The Unimaginable!!

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has revealed that he congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari after the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal confirmed his election because he is not a hypocrite like other Governors.

Wike said it is better to offer public congratulations than visit the President at night.

Governor Wike said that unlike some Governors of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP who visit President Muhammadu Buhari at night, he made his declaration public because it came from the heart.

The Rivers State governorship offered the explanation Thursday, at the Funeral Service in honour of Late Madam Blessing Awuse, Mother of Chief Sergent Chidi Awuse, at the St Luke’s Anglican Church, Emohua.

Governor Wike said politics is a game of interest, noting that Rivers people in the All Progressives Congress are under obligation to attract Federal benefits to the state.

He said: ” I am sure all of you are surprised that I congratulated Buhari. Is it not good for me to congratulate him, than to go to his house in the night?”

“So many PDP Governors go to see him in his house in the night. I have never gone and I will not go. I won’t go.

“We are the only state that the Federal Government refused to pay us our money used to execute Federal projects because I don’t go to see him in the night and I won’t go. He is not my friend, he is not doing well, but he won in court, should I say that the court did wrong, no.

President Buhari, congratulations and carry Nigerians along. Unify the country, the country is too divided. I am saying what is right. What I will do, I will do, what I will not do, I will not do.

“Politics is a game of interest. And my only interest is Rivers State. Anything that is against the interest of Rivers State, I will not agree.

“These people sold us out, thinking that they are doing Governor Wike. It is the State that you are offending because I am just one person.

He, therefore, expressed displeasure that Rivers State has key links to President Muhammadu Buhari from the State, yet the East West Road, the seaports and other Federal projects have been completely neglected since 2015, adding that nothing indicates that Rivers State has prominent APC members working with President Muhammadu Buhari.

“We produce oil. They should not punish Rivers State because of me. I am just one individual. We have not benefited anything from the Federal Government. The only thing we have benefited is the abuse they heap on me.

“They turned the NDDC into a cash cow to sponsor elections against us. Nobody protested that anomaly. Now they want us to protest because someone did not nominate the management of NDDC this time.

President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday in Abuja said placing women in strategic positions of his government, like the financial sector, is to ensure effective management of limited resources available, and promote a stronger sense of inclusiveness.

President Buhari said he preferred women to oversee the economic and financial hub of the country, Ministry of Finance, as they can readily deploy their experience in aligning resources with the needs of the country, explaining that the nation also had many female technocrats with local and international experiences on economy and finance.

The President gave the insight into his preferred choice for Minister of Finance while receiving a delegation of National, Zonal, State and FCT Women leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by the party Women Leader, Hajiya Salamatu Umaru Baiwa at the State House.

“I am happy that I can defend myself very effectively on this issue. The APC party leader is my witness. Since the coming into power of this administration I have handed over the treasury to women.

“Even at household level, you hand over the money to women to manage. It can be taken to the level of managing the country’s treasury as well. I have consistently given it to women. It is strategic.

I am conscious of the leadership roles of women in the society and by my action I have justified my belief,’’ President Buhari said.

The President reiterated that his administration will ensure inclusiveness for women and youths, especially in the second term, by providing more access to facilities that will enable spread of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, and encourage more interest in agriculture.

President Buhari said the traditional and subsistence style of farming should be replaced with commercialized and business oriented techniques.

We have to move away from the traditional ways of farming that were practiced in the pre-colonial and colonial era,’’ he added.

The President said he instructed the ministers to work with traditional institutions to encourage interest in farming, with the Central Bank of Nigeria readily providing loans at low interest rates and longer periods of repayment.

“On unemployment, I know there is no able bodied person that went back to the farm in the last three years that regretted the action,’’ he added.

In her remarks, the APC Woman Leader congratulated the President for his victory at the polls and the tribunal, commending the administration for its efforts in managing the affairs of the country, which provided the impetus for the vigorous campaigns.

Baiwa said women were particularly pleased and willing to vote for the President because the government deliberately formulated some policies to favour and empower women, like the social intervention Trader Moni.

She said the APC had many resourceful and loyal women that would contribute to the success of the administration while commending the President for giving women strategic positions in the government.

“Our prayer is that God will give you the tenacity to overcome all obstacles,’’ the Woman Leader said.

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Thursday carpeted the wife of Ekiti State Governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, over the death of two students of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) on Tuesday during a protest.

It said the manner in which Mrs Fayemi absolved herself of any blame over the tragedy was a total disappointment coming from a public figure like her.

NANS accused Mrs Fayemi of dishing out untruths in her bid to deflect the burden of blame over the death of two of its members during the protest over poor electricity supply.

It declared the “Almighty God is the biggest judge and will dispense judgement as due to her.”

NANS PRO, Comrade Adeyemi Azeez, spoke in Abeokuta.

He also implored the Federal Government to probe how their promising colleagues were cut down prematurely.

Adeyemi described the fate that befell the ‘FUOYE two’ as something akin to “planned assassination” and urged all students in Ekiti and beyond to remain calm as the national leadership of NANS would take all necessary and lawful steps to compel the government of Ekiti State to tell Nigerian Students the motive behind the killing of their colleagues.

He said: “We read yesterday with dismay, the reaction of the suspected assailant where she made baseless claims but for us as students and young people who have what it takes to fight her, considering the quantum of our population, we know that God almighty is the biggest Judge and will dispense judgement as due to her.

“In fact, Ekiti people have coined a new name for the woman which is ‘ a woman with 9 mouths’ considering the spate at which she was telling lies through her release yesterday.

Firstly: the Ekiti first lady said she was in the hall when the student started rampaging and allegedly destroying people vehicle.

“This statement is too sweet to be true; can such riot act be going on outside a hall to the extent that peoples vehicle were being damaged and the owners of the vehicles remained calm in the hall?

“Secondly as the first lady, she claimed to remain in the hall while the damages were being done, why not address the students instead of ignoring them, if truly she wasn’t wishing and praying evil for the students.

“If truly she regard the students as her children why not speak to them instead ordering the police to be ruthless with them.

Also, if truly you have a heart of gold you should be concerned about what happened to the students and not running away.

“You and your husband have the state powers and as result should be able to restore normalcy to any uproar, that is why you were elected.

“Her husband, who used to be one of our well respected elders in NANS, is also gradually losing our respect as he has not said anything since this crises started instead he is busy fighting for security votes.

“If we have our way we would suggest that Ekiti state security vote be removed since the governor has not been making judicious use of the ones he has been collecting which is evident in his inability to secure our students.

We must however note that even if your security votes is increased to N5 billion on a monthly bases, we would not still surrender the lives of our students to you.

“We however call on the federal government to probe this killing of our students in Ekiti as this can best be described as a ‘state planed assassination.

“Even when the rich oppresses the poor in Nigeria, it is not done in the open but the reverse was the case of Mrs. Fayemi who threw two families into sorrow and gnashing of teeth without remorse.

And against the expectation of mothers, Erelu as fondly called, could still lie even when the lives of two promising young Nigerians were involved.

“This pitiable situation which has been on between the rich and the poor might graduate into a revolt of the poor in this country.

“Despite our respect for Governor Fayemi, his wife has successfully turned our backs against each other as we would not toy with the life of any of our students.”

The Special Assistant to the President on Justice Reform, Mrs Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to redeploy Dr Emeka Ononamadu as Resident Electoral Commissioner in Enugu over alleged bias.

Ibekaku-Nwagwu, who contested the seat of the Enugu West Senatorial District in the 2019 elections under the platform of All Progressive Congress (APC) made the call in a petition addressed to Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, INEC’s National Chairman.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the petition dated March 13 and signed by the petitioner was made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja.

“I write on behalf of Enugu APC Candidates who participated in the 2019 elections, but with particular reference to those who filed petitions against the Feb. 23 Presidential and National State Assembly Election Election Tribunal.

“On behalf of the candidates, I wish to inform the chairman that we no longer have confidence in the Resident Electoral Commission in Enugu.

“We are by this letter asking for his removal from Enugu state and redeployment of another Resident Electoral Commission to the state.

According to her, Ononamadu is presently colluding with her opponent in the National Assembly election, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP to further rob her at the tribunal.

Ibekaku-Nwagwu’s petition is titled “Petition against the use of Sen. Ike Ekweremadu’s law firm as INEC’s Legal Representatives in the suit filed by APC Candidates in Enugu Election Tribunal and Request for Redeployment of the REC’’.

Our attention has been drawn to the fact that INEC hired Mr Peter Eze, Managing Partner of Eze, Ekweremadu law firm based in Enugu and Abuja to represent it in the Enugu State Election Petition Tribuna.

“Find attached, documents confirming that Eze is not only a partner in the law firm, but that in the absence of Ekweremadu, he has been managing the law firm.

“This is not only a conflict of interest given that Sen. Ekweremadu is one of the Candidates that contested the Enugu West Senatorial District election on the platform of the PDP petitioned against.

Players and officials of the Flying Eagles ,Nigeria’s U-20 side have been at The Monarch Hotel in Bad Goegging Munich, Germany.The team are said to be in financial distress.This follows the inability of the Nigeria Football Federation to pay their bills.

Paul Aigbogun’s team have been in Germany since April 28 preparing for the upcoming FIFA World Cup starting later this month in Poland.

Further information from Tribune Sports reveals that top officials of the Nigeria Football Federation are brainstorming on how to raise cash to settle the accumulated bills.

The Flying Eagles squad and the coaching crew will leave the hotel on Sunday, May 19 for Poland where they will begin their quest for the world title against Qatar on May 24.

Further findings by the thebreakingtimes.com also revealed that top officials of the NFF are currently in a legal battle over alleged corruption charges by the federal government of Nigeria.The officials had thought that Monday’s federal high court ruling will have given them  a respite against the Special Presidential Panel  who had charged the federation’s president,Amaju Melvin Pinnick and five others on a 17 count charge,but the court’s ruling gave the special presidential panel the power to trial them.

The football ruling body has been faced with financial distress in recent time,as dommestic league, the League Management Company (LMC), which is overseeing the running of the elite football league, the NPFL, for sometime now, has not been living up to its financial responsibilities to the match referees.

Match referees are being owed backlog of indemnities by the LMC and the body was only able to pay the indemnities of referees who officiated Week 14 matches last week.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) gathered that the bandits were armed with several machine guns and shot sporadically into the air, forcing residents and local vigilantes to scamper for safety.

NAN also learnt that there was no injury or loss of life, but the incident had made many residents of the town to flee to neighbouring communities.

When contacted, the Bagudo Local Government Chairman, Alhaji Muhammad Kaura, confirmed the invasion, saying it occurred at about 11:30 pm on Monday.

“The bandits were first sighted roaming around the area, buying bread, soft drinks and water in the afternoon, but nobody showed any concern to report them to the appropriate authorities,” he said.

Kaura said the bandits later laid siege on the community, adding that, “when our vigilante and residents countered their moves, they just brought out highly sophisticated machine guns and started shooting sporadically.

“It was then that our people took to their heels and scampered for safety to save their lives.

“Nobody has been kidnapped, shot or killed in the invasion.”
The chairman called on the residents to be vigilant and report any suspicious character lurking around the area.

“The situation has been brought under control as residents have now continued with their normal activities,” the chairman said.

When contacted on the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP, Nafiu Abubakar, said,” I will get back to you.”

The defendant, who resides at No 2, Kudaisi St., Olodi Apapa, Lagos, is facing one count of malicious damage, the allegation to which he pleaded “not guilty”.

The prosecutor, Inspector Olugbenga Salami, told the court that Mr. Ugo, the customer who is pressing charges took his clothing material to the defendant’s shop for sewing on Friday, April 4th but Udor could not return it as at when due.

According to the prosecutor, when Ugo eventually called back to collect his clothes from Udor, the materials were partly burnt in the process of ironing.

The complainant, however, asked for a refund of the cost of the clothes but then the defendant was unwilling to pay.

According to the prosecutor, the offense contravenes the provision of Section 339 of the Lagos State Criminal Code Laws, 2015.

The magistrate, Mrs. Oluwakemi Williams-Isichie, in her judgment, granted the defendant bail in the sum of N20,000 with two responsible sureties who must show evidence of tax payment.

She adjourned the case until June 3rd for mention.

A 400-level student of Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) identified as Chukwuemeka Akachi, has said to have allegedly committed suicide on Monday.

According to an eyewitness who pleaded anonymity, he said that Akachi went to an uncompleted building along Sullivan Road where he drank two bottles of ‘Sniper.’

He explained that it was some students who were going towards the direction that saw him battling between life and death who raised alarm before he was rushed to UNN Medical Centre.

“Some students saw Akachi in a state of coma raised the alarm and he was rushed to the University Medical Centre, where he was taken to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital,(UNTH) Ituku, Ozalla Enugu, where he was confirmed dead by doctors on duty.

Our correspondent gathered that Akachi had pasted a suicide note on his personal Facebook wall hours before committing the act.

The suicide note reads: “Forgive me. In case you are the one who found the body, I am really sorry. It had to be someone, you know. I have chosen Jo Nketaih’s poem as my suicide note: ‘They said you came looking for me. I don’t drown, I was the water.’

Where do atheists go when they die! Lol. Amen,” he wrote.

Late Akachi also wrote on his Facebook wall on May 12: “My mental health has been on life support for a while now. Thanks to those who call. Text. Visit. Speak to me. May we always remember. May we never forget. You may have added a few hours, months or days to my time here. But you know life support is expensive right?

Thank you for trying. Amen.”

Confirming the incident, a senior security personnel in UNN Security Department who pleaded anonymity said the incident was reported to them at the security unit of the institution on Monday morning.

He said this was not the first time the said Akachi made attempt to take his life as in two occasions he had drunk kerosene and fuel in the past to kill himself but was rescued.

“But on Monday he drank Sniper and was rushed to UNN Federal Medical Centre first but was later moved to UNTH Enugu where he was confirmed dead, “he said.

When contacted, the Enugu State Police Public Relation Office, Ebere Amarizu, confirmed the incident, describing it as very pathetic. He said that police would investigate the matter to ascertain the circumstances surrounding the death of the student.

This was disclosed in a statement by the Secretary to the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Services Board (CDFIPB), Al-Hassan Yakmut on Tuesday.

Recruitment into the two para-military agencies commenced mid last year but was suspended for undisclosed reasons.

Yakmut said the board gave the approval after its meeting on the 9th and 10th of this month.

The statement read in part: “The Federal Government has approved the continuation of recruitment processes into the Nigeria Prisons Service and the Federal Fire Service

“Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Services Board (CDFIPB), gave the approval after its meeting on 9th and 10th of this month.

“The meeting also approved the recruitment of 2,200 candidates into the Federal Fire Service and 7,475 candidates into the Nigeria Prisons Service.”

The Minister of Interior, who is the chairman of the board, pledged the commitment of the board in ensuring adequate pre-deployment training for the successful candidates.

According to NAN, a statement signed by the Secretary of the board, Malam Al-Hassan Yakmut, said the Chairman of CDFIPB and Minister of Interior, Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (rtd), gave the approval at the board’s meeting held between May 9 and May 10, in Abuja.

Yakmut said after the board’s meeting, a technical committee was immediately set up to work out modalities for the implementation, adding “including the harmonisation of ranks in accordance with the abolition’’.

He said the board also approved the recruitment of 2,200 candidates into the Federal Fire and 7,475 candidates into the Nigeria Prisons Services.

“The meeting also approved the recruitment of 2,200 candidates into the Federal Fire Service, and 7,475 candidates into the Nigeria Prisons Service.

“Dambazau wishes the candidates a successful career in the services and pledges commitment of the board to ensuring adequate pre-deployment training,’’ he said.

A man, Seun Ajibulu, has petitioned the Ekiti State Commissioner for Health, Mr. Mojisola, Yahaya Kolade, over the sudden death of an accident victim, Ezekiel, Adedayo Folorunso, 28, who allegedly gave up the ghost on May 10 due to alleged negligence on the part of some staff members of the Ekiti State Specialist Hospital, Ikere, to give prompt medical attention and treatment.

Ajibulu, a school proprietor who described the circumstances leading to Folorunso’s death as pathetic but preventable, alleged that the hospital staff members gave several flimsy excuses why they couldn’t attend to Folorunso who was rushed to the hospital after the ghastly accident that left him bleeding profusely.

In his petition to the state’s health commissioner, Ajibulu said: “On Friday, May 10, 2019, at about 8:45pm, a victim of an accident Mr. Ezekiel, Adedayo Folorunso, was brought to the State Specialist Hospital, Ikere-Ekiti, as the nearest health facility. He was bleeding as a result of injuries he suffered in the accident and would need first aid treatment, even though he might need to be transferred to a facility with better requirements.

“Alas, the staff on duty brought a stretcher but refused to bring out the accident victim on account of non availability of “hand gloves.” One wonders when “gloves” becomes so expensive that a specialist hospital couldn’t make them available.

I, who was also involved in the accident but with minor injuries, had to personally bring out injured Folorunso and placed him on the stretcher. Again, the irresponsible and care-free staff declined pushing the stretcher. It was made clear that no medical doctor was attached to the hospital,” he said.

Ajibulu claimed further that after about 30 minutes of persuading the staff of the hospital, it dawned on him that the victim might not survive if he didn’t take a drastic step of moving him elsewhere, adding that “when it dawned on me that Folorunso might not survive the injuries as a result if the negligence of the staff, a decision was made with the help of some Good Samaritans who brought him to transfer him to the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital in Ado Ekiti. But the gateman would not open the alternative gate. He insisted that the vehicle carrying the injured must make a U-turn and go through a long route.

“Folorunso, though made it to Ado Ekiti and was promptly attended to by the medical staff on duty at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital who really battled to save his life but he didn’t survive due to the fact the he had lost too much blood during the delay by the staff on duty at the Specialist Hospital in Ikere, who refused to promptly give him first aid treatment.

“We therefore call on the Ekiti State government to immediately constitute a panel of inquiry in conjunction with the heath commissioner to investigate the circumstances surrounding Folorunso’s death and bring the erring staff to justice. Our investigation even confirmed the incident was not the first of its kind in that specialist hospital. What had happened to Folorunso could happen to anyone,” he said.

Presently, the front runners of the race for the NASS leadership are Senator Ahmed Lawan for the Senate presidency and Femi Gbajabiamila for the Speakership of the House of Representatives.

They are front runners because they are the nominees of the ruling All Progressives Congress which has a commanding lead in both chambers of the National Assembly. What more, President Muhammadu Buhari has endorsed the candidature of both legislators, which stands them in very commanding stead to head the next NASS.

But, in the party, there are faint discordant tunes as both Senator Ali Ndume who conspired with the out-going Senate President, Bukola Saraki to steal the senate presidency four years ago and who eventually fell out with Saraki, as well as Senator Danjuma Goje who chairs the out-going Senate’s powerful appropriation committee, have indicated interest in leading the senate despite the party’s choice of Lawan.

Also, the out-going Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, who in cahoots with the minority PDP and some members of the House of Representatives, cornered the speakership last four years is said to nurse a far-flung but surreptitious ambition to return. What more, Dogara is pursuing his nearly impossible ambition under his new party, PDP which is in significant minority in the House of Representatives.

Unlike what happened in 2015 however, there is no expectation of any major upsets from the APC stand on the NASS leadership. Unlike in 2015, the party now has a more regimented and disciplined leadership to see through the interests of the party and instill coherence among members.

Again, the presidency that maintained a naïve attitude of non-interest in NASS leadership in 2015 now has full interests and these are expressed in the pubic commitment of President Buhari to support the Lawan and Gbajabiamila aspirations. Today, the party is more coherent and purposeful in pursuit of its interests unlike in 2015 where the rioting ambition of many members allowed the PDP to sow disharmony among the APC legislators to allow a Saraki and Dogara who, to all intents and purposes, were favorably disposed to the pursuit of PDP interests, steal the leadership of NASS.

Most importantly, the experience of the past four years where the NASS leadership stood solidly in contradistinction to the executive and the party under which platform they rode to power is enough to steel the APC to make very good use of its majority status and disallow any efforts to relive the harrowing experiences with the Saraki-led NASS.

So, the grand expectations of Nigerians on a new NASS and its leadership is the complimentary role they stand to play to drive the visions of the government, not through constituting mindless obstructions as happened in the past four years but through a cooperative nexus that will further the ends of democracy and good governance for the Nigerian nation.

Simply put, Nigerians are not expecting a replay of the cantankerous squabbles of the past four years where ambitious efforts to drive the development of the country and the dividends of democracy were arrested by a NASS that was in clear pursuit of selfish partisan interests that were contrary to those of the executive.  Nigerians are therefore expecting a NASS that will readily accede to the requests of the executive to promote bills that seek the rapid economic growth of the nation.

In the past four years, we experienced how the Saraki NASS sadistically shrimped ambitious developmental budgets to smithereens just to pursue the desire to see the government fail. We saw how the yearly budgets were shredded so badly to have insignificant impacts on the nation, contrary to their designed impacts.

We saw a situation in the past four years where the NASS became a theater for the promotion of narrow, corruption-induced constituency projects over and above ambitious capital projects that stand to drive the economy and impact on millions of Nigerians. We saw where yearly budgets for critical road infrastructures, power, rail, health, water, social investment projects were rubbished to make way for such constituency projects like provision for grinding machines, solar street lights and purchase of motorcycles.

We saw where such budgets for the Second Niger Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan Road, Enugu Airport expansion, Mambila Power Plant, standard gauge rail lines were torn to pieces while nondescript projects in remote areas that hardly have impact on many people were promoted and stolen into the national budget because they are constituency projects for members of the National Assembly.

In the past four years, we saw how NASS became an absurd theater where budgets were padded to reflect the corrupt self-serving desires of NASS members. We saw how NASS distorted national budgets to suit their narrow whims, where NASS rewrote the budget according to their caprices and made the task of pursuing national growth through the instrumentality of the budget practically impossible.

In the past four years, we saw how yearly budgets became avenues for muscle-flexing, we saw how budgets were unnecessarily delayed and made to travel to and fro between the executive and the legislature. These ego rips were meant to pursue vain glory while the interests of the people for which budgets were made, suffered serious harms. Let us recall how Saraki, during his ill-fated campaign for the presidential ticket of PDP boasted that he cut down the budgets for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway for no just reasons!

So in a new NASS and NASS leadership, the expectation of Nigerians is that a NASS leadership that is less acrimonious and combative will serve the general interests of Nigerians where the past NASS and its leadership bickered and threw wedges.

In going for the Lawan and Gbajabiamila choice, it is obvious that APC is driven by the desire to avoid the regrettable impediments of the last NASS that blocked rather than enhanced the government’s drive to improve the lots of the people. The bitter experience the Buhari government faced with having a NASS that constituted itself to an obstructive opposition to the government must have forced the government from its naïve shell of disinterestedness to take an active interest in who emerges the leaders of NASS in a few weeks’ time.

That is right and proper.

Expectations of Nigerians in a new NASS and its leadership is a national assembly that will assist the executive to deliver on its electoral promises to the people and that must have informed the choice APC made on who is best suited to drive the new NASS.

Having any other leadership will translate to fueling the kind of bitter rivalry and street fight that marked the relationship between the executive and NASS in the past four years and Nigeria, as a nation, can ill-afford this bitter experience.

We need a NASS and a NASS leadership that fit into the Next Level commitment of the present government and compliment it to deliver on the promises embedded in that campaign. Nigeria will be the better for this and anything less than this will rather exacerbate the developmental problems we have been battling to tame as a nation.

From the breakdown and analysis given by Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the board, it became pretty clear that, just like last year, another precocious student, emerged as the overall best student.

Ekele Franklin, 15, is this year's superstar!

To score the highest mark in UTME, at whatever age, is no mean feat. To do it at the age of 15, when most of your contemporaries are still tied to their mother's apron strings, is breathtakingly incredible. And when you consider the number of candidates that sat for the Examination(over 1.7million!) Franklin and his kith and kin have every reason to be on cloud noun. The teenager from Imo state is now the envy of his age-mates.

However, Franklin's joy may be short-lived, the impressive result may not secure him the desired admission for this reason.

Is it fair, however, that such a brilliant mind be held back by age?

An Unwritten But Attractive Law
There is an unwritten law, effective though, that puts a limit on the age by which a student can start his/her academic odyssey in any public University in Nigeria.

According to the unwritten law, the 'standard' and official age for admission into public University is Sixteen(16). The admission seeker is expected to be sixteen by the 1st of October in the year of admission if not all is the hope of securing admission will be a mirage.

For the reason, Franklin whose official age might not be offered admission for his dream course at the University of Lagos, come to the beginning of a new session except he is 16 by then.

Are There Precedents?
Yes. Thousands of brilliant admission seekers had been denied admission solely because of this unwritten but active law. Though most of the people that had been at the receiving end of this law are faceless, a case will suffice; That of Faith Oluwatomi Oyende.

Faith Oluwatomi Oyende, at the age of  21(now a graduate of biochemistry), graduated with a 4.68 cumulative grade point average, CGPA,  to emerge the best graduating student from the Faculty of Science at the 21st convocation ceremony of Lagos State University (LASU).

While answering questions from the Vanguard Newspaper last year on how she achieved the feat, Faith said: "It is a long story. I actually wanted to become a medical doctor. But I was denied admission at both University of Lagos, UNILAG, and LASU because I was not yet 16years old.

Having finished secondary school at age 15, I wrote and passed the Joint Admission Matriculation Board Examination. But during the post-JAMB test,  I was told I must have completed 16 years on or before October 1, 2011. Unfortunately, I was to be 16 on January 1, 2012."

The same fate befell the brilliant Orishenye Okorogheye who, after having A1 in the students he sat for in  May/June 2018 WASSCE, emerged as the best UTME candidate in 2018 at the age of 15  as well. He was stopped in his tracks while trying to apply to UNILAG for Post-UTME despite scoring 332.

Justification Of The Law
There are many justifications for this Law both from academics and counsellors. The summary of which is that most of the under-16 brilliant students are not 'emotionally mature' to withstand the multi-tasking that tertiary education demands. Another reason is that they are still impressionable and may fall easy prey to the antics of the adults in the ivory tower.

Though the age-limit 'policy' has no legal backing it has become the gold standard for securing admission. Do you think the 'law' is retrogressive and be done away with?

It is not clear what prompted them to share the 16 guidelines, but a recent embarrassing viral video of an officer hassling a driver at a checkpoint for a bribe might be behind it.

In it, an officer is captured asking for a bribe of 4,000 naira ($10; £7) because the initial offer was, according to him, not enough.

Such incidents have reportedly ended in motorists being shot dead after drivers refused to oblige.

The police do not address the issue of bribe solicitation in their "tips for safe and cordial relationship at checkpoints", but advise that:

So, just in case you're wondering how to comply with the guidelines, here's what a motorist should do:

Slow down as you approach the checkpoint, ensure the car's interior lights are on, if it's at night, and keep your hands visible to avoid spooking police officers.

Lowering the volume of the car radio would be greatly appreciated:

Goading a police officer is also not a good idea:

So is touching an officer:

The police also felt it was necessary to warn about the potentially fatal consequences of fighting an armed police officer:

Most Nigerians don't trust the police because they see them as unprofessional and corrupt, according to BBC Nigeria editor Aliyu Tanko.

They often complain about the ubiquitous checkpoints, which many feel have been set up purely to extort bribes.

Nigerian police are among the worst paid and ill equipped in the world, our reporter says.

The police, however, see bad interactions with the public as being a result of misunderstandings.

They advise the public to be courteous when engaging with them:

The guidelines are being seen as part of efforts by the police service to burnish its image. It comes after the police held a public engagement event on social media.

The reaction on Twitter to the police checkpoint guidelines has been mixed: