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My Binoculars: A tribute to a former Controller of customs Borno state Joshua Angbalaga

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My Binoculars: A tribute to a former Controller of customs Borno state Joshua Angbalaga

By: Sam Kayode

Indeed Angbalaga was a reporter’s delight. Firm yet welcoming. His demise is a sudden blow to some of us who have basked in his warmth and detribalized nature. He was of a different make from the generality of uniformed personnel some of us are used to, sharp witty with a strong ability to interface from one generation to another. He was a trained sociologist from the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria where he graduated in 1984. Taught for sometime at the FCT which gave him the unique ability to understand his generation and all the ones after his.

His training as a customs official since 1988 had taken him to many States including the commercial capital of Nigeria Lagos and many other cities. Controller Joshua Angbalaga was easy going and kept an open door for most of us journalists who came into contact with him through exclusive interviews. He was open minded and was ready to tolerate most of our young colleagues who sometimes displayed slight intolerance for uniforms at news conferences because of the insurgents lurking around.

In Controller Joshua Angbalaga buried today in lafia nasarawa state, I have a personal loss of a man who was an exemplary news maker. He was a public figure who had immense knowledge about the weaknesses and strengths of the gentlemen of the pen. He was a good representative of his controller General. He understood the body languages of most of our intolerant younger colleagues and gave his subordinates in the office then a standing directive that any time any of us comes to see him, we must not be kept waiting unnecessarily if he is free. He was far different from previous controllers who had come and treated reporters like condemned criminals who should never be allowed to come close to the controllers office upstairs.

Some of them in sister agencies especially the ones in the immigration service gave standing orders that journalists should be turned away from the gate as if we were insurgents. This was because some of them were never financially transparent as we learnt from their boys so we understood why they were so vehement at stopping journalists from conducting their constitutional activities. A lot of Angbalaga’s paramilitary colleagues marveled at his dexterity with the gentlemen of the fourth estate.

Our paths met in April 2017 when he reported to Maiduguri as controller and Borno/Yobe area Commander of the Nigerian customs. That was three years after I reported in Maiduguri as correspondent of the nation newspaper.
From then on we continued to work together with him and his entire management team in making expected progresses within the war theatre.
We had several news conferences with him especially on how he had been able to make tremendous progress in turning things around in spite of the insurgency which was at its peak by then. Angbalaga was a rare news maker in uniform because of his belief that none of his officers were too rotten to resist reforms. They were all in sync with his policies to make the state better than he met it. When it was time to go, he left maiduguri on transfer to Abuja where he later retired in 2020. He was involved in stopping a lot of contrabands including hard drugs which is the main fuel keeping insurgents at alert.

On retirement, we kept our communication intact and friendly. Oga Angbalaga was a very studious officer who had already prepared himself for leadership roles by completing his master in public administration in 2000. Feeling a bit bored and not tired in retirement, he went back to school for his PhD program in University of Abuja. He told me recently that he was close to finishing his course work and was kicking to go to the next challenge as God directs. We bantered on the phone while I wondered if he was going back to teaching but he laughed and asked for Gods will to be done. We had a one hour call last year with an invitation to me to visit him during the last yuletide 2024. So with a promise that I would be in lafia to see him for the yuletide, we rounded the call. But due to certain conditions not under my control, that was the last time we would talk as friends. I missed the trip due to I’ll health. Controller Angbalaga is no more as the Lord wills. He has answered the solemn call of nature which sends all mortals back to their creator regardless of age, status, character, race or creed. Death has shown that it’s a leveler of all mankind and my friend oga Angbalaga as I used to call him lived a forthright life before bowing to immortality. May the Lord console his friends at Mount St Gabriel Makurdi, St John Bosco Doma, the entire family of the Nigerian customs service, immediate family and the entire eggon nation where the Lord used him to touch several souls before his passage.
Have a nice sleep oga Angbalaga. From Biodun as you used to call me.

My Binoculars: A tribute to a former Controller of customs Borno state Joshua Angbalaga

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Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio

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Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio

By: Balami Lazarus

Osama. Does it ring a bell? Yes, it does on the Plateau. The Osama I am writing about is that individual who is known for his good works for humanity on the radio and outside the studio. Osama is a gentleman but is outspoken and has a mind of his own.

My Osama in this context is a personality, a brand, and a trademark. Osama is a broadcaster, radio presenter, and popular comedian on stage and in the entertainment industry in Jos-Plateau and beyond. Since the writing is sailing, I will later reveal the identity of who this young man is and why he is so passionate about good governance.

The fights for human rights, social justice, and good governance have been the cries and topic of discourse of so many Nigerians, especially good governance. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights activists are the leaders in these struggles, whereby their roles cannot be overemphasized. The quantum of spoken words, public lectures/enlightenment programs, workshops, seminars, etc., has not brought many changes in our systems because there was little or no action by you and me as Nigerians.

I remembered when I was very active in the struggle for human rights and social justice. As Deputy Secretary General (DSG) of Democratic Alternative (DA), we were much concerned with democratic alternative processes and social justice with a whiff of good governance, and this has been the case for some NGOs, as I know.

I came to understand from my experiences that, as a country, we have good public-oriented programs, but our major challenges are implementation and follow-up that come with too many talks but no individual action or collective responsibility because many Nigerians are fearful, and this has made me a one-man advocate/crusader for human rights and social justice. Like the subject of this work.

Now back to the subject. Osama is a brand package, fearless advocate, and mouthpiece for good governance on the Plateau through Town Hall, a popular radio program aired by JFM 101.9 FM. Jos is widely listened to. He was born as Ehis Akugnonu. But Osama has overtaken his certified name. Therefore, my continued use of Osama is justified in this work because I realized that many times your other name (also known as) tends to dominate and overshadow your real name.

Osama is redefining the fight for good governance by personal efforts through follow-up and speaking on them, putting the government on their feet to improve and do better. ‘I am for good governance, and I will continue to speak on this matter.’ He is purposefully driven by his passion for good quality and better systems to have an enabling environment where the systems are working for progress and development.

Balami, a publisher/columnist 08036779290

Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)

By: Balami Lazarus

I saw it coming. As a writer, my works and I have been verbally attacked several times. I raised an eyebrow at how some readers react by using bad language on issues, opinions, and views. Well, that is their way of expression when they are displeased, but I feel it is grotty.

And here is the conclusion of the “controversial piece,” as one caller puts it. For me, there is nothing controversial about this discourse but the truth of the grotesque happenings in married homes. And the way out, as I earlier wrote, is divorce.

Recently there has been an inflation of brutal murders in marriages; those killed are mostly women and children, and fewer men. What justification does one have to continue in a marriage where there are threats, violence, and unhappiness generated by the presence of either the husband or the wife? And unknowingly one becomes prey hunted by an in-house predator.

Sharks areamong the most intelligent aquatic animals. Their sense of smell is very sharp; they can smell and detect blood or any red object in water from a far distance and come for it at near the speed of light. Therefore, women’s body chemistry is like that of sharks; they sense and notice things easily. But what is wrong with many of them in marriage that they are unable to detect landmines or red flags early in their marriages? Where there is a threat to life with the intention to hurt, harm, and/or cause grievous injury or death, that is when they realize they are living in gross bondage if they are lucky to come out of it alive.

As students at Pluto College Sharam in Kanke-Plateau State, we were told and made to understand as boys to treat our girl students with love and care and be there for them when the need arises. That was one of the lessons that came from the late Dr. Sumaila Ndayako (Rector), as he was known and called. As boys, we dared not humiliate, insult, or threaten them in any way; rather, we were to take them as our sisters by extension. This has taught me to respect and care for the opposite sex.

Moreover, my association, membership, and experience with some human rights organizations have enlightened me with rights, liberties, and freedom garnished by respect for individual differences, rights and privileges, consent, and action. With this knowledge put together, I consider marriage never a do-or-die affair but a privilege with consent to be a husband to a woman who also has rights/consent to be a wife and live in matrimony. Why then humiliation, abuses, and domestic violence?

I have observed in my experience as a married man that if you take away some women from their husbands, they will die, and vice versa. Despite the domestic violence and abuses inflicted on either party, he/she is willing and prefers to die in such gothic marriage situations because one among them has a deep spiritual attachment to the marriage. This is common in Christendom, where “till death do us part.” My question here is, what kind of death? Intentional, accidental, or natural? This created injunction clause does not hold water in life-threatening marriages.

Living in a shark-jaws marriage, I always blamed women who had seen the red flags but refused to leave such marriages and the house-husband (husband). I further came to understand that patience and the pretext that all is well have caused damage to both spouses in terms of emotional and traumatic agonies and some to their graves.

Therefore, spouses that are trapped in this valley of death with its quagmire should know that marriage is a thing of choice. Likewise, divorce is permissible as a panacea for both to be alive to breathe freely.

Balami, a publisher/columnist, 0803677929

In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

By: Balami Lazarus

In the quite beautiful town of Zhimbutu, where men held sway, lording over their wives, some with brutality, few with love,

care and romance others in different ways. While some women are also lords over their husbands with impunity. Fear of getting married gripped young ladies seeing the ways their mothers were being treated and relegated to the background in the affairs of their homes as married women.

The home of Mr. and Mrs. Kwanchinkwalo Xhosa is full of regrets, anger, and bitterness, where Mrs. Xhosa has been treated as an object in the marriage partnership. The red spots were obviously fermented with bubbles ready for brewing.

Similarly, some good number of marriage homes are full of regrets where love, peace, and understanding

and harmony are strangers rejected and kept in a labyrinth of doom where one of the parties is placed in a perpetual tan of unhappiness surrounded by fear in the thickness of smoke, a forced resident.

Long before, now as a young man, a legitimate product of marriage. I took marriage as a mere secular social contract of partnership bounded in love and understanding where two have agreed to live together as husband and wife in matrimony.

However, I have never taken marriage to be a do-or-die affair, which has been the stock of some persons, even when and if the two—husband and wife—can no longer live together, having exhausted reasonable avenues to no avail. Here I am.

for outright divorce as a panacea for the final dissolution of the marriage.

To this day, I have been asking myself, why did I even get married in the first place? For sex, procreation, companionship, norms, tradition, or obligation? While marriage to a larger extent has deprived me and many others of some air of freedom and liberties to do or not to do at any space of time, I suppose. Moreover, the enterprise called marriage has taken away the ‘who’ in many men and

women and made them something else. It has further forcefully taken the lives of many spouses who ignored the red flags and fear of divorce. And besides, many have taken upon themselves to live or die in an unhappy/venomous venture of marriage that is infested with ‘dysentery’ and ‘cholera,’ where death is lurking because husbands or wives lack the guts, will , ability, and/or capacity to invoke the dead-end solution.

Let me now punctuate the work with some questions: Were you forced into it? Was it under duress? Was it at gunpoint? I believed the answers were all no. What will then prevent an individual from liquidating his unprofitable marital interest in such an intense business called marriage to be free from wahala that may likely result in crime?

In such a situation, I advocate for divorce as the only and final panacea, which has a comfortable place as a clause in my dictionary of marriage. Divorce is rarely used in some quarters, no matter what. While my wife and I have sincerely agreed in the course of our marriage journey that at any point in time, with or without any reason/cause, either party can quietly and peacefully walk out of the marriage to avoid who knows what?

In the history of failed marriages and crime findings, it has been shown that one of the parties is forcing his/herself on the other spouse because one of them has a profound and compounded emotional or spiritual attachment to the marriage. The case of the late Mrs. Osinachi Nwachukwu (2023), the gospel singer, was a classical example. Patience and excessive spiritual attachment led to her being killed by her husband, one Mr. Nwachukwu. The same is also applicable to men who fall victim in the hands of their wives. This situation has created two prime suspected killers living in a marriage cocoon.

Balami, a publisher/columnist. 08036779290

In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

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