The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • Christ, Nigeria is dying!

    As anyone out there? We are dying, our nation, Nigeria, is sinking … slowly and steadily we are heading for the abyss. There is nothing else we can do it seems, than to invoke divine intervention. Now that it seems very obvious that our nation is bound for a violent extinction, people of God must get on their knees that we may pray ourselves out of this calamity long foretold. For so long our God has been derided and abused; our God has been termed a foreign God – some even say we pray too much, that we are too religious and that there are too many churches. Time is now to prove that our God lives among the hosts of heaven. And He does mighty things still.

    Are there no praying men and women left in the land? We must pray for divine guidance for the people at the helm.  We have been told that famine looms; does that suggest that they are oblivious of the current raging fire of hunger and deprivation in the land? If there is so much lack and privation now, then famine will be hell when it eventually comes in January as predicted.

    The presidency tells Nigerians that unless farmers stopped ‘exporting’ grains across the borders, we all are on the verge of starving to death for real famine comes. Let us pray that their minds are turned to the fact that famine issues from a lack of rain and sustained drought and not caused by smuggling.

    Let us seek divine understanding upon our government to realise that farmers shipping trailer loads of grains across the borders can produce even more surplus with a little more help; that government could actually buy up the grains from the farmers if it had functional silos and if there were marketing boards. We must pray that the government stops crying wolf and understudies the various farming seasons. It’s probably about two planting seasons since this government took over. How has it managed the clearing, planting, weeding, harvesting, storage and marketing of agric products across the land? We must pray to our God to remove a famine of ideas which this government suffers from.

    Where are the Moses’ of Nigeria to pray intense prayers binding these galloping prices of nearly every commodity in the land? The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says inflation has hit 18 per cent. This of course is on paper. In the market and in our stomach, it must have reached 80 per cent. Commonest staple food, such as garri, rice, beans, yam and cooking oil are almost out of the reach of the poor. Prices of common over the counter drugs too are going out of the reach of the people. Sachet water, which was N5.00 last year, is now N20.00; up by 150 per cent.

    This is the hour of true believers; this time calls for a Hannah who can pray in a drunken fashion. We must pray ceaselessly that our government is awake to the right decisions that impact on the people. For instance, one year after a drastic petrol price increase, the promised palliatives to the people seem to have been forgotten. Instead, they speak of jacking up the price even more. Let us pray Nehemiah prayer for our President to remember to reduce his aircraft fleet from seven to one or a maximum of two. We know how scandalous the cost of maintaining the fleet in the last 18 months is. We must pray enough to make him realise that Air Ivoire, which flies into Nigeria to earn dollars, has only five aircraft in its fleet.

    Let us pray blood-drenched prayers to remind our President that a wise man does not fight on all fronts. At the moment, he engages Boko Haram, the Niger Delta militants, IPOB/MASSOB, the Senate and of course the corruption battles on all facets of the polity. No one can win a war fighting so many battles. Meanwhile, the country is sinking fast and the people are dying. He took about six months to appoint his cabinet, let us afford him spiritual unction to help him appoint board members now so that they can help drive the economy.

    We must invoke the fire of prayers upon errant members of the National Assembly, the judiciary, the executive cabinet and the state governments. If our God is on the throne still, we must bombard them with enough spiritual missiles to keep them sleepless until they do the right things.

    Let us visit them who still live large with fiery prayers; those buying exotic cars, popping champagne, junketing in private jets and appropriating hefty pensions, while workers die in penury; without salaries and pensions.

    Even Jesus prayed through the night; shall we continue to slumber when our leaders seem to invoke perdition upon us all? Fellow compatriots, the time has come to call up spiritual hailstorms; if we cannot go to the barricades, we can at least go on our knees. Imaging millions of knees bended at noon everyday… stirring the heavens!

    Editors against human trafficking

    At a time when everyone seems thoroughly worsted, who cares about the handicapped, the lost and hopeless? Well, maybe the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). The NGE under the zestful leadership of Mrs. Funke Egbemode seeks to rekindle the campaign against the scourge of human trafficking.

    Though the fight against this evil may have grown cold, so to speak, the evil has continued to wax muscular, deeply devastating our society. What with our dour economic conditions which has taken the thunder out of the cause.

    But the NGE is poised to rekindle the fire of this fight. On December 6, a book, EIGHT EVILS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING, will be presented in Abuja as a launch pad for this renewed campaign. The book is co-authored by yours truly. Watch this space for more information on this gesture.

  • The seed of terror

    The seed of terror

    Preamble

    “Nights are pregnant. They give birth to wonders in the days. What we look is not what we see. Thus, our focus becomes dimmer and dimmer as the days and nights of life roll out spirally but gradually into permanent oblivion. And the living man is pronounced dead.”

    The results of America’s presidential election last Wednesday have confirmed the assertion in the above Arab poem. We live in a world that is both dynamic and ephemeral. Nothing is predictable with precision.

     Effect of language

    Yoruba language may have no plural or gender in its structural syntax. It may be poor in vocabulary and clumsy in grammar. But it is surely not lacking in proverbs and mythology. The speakers of that Kwa language can hardly express a sentence without enriching it with two or three proverbs. One of its famous proverbs has become an axiom in theory and practice. And many other languages have borrowed it for a token of experience. It goes thus: “A toddler who insists on preventing his mother from sleeping will surely not enjoy the serenity of the night rest”. This subtle axiom has its equivalence in English language. “A drastic problem requires a drastic solution”.

     Language and culture

    Language is the root of all human cultures. It is the means of communicating thoughts, ideas and experiences. A people without language can be said to be without culture. Take a man out of his culture and he will immediately become like a fish out of water. His next action will be to rebel against the new but strange environment. That is the kind of situation that is cloaking the world in form of terrorism today.

    From time immemorial, language has been like a double edged sword. At a time it is used to attack. At another, it becomes an instrument of defence. Concord and conflict as well as love and hatred emanate from the use of language. Without language, there can be no marriage or divorce. Neither can there be business or even government. As a matter of fact, no tribe or nation can lay claim to civilisation in the absence of language.

     Language in Islam

    In Islam, language is everything human, including life and death. That is why a stammering prophet like Musa (Moses) would need an interpreter like Harun (Aaron) in his mission. Buddhists, Hindus, Judaists, Christians and Muslims, all proclaim Holy Books in one form or another, through their endowed languages. Not only must a prophet possess the power of language, he must also be eloquent in it. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) recognised the enormous power naturally embedded in language and warned the Muslims thus: ‘Tongue is like sword, if you fail to hold it, it may hold you down”.

    A person’s first language is called mother tongue while a standardised dialect within a tribal language is said to be ‘received’. If there is one aspect of culture that is not substitutable, it is language. The greatest havoc ever done to any group of people in history, especially through slave trade and colonialism, is language substitution. Nothing is more enslaving than substitution of language. Once language is renounced or substituted, nothing else is left of culture with another language. The black citizens of the world, outside Africa, otherwise classified as Diaspora, are victims of this indelible psychological trauma.

    English speaking countries

    There are only four countries in the world today with English language as their mother tongue. These are Britain, the United States, Australia and Ireland. What would have been the fifth country is only partially English speaking. And that is Canada where other languages such as French and Spanish are spoken. All other countries that speak English as lingua franca today only adopted it. Believing English to be the language of modern civilisation, the rest of the world have tacitly adopted it either as a lingua franca or as language of business. Yet the natural speakers of the language don’t seem to be satisfied with this development.

     Evil axis

    With the role which America played in bringing an end to slavery in the 19th century, the world had expected the self-styled ‘God’s own Country’ to be the messiah of the modern age. But that expectation has turned forlorn. Rather than championing the course of peace and tranquility, America has replaced Germany of the 1930s/40s as the greatest threat to humanity in the 21st century. And she has found an inseparable ally in Britain to form an ‘Evil Axis’ of untamable aggressors.

    Both English speaking countries had jointly piloted the modern world into a technological civilisation culminating in what is now known as global village. But they have used the same technology to turn themselves into ‘policemen of the world’.

    There is no part of the world today in which a suffocating effect of their presence is not felt. Like a pair of scissors, both countries have jointly subjected many nations and races to untold terror and humiliation thereby forcing countries to disintegrate and compelling friendly tribes to become foes all to further the course of their capitalist interest. Thus, they have planted the seed of terrorism in all corners of the world either in the name of capitalism or in the disguise of democracy.

    In the process of doing this, they have drawn the wrath of many nations, groups and individuals who now tend to react with venomous reprisal. If the militant liberators in Ireland or the patriotic defenders of motherland in Falkland are quiet today, it is not because they have been placated. The fact is that they have not got the power with which to demand for their rights. When they do, the situation may change.

    Propaganda

    Now, using their propaganda machinery to bully on the rest of the world, the US and Britain have almost succeeded in branding any revengeful reaction to their brigandage as religious terrorism. What was the religious connection in Britain’s claim of the Falkland Island far away in Argentina in the early 1980s? What is religious in America’s capturing of the ruling President Noriega of Panama in his country and taking him for trial in the US where he was jailed and had to languish in prison for years? What is religious in forcing monolingual countries like Korea and Cambodia to break into North and South? What is religious in invading Iraq even after it became evident that the poor country was not harbouring any deadly weapons as alleged? What actually qualifies the US, Britain and other Western countries to be nuclear powered and disqualify others?

    Even if a country chooses to use religion as her guide in governance as in the case of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran how does that affect Britain and the US thousands of miles away? Is Northern Ireland not a Christian country like Britain? Why the aggression against that country? And is Britain not using religion as an instrument of governance? Why does the Queen of England combine the two designations of Head of State and Head of the Church of England?

    If the truth must be told, the real problem of the world today is the greedy willingness of Britain and America to dominate the economy of other countries in a manner of brigandage. And that has led the duo to adopt military might as a means of cowing down some countries while subjecting others to imperial terror.

     Brunt bearers

    It is rather unfortunate that those who are bearing the brunt of these evil actions are innocent people who are going about their businesses legitimately. Otherwise, neither America nor Britain would have deserved any sympathy for the various terrorist attacks on certain targets in the two countries. Their plight would have been taken for merely reaping the fruits of their labour.

    Religion is being used as a scapegoat in the world today, not by Afghanistan or Ireland, but by Britain and the US because that is their most convenient alibi for unbridled aggression against weaker countries. No sooner had Donald Trump emerged as the new American President than Israel announced that with the new leadership in America the world should forget any thought of a Palestinian State. That statement was made subsequent to Trump’s disclosure that over 12 million people, especially Muslims might be expelled from the US.

     Who wants to die?

    No one loves to die deliberately in Palestine or in Iraq or in Afghanistan or in Ireland. But when you are forced to live without essence, the tendency is to ask yourself the need to live at all. And, to answer such a question some people might desperately conclude that if they must not live, those who are forcing them to die must also not live. “Man is not innately wicked, but when an attempt is made to consign him to the scrap-heap he shows resentment in no uncertain terms”. Terrorism begets terrorism. But what is one nation’s terrorism is another nation’s heroism.

    Allah warns against corruption and the acts of brigandage in chapter 8:25 of the Qur’an thus: “And guard against calamity that may afflict not only the wrong doers (but even the innocent ones among you). Know that Allah’s punishment can be very severe”.

    Solution

    How can we change this evil trend? This, perhaps, is the new reality which dawned on a former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, when he was about to exchange baton with his predecessor, Tony Blair, some years ago.

    In a chat with Labour Party members in Manchester shortly before he assumed office as Prime Minister, Brown said he recognised the fact that global extremism could never be defeated by military force alone. His words:

    “Our foreign policy in the years ahead will reflect the truth that to isolate and defeat terrorist extremism now involves more than military force….it (terrorism) is a struggle of ideas and ideals that in the coming years will be waged and won for the hearts and minds here at home and around the world”. Many well-meaning, foresighted Nigerians have drummed the same warning to the ears of Nigerian government. But a government that is wiser than its subjects will never heed such a warning.

    When he was making the above statement, Brown never thought that Britain would soon come under a new terrorist attack. But just a few days after that famous speech, Glasgow Airport became a target of terrorist attack. And that was on the very day he formally assumed office as Prime Minister. What became clearer especially with September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, was that no country is actually immune to terrorist attack. History has not cited a single example of terrorism which was conquered on the battle field. Thus, since no power on earth can claim to have monopoly of terror peace would better be achieved by sharing the wisdom of others through dialogue in ending terrorism.

    Reality

    That is the reality to which the West, especially Britain and the US, had deliberately been blind. If that reality had become the spectacle with which the West viewed the world before now peace would have returned to its rightful place as the reigning force of human universe and the idea of manufacturing and supplying weapons to some people against others would have stopped permanently. Now, with the emergence of a new ‘Fuhrer’ in the US, hat reality seems to have become daydream.

    The religious world was once peaceful until America renounced her policy of isolationism in 1945. It took that country to join Britain in using the Press to invent labelling names and acronyms to derogate certain religions (particularly Islam) and to demoralise their adherents. One major fact which the world is yet to realise is that every religion is built on the foundation of culture.

    No religion can be attacked to the exclusion of its culture. And nothing in the life of man is called civilisation outside culture. That is why some people are ready to die when their religion comes under a violent attack from those who are ignorant of it.

    The Greeks, the Romans, the Assyrians and the Persians of the ancient world did not fight wars because of religion. Their motives were material but today they have all gone into irreversible oblivion. Today’s people who are bent on exhibition of power will eventually follow their way. Materialism is nothing but vanity which is invariably ephemeral. That is why Prophet Muhammad (SAW) or any of his disciples never crossed swords with Christians when they were alive.

    The very first international wars fought for religious reason which by necessity pitched Muslims against Christians were the Crusade Wars. And these were caused by sheer miscarriage of information. Yet, about one   thousand years after those unwarranted wars, their scar still remains indelible in the world today.

    Conclusion

    Violence on the basis of religion can terminate lives. It can destroy properties and ruin cities and towns as well as cause dislocations and relocations of people and settlements. But it can never win hearts nor change conviction. Truth is bitter and thus repugnant to people of falsehood.

    But despite all these, oppressed Muslims are ready to join other oppressed people of the world in welcoming a new initiative from the West with a view to forging peace for all and sundry. Donald Trump’s America must tread softly to ensure a peaceful continuity of the modern world.

  • Shame on you, America

    Yuck, you suck, you suck like hell! The big, bad guy we all hate to hate has finally gone whacko. You finally stood up to us in your live image: America, your name is Trump, yes, Donald Trump. You didn’t cast your vote – no, for that would be the craziest election ever – you merely cast yourself in your true mould which is Donald Trump. The cyber age cowboy; half honcho, much bravura like a street college graduate!

    Gee, there you go – a scowling, swashbuckling 70-year-old with a shock of annoying hair. And aren’t you annoying? You are largely half-illiterate and you don’t even know it. Not because you are not about the sharpest mind around, but because of your limited world view and your awkward methods.

    Now how can it be that in your so-called election, the majority voice, the popular vote does not win at the polls but a college of about 600 people decides the fate of about 300 million people? Isn’t that a travesty?

    Now thousands of shell-shocked citizens are on the streets of New York, Los Angeles, Houston Texas and numerous other beautiful corners of this land, chanting “Not my president!” He ain’t my idea of a Prez either. Oh, what a calamity, America you are at war with America. Ah, America you are now confronted by your own very Jekyll and Hyde moment; a moment your soul is rent in two. Today, you are Hillary (America) Clinton and Donald (America) Trump – the very best of your system and the very banal and warped. You have chosen banality over rationality and you are gonna have to deal with it for at least four years. What a pity.

    You sure have a caper in your hands don’t you? I wager that if you are lucky, you might just get away merely bruised and dented, otherwise, you may just have suckered yourself into the beginning of the end of the American age. What an ominous coincidence: 9/11 and 11/9.

    Oh what a disgrace! How could you America, vote a president who is friend with that diminutive dictator? How could you vote a president who is a tax evader? I thought that was enough to disqualify anyone? How did the FBI split many hairs about the silly matter of private emails and allowed tax-dodging?

    Oh America, how did you trump (yes, trump) yourself so and blew a chance in a millennium to make history; to install a great woman POTUS; the first and probably the best of her kind. More baffling is the statistic that more women voted Donald than voted Hillary. And how could that be? Yet women speak of gender equality and here they fluffed a chance to take the number one seat on earth?

    Why did I think no American woman would vote Donald, the self-confessed p—sy-grabber and who is proud of it? To think that you, American woman voted a woman abuser; who can fathom the wondrous ways of the feminine gender? It’s true after all that bad guys win fair hearts; read fatal attraction.

    Well, so long as it isn’t a fated election for you, America. But you sure sucked it to the rest of the world, America-crazed world. If it were up to my country Nigeria, Hillary would have been president-elect last year not last Tuesday. You won’t believe it but some of us here shed a tear too for Hillary. For reasons not quite clear and rational to us, we are Democrats here.

    You burst the asses of our prophets and pundits here as well, showing them up as profit (eers) and junkies. And shall we say that American stupidity has its own uses too. Next time our prophets speak, we now know to cross-check with the Chinese monkey that predicted this Trump tragedy right… against 150 to zero odds.

    But hey Yankee, now that you’ve got everyone one’s monkey up, what are you gonna do? Ha, ha!

     

    Senate and the Magu travesty

    It will amount to a travesty of justice and a taint on the 8th Senate if Mr. Ibrahim Magu is not confirmed as substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). It is almost a year since President Muhammadu Buhari sent Magu’s name to the Senate.

    Not a word from the Senate and Magu’s acting status would soon elapse automatically, making his position a nullity. This is not acceptable. The Senate of the Federal Republic cannot choose and pick who to confirm or act based only on its own whims. We suspect foul play here.

    Magu is not without flaws of his own, but he is eminently qualified; he has done a damn good job of his extremely tough assignment so far. He should not only be confirmed, he should get a written commendation if our Senate were peopled by honourable men.

    So much to say yet, but let’s just note for now that the Magu matter is deeper than it seems and may well define this Senate’s life more than any other issue.

  • An unambiguous message

    An unambiguous message

    Opalaba’s call woke me up on Wednesday morning. “What just happened?” he queried. I knew that his question was about the result of the United States presidential election. But the true answer was that I didn’t know. Of course he was furious.

    I explained to my friend that I did not follow the result because I retired to bed at 9:30 pm after a few results trickled in. For a while, Clinton and Trump appeared to be in a game of seesaw in Ohio and Florida. My blood pressure was rising. I decided it was enough and retired upstairs. Yeye also did. But she decided to watch more. So I moved to another bedroom and slept peacefully in ignorance until the phone rang.

    “Well, you lost!” my friend announced. “What do you mean I lost? I didn’t contest any election!” I angrily responded. Of course, my head spun and my heart took a beating. “Relax!” I told myself. Opalaba sensed my distress and wisely hung up.

    I ran to Yeye: “So Hillary lost?” “Yeah, it wasn’t even close”, my wife responded. She decided not to wake me up when the election was called for Trump because it was not worth it. “Oh, well. It’s alright. It’s not the end of the world”, I intoned.

    Hoping that the shock would have subsided, Opalaba called back a few minutes later. “But what happened?” “Now, I know who won and who lost. But I don’t know how it happened,” I replied. “I am sure that the pundits and the pollsters will have some explanation why they were all so wrong with their forecasts and predictions.”

    Not willing to let go, Opalaba volunteered his own ideas, none of which I found persuasive because they all fed on conspiracy theories.

    My friend suggested that pollsters got it all wrong for two reasons. First, they substituted their own judgments for the opinions of their subjects, thus misrepresenting the position of the respondents. I found this ridiculous because it suggested that those professionals were fake. That was an unfair pronouncement on people who devote their lives to making accurate predictions and who had been successful at it in previous elections.

    The other reason my friend gave for the failure of the pollsters was that the subjects outsmarted them by telling them what they wanted to hear or simply hiding from them their true views. Why would this be so? Opalaba theorised that, given the negative media image of Trump, many educated whites, including suburban women, were ashamed to declare their support for him in face-to-face or phone interviews by pollsters. This was probably why the only major poll that predicted accurately a Trump victory was the one by USC/Los Angeles Times, which was conducted on the Internet.

    On this last point, Opalaba was probably hitting on something that pollsters will have to examine in the days and weeks to come. But I am not sure that it is true. America is a free country and the idea that educated citizens would hide their preference to avoid shame is ridiculous. Thousands of people flock to Trump rallies with bravado. What may have happened was that many of them were left out in the various surveys, thus skewing the outcome.

    At any rate, despite my friend’s Monday Quarterbacking regarding what might have been with accurate polling, I reminded him that it was needless to cry over spilled milk.

    Of course, that was just the beginning. Opalaba was not done.

    “It’s alright. We will leave polling to pollsters. Now the real question is what message did America just send to the world? I believe that the result reflects an unflattering image of a nation that is still very sexist”, he suggested. “America is simply not ready for a female president.” “Look at it this way”, my friend continued. “Hillary Clinton has been described as the best prepared candidate in a pool of candidates since 1992 to lead the country as its president. Yet she was rejected at the polls in favour of Donald Trump who has no political or military experience.”

    To this, I had a simple answer to Opalaba. Women still constitute a majority of the voting bloc in general election in America. If they all rallied to the candidacy of one of their own, Hillary would be president without a doubt. But if they didn’t, can one accuse them of sexism? Perhaps some of them preferred Trump for reasons other than that he is a man. For instance, the fact that he has campaigned on the basis of change and to make America great again, is a factor that many may have considered.

    Of course, that answer just fired the imagination of Opalaba in another direction. “Well, then, the change they wanted was to a country that predated the gains of the 60s through the 90s which the Obama presidency has improved upon considerably. So if it was not sexism, it could be bigotry and racism.”

    “That’s ridiculous”, I responded. “Obama was not on the ticket. It was White Hillary versus White Donald. What has racism got to do with that? And you must remember that one of the promising features of the new America that pollsters and political activists on the progressive side have been hoping to exploit is the growing browning of America. Minority populations have increased in major battleground states and have been a strong pillar of the Democratic Party. Indeed, one of the fears of Republican leaders prior to the election was that Trump was relying too much on white support which they thought cannot win the presidency.”

    “My fear”, I continued, “was that minorities, including Blacks and Latinos, did not turn out to vote in this election in as large numbers as would have made the difference in favour of Hillary. This was especially true of battleground states, such as Florida and Pennsylvania. This is in spite of President and Mrs. Obama’s efforts on the campaign trail.”

    My last point only heightened the temperature of Opalaba as he moved to another conspiracy theory. “Well, then, it must have been the hatred of the Obamas and the determination of his foes to deny him a legacy. Recall that they wanted to make him a one-term president. They failed on that mission. But they must have been appalled by the idea of a third term for him under Hillary.”

    I conceded that Opalaba had a point here. But it must also be put in context. With the exception of the transition from Reagan to Bush Senior, there has not been a repeat of one party having three terms in the White House in the last 20 years. Therefore, this is just a continuation of the trend.

    “But you forgot that Reagan’s high approval rating gave Bush Senior the edge in 1988. Why can’t Obama’s popularity rating give Hillary Clinton an edge this year?” To this, I reminded my friend that Bill Clinton had a higher approval rating in 2000 but that did not help Gore to win the presidency.

    With this, I stopped Opalaba from further theorising while I offered my own ten cents.

    Simply put, there are two issues going on. First, the majority of American voters have a strong feeling that their government’s embrace of the world and its globalising force has left them behind. Many blue collar workers were hit by the 2008 recession and have yet to recover from it. Trade pacts have not had an empowering effect that they needed. Trump spoke to these concerns and they embraced his message of change. The change they desire is for the return of manufacturing jobs that have disappeared from America’s Rust Belt. Trump promised them just that. Now he has to deliver.

    Second, immigration has been the headache of administrations since Ronald Reagan’s compassionate embrace of immigrants and granting amnesty to millions. In the wake of that compassionate conservatism, which George W. Bush made effort to expand, conservatives resisted and blue collar workers across party divide joined them. Trump tapped into this with the promise of a wall along the southern border. Now Trump, in whom they trust, must deliver.

  • $30b loan, not a dime for Southeast

    It’s just as well that the Senate shoved aside the proposed plan by the federal government to borrow about $30 billion. It is hoped that a lot more diligence would be brought to bear on the document. And of course, it is expected that a little more sensitivity and political wisdom is applied in allotting the projects especially as concerns the Southeast zone.

    The president’s expenditure plan to the National Assembly seems patently shoddy and ad-hoc in nature that the only good about it may well be the methodical exclusion and sidetracking of the Southeast. Here are the big ticket projects: Mambila power plant (Northeast); Coastal Railway at the Calabar- Ph deep sea segment (Southsouth); modernisation of Lagos-Ibadan-Kaduna-Kano railway (Southwest-Northcentral-Northwest) and Abuja mass rail transit phase 2. Not even a tangential mention of the Southeast; it surely cannot be an accident.

    This attitude; let’s call it malevolent inequity will eternally set back any country and indeed damage its soul. We will return to it.

    When the federal government announced its intention to borrow such a huge chunk of dollars from multilateral institutions recently, not a few Nigerians were apprehensive. A whirlwind of debate was immediately set off with the house divided down the middle.

    And when the breakdown of projects was released later, the dialogue only gained momentum. One was not moved anyhow by the loan quest because one never thought that Nigeria’s problem was a dire shortage of cash more than a paucity of ideas and the energy to get results in quick time.

    One had said it here several times that even though we have about 50 per cent revenue shortage today, that does not make Nigeria broke and prostrate to the point of frantically scrounging for cash. The refrain from the managers of our economy is: ‘spend ourselves out of recession’. This is the same antidote deployed by the US and her allies way back in 2008 when the West was hit by a violent recession.

    But we ask, though the symptoms may be the same and the problem may bear the same appellation, the prognosis may well differ.

    The US, Japan and some developed countries of the West pumped trillions of dollars in their economies to reflate it all right, but it is basic knowledge that these are well-developed service and production economies that can absorb trillions of dollars in their massive shop-floors and expand their exporting frontiers.

    But Nigeria’s economy is still about 90 per cent import dependent. Again, when you borrow billions of dollars in a state of fiscal indiscipline, the chunk of it would be vired to workers’ emoluments and overheads, importing petroleum products, staple foods, home appliances, service parts for presidential jets, travel allowances, school fees and foreign medical bills.

    Yes, we have outlined projects to be embarked upon, but even this will involve huge importation of materials and machinery. Worse is that most of the so-called projects are not likely to be realised in five years and perhaps another five years to begin to yield revenues if any. Result: we will remain in recession for a long time yet and probably sink deeper because we are not doing the right things.

    Again, I say Nigeria is not broke and liquidity-starved but that government is pursuing the wrong policies. We only need to move aggressively from an import-dependent country to a service-driven and highly productive country.

    Let us start from the very simple and the most basic. President Muhammadu Buhari in one of his pre-inauguration statements promised to revive Nigeria’s national airline upon resumption. But few months in office the story changed to something like flag carrier not our priority, meaning that there was no think-through before the initial pronouncement. More irksome, who worked out the economics of it to determine that it wasn’t priority or cost effective?

    Today, government is bugged down with and must cough out over $600 million foreign currency flight ticket revenues of foreign airlines. If Air Nigeria was flying, this amount will surely be far less plus attendant jobs and technology transfer opportunities. Over 30 African countries have carriers including minnows like Rwanda, Botswana, Mauritania, Gambia, Namibia and Burkina Faso. Among Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Maroc and South African Airlines, the federal government probably has about $200 million unremitted ticket earnings.

    Air Nigeria could have got half of that. And the good news is that it would have cost the country next to nothing to set up if she knows what to do. The African countries running airlines don’t have anything over Nigeria. Now instead of Nigeria becoming a hub for air transport in Africa and taking the best advantage of the sector, we are today stuck with how to pay out huge ticket dollars to other countries’ airlines.

    This is just one example. One can list 12 other strategic interventions this government would have consummated quickly since May 29, 2015, which would in concert, have kept this economy stable if not buoyant. But what we have had and still have are wasted opportunities, inertia and a general lack of a grand vision.

    Are we serious about stopping the massive importation of petroleum products? We could have achieved 50% of that six months ago. Are we focusing the proper attention on agriculture with a target to stop food imports? Are we methodically revamping cocoa, rubber, palm oil and cotton industries? What are the target dates?

    Which serious government borrows money to build power plants, railway lines and roads these days when international concession funds are out there and can be accessed? Nearly all these projects listed for the loan can be built and operated by foreign consortia with private capital. Did anyone around here ever considered international open bids for these projects?

    Finally, on the small matter of excluding the Southeast of Nigeria from this loan bazaar, it must be depressing, if not agonising to people from this part of Nigeria that their zone do not deserve any major project in a loan they would partake equally in paying back. What a pity? What can we say than to conclude that it only reinforces the cast-in-stone mindset we know too well of PMB towards Ndigbo. And as we have said here several times, this most un-presidential behaviour would hound his presidency all the way to the end and impugn his persona even long after his time.

     

    Callousness at Min. of Defence

    With the recent news of mind-boggling malfeasance in the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and what we are still hearing, shall we say that callousness has met corruption? We hear that in Command Schools which are under the Military Education Corps, more than half of their teachers are temporary workers who are paid only about N20, 000 to N30, 000 monthly.

    We also hear that most of these teachers have been in this temporary position for between 10 to 20 years without conversion. Again, we hear most of these teachers are master’s degree holders.

    And how about this? In the past six years, there has not been promotion for teachers in the directorate cadre of Military Education Corps. But this may not be strange except that each year MoD invites hundreds of qualified candidates to Abuja for a four-day phoney promotion interview. And every year for the past six years, the story has been the same: NO VACANCY.

    And the question is: if there was no vacancy to promote to the directorate cadre, why does MoD invite teachers to Abuja from all over the country without one kobo of estacode? In whose interest is this annual jamboree and who is getting rich by it?

    If the Ministry of Education (MoE) conducts the same annual interview and promotes every year; if MoE pays candidates estacode for the Abuja trips why is it different with MoD? Are military schools’ teachers being treated like slaves because they are civilians? Will MoD treat uniformed men this way? Will they withhold military officers’ promotions for six years?

    Apparently, MoD is still not completely clean of corruption yet; it seems to require a further clean sweep.

  • What message will America send?

    What message will America send?

    In November 8, 2016, America, the Beautiful, will make a choice of leadership and priorities. Will the choice be “Morning in America” or, as one insightful Washington Post columnist puts it with a foreboding imagery, “Mourning in America”? Whatever her choice, America will send a message to an anxious world.

    For 240 years, American democracy has presented to the world an enviable resilience. For many, if not most of those years, she has struggled with her own demons—forced enslavement of Africans, disenfranchisement of women and freed slaves, Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor, and police profiling of minorities.

    Official and quasi-official acts of discrimination, these have placed an indelible blot on an otherwise outstanding story of democratic governance in which the ideal of “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” is the ultimate goal.

    It is this pledge, deliberatively and deliberately embedded in the American experiment that stands it out and recommends it to the world as a beacon of hope for a humanity that needs to see itself as one, even in the face of evident divisions of race, gender, language and ideologies.

    The need is crucial and unassailable if the world must combine its forces to combat the most dangerous enemies of its kind, whether natural or contrived. It is unclear how long the world, as we know it, is programmed by nature to last; but it is clear that by our own (in)actions, we could dangerously accelerate the imminence of that natural order.

    America has sought to present itself as a bulwark of democratic governance with an abiding interest in protecting the downtrodden across the globe and spreading the good news of freedom and justice. It has not always been perfect, especially in reconciling its interests with those of the nations that it proclaims to protect. This accounted for its cold war practice of protecting and supporting dictators whose loyalty she could count upon even as they oppress their citizens. Yes, mistakes were made. But America has also made important contributions to those nations.

    As a land of immigrants, America has been welcoming to citizens of other countries as they seek better lives for themselves and their dependents. Many of the poor countries of the world across Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia have a lot to be thankful for the better lives that their citizens have found in America not only on account of the huge amount of remittances they receive, but also in terms of the opportunities for professional advancement that the United States provides.

    Such is the case with Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, a Nigerian medical doctor, who received his medical degree at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and relocated to America.  He and his colleague detached a 23-week old foetus from her mother’s womb, removed her tumour and then placed her back in the womb. The baby thereafter developed normally in the womb until she was born again at 36 weeks, literally answering Nichodemus’ question in our lifetime.

    But what message will America send to the world on November 8? Anyone who has been watching the United States’ presidential campaigns for at least the past 15 months cannot but be concerned about the gutter level of political discourse in the foremost democracy that the world looks up to. The nativism and ultra-nationalism of one campaign is a dangerous recoil from the world, with far-reaching consequences. If Brexit sent a chilling message to Europe, the whole world can expect “Amerixit” to be a damning catastrophe. It is not a coincidence that the only world leaders that have embraced Trumpism are dictators from Asia to the Middle East. No doubt, African dictators will soon join the fray.

    “Amerixit” in Trumpism is not just a withdrawal from the world. It is also a dangerous reversal of the enduring message of hope enshrined in The Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

    This was the America that welcomed the Irish, the East and Western Europeans, the Jews fleeing from the Holocaust, Latin Americans, Caribbean, including Cubans and Haitians, and yes, Africans. It was the America that welcomed President Obama’s father. At more than 50% approval rating two months till the end of his presidency, clearly, that immigrant-friendly America is worth preserving. On his part, the president has at every opportunity reminded his fellow citizens that only Native Americans have a claim to America as original indigenes. Everyone else is an immigrant.

    Surely, there is a broken immigration system which needs fixing. Reasonable leaders in both parties, including former President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, have at various times risked their political capital to deal with a comprehensive reform only to be rebuffed by die-hard nativists in their party. Now this latter group has a champion in Trumpism. And it seems clear that with a Trump presidency, immigrant-friendly America is doomed.  That prospective message should alarm the world.

    Trumpism is not just anti-immigration; it is also dangerously anti-diversity. A good number of commentators have identified a dark side in the “Take Back Our Country” and “Make America Great Again” campaign slogans of Trumpism as a not-so-veiled resentment against the “other” who happen to be non-white.

    The former Speaker, John Boehner, a Republican himself, saw through this rhetoric when he observed during an interview that there are not enough white men to propel a candidate to the White House. And of the population of white men, Trumpism cannot count on the support of many college-educated men. Nor can he count on the backing of suburban white women with college degree who resent his macho personality and evident demeaning of women.

    Some of those independent observers who see the trouble with Trumpism also have problem with Clintonism. They reference the scandal about the candidate’s use of private server as Secretary of State, a practice that is unsupported by long standing policy. They also cite the rumoured problem with Clinton Foundation. And the much talked about untrustworthiness of the candidate bothers a good number of people for whom this last issue is an umbrella that shelters the others. It is untrustworthiness that births the email saga and the Foundation rumour.

    Certainly, Clintonism has not done a good job of setting the record straight, and therefore much of the rumour and innuendo have been self-inflicted. The email issue should have been settled early on in the campaign with a straight-forward “I am sorry. I made a mistake.” When she finally made this declaration, it was apparently too late. But we know that the FBI decided against prosecution because it considered it a “careless mistake” that was not intentional. The eleventh hour reopening of the investigation will most likely end with the same conclusion. But this matter has undoubtedly given a lifeline to the drowning campaign of Trumpism.

    The truth, however, is that between Trumpism and Clintonism, there is no good ground for comparison. On the basis of policies, Clintonism is right on target regarding education, the economy, security, foreign policy, and yes, immigration. While Trumpism has pivoted to the worst extremism of his party, Clintonism has remained at the centre of discourse and practice where the American people increasingly find themselves.

    And on the matter of character flaws, there is also no comparison. No candidate in modern American history has ever matched Trumpism’s appeal to the worst instincts in humanity with regard to the words that flow therefrom regarding women, immigrants, people of other faiths, and inner city. That many Republican leaders have distanced themselves from that rhetoric and refused to endorse the candidate is instructive.

    With only four days to election, what message will America send to the world? For Lincoln “elections belong to the people… if they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” Trouble is, with America’s stature, the blister may spread, and infect the whole world.

  • Without a Leader like Him…?

    Without a Leader like Him…?

    Preamble

    All roads, national and international, led to Sokoto last Wednesday. The Caliphate city became like a Makkah of sort as thousands of people from near and far trooped into it. The occasion was to mark the 10th anniversary of Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar on the Caliphate throne.

    How time flies. It has been ten years since His Eminence, Dr.  Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni ascended the Sokoto royal throne as the 20th Sultan. The historic date was November 6, 2006. Until then, the lofty man’s name did not ring any bell in Nigeria. And he was probably not conscious of the royal blood in him. If he was ever conscious of that at all, his humble nature did not reflect it. But the thinking of man is quite different from the will of Allah. And when the thinking of man clashes with the will of Allah, the latter automatically prevails.

    Ascension to the Throne

    For Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, ascending the throne of the great Sokoto Empire was like the rise of the sun anon meridian. When it beams its rejuvenating ray over the world, all the stars in the galaxy take their bow.

    History and man are like Siamese twins. The one cannot do without the other. History makes man just as man makes history. And the reciprocal baton continues to change hands between them as long as they mutually remain in existence.

    Thus, the sudden emergence of the 50- year-old Brigadier General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar as the successor to the exalted throne of the great Sokoto Empire without controversy came as a surprise to many Nigerians. His own father, Sultan Sadiq Abubkar ascended the same throne at the age of 37. Surely, the name ‘Muhammad Sa’ad’ played a significant role in the emergence of its bearer as Sultan.

    The Mystery in Name

    There is something mysterious about name which humanity is yet to comprehend fully. A puzzling secret seems to exist in the vocabulary of life which sticks to every man like a second skin. That secret, pearled in the yoke of name, is an effective evidence of destiny in man. Our names are the light that glows at night to lighten up our ways in the glares days through the threshold of life. And when the dawn comes to render the glowing light ineffective, the bearer bows out into the recluse of death leaving behind an indemnified signature on the sands of time.

    This was the case with Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the greatest man that ever lived on the surface of the earth. Even as an unlettered son of Arabia who was born in an era of blatant ignorance, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) introduced into the world, an unprecedented civilization that opened the eyes of humanity to everlasting guidance. In recognition of his human exemplariness, the Almighty Allah said of him in Q 33: 21 thus: “You have a good example in Allah’s Apostle for anyone who looks to Allah and the Last Day and remembers Him always”.

    Peculiarities in Name

    Sultan’s first name is Muhammad which he bears in emulation of the Prophet. His second name is Sa’ad meaning ‘Good ‘Luck’ which makes him a name-sake of one of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions (Sa’d BnAbi Waqqas) who was a great Army General of Islam. And his (Sultan’s) surname is Abubakar which means ‘father of youths’, an inherited name which he shares with the first Caliph in Islam (Abubakr Siddiq). In every one of these names is a profound meaning with profound influence on the personality and conduct of the current Sultan.

    As an Army General, like Sa’d Bn Abi Waqqas, Sultan is demonstrating the courage of a brave leader. As the father of the youths, like Abu Bakr, he is bridging the gap between leadership and follower-ship by breathing a breeze of hope into Nigerian Muslim youths from time to time.

    Identity of a Leader

    A leader is known, neither by the aura of the office he occupies, nor by the enormity of the power wielded in that office. Rather, a leader is known   by the magnanimity with which he exercises the power entrusted to him and the humility he demonstrates in his interaction with the people. This is the lesson that Prophet Muhammad’s leadership taught Muslim rulers in one of his Hadith when he said: “A powerful person is not the one who can suppress others (with the instrumentality of office) but the one who can resist the temptation to use such power”.

    Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar seems to have exemplified this prophetic teaching as a Muslim ruler and a faithful one for that matter. And through his humble interaction with all Muslims in Nigeria irrespective of tribal or geographical boundaries, he has become the first Sultan to create a strong feeling of a united Muslim Ummah in Nigeria under a competent leadership.

    An evidence of such unity is the powerful delegation of the entire Southern Muslim Ummah led by the Deputy President General (South) of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Dr. S. O. Babalola, OON, to the tenth anniversary of His Eminence’s coronation in Sokoto last Wednesday. Members of that delegation which included the Aare Musulumi of Yoruba Land,  Alhaji Dawud Makanjuola Abdul Salam Akinola and the President General of the League of Imams and Alfas of Yoruba Land were drawn from all the geographical zones in Southern Nigeria including the Southwest, the Southeast and the South-South.

    Philosophers’ Theory

    Philosophers who assert that every new century has a way of producing a great leader may be right after all. The example of His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, is a manifestation of that assertion. Ever since he assumed the exalted royal office ten years ago, this great man has convincingly exhibited all the qualities of genuine leadership by all standards. Every statement he has made socially, religiously or politically and every action he has taken privately or publicly has proved to be a school from which all well-meaning people of Nigeria have learnt one lesson or another.

    Reformation of NSCIA

    At the instance of His Eminence, a forward looking reformation has been going on. A number of committees have been set up to take charge of certain necessities concerning the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and the National Mosque. These have given the Nigerian Muslim Ummah the needed comfort with which to surge ahead as a single body of believers.

    Besides, the Abuja National Mosque has also been reformed in such a way that no Muslim part of the country feels neglected again. Thus, today, the Friday sermon in that Mosque is not only delivered in the three major languages (Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba) in addition to Arabic and English, three deputy Imams have also been appointed to assist the Chief Imam in rendering the Jum’at sermon in rotation every Friday. These Deputy Imams were from the North, the Southwest and the Middle Belt respectively.

    As Chancellor of ABU

    At his first convocation as the 6th Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University in November 2010, His Eminence told the crowd that the current socio-economic indices in Nigeria were a clear indication that the country had begun to drift. He lamented the dwindling standard of education and the growing rate of poverty in the land despite the nation’s unprecedented wealth which he said had failed to aid national development.

    In his words: “…Corruption has emasculated our progress even as poverty and unemployment have pushed citizens to the brinks thereby fuelling social conflicts and inter-communal crises which have extracted heavy toll in both human lives and property…. ”He went further by saying: “Persistent insecurity has generated panic and anxiety; our social and physical infrastructures are far from meeting the needs of the nation; the country appears to be adrift and at the core of all these is moral decay engendered by ignorance and greed.”

    His Emphasis on Education

    To further emphasize his fervent belief in education, he also noted that the reform of the tertiary education sector in Nigeria could not be effective without putting in place the required progressive developments at the basic and senior secondary education levels. He insisted that: “our state governments, especially those of the North, must begin to realize the enormity of the challenges facing the education sector and take urgent and necessary steps to address these challenges.”

    That is a renascent Sultan for you, a man who is at the topmost echelon of the tree of comfort but feels so much concerned about the condition of the peasants who feel deliberately consigned to the weeding of shrubs at the bottom of that tree by the system in place.

    At home in Nigeria, he has never relented in his advocacy for good governance and denunciation of corruption and religious intolerance just as he has consistently campaigned for religious peaceful coexistence at the international forums.

    His Royal Agenda

    In what looked like his royal agenda in respect of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, His Eminence rolled out at that conference certain fundamental programmes to the utter delight of all Nigerian Muslims. Please read an excerpt from his speech at the above mentioned Interfaith Conference as presented below:

    “….we initiated, as we had done for the Jama’atu Nasril-Islam (JNI), a thorough review of the activities of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs [NSCIA] and an extensive reform of its structures”.

    “It is our firm belief that these reforms are not only desirable but necessary to reposition the Council to play its strategic role as the apex Islamic body in the country and to respond, effectively and meaningfully, to the challenges facing the Muslim Ummah in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. We have had extensive consultations over the last one year and have received very useful inputs on the reform agenda from all the constituent bodies of the Council. Our strategic objectives in this exercise had been and shall remain the following:

    • The promotion of Muslim Unity and Solidarity to accord the Ummah the ability to speak with one voice and to act and work together for the advancement of Islam.
    • The development of Education and Economic Enterprise, to enable the Muslim Ummah play an active role in the socio-economic life of Nigeria.
    • Promotion of peace and religious harmony both within the Muslim Communities and between the adherents of Islam and Christianity.
    • Establishment of effective linkage with Government, at local, state and federal levels, to safeguard the interest of the Ummah and to build consensus on those vital issues that bind us together as a nation….”

    “It is therefore our hope that as we bring this reform process to its logical conclusion, we will receive the support and patronage of the entire Muslim Ummah as well as the co-operation of all stakeholders, including state governments and indeed the Government of the Federation”.

    “Finally we must all work hard to limit the influence of wealth in our society and to support those values that promote social responsibility, excellence and hard work”.

    Conclusion

    That is Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, a leader who knows the problems of his followers and associates with them in solving those problems. Without a leader like this, the Nigerian Muslim Ummah would have gone asunder.

    This column, ‘The Message’ and its teeming readers hereby join millions of other Nigerians home and abroad in saying CONGRATULATIONS to His Eminence on his tenth anniversary on the throne of the great Sokoto Empire. We pray the Allah to continue to guide him aright in his life’s odyssey.

    Long live the Sultan! Long live the NSCIA! Long live Nigeria

  • Nwabueze: PMB must listen to this oracle

    Nigeria remains in a flux. So much happening, yet our lives remain painfully in regression or static at best. Worse still, we all seem to have exhausted ourselves. One cannot help forming the eerie imagery of duelers now prostrate in the dust after a long affray – pile of bodies half covered by dust, barely alive…

    And we have been through all the issues over and over again, yet it’s either that there is nobody out there or there is acute hearing challenge. Today, there is simply nothing fresh to comment upon; same old humdrum about catching suspected thieves. At a time like this, a pot-pourri of small issues proves handy. I was to pick on Jimoh Ibrahim and his antics in the upcoming Ondo State governorship race. Someone needed to tell him to eschew his perennial rascality and allow us to tend to our democracy. This column was going to tell him that in some detail.

    One was to poke at Ibe Kachikwu’s phantom refineries and the wildly escalating crises in the petroleum sector. There is also the adjunct matter of a renewed wild-goose chase in the Chad basin for oil and Nigeria’s burning of billions of naira in this 30-year old quest. One’s attention was also drawn to the APC governors’ tiff with the president over sidelining them in the federal appointments booty.

    But all of these issues had to be swept aside upon reading a note from Professor Benjamin Nwabueze to President Buhari. For those who may not know, Nwabueze is an octogenarian, an elder statesman and one of the most rigorous minds of his age alive today. Of course, his glittering academic and work lives have been subjects of tomes of books. An academic and legal titan, he is by miles, the most prolific and most cerebral of his time.

    His prodigious work ethic and intellectual eminence is like luminous morning sun and is evident in the constitutional history and law faculties of numerous African countries.

    Prof. Nwabueze has been a strident critic of this administration; sometimes uncomfortably so. But the old man is a die-hard patriot who is deeply passionate about his convictions in matters concerning Nigeria.

    Rising from a meeting of the Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT), a body he chairs, he urged PMB to change his style of governance. He did not say anything new other than merely reinforcing the cogency and indeed, urgency of some irksome matters. Since we want the government to take an especial note of these things, here are bullet-points:

    Herdsmen palaver: this matter of licentious herdsmen being perceived as some kind of nascent islamisation of Nigeria is utterly dangerous. And it is gaining currency in the south of Nigeria. This column does not believe in the religious imputation and colouration of the cattle-rearers’ brigandage, but the presidency does not seem to appreciate the situation.

    From Kaduna to Benue, Kogi, Enugu, Ekiti and indeed even Abuja, cattle and their breeders are on the rampage, killing, maiming and destroying farms. Yet the president cannot seem to respond appropriately and adequately. It is as if he has given a tacit nod to these marauders. Nwabueze warns about a matter that might throw the nation into an unquenchable conflagration if nothing is done urgently.

    • Appointments in the nation’s security services: this singular action of PMB will not only haunt his tenure but has pork-marked his presidency, his persona and his history. He has also left a dangerous precedence that will plague the polity for a long time. It is difficult to explain how about 15 key security and strategic positions are parcelled solely to his kinsmen.

    He also mentioned the recent sack of over 40 officers in the Army and wondered if it is by accident that most of them are from the South?

    • Nwabueze advised PMB to release Nnamdi Kanu of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) unconditionally and engage the people in dialogue, noting that the demand for self-determination does not necessarily mean secession. His words: “Political agitations for self-determination are taking place in various parts of the world, in Europe, Asia, America, etc. The agitators are not massacred with state- owned arms and ammunition, but are brought round for dialogue. The situation here should not be different. Dialogue is the approach.”
    • Of corruption fight, noise and propaganda: he says while ILT is not against the fight against corruption, the manner it is being prosecuted is unacceptable. “The fight is highly skewed against perceived opponents of the party in government. People are arrested and bank accounts are frozen without due process…” He noted that a few current appointees have been fingered in monumental corruption, but the government pretends not to notice.
    • On the economy, the Avengers and recession: he averred that this is the worst economic situation ever and urged the government to address the immediate cause by engaging the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) in a dialogue.

    Prof. Nwabueze said so much more. But we will conclude that any thinking government would not only listen to him carefully, but would do well to keep a line of communication with him.

     

    Abia’s dirty politics

    Abia State in the Southeast of Nigeria is tagged ‘God’s Own State’, but its politics has been anything but godly. Indeed, some desperate politicians in the state who cannot live down their fall from power and serial humiliation at the polls have continued to wrestle in the muck and be-splatter mud to anyone in sight.

    One target of this dirty fight is the immediate past governor, Chief Theodore Ahamefule Orji, who has been the relentless butt of media attacks by his fallen godfather and former ‘owner’ of Abia State. All manner of hack writers and newspaper advertorials are deployed every week to shoot down one man.

    In utter show of desperation, the last set of advertorials has those jaded pictures of Chief Orji supposedly in a shrine taking oath. It is shocking how blackmailers shamelessly publish photos, which showcase their evil handiwork in the first place.

    But Chief Orji has nothing to be ashamed of. Any patriot must be willing to make even the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of his people. A great leader must be ready to go to any shrine – if that is what it takes – to retrieve his people from a dark, fetish abyss to a new day of light and progress. In fact, those TA Orji shrine pictures should be mounted on billboards across the country to show the courage of one man and the persecution he had to suffer to make Abia the safe, peaceful and unshackled state it is today.

    There must be a limit to bitter politics and campaign of calumny isn’t there?

  • Ekiti: A visit by deputation

    Ekiti: A visit by deputation

    Preamble

    It was a trip by deputation penultimate  Friday and Saturday. His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar CFR, mni, the Sultan of Sokoto and President General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) had been scheduled to visit Ondo and Ekiti States on those two days. But due to some unforeseen circumstances, he could not undertake the journey in person. He   however delegated his Southern Deputy at the NSCIA, His Excellency Alhaji (Dr.) S. O. Babalola, OON, to represent him (Chief (Dr. S. O. Babalola became NSCIA’s Deputy President-General for Southern Nigeria in August 2016).

    He, also being the President of the Muslim Ummah of Southwest Nigeria (MUSWEN), was accompanied by a retinue of Muslim leaders in the Southwest including Dr. Jibril Oyekan, Alhaji Kunle Sanni, Dr. Wole Abbas, Alhaji Mustafa Olawuyi, Alhaji Kola Uzamo, Barr. Yakubu Sanni, Alhaji Sulaiman Afolabi Ogunlayi, Alh. Tajudeen Alabede, Alh. Hafeez Timehin and yours sincerely, on the trip. The Oba of Ayede Ekiti, Alhaji Abdul Mumini Adebayo Orisagbemi Abolokefa IV otherwise known as Attah of Ayede had invited His Eminence to the celebration of his ten year   anniversary on the throne with the laying of the foundation of his new palace and a Mosque. Part of the trip was to pay a courtesy visit to the Deji of Akure, Oba Ogunlade Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi, Odundun II and join the Muslim Community of Ondo State in observing the Jum’at prayer.

    In Deji’s palace

    At the palace of Deji where the delegation was rousingly received, Chief S. O Babalola delivered the following speech on behalf of His Eminence, the Sultan:

    Your Royal Majesty, today’s visit to your palace is historic. Ordinarily, I would have accompanied the President General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni to this palace on this occasion. But due to circumstantial development, he had to delegate me to represent him being his deputy here in Southern Nigeria.

    I therefore wish to express his regret and unreserved apology for not being able to be here in person as earlier planned. Man only proposes. It is God that disposes.  We hope that another chance will come to warrant His Eminence’s presence on this kind of occasion in the near future.

    Nigerian situation

    Your Royal Majesty, this occasion is a confirmation of a well known fact about Nigerian situation. Of the major existing institutions in Nigeria today only that of the traditional rulers is solidly stable. It is evident that there are incessant ripples in other major institutions including the executive wing, the legislative wing and the judiciary wing mostly to the discomfort of the nation. This is because the traditional institution anywhere in the world is permanent and unshaken except where there is an accident of history.

    The current cooperation among the royal fathers in the Southwest region and that of the entire nation is highly appreciated by all, and sundry. And the role of His Eminence in this is conspicuously notable. Since he ascended the Caliphate throne ten years ago, His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, has paid his royal colleagues in the Southern parts of the country unprecedented courtesy visits thereby laying a solid foundation for royal friendliness and cooperation among the traditional rulers in the country. He is generally known today as a national bridge builder.

    A national bridge builder

    Your Royal Majesty, there is no State in the Southwest or any other Southern region for that matter that His Eminence has not visited with open hands of friendliness and brotherhood. This is an indication that contrary to what is daily published in Nigerian media, there are people who still believe in the unity of our country and are working hard to ensure that unity.

    Your Royal Majesty, your readiness to receive His Eminence in your palace and the evident preparation for that reception is also a confirmation of the unity of this country at the royal level. If this good example is emulated by the political class, the usual tension in the political arena would have been less and the polity would have been more conducive. Therefore, the traditional institution is hereby implored to further strengthen its unity as a model for all other institutions in the country.

    Constitutional role for traditional rulers

    Meanwhile, I want to call on the legislative arm of the government to revisit the constitution with a view to giving the traditional rulers in the country a more prominent role to play in the governance of the country. If such a prominent role had been facilitated in the constitution, the spate of violence that we witness across the country on a daily basis would have been reduced to barest minimum. There is no gain saying the fact that no other institution is as close to the people and as much respected in Nigeria than the traditional institution.

    Comparison

    Looking at the political situation in Nigeria today, vis-a-vis that of the traditional institution, one will discover that the difference is very clear. While ripples continue in the political waters, the institution of traditional rulers is calm and clement. There is a reason for this. Traditional rulership has no definitive tenure that can easily be challenged by any rival. It is rather an institution that operates on era basis. And the dignity accorded to it is not temporary. In other words, a king is a king as long as he is alive and on the throne. Even after his demise, history still treats him with reverence as a onetime king.

    Your Royal Majesty, we thank God for your life, your health and your royal dignity and we pray the Almighty to continue to endow you with the needed  wisdom, courage and equanimity with which to govern your kingdom for a long time. Long live the Deji of Akure! Long live the Sultanate of Sokoto! Long live the traditional institution in the country! Long live Nigeria!

    In Ayede Ekiti

    At the palace of Attah Ayede in Ekiti, His Excellency Chief S. O. Babalola delivered a speech entitled ‘The Place of the Mosque in Islam on behalf of His Eminence the Sultan as follows:

    “…..Your Royal Majesty, the Attah of Ayede Ekiti, the Attah in Council and all indigenes and residents of Ayede Ekiti, let me greet you in the well known Islamic tradition by saying, Assalam alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu”.

    “History is being made here today not just because I am here to lay the foundation of a Mosque in a palace but also because this is the first time that a Muslim Oba is on the throne and on ground in this city of Muslim minority to receive and play host to the leader of the  Nigerian Muslim Ummah”.

    “Today, in the name of Allah, we are laying the foundation of a palace Mosque here in Ayede Ekiti in emulation of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who laid the foundation of the first Mosque in Islam called the Mosque of Quba in Madinah in 622 CE. Whereas a palace in the life of a Muslim is temporal and ephemeral, a Mosque is spiritual and everlasting”.

    Functions of the Mosque

    From the inception of Islam, the Mosque has always been like the foundation of a house. Without foundation, no house can stand and serve its purpose as an abode for rest, peace and tranquillity. The main source of the Muslim civilization is the MOSQUE which is the origin of all achievements and glory in Islam.

    It was from the Mosque that all intellectual, spiritual and temporal successes of Islam emanated. Mosque is not for SALAT alone. It also serves as the centre for all activities of the Muslim community, whether temporal or spiritual. Mosque should serve as a school, as a library, as a court of justice, as a treasury, as a clinic, as a parliament and as a chamber of commerce. This makes the Mosque like a beehive for Muslims, male and female, old and young. Let the Mosque be properly and fully utilized for the purpose of its existence.

    The Mosque and the Imam

    The Mosque and the Imam are like the message and the messenger. There can hardly be any access to the one without going through the other. No one can seriously talk about the Mosque without making a fundamental reference to the Imam and the congregation that he leads. Actually, nothing is called Mosque without the Muslim congregation and the Imam.

    When Prophet Muhammad (SAW) described learned scholars as the heirs to the Prophets, he was referring to Imams. This is because no genuine Muslim is supposed to be an Imam without first being a learned scholar. However,   there is a sharp difference between a scholar and a learned scholar. The one can be self-arrogated. The other is intellectually evident.

    Becoming an Imam, if due process is followed, is like becoming a judge after a period of certified experience acquired subsequent to graduating from the Law School. It is not enough to graduate from a Qur’anic school and teach the junior ones for a few years to be qualified as Imam.

    Training for Muslim clerics

    We shall notice that Lawyers are trained in the Law School after graduating from the Universities just as Doctors undergo Houseman-ship after their admission into the medical Profession.  Other professions have also devised means of training their upcoming members through what they now call industrial training. In the same way, our Imams should also be encouraged to undergo clerical training that can assist them in guiding the affairs of their congregations. The absence of such training in the Mosque is adversely affecting the propagation of Islam in our society. I therefore call on all State Muslim communities as well as Muslim Organizations in Nigeria to give the training of Imams a priority through periodic seminars, workshops and conferences. This is not a suggestion. It is a major prescription by Islam for anybody who may aspire to become an Imam.

    The issue Muslim minority

    Since the inception of Islam, Muslims have always lived as minorities in any new environment they found themselves. It is only after they might have settled down and established themselves that, by the leave of Allah, their display of unity and their positive contributions to the development of their community, they may become majority.

    At the initial stage of Islam, when Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his companions were forced to migrate from Makkah to Madinah for safety from the persecution of the pagan majority in Makkah, they were in the minority. And when they reached Madinah, they remained a minority despite the support given to them by some good people of that city who invited them there.

    They were also in the minority when they established the world’s first Islamic democratic government headed by the Prophet in the city of Madinah. They were in the minority when they entered Spain as mere migrants in the 8th century and turned that country into the global haven of civilization. And if we look critically at the world today, we shall discover that the most active Muslim population is the West where Muslims are in the minority. This further confirms that people in the minority are more active because they enjoy unity and cooperation in the face of threat.

    I, therefore, want to urge the Muslims of this great city to remain good ambassadors of Islam and act as patriotic members of the community. You have your share of the responsibility to take this city and indeed Ekiti State to greater heights.

    I congratulate His Royal Majesty, the Attah of Ayede Ekiti and the entire people of this city for today’s historic event and successful outing in the way of Allah. I wish Your Majesty long life with sound health and continuous Allah’s guidance in conducting the affairs of your kingdom. I also implore the people of Ayede Ekiti to further cooperate with His Royal Majesty in facilitating peace and harmony in this clement city.

    “Let there arise from you a nation that calls for righteousness, enjoins justice, and forbids evil. Such men shall surely triumph”. Q3:103. The strength of any group of human beings anywhere in the world is unity and not disunity. The Muslim Ummah in Nigeria cannot be an exception. God bless you all.

    The foundation of the Mosque was laid by His Excellency, Chief S. O. Babalola on behalf of the Sultan.

  • Their Lordships’ chambers of secrecy

    Their Lordships’ chambers of secrecy

    His Lordship, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, has spoken. From his sky-high pedestal in the hall of justice, he unequivocally declared that corruption is the major problem in the judicial branch of the government of Nigeria.

    Coming from the CJN, the declaration is a powerful self-indictment by the head of the arm of government that has the constitutional mandate to adjudicate with fairness and justice. The deliberateness of the symbol of justice as a blindfolded lady is unmistakable. Justice is not a respecter of persons. By the admission of the CJN, however, our system of justice is an exception to this age-old and universal expectation.

    “What do you expect?” a skeptical mind would ask. “The whole system is ridden with corruption and you expect the judiciary to be squeaky clean! Get a life!” It surely is an understandable response borne out of the frustration of the unconnected. But it would be a good response only if we had not been made to believe that in a democracy established on the rule of law, the judiciary is the last hope of citizens. As such, shouldn’t we rightly expect it to live up to that expectation? And if we don’t, is the recourse to self-help in the interest of anyone?

    Apparently in a moment of self-scrutiny, the Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC) has finally come to terms with the huge responsibility the constitution has placed upon it. As the watchdog of the judicial branch, the NJC has formulated the Nigerian Judicial Policy (NJP), which was launched on Monday, October 24 by the CJN.

    While the NJP was formulated and presented as a broad policy on the judicial branch, covering issues ranging from judicial appointment, judicial education, judicial code of conduct, to judicial discipline, it is the matter of judicial (mis)conduct and (in)discipline that received the most attention from the public. This is not a surprise, given the most recent allegations against some judicial officers, including justices of the Supreme Court.

    Yet, it is not the first time that the NJC has focused its attention on the matter of judicial discipline. Two years ago, on November 3, 2014, the former CJN, Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, on behalf of the Council, released the 2014 National Judicial Council Judicial Discipline Regulations. Acknowledging that the constitution empowers the NJC to “exercise disciplinary control over judicial officers against whom allegation of misconduct has been made”, the document presented regulations that govern allegations and complaints of misconduct and the Council’s proceedings in dealing with them.

    Perhaps the most obvious and controversial difference between the 2014 document and the 2016 NJP is the glaring absence of a press gag in the former. The 2014 document contained 15 substantive sections, including the time limit within which a complaint must be made, form and initiation of complaint, preliminary complaint assessment committee, terms of reference of investigating committee, and report of investigating committee.

    A most charitable analysis of the 2014 document may conclude that it was an honest attempt to deal with a most difficult issue. On the one hand, it welcomed complaints against judicial officers, and it guaranteed an objective investigation of credible complaints against them. On the other hand, it strives to discourage frivolous complaints and abuse of the process. This was the rationale for the Preliminary Complaint Assessment Committee.

    The real question is the extent to which there was an alignment of the words of the document with the actions of those assigned the responsibility to investigate cases. In the case of an absence of consistency between the two, however, the document cannot be faulted. But from the fact that two years after its release, the public is not persuaded that there has been a visible improvement in the matter of judicial corruption, it is fair to conclude that the important weapon of deterrence has not been effective, either because those who were charged with the responsibility of investigating these cases have not been up to the task or the loopholes in the system have enabled the accused to outsmart them.

    Yet there have been cases where the NJC has controversially bared its fang to the detriment of justice and fairness. Recall the case of Justice Isa Salami of the Federal Court of Appeal whose complaint against the Chairman of the NJC at the time was handled in a most shoddy manner. That case tested the integrity of the system and the body that had the responsibility to protect it and it failed woefully. And because the ruling government of the day was neck deep in judicial corruption, it went along with the farce, soiling the entire system and eroding public confidence in the NJC itself.

    The Salami case was that of a highly-placed judicial officer complaining against the head of the judiciary and getting whipped as a result. The internal checks of the system failed and there are probably more of such that were not publicly known. The failure of internal checks is bound to attract external probing and that is exactly what happened, unfortunate as it is, with the DSS raid. Any democrat who believes in the doctrine of the separation of powers should naturally be enraged and alarmed at the development.

    The DSS is an agency of the executive branch. It is a dangerous threat to democratic norms for that branch to police another branch, especially the judicial branch. This is the task of the police or the EFCC, which are, at least, constitutionally established as independent bodies. Our constitution is inspired by the United States Constitution. This is why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as the Federal Police, is constitutionally charged with such responsibilities in the U.S., and it is an equal opportunity crime buster whether in the executive, legislative, or judicial branches.

    Now, if the NJC 2014 document on judicial discipline did establish a framework for effectively countering judicial misconduct with provisions that respect transparency and fairness, the 2016 NJC Judicial Policy manages to take the path of darkness with its insertion of an oath of secrecy into the investigation of judicial malfeasance. And it is unfortunate that it is this aspect of the NJP that has stood out and has received the most coverage since the unveiling of the policy.

    In inaugurating its judicial policy and its ethics committee, NJC announced that petitions submitted to it must be kept under wraps until the conclusion of such investigations that it may decide to undertake. And even then, public disclosure of findings may only be allowed “subject to following the proper channels for such disclosure.” In other words, the public will be kept from knowing who is being investigated, for what he or she is being investigated, and the outcome of such investigation may either be known or unknown.

    Yet, as the CJN clearly states: “The National Judicial Policy is borne out of the realisation that the Nigerian Judiciary had been adversely affected by the absence of a clear, coordinated policy framework that defines its core morals, values, objects and aspirations.” Continuing, he declares that “corruption has serious implications for both the rule of law and access to justice, and must be fought both institutionally and individually. This is why the National Judicial Policy contains clear provisions restating the judiciary’s commitment to transparency and accountability.” How this commitment to transparency and accountability squares up with the resort to secrecy in the conduct of investigation into allegations of judicial corruption is a mystery!

    The matter cannot be glossed over. A few days before the launching of the NJP, the Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC) had taken the NJC to task on its (NJC) declaration that it had acted on all cases of allegations of misconduct against judicial officers. Against this declaration, CSNAC alleged that NJC had refused to investigate or sanction judges accused of corruption. The organisation cited 10 such cases which it alleged that NJC had refused to investigate. This was prior to the introduction of the new policy that bars the public from knowing about the existence of such allegations.

    With the new code of secrecy, may God help us.