The Nation Newspaper

Category: Steve Osuji

  • As Kogi decides

    In barely two weeks (November 21), the people of Kogi State in the middle belt of Nigeria will go to the polls in a governorship election. It is poised to be one of the most keenly contested elections in the country in recent times for many reasons.

    First, the new permanent voter card system would make the people’s vote count substantially. Two, the two major gladiators, the incumbent governor, Captain Idris Wada (PDP) and the chief contestant, Prince Abubakar Audu (APC) are both second termers. This means that the people have had the privilege of assessing them both and can tell who had served the best and therefore, who would serve them better, given a second chance.

    Many analysts think it would be close, as what the one may lack the other has. They say it would be close to call. While the incumbent, Wada, is cool and of quiet mien, Audu is known to be able to rouse the rabble. While Wada is very peace-loving and has indeed brought peace to a much fractured environment, Audu is remarkable for his steel and hardihood.

    Finally, one thing to be said for Wada is that the state under his watch does not seem to be embroiled in the fiscal crises most state are faced with; if he owed many months in salary arrears, his campaign would have been a mite more difficult. In a country facing cash crunch, the ability to manage resources and meet basic obligations must count for something. Well, it is a call for Kogites, they know best.

  • Crisis in states: Buhari will need Peter Obi

    There is crisis in the land; deep economic crisis. This is the reason why though one is truly constrained to cast the above headline because of its inherent political undercurrent, we all must remember that we have a country to run. We also have an economy to manage. And now that elections have been won and lost, if the good of the country is uppermost in our minds, we must forget about party lines and partisan politics and seek solution wherever we can find it.

    The stories emanating from states across the country are dire and dangerous. Most states are virtually on the verge of collapse. This is why the President and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), need to urgently switch to emergency mode as they fashion out a belated economic agenda. They must also build in a template for the states and local government areas to thrive.

    Three quick examples will suffice here to illustrate the utter hopelessness in states across the country. In Imo State, Southeast of Nigeria, the structures of governance have virtually collapsed. It is not only that different categories of workers and pensioners are owed months of pay, some do not even know what they earn anymore, as arbitrary deductions are levied each time government manages to pay.

    Last Monday, doctors and medical workers in public hospitals in the state reported for work to find that the government had ambushed them. Government’s vigilance group had barricaded public hospitals and locked out workers. The hospitals had been concessioned and forcefully acquired, they learnt.

    By last Monday, there were months of salary arrears; there were patients on admission requiring attention, there were patients bearing various ailments. They were all turned back. A certain concession agreement had become operational, somebody said and that ends it.

    In this state, the so-called revenue yielding agencies of government had been long abandoned to ‘fend’ for themselves. The governor simple declared that “we cannot be wasting public resources on people who are not productive; I cannot continue to give them subvention.”

    Is this any way to run a state? If agencies are not meeting performance expectations, are they not to be restructured for optimum results? Are they simply handed out to the so-called concessionaires or left to disintegrate?

    The local government system has long collapsed and most headquarters are overgrown with bush; their monthly allocation pocketed. Adapalm, Imo Transport Company and Concorde Hotels, which were up and running, have become moribund under Governor Okorocha. Now that the civil service too has almost crashed, the state is stark and barren like a homeless orphan. Even the bailout fund is being disbursed from the governor’s pocket. Meanwhile the governor is reportedly more liquid than the state. He is said to shuttle the globe frequently in chartered jets. Official profligacy and wastefulness thrive in a state that is deep in debt and almost failing. Call anyone you know in Imo State and all you will hear are ululations and cries of sorrow and anguish.

    In a recent interview, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC) Comrade Ayuba Wabba, had this to say about Gov. Okorocha: “Look at what is happening in Imo State, the situation is very sad and depressing. Governor (Rochas) Okorocha is not only owing workers’ salary, in Imo State, pensioners have not been paid for over a year…many of them are dying of hunger. We have written several letters to Okorocha, but he has not replied us. We are not going to fold our arms while workers are suffering in the state. We are going to shut down Imo State if that is what it will take to make Okorocha listen to the voice of reason.”

    In the Southwest of Nigeria and Oyo State to be precise, the state that prides itself on the agenda of free education, Governor Abiola Ajimobi has already introduced what is termed ‘development levy’ in public schools. At a recent event, the governor was recorded as saying that the N26billion bailout fund the state got was peanuts, as its outstanding wage bill was already over N21 billion.

    He said as soon as his government cleared most of the arrears, it would start owing once again, “as we will start to scramble for more money.”  He then reeled out the old litany: income (read federal allocation) has dropped to N3billion, monthly wage bill has shot up to N5billion and internally generated revenue (IGR) is N1billion; the state is therefore left with a monthly deficit of N1.8billion.

    This is the same tale-by-moonlight we have heard from Oyo and most other states in the last four years. Oyo has 33 LGAs, what about the billions of naira accruing to them monthly? How could a state the size of Oyo deign to earn N1 billion IGR monthly?  Without leaving one’s office in Lagos, one could raise N1 billion in Ibadan alone in one week.

    Four years ago when minimum wage was increased to N18,000, Gov. Ajimobi had let out the same lamentations about salary bills and deficits, but that same salary bill has almost doubled since then. What measures were put in place in the last four years to expand the economic base of a large state like Oyo? We often forget that the most imposing building in Ibadan, Cocoa House, was built from the proceeds of agric produce and not oil revenues. Cocoa has not stopped thriving in the west of Nigeria; countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast still subsist largely on cocoa.

    It would make interesting statistics to find out how much chicken is consumed in Oyo State daily, how much rice, how much milk, cocoa beverage, vegetable oil, tinned tomatoes, etc.? Most of these things are not produced in Oyo State; in fact most of them are smuggled from across the border. If Oyo State were a company with over five million mostly able-bodied and educated workers, would it be declaring a revenue of N1 billion monthly!

    In Benue State, the former governor, Gabriel Suswam, who ruled for eight years spoke recently, justifying why he left an empty treasury. According to him, if you depended solely on revenues from the federation account, you are bound to leave an empty treasury. Wow, how profound! He met an empty treasury, according to him and he left an empty treasury plus four months’ of salary arrears and a huge debt in billions of naira. Shouldn’t we therefore conclude that he is an empty fellow?

    Goodness gracious! How could a man run an entire state for eight years and all he could boast of is an empty treasury and huge debts. Benue State can feed the entire country down to the West Coast of Africa (with rice, beans, yam, potatoes, tomatoes, fruits, chicken, beef, milk, you name it) if perchance it finds a thinking governor someday.

    We can go on and on in almost every state. The leakages, the pilfering and the wanton wastefulness coupled with a lack of imagination to run a state and create wealth are beyond words. Instead, most governors hold their states by the jugular and make sure their economies suffer asphyxia. In most states, the entire people are made to breathe through the nose of the governor; that is the horror template.

    This column will never be tired of calling attention to the Peter Obi paradigm. And the President will do well to go beyond party politics and bring Obi to his corner. How did he do it? Anambra had less allocation than most other states, yet Obi never borrowed a dime in eight years. He left about N75 billion in cash and investment papers, he galvanised major investors to set up in the state (SABmiller, Innoson, Juhel); he invested heavily in education, health and roads.

    Today, Anambra is not part of the bailout crowd. Anambra is meeting its salary and pension obligations promptly? Nigeria will need to sit Peter Obi down and ask him how he did it?

  • Referendum: Would Ndigbo prefer Nigeria or Biafra?

    It is understandable that the Biafra fraud has found a new fillip in President Muhammadu Buhari’s ‘provocative discrimination’ against the Southeast zone of Nigeria, but it still is not sufficient reason for Ndigbo to resort to mob action  – the coward’s alternative.

    If a referendum were done today for Ndigbo to choose between Nigeria and Biafra, Igbo will vote Nigeria. In fact, by my reckoning, Ndigbo had moved on long ago from Biafra, reintegrating themselves fully into the Nigerian family. Ndigbo actually have the most stakes in Nigeria today and are also the most exposed economically. The Igbo have invested right from the head bridge of the Niger River up the country to Ilela (Sokoto) and Gamgoro, the northernmost tip of Borno.

    Why would anyone so exposed seek separation? Time has come to call the so-called Biafra agitation championed by MASSOB (Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra) what it is – a fraud. Its founders, who were not gainfully engaged about 20 years ago, are now stupendously rich. Where is all the money coming from? How many misguided youths have been wasted so far? To what end? We urge MASSOB champions to morph into an Igbo socio-cultural organisation as Gani Adams has done with OPC. MASSOB is not Igbo consensus. Enough is enough!

  • Nwabueze on Buhari: Elders as critics?

    Last week was a nightmare for EXPRESSO; the devil, that age-long nemesis of the printer, poked his forked rod on this page. The result was a bizarre reproduction of the newspaper’s editorials of the day (on page 11) right on this page. Such a glitch never happened before in over four years of keeping this column. Sincere apologies to all the adherents of this space; especially those who noticed and expressed concern; let’s just say stuff does happen eh? We shall be much more watchful henceforth.

    Last week we looked at the situation in our mega city-state, Lagos. One basically lent his voice to the unfolding new regime in our city and urged that a true city should never go to sleep. In fact, a well run city never blinks. One opined therefore that to allow such virtual vacuous state for about five months is a worrisome augury.

    One noted also that our new governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, did not run with the ball on touchdown. That has caused so many nuts to loosen and explains the loud creaks in the mammoth engine that is a city is. After a short preamble I had rerun a piece ran here on Friday, June 26, 2015, titled: “A note for Gov. Ambode.” It can be accessed on The Nation’s website.

    Today, we dwell on the recent intervention of elder statesman, eminent advocate and legal scholar, Professor Ben Nwabueze. I stand to be corrected, but I wager that no lawyer or law teacher in Nigeria (perhaps Africa) has contributed more original literature in constitutionalism and constitutional law than Prof. Nwabueze.

    He earned his silk (Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN), 38 years ago and is a distinguished honoree of the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM). Apart from his immense contributions in shaping Nigeria’s constitution, between 1975 and 1992, he had also worked on the development of the constitutions of such African countries as Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Namibia to name a few. He was also instrumental to the setting up and development of numerous Law Faculties across African nations’ universities. At 82, Prof. Nwabueze must be a voice to be reckoned with anytime he deigns to open his rich depository of wisdom and knowledge to us. His opinion would come as precious pearls and his interventions in the affairs of the nations must be like rare gems and indeed, rarefied.

    But the last instalment from the erudite octogenarian in The Guardian (October 16, 2015) and some of his recent comments would appear to cast him in the mode of a common social critic and run-of-the-mill politician. The two-page article, which was presaged by a front page news extract, is titled: “The public acclaim of President Buhari as a liberator and national hero.”

    His submission is that President Muhammadu Buhari is neither a liberator, national hero nor the messiah Nigerians seem to equate him with currently. Hear him: “I think it fair, in concluding this section, to reiterate that the public acclaim of President Buhari as our deliverer from the evil of corruption has been adroitly stage-managed; it is the product, not of concrete actions or results actually accomplished, but actually of propagandist talk, cleverly designed to charm the mind and hearts of people and to endear the President to them, as well as whip up public sentiments for him as deliverer, even as a messiah. The plan succeeded admirably, from which it follows that the public acclaim of the President is undeserved…” He posited further that though the president may be under the illusion that corruption is number one enemy, he is mistaken. Nigeria’s number one enemy, Nwabueze affirms, “…Is the North-South Divide, which is deepened, as it unquestionably is, by the Divide separating the adherents of the Christian and Muslim religions.”

    Also high on the ladder of national challenges, higher than the scourge of corruption, according to Nwabueze, is the matter of national question. Again, let’s hear it from him:

    “The National Question may therefore be described as Nigeria’s predominating and daunting problem, which, having been left largely untackled over the years, continues to loom over us. President Buhari does not qualify to be hailed and idolised as liberator and national hero on the score-card of his anti-corruption war alone, unless and until he effectively and successfully comes to grips with the National Question.”

    The wizened professor spoke so many wise words in his two-page disquisition as is always his wont. Anyone seeking some light as to the current dynamics of our nationhood ought to read it.

    But great as the piece may be, one has a few reservations. First, and as has been stated earlier, Prof is making too many interventions recently, making him sound like a mere politician or a social critic. One thinks that elders should speak less frequently and sparingly so that their opinion would not lose weight. (Alhaji Balarabe Musa also recently said that the anti-graft war was slow. At least 30 former governors and ministers ought to have been tried now, said the one-time governor of Kaduna State.)

    Secondly, Prof’s piece seems to be a bit high-tempo-ed if not intemperate. One does not see the need for that yet; especially from an elder. But more remarkably, Prof seems a bit harsh on President Buhari; as if the president has committed a crime to have persevered these past 16 years in his honest quest to manage the affairs of the country. It is our collective shame that the lot has fallen on none else but a septuagenarian to carry the burden of this nation at this turbulent juncture of our nationhood. And worse, it is our collective woe that the immediate past president (and his rogue party) was leading the country to damnation before our very eyes.

    Much troubling to one particularly, is that Prof is not known to have rebuked the immediate past occupant of Aso Rock sharply enough in those years of unbridled pillage and ruination of the polity.

    The current man on the saddle is never known to have branded himself ‘liberator’, ‘hero’ or any such tag, that would be the people’s perception and not by his prompting. If President Buhari has erred in the course of the job (like seeking to add a ministerial portfolio to an elephantine presidential portmanteau and like ‘beefing’ Ndigbo for shunning him at the polls), let us treat such case-by-case, otherwise, he is new and he is doing his utmost best so far, it seems.

    Buhari is not the cause of Nigeria’s woes and cannot be blamed for them. Those issues raised by Prof are long-term challenges. Could we in good conscience be bugged down by issues of national question and ethnic and religious schisms in the face of a near-comatose economy and a system afflicted by a cancerous graft and debilitating impunity? We urgently need to reclaim the country first before we can begin to renegotiate our nationhood.

    Lastly, one would expect Prof to give a bit more attention to Ndigbo that currently suffer their worst catharsis and are in dire need of direction. Prof must be worried that the Ohaneze he built and nurtured for over two decades as secretary general has be turned into a soggy bowl of porridge. Is Prof worried as one is, that a misguided band known as MASSOB is giving Ndigbo a bad name and violating the Igbo essence because the land is devoid of leaders? Isn’t Prof worried that his people have become a nation of olukus whose elders observe traditional rites in the cities and pour ‘libation’ to foreign chi’s? Prof must be pained that Ndigbo that abhorred the feudal over-lordship of monarchical rule now boast of self-crowned monarchs in every street of the world! Ndi ofeke a nara anyi obodo!

     

     

     

  • Let’s hear it for Gov Ayade!

    This column has been a close watcher of governors across the country and its initial verdict is that Prof. Ben Ayade of Cross River State and Malam Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State are front-runners so far. In terms of having a grasp of the job and zooming off from day one in office, the twain seem to take the prize.

    Ayade proves this when he got President Buhari on Wednesday to flag off his 260km dual carriage superhighway that will traverse his state and beyond. While most other governors are grappling with such mundane stuff as paying of workers’ salaries and while some are completely crushed by the responsibility of running their domain, Ayade seems to be soaring away with big, salutary ideas. To think that Cross River is not an oil producing state. Did they not say there is treasure under every soil? Rev it up Prof.!

  • Diepreye Alamieyeseigha (1952 – 2015)

    A lesson in legacy and democracy

    IT is a telling lesson on the importance of positive performance in power that former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha reportedly rushed back to the country from Dubai,  where he was receiving medical attention, out of fear of extradition to the UK to face corruption-related charges. His death at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital on October 10, aged 62, seemed like the culmination of insecurity out of power, though official sources said he “died of complications arising from high blood pressure and diabetes which affected his kidney.”

    No less a person than Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson confirmed that a feeling of insecurity was a major factor in the tragedy. Seriake said in an emotional state broadcast that reflected the sense of loss of Alamieyeseigha’s Ijaw ethnic group: “We acknowledge the anger, the genuine sense of anger and disappointment, and the outrage held by our people at home and in the diaspora and all well-meaning Nigerians and lovers of justice around the world for the way our leader was harassed, pounded and forced to abandon his treatment abroad. We condemn…the propaganda and the orchestrated harassment that led to his untimely death.”

    It is noteworthy that, in the end, a controversial 2013  state pardon of Alamieyeseigha by former President Goodluck Jonathan proved inadequate to redeem him as he remained wanted in the UK  where he was facing money-laundering charges but escaped mysteriously to safety in Nigeria. It is understandable that he was still haunted by the possibility of prosecution in London, after jumping bail in 2005, and got jittery in Dubai following reports that the UK had requested his extradition.

    Alamieyeseigha came to politics from a military background, having been trained at the Nigerian Defence Academy. He retired from the Air Force in 1992 as a Squadron Leader. His re-election as governor in 2003 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after a four-year term, resulted in an unravelling from which he never recovered.

    There is no question that Alamieyeseigha who governed oil-rich Bayelsa State from 1999 to 2005 was stained by official corruption. While still in office, he had one million British pounds stashed in his London residence; the loot was discovered during a search by London Metropolitan Police. Another hefty sum of almost two million British pounds was found in his bank account in the UK.

    He lost his governorship position when he dramatically surfaced in Nigeria and was impeached by the Bayelsa State House of Assembly. His subsequent prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) resulted in a plea bargain after he pleaded guilty to theft of public funds and money laundering. He forfeited money and property to the government, and got a two-year jail sentence in 2007.  He reportedly spent no more than two days in the cage post-sentence, having been held in detention for two years since his apprehension.

    Notwithstanding the foregoing, the man famously called “Governor General of the Ijaw Kingdom” was intriguingly hero-worshipped by the Ijaw. He was credited with the establishment of the state-owned Niger Delta University and enjoyed the confidence of Ijaw nationalists. It would appear that, to his ethnic group, his failure to achieve socio-economic development that matched the state’s rich resources was a pardonable inadequacy.

    From a more objective viewpoint, Alamieyeseigha’s power years cannot be described as exemplary, particularly in a country faced with serious developmental challenges. He may not have appreciated the virtue of spending public money for public purposes. His legacy is not an edifying lesson. He proved not to be the kind of political leader that should be emulated.

  • Soldiers on the loose

    Soldiers on the loose

    There was a time when the military was more respected than feared. The Nigerian Army was reputed to be a disciplined force. Unless drafted to quell civil unrest, it could only be imagined what they did on the battle front by their orientation and disposition. That tradition is largely lost now. The new turn probably informed the lamentation by a former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Salihu Ibrahim that the Army he was leaving behind in 1993 had become a Force of anything goes. If anything, things have got worse in terms of discipline and military-civil relations. Apart from constantly harassing the public, the Army has become notorious for taking on officials of paramilitary organisations and civil groups. On a number of occasions, they have been locked in open conflict with policemen and men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps.

    On Monday, it was the turn of an official of the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA), Mr. Peter Owolabi. The poor LASTMA official had to be battered for daring to enforce the law. And, to show that the soldiers who descended on the poor man, the soldiers who could not fathom why a common LASTMA official would dare caution them, blocked the Bus Rapid Transit Lane around Obanikoro in the former capital city. It did not matter to them that it would amount to gross indiscipline which is punishable under the law, nor did it bother them that the dedicated lane was for the free flow of traffic in the congested city. They were sure that no authority under the sun could call them to order.

    And, to confirm their position, their commanders have not considered it necessary to issue a statement since the ugly development. There has been no visit to the brutalised official, no apology to LASTMA and the state government, Owolabi’s employers. The soldiers are indirectly, thus being told to repeat the ugly incident should any other law enforcer attempt to make them obey civil rules.

    That was not the first time the soldiers and some of their officers would flagrantly disobey the laws of the land. On many occasions, they had been seen driving in the wrong direction at great discomfort to other road users. They are sometimes known to have forced gas stations to sell to them at whatever price they may dictate, and are hardly patient to join other would-be buyers on the queue.

    This is supposed to be a new dispensation, one that has promised to mobilise Nigerians for rebuilding the country. We, therefore, call on the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, to order a probe into the incident with a view to identifying the soldiers and disciplining them according to the rules to act as a deterrent to others. The same impunity had informed the shooting of tax-paying citizens in the past.

    It need be pointed out again that in a democracy, the military is subject to civil authorities. As many as elect to willfully flout the laws of the land should be brought to justice, if only to assure citizens that they are safe. The senior officers should be good examples. When they are orderly in all things and at all times, purged on the contempt for civilians who are sometimes described as “bloody civilians”, the forces would begin to act as members of an orderly society.

    We call on the Federal Government to reconsider the strength and size of the Nigeria Police Force. Obviously, 30,000 officers and men are inadequate to police Lagos. While not unmindful of the instruction to the Inspector General and the Police Service Commission to recruit 10,000 more policemen to shore up the strength nationwide, this is a mere drop in the ocean. There can be no substitute for allowing the states to police their territories. The involvement of the military in purely civil matters like traffic management might have fuelled the superiority complex that sometimes drive the soldiers.

    Nigeria is not in a state of anomie. The Federal Government has a duty to act immediately to halt the dangerous trend.

  • 10 reasons PMB should NOT run any ministry

    I have had to return to this matter fully after last Friday’s two-paragraph box on this space (PMB, don’t run any ministry!, 02/10/15) for two reasons. First there was a deluge of responses from readers most of them castigatory and insisting President Muhammadu Buhari is the best man for the petroleum ministry.

    The other prompter is an interview granted to The Punch by my friend Malam Garba Shehu (GS) last Monday. The newspaper had quoted him as saying that: “The criticisms are coming from deal makers and briefcase-carrying crooks because they know that Buhari is not a deal-maker. The deal makers are not ready to go down without shouting because they know that their days are over.”

    Before I proceed to present at least 10 reasons why PMB must relieve himself of additional burden of carrying on any ministry, I think GS has stepped a notch out of line to label critics of the President’s move as ‘crooks’. I must say that one is a bit taken aback because GS is a man of most elegant and subtle pen; those who have read him for decades will testify that he would never draw the ‘dagger’ on any issue and he would always make his point. Now that GS is in the arena and with a daily barrage of barbs, I must say that I know what he feels. But do I smell a whiff of Doyin Okupe or Femi Fani-Kayode somewhere?

    While we sincerely hope not, it must be stated that we all mean well. And imagine for a moment, a government without critics; it would, in my opinion, be akin to a man without a woman.

    Now why the President must not hold an additional portfolio:

    ONE: It’s not good for him:  Some may begin to argue already how one can deign to know better, what is good for another man; well these are matters of fact. No matter how healthful and brilliant a 73-year-old might be, he cannot be the President of the biggest nation in Africa and carry on a ministerial portfolio to boot without being bugged down or stressed out. If he is not, I will wager he is not doing either or both jobs well.

    TWO: It’s not good for the country’s image:  PMB being President and Petroleum Minister projects an image of a backward country populated by incompetent people. This will not happen in any enlightened country where people understand the magnitude and import of THE PRESIDENCY.

    THREE: Not good for the Minister of State: First PMB had told us he is restructuring and whittling down the MDAs. This means that he would do away with such aberrant positions as minister of state. Why would he make an exception for the Petroleum Ministry?

    Having the President and the minister of state might become a kind of double jeopardy for the ministry as the junior minister would be encumbered and unable to think up and express fresh ideas. He would simply expect directive and direction from the President.

    FOUR: Neither efficient nor effective: There are at least over a dozen other agencies and commissions reporting to the Presidency. This is apart from numerous presidential committees and panels whose reports stop on the President’s table. What about all the security paraphernalia – DSS, NIA, DIA, etc? We are also in the midst of a ‘war’ with bombs going off and our soldiers killing and getting killed.

    Who is giving a thought to the carnage going on in the Northcentral? What is the Presidency doing about daily slaughteration between cattle rustlers and Fulani militia. Can anyone in the Presidency tell us how many Nigerians have been killed in that theatre this year? These are matters begging for PMB’s exclusive attention.

    FIVE: No room for young people to grow: I will take a bet that there must be at least a million young, Nigerian men and women who can run the oil ministry better than PMB if given the opportunity. Col. Muhammadu Buhari was only 34 years old in 1976 when Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo entrusted him with the Petroleum Ministry.

    He was not a petroleum engineer, he had no prior experience in the industry, yet he gave a good account of himself going by available records. Today he thinks no other Nigerians in their 40s, 50s and 60s can be trusted with that ministry!?

    SIX: Not good for the industry: From the last time PMB was in the oil ministry about 40 years ago, so much has changed. It must be an entirely new ball game now. So the experience argument is simply laughable if not illiterate.

    SEVEN: Nothing special about Petroleum Ministry: Basically, the same principle will apply in running the Petroleum Ministry as virtually any other. The key factors required for running any ministry would be: system, leadership, integrity, diligence and some patriotism. Any educated adult imbued with these qualities can run any ministry. Whatever else will be matters of capacity, degree and details.

    EIGHT: Agric, Tourism, IT of more strategic importance: Let us imagine for one moment, a scenario in which oil prices drop to about $5 per barrel or even less; where does that leave Nigeria? Would the Petroleum Ministry still be important enough for an especial presidential interest? As noted here last week, if I were the President, I would pay a little more attention to agric, ICT and tourism because they hold more potential of becoming the new El Dorado for Nigeria even in the short run, if we know what to do NOW!

    NINE: No to Obasanjo’s style: It is true that PMB is by no chance President Olusegun Obasanjo who sat on the Petroleum Ministry for eight years with no salutary result, this column maintains that no President who knows his onions would add an additional portfolio to what is already a huge Presidency.

    TEN: Second term beckons: On a lighter note, a reader took me on last week, tearing me down for antagonising the President and not allowing him the space to deliver the goods to Nigerians. “We want him to manage our petroleum so he can clear the mess and raise funds for the other ministries,” the reader texted as if PMB was his personal property. I responded by reminding him that the President is not getting younger; if he burdened him so much he would not be able to consolidate his good work with a second term. The reader shot back almost immediately saying: “My brother na true o!” I just laughed.

  • Mopping with dirty mops

    Yesterday, a national newspaper had what we call screaming headline on its front page. It isn’t that the paper didn’t have something to scream about everyday, but this time it was poised to shout off its head. Here is the headline: “Lamorde, EFCC boss, in soup.”

    Wow! The uninitiated would think bulky Ibrahim Lamorde, the embattled boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is tumbling in a large cauldron of sizzling soup like okproko and bokoto. But that is not the case. The paper merely alleges that the Presidency is investigating serious allegations of malfeasance levelled against Lamorde.

    Well this column will only allow a screaming guffaw to that news. For a Presidency that is anchored on anti-corruption, one thought the first place to start would have been the badly smudged anti-graft agencies of the old regime. Sitting in my small cubicle in Mushin, one can perceive the stench of some of these agencies wafting across the land. It is shocking EFCC is just being investigated now.

    Can a dirty mop mop?

  • Prof. Jeyifo: This I believe…

    As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.” Ecclesiastes 11: 5

    This is trouble, dear reader. Yes, dear reader of EXPRESSO, as you read this, be sure that yours truly has court trouble; hot-soup trouble for deigning to understand, not to talk of interrogate the viewpoint of one of Nigeria’s pre-eminent intellectuals alive today.

    This situation reminds of the effervescent Andy Akporugo of blessed memory, who at the peak of his era at The Guardian Newspapers, Rutam House, Lagos, left us this timeless anecdote: upon being told by his office hand that he enjoyed his last article. Andy, as he was known by all, was aghast and asked: “You mean you understood my article?”, he asked incredulously. The office hand answered enthusiastically, making emphasis with his hand and head and entire body. Thereupon, Andy walked away muttering to himself, “Andy, you are finished.”

    That yours truly would read, understand and even question Professor Biodun Jeyifo who keeps a column, “Talakawa Liberation Herald” in The Nation on Sunday, would not mean that he is ‘finished’. Not by any breadth. Let’s just say that yours truly is a conventional Christian whose feathers have been ruffled. Let me confess upfront that as much as I try to catch up on Prof’s erudition every week, I do not understand him all the time. Perhaps I do not have the patience or intellect, if you like, to grasp the import of Prof. Jeyifo’s offerings every Sunday. I often take a look at the full page fair, pick, skip, pick and move on.

    But the last one (September 27) is different. Is it dumbed-down, or is it ‘inspired’ to achieve the effect it has on me? It is titled: “Pope Francis, the talakawa Pontiff: a man for our times, a man for all ages.” I read it all up and for once, I grasped the professor’s lucid and perspicacious weekly piece in its entirety. But I was also struck by his faith, religion and more especially, his (mis)-presentation of Christ our saviour. And this indeed, is the reason for this piece.

    Not that I have not heard of, or known intellectuals to interrogate Christianity or re-situate Christ and question his very Divinity. I have indeed encountered many such learned (and even unlearned) people who have completely cut themselves loose from the ‘shackles’ of this Jewish religion called Christianity.

    In fact I have a ‘living’ example. A young friend recently travelled to Canada for a short study. Soon through with her programme, she got a job out there and began to live quite ‘comfortably’. All of these happened in less than two years. Speaking with her recently, she was quite chirpy about her good fortune. “I hope you do not forget to pray as always?” I was moved to pop the question at her knowing that she was quite ‘prayerful’ while in Nigeria.

    “What am I to pray for?” she blurted, apparently prodding me. And we both laughed loud and long as we decoded the import of her knowing statement. We don’t pray here in Canada the way you people pray in Nigeria.

    Most of the things you people pray so fervently about in Nigeria are taken for granted here; most of those prayers we pray there have been answered here by government, she surmised. You are praying faith; you are praying worship and belief and peace to man; I pursued. “Hmn, Pastor Steve, I hear o!” she dead-panned.

    Surely, when you have ‘everything’ and perhaps know ‘everything’, you are wont to question faith and God, especially the God of the Jews as represented by Christ and Christianity. Prof. Jeyifo could be categorised as among the few living legends who could possibly know everything, or nearly everything. Even the Scriptures too, he has some grounding: hear him: …”back to my youth when I was a Christian who was drawn to the faith by the combined effect of my evolving moral imagination of some of the vivid, inspirational and transformative stories of Christ’s ministry.”

    Prof. Jeyifo writes that in those days, he was an activist in the Students’ Christian Movement (SCM), “when I was the Secretary General of all secondary schools in Ibadan that had chapters of the SCM.” He was no doubt exposed to a bit of the Word, (the food of the spirit), in his youth.

    But with words, the food of the world, Prof Jeyifo has few peers. A citizen of the intellectual universe, he has been a Professor of African and African-American Studies and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, since 2006. He has earned emeritus professorship at Cornell University (CU), New York, since 2008 after years of a glittering teaching career. CU, an Ivy-Leaguer, is ranked 15th among top citadels of the world, while Harvard is number one.

    A man who took a first class at the University of Ibadan in 1970, whose abridged curriculum vitae runs into about 20 pages and who has such giants as Wole Soyinka, Abiola Irele and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as referees would not be another earthling, in a manner of speaking. More remarkably, if he has not achieved some deity-hood in his universe, he must be inching towards it. He therefore would not hold any opinion lightly, especially in public. Worse, to ‘contradict’ him would be tantamount to facing a moving train wouldn’t it?

    But Prof, an erstwhile Christian (by self-confession) or an unconventional Christian as he describes himself, is moved by Pope Francis’ speech at United State’s Congress last week. He was so touched by the Pontiff’s “eloquence, wisdom and humility with which he took up the cause of the poor (talakawas),” he begins to compare the Pope with Christ.

    If Prof had stopped at comparing Christ with his disciple, the Pope, there would have been no basis for this piece, but his reductionist portrayal of Christ would certainly raise the hackles of any Christian who still believes in the trinity and divinity of Christ our saviour. Just because Prof has outgrown, or shall we say, circumscribed Christ and the holy faith does not mitigate the fact that some of us, indeed millions of us still find our essences Him…

    And when Prof says such things as: “the story of the preacher who asked his disciples to sell all their worldly goods, give up their worldly possessions and take up the vows of poverty as a non-negotiable condition of their acceptance into his ministry; the narrative of the militant anti-capitalist who took up the whip to drive and scatter the profiteering money-changers and usurers from the temple and its precincts; the account of the radical and inventive allegorist who stated that it would be easier for a whole camel to be threaded through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God; the realistic and compassionate preacher… the tale of the man who, in the greatest of his sermons, gave us those eight so-called “beatitudes” that are almost unmatched in clarity and eloquence…” (emphases mine) we who still profess the faith cannot help but kick.

    First, we must overlook Prof’s misapplication of some of the biblical allusions above. For instance, Christ is not a “militant anti-capitalist” on the other hand, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24: 1). He was merely protecting the sacredness of His temple. When Prof. takes such liberty with Christ and describes him in words that diminish, we must worry and we must speak up. We must let our respected Prof know that we, (hundreds of millions of us) who still find anchor in Christ feel affronted when anyone derogate Him by describing Him as ‘man’, or  an “inventive allegorist” and all such.

    We must not shy to say that this we know: that the world aches and ails today because it shuns that profoundly simple, teaching of Christ – “Love thy neighbour…” Why is the world in a maniacal race to churn out weapons of human destruction? Why are we plagued with endless wars? Why do bombs go off everyday? Why would two adult men or women live as husband and wife and go on to raise children? Why would a 14-year-old pick an assault rifle and go massacre worshippers in a church? Why would a 65-year- old man suddenly discover he was better off a woman and he goes ahead and procures womanhood?

    The reason is simple; they have shunned the Light of the world. They are anchored on the flesh, on guns, on Big Macs, on dollars, on graven images and even sacred cows! Yes, over a billion people in Asia hold cow in deference and would indeed kill a man first! This is the world Christ seeks to redeem.

    This I believe Prof.: Christ is not a man, He is God; the living God.