The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Faith without work

    Faith without work

    They are all ceremonies of violence. The ritualist in Lagos, the suicide bomber in the northeast, the ogre in Ozubulu. The one chants incantations, stews up dark concoctions, rules the mind and enacts deaths.

    The second is a little girl or boy, strapped with a lethal device and little promise from heaven, walks into a school or market or mosque or church, the bomb goes off just like the spleen and limbs.

    The third, driven by revenge or some other addiction, decides to walk into a church, rattles off bullets in all directions. Families mourn afterward.

    The last subverts a ceremony with a gun. Not allowed are the communions, the prayers, the solemnities of songs and sermons. The others also subvert as well.

    The ritualists in Lagos are not giving children to the childless or healing to the sick, or succour to estranged families. They are doing the strange thing. They are luring or coercing innocents into dingy tunnels, making slabs like abattoirs where human parts are cut into packages. They also torment and rape.

    All three have one thing in common. They appeal to faith. Whether it is traditional religion, Islam or Christianity, they are sourcing the power of belief. They are revealing to us the potential of faith for violence. Nor has it begun today.

    But they tell us to be wary of prophets and prophesies, of the Bible and Koran, of amulets and crucifix, of charms and incantations and glossy beads and blood sacrifice. They tell us that a religious people are not necessarily a godly people. That in every faith is a potential for fealty to a goon, a ritual killer, a kidnapper, a prophet of doom.

    So, a religious people can bear a belly for violence. The Ozubulu case is a story that needs more probe. But we need to see the accounts that went into building the beautiful church where blood was shed at will on Sunday. It tends to turn upside what the bible says of the house of God. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous run into it and is safe.” “Or all those that be in Judea, flee into the mountain.”

    Yet with violence, with the confidence of gun and the casual precision of a mad man, about a dozen lives peter out. The story of rival gangs is still in the air. But the mere fact that it fills the imagination tells us how violence and drugs have been associated with the temple of the Almighty.

    But more potent in this story is filthy lucre.

    The story is rife that the big guns whose source of money beggars the mind helped build the church. Perhaps if we investigate the money that churches have used to build pulpits and foundations around the country, we will know that God has no hand in them. Purer are the days of David when God forbids him to build his temple because his hands are soaked in blood. David did not do drugs, but he fought war for his people, God’s people. Yet it disqualified him to build a temple.

    The Ozubulu story invokes filthy lucre of distorted glamour. Ethnic entrepreneur Nnamdi Kanu wanted to turn it into a nationalist affair by blaming it on Herdsmen. Biafra is too pure to infect the church or kill fellow Biafrans. His story did not gel even among his followers.

    But the case of the suicide bombers and ritualists tell us how poverty leads to overthrow of the purity of the spirit. The use of small boys and girls in the northeast dates back to poor governance. Boko Haram evolved with hooves of blood. Yusuf was killed, but he had built an alternative society. He gave them bread, shelter and clothing. He gave them brides and grooms, he gave hope when society reeled with fear and failure.

    The successive bad administration created it because they had government. One of the past governors, Sherriff who just lost out in PDP, once boasted that the media wasted its time reporting anomie in his enclave. His people could not read. Hence Boko Haram rose in blood and cruel belief.

    The people had no jobs and they had no skills. Current Borno Governor Kashim Shettima is, with focus and collaboration, confronting the task of rescuing a society from a generation in the sewer.

    The ritualists are also taking advantage of a society lost to fear. Where there is no prosperity, mischief reigns.

    It is a story of faith without work, not faith without works. Both work and works are singular. Faith without works means, faith with adherence to the higher ideals of love, hard work, honesty, etc. Faith without work is materialist. It is about bread and butter. So, if in Apostle James’ inspired words, faith without works is dead, in Nigeria today, faith without work is deaths. Deaths from suicide bombers. Deaths from ritualists. Deaths in Ozubulu. It is a travesty of the lofty ideal. Philosopher Hume saw it when he said, “the corruption of the best produces the worst.”

    At the root of the intersection of religion and violence is bread and butter. The biggest religious conflicts in history, The Crusades, had economic calculations of territory and power, other than the so-called argument of the profanation of holy lands by infidels. In his novel, The Interpreters, Soyinka proclaims that religion is the “justification of existence.” It is a way of asserting the right to be free. The ritualist wants to be free to be ritualist, as Boko Haram wants to be free to impose its weird Islamic cosmology. With thinking like this, philosopher Isaiah Berlin warned that the twentieth century was complicating the definition of freedom.

    But religion has never been free from commerce. Hence Churches preach bread and butter more than the spirit of joy and the blessedness of love. We don’t see the Babalawo today as a spiritual vanguard as older society consecrated them. They now carry the strokes of woe. Islamic clerics can tell you how to snatch that husband or overthrow that contractor.  Max Weber, the sociologist, argued that the most religious societies tended to be the most mercantilist, a point he suggested in his opus, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. John Calvin who led the Calvinists to God and profit, became Weber’s ballast of proof.

    If Nigeria is a religious society, it should learn to distinguish between worship of values and money. That is what makes a society great. At this moment, God has been submerged under mammon. So, we need faith with both works and work.

     

    Boko Haram by cocaine

    Yale University co-conducted a recent study about how children and juveniles hide bombs in hijab and detonate them in public places. That report is out of date. The young ones don’t even care to wear hijabs to kill. Their masters cleverly strap the device around their waists and torsos. But more striking from my investigation is that the Boko Haram goons inject the boys and girls with heroin and cocaine. They drop them off in strategic locations, like schools or markets, and the innocents walk under the narcotic influence until the bombs go off.

    I hear the security forces are now looking for ways to undercut this tragic new innovation in cruelty.

     

    The cycle

    Last week, I mused over the cycle of life when I addressed a group of young writers in Ibadan and attended a funeral for the mother of Governor Rauf Aregbesola in Ilesa. All in one day.

    I was to address the students and quickly be on my way to Osun State. The event, called Young Writers Summit, was spearheaded as a labour of love by Victor Adejumo-Bello, who rallied students from between age 10 and 17 to write poems, shorts stories, plays and essays. Over 70 finalists emerged from about 400 participants. Many adults, including teachers and parents, attended.

    I was plied with many questions, and I knew I could not make it in good time to Ilesa. I chastened myself with an epiphany. I was addressing those who had just begun a life journey. They wanted to be tomorrow’s stars. In Ilesa, I was going to a woman who had just ended hers, and she also had left us a star in Aregbesola.

    I recalled my recent visits to some of his schools where the feeding programmes and facilities, et al, were making stars. I eventually arrived in Ilesa, the event almost over. But I had placed my foot in both, the beginning with student-writers, and the end with departed beloved, who had sown a seed in a son, who is sowing seeds in his state.

     

  • IGP IDRIS came calling

    IGP IDRIS came calling

    IGP Ibrahim Idris is a lean, agile and ebullient spirit. He beamed with these qualities as he walked into The Nation newspaper’s boardroom last week. With him were a deputy inspector general of police, about six commissioners of police and other top officers. It was billed as a brief visit to The Nation’s editors. Articulate and engaged, he reeled out his vision and accomplishments. The felling of kingpin Evans, the clipping of Badoo, the multiple arrests of robbers on Kaduna-Abuja express way et al.

    I appreciated all these but I pointed out my worries: Why Yerima Shettima of the Arewa Youths Forum and IPOB’s Nnamdi Kanu have not been arrested in spite of the official line. He delved into a delicate explanation of consultations and how the acting president was leveraging meetings at the National Security Council to keep peace. I followed up and asked if we were sacrificing the law for peace. A tricky proposition.  He said both men exercised their right of freedom of expression. I countered that there was a difference between freedom of expression and incitement. We did not agree there, especially when one of the officers said words alone cannot mean incitement in law. All law dictionaries I consulted defines incite as to “rouse”, or “instigate.” As I noted, you don’t need a gun or dagger to incite. Words are even more potent. Radio Biafra is words. Solomon said, life and death is in the power of the tongue.

    He also responded to the state police issue, and he referred to a lecture last week, in which he said, by consensus, all agreed that Nigeria was not ripe for state police. When shall we be ripe? Asked columnist Kunle Abimbola. The IGP replied as an example that no state organised local government elections and lost. I wanted to intervene, but Lagos CP Owoseni and others indicated they were about to leave.

    Two points. One, alpha Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was a contrarian voice at the lecture and backed state police, listing his obvious scores. So, the claim that it was a consensus was not correct. Those who stood against state police  at  the lecture were beneficiaries from the centre, including former military officers and some traditional rulers. One Professor Etannibi Alemika, who delivered the lecture, said we were not ripe for state police in tendentious logic. Some professors ought to be thought how to research.

    I only wanted to ask the IGP: is Nigeria ripe for federal police, with Badoo, kidnapping, Boko Haram, robberies and even election violence? If we want federalism, it’s state police. Unless we don’t want federalism.

    On the whole, I admired IGP Idris for his imagination and drive. He also is trying to introduce marine police and emulate police trust fund that Lagos, Nigeria’s fount of progress, has set in motion.

  • ‘We have a story to tell’

    We have a story to tell.”  It was a defining statement about the place of Yoruba culture and religion, also known as Orisa tradition, in a global village of multiple cultures and multiple faiths. Prof Wande Abimbola, a retired academic, distinguished Yoruba culture promoter and Ifa priest, proudly promoted the Yoruba essence during an interactive session at the 10th Orisa World Congress held at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Osun State, in July 2013.

    It is noteworthy that Yoruba religion is recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which in 2005 added the Ifa Divination system to its list of the “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”

    Among the highpoints of the congress was the declaration by the then  Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade,  who was the community’s revered traditional ruler and Grand Patron of the Orisa tradition and religion, that July and August will be celebrated as “Yoruba cultural months” from the following  year. “I implore all descendants of Oduduwa to return home every year during these months to celebrate our culture and religion,” he said, at the opening ceremony of the congress at Oduduwa Hall, OAU.  Oduduwa, regarded as the progenitor of the Yoruba people, is artistically represented by an imposing wooden sculpture carved by Lamidi Olonade Fakeye, which Sijuwade unveiled at the front of the university theatre in 1987.

    Sijuwade, who died in 2015, launched the “Yoruba cultural months,” saying:  ”All my children in Nigeria, Benin Republic, Togo Republic, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Sudan, invite all lovers of Yoruba culture to the homeland during the months of July and August. Celebrate the values, virtues and treasures of our towns and cities. Hold public events, conventions and activities that showcase the invaluable riches of Yoruba culture and religion. These are the treasures that have made Yoruba culture and religion a global heritage of humanity.”

    It is August. It is time for the Osun-Osogbo Festival, Nigeria’s pre-eminent traditional religious festival, which draws a high number of domestic and foreign tourists. The site of this star tourist attraction, the Osun-Osogbo Grove, was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2005.

    Who was Osun?  This is a picture: “Oral tradition has it that Ore (daughter of one Elekole in Ekiti-land) was the mother of Osun; hence the saying ‘Greetings to Ore, the mother of Osun’. Osun was born at Ijimu, was the youngest of the three wives of Sango-the god of thunder. Oba (from Iwo) and Oya (from Ira) were his other wives. Sango was by this time the Alafin of Oyo. Though Oya was the eldest of the wives, Osun was in fact the real apple of Sango’s eye. As a result of a fight that ensued between Osun and Oba, both wives were divorced. Osun left Oyo only to marry Larooye at Osogbo.

    There are two distinguishing features in the character of Osun as a person. First, her knowledge of the use of herbs was renowned throughout Yoruba land. As a matter of fact, she was the only person in her time that really mastered the systematic manipulations and technical formulations connected with the use of Osanyin (god of knowledge) to achieve her various objectives. This knowledge she used to the best advantages of the people of Osogbo. The banks of the river became her centre of activities as her name became associated with the spirit of the river and its sacred water. Larooye and Osun brought sacrifices to the river and a large fish (Osun’s messenger) appeared and spat some water into Larooye’s hands. This sacred water was said to have healing power including the power of making barren women fertile. Larooye was then given the title ‘Ataoja’ which is a contraction of ‘A tewo gba eja’ (one who stretches his hand to receive fish). His town became known as ‘Osogbo’ (the habitation of wizards), which was a manifestation of the wonderful works of medicine constantly being undertaken by Osun (Larooye’s wife). It is quite a possibility that whenever the river overflowed its banks, Osun usually made sacrifices to appease the goddess of the river. This appeasement, now known as the ‘Osun Festival’ eventually developed into an annual ceremony, which today is observed by sons and daughters of Osogbo during the month of August.” – Tourism in Osun State of Nigeria – (Osun State Tourism Board)

    It is August. It is time for this year’s World Sango Festival at the palace of the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III. On the final day of the 10-day festival, which is expected to attract tourists, the people will “assemble in Koso and wait eagerly for the arrival of the Elegun-Koso representing the ancestral spirit of Sango.”

    Who was Sango? This is a picture:  ”Sango’s life was so filled with terrible battles and surprising victories that his subjects and enemies alike credited him with supernatural powers. Sango died in the prime of his life. One of the supernatural powers which he claimed himself was the power to make lightning. According to Oyo traditions, while demonstrating this power to his chiefs and courtiers one day, he accidentally burnt down the palace. Either out of embarrassment or out of fear of his subjects, he took his own life. But his people, out of gratitude for all he had done for their kingdom, deified him, giving his name to the god of thunder and lightning and set up shrines and rituals for his worship. The cult of Sango became the special cult of Oyo-Ile kings, unlike in most Yoruba kingdoms where the cult of Ogun (god of iron and war) was the royal cult.” – (A History of the Yoruba People – Adebanji Akintoye)

    As Abimbola observed, “We have a story to tell.”

  • #89

    #89

    All along we were waiting for that part of the story, even if we did not know it. The Jonathan-era larceny has given us a plate nearly full. Billions of Naira, and even dollars, entertained us with characters who carted them away. Or allegedly.

    An ex-soldier started the tale. Many followed: political impresarios, media moguls, business men, priests, princes and kings, professionals, known con men. Showmen and maestros. Bureaucrats who burrowed deep. The prude and prudent. The hustler who shuttled between government and banks. The bankers and the damned. The lawyers and the lawless. Even a vixen who preened like one who never tasted pepper in her life. The story was full, it seemed. Everyone and every part of society had come to judgment. If the war on corruption was to gain traction, then all of us must plead guilty.

    Not the common man, until No 89. That was the address of infamy. Where Jonathan once lived, and abandoned. He tenanted not humans, but things. Choice TVs, bags of clothes, refrigerators etc. for close to a year, it seems, no Jonathan came close.

    So, one by one, the items left. Neighbours might have seen the men take them away. They might have thought the former president was moving house, after being moved out of Aso Rock. Eventually, he knew of it. About a year and a half afterwards.

    Odd though was the almost lack of universal sympathy for the man who lost gems. After we have had the stories of the Dasukis, the Diezanis, et al. It was time for the common man. So, to Jonathan’s tent, sorry, palace they came.  It was time to steal from the thief. That is, “thief thief thief” in pidgin English.

    This is a cynical view. No investigation has brought up Jonathan’s name. PMB had sworn that he had nothing to fear. But many Nigerians would not hear that. If the money was stolen on his watch, he was the fountain head. The fish, as they say, stink from the head down.

    The people may not back stealing in principle, except as revenge against a “thief.” They might have thought, why is he keeping six television sets when the common man has to join a crowd of oglers on roadsides to see Messi La Liga or the smoky romances of Zee World.

    The culprits were promptly arrested and fired. The justice was instant. The crime was grievous. But they did not steal a billion. They sold them for cheap. It might have helped to pay rents, school fees, sponsor naming ceremonies. So, it might have been big deal to the thieves.

    Well, so how was it that it took just days to convict these guys? Former governors, CEOs, ministers, senators enjoy the luxurious rigmarole of the law, playing with procedures and postponements. “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office,” noted Aesop.

    Corruption has come full cycle. The poor can no longer claim that the Jonathan era – impunity was a class matter.  The pauper has acted like the prince. It does not exonerate them that they stole for thousands while the upper class heaved billions. “The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal,” remarked the great Jimmy Breslin.

    When the guards stayed at #89, they saw things, too. They did not see the owner, but property. It represented oppression. Jonathan had a lot that he did not need. They had nothing by comparison. They protected the property, but who cared for them. The big house, its rooms, its fancy stuff symbolised tyranny and alienation.

    Yet, when they sold the properties at Tipper Garage market, Abuja, everyone knew but no one reported. The seller and buyer enjoyed the deals. When they bought the bowler hat, they had become President Jonathan walking on Eagles Square; or in babanriga, they became Jonathan on the hustings in Kano dancing azonto; or when they had the Ankara they were Jonathan, head bowed, in a Yoruba palace receiving blessing from monarchs for blessings they had received themselves from him.

    They saw it as stolen property. They followed the words of French anarchist Pierre Proudhon declared that “property is theft.”

    Again, it warns our smug leaders that the poor are looking to get back at their leaders. It may not be a revolution, but something more cynical. The rash of kidnapping, robberies, even the so-called separatist tension in the country are ways to channelling lower-class frustrations. Jonathan’s men acted and had their comeuppance.

    But the common man makes the guards into heroes.  The people’s mind has never criminalised those who steal from the rich. When Oliver Cromwell overthrew Charles 1, he sold orbs and sceptre in England. When they were replaced at the royal restoration, a crook named Thomas Blood attempted to steal the crown jewels. Yet, he received royal pardon. It did not matter that his epitaph partly read, “And let’s rejoice that his time has come to die.”

    Like the royal pardon, our people hail the thieves of #89. And it should worry us.

  • Kalu and Arewa youths

    A joint press conference was last week addressed by former Abia State governor, Orji Kalu and a delegation of Arewa youths led by Shettima Yerima. It was the outcome of a meeting between Kalu and the group on how to douse the tension generated by the notice issued to the Igbo to quit the north by October 1.

    The meeting which was at the instance of Kalu, was part of his personal contributions to the peace-building process in the country following the tension generated by hate speeches especially since the Arewa youths came out with their threat. Kalu is within his rights to show concern to the potent danger which that unfortunate order poses to the peace and unity of the country. It is also in keeping with peace initiatives by acting President, Yemi Osinbajo and other well meaning people of this country.

    As a key figure in Igboland, Kalu should be very concerned about what the order portends for his people should the Arewa youths make good their threat to quit them from the north and confiscate their properties. They had while issuing the threat, ordered commencement of inventory of all properties owned by the Igbo in the north possibly to appropriate them albeit, illegally. Should they make good their threat, the Igbo and possibly other southerners in the north are bound to suffer immeasurably. It could also come with deleterious consequences for the continued existence of this country.

    So Kalu is in a good stead to engage the youths especially if they will listen to him as their meeting appeared to have shown. Who knows where the saviour will come from?  But his intervention should be rightly seen as his personal contribution to the raging discussions on how to get the nation out of its current impasse. He is entitled to it more so in a democracy. That is the much credit that can be ascribed to that parley for now.

    From the utterances of Yerima, it would seem the parley achieved a direct opposite result. It struck at once, as a counterproductive engagement. The erroneous impression conveyed was that the meeting centred round a plea to the so-called coalition of Arewa youths to rescind their threat to quit the Igbo by the threatened deadline. And if one may ask, is it in the place of those threatened to go cap in hand begging a faceless group not to resort to lawlessness in appropriating challenges to the Nigerian state that are clearly outside their competences? Are we not according undue recognition to that group and their resort to lawlessness in addressing perceived grievances even when they are yet to demonstrate how the subject matter solely affects them?

    At a time people are still at a loss as to why Yerima is still walking the streets free despite the order to arrest him by Kaduna State governor for his incendiary statements, it is an irony of sorts that we are now playing host to such a character. No doubt, Yerima and his co-travellers committed a grave offence against the peace and unity of the country. If Kalu had met with them in private and confined their discussions as a personal affair, nobody would have bothered.

    But to have organized a joint press conference whose outcome ended up massaging the ego of Yerima, amounts to an insult to the sensibility of the Igbo he unfairly disparaged in that ill-fated outing. He neither sounded conciliatory but rather displayed such arrogance that suggests the fate of the Igbo in the north is in his hands. He was neither remorseful nor did he sound sufficiently reconciliatory. And one begins to wonder if his posturing at that press conference was a true reflection of the outcome of their discussions with Kalu.

    Hear him, “I do not remember specifically saying we are going to finally withdraw the quit notice. No certainly not. But you can be rest assured that those who believe in Nigeria should remain where they are and be assured of their safety. But to those who don’t believe in Nigeria, we cannot guarantee their safety”. If this was the outcome of the meeting, it is better it never held.

    If Kalu acquiesced to the joint press conference with the hope that his intervention has yielded positive result, he must have been shocked by the pigheadedness and arrogance of Yerima as clearly shown above. Kalu must have felt sufficiently embarrassed by the rant of Yerima that he had to advise southerners living in the north not to entertain any fear about their safety. The advice is a clear indication that nothing was achieved and southerners needed to be reassured about their safety in the north. But that changes nothing as Yerima has said unequivocally that those dubbed non believers in Nigeria are at grave risk in the north.

    One then begins to wonder what that press conference was intended to achieve. It struck as another window for Yerima to reinforce his earlier threat. If he needed to reinforce that threat, it was patently inappropriate to use a forum provided by an Igbo leader to do that. He has told everybody that his group will not guarantee the safety of those who do not believe in Nigeria. That should not be treated with levity. It is a reinforcement of the earlier threat and he may have been emboldened by the inability of the security agencies to bring him to book just as they did to Nnamdi Kanu whose activities Yerima and his group are seemingly protesting.

    We have had all manner of rationalization as to why Yerima and his co-travellers have not been arrested. We have been treated to all manner of theories on how to de-escalate the tension in the land and how further arrests would not serve the best interest of this nation at the moment. That can as well be. But we are yet to be told the effect of such a standpoint in reining in purveyors of hate speeches and division. And as we have seen, such a posturing has had the net effect of emboldening the likes of Yerima to carry on as if they are above the law.

    Yerima said his group will not guarantee the safety of those who do not believe in Nigeria. By interpolation, at the expiry of his deadline, Arewa youths will set the machinery in motion to sieve those who believe in Nigeria from those who do not. Perhaps, after that exercise, they will now sack the non believers from the north and confiscate their property. There could be other consequences since he talked of their inability to guarantee the safety of the latter.

    The first problem with this posturing lies in the propriety of the powers they intend to exercise. On whose behalf and under whose authority does the group intend to appropriate the powers to begin the questionable voyage into sieving believers and non believers in Nigeria? What right if any do they have to dabble into such normative questions? And what are the parameters for such a nebulous engagement?

    It can therefore be discerned from the inherent contradictions in these posers that the Yerima-led group is a bunch of confused people who do not need to be dignified they way Kalu did. This is Yerima who boasted soon after the ill-fated Kaduna outing that his image in the north soured after his threat order. Will he not see this as another evidence of his revved up image?

    Yerima is looking for cheap popularity and if he must get it, it is not for those he threatened and abused to provide him that platform. It is not for the Igbo to dissuade the Arewa group from sacking them and taking advantage of their property. If they intend carrying out their order, it is for them to determine. You cannot threaten to take what rightly belongs to me as a citizen and I go on my knees to beg you not to do so. No! It cannot go that way.

    Kalu may not have foreseen these contradictions. But, that is where the situation has now left us especially given the arrogance and non conciliatory posturing of the character that he had in audience. If he must continue in this direction, then he should open new windows of discussion with his contemporaries and other leaders in the north whom Yerima and his group are drawing strength from. But the issues are so weighty and fundamental to be handled single-handedly.

  • Restructuring fever

    It seems everyone in Nigeria is talking about restructuring these days, as if it is a silver bullet to end all contentions and achieve the ultimate synthesis.  The Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum,   Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, captured the various campaigners and the range of the campaigns: “We have witnessed in the last few months, all manner of political agitations, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. While some arguably more moderate and mature voices have advocated for the scrapping of the 1999 Constitution and a return to the 1963 Republican Constitution with its emphasis on regionalism, others have called for the practice of “true” or “fiscal’ federalism. Yet another group is aggressively seeking to commit the nation to adopt the Report of the 2014 Constitutional Conference as the authoritative basis for discussing restructuring, while at the extreme end of the scale, we have the champions of a separatist agenda who are hell-bent on balkanising the country.”

    Interestingly, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said the Federal Government was following the nationwide fever: “We are looking at all contributions made by Nigerians across the country. Very soon we will come out with policies to address the call for restructuring of the country.” It is noteworthy that the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), on July 19 formed a nine-member committee headed by Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State to come up with a response to the issue.

    It is striking that another committee was created on July 28 by the 19 Northern states “to collate the views and comments of the people of the Northwest, North-central and Northeast ahead of any conference on the restructuring.” This committee is headed by Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State.

    As things stand, it is predictable that there will be other committees on the restructuring controversy set up by other groups to take a position on the increasingly divisive subject.    In the storm, there are many loud voices that seem to miss the point. For instance, the former APC Interim National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, said:  ”The 1999 Constitution is Nigeria’s greatest misadventure since Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914. The constitution puts emphasis on spending rather than making money, thereby intensifying the battles for supremacy between the legislature and the executive while the judiciary is being corruptly tainted and discredited. The constitution breeds and protects corrupt practices and criminal impunities in governance. The 1999 Constitution can never be beneficially reviewed and the ongoing piecemeal adjustments or amendments can only totally blot the essence of national values and accelerate the de-amalgamation of Nigeria. All the angels coming from heavens cannot make that constitution work for the progress of Nigeria. It should only be scrapped as bad relics of military mentality; and it ought to be temporarily replaced with the 1963 Republican Constitution to enable a transition for the writing of a suitable constitution.”

    Taking the same path, the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) argued: “A constitution that virtually neutralises the local government system, which is the nearest to the people has invariably consigned the people to irrelevance and put development at the grassroots in reverse gear. A constitution and system of government that continue to explore natural resources to enrich the ruling class at the expense of the people cannot endure. This constitution compels corruption. Our country is presently confronted with daunting challenges of increasing youth unemployment, which is fueling insecurity, kidnapping, armed robbery and separatist agitations. These challenges clearly show that Nigeria’s problems are foundational and structural, therefore, constitutional. Unending piecemeal amendments of the 1999 Constitution cannot work. It will merely be postponing the doomsday. The constitution must be discarded, and the 1963 Constitution and the resolutions of the 2014 National Conference should be used as a template for a new ground rule, which will be submitted to the people in a referendum.”

    Arguments for restructuring the country in specific ways tend to downplay perhaps the most fundamental requirement for reform, which is the human factor. It goes without saying that no constitution is self-operating, meaning all constitutions depend on operators for success or failure. This reality is so real that any argument for restructuring that fails to take cognisance of it is so unreal.

    The country’s political evolution shows that the constitution may not be the most problematic problem. When those empowered to operate the constitution use their powers to cripple the constitution, the resultant failure cannot be the fault of the constitution.

    The people may well have issues with the current constitution because there will always be constitutional issues needing resolution; but there will always be further issues to resolve after resolution. A constitution is necessarily work in progress because of social dynamism. It is a contradiction to have an unchanging and unchangeable constitution in a changing and changeable social context. Any restructuring of the country must, therefore, be informed by the reality of contextual changeability.

    It is easy to identify the critical importance of the human factor in the operation of the country’s constitution; it is difficult to make the human operators of the constitution do so with utmost good faith. In the final analysis, the kind of restructuring that will advance the country’s interest is an ethical question.

    There is a tragic aspect of the restructuring debate, which is that it represents a primary moral failure. Without sounding romantic, the ultimate restructuring must happen in the mind. It is obvious that the mind is where the unprogressive operation of the constitution begins, and the mind is where it will end.

    Restructuring became a hot front-burner issue on account of unprogressive governance, meaning that if the country’s political operators got governance right the idea of restructuring that is spreading like a dangerous fever would perhaps not have been presented so explosively.

    The questions are: If the constitution is operated with good faith, and that is possible, will the grounds for extensive restructuring still exist? Is the elevation of form over content, which the restructuring debate implies, a necessary condition for progress? Is the moral content of political leadership in Nigeria irrelevant to the campaign for restructuring?

  • The untouchables

    The untouchables

    When we are lucky not to fall in the forbidden group, we don’t count ourselves lucky. When we are not Osu in Igboland, we see ourselves as privileged. When we are not black or Hispanic or any minority in the United States, we swagger on hilltops. When we are educated Hausa-Fulani, we feel entitled. Our footwork soft-pedals, carriage regal, voice like petals.

    The victims or rebels think the privileged groups hold them in contempt. Those who know understand that fear is the volcanic force. Zealots have fears in their eyes. Dictators kill as a way to postpone their own suicide. Boko haram is in terror of learning.

    In the political arena, we are witnessing such palpitation. Our new version of anxiety helps us track how taboos begin. They are ethnic entrepreneur Nnamdi Kanu and his hysterical Biafra goons, Yerima Shettima and his incarnation of privileged preening, and the question of restructuring and how everyone knows where it is but no one pays a visit.

    We act as though they are not here. The big elephant strides and crushes, but we look the other way. For instance, the law frowns at the hectoring of Yerima Shettima and his threat to oust Igbos from the north. Governors and the top cop swiped back and called for arrests. The perpetrators don’t hide. The law sees but does not pursue them.

    We fear the lawless among us. We condemn in flowery rhetoric, flaunt the inviolability of the rule of law, and yet the perpetrators swank and huff about. The reason no one wants to touch a Shettima or his youth buddies is simple. They belong to a privileged class, from the vortex of power. So, we have a group of haters. Paradoxically, their taboo status bears a warped justification. Kanu and company say they want to leave. The Shettima boys open the door. Kanu’s kinsmen back a cowardly retreat and call them subverts. Who wants to eat a cake and have it?

    The distorted logic of a Shettima finds traction in the self-contradiction of the Igbo separatists. Against the law of gravity and motion, they want to leave, and they want to stay. No courage to state in a clear-head sentence the logic of their position. It’s like the quote from Charlotte Bronte in her famous novel, Jane Eyre. She said, “I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.” If ethnic entrepreneur Kanu sees his group as a sort of caste, he and his group should congratulate Shettima.

    IPOB and its cohorts have lionised Shettima by their lack of coherence. Kanu is an opportunist who has flattered the secret hopes of the Igbos who want a better deal. Kanu is not the deal maker they want. But it is the one they have got. The Igbo seek a symphony but a croaky voice steps up, violates the rhythms and lyrics, but they dance anyway. I recently called Biafra a corpse. Its supporters, bright-eyed and ecstatic, are still copulating with the bloodless beauty in a midnight dance ringed by sparks of fire.

    The same Kanu who does not understand the meaning of confederation? In a recent article where I pointed this out, a barrage of ignorant vitriol responded that he was being pragmatic. You don’t play pragmatism by compromising the basic principle of your struggle. Ghandhi, De Gaulle, Mandela, Lincoln, Nyerere, Churchill didn’t. Biafra flies in the face of confederation. Since my criticism, the former London vagrant and now peacock, has backed away from his assertion of confederation.

    So, Kanu and IPOB also belong to the group of untouchables, especially in the east. The governors joined the crowd that called for his release when under detention. Now, they are his targets. A Frankenstein monster. His Biafra Radio has taken on Imo State governor with a raft of allegations   that are unprintable. Rochas Okorocha must have been gratified that some groups countered the ethnic entrepreneur’s rally under his nose.

    But the untouchable Kanu has defied the court. He is doing virtually everything the judge forbade him. He is stirring the pot. No one knows what to do from the presidency to the police to the Igbo elite. Some of the Igbo elite are trying to play harlot, be Nigerian or what the zealot calls a zoo, or be Biafran and belong there. He is openly calling for Anambrans to pooh-pooh the upcoming governor poll. He wants a referendum that he will lose in Niger Delta. That makes him an imperialist who is fighting against imperialism. He knows a Biafra of only Igboland will be a landlocked, kwashiorkor-festered, fishless and meatless deadlock with only the Bight, shall I say bite, of Biafra for succour and water. Remember the civil war?

    The other untouchable is the question of restructuring. The Senate, under Bukola “Eleyinmi” Saraki ran away like a rat that sighted a cat. They fled from voting in favour of devolution of power to states and the issue of lands. Alpha governor Akinwunmi Ambode recently called for return of Lagos assets. Federalism thrives when its parts are free. The centre chokes its parts. The Senate’s failure reflects the fear of our true federalism. No one wants to touch it, but stalks us, fuelling opportunisms like Kanu and idiocy of Shettima and his youth group.

    APC set up a committee under a governor who mocked it. The fish is under the cat’s care. Northern Governor’s Forum also has set up its committee.  Will the committees fit Charles Kettering’s view that Fred Allen who defined it as “a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.” Or shall we applaud Ross Perot’s: “if you see a snake, just kill it – don’t appoint a committee.”

    What we are witnessing is the impunity of the untouchables and a nation still at peace with living a lie. Pakistani playwright Ayad Akhtar’s play, Disgraced, shows how truth has to come up for air when a people lie against themselves. The Pulitzer Prize winning play shows how a man who wants to deny his ethnic truth eventually faces the truth in a dinner. We have to deal with the truth around us. We cannot deny the phony cries of the untouchables. They are phony because as a people we are also phony. We are a bastard nation breeding bastard sons, like IPOB and Arewa Youth Consultative Forum. There is a pain but the wrong men are wailing.

  • Buhari’s health

    I mused over the new health mecca to London to see President Buhari and wondered whether whoever organised it thought it through. Over a dozen governors and ministers have undertaken this pilgrimage, and I thought of how much progress we could have made if all the money spent there were converted to pay medical bills at home. The governors who went might have gone out of obligation. They know how much that money can do, if they convert it to drugs for those suffering from typhoid fever or malaria. The airfare alone would amount to not less than N50 million for all of them. Hotels may gulp another N50 million. Governors don’t travel alone. It takes barely N20K to heal a case of malaria or Typhoid. Many Nigerians turn back from hospitals because they would rather spend that money on food or their kids’ school fees if they can afford it.

    Did the organisers think by telling the governors how well Buhari is, all questions will seize? Haba!

    So, a few governors went, and others occluded. So, are we saying because Fayose lambasts the president, Ekiti people have no right to know if the president is well? We can save all these if Buhari and his men are not tech Neanderthals. Could he not have appeared to us all on Skype, and other media. The problem was the fear or contempt of not updating on the nature and state of the health from the beginning. Again, we are tired of the word “soon.” Kalu, the first lady, Okorocha have used the word “soon” since. It will soon become outdated. The President shouldn’t have laughed at those carrying rumours about his condition. They are only doing what humans do in the absence of facts: they filled the void.

  • Monsters we create

    Those conversant with the high wire politics surrounding emerging agitations to tinker with the structure of this country would have smelt a rat in recent calls by governors for the creation of state police. Not that the calls detracted substantially from the salient issues to restructuring.  No!

    Rising from a meeting with the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the governors set up a six man committee to give effect to their decision. The committee is to meet urgently with the acting President to facilitate the setting up of state police.

    It is to be admitted that some of the governors including those of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC had lent their support to restructuring. But the seeming indecent haste with which they are rooting for state police in isolation of other potent issues to restructuring is bound to raise genuine suspicion.

    This is more so given that some of the governors in their individual capacities had voiced out strident opposition to the entire idea. Governor Rochas Okorocha was curiously reported to have said that we do not need restructuring but ‘repackaging’. He did not come clear of what he meant by repackaging and its relevance in the wide spectrum of discussions on how to resolve the defective order of our federal contraption together with the serious threats it poses for national unity and progress.

    Perhaps, snippets to what he meant could be gleaned from his reference to repackaging and selling Nigeria to the outside world. In this wise, he could be talking of image re-branding. He may have had in mind Nigeria’s image deficits outside. Through repackaging, he seeks to polish the nation’s image for marketability. He sees a new brand image for Nigeria as the issue. It remains to be conjectured how that proposition fits into discussions on true federalism, devolution of powers or the demand of the governors for state police. They do not relate in any way.

    If we had no need for restructuring as he would make us believe, the governors would not have seen anything wrong in the extant structure of the Nigerian police institution. We could as well go on with business as usual. But by rooting for state police, they have ipso facto, admitted that there are issues to the organization of the Nigerian federation that needed to be addressed.

    The demand for state police has been in public domain for some time now. So there is nothing new in the position of the governors. In fact, one of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference which well meaning people have been canvassing for implementation is the issue of state police.

    It was clearly addressed by that document which this government and some leaders have refused to give hearing hiding under some nebulous reasons. If the governors are now seeing reason in the state police idea, it then means there are recommendations in that document that will benefit the people of this country.

    But that is beside the point. The creation of state police has been a recurring decimal in all discussions on restructuring. When former military president, Ibrahim Babangida lent his weight to the inevitability of restructuring, it was one of the issues he copiously canvassed. His views, though popular and well taken did not find favour in sections that prefer the status quo even when it has become a big baggage to the progress of this country.

    Curiously some of the governors that have opposed restructuring are now in the vanguard of institutionalizing state police through the back door. They want to isolate state police from the fundamental restructuring of the polity. They would meet with the acting President to perhaps facilitate its creation through constitutional amendment.

    Though a good idea, it is beginning to appear that the governors want state police for reasons that are less than ennobling. Before now, there have been suggestions that Nigeria is not ripe for state police. One of the points raised is the fear by governors to put state police to partisan advantage. That fear is real. It would appear the interest of the governors has more to do with the advantage it would confer on them especially in dealing with opponents during elections.

    That is not to say that we should continue with extant structure of the Nigerian Police. No! We need to restructure the federal order. We need power devolution, fiscal federalism. We need to whittle down the omnipresence and omnipotence of the federal government in virtually any and every thing. It is a package of structural changes for efficiency which state police is just an integral part. There has to be a holistic perspective to the entire idea. That is the only way it can make sense. Sadly, the National Assembly displayed crass insensitivity to public opinion on the issue when it voted against power devolution just last week.

    Though the APC manifesto captured restructuring, we have since been inundated with discordant tunes on the matter. Even when governors elected on that platform came out clearly to support structural changes, some of its leaders and governors have had to hold dissenting views. Apparently worried by the seeming lack of agreement within the ruling party, they have set up a committee to come up with their own interpretation of what restructuring connotes.

    The committee which is chaired by Kaduna State governor, Nasir EL-Rufai is “mainly to define exactly what APC means by restructuring so that every member will know exactly what we mean. What we are talking about is a committee to articulate what the APC meant by restructuring”, its national publicity secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi said.

    By this, the impression being conveyed is that there is some ambiguity in the position of the party as encapsulated in its manifesto. But when this is juxtaposed against the explicit wordings of that manifesto, one will be at a loss as to what there is again to define because the manifesto’s position on the issue is unambiguous.

    The APC manifesto promised among others to: “initiate action to amend our constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true federalism and the federal spirit. Restructure government for a leaner, more efficient and adequately compensated public service”.

    It promised further to initiate policies to ensure that Nigerians are free to live and work in any part of the country by removing state of origin, tribe, ethnic and religious affiliations and replace those with state of residence.

    Here, we are faced with such key concepts as devolution of powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments. We have a promise to entrench true federalism and the federal spirit. It says it all. It also talks of restructuring government for a leaner, more efficient and adequately compensated public service. If the party achieves these, it would have set the ground for a better nation. Nigerians are better for it. Then, it would have satisfied most of the issues thrown up by agitations for restructuring. Then also, there would be no reason to worry about definitions or constructs that are in the world of abstract.

    Perhaps, the only deviation here is that the party did not explicitly state it was going to restructure the country. But, it will restructure government. The semantic defect in the latter is adequately compensated by the manifesto’s unambiguous position on devolution of powers, true federalism and the federal spirit. There is nothing more to add or delete. At any rate, that was the covenant between that party and the electorate which formed the basis for its victory at the polls.

    Any attempt to subtract from them, will amount to reneging on electoral promises. What is required now is not a committee to define clearly stated objectives but concrete and concerted action to give effect to them. At any rate, definitions in social analysis are rather inconclusive. The APC cannot bring about these changes through administrative fiat. The route to them lies either in constitutional amendments or national dialogue or both where the inputs of other political parties and interest groups must count.

  • Whistleblowers, beware!

    It would be interesting to know what thoughts are going through Abubakar Sani’s mind right now. As a result of a court order, he will be remanded in prison custody till the case in which he is the accused comes up for hearing on November 2, three full months away.

    Sani was arraigned before Justice Aliyu Tukur of the Kaduna State High Court, on July 13, accused of  providing false information and misleading a public officer while on lawful duty. His trial was triggered by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on the grounds that his information had prompted a fruitless raid on the Kaduna residence of former Vice President Namadi Sambo on June 28, by ICPC and Directorate of State Services (DSS) operatives.

    A report said: “Counsel to the commission, Elijah Akaakohol, said the accused had provided the false information to an official of the commission on June 21, 2017. Akaakohol told the court that Sani had claimed to have transported boxes of money in local and foreign currencies from Abuja airport to the house at Ungwan Rimi GRA, Kaduna in 2013, which he suspected to be ill-gotten wealth and still at the house. The counsel added that it was based on the claim that the accused “made officers of the commission to carry out a sting operation that turned out to be false.”

    Interestingly, the report continued: “Sani, who appeared at the court without legal representation, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.”  This may well mean that Sani is unapologetic, which may further mean that he knew what he was talking about when he gave information about alleged hidden ill-gotten wealth to the agency.

    It is noteworthy that Sani reportedly claimed to have participated in moving the said money to the said house. Or could he have lied about this? Why? He should know what he is talking about. Sani would have arrived at a rough idea of what his reward should be like for providing such information.  His calculation would have been informed by the Federal Government’s publicised range of reward for such whistleblowing.

    This is how the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, presented  the whistleblowing aspect of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s anti-corruption strategy for the recovery of stolen public funds: “The whistleblowing policy is a very simple policy through which we encourage Nigerians who have any information about the violation of our rights, commission of a crime, fraud or corruption or any Nigerian who knows where certain money is being held or kept to anonymously contact us. We will protect his or her identity and if the information leads to the recovery of money, he or she will be entitled to 2.5 per cent or 5 per cent of the money recovered.”

    Predictably, Sani must have had huge dreams of a huge monetary entitlement, considering that the information he supplied had to do with alleged boxes of money in local and foreign currencies.

    It is intriguing that there is no defining portrait of Sani. For instance, who is he and what is he? How did he get involved in moving the said money? Was he paid for his role?   If he was, who paid him? How much was he paid? If he wasn’t paid for his role, why wasn’t he paid? Should he have been paid?

    Why did Sani blow the whistle?  This question suggests the possibility that he had a real reason for whistleblowing, meaning a fact-based reason for whistleblowing.  The so-called whistleblowing policy, unprecedented in Nigeria’s political history, presents two choices: To blow or not to blow. It may not be as easy as it sounds.  Where the whistleblower blows the whistle, it reflects a decision that whistleblowing is what to do in the prevailing circumstances, whether in obedience to moral influences or in obedience to less noble influences. Where there is a deliberate decision not to blow the whistle, it may well be that there is no burden of responsibility, and there is no desperation to make easy money.

    Whatever might have been Sani’s spur, what he is going through because of it raises questions about the workings of the whistleblowing policy. In the first place, is there convincing evidence that the information he supplied was contrived? Not finding the said money at the said house doesn’t necessarily mean the money was never there. Also, it doesn’t necessarily mean the money was there at some point but is no longer there.  What it means is that a thorough investigation is necessary to establish whether such money was ever there.

    This particular whistleblowing case is particularly fascinating because it also involves former Vice President Namadi Sambo.  About two weeks before the whistleblower was arraigned, Sambo had issued a statement through his spokesman, which said of the June 28 raid:  ”This raid brings to four the number of times the residence was searched within a period of six months… At the end of the whole exercise, the officers, who carried out the search were satisfied that nothing incriminating was found.”

    It is thought-provoking that the statement described the search as “a fault-finding mission,” adding, “We are apprehensive that a repeat of such episode will not be surprising if an incriminating object is planted in his residence in order to willfully and deliberately incriminate him.”  The suggestion that Sambo may be the target of a frame-up is food for thought.

    About two weeks after Sambo’s statement was publicised, Sani appeared in court, charged with misleading the ICPC by supplying misleading information to the anti-graft agency.  Now that Sani has been exposed as the source of the information that necessitated the search of Sambo’s house, will it make Sambo less fearful of a possible plot against him by the security agencies?

    Considering Sani’s experience, those who want to be whistleblowers at this time need to be sure that the information they provide to anti-corruption agencies is correct and up to date. In other words, they need to provide current information about what they want to expose. So, whistleblowers, beware!