The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • A coded letter to President Jonathan

    Love letter in a time of angst Dear President Goodluck Jonathan, it is my guess that you receive dozens of unsolicited letters daily by virtue of your position. Letters from the high and low; open, closed and coded and de-coded; the sensible and many, sheer effusions from disturbed minds. You cannot possibly read them all even if you tried; you are not even obliged to read them at all but depending on your temperament and reading culture, it helps a great deal if you paid a little attention to some of these odd, unsolicited missives as they are liable to provide you some unedited views and perspectives of your domain.

    I respectfully add mine to the myriad of others not because one had not  brooked the subject of the day previously on this column but mainly because the moment warrants that the issues in question be raised again in a more pointed manner. Of course, the issue of the moment is squarely succession riding on the wings of campaign and the coming elections. Like a plane, the electioneering is at its cruising altitude now. All you want to hear about now is smooth landing, that is, success in the election. Anything short would be akin to treason in your view.

    But a sage once determined that the best truth, just like food, is the unpalatable one. You don’t want to eat it but it’s good for your health; you don’t want to hear it, but your very life may well depend on it.

    Mr. President, I imagine that the people you would rather have around now are your election ‘strategist’, ‘influential’ leaders of one major group or the other, ‘high-calibre’ endorsers of your campaign, voluble defenders of your government, financiers and sponsors. This is normal, natural and rational.

    At this stage of the quest for the prime office, there is only one thought in the mind of the returning incumbent – victory. I do not think there is a greater, more painful loss than an incumbent failing in his bid to win re-election. Again, it is human for an incumbent to fight with everything he has; to stake everything – including sovereignty – to make sure he returns to office; or more appropriately, to ensure that he is not ‘disgraced’ out of office as we say here.

    How to be a game-changer But the point of this letter is to ask that you do the seeming impossible; like asking you to stop a plane that is already cruising. It may seem crazy but that is the art of game-changers, it is the stuff that makes for greatness and eternal statesmanship.

    I do not ask that you quit the race. No, that is out of the question now. Though that had been canvassed here previously and would have marked the greatest path of honour for you but unfortunately, you shunned it. You missed that huge opportunity.

    However, another great opportunity is embedded even in this equally great quest for the presidential diadem. But first you must step away from the madding crowd of election hawks and vultures. You must find a lonely place for quiet reflection. You must ask yourself some of the following questions: what is this election really worth to me? I had spent a longer time on this seat (nearly six years) why is another four years so crucial to me that I am willing to do just anything to stay on? Why really am I desperately seeking another four years; is it for my personal ego and aggrandizement; for my country Nigeria or for the people around me who insist it is the right and entitlement of the minorities of the Niger Delta region?

    Further, you must reflect on the import of victory and a possibility of defeat. If I achieved victory, especially by a certain sleight of hand what would the victory mean to me? Would I be a better president than I am now? Would I be able to manage this parlous economy better than I did in my first five years of stupendous oil boom?

    Of sweet defeat and bitter victory On the other hand, if I organised an orderly, free and fair election and suffered defeat and stepped down dignifiedly, would I have lost anything other than the office?

    Would the whole world not hoist me up as a shining example of a great African leader who held a free and fair election in which he was defeated? Would I not become an African statesman and legend sought after around the world by all? Would my conducting a peaceful, free and fair election not be a worthier achievement than everything I have achieved so far?

    I know that most of the people around you would not give you room to breathe not to speak of a lonely moment of soul-searching but that is to be expected. If they allowed you a minute of deep-thinking you just might find out that most of them are actually not your friend but fortune hunters who are seeking to enrich themselves even more. If you run a quick mental check, you will find that most of them are worth billions now who had nothing when you first knew them.

    All their puffing and huffing and rattling is not because they love you more, no; they are feeding fat from the situation and they will push you over the cliff if that is what it takes to keep the pock.

    They will tell you to fight for it; they will tell you to go gung-ho; they will tell you to remember you are the C-in-C and you must do whatever it takes to remain in power; they will tell you no president in Africa ever organized an election in which he was defeated; they will tell you it would mark the ultimate capitulation and an effete lack of heart.

    They will make sure you do not to read ‘idiotic’ stuff like this letter penned by naïve people who do not understand the real situation. For them, it is ‘warfare’ in which all is fair. Your ‘strategists’ will lead you to dole out money in billions, Nigeria’s hard-earned money, as if the world will end with this election. Never had so much money been ‘unleashed’ on the polity in the annals of Nigeria’s electioneering.

    They will advise you that to win this election, you must shell out billions to the Christian association, Muslim associations, inconsequential ethnic organizations, student unions, to Obas, emirs, Ezes and emergency endorser groups. They will assure you that money will buy you the people’s votes. They will tell you to undermine Prof. M. Jega and rubbish INEC’s processes. It doesn’t matter that the same Jega conducted the 2011 polls that you have been boasting about. They will never explain to you that you are executing a scorch-earth policy by which you are tearing down everything we hold dear.

    Meanwhile they will shield you from the real troubles in the land. They will cocoon you so well that you will never know there is extreme hunger in the land today. They will never let you see that many of the people you govern are facing starvation and that is no exaggeration. Why would your police contemplate a strike? Why would hitherto proud Nigerian soldiers now shamelessly run from the warfront? Why is Nigeria, the great African waiting on soldiers and mercenaries from Chad, Cameroun, Niger, South Africa, America and Britain to clear a few LGAs of some armed miscreant?

    There is so much one wants to say to you but I am convinced you would never read a drivel like this. They will never let you see it how much more read it. It does not matter whether it is coded, un-coded or decoded. Anyway, nothing matters now, your plane is at cruising altitude now…

  • All things considered (1)

    All things considered (1)

    This week and the next I address voters still undecided about the two leading presidential candidates. In a state of hesitancy, how do you decide? Place the “problematic” credentials of each on a scale, determine the weightier, and make a rational choice on that basis. I start with President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Jonathan’s critics identify multiple negatives in his leadership record. They charge him with unacceptable weakness in respect of the most important responsibility of government: security. Not just opponents, intellectuals supporting the president also acknowledge that he is soft on security. The evidence is glaring. More than 200 Nigerian girls are still held by Boko Haram terrorists. Those are potential doctors, engineers, accountants, senators, and president. Jonathan was in denial at first. But since accepting the fact, what has he done? He has politicised security to the point of getting security chiefs wade into the murky water of politics and throwing professionalism overboard.

    With respect to the all important goal of eliminating or reducing the lethal grip of corruption on the country, Jonathan has also been indicted in the court of public opinion as weak and ineffectual. For Nigerians who reject the distinction between stealing and corruption, the reality of corrupt practices in the PDP-led government is undeniable. The intervention of professionals such as former CBN Governor Charles Soludo only confirms their fears. And when the Coordinating Minister for the Economy suggested that corruption cannot be fought effectively without the establishment of relevant institutions, even with the EFCC, ICPC in addition to the police and the courts, not a few jaws dropped in disbelief.

    Impunity—an in-your-face arrogance and abuse of power—throughout the polity is a veritable feature of corruption. As the central government with the monopoly of power over security agencies, the Jonathan administration has upped the ante in the unlawful use of the police and the armed forces. With the demeanor of an innocent soul at the beginning of his term, Mr. President has over the years learnt the ropes and concluded that to have a shot at the second term he must use federal might to advantage.

    Not many would deny the likeability of President Jonathan. But he has around him some devilish hawks that have demonstrated their disdain for decency and legality because these qualities don’t win elections in their warped judgment. A truly decent and strong leader would call his men and women to order if he really believes that no position is worth the blood of Nigerians. But that is just a manner of speech from the throne of deceit. It has never been from the heart of a convinced gentleman.

    There are lots of evidence, the most recent being the outing of the Ekiti election rigging scandal. The tape revealed abuse of power and impunity in high places. But even without his listening to it, President Jonathan dismissed the recording as “fabrication”. And when the shameless characters whose voices were captured in the tape owned up, did the President apologize to Nigerians and do the needful, which in its barest minimum would be to set up an investigation panel—if only to pretend that he was still interested in the protection of electoral integrity? No! He just looked the other way.

    An unlimited presidential power cannot be limited by the voice of the people for fairness and justice. Not only has the President chosen not to conduct an investigation, he has rewarded one of the men involved in the abuse of power with a ministerial appointment. In a decent society it will not happen. Even if the President didn’t know about the tapes prior to the nomination, he would withdraw the name of the nominee from further consideration until he is cleared of any wrongdoing. But this is Nigeria and no one would be surprised if all that Musliu Obanikoro has to do is to take a bow before the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and receive a portfolio to resume plundering where he left off. And we complain that the world doesn’t give us respect!

    Jonathan heard the wicked rant of AIG Mbu, vowing to murder 20 civilians to avenge the killing of any one of his men. In a civilized country with laws and procedures, this is coming from an officer who has shown himself as the most brutish police partisan in dealing with the opposition, from Rivers State to the Federal Capital Territory. But does this promise of self-help justice bother the President? If the past is a prelude to the future, it is not too far-fetched to predict that a second term of the President may see Mbu at the top of the police hierarchy. The AIG himself has recently signaled this possibility.

    How about the deliberate politicization of religion for cheap political gain? We have not seen the kind of deliberate use of religion that we are experiencing now in a presidential election since 1999. And where is it coming from? We have been treated to the President of a multi-religious nation hopping from one mega church to another ostensibly to thank them for praying for the country. But we know what is going on, don’t we? President Jonathan has the bully pulpit to pronounce against the use of religion and ethnicity in dividing the nation, but he seems bent on mining them for election purposes. So when he chose not to condemn Niger Delta militants stoking the embers of war should he lose, the President is sending the wrong message to a nation whose diversity is its strength.

    The foregoing are weighty negatives. But Jonathan certainly has his positives. Not a few of his supporters base their advocacy for his reelection on his convocation of the National Conference. This is especially the case with the southern leaders, particularly the Southwest, who have been in the vanguard of the struggle for the restructuring of the country through a Sovereign National Conference. Apparently towards the end of his first term, Jonathan was persuaded to believe that to have a chance in the Southwest he had to accede to the demand for a national conference. The mere convocation of the conference was therefore enough for some of the Southwest leaders to throw their support behind the president.

    It was also a smart move for the president to accept the challenge so late in his first term because while the report was ready, the implementation must have to wait until after the election and a new National Assembly. And since he was the convener, the campaign of his supporters now is that he is the only one that can be trusted to implement the report. What is not being honestly discussed is the unpredictability of the composition of the new National Assembly and the State Assemblies. Given the reality of a strong opposition and the new minority status of PDP in the House of Representatives going into the election, what kind of NASS will the president work with if he is reelected? If his supporters ever gave this a thought, it has not diminished their enthusiastic support for him on this singular issue.

    Supporters have also beaten their chests on behalf of the president on account of his stewardship of the economy and the achievement of the “First in Africa” status. They give the president credit for his leadership effort in restructuring the power sector and some of the breakthrough in the area of agriculture. Achieving the status of “First in Africa” is certainly a feat. But what does it amount to? Does it place food on the table of the millions of unemployed youths? How has it improved the lives of workers and pensioners? This is where Soludo’s intervention hit hardest. While we celebrate the “First in Africa” status, we failed to recognize the negative impact of the depletion of foreign reserves in the last four years.

    In sum then, going into the election, President Jonathan’s negative evaluations are weightier than his positives. He is undoubtedly aware of this. Indeed, many Nigerians believe that the shift in the election schedule has something to do with it. We will soon know if the tactic works or backfires.

  • ABUAD’s ‘crazy’ fee hike

    One thought the Afe Babalola University, ABUAD, Ado-Ekiti in Ekiti State was one of the better set up private citadels of learning. What with the pedigree of the founder (of the same name) and the good report one hears about the institution in its short life.

    The report emanating from the institution currently is that it may be operating not unlike all the other strictly-for-profit private universities. One hears that school fees which were already high are now shooting through the roof. For instance, 400 level medical students whose fees were recently increased to N1.7m from N1.2m have been asked to pay N2.6m as they resume March 12th.

    According to a post by Hassan Taiwo (Soweto), coordinator of Education Rights Agenda, this is a “debt sentence” as many of the students who were already groaning under the old fees may never make it back to ABUAD. It will be a sad day for a medical student who has already put in so much to drop out mid-way.

    Who regulates our private universities? Are they allowed to charge fees arbitrarily? What is the role of the National Universities Commission, NUC?

  • Killed in cold blood

    Preamble

    This column, The Message’, will never be tired of quoting from a famous stanza of an Arab poet whose ingenuous poem has become a timeless axiom from which humanity continues to learn. For as long as the situation that warrants repeated quotation of that poem persists quoting the poem repeatedly will not abate. It goes thus: “Here is the period of life against which we had been admonished through the wisdom of Ubayyi Ibn Ka‘b and that of Abdullah Ibn Mas‘ud.

    Here is the time in life when truth becomes totally abhorrent while falsehood and rebellion are loftily upheld. Should this period linger and nothing changes in it, the world may (soon) reach a stage where the bereaved will rather rejoice than grieve over the demise of a close relation and parents will rather grieve than rejoice over the birth of a new baby”.

    Nigeria is a country where the lives of the citizens are not worth more than those of mere fouls that can be terminated anytime and anyhow by the so-called security agents especially the police.

    Examples of such brutal extrajudicial killings by Nigerian police abound. We can still recall the agonising case of Oko Oba seven of the early 1990s in which a septuagenarian grand pa and six of his grandchildren, including a corps member were ordered to face the wall inside their Oko Oba, Agege house and mowed down brutally like weeds in cold blood. Their bodies were then loaded into a police vehicle and driven to a bush where they were labeled as armed robbers and displayed through the media with local guns and charms as exhibits against them.

    After some years of court trial on the case, the fact surfaced that the innocent family was murdered extra-judicially, following a land dispute with another family in which some policemen were illegally hired to deal with the deceased family. And the police were eventually adjudged guilty and made to pay a chunk of money ransom.

    We also remember the 2006 Apo Six in which some Igbo motor spare parts dealers were whisked away from their homes to an obscure place in Abuja and gunned down in cold blood only to labeled armed robbers with some local guns and charms attached to their lifeless bodies as evidence of armed robbery. At the long end of the case it became evident that those dealers were innocent and the zealous policemen who killed them were said to be reprimanded.

    We also remember another case of Apo Nine about three years ago in which some innocent water vendors were murdered in cold blood while sleeping in a house in the area during the night. In this last dastardly act, the victims were labeled Boko Haram insurgents by the Department of  State Security  (DSS). And in the end, it was proved to be sheer extra-judicial killing. We are yet to hear the conclusion of the court case on that callous act. While the list of such heinous acts by Nigeria’s so-called security agents is too long to be exhausted here a new one has just come up again.

    Narration

    On Sunday, February, 15, 2015, the Kano State Police Command announced that its men killed two men believed to be Boko Haram kingpins. The deceased whose name was given as Ahmad Falaki was said to have attacked a police station in Kibiya LGA the preceding Saturday.

    According to the Command’s spokesman, Magaji Majia, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), the insurgents on motorcycles had attacked Kibiya police station at about 5.30pm on Saturday preceding the announcement day.

    He said: “On the spot, two of the sect members were killed and two others were arrested by the villagers. The remaining members ran towards Ningi Road that leads to Bauchi State.”

    ASP Majia announced the development with such zealousness that gave the impression of euphoria of victory and said that the remaining two insurgents were arrested by the villagers who handed them over to the police. Meanwhile, as usual, the fact of the matter abundantly contradicted the claim by the police even as highly valuable lives have been illegally terminated.

    Petition by the family

    In the emerging facts subsequently, it became known that one of the two  persons killed and alleged to be members of Boko Haram insurgents was Ahmad Mustapha Falaki, a renowned Professor of Agronomy and lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU). He was on an official trip to some rural areas in some states when he unfortunately fell into the web of some murderers operating in the police uniform.

    It took the Vice-Chancellor of ABU to reach out to the Inspector-General of Police before the latter who must have known Prof Falaki personally could order a full investigation into the gory murder.

    Meanwhile, what really transpired was contained in a petition addressed to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) written by the murdered professor’s family and signed by his brother, Aminu Mustapha Daneji. The petition went thus:

    “On Saturday February 14, 2015, at the village of Fala, Tudun Wada Local Government Area, Kano State, at about 18.30hrs, Prof Ahmad Mustapha Falaki of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, was attacked by police personnel on the pretext that he was a suspected member of Boko Haram. He was a renowned Professor of Agronomy and substantive Director of the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR) of the ABU, and was the former Country Director of the SASAKAWA Project in Nigeria. He is survived by three wives and 18 children.

    “[Professor Falaki] was in the company of his driver, Lawal Ahmad and younger brother, Abbas Mustapha Falaki [on the trip leading to his death]. The account given by the police was that they [the police] had killed one Boko Haram member and injured two others who were in their custody. This was broadcasted over the radio. Another version the police offered was that the deceased and his fellow travellers were lynched by a mob in the village.

    Testimony by the survivors

    “Based upon the testimony of the accounts of the survivors of the attack and other eye witnesses to the events of that day, we stoutly dispute both versions and briefly state our understanding of what transpired that fateful evening as follows:

    “At about 16.00hrs, when Prof Falaki realised that their Hilux Van had had a slightly deflated tyre, he asked his driver to park by the roadside and replace it… Just then, some unknown persons, nine in number and riding three motorcycles, descended upon them and demanded for the vehicle’s key. The deceased immediately directed his driver to hand over the key. The nine riders sped away with the vehicle, abandoning a motorcycle on the scene.

    “Using his mobile phone, the deceased made frantic attempts to notify his transport officer at ABU to have the vehicle electronically tracked. Meanwhile, members of the public from the village were milling around and sympathising with the deceased and his party on this apparent armed robbery. At this point, the professor notified his family members by phone on their predicament. For close to two hours, the deceased was busy making contacts with ABU staff as well as friends in Bura village and Kano, and mingling with the villagers. In fact, they even observed prayers at the scene.

     Role of the police

    “Suddenly thereafter, some persons who identified themselves as policemen appeared on the scene, allegedly in pursuit of Boko Haram members who had earlier laid siege to the Police Post in Kibiya town of Kano State. Prof Falaki identified himself to them, presenting them with his ABU Identity Card and his Driving Licence. The driver also identified himself with his Driving Licence.

    “For some inexplicable reasons, the policemen ignored the identification insisting that for all they cared the deceased professor and his entourage were members of Boko Haram who had escaped from Kibiya. They then began to strike the professor and his fellows with machetes, clubs and gun butts. The deceased was struck such fatal blows that he died instantly at the scene. Abbas, the brother, sustained deep cuts on his forehead, face and body. Out of fear, the driver attempted to flee but was chased and apprehended, and also beaten up terribly.

    “The body of the Prof Falaki was transported to Murtala Muhammed Hospital in Kano by the police. The driver and Abbas were chained and detained at SARS in the premises of the State Police Command, Bompai, Kano. Therefore, the police account of ‘lynching’ is not true at all.

    The deceased was not lynched by the villagers of Fala. In fact, the deceased had mingled with the sympathetic Fala villagers for over two hours before the arrival of the police. He had even prayed there.

    Demand by the family

    “In view of the foregoing, we make the following demands:

    1.That this suspected act of extra-judicial killing be thoroughly investigated and any person who had a hand in it be appropriately dealt with, as provided by law;

    2.That the report of the investigation be made available to the members of the family of the deceased and his employers at A.B.U, Zaria;

    3.That pending the conclusion of the investigation, we request for retraction of the statement by the police that the deceased and his entourage are members of Boko Haram, and the retraction must be given the widest publicity possible.

    4. “For the avoidance of any doubt, we reserve our legal rights to pursue other remedies in other appropriate fora including the enforcement of their rights, as guaranteed by law and the Nigerian constitution”.

    Logical questions

    The questions here are many. For instance why did the police conclude without any investigation that the professor’s identity card was fake?

    If somebody was brought to the police station on mere suspicion by some people should the police judge such a person without charging him to court? This was the same situation that sparked off the monstrous calamity now called Boko Haram in 2009 when Muhammad Yusuf, the original founder of the Islamic group that later metamorphosed into Boko Haram was shot by the police in his cell even while handcuffed.

    Observation

    The idea of riding roughshod on the law of the land with impunity by the police has been very dangerous for Nigeria and it is getting more dangerous by the day. A recent episode of the National Assembly where law makers were tear gassed and the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sulaiman Abba, refused to recognise the Speaker of the House of Representatives on the claim that the latter had decamped to another political party is still fresh.

    Conclusion

    Extra-judicial killings by the police cannot be strange to anybody who lives in Nigeria and has been following the mode of operation of those we call security men in this country. After all, most Nigerians could not have forgotten so soon what happened to the family of Mallam Ibrahim Al-Zakizaki just a few months ago in Zaria where three of his grown up children (all of them university students) were gunned down by the so-called security men within two days. The allegation, as usual, was spurious. It should be recalled that the incident that led to wide spread revolution in the Arab world recently began in Tunisia where the reckless misconduct of that country’s police force made President Zainul Abidin to flee the country and never return. To think that the same cannot happen in Nigeria is to create an abode for oneself in a fool’s paradise. A police that calls themselves the friend of the people must not behave like the enemy of the people.

    Adieu! Professor Falaki

    The late 66-year-old Prof Falaki began his teaching career in Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in 1975. He was reputed to be one of Africa’s leading agriculturists. Prof Falaki, according to his profile on the ABU website, was a brilliant, versatile academic of rare breed from Africa. In the course of research, he visited 75 countries in world’s five continents. The gentle, amiable and affable professor had over 85 published academic works to his credit and he was seen as a friend of all as well as model for upcoming Nigerian youths who are akin to intellectualism. He was a National Amir of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria when that organisation was virile.

    Falaki’s friends and associates described the murdered don as a “jolly good fellow who ran an open door policy to all.” In a sane country, the likes of Professor Falaki would rather be adorned than killed like a fowl. But that is Nigeria for you. We pray the Almighty Allah to repose his soul in eternal bliss and grant his family the needed fortitude to bear the indelible agony. Inna Lillah wa inna ilayhi raji’un!

  • Nigerian Army and the Sagir saga

    Corruption loosed upon the land No country can survive or even develop a nit with corruption breaking  out every day in every facet of its polity like an epidemic. During the recent Presidential Media Chat, our president, Goodluck Jonathan, once again labored so much to school us on the finer differences between corruption and stealing. He insisted that most of what is termed corruption by Nigerians is actually stealing and that it would help our situation a great deal if we labeled these crimes appropriately. In other words, he insisted we should call a thief by his proper name.

    He actually went into such an elaborate disambiguation just to prove that his government is not as corrupt as Nigerians love to paint it. He made the point further that when a certain judge took the pains to review all the so-called corruption cases, it turned out that most of them were ‘small matters’ of stealing and not corruption.

    Stretched further, corruption, he seems to suggest, is not such a big issue as the hullabaloo that daily trails it in Nigeria; especially under his tenure. But we ask: where does this ‘brilliant’ differentiation take us? We ask: if a director in charge of police pensions for instance, steals N27 billion from the till in his care and he manages to suborn the Presidency, the National Assembly, the Judiciary, the Police and the law courts and he is out there roaming free, has the thief not corrupted all the above-named institutions of state?

    Was the Nigerian Army corrupted in Ekiti? While we must impress it on our president that corruption and stealing are children of the same evil parents, it will be interesting to have his candid take on the Sagir saga concerning the role of the military in the Ekiti State election of June 21, 2014. There does not seem to be any ambiguity here; if proven, it is a clear case of abuse of power and the corruption of a vital institution of state.

    By way of a recap: a certain Captain Sagir Koli, an intelligence officer attached to the 32 Artillery Brigade, Akure, Ondo State was drafted as aide to the Brigade Commander, Brigadier Aliyu Momoh who led the military ‘campaign’ during the Ekiti election. Today Capt. Koli has exposed to the media, his secret recording of some of the untoward activities of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in cahoots with soldiers posted to keep the peace during the election.

    The audio tape reportedly features key PDP actors like Ayo Fayose, (then candidate and now supposed winner of the Ekiti election), Musiliu Obanikoro, the Minister of State for Defence; Mr. Jelili Adesiyan, Police Affairs Minister; Iyiola Omisore, PDP guber candidate in Osun and of course, Brig. Gen. Aliyu Momoh. The report is allegedly about how these key PDP chieftains harangued and corralled the army commander into garrisoning Ekiti during the election, demobilizing opposition party chieftains and giving PDP people a free rein on election day.

    Capt. Sagir who is currently on the run for dear life has granted further interview giving more details about how and why, according to him, he had to do what he did. He said he chose to go underground when his commander Brig. Gen. Momoh invited him for an encore in Osun State after they had facilitated the Ekiti rout of the opposition. Hear Sagir: “The Ekiti election was in June, Osun was August. I was asked again to go and rig in Osun. As an officer my intention was not to record this thing and implicate anybody, but just to put a stop to the dirty work the military was being used to do in politics…”

    His commander had informed him that they had earned commendation for the good job done in Ekiti. They were to replicate the feat in Osun. But according to Sagir: “I told myself I will not be part of it.” According to him, his conscience troubled him to the extent that his attitude and body language must have sent signals to his superiors. He was to be arrested but for a tip-off by some colleagues.

    In saner climes, Sagir’s allegations would have elicited such a national opprobrium that would have warranted immediate reaction both from the government and the army high command. There is no doubt that the reputation of the commander-in-chief is at stake here; his capacity to command the forces at his disposal is also being questioned. The integrity of the army is also on the line here thus the need to immediately respond and correct whatever lapses might have cropped up in the system.

    There is no doubt that Sagir is whom he claims to be and he holds the position he claims to hold in the officer cadre of the Nigerian Army. And unless the army hierarchy and indeed the government come up with a definitive statement that will close this matter, it will remain as a monumental debasement of the military will haunt this government to the end of time.

    Matters grave and dangerous The issues Sagir raised are too grave to be wished away. First, why did we need over 1000 armed soldiers (a battalion) to conduct election in one state (and this is not discounting other military and para-military men drafted for the election)?

    Why were PDP chieftains from other states allowed free entry and movement in Ekiti while their APC counterparts were bared entry and free movement? Why, particularly, was the director-general of APC campaign kept under house arrest at the critical moment when he needed to mobilize their agents?

    Why was a general of the Nigerian Army required to command troops into a state during an election? If we go by Sagir’s ‘recording’, why did the junior defence minister threaten a general of the Nigerian Army that he faced the peril of stagnation/non-promotion if he failed to do his biddings?

    Why was a certain civilian called Chris Uba said to have led about 16 commissioned officers (described as Strike Force) from 82 Division Enugu to Ekiti; these men were reportedly posted to each of the local government areas to work with the PDP thugs?

    Finally, why was an under-aged brother of Sagir’s detained by the army for five months?

    The federal government must answer these questions and more; a panel of inquiry must be set up immediately to probe these allegations. The NASS too must act quickly. Anything short of that will only lead the populace to believe everything Capt. Sager has said. The consequences of that prospect are even graver. In plain language, it simply means the complete corruption of the soul of Nigeria’s military has been achieved by the Jonathan administration.

  • Okomu Oil Plc: Where there’s no government

    The impression one got upon reading the Okomu story is that of a state of anarchy; a place government no longer exists. On Tuesday, February 12, 2015, gunmen reportedly invaded the estate of the Okomu Oil Palm Plc in Ovia South West LGA of Edo State killing two and injuring five workers. They were also said to have set ablaze, a large expanse of their palm plantation over the refusal of the management to ‘settle’ them.

    From the report in Daily Sun (February 13), the story was not the fact that the marauding youths always walk in and out the estate freely but the reaction of the staff. “We are just workers but the Ijaw boys always attack us and leave the management staff alone. The boys need something from the management but this managing director is too stubborn…”

    Did you notice the note of total surrender and hopelessness? Apparently even they had long forgotten that governments still existed in the land.

    Sadly, OKomu is one of the few surviving agro-allied firms in the land that is quoted on the Stock Exchange; you would expect government would protect them adequately. But government is in retreat.

    Irony: Nigeria imports palm oil! Yes, that’s true. We import palm oil even though we were once world’s highest producer and ought to glut the world with palm oil products. The global market for palm oil last year was about 63 million metric tons produced mainly by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Nigeria produced barely one million metric tons.

    Wetin government dey do sef? We can’t refine crude oil, we can’t grow palm trees and we can’t protect those making some effort. Na wao.

  • Old warriors, new alliances

    Old warriors, new alliances

    As old warriors forge new alliances, we must respect everyone’s right of association and preference for particular candidates or political parties.  Yoruba sages remind us that it is imprudent for everyone in a room to face the same direction during sleep. What is disturbing is the irrational prioritisation of sentiments and expediency over principle.

    In the South in general, and the Southwest in particular, I have observed three categories of political actors and their orientation in this election cycle. I dismiss one of them for the weakness of its principle or lack thereof. The second is also dismissible but for a subtle variant that one can reason with. I can have intelligent discussion with the third.

    The first category includes those who because of their pathological hatred of one individual would have nothing to do with whatever party he is associated with. This is their choice for which I cannot do anything. I would only advise, as the Yoruba would: baa ba le ni taa ba ni, iwon laa ba nii sota mo. (If you cannot catch up with your enemy, imagined or real, prudence dictates strategic retreat)

    Second, there are those for whom the principle “our son or nobody” is the basis of their support for President Goodluck Jonathan. This is the position of the Niger Delta militants. Since it is impossible to have an intelligent exchange with anyone with this mindset, I cannot waste my time dealing with them. They cannot deny, however, that should every Nigerian go with this principle, Jonathan couldn’t have become President in the first place. In a previous submission, I have called the Northern irredentists out on this matter as well.

    The Southern Nigerian Peoples’ Assembly (SNPA) is a more refined group with similar mindset. Its core leadership comprises founding and leading members of the PDP and their sympathizers, but in its January endorsement of President Jonathan, it claims to represent the whole of the Southern zones. Granted that there are many such organizations claiming to speak on behalf of whole regions and zones even when there are other dissenting tendencies from such zones, SNPA is not an odd one out. Let me then grant it the right of association and the freedom to express opinion not on behalf of the whole region but at least on behalf of itself. My question with regard to its endorsement is a rational one: What was the reasoning that led the SNPA to the decision?

    I can glean two reasons from media reports. The first, according to the excerpts from SNPA’s communiqué was “to ensure equity, fairness, and justice.” Now, if this was 2011 when Dr. Jonathan first presented himself as presidential candidate, I would have no problem. Indeed not a few, including yours truly, based their support for him partly on the ground that as a minority, it was important for Nigerians to vote for Jonathan so as to give the South-south a sense of belonging. That argument is unfortunately no longer valid today.

    The question now must be “how has Jonathan used the opportunity to lead?” What value has he added to democratic norms and to Nigerians’ sense of pride and achievement in the last four years? The answer to these and other foundational questions should be the basis for any rational endorsement of the president. Unfortunately, there are those, including some respected elders, with the worrisome reasoning that an incumbent is constitutionally entitled to two terms no mater his performance or voters’ verdict at the polls.

    In fairness to SNPA, it also felt that performance should be factored into its reasons for endorsing the reelection of the president. The group claimed that “the decision to endorse President Jonathan is based on a thorough assessment of his manifest strides and achievements in the past three and half years as the President and Commander in Chief.”

    What were the achievements of the president? How do they compare to the failures of the president? Unfortunately, SNPA did not provide a list of the “manifest strides and achievements” that Jonathan made as President. On this page last week, I gave a list of my concerns with the President’s stewardship of the nation. I don’t see SNPA’s endorsement speaking to any of those concerns.

    In the third category are the elders for whom I have a lot of respect because of their past record of consistency in courage. How I wish that that record is preserved for eternity without being tarnished on the altar of expediency! The support of old Afenifere for President Jonathan’s second term ambition comes from two sources.

    First, there is an undeniable animosity against Buhari derived from volatile regional relationships that began in the pre-independence era to the first and second republics. The obvious truth that there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies in politics, only permanent interests, has not been effectively applied to resolving this perennial conflict with the North. On its part, the North has not helped matters with its apparent idea of “born to rule” which played out in the aftermath of the annulment of June 12, 1993 elections.

    In a real sense, then, there are serious issues. I know, however, that were the 1993 elections not annulled, we had a good basis for forging a new relationship across our ethnic and national divide.

    Fortunately, we now have a similar basis with the new nationwide political alignments that have been forged by the APC. In any case, it is a fact that Yoruba nation has not always been on the same page with its Southern allies as it has always been marginalized. Even when Yoruba leaders made enormous sacrifices in support of Southern causes, they were always abandoned by them at election time. That was the case from 1959 to 1998. In the height of Abacha’s murderous grip on the Southwest, Chief Tony Anenih and Ikemba Ojukwu led a well-publicized delegation to the US in support of Abacha against Abiola and NADECO. Are we now in solidarity towards a Southern Nigeria Republic?

    The second issue driving Afenifere’s support for the president is its conviction that he is the only one that can restructure the country. Some have even claimed that elections are diversionary; what matters is restructuring. And in spite of their avowed commitment to democracy, they do not mind having a dictatorial imposition of the president on the nation. I am stunned by this resort to “the end justifies the means” philosophy.

    It is true that southerners in general (though by no means all and certainly not even all southern members of PDP) supported the national conference and looked forward to the implementation of its recommendations. It is also true that the President was persuaded of some political gain, and now is time for his supporters to claim the gain for him with the argument that he alone can implement the conference recommendations. I think this argument is misguided.

    Here’s the issue. Assume that the president wins. There is no guarantee that he will implement the recommendations because he will need the National Assembly and the states for implementation and, given the present composition of the National Assembly, we have no clue as to what party will likely control it after the elections.

    I have on this page suggested that the reasonable approach would have been to place the conference recommendations on the ballot in these elections. If a solid majority vote for the implementation of the recommendations, it will force the hands of both the elected President and members of the national and state assemblies. Without this, supporters are just in the dreaming state, and it is therefore disingenuous for them to canvass for the reelection of the president on this shaky ground.

     

  • In the name of security

    In the name of security

    In the name of security Citizen voters must bow As jittery candidates scared of losing Reboot their flailing campaign

    It is now abundantly clear that a sleazy security cabal has the President’s back in his assault on democratic values. What is particularly galling is the matter-of-fact manner in which this latest scheme was executed and the insult on our collective intelligence that it represents.

    The National Security Adviser flew the kite in London. Citizens’ reaction was instantaneous and overwhelmingly against election postponement. The government itself came up with a rebuttal. This was only a calculated dishonest response. The presidency knew that Sambo was delivering its message.

    It is that Machiavellian deceptive attitude we have come to identify with this presidency for which politics is the jewel of accomplishment. Attending mega churches during election is not to campaign but to thank Christian brethren praying for the nation. Publicly lamenting state government decisions not to sponsor pilgrims to Jerusalem is not a subtle appeal for Christian votes; it’s only encouraging those governments to rethink. And not calling to order supporters who threaten hell fire should he lose the election doesn’t encourage them; it only acknowledges free speech. Every time that an aide makes some pronouncement on behalf of the President, my heart aches. How does Nigeria get to this sorry pass?

    We were there before and 2015 is now looking very much like a replay of 1965 and 1983. I have just been informed that security agents arrested top leaders of APC in Okeho, Oyo State. Governor Abiola Ajimobi had led his campaign to Oke-Ogun. After he left Okeho, some unknown miscreants vandalised the President’s campaign posters. But someone must pay for the crime. The police therefore arrested and detained Okeho APC leaders in Ibadan for two days. They were lucky.

    In 1965 during the heat of the Western Region election, Honourable Atioro representing Shaki visited Okeho. Shortly before he left town, there was a scuffle between his followers and some NNDP members. It happened in front of my house. After Atioro and his boys left for Shaki, my father and other Action Group leaders were arrested, detained and charged to court in Ibadan. It was the coup of 1966 that saved them from prison. And in 1982, a friend of my father was killed by a leader of the NPN protesting taxation. Nothing happened to the killer. Every community has a story to tell about the rot in our system of policing, and the politicisation of the police in aid of the central ruling party. IGP Abba is not a different species.

    For those of us who have been victims of police partisanship, therefore, what is happening is a cruel reminder of the past that should be tossed in the dustbin of history. And when some cowardly commentators hiding behind pseudonyms question our integrity even when in the performance of a labour of love since 2006, I write out of conviction without asking for payment in cash or kind, without receiving contracts from any government, what can one do but to ask for God’s mercy upon them and their ilk?

    We have now reached a new low with the politicisation of the armed forces. Who would have thought that after the near collapse of the institution of the military between 1993 and 1998, our men and women in uniform would be toying again with the fire of shame and ignominy? Since 1998, there appears to have been a deliberate effort to give the military a new lease of life and apart from some random cases of individual acts of indiscipline in public, the institution seemed to have held its own. That is until now. Our military is now firmly in the corner of the President with its resources of men and equipment in the service of the ruling party. Evidence 1. Ekiti leaked tape. Evidence 2. Service chiefs’ letter to INEC.

    The leaked tape from the Ekiti election is a clear case of official abuse of power. I pity the hapless Brigadier-General, who was humiliated by political warlords on a mission. Will there be an investigation? Hell No! The President has nominated as Minister Musiliu Obanikoro, former Minister of State for Defence, who resigned his position to contest the Lagos State PDP primary, and who has been implicated heavily in this sordid affair of conspiracy to influence the outcome of democratic elections.

    The nomination, coming two weeks before the original date of the elections and barely four months to the end of his presidency, calls into question again the thinking of the President and the rationale behind it? Is it for Obanikoro to have an official standing to repeat his Ekiti feat in the general elections? Or is it a signal to us that there will be no elections and the President is going nowhere? In any case, it is now up to the Senate to conduct a proper investigation of the tapes and to ascertain the involvement of the nominee in the Ekiti electoral heist. For the Senate to grant Obanikoro confirmation hearing without a preliminary investigation is to shirk its constitutional responsibility.

    With regard to their derailment of the elections, there are urgent questions for the service chiefs and the NSA to answer:

    First, did they or did they not confirm few days before their February 6 letter to INEC that they were ready to provide security for the elections on February 14 and 28?

    Second, if the answer to the first question is yes, when did it occur to them that they were no longer in a position to provide security for the elections? What was the basis of this new realisation?

    Third, Professor Jega reported that the new operation against Boko Haram was to begin on February 14. Does it make sense to disclose this strategic information about the start date of such an important operation? And what makes this (election) date the most appropriate for the military to begin its operation?

    Fourth, Professor Jega quoted the letter from service chiefs as suggesting that the six weeks extension was only a “first instance” request, implying that a further extension may be requested. Does this mean that the elections may be cancelled since the military does not want to be “distracted” by any elections? And how is this not a coup against democracy?

    For my fellow democrats, especially those who applaud the extension, I have a few questions as well.

    First, if you look down into your democratic heart, reflect dispassionately on what is going on, and you eschew your candidate preferences or party leaning, can you honestly say that you are in tune with what just happened to the polity?

    Second, are you able to separate your hatred for a person from your principled stand on democratic values?

    Third, in a different setting, where the dramatis personae are different, can you honestly and conscientiously assent to the impunity that has characterised this regime in the last four years?

    I ask these questions from a conscience that is absolutely clear. In 2009 I wrote several columns objecting to the North’s insistence on having one of its own complete the term of Yar’Adua. I vigorously applauded the new “transformation agenda” of Jonathan in 2011. What changed for me was my inability to defend a President that has all but destroyed the very foundation upon which he was elected to power.

    Whether the President was ill-advised does not really matter. The buck stops at his desk. First, the suspension of Salami and Sanusi was an abuse of power. Second, the intervention in the affairs of the Nigeria Governors Forum was the height of fascism. Third, the triumph of corruption in the war against it is a national disgrace. Fourth, the loss of territory and girl-citizens is a national humiliation. Assume the President is given the benefit of the doubt that the last is too complicated due to international terrorism run amok. I hold him fully responsible for the first three. What prevented his party from presenting a different candidate from the Southsouth?

  • Will Jonathan postpone Nigeria?

    The fountainhead of our corruption is traceable to the spiritual corruption flowing out from Aso Rock…when a man is afflicted with spiritual corruption, he corrupts everything around him. He prefers to bring near himself, men who are tainted and morally depraved, and easily blackmailed or manipulated… one of the ugliest attributes of the spiritually corrupt is greed. Greed for power…

    Chief Sunday Awoniyi, pioneer chairman of PDP in a speech to Northern senators in 2005

    The spirits of Aso Rock Despite reassurances carefully handed out by President Goodluck Jonathan during the President Chat last Wednesday, the auguries are still dim. He had assured Nigerians that he would hand over power if he was defeated in the coming elections; he vowed that there was no plan to sack INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega and that he would not sack him. Notably, he said: “The rumour that I will not hand over or that I am scheming to prolong my tenure are insinuations; they are not true…it is quite unfortunate that so much wrong information is floating in the system.”

    Yes, President Jonathan may have doused some of the tension in the polity, but one has been around long enough to read the emerging trends and to doubt whether in spite of his words, is the man of the moment in Aso Rock, not marching down the same road to Golgotha that almost all his predecessors trod?

    My apprehension follows from the above quote from Chief Awoniyi, the late Aro of Mopa, among the last true statesmen to grace this land. He was speaking about the then occupant of the Presidential Villa, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. One also speaks from experience having reported (as a journalist) all previous occupants of Aso Rock from inception and witnessing nearly all of them go bad and leaving in ignominy. From the first, Ibrahim Babangida; to Ernest Shonekan, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and now Goodluck Jonathan.

    Speaking of Aso Rock, “spiritual corruption” and damaged leaders, there was a long-standing rumour that interred in the very foundation of Aso Rock during its construction, were evil sacrifices. Besides, every occupier was said to have implanted, his own fetish ‘fortifications’. So even though our presidents have been either Muslims or Christians, their professed faith were merely ceremonial and for photo opportunities. In other words, each one of them reportedly had interred, some ‘black power’ of his own within the precincts of Aso Rock.

    Mind you, one has no confirmation for these rumour, but one has reasons to suggest that the combined force of these dark powers would render any occupant of Aso Rock confused, bereft of the true spirit of God. One really cannot find any other reason why honour, dignity and moral leadership have seem to desert our leaders while they are ensconced in that hallowed abode.

    Babangida, who laid the now suspect foundation of Aso Rock, would not leave office. He almost brought Nigeria to her knees in 1993 and practically had to run away under a gale of global opprobrium. Abacha, who snatched power from Shonekan, was a more pathetic figure, preferring tragic end game. His remains were hurriedly evacuated in a wooden plank from Aso Rock. Obasanjo, after two terms, tried to suborn the legislature and damage the constitution in order to continue in power by hook or crook.

    We thought we had been through the worst; we thought that those men were perfidious just because they were mere soldiers without much learning and culture. We thought they behaved the way they did because they were philistine in nature with no understanding about the finer ideals of life, governance and nationhood. But we may be mistaken; we fear we are back to that ugly crossroads once again.

    Jonathan’s road to Golgotha For some of us who had the misfortune of reporting and writing about the stupid behaviours of our past presidents, we cannot help but feel a certain sense of déjà vu in President Jonathan’s current contrivance to hang on to power at all cost. We can smell the signs from miles away. A last minute postponement of elections which had been scheduled for nearly four years is reminiscent of the antics of Gen. Babangida in his maradonic days. We see Abacha and Obasanjo come alive once again when we see soldiers and amoured tanks raised at every turn to intimidate the citizenry.

    Surely Jonathan saw defeat stare him in the face; he saw an overwhelming Buhari momentum; he saw that Nigerians are sick of his failed presidency and that they were poised to make that change through the ballot. What Jonathan has done by that singular stroke of subterfuge, by that sleight of hand is to try to postpone Nigeria. And he would even postpone our lives, if it required that to hang on to power – not minding the huge costs, individual and corporate, to the nation. If only he could adjourn Nigeria sans his presidency, what a great magical world it would be. This distortion, this abrupt dis-alignment of our very lives brings up pictures of Babangida calling off the June 12, 1993 election mid-victory; it reminds me of Abacha’s tanks on the streets of Lagos chasing and killing protesting Nigerians; it brings back the picture of Obasanjo bribing lawmakers with tens of millions of naira to twist the constitution in his favour.

    I am reminded once again of those bleary days when Nigeria was a pariah state and all the countries of the world condemned her leaders and kept them at arm’s length; away from the conclave of decent people. It was the foolish, heady days of Abacha when he thought he could do whatsoever he wanted with Nigeria and the citizenry and get away with it. But the world ostracised him and it was only a question of time.

    So, so sad that Jonathan contemplated that road to perdition in today’s world. Defying the will of the people and the world community, he has forced the abrupt adjournment of a poll that had been on the card for four years. Who would tell him that it is a failure of his government that this election is deferred; it is an injury to his office as commander-in-chief that his service chiefs had the temerity to declare that they could not guarantee security after a year of a scheduled election and he did not or could not summarily dismiss them all if truly that excuse was not his contrivance

    Elders with new-found virility This presidency needs no advice anymore; this presidency seems far gone, lost and irredeemable. But the greater tragedy is that most of the elders have gone too. Having acquired a new-found virility, when they are not taking young new wives, they are drumming the drums of war. Elders who are at the departure lounges of their lives are drinking the strong wine of perdition and seeking to leave the country in a ruble.

    How could elders like EK Clark, Alex Ekwueme, Ayo Ladigbolu, Chukwuemeka Ezeife and Walter Ofonagoro ask that INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, should resign this late in the day? When he conducted the elections in 2011 and it favoured Jonathan, it was okay. Today he is not good enough and each day a man on such a serious national assignment is ridiculed and blackmailed?

    Now who will tell Jonathan that losing an election is not the end of life? Who will admonish him that it is better to lose an election than to lose your honour, your soul and your country? Who will call him back from the road to Golgotha? What more to say than to inform our dear President that all the fellows before him who trod this path never ‘returned’: at least not in one piece. He must ask Babangida, Abacha, Shonekan and Obasanjo; if only he could learn from their folly.

    Kayode Fayemi @50: welcome to the golden age

    This is ushering John Kayode Fayemi to the golden age as he turned 50 last week. An intellectual and gentleman of immense culture and breeding, he tried to finesse Nigeria’s politics but whoever gives pearls to swines?
    As stated on this forum in the run up to the Ekiti election, to compare Fayemi with Fayose is to compare light with darkness. That Mr. Ayo Fayose, the ‘alleged’ governor of Ekiti State, could as much as stand up for an election in today’s Nigeria is a searing affront to the civilised world. And that he was declared winner would unravel someday as a cold-blooded betrayal of democracy if not a cardinal sin that both heaven and earth would continue to reject until the very plot and plotters have been exposed and shamed.
    Well, we urge you JK, to continue to hold out in quiet dignity; welcome to the age of defiant grey hairs and muted strengths.

  • From Moscow to Siberia

    From Moscow to Siberia

    Say oh Lord! The Sovereigof all dominions! You bestow power to whoever You wish and withdraw power from whoever You wish; You exalt whoever You wish and abase whoever you wish; In Your Hand lies all that is GOOD. You embed the night in the day and embed the day in the night; You bring forth the living from the dead as You bring forth the dead from the living. You grant sustenance to whoever you wish beyond reckoning” Q. 3: 26-27

     

    Nights are pregnant. They invariably give birth to wonders during the days. All pleasant or sad events found in the records of history are often conceived in the night. The belly of nights is a mystery that cannot be easily unraveled   through the success or failure of human dreams. Man is a mere spectator watching the environmental drama going on in the theatre of life. He only reacts to the drama randomly as it affects his interest. The main actor in that drama is the phenomenon called destiny.

     

    Rein of Power

    In history, great empires and nations have reputation for rising to the pinnacle of their glory at a time. They also have the notoriety of falling unexpectedly to the abyss of life’s dungeon at another time when they might have reached the elasticity limit of their power wielding. And as it is with nations so it is with individual rulers.

    In this, what obtained in the past still obtains in the present. And this confirms that humans are like flakes of history they rise today and fall tomorrow according to the dictates of momentary tempest. Yet the world surges ahead without looking back at them.

    That is the situation which an Arab poet once observed very closely and put succinctly in a famous couplet that has become an axiom through the centuries. This is how he put it:

    “Those are the situations of life as you can witness them; Whoever is gladdened by a situation today must be ready to be saddened by many other situations tomorrow”

    There seems to be a striking similarity between the events and developments that precipitated the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic (USSR) and those prevailing in Nigeria today. In terms of culture, tradition, growth and development, the two countries may not have much in common but they significantly seem to share a common destiny that pilots their affairs separately. Like the defunct Soviet Union, Nigeria was forcefully fused together as a country in 1914 and subjected to the hegemony of the British colonial empire.

    That was three years before the USSR came into existence as an amalgamated country in 1917.

    Last year, Nigeria was said to be 100 years old in theory. But in practice, she remains a teething country crawling like a tortoise towards an unstable boat with which she aims to sail across the rough sea of life.

     

    The Soviet Experience

    For the Soviet Union, the 74 years between 1917 and 1991 can be described as the most turbulent in the 20th century history. That period symbolised the nearest signal towards the end of human world.

    It was an era of blind ambition for mutual destruction between the capitalist West and the communist East of Europe through unbridled competition for unwarranted armament. It was an era that kept the existing historians of that time as busy as the bees in an active apiary.

    In those years, the competition between capitalism which later came to be championed by the US and communism as championed by the USSR was so fierce that the entire world was incessantly restive. It took only the grace of Allah to keep our world peacefully propelled till date.

    That frightening ideological Cold War however took a dramatic turn in December 1991 when the world watched helplessly as the awesomely mighty Soviet Union suddenly crumbled like a pack of cards and amazingly disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. According to analysts, “Its collapse was hailed by the West as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and an evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had swung ceaselessly like a pendulum over the two superpowers since the end of World War II. Indeed, the breakup of the Soviet Union transformed the entire world’s political situation thereby leading to a complete reformulation of political, economic and military realignments all over the globe”.

    What led to that monumental historical event deserves a good study by students of international affairs but that is of less concern here than its political implications for contemporary Nigeria. Going the memory lane, one may recall that the Soviet Union was built on approximately the same territory as that of the Old Russian Empire that it succeeded. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 that brought the USSR into existence, the newly-formed government developed a Socialist philosophy with gradual and eventual transition to Communism. The philosophy was intended to overcome ethnic differences and create one monolithic state based on a centralised economic and political system. However, the iron rein of power led the government to transform USSR into a totalitarian state in which the Communist leadership had total control.

     

    The Gorbachev Debacle

    By the time the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, rose to power in 1985, the country had slipped into a situation of severe stagnation, with deep economic and political problems which required a ‘surgical operation’ to effectively confront and overcome. Recognising this situation on assumption of power, Gorbachev introduced a two-tier policy of reform. One was glasnost which meant freedom of speech; the other was perestroika meaning economic reform. And based on these two policies, Gorbachev released many political prisoners in February 1987 and called for the blank pages of Soviet history to be filled. He also renounced the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’ saying the Kremlin would no longer intervene militarily in the Eastern Bloc’s internal affairs. This was  interpreted to mean that the states in the Eastern bloc would henceforth become economically self-sufficient.

    Glasnost was the cornerstone of alleviating Cold War tension aimed at drastically reducing Soviet military spending and creating an international reputation of a liberal leadership for Gorbachev.

    In doing these, what Gorbachev did not realise was that by granting complete freedom of expression to the people, he was unwittingly removing the carpet of governance from his own feet. This meant that he inadvertently awakened in the people the insatiable economic yearnings and political emotions that had been bottled up for decades which could now become powerful enough to burst the bubble.

    Unfortunately, Gorbachev’s policy of economic reform (perestroika) did not bring the immediate results which he had envisage and publicly predicted. The Soviet people, having become aggressively impatient, seized the opportunity of their newly granted freedom of speech to criticise Gorbachev for his failure to improve the country’s economy.

    Thus, Gorbachev’s miscalculation led to un-foretold collapse of the Soviet Union at a time when some dozens of countries around the world were looking up to USSR for rescue from the claw of Western imperialism. Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union with the intention of transforming the economy and easing Cold War tension because he realised that the USSR could no longer compete with the United States in the Cold War arms race as its economy had become significantly dwindled and far weaker than that of its rival.

    While surging ahead with his ‘Reformation Agenda’ of glasnost and perestroika coupled with liberalisation of the Soviet military might, Gorbachev did not realise that what actually sustained communism for a long time in Eastern Europe was the Red Army which became neutralised.

    He strongly believed that with the implementation of his two newly formulated policies the USSR could allow the Warsaw Pact states to operate autonomously without the threat of Soviet military intervention even as those countries remained allies to the Soviet Union.

     

     Brezhnev Doctrine

    Hitherto, Gorbachev’s predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev’s policy towards the Eastern European Bloc, known as the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine,’ had forbidden any democratisation or economic integration with the West amongst Warsaw Pact states. And before Brezhnev, Joseph Stalin had also maintained the Eastern Bloc as Soviet’s satellite states through the threat of force. However brutal those previous policies looked, they were actually the cornerstone of the stability of the Soviet’s Eastern Blocs.  The main reason why the Eastern Europe remained communist and under the Soviet’s sphere of influence, was the use of the Red Army as an instrument of threat.

    By September 1989 when Hungary opened its borders with Austria thereby paving way for East Germans to cross into West Germany through Austria it became obvious that communism was approaching its end. About eleven thousand East Germans thus fled the communist rule which indicated that a vivid anti-communist feeling had begun as people took to the streets to show their resentment. This culminated in the collapse of the Berlin Wall on the 9th of November, 1989 an incident that eventually led to the unification of Germany and the collapse of communism.

    The West German population enjoyed a much higher living standard than that of the East, and therefore East Germany was willing to join West German governance. The East German thinking allowed the then Chancellor of West Germany, Helmut Kohl, to reunify Germany under Western conditions. This meant a reunified Germany would join NATO and the European Community. Gorbachev planned to allow cooperation between Europe’s capitalist and communist camps, but did not anticipate East Germany to join the capitalist camp outright.

    That historic unification prompted the then President George H.W. Bush of the US to openly proclaim, during a November 1990 speech in Paris, that “the Cold War was over”. Thus, like Gorbachev, Nigeria’s Jonathan allowed a misconception of power by caving in to the parochial opinions of some political and religious rats at the corridor of his power to turn him into an ethnic President and a sectional religious captain both of which have now seriously become his political albatross.

     

     Doctrine of Necessity

    The refusal of many African rulers to learn from the foregoing episodes led to their political downfall and descent into permanent oblivion. Such leaders had taken the will of the people for granted so much that they never thought of any possible downfall for themselves.

    Going the memory lane, we can still recall the political tsunami that swept away such powerful African leaders such as Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Jean Bede Bokasa of Central Africa Republic, Siad Bare of Somalia, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor of Liberia, Laurent Gbagbo of Cote D’Ivoire, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Zainul Abidin of Tunisia and lately Blaise Campaore of Burkina Fasso as well as Saddam Hussein of Iraq. All of these came to power by what was called doctrine of necessity and they all went by that same doctrine.

     

    Conclusion

    For Nigerian leaders, there are many lessons to learn not only from the rise and fall of the Soviet Union as a country but also from the incidents of the listed past leaders of African States. Those episodes cannot be dismissed with the wave of the hand. It must be remembered that what brought President Jonathan to power in 2009 was the same doctrine of necessity which came up at the instance of the sickness and eventual death of President Umar Musa Yar’Adua. And that doctrine is not a mere hired usher. It is rather a political phenomenon that opens and closes the door of power according to necessity. If the door of power is pleasant at its entry point it must not be bitter to exit from it when the time comes.

    When the Bolshevik regime led by Vladimir Lenin zoomed to power like an hurricane in 1917 hardly was it envisaged that it would end the way it did in 1991. Like the defunct Soviet Union, Nigeria is now toying with the tail of a tiger through what is manifestly becoming desperation with impunity. After an unwinding economic and political rigmarole which unprecedentedly precipitated insecurity in the land, the government seems to be reluctant to conduct a general election that had been scheduled over one year ago. The shoddy manner in which that announcement became a policy and the lopsidedness that characterized

    the selection of participants in it as well as the dictatorial tendency it entailed have since polluted the environment with a stench of suspicion.

    Besides ethnic and religious tendencies, two major factors are particularly militating against any doctrine of ‘incumbency must win’ around this time. One is the current fragility of the country as engendered by corruption and insecurity. The other is the will of the people to collectively pilot their affairs through the use of their ballot papers. The one is as sensitive as the other. In such a situation, to continue to pretend not to see or feel the presence of a surging furnace through a pervading fog is to be determined to sit on a keg of gunpowder without minding its consequences. Whoever rides on the back of a lion must think of how to alight from it. A Nigerian Gorbachev at this precarious time may be too costly for our country. God save Nigeria. If other leaders have failed in such a venture let no one think that he/she can be an exception. Tsunami knows neither ethnicity nor religion and sheer desperado with impunity can never be a panacea. Those who find no comfort in Moscow should try a sojourn in Siberia.

    •NB: This article is republished here today based on popular demand by readers.