The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emeka Omeihe

The monsters we create

Those conversant with the outcome of last week’s security meeting between President Buhari and service chiefs, would have been struck by emerging narratives on the country’s security situation

Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali who briefed journalists after the meeting said they noted a lot of improvement in the security situation in the country more especially in “Zamfara and Benue and in Niger Delta”. In the Northeast, he said “we are having worrisome report, we have looked into it critically and we have taken absolute decision”.

The disclosure came as a mixed-grill of hope and disappointment. Hope because killings by herdsmen in Benue and other parts of the Middle Belt had for long appeared insoluble. Not only was the nation’s security found grossly wanting in stemming the tide of mindless killings and destruction of properties, their inaction had conferred on the killer herdsmen the miserable toga of invincibility.

Native farmers and villagers were left to bear the brunt of the mindless killings and despoliation of communities by very heartless and animalistic insurgents masquerading as herdsmen. The situation was not helped by views held in government circles regarding the causes of the conflicts and dramatis personae behind the killings. We were treated to such puerile and trite tales as the killer herdsmen are foreigners from ECOWAS countries to the ridiculous rationalization that armed militias trained by late Gadaffi are to blame for the escalating killings.

With such official mindset and seeming inexplicable helplessness by our security agencies, it was not surprising that accusation of complicity on the part of the government had since gained considerable traction. It is therefore heart-refreshing that there is now a lot of improvement in the security situation in Benue State in particular. The emphasis on Benue is instructive given that the overall dimension of the security challenges of that state are substantially different from events in Zamfara and Niger Delta.

But it remains curious why it is only in Benue among states of the Middle Belt faced with the insurgency of herdsmen that substantial improvement has reportedly been recorded. We needed to be told the situation in Plateau and Taraba states that have also been at the receiving end of the same mindless killing index.

Perhaps, corroborative of the disclosure by Dan-Ali was the report of the killing of 15 armed herdsmen along Gbagimba-Akor-Tomatar axis of Guma Local Government Area that had in the past, been the unmistakable theatre of the mindless slaughtering of humans in Benue State. Force Commander, Operation Whirl Stroke, Major General Adeyemi Yekini said the armed herdsmen were neutralized with rocket fire from a Mi35 helicopter while fleeing in motorcycles towards neighboring Nassarawa State. We also hear the deployment of air power contributed to the flushing out of armed militias and bandits from Zamfara forests.

This would seem a new strategy in the fight against insurgency of herdsmen rated by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth most deadly terrorist group in the world. Had this collaborative strategy been called to action all this while, we would have been saved the orgy of mindless killings that had in no small measure, ruffled the fragile peace of the country. All the same, it is better late than the late. It is only hoped whatever strategy that led to security improvement in these states should be sustained and reinforced to neutralize all vestiges of insecurity in Benue, Plateau and Nassarawa states and indeed all flashpoints of insecurity across the country.

If the story from Benue, Zamfara and Niger Delta came with hope, that of the Northeast strikes as a weird contradiction. This is perhaps, the first time in more than three years the government has come out to admit handicap in confronting the Boko Haram insurgency. President Buhari had set December 2015 to consign the insurgency in that region to the dustbin of history. When that deadline approached, he was quick to announce to the expectant world that Boko Haram had been technically defeated and that the war had indeed, been won.

When events appeared proving wrong that claim with the insurgents’ continued onslaughts, the narrative suddenly changed. Then, we were assailed with such stories as: the insurgents no longer occupied any of the country’s territories; their capacity to attack military formations or engage the military in armed confrontation had been demobilized and severely degraded, they can only attack soft targets and similar escapist rationalizations.

But the reality on the ground is that though the military had made substantial sacrifice and progress in the fight against the herculean asymmetrical warfare, the government had been dishing out exaggerated information on the state of that war. The exact state of the war thus became a victim of disinformation, misinformation and outright suppression of extant information. With inability of the media to access the theatres of the war, we were left with whatever information the government considered fit for public consumption.

Little wonder major confrontations between the insurgents and our security forces were either played down or totally blocked from public view save when some foreign media organizations stumbled on such information. But there have been many of such confrontations involving the insurgents and our security forces with the former inflicting collateral damage on the military and civilian populations as well.

A couple of weeks ago, the insurgents attacked a military camp in Yobe State taking newly deployed soldiers unawares. Reports on the level of causalities are still within the realm of speculation. Before then, they had ambushed and attacked our soldiers along some routes. The list of such confrontations is endless, but underscores poignantly the fact that the capacity of the insurgents to confront military and civilian populations and wreak havoc had never been in doubt. Yet, the war was won nearly three years ago.

There was also the Dapchi abduction of over a hundred school girls. Though that singular incident was marred in controversy, it nonetheless demonstrated very unambiguously that Boko Haram still occupies our territorial space and still possesses the capacity for collateral damage. Government’s reluctance to admit the reality of the continuing war is not hard to figure out.

It hinged substantially on political rhetoric of the Boko Haram war before the current regime assumed power. There was so much propaganda and politicization of the war especially by politicians of northern extraction that it was nigh impossible to secure national consensus on its direction and execution. Those who sought to make political capital of it read sinister meanings in any and every step taken to fight the insurgents.

A classic case was former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako who in his controversial letter to northern governors alleged that Boko Haram was a contrivance by the Jonathan regime to depopulate the north. Though he also bandied other tendentious, inflammatory and vile allegations on the war, none of his colleagues was known to have called him to order. This contributed largely to complications in executing the war and the eventual electoral misfortune of Jonathan.

It was no mere coincidence that as soon as Buhari came on board, he hurriedly set a short deadline for concluding the war to ostensibly prove the touted incompetence and bias of Jonathan in that regard. But all that have since proved a tall order, an exercise in wishful thinking. Not surprisingly, the yawning gap between this promise and its fulfillment has been at the centre of the changing narratives on the state of war against Boko Haram.

It has been a typical case of the monsters we created turning round to haunt us. All the same, it is good we have come to admit three years after; the security situation in the Northeast is still worrisome. Next time around, political chicanery should be exorcised from trying national security challenges to aid quick building of national consensus that is a sine qua non for collective success. The war in the Northeast should serve as a veritable thought for food to our leaders.

August 27, 2018
Reconvening the National Assembly

Keen observers of events since the National Assembly went on recess would have been drawn to the intriguing controversy trailing calls for its reconvention. Shortly after the recess spanning July 24 to September 25 was announced, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) Ita Enang and Senate Majority Leader, Ahmed Lawan cried foul on the prolonged recess. The duo warned that the country faced total shutdown if the National Assembly does not reconvene urgently.

They predicated their warning on the imperative for both chambers to pass virement and supplementary budget requests by President Buhari. They went at length to simulate scary scenarios and sought to place on the shoulders of the National Assembly the burden of their eventual outcome.

Hear Lawan: “to do otherwise will be sabotage to this administration; will be sabotage to democracy itself because if we cannot provide the funds for INEC to plan the 2019 elections; what do we call ourselves? Some other sympathizers have argued along the same angle accusing the National Assembly of a hidden agenda to scuttle the coming national elections.

But the leadership of the National Assembly denied responsibility for the fate of virement and supplementary budget requests arguing that the presidency only sent both requests on July 17, a few days to their recess. Notwithstanding this explanation and apparently to ward off allegations of bad faith, they summoned a leadership meeting of their principal officers to look at the issues raised by Enang and Lawan.

Ironically, the meeting failed to hold on scheduled date as masked operatives of the DSS barricaded the National Assembly, preventing lawmakers and workers entry. Allegations gained ground that the illegal siege was a contrivance by some senators loyal to the government to impeach the senate president, Bukola Saraki consequent upon his defection to the opposition. Events of that siege are in public domain.

But the issues traded by Enang and Lawan still remain potent. Both Saraki and Dogara have further adduced reasons why the National Assembly cannot meet now. In a joint statement, they said a new date for the National Assembly to reconvene was yet to be set because the joint Senate and House of Representatives committees on Electoral Matters and officials of INEC ought to hold on or before Monday August 13.

The joint committees were also expected to meet with the joint Senate and House of Representatives committees on appropriation, loans and debts on the Eurobond loan request after which the two reports would have been ready for presentation in the two chambers. They said no such meetings have been held and there is no report to consider. It is noteworthy that in all their statements on the controversy, both leaders drew copious attention to the fact that the proposals were only sent in by President Buhari on July 17, a few days to their recess.

The implication is that the late submission was largely responsible for whatever delay the proposals are suffering. It is also an indirect indictment on those seeking to make political capital of the controversy. Why it took President Buhari that long before forwarding the proposals to the National Assembly given their critical importance and the indecent haste with which regime apologists seek to place the blame elsewhere, are at the center of the suspicion that has enveloped calls for reconvening the National Assembly.

Both Enang and Lawan are of considerable knowledge and experience in the dynamics of legislative business and should have been so guided before bandying wild claims. The appearance last Tuesday of INEC chairman, Mohmood Yakubu before separate committees of the Senate and House Of Representatives on INEC to defend the budget gave credence to positions held by Saraki and Dogara and further exposed the duplicity in the alarm by Enang and Lawan. And unless they have other evidence to prove that the legislative processes which the two proposals have to pass through before both chambers meet are untrue, they stand accused of nursing some sinister agenda.

As plausible as the reasons adduced by the leadership of the National Assembly for not reconvening appear, there is little doubt they may also be playing for time given the defections in both chambers and their fallouts. Of concern was the siege by the DSS and the suspicions it engendered. Though Osinbajo swiftly sacked DSS Director General, Lawal Daura for embarrassing the government, speculations surrounding that event are too dire to peter out soon after.

And in the absence of any report or an independent enquiry into all circumstances of that invasion coupled with speculations on illegal impeachment, those at the receiving end of the deployment of security apparatus to further partisan political ends are bound to be more circumspect. All this could add to delay even when the relevant committees would have completed their assignments.

Beyond this also is the rhetoric emanating from the ruling party especially from its national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole on the purported impending impeachment of the senate president. When the party met with its senators and members of House of Representatives last week, Oshiomhole had declared that the “removal of Saraki is a task that must be done. We will impeach Saraki legally and democratically. The only way he can avoid impeachment is to either resign or return to the majority party. No amount of blackmail and sponsored analysts can stop his removal”, were the actual words of Oshiomhole.

We are not concerned with the propriety or otherwise of the impeachment of Saraki or any other leader of the senate. Our laws provide sufficiently for such situations and extant procedure for bringing them to fruition. This country witnessed a gale of impeachment of senate presidents during Obasanjo’s regime when that slot was allotted to the southeast. Thereafter, relative stability returned to that office. So it is nothing new. Neither will the impeachment of Saraki be the last.

If Oshiomhole and his party can meet the legal requirements for impeaching the senate president, they should show Saraki the way out. Saraki himself alluded to this when he said he would leave that office when he no longer enjoys the confidence of the senators. By that, he was understood to mean two-thirds majority of senators which the subsisting constitution stipulated for impeaching the senate president. Why threats, grandstanding and fouling of the political air? Why heat up the political space when all that is required is for those who want Saraki out to call the rules into action?

You want the senate to reconvene and approve virement and supplementary budget proposals by the president and you are threatening thunder, fire and brimstone. You said the impeachment of Saraki is a task that “must” be done and at the same time, you want to do it legally and democratically. That smacks of contradiction and outright hypocrisy. The word ‘must’ conveys the unmistakable impression of going about the impeachment process by ‘any means available’ and therefore conflicts with the grand norms of democratic conduct. Both cannot co-habit.

Given that the APC does not have the two-thirds majority to impeach Saraki as bandied figures indicate, the supposition that Oshiomhole is rooting for democratic change of leadership in the senate pales into insignificance. And that is where the danger lies. Even then, the way the leadership of the National Assembly interprets these threats in the face of its past encounters and suspicion of government’s intention will rob off positively or negatively on early reconvention of the National Assembly.

Enang and Lawan simulated shut down of government operations and sabotage of democracy. We may as well be inching closer to self-fulfilling prophesies. But if and when this happens, the dramatis personae in the threats, war mongering and acrimony should take full responsibility for whatever outcome. It is only instructive that due process can be compromised at grave risk to our democracy.

August 20, 2018
Invasion qua invasion

In this column penultimate Monday, we had drawn attention to the dangers to our democracy of rising deployment of security apparatus and ancillary agencies to resolve political disagreements.

We were agitated by the futile attempt by a band of eight legislators in a 30-member Benue State House of Assembly goaded by the police to impeach the governor, Samuel Ortom. Ironically, an attempt by a presidential aide to distance Buhari from the infamy left the substantive issue of who authorized the partisan deployment of the police unaddressed.

With such a disturbing culture of silence in the face of obvious assaults to democratic norms, the inescapable suspicion was that the government in power is vicariously complicit in the unlawful deployment of security machinery. The article concluded “if increasing intolerance of dissent, subversion of due process and partisan deployment of security and ancillary agencies to further political ends do not take the back seat, 2019 may be the nation’s albatross”.

It therefore came as an uncanny coincidence last Tuesday when the nation witnessed one of the greatest assaults to its citadel of democracy- the National Assembly. Hooded operatives of the Department of Security Services DSS acting on ‘orders from above’ invaded the premises preventing legislators and workers from gaining access into it. It was a spectacle to behold as the DSS lockdown lasted but not without some stiff resistance from some legislators.

Nobody knew what was amiss even as allegations trended that a group of lawmakers intent in impeaching the senate president and his deputy albeit illegally, were in connivance with that security outfit for that reign of impunity and embarrassment to the nation and the international community. But respite came later in the day when news filtered that the Director General of DSS, Lawal Daura had been ignominiously sacked by the acting president, Yemi Osinbajo for venturing beyond his scope of authority. The government went further to distance itself from that show of shame since it was neither privy to it nor consulted.

That is the way it should be. Osinbajo has clearly shown the impatience of the government with serial acts of impunity by its security agencies in sorting out matters of partisan political dimension. That adroit move should be appreciated.

Before the latest incident, some hoodlums had invaded the plenary of the senate and made away with its symbol of authority-the Mace in the full glare of the retinue of security agencies manning that symbol of our democracy. The police was later to find the mace abandoned under the bridge. Nothing has since been heard of that wanton desecration of the senate.

Just recently also, the residences of the senate president and his deputy were sealed off by the police and the EFCC respectively in an early morning show preventing them from leaving. Ironically, the police claimed ignorance of events at the residence of the senate president claiming rather the incident was stage managed by the senate president’s personal security. They promised to empanel investigation. Nothing has been heard of it ever since. Of course, mentioned has been made of the invasion of the Benue State assembly by a minority group of eight assembly men under police protection. The list of partisan deployments of the police and the EFCC to hound opposition is endless.

These happened while President Buhari was around without any decisive action to rein in the offenders thus fuelling speculations that those who took laws into their hands were not acting alone. It is therefore not surprising there are insinuations that the situation may have been the same were he to be around as the latest siege lasted. His media aide Femi Adesina seemed to have responded to such insinuations when he strove to convince reporters that the presidency is united as there is no struggle for supremacy.

Even as it is procedural to expect that consultations would have been made at the highest levels before the sack, credit must still go to Osinbajo given that past infractions were treated with utmost levity. This is not the first time the acting president would be demonstrating commitment to the preservation of the sanctity of democracy. He had also during his previous acting capacity averted crisis in the judiciary when he sent the name of Justice Walter Onnoghen to the senate for confirmation with only two days to the end of his acting mandate.

But the sack of Daura has also come with some scenario conjectures. The first is that the government is privy to the deployment of the DSS to enable loyal senators actuate leadership change given the defection of Saraki to the opposition. Those opposed to Saraki never hid this ambition. The suspicion was such that the opposition had to place within the public space, allegation of impending illegal impeachment and fingered Buhari’s foreign trip as a subterfuge to give room for it.

It is therefore either the government never took serious the threats by the anti Saraki senators; allegations of it by the opposition or it knew of them and allowed things to sort themselves out. Its corollary is that the government knew of the plan as it stood to benefit from it only to turn round to sacrifice Daura when the bubble burst.

Those who canvass this scenario contend that as Buhari’s kinsman and key member of the cabal, Daura could not have been acting in a vacuum. After all, he is not a direct beneficiary of leadership change in the senate. This school believes he could not have possibly acted alone but was sacrifice to save face when the plan turned awry. This scenario cannot be wished away.

There is also the counter speculation that Saraki worked in concert with Daura to invade the National Assembly so as to embarrass the presidency and attract sympathy for himself. This possibility cannot fly for a number of self evident reasons. The DSS neither takes instructions from Saraki nor is there any evidence of that affinity. Before now, that agency is known to have taken similar illegal actions as illustrated by its invasion of the residences and arrest of some justices. As a very close ally and kinsman of the president, the possibility that he could be acting out a script for Saraki is patently inconceivable. Propping up such theory can only reinforce the suspicion that the government is bent on holding on to anything to cover up the embarrassment.

Those throwing up such suggestions are not helping matters. The key thing is that Osinbajo has taken the right measure by sacking Daura. If Daura was made scapegoat to save the face of the government, the end has justified the means. Had such measures been taken in previous breaches, the government would have exorcised the ghost of impunity and lawlessness that has been tilting the nation towards anarchy.

Saraki can be impeached if he must. But those who seek to impeach him must abide by extant rules in achieving that objective. Procuring the services of the police to help the impeachment process has all the trappings of illegality and ultimately bound to fail. There is the argument that he does not have the moral ground to remain in the position having defected to the opposition.

But where there is conflict between morality and constitutionality, the former gives way. That is the situation we are faced with irrespective of the fact that such scenario had played out at the House of Representatives in the build up to the 2015 elections. Nobody went for the head of the speaker then.

Beyond Daura’s sack, independent inquiry into the conspiracy that brought about the disingenuous pass is required to clear the mess. This is a season of defections. Sadly, there are no perceptible indices in the conduct of defectors to merit ascribing any ideological prompting to the seeming realignment of political forces.

August 13, 2018
Benue and Imo travesties

Nigeria’s political atmosphere is no doubt, under intense heat. It is being heated up by the gale of defections by legislators, governors and ensuing rhetoric by the political class. It is also receiving scorching currents from attempts by governments (state and federal) to play down the anticipated effects of the mass exodus of their members on the electoral fortunes of the ruling party.

That accounts for statements from government functionaries and leaders as: Buhari will win comfortably in states A, B and C in the 2019 elections; we will not lose sleep over the defections; those decamping are paper weights and of questionable electoral value in their constituencies and we are happy moles have finally been exposed etc. These are to be expected as politicians seek to whittle down the effects of loss of membership on the fortunes of their party. But the truth remains, the matter is not as simplistic as we are being made to believe.

Beyond this hype on the electoral standing of the ruling party, there are ample signals of potent danger to our democracy emanating from the handling of the defections and concomitant disagreements by party members. There is palpable fear of emerging reactions to the defections rupturing our hard-earned democracy. There is increasing suspicion despite claims by the government that it is very comfortable with the mass exodus of its members that it may be behind some of the illegal attempts to get even with defectors.

It all started with the sealing off of the residences of the senate president and his deputy a fortnight ago under some hazy circumstances. When the dust settled, allegations were rife that the invasion was a subterfuge to impeach them on a day some senators of the ruling party were billed to decamp to the opposition. But that failed to materialize. The senate president managed to find his way to the chamber during which plenary some 15 senators decamped from the ruling party.

If the impeachment of the senate leadership was largely speculative, events in Benue State a few days after the defection of Governor Samuel Ortom to the opposition have reinforced such theories. A group of eight lawmakers in a 30-member assembly, led by an impeached former speaker was reportedly helped by a detachment of well armed policemen to access the state assembly that was on recess. But as youths got wind of the situation and made moves to forestall the illegality, they were driven away by the police. The same police also made it impossible for 22 other legislators to sit. The group of eight, basking on security protection, accused the governor of financial infractions, issued impeachment notice on him and mandated the state Chief Judge to commence proceedings.

The action of the minority lawmakers attracted serious umbrage from the public. It was seen as a throwback to the impunity of the past where devious and illegal means were deployed to sack democratically elected people and governments. Accusing fingers were pointed at the president given the role of the police in that show of shame. And for a government that came up just recently to brandish illegal impeachments by some past governments to demonstrate its commitment to democratic ethos, it struck as a huge contradiction and embarrassment.

Sensing danger, Special Adviser to President Buhari on media, Femi Adesina made spirited but unsuccessful efforts to exculpate his boss from the muddle in the Benue assembly. He rejected the attempt to link Buhari to what he described as the inglorious past when lawmakers in their minority removed sitting governors in breach of the constitution contending that the president will not interfere in the current development in Benue.

For him, those making such insinuations and asking the president to intervene are the same people who had been advocating strict compliance with separation of powers. Adesina accused them of setting up fire and then calling on the president to put it off. But his argument failed to address the substance of the suspicion and linkage-the role of security agencies in the scandal.

It is curious that the alleged complicity of the police in providing security cover to the eight minority lawmakers was left unaddressed by the president’s spokesman. The refusal by the same police authorities (acting on orders from above) to allow the majority legislators entry into the state assembly left a yawning gap in Adesina’s defense. It is inconceivable minority lawmakers could force themselves into the assembly and make the illegal proclamation with a sitting governor helpless without connivance of law enforcement agencies. And why did they drive away the youths that came to resist the impunity only to allow those bent on acts of illegality, if the motive was to maintain law and order? Again, to what extent can acts of illegality displayed by the minority lawmakers serve the course of peace in that state? All these reinforce the suspicion that the attempt to impeach Ortom albeit illegally was because of his defection to the opposition.

There is yet any evidence that the president reprimanded the Inspector-General of Police or the leadership of security outfits fingered of complicity in that illegality. The president commands the security architecture of the country and cannot repudiate responsibility for acts of omission and commission by his appointees. Adesina failed to address who to hold responsible for the actions of security agencies in facilitating the “infamy”. That omission did incalculable harm to his intervention.

It is equally an uncanny happenstance that as the Benue impeachment saga raged, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC unveiled the allegation of the embattled governors’ link to a fraud of N22bn. EFCC also claimed 21 members of that assembly are under investigation for allegedly diverting N375m meant for the procurement of vehicles. Though report has it investigation on the matter began in 2016, why the agency came up with it now remains largely curious and reinforces suspicion that Ortom’s defection is at the centre of it all.

The same conspiracy to get even with people critical of the government can be gleaned from the current predicament of the deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu. Coming soon after the invasion of his residence by the police and the belated issuance of an invitation letter later that day, the EFCC lent its motive to serious suspicion. No one is against the agency doing its job. But such assignment must be carried out in the most professional manner that does not give room for suspicion that it is a pliable tool in the hands of the government. Sadly, that is the unmistakable impression it attracted to itself in the circumstance.

The case of Imo State is of a slightly different nature but shares the same toga of illegality that had hallmarked some impeachment processes in the past. Here is a state wing of the APC embroiled in factional supremacy tussle that found the governor and his deputy in contending camps. The Deputy Governor, Eze Madumere is in the camp of a coalition opposed to Governor Rochas Okorocha’s desire to have his son in-law succeed him. The last congresses of the party reinforced factionalization along these lines with two executives emerging. Apparently to get even with his deputy, Okorocha deployed his arsenal to teach his former employee a bitter lesson of his life.

With a majority of state assembly men in his kitty, he goaded an impeachment process that led to the sack of the deputy governor. That was not before a court of competent jurisdiction had ruled against the process. But the ruling made no difference to the governor as he made all arrangements to have a new deputy governor sworn in by the state’s chief judge. Those invited to the ceremony including the purported new deputy governor were jolted when the news came after hours of waiting that the event cannot go on because of extant court order.

But for the principled stance of the judiciary, the impeachment of Madumere would have been a foregone conclusion. The Benue judiciary also came handy by halting the illegal impeachment process initiated by the minority lawmakers. By the rulings, the judiciary has strengthened our democracy. But the task of safeguarding the grand norms for democratic engagement must not be left to the judiciary if democracy is not to be compromised as the 2019 elections approach.

If increasing intolerance of dissent, subversion of due process and partisan deployment of security and ancillary agencies to further political ends do not take the back seat, 2019 may be the nation’s albatross.

August 6, 2018
Defections and other matters

Democracy is at its defining moment in this country. The political space is awash with negative tendencies that reinforce doubts on our capacity to evolve and sustain a virile democratic culture. Emerging indications abound that politicians have neither learnt from our sordid pasts nor are they prepared to part ways with ruinous orientations and tendencies.

Vote buying and desperation to win by all means which featured dominantly during the just concluded Ekiti State governorship election are all part of these dysfunctions. Politicians and voters were all culpable. While the politician deployed his ill-gotten wealth to gain advantage, voters reduced themselves to victims of the lure of the stomach.

But the dangers of vote buying to representative democracy seem to be compounded by the absence of any discernable ideological difference between the leading political parties. In the absence of such distinguishing principles, pecuniary interests gain ascendancy. Even where parties lay claim to some form of ideological leaning, loyalty and commitment to such principles are totally of no consequence to members. That accounts for the ease with which elected officials decamp from one party to the other.

Last Tuesday was particularly intriguing. The nation was taken aback when news filtered that the official residences of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu were sealed off by security agencies preventing them from leaving their premises. The previous night, the police had invited Saraki to report at one of their offices in Abuja to clarify issues on his alleged connection with the Offa robbery.

But he raised alarm alleging contrivance to keep him incommunicado on account of suspicions that some senators were to decamp from the ruling party in the plenary the following day. He faulted the invitation by 8pm to report at 8am even as he claimed knowledge of a report from the Director of Public Prosecution DPP absolving him of any complicity. Despite the police cordon, he managed to find his way into the premises of the National Assembly in circumstances that remains cloudy.

Ekweremadu was not that lucky. He was held hostage for the greater part of the day only for a letter of invitation bearing that day’s date to be served him to report to the EFCC in connection with alleged infractions. The police have denied invading Saraki’s residence claiming it was staged by his security men. They promised to empanel investigation on the issue.

Events were to follow in very quick succession at both chambers of the National Assembly as 15 senators and 37 members of the House of Representatives defected from the All Progressives Congress APC. The Peoples Democratic Party PDP benefited handsomely from the defections.

With the turn of events, it began to make sense that the invasion of the residences of the two top officials of the senate had a direct link with the envisaged defections at the senate. It gave credence to the theory earlier floated by Saraki that the invasion was to prevent him and his deputy from presiding over the plenary and forestall the defections. Matters were not helped by the surprising invitation to Saraki to appear at the police station that early morning. All these reinforce suspicion that there was more to it than we were made to believe. It is difficult to fathom what urgency there was in that matter that Saraki should not have been given sufficient time to report if indeed there was need for that.

There was the other theory that preventing the two principal officers from accessing the senate was to pave way for a group loyal to President Buhari to impeach the two leaders of the upper legislative chamber and enthrone puppets to do the bidding of the powers that be. It is difficult to dismiss this dimension.

Events in Ekweremadu’s residence came out ridiculous when the EFCC served him an invitation letter bearing the day’s date requiring him to report to their office that same day. So what offence justified the invasion when no prior invitation was extended to him without being honoured? All this cast doubt on the genuineness of the invasion and reinforce claims that the objective was to create vacuum at the leadership of the senate and possibly provide grounds for the removal of its principal officers.

But democracy and the rule of law were utterly ridiculed by the unsavory resort to arm twisting and menacing tactics. It portrayed the police and the EFCC on a mission to hound and intimidate dissenting opinions that are irreducible decimals in any thriving democratic enterprise. Even if the police get away with its claim that it had no hands in the invasion by probing its officials deployed to Saraki’s house from a predetermined end, it is difficult to envisage how the EFCC will come out of the mess at Ekweremadu’s residence.

Not with the letter inviting him to come to their office after they had barricaded his residence for several hours. So at what point was that letter raised and what informed the invasion when there was yet any invitation to him? The EFCC was less than professional in its invasion of Ekweremadu’s residence. It is bad for an agency that purports to be fighting the all important war against corruption in public offices to adorn the robe of a pliable tool of political intrigue. Days after the show of force, nothing has been heard of the allegations by the EFCC.

The same agency exposed its duplicity when soon after the defeat of the PDP candidate in the Ekiti State governorship election, it hurriedly posted in its website that it was eagerly awaiting Governor Ayodele Fayose for trials since he would lose immunity on completion of office. The agency hurriedly yanked off the post from its official website and made failed attempts to deny it as public criticisms mounted. But it struck many as an act of indiscretion and bias that demeans the credibility and impartiality of the agency.

Beyond all this, the gale of defections is a clear evidence of inability of the APC to manage success. This is a party that owed its electoral success to claims of progressivism adumbrated in its change mantra. Capitalizing on the serial weaknesses of the PDP, it made lofty promises that saw to its success at the polls. Soon after, schism set in within its ranks. Party preferences in the election of principal officers of the National Assembly were breached as factions struggled for dominance.

The matter festered with the inability of the party to put its house in order. Efforts by the president and national chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole to reconcile positions belatedly met brick walls. President Buhari claims those defecting have no issues with him or his government. But he is the leader of both the party and the government. It is difficult to fathom how he could possibly repudiate responsibility for the current predicament of his party. Even if the defectors have nothing against him or his government, the overall impact of the mass exit will rob off negatively on the government he leads.

Again, if defecting legislators have nothing against Buhari or his government, the grouses of defecting governors must be with either or both. So the attempt to shield the president from the crisis in his party cannot go far because he was in a position to get all the grouses sorted out before they got out of hand.

The same passivity in handling serious issues was manifest when Oshiomhole said he would not lose sleep if party members decamped. I am yet to see that man who will not lose sleep while his house is burning. Both the APC and PDP are currently laying claims to superior numerical strengths in the senate. They are embroiled bandying figures as to which of them controls a majority of senators. That should be instructive enough.

It is also an uncanny development that the supposedly progressive APC legislators are defecting in their numbers to the PDP which the government has deployed its arsenal to paint in disparaging colours. Either the defectors have repudiated their claims to progressivism; see no difference in the two parties or both. If they still wear their progressive garb in their new party, the difference between the APC and PDP will get increasingly blurred.

July 30, 2018
Ortom’s red card

Keen observers of events in Benue State would not be surprised at Governor Samuel Ortom’s declaration that he has been given red card by the All Progressives Congress APC. If such weighty statement pulled any surprise at all, it is in the innocuous occasion he chose to announce it.

Inaugurating a Special Adviser to the Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Jerome Torshimbe, Ortom told his audience, “As for party, I have been given red card and I’m outside the pitch. So if I have been given red card and I’m standing outside, I’m a free man. So I don’t know what will happen next; but I’m waiting. If approached, then I will tell the Benue people that I’m joining another football club”.

The governor’s choice of allegory of red card in a football match has been interpreted as a sign of having fallen out of favour with his party leadership on account of some infraction. What remains uncertain perhaps is at what point the red card was issued, the issuing authority and the infractions that attracted such a harsh penalty.

The issuing authority would not have been at issue since the umpires of a political party are known but for denials of such by the national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole. Last Thursday, he met with Ortom reassuring that the party will not let him go and that the APC has no red card in its cupboard and therefore cannot give what it does not have.

He alluded to disagreements involving a former governor of the state, Senator George Akume and expressed hope that he (Akume) also recognized the need for peace within the APC. Ortom unveiled the source of the red card when he said “I was given red card by a senator…but the leadership of the party told me the decision of the party leadership at the national level is superior to any individual and I think that is good enough”. The embattled governor appeared to have reversed himself when said though he was given red card, he is still flying the flag of the APC.

It would appear that Ortom is still keeping his cards open after the intervention of the APC national chairman. Before then, he had hobnobbed with the PDP leadership fuelling speculations of imminent defection. In the days ahead, his fate would depend on the fence mending efforts of the APC between him and Akume and the outcome of his negotiations with the PDP. Though none of the parties has come public with issues to contest, there is everything to suggest they have to do with the outcome of the last congresses of the party in the state.

Akume is said to be in control of the structures of the party. Given the above, it is difficult to fathom how Ortom can make it in the primaries if he no longer enjoys the confidence of his benefactor. That is the source of the red card. That was the reference when Ortom said a senator gave him a red card. That is also why Oshiomhole spoke of fence-mending between the two leaders. How far the party can go in stripping Akume of the party structures to make Ortom realize his second term ambition is a different kettle of fish altogether.

The reality on the ground especially following events of the last couple of weeks is that Ortom is undecided on whether to dump the party or remain in its fold. It will all depend on the cards placed before him by his party reassuring of the ticket for the 2019 elections. If he receives concrete assurances of that, he may remain in his party. But where the contrary happens, he is likely to sojourn elsewhere. Before now, he had dissolved his cabinet and sent packing all loyalists of Akume. All these will impose constraints in efforts to reconcile both of them as the issue of trust will count very seriously.

But even if Ortom is fully reconciled with Akume and his second term bid guaranteed, he is bound to face another huddle from a different quarter entirely. He will have to contend reconciling himself with the dominant feelings and sensibilities of the Benue people that have badly been ruptured by the insurgency of herdsmen.

His predicament has vicarious linkage to internal feelings of revolt within Benue State against the APC-controlled federal government’s indifference to their plight in the face of continued killings and despoliation of their ancestral lands by the herdsmen. In the last two years or so, Benue has seen the worst form of killings from the rampaging herdsmen.

Many communities have been sacked even as allegations of forced occupation of ancestral lands of the farming communities have been rife. Many, especially the most vulnerable have lost their lives in these recurring killings with the insurgents operating with an air of near invincibility. This year alone, hundreds of people including innocent women, children and the aged have been sent to their early graves in the most inhuman, despicable and dastardly manner by herdsmen who value cows more than human lives. Benue has been the theatre of the absurd in these atrocious killings, maiming, and despoliation of farming communities, places of worship.

In the face of this savagery, the reaction of the federal government has at best, remained tepid. Its inability to stop the killings and bring culprits to book has fuelled suspicion that it is complicit in the killings. Instead of rising to its statutory responsibility of maintenance of law and order, the government has sought to hide under nebulous excuses to rationalize the continued carnage.

Thus, we have seen officials of the government blaming the continued carnage on the enactment of anti-open grazing laws, blocking of grazing routes, climatic and environmental factors. But states that suffer the insurgency of the herdsmen rated by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world finger claims over land ownership as the oxygen that propels and sustain the conflicts. There have been copious claims by indigenous farmers that herdsmen are helped by security men to take possession and rename communities vacated by local farmers on account of the killings.

Ortom is one of the governors that implemented wholesale, the state’s version of the anti-open grazing law and has told whoever cares to listen that the state has no alternative to that law. He has more than any of his colleagues, raised the bar both within and outside the shores of this country on the unmitigated danger which the activities of the herdsmen pose to life and property in his state. He had said severally that he knows the killers and called for their arrest and prosecution but all to no avail. In this campaign against open grazing, he has in no small measure exposed the duplicity of the federal government in finding realistic solutions to the festering killings. A few months back, he accorded state burial to over 100 people killed by the herdsmen to the discomfort of the federal government.

A regime that has been fighting insecurity in several fronts with little success is bound to view with discomfort, the rising attention killings by herdsmen had come to assume through the protestations of the likes of Ortom. Not only has the federal government not hidden its strong aversion to the anti-open grazing law, its officials have publicly been pressurizing the states to modify them. They have even gone further to allege that conflicts between herders and farmers are sponsored by unnamed politicians to gain advantage.

Given the above, there is everything to indicate there may be some unseen hands in the current predicament of Ortom. If indeed Akume was able to oust him, cornering the structures of the party with a sitting governor standing akimbo, there should be more to it than ordinarily meets the eyes.

It conveys the governor as a toothless bulldog; an inconsequential in the political chess game of his state. There should be more to it than he made us to believe. There are extant sentiments within the Benue polity that are in conflict with the body language of the leadership of this country. The direction of such feelings is bound to rob off either positively or negatively on the political fortunes of the governor.

July 23, 2018
Coalition of political parties

The shape of competition for the 2019 elections is beginning to unfold with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by a coalition of 39 political parties.

Tagged: Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), the group is anchored around the Peoples Democratic Party PDP and a splinter group of the All Progressives Congress APC –Reformed APC which recently announced its emergence as a faction of the ruling party.

The coalition also has in its fold, the Social Democratic Party SDP, African Democratic Congress ADC and National Conscience Party NCP among others. Their overall objective is to erect a broad-based coalition that will field one presidential candidate to challenge APC in the 2019 election. They also seek to present common candidates in the governorship, national and state assembly elections with a view to producing the needed constitutional majority to effect changes in the 1999 constitution.

In this regard, they seek “to promote acceptable core values for the restructuring of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, secure lives and property, rebuild and redirect the nation’s economy back to the path of growth, respect for human rights and put right the country which unfortunately has now been dangerously divided along ethnic, religious and tribal lines”.

But the APC dismissed the coalition contending that the so-called R-APC is not a faction of their party which remains united under the leadership of President Buhari. Its national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole called members of the R-APC mercenaries paid to cause chaos in the party. At another occasion, Oshiomhole again said he would not lose sleep if the leader of the R-APC is not happy. For him, neither the national chairman of R-APC, Buba Galadima nor the faction he claims to lead is an issue to worry about. Elsewhere, the coalition is viewed variously depending on the divide one is standing.

Even as the APC leadership seeks to dismiss the R-APC, it is obvious that its current posturing is something to worry about especially as the elections draw nearer. Before now, members of the group operating under the sobriquet N-PDP had catalogued several grievances with a time frame for them to be addressed. Though some attempt was made to hear them out, nothing tangible came out of it.

Apparently frustrated by the outcome of the negotiations, they transformed to a splinter faction of the APC-the Reformed All Progressives congress R-APC with Buba Galadima as its national chairman. They also made public the names of the national executive committee of the group as well as some of their state chairmen. With that move, it is no longer a matter of doubt that the RAPC has parted ways with the APC. That accounts for attempts by the ruling party to discredit them as mercenaries whose exit offers little consequence to the fortunes of the APC.

But the picture of the overall strength of RAPC is yet to fully emerge given that some of its key promoters are yet to come public to identify with their course. It is speculated that the Senate President, Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, some three governors and a substantial number of legislators from both chambers of the national assembly are part of the game.

In the days ahead, the full strength of the coalition and what it portends for the coming elections will begin to manifest more clearly. However, their emergence has thrown up a number of issues germane to the coming election campaigns. Restructuring the polity, security of lives and property and revamping of the national economy came top in the package with which they intend to seek the mandate of the electorate. They are also committed to diffusing the burgeoning influence of ethnicity, religion and sundry primordial tendencies that have been in the ascendancy since the current regime.

There is no doubt issues raised by the coalition vividly capture much of the nagging challenges of this country presently. Restructuring the country can no longer be wished away given that it will not only reposition the nation for rapid development but stave off some of the systemic inequities that have overtime polarized the country threatening its foundation and corporate existence. Incidentally, restructuring was a key agenda in the manifesto of the APC with which it prosecuted the 2015 elections.

Since after that election, the party has not shown serious commitment to it. Though it did set up a committee on the matter, the action was largely seen as a delay tactics given the increasing popularity and support the agitation is receiving from a broad spectrum of the Nigerian population. For now, it is doubtful the ruling party will activate the processes leading to the restructuring of the country before the elections. The coalition intends to capitalize on the equivocation of the APC on this critical matter to seek votes at the coming elections.

Given the above, the APC will be hamstrung in promising restructuring given its inability to activate the process since the regime came to power. Even then, President Buhari consistently showed strong aversion to restructuring when he imputed selfish motive as the main reason for the agitation. At another time, he would want the matter be left to the National Assembly. Security of lives and property, increasing ascendancy of ethnic, religious and primordial tendencies and the parlous state of the economy will also count heavily during the coming elections. The coalition will be capitalizing on these challenges to market itself as a credible alternative to the ruling party.

But it has huddles to scale especially given its commitment to producing a common presidential candidate to face the ruling party in the 2019 elections. How it tends to achieve this and the modalities for it, are still foggy. Will they handpick the candidate or allow all the parties vie for the position under whatever contrivance they arrive at? Is it possible for the PDP to cede that position to a credible candidate from one of the parties to the amalgam? And where will that leave the PDP in the political equation? These are some of the challenges that will confront the coalition as events unfold. Already, a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana has unveiled his intention to run for the presidency under the SDP platform.

From all indications, the RAPC will eventually merge with the PDP if the case it instituted against the APC seeking to be recognized as the authentic leadership fails to materialize. Worthy of note also is the presence of the ADC and SDP in the coalition. Soon after the national convention of the PDP, some of its aggrieved members led by the duo of Jerry Gana and Tunde Adeniran accused the PDP of some ills and decamped to the SDP. Curiously, the same Gana wants to run for the presidency under the platform of the SDP which is one of the parties to the coalition. How the coalition intends to harmonize these interests remains a big puzzle.

And just recently, loyalists of former President Obasanjo’s third force fused into the ADC which is now part of the coalition. This signals the collapse of Obasanjo’s third force as a veritable alternative to APC and PDP. He may have come to terms with the fact that if regime change has to be actualized, it must be through the biggest opposition party-the PDP. That may have accounted for the presence of the ADC in the coalition.

No doubt, the coalition has many rivers to cross in producing a common credible candidate to face Buhari in the coming election. But that challenge is not entirely insurmountable. The emerging scenario is that of two strong political parties that will act as a check against the other. This is good for the country given the mushroom of registered parties that cannot make any electoral impact. It will also act as a check against one party state which the penchant of politicians to gravitate to the ruling party is inexorably foisting on this country. Our democratic experiment will be better for it.

July 16, 2018
2019 and Igbo future

It is not out of place as the 2019 election inches nearer, geo-political zones, groups and individuals are enmeshed in calculations and projections as to how its outcome would affect their political fortune.

This is more so in a clime where ethnic, religious and sundry mundane considerations heavily impinge on political action and choice. Based on these perceptions, decisions are made as to the particular line of action that would maximize the collective interests of these zones, groups and individuals.

Often, opinions are also offered by outsiders on the course of action which in their estimation would best serve the collective interests of other groups. Such is the nature of partisan political activity. But those who proffer such opinions must deliver them in the most civil and responsible manner so as not to invade the sensibilities of others. Perhaps, the southeast more than any other group, has always been at the receiving end each time outsiders proffer opinions as to their rational route to the presidency of this country.

At a rally organized by Governor Rochas Okorocha in Owerri, to drum support for Buhari’s re-election bid, Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Boss Mustapha threw caution to the winds when he said – “2019 is an election that will make or mar the chances of Igbo in Nigeria. I want the Igbo to make a paradigm shift. We have to know that the position of the presidency is negotiable. You can argue from the point of strength and not from point of weakness”.

Within the context he spoke, the purport of Mustapha’s statement is that unless the Igbo massively support Buhari in the 2019 election, their political future will forever be doomed. Put differently, he is saying that the political destiny of the Igbo hinges on voting massively to re-elect Buhari in his second term bid. That is the most callous and most irresponsible thing to say. The political destiny of the Igbo cannot and does not rest in the hands of any one man or a group of men. It is a matter of divine providence just as the political fate of any other people or group irrespective of their temporal positions in the current political ladder. It will remain an unmitigated insult to the sensibilities of the Igbo race for any person to seek to tie their fate to how they respond to the re-election plan of Buhari. Where the Igbo will be tomorrow and in years to come is a composite of so many factors including the resilience and determination of their peoples despite whatever temporal constrictions imposed by events of today.

Mustapha like Okorocha who organized the rally, is within his rights to canvass support for his boss. But it would have made more sense if he predicated his campaign on perceptible indices in the last three years of Buhari’s regime and efforts of his government to accommodate and give a sense of belonging to the people of that zone. That would have served as a veritable litmus test of what they should expect when next time he comes around.

Cajoles and veiled threats as to the calamity that awaits the Igbo should they fail to vote for Buhari, invade the sensibility of the average Igbo. Curiously also, they seem to convey an air of finality as to the possible outcome of that election. Yes, the Igbo legitimately desire the presidency as one of the beacons on which this country was erected. Since it is all about control of the huge resources of the federal government in the prebendal sense, they also need the advantage of such awesome powers to satisfy the same objective for which some sections will not let go their hold on power.

To that extent, the Igbo are within their rights to seek a shot at that highest political position in the country. They are also not in short supply of a surfeit of qualified and competent human capital that can redirect the rudderless ship of this country away from the precipice.

It is however, a different thing altogether if their ascendancy to that office approximates the best route to their collective good in this country. As desirable and attractive as that office is, the future of the Igbo does not and cannot lie in its occupation. In fact, an Igbo president will be so engrossed trying to appease other groups that his race may end up short-changed. If he attempts to address some of the misgivings of his ethnic group, the level of conspiracy and acrimony it will generate, will be such that can even see him out of that office. Lt Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, the first Igbo officer to occupy the office of Chief of Army Staff decades after the civil war, had a sour taste of this when a phoney group sprouted to accuse him of ‘Igbonizing’ the Nigerian army even as the reverse was the case. He was also accused of attempting to avenge the killing of Igbo people during the civil war when he deployed troops to combat the Boko Haram insurgency. Today, we know better. A president of Igbo extraction is bound to suffer more of such organized blackmail to prevent him from doing anything for his people. Igbo will end up a victim of reversed discrimination. Former President Jonathan can also tell his story in this regard.

I do not see an Igbo president who will surround himself with members of his nepotic class and get away with it. It is also neigh impossible for such a president to appoint virtually all his personal aides and heads of the commanding heights of the security architecture from his geo-political group. The Igbo ethnic group stands to gain little from that except the name that one of theirs has been there. It will neither put food on their tables nor better the lot of their kinsmen just as the north has remained largely poor despite the several years its parasitic political elite has held power

Yes, members of the ruling party in the southeast and elsewhere are at liberty to invent reasons why the zone should vote for Buhari next year. Such reasons should include but not limited to actions, programmes and projects of the president in the southeast. They should also capture the disposition of the president to them and their perception of it. If the zone getting the presidency after Buhari offers the greatest selling point, they are free to hold to it

My worry is that it is based solely on mere arithmetic calculations rather than credible and supportive indices. The trite calculation is that if Buhari goes for a second term, it will offer the Igbo the shortest route to the presidency. On the other hand, it will take the Igbo eight years should another political party ascend the saddle. Good arithmetic but it ends there! The issues to contend with both (endogenous and exogenous) are complex and do not lend themselves to such simplifications.

The best test for sustaining such claims should start with the actions of today. It should start with how accommodative Buhari has been of the interests of that zone and their position in his appointments including the commanding heights of the nation’s security. It should reflect in his current programmes and projects in that zone. These are the basic statistics for the campaign and not such highly elusive and contentious issues as prospects of ascendancy to the presidency.

Even then, a president from that zone may be of little help in assuaging their feelings and overall aspirations with extant limitations of the Nigerian federal order. Subsisting structure of the Nigerian state will continue to pose a serious inhibition to the full realization and maximization of their potentials, the number of times the southeast is allowed to occupy the presidency notwithstanding. What is required is a structure that is fair and equitable and allows the various groups to realize their full potentials and aspirations without constrictions by systemic inequities. They neither demand nor need preferential treatment. They only seek a level playing ground for all citizens.

Unfortunately, vested interests that reap from the convoluted and defective order will not allow reason prevail. The key issues that would form the central thrust of campaigns for the 2019 elections are: the unity of the country, national security and economy. Buhari will have to contend with these rather than the tale by the SGF laced with sound and fury but signifying practically nothing. 2019 can make or mar the political future of Nigeria and not just that of the Igbo. Igbo future

July 9, 2018
Renewed Plateau killings

When shall government and its security agencies evolve new approaches to halt the insurgency of Fulani herdsmen? This question has once again, been brought to the fore by last week’s massacre of innocent villagers in three local government areas of Plateau State by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

As typical of such attacks, more than 100 people were killed, many more wounded and properties of inestimable value destroyed. Video clips trending in the social media showed truckloads of those butchered in the most callous and despicable manner. It was a scene of surviving women, children and the aged fleeing their ancestral homes to escape the superior gun power of the herdsmen.

Curiously, the reaction of the federal government and its security agencies has followed the same predictable fashion of inability to prevent the attacks only to deploy men and ammunitions after much harm has been done. Then, we are treated to condemnations, condolences, excuses and rationalization.

True to type, the government fingered geographical and economic indices as contributory factors to the herdsmen/farmers clashes. It went further to accuse politicians of taking advantage of the situation. Before now, media aides to President Buhari had on two different occasions also accused politicians of sponsorship of most of the attacks. The allegation however, fits into the hallmark buck-passing and refusal to take responsibility of the government unless they unmask the said politicians.

Yet, in a statement the presidency released after the Plateau massacre, they said they had information that 100 cattle was rustled by a community in Plateau and some herdsmen killed few hours before the invasion of the villages and the subsequent loss of lives and property.

By implication, cattle rustling and killing of some herdsmen by the said Plateau community were the immediate causes of the well coordinated attacks and subsequent killings. It was a reprisal onslaught. Sadly, even as the government was fully armed with this information especially given the temperament and antecedents of the herdsmen, it never took pre-emptive security measures to forestall the impending attack.

At the centre of the latest clashes and killings are alleged acts of criminality by some Berom youths. These criminals allegedly rustled some cattle belonging to the herdsmen and killed some of the herders. Due perhaps, to the inability of security agencies to apprehend the criminals and recover the lost cattle, the herders reorganized and went on revenge attack. Sadly, most of those killed have nothing to do with the alleged criminality of the rogue youths.

It is the duty of government to fight such criminal tendencies, apprehend the offenders and make them face the full weight of the law. Our laws do not provide for self help in redressing such infractions no matter the level of pains they inflict on the innocent. Three hundred cows for 100 lives; meant for each three cows, one human life has been dispensed with. That shows scant regard we assign to human life. Very sad! What of the injured and properties destroyed?

The development has opened a new chapter to some of the claims hitherto bandied regarding those responsible for the killings. President Buhari had on a number of occasions sought to absolve the herdsmen of complicity in the killing by making copious references to traditional herdsmen whose only weapons consist of sticks and probably machete to cut foliage to fed their cattle against the ones wielding sophisticated weaponry. At another time, he placed the blame on armed bandits trained in Libya by the late Gaddafi. These excuses also featured during his last visit to US president, Donald Trump.

But from what we have now been told and public suspicion all along, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria MACBAN, has the capacity to levy war on any community that incurs its wrath. This is more so, as they have well established branches in virtually all the geo-political zones of the country. Whether they are the ones directly doing the killings or some other groups do it on their behalf as has been suggested, they cannot escape culpability. That the killers strike each time herdsmen are aggrieved is at the centre of the accusation that the latter are the masterminds. It should be a big puzzle that apart from the herdsmen, no other group, organization or tribe muzzles the awesome capacity to battle indigenous people in their ancestral homes and escape unhurt.

Before now, there have been calls for the leadership of that association to be arrested and arraigned for the serial killings by herdsmen. Some have gone further to rightly route for its proscription given the devious technology of the herdsmen to levy war on indigenous populations. Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom had severally pointed accusing fingers at that association as the brain behind the killings and demanded the arrest and prosecution of its leadership to no avail. He had repeatedly told who cared to hear that he knows the sponsors of the killings.

Fulani herdsmen have also featured regularly in Global Terrorism Index report. It is rated the fourth deadliest terrorist group coming after ISIS, Boko Haram and Al-Shabab. Despite this criminality profile, the government has been ambivalent in admitting the potent danger which their activities pose to the peace, unity and security of this country. What we find has been a curious attempt by the government and its functionaries to rationalize the killings.

It is however, one thing to rationalize the causative factors for the killings arising from farmers/herders clashes and entirely a different kettle of fish to evolve effective therapeutic responses to stem the scourge. That is where the government has appallingly been serially found wanting, fuelling feelings that it has more than a passing interest in the killings. What interests do such rationalizations serve: stem the tide or escalate the killings?

Each time the government or its official attributes the clashes to geographical factors, anti-open grazing laws and blocking of grazing routes, the impression is that of justifiable reasons for the clashes. Little wonder the killings have continued. There could be tangential connection between these and the clashes. However, what purpose is there in regurgitating them each time the killings occur instead of focusing on why those killers serially escape the prying eyes of our security agencies?

That is the key issue. The killers usually come in their hundreds with sophisticated weapons; wreak havoc and disappear without any trace. Yet, they operate in states where indigenous people dominate. How possible is that without some connivance? There must be something in the current security arrangement that allows that to happen. It must be tinkered with to reflect the heterogeneity of the country.

July 2, 2018
Yari’s frustrations

Inherent incongruity in the role of state governors as chief security officers of their states was again brought to the fore by Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State when he told reporters he had relinquished that position. He based the action on inability to exercise control over the security machinery in the state in the face of recurring killings by cattle rustlers and marauders. Yari is piqued by the anomalous situation where as chief security officer of the state, he could not take decisions on strategies for protecting the state and its people.

Hear him “We have been facing serious security challenges over the years, but in spite of being governor and chief security officer of the state, I cannot direct security officers on what to do nor sanction them when they err. The nomenclature is just a name”. Lamenting that the state government had spent a lot of money on security but to no avail, he urged people of the state to take resort to special prayers as a way out of their predicament.

Yari is not alone in this dilemma. Many state governors have at various times decried functioning in that capacity when in all actuality, they are not in control of security agencies deployed to their states. Some that found themselves in political parties in opposition to the one at the centre have had bitter experiences to contend with. In some cases, there have been accusations of security agencies working at cross purposes with their host governments. Ironically, Yari belongs to the party in power.

This underscores the seriousness of the matter. It has more than ever before highlighted the imperative to tinker with extant arrangement in which state governors depend on the whims and caprices of the federal government for effective securing of their respective domains. This misnomer is part of the imperfections of our federal order that are at the centre of strident agitations for restructuring.

Before now, it had been canvassed with varying degree of persuasion that the current structure of the Nigerian Police can no longer make for adequate protection of citizens especially given the complexity and mounting security challenges this country has had to contend with. Virtually all the nation’s geo-political divide are confronted by a peculiar dimension of security challenge or the other that have severely stretched the capacity of our security agencies.

From the Boko Haram insurgency to the insurgency of Fulani herdsmen, armed robbery, kidnapping and cultism to armed banditry, our security agencies have been so stretched that they are increasing finding it difficult to secure the nation. There are also emerging complexities in crime dimension that should compel our leaders to evolve new approaches to securing the nation. Incidentally, the institutionalization of state police offers a veritable option against the rising insecurity. It is also a strong feature of federalism which we claim to be operating. Not long ago, state governors had endorsed a quick implementation of state police to check the rising crime wave in the country.

Despite the allure of that option, there have been views that the country is not yet ripe for it. Fears have been expressed in some quarters on the prospects of its abuse by state governors to feather their political nests. Ironically, the current structure and organization of the Nigerian Police Force and some other security agencies has not fared better on allegations of manipulation by the federal authorities for predetermined objectives.

So citing prospects for abuse to stall the larger benefits of state police may not be helpful. Rather, it would appear vested interests that profit from extant centralization of the police structure are behind the opposition. There is also inadequacy of manpower which the government acknowledges but has responded by giving approval for the employment of additional staff. Good as that may be, it still scratches the surface in meeting the ratio needed for effective policing of the vast territory of the country.

Yari’s decision to relinquish his position as chief security officer of the state (though impracticable) demonstrates the contradiction in holding him responsible for the security of the state when the various security agencies in the state take their order from Abuja. In many of these crisis-prone states, the disposition of the leadership of these agencies in Abuja determines the way their subordinates in the states perceive crisis situations.

Such was at play in the serial killings by Fulani herdsmen in Benue, Taraba, Plateau and others where the phenomenon has festered. The Inspector General of Police Idris Ibrahim betrayed this biased disposition when he attributed the killings to communal conflict. He later apologized when pressure mounted for him to disclose the communities that were in conflict.

The Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali did not fare better when he attributed conflicts between farmers and herdsmen to anti-open grazing laws and blocking of grazing routes. He has gone further to persuade states that enacted the anti-open grazing law to tinker with them In the face of the serial inability of the government stop the killings in those states.

For state governments that bear the brunt of the clashes, these are far from the reasons for the clashes. If at all they count, they have very remote effect. Territorial expansionism and some agenda of a theocratic hue are fingered as the oxygen that sustains the clashes. Many of those affected, believe the crisis has festered because of government’s reluctance to do the needful. Matters are not remedied by recent allegations from some former leaders of this country and senior citizens that the government is complicit in the continued killings.

That is however beside the issue. Even where some of the affected states had attempted to deploy the services of their vigilante group to complement the efforts of the security agencies, some of them were arrested under very questionable circumstances and charged with varying degrees of offences. Yet, in some other states especially in the southern parts of the country, these vigilante groups have been largely responsible for the relative peace that prevails. It smacks of contradiction of sorts for a government that heavily deployed civilians under the tag ‘civilian joint task force’ to combat Boko Haram to be displaying curious ambivalence on the value of community policing.

The point here is that all societies even in primeval ages had their own ways of securing themselves. And it worked for them until they entered into social contract with the ‘sovereign’ denoted by modern governance framework. Having been tired of the atavism of the state of nature, they opted to give up some of their powers to a ‘sovereign’ who would in turn protect them. Conceived this way, the contract or social exchange involves rights, duties and obligations. The citizens have duties and obligations to the government while in turn they have certain rights from it.

That is the reciprocity which governance represents. This contract is breached each time the government displays incapacity to protect lives and property. But the people are not entirely helpless in such circumstance. That accounts for mounting pressure on government to justify its continued relevance in the face of the seeming relapse to the law of nature. Implicit in that contract is the irrevocable power of the people to call to order any defaulting government. Thus, the euphemism “power belongs to the people”

Yari must have been compelled by this contradiction to announce relinquishing his position as the chief security officer of the state. It is difficult to conceive how that can happen without anarchy having a field day. It is frightening to fathom the outcome of a governor failing to respond to the avalanche of security challenges that regularly inundate his table even as helpless as he is. That is the contradiction.

The scenario is akin to sending labourers to the farm without farming tools: a huge contradiction that has proved ineffective in serving our collective aspirations. It is time to decentralize the Nigerian Police Force to give the states and local authorities adjunct responsibilities in securing the country.

June 25, 2018