The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Age of innocence

    Age of innocence

    It seems odd to speak of the beginning of an old or modern country in the same sentence with the concept of innocence. A child knows little because he is too little to know. But countries and societies like Nigeria were clear-eyed at birth.

    United States first beat its chest with rhetoric before rumbling into war. Greece muscled itself into being. The Sokoto Caliphate invoked Allah in a jihad of blood and sword. Bismark coalesced troops to build an army with a state. Yet, there is a sense in which a new state is innocent. Not in the sense of a new-born child who screams every other eye awake at 3:17 am, but in the sense of a new-born people, cobbled together to pursue a future that enchants and mystifies simultaneously.

    In justifying why he wrote Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe urged us to return to when the rain started to beat us. Perhaps a good way to look at the convulsion around the country over restructuring. In the melee of voices, few have examined why the centre has become so juicy.

    At independence, the centre was little. The regions boomed. Chief Obafemi Awolowo turned the western region into a model of governance. The east emulated. The north rollicked in its agrarian riches. The regions relished their relative autonomy. Things fell apart later. As columnist Kunle Abimbola noted, the national question took centre stage when IBB suffocated June 12.

    But it was because the Southwest saw it as the inflexion mark signifying that the Yorubas were seen as second fiddle. We have to go a little back in time to understand this. The Richards and Macpherson Constitutions helped with setting the stage for a federal state, so the regions cared for themselves. The centre held because it attracted only a few. More importantly, the centre was perceived as belonging to all.

    Hence after he was done with his work in the Western Region, Awo headed for the centre to run for prime minister. Also by mid-1960’s, the Igbos dominated the civil service. While the Middle Belt had a huge number in the army, the officer corps boasted an array of Igbo soldiers. No surprise that when the coup erupted in January 1966, Igbos headlined the actors.

    Irony that the Southwest is not impressed with the centre these days. So, it hails a return to regionalism. The Igbos who once puffed in the centre have rejuvenated Biafra drum beats. Why?

    It can be traced to a resource that belonged neither to the east or west: oil. When oil was discovered, the centre was not supposed to get more than 30 per cent of its proceeds. Fifty per cent belonged to the land owners, according to the law based on the Raisman report on derivation revenue.

    What followed was a caliphate coup of oil. With the military takeover, the proceeds came down to 1.5 percent to the oil-bearing areas until Abacha made it 13 per cent. We must blame the regions, East and West, for kowtowing to the greed of oil and abandoning their economic war chests: cocoa in the West, and palm produce in the East and Midwest, and rubber in the Mid-west. So greasy was the North with oil that it slipped out of the groundnut pyramid. If all decided in their indulgence to follow oil, the Northwest decided it was going to dole it out. It had the power of the army to fulfil this destiny. Lewis Obi called it the Caliphate army in the June 12 era.

    In all of this, the minorities counted for almost nothing. It was a great tragedy that canvassers for justice – East and West – also saw the minorities in the Niger Delta as feeding bottles.

    We must understand that the most egregious sin happened when former President OlusegunObasanjo, in his roguish elegance, schemed a minority to the top. Goodluck Jonathan squashed the opportunity. The same minorities and the Southeast missed the opportunity to set the template for a fairer country. Rather, their elites waxed into carpet baggers and continued where the majorities left off. When Jonathan fell, the South-south and Southeast now began to complain about neglect. We must situate in this hypocrisy the rise of an opportunist bumpkin like Nnamdi Kanu.

    So, the centre is oil, and the Northwest elite became the North’s worst. They took the centre by force. The frustration of the East, West and minorities in the centre revved up the decibel of clamour.

    We can see that the Northwest elite is the only region that resists restructuring. The voices of IBB and Lamido Sanusi, who support a structural rethink, are outliers. If we want restructuring, we must compel the Northwest to submit. In his new book: Nigeria: The Restructuring Controversy, former IGP Mike Okiro gathers the main voices on the subject. The Northwest distinguishes itself with an eloquent silence. Unless we hold the Northwest to account, the centre will not hold for all.

    If oil spelt poor governance, ditto the national question. Pre-oil was our age of innocence on both. We are now looking back with anger. Philosopher Albert Camus characterised it thus: “every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.”

    But it is a nostalgia with prejudice. Biafra does not trust Oduduwa does not trust Saifawa, etc. Paul Unongo laments that Awo gave no ear to his plea to create the Middle Belt region during the constitutional conference for independence because he had secured the West. Awo is not around to respond. We are still a babel and until a united front compels the Northwest elite, the clamour may become impotent.

    If we cannot get back our innocence, at least we can work on our prejudices. As the French philosopher Denis Diderot noted, “one makes up for the loss of one’s innocence with the loss of one’s prejudices.” We can’t all lose our prejudices, but we should chasten them to help us work together for a fairer union.

  • Kanu the coward

    Kanu the coward

    An an interview with Kadaria Ahmed, who anchors Channels Television’s The Core, Nnamdi Kanu said two curious things. He said he was for confederation and he no longer wants to fight with arms. First, is he serious? This man peddled incendiary rhetoric asking for guns. Is he not a coward? Confederation means the Southeast is still part of Nigeria. Maybe he has recanted or he does not know political science 101. Kanu showed himself an ethnic entrepreneur, rallying gullible kinsmen to stock his Biafra purse with hard-earned money. He also boasted that he could win a referendum in Rivers State because he rallied a big crowd in Port Harcourt. He should not mistake the Igbos in PH with Ikwerres, Ogonis, Ijaws, Andonis, etc in Rivers. He could rally a big crowd in Ladipo in Lagos as well. This is one delusional conman.

  • For the centre to hold

    We need to tinker with our constitution to accommodate new thoughts that will strengthen our nationality”. This profound contribution from former military president, Ibrahim Babangida is at the heart of the raging debate on how to guarantee a stable and progressive future for this country- a future unencumbered by the searing fission within the polity.

    He shared his thoughts extensively last week following the tension that gripped the country due to intemperate and provocative statements from some groups. Babangida felt the imperative to add his voice to douse the simmering bad blood that could drag this country irretrievably to the brink.

    For him, restructuring has become a “national appeal whose time has come”. He advocated devolution of powers to give more responsibilities to the states while the federal government is vested to oversee foreign policy, defence and the economy. Babangida further called for state police as the current policing framework can no longer match the prevailing level of crime sophistication in our society.

    Before him, other notable Nigerians from across the divide have thrown their weight behind the thinking that re-engineering the Nigerian federal paradigm was a matter of urgent necessity to stave off the increasing recline to primordialism; strengthen its institutions and guarantee a sound future for rapid and unimpeded development.

    Call it true federalism, fiscal federalism, power devolution, restructuring or whatever, the underlying idea is that the current arrangement is largely constrained and a great liability in approximating the ideals for which federalism draws attraction as a suitable governance framework in a heterogeneous society. It is argued that the federal model we operate has not only proved inherently incapable of accelerating rapid economic development but has largely stultified efforts at promoting the necessary attitudes and orientations that conduce for co-habitation and nation building.

    Despite this, some people appear to have sworn not to allow any change. They would not allow new paradigms to supplant old and decadent ones even when the latter are no longer capable of addressing contemporary challenges.  And the nagging issues have remained unresolved with the country paying dearly for it. Not only have we been unable to record meaningful progress within the development matrix, there is now the foreboding prospects of dismembering.

    Surprisingly, despite raging consensus that our development deficits; debilitating corruption and ethno-induced competition are intricately linked to the inherent limitations of our federal contraption, you find leaders who at best, foot drag on this key national challenge. You find leaders overtime unable to muster the necessary political will to activate the processes that will not only position the country on the path to steady progress but more importantly, save it from the disillusionment of the constituent units.

    Where such efforts were activated, (as was with the last National Conference), you find leaders disparaging its vital conclusions on some trite and largely tenuous grounds. And you ask, if we agree there are certain decisions we must inevitably take to strengthen and make our federal project less rancorous, why can’t we go ahead and adopt them irrespective of how they were arrived at? Why do we have to throw away the baby with the bathwater each time far-reaching recommendations are made for constitutional change?

    It is against this background that the position of Babangida and others before him have to be situated. It is not a matter of reminding him of some of his unpopular actions of the past as some are wont to do. Neither is it sufficient to disparage his views because of old prejudices no matter the pains.  The very clear and convincing manner he put across his position cannot but endear him to true lovers of the unity and progress of this country. Democracy the world over is a continuing project subject to constant evolution and debate, adapting to and accommodating emerging developments.

    The problem we face is a result of clinging to old ways and stereotypes even when they are no longer relevant to our situation. We loathe change instead of coming to terms with the reality that nothing is as constant as change. A lot of people have expressed optimism in the capacity of this country to overcome the current pass. It can only do that by listening to the voices of reason.

    Before now, there have been damning predictions about Nigeria becoming a failed state by 2015. Even as that deadline has elapsed, current events indicate we are not yet far from it. That is why we stand a great risk if we ignore the turn of events that still, irredeemably point to the same catastrophic end.

    The National Assembly has come to terms with the need to tinker with the structure of the federation. So also are the APC governors’ forum and their PDP counterparts. The remaining angle is the presidency. We need the position of the executive even as we admit the constraints of the acting president. Fortunately, the campaign manifesto with which Buhari sought for and secured the mandate of the people of this country promised true federalism.

    So it would appear the coast is now clear for the necessary action to seriously address those systemic dysfunctions that have stood against the progress of our federal order. There are extant recommendations the National Assembly can work on without our having to waste much time and resources empanelling another national conference. And the overall good of this country will be better served if they incorporated into the constitution of the country.

    The US ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart Symington’s statement that every time his country faced such challenges “we overcame the danger because we had visionary leaders committed to the union and citizens committed to ensuring justice for all” is very instructive. For him, Nigeria is fortunate to have such leaders and citizens. That is where he missed the point.

    The country is in short supply of visionary leaders committed to the union.  Were it not to be so, we should not have been facing the embarrassing challenge where the right options to our collective progress are not in doubt, yet we continue to falter for reasons that boarder on the parochial and the mundane. You cannot reasonably speak of such a leadership as being committed to the union. Neither is the rehash of such precepts as the unity, indivisibility and non- negotiability of the nation’s sovereignty sufficient indication of commitment to upholding such ideals. Commitment to them would entail the implementation of the relevant policies that will provide the needed ambience for the union to flourish.

    If that condition really exists, we would have been saved the embarrassing reality where the central authority is still in constant competition with primordial cleavages with the latter posing serious danger to the authority of the former. Our deficits in visionary leadership have come with such debilitating disorientations that produced citizens who place self and clannish interests over and above collective good. Such leadership is ill-equipped to ensuring justice for all.

    We are in the present pass because of acts of omission and commission by some of our leaders. Though the prevailing agitations for self-determination and restructuring predated the Buhari regime, they were reinforced and given impetus by the actions and utterances of the regime. Those who ask why the pro-Biafra groups were not that vocal during the regime of Jonathan when they claimed the Igbo held key political positions, can now find the answer. They could as well ask why the agitations and sabotage of the Niger Delta militants were tamed during the regime of Yar’Adua.

    Babangida seemed to have captured this contradiction when said “It is not in the place of leadership to fuel and hype conflicts nor should we allow losers and gainers of our governance regimes to make pronouncements and threats that exploit our ethnic, religious and geopolitical constructs”. The point has been made.

  • Soul of the City

    Soul of the City

    Two things happened in Lagos recently that teach us the value of place. Alpha Governor Akinwunmi Ambode reiterated the need for the federal government to return its properties to the iconic city. In another development, a little controversy was put to death over uprooted monuments to Moshood Abiola and Gani Fawehinmi at the famous Ojota Park.

    What Governor Ambode sought was not merely the monetary value of the properties but the soul of the city. What makes the soul of a city is as much the people, the heroes, the workers in the routine glories of their days, when they work and play. So, when he fought to get the National Stadium the other day, it was not the stadium but the memory. Lagos was taking back its own, when Yakubu Mambo scored the first goal, when Haruna Ilerika made fancy work of the mid field, Segun Odegbami turned mathematical, when we won gold medal as a nation.

    If Lagos gets those properties back, the money only makes sense in the context of its culture. The city is nothing but its past and dreams. New York is the economic capital of the world, but it is nothing without how it grew from a lowly port settlement with its geniuses and workers. Like Lagos, London is nothing without Queen Elizabeth’s exploits, and the tower, Buckingham Palace, the German bombardment, Churchill and its heroics.

    So, Lagos swaggers with such names as Tinubu Square with its independence roots. Now the governor has restored its fountain pride. This brings memory to my childhood days. So also is the memory of Chief MKO Abiola, who roiled for democracy. Abiola risked money for public good to immortalise him. Gani Fawehinmi duelled with the law. He dared the gun, groaned in Gashua prison, defended the weak and poor. Eventually, he died. Writer George Crabbe said even monuments need memorials. Hence Governor Ambode wants to memorialise the monuments by making them bigger and grander. A few already are materialising in public like the headless ardour of Abami Eda, Fela Kuti.

    “Monuments, like men, submit to fate,” wrote poet Alexander Pope. Governor Ambode giving new fate to the monuments. In the same way, he is building new ones, like the flyovers in Abule Egba and Lekki. Monuments are messengers of the might within the land, to quote Joseph Conrad. So, if it is a high rise, a residential quarter, a bald piece of land, they are as important as a bust in Idumota. That is Ambode’s point.

  • Grandmaster

    Grandmaster

    For the records, not all those who have condemned him want the kidnap maestro to go to hell. For the records also, it might be said that some Nigerians envy the monster, Evans, whose real name is too long to swallow in one swig. They have lusted like him and with him, as Jesus said of the adulterer fantasist. They have gone to hell like the rich man rather than to Abraham’s bosom after a lifetime of crumbs.

    Yet, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike brought a movie to Nigerian homes. They imagined the dollars and what and who it could buy. The palace and the shimmering amenities, the luxury cars. They also. He was a sort of Pablo Escobar, who walked out of a gunshot scene in South Africa, his scar not a sign of humiliation but hubris. He murdered by proxy, he manoeuvred, he robbed. He hired Nigerian soldiers and commanded his own. He graduated from drug baron to a baron of robbers, not merely to steal gold or money. He stole the source, the humans. Just like the Trans-Atlantic Trade when the west stole men and women. Humans are the most valuable targets.

    Not a few Nigerians became voyeurs of the monster. They dined with him, slept with him, rode with him. It was a sort of public hypocrisy. Many condemned him in public, but wondered why they were so poor. But it is not strange. We have always had Evans with us. We have always had them in our villages when Christmas erupted in festivities, or during wedding feasts, festivals, funerals, birthdays, house warming, etc.

    It was Evans, who splashed that stack of dollars. He stood in the middle of the dance floor, a bag of dollars in one hand. The other hand dipped inside and scooped out cash in rhythm to the music and the flattery of the musicians. He splashed the bride, bridegroom, birthday boy or girl, or the priest, or the … He was the one who organised the customised car to rival the other Evans to show the villagers the kingpin of prosperity. Evans got even with all those who had written him off for ever as nothing when he was a 15-year-old laggard.

    He owned that big house, installed the communal electricity, lifted the dirt road into a tarred wonder, he gave scholarship to the son of your neighbour now flying with first class at Princeton. We all know Evans. He was foolish then. Now he is the mine of wisdom. Like Pierre in Tolstoy’s classic, War and Peace. Everyone derided him as a village bumpkin until they worshipped his every word. His plum of an inheritance had transformed him.

    So, Evans was only a criminal because he was caught. He was foolish enough to slide into a trap. If you examine him properly, he could pass for a big politician today. He operated in the tradition of what many know as the political machine. He knew the enemy. He had his own intelligence squad. Just as a politician skulks the opposition, he compiles dossiers of the comings and goings of the foe. He knows when and how to strike. When he is winning, he hits the jugular. To the politician, he has won the election.

    He celebrates in grand style, whether he wins in the state house of assembly or senate or governor, or even local government. The party is raunchy with wine and women and salty with triumphal rhetoric. Mouths froth, waists wiggle, the air ripples with lyrics of the damned. They have won. The public dam, that is the treasury, bursts open.

    Look at Evans’ architecture. He has two parallel groups, oblivious of each other. Like a forked road that converge somewhere in the horizon. It is like the grandmaster of the famous comic, who pitted one group against another. He formed them. They answered to him. They fulfilled his goal. One could go east, the other west, but they meet in Evans. He also controls technology. The midgets, another source of mass envy. No one knew his numbers.

    The only pain to such people is that they are lonely. Just like some of our politicians, their families stay abroad. The wives and children. As for education, they school only in England, Canada and the United States. Evans knew that. His family first darted to Ghana, and then to Canada. Distance is their sanctuary. Any blood splash will not cross but dissolve in the Atlantic. If anyone dies, it rather should be them. They are the family hero. After all, the Bible says he who cannot provide for the family is worse than the infidel. Better infidel in public and holy at home.

    When he loses, he goes to court. Now Evans’s lawyer has said that most of the story about his client are false. So there. Senatorial or governor candidate goes to the tribunal. Evans feels he has been rigged, so he is headed to the chamber of wigged men.

    He got money with his gun. Politicians fritter away theirs through the pen. The politicians deny any bad doing. Evans denies any bank doings. But we must thank providence that Evans got caught. He had all the equipment and amenity of the politician. He probably was in an apprenticeship to run for an office. Probably stalking and skulking. He is an almost governor, senator, member of the house of representatives.

    If he became a governor or senator, etc, he might quote Prophet Isaiah: “although you have been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through you, I will make you an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.” Like Jesus, he would stand on a rostrum and say, today the scriptures have fulfilled before your eyes.

    This Evans did not make it that higher. But how many have escaped and now preside over our laws and lives.

  • Reflections on Babalakin’s birthday

    Interestingly, about a week before Dr. Wale Babalakin turned 57 on July 1, Public-Private Partnership (PPP) grabbed the headlines once again as the National Assembly responded to an allegation by  the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, that the federal lawmakers had unlawfully redesigned the proposed 2017 budget.

    The Senate, in a statement by its Chairman, Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, said: “It was agreed that we should give the Private Finance Initiative a chance to complement government’s resources in the delivery of critical infrastructure assets across the country.”   The Senate further said: “We are looking for private funds for some of these roads, particularly those with high potential of attracting private investors. These include the Enugu-Onitsha road, Kano-Abuja road and Abuja-Lokoja road. It has been our hope that the Lagos -Ibadan road would be a model for private sector funding of infrastructure in the country.”

    It is noteworthy that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has been a road of controversy, especially following the Goodluck Jonathan administration’s 2012 termination of a concession agreement with Bi-Courtney Highways Services Limited (BCHSL), which was supposed to reconstruct and manage the toll road. The past government alleged that the company failed to make progress on actualising the objective of the concession four years after the agreement signed with a preceding administration.

    According to the company, “BCHSL won the concession to reconstruct and manage the toll road for 25 years. It’s a Design, Build, Operate and Transfer (DBOT) arrangement.” The company proudly declared that it rebuilt the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA2) in Lagos “against all odds,”  adding,  ”It is the first airport in Africa to be owned by a private company on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis, the first of its kind in Nigeria, and it was delivered far ahead of schedule.” MMA2 reportedly handled 20 million passengers and 400, 000 flights in 10 years.

    It is also noteworthy that in the same week airport terminal operator Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL) celebrated the 10th anniversary of MMA 2 in May, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo declared that public-private partnership was important and inevitable for the country’s economic growth. Osinbajo said at the Third Presidential Quarterly Business Forum at the old Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja: “The real challenge is how to efficiently and faithfully implement these great ideas. I think for effective delivery, this partnership with the private sector is undoubtedly the way to go.”

    The MMA2 anniversary was a fitting time to highlight the minuses that dampened the celebration. The company’s chairman, Babalakin, shed light on the negatives when he spoke to reporters about the government’s contractual infidelity. Babalakin stated: “We got approval since 2007 to operate regional flights from MMA2, but the relevant authorities are frustrating our efforts. We could trace it to both the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). It is the airlines that are affected, because they burn aviation fuel moving their aircraft from MMA2 to the international terminal. This would not arise if they had allowed us to operate regional flights from MMA2.”

    A report said Babalakin “urged the Federal Government to pay over N200 billion” to BASL “for failing to hand over the old domestic terminal, otherwise known as General Aviation Terminal (GAT), Lagos.”  According to the report, “Babalakin said the payment was necessary after BASL was awarded damages by the Federal High Court to the tune of over N132 billion in 2012. He said the amount increased to N200 billion, owing to the revenue the terminal operator would have collected as revenue for flights and other commercial activities at the old domestic terminal.”

    Babalakin explained: “As far back as 2012, the Federal High Court awarded damages of N132 billion to Bi-Courtney Airways Limited. Six appeals against the judgment in the Court of Appeal have been dismissed. Even the appeal to the Supreme Court was also dismissed. No nation can truly achieve its potential, if it treats its dynamic citizens this way.”

    There is no doubt about Babalakin’s dynamism. Equipped with a doctorate in Law, Babalakin, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is also a big player in the business world. Further evidence of his dynamism: “On 7th April 2017, Dr. Babalakin, SAN was appointed as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the University of Lagos (UNILAG);  On 6 January 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Dr. Babalakin as Chairman of the Federal Government Committee to Re-negotiate the 2009 Agreement between FG and the University Unions.”

    It is worth mentioning that Babalakin is also a striking philanthropist. Among his philanthropic projects: “Donated an 80-bed hostel to the University of Ilorin in the name of his father, Justice Bolarinwa Oyegoke Babalakin; Donated a 500-seater auditorium to the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in memory of his late mother, Mrs. Ramotu Ibironke Babalakin; Treated 4000 patients with various eye diseases in Owo Local Government under the Foundation set up in memory of his late mother.”

    Babalakin was a qualified speaker on the problematisation of public-private partnership in the country at last year’s Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, where he shared some of his company’s experiences in connection with the Murtala Mohammed Airport Domestic Terminal 2, Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi, and Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. His group is controversially enmeshed in disagreements connected with concession agreements with the Federal Government on these particular subjects. Guided by personal experience, Babalakin listed the enemies of progress when it comes to  public-private partnership in Nigeria: the attitude of the government, lack of respect for sanctity of contracts and the rule of law, lack of investor security, corruption and malice.

    It will take much more than words to achieve public-private partnerships that work; and it is only when such collaborations work that the country can enjoy the benefits. The PPP model has worked in the development of sectors such as energy, mining, transportation and telecommunications in other countries.  In Western Europe and U.S.A., for example, private investors are involved in infrastructure development based on concession agreements.

    It is interesting that the Federal Government announced plans to concession 22 airports. “We are grateful to Allah that our eye-opening effort had led to the upgrading of some airports in Nigeria and the decision of the Federal Government to concession airports,” Babalakin said. It remains to be seen whether the process and the outcome of the agreements would advance public-private partnership.

    Babalakin’s promotion of public-private partnership prompts reflections as he celebrates his 57th birthday.

  • Bad marriage

    Bad marriage

    I have been waiting for a while to witness a colloquium on Biafra by Biafrans for Biafrans. From such a fest of loyalists, I expected to hear each of them define the word for themselves and the world. But such a thing would never happen because it would ignite a dynamic no Biafran or Nigerian, for that matter, desires.

    They will hit a deadlock. One man’s Biafra may be the next woman’s nightmare. For a few people, Biafra may mean Biaxit, or exit from noisome Nigeria. To others, it means simply an Igbo identity, which connotes tribal pride, music and dance, cuisine and couture, romance and rites. It is anaemic until stirred, like old wine lost in a decanter.

    To yet another set of people, Biafra simply signifies rebellion, a Pavlovian reflex to defend an identity wherever the matter arises. It could even mean flicking out a knife or toting a gun. It bears no special political register or temperament, but an instinctive assertion of a cultural forte.

    Yet for another set, it is rebellion all right but one shorn of a separatist impulse. These are the forces for restructuring, who loathe secession but whose emotions align with the Nnamdi Kanu’s.

    Part of the problem is that Biafra is not an Igbo word. Unlike similar agitations, like The Kanaks of New Caledonia or Party Quebecois of Canada, Biafra draws its name from a bight that abuts on the Atlantic Ocean. From merely a bight, Biafra evokes a blight of identity. If it were an Igbo word, its meaning might be specific. Yet, there is nothing more specific than the fact that, in its earliest incarnation, it meant secession. Ojukwu evoked his people’s pride, a pride that led to a theatre where they fought and died. But the idea now exhales an ambiguous life.

    If it failed then, it has undergone metamorphosis. Some will say metastasis. But whatever form it takes depends on the individual Igbo man’s perception of Nigeria today. So, when Nnamdi Kanu and his other cohorts blare out imprecations about Nigeria, the implications are sometimes lost on us. Is he speaking to the secessionist or the “restructurer”? After any deconstruction, we shall arrive at these two main divides in Igboland. The secessionist, who wants to go. The restructurer, who would stay but in an ambience that affirms his rights.

    This kaleidoscope of personas does not come up on the burner of national discourse, or Igbo dialogue. Biafra has been slammed into one bracket: exit from Nigeria. We have to understand this if any progress will furnish our engagement with the southeast.

    So, when Acting President Yemi Osinbajo gathered elders in Aso Rock, which Biafra did the invitees stand for. The assumption was that they stood against Biafra, and that the elders held a clue to the quelling of the distemper. The point, though, is that the Igbo elite needs to winnow the disquiet and identify the various groups and see how a meeting of minds can help create a semblance of consensus. Or if a consensus is not possible, we need to know what proportion of the Igbo reject any dialogue.

    What we see now is a sort of schizophrenia. Now for Biaxit, now for Nigeria. But no true dialogue is going on. During the American revolution, Benjamin Franklin said, “the revolution is in the hearts and minds of the American people.” Yet, only a third of Americans wanted to leave. But it was strong enough to edge out England. During the country’s civil war about a century later, the south fought to secede because of slavery. Some of them were also fighting for a cultural identity, the southern idiosyncrasy, the way they speak, eat, love, die and play. The majority did not want war.

    This is a serious matter. Those Igbo leaders are clearly afraid of the maelstrom in the east. They are afraid to speak truth to the kanus while the false demagogue rails at his fellow Igbo who worship in a Yoruba man’s church. He speaks about war. He peddles hate and hate words. He asserts Igbo identity only at the expense of others. He “others” the others. Like Jean Paul Sartre, he believes “hell is other people.”

    Yet the governors and political elite pivot towards decency of language and a serenity of vision. These people cannot speak to the turbulent hordes within their region. This tension creates a paralysis for all of us. It is even a bad omen because it allows the reptile in the sewer to morph into a monster. Then it might be too late.

    Few remember that the Middle East of today, with such countries as Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, etc were part of the Ottoman Empire. They roiled quietly, sometimes violently, against the state. The empire swaggered, especially under Kemal Attaturk. But it staggered and fell at the end of the First World War. The Allies broke it under the League of Nations, and the countries secured their independence.

    We cannot pretend to keep the peace when there is genuine tension. Those calling for secession know that the federation is a fraud, and it needs urgent work. We cannot solve it with the fragile plasters of the rhetoric of reconciliation.

    So what is clear is that Biafra suffers from an identity crisis. Until that is resolved, we shall go giddy in a circle. Some of this problem lies in the hypocrisy of the Igbo elite. They know this identity tension, they merely keep quiet. A professor like Ben Nwabueze receives Kanu and tries peevishly to recast him as a restructurer rather than a treasonous bumbling.

    They see Kanu go along like the Shakespearean music as the food of love. But they are in thrall while the country “sicken and so die.” What we have is a bad marriage in the east. The sort in which the Biaxiteers and the restructurers are cohabiting as though divorce is remote.  In Twelfth Night, the clown Feste quips, “Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.”

    Unless the bad spirit is hanged, the bad marriage will lead to a divorce action whose consequence no one can predict. In the play, there were a number of comedy of errors as people fall in love with the wrong people until the fairest of all finds out she is in love with a woman disguised as a man.

    To hang the bad spirit, a dialogue, open and urgent, is imperative. Or else, they will encourage the other treason peddlers among Arewa youth to issue their own versions of instability. The last time such tension happened, a pogrom burned in the north with many Igbo and southern minorities wiped out. Biafra followed.

    This is the time to cut through the disguises. We should know who stands for what. The Presidency must serve as catalyst in this. We cannot continue as liars to ourselves.

  • Wike’s weak position

    Wike’s weak position

    His language is vulgar. His mien is coarse and brutish. His ambience invokes violence. His name is Nyesom Wike, and, believe it or not, he is a governor. When he is not lying about Rivers State money in the posh apartment in Victoria Island and even swearing before the Almighty in church, he is denying his voice in a filthy conversation with an electoral officer. The best way to approach him is to see him as a burst of humour in an increasingly humourless country.

    Recently, he sided with a law that supports a military throwback. The law even supports well-heeled company against his own people. It’s the NLNG  law that grants the gas firm a holiday from paying three percent of its N500 billion yearly profit to help with development in the region.

    The army, with its pecuniary interest, forbade NLNG from paying that relatively small sum. Wike stands against his country and his people. He railed at those who want NLNG to pay. Some say he would have thought otherwise if Jonathan were in office today.

    The man gave no reason of any intellectual quality. In his boorish way, he roared against reason, even though the House of representatives has already weighed in on the side of the people and wants NLNG to pay.

    NLNG says it is not oil-producing. A cop-out indeed. You want to eat where you did not sow. So it wants to enjoy a tax-free life while others who did the yeoman’s job are paying. It’s like saying I cooked the soup, but I should not be held responsible for how the onions entered the kitchen. That’s too complicated for a Wike. And I understand why.

  • Beyond the consultations

    The heuristic value of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s consultations with leaders of the North and South-east on the threat from some northern youth is clearly not in doubt. Its’ key constraint was the composition of the zones consulted.

    At the last count, he had consulted with political leaders and traditional rulers from those zones as well as all governors. However, there are views that the consultations were not far-reaching to the extent they failed to factor in the south-west and south-south. The contention is that the issues that precipitated the meetings concern all segment of the Nigerian population and would be better addressed by involving all the constituents.

    Not unexpectedly, leaders from the three southern zones have picked holes in the composition of the consultations. In a communiqué signed by Afenifere chieftain, Ayo Adebanjo (South-west), former Chief of General Staff, Ebitu Ukiwe (South-east) and former Director-General National Intelligence Agency, Albert Horsfall (South-south), they “rejected the attempt to reduce the current crisis in Nigeria, flowing from the unresolved nationality question to an Igbo and north affair”. For them, any further discussions on the matter should be between the entire south and north of Nigeria.

    One cannot agree any less. It is true the discussions cropped up on account of the threat by some northern youth against the Igbo. That may have created the impression in the eyes of the government that the two groups have issues to reconcile. Hence, engaging leaders from the two areas in the calculations of the federal government is the best route to douse the tensed atmosphere.

    But this thinking is flawed on several grounds.  First, there is the presumption the agitations of the pro-Biafra groups is targeted against the northern youth and they had to rise to defend themselves. This is not so. Their grouse is against the Nigerian state. One begins to wonder on whose authority those youth took to self-help appropriating a challenge that falls within the realm of the state? There is nothing to link the so-called northern youth to the agitations to the extent of taking liberty to prescribe for the entire Igbo race a status within the Nigerian federation.

    They went beyond their powers even as we are not oblivious of how such phoney groups are contrived. Definitely, there were behind the scene actors who had some selfish motives to achieve. That was not in doubt. Reducing the engagement to an Igbo and north affair would amount to plying into the hands of people masking as northern youths who do not really have the mandate of all zones of the north, as events have shown.

    Besides, such an approach is loaded with the risk of reducing the Igbo race to a scapegoat in the Nigerian political chessboard- an agenda those behind the threat want to achieve. So the federal government has inadvertently played into the hands of northern ethnic jingoists and this could come with dire consequences.

    Again, by limiting the consultations the way it has been structured, are we not giving the erroneous impression that any band of people could assume any name tag and appropriate the powers of remedying a perceived wrong on behalf of the federal government? Shall we not be left with anarchy if the government begins to respond to such threats in the selective manner it handled the case in point? What of the threat by a coalition of Niger Delta people to the north to vacate their soil and positions in the oil industry? Why did we not find it expedient to also factor that in the consultations? Or are we saying that such threats are of no consequence because they are coming from the South-south?

    These posers have been raised to underscore the incongruity in the thinking that a parley with leaders of the north and south-east is all there is to multifarious challenges that have over time, stultified all efforts at genuine progress in this country. The consultations by the way they were skewed could produce the unintended result of pitching the north against the south-east.

    Besides, those canvassing for the state of Biafra and the northern youths are not really representatives of the peoples of these zones. If they were, they should have been part of the consultations. But they were not consulted.

    The crisis should rightly be seen as a manifestation of the unresolved issues of our defective federal order. To that extent, they transcend the borders of the north and south-east. They are matters that have to do with our being as a country which all sections have a stake in.

    Even then, Osinbajo equally endorsed this view when he said at the meeting – “Let me say that we are not deaf to the legitimate concerns and frustrations arising from around the country. Every part of Nigeria has its own grievances”. That is the crux of the matter.

    Those consultations have been rounded off.  But that is not the end to the matter. We have been told there was consensus on the unity and indivisibility of the country. We were also told of the resolution of the governors that the unity of the country “is sacrosanct, non-negotiable and all have agreed to work together.”

    Good enough, the vice president equally admitted that the issues are multi-dimensional and requires lasting and satisfactory solutions. He fingered clashes between herdsmen and farmers as one of the problems they discussed. Curiously, both the purveyors of these agents of death and those who bear the brunt of their deadly escapades, are states in the very north its youth issued an eviction order to the Igbo. If those youth were motivated by patriotic zeal, they should have first, removed the log in their eyes before the spec in the eyes of those they sought to evict for heating up the system though non-violent agitations for self-determination.

    Nobody has issued any quit order to the north either on account of the killings by the Fulani herdsmen nor the four-year old Boko Haram insurgency geared in the main, to institute an Islamic state on the rest of us. We are all privy to the politics that had surrounded that challenge to the unity, indivisibility and secularity of the country.  Just last week and against all the assurances we have been getting, they launched a deadly attack on a convoy of about 200 vehicles escorted by a heavy contingent of the army and police near Maiduguri.

    So the challenges to our nationhood are fundamental and go beyond platitudes and sanctimony. It is not enough to regurgitate such ideas as non-negotiability and indivisibility of the country. Neither is it helpful pretending that all is well with this country. Those who wish it well must come to terms with the imperative of instituting the objective conditions and environment under which such deals will grow and flourish.

    The Afenifere Renewal Group struck the right chord when they posed two salient questions in reaction to Osinbajo’s statement that Nigerians irrespective of ideology, race or religion “have agreed that Nigeria should remain one”. They asked: “Do we want to remain as one country? If the answer is yes, under what conditions?” The two questions sum up the uncanny dilemma we are confronted with. And the way they are answered, will chart the path for the future.

    But implicit in those questions is the fact that there are several aspects of our being as a country that must be negotiated if we are to stave off the increasing competition between the central government and its constituents for the loyalty of the citizens. That has been the attraction of restructuring. Good a thing, the Senate has called for the report of the 2014 National Conference.

    Osibanjo should move further in liaison with the National Assembly to set in motion the necessary processes to adopt salient recommendations of that conference as part of the grundnorm to guide the running of the country. That is the most practical and more enduring solution to the fission that is tending to tear this country apart.

    We do not seem to have much choice on the imperative to restructure the country. Our parroting the unity, indivisibility and non-negotiability of the country without the necessary safety nets could produce direct opposite results.

  • Infighting won’t win the fight

    When anti-corruption warriors are divided, it is a disappointing signal about the state of the anti-corruption war. When two major members of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) criticised the Federal Government’s approach to the anti-corruption war, and blamed specific officials for the poor results, it signalled a weakening of the war.

    A June 18 report said: “Speaking in Abuja at a programme organised by the National Association of Seadogs (the Pyrates Confraternity), the Chairman of the panel, Professor Itse Sagay (SAN), and member, Professor Femi Odekunle, attributed recent setbacks suffered by the administration in the prosecution of corruption cases to the fraudulent activities of compromised elements in the judiciary and legislature, and a lack of diligence on the part of some senior government officials. The Chairman of the committee, Prof. Itse Sagay, said the President and his team must come up with new ideas to fight corruption.”

    The report continued: “He said the judiciary was concentrating more on technicalities rather than the spirit of the law and justice. Sagay said, “The Federal Government, particularly the President and Vice-President, who were elected into office principally to eliminate corruption, must go back to their drawing board, search and scan the constitution and other laws to draw the requisite irresistible power to deal firmly with this terrible scourge of our times – otherwise we are all dead.”

    Odekunle was even more pointed and critical, suggesting the intensity of   possible infighting. The report further said: ”Also speaking, Odekunle, in particular, questioned the commitment of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), to the anti-graft war and also raised a doubt about the integrity of the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Mr. Danladi Umar, who discharged and acquitted Senate President Bukola Saraki of all 18 charges levelled against him, on Wednesday.”

    Evidently, the state of the Saraki issue has further exposed the state of the anti-corruption issue. The report said: “The professor of criminology also questioned the resolve of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, to help the Federal Government in the fight against corruption. The event titled, ‘Feast of Barracuda’, had ‘Critical Review of the Anti-Corruption War in Nigeria: Strategies, Challenges and Prospects’, as its theme.”

    Odekunle went far enough to show that the President Buhari administration’s anti-corruption war may be in danger, meaning the anti-corruption warriors may lose the war. Further report: “While exploring the theme, Odekunle, raised eight salient questions which he said members of the public must answer in order to put the recent failures of the anti-graft war in proper perspective. He asked, “Does the Presidency realise that routine crime prevention and methodology, instruments and processes are not adequate in fighting corruption in this country? That is, does the Presidency realise that fighting corruption must be a ‘rofo rofo’ fight? That it is not a question of due process, long process, fair hearing and all those that will give you technical justice instead of real justice?”

    It is thought-provoking that Odekunle raised questions that called into question the performance of the man who chaired the panel which ruled that Saraki had no case to answer. He said: “It is said that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. In this regard, I ask, what were the details and the resolution of the EFCC matter on Danladi Umar’s bribery case? I don’t know, I’m just asking. Does the DSS possess any information about Danladi Umar on the use or abuse of hard drugs? Is there any record that Danladi Umar had been driving and crashing his car under the influence? These are questions that I don’t know the answers to but I want you to investigate.”

    He also raised questions about the Attorney-General: “Is the Attorney-General of the Federation, who is to lead the anti-corruption fight, going by the way things have been going in the past two years, as committed as others who could have done the job better? I have no answers but I believe if they are answered, it will give us an insight into the cause of our current dilemma in the fight against corruption.”

    Who will supply the needed answers?  Conscious of the gravity of the development, Malami, in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Salihu Isah and the Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution (AGF Office), Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla, assured Nigerians: “…despite some recent setbacks recorded in some of the cases involving politically-exposed people… the war against corruption is fully on course.”  The statement added: “It shall be fought resolutely, painstakingly, doggedly, purposefully and determinedly with all the constitutional and legal arsenals at the disposal of the Federal Government of Nigeria. The Federal Government is more than ever before committed towards the complete eradication of the scourge of corruption and graft in the country.”

    Malami seems to miss the point. Sagay and Odekunle are arguing for a rethinking of the war strategy and a redesigning of the weapons. The point is: The current anti-corruption war is a new war; it cannot be successfully fought by warriors using old weapons.

    Malami further said in defence of his performance: “Those in a hurry to condemn due to the temporary setbacks recorded lately should tarry awhile because a legal process is deemed not concluded until it terminates at the Supreme Court which is the highest court of arbitration in Nigeria.” This thinking still reflects the old way of fighting corruption.

    The defensive statement said that Malami “is highly disappointed that such accusation and statement could be made by those who ought to know better,” adding that he “is saddened and flummoxed at the attempt to cast aspersion on his integrity, dedication and commitment to the war against corruption which undoubtedly is one of the major cornerstones of the present administration.”

    The question is: What has Malami achieved as an anti-corruption fighter?  The statement gives an answer that deserves to be questioned because it is questionable: “…the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation since his assumption of office has initiated numerous reforms and programmes to drive the war against corruption including the recently launched National Anti-Corruption Strategy, 2017. The National Anti-Corruption Strategy plan is a five-year strategic plan to combat corruption and corrupt tendencies in the country to the barest minimum. It is the first of its kind in the history of the country.” Whether it will work, or win the fight, remains to be seen.

    In the final analysis, what the anti-corruption war needs is a winning   strategy that is seen to be winning.