The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • How dare you be you!

    Not many want the ‘Buhari double’ saga to sag. Even now, some still believe it is all a ruse, and that Muhammadu Buhari is no more. We are in the era of el Sudan, and an impostor is on the throne. We have dressed the presidency in borrowed robes.

    Not even his assertion, in faraway Poland, should suffice. It does not matter that the impostor story originates from an impostor, the ethnic entrepreneur and phony Biafran, Nnamdi Kanu. A fake in charge of an original. He is a mockery of the French writer Jean Cocteau that you have to “copy in order to be original.” After all, who better to fake an impostor story than an impostor himself, a past master of the art of deceit. Kanu did it to manoeuvre himself back into the dubious graces of his fans and gullible followers. But like all fakes, it will fade.

    But why did the story develop such resonance, even among some ordinarily discerning folks. First, the mainstream media ceded the narrative to Soyinka’s millipedes of the internet. The story took on a virile momentum, and editors acted as though it was a quiet squirm in the sewer. The alternative media is teaching many gate keepers that they can no longer be smug about what makes news. Hence I wrote a column on the doppelganger story a few weeks ago to break the cold spell. While newspapers and television outlets froze, the social media fizzed. A schizophrenic reality.

    The other point is that Buhari’s health story was not the first affliction in high places. Such illnesses have always been bungled by befogging the facts. When late president Umar Yar’adua took ill, the so-called cabal scrambled to concoct media miracles to bring the late president to health on the pages of the newspapers. They advanced apocryphal stories on the man’s well-being. When they didn’t, they kept silence over important details. They pushed reality from the hospital to the people’s imagination. Yar Adua was healthy if the public wanted him to be, or sick, or voiceless, or dead, or limping. In the public imagination, there were many apparitions of the late president. Each story had its own integrity, its source, its doctor’s report, its picture, its sound. You chose your own.

    It was not limited to him. Three governors of that era had illnesses of the public imagination. Chime of Enugu State, Imoke of Cross River State and Suntai of Taraba State. Like Yar Adua, they were hospitalised abroad, and the Nigerian masses became concocters of medical fairy tales. When Buhari took ill, facts also became victim of the febrile fancy. Most people did not know what was wrong, and neither the presidency nor his close aides were forthcoming on his diagnoses or prognoses. Again, fantasy upended facts.

    So when Kanu wove the story that he was dead and therefore a double, it played into the pattern of past fiction. The thoughts of those who believed he was dead or dying had only to be born again. So when columnist Olatunji Dare penned a satire, a cleric fell for it and read it as a straightforward piece. Dare, famed for his satirical missiles, had to issue a clarification. For those who have digested his writings over decades, it was no mystery.

    Yet, the fact that we have in the past been left in the dark about our leaders’ affliction is no excuse not to examine the facts before making conclusion. As I noted in the past, many wise and discerning persons did not ask enough questions. Who was Sudan, where did he come from? How could the vice president and everyone in the cabinet be so blackmailed? When Franklin Roosevelt was president, he was a cripple and led the world against Hitler and tyranny. But most Americans did not know. But his illness was no scandal, and those who saw him in the pre-television era knew about his affliction but the media was quiet.

    But in the day of social media, such conspiracies of silence cannot hold. If Sudan were real, then we all would know if we wanted. But we cannot deny that if Buhari had been transparent on his health when he was in London, his Poland denial would have been unnecessary. It is a lesson in media and communications.

    The third reason why the story took a power of its own is the human fascination with ‘the other’ since the origin of time. Even prominent leaders, especially tyrants, have been known to have doubles. Hitler had his, so did Franco, Mussolini. Recently, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi reputedly had their own doppelgangers. Yet, when it came to it, no serious enemies fell for the doubles. They have often been an amusing spectacle in history. Hitler had many close shaves, including a bomb that went off on his conference table. His double operated with ease, but not the real person. The point is, doubles are imperfect. They cannot replicate the original fully.

    In fiction, they have often come as psychological tales. In the novel titled Despair, prose spirit Vladimir Nabokov weaves a story of a person who commits murder because he thinks his lookalike would be arrested. But the person is a look-alike only in his eyes. Other writers have looked at it, including Robert Louis Stevenson in Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Or in two great works of Oscar Wilde, his novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray. In his play, The Importance of Being Ernest, the name Ernest is not his real name, like Sudan.

    The idea of the doppelganger originated in German folklore, and it taps into age-long obsession with the double, including the idea of the alter ego. We have had the Cain and Abel story as well as the Chinese yin and yang. The other is often associated with bad or evil, like Frankenstein or Dracula. Wilde’s Ernest wanted his double to be free and sensual. “Hell is other people,” said Jean Paul Sartre. Hence some who believed and propounded the Buhari double thought it was a way to nail him and his image. Buhari was probably right that they wanted him dead. But I don’t believe everyone who believed in the double had such intention. The evil was also planted by lack of communication when he was ill. Psychologist Otto Rank, however, thinks it is a human way of coping with death. If we create a double, like the soul, we live forever.

    The fourth reason for the story’s power was political. Buhari returned with so much fervour and physical well-being. His strides, his strength of voice, his body language. So some believe it was more than a miracle that such a weak man should transform to such a sprightly state. His political enemies who visited him in the few days before he returned home saw him, and knew it was him. A word or two from them could have quelled it. It paid them for a Kanu and his men to stoke the false fire. And they felt warmed by the heat. So, his foes may be wondering in their minds and saying to the president, “how dare you be you!”

  • Blood sucking demons!

    Whose hitherto troubled by some of the commonly held beliefs in this country, have cause to heave a heavy sigh of relief. Respite has come from an unusual quarter- the Federal Road Safety Commission FRSC which has taken up the challenge of faulting some of the touted factors often blamed for the recurring accidents on our roads.

    Obviously worried by the pervasiveness of these weird beliefs and their effects on increasing accident rate, the FRSC came out boldly at the flag-off of this year’s “ember months” sensitization campaign to debunk the notion that accidents are caused by some blood sucking demons on the roads or sent by some mystics.

    Hear Samuel Obayemi, FRSC Zonal commanding officer, Zone RF9 Enugu: “There are no blood-sucking demons on the road to kill you; stop believing that someone from you village wants to send accident to you through the air. If you drive safely, you must arrive safely. He spoke on the theme “Safe driving, Safe Arrival”, contending that human factors were responsible for most of the road crashes in this country.

    The theme of this year’s ember months’ sensitization campaign and the specific item of our weird beliefs that create hindrances in the enforcement of safe driving habits are well thought out. A clime with high level of illiteracy and pervasive poverty as ours, nurtures all manner of mundane beliefs and weird ideologies. With this disposition, it is easy to find a good number of people ascribing and rationalizing their misfortunes on some unseen hands or evil persons.

    Death is not regarded as a natural phenomenon as someone somewhere must have a hand in it even when its cause is identifiable. The same thing goes for any and every sickness, accidents on the roads and misfortunes of all hue.  It is heart refreshing the FRSC has come to terms with the fact that for it to make real progress in accidents’ reduction, it must identify and address some of these beliefs that are not borne out of empirical evidence. The notion that accidents are caused by some blood-sucking demons or sent by enemies, are quite common on these shores even among the very educated and more fortunate ones. And this has had deleterious effects on campaigns for safe driving habits. Those who believe accidents come from some supernatural forces or are levied by someone somewhere are unlikely to take seriously the safety measures regularly rolled out by the commission. That is why the FRSC is drumming it into the ears of all that accidents are caused and if we take the necessary safeguards, their rate will be substantially reduced. It goes without saying.

    The sermon of the commission can also been deciphered from the self-fulfilling prophesy adumbrated in the notion of the ember months. There is the general feeling that there is something; an unseen force in the ember months that cause accidents. The feeling is that accidents are bound to happen more within those months than the others. While it could be true that a higher rate of accidents had previously been recorded within that timeframe, the reality is that they have nothing to do with supernatural forces levying death on travellers.

    They relate positively to the high rate of travels within that period; the actions and inactions of drivers and commuters that accentuate roads accidents and their clinging tenaciously to the strange belief that accidents occur at a higher frequency within that period. And because they have come to believe that accidents must occur during the period, they act in such ways as to allow that prophesy find fulfilment. That is why the FRSC has come in to disabuse the minds of the people to the reality that there is no such a thing as accidents must occur more during the ember months.

    There is no such thing as blood thirsty demons waiting on the roads to lick blood from the accidents they caused. There is also no such thing as someone from your remote village commanding awful powers to levy accidents on the roads. Most of the accidents stem from actions and inactions of drivers and can be reduced through safe driving habits. That is the message; the sooner it is internalized, the better for us all.

    Not surprisingly, all manner of people have sought to capitalize on these weaknesses to prey on the less fortunate ones. All manner of pastors, televangelists and preachers hype the fear of the unknown to fleece innocent and gullible ones for personal advantage. At major motor parks, prayer houses, it is common to hear preachers banishing blood sucking demons, breaking the yoke of evil spirits and enemies that cause accidents on the roads. Sometimes, the emotions these preachers evoke are even capable of frightening the commuter that something ominous may happen along the way.

    But at the end of all that, you will still find the motor park preacher or pastor asking those moved by the ‘spirit’ for some support. Sometimes, one wonders whether the calamities they presage their messages on, is to frighten commuters to pay restitution in form of offerings to avert the foreboding scenarios they painted along the way.

    The FRSC has a lot of work to do in this regard. It will have to contend with the antics of sundry pastors and preachers both the legitimate and fake who regularly drum it into the ears of members that accidents and sundry misfortunes are either caused by some supernatural powers, enemies or curses from our forefathers. Obviously, the FRSC cannot succeed in this visionary campaign without the support of all arms of the government, religious bodies and our educational institutions.

    This brings to focus the alliterative allure of a radio advertisement in one of the stations in Imo State sometime ago. It went like this: ‘Ibibi abubu onu, bibie abubu onu’, (neutralizing curses, neutralize curses).  This Igbo advertisement was so professionally crafted and repeated so many times that it drew irresistible appeal.

    But what was the message all about? The said man of God was inviting all and sundry to his place of worship so as to have all the curses from their forefathers neutralized. For him, everybody has a curse hanging over his head for which he and only he had the key to their neutralization. Such is the power of the kind of misinformation the FRSC will be contending with. It is not going to be that easy. But they should not relent.

    As I was putting this article together, I stumbled on a message in the social media titled “the lies of ancestral curse”. The author of that very educative and informative message chronicled some of the atrocious acts committed by the forefathers of some of the advanced countries we admire as epitome of progress, development and all that is good in life. Yet, the atrocities committed by their forefathers did not hold them down as their peoples are rated among the most progressive and most prosperous in the world today.

    The British Empire was built on conquest and colonization; millions were starved to death and killed in India and parts of Africa. The United States of America was built on the extermination of Native Americans and enslavement of African Americans while Germany caused the two world wars that claimed millions of lives, yet the atrocities of their forefathers did not hold them down from making tremendous progress. The post queried why the touted atrocities of our forefathers that are not even of public knowledge should be our undoing, barring us from progress and accounting for all the misfortunes we encounter in life?

    That is the issue. Our misfortunes have nothing to do with so-called curses levied by our forefathers.  Neither do we have any basis to be liberated from such phoney curses. They remain devious machinations of sundry preachers and occultists intent on fleecing the unsuspecting and gullible for their personal gains. There is no such thing as curses holding us down, causing accidents and sundry misfortunes for which we require liberation (Ibibi abubu onu).

    Misfortune is part and parcel of life irrespective of race, colour and level of social attainment. Road accidents must happen if we pay scant attention to safety rules. That is the powerful sermon of the FRSC during this ember months and beyond.

  • Poor witness

    As political literature goes, the memoirist is king. He is what former United States President Theodore Roosevelt calls the man in the arena. Whether as president, governor, or a highflying party apparatchik, they plunge, feet and head, into the quicksand of human theatre, screaming, daring, fighting, playing hero and villain. Thought and action interweave in the spontaneity of the moment. Greek philosopher Aristotle says there is no drama without action.

    The memoirist is about what he did or did not do. The world is his stage. The world is also his spectator, judge, hangman, hallelujah choir. That may be at the bottom of his mind when former President Goodluck Jonathan released his My Transition Hours, a less than 200-page affair, to report his testament.

    I had to hold off a comment until I read it, and what a bathetic read. Or, shall I say, pathetic witness. First, I must say it was not written by Jonathan, the Jacob-and-Esau voice and hand are palpable in this work of uneven style. I am not aware when the work started, but he had about three years to put it together. On that score, it was hatched out in giddy haste, without the stylistic acuity and attention to detail expected of a work from a leader documenting stewardship at a near-turbulent but momentous juncture of a nation’s history.

    I forgive the copy editor’s flops and narrative stumbles. Such miscues have become part of book publishing here. We are also underdeveloped in that arena. I forgive, but do not excuse. I am more interested in his intervention in the matters of his transition hours. I love the title, even envy it. It is apposite, except that the cover picture is more than a little pretentious. Jonathan, in his Niger Delta hat and striped shirt, looks up ahead. But his book, with its sterile introspection and backward look, does little to inspire a rosy gaze ahead.

    Four areas of the book focus the attention. They include the subsidy crisis, the Chibok girls kidnap saga, the corruption blame game as well as his landmark decision to concede the election he lost. Overall, Jonathan adopts a self-righteous tone, and his ghost writers must have received his endorsement in flaunting an Olympian rectitude, as though Goodluck Jonathan, a no-sinner, reserves a divine right to bully his fellow nationals who know little about how to carry their heads in a topsy-turvy world of Satan and never-do-wells.

    There is hardly a tone of humility from a man who introduced himself as an Otuoke subaltern, schooled in the moral privilege of the backwaters. He is no learner, but a bishop of political manners, imposing an imperious tone.

    On subsidy, he reflects himself as a weak man who is opposed to     the removal of subsidy taking place immediately as though the date eased matters. He turns out blaming all those, include governors, who play judas on the subject. He condemns the protests and how in Lagos it is turned into a ‘carnival.’ As reporting goes, this is tendentiously one-sided. Was it not he, as commander in chief, who turned Lagos into a virtual martial law when his soldiers rumbled about town instilling terror? His tone is that of a victim. No doubt, Buhari has not done much better on this matter. But President Jonathan never makes the case either in politics or economics for his action. No cerebral logic or play of statistics or engagement of social forces. It is like a third-rate reporter recounting an episode.

    Jonathan boils with a livid spirit on the Chibok girls saga. He blames the Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima. Curiously, Shettima’s name is never mentioned in the chapter. He kept referring to “Borno State Governor,” as though he forgets his name. This is a malice of omission, a malice against name and subject. He was challenged by Shettima about the report of the Sabo Commission, a thing that reflected the shallow reporting that pervades the book. Shettima said: “The panel also held investigative meetings with heads of all security agencies in Borno State including security formations in charge of Chibok. At the end, the panel submitted it’s report directly to President Jonathan on Friday, the 20th of June, 2014 in Abuja. President Jonathan has refused to make public the findings submitted to him. I was expecting the findings in his book but he has deliberately swept that report under the carpet.”

    In spite of Shettima’s attack, Jonathan has done little to respond to the Borno State Governor’s point. Again, he did not give us any response to the charges of his denial that the girls were abducted, asking questions about the teachers, et al. He says his wife was shocked, but never addresses her press conference, the goings-on in the minds of himself and his wife when they invited the “prinspa” and others who “waka come” in one of the worst public performances in the top office of the land.

    He sometimes forgets in the book that he was the chief security officer of the country. He admits soldiers were around the state when it happened and were working on the abduction. Yet he cannot explain how they bungled the matter and allowed the girls to be carted away for hours and over a hundred miles across the state to the border.

    After a boring sojourn on Nigeria’s corruption history, he eventually makes a crack at intellectualism, almost denying that he said “stealing is not corruption.” He manoeuvres in vain. He says he was elevating the definition of corruption. He meant stealing alone is not corruption, alluding to how dictionaries define it. If he never said stealing is not corruption, he might have made a point. He tries to say that he meant stealing alone is not corruption. It was an act of intellectual flailing, a big failure. He never really addresses the real issue of corruption, including the nitty gritty of the charges against his stewardship. But I would concede he did well by introducing a technological check in money paid and received in government. But it never stanched the leaky purse.

    On his transition, he is at his best when he narrates, if superficially, how he arrived on the decision to concede to Buhari. He does not want to reveal what his aides said. He merely says they gave alternative suggestions. Yet, he implies he was rigged out and INEC was unfair to him. He conceded even if he probably won. It was a half-hearted surrender.

    Yet, you cannot take away the courage that went into the decision, and I believe him when he says his political ambition is not worth anyone’s blood. I hail that.

    The book is, otherwise, a fraud, not only in its omissions, half-truths but also in a missed opportunity. It is also a fraud for not acknowledging who wrote it for him. Hillary Clinton’s writer has been unveiled even though she never wanted to give her credit. If you don’t push the book as a collaboration, modern memoirists reveal the ghost. It is part of My Transition Hours opacity that he hides the authors. The content is angry, shallow, condescending and inevitably imperious. We hope he will write a better book later.

     

    Gunshots in Akwa Ibom

    An Akwa Ibom State, we saw a governor act as though a gangster. In a democracy, how could Udom Emmanuel lead armed thugs to the State House of Assembly. The irony is that he had a majority there. His armed men shot and turned a democracy chamber into a scene in Good Fellas, a movie of brooding murderers and malicious chaos. It was also a case of hypocrisy in the State House of Assembly. When the APC man, Asuquo Achibong moved from APC to PDP, the house did not sack the man. They clasped him into their bosom. The shoe is on the other foot and suddenly they go to court to sack one but cannot wait out the legal process before sacking others.

    Emmanuel

    The five erred in trying to impeach a governor without the numbers. But when a governor goes about destabilising proceedings with thugs, then our democracy is in peril.

  • Resurging insurgency

    The sudden rise in Boko Haram attacks culminating in the killing of scores of our soldiers at their Metele camp Borno State has again, brought to front burner the potent danger of the lingering Insurgency. By the account of the Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai, only 23 soldiers were killed in the attack while 31 others were wounded in action. This contradicts the huge casualty figures that had been in public space in the last one week or so.

    Before the deadly encounter, the insurgents had by military records also mounted serious attacks on Borno villages of Kukawa, Ngoshe, Kareto and Gajiram. The army said 16 military personnel were killed and 12 wounded in the attacks in these villages with the insurgents suffering heavy casualties. They also admitted increasing daring onslaughts by the terrorists to the extent of employing the services of drones and mercenaries.

    This is against what we had been made to believe all this while. Before now, we have been treated to such tales as the war has been technically won, the capacity of the insurgents have been so degraded that they can no longer mount serious attacks against military formation and that they no longer control any of our territories.

    The emerging startling disclosures seem to have put a lie to all that. It would appear the army has been compelled by events of the recent attacks to reverse all that narrative. In the wake of the Metele attack, allegations of lack of and inadequate fighting equipment by soldiers; the demoralizing effects it has on their operational efficiency coupled with their poor welfare status were freely bandied. So also was the staggering figure of the casualty level in the attack attributed to ill-equipment and low morale among our fighting forces. Yet, $1 billion was earmarked sometime ago for the purchase of arms and ammunitions for the soldiers.

    Expectedly, the Metele encounter attracted considerable public outcry given some of the issues placed in the public space suggesting the killings could have been avoided had our leaders done the needful. It was little surprising that soon after, the matter became a subject of high wire politics. The coincidence of the date of the attack and subsequent killings with the unveiling of President Buhari’s 2019 campaign programme – the ‘Next Level’ where some service chiefs made surprising appearances seemed to have ignited the politicization of the matter.

    Taking advantage of the presence of those military bigwigs at that political event, the opposition came down heavily on them for allowing their elated offices to be dragged into the murky waters of partisan politics contrary to the apolitical demands of their professional callings.

    There were suggestions that the heavy losses the army suffered may have been averted had those military chiefs not been distracted by their attendance of the political event of that day. Whether their presence at that event would have made any difference in the fate of the soldiers that day is a matter of conjecture. But that cannot in any way absolve those service chiefs of the monumental error of judgment in appearing at that obviously partisan political event.

    The alibi of presidential aide, Garba Shehu that the service chiefs were mistaken in the assumption that the event was non-political to showcase the achievements of the administration they are part of and that they left even before the president arrived, created more problems than it intended to solve. I guess invitations were served on them for the event. And if at that level, they could not decipher political meaning into that event, it is either they are not fit for the offices they hold, someone somewhere deceived them into assuming it was a non-political event or both.

    But at what point did they discover it was political and who politicized an occasion organized by a regime they are part of? This poser underscores most poignantly the point that those military chiefs failed to live up to the bidding of their high offices. It was an outing of disgrace.

    Coming close to general elections especially with mounting allegations of increasing complicity and partisanship of security agencies in electoral matters, the conduct of the service chiefs left a sour taste on the mouth. The government has accused opposition of playing politics with the unfortunate death of the soldiers. As they euphemistically put it, the opposition was dancing at the grave of the fallen heroes. So it would seem. But the government is largely to blame for the controversy surrounding both the conduct of the service chiefs and the Metele attacks.

    It was not surprising that one of the presidential candidates even demanded the publication of a list of the fallen soldiers. It is not certain what information that candidate is seeking from such a casualty list. But her motive appears to have positive linkage with allegations of skewed deployment of soldiers to the theatres of the Boko Haram insurgency. Perhaps, the publication of such a list would have further polarized opinions given the fault-lines of our federal order. There is no doubt politicians took advantage of the latest attack the attendant high casualty figures to get even with the government.

    But this should not be surprising. Before now, we have been witnesses to serial attempts to make political capital of the on-going war against terrorism. In the build up to the 2015 elections, the war was so politicized that it became difficult for any form of national consensus to build around it. Those who wanted the then government in power to go by all means, read sinister meanings to any and every attempt to evolve the right options to end the difficult asymmetrical war.

    We have not forgotten in a hurry some of the statements credited to key personages of the current regime. But the letter a former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako sent to northern governors in which he bandied very destructive and tendentious allegations on the motive of the war stood out in capturing the very negative and dangerous politics the war on insurgency faced during that period. Nyako had among other asinine allegations claimed the war was a contrivance of the Jonathan regime to depopulate the north. Nothing could exacerbate and complicate the prosecution of that war more than such outlandish and very divisive claims. Nyako knew his allegations were baseless but as long as they served his sectional political interest, the end had justified the means.

    One is not quite certain what would be the reaction of the current regime were such a letter to be authored by an opposition figure now. So the fuzz about the politicization of the recent killings cannot even equate with the reckless claims and banal sentiments embodied in Nyako’s letter. And he got away with it. But he succeeded in creating a monster. He was definitely not alone in his views as it is not on record that northern political elite dissociated themselves from the views.

    The interest the killings garnered can also be assessed from the claims hitherto bandied by the government on the exact status of the war. The sudden realization that the insurgents can still muzzle unlimited capacities to inflict heavy collateral damage on our soldiers, contrary to the impression hitherto bandied must have jolted not a few Nigerians. It detracted substantially from touted attacks on soft targets that are often rationalized as evidence of a decimated force in the last days of their capitulation. It was a reinvigorated insurgency that overpowered and killed our soldiers in a manner never witnessed in the war on terrorism in that part of the country. It was a sad spectacle to behold- one that ruffled sensibilities and rightly led to interrogation of government claims on the exact status of that war.

    The shifting of the chief of army staff conference to Maiduguri; cancellation of the president’s casual leave, his visit to injured soldiers and convening of the meeting of heads of state and government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission are responses to this interrogation. It is not surprising the meeting resolved to change tactics in the prosecution of the war.

    But, the government must resist the lure of hurriedly seeking cheap political points by laying claims to outlandish successes often contradicted by emerging facts. For, as long as it continues to lay claim to successes that are at variance with emerging facts, so long should it be prepared for unfavorable public verdict.

  • Where is the evidence?

    Two weeks into the presidential election 2019 campaign, a non-issue is still an issue. Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed responded to talk of a presidential impersonator on November 29. Mohammed said to journalists in Abuja: “It is idiotic to say the President is cloned. I don’t see any serious government responding to that.” But the minister’s response amounted to a response by the federal government.

    The issue still attracts attention. President Muhammadu Buhari is said to have died and his place taken by an impersonator. This tale was reportedly triggered by a tweet by user @sam_ezeh on September 3, 2017, following Buhari’s recovery from an undisclosed illness. The president was treated abroad.

    A report said: “A video outlining the claim has since been shared more than 5,000 times on Facebook and Twitter. In it, Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), tells his followers that Buhari had died. ‘The man you are looking at on the television is not Buhari… His name is Jubril, he’s from Sudan. After extensive surgery they brought him back,’ he says.”

    Repetition of falsehood doesn’t make it true. But does Nnamdi Kanu know this truth? The controversial IPOB leader had repeated the absurdity about a week before Mohammed responded.  Kanu claimed in a radio broadcast that Buhari was dead and a look-alike from Sudan, Jubril Aminu Al-Sudani, was in Aso Rock, the seat of federal power.

    Kanu’s words: “Jubril is in Aso Rock… In any reasonable country around the world, the citizens should by now commence a worldwide protest to demand the identity of their president. Why is this Sudanese impostor in Aso Rock?”

    If the citizens are not protesting as Kanu expects, it is because they don’t know what Kanu claims to know about Buhari. And what Kanu claims to know is an absurdity. His illogic: “There was once a rumour that Obasanjo was dead but he came out and said ‘I dey kampe.’ Jubril can’t do that because he is not Buhari. Nigeria must fall. It is going to collapse under the weight of this fraud and deception of Jubril. I am not going to make trouble. I want them to return Jubril from whence he came. We can no longer be part of this fraud.”

    Some thinking is needed here: If there is a Buhari double in Aso Rock, what is the point of impersonating the president if he is unable to publicly assert that he is Buhari? If the alleged impersonator is unable to declare that he is Buhari, then it is an absurd impersonation.

    Kanu deepened the absurdity by claiming that US President Donald Trump never met with the real Buhari. What he means is that the April meeting was between Trump and the said Jubril.

    A report said Kanu “argued that pre-2017 photographs of President Muhammadu Buhari’s left side outer ear had a deformed lobule and a straight antihelix,” adding that those features could no longer be seen in the president’s recent photographs.

    Kanu’s observation suggests that he has become an anatomist of sorts. It is absurd that he insists on the accuracy of his absurd claims. This is yet another stunt by Kanu who has moved from stunt to stunt in the course of leading the separatist group. A reasonable stuntman should know that there are limits to the stunt business. Kanu’s performance so far casts doubt on his reasonableness.

    In addition, Kanu is not a credible voice.  He had disappeared on September 14, 2017, while on bail. He was facing trial for “alleged offences of conspiracy to commit acts of treasonable felony and other related offences.”  His reappearance 13 months after was as mysterious as his disappearance. His sureties had been asked to account for his whereabouts, but they seemed not to know.

    Following Kanu’s disappearance, his lawyers had argued that the Nigerian army authorities should be made to produce him because he allegedly disappeared during an operation by soldiers. They described the operation as “a murderous raid, where live and mortar bullets were fired on unarmed and defenceless people, leaving 28 persons dead.”  When Kanu suddenly reappeared at the Wailing Wall in the Holy City of David in Jerusalem, on October 19, it highlighted his lack of credibility.

    The ridiculous claim about Buhari has been repeated by others, including Reno Omokri, a former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan, and Femi Fani- Kayode, a former minister.  But where is the evidence? It is a reflection of lack of clarity and confusion that some have called the alleged Buhari double “Jubril” while others have called him “Jibrin.”

    Mohammed’s response coincided with Buhari’s presence in Chad for a meeting of Heads of States and Governments of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC). Buhari, who is LCBC chairman, had called the meeting towards finding a solution to the Boko Haram insurgency.

    Mohammed’s words:  ”So, the same Jibrin that was cloned from Sudan or Chad is in Chad now? Isn’t that stupid? They even said he is from Chad. Yet, the same President is in Chad as we speak. The same Jibrin is remembering what the President did while in Petroleum Trust Fund and he is also remembering what he did when he was Head of State between 1983 and 1985.”

    The minister continued: “All the ministers do not know who is before them when they attend the Federal Executive Council meeting? The President remembers the memos he had seen or heard about in 1985 and we say he is cloned. So, Jibrin from Chad or Sudan will now remember all of these? It is too silly for the government to respond to this.  It must be ignored.”

    It is pertinent to focus on the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate campaigning for a second term as president.  Is he an impersonator?  What does Buhari need to do to finally show that those spreading this story are talking complete rubbish?

    The story is food for thought. It shows negative inventiveness.  A report said: “CrosscheckNigeria, a collaboration of newsrooms in Nigeria, comprising, among others, icirnigeria.org and The News Agency of Nigeria, has investigated this claim and found no evidence to support it.”

  •   The Hijabist

    It is a fashion statement. But not the sort when a girl dons jeans beneath a flowery satin top. So, in between, a belly button sizzles the eye of a lustful onlooker. That is fashion statement, human style. Curves, hips, the rise and fall of bosoms, the tints of skins, the half-bare shoulder or thigh and the half-vivid ideas they suggest. These images mark out a fleshly, material domain.

    Parents frown and play cop of the corporeal. Not for them the wisdom of world-famous designer Hubert De Givenchy that “the dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress.” The former applauds licence, the latter obedience. So, such parents could ground the daughter or confiscate the attire.

    In this case, it is fashion statement, God style. If the sinner’s eye courts body contours, the scarf smothers it. Hijab shields the female body from the chic, from the concupiscent contortions of the streets, the classroom, the office, even the mosque. The parents are the fashion police and enforcers. The couture is from heaven. How dare any human, school or government stand in the way of the holy command. That is what is sizzling beneath the burner of education in Nigeria. And, of all places, the Southwest.

    While the Osun case has backed a retreat, we are seeing its potential cauldrons in Ibadan and Lagos. The International School, Ibadan has shut its doors over parent odium. They insist their wards must wear hijab to school in pursuit of their right to free worship. Others, including Muslims, on the school board say ISI is a secular body and it cannot brook a religious war within its walls. It is also a private school, so it is not beholden to the arguments of a public institution.

    In Lagos, the Court of Appeal has already ruled in favour of hijab, and the Lagos State government seems to have bowed ahead of the Supreme Court verdict. So in Lagos, hijab is it. At least, for now. If we are to follow the directions of the court so far, it would mean that the ISI case may be settled in favour of the hijabists unless it sees the school as a private affair.

    It will be the case of the rule of law. It is not just a case of a person who some see as fanatics, but as a test of our democratic credentials. Is it right for the hijab to swish side by side the Christian, the atheist and the Ifa worshipper?

    It is not as simple to say the hijab is just a religious statement. Its supporters say it is a way of life, it is a mark of social and cultural identity, so a school or a government office cannot stop such expression. To them, it is an expression of freedom. To stop them is to stop their right to express themselves as units and exemplars of the democratic tradition.

    They are democrats, too, if they call in their hearts for a theocracy, a government by God. In the United States, the gay rights movement has spurred Christians to deny gay services in their businesses in pursuit of their religious freedom. The far-right Christian says he has the right not to hire a gay or lesbian or transgender person or retail wedding cake to them because they collide with his beliefs. He expresses his religious liberty by denying gays any services. But the Supreme Court ruled against him, and everyone who does not sell wares to gay couples would have committed a felony.

    It was a slim victory. It was the vote of Anthony Kennedy, who has now retired from the Supreme Court, that tilted it in favour of the progressives. I don’t know if the case will win under the post-Kennedy judges.

    It shows how faith can be a delicate point even in the definition of freedom. Those who disavow the hijab case say this is a secular society. Every school has rules, and the rules apply to Muslims as they do to hijabists and ifa worshippers. They can wear their hijabs outside school, but not within the four walls of the institution. The argument has been made that the uniform is a Judeo-Christian attire imposed by colonial Britain. But that is wrong. The uniform takes its root in western Europe, not Israel. Their schools are products of their own culture, even though we cannot take away the Christian influence. In school prayers, curriculum, etc, we see Christian influences. Even those have ebbed away substantially since Europe and the Americas have fallen under increasing liberal prejudice.

    If we pit ourselves as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, it does not profit us to bring religion into the public space. Hijab cannot in any way be seen as a mere way of life. Non-Muslims do not wear hijab, so it is a distinctively Islamic wear. It does not just signal a culture but a belief, and bringing it into the classroom is to stamp it on others as a special fashion. But it is a special fashion. Hence in ISI, some Christians and other religions are threatening to wear their own religious codes to school. What this promise is an anarchy of fashions. The hijab, the celestial white and the traditional hues will turn the school to an odd kaleidoscope, a platform of colliding colours and clashing designs. The students, rather than go to school for studies, will mimic what model Kimora Lee Simmons meant when she said, “always dress like you’re going to see your worst enemy.”

    In ISI, it is a private school, and they have the right to enact and enforce them. But in a public school, we should tread gingerly. If a girl that has worn hijab all her life is asked to defrock, it’s like going naked. Private and non-Muslim schools can enforce hijab rule, but if we bring that rule to the public space, we shall have a problem that is beyond religion on our hands. When only well-heeled Muslims can afford to educate their kids in private Muslim schools, we run the risk of educationally disenfranchising poor kids who would rather stay home than go ‘naked’ into a classroom.

    The danger is flooding society with so many young girls without education. It may dovetail into boys as well as the same parents would disavow their boys from infecting their minds with western education. The Southwest may now run into the northern problem of the girl child without education. This is not just a judicial problem, it is also a cultural problem and a social booby trap. We know how Boko Haram started. We should be wary of planting a mullah on the streets because we denied him a root in the classroom.

    We should understand that we are trying to educate our kids, not indoctrinate them. We want to enlighten them. They are not in school to “dress to kill.” Those wearing Hijab wear it all day long, in and out of school. No other segment of society does it. It did not Islamise society 10 years or 20 years ago, why would it do so now?

    It is because our minds have been abused over the decades. We have politicised religion and where faith has been innocent, we have planted suspicion. The battle should not be against wearing hijab, but against suspicion. The fanatics on both sides, though, have not let calm settle over the controversy.

  • Campaign rhetoric

    What could have been the motive of former President Goodluck Jonathan for presenting the book “My Transition Hour’ barely two days after the ban on campaigns for the presidential and National Assembly elections was lifted? Was it intended to add a third dimension to emerging political rhetoric consequent upon the launching of the campaign programmes of the All Progressives Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP?

    These are some of the posers that confront discerning observers especially given the weighty governance issues Jonathan raised in his book and their likely impact on the direction of the electioneering campaigns. Before the unveiling of Jonathan’s book, President Buhari had on the first day of the campaign timeline, launched the APC road map for the 2019 election titled “The Next Level”.

    In that roadmap, the president recalled four years ago, they promised Nigerians real change in what they do and how they do it. He claimed they worked hard to fulfill these promises. But while acknowledging that the road may have been difficult over the last three and a half years, he said “they laid the foundations for a strong, stable and prosperous country for the majority of our people”. In a veiled attempt to ward off criticisms, Buhari was quick to add that foundational work is not often visible, neither is it glamorous but vital to achieving the kind of country they desire.

    He then proceeded to reel out programmes with which they intend to take this country to their envisaged next level.  In that next level, Buhari intends to expand on job creation, improve tremendously on the country’s infrastructure by investing on roads, power, rail and construction of the controversial Second Niger Bridge. The next level will also see to substantial investments to facilitate business and entrepreneurship through ‘peoples’ moni bank’, and entrepreneurship bank’.

    Healthcare, education, human capital enhancement services were also captured in the array of promises enunciated in the next level document as well as the promise to accommodate youths and 35 per cent of females in his appointments. But no sooner had the president completed the presentation than a flurry of criticisms sprang from the opposition. They assessed performance indicators along the line of the three key APC campaign promises of fighting corruption, stemming insecurity and expanding on the fortunes of the country’s economy with scathing remarks on what the next level would mean for our toiling people.

    For the APC, the next level comes with the positive connotation of improvement in the level of successes recorded in the fight against corruption, insecurity and the sound foundation it claimed to have laid for a future prosperous and stable economy. It is a catch phrase for all that is good to come the way of this country in the next four years.

    But the opposition sees the next level mantra from the perspective of a coin that inevitably has two sides. From its own side of the coin, taking us to the next level is viewed from a pejorative sense. The opposition highlighted the shortcomings of the current government in those same areas they propose to take us to the next level and painted very gloomy pictures of what the next level would entail.

    Before the controversy abated, the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar was out there unveiling the campaign document with which he seeks the mandate of Nigerians in the coming elections. In the document titled “The Atiku Plan”, he asked Nigerians: are you better off than you were four years ago, are you richer or poorer? For him, this question underlines the primary focus of his campaign which is to get Nigeria working again.

    In an apparent reference to the APC’s roadmap, Atiku said he is not one for making grandiose promises and that rather than promises, he believes in policies since “a promise is an indication to do a future action while a policy is a plan to achieve future goal”. By extrapolation, he is saying that all that Buhari’s next level document contains are promises that are in the character of politicians preying on the legitimate desires of the people.

    Quoting the International Monetary Fund IMF, Atiku claimed that it is the failure of the government to come up with a coherent and comprehensive set of policies combined with poor leadership that led to its failure to deliver. But he intends to attract foreign investments, support 50 million small and medium scale enterprises across Nigeria so as to double the size of our GDP to $900 billion by 2025.

    Atiku also has copious policy proposals that span through agriculture, manufacturing, oil and gas, expansion on export base, public-private sector partnership, youth and women empowerment and infrastructural development among others. He also intends to run an all inclusive government and restructure the country to make for true federalism.

    With these promises and policies the APC and PDP will in the days ahead, seek to persuade the electorate to make a choice as to the party that will take them to the Promised Land. But a third dimension of the campaign surfaced within the same week when Jonathan presented his book. It is not certain why he chose to unveil it immediately the ban on politics was lifted. But with some of the issues raised in the book, it would seem the timing was not just a mere coincidence.

    Jonathan took advantage of the book to fault much of the claims the Buhari regime hitherto bandied on the fight against corruption. He said his government supported institutional development of secure systems and mechanisms to curb corruption. Citing the Single Treasury Account TSA, Integrated Personnel And Payroll Information System, IPPIS and Biometric Verification Number BVN, he said effective implementation of these brought positive results in corruption reduction as his regime made the best improvement ever in Transparency International TI corruption perception index. Through IPPIS, his regime weeded out 50, 000 ghost workers, saved N15 billion every month and reduced corruption within the chain of fertilizer distribution and saved the country over$192 million by 2012.

    These also brought positive result in 2014 with Nigeria ranking 136th out of 175 countries surveyed- an improvement from its previous position of 144th in 2013. Jonathan contended that despite dramatic arrests, seizures and accusations many of them false, Nigeria has not made any improvement on TI corruption index since he left office. And that in the 2017 assessment Nigeria placed 148- a retrogression by 12 places backward.

    Jonathan attributed the continued flight of Direct Foreign Investment and the economic recession to the de-marketing of Nigeria by the Buhari regime rather than looting by the PDP government. He sought to disprove claims by regime apologists to successes in the fight against corruption. It was not surprising the presidency was quick to react to Jonathan’s claims on corruption even as they failed to fault them. Their statement only succeeded in listing the measures they took to fight corruption without disputing the weighty claims by Jonathan.

    One had expected a government that takes much credit in the war on corruption while dismissing its predecessor as corrupt to disprove the averments of Jonathan on TSA, IPPIS, BVN and its current standing on corruption assessment index. All said: the tone of the campaigns has been set by the triumvirate. The issues raised will form a major plank of political discourse at the next level.

  • Sanwo-Olu’s positives

    When governorship campaigns begin across the country on December 1, some campaigns will attract greater attention than others, and some governorship candidates will be more magnetic than others. In Lagos State, the country’s former capital and “arguably the most economically important state,” the frontrunner is Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Ahead of the primary that Sanwo-Olu won to become APC governorship candidate, a pillar of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, painted a portrait of him:  ”I am encouraged by the emergence of a candidate in this primary who has served the state in senior positions in my administration, the Fashola administration and even in the current one. While possessing a wealth of experience and exposure, he is a young man endowed with superlative vision and commitment. Most importantly, he understands the importance of the blueprint for development. He esteems it as a reliable and well-conceived vehicle for the future development of the state. He also knows the value of reaching out and working with others in order to maximise development and provide people the best leadership possible.”

    This testimonial was decisive in the primary. It may well be decisive in the governorship election. Victory for 53-year-old Sanwo-Olu means he would be in a position to implement a master plan that has served the state well enough since Tinubu’s two-term tenure as governor from 1999 to 2007.

    Tinubu had shed light on the pivotal blueprint on the eve of the primary: “Roughly 20 years ago, a corps of dedicated and patriotic Lagosians, put aside personal interests and rivalries, to put their minds and best ideas together for the good of the state. Out of this collaborative effort, was born a master plan for economic development that would improve the daily lives of our people. Bestowed on me was the honour of a lifetime when I was elected to be your governor in 1999. My administration faithfully implemented that plan. The government of my immediate successor, Tunde Fashola, also honoured this enlightened plan. Where state government remained true to that blueprint, positive things happened. During my tenure and Governor Fashola’s, Lagos State recorded improvements in all aspects of our collective existence, from public health to public sanitation, from education to social services, from the administration of justice to the cleaning of storm and sewage drains. Businesses, large and small, invested, hired millions of workers and thrived.”

    Tinubu provided an insight into the defining principles of the master plan: “All Lagosians were to fully participate and justly benefit from the social dividends and improvements wrought by this plan. From the common labourer, to business leaders, to professionals and our industrious civil service. We all were to be partners in a monumental but joint enterprise. None was to be alienated. None was to be left out. And none were to be pushed aside. This is especially true for those who contributed so much to our development, whether as a business leader who has invested heavily in Lagos, the homeowner who struggles to pay his fair share of taxes or as someone employed in the hard work of keeping our streets and byways clean so that others may go about their daily tasks unimpeded.”

    To Tinubu’s credit, he had remarked realistically, “I make no pretence that the master plan is perfect. It can always be fine-tuned.”  Sanwo-Olu would be faced with the challenge of following the plan and fine-tuning it.

    It is noteworthy that in 2017 Lagos was listed among the world’s 100 Resilient Cities (100RC).  A project of the U.S.-based Rockefeller Foundation, the 100 Resilient Cities include places in Africa, U.S.A., South America, Europe, Asia and Middle East.  According to a  report: “President of 100 Resilient Cities, Mr. Michael Berkowitz, said out of the over 1,000 applications received and three rounds of selection process, Lagos was chosen for its innovative leadership, infrastructural strides and influential status not just in Africa but in the world.” The project has its definition of urban resilience, which provided a context for the listing of Lagos:  ”Resilience is about surviving and thriving, regardless of the challenge.”

    To what degree was this recognition ascribable to implementation of the master plan Tinubu highlighted?  Outgoing Governor Akinwunmi Ambode acknowledged the value of the master plan:  ”I have been lucky to be administering over a state that has been put on the right track by my two predecessors, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN).”

    Lagos was in 2015 listed 12th among the world’s largest 35 cities. With over 23 million people, the city has to grapple with mega challenges.  On account of its mega status, Lagos State is exposed to “chronic stresses” and “acute shocks.”  ”Chronic stresses,” which are said to “weaken the fabric of a city on a day-to-day or cyclical basis,” include “high unemployment, inefficient public transportation systems, endemic violence, and chronic food and water shortages.”   “Acute shocks,” which are described as “sudden, sharp events that threaten a city,” include “earthquakes, floods, disease outbreaks, and terrorist attacks.”

    A list of resilience challenges facing Lagos: Chronic Energy Shortages, Coastal Flooding, Disease Outbreak, Infrastructure Failure, Overpopulation, Overtaxed/ Under Developed/Unreliable Transportation System, Poor Transportation System, Rainfall Flooding, Rising Sea Level and Coastal Erosion.

    If resilience is elasticity to manage change, Sanwo-Olu’s trajectory suggests that he has the capacity. A university-trained surveyor, he held senior positions in banking before he switched to the public service following his appointment as a special adviser on corporate matters to a former deputy governor of the state.

    He has been acting Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, and Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions. He was Managing Director/CEO of the Lagos State Development and Property Corporation (LSDPC) before he won the APC governorship primary.

    Sanwo-Olu’s experience means he is well equipped to govern Lagos State. In addition to his insight into what it takes to govern the state, Sanwo-Olu has the quality of believability.  When Governor Ambode opened a lecture theatre at the Lagos State University on November 22,  he was quoted as saying:  ”I am so excited about the fact that Mr. Sanwo-Olu has actually come out here and he has issued a promissory note and what that means is that we are going to have a government of continuity.” This was another testimony to Sanwo-Olu’s progressive candidacy.

    It is expected that Sanwo-Olu’s positives will give him victory in the governorship election on March 2, 2019.

  • Death wish

    They wrote fiction, but they failed to provide its sweet ingredient: credibility. It’s one thing to write a lie. You fail if your readers believe it is a lie. The irony is that a good lie must throw up a decoy, must con us, must take us to the left when it is going right, must capsize facts while we believe facts to ride on an even keel. Facts are suspended, and we are glad to float and soar away in its cloud of reconstructed realities.

    That’s what literary critic Biodun Jeyifo called Truthful Lie in his seminal work on Nigerian literature. Telling a lie implies a binary world, two interlocking realities that force us to wonder which is the truth.

    But what trended in the social media in the past week made a mockery of the masters of fictionalising. They wrote as amateurs, as third-rate liars. Just as the presidential campaign season was on the verge of a bloom, the story went about that President Buhari is not really President Buhari. They say that the fellow Nigerians voted into power in 2015 has somehow dissolved into eternity, and a surrogate, who laughs, talks, and looks like him, has been foisted on us by “the cabal.”

    They gave him a name: Jubril Al-Sudani. A remarkably un-Nigerian name. The story is concocted by Nigeria’s ethnic entrepreneur Nnamdi Kanu who fled and has found dubious comfort in the arms of the Israeli mentors. It should have been ignored if the matter did not find traction in the gullible minds of some Nigerians eager to see the president dead.

    They have swarmed the social media with tales. The tales flatter their secret hopes. It emboldens their necromantic impulses. It fires their partisan furies. It is a good example of how not to lie. These people wished Buhari dead when he was in London for medical treatment. They believe he passed away. Or they want to believe so.

    The implication is that he was not cured in London. The federal government covered his corpse in a meretricious lie about his death. So, they formed a double from the dust of a conspiracy and breathed into his nostrils the mandate of 2015. And he has become a living president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    They claim his wife knows, but she has apparently refused to mourn. Rather she decided to have two husbands in her lifetime, one in a former life, and the other after Buhari’s life. One in dust for the other now endorsed. One bearing his name, and the other faking that name. She is married to half-ghost, half flesh, one in glory and the other gone to glory.

    No known funeral rites. The same cabal that does not like the woman, the same people who mocked her, they have suddenly warmed up to her and cajoled her into rejecting widowhood to continue as her excellency.

    These are the faithful of trashy fiction. They are in the league of the slipshod stories written by third-rate writers. Kanu, the ethnic entrepreneur, in a manic search for relevance, has provoked some callow minds in the land.

    Kanu and others who hold on to this shallow tale want us to swallow this nonsense as part of a scheme to generate stories against Buhari. If they have genuine reasons to disavow the president, they should advance them rather than turn the campaign season into a season of tales by moonlight.

    They also want us to believe that a prominent president of a prominent African nation dies in a United Kingdom hospital and the story has been covered up for over a year? The hospital has not issued a press release and has decided to involve itself in an illegality of concealment?

    Now who is this man called Al-Sudani? Some call him El-Sudani. What is his provenance? When was he born? Did he attend any schools? When he was young what did he look like? Who took the pictures with him? Who were his classmates? Who were or are his parents? Didn’t he have any teachers? Does he have a home, neighbours or close friends? Does he have siblings? Where were they born? If they came from Katsina or anywhere else, even outside the country as the name suggests, shall we have evidence please?

    Are we expected to believe that this man has been such a dexterous conman that no one has been able to detect him except the man who did not even see him? Who is his wife and who are his children or relatives?

    What was he doing when the so-called death chapter of the president was born? The claim was made even more ridiculous by saying Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was in on this, and that the cabal made Professor Osinbajo to kowtow to the same footloose morality they foisted on Aisha. According to them, Prof Osinbajo knows Buhari has passed on and he has agreed to be the vice president of an impostor. It means he has ceded his constitutional rights to succeed the president be denying the so-called dead man his last rites.

    It shows that some Nigerians ought to be careful in this election season not to float on fake news, or float them. It calls for vigilance not only in the traditional media and their online counterparts. It is the duty of the traditional media to checkmate the excesses of what Soyinka called the millipedes of the internet. Kanu and his friends are grappling for new relevance after their last episode of cowardice. He cannot be a hero like Okonkwo who yielded with an ultimate sacrifice. Instead he wants yields for himself while alive.

    History has recorded doppelgangers. One of them was in the United States where one prominent citizen Robert Casey turned down a call to run for office. But another man bearing his name ran and he won because the voters thought he changed his mind.

    The President Muhammadu Buhari might have heard this but he has not felt impelled to personally address it. He shouldn’t because it will fodder the story. The apostle Didymus who saw Jesus did not believe even when he appeared in flesh because his doubts preceded him. Those who don’t believe will find new excuses to not believe. That is the nature of malicious fiction. It is the case when one is overwhelmed with death wish.

    In his play Twelfth Night, Shakespeare makes a story of mistaken identity end in the realisation of the truth. So let it be with Buhari.

    A wage or wager?

    Sometimes a writer comes across as a seer. I am not but barely a week after

    In Touch Column looked at the minimum wage agreement, the powers-that-be revealed what I predicted. That is, the deal was a clever move to avert a strike even though they know that nobody, especially state governors, wants to pay.

    Whither Saraki?

    What happened to Bukola “Eleyinmi” Saraki in Kwara, where he has been called oga na master. In the first real test in his enclave, his former house is now better than the latter. An APC candidate, Raheem Olawuyi, felled his PDP man in the bye-election into the federal constituency held at the weekend across four local councils of the state. Shall we say “Whither Saraki in Kwara, or wither Saraki?” Is it just a wakeup call or it is a wake keeping for his electoral fortunes in the state. Time beckons.

  • Atiku again

    Former vice president, and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar is scheduled to launch his campaign today.  Atiku, who will be 72 this month, will try to win over the electorate ahead of the presidential election on February 16, 2019.

    A statement issued by Atiku Presidential Campaign Organisation said: “Our campaign offers a simple message: united, the people of Nigeria can begin anew, creating a prosperous and secure future and a better life for every Nigerian.”  Atiku is expected to release a policy document that will hopefully give the voting public an insight into his agenda.

    The statement said the things politicians say: “Our policy document focuses on creating jobs, ensuring security, growing business, developing power and water infrastructure, agriculture and education and how we will empower women. Our policies outline the goals and methods for developing and revitalising Nigeria as the foundation of our campaign. This policy document is being launched to encourage a dialogue with the people of Nigeria, inviting everyone to join us in helping to get Nigeria working again.”

    It remains to be seen how Atiku will get the electorate to believe him and believe in him.  There is no denying the fact that Atiku’s political trajectory mirrors a certain inconstancy. For instance, when in 2014 he left the then ruling PDP for the All Progressives Congress (APC), he had argued:  ”In 2006, as a result of my firm stand in defence of our constitution and our democracy, my supporters and I were pushed out of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party, a party that we worked tirelessly with other compatriots to build as a vehicle to restore democracy to our country. We later returned to that party in 2009 when a new leadership of the party and the country promised a new direction of inclusiveness, of internal democracy, of an end to impunity, adherence to the rule of law and respect for the dignity of members and Nigerians. Sadly, however, these promises have not been kept.”

    It is interesting that Atiku, the country’s second in command from 1999 to 2007, returned to the party’s embrace after his alleged ejection and subsequent unsuccessful 2007 presidential run as the candidate of the former Action Congress (AC).

    Against the background of his embarrassing loss in the PDP primary for the 2011 presidential election and his subsequent alleged informal exclusion from its leadership structures, he felt claustrophobic and needed a new space for political expression. Interestingly, the fresh breathing space he found turned out to be APC, which had a strong AC content, suggesting a return to familiar turf. His statement on his resignation from PDP had described APC as “a party of change committed to the improvement of the lives of our people and to the continued existence and development of Nigeria as one indivisible country.”

    Although he called his move “the right decision,” his destination was intriguing, especially because he bypassed the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), the party he claimed to have co-founded and which he is believed to have financed heavily. This seemed to corroborate the view that maybe his overriding inspiration was situational wisdom, even fair-weather logic, although he emphasised that “this is not about me”; no doubt, conscious of such damaging interpretation of his new association.

    It is this possibility of unprincipled changeability that darkens the integrity of his expressed purpose. The PDP treated his 2014 departure not only with cynicism but also contempt. PDP’s then Deputy National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, said:” We are waiting for Atiku to go on this voyage and to come back. He has done it before. This is not the first time and we will welcome him back when he comes, because APC cannot win election.”

    Then APC won the historic 2015 presidential election and Muhammadu Buhari became president. In November 2017, Atiku left the ruling party. There is no question that the issue of his presidential ambition is central to the pros and cons of Atiku’s acrobatics. It looks like he didn’t mean it when he declared: “ I will do all within my God-given powers to help the APC win elections all over Nigeria and bring true change to our country and its long-suffering people.”

    Being a political acrobat must come with its own difficulties, and puts Atiku in a tough position. It certainly doesn’t enhance his image.  It is noteworthy that Atiku was a prominent member of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the Third Republic, apart from his membership of PDP, his time in AC and link with PDM.

    Given the different ideological colours of these platforms, it is important to consider whether Atiku’s political trajectory is informed by any firm philosophy. It is too easy and unconvincing merely to talk about thoroughgoing socio-economic change and advancement.

    Four years ago, on APC platform, Atiku had said: “The process of building a nation, of securing and deepening democracy is indeed difficult. And it is not a lineal process. There would be alignment and realignment of political forces. There would be ups and downs and zigzags, triumphs and challenges. Amidst all that, patriots must remain focused and do what has to be done to save and build the country and serve our people better.”

    As Atiku gets set to challenge President Buahri and APC in next year’s election, there are many voices complaining about how the federal government has allegedly lost the plot. If Buhari is a failure, it cannot be said that APC is a success.

    Last year, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, an APC leading light,  declared in a bold and brilliant lecture at the National Defence College (NDC), Abuja: “We have to criticise ourselves when it is necessary, speak truth to power. We are the power; we will talk the truth to ourselves.”  The coming presidential election will show whether the voters think the Buhari administration has been teachable.

    The Atiku Presidential Campaign Organisation said: “We recognise that this will be a vigorous and hard fought election.”  It promises to be a big battle.