The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emeka Omeihe

  • Season of contradictions

    It would appear Nigeria is mired in a web of social contradictions. The scenario seems a verity of the Marxian dialectics. In the last couple of weeks, President Buhari’s regime has initiated actions in some fronts that appear to have opened the gateway to seemingly irreconcilable contradictions. Even when these actions are presented in their most altruistic form, they have had to come into conflict with exogenous forces with prospects for unintended outcomes.

    Nobody can predict the direction of unfolding contradictions. But if they continue in the manner they present themselves, chances are they may expose all that has been wrong with us as a country. They could also alter perceptions in the way this country has hitherto been run and the deceit that had characterized statecraft.

    But with hindsight of the social dynamics of history, they could also hasten positive outcomes that will alter stereotypes in the way our society is run. So these change elements, as scary as some of them appear, could turn out with unintended but beneficiary outcomes for the country.

    Thus, when the police accuse Senate President, Bukola Saraki of complicity in the serial bank robberies in Offa, Kwara State or Obasanjo alleges the regime plans to jail him on trumped up charges, the dynamics of these contradictions may have been activated. The conferment of GCFR on late Chief Moshood Abiola by Buhari and his apology to the family; declaration of June 120 as Democracy Day and the award of GCON to Abiola’s running mate, Babagana Kingibe may well fit into this dynamic process. They could have been designed by their authors to achieve set objectives. But they may throw up issues with more far-reaching consequences than originally anticipated.

    And as shall be seen shortly, each of these actions has thrown up contradictions of their own- contradictions that not only interrogate the substantive action but has prospects for outcomes of benefit to society. So when people dissipate energy on the motive behind Saraki’s travails (as relevant as it is) or defend the police for insisting on interrogating him, they inadvertently set the grounds for the positive things that could devolve from that conflict. Whether Saraki is being framed because of issues the Senate has with the Inspector General of Police, Idris Ibrahim or the police is trying to get even with him, is not the major concern of this column. Neither are we concerned with the scandal in associating the number three citizen with alleged culpability in armed robbery.

    If there was no frosty relationship between the executive and the legislature, the matter would hardly have come public. The fact that the police now asked Saraki to make his report in writing instead of reporting to their headquarters says it all. And it exposes the cover-ups and conspiracies that hallmark governance framework. Where does that leave us now?

    There are issues in the revelation of one of the principal accused that some of them have for years been political thugs to Saraki and the Kwara State government and they got their arms from their gang leader, Michael Adikwu, a dismissed policeman. Why the police failed to publicly parade Adikwu to take questions from journalists on how he got the arms and planned the attack remains curious even when he had earlier said he killed to avenge his sack from the police force.

    But the major contradiction brought to the fore by the development, is the phenomenon of thuggery in our politics. Politicians, all politicians make use of thugs. Thugs are capable of anything; everything. So to what extent can we possibly hold those who engage their services liable for their criminal conducts outside political gatherings? And what should be the right attitude to thuggery now we have been told it is the oxygen on which criminality thrives?

    These are the issues to ponder. Let the suspects face the raw teeth of the law. But if we do not substantially address the contradiction posed by thuggery in the nation’s politics, then the essence of the revelations would have been lost. That is the key issue the Buhari government must address since politicians in government and those in opposition benefit from their nuisance value. Given that thugs are emboldened by their association with politicians to embark on criminality, our governments are vicariously liable for the wave of criminality around the country. Even as our laws should take their normal course, the society stands to benefit if the turn of events culminates in dismantling the institution of thuggery in the nation’s politics. That should be the unintended benefit of the Offa incident.

    There are also contradictions arising from the award of the nation’s highest honour to late Abiola (as popular as it was), the recognition of June 12, as Democracy Day as well and the award given to Abiola’s running mate in that election, Babagana Kingibe even when he had repudiated the mandate by working with those who incarcerated Abiola to the point of death.

    For good reasons, the Southwest was agog for the honour done to Abiola and the recognition of June 12 as Democracy Day. It was evident from the showers of praise on Buhari for doing what regimes before him failed to do. Buhari appeared to have prepared the ground for the encomiums when he said the gesture “is only a symbolic token of redress and recompense for the grievous injury done to the peace and unity of this country.  It is not meant to be and it is not an attempt to open old wounds but to put right, a national wrong”.

    These are very key statements that will serve as the fulcrum for the appraisal of future actions by Buhari. But even as he received praises from those bruised most by events of that annulment, they were not in doubt that they least expected him to be the one to bestow honours on Abiola on account of the June 12 event. They doubted his democratic credentials.  Abiola’s daughter Hafsat said that much and gave clear indication that the relationship between Abiola and Buhari was not cordial as she tendered family apology. That is part of the contradiction. What could have motivated Buhari to do the unexpected? He said it is to heal the wounds of the injury inflicted on the peace and unity of this country. But many believe political expediency was the prime motivation.

    The role Buhari played in the Abacha regime and his past dispositions to such issues are behind insinuations that the turn of events is motivated by the lure of political gains. Both Wole Soyinka and Femi Falana in their contributions harped on the web of contradictions arising from this singular award and recognition. Soyinka spoke of the confusion in the minds of the public created by honouring Abiola with one hand and with the other eulogizing his tormentor. Falana called attention to other national wrongs needed to be redressed. All these interrogate the president’s touted reasons for the action. What of the award to Kingibe, a man that repudiated the election he and his principal were said to have won?

    It is gratifying Buhari has pledged to right national wrongs. We will hold him to that as there are so many of such wrongs crying for urgent attention. The nation is more divided on its fault lines more than ever before. If the awards and recognitions bring about a change of attitude in Buhari’s responses and dispositions to national challenges, then something positive to society has been achieved. But if events point to the contrary, critics would have been proven right.

    It is good a thing Buhari has armed us with a new mirror from which his actions will be viewed. We will be looking out for credible evidence of a true democrat committed to an all inclusive government with an abiding zeal to give all a sense of belonging. He will be assessed against the capacity of his future actions to conform to the sentiments that propelled him to recognize the sanctity of the June 12 elections. If he keeps to these especially in the conduct of free, fair and credible elections, Abiola and June 12 would have indeed been immortalized. Anything to the contrary amounts to lip service.

    A common thread runs through Saraki’s travails, Buhari’s curious recognition of the sanctity of June 12 elections, and Obasanjo’s alarm of plans to jail him even when he had preferred jail than vote for Jonathan to ruin the country-contradiction. For now, it is unclear the direction of these contradictions. But they instruct utmost introspection and caution on the part of those entrusted with the leadership of this country.

     

  • Media aides: the crisis of loyalty

    Ethical and loyalty concerns for the army of media aides have of recent, been in the public space. By media aides, reference is made to special advisers on media; senior special assistants, press secretaries, publicity secretaries to political parties and others in similar roles irrespective of their training and nomenclature.

    The moral bearing of media aides was brought to the fore by recent altercations between Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media, Garba Shehu and former media aide to former President Jonathan, Reno Omokri. There was also the adjunct arising from the defection of former publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Adedayo Adeyeye to the All Progressives Congress APC.

    These conversations raised profound issues that should not be allowed to peter out. In his reaction to a claim by Shehu in one of his write-ups, Omokri had accused him of lacking in strong moral values given that he (Shehu) was a special assistant in Obasanjo’s regime, during which period he issued anti-Buhari statements.

    He could not fathom how the same Shehu who authored critical statements against Buhari when he served the PDP, turned round to attack the party and its functionaries now. Omokri queried: “What moral standing does Garba Shehu have for today writing and releasing statements against the same PDP administration and officials he once served?” For him, Shehu was made by the PDP and if he accuses the party of any misdeed, he must share in that blame.

    Omokri could not come to terms with the apparent contradiction in serving a particular government as its media aide only for the same person to assume the same role in another government to attack and criticize the government he hitherto promoted. He sees that as evidence of dearth of strong moral principles.

    Shehu, while acknowledging his former assignment as a long time aide to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar admitted he worked in the media office of a PDP administration for six months. He explained that when his former boss Abubakar and other contestants in the APC primaries lost to Buhari, they agreed to surrender their media assets to the winner who asked him to lead the team.

    “When we won, he (the President-elect Buhari) invited me to serve as one of his two spokespersons and I pledged 100 per cent loyalty to him and that’s where I am. This cannot be classified as just serving Any Government in Power AGIP”, he explained.

    Though both combatants raised other issues, this article is only concerned with the moral and loyalty concerns of the engagement. Omokri is not out of place to have tasked Shehu on the moral concerns arising from his role as a former aide to the PDP government in which position he must have been critical of the opposition, any opposition and his current role.

    In that previous position irrespective of its duration, he would have taken up issues against Buhari as a key opposition leader while performing his role as one of the attack dogs of the PDP regime. That is within his call of duty.

    But are there no issues in serving the PDP or any other government as one of its image makers at one time and at another finding oneself in the APC or another party in an inverse task of taking the former to the cleaners? That is the moral issue Omokri raised and it will be uncharitable to dismiss it with a wave of the hand. The matter is fundamental and goes beyond the diatribe between the two combatants. It centres round the job journalists do and the precarious situation they often find themselves when they serve ‘two masters’.

    There is the thinking that once you have been identified with a particular government or political appointee, you are expected to remain with them and whatever they represent. You are also to rise and fall together with their political fortunes. But whereas politicians are largely comfortable in and out of office, media aides are not that lucky as they still have to engage in meaningful work to meet their daily needs. Requiring them to be permanently attached to their former bosses or refuse appointments from political opponents (though morally plausible) would rather be a tall order. Political situations are in constant state of flux in this clime even as politicians are very unpredictable and may not care about the fate of their former aides.

    Shehu seemed to have captured this dilemma when he recounted how he served Abubakar for many years; the collapsing of his (Abubakar’s) media assets into that of Buhari after the APC primaries and his emergence as one of his spokespersons. He sees his current position as circumstantial and not a deliberate decision to pitch tent with any government in power.

    No doubt, Shehu owes his position to Abubakar- a key player in the PDP who later decamped to the APC before his final defection back to the same PDP. That turn of events was bound to create problems for him especially having been ceded to Buhari. So the accusation of pandering to the lure of the stomach or lacking in strong ethical bearing may not properly fit in here. There are also moral issues in abandoning Buhari just because his mentor Abubakar jetted back to the PDP.

    But he was not entirely helpless. He had the option to stay or exit when his boss Abubakar defected. But his conscience (for whatever promptings) instructed he should continue and pledge total loyalty to Buhari. That is where he is now and he is entitled to that. The issue is not just that he works for the Buhari government. It is with the nature of job he does for him. If he were a minister in one of the ministries except perhaps information, the moral issues being traded may never have arisen. That raises a paradox of classification of media aides either as appendages to their former bosses or professionals.

    Perhaps, the case of Adeyeye will further drive this contradiction home. Here was a former publicity secretary of the PDP during its recent turbulent times. He not only believed in the PDP but was its mirror to the outside world. He ran for the PDP governorship primaries in Ekiti State and came second. Less than two weeks after, he decamped to the APC citing irreconcilable differences between the state governor and himself.

    Rationalizing the volte-face, he said he was forced to take a decision between loyalty to his political party and loyalty to his community, and he chose the latter. According to him, “I cannot change my state or hometown but I can always change my party if I feel it can no longer serve as a vehicle for our collective good as a people”.

    It is unclear what ‘forced’ Adeyeye to put the two loyalties on scale. That he was so compelled, underscores the moral and ethical burden he contended with especially in his capacity as former spokesman of the PDP. If he was not the image maker of that party, his defection would have made little difference as it is in keeping with the character of our politicians. He even said that much by opting to ditch his party. So we can see the interface between the dilemma Adeyeye was confronted with and the issues canvassed by Omokri.

    But the difference is that Adeyeye is a politician and very unlikely to be entrusted with the role of managing media affairs of his new party. Soon, he will get away with that contradiction. Journalists are likely to carry that baggage for a long time to come. For some, it will mark an end to their career. That is the cross those of them that took up such appointments bear.

    A contrasting case was the attack on fiery lawyer, Mike Ozekhome at the 14th Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lectures by a gang of hired protesters. Their grouse: he defended Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, former First Lady Patience Jonathan and Senate President, Bukola Saraki.  The general feeling after the attack, was that he had a professional job to do and could advocate for anybody irrespective of their political leaning or alleged offence. That is for the legal profession. But not journalism! Ironically scant attention is paid to the predicament of journalists in such political engagements even as they only get crumbs from their masters’ tables.

  • When Catholics took to streets

    There is no record in recent memory of Nigerian Christendom or any of its denominations embarking on nationwide demonstrations to protest perceived ill treatment.

    Not even the serial religion-induced Maitatsine riots in the north; unprovoked killings arising from a cartoon in foreign land and the bombing of churches by the Boko Haram insurgents could precipitate public protestation from the church. But that record of caution in the face of tribulation was broken last Tuesday when the Catholic Church took to the streets to denounce continued killings of helpless citizens especially Christians in the face of inability of the government to rein in the killers.

    The protests were scheduled by the Catholic leadership to coincide with the burial of Rev. Frs. Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha as well as 17 parishioners mowed down by suspected Fulani herdsmen at St Ignatius Catholic Church, Ukor-Mbalom in the Gwer-East local government area of Benue state at a morning mass service. Its objective was to bring to the fore the degenerate level into which the senseless killing of its adherents had sunk and the impatience of members with the failure of the state to stem the tide.

    And in the speeches by the bishops, they demonstrated their impatience with the continued killings in the face of the incapacity of the government to get a handle to it. John Cardinal Onayikan, the bishop of Abuja called for a halt to the killings but would not want it to be politicized as the ‘nation is in a state of emergency’

    Onayikan did not fail to warn that if the murderers were allowed to continue without being checked, it would come to a point when people will begin to adopt other means to defend themselves. And that to me is the central message of the protests by the Catholic Church.

    Elsewhere, the capacity of our security agencies to protect lives and property was called to serious question even as insinuations of religious and ethnic agenda were quite palpable from some of the speeches and banners. But Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state inched closer to the crux of the matter when he pondered on the reason for the attack on the church.

    Hear him: “these people were in the church and not in their farms; by this act they have moved their narrative to other motives. We know our killers but they are not arrested or invited for interrogation; they have stated in several fora that they would ‘reclaim their land’

    There are weighty issues arising from Ortom’s statement. And as the chief security officer of that state, we are bound to take him very seriously. The first is that the priests and the faithful were murdered in their church while celebrating morning mass and communing with their creator. This casts the motive of the killers suspect especially given the rationalization by government functionaries that the crisis derives its oxygen from the anti-open grazing law, cattle theft and encroachment on grazing routes.

    Catholic priests have nothing to do with any of these touted causes. Neither were the other parishioners in any confrontation with the herdsmen before the attack. Those who did the killings know the terrain well such that they struck when the Catholic Church was having its morning mass. Definitely, the attack has nothing to do with any provocation relating to farmers/herders clashes except the contrivance of some demented persons to desecrate and offend the religious sensibilities of the Catholics and possibly cause religious uprising. And they really succeeded in hurting the Catholics by violating all that they hold dear.

    But in the pursuit of this weird agenda, they have aroused the consciousness of the Catholic Church to the reality of the danger lurking around the corner. Even with the hallmark restraint of the Catholic Church in such provocations, it was compelled by self preservative instincts to embark on the massive nationwide demonstrations witnessed last week. That was the first of its kind in our recent history and underscores the increasing impatience of the Church with the slide to the precipice into which the country is irretrievably headed. It is also a clarion call on the government to rise to the raison d’être for its existence and legitimacy or take vicarious responsibility for acts of omission or commission that sustain the increasing decline to the law of the jungle.

    Before now, not a few Nigerians have accused the government of passive interest in the killings, collusion or outright bias. It has also remained confounding that our security framework could be found wanting in neutralizing the rampaging killer herdsmen. We have equally heard of all manner of excuses for the inability to stem the tide including insufficient manpower. All that could as well be traded even as they cannot explain the inability of the state to halt the scourge.

    So when the government comes out to attribute the escalation of the killings to insurgents trained by Gadaffi or environmental and geographical factors, it is being very economical with the truth. Many of the communities under the mercy of the herdsmen view these excuses as part of the insincerity of the government that has allowed the killings to fester.

    Yes, there could be some environmental and geographical issues to the conflict. We cannot also rule out provocation arising from cattle rustling or some other remote considerations. But the crux of the matter evident in Ortom’s statement is land ownership. Those who have been turned refugees in their own land have severally alleged that their ancestral homes have been taken over by the herdsmen. And that is the real issue.

    It is needless dissipating energy on the factors responsible for the killings. What should be of essence now is the steps taken by the government to halt, arrest the killers and have them face the raw teeth of the law. It is curious that even after Ortom severally claimed publicly that they know the killer herdsmen security agencies have continued to ignore that vital lead.

    If they had acted on that information by arresting and interrogating the suspects, they may have been able to decode the unseen forces that propel and reinforce the near invincibility of the killer herdsmen. The inability to act on such lead is at the root of the suspicion that behind the killings is an agenda of some ethnic and religious hue. It is inconceivable that the killer squad has continued to evade the prying eyes of our security agencies such that they now pose more lethal threat than the Boko Haram insurgents. I do not even think the killer herdsmen are beyond the capacities of the natives to handle if it comes to that. Being largely itinerant, there is no how they could possibly overwhelm those they attack in their ancestral homes if they set out to defend themselves. After all, societies had their own way of self defense and preservation even in primeval ages. But as the locals have severally alleged, each time they set out to take on the insurgents, security agencies will intervene and disband them. Curiously, the same security is always taken unawares when the herdsmen strike.

    With the security architecture consequent upon the institutionalization of modern governance framework, it is no longer permissible for the locals to resort to self help. It would amount to a relapse to the atavism of the law of nature if we have to defend ourselves. But in a situation the government is unable to protect lives and property thereby failing to discharge its part of the social contract, what remedies are there for the citizenry?

    The contradiction arising from this poser is at the center of calls and warnings that citizens may be left with no alternative than to defend themselves since self preservation is the first law of nature. And when that happens, what becomes of the institution of government?

    We are tired of trite excuses or some other worn out rationalizations such that the Nigerian army came out with in its report on allegations by former Chief of Army staff, Theophilus Danjuma. Catholics took to the streets for an immediate halt to the killings. They took to the streets for the government to live up to its statutory duties or take the blame for the increasing lure of self help.

  • When Catholics took to streets

    There is no record in recent memory of Nigerian Christendom or any of its denominations embarking on nationwide demonstrations to protest perceived ill treatment.

    Not even the serial religion-induced Maitatsine riots in the north; unprovoked killings arising from a cartoon in foreign land and the bombing of churches by the Boko Haram insurgents could precipitate public protestation from the church. But that record of caution in the face of tribulation was broken last Tuesday when the Catholic Church took to the streets to denounce continued killings of helpless citizens especially Christians in the face of inability of the government to rein in the killers.

    The protests were scheduled by the Catholic leadership to coincide with the burial of Rev. Frs. Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha as well as 17 parishioners mowed down by suspected Fulani herdsmen at St Ignatius Catholic Church, Ukor-Mbalom in the Gwer-East local government area of Benue state at a morning mass service. Its objective was to bring to the fore the degenerate level into which the senseless killing of its adherents had sunk and the impatience of members with the failure of the state to stem the tide.

    And in the speeches by the bishops, they demonstrated their impatience with the continued killings in the face of the incapacity of the government to get a handle to it. John Cardinal Onayikan, the bishop of Abuja called for a halt to the killings but would not want it to be politicized as the ‘nation is in a state of emergency’

    Onayikan did not fail to warn that if the murderers were allowed to continue without being checked, it would come to a point when people will begin to adopt other means to defend themselves. And that to me is the central message of the protests by the Catholic Church.

    Elsewhere, the capacity of our security agencies to protect lives and property was called to serious question even as insinuations of religious and ethnic agenda were quite palpable from some of the speeches and banners. But Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state inched closer to the crux of the matter when he pondered on the reason for the attack on the church.

    Hear him: “these people were in the church and not in their farms; by this act they have moved their narrative to other motives. We know our killers but they are not arrested or invited for interrogation; they have stated in several fora that they would ‘reclaim their land’

    There are weighty issues arising from Ortom’s statement. And as the chief security officer of that state, we are bound to take him very seriously. The first is that the priests and the faithful were murdered in their church while celebrating morning mass and communing with their creator. This casts the motive of the killers suspect especially given the rationalization by government functionaries that the crisis derives its oxygen from the anti-open grazing law, cattle theft and encroachment on grazing routes.

    Catholic priests have nothing to do with any of these touted causes. Neither were the other parishioners in any confrontation with the herdsmen before the attack. Those who did the killings know the terrain well such that they struck when the Catholic Church was having its morning mass. Definitely, the attack has nothing to do with any provocation relating to farmers/herders clashes except the contrivance of some demented persons to desecrate and offend the religious sensibilities of the Catholics and possibly cause religious uprising. And they really succeeded in hurting the Catholics by violating all that they hold dear.

    But in the pursuit of this weird agenda, they have aroused the consciousness of the Catholic Church to the reality of the danger lurking around the corner. Even with the hallmark restraint of the Catholic Church in such provocations, it was compelled by self preservative instincts to embark on the massive nationwide demonstrations witnessed last week. That was the first of its kind in our recent history and underscores the increasing impatience of the Church with the slide to the precipice into which the country is irretrievably headed. It is also a clarion call on the government to rise to the raison d’être for its existence and legitimacy or take vicarious responsibility for acts of omission or commission that sustain the increasing decline to the law of the jungle.

    Before now, not a few Nigerians have accused the government of passive interest in the killings, collusion or outright bias. It has also remained confounding that our security framework could be found wanting in neutralizing the rampaging killer herdsmen. We have equally heard of all manner of excuses for the inability to stem the tide including insufficient manpower. All that could as well be traded even as they cannot explain the inability of the state to halt the scourge.

    So when the government comes out to attribute the escalation of the killings to insurgents trained by Gadaffi or environmental and geographical factors, it is being very economical with the truth. Many of the communities under the mercy of the herdsmen view these excuses as part of the insincerity of the government that has allowed the killings to fester.

    Yes, there could be some environmental and geographical issues to the conflict. We cannot also rule out provocation arising from cattle rustling or some other remote considerations. But the crux of the matter evident in Ortom’s statement is land ownership. Those who have been turned refugees in their own land have severally alleged that their ancestral homes have been taken over by the herdsmen. And that is the real issue.

    It is needless dissipating energy on the factors responsible for the killings. What should be of essence now is the steps taken by the government to halt, arrest the killers and have them face the raw teeth of the law. It is curious that even after Ortom severally claimed publicly that they know the killer herdsmen security agencies have continued to ignore that vital lead.

    If they had acted on that information by arresting and interrogating the suspects, they may have been able to decode the unseen forces that propel and reinforce the near invincibility of the killer herdsmen. The inability to act on such lead is at the root of the suspicion that behind the killings is an agenda of some ethnic and religious hue. It is inconceivable that the killer squad has continued to evade the prying eyes of our security agencies such that they now pose more lethal threat than the Boko Haram insurgents. I do not even think the killer herdsmen are beyond the capacities of the natives to handle if it comes to that. Being largely itinerant, there is no how they could possibly overwhelm those they attack in their ancestral homes if they set out to defend themselves. After all, societies had their own way of self defense and preservation even in primeval ages. But as the locals have severally alleged, each time they set out to take on the insurgents, security agencies will intervene and disband them. Curiously, the same security is always taken unawares when the herdsmen strike.

    With the security architecture consequent upon the institutionalization of modern governance framework, it is no longer permissible for the locals to resort to self help. It would amount to a relapse to the atavism of the law of nature if we have to defend ourselves. But in a situation the government is unable to protect lives and property thereby failing to discharge its part of the social contract, what remedies are there for the citizenry?

    The contradiction arising from this poser is at the center of calls and warnings that citizens may be left with no alternative than to defend themselves since self preservation is the first law of nature. And when that happens, what becomes of the institution of government?

    We are tired of trite excuses or some other worn out rationalizations such that the Nigerian army came out with in its report on allegations by former Chief of Army staff, Theophilus Danjuma. Catholics took to the streets for an immediate halt to the killings. They took to the streets for the government to live up to its statutory duties or take the blame for the increasing lure of self help.

  • Saraki’s alarm

    Senate committee to meet with President Buhari on the allegation by its president, Bukola Saraki that Inspector General of Police IGP, Ibrahim Idris plots to implicate him in a murder case underscores the seriousness with which the red chamber views the issue.

    Saraki had reported to his colleagues that information available to him from Kwara state governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed indicated the police plan to implicate him and the state government using suspected cultists arrested for alleged murder. He suspects the transfer of some cultism suspects arrested In Kwara to Force Headquarters in Abuja after investigations had been concluded by the police and trial about to commence was meant to coerce them to implicate him.

    The plot in his calculations is part of the strategy by the IGP to get even over the declaration by the senate that he is not qualified to hold any public office within or outside the country in addition to being an enemy to democracy. Senators took serious view of the allegation and set up a committee to intimate Buhari on the issue.

    But the Police said they were shocked by the unverified and unfounded allegations. They argued that in the past, they had transferred suspects in high profile cases like those of the mayhem in Ile-ife, Osun state and Zaki Biam in Benue state to the Force Headquarters wondering why Kwara should be different. They said Saraki’s claim was capable of obstructing police investigations into the killings and promised to get at the root of the matter no matter whose ox is gored.

    As things stand, it is difficult to establish which of the two sides to believe. Neither should anybody expect the police to own up to the damaging allegation. It is now the words of Saraki against those of the police. But, the police are clearly at advantage given their statutory role in the maintenance of law and order. And even if they nursed such intention, they could find convenient excuses to cover up now the matter is in the court of public opinion.

    As the chief security officer of Kwara state, Ahmed must have felt sufficiently worried by the suspicious manner the suspects were being handled that he had to alert Saraki. Not being a novice to the intricate power game of the police in such matters, Saraki had to draw the attention of the world to his suspicion. He could not have done otherwise when such information was coming from the chief security officer of the state-the governor.

    It is clear Saraki had strong grounds to suspect something untoward given the manner some suspects were transferred to Abuja and the interpretation of the action by the authorities in Kwara state. Yet, that is not enough evidence that the intention of the police is to get the suspects to implicate him. I guess the senate president is fully aware that his alarm amounts to mere allegation and may have been raised to pre-empt any funny action by the police. It is also possible he could have more credible information than the much he found convenient to disclose to his colleagues.

    Perhaps, when the senate committee meets with President Buhari, more details on the information available to Saraki on which basis he raised the alarm would be unveiled. It is a matter of conjecture how the president intends to handle the matter. Whatever the case, he should ensure full investigation. Allegations of partiality of security agencies in matters concerning political opponents of the government are increasingly getting worrisome.

    It is not certain how the police intend to proceed on the issue. But with extant awareness on the alleged plot, it is incumbent on them to show that their investigations are neither tainted with bias nor deliberately skewed towards a predetermined end. Enough sensitization has been raised that the outcome of the inquisition must be seen to stand the taste of public scrutiny.

    The police promised to do justice to the case. It is vital they should not allow the intoxication of power or vengeance to blur their senses of justice. I am not sure Saraki’s intension is to pervert the course of justice. He is apparently concerned about the abuse to which state coercive apparatus can be deployed to settle political differences. Apparently drawing from the current predicament of his point man, Senator Dino Melaye, he may have fathomed he could suffer the same fate given extant sour relationship between the senate and the executive.

    This is not the first time the senate leadership and senators have complained of attempts by the executive to rope them into sundry allegations. A couple of months ago, Senator Isa Misau alleged at the plenary that a minister was coordinating a plot to impeach Saraki. According to him, when the senate was on recess, many people were going behind canvassing for the impeachment of the senate president on the ground that he was going to leave the APC. He said the plot was aimed at creating problem for him before that time.

    And just very recently, the sanctity of the senate was utterly desecrated and compromised when some thugs invaded the chambers and made away with its symbol of authority- the Mace. Nigeria was ridiculed in the eyes of the international community by the brazen impunity of the hoodlums and the inability of the security architecture in the national assembly to apprehend them. Obviously, security at the national assembly on that day was compromised. It took an ultimatum from the senate before the police said they recovered the Mace abandoned under the flyover. It was a disgraceful spectacle to behold.

    As I write, there is no credible evidence of arrest and prosecution of suspects. Investigations into that coup attempt against the leadership of the senate appear to have been abandoned for that red chamber. All these fuel suspicion of conspiracy of the executive in the sordid pass. So if Saraki cried aloud on getting information on yet another plot, he was just being human. The onus is on the police to show beyond reasonable doubt that its actions are in consonance with the dictates of its statutory responsibilities to the citizenry.

    Sadly, events in the country continue to point to the opposite direction. The number of key personages from the opposition being arrested for one infraction or the other especially as the elections draw nearer, fuels speculations that the objective is to decapitate dissent. It may be convenient to argue that the PDP has been in power for years. So it is not unusual to find a preponderance of its former office holders being quizzed for one infraction or the other. That appears plausible.

    But such rationalization is weakened in the face of the indifference of the same law enforcement agencies to other politically exposed persons of that party now hibernating in the ruling party. It cannot also account for the conspiracy of silence in cases involving some former PDP top shots who stopped being hounded immediately they pitched their tent with the ruling party. And when the minister of information, Lai Mohammed released his so called list of treasury looters, this conspiracy of cover up was manifest in his deliberate omission of even names of his party people facing the same inquisition.

    The bias was so manifest that an aide in the last regime had to come up with his own list of looters in the ruling party deliberately left out by Mohammed. Curiously, some of them are even facing prosecution while others were reluctantly eased out of the current government when public pressure became very intense.

    Those who allege political bias and persecution especially in the prosecution of the war against graft have sufficient grounds for it. Why not when the EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu publicly wore the 2019 campaign insignia of president Buhari at the commissioning of the corporate headquarters of that agency created during Obasanjo’s regime? As the 2019 elections approach, the government must guard against actions or inactions that suggest increasing intolerance to opposition.

     

  • Our system, our people

    Confronted by grave national challenges, our leaders easily rationalize them on some external factors. They either refer to how long it took developed countries to be where they are or hide under such nebulous excuses as we are still in the learning process.

    Ironically, nobody is prepared to attach a time frame to this process of learning. The reluctance to take responsibility manifests more in cases of dissonance between our behaviors and the systems in place to propel the country to modernity.

    That accounts for discussions in some quarters on the suitability or otherwise of the presidential system of government. Suggestions have arisen given emerging challenges that we may as well revert to the parliamentary framework. In all this, the impression conveyed is that our problems stem in the main, from the type of systems and institutions we adopted and not those who operate them.

    Though federalism is generally accepted as the most appropriate paradigm for political engineering in a multi ethnic, multi religious and culturally diffused society, what we have is an aberrant form of it. Our federal order is largely defective and has been blamed for much of the problems confronting this country. That much can be admitted.

    Resurging agitations for true federalism, fiscal federalism, devolution of powers and restructuring are clear indications of the imperfections of our federal order. Implicit in all this is the contention that the federal system as presently constituted is a great hindrance to genuine national development and requires serious adjustments to conform to the true tenets of federalism as espoused by such renowned authorities as KC Wheare and Eme Awa.

    The way federalism is conceived and practiced on this clime can be blamed for much of the parochialism that accentuates competition between the central authority and its constituents for the loyalty of the citizens. But, it is not in all instances, we should blame the system. There is the human dimension to it all. For, no matter the kind of system you adopt, its success will depend largely on environmental variables.

    Democracy is a culture. Every system needs a given set of attitudinal support for it to survive. Max Weber popularized the concept of political culture: the parochial, subject and participant variants. For him, what you find in well established democracies is the participant political culture. By extrapolation, that of new states is bound to vacillate between the parochial and the subject variants.

    Where does this leave us and how does it explain the challenges we face approximating and internalizing democratic ethos? Perhaps, it is apposite to recall a dominant view within political science circles in late 70’s which held that African culture does not tolerate opposition and therefore unsuitable for the practice of democracy.  Those who canvassed this view cited African traditional societies that abhor opposition and suggested ‘benevolent dictatorship’ as a model of leadership framework for emerging new states.

    How the benevolent dictator will emerge or his leadership attributes are beyond the scope of this article. But suffice it to say that this view may have contributed to the dominance of the military in the politics of new states and the phenomenon of sit-tight rulers. Though military rule has since gone stale due largely to pressure from the international community, the practice of democracy in these countries has continued to suffer serious reverses such that reinforces the benevolent dictatorship theory.

    Or how else do we explain the serial inability of our political parties to conform to elementary dictates of internal democracy in the conduct of such rudimentary activity as ward congresses. We saw much of that in the years the Peoples Democratic Party PDP held sway like a colossus. While genuine party members waited at their wards for that singular democratic engagement, results were written by some behemoths in their hotel rooms and offices and foisted on them.

    Impunity and lack of internal democracy became the greatest undoing of that party and contributed to its failure at the 2015 elections. When its leadership apologized for its failings, the understanding was that it was making restitution for its brazen impunity in the conduct of party affairs and running the economy. Given the above, it was the expectation that the All Progressives Congress APC would learn from the experiences of that party and avoid the pitfalls that brought it to the current pass.

    But events from its ward congresses and the governorship primary in Ekiti State failed to bear this optimism out. There wasn’t much in the outcome of the ward congresses that marked a sharp departure from the impunity of the PDP years. There were acts of vandalism and destruction of party offices as one group took advantage of the other by making away with election materials. Someone was even killed in Delta state while allegations of ballot snatching and writing of results were freely traded.

    Perhaps, the case of Imo state illustrates very succinctly, the depth of impunity and acrimony that trailed the entire exercise. Video clips trending in the social media showed the state governor, Rochas Okorocha in very hot exchange with the state commissioner of police, Chris Ezike and the national organizing secretary of the party, Osita Izunaso. They had gone to Izunaso’s house with the leader of the congress committee from Abuja ostensibly to retrieve sensitive materials for the exercise only for the man to disappear in Izunaso’s house in very cloudy circumstances.

    A bemused Okorocha was seen lamenting how the man could disappear with the presence of a retinue of security agencies at the scene including the police and the state security services. From all the discussions, something untoward had happened. It later became obvious that Okorocha had been outplayed by a coalition of his party men opposed to his plans to foist his son in-law as the governorship candidate at the coming primaries among other grievances.

    Apparently overwhelmed by the high level of conspiracy that played out, he rushed to Daura in Katsina state for president Buhari’s intervention. It is not clear how the president intends to intervene or what steps Okorocha has taken to push his case further. But while he spoke of some funny things that took place in the name of ward congress, his adversaries were busy celebrating a successful outing and victory.

    How Okorocha contends with the reality of having the rug pulled off his feet just like that remains curious. He is bound to fight back. The way the fight progresses, will define the pattern of unfolding political competition in the state. Whichever dimension it assumes, things will not be the same again. But he should take the blame that many of those opposed to him are key leaders of the same party dissatisfied with the way they perceive him running its affairs and the state administration.

    Perhaps, he underestimated their capacity for mischief. Fighting opposition from within the party and outside of it will prove very daunting for Okorocha. He will not find things that easy especially given his penchant to ‘retire’ any and every notable politician except himself and allocating elective offices to whosoever he desires. Those he intends to retire are bound to fight back to have him retired first.

    The turn of events brings to the fore, our reluctance or inability to play according to rules of the game. Ward congresses are meant to allow people at the grassroots a say in the choice of those to preside over their affairs. Democracy is rendered shambolic when that basic activity is denied through foisting of names generated by some influential persons. The issue is not as much with the systems we operate as with the conduct of individual political actors. It is difficult to make real progress in the practice of democracy when its pristine values are compromised for self-serving reasons.

  • Bomb at Ukehe

    The bomb attack at Ukehe, Enugu State country home of President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief John Nwodo, yet adds to the specter of unmitigated violence and insecurity that pervade the country’s landscape.

    Hurled into the compound penultimate Sunday as family members were getting ready for early morning mass, the bomb damaged windows, the ceiling of one of the houses in the compound and an air conditioning unit. Nobody was injured.

    Security operatives who visited the scene said they collected batteries, pellets and other materials used in the preparation of the Improvised Explosive Device IED with a promise to arrest the perpetrators to face the raw teeth of the law. But as we await security agencies to get at the root of this senseless and unprovoked attack, its motive has remained largely curious.

    Nwodo seemed to have opened the gateway to public feelings on the incident when he expressed surprise that anybody would be after his life with a promise that the attack would not deter him from leading his people. Expectedly, condemnations have trailed the incident. And the rumor mill has been awash with speculations as to what could be responsible for the attack and its motive.

    There are feelings that it has to do with Nwodo’s robust and focused leadership especially his principled stance on some of the contentious issues of our federal order. His recurring interface with leaders from other parts of the country agitating immediate restructuring of the country has been fingered as a possible clue. But the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra IPOB, in an apparent surprise with the turn of events, claimed it was an attempt by the government to criminalize it as a violent organization.

    All these are still within the realm of speculation. The lid to the puzzle will be possibly blown open if and when security agencies unmask those behind the bomb attack on the Ohaneze leader. In his current position, Nwodo represents the conscience of the Igbo race. He has been providing very enlightened and principled leadership to his people. His carriage and understanding of the contemporary position of his people especially in a regime that sidelined them added up to ender him to his people. Thus, an attack on him would easily be construed as an attack on his race especially in the circumstance of the current pass the nation is irretrievably entangled.

    Given the phenomenal high scale of violence in and around the country, the Ukehe incident would have gone unnoticed if not for the personality of Nwodo. Enugu state is far away from the North East where the explosion of Improvised Explosive Devices has been a recurring decimal. But the state has also had its fair dose of the despoliation and killings by the marauding Fulani herdsmen.

    Yet, the bomb attack reinforces the increasing slide to the law of the jungle in the face of the serial inability of the government to live up to its statutory bidding. Security agencies have promised to get at the root of the attack. We hope that will come through soon. Before then, Nwodo should be provided with adequate security to safeguard his life and that of his family. Those behind the attack may still be nursing hidden agenda with prospects of further precipitating chaos in the country.

    It is vital the current regime takes decisive action to arrest the fast declining state of security in the country. This is not the time to blame Ghadaffi or some other imaginary foreign nationals for the rising insecurity and killings. Sadly, President Buhari thought he could impress US President, Donald Trump during his visit to that country by fingering Ghadaffi’s militia for the killings by the herdsmen.

    He may have been misled by his advisers that given the role of the US in the ouster of Ghadaffi, heaping the blame for all the killings on his shoulders would impress Trump and attract US sympathy. That failed to happen as Trump directed him to go home and stop the killings. Ironically, the US government Buhari was counting on must have come to terms with the monumental disaster their outing in Libya has become. That former thriving economy has since lost its peace as disorder and insecurity reign supreme rendering life nightmarish for its citizens.

    The key thing at this point is the efficacy of measures put in place to secure lives and property from the mindless marauders and serial killers. That is the story that will make meaning and not the tepid and laughable recourse to excuses that suggest we are incapable of responding adequately to foreign security threats if and when they arise.

    The security situation has become so hopeless that the senate had to move for the sacking of all the Service Chiefs and their replacement with more enterprising people better attuned to modern dynamics in security engineering. It is also note worthy that the president promised Trump that he was doing something about the degenerate security situation.

    He told the Voice of America VOA in an interview that he had instructed the recruitment of 6,000 additional policemen across the 774 local government areas of the country to beef up security.  But he must have stunned his audience when he gave the impression that those hitherto recruited into the police were picked up anyhow from motor parks and markets. That is a serious indictment of that institution. May be that accounts for their poor performance profile as we have seen in their inability to maintain law and order.

    Apparently, the president’s insistence on getting to the 774 local governments to source the 6,000 additional police personnel is recognition of the need to decentralize policing in the country. But he contradicted that position when he displayed strong aversion to the institutionalization of state police. He would rather have the constitution to be consulted to see if it allows state police.

    Though section 214 ( 1) of the 1999 constitution provides for a central police force for the country and ruled out any other form of police organization for any other part thereof, Buhari believes even if state police was to be established, state governments would not be able to pay them. He cited the inability of state government to pay their workers to support his argument.

    But in arguing that way, he appeared to have lost sight of the central thrust of the agitations for state police as an integral aspect of restructuring. Restructuring would entail a new revenue allocation formula that will place more funds into the coffers of states. When that happens, the excuse of inability of states to pay salaries would have been taken care of. Even then, the inability of states to pay salaries is a twin consequence of mismanagement and the disproportionate share of the country’s revenue at the disposal of the center. The omnipresence and omnipotence of the federal government, virtually controlling life and death is responsible for serious conflicts in the country and the near state of anomie.

    Hiding under the putative financial burden the establishment of state police will bring to bear on state governments is no issue at all. Rather, such lame excuses expose the president’s poor understanding of the wider issues encapsulated in the restructuring debate. There is nothing so sacrosanct about the current constitution that was imposed by the military that it cannot be tinkered with to meet the yearnings and aspirations of those it is intended to serve.

    A constitution, any constitution is a living document. For it to be relevant, it must serve the interests of its constituents, constantly adjusting to environmental dynamics. State policing has become very effective in the maintenance of law and order especially in federal systems which this country has adopted. Rather than hide under extant constitutional stipulations to oppose state police, the president should support current agitations for devolution of powers through constitutional re-engineering. Restructuring is inevitable. Those who continue to oppose it under one spurious excuse or the other do not wish this country well.

  • Senate invasion

    Recent invasion of the Senate and snatching of its symbol of authority-the mace by a band of hoodlums, is bad news for our democracy. The bandits who struck immediately a suspended member, Ovie Omo-Agege entered the plenary, attacked and intimidated members injuring the Sergeant-at-arms as they made away with the mace.

    Curiously, security at the National Assembly on that fateful day was so loose that the attackers accomplished their devious objective and vamoosed into the thin air, without any challenge from the array of enforcement agencies manning that critical arm of government. Omo-Agege has been accused of masterminding the invasion given the uncanny coincidence of his entry with the attack. But he denied having a hand in the despicable incident.

    An apparently bemused Senate had to secure a spare mace with which it continued its deliberations. It then proceeded to issue a stern order to law enforcement agencies to recover the stolen mace with 24 hours. And as fate would have it, the police were so efficient that they recovered the lost mace putatively under the flyover within the same time frame. Yes, the mace has been recovered. But the implications of the invasion for democracy will linger for a long time to come.

    Not unexpectedly, a number of theories have cropped up given the messy circumstances of the invasion and snatching of the symbol of authority of the Senate. The frosty relationship between the Senate and the presidency appear to have accentuated these theories. Allegations have been traded to the effect that the presidency has a hand in the unfortunate incident. There are two reasons for this.

    The first is that the issue culminating to the suspension of the warring senators suspected to be behind the invasion, hovers round their membership of a parliamentary support group purporting loyalty to the president. The second relates to the curious indifference of the security chain within the National Assembly that enabled the hoodlums penetrate the Senate carting away the mace without challenge. These add up to reinforce the feeling that security at the National Assembly was compromised on the day in question. It is therefore being contended that this could not have been possible without instruction from above.

    For, it remains to be conjectured the business those thugs have with Senate’s symbol of authority or the attraction it offered them. It is neither a commodity for social exchange nor of any real value (monetary or otherwise) outside the chambers of the Senate. Its attraction could have been nothing other than the lure to deploy it to subvert the authority of that upper legislative body. It was therefore intended as a coup d’état by the masterminds of the invasion. That is why the matter should be viewed with all the seriousness it deserves.

    This is not the first time in our contemporary political history the mace has been cornered by aggrieved legislators to effect leadership change in very controversial circumstances. During the regime of Obasanjo, late Senate president, Chuba Okadigbo had to spirit away that symbol of authority when some of his colleagues were being goaded to have him impeached. He refused to surrender the mace but was eventually impeached in some cloudy circumstances.

    There was also the case of Rivers State during the governorship of Chibuike Amaechi where a group of about five legislators cornered the mace and impeached the speaker without securing the mandatory two-thirds majority constitutional stipulations. These are by no means the only instances. And behind each disputation around the mace, lay a hidden agenda to effect leadership change. The case in point could not have been different.

    Perhaps, the equation changed because of the smartness of the Senate leadership in producing a spare mace with which they continued the business of the day. Having been beaten to their invidious game, the masterminds were compelled to abandon both the mace and their game plan. Without the way both the Senate and the House of Representatives moved to check the desecration of the national legislature, we would have seen a group of senators gaining access to the Senate to announce the impeachment of its leadership.

    Even with extant situation, our democracy has been ridiculed and the National Assembly defiled. If a band of hoodlums could have easy access to the National Assembly to the extent of attacking members without challenge, then nothing prevents murderers and armed bandits from invading that third arm of the government to deal with whosoever they wished.

    Condemnations have come from all corners indicating how bad the incident is. The federal government has also condemned the attack with the Senate setting up inquisition involving the House of Representatives to unravel the circumstances of the invasion. It has also promised stricter security measures even as it seeks to unravel all about the invasion. That is the way to go. It is important to get at the root of the matter by determining the acts of omission or commission of security agencies that aided the hoodlums to despoil the National Assembly in the manner they did without being either stopped or apprehended.

    It is not enough to condemn the invasion. Neither would recriminations suffice. Our security agencies should come clear with their finding in that national mess to clear suspicions of connivance and compromise. It is not good that they appear to have left the Senate with investigations into that breach of national security. The seeming mystery over the invasion of the Senate adds to the specter of insecurity hovering around the country.

    All these, point to the increasing inability of the government to maintain law and order such that citizens are frequently attacked and killed with our security agencies appearing utterly helpless. Each time such senseless killings occur, we take recourse to pontifications and platitudes in the name of condemning the atrocious acts as if denunciations are all there is to stemming the tide. Federal government’s recourse to condemnations of the recurring and well planned killings by herdsmen especially in Benue, Taraba and Nassarawa states are increasingly getting irritating in the absence of concrete action to stem the tide.

    We have been severally treated to these condemnations and promises to protect the sanctity of human life. But no sooner these trite pronouncements are made than we are confronted by fresh sights of unprovoked and senseless horror killings of innocent people both children and the aged in the most despicable manner. Such was again the situation in Benue where Fulani herdsmen attacked an early morning mass service killing two Catholic priests while celebrating mass and about 17 other worshippers. As the federal government was condemning the atrocious act and pontificating on its resolve to secure the lives of all citizens, more people were attacked and killed in other parts of that troubled state.

    The nation is tired of all these pontifications and high sounding pledges full of sound and fury but signifying practically nothing. Immediate solutions to the mindless killings are the things that can assuage the people now. We need immediate end to the killings and not trite talks that leave the people with a verity of the Hobbesian state of nature depicted by the war of man against his fellow man. That is the point this country has miserably found itself now.

    Practical solutions to the festering crisis were provided by the House of Representatives when it recommended the declaration of killer herdsmen as terrorists and security profiling of all herdsmen in the country. Our law enforcement agencies must be directed to profile all herdsmen who should be provided with identity cards. Such profiling has becoming urgent given conflicting claims by the government linking the spate of killings to influx of foreign armed men.

    They have also asked that service chiefs be relieved of their appointments to make way for more efficient and proactive hands. Time is ticking out. We must halt the carnage now or take responsibility for a possible relapse to the atavism of the state of nature.

     

  • Herdsmen killings: the Libyan angle

    The claim that killings attributed to Fulani herdsmen in parts of the country are perpetrated by foreigners is not entirely new. Some government functionaries including a former Inspector-General of Police IGP, Solomon Arase had fingered foreign herdsmen taking advantage of ECOWAS protocols to infiltrate the country for the rising spate of killings.

    Those who canvass this viewpoint are quick to point to the traditional stick-wielding, harmless and itinerant Fulani herdsmen of the past as against the sophisticatedly armed herders as evidence of the penetration of the ranks of the traditional herdsmen by foreign killers. If the purpose of this conjecture is to absolve Fulani herdsmen of complicity in the killings, it should have gone further to establish on which side the bandits are fighting. Failure to establish that did incurable damage to whatever purpose it was meant to serve. It is difficult to fathom how the excuse would be of help when all indications show the bandits fight on the side of the herdsmen.

    Having identified those responsible for the killings as foreigners, the minimum expectation is for the government to take decisive action to flush the foreign bandits out from within our shores. But that has failed to happen and the killings have continued unabated, threatening the very existence of this country. It is cloudy the objective meant to be served by constant recourse to claims that those who kill our citizens; despoil their communities rendering them refugees in their own country are foreigners. Even as we are being made to buy into this claim, farmers who bear the brunt of the attacks are not under any illusion as to the identity and promptings of those who attack and despoil their communities.

    At other times, attempts have been made to present these attacks in the mould of communal clashes. The current IGP toed this perilous line when he described the killings in Benue as a consequence of communal clashes. He was later to tender apology when put to task to furnish the details of the communities involved in the conflagration.

    What should be of relevance is not whether the killers are foreign herdsmen or their local counterparts since they share cultural, linguistic and tribal affinities. Of essence is the therapeutic effectiveness of measures taken by the government to tame the scourge. And each time this excuse is proffered, the impression one gets is that the leadership of this country is rationalizing its failure to maintain law and order. Perhaps, that is why the scourge has festered.

    The same foreboding rationalization was again at play when President Buhari met the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby in London. The president told the archbishop that clashes between herdsmen and farmers “are now made worse by the influx of armed gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of West Africa. These gunmen were trained and armed by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya”.

    He said when Gaddafi was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms and crossed to Nigeria. According to him, the problem has nothing to do with religion but sociological and economic even as he blamed “irresponsible politics” for the lingering crisis.

    The quantum of security information at the disposal of the president cannot be underestimated. When he said clashes between herdsmen and farmers are made worse by the influx of gunmen from the Sahel region especially those fleeing from the crisis in Libya, he may have his facts. But, that is the much we can possibly admit on this matter. Any attempt to stretch the argument further, is bound to run into irreconcilable contradictions.

    There is the undertone that our inability to get a handle to the killings is because of the influx of gunmen armed by Gaddafi. The first problem with this is that we are dragging the name of a man killed some seven years ago into our domestic politics. That is not fair at all to his family. Even if some gunmen were found to have infiltrated our shores, we shall still be hard put to prove they were actually armed by Gaddafi.

    Nigeria does not share any border with Libya. Before any bandit from Libya could cross over to this country, he would have passed through some of our neighbouring countries and other Nigerian states with no record of such clashes. That makes it difficult to fathom if the purported gunmen are really from Libya or some other neighbouring countries that share common affinity in the cattle rearing business.

    Even if we admit the possibility of some bandits fleeing Libya with their guns into the country, why have such guns remained very active years after they left that country? Why has their gun power not dried up since? Or what has been the source of the replenishment of their arms and ammunitions? And why have they found comfort operating only in those states where clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers are recurrent?

    Curiously, some of these states hardly share boundaries with our foreign neighbours. Why they chose to operate in those states Fulani herdsmen are in constant clashes with local farmers needs elucidation. And what could be their motivation and reward in the fight if they were not hired by Fulani herdsmen?

    These posers underscore most poignantly that the attempt to blame the so-called Gaddafi trained gunmen for the escalation of the herdsmen/ farmers clashes cannot fly. Not with the account of the conflict in public space. Not with all we know about the immediate and remote causes of the clashes.

    That Buhari chose this angle as a plausible explanation for the festering crisis is at the root of the inability of his government to find a handle to the killings. Yet, the same president had appealed to the Benue people when they visited him to accommodate their fellow citizens. His minister of defence had also attributed the clashes to the enactment of the anti-open grazing laws by some governments and the blocking of grazing routes. Where do we now factor in the so-called Gaddafi-trained gunmen within this matrix?

    It will be difficult to find permanent solutions to the clashes as long as we fail to come to terms with the realities of the conflict. For, it is commonplace in medical parlance that a proper diagnosis of an ailment is half way to its cure. The president said the problem is not religious but sociological and economic. It is also cultural and ethnic. As the president was busy rationalizing the causes of the conflict, Suleiman Adokwe representing Nasarawa South Senatorial district was lamenting what he termed, ethnic cleansing of the Tiv-speaking people in the continuing crisis that left over 50 people killed with thousands displaced in that state.

    The killings have also continued in Benue and Taraba states in spite of the efforts of the military exercise tagged Operation Cat Race. Perhaps, what is to be gained from the disclosure by the president on the role of gunmen from Libya in the continuing crisis is the international dimension the matter has assumed. Perhaps also, Buhari was only drawing attention to the increasing difficulty in containing the herdsmen and the need for foreign assistance as mooted in some quarters.

    But if there are elements of the Gaddafi trained gunmen in the fight; if the escalation is due to their presence, they are there at the behest of their employers – the herdsmen. Perhaps, that is why they operate with near invincibility. The blame should therefore be rightly placed at the shoulders of the Fulani herdsmen who have need for the services of soldiers of fortune. The touted role of Gaddafi trained gunmen pales into insignificance in the face of extant rating of Fulani herdsmen as the fourth deadliest terrorist group by Global Terrorism Index coming after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab.

    It is of little help deluding ourselves with tepid excuses for the festering crisis many years after lives of innocent people have been snuffed out in the most dastardly manner by the rampaging herdsmen. Whether the killers are rag-tag army of the defunct Gaddafi regime or a home grown insurgent group with an agenda, the government must rise to the challenge of maintaining law and order or share culpability for the interminable killings.

  • Buhari’s decision to run

    Ordinarily, President Buhari’s decision to run for a second term should not have attracted the heat witnessed in the last few days. He is empowered by extant laws to contest if he so desires.

    If his declaration should generate concerns, it is within his party especially among those intending to challenge him at the primaries. But that has not been the case. Even as it is unclear if he would be facing some opposition from within his political party, criticisms to that decision have been on high ascendancy.

    Much of that is coming from outside his political party-the APC.  Perhaps, it was in anticipation of this opposition that Buhari, while making his intention to run, benchmarked it on what he called ‘popular clamour’. Popular clamour would connote a wide gamut of national consensus in support of his ambition.

    His media aides corroborated this claim when they said in the last one year the president had been entertaining pleas to re-contest. It is not clear whether the pleas came from Nigerians of all political, social or economic shades or solely from those of his party. But in his discussions with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the president said his declaration was to stem the spate of discussions on whether he should run or not. By that, he invariably admitted that the matter is that contentious.

    It should not be surprising if the president rationalized his decision on the touted popular clamour. In the last couple of months, many well respected Nigerians and interest groups have come down heavily on his administration with some advising him not to run.

    In a widely circulated open letter, former President Olusegun Obasanjo among others accused him of nepotic deployments bordering on clannishness such that national interest was being sacrificed; poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics that has left the nation more divided, with inequality more pronounced and national security adversely affected. These failings are in addition to his earlier opinion on Buhari’s poor knowledge of issues relating to the economy and foreign relations. Coupled with his ill-health that kept him out of the country for months, Obasanjo asked Buhari to dismount from the horse and join the stock of leaders whose wealth of experience, outreach and wisdom can be deployed for national good.

    For sure, Obasanjo is not one of those on whose support Buhari hinged his intention to run. Neither does he need that support to see his dream true in a country of millions of voters. If Buhari does not count on Obasanjo’s support, he also does not have that of another former military president, Ibrahim Babangida.

    Babangida had in an open letter shared similar opinions with Obasanjo advising against Buhari running for another term. Both spoke of generational shift in leadership with well educated, knowledgeable and able-bodied young men vast in the dynamics of contemporary leadership demands. They seemed to be contending that Buhari is grossly deficient in these qualities and therefore will be incapacitated in taking the nation to the next leadership matrix. It is doubtful if Buhari can count on Babangida’s support. Neither is that support sufficient for him to succeed in his ambition.

    If he could dismiss the opinions of his powerful colleagues, it is doubtful he can afford to ignore that of the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria who had in an audience told him pointedly that the enormous goodwill that saw him to power in 2015 is being fast depleted by some ‘glaring failures’ of his government. They told him there was too much suffering in the country, with poverty, hunger, insecurity violence and fear among others pervading the land as the country “appears to be under siege”.

    The Jama’atu Nasril Islam led by the Sultan of Sokoto had following recurring killings in parts of the country, asked Buhari to wake up to the statutory duty of protecting lives and property of Nigerians across the country. We can go on and on with the list of key personages, groups and institutions that have expressed misgivings with the general conduct of affairs in this country. So when Buhari claimed that his decision to run was out of popular prompting, it is either he is out of tune with the mood of the nation, listens to views he wants to hear or being deceived by those who profit from the status quo.

    If anything, former defence minister, Theophilus Danjuma’s recent views on the conduct of the Nigerian armed forces in the insurgency of Fulani herdsmen spoke volumes on the performance of his regime. When he accused the armed forces of not being neutral; of colluding and guiding the bandits to kill and cover them up, when he warned against Nigeria snowballing to the verity of Somalia, he was laying the blame on the table of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Of course, the issues raised by Danjuma are weighty with very profound implications for order, discipline and public confidence in that critical national institution.

    But this is beside the issue. And as has been canvassed, Buhari is within his rights to go for a second term. If he is unpopular; if he does not have what it takes to take this country to the next level, it is for the electorate to show him the red card at the polls. So why the noise when we could conveniently shove him aside on account of his unpopularity?

    That appears to be the crux of the matter. Or is it a vote of no confidence on the sovereignty of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box? The impression created by attempts to dissuade Buhari from running is that of a likelihood of his winning if he decides to contest. Ironically, this has not much to do with the touted popularity on which he presaged his decision to run. It relates in the main, with the nature and texture of third world politics.

    The variables that determine success in elections here may not strictly conform to performance indices that elsewhere constitute the fulcrum for political choice. Even if Buhari is found wanting in the performance matrix, mundane considerations as ethnicity, religion and geo-politics will still take primacy in influencing and determining the pattern of political choice. A preponderance of the votes will come from his geo-political divide because of the belief that they stand to profit disproportionately when one of theirs is in power. This calculation is real as we have seen in the skewed deployments for which Buhari has been lampooned. It is also the very reason contest to that high office has remained fierce and deadly. The desire to corner the enormous resources at the centre for sectional advantage is at the centre of it all. That is why every section wants to have shot at the high office.

    Already, APC leadership in the southeast has positioned to take advantage of the possibility of Buhari winning a second term rightly or wrongly. They are happy with his intention to run. For them, that is the quickest route for someone from that zone to corner the presidency that had eluded them severally. The consideration here is not whether Buhari has performed. It does not matter to them that section of the country has fared abysmally since he took over. They care less about the worst serial marginalization and side-lining they have suffered in the hands of Buhari as long as his success will pave the way for their ambition.

    They want people of the southeast to vote for him massively as it will guarantee one of theirs emerging the president in 2013. You will be surprised at the speed with which this idea is sold despite the gimmick it is. First, it is very doubtful given the disposition of Buhari that he will allow an Igbo man to succeed him. His actions and utterances do not give that hope. Second, it is based on the erroneous assumptions that Buhari will definitely win when he runs and whoever he anoints will win in 2013. Such calculations did not give any room for defeat at the elections. And that is where the problem lies.

    That is where free, fair and credible elections come in. It would appear the controversy over Buhari’s second term has its root on morbid fear that the elections may not stand the test of credibility. Those who spoke are conscious of the awesome powers at the disposal of the centre and how they can be deployed to manipulate elections.