The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • National ID card scheme hits the rock again?

    Fashioning an identity card for the citizens of this country must be some sort of adventure in the land of no return. Even the first trip to the moon could not have been more troublous. No fewer than three previous times have Nigerian governments tried to identify her citizens but all such attempts have been botched after huge contracts had been awarded.

    When a highly regarded professional, Mr. Chris Onyemenam was appointed a few years ago to initiate another national identity gamut, we thought the time was now to kill the serpent; what with today’s vastly improved technology. But we may have rejoiced too soon. After about three years, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is troubled once again. Since roll out was announced with fanfare over a year ago, nothing more is heard. I don’t know anyone I know who has the National ID.

    Recently, the major contractor/technical partners of NIMC had to send a long, open letter to the president through several national newspapers. Writing to the president through an open forum means that all other channels of engagement had broken down. It also means going to the court of public opinion.

    This is indeed a shame. This scheme failed in the First Republic, the Second Republic, and in Obasanjo’s era. The contractors cry of bad faith; we urge NIMC to seek mediation and ensure utmost integrity in their processes. That is the least we expect for our generation has a point to prove that we can succeed where our fathers failed. The ID scheme is too crucial not to be up and running in this age. We expect a lot more from Chris.

  • Breaking the Muslim chord of unity

    Breaking the Muslim chord of unity

    When a matter of trust is kept in the custody of an untrustworthy person, expect the end of time”.

    Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

     

    Preamble

    If anything is called Satan, and that diabolical entity truly lives in the midst of humans, Nigeria must be his abode. As a mysterious entity, Satan may not be physically perceived but his shadow is evidently vivid in the evil machination generally called politics. And the elements in the society often called politicians are his undeniable agents.

    Politics is like infectious leprosy. Any contact it makes with human fingers will surely render those fingers ineffective with contagious implication. The evil of politics in any given society is like the slough of a snake which has no life of its own but scares the people around with its empty appearance.

    Since her independence in 1960, Nigeria has hardly experienced any calamity that did not emanated from politics. Thus, like the Island of Ithaca of yore in Greek mythology, Nigeria harbours a sphinx today that poses unanswerable question to her citizens. And any individual or group that fails to answer the question correctly may be instantly devoured by the mythological sphinx.

     

    Paradoxical Odyssey

    Today, Nigeria has become a paradoxical odyssey on which the only ferrying vessel is politics. And the driving engine of that vessel is money which seems to be the main determinant of individuals’ Hell or Heaven on earth. We are now in an era when the source of money no longer matters as much as money itself. What really matters today is not how decent you are as a person but how rich no matter the source.

    In a nutshell, a rich rogue is by far more relevant and more important in Nigerian society than a poor gentleman. As a matter of fact, there is no gentlemanliness without money. The size of your purse determines the status by which you are recognised in the society. And that is the new definition of pedigree.

    It is not surprising therefore that men and women of letters as well as high caliber professionals are now struggling to become servants to mere nonentities who by hook or crook have stuck the opportunity to occupy public positions in a clueless government and thereby control a treasury. The world has changed so much that the same money which used to serve man in the past is now the master that man serves with relish. In the face of money, conscience has become a lost paradise that no one seeks again. And with its disappearance, human dignity has also become an old wife’s tale. Whither Nigeria’s tomorrow in this?

    In the wilderness of avarice and aggrandisement imposed by money, Nigerians of today have lost the culture of dignity highly cherished by Nigerians of yesterday and there is no sense of nostalgia for it.

    In solo and chorus, the song of this era is ‘STOMACH INFRASTRUCTURE’.

    When a hopeful country finds itself in this kind of situation she quickly resorts to the last bastion for solution. The last bastion in the case of Nigeria is religion which is supposed to be the first estate of the realm. But can there be religion without clerics? Where are the clerics in Nigeria? That is the indication that Nigeria, as of now, is a hopeless country.

     

    Sailors without compass

    The so-called clerics in both Islam and Christianity in Nigeria today are like sailors on a strenuous voyage who have lost the compass that guides  them through the waves of water while their congregational passengers continue to pray fervently for safety on a turbulent ocean.

    To them (the clerics) religion is no longer the path to salvation but a means to material wealth even as they have relegated morality to the background.

    Here is a country where clerics do not only preach material prosperity but also live in stupendous affluence in the midst of their wretched congregations. Here is a country in which clerics are either known for trafficking in drugs or gun running or patronage contract for supply of ammunition to the government as in the notorious episode of a recent South Africa mission that ended up in a fiasco or even for taking bribe from the government as in the case of alleged N7 billion that caused wild brouhaha in Nigeria recently. Here is a country where neither conscience nor morality has a role to play in religion any more as the so-called clerics have banished both and thus become not just accomplices of political rogues but also their dogs.

     

    Meetings without agenda

    As a result of self-denigration by these clerics, the government has turned them into a willing tool in the game of political machinations to the benefit of the political gladiators. And in their desperate search for votes in recent times, the politicians have consistently chased the clerics around with money knowing very well that nothing remains of religion these days in Nigeria beyond money for which the so-called clerics will fall anybody.

    Just this week, a stone was deliberately thrown into the serene brook of Nigeria’s Southwest Muslims by politicians with the intention of causing implacable ripples in that brook. A clandestine meeting of the League of Imams and Alfas was initiated by the presidency and scheduled to take place in Akure, Ondo State last Monday. The agenda of the meeting was not disclosed but its timeliness and manner of mobilisation clearly suggested its undisclosed purpose.

    A similar clandestine meeting had earlier been arranged for Lagos penultimate week by the same Presidency which was botched by the region’s Muslim leadership for fear of being politically blackmailed.

    Yet another clandestine meeting was initiated also by the Presidency this time with the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) which was scheduled for the Presidential Villa in Abuja. This is yet to take place as the arrow head and chief mobiliser for the meeting is finding a brick wall on the assignment. The Nigerian media has widely reported these clandestine moves by the government with the headline that read thus: ‘Meeting: Yoruba Muslims Snub Presidency Again’.

     

    Media report

    Here is how the media reported the incident: “Yoruba Muslim clerical leaders under the aegis of the League of Imams and Alfas have snubbed the Presidency over an invitation to them for a meeting that was apparently meant to lure them into endorsing the joint ticket of a particular party (Jonathan/Sambo ticket) in the forthcoming presidential election.

    The meeting in which Vice-President Muhammad Namadi Sambo was to represent his boss was earlier scheduled for last Monday in Akure, Ondo State but had to be shifted to last Wednesday in the same state for lack of adequate mobilisation.

    Learning from the experience of their Christian counterparts who were recently enmeshed in a controversial N7 billion scandal that has caused a crack among Nigerian Christians, the leadership of the League of Imams and Alfas in the six Southwest states plus Edo and Delta decided not to be involved in an embarrassing meeting that could cause a crack in the rank of the Muslim Ummah.

    A similar meeting earlier arranged with Yoruba Muslim leaders and fixed for Lagos by the Presidency recently was equally aborted for the same reason cited by the League of Imams and Alfas just a day before it was to come up.

    Our reporter’s investigation revealed that the leaders of the League contacted one another and resolved not to be part of any meeting with any political group or individuals at this time to maintain their neutrality as worthy clerics.

    The Akure meeting said to be coordinated by the Chief Imam of Owo, Sheikh Ahmad Aladesawe, who incidentally, is the current Secretary-General of the league. He (Aladesawe) was said to be passionately involved in mobilising his colleagues in the league might for the meeting which ended up in a fiasco.

    Besides Imam Aladesawe, some other Imams who flouted the decision of the League and attended the meeting for a seeming personal gain were the Chief Imam of Osogbo, Alhaji Rabiu Animasaun and the Chief Imam of Ekiti, Alhaji Bello Keulere. The few others who claimed to have attended the meeting as Imams were quite peripheral and not prominent at all in the league.

    From Ibadan, Lagos, Markaz, Agege, Abeokuta, Ijebu Ode, Osogbo, Ilaro, Ado Ekiti, and Auchi as well as other major cities of the region, the common question on the lips of the Imams was “why now?

    Following the failure of the Lagos meeting, the Presidency, in a bid to break the ranks of the Yoruba Muslim Ummah, embarked on an alternative meeting with the League of Imams and Alfas and another with the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN).

    The President of MSSN, Alhaji Sirajudeen Abdul Azeez, who volunteered to mobilise the leaders of the group for the meeting with the Presidency, despite a resolution at a recent leadership meeting in Akure, Ondo State, not to attend any such controversial meeting could be said to be acting on his own.

    Reflecting on the repercussion of such controversial action, the leadership of MSSN resolved to disown any such meeting at this politically volatile period and warned that nobody should use the name of the group for any selfish political gain.

    No particular date has been fixed for the Presidency’s purported meeting with the leadership of MSSN but inside information suggested that is supposed meeting would come up at the Presidential Villa in Abuja before the Presidential election on March 28, 2015″.

     

    MUSWEN’s Communiqué

    Meanwhile, the Muslim Ummah of Southwest Nigeria (MUSWEN) has called on the Muslims in the region to once again pray congregationally for peace in Nigeria as the 2015 general elections approach.

    The apex body of all Muslim organisations in the region made the call in a communiqué issued at the end of a three- day retreat that was held between 13th and 15th of March, 2015 at the Wale Babalakin Estate in Gbongan, Osun State. The communiqué was signed by its executive secretary, Prof. Dawud Noibi.

    MUSWEN specifically slated Sunday, March 22, 2015 for the prescribed prayers that are expected to hold at the Eid praying grounds or local Mosques in every town within the region.

    Quoting the Prophetic Hadith that classifies prayers is the weapon of the Muslims the Organisation implored the Muslims not to relent in offering prayers especially at this precarious time of the nation’s history.

    MUSWEN however decried the lukewarm attitude of the Southwest Muslims to the institution of Zakah, saying the consequences of such attitude are very detrimental to the propagation and progress of Islam in the region.

    Leaders of prominent Muslim Organisations from Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo and Osun states, who participated in the retreat said the necessity for prayers by Muslims was most apt this given the prevailing cloudy political atmosphere in the horizon.

    The Apex Islamic body in the Southwest also stressed the need for unity of Muslims in line with the mission and vision of the Organisation stressing that without unity there could be no progress.

    In another vein, the Organisation frowned at the lopsidedness in the federal appointments to political offices from the Zone, saying such appointments clearly put the Southwest Muslims at a great disadvantage and paved the way for unnecessary suspicion.

    It therefore called for equity, fairness and justice by the Federal government in its treatment for the people of the zone irrespective of their religious inclinations.

    Prominent among the Muslim personalities who attended the retreat were Alhaji Najeem Awodele, Professor Is-haq  Oloyede, the Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Justice Abdul Fatah Adeyinka, a retired Chief Judge of Lagos State, Alhaja Latifah Okunnu, a former Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Alhaja Sekinat Adekola, the Iya Adini of Yorubaland and Dr. Jubril Oyekan.

    Delegates at the retreat also paid a courtesy call on Justice Bola Babalakin (Rtd), the former acting President of MUSWEN in his Gbongan country home.

    Members also prayed for the repose of some of its late founders such as Prof. Aliu Fafunwa, (Pioneer President), Alhaji Abdul-Azeez Arisekola- Alao, Dr AbduLateef Adegbite and Sheikh Sadrudeen Biobaku.

    The theme of the retreat was ‘MUSWEN: SUSTAINING THE MOMENTUM’.

  • Jonathan’s Saul syndrome

    If desperation and divine malady Desperation must be the first rule in hell. There must be an infernal mandate that requires a man who craves something badly to go after his heart’s desire with the ferocity of a wounded lion. Such a man shuns rationality; he tramples, he breaks, he maims and even kills to have his way. A desperate man is utterly irrational, a desperate man is a dangerous fellow, a desperate man is sooner imperiled.

    While man would describe this intense and reckless pursuit of one’s desire as desperation, the Holy Scripture presents it as divine affliction or malady. The Bible showcases a typical example in King Saul as recorded in the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel. The story of King Saul is at once exciting and profound. God raised him from nothing to become the first king of Israel. No sooner did he mount the throne than he rejected the word of God and forgot his humble roots. Not only did God reject him as well, he simply afflicted him with despairing spirit and a mad craving for power. And the rest for King Saul is a chain of crazy reactions.

    Saul got so desperate he disguised himself and consulted a medium. He got so desperate he could not wait for the high priest to conduct the rites of burnt offering; he defiled the altar of God. Again, in Saul’s paranoia over power, he pursued David, his anointed successor, through the wilderness seeking to exterminate him.

    At the peak of his monarchy Saul became completely devoid of God and His grace. He forgot he was picked up from the lowliest family of the smallest tribe (Benjamin) in Israel. One afternoon, madly intoxicated by his lusting after power, he ordered the execution of 85 prophets. Not satisfied, he saw to the wiping out of the inhabitants of Nob, a city of prophets. Why: because Saul could not imagine power slipping out of his hands.

    The persecution of Prof. Jega   Are we having a Saul syndrome in Nigeria today? Well maybe not but there are surely troubling signs. It surely is a mark of utter desperation if billions of naira is being mindlessly frittered away in the quest to remain in power when there is acute hunger in the land. It is particularly so in the persecution and demonization of Prof. Attahiru Jega, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). An estimated N5 billion must have been disbursed in the past two weeks in what may have been an ‘operation bring Jega down’.

    As if Jega has suddenly become the number one enemy of the nation, damaging attacks were unleashed on him on all fronts immediately after the postponement of the elections last February. The campaign was not only ferocious but all the spectra of the media were mobilized – print, electronic and social media.

    One counted no fewer than 50-full page adverts – many of them placed on special positions –  in national newspapers between February 11 to March 7, 2014. The adverts are largely a caricature of Prof. Jega denigrating him, throwing at him, serious allegations of ethnicity, electoral fraud, embezzlement and incompetence. The overall objective is obviously to damage his credibility completely and perhaps force him to resign in ignominy. These horrid adverts are ‘powered’ by Goodluck Lagos Grassroot Project and each one of them bears the photograph of President Goodluck Jonathan. There is therefore, no mistaking who is the brain behind those anti-Jega adverts.

    Failed elders in need of rehab Another expensive strategy adopted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the presidency to hound Jega out of office has been to mobilize people who are supposedly elders and leaders to castigate Jega in public. The pattern is to accuse him of incompetence and even allege bias against him. Some of the names that have been corralled into the scheme include Chief Edwin Clark, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Bode George, Walter Ofonagoro, Femi Okunroumu, Prof. ABC Nwosu, MASSOB chieftain, Ralph Uwazurike and OPC leaders Gani Adams and Fredrick Fasehun, to name a few.

    These men at every opportunity in radio, television or newspaper interviews castigate Jega and the modalities for conducting the next elections. Most critical and troubling is that not one of these men spoke out of conviction. Some samples: In the Sunday Vanguard of February 22 Chief Clark said in an elaborate interview that: “Jega should go. We believe he should go not only because of inefficiency; we believe he is working with some northern leaders to declare a northern presidential candidate the winner of the March 28 election, that’s Buhari.”

    On the same day, in another newspaper, The Sun, Ezeife in a 3-page interview which was highlighted boldly on the front page thus: “No election until Jega quits”, he said: “…Jega has been compromised that his continued stay there is not morally wise. He should be honorable enough to resign and safe the nation this confusion.”

    Another national newspaper had an interview with Bode George titled: “Jega is a public jester – Bode George” It was as if one script was being syndicated through a group of failed elderly men needing economic rehabilitation. It is always a sad spectacle when our elders a re ‘roused’ into acting irrationally.

    Then there was a barrage of negative editorial barbs in the forms of analyses, opinion commentaries and advertorials. Some more samples: “Jega’s electoral burden” is a two-page political ‘analysis’ in one national paper. You would think Jega had suddenly become a presidential candidate running against President Jonathan after reading such a piece.

    On the internet, in radio and television talk shows, no cost has been spared on what seems like operation uproot Jega or damage the electoral process. Yes, an estimated N5billion must have been dissipated ‘fighting’ Jega at a time many Nigerians are feeling severe pangs of hunger.

    Brimming with bad faith First the PDP claimed that INEC was not ready and they forced a postponement. Next they tried to remove Jega by force; that did not work and they descended on the Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC). They condemned it and canvass that we revert to the Temporary voters’ card. That too failed. Now they are raising hoopla about the card readers. To reinforce its desperation, PDP has connived to push the belated registration of a new party by the apt name: Young Democratic Party (YDP). You may call it ‘bomboy’, a veritable instrument of perfidy.

    In all of this, PDP and the president are brimming with bad faith. They want to win by all means or they plunge our dear country into a deluge. PDP is in scorch earth mode; it is behaving like the bad rat in our fathers’ timeless words that would not eat a certain grain yet would rather waste it.

    But we can only take solace in the fact that what God has decreed, no man can undo. PDP by all its actions is already practising to be an opposition party. Its time is up and it had better chosen a graceful exit by conducting a good election. I commend the story of King Saul to President Jonathan and his excited team members.

  • A moral outrage

    A moral outrage

    IT is now stale news that Mr. Musiliu Obanikoro is now an “Honorable” Minister. Two weeks ago, I speculated that knowing the ruling party and its undistinguished senators, Obanikoro’s confirmation as a minister was a foregone conclusion. For, all things being equal as a former senator, in spite of the scandal which rendered nothing equal, he would only have to “bow and go.” Opposition senators may protest as they must, but David Mark’s Senate is enslaved to “tradition” and it doesn’t have to bother itself about the rationale for that tradition.

    As of Thursday morning when this column had to be submitted, we did not know Obanikoro’s portfolio. But no one should be surprised if Obanikoro is given back his old portfolio in the Ministry of Defence. After all, he is needed for the President’s reelection especially in the Southwest. And whatever anyone might think about the undisguised clarity of Obanikoro’s voice in the Ekiti rigging tape, it is now clear that he was truthful when he declared to Brigadier General Momoh and other PDP chieftains, including Mr. Fayose, that President Jonathan gave him the assignment and he had to deliver.

    When Obanikoro told the Brigadier General that he cannot have a promotion without him as Minister of State for Defence sitting on the Military Council, he wasn’t bragging. He assured Momoh that if he was a happy man the following day, the sky was the limit for the General. What Obanikoro accomplished in Ekiti, he will now have to achieve for Jonathan in the entire Southwest. If this makes political sense, does it make moral sense?

    There are a few matters arising on this latest brazen display of impunity and arrogance by the ruling party. There is little doubt now that we are being told in clear terms that the electorates don’t really matter. What just happened was a thumbing of the nose of citizens in a “what can you do?” posture.

    There is no doubt that PDP cannot win a free and fair election if it depends only on hard-core party members. It needs independent voters who are not beholding to any party. But independent voters are generally more discriminating in terms of candidate’s credentials and record of performance. They are certainly turned off by blatant moral lapses such as Ekitigate that affront the foundation of democracy. Therefore political parties must present their best to woo them and enlist their support. From some of its recent activities, there is no doubt that PDP and the President do not give a damn about voters in general and independent voters in particular. PDP just keeps reminding us of the dreadful past when NDP leaders in Western Region went about bragging that even if the electorates failed to vote for them, they would still win the 1965 election. The outcome is history.

    Now to the matters arising. First, the nomination of Obanikoro as minister by Mr. President was morally obnoxious. Recall that Obanikoro lost the primary for the gubernatorial election in Lagos State. But this is not the issue. After all, one candidate must win and others must lose. The point was the characterization of Obanikoro by party leaders in Lagos. Bode George described him in uncharitable terms. So did Ogunlewe. Many of the party members would have nothing to do with him. If someone was thus flatly rejected by his state chapter, what was the moral sense of giving him a ministerial appointment? The ostensible rationale was to compensate him so the party can present a unified front at the election. So the appointment was a bribe and the President didn’t see anything wrong with this. At any rate if Obanikoro was so roundly chastised by his chapter, and leaders didn’t see any electoral value in him, what was the point of compensation or bribe? The President needs him.

    Second, it was shortly after his nomination that the bombshell of the Ekiti Rigging Tape was dropped. But for the moral conscience of the young army Captain Koli who used good judgment to record the conspiratorial meeting of daredevil politicians, their wicked scheme wouldn’t see the light of day. Now we know and Mr. President knows. He could have done the needful by withdrawing his nomination pending the clearance of the nominee after adequate investigation. Doing so would have led credence to his avowed but largely only-on-paper “transformation agenda”.

    But Mr. President looked the other way. Even without an investigation, Dr. Jonathan dismissed the tape as a fabrication. Then one after the other, the meeting participants confirmed their participation and authenticated their voices. Still Mr. President did not recant his unguarded dismissal of the allegation. It was quite extraordinary that even with the confession of culprits whose voices were heard clearly on the tape, Mr. President still dismissed the authenticated episode as a fabrication! Therefore he didn’t withdraw the nomination of a person as minister even with the knowledge that that person abused his power and office when he conspired with others for the manipulation of elections in Ekiti State and they were caught on tape. How sad!

    Why has this not risen to the level of moral outrage for every morally conscious citizen, including members of the ruling party? Why, even with the benefit of the uncontroverted evidence, members of the ruling party didn’t see it for what it is? The generalization principle of ethics states that what is right for one person must be right for every relevantly similar person in relevantly similar circumstances. In the context of election manipulation, if it is right for the President’s party, it cannot be wrong for the opposition party. The only difference is that the President’s party has the military and the police under its control. However, if the pendulum swings, and the opposition becomes the ruling party, would the President’s party happily accept election manipulation as a matter of fact?

    Third, it tells a lot about the values we hold as a people that those in high places who should serve as role models to the young people still finding their way in a hostile world are caught in a web of lies, cheating, stealing, and outright brigandage, all to get ahead. What do they teach their children? Well, we know, because a lot of the social media responses and commentaries on online news demonstrate beyond doubt that this country is in deep trouble for ages.

    Some young people, many of whom are linguistically challenged are also ethically challenged. Just as elders see every action and event from the prism of politics and calculations of selfish interest, for a good number of young Nigerian citizens, politics is the be-all and end-all of life and it is driven by ethnic and/or religious affiliation. What is the hope for Nigeria as a nation? And how do Afenifere elders, Yoruba Elders Council, Yoruba Unity group, and Obas react to this? It’s good for Yorubaland to have another minister, right?

    Fourth, the Senate received the nomination of Obanikoro shortly before the outing of Ekiti State Rigging scandal. Senate leaders could have decided to have their names written in platinum by sending it back to Mr. President or giving the nominee a hearing during which time the truth of his involvement would come out. This is what is done in every civilized democracy where individual senators have their eyes on history and their place in it.

    Our senators must know that what happened on Wednesday March 11, 2015 is now archived in Senate history. 20, 50, 100 years from now, Nigerians, including their offspring will know the role they played in this show of shame. Senators talk about tradition as if tradition is self-justifying. It was the tradition in some parts of our country to throw twins in the bush for fear that they were evil spirits. We had a tradition of human sacrifice in many parts of the country. Were these morally justified? The tradition of not grilling former senators for confirmation even when it is public knowledge that they have fallen short of the distinction that tradition confers on them is simply morally obnoxious. If we didn’t know before, we now know.

  • Miscellany of issues

    Miscellany of issues

    Conscience is an open wound”; only the truth can heal it”. Usman Dan Fodio, 1754-1817

    Preamble

    With a neighbour like Chad no country should look for a foe. For now, this West African former colony of France may be seen as doing a marvelous job by confronting Boko Haram insurgents on behalf of Nigeria. But very soon the motive will come to the open. Here is a country that was very much involved in the complicity of Boko Haram conundrum as well as a secret deal with Nigerian government on the puzzling insecurity in the north-eastern Nigeria. She is suspected to be the main haven of for that deadly insurgency group. Sometime late last year, President Goodluck Jonathan, in company of  former Bornu State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, paid a secret visit to the Chadian President Idris Deby. No official reason was disclosed for that visit but the general impression was that it had to do with the ongoing insurgency in the areas of Nigeria that border Chad.

    The visit was first denied but when a photograph of the trio at the Chadian Presidential Palace was displayed on the internet, some Nigerian government cronies began to rationalise it as a way of curbing insurgency. Thereafter, Chad, in league with Mali and Niger Republic as well as some few other West African countries came up with the idea of rescuing Nigeria from the crushing claw of Boko Haram.

    And, right now, the mission is on course.

     

    Neighbourhood assistance

    It is jolly well for a country to assist its neighbour to overcome any difficulty like that of Boko Haram insurgency. But in international diplomacy such adventure is never engaged for free. The common diplomatic cliché that ‘there is no free tea in London’ succinctly attests to that. What is the cost of Chad’s military engagement in Nigeria? What are the terms of that engagement? And what does Nigeria stand to benefit from such venture in the short and long runs?

    As citizens, Nigerians need to know the details of the secret pact that brought Chadian soldiers to Nigerian war arena. It can be recalled that a similar secret pact between Nigerian and Cameroonian governments in the late 1960s eventually led to the Bakassi episode that pitched both countries against each other at the International Court of Justice at a colossal loss for Nigeria. Unfortunately, the generation that engendered that pact had left the stage. Now, the zeal with which Chad is executing the Boko Haram war in the north-eastern Nigeria is suspicious and cannot be without a cost. What is the cost?

     

    Hall of shame

    A couple of months ago, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan muted a new political idea that has come to enrich the country’s political vocabulary. He called it ‘HALL OF SHAME’, which he promised to establish as a ‘harem’ for public office holders who might be caught in criminal acts as well as other notorious Nigerians who are qualified for official blacklisting.

    If implemented, the idea which is a direct opposite of the well known prestigious ‘HALL OF FAME’ will qualify President Jonathan for a whole chapter in the famous ‘Guinness Book of Records’. We have heard of Hall of Fame into which great men and women of honour are admitted in many countries. But typical of Nigeria where figure 16 is officially acknowledged to be greater than figure 19 and colour white is often recognised and called colour black, something new must come up if only as a way of demonising political opponents. After all, Nigerian government is never in want of words when it comes to preventing real or imaginary enemies from shinning.

     

    Qualifications for entry

    Ordinarily, ‘HALL OF SHAME’ should be a welcome idea if it does not entail a sinister motive. But where will its inmates come from when most of the people who are presumably qualified to be its inmates have been granted official pardon? We can recall the case of a governor who once travelled out of the country as a man but had to come back in the wrapper of a woman to escape the dragnet of law. He was alleged to have illegally trafficked in foreign currency which was part of his loot in government. He was tried and sentenced to a prison term while he remained a wanted man in some foreign countries, including Britain.

    But now, having been granted a questionable state pardon by Nigeria’s Federal Government, he is walking the streets a free citizen qualified to hold another public office.

    We also remember the case of a notable political gladiator who was sentenced to two years in prison for looting the public treasury via port related office. He was also tried and sentenced to a prison term which he served with hard labour as criminal that he was. But after serving his term, a jamboree reception was organised for him, which some government officials attended with fanfare. He is now a frontline campaigner for his political party in anticipation of a questionable state pardon and another public office.

    There was also the case of a woman minister who illegally spent hundreds of millions of naira to purchase three bulletproof cars for herself. She was forced by public opinion to resign from office with ignominy. She is now being shamelessly prompted by a political party to become a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Her fellow female minister still in government also dipped her hands into the national treasury and spent about N10 billion  on chartered aircraft for the private use of her family even as she is neck deep in controversial $20 billion allegedly missing. Now, she remains a frontline minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria despite the public outcry and call for official sanction against her.

    There are still hundreds of such men and women of notoriety in Nigerian government who believe that neither rain nor sunshine can touch them as long as they hide under a political ‘umbrella’. If all these are not inmates in the proposed ‘Hall of Shame’, where will the inmates come from? Food for thought!

     

    Democracy as war

    Nigerians are in fear. This is not much as a result of insurgency that has consumed thousands of lives but due to the political restiveness in the land which shows no sign of abating. There is democracy in every country that claims to be a republic. And that is the only hope that seems to bring succour to citizens who cherish freedom and justice. But the case of Nigeria is different. In this so-called giant of Africa governance seems to be a matter of matter of cash and carry rather than that of enhancing the well-being of the citizens. Here is a country where everything is shrouded in secrecy and the operating officers behave like cultists.

    Is it not strange that for almost one and a half decade of democracy in the country’s Fourth Republic Nigerians are yet to know how much of their revenue is paid as salaries and allowances to those governing them? Until recently when the social media revealed the details of the salaries and allowances of our legislators it was a stringent secret not to be discussed in public. Most people have wondered why politics is so hot in Nigeria. The secrecy surrounding the salaries and allowances of those in government is a confirmation of the extent of corruption entrenchment in Nigeria.

     

    In the cooler

    People had been kept on the speculation ladder for years in respect of the salaries of our legislators, our judicial staff as well as that of the men and women in the executive arm of government. By such secrecy, the government has left a big room for rumours. Thus, if the government refuses to disclose the salaries and allowances of official functionaries, the unofficial sources on the internet will surely become legitimate. With the amazing revelations on the internet the reason becomes clear why politicians are ready to kill or be killed to become legislators or ministers. The only difference is that of the judiciary which consists mostly of professionals who are less conspicuous. Below is the list of salaries and allowances of Nigerian senators and parliamentarians as quoted from The Economist through the Internet:

    Basic Salary (B.S) – N2 484 245.50

    Hardship Allowance (50 per cent of B.S) – N1 242 122.70

    Constituency Allowance (200 per cent of B.S) – N4 968 509.00

    Newspapers Allowance (50 per cent of B.S) – N1 242 122.70

    Wardrobe Allowance (25 per cent of B.S) – N621 061.37

    Recess Allowance (10 per cent of B.S) – N 248 424.55

    Accommodation (200 per cent of B.S) – N4 968 509.00

    Utilities (30 per cent of B.S) – N828 081.83

    Domestic Staff (70 per cent of B.S) – N1 863 184.12

    Entertainment (30 per cent of B.S) – N828 081.83

    Personal Assistants (25 per cent of B.S) – N621 061.12

    Vehicle Maintenance Allowance (75 per cent of B.S) – N1 863 184.12

    Leave Allowance (10 per cent of B.S) – N248 424.55

    Severance Gratuity (300 per cent of B.S) – N7 452 736.50

    Car Allowance (400 per cent of B.S) – N 9 936 982.00

    Total monthly salary = N29 479 749.00 ($181 974.00)

    Total annual salary = N29 479 749.00 x 12

    = N353 756 988.00 ($2 183 685.00)

    •Source: The Economist

     

    Other countries

    As at Friday, December 5, 2014 when the above figures were published the rate of exchange was $1=N162. Compared to those figures in Nigeria, please, read below the list of legislators’ pay in some other countries of the world:

    Britain $105 400; United States $174 000; France $85 900; South Africa $104 000; Kenya $74 500; Saudi Arabia $64 000; Brazil $157 600; Ghana $46 500; Indonesia $65 800; Thailand  $43 800; India $11 200; Italy $182 000; Bangladesh $4,000; Israel $114 800; Hong Kong $130 700; Japan $149 700; Singapore $154 000; Canada $154 000; New Zealand $112 500; Germany $119 500; Ireland  $120 400; Pakistan $3 500; Malaysia $25 300; Sweden $99 300; Sri Lanka $5 100; Spain  $43 900; Norway$138 000.

    • The reported figures above are annual payment

     

    Comment

    Given the above jumbo pay to our legislators compared to the minimum national wage of N18000, it will take an average Nigerian worker 1,638 years to earn the annual salary of a Nigerian Senator. And we live in the same country and purchase in the same markets.

    Nigeria is a country that was born in aberration and lives in aberration. And from all indications, she may end up in aberration.

    Going through the above quoted figures thoroughly once again, an intelligent person will discover that something is conspicuously missing: CONSCIENCE! Wherever it is missing, a nation or society is said to be lost. Who will find Nigeria?

  • Re: Between Edo governor and Benin palace

    I read your piece of last week concerning the above. I must commend you for your objectivity. I agree totally with you that it is the duty of all right-thinking people of Edo State to continue to support Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to finish well, especially in the face of relentless hostility of a few self-centred political godfathers.

    However, the only point I disagree with you is the aspect where you lumped our revered Oba of Benin among those working against the Comrade Governor. The fact that two of the Oba’s sons who were hitherto given backroom assignments in the corridor of power by Oshiomhole chose to decamp recently to PDP is not sufficient reason to impute or conclude that the Benin palace has turned against the Comrade Governor. As a matter of fact, discerning observers see the errant duo as the black sheep of the family.

    On the contrary, the Benin monarch has always given the governor unqualified support since he assume office in November 2008. As a progressive himself, the Benin Oba has always maintained that his blessings are for anyone ready to work for the progress of Edo State and that is what Oshiomhole has been doing.

    •John Iyamu, Iyaro Quarters, Benin City, Edo State

  • The old man and the ‘invaders’

    Sounds like the title of a fairy tale but this is a true-life story happening in Ebonyi State, southeast Nigeria. Ebonyi had always been the patched spot of the east – stunted, backward and remote. It really is a poor, poor cousin afflicted by wants and wantonness. Strange things happen all over but stranger things make their abode in Ebonyi for instance, communal feuds around there come in the form of savage bazaar that consume by wild fire and blood. Examples of such human carnage in Ebonyi are numerous.

    Now, another story, stranger than fiction; at least by the standards of Nigeria’s political culture, has broken in that outpost. Last week, Pa Martin Elechi, the septuagenarian incumbent governor widely regarded as the father of modern Ebonyi made a plaintive cry for help. Pa Elechi who is rounding off his second and last term as a governor took to the newspapers in what seems like a safe-our-soul two-page advertorial. Have you ever seen a sitting governor; an elderly man, cry for help? Have you ever seen a deputy governor stampeding his boss and threatening to remove him from the executive quarters and put him on the run? Not in Nigeria, but it is happening.

    In a 17-point plea, the governor explained carefully, how a cabal from Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of power, is working up the state to a conflagration.  He mentioned specifically,  the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Ayim Pius Ayim and such co-conspirators as Chief Uche Secondus (Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh (National Publicity Secretary) and Amb Franklin Ogbuewu, Deputy Coordinator of the PDP Presidential Campaign in the state.

    What is at stake? The Abuja ‘mafia’ led by Ayim is bent on hijacking the state by installing a stooge of their own in the next dispensation. They made sure the old man had no say in the transition process especially in installing his successor. They imposed his deputy, Chief Dave Umahi as governorship candidate in a contrived congress that excluded the sitting governor. Same for all the other elective positions in the land; they never allowed the old man to have a say.

    All entreaties to President Goodluck Jonathan, the leader of the party, yielded no fruit. The invaders appeared to have usurped even the powers of the president. Unable to live with the humiliation any longer, the old man and his supporters shifted their allegiance to a lesser known Labour Party (LP). It soon dawned on the Abuja bullies that the old man could still pull some strings in the state. Electoral entropy starred the cabal in the face as LP suddenly came alive and became dominant in the state. Jolted, they immediately resorted to rough tactics.

    According to the governor, a wave of terror was unleashed on the state with shootings, attacks on campaign rallies, burning of vehicles and vandalizing of LP billboards. Like a caged hound, the SGF allegedly caused the simultaneous release of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) on the state. As you read this, no fewer than six state commissioners are on needless shuttles to and fro the Abuja offices of these two so-called graft commissions. The governor’s son and about 13 LGA care-taker committee chairmen are also being run through the Abuja hoop.

    Worst of all, the state’s accounts were frozen even before investigations had started and against court order. And finally, there is currently a contrivance to impeach the governor by all means.

    It may be argued that this is an internal affair of a party but that in itself is the irony and the crux of the matter. The brigandage in Ebonyi is a pointer to the situation across the country and signposts a ruling party where there is a confounding leadership vacuum. For instance, the governor listed all the entreaties made to the President and party leader and all his ‘efforts’ at intervening yet this megalomaniac gang he has as aides and party officials countermanded him at every point and carried on with their perfidy to the point that the state begins to implode, lives are lost as PDP faces a crushing defeat at the polls.

    True, what is happening in Ebonyi is typical of PDP and its Abuja marauders across board and across states. It is also Senator Ayim’s stock-in-trade, to put it plainly since his senate days in Abuja to be an agent of destabilization of his forlorn Ebonyi State. He has a history of seeking to lord it over any governor in his state. Today he has raised his megalomania one notch. He seeks to hijack the state by force, install a stooge and run it by proxy.

    In his poorly wired mind, he thinks nothing of the incumbent; he has not an iota of respect for him, thinking him old, frail and of no consequence whatsoever. He forgot that this old man with all his flaws is probably the living father of Ebonyi who laid the foundation of the state; he forgot that he paved the way for most of the younger Ebonyi politicians of today including Senator Anyim. What, if we may ask, has Ayim done for his poor state drawing on the influence of the exalted offices he held as Senate President and SGF?

    But even if we grant that old Pa Elechi has soiled his office and is guilty of all they accuse him of; we ask how dare Senator Ayim or anyone in the Presidency, PDP or the EFCC for that matter, lay an accusation of corruption against anyone else? These places are bastions of corruption. It is starkly indecorous to seek to hound out of office, a man who has only about two months to go. It is coarse to literally strip the old man naked, drag him about town in utter humiliation and ignominy. What made Ayim and his cohorts think they could get away with such barbarism; such jungle tactics?

    We know it is the way of PDP but it still does not make it acceptable and right. It is the same steel-gloves tactics that was deployed in Bayelsa State with former Governor Timipre Silva and incumbent Seriake Dickson. It is the same jungle treatment that Governor Chibuike Amaechi has been resisting in the past two years.

    Same in Delta State where the Presidency allowed some thugs, old and young, to lame-duck a sitting governor and shunt him from having a say in who succeeds him. If Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan was not made of a higher constitution we would have in Delta today, a streaming of much striving, maiming and killings. Ebonyi would have been child’s play because the stakes are far higher in Delta. This surely isn’t any way to run a party or country.

    We must state it clearly that all of these happened because the leader of the party, the president did not manage to stand firm and insist on the right and culture approaches. Where his wife was not the chief culprit, it was him or aides and party cabals. Happily, it is coming to an interesting denouement that Pa Elechi is only old, he still has some political fire in his belly yet as the invaders have found out.

  • Many troubles of the comrade governor

    Being a governor in some states can be quite forbidding to say the least. Not that it is entirely a joy ride anywhere or that the much coveted guber seat is less hot in any state but some states are peculiar. One of such is Edo and the reason is simple: the gubernatorial seat is circumscribed by formidable power blocs. Consider the imagery of a man in a valley hemmed in by several towering mountains. Even if he manages to breathe, he will be working under poor lights and constrained space.

    Such is the situation Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo who is running a state sequestered by so much impedimenta that stand in the way of work. Governor Oshiomhole has been pitched against such behemoths as Chief Tony Anenih; Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, Esama of Bini and lately, the Omono’ba himself, the fulcrum of Bini monarchy and essence.

    It takes only a man of Oshiomhole’s heart and hide to stand up to or stand down these forces and still get in a decent result in the last six years. Oshiomhole’s predecessors (especially the Esama’s son) ran Edo aground but the incumbent has brought it back to life as everyone can see. The good people of Edo State must rally around their Comrade, support him and help him finish strong.

  • All things considered (2)

    All things considered (2)

    My objective in this two-part series has been to review the balance-sheet of the two leading presidential candidates on the basis of their past records and present credentials. While some distinguished Nigerians have expressed their concerns with the two, the election has come down to a choice between them. The sensible approach then is to place their “problematic” credentials on a scale to determine which is the negatively or positively weightier. In other words, we must make a rational choice based on the balance of relevant factors. Last week, I focused on President Jonathan. Today I take on General Muhammadu Buhari.

    One of the negatives critics identify with General Buhari is his military background versus the need of the nation for a president that would respect democratic norms. The question is whether Buhari is able to move from the command and control orientation of the military to the consensus building requirement of democracy. His critics are quick to make reference to Buhari’s “high-handedness” as military Head of State for twenty months from December 1983 to July 1985 when he was toppled in a bloodless coup. For them, those are scary times which they don’t want to relive and they are not convinced that the General has changed with the times.

    Interestingly, this charge has been addressed by Buhari on a number of occasions, most recently at his Chatham House address. While acknowledging the concern about his military background and record as military Head of State, Buhari assured his audience of his conversion to the tenets of democracy. He has to; otherwise he will not succeed because the institutions of democracy require consensus building qualities in a president.

    It is important to also note, however, as one of the retired Generals observed a while ago that civilians have no good reason to blame the military for intervening in politics in those days because military intervention would not have been necessary if civilians had not lost their sense of good governance. Many would recall the prelude to December 1983 and the near-anarchy that prevailed. The police was in professionally irresponsible cahoots with the ruling party and the economy was in doldrums. The sense of helplessness on the part of the people was the reason for the wild jubilation over the announcement of military intervention just as it was in January 1966.

    Second, as far as his critics are concerned, at 72, General Buhari is too old for the rigors of the presidency. The uncultured and uncouth among them, including Governor Fayose of Ekiti, have made this the foundation of their opposition. Fayose has sponsored several advertisements playing God and cautioning Nigerians of the impending demise of Buhari. When this backfired in the midst of a boisterous denouncement of the adverts, he backed down only to resurface with a press conference to announce that Buhari’s London visit was not to visit Blair or give a talk at Chatham House, but rather to see a doctor. He even gave the location of the hospital which Buhari checked into.

    Tony Blair’s confirmation that he met Buhari and the announcement of the General’s scheduled talk at Chatham House did not persuade Fayose. For him and his fellow ageists, it was all a hoax. The PDP Publicity Secretary joined in to question the integrity of his APC counterparts: why are they doctoring pictures? suggesting, without a compunction of conscience, that the picture Buhari took with former Prime Minister Blair and Governors Amosun and Saraki was dated or fake. The question this scenario raises is the following: If health is not compromised, is age really a negative?

    Perhaps the most serious “negative” that critics have dwelled on the most is the allegation of religious and ethnic bigotry against Buhari. This is not something coming from the poor and lower classes of the society. This charge has been brought directly and circulated far and wide by intellectuals including professors, high profile clerics, and industry giants. They are afraid that Buhari will Islamize Nigeria in a jihadist war against the south.

    In a country with religious and ethnic diversity, this is a weighty charge. But what is the evidence? That is not important as long as the perception is alive and is nourished with fear. Does Buhari’s background in the matter of religious devotion lend any credence to this charge of an islamization agenda? Have Buhari’s presidential campaigns since 2003 pointed in this direction of an Islamic aggression?

    While there is no doubt that religion has featured prominently in this election, it is true that this has not come from the camp of Buhari who has been pilloried by the ruling party as a religious bigot. We are yet to see a video of Buhari kneeling before an Imam or hopping from mosque to mosque for the blessings of the congregants. If Buhari is so much into islamization, why is he not mobilizing the Muslim Umah in these elections? Buhari has also addressed this matter in a thoughtful presentation to the Catholic Bishops.

    On their part, Buhari’s supporters have identified three areas of the candidate’s strength as the positives that really matter for the leadership of the country in the present stage of its democratic and economic development.

    First they point to his endowment of leadership discipline, a trait that even his staunchest opponents can attest to and which supporters attribute to his military background. Thus, while opponents are wary of that background in a democratic setting, supporters taunt the discipline that he has acquired from it as what the country needs now to clear the rot and mess of sixteen years.  There are indications as well that it is the matter of his discipline that scares his opponents. They know that a Buhari presidency will close all the loopholes that fertilize the lust for greed and unmerited acquisition as well as the tendency towards impunity in government which has characterized the camp of the ruling party since 1999.

    Next there is Buhari’s widely acknowledged incorruptibility and disarming honesty. He headed the Ministry of Petroleum as Minister under the first regime of General Obasanjo and he discharged the responsibilities of the office creditably. Under Abacha, Buhari was head of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) and despite the allegation of lost funds Buhari was cleared by the investigative panel. President Obasanjo who ordered the investigation confirmed this recently. And there was no reason Obasanjo would cover up for Buhari, knowing their political differences as rival presidential candidates in 2003.

    Finally, according to his supporters, Buhari’s track record in dealing with religious insurgencies in the North since his days as GOC is well known. It was Buhari that dealt decisively with the Maitatsine sect in Kano in the 80s. It was he that sent back the invading Chad insurgents. If Buhari was at the helm when Boko Haram first reared its violent head, supporters insist that he would have effectively led the charge against it. He would certainly not have underestimated the strength and senseless determination of the sect to wreck havoc in the polity.

    Incidentally, the moment that President Jonathan confessed his underestimation of the Boko Haram many Nigerian commentators on social media placed the responsibility for the death and displacement of fellow citizens squarely on him. How does a president underestimate the strength of an enemy of the state who from the beginning did not hide its disdain for the country? You can only give what you have, and in the matter of discharging himself creditably in his oath to protect the territorial integrity of the nation, Buhari surely has it.

    In sum, then, of all the concerns of Buhari’s critics about his past record, the most relevant and weighty is his record as military Head of State. But it wasn’t an unmixed record of negativity. He accomplished a lot, especially in the matter of dealing with religious fundamentalism, corruption, and instilling discipline across the board. For his supporters, this is exactly what the country needs now. And to his critics, Buhari has declared himself a “converted democrat.” We will know soon if the nation believes him.

  • Afenifere: Generals without troops

    Afenifere: Generals without troops

    There are good men in every land; the tree of life has many branches and roots; let not the topmost twig presume to think that it alone has sprung from the mother earth; we did not choose our races by ourselves; Jews, Muslims, Christians, all alike are men; let me hope I have found in you a man.”

    Jonathan Von Goethe

     

    Proverbial Adage

    Leaders are not those who ascribe leadership to themselves by whim and thus become unworthy impostors. Real leaders are those who are acknowledged as leaders by their followers and are willingly assisted by those followers to pilot the affairs of the people.

    A Yoruba proverbial adage which informs that “all sorts of knives surface on a day of an elephant’s death” may not be far from the truth after all. Politics in Nigeria today is like that proverbial elephant.

    It throws up all hidden agenda and exposes all clandestine moves by some dubious characters in the society. In other words, the satanic cloak under which some obscure, chameleonic politicians masquerade in a bid to benefit from Nigeria’s new political paradigm called ‘stomach infrastructure’ seems to have become an implacable calamity that devours the vestiges of peace in the land.

    The Yoruba Muslims of the current generation who were never privileged to witness the political and religious trauma to which their parents were subjected in the 1950s and 1960s in the old Western region, when Yoruba Muslims had not fully imbibed Western literacy, can still feel the impact of that trauma today.  They may however take advantage of today’s atrocious spectacle to view the religious cloaks of those years and use it to unmask some dubious characters who then masqueraded under those evil cloaks.

     

    The sun and the brook

    An Arab poet once observed thus in one of his poetic stanza: “…..It does not bother the sun that some blind people deny the existence of its rays just as it does not bother a brook that some herd boycotts its water”.

    If the above quotation is thoroughly analysed by men of literary prowess it would be discovered that the blind men who deny the existence of the sun rays are the ones to lose out in their animosity.

    Their refusal to recognise the rays of the sun can neither diminish the grandeur of the sun nor enable their blind eyes to see. Yet, they will suffer severely under the burning heat of the sun rays.

    Likewise, boycotting the brook water by some herd can never affect the brook in any way. If anything, it is the herd which boycotts the brook water that may end up dying of thirst.

     

    The parable of owl

    The similitude of the above analogy is like that of a self-adulated group in Yoruba land called AFENIFERE which, like an owl, cannot freely interact with credible, well-meaning Yoruba men and women on issues of substance. Like the owl which, by its own design, is essentially a bird of the night that cannot comfortably associate with other birds in the day, AFENIFERE is now a pariah group that can only arrogate leadership to itself on the pages of some pariah newspapers in its search for relevance. If we may ask, at what forum did the well known and globally acknowledged Yoruba leaders of thought appoint the so-called AFENIFERE to serve as the megaphone of the Yoruba tribe?

    Even if the group was ever appointed the megaphone for the Yoruba tribe does that confer leadership on it? When did Yoruba leadership become so cheap that any pariah group can rise from an obscure corner of the region to start claiming it on the pages of newspapers? The theory of stomach infrastructure which just crept into Nigeria’s political thesaurus has surely brought a new dimension to the cultural value in Yoruba land.

    For people who know the owl very wellwith its queer operation in the forest, the antics of the AFENIFERE political demagogues cannot be strange. Here are people of yesteryear who had spent their time and the time of their children as well as that of their grandchildren and are yet seeking to spend the time of their great grand children to their own benefits alone. At a time when vision rather than improvidence is the order of the day it is strange that this group’s deleterious political activities are still geared towards the search for any relevance even where relevance for them has become impossible.

    But what else can be said of a group that once claimed to be progressive but now turns round to become ultra-conservative?

     

    Living in the dark

    With some dead woods and half baked elements in Yoruba land as its members today, AFENIFERE is currently arrogating Yoruba leadership to itself and claiming to be the megaphone of that Nigerian major tribe as it once did unchallenged in the remote past. That group which still lives in the dark days of the primitive past seems to be too visionless to coin a contemporary name for itself other than that of its progenitor in the early 1950s. Thus, in its failure to keep pace with the modern reality, the group still believes that the situation of the 1950s is the same as that of today an indication that it has long outlived its time and its relevance.

    The group (AFENIFERE) was recently reported in the media to have told a particular presidential candidate in the forth coming general elections that Yoruba people had decided to give him their block voting. That report has not been denied. And that was not the first time the group has fraudulently made unsolicited claims on behalf of Yoruba people.

    Sometime early last year, the same group hijacked the Southwest presidential nomination to the national confab and put 15 of its members (all non-Muslims) on the list of that nomination to the exclusion of the entire Muslims in the region whose numerical strength cannot be underestimated.

    When, in reaction to that clandestine act, the Muslim Ummah of the South West of Nigeria (MUSWEN) wrote a memo to the National confab to put the records straight, the group quickly but deceptively wrote a letter to MUSWEN inviting the latter to a meeting of mutual understanding. But the meeting never came up as AFENIFERE began to play its usual chameleonic hide and seek game that is still on course till this moment.

     

    Evidence of ignorance

    What these people do not and may not know in a foreseeable future is that with the coming of Internet and social media the definition of literacy has tremendously changed from mere reading and writing of tales and fables to that of modern browsing and messaging through the Internet in the 21st century. And without such standard of literacy this time around any person who still claims to be literate is half-dead. However, it takes only the seeing to recognise the light and make the best use of it. Therefore, it cannot be a surprise that the members of this group are still snoring in their primordial bed while expecting others to be off like them.

    Even in Yoruba land where AFENIFERE is supposed to be based the group merely operates in a certain obscure corner of the region only to randomly roar out to impress its ignorant backers in Abuja through the pages of some obscure newspapers. But since the dance of a dragon fly on the surface of stream water can only be in mandatory rhythm of the drum beat beneath the water no one should expect the owl to come home to roost.

    Judged by the public utterances and conducts of its members, AFENIFERE has become a ridiculous paradox between yesterday’s fictitious dream and today’s disappointing nightmare. Had the members of the so-called AFENIFERE group known how much they have become a laughable stock in Nigeria today they would have probably reclined into their obsolete cloak and stopped behaving like the owl among birds.

    But how can they know when they can hardly realise that the trend of literacy which once gave them the opportunity to be relevant in the region has since changed when most of them cannot put their fingers on the computer let alone prying into the modern world of literacy through the Internet.

     

    Yoruba Muslims in the 21st Century

    To this so-called AFENIFERE group, the usefulness of the Muslim multitudes in the Western region does not transcend voting and clapping for the region’s ‘lotus eaters’ which it (AFENIFERE) typifies. Despite the glaring difference between the Muslims of the 1950s who were treated like slaves and those of the 21st century who are highly sophisticated in essence and substance the groups still pretends not to take note hence the ignorant wish to maintain the anachronistic status quo.

     

    Warning

    Let it be known to this self-elevated group that the antics of the yore with which the so-called AFENIFERE outsmarted and relegated Yoruba Muslims to the background in the past have gone with the irritating particles of the past. And any further attempt to want to continue such primitive antics to the detriment of Yoruba Muslims will be adequately resisted in letters and in law. We have paid our due in terms of tolerance, patience and endurance. Elasticity has its limit.

    No group of sheer opportunists that still ignorantly believes in the deception gimmicks of the past will be allowed anymore to ride roughshod over the Muslims of the Southwest. Enough is enough. Though the unofficial policy of ‘stomach infrastructure’ of this era seems to have taken away the once valued wisdom associated with old age there can be no substitution of light for darkness now.

     

    Conclusion

    Gone are the days when wisdom was genuinely attributed to old age because old age then personified experience. Today, from the experience of technology and its effect on the modern society, the human wisdom of the bicycle age seems to have been rendered anachronistic by that of the internet age. Like the rise of a modern building from the debris of the old, the Yoruba Muslims of this generation have come of age and can no longer be swept with the rubles of irrelevance into the refuse bin. We do not need a borrowed mouth to speak out when necessary and nobody has a right to speak for us without our mandate.

    As it takes two to tango it must also take a give-and-take relationship to ventilate a peaceful environment in a mufti-religious society. No group should assume any vain superiority over others and expect peace to thrive. To live side by side and cohabit in harmony, mutual respect must be in the front burner of our relationship.