The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • A game of money

    There is no doubt that Senate President Bukola Saraki is a rich political player. He further demonstrated his richness by playing a paymaster’s role in a recent case. With the 2019 general election approaching, the public should expect to see more of the things rich politicians do with their riches because they want power or because they want to remain in powerful positions.

    When Saraki reportedly paid 20 months’ unpaid salaries of 220 traditional rulers in his constituency, Kwara Central senatorial district, he showed that he had no qualms about using what he had to get what he wanted. The chiefs were mainly district heads from Ilorin East, Ilorin South and Asa Local Government Areas. A report said: “The affected local government councils could not meet their financial obligations to the traditional rulers because of the drastic shortfall in their allocation from the federation account.”

    Then Saraki provided N49.4m, which the affected traditional rulers received at a ceremony at the ABS Constituency Office in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on April 16. The Director- General, ABS Constituency Office, Alhaji Musa Abdullahi, said Saraki had set up a committee to resolve the non-payment of the salaries, and had acted on the committee’s recommendation ?to pay the unpaid salaries.

    Abdullahi was said to have advised the district heads “to continue to support the senate president to enable him attract more dividends of democracy to the state.”  This is the meat of the matter. Saraki wants to be seen as a good politician who wants to serve his constituents and make them happy. Of course, in return for what he does to make them happy, he expects them to continue to support him. Saraki’s gesture was not simple generosity. It was a move, a political manoeuvre. It was designed to achieve a design.

    Obviously, there are questions Saraki needs to answer: Where did the money come from? Was it money from his pockets?  The answers to these important questions cannot be left to speculation. Saraki’s answers will lead to further questions, no doubt. This is because a question may be answered and an answer may be questioned. In the end, there may be more questions than answers.

    Now that Saraki has become a paymaster of sorts, it is a sign that he may take on other opportunistic roles towards realising his political ambition in 2019. For politicians looking for ways to manipulate their constituents, Saraki’s latest game is something to consider and perhaps emulate. It all adds to the pre-election entertainment.

    But Saraki’s entertainment is not entertaining. It is a grave matter when a rich politician takes over the responsibility of local government councils. The point is that a politician is a politician and a local government council is a local government council.  How long will Saraki pay the traditional rulers on behalf of the local government councils?

    It is noteworthy that two years ago, Saraki’s riches were a subject of public interest as he faced trial for alleged false assets declaration before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Abjua.  Saraki’s lawyer at the time, Paul Erokoro (SAN), had reportedly described him as “extremely rich,” and had argued that Saraki didn’t need to become Kwara State governor in 2003 to make mega money. He was already rolling in money by the time he became a governor, his lawyer had stressed.

    It is thought-provoking that Erokoro, based on the asset declaration form Saraki submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) in 2003, reportedly “said he needed to point out that his client was very rich before he became Kwara State governor to erase the wrong impression created by the prosecution that, he could not have acquired the property he claimed to have, without obtaining loans from banks.”

    The lawyer reportedly said that Saraki “had $22 million US dollars, about 12 million pounds, 2.6m Euro and about N4 billion in cash in his various accounts.” Apart from “the liquid asset,” it was stated: “Saraki said he also possessed landed property estimated at N2 billion and 15 vehicles valued at about N263.4m.”

    The report continued: “He gave details of the vehicles he acquired as at 2003 to include: Mercedes X320, valued at N16m; Mercedes X500 worth N20m; Mercedes G500, valued at N6m; Mercedes V220 worth 2m and Ferrari456GT, valued at N25m.”

    Others are: “Navigator, N15m; MN240 worth N8.5m; Peugeot 406, valued at N2.9m; Mercedes CLK 320 worth N9m; Mercedes E320 valued at N11m; Mercedes G500 bullet proof, worth N45m; Mercedes X500; Lexus jeep bullet proof, valued at N30m and Lincoln Navigator bullet proof worth N25m.”

    The report added: “The lawyer was however silent on the source of his client’s wealth and how he came about all the property and cash he claimed to have possessed before he became governor in 2003.”

    Silence will not answer loud questions. Saraki’s N49.4m payment to traditional rulers has made the question louder: How did Saraki become so rich?

    According to a biographical source, Saraki, 55, “attended King’s College, Lagos from 1973 to 1978, and Cheltenham College, Cheltenham, London, from 1979 to 1981 for his Higher School Certificate. He then studied at the London Hospital Medical College of the University of London, from 1982 to 1987, where he obtained his M.B.B.S (London). He worked as a medical officer at Rush Green Hospital, Essex, from 1988 to 1989. He was a director of Societe Generale Bank (Nig) Ltd   from 1990 to 2000.”

    Further information: “In 2000, President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Saraki as Special Assistant to the President on Budget…In 2003, he ran for the office of governor of Kwara State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and won… He ran again for re-election in 2007 and won. He was first elected to the Senate in April 2011, representing the Kwara Central senatorial district, and re-elected in the March 2015 elections… After his re-election in the 2015, Saraki was on June 9, 2015 elected unopposed as President of the Senate by an alliance across party lines involving PDP and APC Senators.”

    The question is: At what point did Saraki make the kind of money that made him rich enough to pay unpaid N49.4m salaries to traditional rulers in his constituency?

     

  • Herdsmen killings: the Libyan angle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Ambode: Power of performance

    A winning governor will attract endorsements that are justifiable.   So, it is logical and predictable that Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is enjoying an abundance of justifiable endorsements.  He is qualified to seek reelection and his endorsers are backing him for a second term in office. The beauty of the endorsements is that they are based on what he has to show for his time in office so far. In other words, he has attracted powerful endorsements through the power of his performance.

    The three lawmakers representing Lagos State in the Senate – Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East), Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central) and Solomon Olamilekan (Lagos West) – said in a letter of endorsement: “We particularly are proud of the infrastructure development that you have brought to the entire state in general and to our districts in particular. Your smart solutions in tackling the traffic and security challenges that initially faced your administration have become template for other states to copy. Also, your strategic partnerships with Kebbi and Kano States have thrown more light to the capacity of Lagos State and the creative manager of man and resources which you are. We must also mention that through the course of the period which our country battled with an economic recession, you made sure that Lagos State remained well above the curve.”

    Similarly, members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the House of Representatives from Lagos State endorsed Ambode for a second term in office. They also presented a letter to him, asking him to seek reelection. The Majority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, who led the caucus, was quoted as saying:  “Because of the giant strides of our amiable Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode in the last two and a half years in governing the State; because of the things he has done across the board, across all the Local Government Areas, across different sectors, we sat together and we decided without a dissenting voice to seek his audience and endorse him for re-election in 2019 as the Governor of Lagos State.”

    Also, the chairmen of the 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) of Lagos State endorsed Ambode for a second term in office. The Chairman of Conference of LGs and LCDAs in the state, Omolola Essien, who is also the Chairman of Lagos Mainland Local Government, said: “Our decision to support him for another term in office is based on the fact that he has performed extremely well; we can all see that everything that he has done in Lagos State, no other state has been able to do that. He has done very well.”

    It is noteworthy that Ambode’s endorsers are not only APC members who want their party man to continue in office. Various other groups and individuals want Ambode to seek reelection.  For example, on April 11, the National Union of Lagos State Students (NULASS) held a rally to support Ambode for a second term in office. Another example: Traditional rulers in Lagos State of Ijebu extraction have unanimously endorsed him. The traditional rulers are from Epe, Eredo, Agbowa-Ikosin, Ikorodu and Ibeju-Lekki.

    The point is that Ambode represents forward-looking governance, which Lagos needs to develop.  Listed 12th among the world’s largest 35 cities in 2015 when Ambode became governor, the former federal capital is work in progress, and the development-related results of Ambode’s progressive efforts are unmistakable and applaudable.

    The range of Ambode’s vision leaves no room for underdevelopment in any area, whether it is lighting up the city, keeping the city clean, building homes, rebuilding roads, providing security, tackling transportation, building theatres and so on.

    Interestingly, last year, Ambode published his “random thoughts” in a thought-provoking newspaper article in which he said:  “I am sharing my thoughts in this article, not necessarily as the Governor of Lagos State but as a Nigerian; a Nigerian who wants to see progress and sustainable growth in our country. 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). I do not think I have done anything special except to bring my own style of leadership, my own experience and my vision. Lagos, as it is, has not reached its peak but we can see signs of progress and positive transition to the Lagos of our dreams. What bothers me personally is that I do not see the same level of progress elsewhere in the country. I am not happy that most states in our country are not advancing like Lagos.”

    Through his concept of “One Lagos,” Ambode has promoted inclusive governance as key to inclusive growth.  It is commendable that his administration’s inclusive governance and inclusive development efforts continue to drive development at the grassroots.

    He continues to work for good governance, but recognises that development takes time. “It will take time but I believe in the philosophy of Think It, Plan It and then Act It…We must and are expected to think through all our policies properly and to the end before planning and executing. The difference between the thinking time, planning time, the execution time and the action time demanded by the populace is what makes people cry out,” he reasoned in his article.

    Ambode is impressively focused on remodelling Lagos and making it a model megalopolis. It is a tribute to Ambode’s quality governance that the country’s other states cannot resist applauding his governance model. He has shown that well-rounded governance is an expression of well-rounded thinking, and has demonstrated the possibilities of political governance in a country that needs models of creative thinking in high political office.

    As the 2019 elections approach, it is foreseeable that Ambode will enjoy more endorsements. Any objective measurement of his first-term performance cannot deny that his administration has had a significant impact on the development of Lagos State. There is no doubt that Ambode has done enough to earn a second term in office.

  • Mistaken identity

    The tenure elongation crisis in the APC is not a crisis of democracy. It is a crisis of identity. We claim to be democrats, but we act like soldiers. The crux, though, is that we do not accept that we are acting like soldiers because we wear agbadas, gavels thump in parliaments, presidents wave at crowds, governors succumb to term limits like other lawmakers, and political parties, not military cabals, determine who runs for office, everybody canonises a book called the constitution.

    This façade makes us think we run a republic. But the APC decision, which was upstaged by the president’s announcement to run for a second term, has revealed again that we run our parties as a chain of command. But first let us look at the decision of the Odigie-Oyegun National Working Committee that says that the members cannot have tenure elongation but would not resign. Is that not a farce? If they are to remain in office, it means they will choose who organises the congresses and convention, and eventually decide who will become the electoral umpires in the election to party offices in the centre. Oyegun would now pick the sort of person who cannot compromise his ambition to prolong his stay as party chairman.

    In law, it is described as being a judge in your own cause. You pick the referee and then you decide to be a player. It is the very nature of political corruption. If Oyegun and his fellow travellers follow that pattern, it would imply that the APC has a caretaker committee by other means. Oyegun and co would have choreographed their return to office by undermining a fundamental principle of law. How can that stand in the court of law if it is challenged?

    If the same people preside over the nomination of Muhammadu Buhari as presidential candidate, how can it be different from the case in Kano where APC picked a candidate that did not stand the test of law.  It was sired by a caretaker committee. The PDP reaped where it did not sow. The court saw to that. The PDP played hyena and picked up the carcass that the leopard just killed?

    Some governors, spearheaded by Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, want it this way because it guarantees their stay in office for a second term. They are in calm waters with the perfect stooge Oyegun because they believe if a crisis erupts in their state primaries, Oyegun and his bleating disciples will play ball to the governors. After all, he has shown himself a lamb. He did it in Kogi and Ondo, and he has a proud trail of obedience.

    This sort of impunity in the APC is not an APC epidemic. It goes to the heart of the military-style politics we run. Nothing explains that more than the powers granted to the National Working Committee. We saw same in the PDP when it held sway in the centre.  When Rotimi Amaechi won the governor  primaries in Rivers State, Obj crippled it because his candidacy had “K-leg.” His party’s NWC, always beholden to a party master, was swept in line. Amaechi challenged it in court and the Supreme Court ruled in his favour and Omeiha was evicted from the house another built. The more storied one happened in Imo State when Ifeanyi Araraume won the party primaries but Obj, working with the NWC, rejected his candidacy for a third-term maven Charles Ugwu. The court reversed the NWC action, so Obj and the NWC knew the game was up for the PDP.

    He played harlot and struck a bargain with Ikedi Ohakim of the PPA. Ohakim would benefit from the party structure and win the election on the condition that he would jump ship to the party of supremacy, the PDP. Obj’s wish prevailed.

    The PDP also had the sorry tale when Timipre Sylva was governor of Bayelsa State, and when it was time for the primaries, he had to contend with Goodluck Jonathan. President Jonathan was a foe of the tall and gangling chief executive of his home state. It was a circus after the primaries that took place and a few wise men had to decide. Eventually, the NWC had its way, and Governor Sylva watched helpless as his sway was dismantled in Bayelsa.

    Most politicians hail the concept of federalism. Even the APC that advocates federalism for the larger political infrastructure in the country has failed to see the beam in its own eyes. It cannot see that it does not have a federal party. It is because our political elite is still under the throes of the soldier. Just as governors crawl like beggars for monthly allowances, so the states look up to the NWC for matters that should be settled in their units.

    The governors would not bake a stooge like Oyegun if primaries need the assent of a few men in the centre who know nothing about the sentiment, will or aspirations of the locals. It is so this time because some  governors are not sure to win their party primaries. States like Kaduna and Kogi fear backlash. Even if they win, they want guarantees because even victories will throw up tempests.

    But the way out should not be an overarching diktat from the NWC but decision of a court of law. If the primaries are disputed, the court, not a few partial men, should weigh in. In the last gubernatorial primaries in Anambra, a certain gentleman who did not win the primaries wanted to exploit money with the NWC in the centre. Reports show that they did not yield to him but he had unloaded a whole lot of money into the coffers of individuals of the NWC.

    The real tragedy is that our politicians do not see the evil of the NWC because we think it normal for a few people to dictate to the states. It is military hangover. We are under a mistaken identity that we run a civilian democracy whereas our politicians are soldiers who cannot shoot a gun but can shoot down a candidate at will. It is the sort of mistaken identity Shakespeare mocked in his Twelfth Night when a boy is mistaken for a girl and a Malvolio thinks he is Olivia’s lover. It is a blissful illusion we suffer, and the Olympian impunity of the NWC is the great example that our politics might have left the barracks but the barracks has not left our politics.

     

     

     

     

  • Adebanjo: Not my progressive

    Ayo Adebanjo has drawn quite some attention over his 90th birthday. Some columnists, including the folksy Reuben Abati and Segun Adeniyi, have gushed over the man’s progressive credentials. I congratulate him on his nonagenarian lamppost. I am also ready to congratulate him for his battles in time past, duelling the British, standing beside Awo over the western region imbroglio, suffering the claustrophobia of jail terms in the turbulent 1960’s, being a warrior, however muted, during the June 12 maelstrom.

    What some, including many political stalwarts, have left out is that a man should spend decades pursuing one goal and then turncoat in a later year. People see such birthdays as moments to slobber and flatter, especially for a man in his hoary years. Not this writer. That is what I cannot congratulate Adebanjo for. He was part of the unblushing train of Goodluck Jonathan. He was in bed with the Otuoke chieftain who embarked on a dollar junket in the southwest to buy the Yourbas, including some of its royal fathers and its Pentecostal deviants. Adebanjo stood by this man who played out a drama of permissive morality. The Yorubas, ever discerning in such matters, buried Jonathan in a ‘no’ vote at the polls. Adebanjo should not have become part of Jonathan’s amen choir at an age when his wisdom should have served as a lamp of experience for a misguided generation.

     

  • Buhari’s decision to run

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • A nation in distress

    Nigeria is seriously distressed. Not only has it failed to serve as a melting pot for ethnic, religious and primordial cleavages, the Nigerian state has over the years, tended to reinforce these fault lines.

    Thus, we can only talk of the Nigerian nation in a very loose sense of the term. Its strict application which will entail the wielding together of the disparate entities and imbuing in them a common sense of belonging and national identity remains largely illusory. For this, we have had to contend with aberrant competition between primordial tendencies and the central authority for the loyalty of the citizens.

    National integration which should have formed the fulcrum of political action since independence has since taken the back seat. Little wonder the plethora of systemic dysfunctions that have overtime stood on our way to genuine national progress. Boko Haram insurgency, militancy and armed banditry, agitations for self-determination and the insurgency of the Fulani herdsmen are clear manifestations of systemic stress and inability of the centre to cohere.

    The system is not just working. Concerns have continued to mount on suitable and sustainable approaches to statecraft for genuine national development and progress to proceed unhindered. In this search, a number of ideas have been recurrent. Some of these, though not entirely novel, have come to dominate public discourse of recent.

    Two strands of opinion trend in the public space as veritable strategies to re-position and re-invent the country. Before now, restructuring had been canvassed as holding the ace.  But in the last one month or so, the challenge of leadership assumed some prominence. The primacy of knowledgeable and patriotic leadership in the nation’s statecraft though not novel, assumed renewed national flavour with the recent outings of two key former heads of state. In their loaded letters to President Muhammadu Buhari on why he should not run for another term, Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida canvassed a paradigm shift in the political recruitment process.

    The main thesis of their presentation was that Buhari does not have what it takes to lead the country in terms of the necessary professional skills, strength of the body, knowledge of contemporary leadership dynamics and requisite academic training. They both routed for well educated, dynamic, knowledgeable and young Nigerians with the requisite capacities to grapple with the complexities of the dynamic world.

    They crave for visionary leaders in the mould of the ‘philosopher king’ envisioned by Plato. Obasanjo went further to volunteer an assessment of the two major political parties- APC and PDP with a damning verdict that good leadership can no longer emerge from the two parties given their lack lustre performance in governance. He then moved for an alternative platform- a paradigm shift in the spirit of the Kuhnian revolution where a new order emerges to supplant an existing one.

    Since then, some political actors have given varying interpretations to that message. These interpretations vary from the selfish to the most unreasonable; the unrealistic to the impracticable. It also came with the undertone that none of those in APC or PDP would fit into the leadership matrix Nigeria needs at the moment. That is obviously an overgeneralization. Even then, Obasanjo’s qualification to determine the requisite national leadership template is still largely contentious irrespective of the accident of having occupied that office for the length of time he did.

    That however, does not diminish the import of his presentation. It does not irrespective of the faulty attempt to view his call for paradigm shift from the narrow prism of age. Their suggestions represent a composite of qualifications not limited to age. There are two strands of Obasanjo’s thoughts on leadership as encapsulated in that letter. The first is the desirability for more purposeful, knowledgeable and enterprising leader with the strength and capacity to grapple with the wider dynamics of statecraft. This goes without saying.

    The other and more contentious is the conclusion that neither the APC nor PDP is capable of producing good leadership for this country any longer. This flies in the face of reason. At best, it is a poor guesswork, lacking any root in empiricism. The reason for his position is not hard to fathom. In his desperate bid to find justification for his third force, Obasanjo had to embark on a predetermined vengeful voyage of writing off the prospects of good and quality leadership emerging from the two dominant parties. Neither the past poor performances of the PDP which he led nor the failings of the Buhari led-APC would suffice for a vote of no confidence in their capacities to throw up good and efficient leadership in the future.

    The other flaw in Obasanjo’s presentation lies in its undue focus on political parties rather than the intervening systemic variables that impinge on and determine the direction of our political recruitment process. Here, such mundane issues as ethnicity, religion, geo-politics and the inordinate attempt by sections to dominate others come very prominently. Their destabilizing tendencies have overtime reinforced what foremost political Philosopher; Richard Joseph characterized as prebendal politics- the struggle for public office to acquire power and wealth for one’s immediate family and members of his ethnic group.

    Geo-politics saw to the emergence of Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari. It will also continue to shape and colour our political recruitment process now or in the nearest future as long as our politics fails to develop beyond the categorization of Joseph. In it can also be found why corruption has become part of our national life. How Obasanjo’s new brand of leaders will emerge and fare when mundane tendencies majorly determine political recruitment and action remains contentious? How such idea will be given vent by those who see leadership at the centre as opportunity to skew national patronage disproportionately to the section from which the president comes is another issue. What of vested interests both in and outside of government whose main concerns are to maintain their stranglehold on the nation’s politics and economy for selfish ends?

    What these underscore is the inevitability of attitudinal and orientation change. For as long as we are stuck to old attitudes and prejudices; opposing innovations and time tested approaches to co-habitation and national integration, for so long shall we continue to throw up leaders tainted by our ruinous pasts. We are all part and parcel of the ailing Nigerian state. We are all part of its past and present prejudices. Whatever leadership that emerges now, will still owe its allegiance and success to the complex forces that will throw it up. Hard as they may try, they will still have to contend with debilitating influences and forces that saw to their emergence. Buhari’s leadership is a case in point.

    That is where restructuring cues in very appropriately. Sadly, Obasanjo has been ambivalent on this critical re-engineering therapy even as Babangida lends his full weight to its imperative. It is difficult to evolve the leadership being craved for in the face of the daunting imperfections of extant federal order. Even when we succeed in throwing up quality and good leaders, they will soon be corrupted and disabled by inordinate competition to take advantage of the very rich, influential and powerful central government. Corruption; do or die politics and all the centrifugal tendencies that have stood on the way to national integration are reared and sustained by the disproportionate wealth and power at the control of the federal government.

    Devolution of powers, fiscal federalism and equity between and among the component units will substantially whittle down these negative tendencies and facilitate national integration. For now, these negative influences will continue to incapacitate those thrown up for leadership until they are successfully stymied to the satisfaction of the constituents. Is it surprising that schism is at an all time high now?

     

  • Gospel according to Leah

    What image does Leah Sharibu conjure in your mind? A young girl in the grips of the fanatic?  A girl innocent, virginal in faith and mind? Or a naïve soul bewitched by her Christ? Or shall we compare her with the suicide bombers her age, except that she does not holla in the name of Allah, or carry her belief without the weaponry of a bomb. She wears no hijab, has no wardrobe to screen her apocalyptic toy and does not need to walk through a market to finish off her infidels.

    So, everyone has their Leah. To some, she is the untutored zealot. To others, she is the fool in wolf’s clothing. For me, Leah Sharibu is the rebirth of the apostolic era. She manifests the purity of faith. She also telegraphs a message to our politics, especially in the age of Oyegun, where we twist betrayal as nuance and celebrate harlotry.

    Her parents may have mused over the fate of the first Leah, the wife of Jacob. Just as the Boko Haram goons hate her, Leah was not the preferred wife but Rachel. But she it was who eventually earned favour. She birthed the line of priests through her son Levi. And later, he gave us Judah, who we trace to David, and Jesus. She bore the seed which was prophesied to Abraham: “By thy seed all the families of the earth will be blessed.” She, who was not comely, suffered but she eventually sired the seed of salvation.

    That was the power of Leah. Maybe the parents thought this. Maybe not. But it is potent that, at age 12, she invokes Jesus at about that age, who rebuked his mother when he was jousting the scholars of his day. Quipped the Lord: “Shall I not go about my father’s business?”

    She is more apostolic than most of the pastors of today. How many of the showy clerics will risk their lives of luxury today under gun-handed duress and insist on Christ? Will they not remember their soaring ecstasies in private jets, the dreamy languor of their palaces, the doting worshippers, their wives’ and children’s wardrobe obsessions in the tony districts of Manhattan, London and Paris? They could easily abandon the austere examples of Paul, Peter, Matthew, et al, and embrace Peter the betrayer rather than Peter the Rock.  The apostles died either by beheading or hanging, a brutal ending. Such apostolic faith highlighted Robert Bolt’s play titled: A Man For All Seasons and celebrated the piety of Thomas More.

    It was an epoch when More stuck to principle when Henry V111 chose romance over God to cut off England from the Church of Rome.

    But our pastors would seek forgiveness later on when they are strapped on their cosy seat in a bombardier headed to an evangelical mission in a Los Angeles suburb. In a bombardier financed by tithes and offerings and maintained at a cost that can pay off the school fees of a thousand poor students stranded at home.

    Leah is the true believer. She may not hold that sort of belief when she is 30, or even 70, but she has given this country an example in principle. A principle executed in innocence. She decided to deny herself, take her cross and follow her conviction. She is not the sort of suicide bombers hoodwinked into suicidal bloodbath. She did not ask for the temptation. She did not ask to be kidnapped. She was an unknown little girl masking her convictions in her anonymous life, when she walked to school, listened to teachers, obeyed her parents, visited the market, worshipped in church, played with friends.

    As The Nation columnist Gabriel Amalu noted in his commentary recently, she disavows the easy morality of her generation who crave the quick fix. She is of the type who would work and earn it. She does not fall into the corrupt class of the ‘yahoo yahoo’ wastrels, who would earn nothing but own everything.

    Today the elders should look at the young girl. A man like John Odigie-Oyegun, Muiz Banire and Governor Akeredolu and other enablers of the perfect stooge, should learn about principle from them. Jesus saw little children like Leah when he exhorted: “Suffer (allow) little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

    When the law says one thing and a selfish interest the other, it is only the spirit of Leah that can prompt a person to stick to what is right. It is the spirit of truth, of inflexible devotion to what is proper and decent, and put at bay the breast of greed and the impulse of tyranny. The APC is in the entrails of its battle for moral identity, and those whom I described last week as the scavengers of power who want to turn law into an excuse for personal elevation are being disgraced in public. The worst of it is that they are showing no shame, an increasing slur of our society. As an African proverb says, “where there is no shame, there is no honour.”

    Governor Akeredolu is now pleading nuance. He forswears ever calling for tenure elongation, only effluxion. That’s a gyration that will make only fools feel giddy. It’s like saying you want it half full but not half empty. If Oyegun and his men remain, is that not elongation by other means? That is not the spirit of Leah, who said it in unambiguous terms. Mr. Governor, we are not deaf. We heard you all along.

    We are still waiting for leah. Those who brokered the freedom of the other Dapchi girls and left out the narrative of Leah Sharibu should know that we want her back in one piece. She is the story of her generation. We want her alive, not a martyr. We want her back, in the embrace of her family, who gave her a great name and she has lived up to its billing. Leah of the Bible was not beautiful but her soul was. That is what we seek when she comes back, we want her to live like the Nobel Prize winner Malala who survived the furnace of her captors.

    We want to see her grow, show examples for her generation, show her human flaws and strength and become a living evolution of moral growth in a flawed society. Martyrs enrich societies but save us the true nature of their humanity. Mandela grew up to an old age, a symbol of strength, principle, and self-control. So was Mother Theresa, whose serenity of vision and activities etched in us the possibility of human tenderness. That is why we want her here, to breathe on us the spirit in her soul.

  • A politician again

    It was the first time the president became a party man since 2015. He had been playing president since he was sworn in. Muhammadu Buhari just realised that his famous mantra about being for everyone and for no one was a fantasy of idealistic perversion.

    You cannot be for and against simultaneously. You cannot bring to politics what Achebe describes in his A Man of The People as the “niceties and delicate refinements that belonged elsewhere.” Buhari is not a young starry-eyed idealist like the Odili in Achebe’s political novel. Faced with the tumultuous reality of 2019, he knows he has to align or fall. He has chosen an ally and thrown his weight in the ring. Where else to do that than the hot button issue of the APC. Whether to align with the perfect stooge Odigie-Oyegun and his bumbling governors or stick with the beckons of the rule of law and Asiwaju Tinubu.

    He chose the latter. He became, to all intents and purposes, a party man. He announced himself an APC wheel horse again. He has to be and he has to show temper and take a risk. He had shut down early in his flush of victory in 2015.

    He was quiet when Bukola “Eleyinmi” Saraki overthrew his authority as party leader, tossed him to the dumpster and took over the legislature in cahoots with the enemy party. They also defied the party spirit de corps and rules of the law chambers.

    Buhari caved in with silence, and his silence emboldened the hawks who beat their chests in public and in the shadows for riding their way over the law and decency in a nocturnal subversion. They became great and majestic in impunity.

    We welcome back Buhari into party politics. But it was politics that drew him more than he drew politics. He is in the throes of a second-term dynamic, much less than he enthuses over the turmoil of the soap box. Buhari is an example of a man who loves power but loathes the way to its tower. He does not love the smooching, the coaxing, the sly manoeuvres, the underhand rhetoric or the Mephistophelian intrigues.

    So, he shied away from its entrails of a pig. Now, he has to step into the sty. Buhari is now ready to get dirty, the so-called mister clean must swim with the sharks and soar with the hawks. Where there are carcasses, he must abide the vultures.

    The president shocked not only those who supported the elongation of Oyegun’s stay but those who had flayed it. He said Oyegun should not get a year extension. The party should subject itself to the law. He was saying this is a nation of laws and not of men. It is not about Oyegun or what the governors want. It is about the groundnorm; it is about a principle higher than the giants of the party.

    But the party titans who coddle the perfect stooge have fallen into a strange position. How do they openly confront a sitting president, especially one who has not rattled them into an open fisticuff? He has not played an Obasanjo, who bullied governors into sheep of bleating obedience nor a Jonathan, who rallied them with powerful aides and the dangle of carrots.

    No one is sure how Buhari will fight an intra-party warfare. Is he going to coax, or bully? An excellent reporting from The Nation’s northern bureau chief and one of the best reporters of this generation, Yusuf Alli, unveiled the drama in the dark room of the APC. Muiz Banire and Governor Akeredolu, both enablers of the stooge, argued against the rule of law and for Oyegun’s extension.

    Both SANs found it difficult to counter a resurgent Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, also a SAN, who entrapped them with a precedent. He cautioned the duo of Akeredolu and Banire not to be carried away by their fervour of the gerrymanderer. These men are not passengers of the law. They are scavengers of power. That makes them no better than the Jonathan-era governors who wanted 16 to be superior to 19. They wanted to subvert the rule by overturning numbers and falling foul of simple arithmetic. In the APC case, they are trying to make a rule through fiction. They are trying to dethrone the rule of law with a precedent. But Osinbajo reminded them that a recent precedent in Kano makes a mincemeat of their own precedent. The APC hierarchy is facing a precedent of law versus a precedent of impunity.

    The precedent of law took place in Kano APC when the party, just like Banire, Akeredolu and their cohorts, decided to impose a caretaker committee. The Kano State House of Assembly candidate that resulted, Dorawa-Sallau, was rejected by the Supreme Court. The PDP candidate who came second in the election was handed the legislative seat. Kano APC has been sulking since. The implication? Buhari could win the 2019 poll and the Supreme Court could give Aso Rock to PDP. I can see the PDP smacking its lips. It is APC’s worst-case scenario since the Supreme Court cannot upturn its own precedent.

    You can understand why a Buhari becomes a politician again. No one wants to be an Esau giving his birth right to Jacob. Osinbajo told his opponents that retaining Oyegun is a risk they don’t want. That is one impunity PDP will be praying for. If that scenario works, PDP will be an agbero who reaps where he did not sow.

    Hell has no fury

    Pope Francis recently denied that he foreswore the existence of hell. The report went viral. What he did not deny was hell but as a place of fire. Of course, there is hell in the words of scripture. But it is not a place of fire. It is one of the great errors of orthodoxy. The Pope probably teased it and chafed cowardly at its backlash. Christians have accepted an orthodoxy they cannot defend in Bible. When God created the world, he did not create a place of fire? If it was so important, Moses, who wrote the Pentateuch would have told us. Hell in both Hebrew or Greek means grave or bowel of the earth. The phrase hellfire in translation from Gehenna was what Jesus referred to in Mark about the place where the fire never stops. It was a perpetual place of sacrifice outside ancient Jerusalem. The children sacrificed died there as against the concept of eternity in fire. He even used the phrase “if your hand offends thee, cut it off” as metaphor since the kingdom of God does not accept imperfect beings. Again, why did Jesus go there? He himself said he would be in “the belly of the earth,” for three days just like Jonah was in the belly of a whale. Amos wrote that when God’s wrath comes, some people will “dig into hell.” If hell is the place of punishment, why will the wicked have to dig if it is prepared or why would they go there if it is boiling? In revelation, John says “hell and death were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” If hell is fire, why will it be cast into it? Second death is different from the first mortal end in this life. To paraphrase Shakespeare, hell has no fury. Not to a God whose mercy endures forever.

     

  • Adesanya: Celebrating a giant

    Eleven years before his departure, Abraham Adesanya survived a gun attack that defined his importance as a progressive combatant. He was nearly 75 at the time.  Here, a picture of what happened: “On 14 January 1997, his uncompromising stance to the military misrule led to an attempt on his life at the behest of the then head of state, General Sanni Abacha. Adesanya had just left his law chambers on the fateful day sitting at the back of his car when an unknown team of assailants (later unveiled to be General Sanni Abacha’s killer squad) struck. The front and back screens of his Mercedes Benz car were shattered and the car seats perforated by bullets from the assailants’ guns but he escaped unhurt with his driver. The car was later transferred to a Lagos museum.”

    It was a dangerous time to be a pro-democracy fighter. Many of those who resisted the incumbent military dictator fled overseas and fought from there. Adesanya stayed in the country and weathered the storm. It was testimony to his courage and conviction. When democratic rule was restored in 1999 after a 16-year period of military domination, there was no doubt that Adesanya was qualified to be named among the heroes of democracy.

    It is good news that this year, a decade after his death in April 2008 at the age of 85, Adesanya will be celebrated as a giant who made a gigantic contribution to the efforts that won the battle for democracy.   The Publicity Committee promoting the Abraham Adesanya 10th Anniversary has announced that there will be “a series of events to mark the 10th anniversary of the translation to higher glory of the great Nigerian nationalist, exemplary Yoruba patriot and leader, statesman, philosopher, moral avatar and illustrious chairman of the Afenifere and National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Senator Abraham Adesanya.”  The chairman of the committee, Prof Adebayo Williams, was quoted as saying that the celebration in May will feature a lecture on the state of the nation, the launching of a book of tributes and a memorial service.

    A statement said:”The publicity committee wishes to seize this opportunity to invite contributions to the book of tributes from the public as well as friends, associates, acquaintances, admirers, well-wishers and fellow travellers of Senator Abraham Adesanya. The contributions are to include but are not limited to the following: scholarly expositions, reminiscences, tributes, eulogies, poetry, memorabilia and rare pictures and other exotica. The contributions, which should not be less than 500 words but not more than 1,000 words, are expected to reach the committee not later than February 15.”

    It is thought-provoking that this celebration of Adesanya, his ideas and ideals, is coming at a time when the meaning of progressivism has been corrupted and the definition of a progressive has been degraded.  What would Adesanya have thought of today’s self-defined progressives who pay lip service to the noble pursuit of progress?

    Williams recalled:  “During his lifetime, the late Abraham Adesanya bestrode the Nigerian political scene like a colossus. He was a giant among giants…He was as principled as he was fanatically devoted to the fundamental tenets of progressive politics, often putting his life on the line in defence of these sacred ideals. For him, the unprincipled and amoral political life is not a life worth living, no matter the wealth and fame accruing…Fearless and unrelenting as a leader, forthright and uncompromising as a follower, you always knew where you stood with the late titan. Adesanya was a man totally without cant or seedy equivocations.”

    Adesanya played exemplary leadership roles in Afenifere and NADECO that should inspire the leaders of today. But the times have changed and things have changed. Afenifere, the Yoruba organisation that was known for its progressive essence, is essentially now a shadow of its former self. NADECO, the patriotic pro-democracy movement that was known for its punching power, was ironically a casualty of democracy and has failed to rise from the ashes.

    Adesanya studied Law in the UK at Holborn College of Law. On his return to Nigeria in 1959, he joined the Action Group led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the progressive star who continues to shine decades after his death in 1987. Adesanya’s choice of a progressive political circle showed where he stood on the question of political progress.  It is a reflection of his capacity that “The same year, he was nominated and eventually elected to the defunct Western House of Assembly to represent Ijebu Igbo constituency in the 12 December 1959 House of Representatives Election.” He later became a senator in the Second Republic as a member of the Unity Party of Nigeria, which was an evolutionary extension of the Action Group.

    It is noteworthy that he showed a commendable consistency in his political trajectory, which is sadly missing in many political careers today with fair-weather politicians switching parties without a sense of consistency and a sense of what is honourable.

    When he achieved recognition as “Asiwaju of Yorubaland,” following the exits of Awolowo and Chief Adekunle Ajasin,  Adesanya’ s political voice became louder, more influential and deserving of greater attention. This information gives an insight into Adesanya’s performance on the big stage:    “Later, Adesanya under the auspices of Afenifere and the Yoruba Council of Elders, alongside others led a congress of Yoruba elder statesmen through a congress that rose to pronounce that the convocation of a constitutional conference, where new confederating terms would be determined for the country, was inevitable for the good of Nigerians.”

    Ten years after his death, Nigeria is still grappling with the national question and structural issues. The celebration of his life and times at this period should further promote the need to reimagine the country. It is expected that important political players will use the occasion of this anniversary to say positive things about Adesanya because he was indeed a positive factor in the country’s political progression. He has been immortalised in various ways, particularly in the Southwest, but the lessons of his life are of national significance.

    It is a tribute to the giant from Ijebu-Igbo that he is still remembered and respected for the progressive path he trod.

     

    • This piece was first published on January 8, 2018. It is reproduced to highlight the 10th anniversary of Chief Abraham Adesanya’s death on April 27, 2008.