Chess, that bomb in your hands, and masters of the game, Hassan Gimba

In 1984 there was a universal review of the dystopian novel Nineteen Eight- Four, sometimes written and published as 1984, written by George Orwell. More known for his satirical book Animal Farm, George Orwell is a pen name adopted by Eric Arthur Blair, an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic. According to Wikipedia, “his work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.”

Published in 1949, after the Second World War, Nineteen Eighty-Four, as earlier observed, is a dystopian novel that warns against totalitarian governments that control every aspect of citizens’ lives. With terms such as “Big Brother”, “doublethink”, and “newspeak”, Orwell wrote the book as a cautionary tale after seeing what happened to people in Nazi Germany and fearing that totalitarianism could easily take over the US and Britain, enriching the English lexicon with the adjectival term “Orwellian,” for a political system in which the government tries to control every part of people’s lives.

It’s a sobering reality that in all the reviews, there was a convergence of opinions that governments, especially those of Western nations and the ones in the then Eastern Bloc, exemplified by that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), have become pervasive, with eyes and ears everywhere, watching and listening to everyone as done to Winston Smith in the 1984 satire.

While the West’s “eye on us” may not be as overt as Orwell depicted, we are nonetheless an open book to them. We hide nothing from them because we cannot. This is true for using smartphones, smart televisions, tablets, laptops, desktops, Google, social media, and the internet.

Have you ever seen your movements captured by Google? As long as your phone is with you, google records and stores all your movements. It is the same with your phone calls. You may begin to see adverts on issues you discuss. If women discuss abortion, they would start seeing adverts on drugs and ways for it. Discuss money, and start seeing adverts from loan sharks.

Your phones can easily be used to trace you. And now, after seeing what the Israelites did to Hamas with pagers, you better know that your phone might not only be a spying device on you but an improvised explosive device (IED). A rigged bomb you are carrying about in your pocket. 

In Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, first published in 1999, Gordon Thomas, resulting from closed-door interviews with Mossad agents, informants, and spymasters as well as drawing from classified documents and top-secret sources, revealed previously untold truths about Mossad.

Mossad is the national intelligence agency of Israel, responsible for intelligence collection and covert operations, including the assassination of perceived enemies.

In the highly compelling and acclaimed book, he revealed that computers have spying chips embedded in them that Mossad accesses. Desktop computers, Laptops, printers, and similar devices are irreplaceable components in all workplaces. These office necessities are everywhere, including in homes.

From the highest office in the land to all sensitive departments, down to all security offices and those of all leaders across the executive, legislative, and judicial arms, you must find computers, laptops, smart TVs, and all those devices that we do not produce here but import from Western nations or Israel.

The Mossad used personal pagers to target members of Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, in a series of operations. This demonstrates the potential for technology to be used for surveillance and control.

Smart televisions, like the social media sites we visit through our phones, monitor and save our preferences and keep bringing up topics related to them to us.

Why do you think countries like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and those fiercely independent do not allow Western internet providers or other satellites like Starlink to operate in their spheres? They do all they can to develop theirs. This is not just a local issue but a global one that affects us all. This could explain why America under Donald Trump never wants Huawei phones. Apart from the fact that it beats the American iPhone in terms of popularity, affordability and effectiveness, Trump knew what relegating the iPhone worldwide would do to his country’s ability to see many things.

This is not limited to the iPhone as all Android phones are in the same category and do the same function of monitoring their owner, just as all social media sites. Anything you write on Facebook is stored even if you delete it without sending it out.

These powerful entities use a cunning strategy to control their perceived enemies. They tie them to their apron strings, present them with the faces of “lovers,” and wrap them up economically and security-wise. An instance can be seen in how the Arab defence systems are systematically tied to the US. The Israeli security firm Kochav has provided billions of dollars worth of services in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including surveillance systems.

Until we start indigenising our technology, we will remain open books to be accessed anytime through Google and satellites. The need for technological independence is not just a suggestion; it’s a call to action. It’s a path to reclaiming our power and control over our lives. Can you see the wisdom in educating our children in our languages as the Chinese, Turkish, Russians, North Koreans, and Iranians do? Can you see why these nations are racing ahead, developing and industrialising their nations with local materials and technology, using their people? The time to act is before we lose even more control over our privacy and independence.

We must develop the power to change this, build our technology, and protect our privacy.

Any country that will remain the recipient of foreign technology can never be independent, and neither can its leaders because the country and its leaders, nay, citizens, remain stark naked in front of those that do not desire to see them become united, strong, politically and economically independent. The consequences of inaction are dire, but the potential benefits of taking action, such as reclaiming our privacy and independence, are immense and within our reach.

However, the fight to emancipate the world would be not only interesting and full of chess-like manoeuvres but also hazardous, and it promises to be a fight to the death.

It is a consolation that the Russians, Chinese, and Persians are chess masters, but what of us in Africa?

Let’s Save Our Democracy from this Axis Of Evil, by Hassan Gimba

Several people, including Nigerian leaders, have said that democracy, as a form of government, has no better alternative. And why not, if democracy is all about a system of government in which the governed freely participate in electing their representatives?

Nigeria has had a go at practising democracy even before its independence from Britain. From independence, we practised it fully for six years, though it was the Westminster system, bequeathed to us by the colonisers. It got its name from the central London area hosting the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The Westminster model, which Nigeria started with, is a system in which there is a head of state (or president), a prime minister who heads the government, and an elected parliament (made up of one or two houses) from which the head of government emerges.

Then, there was a thirteen-year military interregnum, during which the men in khaki and jackboots ran the country’s affairs by decree and instituting a unitary form of government, the top-to-bottom command structure they knew all too well.

Fully aware that democracy is more in tandem with human nature, the Khaki Boys organised a constitutional conference in 1979 to usher in a democratic government, opting for a presidential system fashioned after the American model.

However, it did not last as long as the parliamentary system because, four years later, the jackboots returned. It was only 15 years later, in 1999, that the starched khaki-wearing leaders freed Nigeria from their grasp after seeing that stratocracy was globally going out of fashion.

In all of our adventurism with the forms of democracy, it is only in the current dispensation that one sees politicians holding the reins of their party’s leadership, yet sabotaging it.

In the First Republic, for instance, Obafemi Awolowo was the chairman of the Action Congress (AG), while Anthony Enahoro, and later Bola Ige, were its secretaries-general. The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) had Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe as chairman and secretary-general, respectively.

The Second Republic’s National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had Augustus Akinloye as its chairman, and the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) had Alhaji Falalu Bello. In this dispensation, we have had the All Progressives Congress (APC) with Bisi Akande and Tijjani Musa Tumsah as chairman and secretary-general, respectively.

Despite the average man’s inordinate desire for worldly gains, these chairmen of the opposition political parties never took part in any subterfuge against their parties. History will surely be kind to them as those who endured being in opposition for the sake of democracy and integrity.

There is no integrity where a citizen is playing politics for his stomach. It becomes worse when he willingly sells himself to the devil so that he can own mansions, choice plots, and hefty bank accounts in various currencies. These are the sorts of people that history consigns to the dirty bin it keeps for villains and the immoral.

We may not sound the alarm over the heinous acts of the unprincipled and “long-throat” politicians if not for their desperate—and, from all indications, succeeding—shenanigans involving the judiciary that could jeopardise our democracy.

They are bent on making a mockery of the judiciary, compromising those they can compromise and shopping for favourable judgements from “understanding” or “sympathetic” judges.

As a result of this unholy romance between a triumvirate of monied politicians (whose source of wealth can lead to capital punishment in a sane country), the perfidious, unscrupulous party chieftains, and mercenary judges, Nigeria’s democracy is at risk from this “axis of evil!”

This repugnant alliance, apart from casting the courts in a bad light, is threatening to give them a role never envisaged for them by the framers of our constitution—a power superseding even that of the constitution. Now, courts are managers of political parties, telling them when to meet, who their leaders should be, who their members should be, etc. This is why those who defected from their party—whom the constitution says cease to be party members—remain in their seats courtesy of the courts. Some judgements even turn established precedents and Supreme Court rulings on their heads.

Many lawyers, too, have become willing tools in the hands of the “axis of evil,” as they have no qualms defending the indefensible under the cover of the Constitution, which deems one innocent until proven otherwise. Ordinarily, they know, we know, and everyone knows that the culprits are guilty as charged.

The law must be applied common-sensibly. As the late Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, would say, legality should be guided by morality. Any law or court that sides with the wrongdoer is not helping the country.

This is why law and order are breaking down because the criminal-minded know that even if arrested, they can meander their way out as there are clever lawyers ready to take their rotten briefs for the money and judges who would set them free for a pot of porridge. The rotten lawyers know the houses and haunts of the rotten judges… birds of a feather, they say, flock together.

Is it any wonder that the wicked no longer fear the law or the authority doling it out, or that the innocent citizen fears the outlaw more than the custodian of the law? For one, the lawbreaker knows his atrocities might go unpunished, while the law-abiding fears the law cannot protect him since he may not be able to afford it.

This is why, among many others, the sit-at-home agenda of separatists in the Southeast will continue to be obeyed.

But like almost everything, there must be a way out. Oh, sure, there must be.

The Judicial Service Commission must intervene. They must remove the rug from under the feet of renegade judges who have become turncoats. The Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) must start punishing lawyers who engage in forum shopping and other ethical breaches.

But before that, the Nigerian Law School must incorporate subjects into its curriculum to teach the importance of morality and loyalty to the Constitution and the nation.

Then the judiciary must truly be independent in all ramifications; therefore, houses, cars, and any other welfare should not be doled out to its members by the executive. These are not favours and should not be made to be so or to look like one.

Hassan Gimba, anipr, is the publisher and CEO of Neptune Prime.

UN in Nigeria: Charting a Path Towards a Brighter Future, By Mohamed Malick Fall

The indescribable destruction caused by the first and second world wars led many to desire an international organization dedicated to maintaining world peace.

The United Nations (UN) was therefore established on 24 October 1945, to maintain international peace and security and to achieve cooperation among nations on economic, social, and humanitarian challenges.

As we commemorate the ‘birth’ of the UN, we are reminded of its enduring legacy in promoting peace, development, and humanitarian relief across the globe.

The creation of the UN, nearly eight decades ago was a pivotal moment in international history – anchored in the vision of a world united to prevent conflict, protect human rights, and ensure dignity for all.

The values enshrined in the UN Charter resonate strongly in Nigeria, a nation that joined the UN on 7 October 1960, just days after gaining its independence.

Some will argue that the need for the UN has never been greater than it is today, at a time when multilateralism and interstate collaboration is under threat in an increasingly divided world. Not only is the spectre of conflict rearing its ugly head, but pandemics have also killed millions of people in the last few years.

Most importantly, humankind is facing an existential challenge through climate change. If we are to survive, we will need to put our own interest aside for that of humanity and common survival.

The UN’s engagement with Nigeria has been deep and transformative, spanning development initiatives, and humanitarian responses to the challenges faced by vulnerable people. Through decades of partnership, the UN has played a central role in support of the Government of Nigeria, positively impacting the lives of millions through its wide-ranging interventions.

First, humanity is at the heart of the UN’s work in Nigeria. Across Nigeria, each region faces distinct humanitarian challenges. The UN, through its agencies, in collaboration with local and international partners, with the Nigerian Government taking the lead, has acted as a beacon of hope for those in crisis. Interventions have ranged from providing life-saving food and medical supplies, to addressing the long-term needs of displaced people, including education, and psychosocial care.

The UN supports resilience building, agricultural recovery, food security, and livelihoods in affected communities, as well as reproductive health and protection services against gender-based violence. Furthermore, the UN aids displaced people and refugees, providing shelter and basic needs, while also supporting child protection, education, health, and nutrition programmes.

In Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, where conflict and displacement have left millions vulnerable, UN-coordinated humanitarian responses have been crucial. Over the past decade, at least five million people have received aid annually, courtesy of the UN and partners, ensuring their access to food, water, healthcare, and protection services.

Beyond emergency responses, the UN has continued to support Nigeria’s development. It has been pivotal in fostering sustainable development through a focus on capacity building, governance reform, and the empowerment of women and youth. Over the years, the UN has supported numerous educational and vocational programmes that have enabled thousands of Nigerians to rise above poverty and build better futures for themselves and their families.

More so, the UN has supported the implementation of projects aimed at enhancing the resilience of communities. Initiatives in agriculture, renewable energy, and economic diversification have been particularly impactful in promoting food security and mitigating the effects of climate change. Similarly, its support for the fight against gender-based violence and human trafficking is helping protect vulnerable people and upholding human rights.

Despite these successes, the road has not been without challenges.

Conflict, displacement, food insecurity, malnutrition, natural disasters, and climate change impacts remain significant hurdles in Nigeria’s path to sustainable development.

The humanitarian crisis in the north-east persists, with violence continuing to disrupt lives and livelihoods. The northwest struggles with escalating banditry and communal clashes, displacing thousands.

The north-central region faces recurrent farmer-herder conflicts, threatening food security and livelihoods. The south-west grapples with violence and kidnapping, posing risks to safety. The south-south is grappling with environmental degradation affecting both livelihoods and ecosystems. In the south-east, rising insecurity has disrupted local economies and essential services, intensifying the humanitarian needs of affected communities.

Moreover, rising inflation and the global economic downturn have compounded the struggles faced by Nigeria’s most vulnerable people.

As we celebrate the UN’s impact in Nigeria, let us remember that the journey continues.

Let all hands be on deck!

Mohamed Malick Fall is the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria.