Governing Like An Unquestioned Autocrat

"Justin Trudeau is walking out on Canadians in the middle of a major health and economic crisis, in a disgusting attempt to make Canadians forget about his corruption."                                                                                                               "At a time when Canadians are looking for stability and leadership. Justin Trudeau has given them corruption, chaos, and cover-ups."                                           Conservative leader Andrew Scheer

"Shutting down Parliament in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis, with a planned sitting next week and committees working hard to get answers and solutions for Canadians is wrong."                                                              "[Canadians] shouldn't be forced to pay the price for Mr. Trudeau's scandals."          "If the Liberal government continues to focus on helping their close friends instead of helping people, if they continue to be caught up in fighting themselves instead of helping families that are worried about their future, then we'll have to look at all options."                                                                                                                        Leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh

"It's time to get some grown-ups in Ottawa. The post-COVID debt hangover is reason enough to clear Trudeau's economically inept crew out of Ottawa as soon as possible. And given Trudeau's alleged WE malfeasance, his government's spending spree must be audited and some of its more erroneous pieces of legislation, which will only serve to sabotage Canada's economy by halting resource development, must be rescinded. Finally, a giant broom must sweep all the green radicals, anti-capitalists and Trudeau fanboys and fangirls out of Ottawa." Diane Francis, journalist, editor-at-large, author, Distinguished Professor, Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University, Toronto 

Canada has a prime minister who believes in a post-national society. He sees himself as a progressive and states so frequently, invested in improving the lives of Canada's middle class, even as he is himself a member of the entitled elite class of Canadians, as was his Minister of Finance with whom the prime minister has just sundered ties. Up until two days ago, Bill Morneau was Justin Trudeau's choice to head the finance ministry. And then came the WE scandal where both men distinguished themselves by failing to recuse when a cabinet vote took place giving WE Charity close to a billion dollars to disburse financial rewards up to $5,000 to university students doing volunteer work.

The charity happens to be one with a close and cozy association with both men and their families, where Justin Trudeau's mother and brother were paid for speaking engagements at WE events, to a total of $300,000, and Mr. Morneau's daughter has contract employment with the charity. A charity whose board of directors had decamped over murky financial transactions, a charity which had laid off hundreds of employees, a charity which habitually honoured wealthy prospective supporters with paid trips abroad to visit at some of their charitable worksites.

Co-founders Craig (left) and Marc Kielburger introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau as they appear at the WE Day celebrations in Ottawa, Tuesday November 10, 2015. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

But this was only the most recent of the scandals enveloping Canada's prime minister who had been found involved in harassment of of women despite his boasting of being a 'feminist', who had indulged in Blackface hijinks, who had initiated an unfounded investigation into Vice-Admiral Norman, second in command of the Canadian military, accusing  him of releasing secret documents to the media, who had accepted a family vacation on the private island resort of the Aga Khan, known to lobby for government support of projects in Canada, who had attempted to suborn the Attorney General's decision for a court trial against SNC Lavalin.

A current investigation into the WE Charity scandal by the Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner represents the third such investigation into Justin Trudeau's ethical lapses, the previous of which he had been found guilty, and the second for Bill Morneau, who had been found guilty of the first. It was, ostensibly, Bill Morneau's family trips to Kenya and Ecuador in 2017, which he only recalled in July of 2020 he owed the charity $41,000 for that embarrassed the prime minister, though he felt his family receiving payment from the charity for services rendered was quite acceptable.

 Justin Trudeau, House finance committee (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

In the end, Morneau announced his resignation as Minister of Finance,  hinting disagreements over fiscal matters caused a rift between himself and the prime minister, which it likely did, but speculation abounds that the real rift was occasioned by the WE Charity all-expenses-paid trips benefiting the Morneau family which just happens to be the wealthiest family ever to have held public office in Canada, that caused Trudeau unease, spurring him to ask for the resignation. The outrageous thing is that if Morneau is guilty of poor ethical judgement, his boss Trudeau is even guiltier, and if Morneau paid for his indiscretion with the loss of political stature, Trudeau most certainly has done so in excess and should leave office.

Chrystia Freeland, sworn in as finance minister by Clerk of the Privy Council at Rideau Hall.  Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Instead Justin Trudeau has appointed Chrystia Freeland, his recently-appointed vice-prime minister to take Mr. Morneau's place as Minister of Finance. A former journalist, Ms. Freeland has no experience in economics. And it was at this juncture that the Prime Minister decided he would prorogue parliament. A parliament that he has already, in essence prorogued, having decided despite the objections of other parliamentarians, to shut down for the past six months, in preference to remote sessions over Zoom.

With the prorogation, all government business comes to an end. Translating to three parliamentary committees, all looking into the perceived and real malfeasance on the part of Justin Trudeau in deciding that WE Charity was the only group capable of administering the $912 million Student Summer Jobs program, of which the charity would have kept $64 million, a project that did not go to tender and was, Mr. Trudeau continued to argue, the choice of the civil service, not himself.

The Pride of Africa

"Nigeria is facing a demographic tidal wave."
"The long-term viability of the Nigerian economy -- and the state itself -- hinges on the government, religious, and traditional institutions developing a plan to address this challenge before it becomes impossible to remedy."
Matthew Page, associate fellow, Africa Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Britain

"They used car engine belts and electrical cables to flog us."
"Teachers used to sexually harass us -- They tried to loosen my pants once but I fought them off and was beaten."
"They beat us everywhere in the house, even in the mosque. If you asked to speak with your family, they would shackle you."
"When the police raided the school the whole place was in pandemonium, we were so happy."
"What I want now is to return home. I'll be a good boy."
Suleiman, 15, former student, Kaduna Muslim institution

"The teachers and prefects raped boys. Those who were sexually molested were enticed with canned fish. Those of us who refused were caned."
"They used planks of wood to beat us."
Jibril, 17, former student, Kaduna Muslim institution

Television Continental / Reuters TV | People are pictured after being rescued from a building in the northern city of Kaduna, Nigeria, on September 26, 2019, in this grab from a video.

Islamic schools such as the one in Kaduna, Nigeria , called Almajiris, can be found commonly in the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria. According to Muslim Rights Concern, situated locally, an estimated ten million children are sent to attend these Islamic schools. Nigeria's Muslim President Muhammadu Buhari undertook an initiative to encourage school attendance with a program guaranteeing free school meals that 9.8 million children in 32 of Nigeria's 36 states can take advantage of.

Nigeria, with one of the strongest economies on the continent, and a huge population of 190 million people and a wealth of oil resources has been unable to provide adequate school places for its population. That gap is an invitation for unregulated institutions such as the Kaduna institute for religious studies to offer their services to indigent families. Primary education in Nigeria is free officially, but around 10.4 million Nigerian children, five years of age to 14 do not attend school.

The oil producing state of Nigeria whose finances are drained by endemic corruption, spends a mere 0.5 percent of gross domestic product on health for the population, while allocating 1.7 percent on education, representing the lowest worldwide among others, according to the International Monetary Fund. With so few options available to poor families, there are some parents quick to defend the Kaduna institution which charges 35,000 naira ($114) each term.

The pink two-storey building is a prison-like structure surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. It has an imposing gate, with more than a dozen rooms, with small windows for ventilation. Reuters

A tailor living next to the combined mosque/school institution attested that two of his children attending the schools had never been abused. "It was good for them, they became calm. They showed them how to read the Qur'an. I liked it." How to read the Qur'an, but since it is in Arabic, the meaning of the Arabic words which they were then able to quote as required, eluded them. "There is no problem in this school", Zainab, a mother of seven children at the institution where she cooked meals, insisted.

The institute's sign is also in Arabic, describing itself as "House of Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal for the Application of Islamic Teachings". Some parents paid the fees in the belief it was an Islamic school, describing it as a good institution, dismissing abuse allegations while others saw it as a correctional facility, although it was never formally registered as required, as either. The two-story house used as a religious school is emerging as a place of horror visited upon men and boys, some of whom had been there for years.

Those who managed to escape the prison that the large, complex building represented to return home, were frequently returned by their families with some parents claiming their wayward children required discipline. And then there were other parents who were too poor, they said, to look after all their children. At least 77 boys under 18 years of age were held in the house, the  youngest age five. According to the victims, there were frequent, regular beatings; children and men often shackled.

Some detainees were as young as five years old  Reuters

Food was served at 10 a.m. and 11 p.m. only, and in short supply. Suleiman was sent to the institution by his older brother as punishment for skipping school. He studied Arabic and Islam's holy book, the Qur'an. When he was ten years old, Jibril, now 17 was hung by his arms after attempting to escape. He was left hanging until bones in his shoulders broke. He struggles now, years later, to raise his arms. Directly after the incident he was sent home to recover, and when he had healed his family returned him to the school.

A complaint by an uncle who was denied access to his nephew (a regular feature at the school where family members were not permitted admittance) alerted police who dispatched about 40 officers to raid the building where they found several boys and men in chains. Shackled to broken power generators, some boys dragged them around after themselves, including to bed or to the bathroom. Police arrested seven men they found to be in charge of the place where starving children caught trying to steal food would be stripped and whipped. In total several hundred men and boys were kept prisoner there and subsequently freed.

Only several days later, a house in Lagos was raided by police, where ten young women who had been kidnapped were kept prisoner, raped, to became pregnant and bear children to be sold for profit. How many of such operations exist? When Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group, kidnapped hundreds of school girls as 'brides' for their fighters from a private all-girls' school, the country was aghast, and a search for the girls was undertaken by the Nigerian military. Much good came of it.

Four children were rescued along with 19 women

Some of the girls managed to escape, some with babies whom their villages refused to accept. The country, in a sectarian divide between Muslim and Christian, is destabilized by the presence of marauding terrorists who torch villages, slaughter the men and kidnap and rape women, and has created a dilemma for the government whose underfunded and demoralized military would rather flee from confrontation with Boko Haram and other terrorist groups claiming affinity with Islamic State than fight and destroy their ability to terrorize the population..

Dysfunction is so widespread and deep that the presence of international aid agencies and other humanitarian groups trying to provide medical care and food for poor Nigerians is viewed askance; they are are accused by the government of giving aid and succor, along with funding support to the very terrorist groups whose victims they are engaged in offering care to, now finding themselves shut down, declared foreign interventionists causing problems in the country.