NIGERIANS are aghast, or so it seems, that Ali Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, is, indeed, the jihadist in situ.
There is no gain in sugarcoating it. He is the Islamic militant within, well positioned in the corridors of power to deliver for his constituents – radical Islamists. And he has used his being “in place” to deliver handsomely.
Every well-meaning citizen of this country – Muslim, Christian, Northerner and Southerner – should be alarmed that a man who harboured such extremist views, even if it was in the past, made his way to such a high office.
Many questions remain unanswered. How did we get here? Who knew what?
In May 2020, a bitter conflict erupted between the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, and Pantami.
As the feud got messier on Twitter, Dabiri-Erewa – who had accused Pantami of ordering gunmen to throw NIDCOM staff out of the office given to them by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) – made a quirky revelation.
Pantami denied her allegation and called her a liar. “This is a fat lie from her,” he tweeted all caps on May 24, 2020. In the evening of same day, Dabiri-Erewa punched back also calling him a liar.
But what raised eyebrows was not the fact of her fighting back but the telling insinuation. “An Islamic scholar should not lie Hon. Minister (PhD). You did that to me cos I am a woman. Your disrespect for women is legendary,” she wrote.
Why would a minister deny an agency of government an office space because the agency is headed by a woman? And why would Dabiri-Erewa consider such allegation an effective punch back in the circumstance?
In the last couple of weeks since Pantami became the issue in Nigeria’s never-ending debacle, one question has concentrated my mind. Was Dabiri-Erewa giving Nigerians a hint? Maybe! But Nigerians, not being prescient enough, failed to take the hint.
Things have since changed dramatically.
If Pantami has been a closet jihadist all along, the lid has been blown wide open with reports alleging that he was enamoured of terrorists and is now on the radar of America’s intelligence community.
His initial reaction was to bluster. But the more he blustered, the more his past was unearthed and brought to the public space. And they are damning. In the mid-2000s, Pantami was the ideologue of extremist Islamic groups like Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. His preachments were fiery and most times resulted in violence.
His fellow feeling for domestic and international terrorists, wholesale endorsement of terrorism and intolerance of non-Muslims, would make Osama bin Laden green with envy.
Pantami was heard on video saying, “We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed, but the Sharia does not allow us to kill them without a reason.”
He said bin Laden’s penchant for killing unbelievers makes him a better Muslim than himself.
When President Goodluck Jonathan moved forcefully against Boko Haram terrorists, Pantami said it was genocide against Muslims.
“See what our fellow Muslim brothers’ blood has turned to? Even pig blood has more value than that of a fellow Muslim brother …. You caught someone sleeping and you killed him. If it is not Muslims that undergo such treatments who else?” Pantami lamented.
In the wake of the religious crisis that engulfed Yelwa Shendam, Plateau State in 2004, Pantami volunteered to lead a jihad against Christians and admonished Muslims to shun politicians and religious clerics who preached peace and restraint. “This jihad is an obligation for every single believer, especially in Nigeria,” he exhorted his followers.
When Abū Muṣ‘ab al-Zarqāwī, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in 2006, Pantami offered his public condolences.
His words: “May God have mercy on Aḥmad alFāḍil al-Khalayleh, raḥmatullāh’ alayhi. May God forgive his mistakes. He is a human being. He has certainly some mistakes in front of God, so may God forgive his mistakes. Who am I talking about? He is Abū Muṣ‘ab al-Zarqāwī.”
Commenting on the religious crisis in Bauchi in 2009, U.S. diplomats in Nigeria recorded in an April 15, 2009 diplomatic cable (exposed by WikiLeaks in 2011) that “Imam Pantami Isa, who preached at the mosque, had been previously thrown out of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University and of a Gombe mosque for preaching inflammatory rhetoric.”
This is the man President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Minister of Communications and Digital Economy at the inception of his second term after he had served as Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) from 2016 to 2019.
In both capacities, Pantami presided and still presides over Nigeria’s telecom databases and sensitive national identity and critical biometric data infrastructure. He is in-charge of the mandatory National Identification Number (NIN) programme. A man that harbours affectionate sentiment for terrorist causes is the custodian of the biometric data of every single Nigerian. If this is not scary, then nothing else is.
In this era of social media, the evidence against Pantami is so overwhelming that he has climbed down from his blustering high horse. But without apologising, he has rationalised his extremism by claiming that some of those comments were based on his understanding of religious issues at the time they were made.
“Some of the comments I made some years ago that are generating controversies now were based on my understanding of religious issues at the time, and I have changed several positions taken in the past based on new evidence and maturity,” he reportedly said while responding to questions during his daily Ramadan lecture at Anoor Mosque in Abuja on Saturday.
“I was young when I made some of the comments; I was in university, some of the comments were made when I was a teenager. I started preaching when I was 13, many scholars and individuals did not understand some of international events and therefore took some positions based on their understanding, some have come to change their positions later.”
Of course, his reasons for extremist escapades are preposterous. He was not the only Islamic cleric of the era he was talking about. So, why didn’t others become radicalised or become agents of global jihadist groups?
It is also a “fat lie” for Pantami to claim age as an alibi for his religious zealotry. He was not a teenager when, as the Chief Imam of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) Bauchi mosque, his incendiary preachments resulted in the brutal murder of Sunday Nache Achi, a 400-level student, who was leader of the ECWA Student Ministries (ESM) on the campus on December 9, 2004.
Achi’s crime? Distributing a Christian tract which Pantami said blasphemed Islam and Prophet Mohammed.
In an exclusive interview with TheNiche this week, Nache’s father, Prof. Samuel Achi – CEO of the Federal College of Chemical and Leather Technology at the time his son was strangled in the mosque where Pantami held sway as an Islamic avatar – said there was absolutely nothing in the tract that should attract a fatwa.
Pantami’s claim of having disclaimed Boko Haram is hollow. Of course the Boko Haram of 10 years ago is still the Boko Haram of today. Why would he support the group yesterday and repudiate it today? The only logical explanation is that he is now in government.
So, what happens when Buhari leaves office? Will Pantami once again remember that “pig blood has more value than that of a fellow Muslim brother?”
Some Nigerians have called on him to resign or for Buhari to fire him. That is what happens in a sane country. But Nigeria under Buhari’s watch has gone too gaga and I dare say none of the two will happen. Pantami will neither resign nor be sacked by Buhari.
Why would Buhari sack him for the very tendencies that earned him a place of honour on the presidential dinner table? Will Buhari claim that he didn’t know about his extremist escapades before appointing him minister?
What should worry Nigerians most is the fact that Pantami went through both security and legislative screening and was given a pass to become a minister.
Didn’t the Department of State Services (DSS) unearth his entanglements with extreme religious ideologies? Or they found out but thought he was indeed a changed man and, therefore, it didn’t matter again? What did the Senate know?
Pantami is a metaphor for what Nigeria has become under Buhari’s watch. The Pantami metaphor explains why terrorists hold sway in all the nooks and crannies of the country today – kindred spirits are not only in government but also in power.
THE story of how my life changed involves two cars: a Pathfinder Jeep, and a Toyota Avalon, and SARS.
Before I tell you this story, I should introduce myself. My name is Emeka Kennedy, and before this SARS wahala, I was a 35-year-old employee of the Importers Association of Nigeria (IMAN), a non-governmental organisation that checks all forms of illegal importation, including small arms and goods.
Everything changed on April 12, 2018, when I returned to Lagos from Anambra State where I had gone to drop a car (the Toyota Avalon) for my uncle.
My own car, a Pathfinder Jeep, was not where I left it, at the Trade Fair Complex on Lagos-Badagry expressway.
I asked the security man at the office where my car was. He said some men from Trade Fair Police Station had come to tow it. So I went to the police station.
There, I met the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) who said the officers that towed my car had left instructions: Anybody who came in search of the car should be detained. “For what?” I asked. The DCO did not answer.
Instead, I was immediately detained.
A few hours later, four heavy-looking men entered the station. They wore vests with the words ‘Intelligence Response Team (IRT)’. Later, I learned that the IRT was collaborating with the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
The IRT said they understood I had a Toyota Avalon in my possession.
Ah.
The Toyota in question had come through Cotonou and belonged to my uncle, Mr Ozor Kenneth. All I did was drive it to Anambra State, where I parked it for him to collect. I told the officers all of this, even stating that the car had a plate number and all of its documents were intact. They ignored me.
From Trade Fair Police Station, I was transferred to the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja where the Commanding Officer of SARS, Superintendent Philip, was powerful.
At the Lagos State Police Command, I wrote a statement, telling the officers everything I knew about the car, and that I was innocent, but they did not believe me.
They locked me up in a cell, where for one week, they did not give me food or water.
Later, the officers took me to the station’s backyard, where they tied my hands and legs and hung me in the air for several hours. After they brought me down, I was so weak that I could not stand.
The officers had taken away my phone and switched it off. This meant my family did not know where I was or what was happening to me.
All the officers kept saying was that they would kill me.
Five days later, they took me back to the backyard and hung me in the air again.
The next few days felt like I was in a coma.
When I regained a bit of my strength and the officers saw that I could raise my hand, they took me to the backyard and hung me again.
This was our routine for about two weeks. Starve, hang, repeat.
Then, the four officers who had picked me up from the Trade Fair Police Station put me in their vehicle and drove all the way to Anambra State.
There, the officers went to Awka Police Station, in the capital city of Anambra, to announce their arrival.
I took the officers to the house in Oko town where I had parked the Toyota Avalon. After that, the officers drove back to Badagry, Lagos, where I live.
It felt like I had been kidnapped, tortured, and my brutalized body was now being taken on a tour of Nigeria.
In Badagry, the officers, already armed with a search warrant, swept through my house. There was no one at home. My wife had travelled with our child to her parents in Lagos because of how uncertain things had become. The officers took everything they could find – shoes, clothes, belts, etc.
I spent a month and ten days in detention.
May 22, 2018, was the memorable mark of that dark period.
In the third week of this terrible experience, the officers asked me to call my relatives. I called my father-in-law, who came to my rescue.
My father-in-law and the officers started negotiating my release. Initially, the officers wanted 5 million naira, but they later dropped the price to 2 million. My father-in-law was still unable to raise that amount of money.
Later, I discovered that my wife usually came to see me, but the officers, especially the Investigating Police Officer (IPO), Sergeant Ermond, would send her away because she did not come with any money.
The cost of transportation from Badagry to Ikeja was N800 and, due to Lagos’ notorious traffic jams, the journey could linger for several hours.
My sister, who is a lecturer in the Federal Polytechnic in my hometown Oko, got tired of the officers’ shenanigans and, on May 22, 2018, wrote a petition to the then Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, in Abuja.
The IGP ordered the officers to transfer my case to Abuja with all the files and everyone who was involved in the case.
Instead of obeying the IGP’s order, the officers took me to the Samuel Ilori Magistrate Court in the Ogba suburb of Lagos and slapped me with all manner of charges, including forgery. The judge, suspecting foul play, refused to proceed with the case. She asked them to go and change the charges.
But the officers did not want to change the charges. Later, the IPO came to me and said they would give me bail. All I had to do was to call my people and the matter would go away.
I was asked to bring two sureties, one relative and a non-relative, who were senior-level civil servants, and could deposit 400,000 naira. I was able to get one relative but could not get a non-relative. So, I remained imprisoned.
I was remanded in Kirikiri Medium Prison in Lagos. During my time at Kirikiri, somebody inside the prison advised that I go to the High Court because the officers were afraid of it.
My lawyer and I took my case to the Lagos High Court in Igbosere on Lagos Island. We earned a favourable verdict and I finally became a free man on November 28, 2018.
Over six months after I was first kidnapped by the Nigerian police.
I thought my troubles had ended. For where?
When I returned home, my landlord, with whom I had never previously had any issues, asked me to vacate his property. He did not want to rent his house to an ‘ex-convict.’
Me, my wife, and our eight-month-old baby left Lagos on December 15, 2018.
We now live in Nkpor, a small town in Anambra.
SARS finished me. I lost my friends, my job and myself.
I lost my home. You see, I started living in Lagos when I was 13. I went to secondary school and university in Lagos. Lagos was home. Here in my new life in Anambra, there is nothing. If we see food, we eat.
I am currently unemployed. My last job was driving passengers around in a bus, but the bus broke down.
Don’t even ask about the police case. That one has gone cold.
When my uncle went to the officers concerning the vehicle, they kept toying with him. The officers asked him to go and visit me in jail. They did not believe I had been set free, given the hefty charges they had levelled against me.
SARS finished me.
I’m not even asking for justice. The only thing that concerns me right now is finding a bus to drive so that I can feed my family.
That will happen soon by God’s grace.
This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.
A KLM flight from Nigeria to the Netherlands on Monday, April 19, ended tragically for an unidentified stowaway man whose body was found inside the landing gear compartment of the aircraft.
“We are investigating the discovery of a body in the landing gear of an airplane that arrived from Lagos (Nigeria),” the Royal Military Police tweeted on Tuesday.
Local media reported that the body was discovered by the airport technical staff in the KLM’s plane. The victim is believed to have died from hypothermia caused by low temperatures during the seven hours flight.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport Police and forensic investigators have launched an investigation into the man’s identity and cause of death after he was discovered inside a wheel arch.
In spite of the potential risk associated with stoway travels, some desperate Nigerians seeking asylum or in search of better economic opportunities have found this means of traveling worth their adventures.
Last October, a ship from Lagos heading for England was illegally boarded by seven people believed to be Nigerians who were later detained on suspicion of seeking asylum in the UK.
THE Presidency is keeping sealed lips despite public outcry that has greeted controversial statements made in the past by Minister of Communication and Digital Economy Ali Isa Pantami in support of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
The Presidency has so far remained silent on the matter as Nigerians demand the sack or resignation of the minister.
Nigerians began using hashtags, #PantamiResign and #PantamiResignNow, to demand his resignation after multiple reports accused him of endorsing terrorism and genocidal act.
Pantami was appointed in 2019 as a minister at the inception of President Muhammadu Buhari’s second tenure after spending three years (2016-2019) as the Director-General and CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
The ICIR had earlier reported that Pantami’s statements of admiration for the Taliban’s, Al-Qaeda and Jihad came from some of his preaching and lecture recordings translated by a professor and African expert at Naples University in Italy Andrea Brigaglia, and a Nigerian scholar Musa Ibrahim of the University of Florida in the United States, both of whom contributed to the academic paper published in March 2019 that explored the emergence of Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Brigaglia, in his contributing paper to ‘Debating Boko Haram,’ documented how some clerics in Northern Nigeria, including Pantami, and late Sheikh Ja’afar Adam, who was assassinated at his mosque in 2007 in the northern city of Kano, created mass support for Jihadism in Nigeria.
The journal article was titled ‘The ‘Popular Discourses of Salafi Counter-Radicalism in Nigeria’ Revisited: A Response to Abdullahi Lamido’s Review of Alexander Thurston, Boko Haram.’
Calls to the known telephone numbers of both President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Femi Adesina and the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity Garba Shehu were not answered.
Also, two text messages sent to both presidential aides asking whether President Buhari was aware of the allegations against Isah Pantami regarding his purported support for terrorist groups were not responded to as of the time filing this report.
The messages sent to the presidential aides were marked ‘delivered.’
A message to the Director of the State Security Service (SSS) Spokesperson Peter Afunanya, inquiring about the findings made by the SSS during the screening of Pantami and whether the SSS were aware of the previous controversial positions of the minister on terrorism and terrorist groups, was also not responded to.
FEC did not discuss Pantami – Lai Mohammed
Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday, said the Federal Executive Council did not discuss the issue of Isa Pantami during its meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mohammed, according to The Nation, told State House Correspondents that “I’m not going to go into the issue of whether government is comfortable or not. I will answer your question directly. It was not discussed at the council meeting.”
Buhari’s aide shows support for Pantami
Meanwhile, Personal Assistant to the President on Digital and New Media Bashir Ahmad, on Sunday, shared a solidarity photo with the embattled minister on his verified Facebook page.
Bashir shared a photo showing himself with Pantami at a function in Abuja.
Also on his Twitter handle @BashirAhmad, Bashir tweeted a photoset of quotes from Pantami in solidarity with the minister over calls for his resignation.
No way DSS wouldn’t have done thorough checks on Pantami – Ex-SSS official
A former Director of the State Security Service (SSS) Mike Ejiofor has said that there is no way the SSS wouldn’t have done a thorough check before his appointment as minister in 2015.
The former SSS director said this during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, stating that the secret service had prompted the Senate via a report which barred the National Assembly from confirming the appointment of a former acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu.
“I am not the spokesperson of the SSS, but I can tell you that it would be difficult for that information to have passed the State Security Service.
“They must have it on record of his sympathy for Al-Qaeda and some of these terrorist organisations. If the State Security Service submits a report on an individual to government and government fails to act on it, who is to blame?” he questioned.
Adetola BADEMOSI, in this concluding segment of a two-part report, writes on how children miss out on important vaccines and irregularities between public and private hospitals routine immunisation schedules.
VACCINES racketeering thrive in some government hospitals visited
DURING this investigation, Nigerian Tribune discovered nurses also engage in sharp practices through vaccine racketeering for interested parents.
Once they sense mothers’ willingness and readiness to get the vaccine, they offer to provide the shots at a cost believed to be lesser than what is obtainable in private hospitals.
Sadly, the trend has continued to thrive because parents can strike a bargain with the nurse, making fast money.
For instance, findings in the FCT revealed that a dosage of chickenpox vaccine in a private hospital costs N22,000 or more, depending on the healthcare provider. Simultaneously, the same can be gotten from between N16,000 to N18,000 in a public hospital.
A child between ages 12-15months is then required to take the first and second doses at different intervals, making a total of N36,000.
At a popular private hospital within the Central Business District (CBD), close to Church Gate, the cost of getting the Hepatitis A vaccine is N16,500.
In an interaction with this reporter, a parent, Mrs. Gloria Ndubuisi, explained how she could get the Chickenpox and Pneumococcal IV vaccine at the sum of N22,000 altogether with the help of a nurse at a popular Government hospital in Abuja.
To further authenticate the racketeering claim, this reporter visited the Federal Staff Hospital, Abuja, with a two-year-old child to enquire about the cost of getting a child immunized against Hepatitis A.
The dark, slim nurse on duty, who owns an account with Access bank account number 0041***183, tactically ushered this reporter to a quiet corridor and said, “we don’t give, but if you need it, I can get it for you. It is N8,000 for a dose. The second dose will be after four weeks.”
However, the efficacy or safety of these vaccines cannot be vouched for, as inappropriate storage could affect its potency.
The WHO 2015 report on vaccine storage titled:” The vaccine cold chain” describe vaccines as sensitive biological products. While some vaccines are sensitive to freezing, some are sensitive to heat and others to light.
According to the report, vaccine ability to adequately protect the vaccinated patient can diminish when exposed to inappropriate temperatures.
“Once lost, vaccine potency cannot be regained,” the report stated.
“To maintain quality, vaccines must be protected from extreme temperatures. Vaccine quality is maintained using a cold chain that meets specific temperature requirements.”
While confirming the findings by Nigerian Tribune, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said it had commenced a discreet investigation in partnership with the Department of State Services (DSS) to arrest perpetrators in Abuja.
It particularly mentioned such acts were mostly rampant at the Jabi Medical Centre, Abuja.
But the case was completely different at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH).
The immunisation nurses on the seat had instead directed this reporter to get a vaccine prescription from the staff clinic before proceeding to the pharmacy to make payment.
After the process was completed, the total cost for a dose of both the MMR and Chickenpox vaccine, alternatively known as varicella, was put at N14,630.
Rota., Chickenpox, MMR, PCV IV, how important?
According to the WHO, Rotaviruses are the most common cause of severe diarrhoea disease in young children worldwide.
As a result, it recommends that rotavirus vaccines be included in all national immunization programmes and considered a priority, particularly in South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
While corroborating this, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the virus can easily spread among children and could cause severe watery diarrhoea, vomiting, fever, and abdominal pain.
UNICEF describes diarrhoea as the leading killer of children, accounting for approximately 8 per cent of all deaths among under-five globally, as of 2017.
Besides exclusive breastfeeding, UNICEF, among several other preventive measures, recommended the rotavirus vaccine, saying it “protects one of the most common causes of childhood diarrhoea-related death.”
On the other hand, chickenpox is described by UNICEF as, “single virus that can linger for a lifetime.”
According to WHO 2015 report titled: Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, the varicella virus, alternatively Chickenpox, is regarded as highly transmissible via respiratory droplets or direct contact with characteristic skin lesions of the infected person.
When infected, the virus remains latent in nerve cells and may be reactivated, causing a secondary infection called herpes zoster in adults.
The report adds that the Varicella vaccines are available either as a single antigen and in combination with measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR).
While the WHO describes measles as a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that mostly results in high fever and rash, Rubella is an acute, contagious viral infection that usually causes a mild fever and rash in children and adults.
Although Nigeria has introduced the Measles II vaccine dose in the national schedule, the WHO recommends that countries take the opportunity of accelerated measles control and elimination activities to introduce rubella-containing vaccines.
FG, stakeholders react
When contacted Dr Bassey Okposen, Director, Disease Control and Immunisation, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), in a 26 minutes interaction with this Reporter, affirmed this reporter’s findings on government skipping the Rota Vaccine despite its inclusion in the schedule.
He said the vaccine included in the national schedule was not approved because the GSK brand being sought for was not available globally.
But, Okposen disclosed that its roll-out would commence in the third quarter of 2021 as the agency already got its approval.
“We have currently gotten approval from GAVI. It is the timeline of delivery which we are looking at in the third quarter.
“For us, we are bent on getting the RotaSiil because it is the best in the world. That is the brand from GSK, but the story is that it is not available globally, and for Nigeria, it will not be enough.”
Okposen further stressed that the MMR vaccine had not been approved by the FG, saying: “you cannot introduce MMR in a country if you don’t have a routine immunization of 80 per cent and above. It’s the standard anywhere.”
He argued that introducing mumps to the measles shot may prime children for CRS or down syndrome.
“We have severally said this, there is no need to introduce mumps vaccine in Nigeria like the MMR, but if you go to private clinics, you will see it, and many such children will still come down with CRS,” he stated.
Like others, he asserted that private hospitals who give such vaccines are merely “out for business”.
For other vaccines listed in the report, the Director noted that the government could not fund vaccines for diseases or viruses considered eradicated.
From his explanations, he said before vaccines are introduced, the significance of such disease on public health is considered.
“…If you look at chickenpox, for instance, where did you see a typical case of such? So why would we give the vaccine? We will just be wasting money,” says Okposen.
On the likelihood of disease resurgence, he explained that: “In public health, once the herd immunity is building, the disease disappears on its own, and that is what we are trying to do in COVID-19. Once we have herd immunity of 70 to 80 per cent on its own, it will move to where the herd immunity is low. It is natural.”
On the contrary, a Virologist and Medical Laboratory Scientist, Dr Solomon Chollom, argued that every disease prevention vaccine should be administered regularly.
He reminded that Nigeria lacks vaccine-producing institutions and resorts to importing these vaccines, which cost the nation a fortune.
As a result, Dr Chollom said: “in an attempt to cut costs, they look at the epidemic map in Nigeria to see which diseases are much more prevalent and likely. So they seem to streamline.”
He, however, said irrespective of the circumstances surrounding this, every vaccine-preventable disease that already has a vaccine developed for it, should be captured in the schedule.
The Virologist further faulted claims that the MMR vaccine could prime children to CRS or down syndrome, saying: “…but there have not been such clear cut instances that had to do with safety.
“You need to understand that when people want to do the wrong things, they will always get intelligent reasons. They put up intelligent reasons to defend their positions but scientifically, there is no evidence backing that claim.”
In his reaction, Dr Chris Akude, a Family Physician with a leading private hospital in Abuja, countered claims that such vaccines were listed to swindle parents.
He said public hospitals do not list them in their schedule as they are paid for.
“It is not entirely true. You know, sometimes, when you don’t answer a question, you label everyone as bad. It is not swindling. Secondly, those you actually pay for them, those who can afford it get it and those who can’t don’t get it.
“So what it means is that their children will be exposed to it. If you go abroad, all those things are covered. It is not covered. It is like here if you want to do a CT scan, it is N60,000. How many people can afford that? But it is there in private hospitals. Does that now mean we are swindling them? It only means that we can provide the service to those who can afford them.”
‘This report is done with support of Wits Journalism and the African Investigative Journalism Conference.’
DESPITE public concerns on Nigeria’s rising debts, the Senate has approved fresh external loans of $1.5 billion and €995 million for the Federal Government.
The loans were approved by the lawmakers after considering the report of Clifford Ordia-led committee on local and foreign debts during Wednesday’s plenary session.
The €995m loan is meant for agricultural mechanisation across the 774 LGAs while the $1.5bn loans will be used to fund critical infrastructure in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
This is coming a week after Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki expressed concerns about the country’s rising public debts.
According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s total public debt as of December 31, 2020, was N32.915 trillion, representing a 20.13 per cent rise from N27.40 trillion recorded in December 2019.
The increase in the country’s total debt stock was mainly due to a 40.82 per cent rise in external debt to N12.71 trillion as at December 2020, from N9.02 trillion in December 2019.]
The Nigerian economy is in dire straits. Oil price has hit over $60 per barrel, but the country is wasting its market gains on petrol subsidy which gulps N120 billion every month.
“We may be eating up the future with the way we are going. For some of us, we cannot say this enough. This is not the way to go. Most often, I wonder what the Nigerian Labour Congress wants to achieve in the way and manner they tread with the government on the subsidy issue. We cannot keep making economic decision political all the time You can see the way we’re struggling to pull this through.” Chairman of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria Adetunji Oyebanji told the ICIR on Tuesday.
Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 17.33 per cent in February 2021, from 16.47 per cent recorded in the previous month. This represents the highest inflation rate recorded in four years. Unemployment reached 33 per cent in the last quarter of 2020, putting the country among the highest in the world. States are struggling to pay salaries and even the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) cannot meet its cash-call obligations to international oil companies (IOCs).
THE Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has called on the Federal Government to investigate the alleged threat to the life of fleeing Daily Nigerian Publisher Jaafar Jaafar.
It said that the government had an obligation to protect members of the media, especially when their lives, safety and security were threatened by government officials.
MRA’s Communications Officer Idowu Adewale, in a statement to The ICIR on Wednesday, said: “As a journalist, Jaafar, has a constitutional right and duty to hold government and its officials accountable. Since he is a Nigerian citizen and a journalist, the Police have a duty on both counts to protect him from any form of harassment or threat as well as any danger on his life or the lives of members of his family and any attempt to prevent him from performing his professional duties.”
He argued that there was no way Jaafar could get or expect any fair treatment in the hands of the Police who had levelled spurious charges of inciting violence and spreading injurious falsehood against their boss, the Inspector General of Police, and were at the same time purporting to conduct an investigation into their own accusations against him, adding that “such a process makes an outrageous mockery of our system of justice.”
Adewale said MRA shared Jaafar’s concerns that the allegations and the invitation to report to the Police for questioning were merely an attempt to lure him into their custody so that they could do him harm.
He, therefore, called on the government to ensure that a thorough investigation was conducted into the threats to Jaafar’s life, with a view to bringing the perpetrators to justice and ensuring that no harm came to him. He noted that the Federal Government of Nigeria would be liable under international law for the actions of the Police and any state government that violated the country’s treaty obligations.
Adewale urged the government to live up to its obligation to ensure the safety of Jaafar and other media practitioners, including preventing attacks on them whenever possible and ensuring that all attacks or threats were investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted and punished.
Jaafar has come under threat from Kano State Governor Ibrahim Ganduje since the journalist published video clips in October 2018, showing him allegedly collecting bundles of dollars in a bribery scandal from a contractor.
In an interview with the BBC Hausa Service on March 19, 2021, Ganduje boasted that there were ongoing plans to deal with those who released the videos, following which Jaafar wrote a petition to the then Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu over the renewed threats to his life.
On April 14, 2021, Jaafar received an invitation from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Monitoring Unit to report for questioning on charges of criminal libel based on an allegation that he was inciting violence and spreading injurious falsehood against the IGP.
The journalist has since gone into hiding as a result of fear for his life. Reports say unidentified persons who are likely to be ‘hitmen’ have been stalking him both at his Abuja and Kano residences.
THE United States has called for a peaceful democratic transition of power as military name Idriss Deby’s son Mahamat Idriss Deby president of Chad Republic.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price stated the position of the US in a statement on Tuesday.
“We support a peaceful transition of power in accordance with the Chadian constitution,” he said.
The ICIR had reported how Deby, who just won his sixth re-election as the country’s president, died of injuries suffered on the frontline in battle with rebels in the troubled part of the country, where he had gone to visit soldiers.
The country’s Army spokesman Azem Bermandoa Agouna was quoted to have said in a statement on Tuesday that Deby “breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield.”
The Army said Deby had been commanding his army at the weekend, battling against rebels who had launched a major incursion into the north of the country on election day.
The rebel group Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), based across the northern frontier with Libya, attacked a border post in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south, but suffered a setback over the weekend.
In a move that contradicts Chad’s constitution, Mahamat, a general in the Army, was announced by the military to head a 15-member military council that would lead the country for the next 18 months.
Chad’s constitution requires elections to be held within 90 days in the event the president’s post becomes vacant, while the Speaker of the House of Assembly becomes the president in the interim.
For six hours, Arinze CHIJIOKE travelled on water from Sapele to Opuama, a community in Delta State, to report the impact of an oil spillage that left many families in tears.
THE time was 10am in late March. Over 60 women, old and young, gathered outside the house of 90-year-old Julius Loboh, the oldest man in Opuama, a community in Egbema Kingdom, Warri North local government in Delta State.
Dead fish
“We are dying. There is no food. Our fishes are dead. Our trees are dead. We can’t take it any longer,” the women cried as they got ready to protest the latest oil spill that left one dead and many, especially children, suffering from varying kinds of sicknesses.
Their men had gathered earlier to continue discussions on what to do next after the spill.
Soon, the women got on boats and headed towards the Opuama flow station operated by the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, and Elcrest Exploration and Production, E&P Joint Venture, the companies said to be responsible for the spill.
This is the third time Opuama is experiencing oil spillage; the first happened in 2002 while the second was in 2009. But the latest spillage has proven to be the most devastating in terms of its spread and impact. In its aftermath, children were stooling and vomiting, severe headaches, stomach pain and cough.
Endless spills in the Niger Delta
Nigeria is said to be the largest exporter of oil in Africa and these exports account for at least 90% of the country’s foreign exchange and more than half of government revenue.
A report by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that crude oil export accounted for N3.74 trillion or 70.84 per cent of total exports in the third quarter of 2019, while its contribution to the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) stood at 9.77%.
This makes it the most exported product in Nigeria, with bulk crude oil lying beneath farmlands and rivers in the Niger Delta region.
Sadly, more than six decades of oil spills and gas flaring have transformed the region, home to over 6.5 million local people whose livelihoods depend on fishing and farming, into one of the most polluted places on earth. These spills have left fishing habitat, swamps, agricultural land, groundwater, waterways, and more in ruins.
Nnimmo Bassey, an environmental rights activist, says the Niger Delta is where oil spills occur virtually every day.
After Shell discovered and first pumped oil in Bayelsa in the late 1950s, several international oil companies have exploited Nigeria’s oil reserve from across the Niger Delta.
While over two million barrels of oil have polluted the region in 2,976 separate oil spills since 1976, about 300 oil spills occur in the region every year. In 2011, a spill at Shell’s Bonga oil fields released 40,000 barrels.
Over 350 farming communities were affected, and 30,000 fishermen were forced to abandon their livelihoods.
The people of the Niger Delta have practically watched their future drain away as a result of oil spillage.
An Amnesty International report that exposed evidence of serious negligence in the Niger Delta shows that since 2011, Shell has reported 1,010 spills while Eni has reported 820 spills since 2014.
How it all happened
At exactly 4 am on Sunday, March 14, while families were still asleep, the major crude oil pipeline from the Opuama flow station under oil mining lease (OML) 40 and operated by the NPDC and Elcrest E&P Joint Venture ruptured, spilling gas over the community.
Immediately, the news went round that no one should light up a fire, else the entire community would go up in flames.
The entire Opuama River turned green.
The Public Relations Officer, PRO of Opuama Oil and Gas Committee set up to look into cases of oil spillage, Kintein Chico, said the spill was reported to the company and they immediately shut down the operation and gave instruction that nobody should tamper with the spill.
“But a lot of damage had been done by the spill. It covered the whole river so much that you cannot even stand at the river bank. We couldn’t even come out of our houses till the next day,” he explained.
Late Anthony Ebiogbo
The worse hit was the family of Anthony Ebiogbo, a member of the community who died a day after the spill. He had inhaled the gas.
He was said to have complained that he had a headache and that his eyes were itchy that Sunday while he was inside his tent.
Community members quickly got medication for him. But he died on Monday and was buried the same day.
He had only returned from Lagos, where he was selling Timber six months ago.
The spill inflicted different kinds of illnesses on children in the community. After inhaling the gas, they began to have severe headache, stomach pain, and cough, stooling and vomiting.
David Ebiogbo (Anthony’s brother) explains how he misses his brother
They were taken to Cottage Hospital owned by the NPDC and Elcrest and Alekoromoh, another privately owned hospital, where they were treated.
It has been endless tears for David Ebiogbo
At the entrance to the tent, just by the door side, where late Anthony Ebiogbo would normally sit and discuss with his friends, David Ebiogbo (Anthony’s younger brother) reminisced about the times they shared.
David said his brother would not have died if not for the oil spillage that ravaged his community. He said his late brother inhaled the gas after coming out that Sunday morning and couldn’t breathe.
“He held his head and was shouting. We tried to save his life. But he later died, he died,” he said.
Since then, David has not stopped grieving. He misses his brother with much pain in his heart and wishes he were still alive.
“I never imagined that Anthony would die because of the spill that covered our community, “he said, tears welling up in his tired eyes.
What is also worrying for David is that his elder brother had 13 children with two wives before he died. Although some of them have left home, he said it would not be easy for the family to cope without their father.
“If we knew he would come back and die, we would have asked him to stay back. But he is gone now,” he said, trying to hold back tears.
Economic impact of the spill
The Opuama spill polluted water bodies and slums, killing a lot of fishes and damaging the ecosystem.
This is highly worrying for members of the community who mostly depend on fishing and timber from their forests for survival.
Before the spill, members of the community only had to walk up to the river, cast their nets and come back for a full harvest of fish the next day. It was a huge source of income for many families.
But now, there is nothing to harvest. There is nothing to sell. There is nothing to eat. Families who can afford it have to wait for boats coming from Sapele before getting fish or travel to buy.
There is the cost of transportation. There is the risk involved in travelling on the water for hours. There is the stress.
Anytime there is no boat, there is no fish.
Oghene Ovo says there is nothing to chew after the spill
Oghene Ovo has been married in this community for over 40 years now. But she plans to return to Okpe in Sapele, where she comes from. She said she could no longer bear the hardship inflicted by the spill anymore.
The day it happened, she was fast asleep, and when she perceived the smell of gas, she thought it was an electrical fault.
After some time, she found it difficult to turn her body and breath. She quickly woke up.
“That was when my neighbour came into my tent to tell me that gas had spilt in the community. I had to go and get drugs,” she explained.
When the day finally broke, and Ovo and other community members came out of their tents, they could not see water, and gas had covered everywhere.
“Our fishes died. The spill flowed into our creeks and killed a lot of them. Our nets were empty”. Now, we are suffering to get fish”. We now have to pay N1,500 to get a carton of fish from Sapele. We are hungry. From morning till night, there is nothing to chew,” she lamented.
Hannah didn’t know her son would survive the spill
Hannah Uwale holds her six-month-old son, Ayibasinla Uwale who was affected by the spill
When 24-year- old Hannah Uwale perceived the smell of gas at exactly 4 am that Sunday, she quickly ran out of her bed. Her 6-month-old son, Ayibasinla Uwale, had already started coughing.
Her mother, Tennade Omoko, ignorant of what was going on, had woken up to lit up fire and boil water as she was wont to do.
“When my uncle, Godffrey Omoke, heard her trying to put fire, he quickly called from his room and asked her not to put fire as gas had covered up the entire community, “she said.
At 7 am, the cough had become severe, and she quickly ran to a chemist shop to buy him some cough syrup.
By Monday, the cough reduced and Uwale, who teaches in a private school, left her son with her mother. It was her turn to conduct the morning assembly that Monday.
But she had only finished saying the morning prayer and was about to take the national anthem when her cousin ran to where she was standing and said her mom was calling her.
“I thought she just wanted to see me and asked my cousin to go and that I would join them later,” she said.
Unknown to her, her son had started coughing again. “When we started the matching song, my mom came with my child. He was coughing hard. His eyes were closed, and my mom was crying,” she explained.
Immediately, Uwale took her son from her mother and ran to the chemist, where he was given several drips before his eyes opened. He only recovered after one week.
Ishmael fell at his school’ assembly ground
Goodluck Ishmael’s mum, Maria explains how her son fell at the Assembly ground
On Monday, a day after the spillage that ravaged his community, 10-year-old Goodluck Ishmael went to school, like every other child. He attends Stanley Dickson Samuel Devine nursery and primary school, Opuama.
While they were at the assembly ground and getting ready to go into their classes, Ishmael fell to the ground. He had inhaled the gas and become dizzy, losing control of himself.
Ishmael’s mom, Maria Ishmael, 35, said her son’s school had to go on break after he fell. She said she and her husband were surprised when they heard that their son had fallen in school because he wasn’t sick before he left home that Monday morning.
“When he fell, his teachers helped him up and one of them quickly called and said my child had fainted. Before my husband and I got to his school, we saw them carrying him and we rushed him to Akekoromoh clinic,” Ishmael’s mom said.
Ishmael was given some medication at the clinic, and the doctor confirmed that he had inhaled the gas.
He became well again. But weeks later, while his mother and other women had gone to protest at the flow station of the NPDC and Elcrest E&P, he started throwing up and stooling.
“My husband called to tell me that he had taken my son to the hospital and that I should come back. He was stooling and vomiting. At the clinic, we were told that he still had the gas in his system,” she explained.
Oil Spills and increased newborn mortality
A study by the University of Sankt Gallen in Switzerland, “The Effect of Oil Spills on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Nigeria,” has found that oil spills that occur within this 10-kilometre radius of human habitation increase the neonatal mortality rate by 38 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Using spatial data from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor and the Demographic and Health Surveys and relying on the comparison of siblings conceived before and after nearby oil spills, the study found that the chemicals can also be dangerous for unborn children in the region if their mothers live too close to an oil spill before the pregnancy begins.
The same study also estimated that in 2012 alone, 16,000 babies died within the first month of life because of oil pollution in the Niger Delta. Generally, children in this region grow up drinking, cooking and washing with polluted water.
Companies could be held responsible, but they don’t care
In 2008, four farmers from Oruma, Goi, and Ikot Ada Udo villages in Rivers and Bayelsa states, with backing from Friends of the Earth Netherlands, an environmental campaign group, instituted lawsuits against Shells Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) in a Dutch court.
This was after leaks from underground oil pipelines cost them their livelihoods by contaminating land and waterways between 2004 and 2007.
On Friday, January 29, 13 years after, the court ordered the SPDC to pay a yet-to-be-established compensation, faulting the company for the environmental destruction caused by pipeline leaks in the affected villages.
While Shell said the leaks resulted from “sabotage” and criminal activities, the court said it could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that saboteurs were to blame for leaks that spewed oil over an area of a total of about 60 football pitches in Oruma and Goi.
It, however, ruled that sabotage was to blame for an oil leak in the village of Ikot Ada Udo but insisted that the case over whether Shell was liable would continue.
Although the victory meant that farmers and others who have watched their livelihoods slip away in the Niger Delta could get justice, “getting the companies to behave better is an ongoing battle “Bassy, the Director Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF said.
He said the judgment at The Hague should be a signal to Nigerian and Transnational Oil Corporations to stop their misbehaviour in the Niger Delta.
“It is not like the people of Niger Delta are always looking for cases to take to court to get compensation. They want a clean environment. With the judgement, it was hoped that companies would behave better. But we are yet to see that happen”.
Alagba purged endlessly
Mathew Alagba is the prophet in charge of the Celestial Church of Christ in Opuama. He spoke of how he purged endlessly after he inhaled gas that Sunday Morning.
The entire Opuama water was green after the spill
He said he would have died if he had not been taken to a hospital outside the community to receive medical attention.
“I started purging from 9 pm on Sunday till Monday morning. It was more than nine times. I had a Cold that Sunday night, and that got my wife worried. She had to go and call some elders in the church,” he said.
When the elders got to his house and saw him lying down helplessly, they quickly sent for a community doctor who came and ran some tests on him. His blood pressure had gone up as a result.
“He started administering treatment on me. He gave me injections and other medications from that Sunday through Wednesday. On Thursday morning, he gave me the last injection and left,” he said.
Five minutes after the doctor left, Alagba began to shiver again. He was all alone this time. His wife had gone out. After boiling and taking warm water, he called one of his members, who ran down immediately.
“Other members came too. I asked them to take me to Warri that Thursday. They quickly went and got a speedboat, bought fuel and rushed me to Warri. When we got to the clinic, where I would always go for treatment, they said my temperature was very high.
Alagba was told that gas had occupied his entire system. His legs were shaking. He had to receive further treatment. The doctor said he needed to be admitted for seven days.
“They started to flush my system. At a point, my temperature calmed down a little. Every five minutes, I was releasing gas because of the treatment they were giving me. I received an injection through my veins. The stooling reduced, and they told me I had Malaria and Typhoid,” he explained.
Alagba is better now.
Accusations and denials
It is almost one month after the spill in Opuama. But there has not been effort by the companies who own the ruptured pipeline to clean up the environment.
PRO of Opuama Oil and Gas, Kintein Chico
The PRO of Opuama Oil and Gas Committee, Chico, said the companies recently brought food items to help them deal with hunger.
When this reporter visited, the spills were still floating on top of the water as community members watched helplessly.
But while they blamed the companies for the spill during a joint Inspection visit, which usually happens after incidents of oil spillage, the companies blamed it on saboteurs.
“The companies have not done anything to help deal with the effects of the spill. They said they could not pay since there was a third party,” Chico said, adding that they asked the community to sign the JIV report after blaming the spill on the third party. But the people refused.
When travelling to the community, boats are subjected to security checks by soldiers at least three military checkpoints who ensure that no boat carrying anything incriminating is allowed to pass.
Chico says this is enough to prove that the spillage resulted from equipment failure and not sabotage as claimed by the companies. “If it was sabotage, how did those responsible pass the checkpoints with whatever materials they used to destroy the pipeline,” he asked.
“This is usually the outcome of JIV visits. They would always blame the spills on criminal activities, “Bassy said.
He added that the most solid effort that has been made in terms of clean up in the Niger Delta was through the Hydrocarbon Pollution and Remediation Project (HYPREP) set up by the Federal government in 2016 to restore the environment and restore the livelihood of the people.
This was after the United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP, commissioned by the government, conducted an assessment on the impact of oil extraction in Ogoni Land and made recommendations in 2011.
The report found that both soil and groundwater across Ogoniland have been severely contaminated even as public health was threatened by contaminated drinking water and carcinogens. It also found out that Delta ecosystems such as mangroves had been utterly devastated.
“That is the only comprehensive effort that is made. It is still ongoing and happening slowly”. Whenever there is an oil spill, the corporations will tell you they have done the cleanup, “he explained.
He noted the emerging trend of companies giving the jobs of environmental clean up to local companies who do not have the competence.
“These days, they use the crudest methods, with buckets and shovels and hoes. We have not had adequate clean up anywhere in the Niger Delta operations of Oil extraction commenced”.
Rising in arms
This is not the first time companies are being accused of contaminating the Niger Delta region through leaks from oil exploration and failing to compensate families and clean up the environment.
Persistent spills in the oil-rich region had grown into a major source of nightmare.
On November 10, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders were hanged by the military regime of late General Sani Abacha.
Their crime was fighting against oil pollution, which devastated their environment and inflicted poverty and disease on the people.
In 1990, Saro-Wiwa had co-founded the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), which launched mass campaigns to win compensation for environmental damages and demand that the region is given a fair share of oil profits.
25 years later, the killing of Wiwa and other leaders has watered the seeds of revolution against the Nigerian government and oil companies, leading to the rise of militant groups that attack and burn oil facilities and cause huge revenue losses.
Young men in the Niger Delta are demanding improved regulations and campaigning to restore their polluted land.
A signboard in Opuama
NPDC refuses to react to the spill
When contacted for comments on the Opuama Oil spill on March 6, the Manager, Community Relations of the NPDC, Dahiru Abubakar, refused to speak and asked this reporter to direct the questions to the External Relations Department. He could not provide the reporter with any contact details.
This reporter also contacted the Community Liaison Officer for the NPDC, Mr. Tom Abarigho, through a phone call on April 15. But he said he was not in the position to speak on the matter.
He, however, said that the company had given its position on the spill during the Joint Inspection Visit.
“I am not in the position to answer any question concerning the spill. If you want to ask those questions, you can channel it to the management of the NPDC,” he said.
Efforts to get through to the management of Elcrest could not yield any result as there was no access to the company’s contact.
The people of Opuama will not forget the month of March in a hurry. It will go down in history as the period when they lost a life to oil spillage.
A jury in Minnesota, on Tuesday, found former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd, with his bail revoked upon prosecutors’ request.
Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in connection with the death of George Floyd, an African-American, during an arrest last May.
A viral video clip that captured the last moments of Floyd’s life showed him handcuffed and face down on the pavement while repeatedly saying that he could not breathe as Chauvin knelt on his neck. The video sparked an unprecedented wave of mass protests globally against Police violence and racism.
Chauvin’s sentencing is expected to take place in eight weeks and he could bag up to 40 years in prison, which is the maximum sentence for second-degree murder in Minnesota. Third-degree murder is punishable by up to 25 years in prison, while second-degree manslaughter is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Reactions to the verdict
Tuesday’s verdict was delivered to a country on edge, with demonstrators gathered in their hundreds outside the fortified downtown Minneapolis courthouse and several streets.
Law enforcement agents around the country braced for an anticipated widespread protest, which turned to loud cheers and jubilation as the verdict was announced.
“Today, we are able to breathe again,” Floyd’s younger brother Philonise said, adding that he felt ‘relieved’ and would finally have the opportunity of getting some sleep since the death of his brother.
People gather before a march in Atlanta, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all counts in the death of George Floyd. (AP Photo/Ben Gray).
In his remark delivered after the court’s ruling on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden hailed the verdict as a step forward towards Police reform, adding that no one should be above the law.
“There’s meaningful Police reform legislation in George Floyd’s name, but it shouldn’t take a year to get it done. I assure the Floyd family that we’re going to continue to fight for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act so I can sign it into law right away,” he added.
Vice President Kamala Harris urged the Senate to urgently pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to hold law enforcement agents everywhere to the highest standards of accountability and help build trust between law enforcement and the communities.
“Today’s verdict brings us a step closer to making equal justice under law a reality. But the verdict will not heal pain that has existed for generations. It will not take away the pain felt by the Floyd family. That’s why we must recommit to fight for equal justice. We are all part of George Floyd’s legacy and now our job is to honor it—to honor him,” Harris said.
Attorney general of Minnesota Keith Ellison said while reacting to the conviction: “I would not call today’s verdict ‘justice,’ however, because justice implies true restoration. But it is accountability, which is the first step toward justice.”
Using similar words, Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz said: “Today’s verdict is an important step forward for justice in Minnesota. The trial is over, but our work has only begun.”
The Significance of the verdict
Some people were heard on the streets of Minnesota chanting: “All three counts!” and “Whose victory? Our victory!”
Floyd’s painful death became a rallying point for blacks and the jury’s verdict is now viewed as a significant landmark in the struggle against Police brutality and racial inequality, not only in America but everywhere in the world where they exist.
According to Floyd family’s attorney Benjamin Crump, the verdict went far beyond the city of Minnesota and had significant implications for the entire country and the world at large.
“Justice for Black America is justice for all of America. This case is a turning point in American history for accountability of law enforcement and sends a clear message we hope is heard clearly in every city and every state,” Crump said.
Former president and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama commended the jury for doing ‘the right thing’ but said true justice was much more than a single verdict in a single trial.
The Obamas, who are also African-Americans, acknowledged through a statement that “Black Americans are treated differently, every day…and millions live in fear that their next encounter with law enforcement could be their last.”
“While today’s verdict may have been a necessary step on the road to progress, it was far from a sufficient one. We cannot rest. We will need to follow through with the concrete reforms that will reduce and ultimately eliminate racial bias in our criminal justice system,” the Obamas said.
Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota Ilhan Omar said while the conviction was a necessary condition of justice, it was not sufficient.
She noted that for centuries, Black people had faced violence in the hands of state agents, as well as systemic inequalities in housing, income, education and criminal justice.
“Let this be a turning point, where we finally create a society that reflects the belief that all men and women are created equal. Let this be the moment where we implement a broad antiracist agenda to root out the inequalities that continue to plague us,” Omar said.
Chauvin’s track record of abuse
An article on police violence written by criminal justice scholar Jill McCorkel after George Floyd’s killing noted that Chauvin was “the subject of at least 18 separate misconduct complaints and was involved in two additional shooting incidents.”
During a 2006 roadside stop, Chauvin was among six officers who fired 43 rounds into a truck driven by a man wanted for questioning in a domestic assault. The man, Wayne Reyes, was said to have died. A Minnesota grand jury did not indict any of the officers.
“I think people’s belief in the system that we got in place is so bad that they don’t expect nothing good,” a Houston rapper Cal Wayne, who was a childhood friend of Floyd, told a local newspaper.
As celebrations over Chauvin’s conviction continue with renewed calls for an overhauling the policing system, some of the reforms Americans expect include: a ban on chokeholds, elimination of qualified immunity and a change in the legal standard for law enforcement using ‘objectively reasonable force’ to ‘necessary force.’
This means that officers would be legally allowed to use deadly force only if there were no other reasonable alternatives to prevent serious injury or death.
