Its the 1st International Day of the Girl Child.

There is a Michelle Obama in every girl, in every part of the continent, with the picture below she certainly wasn't told women are not to be seen nor heard. Michelle Obama was not married off as a child bride, to a rotund , artificial denture toothed grandpa, nor did they invoke a fertility ritual on her through a compulsory genital mutilation custom and she certainly makes her health decisions, nor her fate in thy hands of her husband. Michelle Obama was not denied an education nor is American woman and girl. Her parents did not choose her brothers over her, she was not told she was not equal to men, certainly Obama does not see her as beneath him nor has he become violent that they bore, only daughters, and no male child as heir apparent to the family name.

The bottom line is the value we place on a thing isn’t it? So I ask us all, “what value do we place in general on the girl child and women in our society”?

The bottom line is the value we place on a thing isn’t it? So I ask us all, “what value do we place in general on the girl child and women in our society”?

True values is the answer, not wishful thinking and lusting after the finished product that Michelle Obama is today, but, that our society changes it’s mindset of women as subordinates and start putting in the sacrifices that her society continues to invest in, in ensuring that every female child‘s human right is unquestionable and liberty to entitlements that gives her the chance to maximise her human and capital resources with her dignity intact.

It is not too late to stand and up change all that for the good of us all don’t wait to do the right thing, change your perception, educate your mind.

Stand up for a girl today, stand up for their rights. Join the rest of the world, in marking the 1^st International day of the girl child, October 11, 2012.

CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY

Speech by Abimbola Junaid

Founder Arise Nigerian Woman Foundation

Marking International Youth Day 2012.

DATE: 12^TH August 2012.

Venue: Chicken Republic

Okota Isolo.

It is another international youth day and I am short of words on this occasion, especially when I look at the state of our polity , it looks really gloom and pathetic; not a state in which anyone’s precious, esteem able ,future nation builders should be learning about artful skill of leadership and living.

No denying that many youth of today are dissatisfied and of course, we know. We know the nation as a whole has failed them. And they have the reason to be disgruntled at our politicians and government, but the bulk of my talk will focus on you, youths.

As a youth what is your expected role in society, what is your role as an individual, as a youth in general, not even as a Nigerian youth, just as a youth? And this applies to your counterpart world over that you jointly celebrate this day with.Our environment shapes us, but wait a minute that could be for good form or bad right? If that is the case it means you as a youth can still choose that that you get involved with in life. As bad and dire as the situation of the times we live in is, so also is it the most exciting time with the buzz and addictive nature of a world wide web. You must know that not all youths join secret cult in, there are many who never joined in fact, there are some youths who never maimed nor killed their fellow human beings as a sign of manhood and for a temporal respect amongst their peers and there are some who never even stole from another man.

Your choices will always determine whether you make it in Life. Many of you are not preparing for your future .You are lethargic, complacent, holding to the good excuse that the calamity that you are in, a societal one than self prescribed. Hey, that is not good enough, that is a lame excuse, after all you have drive, passion and determination in you, it is not just at paying the price for a good life, we all know where your dedication lie, in a fix -quick–way- to- an eluded- abundant -happily ever -after –life.

Let’s examine some of your beliefs and practices:

Do you even focus on studying so as to be found diligent, or harnessing your skills and talent by maximising it? Are you prepared for today’s market, either local or global? Would you ever consider a job as oppose to no job at all, whether it is a humbling job, or work opportunities like volunteering or it is the plum job at the bank or nothing else? How many of you can and do pay a down payment of today for your future ie learning the rudiments of life, like learning to save even in the absence of abundance? How about your health , are you ignoring campaigns like HIV and aids awareness and refusing to play safe by abstaining, sticking to one sexual partner or using a condom?

Are you best found at the local beer and pepper soup parlour, justifying it as “ drinking away your sorrow”! But be assured and it is not a curse that that sorrow multiplies with a weak bladder many years down the line! If you think education is expensive try ignorance.

You are a happening boy, happening girl right? You have the latest tech phone, you are connected to several social media forums, but really, what information are you surfing the net for, be honest? My guess is you surf for pornographic pages, savvy technology gadgets, get rich quick schemes. It is every other thing but not opportunities to add to your wealth of knowledge, your skills and output that will get you from where you are to where you want to be. Even the westerners that you are trying to emulate pay the price of hard work, success doesn’t come cheap and easy, but doggy success does. You ask the likes of NICE, Dbanj, and the many celebrities you model yourself by today! Ask even Kachi, the convener of this event.

Youthfulness is the most amazing time in the human cycle. I wish you would believe me. You are a youth for a reason, to explore widely, given the varied opportunities out there at your disposal. Even working in your favour is the global village of today, everything and anything is within your reach, If only you would see it.....................and tap into it.

At the end of the day it is not all gloom and doom story, some are getting prepared despite all the negatives, and some youths are making history, positive history as we speak, you can be one of them, get prepared, join their train and network widely. If life gives you lemon, make lemonade out of it, the bulk rest with you. To thy self be true.

I wish you a productive youthfulness, one which you maximise science, technology, your innovative mind and innate skills, develop your creativity, tap in to emerging business opportunities, agriculture and lastly network widely with the world, all generations and of all your fellow global youths.

                       HAPPY INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY.

Ms Abimbola Junaid is a global consultant in Development. She is the founder of Arise NigerianWoman Foundation, an advocacy organisation in Nigeria for the all inclusion of today's women and girls,the elderly and the disabled in the socio economic and political dialogue of the Nigerian society.

Charting the Change from BPO to BoP: Training the Next Generation of Skilled Labor in India( Can Nigeria learn a thing or two)

Culled from Business fights povertyhttp://www.businessfightspoverty.org/profiles/blogs/charting-the-change-from-bpo-to-bop-training-the-next-generation

Related

Blog: Creating Shared Value in India

Blog: Danone and the BoP

Link: Next Billion

By Arvinda Perumbala, Head of Application Development, Laurus Edutech

Before the services industry boom, the choice for a young graduate in India was very limited. You had to be an engineer or doctor to even think of getting into decent salary league, let alone high-paying salary league.

No one can deny the business process outsourcing (BPO) boom was the ultimate game changer, as the services industry empowered a vast middle class with the kind of career options that young India had long desired. For new BPO workers, the boom raised awareness of globalization, while giving them more to spend and to save. The phenomena directly reflects India’s GDP growth in the last 20 years.


I entered the services industry in 2000 as a software engineer in a BPO start up; I was the first software programmer the company hired. For more than a decade, I worked on workflow automation, human resource workforce management automation, knowledge management tools, and productivity improvement through optical character recognition technologies. While there, I also developed two patents for process improvements, and my skills grew along with the broader BPO industry. The small BPO firm grew rapidly, and two major technology companies later purchased it.

After ten years, I left the enterprise confident, stable and strong, much like the industry itself. To say that the BPO industry paved a way for the vast educated middle class and gave wings to their aspirations would be an understatement.

I’m typical of many of the entrepreneurs and professionals who benefitted from the BPO boom. We are both are thankful for the opportunities it has provided, but we also hope to drive India’s nascent Base of the Pyramid sector. The Indian government is spending a huge amount of money in training BoP candidates to skill them in their chosen field. The government has set an aggressive goal to train more than 500 million people by 2022.

Dealing with that challenge will require a scalable training solution to bridge the skills gap. Most approaches thus far have been community-oriented, low-tech training programs. Formed as NGOs, they have addressed the problem from the human angle, but have not had the capacity to address the market challenge. (Left: A Laurus Edutech welding class).

At Laurus Edutech, an Anavo Global LLC company, our goal is to help students attain the training they need and that employers are demanding of the labor force, while helping skills training/development centers to maximize efficiency and training quality. (Anavo is a NextBillion Content Partner). Laurus Edutech provides vocational training directly to students and assessment support services to industry and government organizations. The job placement and skills portal, www.skillindia.in, enables training/development centers to track students’ progress in the future, helping training centers to respond to the needs of the market more quickly.

Laurus has helped train more than 20,000 students in 80 centers across the country, and our software is running in more than 700 locations. With GloCare, another Anavo firm, we’ve developed a similar platform helping doctors in cities to treat rural patients via mobile phones, tablets, and computer videoconferencing. This combination of decision support tools and point-of-care diagnostic tools is designed to bring rural, low-income patients into the formal health care system to pay for affordable treatment.

Serving the BOP market, either the student/workers or rural patients, is certainly a different process than serving the BPO market, where many of our customers were multinational companies, including Dell, which purchased the company. But just as services industry improved the quality due to the market place demands, workers’ skill quality is being refined based on market demands. With the right mix of vision, resources and will, I believe we can take this to take this industry to great heights and lift the aspirations of BoP workers, just as the BPO did for me and millions of others.

Posted by BFP Editor on August 12, 2012 at 21:00

Editor's Note:
This Blog was first published on Next Billion and is reproduced here with permission.

Small images in article courtesy of Laurus Edutech.

You only live once but if you do it right, once is enough- Mae West

Celebrate with me in style!

As I turn a year older today, at least I do not have to worry about infant mortality death. Its obvious I survived it!(Abi now! ) But that is not the same for many of africa's babies, born into poor families. For them they only live in hope to survive to their 5th birthday. One such baby is BABY K (not real name). A sister friend Betty Abah & I, met baby Kay and his mother when we were informed of their plight. She was held at the private hospital due to lack of payment of her bills where she had been rushed to, to give birth earlier than her due date and registration at the local hospital. On getting her out of hospital, we visited her at home. To find that, this is where this new born child and his mother and 5 siblings live broke my heart

Her husband had died a few months earlier from a work place accident and his employer had given the family a token of N5,000- N10,000 naira as compensation.
They are not forgotten as we continue to raise funds and materials for them, that is why on this occassion of my birthday, I am asking every single one wishing me well to please help, they need us, and thanks to close friends who have already made donations ,now is your turn and nothing is too small!


To donate cash or kind in Nigeria pls email
bettyabah@gmail.com
If you want to make donation in kind from abroad
please email
info@arisenigerianwoman.org

or pls pay cash into
Lloyds TSB
sort code: 30- 96 29
Acct No 11188968


All cash and kind donation shall be made public at the end of May 2012.

Thank You for helping!

Birthday Girl!

Why Nations Fail

www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/friedman-why-nations-fail.html?_r=1

 

I’M reading a fascinating new book called “Why Nations Fail.” The more you read it, the more you appreciate what a fool’s errand we’re on in Afghanistan and how much we need to totally revamp our whole foreign aid strategy. But most intriguing are the warning flares the authors put up about both America and China.

 

Thomas L. Friedman

 

Co-authored by the M.I.T. economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson, “Why Nations Fail” argues that the key differentiator between countries is “institutions.” Nations thrive when they develop “inclusive” political and economic institutions, and they fail when those institutions become “extractive” and concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of only a few.

“Inclusive economic institutions that enforce property rights, create a level playing field, and encourage investments in new technologies and skills are more conducive to economic growth than extractive economic institutions that are structured to extract resources from the many by the few,” they write.

“Inclusive economic institutions, are in turn supported by, and support, inclusive political institutions,” which “distribute political power widely in a pluralistic manner and are able to achieve some amount of political centralization so as to establish law and order, the foundations of secure property rights, and an inclusive market economy.” Conversely, extractive political institutions that concentrate power in the hands of a few reinforce extractive economic institutions to hold power.

Acemoglu explained in an interview that their core point is that countries thrive when they build political and economic institutions that “unleash,” empower and protect the full potential of each citizen to innovate, invest and develop. Compare how well Eastern Europe has done since the fall of communism with post-Soviet states like Georgia or Uzbekistan, or Israel versus the Arab states, or Kurdistan versus the rest of Iraq. It’s all in the institutions.

The lesson of history, the authors argue, is that you can’t get your economics right if you don’t get your politics right, which is why they don’t buy the notion that China has found the magic formula for combining political control and economic growth.

“Our analysis,” says Acemoglu, “is that China is experiencing growth under extractive institutions — under the authoritarian grip of the Communist Party, which has been able to monopolize power and mobilize resources at a scale that has allowed for a burst of economic growth starting from a very low base,” but it’s not sustainable because it doesn’t foster the degree of “creative destruction” that is so vital for innovation and higher incomes.

“Sustained economic growth requires innovation,” the authors write, “and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction, which replaces the old with the new in the economic realm and also destabilizes established power relations in politics.”

“Unless China makes the transition to an economy based on creative destruction, its growth will not last,” argues Acemoglu. But can you imagine a 20-year-old college dropout in China being allowed to start a company that challenges a whole sector of state-owned Chinese companies funded by state-owned banks? he asks.

The post-9/11 view that what ailed the Arab world and Afghanistan was a lack of democracy was not wrong, said Acemoglu. What was wrong was thinking that we could easily export it. Democratic change, to be sustainable, has to emerge from grassroots movements, “but that does not mean there is nothing we can do,” he adds.

For instance, we should be transitioning away from military aid to regimes like Egypt and focusing instead on enabling more sectors of that society to have a say in politics. Right now, I’d argue, our foreign aid to Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan is really a ransom we pay their elites not to engage in bad behavior. We need to turn it into bait.

Acemoglu suggests that instead of giving Cairo another $1.3 billion in military aid that only reinforces part of the elite, we should insist that Egypt establish a committee representing all sectors of its society that would tell us which institutions — schools, hospitals — they want foreign aid to go to, and have to develop appropriate proposals.

If we’re going to give money, “let’s use it to force them to open up the table and to strengthen the grass-roots,” says Acemoglu.

We can only be a force multiplier. Where you have grass-roots movements that want to build inclusive institutions, we can enhance them. But we can’t create or substitute for them. Worse, in Afghanistan and many Arab states, our policies have often discouraged grass-roots from emerging by our siding with convenient strongmen. So there’s nothing to multiply. If you multiply zero by 100, you still get zero.

And America? Acemoglu worries that our huge growth in economic inequality is undermining the inclusiveness of America’s institutions, too. “The real problem is that economic inequality, when it becomes this large, translates into political inequality.” When one person can write a check to finance your whole campaign, how inclusive will you be as an elected official to listen to competing voices?

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on April 1, 2012, on page SR13 of the New York edition with the headline: Why Nations Fail.

 

World Bank removes Nigeria, others from aids' list

 

Developing countries including Nigeria are no longer candidates for charity and aid from developing countries, the World Bank has said. The outgoing World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, disclosed this at the on-going International Monetary Fund/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC, United States of America. Specifically, he said since the “developing countries have provided two-thirds of global growth over the past years, these are no longer charity cases.”

Noting that developing countries “are vital to the world economy,” Zoellick, whose five-year tenure elapses on June 30, this year, nonetheless, stressed the need for both developing and developed countries to focus on structural reforms that will be the drivers of future growth, “otherwise the world will keep stumbling along.” In Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank chief said the countries must work to remove barriers to the great economic potential of the region and seek to achieve regional integration, which he said is the way to go.

Giving an appraisal of his tenure, Zoellick said: ”Our initiatives for open information, open data, and open access to knowledge may turn out to be the most important legacy of the past five years.” The outgoing World Bank boss noted that he took over the World Bank presidency at a crisis period and his tenure has had three phases starting from a turnaround from trouble times. He said about $250 trillion have been spent is support of countries across the globe for food, fuel and to mitigate financial crisis. In addition, he disclosed that modernisation of the Bank for the future was initiated during his tenure.

This, he said, is in addition to the first large recapitalisation of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in over 20 years, and two record-breaking International Development Association (IDA) replenishments totaling more than $90 billion with an AAA rating.

Speaking on the effects of the Arab spring, Zoellick said the Tunisians’economy is under severe stress since the country lost a lot to the uprising; just as Libya now needs capacity to build its enormous resources. He noted that the North African economies’ transformation is going to take a while. On his successor, Zoellick said: “I think he will do a great job”and wished him and others success.”

Earlier in his congratulation message, Zoellick, said: “Jim has seen poverty and vulnerability first hand, through his impressive work in developing countries. and his rigorous science-based drive for results will be invaluable for the World Bank Group as it modernises to better serve client countries in overcoming poverty.
http://www.africanliberty.org/content/world-bank-removes-nigeria-others-aids-list

Only Africans Can Develop Africa, Says Nigerian Philanthropist Tony Elumelu

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Tony Elumelu With Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair

Nigerian banker and philanthropist Tony Elumelu was recently in Washington D.C., where he reiterated his belief that Africans themselves will be at the forefront of the continent’s economic renaissance.
“No one can develop Africa but us [Africans].” That was Nigerian philanthropist Tony Elumelu’s message to international business leaders, global philanthropic organizations and Western development partners during the Global Philanthropy Forum annual conference in Washington D.C on Tuesday.

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Meet Tony Elumelu, Africa's Frontline Business Leader 

 

Elumelu, founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, was among the keynote speakers at the annual forum event. He told attendees that Africa’s private sector will be the leading player in contributing to the continent’s economic transformation.
“We are now the world’s fastest growing region,” Elumelu said. “There is a social and economic impact to be derived, but it needs to be done with the right approach – with African leadership and with the private sector, rather than from a charitable orientation.”
Elumelu also seized the opportunity to introduce the audience to Africapitalism, an economic philosophy that embodies the private sector’s commitment to the economic transformation of Africa through long-term investments that create both economic prosperity and social wealth.
A day before he spoke at the Global Philanthropy Forum, Elumelu delivered an African investment-themed lecture to senior management and invited guests of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank, in Washington. During the lecture, he urged those looking to invest in Africa to demonstrate social responsibility even in the pursuit of economic prosperity.
“Investment in Africa needs a different perspective,” he told the audience. “For Africa’s economic growth, the private sector needs to take the lead, invest long term, and focus on making both economic and social gains. In my experience, we have made great profits, but we have also touched lives.”
During the week, the respected banker also honored an invitation from the World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick to participate in a meeting of his Advisory Council of Global Foundation Leaders. Other attendees at the meeting included founders and key representatives from philanthropies like the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others from Europe, Asia and Latin America. At the meeting, Elumelu advocated for strategic partnerships between the World Bank and philanthropic organizations in emerging economies as well as setting high standards and introducing legislation to foster the development of domestic philanthropic sectors.
“We have an emerging affluent class in Africa. Unfortunately, the institution of giving has not been professionalized,” he lamented. “We need the legal structures in place to really leverage Africa’s own wealth to set the continent’s development agenda from within.”

Elumelu, one of Africa’s most respected business leaders, famously acquired a moribund commercial bank in Lagos in 1997 and transformed it into the $2 billion (market capitalization) United Bank for Africa (UBA), a Pan-African financial services behemoth with a presence in 19 countries and 3 continents. He stepped down as CEO of the bank in 2010, and now serves as Executive Chairman of Heirs Holdings, an African-focused investment holding company, and the Tony Elumelu Foundation, a non-profit that promotes and celebrates African entrepreneurship and leadership.
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Do Brothers Care Enough About Sexual Assault?

http://www.ebony.com/news-views/do-brothers-care-enough-about-sexual-assault

   Rape isn't a women's issue, but Mychal Denzel Smith says that far too many men seem to treat it as such

By Mychal Denzel Smith Writer

As I recently listened to Nas’ 1999 album I Am--a record I'd always considered to be somewhat underrated-- when the song “Dr. Knockboot” came on and made me rethink my position. Not only is the song an atrociously awkward guide to becoming a “sexpert,” Nas drops this gem: “DON'T: take the pussy, if she fighting/Cause you saw what happened to Tupac and Mike Tyson/'Specially if you large, some hoes is trife/Get you on a rape charge, have you serving your life.”

It was disturbing, not just content-wise, but for the callousness in his voice. From his tone, the prospect of the rape charge and subsequent punishment was exponentially worse than the rape itself. It calls into question the way we think of rape and what we teach men in particular about sexual violence, ultimately coming down to the idea that women have a right to their bodies only because it’s illegal to take what is rightfully yours. That’s scary.
I’d love to write this off as the thoughts of a singular man, but looking back on events of just the past year or two tell a different story. Whether it was the gang-rape of an 11 year-old girl in Cleveland, Texas, or the alleged assault of Nafissatou Diallo at the hands of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, or Too $hort’s “fatherly advice” on XXL’s website that amounted to a step-by-step guide for effective sexual assault, or even the rhetoric of the current “war on women” and the push for mandating transvaginal ultrasounds as a precondition for abortion, the message comes in from every corner of society: women’s bodies don’t belong to them. And with that mentality, why would anyone take sexual assault/violence of women seriously?
A glance at the statistics should frustrate everyone. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), 1 in 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape during her life, with 44% of victims being under the age of 18. There is an average of 207,754 victims of rape or sexual assault per year, or one in every two minutes. Those are just the numbers. Victims of sexual assault are more likely to suffer depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, abuse alcohol and/or drugs, and contemplate suicide.
By contrast, 97% of rapists will never spend so much as a day in jail. This isn’t a plot used to trap men or enact revenge. If it were, it’s highly ineffective. Even as the rate of rape/sexual assault declines, far too many are left to experience this inexcusable crime, and the indifference on the part of men is a contributing factor.
Cold feelings on issues of sexual assault not only robs men of their empathy and humanity, it prevents them from dealing with their own instances of abuse. One in 33 American men (3%) have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their life. It’s obviously not as prevalent as among women, but it’s a problem nonetheless, one exacerbated by an unwillingness to come to terms with its existence.
A brother I worked with years ago once told me, and these are his exact words, “I was molested when I was six years old, but I was aight because it was a bitch. That’s why I’m a freak now.” That mix of denial and hypermasculine posturing would be a gift to any psychologist, but it speaks to a larger cultural issue.
We can’t solve the problem of rape/sexual assault/sexual violence if we don’t understand what it is, who it affects, and how it affects them. We can’t understand any of that if we possess a callous indifference to the fact that anyone experiences sexual assault. We can’t afford to let our humanity slip away.
Mychal Denzel Smith is a writer, social commentator and mental health advocate. Visit his official website or follow him on Twitter.

Oke-Odo 42: When a nation fails its children

http://www.punchng.com/opinion/oke-odo-42-when-a-nation-fails-its-children/

By Seun Adesida

As a youth corps member serving in Awkunawnaw Secondary School in Enugu, to get my monthly allowance at Umuchinemere Microfinance Bank, I must pass in front of the Holy Cross Rosary College, Enugu both to and fro, which from inside and outside represents a foremost educational institution, which till date offers pious comportment as curriculum coupled with quality educational environment for these wonderful children to grow up into responsible adults.

This is one school that protects its own jealously. However, far away from the watchful eyes of its progenitors, an avoidable and unfortunate tragedy occurred at Oke-Odo, Ogun State when 42 pupils of the school were reportedly waylaid, robbed and raped by armed robbers on their way to Lagos on Saturday, March 31. The attack on these children represents a grievous assault on our collective sanity and sanctity of human life; one attack too many on the foundation of this entity called Nigeria and the faith of millions of Nigerians.

In the final analysis, we have all failed them; we failed a generation of innocents; we failed at the breaking forth of a blossoming destiny; we failed 42 legacies that would probably become Okonjo-Iwealas, the 42 female students of Holy Cross Rosary College.

The Presidency has failed them, the National Assembly has failed them, Ogun and Enugu state governments have failed them; the Nigerian Police, Federal Road Safety Corps, and other state security apparatus have all failed.

Up till the time of writing this piece, President Goodluck Jonathan has not found his voice to condemn in strongest terms the perpetrators of this heinous act; the Governors of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, and Enugu State, Sullivan Chime, carried on as ostriches with heads in the sand on the development, none has called for the arrest of the perpetrators of this evil.

It has been nine years since young Adeife and Akinola Sodipo-Akindeko were killed during an alleged robbery attempt on the convoy of Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello in 2003. Pronto, state apparatus were deployed to arrest the culprits, which led to a brief closure of the border with Benin Republic.

Adeife and Akinola would have been nine years older now had they not been brutally murdered. What nation wastes its young population like Nigeria and expects prosperity? I know none.

The ordeal of these 42 secondary school pupils was not enough to draw the attention of any member of the Federal Executive Council not even the Vice –President, Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Not even the Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly in whose domain this tragedy took place has thought it fit and proper to take a position on this evil and deploy state apparatus to bring speedy justice.

Do politicians move around in the night? If they do, have you observed the retinue of security apparatus that is deployed to secure them? The luxury bus in which the pupils were travelling was held in traffic, no thanks to bad roads, which our leaders would not fix year after year. Above all, they took the few well equipped security officers to guide themselves at the expense of 42 innocent schoolgirls.

So I ask, what is government for? Could this have happened to the children of our legislators and governors and they would have been silent? This argument of travelling at night which makes the victims and drivers culpable stands logic on the head.

Does the constitution not guarantee safety of lives and property? The Nigerian Constitution states clearly in Section 14, subsection 2(b) that, “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” The primary purpose of all forms of governance from Local Government to Federal Government is to provide security and welfare.This was what every government swears to uphold at every inauguration. Is this the case with the “Oke-Odo 42″? So does this constitutional provision exclude travelling at night?

If the roads were good would the vehicles be breaking down intermittently? It is the collective failure of us all, Nigerian citizens, that have so far failed to call our rulers/leaders to question on governance; failure of the respective local government chairmen to secure their parts of that treacherous portion of Sagamu/Benin Expressway.

It’s the failure of the Ogun State government to tinker with its internal security apparatus to secure its domain. It’s the greater failure of the Federal Government, who failed to provide adequate security for the 42 schoolgirls.

The constitution states clearly that “…it shall be the duty of the State to provide adequate facilities for and encourage free mobility of people, goods and services throughout the Federation.”

These are the provisions of the Nigerian constitution that guarantee the safety of these children wherever they may be travelling to within the Nigerian federation. It’s therefore not tenable to explain it away that they were travelling at night made them or the driver culpable.

Robbery on that axis of the federal highway has been on the rise in recent times and what has the Nigerian Police and SSS done to secure victims?

This is one serial failure that ought to induce a total overhaul of the state security apparatus. Is it not shameful for the Ogun State police spokesman, Muyiwa Adejobi, to allude the escape of the culprits to the mastery of the terrain? You mean over the past 60 years, the Ogun State Police Command has yet to have knowledge of its terrain?

So, if you don’t know your terrain, why and what are you policing? After reading from parents and victims that the girls were violated, all our police spokesman told Nigerians was that “the police were not in the know of the rape as the students only complained about the robbery attack and not rape.” Did Adejobi conduct diligent investigation before arriving at his conclusion just because nobody reported?

Adejobi’s advice, though wise on the surface, lacked constitutional backing because the Nigerian constitution did not create movement dichotomy between daylight and night travel. It is stated clearly in Section 41, subsection (1) “Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof….” I am not a lawyer but I am informed of my rights which are constitutionally guaranteed but we have collectively accepted that we could live by being denied our basic rights.

Adejobi’s philosophy of ‘no night travel’ is just begging the question, because robbers operate in broad daylight on that same axis. Therefore, it means we should also avoid travelling in broad daylight. In another report, he told us that the police arrived and dislodged the hoodlums, so you dislodged them and not one was apprehended (Haba! The Ogun State Police Command you can do better).

Three days after the incident, the Police Command gleefully announced the arrest of the driver of the luxury bus and about four others. The question remains, are these real culprits or is it one of those public anger management antics of the police?

Ogun State has suddenly become the den of armed robbers yet its governor is busy chasing shadows while his state burns. He should refocus and learn from his closest neighbour, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos.

Though Lagos is not totally crime-free, one can see that the Lagos Police Command demonstrates good policing strategy. I have observed that once a car breaks down on any major road at night, you can be sure that police patrol vans will park and possibly tow your vehicle to the nearest safe spot. This is not without the support of the Lagos State government and the Private Public Partnership with financial institutions.

Like I said earlier, in the final analysis we have all failed the Oke –Odo 42. Nothing will assuage the pain and anger of these young ones other than quick dispensation of justice through the arrest and prosecution of the real inglorious men.

The best justice to this sad commentary on our national psyche is to provide special emotional rehabilitation for the girls; provide for their education through a special scholarship scheme to the tertiary level and finally ensure the robber-rapists are apprehended even if it takes five years; they must be made to account for the event of March 31, 2012.

•Adesida wrote in from Lagos, via picazy@yahoo.com (text only: 08058230994)