The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Bush insurgency

    It would appear we are faced with bush insurgency. We may have to find escape route by blaming the bushes for the wanton killings and kidnappings that have become regular features on our highways.

    Or how else do we account for the discordant views on whose shoulders to rest the blame for the senseless killings and kidnapping for ransom on our highways perpetrated by faceless elements hiding under the cover of seemingly impenetrable bushes. From Boko Haram insurgency to armed banditry, kidnapping to the insurgency of the herdsmen, all enjoy one common denominator of launching their dastardly and mortal escapades from the bushes.

    Perhaps, with the exception of the Boko Haram insurgents, there has been some difficulty pinpointing precisely those responsible for the killings and kidnappings that have now reduced journeys on our highways to a dreadful enterprise. In the far north, we hear of bandits that raid villages killing people at random and abducting others for ransom. There is also the phenomenon of cattle rusting and the hostilities it engenders; killings associated with illegal mining for gold in Zamfara State and ancillary criminal activities.

    In the Middle Belt states of Plateau, Benue and Taraba, there are killings, sacking and despoliation of communities that are blamed on the herdsmen. Those who perpetrate these dastardly acts also operate under the cover of the bushes and mostly at nights when the indigenous people are asleep. They strike their targets with utmost precision leaving in their trail sorrow and awe.

    The southern parts of the country are home to killings and kidnapping for ransom on the highways, armed robbery, cultism and sundry criminalities. But unlike in the past when armed robbers waylaid their victims, dispossessing them of their money and other valuables, the narrative now is that of well-armed people emerging from the bushes, killing travellers indiscriminately and taking others for ransom. They operate with great speed and precision only to flee into the bushes with the victims who are made to face debasing assault, raping and all manner of cruelty.

    Those who have had the ill-luck of encountering these men of low means say they are Fulani herdsmen. They were fingered in the killing of the daughter of the leader of the Afenifere. Blames traded and sentiments raised on that singular killing are still very fresh in our minds. Pastors of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, kidnapped in Ogun State a fortnight ago had similar stories as to those they encountered when taken into the bushes.

    But despite this seeming convergence of views on those largely responsible for the bush insurgency in the southern parts of the country, it would appear no group wants to take responsibility for the criminality. That is why each time killings and kidnapping take place; the police blame bandits for culpability even as the source of the criminality does not seem to be in doubt. The police authorities may be right in their position especially given their inability to get a handle to the rising spate of insecurity on our highways.

    Because of this difficulty, they attribute all criminalities on the highways to bandits whoever they are. Yes, there are armed robbers and kidnappers on the highways who may have nothing to do with cattle breeding. It is also quite possible for the criminal activities of this group to be attributed to the herdsmen. We cannot rule out the possibility that some of them may even disguise as herdsmen to carry out their dastardly activities. This dimension exists.

    Yet, these are not sufficient to exculpate the herdsmen from the accusations levied against them in the rising killings and kidnappings that have reduced travelling on our highways to a nightmare. The fact that other criminals could disguise as herdsmen and commit crimes suggests that something is wrong with the way herding is done in this clime. Apart from the account of those who have encountered these criminals, one thing that reinforces the culpability of the herdsmen is their affinity with the bushes. They live in the bushes; graze their cattle in the bushes and are more familiar with bush terrains even when they are not indigenous to those areas.

    And because they can easily be found in bushes where people dread to enter, they become easy suspects for most of the criminalities coming from there. Moreover, herdsmen are known to be wielding AK-47 riffles against the usual sticks and knives they hitherto used to drive their cattle and for self-protection. It was not for nothing that some governors in the north-east recently passed a resolution to disarm herdsmen and sundry armed groups in the zone.

    Perhaps, if the police had been more efficient in bursting those responsible for the anarchy on our highways, the identity of the masterminds would have been exposed and the nation saved the attendant speculations and altercations. In the absence of that, the various nationalities especially in the south have had to hold herdsmen liable for much of the criminality on our highways. The herdsmen may not be alone in this.  But their affinity with the bushes and the fact that they are found in the remotest parts of dreaded bushes seem to give them out.

    One thing that stands out and very distinctly too, is that we are confronted by the insurgency of the bush. The bush has become our greatest problem; our undoing in effectively protecting lives and property in this country. The bush has become our albatross. It provides cover for all manner of criminalities and has become our greatest challenge. We must confront the bushes with the entire military arsenal at our disposal such that will make it a risky enterprise for any human to hide there and levy war on the rest of us.

    The insurgency of the bush was in action and effective in the Sambisa forest as it nurtured the Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east. For years, that forest was the bastion of the onslaughts of the insurgents against our soldiers. Our soldiers dreaded that forest and have bitter tales on the difficulties it posed in “technically” winning the war on terrorism. That the war is still far from being won, illustrates very poignantly the potent danger the bush has become in the maintenance of law and order.

    We are confronted by the same predicament in the southern parts of the country and the Middle Belt. We must confront the bushes; forests and dislodge all those who hide there to make life difficult for ordinary citizens. We must get to the locations where human activities especially herding is carried out inside the bushes and have effective surveillance over them. With this, it will be easy to determine who exploits the cover of the bushes to make life miserable for the rest of the society. Nigeria is currently gravitating towards unmitigated disaster should the insurgency of the bush be allowed to continue unchecked. There is a grave risk in ignoring the recurring blame trading as to those exploiting their affinity with the bushes to hold others to ransom.

    The way out is to invade the bushes and clear them of undesirable elements. Once our security agencies are able to penetrate the bushes, we will begin to understand the nature of activities that go on there and those responsible for them. If we find the predominance of herdsmen in some of the flashpoints of the killings and kidnappings, then the issue of whom to take the blame would have been largely resolved.

    Where we find other sets of humans inhabiting the bushes, they should be made to account for what business they have there. But if we really want to resolve altercations arising from killings emanating from the bushes, there has to evolve very effective monitoring of the activities of the herdsmen.

    It is time to do away with their itinerant nature; confine them to specific locations where there activities can be effectively monitored. That is the safest way of reducing the tension arising from suspicions that herdsmen are largely responsible for much of the criminalities on our highways. We need total conquering of the bushes such that will make it difficult for the criminal minded to take advantage of their impenetrability to levy war on the rest of us. If it takes confining herders to areas they can be easily monitored or flushing them out of flashpoints of insecurity, so be it.

  • B.O. turns 80

    Prof Benjamin Olatunji Oloruntimehin, FNAL, former president of Historical Society of Nigeria and former President of The Nigerian Academy of Letters, the historian of excellence and writer of engaging prose, just turn 80. He was also one of the best teachers I had in my life.

    He taught me West African History at Ife, and our classmates were often enraptured by his power of recall and original insights. He had a sense of humour without a smile.

    A certain classmate from the East wore a chief’s cap to the class, and he asked why he wore such a cap in Ife, and wondered if he could wear it at home. He also remarked about the reigning Pope, and commended him wryly, saying if we had a few more vocal men like that, the world would be in trouble.

    That was before an attempt on his life. He often asked students to digest the subject before writing, likening them to medieval monks who did nothing but copy notes. “Grab the taproot first,” he cautioned.

    Our classmates, including now deputy police commissioner Austin Odion and Osagiator Ojo, often recall his insights into the term indirect rule.

    The language, he explained, was intended to mitigate the colonialist’s guilt by saying they ruled through local agencies, whereas they gave all the instructions.

    Some of us called him Segu Tukulor Empire, a reference to one of his masterpieces.

    Congratulations sir.

     

  • Above the fray

    Sometimes the campaign season foretells the reign. But not often. Those who seek office must don the charm of a hypocrite, adorn their speeches with chocolatey rhetoric, wear a smile at once grand and cherubic. They wax into an uncle and a child in one body, a confluence of innocence and nobility.

    The result is often a choreographing of the chameleon on the hustings. But when they win, they become like the leaf of autumn: the true colour coils, with reptilian feints, out of their skin. To reconcile the wooer and the person in office becomes a leap of faith.

    For the BOS of Lagos, we saw a tranquil fight for the office, if ever there was one. If, that is, we discount his beehive routine. For those who followed his trail, he was everywhere and everything, visiting groups, working the crowds, at dinners, at sports fiestas, at parties, at symposiums, at work places. His demeanour was mated to his words. Not controversial, but engaging.

    This is sort of a paradox. His candidacy rose out of dust storm. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s predecessor was not only in office but inhabited the same party. Akinwunmi Ambode was even his boss. Never once did the candidate cross swords, not even as much as gloating after he prevailed at the primaries. He maintained his lane, as the Nigerian youth would say. Even when a series of accusations were pelted at him, he did not rise with rage. He did not even speak immediately. He articulated his position through a proxy, and invoked the solemn words of Michelle Obama: when they go low, we go high.

    The party roiled with protests and tempers. They called the candidate sanwo eko, inflated his ego, boosted his profile, tempted his vanity, goaded him on the waves of the heir-apparent. His victory was a technicality. They were not looking at Sanwo-Olu the candidate, but the man on the cusp of destiny.  Shakespeare said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them.” Candidate Sanwo-Olu did not seem to contemplate any of these options. And never once did the slim, soft-spoken fellow with a sometimes beatific visage utter any suggestion of hubris.

    That tiff over, he was all about going about his business. And there were issues to address, urgent as a hippopotamus on the lap. The environment has slid to the 1999 mire, according to a former environment commissioner, Muiz Banire. Many inner roads had become more of craters as though cranes alone motored about the city. The indiscipline of the LASTMA multiplied the cases of traffic logjams.  A lot needed to be addressed. Yet, he spoke without contempt for the man who occupied the seat.

    The election became, perhaps, if not in turnout but in percentage one of the most emphatic victories. Even perennial challenger and gadfly Jimi Agbaje is always ready to nudge his nemesis to a duel. In that battle, he dropped his gear and found no words but concession for the victory of the BOS of Lagos.

    When he was sworn in, some might have expected some of the usual fixtures of the new incumbent. Not like Chime of Enugu State who did not even wait for the inauguration day before yelling about the fetishism of his anointer and benefactor Chimaroke Nnamani, who had done the same to his own godfather. He even said he wanted to spiritually disinfect the state house before using it. The BOS did not want drama. He just took over and did his job.

    History always credits such personages. Like Gerald Ford, who calmed the office after the WaterGate turbulence of the Nixon years, or the quiet grace of Conrad Adenauer, who took over the German Republic after the stormy prejudice of the Nazi era. Winston Churchill led the British, and sometimes the world, to beat the Nazi. He was voted out as a warmonger. Clement Attlee succeeded him without sullying perhaps the greatest orator of the modern world. Lyndon Johnson’s era became beautiful because of the genius of John F. Kennedy.

    Sanwo-Olu knows that the work is serious. The roads are getting back gradually, as much work beckons. His predecessor focused disproportionately on the big projects while the simple ones suffered. Big flyovers, bad inner roads. It was like dressing a maid with flamboyant lace while the sores advertised themselves on the limbs. Gov Sanwo-Olu soothed the civil servants with transportation. He has started to address with the federal government the Apapa gridlock, though not an overnight case. He has allowed to continue the projects of his predecessor, some of them abandoned in the latter days.

    He has not raised the spectre of the EFCC, nor growled over the state of the finances, in spite of stories of latter day profligacies. He has not turned inspection tours into political arena, flailing and flaying the man who was there.

    He is just minding his own business. The BOS of Lagos, in his unobtrusive way, has shown how to succeed a person and, perhaps, succeed in a time of challenges. It is by rising above the fray.

    His second pledge

    In his blue buba and sokoto, he was announced on the stage. This was not a political arena, and his rhetoric abounded with the gratitude of a worshipper. Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun came on stage to tell his story. He gave a testimony that sounded like a page out of Abraham Lincoln’s life. He had been at his political battle for a while, losing is quest for senator, and even his attempt at governor seemed a lost cause. He was not going to contest. Eventually he prevailed. His testimony was at the podium of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles last weekend. He said he was a member.

    His testimony drew my mind back to a few days after he won the polls and was visiting the then outgoing governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi. Gov Ajimobi recalled with regret that Abiodun’s son was not around to see his father’s triumph. His son, a beloved entertainer known as DJ Olu, who passed away, was the champion of his father’s ambition. I thought Gov. Abiodun would tell that story to his MFM audience. But on reflection, I understand why he didn’t. When Ajimobi touched that subject in his residence in Ibadan, Abiodun’s face fell into tears and a handkerchief came to his rescue.

    The most potent part of his MFM testimony was when he said he would run a transparent government in participatory style in accordance with the rule of law. He said it without prompting and soulfully. He might have said that at inauguration day. That was a political pledge. On the church podium, it was a spiritual pledge. It is his second pledge, but in effect, it was the first and superior pledge. The spiritual is above the natural, as Apostle Paul explains in the Bible. We wait to see this play out as his stewardship unfolds.

    Once he was done, he walked back to his seat beside the BOS of Lagos. It was not only the handshake that joined them together, but an iconography of colour and wardrobe symmetry. Both governors were dressed in light blue buba and sokoto, as though they had a chat about it before hitting their wardrobes.

    Buhari In Touch

    It’s a good thing to note that sometimes you don’t write in vain. I had that feeling when I read the headline that President Buhari has responded to In Touch by deciding to deploy drones over the forests to tackle the problem of bandits. At least, the government has shown that it can bend to a wise nudge from a humble columnist. A clap for the president!!!

  • Botched security summit

    It is increasingly clearer that we are not getting the right handle to the degenerating security situation in the country. Even as the authorities give copious assurance of their resolve to tame the mortal danger posed by heightened insecurity, the fact on the ground is that ours is turning to a verity of the state of nature where life has at once become nasty, short and brutish.

    Insecurity is perceptible from the escapades of the Boko Haram insurgents; wanton killings and kidnappings by the so-called bandits, kidnappings that are largely attributed to herdsmen on highways, armed robbery and sundry criminalities. The matter has gotten to such a head that it is now a risky venture to travel on our highways especially the ever-busy Lagos-Benin expressway.

    Not unexpectedly, the rising spate of kidnappings especially in the southern parts of the country has been largely blamed on the herdsmen because of the similarity in their conduct and style of activity with those of the kidnappers. Accounts of many of those who had fallen victim of kidnapping seem to largely corroborate this suspicion.

    This has brought in its wake allegations and counter allegation. Southern leaders are now pitted against their northern counterparts on the masterminds of the kidnappings and killings in the southern parts of the country. This is sequel to accusations that most of the rising criminalities in the south especially on the highways are traceable to the herdsmen. The matter appeared to have been exacerbated by the recent killing of the daughter of the leader of Afenifere socio-political group.

    It was a scene of threats and counter threats as tempers flared up on account of the callous manner the lady was mowed down. The level of ethnic bitterness it raised saw some groups and individuals threatening reprisals if the killings continue without sufficient measures by the government to stem the tide. We also saw for the first time, calls from groups in the north on the herdsmen to leave the southern part of the country. Though the calls were not and not likely to be heeded, we seem to be confronted by bottled up grievances that could easily burst if nothing substantial is done to reassure the nation that there is no hidden agenda behind killings.

    Even then, ethnic distrust is now at an all time high. Nigerians have never been so divided along ethnic, religious and other fault lines as they have in the last few years. The issue is not remedied by the tepid manner the government has gone about handling the challenge often living in denial on the gravity of the situation. This has tended to reinforce allegations that the government is only interested in resolving the contradiction raised by the insurgency of the herdsmen on terms favorable to them even when we have been told that many of them are foreigners.

    That accounts for the strident opposition against some of the measures the government floated as solutions to the lingering insecurity. As at now, the government appears in a fix as its neutrality in the escalating crises cannot be trusted. It is confronted by a crisis of confidence such that any move it makes to evolve therapeutic responses is viewed with serious suspicion and apprehension.

    The way things stand the government is constantly losing the confidence of the people on its capacity to evolve solutions that will satisfy the constituents. This conclusion can be discerned form the quick speed with which some of its programmes- Ruga settlements, grazing zones etc were shot down. The government found itself retreating from the Ruga policy albeit temporarily. But suspicions linger that it is bidding its time and may soon come about the same rejected policy through other means.

    So the suspicion rages with the nationalities highly sensitized and poised to challenge any policy that will snatch their lands and hand them over to herdsmen some of whom are foreign nationals. Irredentism and ethnic chauvinism have been revved up and they are not about to peter out so soon. If the country is to overcome this ominous cloud of insecurity, it is imperative that some form of intervention is called into action by well-meaning citizens to evolve generally acceptable and lasting solutions to the lingering challenge. We need to diffuse the tension in the land arising from suspicions and mistrust among the distinct nationalities brought to the fore by the poor handling and mismanagement of the crises by the government.

    Perhaps, it was with this in mind that former military Head of state, Abdulsalami Abubakar convened a security roundtable of key nationalities in Minna, Niger state last week. Presumably, Abubakar had arranged that summit to explore ways to diffuse the tension, mistrust and acrimony that have seen the nationalities in blames and counter blames.

    Invited to the meeting were leaders of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum SMBLF composed of the Afenifere, Ohaneze Nidgbo and Middle Belt Forum. Also invited were Miyetti Allah cattle breeders association, Gan Allah Fulani Development Association, heads of the security forces and other notable Nigerians.

    But events soon turned awry. The SMBLF was later to turn down the invitation raising serious reservations against some groups invited to the same meeting. In a letter rejecting the invitation, they seriously objected to the invitation extended to Miyetti Allah and the Gan Allah Fulani Development Association. They contended that they do not know members of the Gan Allah group while the “lumping of Miyetti Allah, a trade association for cattle breeders whose members have been accused of violation of rights, including life, across the country sends worrying signals to us”

    They considered this a grave insult as “coming to a roundtable with the group would mean acquiescence to the narrative that put us in the same bracket with those wielding illegal AK-47 all over the country and inflicting terror on fellow citizens”. With these reservations, the roundtable was dead on arrival and another opportunity to diffuse the charged political atmosphere lost.

    So we remain trapped in the same vicious cycle. We seem to be held up by contradictions of sorts from getting our acts right. Issues have been traded as to the propriety of the action of the SMBLF. Some have even gone ahead to suggest that they should have overlooked those issues attend the roundtable as no sacrifice will be too big in the quest to restore peace.

    It is a matter of opinion. But that the group rejected the invitation on those grounds shows how seriously they felt and their distrust in the capacity of that summit to do justice to security issues that were bound to arise. It was an obvious vote of no confidence on the neutrality of organizers of the summit. It is for them to explain from where they floated the Gan Allah group and why Miyetti Allah fits into the mould of the socio-cultural groups that make up the SMBLF. This is more compelling given that in the past, the presidency had made futile attempts to categorize Miyetti Allah as sharing the same characteristics with Afenifee, Ohaneze and Middle Belt Forum.

    Given the controversy that categorization generated then, Abukakar obviously underestimated how bad these nationalities felt on that issue. I guess he must have learnt one or two lessons from the development. The fact remains that there is wide suspicion that the government and its agents are not showing enough sincerity in finding lasting solutions to the security challenges that have pitched parts of the country against others.

    What we find is an increasing proclivity on the part of the government and her agents to seek the resolution of the insurgency of the herdsmen on terms favorable to the herders, their sponsors and sympathizers at the corridors of power. It is hoped Abubakar is not doing the bidding of any of these interests. But as long as this jaundiced handling of the matter persists, so long will a quick return to peace and normalcy continue to be an illusion. There are quick fixes to the insurgency of the herdsmen. But will the government toe that path?

  • LKJ’s other side

    The roll call of attendees at Lateef Jakande’s birthday party was an apparition of the Yoruba elite. Weak, wizened but worthy, the first civilian governor of Lagos looked fairer in the 90th. No past governor, or political bigwig who attended the event spoke without awe. He is a man of legacy.

    Perhaps the person who captured his acts with dramatic presence is his present successor, the BOS of Lagos, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. Microphone in hand and almost leaning over the sitting grandee like a grandson, Governor Sanwo-Olu said “I was 14 years old when you became governor of Lagos.” He presented himself as a model beneficiary of Jakande’s genius.

    Few people live to see their legacy as superfine as that of the Lagos chief executive who mounted the chair he left behind. Governor Sanwo-Olu is the democratic bloodline to the throne just as a monarch swims the natural bloodline of the biological fathers. He is gradually coming into his own as he repairs the brokenness of the past few years: roads restoration, discipline, traffic, et al. Governor Sanwo-Olu must be contemplating Jakande as one of his exemplary ancestors.

    So are many today looking at the man of modest lifestyle, infrastructural disruption, educational beacon and welfarist populism.  But Jakande was not only about his transformational doings as governor. Before he was governor, he was a journalist. No mean one at that. He was, however, an Awoist, a man who exemplified the Yoruba sage and soldiered with him in crypts and sunlight. He wrote and edited and was even custodian of his ideals as the steward of The Nigerian Tribune. When Awo was jailed, Jakande suffered with him in his temptation behind bars.

    So, today, it is that aspect of Jakande that fascinates this essayist.  It is a narrative subsumed in the avalanche of accolades on his nonagenarian birth mark. What is the quality of Jakande’s courage? We saw it as he soldiered as a young man beside and behind Awo. He recorded with flair and perspicacity the toils and agonies of Awo’s trials. We saw him as governor fight for programmes mocked by his adversaries. His cancellation of the school shift system was revolutionary in the city. Yours truly attended an afternoon school.

    He mushroomed the city with schools to bring every ward to learn in the morning. His NPN critics called them cowsheds. He soldiered on. He built the largest number of housing units ever in Nigerian history by any government, whether federal or state, within four years. He opened what we know as the Lekki Corridor today. He was a seer as an environmentalist, pioneering a day off to clean the city. We cannot forget another act of prescience: he began the Metroline Project, to plumb the city with rail transport to ease a metropolis of bourgeoning population. Buhari scuppered it but later apologised.

    His profile overspread the nation. He was called the action governor. In Yorubaland, and among the progressives, he was called Baba kekere. He was austere in manners. He abhorred the magnificence of office. He lived in his modest home, rode his Toyota Crown, was not drawn to the vanity of travels abroad, or the extravagancies of official boasts or swagger, was never a fop even for ceremonies. He loved his confectionary, Tom Tom, as if he needed something sweet that also reminded him of the bitterness of human suffering.  Baba kekere means literally the little father. It, in earnest, meant the heir to Awo, the father of Yorubaland and politics.

    How was it that Jakande never rose to take the crown as the leader of the Yoruba? One, it was a question of charisma. He was a doer, not a charmer. He was no orator, not an absorbing conversationalist, though a deep thinker and practical man. He was not an impresario in political gatherings. He was an organiser, but not a broker. Hence when he pushed the candidacy of Femi Agbalajobi, his name made Agbalajobi a top contender but he was eventually toppled. However, the big challenge came after Abiola’s June 12 mandate tested the Yoruba mettle. Jakande joined the Abacha regime, just as Olu Onagoruwa and Ebenezer Babatope. They joined not arbitrarily, but as a way of putting the June 12 men in government as a transition ploy until the dream was realised. Whether it was an act of hopeless gamble or naivety by Abiola and his men has become a question for historians and political scientists. In his autobiography of reportorial rigour and voyage in Nigerian history, Chief Olusegun Osoba recalled in his book: Battlelines, that even Abiola saw the June 12 struggle as already a financial pressure and thought it necessary as a respite that his followers joined the junta.

    But Abacha did not flinch. Abiola eventually mobilised and the sweep of Yorubaland and other progressive redoubts in the country decided on a battle-to-the-death against Abacha. When Jakande and others in government were asked to leave the junta, they refused. Here lies the question? How could a man called the heir stand on the other side instead of in the vanguard? Was it an act of discretion or a sellout?

    Read Also: Buhari greets Lateef Jakande at 90

    The issue then was that Jakande, Babatope and Onagoruwa thought they were under watch, and if they tried to show any sign of disloyalty, they would be razed to death. The story of Ibru, who almost died from the Junta’s attack, was a case in point. But the counter story was that quite a few others who were not in government were being chased all over the country, including Enahoro, Soyinka, Tinubu, Osoba, et al. Some appointees escaped out of the country.

    So, was it because they thought they were under special watch, more acute than the others? The late Gani Fawehinmi fumed often that his bosom friend Onagoruwa was cohabiting with the goggled despot.  Together they had asun (special delicacy) and pounded yam and travelled out of town on many weekends.

    Some said suicide was the option. But not so for others who risked all and slipped through the famous NADECO route? Was it because they lacked cunning? Courage without cunning is futile. Maybe they had too much cunning and so couldn’t dare. Jakande has paid since for his choice or dilemma. He has never been embraced in the inner sanctum of the Yoruba. His echo may have been heard. His name was hardly invoked, and when he was invoked, he was never beckoned. He never once was a steersman of the southwest breezes. He has remained in the quiescent fringes of the rumble of Yoruba politics since 1999.

    In Yorubaland, politicians always pray not to commit what the Bible designates as sin unto death. In other parts of Nigeria, Jakande would have risen into a myth-like status. In the Southwest, however, his clay feet loom large. It is because the Yoruba are an ideological race. Onagoruwa in death was not washed of the sin. Neither is Babatope, whose voice once had the virility of a town crier. Jakande seems to enjoy some grace. Maybe a part of the Yoruba heart heard Mahatma Ghandi’s words: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Part of this is his work in Lagos. But it is a genius of development, not of character. Today people see him the way historian Thucydides writes of the great Pericles: “We have not left our power without witness, but have shown it with mighty proofs.”

    But it is because his genius did not translate to courage in the tough hour of his people that he did not soar from Baba kekere to baba. That is the flipside of the great LKJ.

     

    Sylva for oil man

    As the President contemplates his cabinet, a few sensitive positions call for scrutiny. One of them is minister of petroleum. Since Kachukwu is not in the reckoning, a name that pops into mind is that of the former governor of Bayelsa State, the spry and lanky fellow, Chief Timipre Sylva.

    His politics as a Buhari partisan and his resume with oil and politics qualify him aplenty. He has been in the epicentre of the oil producing region. He is also the most senior Buharist from the Ijaw nation. He was a Buharist before the word was coined when the former general was in the doldrums of presidential ambition, and few looked his way. Sylva gambled with him then.

    His appointment will show Buhari as one who rewards loyalty, a point some critics are apt to point out. As special assistant to former oil minister Daukoru, he was a go-to man in planning and conducting the most transparent oil bid-round adjudged to be the best ever in Nigeria, generating over a billion dollars in revenue for the government.

    During his time, they ended the chaos in the supply and imports of products by establishing the PPPRA. As governor, he conceptualised the Amnesty Programme, the signature achievement of the Yar’adua administration. He is the oil man of the cabinet. So let the man who has successfully patrolled the terrain be made petrol man.

  • Makinde’s assets

    It is not surprising that the declaration of assets worth about N50 billion by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has continued to generate considerable public interest.

    This is perhaps, the first time in recent times a governor would make public his assets. He also set record as the first public officer to file details of those assets on the eve of his inauguration even when the laws establishing the Code of Conduct Bureau CCB stipulated a three-month timeframe for the exercise.

    These should have stood him out for commendation given the high prevalence of corruption in our public life and the imperative to stem the tide. By the measures, Makinde has provided the template for the public to hold him accountable in and out of office. The point he seemed to have made is that if assets worth more than his official earnings are traced to him on exiting office, he should be made to face the raw teeth of the law. That should be something to cheer about.

    But we live in a clime of abject poverty with a few swimming in scandalous opulence. It is therefore little a surprise that the disclosure of such huge amount of funds and assets has come with its own challenges. Issues have been raised in some quarters as to how a single individual could possibly amass such huge amount of money and assets in the face of debilitating poverty. And this has tended to take off the shine from an action that should ordinarily, have been received with considerable applause.

    Read Also: Makinde sends commissioners list to assembly

    But the governor did no wrong. Nigeria’s poor rating in the world’s poverty index is none of his making. Neither can he be possibly held liable for the woes of this country. He was only obeying extant regulations regarding assets declaration by public office holders. If he is considered stupendously rich by local standards, it is no fault of his. After all, the capitalist system we run thrives on such inequalities. Makinde seemed to have followed the pattern set by late President Umaru Yar’Adua when in June 2007 he made an open declaration of his assets. Yar’Adua had then asked his vice to follow his example but his ill-health and subsequent death did not allow that visionary move to be fully appreciated.

    Before now, some key public officials of the government have been arraigned at the Code of Conduct Tribunal CCT for either failure to declare assets, concealment of assets or lack of full disclosure. The case of the immediate past Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen is still very fresh in the mind. Makinde was just being mindful of all that.

    Curiously, questions have been raised as to how he could have acquired such stupendous wealth in this country. Issues were bandied in some quarters as to the amount of taxes he pays to the government and his level of social responsibility to his constituents. Some even went to the ridiculous length of calling on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC and other relevant bodies to have him investigated. Investigate him for what offence?

    Sadly, what should have stood out as an example of emulation was seemingly diminished by scathing remarks as to how he made his money, the level of taxes paid and the corporate citizenship of some of his companies. By dwelling more on the negative side of the action, we lost a good opportunity to appreciate the heuristic vale of the exercise. For a government that has the war against corruption as one of its cardinal programs and had taken some unconstitutional steps to hound those suspected of fraud related offences; that was a good opportunity to celebrate the gains of the war.

    One would have expected the government to positively hype up that development commending the approach to other elected and appointed public officials. But for some inexplicable reasons, that opportunity was allowed to be drowned by derisive remarks and unhelpful scepticisms.

    Now what are the issues? Here is a governor that dutifully declared his assets in keeping with extant regulations. He did not just stop at that, but went further to make them public even before being sworn-in. And that has become his crime for which he must be hounded? What an irony! If he had opted to go it secretly as most public officers do, would anybody have known the worth of his assets to warrant calling for a probe? And which of the two options serves public interest better- secret declaration as has been the order of the day or open declaration on the eve of inauguration now pioneered by Governor Makinde?

    The later obviously better serves the course of probity and accountability. It is a sincere move stemming from the heart of one who has nothing to hide. The impression it generally conveys is that of one who made his money genuinely and therefore has nothing to fear by making that information public. I stand to be contradicted.

    Questions as to how he made his money, the amount of taxes he paid and his overall positive impact on the society are essentially diversionary. They are not relevant to the situation and cannot be used to smear an example worthy of emulation. Moreover, there is the inherent danger that such negativism could scare away public officers who may wish to toe the same path.

    We would have lost a lot of mileage in the war against corruption if by those scornful remarks and negativism we end up discouraging those who might be spurred by Makinde’s action to follow the same line. But then, probity and accountability in public offices would be better enhanced if public officers are bold enough to make public the overall worth of their assets. It will also give inkling on income distribution within the Nigerian society.

    How people make their money, the level of taxes they pay and issues of corporate citizenship are not entirely out of place. But they are irrelevant at the point of assets’ declaration. There are statutory bodies charged with those responsibilities. If they fail to discharge their duties as at when due, that is their cup of tea.

    And if one may ask, what have we done with those few Nigerians that control the entire wealth of the country almost exclusively? Why have our anti-graft agencies not probed into the sources of their wealth including those of them that have held public offices in this country? That should be the real issue and not the avoidable distraction in attempting to stigmatize a governor, honest enough to avail the nation of his total assets standing.

    It is for the relevant agencies of government to verify the claims contained in his assets declaration forms to ensure that all his depositions conform to facts on the ground. That is the way to go; the basis for holding him accountable when he leaves office. Anything other than that will be diversionary and counterproductive. We should encourage others not only to make their assets declaration public but to do so a few days before they assume office. This will stem the observed penchant by unscrupulous ones for anticipatory declarations within the three months’ timeframe.

    But more seriously, the CCB must buckle up in its verification of claims deposed on oath by public officers. It does not speak well of the agency that little is heard of discrepancies, concealment of information or lack of full disclosure in the assets declaration forms of key public officers except when they have issues with the authorities.

    That was exactly the situation with the former senate president, Bukola Saraki. Onnoghen’s case also followed the same predictable pattern. These tend to convey the miserable impression that the CCB just like its EFCC counterpart are increasingly becoming tools in the hands of the government to hound perceived enemies. These key institutions must be retrieved from increasing slide to partisanship to remain relevant to their mandate.

  • Eye in the sky

    Professor Wole Soyinka may not think it, but he asserted a literary irony in his recent intervention on the problem of security in the land.  He said the issue seems to have overwhelmed the president. In his famous poem conceived when the bandit was not even conceived, he wished travellers safe trips.

    The famous lines read: “You must set forth at dawn/ I promise marvels of the holy hour.” Anyone who travels across the country today knows there is no holy hour in Nigeria. The poet’s prayer had a prophetic insight. Every cleric craves the comfort of such supplications.

    Years past when Soyinka published his memoirs, You must set forth at dawn, I discussed it with a few gentlemen, including former Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola. The former governor rooted the poem in a Yoruba prayer for dawn travellers. He recited the lines to me and a few others with gusto.

    But not all who read the poem would see the holy hour as pertaining to morning travels alone. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the holy hour refers often to the night. Some Anglican churches also observe this often at night.

    It derives from Jesus’ night of prayerful watch as his crucifixion loomed, when he said, “My soul is extremely sorrowful, even unto death.” At that time he bemoaned his apostles for their faithless sleep. So, if Soyinka’s holy hour was in the morning, others know it at night. A few people could observe it anytime, since Apostle Paul warned that it did not matter whether it is a new moon, a holy day, et al. They are “a shadow of things to come.” Even before his nightly watch, Jesus was known once to have woken up in halcyon times at dawn to pray.

    Today, there is no holy hour for the traveller. So no marvels, except when by a miracle you arrive home without incident. The bandits have murdered sleep, so they don’t spare the night travels. Night is the holy hour for many saints. Even Mother Teresa of Calcutta observed her holy hour every night. Many Pentecostals burst into songs and prayers in night vigils. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the ghost of his protagonist was “doomed for a certain term to walk the night.”

    At night, the traveller’s eyes are like the owl. They see without guarantees. During the day, the travellers’ eyes are alert like the owl’s. But the owl does not see in the light. So, the traveller looks but does not see until the marauders erupt for the kill, like the unfortunate case of Mrs. Olakunri, who was cut down around Ore.

    So, we do not pine for holy hours until we destroy those who have murdered sleep. What we need is not just night vigil or day vigilance. What we need is a strategy to deal with problem. Rather than weave solutions, many have turned it into political weaponry.

    We can look to a recent past for one of the solutions. While the federal government idea of sending soldiers to the highway looks reasonable, it is no more than a Band-Aid. It only stops them from attacking where the soldiers are within sight. As the Igbo proverb shows in Things Fall Apart, Emenike the bird says the bird has learned to fly without perching because men have learned to shoot without missing. The posting of soldiers will not arrest or stop the banditry. It only rots and develops pus.

    I recall the days of Kashim Shettima as governor of Borno State and the birth of the civilian JTF. These young persons came into the fray because of the failure of institutionalised intelligence agency. These civilian young men and women were recruited from the communities, and they knew who was a peacemaker and who was a militant. They began to flush them out, and even engage them in fights. When the Nigerian Army was failing, and losing strategy and spirit to duel the marauders, the civilian JTF stood in the gap. Their exploits have been underwritten, and they deserve their stories to be properly documented as models of heroism and community protection in a time of crisis.

    Eventually, some of the practitioners were seen to have been underage, and the structure abused in parts. It however does not detract from its essential virtue as a civic powerhouse during the firestorms of the Boko Haram insurgents.

    We can have the equivalents all over the country. First, they know their communities. They can be recruited and serve as intelligence gatherers for the police, the NSA and other bigger structures of state.

    Secondly, it is a ready way to tackle youth unemployment. Many idle youths would easily join. A place like Zamfara State could use such a structure. The gold mines are wasting away. With the youths fishing out the hoodlums, the gold mines with proper work can turn the gold into structured means of wealth than can employ the youths with the return of normalcy and peace.

    Again, the great weapon in all these is information. No war or crime-busting is executed without the use of information. War spies played more role than weaponry in a number of big wars in history, including the Vietnam War, the First World War and Second World War. What we need in this instance is the technology of the drone.

    The drone is the weapon of the future. They are not manned, but they see what the human eye cannot see. They can also operate as stealth machines. They hover out of sight but see all. They are the modern-day eye in the sky. All we need is to buy and deploy them all over the forests of a thousand demons in the country. In the southwest, in the north, in the east and south-south, we have big, vast forests. They cannot be scoured with men on foot. Soldiers may follow their evil trails, but the forests are too vast for such labour.

    Within hours, the drone would collect information and flash it to the situation room. Immediately, military action can be deployed. It could be a sortie from helicopter gunship, or if within striking distance, the soldiers can get there and dislodge or arrest the goons.

    The drones that can do these are not too expensive for a government that has spent so much on security with relatively little result. The fact is that the service chiefs have not accounted, naira for peace, what they have done with our humongous billions on security.

    We need civilian JTFs to complement the drones. Until then, peace will be a pie in the sky.

     

  • Of inverted patriotism

    There exists some understanding that definitional issues in social analysis are rather inconclusive. That is why you find varying definitions of a given concept or phenomenon by scholars. But in this seeming divergence, there still exists a convergence of views on the confines of the subject matter.

    Though perceptions may slightly differ, there is always a common strand of exactitude running through all these definitions. At the end, you can easily isolate features common to the concept that differentiates it from what it is not. That way, you can assign practical expression and meaning to abstractions and constructs.

    Even then, it is not uncommon to see political leaders and sundry personages misconstrue and exploit some of these concepts to serve ends that detract substantially from their real essence. The above scenario played out last week when President Buhari accused unnamed Nigerians of unpatriotic acts for seemingly criticizing his current handling of the worsening insecurity in the country.

    Apparently reacting to mounting criticisms on his handling of the degenerating security situation, the president had said “those who politicize the isolated incidents of insecurity are not patriotic Nigerians. I am confident that this administration will use all resources at its disposal to protect the lives of all Nigerians and not just prominent Nigerians, but all”.

    There are inherent flaws in the above assertions. The first is the difficulty in understanding what the president actually meant by politicization of insecurity. And what the dividing line is between informed criticisms and politicization of the subject matter. The second relates to his notion of what constitutes isolated incidents of insecurity while the other hinges on his promise to protect all and not just prominent Nigerians. We shall return to these later.

    With the killing last week of Funke Olakunri, daughter of leader of the Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere by suspected herdsmen, key Nigerians came down heavily against the rising insecurity in the country. Among the most vocal were former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka also lent his voice to the issue even as there were other voices from concerned groups across the country. If the concerns expressed by these groups and individuals amounted to the politicization of insecurity in the thinking of the president, then he got it all wrong. There is always a dividing line between informed criticisms and politics.

    There is also a big flaw in what the president called isolated incidents of insecurity in the country. Isolated? For a country that is buffeted in all fronts by all manner of security challenges that have stretched the security agencies to elastic limits, it is amazing that any person could describe the mortal danger posed by insecurity in such patronizing manner. Not with the festering Boko Haram insurgency, armed banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and the insurgency of the herdsmen that have left the country a verity of the Hobbesian state of nature.

    Holes can also be picked in his promise to protect all Nigerians and not just the prominent ones. Coming on the heels of heightened emotions on the callous and senseless killing of Funke Olakunri by suspected herdsmen, such a statement would appear insensitive to the mood of the times. It would have made more sense to rehearse such trite statements and platitudes without bringing in the distinction between prominent and non prominent Nigerians. The import of that curious distinction is not lost on very discerning minds. And it says a lot about the mind frame of the president in the instant case.

    Beyond these, there is a fundamental conceptual mix-up in the assertion that those who politicize incidents of isolated insecurity in the country are not patriotic Nigerians. Our reading of this is that those who criticize government’s handling of the escalating security situation in the country are not patriotic Nigerians. In this wise, the alarm on the degenerating insecurity raised by Obasanjo, Jonathan and Soyinka among others with recommendations on ways out, would fit into unpatriotic acts. It is difficult to fathom how that claim could possibly stand.

    And that raises definitional and conceptual issues as to the precise meaning of the word patriotism. It is apposite to define that word for us to contextualize Buhari’s statement. Stephen Nathanson categorized patriotism in Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy in the following terms: ‘Special affection for one’s own country; a sense of personal identification with the country, special concern for the wellbeing of the country and willingness to sacrifice to promote the country’s good’.

    And what did Obasanjo and others say? They draw attention to the inherent dangers in allowing pervading insecurity to get out of hands; they also proffered suggestions on how to stem the tide and ward off the drift to anarchy. Obasanjo made copious recommendations on ways out including an urgent summit of all nationalities and prominent Nigerians where observed grievances will be tabled and trashed out. Jonathan drew attention to the recommendations of the 2014 national conference report which he said contains vital recommendations on how to resolve the nagging insecurity in the country.

    Other suggestions include the convocation of a national conference, security summit and restructuring. What is expected of a sensitive and caring government is to take advantage of these suggestions and tackle the scourge of insecurity headlong. Taking refuge on banal allegations and name calling offers no remedy on the debilitating situation. Even if these personages were seemingly hard on the government for not living up to its statutory duties, they had genuine intentions and suggestions on ways out. Their aim is to get the government arrest the degenerating security situation and retrieve the country from impending catastrophe.

    Can we possibly tag such dispositions as unpatriotic acts? And which of these two dispositions serves our national interest better: to keep quiet and allow the situation get out of hands or draw government’s attention to the drift with a view to finding lasting solutions to it? It is obvious that the later is in conformity with acts of patriotism and love for one’s own country.

    Undoubtedly, the interventions by Obasanjo, Jonathan and Soyinka amply stand them out as those who care for the collective wellbeing of their country. They share common concerns for their country and would not want acts of omission or commission on the part of the government to railroad it to avoidable danger. They are concerned about the survival of the country and would want quick therapeutic responses to retrieve it from the impending doom. Their actions therefore qualify them as patriots. If Buhari had them in mind when he made the accusation, he got it all wrong. He may well have been afflicted by a wrong notion of what constitutes patriotism.

    This view is given succinct credence by Igor Primoratz when he wrote on patriotism as follows: “such identification is expressed in vicarious feelings: in pride of one’s country’s merits and achievements and in shame for its lapses or crimes (when these are acknowledged rather than denied)”. He has said it all.

    Those who criticize the tepid handling of the insecurity that is tearing the country apart are only expressing frustrations and discomfort with the situation. They are ashamed of the lapses arising from the inability or reluctance of the government to decisively stem the tide. They are the real patriots and not those who pretend all is well in the face of potent danger. It would appear Buhari saw patriotism from the prism of its inverted variant. It is a convoluted perception of the subject matter; one that satisfies the whims and caprices of the leader.

    But we must be careful of the mortal danger in equating patriotism with blind trust on anything a leader says. For, history is replete with accounts of leaders who displaced national goals with their self-serving interests. Such goal displacement leads to dissonance between what that leader considers to represent the national interest of a country and the collective interests of the constituents. It is a frightening prospect that must be watched carefully.

  • El Rufai double talk

    It is not in his character to be tame or modest. On that note, Malam El Rufai did not surprise. There is something intrinsically disturbing about the Kaduna State governor’s penchant for attention. He seems to be banging his shoes like a public desperado. He is like Oscar, the character in Gunter Grass’ Nobel Prize-winning novel, Tin Drum. He shatters glasses when he screams. Like Oscar, El Rufai is the smallest in the room but his voice equals anarchy. He has become the Nigerian Napoleon without the heroics or exploits.

    So, he did it again. He employs a rhetorical decoy. He wants to appear to be indicting his region, and so appear a nationalist or patriot. The great writer Samuel Johnson probably had the likes of him in mind when he described patriotism as “the last refuge of the scoundrel.” There were many false nationalist in Johnson’s Europe that boiled and cooled simultaneously as nations formed and dissolved in his time. So,  El Rufai says the north is poor while the south is better endowed. But he cancels that out by stirring northern irredentism. He says the north is honest, implying that the south signifies duplicity.

    By that very double face, El Rufai committed what psychoanalysts call a Freudian slip. He articulated clearly what he thought he was doing in opaque words. There are far too many people who cannot be conned, not least a person like this writer who knows enough about the nuances of language like anybody on earth. He was trying to achieve two things at the same time. He wanted to appear as an authentic Nigerian while retaining his quintessence as Fulani warrior. In doing both, he failed, and achieved neither.

    He feigns the rhetoric of brutal honesty in a camouflage of conciliation, and a camouflage of conciliation under a rhetoric of brutal honesty. He wants to show he loves the north and south, while saying at the same time he loathes the north and south. It makes him lukewarm, neither left-handed nor right-handed, neither hot nor cold, what the God of the Bible says he would spew out of his mouth.

    Those who know him see the root of this divisive language. He is eyeing the top post in the land. He wants to also sort of pacify those who excoriated him for overstepping the miry earth of Lagos politics. He wants to play godfather while trying to behead him. He was dazed by the backlash, and now the fellow has spun a cobweb for himself by trying to be a northern authentic without undermining the south, which he must embrace in order to gain traction in the 2023 sweepstakes.

    But this man threw stones without shielding his glass windows. In pushing the divisive aspect of his words, he forgot that he has been a divider in chief in Kaduna politics. Was it not the fellow who dared the Christian by flushing out his Christian deputy and projecting a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a time when the state citizens are on the opposing sides of the holy books? Was it not El –Rufai, who became a master statistician when the Fulani herdsmen and the Christian neighbours were locked in a blood duel. It was like the conflict that Spanish playwright Federico Lorca wanted to resolve in his masterwork Blood Wedding. The two Fulani and their neighbours are locked in a sort of blood wedding because Kaduna is their wedding scene but only bloodshed separates them. Yet rather than bring love and marriage, he stirs passions and buries petals in blood.

    He has been unable to make himself a man of the people, and to win an election as he did never made him a beloved. He is a cynical politician who knows how to exploit the foibles of a slight majority to win an election. That is the sort of crisis in the west today. Conservatism has been redefined by demagogues and wayfarers of dark impulses. They appeal to barbarian fears and tribal fantasies.  They win just enough votes to make the society miserable.  The crisis of Brexit today in the United Kingdom is fraying the nerves of the first great modern liberal state. Now, they are hoisting fears rooted in their natal past. Theresa May is the second prime minister victim of the fear of Europe, and blacks, and Muslims, and Asians. They want to hide in their own sewer. Boris Johnson will take over without any specific idea how to free Britain from the joy of a united world.  He is likely to meet a deadlock, and put his country in a web of negotiations without a solution.

    El Rufai indicted the northern elite when he said his region has fallen far behind the south in poverty, education and other indices of development. He should know that he has been part of the pampered elite in the past two decades. He has been a stoker of bonfires of backwardness. He should have gone further to name all the men who made this happen.

    He is a feudalist who is pretending to be a democrat. He has fattened on the spoil of this decadent ideology, and he will do well to name himself as one of that privileged men who would not trade the marble palace for a pigsty comfort with talakawas. That is the hypocrisy of the age.

    The Kaduna State governor ought to understand that he cannot hoodwink Nigerians with his rhetoric of hate. We have seen through him. He cannot show that it is not actuated by presidential ambition. The nation does not crave men who divide at this time of ethnic incineration. He worked in the shadows when Buhari plotted himself as his replacement in case the worst happened. So, we know the ambition is is still alive, and so is his hate.

    Hail to the Duke

    Many call him the Duke. I do, too. Nduka Obaigbena first popped into my consciousness as student in Government College, Ughelli. He had brought a famous musical group known as Osibisa to perform on campus. Who was this student as entrepreneur? I did not know him in person. I just wondered at his audacity.  Later, his cartoons known as Lekeleke flourished in The Nigerian Observer. The cartoons had a mordant, irreverent tone. He was my senior at Ughelli, and I forgot about him until I learned he was already working with the world-famous Time magazine, posting Nigeria as spotlight. That was followed by a dramatic magazine called Thisweek, with the line “The world according to Nigeria This week.” It was journalism as innovation. He called it “a generational statement.” It was also the golden age of the magazine. He brought together some of best and brightest in the journalism firmament. And some of the best investors and technocrats from Gamaliel Onosode to Chief Hope Harriman. It reigned for a while, and beautiful was that reign.

    Some thought he was done. Then came Thisday, a newspaper of innovation, and it has projected a distinct voice, even if not always salutary to some. He has brought a panache to journalism, the back page, the aesthetics, the front page as advert, the gloss on Sunday, the vision of the newspaper as not merely a newspaper but a communication organism. He has his flaws, but Obaigbena is a rare spirit in this generation, who has embossed journalism with milestone acts that few can equal. He just turned a young 60, and I say sixty cheers to a genius.

  • Imo’s failed projects

    The quality of projects executed by the regime of Rochas Okorocha in Imo State has of recent been in the public domain. Attention to the integrity of those projects was apparently sequel to photographs in the social media of a failed bridge on a federal highway in the state.

    A senior journalist had posted photographs of the collapsed Orashi River Bridge on the federal highway linking Imo and Anambra states along the Orlu/Ideato axis. It is the only federal road connecting Imo State capital directly to Awka, the Anambra State capital.

    The author of the post had explained he personally took the pictures and that he would not have believed that a bridge on a federal highway could be constructed without iron rod reinforcement if he did not personally see the bridge. His fears were soon proven as some commentators disputed what they saw in the pictures. While some insisted that the features depicted more of a failed road than a bridge, some others contended that it was actually a bridge.

    At the end, it was apparent that even the proviso by the author that he personally took the pictures and would not have believed it if he was not personally there, still failed to convince some as to the visual accuracy of the pictures. But implicit in that disagreement is the uncanny contradiction which that structure called a bridge posed. And that captures the difficulty Governor Emeka Ihedioha would encounter dealing with many of the failed and substandard projects executed by his predecessor.

    Read Also: Laying the markers for a new Imo

    All the same, it is good a thing such substandard projects are being exposed to the public. This is more so given that Okorocha is well known for his loquaciousness. He even boasted he has done any and every development project the state needed leaving the incoming administration with nothing again to do. For such a character, it would be a grave risk not to let the public into the substandard and makeshift projects he bequeathed the state. Those who found it hard to believe that the features were that of a bridge could in all fairness be excused. Their handicap stemmed from the shoddy conceptualization and execution of that project and they are not to blame for it.

    The reality however, is that it is a bridge on a federal highway constructed by the Okorocha regime less than three years ago. It is Okorocha’s version of a bridge aka ‘China bridge’ It is a bridge constructed without engineering design. Due to that technical defect, it is difficult to distinguish whether it is really a bridge or a culvert. All the technical rules guiding the construction of such projects were observed in their breach for some inexplicable reasons.

    Ironically, by the side of that failed bridge, one can still see the disused one-lane bridge constructed by the colonial masters. The colonial bridge is still hanging well above the water level. But Okorocha’s variant steeped so low that it is almost at the same base with the flowing water level. The road is so abnormally steep that hardly a week passes without a trailer falling across it. I guess the idea of reducing such a critical bridge to the verity of a culvert was possibly to cut costs or corners. But that has turned out the greatest undoing of that project and its initiator.

    As someone from the area and very conversant with the bridge, it would amount to an abdication of responsibility not to add my voice to that death trap called a bridge. This is not the first time it is collapsing. At least in three different occasions since it was built, the bridge had scandalously caved in exposing the shoddy job and death trap it was.

    But each time it failed, the state government had a curious way of patching up the failed section. It was obvious however that makeshift solution was not the answer but complete demolition to give way for a more enduring structure. It did not come as a surprise two weeks after the departure of that regime, that bridge collapsed irretrievably. But the scandal in the entire narrative is that the bridge links Okorocha to his ancestral home. Standing at that point, one can see very clearly the palatial home of the former governor. That he could not construct a durable bridge across a federal highway near his ancestral house says volumes of his eight year regime. Very sad indeed!

    It must be observed that the bridge at Orashi River is not the only failed bridge constructed by that government without iron rods and engineering design. There is the fifth inland bridge inside Owerri as well as the two flyovers initiated by his predecessor but which he completed in the same shoddy manner. This should not come as a surprise. In January last year, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria COREN had warned that bridges constructed by the government of Okorocha were disasters waiting to happen.

    COREN president, Kashim Ali told the senate president during a courtesy visit that “tragedy is about to happen in Imo State. Bridges are being built in Imo State without engineering design; it is a disaster waiting to happen”. So what we are seeing now had been forewarned by COREN. The collapse of the Orashi and the fifth inland road bridges may be a tip of the iceberg.

    There are heightened fears that some of these structures may put the public in harms’ way. So the decision of the new administration to shut down the two flyovers due to observed cracks while ordering integrity tests on them is a step in the right direction. The overall idea is to ascertain their qualities and save the public from the impending calamity envisaged by COREN.

    The Orashi and fifth inland bridges failed integrity tests on their own. It is clear the failed bridges will eventually be pulled down and reconstructed to satisfy the regulations of COREN. If the two flyovers also fail the integrity tests (as is almost obvious), they may be shut down permanently or pulled down to give way for more enduring structures.

    All these have dire consequences for the new administration and cannot just be ignored or covered up. The first is that all monies spent on them would have gone down the drains. Secondly, the government will have to source and deploy funds it would have used to execute new projects in rebuilding bridges poorly executed by his predecessor. The state is worse for it as it has the prospects of distracting the new administration from implementing its electoral promises to the Imo electorate. It is akin to laying landmines to constrain the effective takeoff of the new regime. We also saw this crude devious disposition in the number of hurried appointments made by that government on the eve of its departure and the inexplicable refusal to formally handover.

    So it is only proper that all these scandals are placed in the public domain so that the intentions of the new government are not misconstrued especially given surreptitious musings to have these failings covered up. Not surprisingly, these have come in the form of accusations of witch-hunting and suggestions that the new government should concentrate on its own projects rather than dissipate energy faulting his predecessor. Nobody is on a voyage of fault finding or witch-hunting. Nobody blew up the bridges.  They have been collapsing even with Okorocha still on the saddle.

    If the new regime is going to deploy public funds to bridges that were ostensibly built and commissioned by the previous regime, the public deserves to know. This is more so given that from what we know of Okorocha, he could still turn round to claim credit for the new bridges if and when they are constructed. And some may believe him. That is why the public must be properly sensitized to the calamity those projects are.

    It has nothing to do with witch-hunting or settling political scores. It relates to probity