Author: The Nation

By Matthew Hassan Kukah 

 

IT is difficult to understand how a member of the revered British parliament worth his salt, could have left himself open to ridicule. By levelling unfounded, irrational and bizarre allegations of corruption against, of all people, General Yakubu Gowon, that exactly was what Tugendhat did. In the wake of the EndSARS protest by Nigerian youth, the MP for Tonbridge and Malling decided rightly to stand on the side of Nigeria. However, perhaps owing to sheer ignorance, carelessness or prejudice, the respected MP accused Gowon of having moved half the Central Bank of Nigeria when he was overthrown in a military coup in 1975. The very idea that Tugendhat would believe such nonsense and proceed to broadcast it publicly beggar belief.

A few questions here. What does moving half of the CBN mean even in the most abstract language? How could such a feat be accomplished by a man who had just been overthrown from power and was obviously a wanted man in his own country? How do you move half of a central bank or any bank for that matter? Which individuals, bureaucratic of financial institutions, facilitated the attainment of this feat and how? Assuming for the sake of an argument that Tugendhat is fractionally concerned about corruption in Nigeria, would he not start by gaining access to the existing trove of detailed information over financial flows from Nigeria to the United Kingdom? A good part of that information is accessible. The entire accusation is so ludicrous it raises questions about Tugendhat’s moral capacity to even pursue his case.

It is curious that Gowon, who arrived the United Kingdom when Tugendhat was only two years old in 1975, has seen the back of eight British prime ministers, yet has never been questioned by the British Police. Now he is being accused of having lived off half of Nigeria’s Central Bank. It is doubtful that Tugendhat has ever read a book about Nigeria not to talk of having travelled to the country. It is curious that he would have displayed such shameful ignorance and made such ill-conceived allegations with no scintilla of evidence, even when, at the click of a button, he could have had access to Gowon’s financial records and business dealings in his over 45 years of living in the UK.

Anyone interested in Gowon’s records of public service would have to ask a few questions. First, unlike his predecessors, is it not curious that even the military government that overthrew him did not for one day raise an allegation of corruption against him? The facts show that the bar of integrity in public service only began to be lowered from the time the General was overthrown. Most of our ailing national infrastructures owe their origins to that period.

For the education of Tugendhat and his ilk, let me draw from verifiable evidence of Gowon’s integrity as attested to by a cross section of Nigerians. Towards the end of 2003, when I heard that Gowon was going to turn 70 the following year on October 19, 2004, I was quite excited. I began to wonder how this great gem would be celebrated. I knew that I had no qualifications for making any serious suggestions. I decided to choose what I believed I could have control over. I opted to get a collection of tributes to honour the great man. I shared this idea with both his wife, the very much respected Victoria Gowon and Ambassador Maurice Ekpang who was then the Director of the Gowon Centre. Madam demurred for the obvious reason that she knew her husband’s deep sense of modesty. She herself loved the shadows and was very protective of the integrity of her husband and her family.

With the support of Ekpang, I got to work. I drafted a letter and we drew up a list of eminent people around the world, from Nelson Mandela, Eyadema to Jimmy Carter. At home, we reached out to technocrats, men and women who served under him or who had associated with him. In the letter, I merely introduced myself and said that as part of celebrating Gowon, I was, in my personal capacity, requesting them to write tributes for a publication I wanted to submit to him as part of the celebrations of his 70th birthday.

The enthusiasm with which people responded was quite amazing to me. From former presidents and Heads of State to traditional rulers, bureaucrats and a wide range of Nigerians across the board, literally everyone we reached out to. In all, the final publication covered a total of 259 pages. For the purpose of this essay, I wish to refer to just three of these tributes to draw the attention of Tugendhat to the foolishness of his allegations against the General whom he himself perhaps never met or even associated with.

First, in his tribute, the late President Shehu Shagari (1979-1983) spoke eloquently about the General. Among many other things, he said: “I believe it is only an extraordinary person that can lead this nation through thick and thin, to win a civil war and then declare that there was no winner, no vanquished. I believe that it is only an extraordinary person that can lead his country from the ravages of war to unity, prosperity and progress in record time. I believe that it is only an extra ordinary person that can unite a multiplicity of diverse people into a strong nation…Thank goodness, in all these struggles, he has turned out clean as the winner.”

In a lengthy tribute dated September 25, 2004, Chief Ernest Shonekan, former Head of the Interim Government (1993-1995) noted: “You have the honour of having the mantle of leadership of our great country at a relatively young age, yet you were imbued with wisdom and needed humility to lead at a most difficult time…..You have continued to demonstrate that a man’s life consists not necessarily of silver and gold alone or how much wealth he is able to gather but most importantly on how many lives he is able to touch positively. I honestly believe that if the leaders of today have an appreciation of this point, there will be less emphasis on acquiring so much for themselves resulting in the pervasive corruption that we have in the land.”

Perhaps of all the tributes, the one that caught my attention even at that time the most was that of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), our current president. It is tempting to reproduce almost the entire three-page letter because it was so rich in personal narrative.

In his opening paragraph, Buhari stated that writing the tribute was a duty because Gowon’s place in Nigerian history is assured for all time. His tribute was the most intimate and also the most revealing. In his words: “I was among the candidates recommended to be his ADC. Why it never happened was a secret only he and I knew! …One of his most astounding attributes is that General Gowon is man of conscience, a man of sincerity, a man of accountability and a man of integrity. He continued: Major projects were undertaken with the proceeds of the 1973 oil windfall. There was never a serious accusation linking the General personally with any scandal in that period.” And then, the clincher: “A pointer to his personal integrity was when I was Head of State and the General, though my senior treated me with embarrassing deference in the course of informing me that he could not pay his children’s school fees. A man who presided over the federal government’s big spending spree yet did not plan for the rainy day is somebody special.”

Unfortunately, the ‘Book of Tributes’ has continued to gather dust in the archives of the Gowon Centre since 2004 for some inexplicable reasons.

I have gone to this length just to show that Tugendhat has committed such an egregious act and a faux pas that he owes his family and the British Parliament a first apology for the great embarrassing show of foolishness. He owes the members of the EndSARS protesters for damaging the credibility of their evidence of corruption in Nigeria. He owes Gowon and his family an apology for trying to impugn his reputation by reading a prepared text blindfolded by prejudice.

 

• Kukah is Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto.

 Jaiyeola J. Lewu

 

THIS is the country that most of my colleagues and I were very proud to represent and to fly the nation’s flag so high as its principal representatives abroad.

This is the country whose leadership represented by Garba Shehu is now asking poor peasants and displaced farmers to obtain special permission from the military before they can go to their farms to cultivate the food they need to combat mass hunger and to contribute to food security in the country. Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity invoked the possibility that the farms might have been bobby-trapped with landmines to justify his outrageous statement.

In an interview with the BBC, he claimed that much of the areas concerned have been liberated from Boko Haram terrorists. If that were to be the case, why was he talking about landmines? The innocent farmers that were slaughtered one by one were not blown up by landmines throughout the planting season, until the harvest time when they were murdered by Boko Haram. Why were they not protected as Garba Shehu is being protected daily, particularly when going to and fro his office in The Presidency? Does he seek clearance from the army or DSS?

A spokesperson for the military made the matter worse by falsely accusing the villagers, most of whom are farmers, of being Boko Haram informants. How would the farmers knowingly betray themselves to an enemy whose stock in trade is slaughter?

The minister of information and culture added salt to injury by claiming that lack of equipment is a handicap to the military despite sustained claims by government that Boko Haram has been degraded and decimated. This is the height of ambiguity, if not willful deception.

This is a country whose leaders speak from both sides of the mouth. Yes, “EndSARS” protests and their demands were perfectly in order, but the authorities thereafter went ahead to arrest and humiliate the organizers whose accounts are reported to be frozen.

This is the country where the right hand does not seem to know what the left hand is doing. This explains why the police which took legal action to stop the various judicial panels of investigation into police brutality during the protests on the one hand, and deny any knowledge of such a lawsuit by the Inspector-General of Police and The Presidency on the other hand. The IGP has since directed the withdrawal of the mysterious suit.

This is the country where 50 per cent of its police force protects the ruling class and their families at the expense of the majority of the populace.

This is the country where most people including the National Assembly and state governors are tired of the current Service Chiefs, whose actions and omissions have resulted in exacerbating the dangerous insecurity in the country and causing unnecessary death of many young men and women in and out of uniform.

Yet, there is the leadership that prefers these Service Chiefs who were given orders back in 2015 to end the menace of Boko Haram within three months.

This is the country where the supreme religious leader of the North, together with the Northern Elders Forum, are lamenting over the total insecurity in the North and the wanton killings, kidnapping and banditry everywhere in that part of the country without any abatement.

“The North is the worst place to live in Nigeria”, the Sultan of Sokoto, has said. He should know.

This is a country where human life has no more value as the daily slaughter of human beings does not surprise nor cause any rude shock anymore in Nigeria or in the international community, but has become the new normal.

This is the country that is yet to learn from the courageous leader of Chad Republic who defeated Boko Haram through effective application of intelligence, determination, proactive and coordinated actions that flushed out Boko Haram from Chad, which is now breathing a sigh of relief.

This is the country that seems neither to hit the bull right in the eye nor take the bull by the horn, but tends to chase shadows rather than substance.

Should we all resign our fate to the hands of the apparently confused leadership of this country who finds it difficult to comply with the obvious constitutional responsibility of safe-guarding life and properties of its citizens?

I might have misunderstood the concept of the “multinational forces” that were initially established, which comprised Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria with the headquarters in Ndjamena, the Chad capital. What has happened to it over the years?

It would appear that each country is doing its own thing rather than engaging Boko Haram in collaborative and collective operations. When Chad launched its successful operations against Boko Haram, why couldn’t Nigeria complement those efforts to flush out of Boko Haram?

It is obvious that we cannot pride ourselves of acting and championing a war that transcends the Lake Chad Basin sub-region. We cannot practice isolationism in a theatre that involves external non-state actors.

The need for an effective collaboration and coordination of the Multinational Joint Task Force of the four countries cannot be over emphasized.

Perhaps that was what a frustrated Governor Zulum had in mind when he said “mercenaries” might have to be engaged to confront Boko Haram. We should bury our pride and show leadership by ensuring coordination and success of the Multinational Joint Task Force that will finally end Boko Haram.

Borno State will find it very difficult to forgive this country for the woeful failure to protect lives and properties of its people from the bloody massacre at Zabarmari. Nigerians are tired of receiving sympathy delegations of mourners from their leaders.

Nigerians need urgently result-oriented intelligence and effective measures to end the daily killings. Nigerian leaders should listen to the voice of the people.

My condolences go to the brave and indefatigable Governor Zulum of Borno State, to the Borno people and especially to my fellow farmers of Zabarmari.

 

 

• Dr. Lewu, a farmer, was Nigeria’s ambassador to Brazil.

By Mike Kebonkwu

 

THE year 2020 started with great hopes and expectations but before we could cast off the coast came the Corona Virus (Covid 19), a pandemic that changed about everything in the world.  Thank God we made it to 2021 and with our ever resilient spirit; we hope to soldier on fearlessly in the midst of ever increasing insecurity and economic hardship. Let us open this discourse with this poser: Who is actually in charge in Nigeria today?   We shall come to this very shortly.  First, I am reminded of this saying amongst the Ika ethnic group of Delta State that, “If you do not like your image or reflection in the mirror, breaking the mirror does not change who you are; change yourself or your image”.

Now looking at our poser, one is wont to argue that there is a de facto and de jure government in place therefore, the state represented by the government is in charge.   The Nigerian state has virtually been reduced to an ineffective and inefficient bureaucracy like the “Kalokalo” machine that takes in and dispenses cash from gamblers.  The government is not able to meet its primary responsibility of providing security for citizens.   It is even struggling to pay the over-bloated workforce of the civil service; owing them arrears of salary.  When the government bares its fangs, it is to issue threat and intimidate opposition flexing its muscles to invoke the coercive power of the state instead of positioning itself to do things differently.

The APC government has been so fixated and obsessed with power just for the sake of power.  This is the reason why government officials perceive every criticism fair or foul as a call to overthrow the government or undermine its legitimacy.  Just as 2020 was grinding to an end, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Hassan Kukah came under the aperture of the smoking gun of the combative three musketeers and the president’s minders in Aso Rock Villa who accused the clergy man of inciting religious disharmony and calling the military to take over power.

Reading through the Homily of the cerebral Bishop and the profundity of the depth of the issues he raised on what appears, and rightly too to government total loss of control of the security in the country, one cannot agree less with his submission.  Other people have made similar calls but no one had taken them seriously.  The government is now jolted because this time, the call is coming from none other than a venerable and redoubtable personality who wields a measure of respect and influence.

Bishop Kukah is an evangelical activist on the pulpit who cared less about being politically correct.  He is not in the mode of a radical left-wing revolutionary activist who would want to overthrow a government by unconstitutional means.  By his calling and orientation, he is a conservative who is not opposed to the orthodoxy of the status quo ante provided the oppressor yields some space and ground to the lumpen proletariat.   He did not ask for more than justice, equity and security for every Nigerian irrespective of religious persuasion or ethnicity.

The year 2020 was a most traumatic and agonizing year for most Nigerians who survived by the whiskers. While other nations of the world gave reliefs and grants to businesses and palliatives to the people to stay afloat, our government hiked electricity and gasoline tariffs making worst  the already bad situation.

In the midst of the hardship and loss of earning arising from the lockdown, insecurity enveloped the entire country with bandits, insurgents, kidnappers carving out territory to themselves from north to south.  Even security operatives and policemen have been kidnapped for ransom but the government still gives the impression of being in charge but the reality on ground appears to suggest the opposite.

That the Boko Haram insurgents remain a dominant force to reckon with in the northeast contrary to all the posturing of the security forces.   Bandits control northwest while herdsmen hold sway in the north-central to the Middle Belt, heading southward.  Kidnappers and armed robbers are in charge of southeast, south-south and southwest.  Nigerians are not safe at home, on the road, in business places and even in the farm.  As we progressed in this state of anomie, the government tries to convince us that it is in charge.

The only thing the government may have succeeded in part in doing is the crushing of the peaceful EndSARS protesters through disproportionate use of force because it felt threatened by the direction of the protest and the demand of the patriotic youths.  The government also succeeded in crushing the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) who were agitating for a fair federation.  And the last in the list of success of the government was the crushing of the Coalition of the Northern Groups who became concerned about the total collapse of security in the entire region after the wholesale abduction of over 600 boys from the Science Secondary school Kankara in Katsina State, the president’s home state.

The security forces have not deployed the same measure of force it applied on peaceful protesters on the insurgency in the northeast, bandits in the northwest and herdsmen that have become ubiquitous anywhere you go.  The government rather prefers to negotiate with the insurgents and bandits paying ransoms to them while they go after the perceived leaders of the EndSARS protesters, clamping on their bank accounts and prosecuting them for terrorism related offences.

The cartels and cabals have taken over Nigeria, period.  The cartels are political merchants and power brokers in Nigeria.  The cartels birthed the Ecomog which was a group of miscreants that was used to intimidate political opponents and rig elections in the northeast that later metamorphosed into Boko Haram.  The cartels sire the hoodlums and touts that are used as electoral machines as well as assassins to eliminate opposition.  The cartels are in charge of the killer herdsmen across the country that is the reason why they are never brought to book.

The cabals are the once that distribute political powers according to their pleasure and fancies.  They are sustained through fetish and satanic manipulations in their confraternity.  This is the reason why it is difficult to remove any of them whether they are under performing or not and whether they deliver on their duty or not.

It is only in a failed state that nomadic herdsmen or other unauthorized persons will wield assault rifle on their back without a qualms or fear of being arrested.  This is what has become common place across the country today.  Neither the federal government nor the state governments could secure citizens any more. Nigerians have virtually abandoned the roads to insurgents, bandits, kidnappers and armed robbers.    Taking on Bishop Kukah or calling for his arrest is chasing shadows, unfair and misplaced.  Those who are lying to the world about the state of affairs in Nigeria are the ones that deserve to be condemned.  They are the political elites who indeed have become agents of destabilization and responsible for the pervading state of insecurity that we have found ourselves.

In the face of the despondency that has enveloped the country, the president has never seen the need to address the nation or empathize with victims because as a people we do not place much value on human lives and sufferings.  At the last count, he was in his village in Daura  a few kilometres from the scene of the abduction of over 600 boys in Kankara, he did not deem it fit to visit the school.

When the president was invited by the National Assembly, his minders said that the House has no power to summon the president to address it on the state of insecurity.  In the first place, the president did not need to be invited before taking it upon himself to address the people who entrusted him with the power of the state.  Is Nigeria a feudal state or an absolute monarchy that the president cannot be summoned to account to the people, one may ask?  We should be careful not to drive genuine patriots underground to avoid a repeat of EndSARS protest.   We must save Nigeria from the cartel and cabals who are merchants of fortune who do not mean well for Nigeria.

 

• Kebonkwu Esq. writes from Abuja.

By Olusina Thorpe

 

LATE Dr. Tai Solarin (1922-1994) was one of Nigeria’s foremost, courageous and steadfast social activists. He was also a compelling writer with radical messages. In one of his famous write ups, titled: “May Your Road Be Rough”, which he penned on January 1, 1964, Solarin wrote: “I am not cursing you; I am wishing you what I wish myself every year. I, therefore, repeat, May you have a hard time this year, May there be plenty of troubles for you this year! If you are not so sure what you should say back, why not just say, ‘Same to you’? I ask for no more”.

Though many people misinterpreted Solarin’s prayer as a curse, the main intent was to bring to fore the intricate relationship between the bumpy roads of life and success. The bottom line is that success is not achieved on a platter of gold. It comes through continuous struggles and battles on the turbulent waters of life. In Solarin’s words, life, if it is going to be abundant, must have plenty of hills and vales. It must have plenty of sunshine and rough weather. It must be rich in obfuscation and perspicacity. It must be packed with days of danger and of apprehension.

However, as much as one finds Solarin’s postulation somewhat engaging, as we move into the New Year, I wish to take a radical departure from his position. Being a staunch believer in the word of God, I fully understand the power in the spoken word.

In Numbers 14:28, the Almighty God said: “…As truly as I live…..as ye have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you”. This implies that whatever we say is what we get. Therefore, based on my profound respect for the integrity of God’s word, I won’t be joining Solarin to wish or pray for a rough road in 2021. No!

Besides the grievous spiritual implication of wishing oneself or others a rough road, in view of our tough experience in 2020, it would be foolhardy to wish for a rough road in the New Year. We had enough hurly-burly in 2020.

The pat year was one that many would not want to remember in a long time. It was a most trying year, full of heartaches and pains. It was a year when dreams and hopes were shattered. It was a year of losses and sorrow for many. The COVID-19 pandemic obviously complicated 2020. Take it or leave it, in 2020, COVID-19 caused the entire world anxious moments, as no terrorist organization has ever done.

As at Friday, January 1, the number of people who have died as a result of the pandemic globally has exceeded 1.8million. This shows the massive impact the virus had on the world. Thousands of flights were cancelled, music and sporting activities postponed and in some cases entirely cancelled. Some nations were on lockdown for weeks, thus leading to colossal economic losses.

Being the nation’s commercial and industrial never-centre, Lagos was understandably the epicentre of the pandemic in the country. Without a doubt, COVID-19 stretched Lagos’ resilience, but the government valiantly rose to the occasion, receiving accolades from far and near.

Sadly, as the state was steadily getting out of the debacle, the EndSARS violence reared its ugly head. The sheer magnitude of the destruction occasioned by the violence would make even a heart of steel cringe.  By the time the mindless orgy of viciousness was over, many public and private assets in Lagos were left in absolute ruins.

Aside from the two major decisive events with far-reaching consequences, the state equally experienced scores of ugly occurrences such as fire outbreaks and building collapse among others.

It is, thus, in view of this that I am wishing Lagosians a smoother 2021. Unlike Solarin’s curious entreaty, my prayer is that 2021 would be a better year for us all. I pray it would be a year of less turbulence and heartaches.  I pray it would be a year of total recovery from the losses of the preceding year. We had enough of a bumpy road in 2020. So, in 2021, all we hope and wish for is that the road would be smoother and pleasant.

However, this would not just happen via mere prayer and wishes. We must all come together, both the people and the government, in order to be on the same page. The people must shun vices such as spreading fake news (which caused grievous havocs in 2020), indiscriminate dumping of refuse, and flagrant disobedience of traffic rules, cultism and other such untoward tendencies.

On its part, the state government, in its usual style, is poised to take the state to greater heights in 2021. The 2021 budget, christened, ‘Budget of Rekindled Hope’, was carefully designed to meet the aspirations of our teeming youth and the people by focusing on sectors with job creating potential such as agriculture, construction, technology and security.

The goal is to improve the economic conditions and social safety needed for the youth and all hardworking Lagosians to flourish. Resources will be committed to sectors that need to grow for the residents to become more self-reliant and economically empowered.

A pivotal crux of the 2021 budget will be the promotion of an entrepreneurial culture among Lagosians.  In light of this, micro, small and medium enterprises will be strengthened because their activities help to facilitate socio-economic advancement. The current administration has done a lot to support the entrepreneurs in the state through the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, LSETF, and it is set to do more by providing technical and financial support so that they can in turn generate employment that will stimulate equitable economic prosperity.

The government is set to consolidate its gains in the technology sector for accelerated economic growth and job creation. In order to achieve this, it will collaborate with major players in that space like Oracle, Microsoft and Google to prepare our youths for the IT job market. As it focuses on job and wealth creation, it will also prioritize the security of lives and property as well as local intelligence gathering in the communities by increasing significantly the number of Neighbourhood Watch officers over the next two years.

All these will be achieved through the state’s human development MDAs comprising the Ministries of Education, Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Wealth Creation, (including LSETF) and SDGI.  Consequently, the cumulative budgetary provision towards human capital development effort from these MDAs total’s N148.57billion. No doubt, for Lagos, the 2021 outlook looks promising.

On a final note, in 1986, P.A. Elton wrote the following concerning Nigeria: “Nigeria and Nigerians will be known for corruption worldwide, but the tide will turn and Nigeria will also be known to righteousness worldwide. Many shall take hold of a Nigerian saying, ‘we will go with you for we have heard that God is with you’. I pray this prophecy shall be fulfilled right in our own generation and beyond.

As I welcome everyone on board the New Year, I pray that our journey through the year would be smoother, more enriching and safer.

Happy New Year and best wishes!

 

• Thorpe is Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.