and Secretary, David Agum, the group said the situation is deteriorating by the day as hundreds of their people are being murdered and others rendered homeless in their homeland and “strongly condemned the orchestrated attacks and killings of people in parts of Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba states by Fulani herdsmen and mercenaries.
“We warn that if the Federal Government of Nigeria cannot defend the Tiv people from the marauding herdsmen, we will be forced to mobilise the people to defend themselves.”
The group said their decision became necessary because the attacks by Fulani herdsmen are unprovoked, motiveless and rather gratuitous.
“It is disturbing that what started as a local dispute along the Benue-Nasarawa axis a few years ago, has now manifested as a well-orchestrated agenda to over-run Tivland.
“This is evident both from the expanded scope of the attacks and the sophistication with which they are executed. The most recent well coordinated attacks and devastation of Tiv communities in Makurdi, Guma, Gwer, Gwer-West, Kwande, Logo and Katsina-Ala local councils of Benue State are suggestive of a deeper plan than meets the eye, and we warn the perpetrators and their sponsors to think twice – it won’t be that easy.”
Unongo said that as Tiv sons and daughters in The Diaspora, they cannot fold their arms and remain mute as “communities at home are being ravaged and our people being killed, maimed, and rendered homeless by the Fulani and their cohorts.”

The Lamido of Adamawa, in Adamawa state, Alhaji Mustapha Aliyu, today, floated a kite of secession at the ongoing National Conference in Abuja, against the warning by President Goodluck Jonathan that the issue of oneness of Nigeria is a no-go area.
The Lamido, at today’s sitting of the Conference,  threatening to pull his Adamawa people out of Nigeria over what he described as the “behaviour of some elders who claimed to be supporters of President Jonathan.”
The traditional ruler who said he had tried unsuccessfully to speak for three days because he was not given the chance said that the delegates who he refused to mention are putting the nation’s unity at risk with their behaviour.
The Lamido made it clear that his Kingdom transcends Nigeria, stressing that he is ready to pull his people out if the country splits as a result of the action of some people at the conference.
He said if his people are pushed to the wall, they can easily walk out of this country, adding: “jingoism is not the preserve of anyone.
“There is a state in Cameroon called Adamawa and if I run to that place, I can easily assimilate,” said the traditional ruler.
Though some delegates attempted to shout him down with spontaneous shouts of “no, no, no” despite pleas by Justice Idris Kutigi that they should allow him to finish his speech, the traditional ruler continued speaking.
In an obvious reference to controversies that have been raging over whether 75 per cent or 2/3 support of delegates will be needed to ratify a decision, especially when it is impossible to reach a consensus, the monarch said he was surprised at the behaviour of some delegates since, President Jonathan had already stipulated what can be discussed at the conference.