The Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria, CBCN, has asked the Nigerian media and other individuals to stop misinterpreting its stance regarding same sex marriage in the country.
The bishops maintained their earlier position that gays and lesbians do not deserve severe punishment or jail term.
In an article titled, “Still on Same-Sex Union and the Stand of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria”, by the group’s director of social communication, Chris Anyanwu, the CBCN accused journalists of twisting the position of the bishops.
“There is certainly an obsession by some journalists about ‘severe punishment of gays or lesbians’ and they try to twist the Bishops’ statements to articulate their views.
“Nigerian Catholic bishops are very responsible pastors who do not seek the punishment or jailing of persons who err, but to help them unto salvation,” Mr. Anyanwu, a reverend father, said.
He said the tone of some news stories attributed to the president of the CBCN, Ignatius Kaigama, were far from those intended to achieve the aim of his original message.
“In wrongly reading the letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) in January 2015 to President Goodluck Jonathan, some international organizations mischievously reduced the CBCN position to advocating severe punishment of gays or lesbians with long prison terms,” wrote Mr. Anyanwu.
He noted in the article that in writing a letter to the former president, CBCN was far from advocating jail terms for homosexuals.
“What the CBCN supported, blessed and commended in their letter of 21st January, 2015 to former President Goodluck Jonathan was because the Nigerian government upheld the dignity and sanctity of marriage even in the face of all sorts of pressure.
“When therefore the federal government resisted the attempt to impose this culture on Nigerians by legislating against “same-sex union”, the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria felt a sense of great relief and issued a statement to affirm government’s decision,” he noted.
The reverend father however expressed worries that a reporter once misrepresented the comments of Mr. Kaigama to mean persons promoting homosexual acts were ‘shameful’ and ‘barbaric’.
“[The] Archbishop Kaigama we know is a careful and pastorally-minded prelate who would not have used such words as: “shameful”, “barbaric”, “madness”, etc. to refer to anyone.
“Our stand was and is ‘no to same sex union’ and ‘no to spreading of the homosexual culture’ which can only complicate our struggle to uphold traditional/ religious/moral values in our country,” he said.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday said the Federal Government had plans to distribute 6,000 megawatts of electricity in the country by the first quarter of 2016.
According to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Vice President, Laolu Akande, Mr. Osinbajo stated this at Kaleta in the Republic of Guinea, at the inauguration of a 240 MW hydro-power plant.
The event, at which Mr. Osinbajo represented President Muhammadu Buhari, was part of the activities marking Guinea’s 57th Independence anniversary taking place on October 2.
The vice president commended the vision of the Guinean president, Alpha Conde, noting that the inauguration of the power plant was a “monumental accomplishment” in a short time.
“It shows what can be done with commitment and vision,” he noted.
The 240 MW hydro-power plant in Kaleta was built to serve mainly the people of Conakry, the nation’s capital.
The statement noted that the event was witnessed by the presidents of Congo and Niger, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and Mohamadou Issoufou, respectively.
It added that there were also representatives from the governments of China, France and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
In an offensive operation to clear Boko Haram terrorists’ enclaves around Kwatarha and Torikwaptir area of Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State, a notorious Boko Haram terrorist was shot dead by the Nigerian Army.
A statement by the spokesperson of the Nigerian Army, Sani Usman, said the terrorist, who was notorious for carrying out terrorism activities in the surrounding communities, was gunned down by troops on Monday afternoon.
“An AK-47 rifle was recovered from him. During the operation, four other terrorists were believed to escape with gunshot wounds,” Mr. Usman, a colonel, said.
In a related development, troops of 3 Division have also arrested a suspected Boko Haram kingpin, Tijjani Damagum.
Mr. Sani said the terrorist was tracked to his base, where he had been coordinating attacks.
“He was tracked down and arrested at Damagum town, Yobe State yesterday. A high profile Boko Haram terrorists’ group member, he has led Boko Haram members on various attacks, especially in Yobe State.
“The suspect is currently undergoing interrogation with a view to arraigning him soon,” said the army spokesman.
The atmosphere at Badia East, a slum community in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, on Thursday, September 24, the day of the 2015 Muslim Eid-el-Kabir festival, was anything but celebratory.
The community looked like it had been ravaged by hurricane. People wore long and sullen faces as they cuddled under whatever makeshift structure they could build from the rubble of their homes that were demolished a week before.
Stripped of their dignity and possessions, families gathered in small groups in the open looking dejected. A woman was taking her bath in the open, a piece of cloth tied to two sticks barely hiding her nakedness from the public. A young man, who probably hadn’t got much sleep for quite for a week, slept on a bench with corrugated iron sheet delicately placed over his head shielding him from the daylight. A few metres away, four kids were playing with rocks beneath what look like a recharge card kiosk. A woman who sat beside them said that was where they had been sleeping since their parents were forcefully evicted and their home demolished.
Members of the community narrated that on September 17, 2015, representatives of the Oba of Ojoraland, Abdul Fatai Aromire, posted notices of possession of the land backed by a judgement of a Lagos State High Court. They claimed that no notice of eviction was served on them.
They said bulldozers arrived the community in the dead of the night, around 2 am, and started pulling down homes. People were not even allowed to take their personal belongings. Many shops were pulled down with the wares inside them.
Evicted women and children at demolition site in Badia East, morning of 20 Sept 2015
Bukola Ojuri, who owned a grocery shop in the community, said she lost everything she owned. Speaking with a clear bitter tinge in her voice, Mrs. Ojuri said the dress she had on was the only possession she was able to salvage from her home.
“They have destroyed everything along with the house because that day when they came around 2:00am in the morning with caterpillar,” she said. “When we saw them, ask them if they came to demolish our houses. They deceived us and said they were not coming to demolish houses. They said caterpillar wanted to pack the gutter. I went out and that was when people at home called me that they were already demolishing the house. Before I got there, they were already moving to the next house and I begged them to allow me take even a bag out of my house, I pleaded with them, They forbidded me from entering my house so I left them.”
Joel Oko said he had a thriving guest house and barber shop before the demolition exercise. He said he and his two kids now live outside with nowhere to call home.
“We just saw them one morning. They started demolishing with no notice. I am helpless. I don’t know what to do. The government should come to our aid,” he said.
Olabisi Malomo, a mother of six, lived in the community for 25 years. She also lost all her possessions to the demolition and now sleeps in the open with her children. She said Thursday evening was particularly difficult for her suffering family as it rained heavily all night and she and her children had little or no protection from the rain.
“I am sleeping outside with my six children. As rain is falling now, we are under the rain. The way they do us for this community, it’s not good. In this Nigeria, they treat we poor people like we’re goats. We aren’t goats; we are human beings. They should help us. We have suffered too much,” she said.
There was no cheerful story to tell. It was all gloom and grim. Worse, for many of the estimated 15,000 displaced people it was like reliving a nightmare.
In 2013, the Lagos State government demolished a section of the community to make way for the Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (HOMS). More than 9,000 people were displaced in the process. The intention of the state government was to demolish the entire community at the time, but widespread local and international condemnation of the shamed the state and compelled it to halt the exercise.
Although this current eviction is being done by the Ojora Chieftaincy family, which is laying claim to the land, residents of Badia East believe it is the Lagos State government that is using the family as a cover to continue what it suspended in 2013.
They suspected the Ojora family plans to hand over the land to the state government to continue its mortgage scheme as soon as they are evicted.
“I am saying it that Lagos state was just using Ojora as a cover up,” said Emmanuel Ojuri, a victim of the demolition. “Lagos state is trying to play hanky-panky. We understand that Ijora has ceded that parcel of land to Lagos State. I know Ojora has collected lots of money, that is why. Even the caterpillar (bulldozer) they used, it is Lagos State Carterpillar, it is not Ijora own. Ijora does not have bulldozer.”
Mr Ojuri, as well as several other residents of the community, alleged that an official of the Lagos State Physical Planning and Development Authority (LSPPDA), Tunde Olugbewesa, was seen supervising the demolition.
That was a concern everyone in the community expressed. After the evictees protested in front of the Governor’s Ofice on September 21, the government ordered a temporary stop to the demolition but the people still live in horrid fear that the bulldozer might start pulling down homes again.
However, Oba Aromire, the traditional leader of Ijora, said his family was merely taking possession of what belonged to it and was not evicting people on behalf of the Lagos State government.
In a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES, he said Badia East had remained a “den of criminals” and that by taking possession of the land, the family would be helping to rid the surrounding communities of crime.
He declined to speak further on the matter when we visited him last Thursday. But added that some members of the community had written him a “letter of apology” .
He promised to call a press conference where he would further state his family’s side of the story. Although the Lagos State government denied it has anything to do with the demolition, it promised to help resolve the matter in such a way that all parties involved would be happy and satisfied.
A meeting between representatives of the community and the Ojora family has been fixed for Friday at the state government’s secretariat in Alausa.
Members of the community said they have lived in the area for over 40 years and cannot be treated like squatters. They said the state government should relocate them to a new place and pay compensation for their properties destroyed by the bulldozer.
“In any civilized country if you are displacing us you must create where we will stay. Almost on two to three occasions, Lagos state has been on our lands but what do we get? Even when Amnesty international and all that say you must compensate these people, you must give these people something, they did not give us anything,” said Mr Ojuri.
Demolition after demolitions
Residents of Badia have for long being on the receiving end of demolitions. In 1929, the federal government acquired a huge chunk of their land to build a railway. By the early 1970s, the federal government called again, this time displacing occupants at a location nearby where the National Theatre was built. However, the people were moved to Badia-East, some hundreds of metres away, where they continued to live until Lagos State began its forced evictions.
There were also half-hearted attempts at eviction in 1986 and 2002. But it was in 2003 that the community experienced its first real taste of government bulldozers as Bola Tinubu, the then governor of Lagos, rolled in equipment to demolish a part of the community.
However the one that happened 10 years later, in 2013, was on a scale never seen before by the people.
Witnesses recall how bulldozers, accompanied by fully armed police officers, stormed the community around 7 am that Saturday, February 23, 2013. They spoke of how residents were given just 20 minutes to park their belongings before the demolition started.
Some people, according to one of the affected residents, John Momoh, were able to pack some of their belongings. Others were not so lucky. Their stuffs were destroyed along with the demolished residences.
Once the demolition started, residents were not allowed to come near what were their homes for years.
At the end of the exercise, about 9,000 people were rendered homeless, according to Amnesty International, as bulldozers and backhoes pulled apart wooden homes erected on swampy grounds in the slum.
Forty-eight hours after the demolition, Felix Morka, a human rights lawyer, led hundreds of the community people in a peaceful protest march in front of the governor’s office in Lagos. Mr. Morka also galvanized both the local and international media to beam their attention on the plight of a people rendered homeless by an elected government.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that Badia was chosen as part of the urban renewal zone project alongside eight other slums selected for the 200 million U.S. dollars World Bank credit facility project, implemented by the Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project. The project was designed to provide essential services and infrastructures in slum communities in Lagos.
The Lagos government has however maintained that the demolition was not related to the World Bank project. The government maintained the Badia residents were illegal occupants who were simply made to vacate government land.
Lagos, the demolition master
Most of the victims of the 2013 demolition have moved on to find homes in other slums or locations around and outside Lagos. Some have moved in with relatives. A few, PREMIUM TIMES was told, remain homeless.
For several months, arguments and counter-arguments lingered between the community and the Lagos State government over whether the residents were eligible for compensation or government-assisted relocation.
While the community’s lawyers argued that Ijora Badia residents should be compensated, the government insisted they were illegal occupants of its land who did not deserve any assistance. The government maintained that the demolition was not related to the World Bank project.
But after a series of meetings between the Badia community representatives and a technical committee of the Lagos State government, a Resettlement Action Plan, RAP, that included a compensation package was reached for those affected by the demolition.
The figures paid to the evictees were arrived at after a unilateral decision by the Lagos State government to review downwards an initial figure agreed by both parties .
The details of the package in the RAP included: N90,400 for tenants; N171,725 for owners of small structures (1 – 4 rooms) ; N248,740 for owners of medium structures (5 – 8 rooms); and N309,780 for owners of large structures (8 rooms and above).
The World Bank monitored and approved the RAP, despite it falling short of international human rights standard and the Bank’s resettlement policy.
Almost all the affected residents appear to have now been paid. All those interviewed by PREMIUM TIMES lamented that the money paid to them was meager and would do little to provide succor. They however said they agreed to accept the compensation because they ran out of patience after waiting for over a year.
“Normally we are supposed to reject that, but because our people are dying and we cannot cope anymore,” said Albert Olorunwa, a community representative.
The Lagos government has a history of forcefully and brutally demolishing homes and businesses, with little or no warning, no compensation and no resettlement – purportedly in enforcement of the state’s environmental laws.
According to the Social and Economic Rights Action, an NGO documenting these practices, countless Lagos communities have experienced such horror – from Ijora Badia in 2003 and again in February 2013 to Makoko in 2005 and 2010 – and thousands of Lagosians have been left homeless and further impoverished as a consequence.
A call for Buhari’s intervention
A coalition of non-governmental organisations and individuals, known as Friends of Badia East, in a press statement on Sunday, called on the Ojora family and the Lagos state government to stop further demolition of homes in the community.
“We join the victims in calling for the Ojora Chieftaincy Family and the Lagos State Government to put a final halt to these demolitions,” the group said. “We implore urgent protective action for the victims by the Lagos State Government and the Federal Government, both of which have the legal responsibility of preventing forced evictions, protecting victims, and ensuring effective remedy.
“At a United Nations summit just days ago, President Buhari publicly committed Nigeria to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, which sets goals for eradication of poverty and rights-based upgrading of slums. It is high time for such commitments to be felt in places like Badia, the statement read.
The group, therefore, made the following demands:
– That the Federal Government of Nigerian and the Lagos State Government take all necessary steps to ensure there are no further forced evictions;
– That people already forcibly evicted be returned to their rebuilt homes, or provided an adequate and satisfactory alternative, and compensated for all their losses; and
– That persons rendered homeless, especially women, children and other vulnerable populations, be given immediate humanitarian assistance, including adequate temporary shelter while long-term solutions are in process.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (UNOCHA), has told PREMIUM TIMES that Nigeria was officially informed and properly invited to a high-level event in New York where the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin was discussed.
This is contrary to the claims by the Nigerian presidency that the country was neither informed nor invited to the meeting where Nigeria’s neighbours and key humanitarian agencies brainstormed on how to tackle the refugee crisis caused by the conflict.
The event was organised by UN Under-Secretary-General, Stephen O’Brien, but Nigeria, the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, was absent.
Reuters news agency reported last week that U.S. and European Union diplomats were disappointed that Nigeria was not represented at the meeting.
The news of the absence of the Nigerian delegation at the meeting attracted condemnation back home with many blaming it on the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint ministers.
They argued that a competent minister of foreign affairs would have ensured that the country was represented at the meeting where such an important issue was discussed.
In an email to PREMIUM TIMES, on Sunday, backed up with a list of events the President’s delegation was invited to participate, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, insisted the presidency did not get an invite to attend the meeting.
“There is no record of any invitation to the Nigerian Mission as confirmed by the Permanent Representative, Prof Joy Ogwu,” he said.
But a spokesperson for UNOCHA, Jens Laerke, who is based in Geneva, told PREMIUM TIMES over the telephone that not only was the office of the Permanent Representative of the Nigerian Mission to the United Nations officially informed and invited for the event, an invite was in fact sent to the office of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, prior to the departure of the Nigerian delegation to the UNGA.
“I’m almost 100 per cent sure that Nigeria was invited. One of the reasons was that I read the original speech by O’Brien in which he acknowledged the presence of the Nigerian government,” he said.
Mr Laerke, however, asked to be allowed to double-check with his colleague in New York, who was in charge of inviting participants for the meeting. He called back four hours later after checking with his organisation’s New York office.
“I’ve just been in contact with my colleague in New York and we can assure you that the government of Nigeria was invited to the event and my colleagues in New York did what they could to ensure that they were provided with the invitation,” he said.
When asked which organ of the Nigerian government the invite was sent to, Mr Laerke responded: “Actually, the government was invited both by direct communication to the Vice President and then subsequently through the permanent representation in New York.
“My colleague told me he actually went there personally to hand over the invitation to make sure they receive the invitation. We really made an effort to make sure the government was aware of the invitation because we really want them to come.”
When asked to for documentary evidence that the Nigerian mission was actually informed, and indeed received and acknowledged the invitation, Mr Laerke demanded an official letter before that could be made available.
PREMIUM TIMES did exactly as he requested.
In an email to this newspaper on Tuesday, Mr Laerke said the New York office of UNOCHA was yet to revert to him.
“I have not obtained any reply regarding your request for access to written documentation. In the meantime, however, I have double checked the matter and I can assure you that Nigeria was invited to the event. We don’t know why they didn’t come.
“You may want to raise this with the Permanent Mission of Nigeria at the UN in New York.
Allow me to add that the Nigerian Government is a valued partner of the UN and UNOCHA,” he wrote.
PREMIUM TIMES contacted Nigeria’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations but its spokesperson, Tope Elias-Fatile, declined to provide categorical answer when asked if the Mission received an invite for the Boko Haram event.
This newspaper sent Mr. Elias-Fatile an email on Monday asking him five questions, including two dealing with Nigeria’s invitation to and representation at the Boko Haram event.
Other questions dealt with President Buhari’s attendance at the session where Pope Francis addressed the UN.
But in his response, the spokesperson gave a blanket answer which did not categorically answer any of the questions.
He merely said, “Only one answer with brief explanation will suffice to all the questions:
“Mr. President arrived promptly to all events in which he was scheduled to attend, including Pope Francis’ address to the United Nations.
“Specifically, Mr. President arrived promptly at the General Assembly well ahead of Pope’s address and he listened to the address. You can verify this by any video coverage of the event.”
Efforts to seek clarification from Permanent Representative Joy Ogwu by telephone was unsuccessful.
Since Saturday, multiple calls to the Mission’s telephone numbers were answered by an automated voice prompt that kept linking the calls to what appeared a dead extension.
A separate email to the official address of the permanent mission, sent Saturday, has also not been replied.
When contacted on the insistence by the UN that Nigeria was invited to the event, presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said, “Ask them to give you evidence that the invitation was delivered, and the name of the staff who received it. Prof. Joy Ogwu said there was no invitation. We need evidence before anyone can say what she said is inaccurate.”
Laolu Akande, the spokesperson for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, whose office UNOCHA said it also informed of the event, could not be reached to comment for this story. His telephone was switched off the several times PREMIUM TIMES called.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday named Nigeria’s petroleum minister. And that is himself.
Mr. Buhari said he would personally head the Ministry of Petroleum Resources in the new cabinet.
Addressing some select reporters in New York on Tuesday, after addressing a Global Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism, the President said: “I wil remain Minister of Petroleum.
“I will appoint a minister of State for Petroleum”.
According to him, this step is being taken as part of efforts to sanitise Nigeria’s oil industry, which is said to be plagued by corruption, massive fraud, and crude oil theft.
Mr. Buhari restated his determination to sanitise Nigeria’s oil industry and free it from corruption and shady deals.
He said that the first step in this direction had already been taken with the appointment of a new management for the NNPC and its subsequent reorganisation.
The President said the prosecution of those who misappropriated NNPC’s revenue under past administrations would soon commence.
On Corruption, he pledged that the federal government will fight corruption, because it has been identified as the root of all problems hindering Nigeria as a nation.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, for most part of his tenure, was also the minister of petroleum.
Mr. Buhari had promised to name his cabinet before the end of September.
Since Wednesday is the last day of the month, the President is widely expected to forward names of his minister to the National Assembly today.
Names forwarded to the National Assembly would be screened and approved by the Senate before they are sworn in.
Already, the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, has indicated that the screening of the ministers would be thorough and comprehensive.
Mr. Saraki gave the hint while welcoming senators to plenary in Abuja after a long recess.
He said that screening of the nominees would be in-depth to ensure that only competent and qualified individuals only occupied the positions.
“As we await the list of ministerial nominees this week, we are prepared to treat the screening with dispatch but with thoroughness,” the Senate President said.
“I believe the presence of ministers will create the space for greater policy engagement with the executive arm of government.
“I want to urge you all my colleagues to ensure that what is uppermost in our minds as we begin the constitutional task of screening of ministerial nominees is the overall interest of our country.”
He added, “Once the list is submitted, let us ensure that we treat it with dispatch and thoroughness. We must not be held down by unnecessary politicking.
“The enormity of our national challenges at this time does not give room for pettiness or politics of vendetta.”
The capital of the Central African Republic is under a night-time curfew after days of intense fighting between Christian and Muslim groups.
Fierce clashes between the two groups erupted after the killing of a Muslim taxi driver in Bangui on Saturday.
At least 36 people have died in the violence, and the UN says it has forced nearly 30,000 people to flee.
A UN spokesman said the country may be returning to a state of violence unseen since conflict erupted two years ago.
"We fear that the violence we're seeing in Bangui is a return to the dark days of late 2013 and 2014, when thousands were killed and tens of thousands had to flee their homes," said Leo Hobbs, a spokesman for the UN's refugee agency.
Elections cancelled
The CAR has been wracked by violence since a mainly Muslim rebel group, the Seleka, seized power in March 2013.
The Seleka group was then ousted, sparking a wave of violent reprisals against the Muslim population, thousands of whom fled their homes.
Interior Minister Modibo Bachir Walidou told the BBC that the government remained in control but that the situation remained volatile.
Interim President Catherine Samba Panza returned from the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, and told the BBC that elections postponed for October would now be cancelled.
She accused "former dignitaries" of fomenting violence, singling out former president Francois Bozize.
Mr Bozize has criticised the decision to bar him from standing for election, saying: "Democracy was murdered in front of everyone in Central African Republic."
