TOP 040322 EDITORIAL SNIPPETS

A group of Ukrainian refugees arrives at Przemysl station in Poland. Photograph: Europa Press/Getty Images

   

Ukrainians do not want to flee. They do not want to pack their lives into a suitcase. They do not want to crowd aboard packed trains that carry them away from their homes, or trudge for days with their children. They do not want to leave behind husbands and sons and parents. They do not want to begin again in a foreign country where they have nothing, far from those they love.

In less than one week following the invasion, at least 660,000 people fled Ukraine. Many more are trying to do so. The UN refugee agency warns that 4 million could leave the country. Poland is not even requiring passports from arrivals. The EU plans to grant temporary protection, including a residence permit and access to employment and social welfare, for up to three years. Countries long hostile to refugees have made an exception for their neighbours. (“It’s different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan,” was the bald explanation from Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer.)

… THE GUARDIAN: 

 

File photo of Hisbah police destroying beers

The seizure and confiscation of alcoholic contents is not new across the North but is given vigorous expression in Kano. This is not ideal in a diverse polity. 

The contravention of citizens’ rights on religious grounds must be addressed. These activities and the laws that enable them are in violation of the 1999 Constitution. While the basic law permits customary and Sharia family and customary civil law, Section 10 unambiguously declares that the “Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.” Declarations by some governors to compel compliance to religious dictates circumvent this. Banning perfectly legal activities in a secular republic such as production and sale of alcohol, dressing styles, peaceful assembly, and social mixing of the sexes, are flagrant rights violations.

… PUNCH

 

Buba Marwa, Chairman, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA)

 

Law enforcement in Nigeria is very weak because highly-connected individuals trample on our laws and due processes and get away with it.

Impunity, which is a residue of our military era, continues to weaken our civic processes and public institutions. It hampers their ability to deliver on their constitutional mandates.

It also shows that if the people appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari to man our strategic military, police, security, law enforcement, anti-corruption and regulatory agencies had been acting with similar resolute patriotism no matter whose ox was gored, the President’s agenda to fight corruption would have made far-reaching impacts.

This method of catching culprits red-handed, if routinely deployed on other officials in similar positions, it could show that many more law enforcement officers are actually leveraging on their privileged positions to perpetrate same crimes.

Good governance is not about a president or governor waving the proverbial “magic wand” to get things done.

It is more about putting the right persons in all the elective and appointive positions, reforming and properly funding the operational environment for better service delivery, performing duties without fear, favour or ill-will and rewarding achievement.

… VANGUARD