The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Shettima’s frustrations

    The extraordinary security meeting convened by Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State has again brought to the fore, the slide in the security situation in that state. The broad-based meeting brought together security agencies, the media, traditional rulers, legal practitioners and road transport workers among others to fashion out ways to contain the Boko Haram insurgency.

    Of recent, there have been coordinated attacks, killings and capture of territories including military formations by the Boko Haram insurgents. This has in turn triggered influx of displaced people to Maiduguri, the state capital to seek refuge from the terrorists’ onslaughts.

    The meeting was thus to seek synergy and evolve proactive responses to the worsening security situation in the state. But it also exposed the frustrations of Shettima with the increasing resilience of the Boko Haram insurgents which the federal government claimed to have technically defeated since December 2015.

    Shettima’s predicaments are evident not only in the excuses he offered for not criticizing the Buhari administration’s handling of the war but also in his explanations on why he did not get on well with the Jonathan regime. They are also evident in his personal disposition to the overall conduct of the war which he described as that of ‘incurable optimism’ even when facts on the ground should give him sufficient cause to worry.

    In justifying his antagonism to the Jonathan regime’s handling of the insecurity vis-à-vis his inability to speak up against the current regime even when increasing damage is being wrought on the state, he said he was treated as an enemy of the presidency during that regime. But since Buhari assumed power, he has had unfettered access to the president who listens to his complaints and takes measures to address them unlike the previous administration. For him, he has not had any reason to be frustrated with the presidency unlike the previous regime.

    Evident from the reasons for the extraordinary security meeting and Shettima’s justification of the role he previously played, is his increasing frustrations with the overall situation of the war. This is self evident. Its corollary is that contrary to the impression we had hitherto been given, Boko Haram insurgency is far from being defeated and decimated. Not with increasing attacks that have led to the fleeing of hundreds of people to the state capital. Not with the increasing tenacity and lethal capacity of the insurgents to confront our soldiers resulting in high casualty levels and the carting away of their arms and ammunitions.

    The target of the meeting was therefore to sensitize the people of the state and get their cooperation to the reality of the lingering insurgency. It was an admission that the overall picture of the war is not as comfortable as had been painted. This is also obvious from Shettima’s preference for optimism instead of realism as the situation demanded.

    But any optimism that ignores extant realities on the ground, translates to foolhardiness. That he had not criticized the current regime’s handling of the war because he has unfettered access to the presidency even when his people are dying smacks of insincerity of the highest order.

    It is clear Shettima is not satisfied with the progress of the war. He admits the huge sacrifice of the military, the efforts of the presidency and his state. But the reality is that all this fell short of what is required to bequeath lasting peace to that region. It is also clear that his desire not to hand over the subsisting insecurity to his successor is fast turning out a pipe dream.

    Even with the gaps and obvious cover ups in the arguments of Shettima, his frustrations can still be empathized with. That he summoned courage to engage the public on some of these nagging issues perhaps is an admission of his earlier mistakes. We say this because of the scandalous politicization of the war on insurgency before the current regime assumed the mantle of leadership. We are all privy to embarrassing inability of our leaders to form national consensus on the justification for the war.

    We are no less privy to the dangerous deployment of the war to nurture partisan interests. We also how some key elements in the north sabotaged that war through baseless allegations that not only demoralized the soldiers but made it difficult for their commanders to maintain discipline among the rank and file.

    It cannot be forgotten in a hurry the tendentious and inflammatory statements of former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako that the war was a contrivance by the Jonathan regime to depopulate the north. Nyako in his controversial letter to northern governors went at length to discredit that war and its prosecution. Shettima was not known to have condemned that disastrous outing by Nyako.  Neither did we see any serious reprimand from the northern elite.

    So if he did not have robust relationship with the last regime, the reasons are very obvious. At any rate, he was part of that regime until he defected to the opposition. It is inconceivable that the Jonathan regime could have given him unfettered access to the seat of power under extant realities. So the blame should be shared by both parties. It will not be surprising if the dispositions of Shettima during the Jonathan regime had much in common with the campaign to bring down that regime.

    By the same logic, his inability to criticize the Buhari regime is largely because he is part and parcel of that government. His subdued silence can be understood especially given claims bandied that the insurgents have been decimated; cannot muster the capacity to attack military formations and are in their dying days for resorting to attacking soft targets. It would have been inconceivable for him to have come up to debunk these claims given the primacy of security in the campaign manifesto of the ruling party.

    But with the resurgence of the lethality of the insurgents, their unlimited and surprising capacity to sustain attacks, Shettima appears to have been entangled in a fix. He either acquiesces with government’s claims that the war has been won or the reality of the sufferings of his people occasioned by the raging war. By convening that meeting, he appeared to have opted to identify with his people. But in doing this, he has to invent justifications for his actions. That accounts for his strident efforts to justify his dispositions to that war both during the Jonathan regime and now. That is also the basis for his claims that he was treated as a pariah during the previous regime as against the accommodation accorded him in the current one. So how do we expect him to criticize Buhari? How do we expect him to fault a key programme of an administration he is part of even if the issues presented are at variance with facts on the ground?

    He does not need to bother us with trite and puerile excuses. He needs no explanations for the positions he took. The reason for his action is not hard to fathom as it is in the nature of partisan politics. It is also very evident in his subdued presentation of the actual security situation in that part of the country. But the tone of the meeting gave out the desperate situation which the raging insecurity in that state represents.

    Shettima’s predicaments denote an uncanny paradox. It is a paradox of the negative politics and trivialization of serious national issues to satisfy objectives of parochial and self-serving nature. It is the logical protuberance of our inability to form national consensus on serious issues of our collective existence. He is an inevitable victim of the monsters we created which have turned round to haunt us.

    It is hoped a hard lesson has been learnt. Beyond this, we need to unravel the enigma the Boko Haram insurgency denotes. We are yet to unravel what Boko Haram really represents, the source of their funding, where they are based and their key Nigerian sponsors. For as long as we are unable to get at the root of all this, so long will the insecurity in the north east remain an albatross.

  • Person of the year

    Before embarking on the journey, some locals said it was not far from Jos. Maybe 30 minutes. They may have been right if they reckoned with the landscape. The vision ahead promised booby-traps of bumps and body aches, even in a Toyota Land Cruiser that subdues rugged terrain into peculiar expressways.

    A contrast to what I had always known of Plateau State, with its breath-taking verdure, arboreal paradise and climate imported from Eden. The road to Yelwa Gindi Akwati was bald and ferocious with its dips, sways and rises on a rocky ride. Past tin mining sites, past monster rocks, riding through sand-clogged streams, the air sometimes crisp, sometimes a riot of dust.  On mine sites, the graders lay still in mud-spattered cradles. Wealth lay beneath but everywhere you looked, poverty snorted. Someone remarked it was the scar of a failing federal system. Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong has lamented how rogue oligarchs with brigands siphon its mineral bounty.

    Peaks and valleys drape our vehicle with lights and shadows as we ride up and down the ragged road. We navigated a clump of trees here, a lone mango tree here and row of pear trees there, sometimes stunningly lush and some fading out of glory, all like sturdy fingers pointing to a baleful firmament. Also a cluster of grassy lawns had lost their lustre, but remain as insistent green carpets defying a birdless sky and an arid stretch of undulating land.

    “That is the first house they attacked and killed people,” a guide said, pointing to a mud house. The blend of thatched and zinc roof, black from fire, scattered all over a broken wall. We saw quite a few of such houses. It happened June 23, when a band of renegades rattled into Yelwa Gindi Akwati about 4pm with AK47, and undertook an orgy of killings and made a bonfire of homes. Their targets: Christians. That village also tenanted our hero.

    In the midst of this barbarous temerity, an 83-year-old man stood for God and humans. He opened his mosque and his home. All who could enter he would defend. He had no arms, no brawn, no army. He, a fragile old man, with a soft voice and granite heart, asked the mosque to be locked, including an adjunct mosque. The mosques were filled. The overflow headed to his home of about five rooms. Men, women, children, all took shelter with their faith and an imam as their anchor. The goons came. The man stood at his door, between the militants and the helpless beings. The sky burst with rain, and the imam fended them off with a plea. His mien appealed to them to save the souls.

    “I didn’t say anything to them,” he told me. “I was praying in my heart and looking at them.” The men were hooded, and spoke Hausa, Fulani and English, he said. As he stood before them, he tripped and fell. Rather than step over him, they stepped away, banged at the door of the mosque as well, but also left. All the lives were saved. Most of them Christians, as attested to by the Birom I saw there and his fellow custodians of the mosque.

    Were they 300? I asked. He said they were so many he could not count. I entered the mosque. If it was crammed full with people lying on the floor, it could have taken five hundred. It was not only Christians from his village but also those who fled there from neighbouring communities, including a place called Ex Land.

    In a region where Christians and Muslims have been reported to be at daggers-drawn, where the so-called herdsmen and farmers only met in blood puddles, this imam bucked the narrative. For daring to disdain his personal safety for others and valorising human life without prejudice to religion, Imam Abdullahi Abubakar is In Touch Person of the Year. Because of him, hundreds of Nigerian men, women and children, secure a second chance in a year of wanton waste of sacred lives under the slaughter of ethnic and religious militants.

    He shunned the apocalypse of religious conflict and embraced peace now. Much has been said about our shero, Leah Sharibu, who stood her ground and would not surrender her Christian conscience on pain of death. She is my runner-up, as a story of innocence and assertion of human resolve over the pressure of zealots. She represents the insistence of faith and human right.  The Imam staked his life to save hundreds of children like Leah and fathers and mothers. She tempts sectarian fealty, while the old man hails over borders.

    Abubakar is a universal spirit. The Christian zealot will see remorse, the Muslim fanatic will find a new path, the atheist will coddle human pathos. He was a man with true evangelical zeal. A puritan of love and peace.  A partisan of harmony, not sects. He is not like the clerics who yelled for revenge, some in churches and others in mosques, cutting human society in cleavages of faith and murder.

    He did not abandon the Christians because they serve a different deity. “We are all children of God. Both faiths want peace.” He said. He counters the narrative where Christians in the United States bar Muslims from their country, and radical Muslims in the Middle East rape and slaughter Christians, where in North East, Boko Haram turns blood-filled eyes at The Holy Spirit, where a minister of defence is howling for grazing routes. Also a misguided president utters a wry plea for neighbours to accommodate each other. Mass deaths, mass burials. Dusk rapines, night raids. Families in disarray. We had all these where a man said no to slaughter, and yes to life.

    He truly affirms the template of harmony set up by Governor Lalong to foster peaceful co-existence among people between Muslims and Christians, Biroms and Fulani, among other tribes. On the issue, he said only those who don’t understand God create trouble.

    Abubakar moved there like other Hausa-Fulani folks have done over the decades. The village has been a model of inter-faith harmony and even marriages. He arrived there in the early 1950’s when the Sardauna became the premier of Northern region.

    “The Christians welcomed us and gave us land,” he said. “We have lived together in peace ever since.” He noted that the Christians gave them the land where the mosque was built and they even contributed about N60,000 to build it. He also said those who preach hate between the religions have not studied the books.

    “I have read the Bible as well as the Qur’an,” he asserted. He read Hausa version. He spoke through translators. He said he saw many similarities between both faiths, and he read about Jesus’ miracles and all the stories, especially in the Old Testaments. “Jesus was mentioned about 25 times in the Qur’an and Mohammed five times,” he said. So he saw no reason for any frictions.

    Unlike many clerics, Christian and Muslim, who never face the ultimate test of faith, Abubakar excelled. In the novel Middlemarch by George Eliot, a young man who was undertaking a training to be a cleric raised doubts in the minds of some young women. A character said, “He would be a great hypocrite. But not yet.”It is like what Prophet Isaiah says of the weak,’’the children came to the birth, there is no strength to bring forth’’. Until a cleric excels like Abubakar, the potential of hypocrite hovers. Few are chosen.

    As for courage, he has no equal in the year. He even turned down the government’s offer for protection. He deserves one of our highest national award.

    He wanted to be a soldier and fight during the civil war. However, he had to remain at home to nurse his ailing father. When he died, Abubakar became imam.

    My second runner-up is the Russian fighter aircraft: Mi35. It is the machine of the year. I called it the bird of praise earlier in the year. It is the reason the so-called herdsman has fallen silent. The aircraft could have tracked the killers in Yelwa Gindi Akwati, who came on foot and ran away. It complicates the narrative that all the spasms of violence came from herdsmen. Most must have been from bandits who exploited the herdsmen crisis for criminality. But the Mi35 can lift up anywhere and land anywhere, if not as nimble as the American Apache. We did not make the machine, but it is made for peace in our land.

  • In defence of a shero

    In a special tribute to Leah Sharibu, the defiant Boko Haram girl captive, to mark her selection as The Nation’s Person of the Year, I called her a shero. As a wordie, I chose the word consciously.

    A blend of she and hero, shero is a word. According to a lexicographic source, the word was first used in 1892.  Another source says the portmanteau was coined in the mid-19th century. Dictionary definitions: A woman regarded as a hero; a woman admired or idealised for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; a heroine.

    It is interesting that Literature Nobelist Prof. Wole Soyinka commended The Nation for choosing Leah but criticised the newspaper for using the word.  Soyinka said in a statement: “I cannot wait to congratulate The Nation Newspapers, and then the (Nigerian) nation herself, for an invigorating decision on this year’s nominations for the ritual identification of individuals to whom honour belongs for the title of “Person of the Year.” He added that the choices were “not merely appropriate, but universalist and unexceptionable.”

    Soyinka’s criticism: “I fault the – probably unintended – intent to drag her into feminist prospectus, through the evocation of that combative, but misplaced confection: sheroes. There is no such word. Leah Sharibu is a heroine, a national heroine, a universal heroine. Or hero. That should be sufficient.”

    But there is such a word. To deny its existence is to carry criticism too far. Soyinka obviously prefers to call Leah “a heroine,” “or hero.”   But that doesn’t change the factual and provable existence of shero, which has the same meaning as heroine.  Why did Soyinka claim that shero is a non-existent word?   There was certainly no intention to suggest that Leah’s defiance makes her an activist of sorts. Her story is clear enough to illustrate the innocence of her impulse.

    The criticiser continued: “‘Shero’ is an ugly concoction that even the feminist movement quickly recognised as distractive and distortive – and abandoned.  Words sometimes go beyond mere meaning, they implicate history, just to complicate matters for unforeseen generations and other cultures and causes. Ironically, ‘Hero’, for instance, was the name of a woman. In Greek mythology, she was a priestess of the deity Aphrodite. Imprisoned in a tower, she lit a lamp to guide her lover, Leandros, who swam the straits of the Hellespont for their nightly tryst. Hero is NOT a masculine word, it is not a candidate for gender emasculation.”

    Here Soyinka shows his aesthetic taste and his puristic perspective. Describing shero as “an ugly concoction” simply means it is ugly to him. I don’t consider the word ugly. Is Soyinka saying a feminist nuance is an attribute of shero to the extent that the word can’t be used outside that context?

    Interestingly, hero accommodates male and female. More interestingly, heroine is a feminine word. In describing Leah, Soyinka’s first choice is heroine, then hero. This means he recognises that a word with a feminine attribute is more appropriate in the context. This is why shero, another word for heroine, is a relevant word. Undoubtedly, heroine, first known use 1587, is an older word, and more popular, but that is beside the point.

    But more important than logomachy is Leah’s life. My prologue to The Nation’s Person of the Year package is worth repeating: “Leah Sharibu is still in captivity. But she is a symbol of freedom, particularly religious freedom. Why she remains caged by Islamic fundamentalists is the reason she is in the spotlight. Leah, 15, was among 110 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists from the Government Girls Science and Technical College (GGGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe State. The jolting mass kidnapping happened on February 19.

    Sadly, five of the kidnapped girls reportedly died in captivity. Others abducted with Leah were set free on March 21. Those released were Muslims.   The only Christian among them, Leah, was not released because she refused to renounce her faith and convert to Islam.

    Leah’s mother, Mrs. Rebecca Sharibu, said: “The released girls told us that the insurgents insisted that my daughter must renounce her religion… They told her that any day she accepts Islam, she will be released. Leah, we were told, was left behind with three Boko Haram women but she sent the message through her mates that we should pray for the will of God to be done in her life.”

    Leah’s defiance makes her a heroine of faith. Her stand against religious extremism and the irrationality of faith-based prejudice is a positive example in a country faced with the challenge of diversity. Not only people of faith, but also those who operate outside the realm of faith, ought to learn from Leah’s heroism.  She demonstrated spiritual and moral conviction well beyond her young age.

    But Leah’s fate should not be left to her fatalism. Her time in captivity must not be allowed to stretch just because she stuck to her faith. For demonstrating the ultimate moral of resistance against religion as weapon of evil, this shero is our person of the year.”

    From the look of things, Leah Sharibu will begin the New Year in captivity. Her mother is said to be worried. Every person of conscience should be. A December 29 report quoted a friend of Leah’s mother who is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science, University of Jos, Dr. Gloria Samdi Puldu:  ”Leah Sharibu’s mother had a devastating Christmas; she has been down with serious fever and she is just recovering. It has not been easy spending Christmas without Leah. The hope of the entire family was that by this time, the assurances that the Federal Government gave to us when the three honourable ministers visited that Leah was going to be released would come true.”

    She added: “We all had our hopes high, November passed, we are in December and thought that she would be out from captivity and be around on the Christmas day. Her birthday was on May 24 when she turned 15 years. It was a very devastating Christmas, despite the fact that our hopes had been completely in God.”

  • Presidency bait

    The zone to which the presidency of this country will rotate in 2023 has seemingly assumed a major issue in the current electioneering campaign calculations. This is sequel to recurring statements on the issue from key personages of the current regime.

    Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo told the people of southwest recently that voting for President Buhari in the February election would enhance the chances of the zone in producing his successor in 2023. “The 2019 election is our own. We are not looking at 2019 but 2023. If we get it in 2019, Yoruba will get it in 2023”, he said.

    Before him, minister for works, Babatunde Fashola had at least in two different occasions spoken in the same vein. He shares the belief that the southwest will secure the presidential ticket of his party if they vote overwhelmingly for Buhari in the coming election.

    But the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha envisions a different scenario and would prefer the southeast to clinch the presidential ticket in 2023. He had said, “the presidency of Nigeria is negotiable and can only be done on the position of strength and the strength of the Igbo will be determined by their 2019 support for Buhari”. He had asked the people of the zone to vote for Buhari in the coming election and stand a good chance of producing the president when he would have completed his second term.

    Some other chieftains of the party in the southeast have variously canvassed the same idea. They see voting for Buhari for a second term as the shortest and surest route for the zone to secure the presidency that had eluded them before now. All these have been traded with varying degrees of plausibility.

    Expectedly, the issue has drawn mixed reactions. Some have interpreted the statements as a contradiction of sorts given that it is neigh impossible for both zones to secure the same ticket at the same time. Definitely, the ticket of the ruling party can only be given to one zone.  So why promise two zones the same ticket when only one of them will eventually get it?

    But irrespective of this seeming contradiction in promising two zones the presidential ticket in 2023, the fact remains that ticket will devolve to the south of the country given the zoning arrangement of the political parties. So those making the promises to the southwest and the southeast are not really saying anything novel. That the south-south has been left out of the calculations is quite understandable. The zone just finished tenure before Buhari assumed power.

    So why has it become a bait of sorts for key personages of this regime to cajole both zones with the ticket? Or put differently, why not go straight and precise on which of the two zones the presidency will naturally devolve? The answer to the last poser can be located in the nature and dynamics of partisan politics. By 2023, the north would have concluded two terms if Buhari wins the presidential election.

    Going by the zoning arrangement, power will devolve to the south if that happens. Both the southeast and southwest will be entitled to vie for that position even as the southwest has had eight year tenure during the regime of Obasanjo. All things being equal, the southeast ought to stand a better chance given that it has never had a shot at that coveted office since the return of democracy in 1999.

    The snag there is that the southeast zone did not give high votes to the ruling party in the last elections. That may account for the cacophony of voices on which zone the presidency will go should Buhari secure a second tenure. That also accounts for the pressure being mounted by officials of the government on both zones to vote heavily for the ruling party.

    Since only one of the zones will definitely get the ticket, the net effect of these persuasions will be a swing of votes heavily to side of the ruling party. That will result in overall electoral victory for the ruling party. With victory on their side, the decision on which of the two zones to zone the presidency will then be determined. If statements from Osinbajo and Mustapha are anything to repose confidence on, the zone with the highest number of votes will be given the presidential ticket. Thus, votes cast by the contending zones will be the major determinant rather than such indices as equity, balance and fairness to all segments of the country. How fair that will be to the southeast given extant political realities is a matter of conjecture.

    But then, what is the root of the high premium we attach to the presidency? Is the impression being conveyed that the zone from which the president comes will benefit disproportionately in the allocation of the nation’s resources? Or will that translate to high standard of living for his constituents in the fashion of what Richard Joseph referred to as prebendal politics? Does our experience from the pattern of past leaderships in the country support the notion that there is usually a high level of development and improved standard of living in the zones from which the occupant of that position comes?

    Our experience speaks to the contrary.  Unarguably, the northern parts of the country are still today among the least developed. That accounts for the rising insecurity in that zone. The Boko Haram insurgency, the constant religion-induced crisis and the wanton clashes resulting to avoidable deaths that have been the sad tale of the north, have their roots in poverty and underdevelopment. Yet, that geo-political zone has dominated the leadership of this county since independence.

    If with years of domination of the nation’s leadership the north remains largely poor and impoverished, it would seem not much will change in the lives of peoples of the southeast or southwest even when one of them secures that ticket. What should be of serious consideration is the ability and capacity of that leader to perform in all fairness to the constituents irrespective of the accident of his birth place.

    Beyond this, the system needs further adjustments and overhaul. It has to be organized in such a manner that offers citizens unfettered rights to maximize their potentials without let or hindrance. Such a system must offer the various components the opportunity to develop at their own pace without being dragged down by the inadequacies and shortcomings of other sections. These are the things to consider without prejudice to the imperative to give all the opportunity to have a shot at the presidency. That has been the greatest attraction of the agitation for restructuring. With restructuring and devolution of powers, the over-concentration of powers at the centre with its resultant bitter competition for power usually accentuated by statements from the likes of Osinbajo and Mustapha will be substantially stymied. Also the high level of corruption in the country will be reduced.

    So it is not enough to entice the southeast with the presidency come 2023. They may well get it without any particular positive benefit to the area. And as we have seen from sections that have occupied that office, the majority of their people have nothing to show for it. It is largely the elite that remain the greatest beneficiaries. Former President Jonathan was there for six years and after his departure, he is being blamed for not improving the lot of his people. I do not know how much President Buhari’s regime has impacted positively on the lot of the average northerner.

    The much touted president from the southeast may not even fare any better. In fact, his regime may not even benefit his constituents as he will be contending with the challenge of trying to appease other segments apparently to justify the rare opportunity and seeming favour given to him. People of the southeast may end up the loser. What the zone requires is an equitable, fair and all accommodating system that allows them the ambience to maximize their potentials to the fullest. So the emphasis on votes as the only basis for having that zone take a shot at the presidency adds up to nothing. At best, it is a vote catching gimmick that ignores subsisting political realities.

  • ‘Harvest of death’

    Amnesty International, AI’s recent report on farmers’ and herders’ conflict in parts of the country must have rattled the government in no small measure. This can be discerned from reactions from the presidency and the Nigerian Army.

    In a report titled, Nigeria: “The Harvest of Death”, AI documented clashes between farmer communities and herders in the country particularly in the northern parts of the country over access to resources, water, land and pasture. It also showed the failure of the government in fulfilling its constitutional role of protecting lives and property by refusing to arrest, investigate and prosecute perpetrators of the attacks.

    The report further documented how governments’ inaction fuels impunity resulting in attacks and reprisal attacks with at least 3,641 people killed between January 2016 and October. Fifty-seven per cent of the deaths according to the report occurred in 2018 alone.

    The government did not hide its distaste for the report as it accused AI of bias and misrepresentation of facts. In its initial hurried reaction, government claimed it was now waging the war on terrorism in two fronts; one against the Boko Haram insurgency and the other against Amnesty International. But in a second and more detailed one, it took time to examine some of the conclusions of AI agreeing in some cases especially where it considered its interest served.

    But that was after the country chair of the organization had repudiated the allegations levied against them by both the government and the army and urged them to read the conclusions and recommendations to have a more informed view of its content. It would appear that advice was well taken which may have accounted for the second reaction from the presidency.

    The Nigerian Army had called for the closure of the offices of AI in the country alleging it has credible evidence the organization is working hard to destabilize the country through the fabrication of allegations on human rights abuses against the security forces. They also alleged the organization had engaged in clandestine sponsorship of dissident groups for protests.

    A couple of days earlier, the same Nigerian Army had suspended UNICEF from all its activities in the northeast alleging the organization was sabotaging counter terrorism efforts of troops through “spurious and unconfirmed allegations bordering on alleged human rights violations by the military. It also accused UNICEF of engaging in the training of selected persons for clandestine activities to continue sabotaging the counter-terrorism efforts.

    The army was quick to reverse themselves within 24 hours on the suspension of UNICEF activities citing appeals from stakeholders and well-meaning Nigerians. But the harm has already been done. The allegations were too weighty that we were taken aback by the sudden reversal of the suspension order. The impression created by the turn of events is that the issue is not as serious as it was presented.

    The panicky reaction of the government was not entirely unexpected. Given the on-going electioneering campaigns and the primacy of security issues in the calculations of the Buhari regime, any report that seeks to detract from the touted successes recorded by the government in that area, is bound to ruffle feathers. The government is also bound to be worried by both by the timing of the report and the huge casualty figures bandied.

    Before now, the actual casualty statistics in the farmers’ and herders’ clashes has been within the realm of speculation with the government for very obvious reasons, striving to keep it as low as possible. The period under survey, coincides with the very active years of this administration.

    It is therefore considered a big statement if 3,641 people lost their lives as a result of these clashes with 57 per cent of the deaths occurring this year alone. Its purport is not in doubt even as it can be admitted that the killings have decreased in the last two months or so.  So the government has good reasons to worry about the verdict of Amnesty International on farmers’ and herders’ clashes. For one, the opposition is likely to make political capital of that report. And it has even manifested in a statement issued from the media office of the presidential candidate of the PDP. There has also curiously been a counter reaction from an unusual quarter, the leadership of the cattle breeders association.

    Beyond this however, there is not much in the observations and conclusions of the report that is substantially different from the information already in the public space. The inability of the government and security agencies to find a handle to the mindless killings has been serially evident in the recurring attacks and displacement of locals especially in Benue, Nassarawa and Plateau states. Neither is it new that even in cases where information of imminent attacks was availed security agencies, they still failed to take the necessary steps to forestall them.

    There are a good number of such instances. In Benue, the state governor has not left anyone in doubt that he knows the purveyors of the killings. He had on many instances mentioned names. Yet, those people are neither known to have been arrested or interrogated. It still remains curious that the attackers could operate with near invincibility levying incalculable harm on innocent people without being unmasked by the security agencies.

    Before now, not a few Nigerians believed the killings could have continued, if security agencies were alive to their statutory responsibilities of protecting lives and property. Frustrations arising from the inability of the government to rein the insurgents in the face of the dastardly and inhuman killings compelled a former Chief of Army Staff, Theophilus Danjuma to accuse the military of aiding and abetting the killings. The issues raised by Danjuma are well documented and are weightier than the contents of the reports of AI.

    So the solution to these negative verdicts does not lie in panicky reactions from either the government or the army. It does not lie in diatribe as to the causality figures arising from the conflict. Neither will the new fad of accusing these organizations of either sabotage or sponsoring terrorism be of any help. It goes beyond all that.

    More fundamentally, the army has to be more circumspect in its reactions on issues involving these international organizations. It is somewhat troubling that within 24 hours, it suspended UNICEF and reversed itself. And in another three days or so, it called for the shutting down of AI’s offices in the country for similar alleged infractions. And when you look at the reasons adduced, they all hinge on alleged release of information on human rights abuses by these organizations against the Nigerian security forces.

    At issue in all this, is the discomfort of the army with the verdict of these organizations on its human rights profile. So UNICEF had to be suspended on allegations of trying to destabilize the country for portraying the human rights record of the army in bad light. The same goes for AI whose report indicted the army for not proactively averting the clashes between farmers and herders.

    There is nothing wrong if the army has credible information on the alleged infractions. After all, our national interest must take precedence overall other interests. It is also not uncommon that some of these international institutions have hidden agenda that run at cross purposes with our national interest. Where that is found to be the case, the army would be living to its responsibilities to have acted the way it did.

    But events do not appear to have borne this position out especially given that nothing has come out of the weighty allegations that have been traded. It is even better the allegations were not made at all than allow them die the way they have. When next the army makes such allegations, they run the risk of not being taken seriously.

    Overall, our military must take another look at their human rights profile. And as a proverb says, when a crying child consistently points at a particular direction, it is either you find his father or mother in that direction. This is thought for food!

  • Faaji Agba Eko: Wow!

    Among the high points of the show, some were higher than others. It was a high-octane show featuring high-quality performers. It was about Lagos and Lagosians.  It was about music flowing from the past to the present. Faaji Agba Eko, organised by Evergreen Musical Company on December 16, celebrated musical heritage and cultural legacy.

    The venue, Absolute Lagos, Tafawa Balewa Street, Lagos Island, boomed with a range of local music genres, including Sakara, Juju, Apala, Agidigbo, Waka, Fuji, Folk music, Highlife and Afrobeat.

    Legendary Orlando Julius Ekemode gave a riveting performance with his African-American wife, Latoya. “It’s 20 years today that Orlando and I have been in Nigeria,” she told the attendees.  Latoya said they got married in the office of Mr. Femi Esho, Chairman/CEO of Evergreen Musical Company. It was news to many of the attendees. “I’m very happy and proud to be his wife,” she added. Her husband turned 75 in September, she said. Latoya called for concerts and music festivals. “Your music isn’t going to die,” she declared. She got a round of applause.

    It was also an evening of narratives. Others told their own stories too. Giant flutist Tee Mac, who turned 70 this year, said someone stole his flute and he would be going to Switzerland to get another one. He attributed his youthful appearance to his abstinence from meat. “I stopped eating red meat in 1971,” he said. He recommended fish and fruits. “Keep quiet,” he whispered as he prepared to play classical music.

    Folk music master Jimi Solanke, who is in his seventies, performed some well-known songs. His deep voice was a delight. “I wrote Onile Gogoro in secondary school and gave it to Roy Chicago,” he said.

    Ara, the female drummer, was at the show. But she didn’t perform.  She was reflective as she narrated how she had survived a road accident while travelling with members of her band. “Let’s celebrate our music legends while they are alive,” she said.

    Sina Ayinde Bakare performed “Lagos roots music.” Buga Jesse King, described as “a contemporary Highlife musician and a core advocate of Nigeria’s indigenous music,” also performed. Afro Jazz music queen Yinka Davies was her bubbly self as she compered the show. The Evergreen Music Band kept the attendees happy with evergreen melodies.     Then Jide Sanwo-Olu arrived. The Lagos State governorship election frontrunner and All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate created a buzz with his entry. “Your word must be your bond,” he said, adding that he had promised to attend the event. “Your sector- Entertainment and Tourism- is important to me. What am I going to do for the tourism industry? We plan to build a film village and take advantage of the waterfront. Give me a blueprint. “He praised the organisers of the show: “This event brings back the glories of Lagos.”

    Sanwo-Olu’s attendance was significant.  This is the man who is likely to win the governorship election next year. His words were a promise. By showing interest in culture and tourism, Sanwo-Olu has given an insight into his ideas on well-rounded governance.

    Interestingly, Yemisi Busari, the running-mate to Jimi Agabje, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, arrived after Sanwo-Olu had left. She had positive words for “Lagos indigenous music.” Busari said:  ”Wura Fadaka played at my wedding. We plan to take tourism to the next level in Lagos State. We will pay a lot of attention to it.”

    Some days after the show, Managing Director of Evergreen Musical Company Bimbo Esho   publicised Sanwo-Olu’s support: “True to his word that he would support the Evergreen Music Heritage Foundation (EMHF), Sanwo-Olu has performed.  I told us he loves the icons and our indigenous music and that day he also said we should come to him to let him know our plans for music in Lagos. We have been advised to draw up a blueprint to drive Lagos tourism. I am positive that every member of this forum has a role to play.  I say a big thank you to Hon. Babajide Olusola Sanwo – Olu for considering us worthy of recognition and association.”

    When I first met Bimbo at the Faaji Eko show last year, there was no question that she had chosen to follow her father’s path.  When we met, she said things that were food for thought.

    Her thoughts: “Having spent my formative and adolescent years in Lagos State wining and dining with the Queens and Kings of Nigerian music, I have concluded that there is so much to learn from the songs of some music icons. At different points in time some of them sang that the world will one day forget them and not remember them for the smile and joy they put on different faces. One of such songs is the song of a Highlife music legend Rex Lawson  titled “ Old Friends and New Lovers” where he begged the world to remember him as he has sailed many oceans with his music, survived many storms,  delighted many hearts.”

    She added: “It saddens one that unlike other countries of the world that draw up calendars for different activities to celebrate their famous music legends all year long, we continue to live with the fading memories of our music greats…Music greats from different ethnicities who reached the peak of their career in Lagos and who also have contributed immensely to the social and  cultural development, religious growth, educational growth, political growth of Lagos State through their music are today forgotten.”

    The Evergreen Music Heritage Foundation, which Sanwo-Olu has given support, is situated in Surulere, Lagos.  It is a project “to preserve and safeguard musical heritage… It is a one-stop place for research and documentation of over 10,000 Nigerian musicians…And as part of its core objectives the Foundation will help to create a world-class archival institution to cater for the need of researchers, anthropologists and sociologists the world over.” This effort deserves support.

    Faaji Agba Eko is a promising project that needs support to achieve its potential. The public and private sectors should support it as a service to culture and tourism.

  • Not distinguished, not honourable

    They acted without the epaulettes of elders or the gravity of the name the law embossed on them. They could not distinguish themselves from the agberos in the motor parks. They kept at it even when it was obvious that they had chosen to be juveniles in an adult environment. It was as though they envied the world of hooligans and had craved a part in that theatre of the macabre. Politicians work with thugs and roughnecks as a matter of routine, and sometimes they cannot distinguish themselves from their brutish errand boys. They acted neither distinguished nor honourable.

    They saw the budget presentation as an avenue to ventilate the venality of the street, the unrestrained rabble of the fake revolutionary. Their voices were brusque, their noses flared, their emotions gushed like barbarians, their feet unleashed in stomps. They might have jumped if there was room. What they could not attain in space, they accomplished in the filth of language and rascally gesticulations of their uncouth hands. The legislature is a platform for tasteful rhetoric, not abuse; for heroics, not disgrace; for ideas, not juvenility. It is the people’s chamber of thought and conduct, not a cesspool of brigandage.

    They are the bedbugs of our democracy. If you are not in bed with them, they give you bedlam. Rather than being civil, be evil. In place of cheer, you jeer. Don’t be human, try primitivism. To boost their profile, they have to boo.

    Then some of them say it was all spontaneous. Really? The placards erupted miraculously onto their hands with curse words gleaming in ink. The spirit of the chants about “freedom come” sprang on their collective lips at the same time, just like David said in the Bible that “the spirit of God spoke by me and his words were in my tongue.” These hecklers must have fallen under some strange power, a secular, caveman’s anointing. They did not practise the acts we saw on the NASS floor, even though we all know they held a meeting the previous night to derail the budget presentation by President Muhammadu Buhari. In the Poland of the Middle Ages, historians described their legislature as “divinely ordained confusion.” But the Nigerian show was neither divine nor ordained.

    Those who lost the first argument find solace in the virtues of democracy. They say the ideology abides chaos. They quote the fellow who soiled the solemn air as Obama addressed the joint session of Congress. But even his fellow Republicans scowled at his scandal. Joe Wilson of the South Carolina had shouted “you lie” when President Obama pointed out the glories of his health care programme. Vice President Joe Biden shook his head, but Obama strode on unscathed.

    The House passed a resolution condemning him, and Wilson placed a call to the White House to offer his apologies and Obama graciously accepted. In our case, we are preening in iniquity. It was the first time a president would be presenting a budget to a joint session with a leadership from the opposition. It hoisted a chance for historic fraternity. Other nations would exploit such rostrums to make history and adorn the archives. When we make history, historians and posterity recoil like last week.

    In the United Kingdom, a fellow uttered a slur and was cautioned, although he denied he used that word. That was because mouthing indecent language is anathema, even though mild interruptions and even occasional shouts, mainly murmurs, are permitted. But not trafficking in foul words like “liar” and shameless shouts of “no” when the president lists some of his doings. In the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition 2009, the rule says, “the use of offensive, provocative or threatening language in the house is strictly forbidden. Personal attacks, insults and obscenities are not in order…”

    The onus lies on the presiding speaker to restrain the “spontaneous” outbursts of erring lawmakers. Bukola “Eleyinmi” Saraki and bumbling Dogara conspired with their silence. They did little to register their disdain for the Neanderthal effusions of the fellows. I have decided not to name the hecklers today. They belong to the night of first ages, apologies to Joseph Conrad in The Heart of darkness. Those who think we have improved from First Republic barbarism, and we have benefited from the insights of history, only had to assault their eyes and ears with the drama of the absurd by the politicians.

    What were they heckling? Was it the N-Power programme that is common knowledge? Was it the onset of work on the Second Niger bridge? Was it the rail work between Lagos and Ibadan that overthrew the headlines just as Buhari was delivering the speech? The guys were not happy because he did not sign their electoral bill and he had chopped off some of their thieving proposals in the budget. If they objected to Buhari’s claims, they have other avenues to show it. They could even devote a session of the house to it.

    The difference between the British parliament and the American is also pre-ordained in the architecture of the chambers.  The American structures its Congress with rooms between the seats, and it allows the lawmaker to speak as though on a stage. It means more dignity to the lawmaker and respect for decorum. The British is more claustrophobic, and lawmakers tend to sit closer and it could mean intimacy as well as intrusion in another person’s space. This format could encourage uncomfortable conduct.

    In spite of the British example, and in spite of shouts, the duty is with the speaker to subdue any tendency to temerity. But we claim to copy the American presidentialism, and the case of Joe Wilson summarises the way to go. But some of the errant lawmakers are still congratulating themselves. Eleyinmi Saraki flayed the budget without even condemning the show of shame.

    The theatrics has paid attention more to the antics of the lawmakers than the sublime subject of how to run the country in the coming year. The budget is so important that that session is the most important rite in our democratic almanac.  It is about how do we educate our kids, feed the poor, repair and build roads, heal the sick, soar with the high and mighty nations in the world. Yet we turned it into an alawada epic, grown men ranting and chanting like inebriated masquerades in a village festival.

    Even when Buhari paused to tell them, mock-flattering, half-scolding, that they were better than that, they saw no need to abate their nuisance. He also told them that the “world is watching us.” They were lost in their imprecatory lust. They were irredeemable in their foul rhythms of gutter and guttersnipes.

    The president presented himself with dignity. His aplomb showed that in spite of his fabled temper, Buhari knew how to rise above the absurdity of the day. Neither in gesture nor words did he sully the dignity of his office that afternoon. Rather it was the lawmakers who undermined the cathedral majesty of the presidency and the nobility of their offices.

    Once when he referred to his work in Bonny, he paused when the sound of liar rang out, he looked at the heckler with an inflamed eye, and continued his work. It was a glimpse of Buhari the GOC who defied his army chief Garba Wushishi and asked Nigerians to start reading the constitution.

    The errant lawmakers should apologise, not only to the president but also to Nigerians for selling this democracy short with their ill manners.

  • Age of innocence

    Over his Atiku romance, the Owu chief has declared that he is not neutral. He wanted to show that he is still in political bed with the Adamawa titan. But he shocked no one. Obj has never been neutral in his life. He has acted as the hyena who did not kill but would take over the spoil after the cheetah has killed the heifer. He is the historic cheat who purloins credit for other people’s toil. Here I take a look at his public life and break it into five acts, like a Greek play. In the last act, I pose a question.

    Act one: the beginning of cynicism, or the loss of innocence

    He would call it his civil war exploits, but it was a war he exploited for his personal gains. He appropriates the cauldron years and calls his account My Command with an air of proprietary vanity. In his book, it comes out more as ego trip than a trip to the past, a sojourn of alternative history. Adekunle won the war. Obasanjo wore the crown. He demonised the man who commanded the Third Marine Commando, all the way from Warri, through the Niger Delta to what became known as the battle to deliver the OAU of Biafra: Owerri, Aba and Umuahia. Adekunle had laid down the strategy, deployed resources and even preened before OBJ replaced him. Obj, as graphically presented in Alabi Isama’s book, the Tragedy of Victory, wandered away on an Israelite journey while the mainstays of the division with the help of stalwarts like Alani Akinrinade were battering Biafra to surrender. He came back and took the glory.

    Act Two:  Stooping to conquer.

    After his boss, Murtala Muhammed was assassinated, his first speech made him look supine. His look like a mouse made one wonder if he ever held a revolver. But he was stooping to conquer. He knew his allegiance to the cabal, and one of the highlights was to sell out his countryman general who had come to him to point out an inequity in the country and the armed forces. Obj acted as though he was obliging. He called one of the architects of the inequity and put his kinsman in an awkward position by asking him to repeat what he had confided in him. That was the virtue of his loyalty. He also was happy he did not have to hand over to his kinsman, the Ikenne sage, and he stooped to a perversion of mathematics in the court of law. We can remember 12 two-third of 19 states. He became the first to hand over power through mathematical failure. A democrat of flawed arithmetic.

    Act Three: Anxiety of Influence

    Having retired to the arboreal calm of his farm, he suffered from a fear of irrelevance.  His successor would eclipse him. No one would remember Obj anymore. So, he evinced the opposite of what the literary critic Harold Bloom designated as the anxiety of influence. Bloom defined it as the relentless wrestling with the greatest of the dead. It meant writers – and political historians have also borrowed it – would try to imitate the great personages of the past and make it seem those personages were copying them. It is a time-honoured tradition of continuity, what some Brazilian critics did in the first half of the 20th century and designated it cannibalism. It was a great way to eat up the flesh of the avatars of history. In Obasanjo’s case, he wanted to fight the future titans, his “children.” In this case, those who succeeded him. Some critics called it PHD syndrome. Meaning Pull him down. Maybe that is why he wanted to have a proper PHD. He always wanted anyone who became head of state to look bad so he would look good. Never mind that those who succeeded him always found a way to make OBJ look heroic. Remember SAP with human face? Aikhomu mocked him by calling for SAP with human leg, and human arm, etc. That was also the time he went into epistolary battles and wrote his books, including My Command.

    Act Four: the dancer

    When he became civilian president, he was called Baba. He saw himself as the father of the nation. But it was a father of vengeance. He wanted to be like God, who said, “vengeance Is mine.” First, he set up EFCC to hound his foes. It was also the first time the phrase “heating the polity” became routine in the land. He became a sort of modern butcher. Remember Odi and Zaki Biam. It was his own definition of low-intensity murder or genocide. He became a portentous choreographer, a dancer of misfortune. People learned to fear his happy hour. Especially when at a party. He danced with a certain fellow, and the next day he pushed him off his chair in the legislative chamber. He danced with a senator’s wife and the next day, Chuba Okadigbo was history as senate president. He did not pay for the pounded yam. He tossed cake in the mouth of another legislator, Adolphous Wabara, in the mockery of homosexual romance. The next day, Adolphous was gone.

    He also taught us some ‘area boys’ language. Remember “do or die?” In deference, again to our bard, this is not a beatification, or even beautification, of the area boy.

    Then to top it all, he wanted to be president for life, at least for a third act. Money changed hands. But unfortunately for him, power also changed from his hands, apologies to MFM church.

    Act five: reinventing innocence

    Since baba failed as Baba, he went back to his default PHD. Pull Him Down. God so kind he has a proper PHD. In religious knowledge. But in the Bible, we are told that God has made man upright but he has come forth with many inventions. This man is trying hard to reinvent himself. He gave us ‘Umoru’ Yar Adua – when he knew that Umar was not in good enough health. So, he could not outperform him in office. And just for insurance, he gave us our dear Goodluck Jonathan of the shoeless provenance in the hope that he would be his pooch and poodle. Alas, the pooch pushed him aside. So, he went back to his vomit and made an open and extravagant flourish of tearing his PDP card. He joined a winning team and felt flattered to be called a navigator. But he navigated a craft already near the shore. He had jumped off a sinking boat where he once oared like a prince.

    Again, the ramrod general has given him the same treatment, so he is going back to his vomit – to Atiku, to PDP. And the same PDP folks he jettisoned, he now wants to jet to power again. Obj would really want to succeed because this is the first time in his career he would fight a battle. He is not playing the hyena over the cheetah’s spoil. If he loses in 2019, it would be the first time his illusion would be shattered. He would have grabbed the spoil of poison.

    It would mean at the end of the battle, he will have no crown to wear. He would look at the other side laugh and caper. An unfamiliar position even for our Owu chief. His illusion of being a winner over the past acts will be without evidence of a trophy. German philosopher Nietzsche loathed that scenario. “Please don’t destroy people’s lies, illusions because if you destroy their illusions, they will not be able to live at all,” he wrote. In her classic The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton quoted an old man who fell into misfortune in his twilight hour: “For pity’s sake,” the man cried, “don’t destroy my last illusions.” Obj must be aware of this scenario. If he loses, he would be losing his innocence at 80.

    This will be the unravelling of the failing patriarch. He will fight hard to keep the innocence of his age.

     

    Agbaje and the ethnic card

    Jimi Agbaje is bringing back his past foible. He noted in the past week that he is still a harbinger of ethnic fight in Lagos, by characterising his APC opponent, Jide Sanwo- Olu as a candidate against the Igbo. This is not only opportunism, but a rascally way to turn a true contest into the mud fight of Yoruba versus Igbo. In the last fight, the pharmacist rallied his supporters into the lagoon. We want responsible campaigns, not appeals to bigotry. Sanwo-Olu replied him with finesse, and would not go down the mud blast with him.

    Sanwo-Olu and Agbaje

    If all Agbaje would do is return to his 2015 formula of a Yoruba man fighting his kinsmen by rallying another ethnic group, he has shown he has run out of imagination. Mr. Agbaje, is senility at 60 not too early? You saw the scorecard in 2015 and the bad blood.

  • EFCC board

    Must appointments to the top leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC court one form of controversy or the other? Or is there anything in the nature of such appointments that predisposes them to controversy?

    These are the questions that confront discerning minds following rowdy reactions at senate plenary last Tuesday when a letter containing the list of President Buhari’s nominees to the EFCC board came up for confirmation. In that list, the president had nominated four persons into the board namely: Ndasule Moses (North-central), Lawan Mamman (Northeast), Galadanci Imam Najip (Northwest) and Adeleke Adebayo Rafiu (Southwest).

    The Senate Committee Chairman on Anti-Corruption, Chukwuka Utazi while presenting the report recommended the confirmation of the nominees based on their qualifications, experience and suitability. But he was quick to note that the nominations fell short of the federal character principle as it shunted out the Southeast and the South-south from the board of the commission.

    The committee noted that “this is not in strict compliance with the Federal Character Principle as provided for in Section 14 (3) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria” and that it was making the observation to guide the executive in future nominations.

    Subsequently, some senators moved to have the appointments confirmed but were swiftly resisted by others who contended that they were lopsided and could send wrong signals in the fight against corruption. Those opposed to the confirmation want all geo-political zones to be represented given our diversity and to imbue more confidence in the activities of the agency.

    But some others who wanted the nominees confirmed urged the senate to go ahead as the nominations breached no laws. According to them, it did not breach the EFCC Act which was silent on the zones from which the members should be appointed. Another senator queried why his colleagues should oppose the confirmation when the chairman of the anti-corruption committee who is from the southeast did not raise objection. The furore was so intense that the lawmakers had to go into a closed-door session where they resolved the confirmation be suspended for more legislative input.

    That is the right thing to do. There is no doubt the nominations were very insensitive to the diversity of the country and the imperative to reflect the federal character principle in such appointments. Of the four nominees, three are from the three different geo-political zones in the north while the three zones in the south had only one nominee representing the southwest. The acting chairman of the EFCC Ibrahim Magu is from the northeast while the secretary, Olanipekun  Olukoyede is from the southwest. That gives northeast and southwest two members each without any from the south-south and south-east.

    In all, the north has four representatives while the south has two. That completely shunts out both the southeast and the south-south from the critical agency. Yet, some people failed to see anything wrong with the composition and had the temerity to bandy competence and qualification as if these were the exclusive preserve of the zones most favoured. Senator Ahmed Lawan even argued very ridiculously that the appointments breached no law and that the relevant act was silent on the zones from which the members should be appointed.

    And if one may ask, when has it become a rule that all acts must stipulate in specific terms the zones members of commissions should be appointed from even when the constitution unambiguously guaranteed the federal character principle. Even if there is no constitutional provision for ensuring balance in such appointments, does natural justice not demand they reflect and capture the various tendencies in the country for it to command wider acceptability?. And why was an appointment reflective of the three tendencies in the north suddenly blind when it concerned the south?

    Lawan was very insincere in attempting to fault those opposed to the lopsided nominations. He could as well have the six nominees come from any one of the zones in the north or even the south. That is how ridiculous and self-serving that argument can be stretched. The point is that there is everything wrong in President Buhari’s nominations that excluded two key zones in a six-member commission. The Act that provided for a six-member commission must have envisaged that the six zones in the country would have their interests reflected. Even if the Act had made provision for five members, the minimum expectation is for the interests of the greatest number of the constituents to be satisfied. That goes without saying.

    The exclusion of the two geo-political zones especially the southeast is not entirely surprising. It strikes an uncanny chord with the body language of this government in the appointment of representatives of the southeast to public offices. Former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA Olisa Agbakoba had cause to challenge the federal government in court for non-inclusion of the south-east in appointments to the board of the NNPC. This exclusion is also evident in the appointment of service chiefs and personal aides of the president. The instant case is one exclusion, too many.

    But as the elections are drawing nearer, one had thought efforts should have been on top gear to correct some of these anomalies. The skewed nature of the EFCC board nominees does not seem to bear this optimism out. I think the right thing is for the senate to reject the nominations until they are reflective of the federal character principle.

    This is not the first time the senate will be rejecting nominations from the president into the board of the commission. At least on two different occasions, it rejected confirmation of the appointment of Magu. That Magu has been operating in an acting capacity for some years now, is because of the refusal by the senate to confirm his nomination based on some damaging allegations against him by the DSS.

    It is an uncanny coincidence that the president’s nominations to the board of the same commission have again hit the rocks. But the current controversy could have been avoided had those at the helm of affairs done the needful. It is not yet late. But, it would appear there is a cabal in the presidency that constantly creates problem for their boss each time appointments are to be made. Or is that what the wife of the president, Aisha Buhari referred to when she alluded to two unnamed very powerful aides whose actions or inactions contribute to slow pace of performance and the president’s negative perception in some quarters.

    Even at that, the buck still stops at the table of the president who appointed them. It is his duty to rein them in or show them the way out if he feels their actions are no longer in tandem with the aspirations of his government. And what is there to lose by simply ensuring geo-political spread is maintained in a six member board that can go round the six zones of the country?

    Issues of this nature constantly expose the fault-lines of our federal order and account for raging agitations for restructuring to whittle down the overbearing influence of the central authority on constituents. In them, can also be located the increasing slide to fission, self-determination and separatism that put enormous stress on the government with heavy toll on scarce resources direly needed for rapid development. They increasing expose the inherent dangers in entrusting awesome powers in the hands of a supposedly benevolent leader who is expected to be fair to all.

    More fundamentally, the EFCC is a very strategic and crucial agency of the government. The nature of its mandate instructs that it should at all times, command the confidence of the disparate groups and interests that make up this country. That is the only way to obviate allegations of bias either of political or sectional hue that often trail its activities. And there have been many of that in recent times.

  • Confirmation of confusion

    There is confusion in the Senate.  When there is uncertainty about the majority party and the minority party in the upper chamber of the National Assembly, it is a striking sign that the Red Chamber is upside down.

    Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Senate Leader Ahmad Lawan of the All Progressives Congress (APC) argued about the numerical strength of their parties in the Senate on December 13.  It was a curious argument because the position of Senate Leader is supposed to be held by a member of the majority party. So if Lawan holds the position, it should mean that his party is the majority party in the Senate.

    But clearly, the situation is not so clear. For instance, Senate President Bukola Saraki, who was formerly a member of APC, still holds the position despite his defection to PDP in July. He should have been removed from that office because he attained the position on the basis of being a member of the majority party. If Saraki is still President of the Senate, it suggests that PDP is the majority party in the Senate. Is it? If it is not, Saraki’s occupation of the office discredits him and the Senate.

    It is noteworthy that Saraki was quoted as saying: “Our Constitution says members of the National Assembly who so wish (shall elect a President)… it does not say you have to come from the majority party. There are those that know that.” This position is unprincipled.

    Saraki became President of the Senate controversially. He actualised his ascendancy through an unapologetic defiance of his party’s desire and decision. His scheming resulted in a queer combination and cohabitation at the helm of the Senate:  Saraki of the ruling APC, a party elected to power on the premise of progressivism, and Ekweremadu of the unprogressive PDP.  As things stand now, Saraki and Ekweremadu are both PDP members and the Senate leadership is in the hands of PDP.

    It is puzzling that numerical strength became an issue.  But it  is also enlightening. A report captured the argument between Ekweremadu and Lawan: “The Senate Leader pointedly dismissed reports that the confirmation of the spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation, Festus Keyamo, as a board member of Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), did not follow the due process. Lawan said: “The media reported that APC has 57 senators while PDP has 58. For the record, APC senators are 56 while PDP senators are 46. Again, the media reported that majority of senators voted against the confirmation of Keyamo, but that you (Ekweremadu) ruled that the ‘ayes’ had it. I want to put it on record that when you put the first question, it was not clear whether the ‘ayes’ or ‘nays’ had it. But by the time you put the second question, it was clear that the ‘ayes’ had it.”

    The report continued: “Ekweremadu, who appeared uncomfortable with Lawan’s submission, said: “The issue of how we vote is determined by voice vote, and it is based on the decision of the presiding officer. If anybody has issues with the ruling, we can call for division. But since nobody called for any division, it meant that senators were in tandem with the ruling. So, it won’t be proper for newspapers to report what is not correct. As regards the party configuration, I want to say there is no particular statistics for now. We cannot talk about the figures that each political party has because there is no such statistics. So, let it be on record that we have no such record now.”

    The Deputy Senate President’s assertion is absurd. If there are no official figures that can clarify the numerical strength of the parties in the Senate, it is a confirmation of confusion.

    An August 5 report  gives an insight into the comedy of figures in the Senate: “The  crisis rocking the ruling  All  Progressives Congress, APC… took a  dramatic  turn  on the floor of the Senate as  14  senators elected on the platform of the party dumped it for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,  and the African Democratic Congress, ADC. With the defection, the number of PDP senators rose from 42 to 56, thereby making it the majority party in the upper chamber of the National Assembly.”

    The report added: “Prior to the development, the APC officially had 64 seats in the Senate,  but now has  50 while the All Progressives Grand Alliance ( APGA) has one  with the remaining two seats vacant on account of the  death  of Senator Ali Wakil ( Bauchi South) and Bukar Mustapha  (Katsina North). The defection of the senators was contained in a letter read by Senate President Bukola Saraki who presided at plenary. They said that their action came after due consultations with their constituents.” Soji Akanbi (Oyo South) “later made a U-turn, saying he remained a member of the APC.”

    The report continued: “Soon after the defection, PDP senators embraced one another, rejoicing that they now form the majority in the red chamber. It got to a point that the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, drew the attention of his colleagues to the fact that his party, the PDP, was now the majority and that he should immediately be recognised as the Majority Leader… After the drama that unfolded at the hallowed chamber, the Senate caucus of the APC said that, in spite of the dumping of the party by 14 of its members for the PDP, it was still the majority party in the upper chamber.”

    It is interesting that Senator Akpabio, who was a PDP member and Senate Minority Leader at the time this mass defection happened in July, is now an APC campaigner. Akpabio moved to APC in August. This shows how things change in the Senate and how senators change.

    There are 109 seats in the Nigerian Senate. This figure has not changed. But who belongs where keeps changing. The public should be clear about where their elected representatives belong, and which party is the majority party in the Senate.