MURDERED BY VIGILANTE BOYS · Sad end of a young man killed by his kinsmen

By SUNDAY ANI (NICHSUNNY@YAHOO.COM)

The family of Sylvanus Agbo from Umunkaka Amukwa Ihe in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State is currently grieving over the gruesome murder of their 29-year-old son, Ndubuisi. Mr Agbo, who is hypertensive, regretted that his son’s brutal murder had aggravated his poor health condition, even as he pointedly accused the village vigilance group of complicity in the crime.

Events that led to Ndubuisi’s gruesome murder on September 18, 2013, according to his father, started on September 1, around 8pm along Orba Road, a stone’s throw from their compound. The young man was said have run into the vigilante boys on his way home after he closed for the day’s business at his Ikpa market. He was said to have stopped over at a near-by beer palour to drink a bottle of beer after which he continued his homeward journey on his motorcycle. He was stopped by three members of a vigilance group and promptly arrested for moving at late hour. The bar owner where Ndubuisi branched on his way, according to the distraught father, had gone to confront members of the vigilance group and reminded them that it was still past 8pm and that other people were still moving around. It was gathered that they told him that Ndubuisi was their brother and that he should leave them as they knew how best to handle the matter.

When the bar owner left, Daily Sun gathered, the vigilante boys started beating Ndubuisi, who in order to save his life, escaped. Unfortunately, he ran into the house of one man simply identified as Chikwado, who rather than gave him cover, gave him away.

Odd self employment: The gains, the pains

By SUNDAY ANI (nichsunny@yahoo.com)

Before the present unacceptable level of unemployment in Nigeria, people engaged in self employment; not necessarily because they could not find paid employment but just because many of them wanted to be masters unto themselves. Even then, when we talk about self employment, what readily comes to mind are the artisans – the auto mechanics, vulcanizers, painters, hairdressers, barbers, shoemakers, drivers, tailors, traders and carpenters among others.

But today, survival instincts and existential imperatives have thrown up another group of self employed individuals, who have invaded the employment market like plague. They take up the most difficult, mean and dishonourable jobs, as it were, to make ends meet. They are masters of their own just like the artisans but the society looks down on them. They are seen to be at the lowest rung of employment ladder because they toil every day, under the sun and in the rain. They neither enjoy the comfort of air-conditioner nor that of fan. They earn their living by sweating profusely before they can make a penny.

They include cart pushers, scavengers at refuse dumpsites, iron mongers, barrow pushers, carriers and house-to-house launderers among others.

When Sunday Sun prodded into the closets of these classes of self employed Nigerians, it was discovered that contrary to what people think about their jobs, they earn more money than most people in paid employment. They are seen everywhere – residential areas, along the roads, motor garages and market places among other areas.

A visit to major markets like Ojo Alaba International Market in Ojo Local Government Area and Mile 12 Market in Ikosi-Isheri Local Council Development Authority, both in Lagos State revealed that cart pushing as a form of self employment is very lucrative and seems to dominate others. Cart pushing is divided into many parts; there are those who collect refuse from different households and dispose them off at the refuse dumpsites, there are those who convey goods from one point to the other, there are those who fetch water and sell to small scale caterers and various small unit households among others.

Edo under kidnappers’ siege ...But Oshiomhole says, we’ll combat menace

By SUNDAY ANI

Like a wild harmattan fire, what started as the abduction of foreign oil workers in the Niger Delta region, by militants to drive home their agitation against environmental pollution and degradation resulting from oil exploration activities, has today become a big monster that is ravaging every section of Nigeria.

What started as a tool of agitation in the hands of the militant youths in the Niger Delta has    become a lucrative business venture for the teeming unemployed graduates in Nigeria. In the beginning, the target was mainly foreigners, especially Europeans and Asians. But today, the focus has shifted to Nigerians who are considered to be rich or those have any kind of affiliation with the wealthy or the government. From east to west; north to south, the story is the same. It has assumed a frightening dimension that nobody is safe. Their victims cut across all ages, ranging from children of even less than one year, to people as old as 90 years and above. It has no sex barrier.

Recently, Edo State, South-South Nigeria, seems to have become a safe haven for the people in this illicit business. The state has been in the news for quite some time now over the ugly development. The roughnecks seem to have congregated in the ancient empire and its environs where they unleash mayhem on the inhabitants as well as visitors and passersby.

Nigerians were taken aback when on Friday, August 23, human rights activist and lawyer, Chief Mike Ozehome (SAN), was abducted by kidnappers.

But just as jubilation was on air over the release of Chief Ozekhome after about two weeks in the gulag, Nigerians were again jolted by the abduction of an Edo monarch, the Iyase of Udo in Ovia Southwest Local Government of Edo State, HRH Patrick Igbinidu. The kidnap of the traditional ruler on the same day that Chief Ozekhome was released, has confirmed the fears in some quarters that Edo State has become a safe haven for kidnappers.

UNEMPLOYMENT Hard times, hard choices; Things graduates do to survive

By SUNDAY ANI (nichsunny@yahoo.com)

If the recent assertion by the Statistician-General, National Bureau of Statistics, Abuja, Dr Yemi Kale is anything to go by, then unemployment rate in Nigeria still stands at 23.9 percent; a figure he considers low when compared to other African countries like South Africa where the figure is well above 40 percent. Dr Kale had said in May that the federal government was creating jobs but admitted that the number of graduates being churned out every year from various institutions of higher learning was growing at a faster rate than employment generation.

The reality however, is that hundreds of thousands of Nigerian graduates don’t have jobs to do. From north to south; east to west, the story is the same. Many of these unemployed graduates have masters’ degree, which most of them acquired walking a tight rope with the belief that once they have their second degrees, they would have brighter chances of getting good jobs. But, that never happened; instead it became their greatest undoing as most employers of labour shun them because they have no cognate experience and they would demand higher salaries.

For an average unemployed Nigerian graduate, the society has relapsed into Hobbesian state, where life has become nasty, poor and brutish, with the fittest surviving. To ensure that life goes on, many of them have committed class suicide and taken up jobs considered way below their qualifications. They do all kinds of jobs to make ends meet.