Category: Emeka Omeihe

Emeka OMEIHE

 

Except for the approval of the National Assembly, teachers of basic and secondary schools in the country will now retire at the age of 65 years as against 60 years that was hitherto the case.

The cheering news is sequel to last Wednesday’s approval by the Federal Executive Council, FEC of a bill to that effect. Titled “Harmonized Retirement Age for Teachers’ Bill 2021″, it seeks to give legal backing to new measures by the federal government to enhance the teaching profession in the country.

Some other highlights of the bill include the scaling up of the mandatory years of service of teachers from 35 years to 40 years, introduction of bursary awards to education students with assurance of automatic employment upon graduation, rural posting allowance and measures to attract the best of brains in the teaching profession.

President Buhari had during the celebration of the World Teachers Day in October last year, announced the approval of a Special Salary Scale for Nigerian teachers as well as other incentives to uplift the quality of teaching and learning in the country. Thus, the approval by the FEC is to give effect to the plethora of incentives which the president promised teachers while they marked their day.

With the approvals, the government has made good its promise as well as demonstrated serious commitment to improving the fortunes of teachers and the education system at both the basic and secondary levels. Before now, also teachers at the tertiary school levels have had such adjustments in both their retirement age, mandatory years of service as well as the approval of special salary scale.

It would therefore appear the approvals are to bring the basic and secondary education tiers in line with the attention that had been accorded the tertiary level. The overriding argument has been that teachers mature with age and the education system stands to gain immeasurably if their retirement years are extended so as to tap more from the wealth of knowledge acquired from their work over the years. That was also the major argument that saw to the upping of the retirement age of lecturers at the tertiary levels including professors.  And if this reasoning holds sway for the tertiary education level, there is absolutely no reason the basic and secondary schools should be anything different.

No doubt, the incentives are both visionary and ambitious. It has been long recognized that no country can develop beyond the level of its education system. And in the education chain, the basic and secondary systems are very vital as whatever quality of products they churn out are passed over to the tertiary level. There is without doubt, great wisdom in raising the standards of education at those levels by tackling some of the disincentives that hitherto hampered effective performance.

Since there is positive correlation between those who handle teaching at those levels and their products, a strong foundation in education must as a matter of imperative start from those levels. That appears the main motivation of the government in rolling out mouth-watering incentives to encourage teachers and scale up the quality of teaching and learning.

It is good a thing the bill comes with a new salary structure that will enhance the take home pay of teachers including rural posting allowances, science teachers allowance and peculiar allowance. By paying teachers well and motivating them, the education system will be better for it.

But that is not all there is in uplifting education standards in the country. Many of the teachers who are to benefit from these incentives are ill-qualified and ill-equipped for the new expectations in the bill. It may not be due to fault of theirs. The neglect of the education system over the years had been such that it was unable to attract the best of brains. So the system had to make do with those available and willing to take up such appointments. Today, things have changed rapidly and we can ill-afford half-baked or sub-standard teachers without imperilling the education system. The new bill is conscious of this and promises through training and re-training to reverse the situation.

But as ambitious as the bill is with the promise to offer automatic employment to graduating education teachers, it does appear it is one promise that is bound to be fulfilled largely in the breach. The reason is very simple.

Available teaching spaces within the education system pale into insignificance when compared with the number of graduating teachers from our tertiary institutions both at home and abroad. Even now, there is serious glut in the pool of well qualified teachers searching for non-existing teaching jobs across the country. It then remains to be conjectured how the promise of automatic employment for graduating education majors can be actualized.

Be that as it may, the bill is a very welcome development. The buck now stops at the table of the National Assembly which is expected to expeditiously give approval to it so that the vision that propelled the Buhari administration to come up with it can begin to find fulfilment soonest. The National Assembly must move quickly to give accelerated hearing to the bill and give approval to aspects of it that will enhance the quality of teaching and learning at both levels of our education system.

With these measures, it is expected that our education system will be better positioned to adjust to the changing needs of the global economy. But as futurist and ambitious as the provisions of the bill promise, the full realization of these goals may suffer major reverses if they are not matched with certain systemic adjustments in the relationship between the states and the federal government.

With education on the concurrent list, the burden for the payment of the harmonized salary scale will definitely fall on the states. States will be expected to shoulder the responsibility of paying the new salaries when approval has been given by the National Assembly. But the reality is that many of the states will be hamstrung in paying the new salary scale. The resources to pay are not necessarily available given the overconcentration of the nation’s revenue receipts at the federal level with the latter virtually holding the powers of life and death.

Even with the present salary structure, the story has been that of mounting arrears in the payment of salaries and allowances of serving teachers in many states, non-payment and embezzlement of pensions accruing to teachers and other categories of workers. The situation will definitely exacerbate when the new salary scale comes into effect. We do not need to go far before finding out why the situation will be so.

The case of the new minimum wage signed into law by President Buhari with April 18, 2019 as its effective date bears this out most poignantly. As I write, it is more than a year and eight months since the new wage came into effect. But the reality on the ground today is that many states are yet to begin payment while some of those paying are implementing it partially. They cite inability to pay as some of their reasons even as mismanagement of available resources is also contributory.

The situation was such that the Trade Union Congress, TUC had in September last year, said eight states were yet to commence payment of the new minimum wage and its consequential adjustments. TUC said they had written the affected state governments and engaged them in dialogue without success even as they mulled a protest with other unions to drive home their disenchantment with the situation. It remains to be imagined the fate of those states when confronted with additional burden of teachers’ salary increase arising from the new salary structure.

Here again, we are confronted with systemic contradictions – contradictions from the defective and convoluted federalism we operate. We cannot continue to pile up additional financial burden for states without enabling them take up such responsibilities. What this contradiction reinforces is the imperative for fiscal federalism, power devolution and structuring. And unless the states are empowered to take up additional financial responsibilities by substantially diluting the overwhelming powers of the centre over our collective resources, the enhanced teachers’ salary structure will suffer the fate of the new minimum wage.

By Emeka Omeihe

There are issues thrown up by last week’s raid of some forests in Oyo State by the State’s Security Network Agency- Amotekun that should be of interest to the debilitating insecurity across the country.

The raid to clear the forests of all manner of criminals who hide there to unleash mayhem on the society, was billed to be conducted by Operation Amotekun in conjunction with members of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders’ Association. In the course of the onslaught, three men alleged to be criminals were killed. The police confirmed three killings with some sustaining injuries even as other sources posted even a higher number of casualties.

But things turned awry when the Fulani community in the state claimed those killed were herdsmen and not bandits and kidnappers as alleged by Amotekun. They further alleged Amotekun did not carry them along while embarking on the raid even when they planned it together. The allegations and other issues raised generated so much heat.  Some saw the altercation as another opportunity to renew their opposition to the setting up of that regional security network by accusing it of extra-judicial killings and other human rights infractions.

The heat was so much so that the state government and the commander of Operation Amotekun had to come public to clarify that those killed were actually criminals.  In a statement, the Oyo State government said Amotekun launched six counter banditry, counter kidnapping and counter terrorism operations in four local governments with such groups as Amotekun, Vigilantes, Hunters and Miyetti Allah vigilante.

They claimed that some Fulani were part of the operation with the Seriki fully briefed and that those killed were criminals and not herdsmen as claimed by the Fulani community. We are thus left with claims and counter claims on the matter. It may be necessary for Amotekun to furnish detailed information on those killed and the encounter that led to their killings.

Such details are made more compelling by allegations from Oyo State government that vested interests bent on giving the security network a bad name will go to any length to ascribe ethnic coloration to the killings to frustrate the operations. That possibility cannot be ruled out even as some gaps in the operations of the outfit are also palpable. The government also claimed that some arrests were made and pieces of useful information extracted from those arrested and handed over to the police. It is vital that proceedings on all those arrested by Amotekun in the course of the raids are made public for us to have a proper reading of the issues traded.

The way things stand, it is now the words of operation Amotekun against the Fulani who claimed those killed are not criminals. But despite this dispute, one thing that stands out very clearly is that the raided forests have been the epicentre of the recurring banditry, kidnapping and sundry criminalities that had made life a miserable lot for people of that state.

If this is admitted, it would seem absurd that such a coordinated onslaught could be carried out without tracking down some of the criminals who had taken advantage of the bushes to levy war on the rest of the society. So where were the bandits, kidnappers and sundry criminals when the forests were raided? Or are we being made to believe that all those found in those forests had genuine business there? We raise these questions given the well-known fact that the forests provide devious sanctuary for these criminals to torment innocent ones in the society. In operations of this nature, it is to be expected that Amotekun should have some credible information before embarking on the raid.

No doubt, the criminals live in those bushes and carry out their nefarious activities using the cover of the bushes. It is also not in question that the raid was planned with the knowledge of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association and the Fulani leadership in the area. The point of disagreement following unfolding altercations is the claim that Myetti Allah did not physically take part in the raid even when it was part of the plan.

It is not public knowledge if all those arrested inside the forests are members of the Miyetti Allah group. If they are, then it becomes a herculean task differentiating between the genuine herdsmen and those who hide in the bushes as herdsmen to perpetrate all manner of criminalities. That appears the crux of the matter. And that is where Miyetti Allah should be seen more helping out. Unless the forests’ arrests involved other criminals not linked with cattle rearing, the misunderstanding that arose from the raids will continue to be a recurring decimal.

For, much of the challenges of insecurity in the country hinge on the inability to differentiate between the genuine herdsmen and those that hide under the cover of herding to perpetrate all manner of crimes from the bushes. That has been at the root of the ethnic profiling which Miyetti Allah is not comfortable with. The solution is for the herders to rid themselves of those who have continued to give them a bad name due to the uncanny coincidence of their mode of operation with extant practices in cattle rearing in the country.

It is this conflict that has fuelled and sustained agitations for modern practices in animal husbandry as it relates to cattle rearing. And as long as we still focus on nomadic cattle rearing practices, so long shall we be incapacitated in flushing out criminals from the forests. Unfortunately, rising insecurity has put the government on edge.

The general temperament now is that the federal government has performed very poorly in this regard as life has become a verity of the atavism that characterized the state of nature. That is what is meant each time there are references to Nigeria as a failing or failed state. Something more drastic must be done to arrest the slide.

It is obvious the altercation emanating from the efforts of Amotekun to rid Oyo forests of criminals is at the root of the debilitating insecurity across the country. We need to penetrate the bushes. We need to have access to them, clear the forests and smoke out dangerous elements hiding there to commit all manner of atrocities.

If the herders cannot protect and insulate the forests from being a launching pad for all manner of criminalities, then they share vicarious responsibility for the activities of criminal elements operating from there.

But the Oyo raids produced yet, another intricate outcome when 47 Fulani men with guns and other dangerous weapons were arrested by men of Operation Burst- a joint security team of soldiers and police. Initial reports had it that the armed men were invited by their kinsmen for reprisals following the outcome of the raided forests.

The police confirmed the arrests even as they disclosed that those arrested wore “Vigilante Group of Nigeria”, uniform. The leader of the Fulani herders in Oyo state, Ibrahim Jiji corroborated this account when he called for the release of his men allegedly mistaken for criminals and arrested by security agencies. According to him, those arrested are members of the ‘Vigilante Group of Nigeria’ fighting banditry, kidnapping and robbery in the area. He claimed they were supposed to be part of the team to clear the forests and were on the way before Amotekun proceeded on the mission.

This disclosure is as interesting as it is intriguing. So we have ‘Vigilante Group of Nigeria’ in this country that bears arms and ammunitions and exclusively composed of Fulani men? Under what law do they operate- state or federal? The boldness with which Jiji talked about the group indicated that they have been operating without let or hindrance. The arrests throw up more questions than answers.

Since the issue is before the police, the public deserves to know under what law such a vigilante group purporting a national outlook operates. This poser is more compelling given the several unresolved cases of reprisal attacks involving herdsmen and their host communities. We may as well be inching towards resolving that riddle.

By Emeka Omeihe

As the year 2020 winds down, it will be highly uncharitable to allow it pass by just like some other years before it. Not with its projected significance in our clime and the stunning but unanticipated events within the same timeframe that have combined to carve out a place for it in the conscience of all Nigerians.

Coincidentally, the year 2020 had long been programmed by our policy makers as the target date to launch the country on the path to sustainable growth and development. By the projections in its Vision 2020 document, Nigeria was speculated as “one of the 20 largest economies in the world, able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa, and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena”

Before then, the country had been listed by Goldman Sachs among the 11 countries with the potential for attaining global competitiveness based on their economic and demographic setting and foundation for reforms. As the curtain draws to a close, issues are bound to be raised as to what has become of all these lofty projections? This is especially so given some of the events of the envisioned magic year that are at polar opposites with the Eldorado we had been promised.

What really happened? Is it a case of wrong visioning, lack of foresight or sheer inability to anticipate the weight of exogenous variables with potentials and capacities to negate and undermine those lofty ideals? Or is it a case of inability to read between the lines, inverted projections or a combination of both?

Around the same time also, there was this projection from an American study group speculating that Nigeria would come up as a failed state by the year 2015. That year has also come and gone. But with the current situation in the country especially as the year 2020 ends in a few days time, comparisons are bound to arise as to which of these two seemingly contradictory projections are approximating reality as events on the ground bear out?

In effect, what signals are there that Nigeria is now on the path to becoming one of the top 20 largest economies in the world and a significant player in global economic and political arena? Or are we confronted with the verity of a failing state as projected by the American study group?

Within the course of the year, there arose significant events that Nigerians will for a long time continue to remember. The first was the global COVID-19 pandemic. Though the deadly viral infection is not limited to the country especially given that it was imported into our shores, it was the first time most of those living today got exposed to national cataclysm of that nature.

We cannot forget in a hurry, the nationwide lockdown that kept us indoors for many months; the fear of imminent death from a disease that spreads from the air for which no cure had been found and the protocols to check its spread that redefined the way we usually lived our lives. Not with the new wave of the viral disease that has compelled the various levels of government to roll out once again, some of those restrictions this festive reason.

It is hard to forget the hardship which COVID-19, first recorded in the country in 2020 imposed on the Nigerian citizens culminating in the fear of possible deaths, trepidation, shut down of the economy and massive loss of jobs. It was a year that recorded the highest global deaths raising fears as to whether the world was coming to an end. The Nigerian economy did not fare any better as it plunged into unavoidable recession twice within the year under focus.

Not unexpectedly, religious leaders took advantage of the unexpected and the fact that the disease had no cure to draw attention to the awesome powers of the almighty God and the limits of science. For them, the significance of the pandemic lay in the reality that all powers lie in the hands of the almighty God to whom we must turn to for solutions to our afflictions.

We are still contending with the reality of that virus notwithstanding announcements on the production of its vaccines. The way things are, we are bound to live with the disease for a long time to come. But one thing that stands out very distinctly is that the emergence of the deadly virus has really redefined our social relations; the way people hitherto saw life. How long these changes will endure is another kettle of fish.

The second event in the expiring year that had very profound impact on the country was the ENDSARS nationwide protests. Though the protests against the dreaded police anti-robbery squad commenced sometime around 2017, it later fizzled out as it could not gather enough steam. But it resonated with great intensity in 2020 not minding the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Initially peaceful and well organized as it drew support from a broad spectrum of the Nigerian youths, things got awry when the military launched an offensive against the protesting youths at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos resulting to deaths that have been a subject of speculation as the government and its agencies evade responsibility.

But that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back as hoodlums hijacked the protests unleashing in its wake, a reign of terror, looting and destructions. They attacked police stations across the country burnt down many of them with police officers and their men scampering for safety. It was the first time in recent memory such coordinated attacks was launched against the police institution.

Police operatives were so frightened that such scale of anger could be visited on them by the very public they are paid to protect and they got seriously demoralized. It took serious preachments, persuasion and threat from their leadership for them to return back to work. Even now, they are yet to fully recover from that experience.

Worthy of note here is not just the attack, but the reality that security agencies could be made to account for their deeds albeit violently. It also came with the serious message that security agencies owe responsibility to the public to discharge their duties in a way that satisfies public good. They owe their job to the public and must discharge them to public satisfaction.

The heuristics of the incident is that governments and their agencies hold power at the discretion of the public and must use them to promote public good or incur their wrath. That is the message and it is hoped lessons have been learnt about the supremacy and sovereignty of the peoples’ will.

The emerging issue is whether Nigeria has inched closer to the vision of attaining the status of one of the 20 largest economies in the world or become a verity of a failed state as projected. A few facts will bear issues out. But even without adducing these facts, it would appear the answer should be clear to observers of Nigeria’s economic and political trajectories over the last few years.

What are the issues? With the rating of the country by the World Poverty Clock as the poverty capital of the world overtaking India in hosting the poorest of the poor and its unenviable position as the third most terrorized country of the world on account of rising but debilitating insecurity, it is obvious that the projections of Nigeria joining the league of 20 most developed economies has become a huge illusion.

For, no reasonable development can take place in a milieu hounded by insecurity from all fronts and of diverse dimensions with the government showing manifest inability to stem the tide. Life has become a verity of the state of nature characterized by unbridled atavism and survival of the fittest. Life has become short, nasty and brutish- conditions that compelled man in the state of nature to surrender some of his powers to a sovereign in return for protection.

It is the failure of this social contract; the failure of the government to rise to the challenge of the raison d’être for its existence that is fuelling fears that Nigeria has shown all the signs of a failing state. That is where we find ourselves at the twilight of 2020.  For us, 2020 has become a huge contradiction- a case of upturned projections.

By Emeka Omeihe

Ango Abdullahi, chairman of the Northern Elders Forum NEF obviously desecrated the sacredness of facts when he claimed that outside the northern part of the country, most violent acts against northerners are perpetrated by the Igbo.

Abdullahi who led a delegation of his group to Port Harcourt, Rivers State to interact with his fellow northerners following events of the nationwide #ENDSARS protests made the incendiary comment without adducing facts to support his claim. It is not certain what his kinsmen told him at their meeting. Neither is the objective of such a sweeping and unsubstantiated allegation clear.

Whatever the motive is, the statement is as careless as it is irresponsible. Coming from a personality like Abdullahi, one had expected a good measure of caution in dishing out views that have the wider prospects of pitching sections of the country against each other especially when they are not backed with verifiable facts. His unguarded statement amounted to nothing other than preparing the ground for northerners (even as the concept of a monolithic north is an aberration) to attack the Igbo living amongst them, possibly to avenge imaginary infractions.

It is indeed a matter of serious regret that someone who lays claims to regional leadership should exhibit such level of insensitivity on an issue that can only further ruffle the tense political temperament of a country that is emerging from the ruins of the last protests.

From the little information available, Abdullahi and his group were in Rivers State to gauge the views of their putative constituents on events of the ENDSARS protests. If the statement credited to him represented the outcome of the meeting they had on the nationwide protests; that would indeed be very unfortunate as it is at variance with facts on the ground.

Having bandied such a tendentious and potentially inciting allegation, the burden of proof now lies on the shoulders of the leadership of the NEF. Abdullahi has a herculean task to come up with facts and figures of instances where the Igbo have levied violence against northerners or any acts of organized violence in any part of Igbo land against northerners or the non-indigenous population.

Where he fails to do so, he should be held responsible for any acts of violence against the Igbo in the northern part of the country. It is not just enough to bandy inciting claims without supporting them with verifiable evidence. It is a huge disappointment on the personality of Abdullahi that he threw caution to the winds in such a sensitive issue especially given the fault lines of our national order.

But we are not surprised at the easy resort of politicians to ethnic cards to shore up their waning relevance. Neither are we amazed at the emerging and very curious attempt to blame any and every ill of the Nigerian society on the Igbo race. It is becoming increasingly fashionable for sundry characters to embark on the dirty voyage of criminalizing the Igbo race for offences many other tribes are largely guilty of just to give the dog a bad name to hang it. Otherwise, how do we explain the inversion of allegations on who had visited more violence on the other between the Igbo and northerners?

This may not be the best of times to reopen old wounds or trade blames. But since Abdullahi is intent on misleading the country for inexplicable reasons, it bears stating unequivocally, that the Igbo have suffered immeasurably both in human and material capital mostly from the north. The sacred facts are there.

Do we talk of the Maitatsine riots of the 80s or other religion-induced uprisings where Igbo lives were lost for no just cause and properties of inestimable value destroyed? What of sponsored and misguided attacks on the same people for events that happened in other countries which some people found offensive to their faith? Or have we forgotten the beheading of Gedeon Akaluka and the unfortunate fate of a pastors wife, Bridget Agbaheme that was killed in a Kano market?

What of the culture of issuing quit orders on the Igbo resident in the north on very flimsy grounds by sponsored youth bodies? If the above instances are not enough to put a lie to claims from the NEF chieftain, perhaps he also needed to be reminded of the real victims of the Boko Haram insurgency at the budding stages of their religion-induced campaigns. The facts are also there.

It would have been needless going this length if Abdullahi had not made dubious attempts to falsify extant realities. But it must be said that in all these instances, there was no singular occasion the Igbo embarked on a reprisal attack on northerners living amongst them. Neither was there any attempt to compensate those who lost their loved ones and valuable properties to the unprovoked attacks. Even in those occasions the herdsmen invaded Igbo villages leaving in their trail sorrow and awe, there was no incident of reprisal attacks.

Yet, Abdullahi had the comfort of mind to stand logic on the head. One had expected a body that claims to represent elders of the north to have been more circumspect and discerning in bandying allegations that have the prospects of ruffling the political temperament in the country. But that was not to be as Abdullahi curiously threw caution to the winds, speaking in such a careless manner that detracts from the credibility that ordinarily should be associated with such regional organizations.

Or are we now confronted with a verity of the views of the Special Adviser to President Buhari, on Media and publicity Femi Adesina when he recently said “NEF is just Ango Abdullahi and Ango Abdullahi is NEF. It is a quasi-organization that boasts of no credible membership and its leader is akin to a general without troops? Maybe Adesina was right. It is highly ridiculous that a supposedly credible organization as NEF purports could be credited with views that are at once, direct opposites of subsisting realities.

If the truth must be told, the Igbo by the very circumstance of their lives are generally not given to organized acts of violence. The fact of their cosmopolitan nature; living and owning investments in any and every part of the country, does not predispose them to either taking up arms against their hosts or their visitors. By the very fact of this also, they stand the greatest victims each time there are riots, loss of lives and destruction of properties. The recent ENDSARS protests bear this out. In Abuja, the Igbo lost several millions of Naira when their car market was razed down in instigated and unprovoked attacks. That was no all.

It was little surprising, the Ohaneze Ndigbo reacted angrily to the allegation with a call on the federal government to order the NEF to recant the inflammatory statement. If the NEF had genuine complaints from those they spoke with, the right approach would have been to take it up with the leadership of Ohaneze with a view to finding amicable solutions to them. But they threw caution to the winds without minding the repercussions of setting groups against the other in a highly volatile setting as the one we live in.

In the past, the apex northern organization, Arewa Consultative ACF under the chairmanship of Alhaji Ibrahim Coommasie had met with the Ohaneze leadership of Chief Gary Enwo-Igariwey on ways to move the nation forward. That was when tension and mutual suspicion held sway among the various ethnic divides and the country was edging to the precipice. That is the type of patriotic spirit we expect of the NEF rather than the resort to ethnic bile and cheap propaganda.

But more seriously, the message is not lost as to the choice of Port Harcourt for the vitriolic attack on the Igbo race. It fits perfectly into the usual well-choreographed script to perpetually keep neighbours divided especially as the 2023 elections inch nearer. Whether the outcome will be the same this time again, is a matter of time.

By Emeka Omeihe

The killing of 43 rice farmers in Zabarmari, Borno State is perhaps the first time in recent times the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents would visit such savagery on innocent citizens. Reports had it that rice farmers harvesting their crop were rounded up and had their throats slit in very callous and despicable manner by the blood-thirsty insurgents. Though official figures put the number of those killed at 43, some other independent sources spoke of figures much higher than this with many women feared abducted.

Expectedly, the mass murder generated public anger and outrage especially with the public display of the corpses of the victims prior to their burial. Not unexpectedly also, the killings have again brought to the fore, the propriety of the measures put in place to fight the war against Boko Haram insurgency in that part of the country.

Officials of the government have in their characteristic manner put up some defence apparently to absolve the government of any blame in the killings. While some of them had tended to play down the killings on the ground that terrorism is global phenomenon, others offered excuses raging from the mundane to the most puerile.

In the latter category is the claim that the rice farmers did not get the permission of the military before venturing to their farms. Ironically, they had been farming there and were already harvesting when the insurgents struck. If they did not get any permission from the military before cultivating their crops, how come such a non- existing rule became an issue at the point of harvest? Even then, the farmers’ settlement is not far from their farms. The implication of this is that the farmers have been living and doing their business there before the insurgents decided to attack them.

This presupposes that the military ought to have been aware of their presence unless they do not maintain some presence in that farming community. So the issue of getting permission before the farmers ventured into harvesting their rice does not add up. It is therefore improper to insinuate even remotely that the farmers put themselves in harm’s way by going to the farms to harvest. It takes a long time between the cultivation of rice and its harvest. What seems obvious is a case of the inability of the military to secure the area against the menace of the insurgents.

This reality can neither be covered up through buck-passing nor the invention of spurious reasons to absolve the government of ineffectiveness in the conduct of the war against terrorism. That accounts for calls by the Senate and notable Nigerians on President Buhari to sack the service chiefs for their inability to get a permanent handle to security challenges buffeting the county on all fronts. Serial attempts to play down or rationalize the mortal challenge which Boko Haram is, has been the greatest undoing of efforts to degrade that terror group.

Ironically, we have treaded this path before. It is the same mind-set that led President Buhari to declare barely five months after he mounted the saddle of leadership that he had technically won the war against Boko Haram insurgency. At another time, the claim was that the insurgents had been so degraded that they can no longer muster enough fighting power to engage our military in armed confrontation.

But events have since proved to the contrary. The reality on the ground is that Boko Haram is still much alive and strong. We have seen that in the number of attacks they mounted against the military with serious casualties. It is very palpable in recurring abduction of women, the burning down of village settlements, looting of foodstuffs and domestic animals.

It is also very evident from complaints by our soldiers on the handicap they face confronting the insurgents. The recent demotion of a Major General for statements credited to him on the progress of the war bears out this point very succinctly. Even with all the campaigns to play down the war, it is increasingly getting clearer that all is not well with its progress.

Perhaps, what appeared to have changed is the paucity of information emanating from the theatre of the war.  Apart from the little information we get from the foreign media, we have had to depend on press releases from the military for information on the progress of the war. Even at that, it is clear from the little information that filters from time to time that all is not well with the overall progress of that war.

Thus, when the governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum called for the hiring of mercenaries to assist the country fight the war against terror, he was only voicing out his frustrations with the progress of the war. But implicit in that call is the suggestion that our military as presently constituted, is largely constrained in fighting the asymmetrical warfare.

Some may not agree with Zulum’s suggestion on the invitation of mercenaries given the way the issue was handled by the current government at its inception. But the fact that suggestion has resonated, speaks volumes on the overall state of the war. Zulum’s frustrations spoke volumes. He wears the shoes and knows where they pinch most.

Before now, well-meaning Nigerians had voiced frustrations with the lingering terror war with suggestions on how to give a new face to the way it is being fought. Despite these well-intentioned views, the government at the centre prefers to go about it in its own way. But the strategy has not been able to neutralize the insurgents substantially.

It is not clear why the government appears impervious to fresh ideas on the prosecution of the war. But one thing that stands out distinctly is that it has difficulty coming to terms with the lingering war five years after it claimed to have technically won it. So, reasons have to be invented to sustain that claim even when facts on the ground speak in opposite direction.

The war against terrorism has been a victim of undue politicization right from the administration of ex-President Jonathan. We cannot forget some of the views from key personages from the north which added up to complicate the prosecution of the war at that time. Of note was the letter written by former Adamawa State governor, Muritala Nyako imputing ethnic agenda and a subterfuge to depopulate the north as the prime objective of that war. Then also, there was a conspiracy of silence from the northern elite because all was right if they culminated in regime change.

Today, we know better. We know that the Boko Haram insurgents nurse an agenda to institute a theocratic state in this country. We now know that all the tendentious and divisive allegations by Nyako were intended to score cheap political points and get power revert to the north. That objective is now a fait accompli. But we have succeeded in creating monsters that turned round to hound us.

Had there been elite consensus on what the Boko Haram insurgency represented at inception, that war would have by now, become history. So we are all victims of the bad politics at play in this country. Now, the reality of the insecurity pervading the country has dawned on us all. People are now talking.

Perhaps, nothing bears out the gravity of this insecurity than the statement by the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar-led Jama’atu Nasril Isam that “Nigerians have become so much terrified as nowhere is safe; the homes, the farms and the roads. Bandits now rule in many communities, they set rules that must be obeyed”.

That is how bad the situation has become. Is it surprising that Global Terrorism Index classified Nigeria as the third most terrorized nation in the world? When this is paired with Nigeria’s rating as the poverty capital of the world, the correlation between terrorism and poverty becomes clearer.

 

By Emeka Omeihe

When Mamman Daura, cousin to President Buhari recently called for the jettisoning of rotational presidency for the most qualified in the 2023 election, many smelt a rat. Daura had while speaking on a BBC Hausa service program said: “this turn by turn, it was done once, it was done twice and done thrice…it should be for the most competent and not someone who comes from somewhere”. He dismissed calls for power shift arguing that it was time for Nigerians to unite and go for the most qualified.

Those conversant with political events in the country were taken aback by Daura’s position not necessarily because of the substance of the issue canvassed but the quarters it emanated from. It was not surprising that the advocacy was read as an attempt to test the ground for the possible dumping of the zoning principle by the ruling All Progressives Congress APC.

And when this is paired with the cacophony of voices from sections of the north on the same issue, suspicions became high that something untoward is about happen to the zoning principle which had been a balancing force to accommodate the interests of the diverse groups and stabilize the polity.  But it was a matter of time for this suspicion to assume practical shape.

Thus, when the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola last week made a serious case for his party, the APC to respect its zoning formula in picking the presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, one was not left with any iota of doubt that all is not well with that arrangement within the ruling party. Then also, it began to dawn on all that Daura was not just speaking for himself when he called for the scrapping of zoning for allegedly not serving the overall best interest of the country.

Fashola had told reporters covering the APC that though zoning is not in the party’s constitution, but the leaders of the party had an agreement on it when the party was being formed. The legal luminary argued “the truth is that what makes an agreement spectacular is the honour in which it is made not whether it is written. The private agreement you make with your brother and sister should not be breached, it must be honoured”.

According to him, the nearest thing to zoning in the party’s constitution is implied in Article 20 which states: Election and Appointments (iv) Criteria for nomination (6) that states “All such rules, regulations and guidelines shall take into consideration and uphold the principle of federal character, gender balance, geo-political spread and rotation of office, to as much as possible, ensure balance within the constituency covered”.

It is not clear what prompted the minister to argue so persuasively for the APC not to abandon the zoning agreement which leaders entered into when the party was being formed. Neither did he state why he chose this time to remind members of that understanding.

But given the way Fashola spoke, drawing parallels with other agreements that are kept irrespective of their not being written, there is everything to suggest an attempt within some quarters in the party to ditch the zoning arrangement. That deduction is not in doubt as it is the logical outcome of the case the minister strove to make. There is the further extrapolation that those in the vanguard of this move, base their argument on the fact that the APC constitution did not explicitly contain provisions for the rotation of presidency between the northern and southern parts of the country.

Yet, we are faced with the implication that such moves are coming from the section of the country that is currently occupying that elated office. That should not by in doubt in view of the strident efforts being mounted by key political personages from the southern divide to have the two major political parties zone that office to the south in 2023.

Just a fortnight ago, Ebonyi State governor, David Umahi ditched his party, the Peoples Democratic Party for the APC for what he called the injustice of not zoning that office to the Southeast. Before then, the Southeast had been making a serious case for that office given that it remains the only zone within the southern Nigerian divide that is yet to have a taste of that key national office since the return to civil rule in 1999.

Within the Southwest where the major alliance that gave the incumbent president victory at the 2015 elections was nurtured, expectations are that the presidential ticket will naturally devolve to that geo-political zone. So if Fashola took out time to remind his party members of the need to keep faith with an understanding to rotate the presidency, it is very likely some of their party members have begun to exploit the fact that the constitution of the party was not very explicit on that.

That is my reading of the self-assigned campaign Fashola mounted against those seeking to discard rotational presidency hiding on fact that it was not explicitly captured in the party’s constitution. Fashola has reminded such people that there is an unwritten agreement to that effect and the party should keep faith with it. That should go without saying.

Even then, the same document contains such provisions as federal character principle, gender balance, geo-political spread and rotation as some of the principles that should guide action. But even if the issue of rotation was not clearly captured in the constitution of the party, the dictates of our federal contraption makes it imperative that it is one principle that is not negotiable. It devolves naturally from the diversities of our federal order.

So the argument on whether rotational presidency is unambiguously inserted into the APC constitution or not and the modalities for it, is patently unnecessary. Rotation, balance and federal character principle are irreducible decimals in a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country as Nigeria. They are the necessary ingredients without which a federal arrangement will lose taste.

That the issue resonated within the ruling party such that the minister had to take up the case shows all that is wrong with us as a country. It shows the duplicity of some political elites and vested interests constantly on a devious voyage of exploiting loopholes to heat up the polity and cause confusion. Yet, those who represented the south during the drafting and approval of that constitution committed a mortal error by failing to explicitly insert rotation of the presidency between the north and south and among the geo-political zones in that all important document.

Had they been more circumspect and politically discerning especially given the rancour and bitter competition for that office, they would have saved the likes of Fashola the trouble of trying to persuade some sections that an unwritten agreement should be binding. But it is a wrong analogy to compare unwritten family agreements or that of social clubs with constitutions of political parties. The futility of that argument is obvious from whatever developments that compelled the minister to speak the way he did. It is hoped he was not part of the team that drafted that document. If he was, too bad!

It is yet unclear the reasons one section of the country would seek to monopolize that national office. But if the kite flown by Daura is anything to go by, competence is touted as the key factor. Yes, competence! But there is nothing to suggest that people with sterling credentials for that office can only be found in a section of the country. And it appears a new song to seek to discard zoning after it helped the incumbent president to win the 2015 elections. We cannot forget events that shaped that election in a hurry.

The idea of zoning is to ensure that competent people from all sections of the country are given the opportunity to vie for the highest political office in the land. It is a stabilizing factor in a heterogeneous society. More than anything else, zoning is dictated by the devious deployment of coercive apparatus of state on these shores to thwart the will of the electorate. It is a safeguard against domination that can only be ignored at a great risk.