The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Enough of that!

    Those who have had to contend with the debilitating effects of last May’s increase in fuel price from N86 per litre to N145 have obvious reasons to worry with emerging reports that the price of the commodity may go up again.

    This time around, the actual price at which the commodity is primed to sell at the filling stations is put at N151.87k per litre. The new price regime is said to be predicated on the continued fall in Naira value which sold at N400 per dollar at the parallel market.

    On account of this, marketers are said to be pushing to sell their products at this market value so as to remain in business. They contend that if they have to sourceforeign exchange at the prevailing market rate, they have no alternative than to sellat the new price. Alternatively, they have called for government intervention by way of subsidizing their foreign exchange purchases.

    Apparently worried by the development, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, MrMaikantiBaru said he has not received any directive to increase fuel price. He however admitted that several factors necessitated the current agitation “especially the issue of exchange rate that has moved and we don’t expect any serious changes”.Baru further said that the review could be done by the right body which is the PPPRA.

    It is obvious speculations on an impending increase in the price of fuel are not without foundation. That much was admitted by Baru even as he has not been directed to effect any price increase. He admitted that at issue is the continued slide in Naira value which by extrapolation meant that marketers now have to pay more to import the commodity and will suffer serious business reverses if the situation persists.

    And when we pair his statement that they don’t expect serious changes with the other that the review could be done by the right body, it becomes obvious that there is the possibility of a price change barring some intervening variables. What the man has done is an admission that there are issues with the current pump price of petrol even as it is not within the purview of his corporation to determine when or not to increase fuel price. That is my reading of the situation.

    That has not in any way foreclosed possible increase by the PPPRA which is statutorily charged with that responsibility. By the same token, if directed to increase the price of the commodity, the corporation will have no alternative than to comply. That much can be gleaned from Baru’sstatements.

    Where that leads us now is the real issue. And if you ask the average citizen, he is likely to tell you that another fuel price increase is in the offing as there is no smoke without fire. This line of thought is further given credence by the logic of deregulating the downstream sector of the oil industry. By that logic, since the Naira has fallen and marketers have to spend more to import the commodity, the difference ought to be passed over to the consumer.

    That is why the marketers are leading the agitation for a further price increase. And if the government has its way, it may go ahead to further adjust the pump price of fuel after all, hell did not let loose when it hiked it to the current regime a few months back. It could as well accede to the pressure from the marketers.

    But that will be very insensitive to the current debilitating economic realities wrought on the ordinary citizens by the last increase. If the truth must be told, the reality on the ground cannot permit any further increase without sentencing the ordinary man to his early grave. Today, many families cannot afford to put food on the table on account of the economic recession which our leaders have openly admitted.

    Spiralling inflation, job losses and unavailability of employment opportunities especially for the youths have combined to inflict untold hardship on majority of our citizens. That is the reality on the ground now. The situation is not remedied by the inability of the government to realistically and effectively come up with social intervention measures to cushion the excruciating effects of the last exercise.

    Before now, governments have tended to justify proposals for fuel price increase with a promise that it will put in place a number of palliatives to cushion their effects. We are yet to see any of this come on stream. Yet, speculations are again on that another price increase is being pushed forward by the declining value of the Naira.

    The marketers have asked to be allowed to sell their products at their market value to remain in business. You cannot possibly fault them. After all, they are in business to make some profit.But can the Nigerian society as it currently stands survive another price hike? My answer is no. What to do?

    It is obvious that the current pass has everything to do with the declining value of the Naira due to recent exchange rate policy of the government that has been largely criticized for its inconsistency. It is obvious also that if the marketers continue to source foreign exchange at the current rate, something may have to give way.

    What the situation requires is some form of intervention on the part of the government. Some have argued that intervention by the government is needed in order to avert the foreboding possibility of another price increase. This school believes the government should somehow grant some exchange subsidy to marketers so as to avert an imminent price increase. To this school, if the government could grant some foreign exchange concession to pilgrims, it has more reasons to do so in view of the sensitivity and wider repercussions of the matter.

    There are some others who contend that the demand of the marketers does not seem to add up given that some of them are even selling slightly below the approved market price. If so, how come they are talking about price increase and non-profitability of the business, they query? To this, the reaction is that some of the marketers took to this unwholesome practice to remain in business and those who indulge in it may soon come to a head.

    In all therefore, it is inevitable that some form of intervention by the government is the only way out of the situation. Governments have social responsibility to their citizens. That is the raison d’etrefor their existence in the first instance. Whatever policies a government intends to implement must wear a human face as no society can possibly grow beyond its people.

    Yes, we can talk of appropriate pricing and all that. We can talk of generating more money through appropriate pricing to tackle nagging development challenges. We have also heard of the losses to the nation on account of smuggling of the product. All these may count as justification for deregulating the downstream sector of the oil industry.

    Bu there is a limit beyond which this reasoning cannot proceed without serious repercussions for the wellbeing of our citizens. That is the point where we are now. It will be highly irresponsible on the part of the government to nurse the idea of another fuel price increase. Enough of that!

  • Light with equity

    Light with equity

    What does power have in common with superstition? Well, the following story illustrates it. Somewhere around Ikot Ekpene, a power line met a higher power. The shrine. Some staff who wanted to route the modern marvel through the community ran away. Why? The priests pursued them. They swore that if they came near with their wires and woods and technicians and their funny regalia, the shrine would invoke death and disease.

    Power pass power, as Nigerians would say. You would have expected the opposite. It makes us reflect on our history. Where were the African gods when the white man came with guns? One community after community, one god after another yielded in disgrace as the white man thrashed through and imposed a colonial rule.

    But here, in today’s Nigeria, modern still bows to ancient. The carriers of natural shock yielded to the awful prospect of spiritual electrocution. But modernity is defiant, must have its way. Not always, not with these men in Akwa Ibom whose tongues spewed out curses of the end of days. They asked for compensation first. They had it. The gods yielded not to firepower but to filthy lucre. The gods have become human.

    All the staff returned. Where ritual reigned, lines now swagger. Physical light replaces what Joseph Conrad calls, with impish disdain of African society, “the night of first ages.”

    In the same way, power supply in Nigeria has taken quite the same trajectory. We try to supply power. We stop it. When it is not corruption, it is red tape. When it is not red tape, it is gas supply. When it is not ignorance about gas supply, it is lack of accountability. When it is not lack of accountability, it is inefficiency. When it is not inefficiency, it is culture, or it is greed. A sort of chaos theory takes aim at our country that has grappled for over 50 years with how to turn on the light and keep it turned on.

    With this mesh on our hands, we are raging towards the dying of the light. So, it is true that we are groping with about 2000 megawatts of supply today when the average consumer is being asked to pay rates at the projection of 4000 megawatts. So, why the outcry? I say, why not? The Gencos and the Discos are not reconciling accounts.

    But we must start from the beginning. Gas. Without sabotage of the militants, we still don’t have enough gas. A revolution is required which will have to involve tweaking how our gas deals were configured in the past. Today, only 16 per cent of the gas goes to local consumption. The NLNG sells 38 per cent to foreign markets. About 36 per cent is a toss-up from what is called associated gas from oil wells and direct clear, but this is often frustrated because the western companies who work our wells are not interested in gas. They want only oil. That revolution of gas will stop the 10 per cent that flares interminably into our skies.

    The real issues are with the Gencos and Discos. For now, an illusion reigns about transmission. It has 5000 megawatts capacity. It is believed that it is not enough. For what we supply, it is. We have never surpassed 5,000. For Gencos, I have a lot of pity. I paid a visit to the Egbin Power Plant and saw that a lot has been invested. Before its takeover, it operated at 30 per cent. It now operates at about 87 with 1,100 megawatts. But it all depends on gas availability.

    But to get power to a high level, it has to come with small wins. Here and there, we have headaches. One, money has to be spent on bringing many of the turbines in all the power plants to high level. Many of them need money. Egbin, for instance, has invested about $400 million. Two, there are areas where legal cases have stood in the way of installations of power. Three, the various Gencos have many turbines lying fallow. Why? They need a lot of money to install them. Many of the companies that took over did not have a sense of what they were going into until they possessed, except a few like Egbin. Even at that, they did not anticipate the Naira fall.  Three, IPP also are under construction. Four, Aba Power Plant of about 141 megawatts just settled out of court, so is now under construction. Ditto to Zungeru power plant now under construction after legal row over commission claims.

    But the immediate problem is now accountability. The Discos are now being accused of not making the money received from consumers available to transmitters and Gencos. Part of it is fraud. Consumers have been charged the same rate when power was about 4000 which is the projection. Now, it is about 2000, they are charged the same. This is not fair.

    I understand the bellwether minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, has set up a committee for them to reconcile accounts to reflect what has been supplied. They are short-changing the consumer. It may be standing in the ability of the DISCOS to get enough power to supply to consumers. Many Nigerians are complaining that when they had an average of two hours power supply a day, they are paying about the same rate when they had six hours.

    This is a call for transparency, and the NERC should be the agency to step in and ensure that light comes with equity. This should complement the efforts of the bellwether minister to solve the supply chinks in different parts of the country.

    Another issue is the huge debts from big federal government institutions, including agencies and the military. But the Discos have been saying that the consumers are not ready for power supply. They say that it costs a lot to give power and we want to have it for cheap. They have a point. We had the same story with oil marketers. They had to withdraw and forced Nigerians to pay for fuel before we settled for it.

    Nigerians use power carelessly. Sometimes a light bulb will beam from morning to morning. Until we are ready to pay for power and turn on the light or the fan or the air-conditioner only when we need it, we shall never enjoy power. In advanced countries, they use power rationally.

    Only with consumption discipline shall we say we have conquered power.

  • Not just about oil

    For some reason, recent media interview by former President, Goodluck Jonathan after a visit to Aso Rock, is bound to elicit considerable public interest. For one, it has taken long since he spoke to the press especially given the travails of his party in the campaign against corruption.

    And for another, the resumed militancy in the Niger Delta culminating in the destruction of oil facilities and threats of secession are issues the public is keen in knowing his take on them. At the last count, two militant groups from that region have threatened to declare a republic of their own.

    It was therefore little surprising that journalists’ questions centred round these key national issues. But while he refused to entertain questions on the war against corruption contending that the matter was before the courts, he was very forthcoming on the militancy in that region.

    He said he has been liaising with traditional rulers and other key leaders of the Ijaw ethnic nationality to ensure that peace reigns in the country. He must have also gladdened the hearts of those who believe in the indivisibility and non-negotiability of the Nigerian sovereignty when he told reporters that there is no alternative to a united Nigeria. But then, he is not expected to say anything to contrary to a country he presided over its affairs for six good years.

    That the question arose in the first instance is suggestive of one or two things. The first is that as a former president from that region, he can neither feign ignorance nor appear nonchalant about such a serious national challenge with dire repercussions to the national economy. That is not all, there are speculations stemming from events of the last elections, that the resurging militancy may be remotely linked to his fate in that election.

    For any of these possibilities, his views would be much sought after in the current impasse in that region. And he did not disappoint those who reason along this line.

    Hear him, “those of you who have followed my talks when I was here, my emphasis is that we need a united Nigeria, and I always emphasized that Nigeria is great not just about the oil, so many countries produce more oil than Nigeria and nobody notices them. We are great because of our size, the human resources we have, the diversity we have, if we fragmentize the country into small components, we will be forgotten by the world.”

    The above statements are not only loaded but equally weighty. They are bound to mean different things to different people depending on the prism from which they are viewed. He said we need a united Nigeria and Nigeria is great not just because of oil but other potentials it is endowed with. And that there are many countries that produce more oil than Nigeria but do not command the political weight and significance Nigeria commands. These are statements of fact.

    In a way, he has not only assuaged the feelings of those who believe in the continued unity and indivisibility of the country but underscored the point more succinctly that Nigerian unity is not just all about oil. By highlighting such critical variables as size, human resources and diversity, he also seeks to give accommodation, sense of belonging and relevance to all groups in the enterprise despite the primacy of oil as the main source of our revenue earnings.

    By way of extrapolation, he was saying that every group has something to contribute to this unity in diversity. As such, those who take to militancy and sabotage of oil installations to press home their grievances should have a rethink as Nigeria is not just all about oil. That would gladden the hearts of sections that have been at the receiving end of scathing criticisms for not contributing or contributing little to the common wealth.

    If the above satisfies the expectations of the pro-establishment, it may come as a huge disappointment to the oil bearing communities because of its reductionist undertone. For, Jonathan runs the risk of being accused of attempting to narrow down the grievances of the Niger Delta people to the fact that they produce oil. That is why he reminds them that there are many countries that produce more oil than Nigeria that are of little consequence in world politics. If that is correct, it is only logical that the weight assigned to this country cannot be solely predicated on its status as an oil producing country. That conclusion cannot be faulted.

    But it is one thing to contend that oil is not the only source of strength for this country and entirely different kettle of fish to convey the impression that the crisis in the Niger Delta is all about oil. That would be a very simplistic perspective of the matter. It is not just about oil or claims for its control. It has to do with glaring injustice and systemic inequities in the country which easily finds expression in the despoliation of the environment of the oil producing communities to which our leaders turn blind eyes to.

    Those communities have not said other parts of the country have no stake in that resource which mother-nature bountifully endowed at their backyard. Their complaints arose in the first instance due to the devastation and degradation of their environment by the oil producing companies without giving a hoot to their well-being. So if we are serious in locating the main source of grouse of the Niger Delta people, it has its roots in the type of leadership we have had in this country- a leadership that has been anything but nationalistic.

    There are off course issues relating to the distribution of oil blocks and the wealth accruing from oil revenue. In these, the Niger Delta people feel largely shortchanged. So it is not just about the ownership of oil but the injustice and hardship arising from its exploitation and distribution. And it will be wrong to think that the oil bearing communities are not entitled to express their views on these even as ordinary citizens.

    Before now also, they have been very vocal in agitating for some form of restructuring to place the country in a better stead to withstand the challenges arising from discontent of the disparate groups. So, the failure to restructure is fundamental to the resurging militancy rather than any obsession with their reality as oil producing communities. Those who are vehemently opposed to restructure are vicariously liable for the continuing systemic dysfunctions that have not allowed this country witness peace. Good a thing, former military Head of State,Yakubu Gowon has said there is nothing wrong with restructuring if it is done within the contest of one Nigeria. All the proposals on restructuring including the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference which Buhari has put in a cooler are within the context of one Nigeria. Why the opposition to this visionary document?

    There is also the weird suggestion that restructuring cannot go hand in hand with the campaign against corruption. The two can in all honesty, proceed simultaneously. As a matter of fact, restructuring is more fundamental to the overall success of the war against corruption as it targets its roots than the current perspective that target symptoms.

    Agitations for self-determination by the Pro-Biafra movements, the resort to military warfare by the Boko Haram terrorists that have vowed to institute an Islamic state in this country and the scourge of the herdsmen are manifestations of deep seethed grievances and inadequacies which can be redressed through restructuring.  They have little to do with what the sections involved contribute to the national purse.  So it is not just all about oil or the right to it.

  • End of reason

    End of reason

    Everything about our lives today is a cliché. That people stole our money is a cliché. It’s nothing new that a Speaker padded his budget, or a fellow legislator blew the whistle. It’s nothing new that we flushed with dollars once and we did not prepare for lean times. We know that from the ‘lean time, fat time’ story of Joseph and his brothers.

    It’s nothing new that it is a time of financial fraud. One governor carted away a billion, a minister two billion, an ex-party leader rotten billion hides beneath blossoms on his farm, or the head of state sets up a machine to track down the thieves.

    Yet, when they happen we raise perfidious or righteous eyebrows and yell, “Jesus” or “Allah.” We say it as though we have just erupted on this earth. The cycle of financial horror and empty treasury continues to surprise us. That is what makes us human. We lament the depredations of Aleppo today, but we also mourned over Boko Haram yesterday, and Nazi’s holocaust before that and slavery before that.

    Even though we know Jonathan and his cohorts splurged on our money, we act as though our funds are bottomless. We glowed to the refrain: Let the good times roll. But we also know about the plummeting oil prices, the market glut, Saudi Arabia’s intransigence on supply.  We show our own intransigence. We shout foul in the states when we hear that about 27 states cannot pay salaries.

    Labour would hear none of it. Labour rolls up its sleeves, brandishes its signs, stamps its cacophonous feet on the streets, chants truculently, curses ecclesiastically, hollers and threatens Armageddon.  But that is the way of humans. We have to act emotionally. We have to vent. We have to scream at an errant establishment. It is the end of reason.

    Two examples of the show of emotion call for consideration. In the Southwest, we have followed the trajectory of Governor Abiola Ajimobi and his joust with Labour. Up North, we have seen Governor Tanko Al Makura tango with Labour in Nasarawa State.

    In Nasarawa State, the governor bares the account to the people and says the citizens cannot live the way they used to. He says at a time when oil gurgled in waves of hard dollars, the country had to raise wages. It did not happen in Al Makura’s state alone. It was a nationwide bonanza of sorts. Salaries rose as high as 200 per cent. It was an act of justice. If we have money, we share. Salaries go up, lifestyles change, appetites widen. Crude oil turned crude men and women among us into urbane. Money answers all things. As the Bible also says, “in times of prosperity, rejoice…”

    Look at some figures in Nasarawa State, for example. A grade level 8 civil servant earned N17,731.36 in 2006. But in 2011, the same fellow pocketed N55, 515 when salaries had to go up in tandem with oil price rise. The grade level 16 civil servant jumped from a salary of N41, 750 in 2007 to N183, 140 in 2011. While the grade level 8 worker had a 213 per cent leap, the Grade level 16 had a 339 per cent soar. The price of oil was over 100 dollars per barrel. To paraphrase the poet Wordsworth with a whiff of exaggeration, it was “bliss that dawn to be alive.”

    Well, things changed, oil stumbled in a giddy fall from the stratosphere of 100 dollars per barrel to as low as 35 dollars. The great heft of state allocations also was crestfallen. So, there was not enough to pay salaries of the good times. Al Makura had to embark on a pay cut. In spite of that, from January to May this year, Nasarawa needed N11.3 billion to meet its salary obligations. Yet, it made N9.7 billion in that period in allocation.

    In the midst of this financial turmoil, Labour erupted. The governor’s plea was fruitless. How is the worker who could buy a shoe and pay a rent on the basis of the pay raise now deal with a pay cut? Reason does not work in such circumstances. Only emotions, it appears. But emotions cannot reverse the price of oil, or bring back all the money stolen by the Jonathan era. That is why I say, it is the end of reason.

    But only reason can come to the aid of emotion run amuck. The same story happened under Governor Ajimobi. Eventually after Labour stamped their feet and uttered imprecations, they settled down to the reason of the governor. Once, Ajimobi turned Ibadan into a modern city when money flowed. He paid salaries and gave education high-octane energy. When things turned, he explained. Was it not the same teachers who did not go to work everyday in parts of the state that are looking to be paid for work not done?

    “In times of adversity, consider…” said the Bible. So, Ajimobi has said that some civil servants have skill and want to work, some have skill and don’t want to work and others have no skill and do not want to work. How sapient. Yet he has said he will not fire anyone. That is politically wise, and that also calls for understanding when pay is not as high and regular. Hard times are here.

    It is not a time for emotion, but for imagination. It’s time for the protesters to hold their tongues and freeze their rebellious feet, and open their minds. Thomas Jefferson once said, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” This was the soft-spoken volcano of the American Revolution. He knew that protest had its limits.

    What we need now is to work for a revived economy, and that is why I have always recommended that the Buhari administration resort to what economists call quantitative easing. They have to pour money into the system, in infrastructure, power, health and transportation and education. Larry Summers who was the treasury secretary under Bill Clinton has been vindicated over his call for pumping more money. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman railed at Obama for not pumping more money as part of strategy to revive the economy. Perhaps that explains what some see as an anaemic recovery.

    Fears of inflation will disappear if the money is turned into productive use. Imagine Lagos-Ibadan Expressway now under construction in massive transformation, or the railways roaring across the country and building sprouting and equipment buzzing in all the hospitals.

    It calls for courage. And it can be done. That should be prelude to freeing the states to tackle the problem of taxation and representation. I believe if everything is taxed in every state, each state will not only have enough but the governments will be forced to account for every penny.

    In her Nobel prize-winning novel, The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck makes a contrast between famine and flood. Famine gives little for the imagination, so people flee Rural China. But flood comes, and the people have too much water, yet they were able to identify some hard ground and use water. One extreme trumps the other. So is the case for quantitative easing.

    The problem is not with the governors like Ajimobi and Al Makura. It is because we need to free the states and use our common strength. Oil has failed. It’s time for imagination to win.

     

  • Ambode’s loans

    All things being equal, the Lagos State government will from September, commence disbursement of N6.25 billion as loans to interested unemployed youths in the state.

    The fund according to the commissioner for Wealth Creation, BabatundeDurosinmi-Etti is to assist unemployed Lagosians to create wealthby setting up businesses of their own. And it is meant for everybody including artisans and traders.

    He said the creation of his ministry was on account of the huge number of unemployed youths in Lagos state and that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had directed the fund to be made available to ‘everybody’. Consequently, interested individuals and groups have been advised to organize themselves for easy accessibility to the fund.

    Given the dire economic situation in the country and the high unemployment rate especially among the youths, the proposal by the Lagos State government to make some funds available to unemployed youths to set up their own businesses is very visionary and therefore worthy of commendation. It recognizes the problems in the continued harbouring of a large army of youths with no visible means of livelihood and the potent danger it poses for the peace and orderly conduct of the society.

    By making available the loans to the youths to set up their businesses, the government would have kept them busy as gainful partners in wealth creation, while at the same time obviating those ills associated with joblessness. It is therefore a worthy intervention to add value to human capital by making them worthy citizens. The larger benefits to society are enormous.

    Though details of the modus operandi of the fund are yet to be made public, there is no doubt that if properly managed, it will go a long way to create jobs for the army of the unemployed youths who daily roam the streets for lack of gainful unemployment. This will not only rob off very positively on the reduction of the sundry crimes that have come to buffet our urban centres but diffuse the potent threat to national stability which the subsisting situation portends.

    The Lagos State government is therefore on the right track for coming to terms with the reality that given its cosmopolitan nature with a burgeoning population, some form of direct intervention to have the youths engaged is a sine qua non for peace and stability of the state.

    Yet, as commendable as the project is, adequate care must be taken to ensure that the overall objective is neither defeated nor circumscribed by actions or inactions either on the side of prospective beneficiaries or those to be charged with its implementation. We say this because of the tendency for the fund to be sabotaged by the observed penchant of the average Nigerian to see such loans as free funds to service conspicuous consumption.

    Since the fund is said to be for all those who apply, it is only to be expected that the number of applicants will far outstrip whatever is available for disbursement.Yet, it is still a good beginning. What needs to be done is for the state government to come up with fool-proof criteria for authenticating the identity and other information to be supplied by prospective beneficiaries.

    In a clime where data on individuals is hard to come by, there is the need to work very closely with traditional institutions, market associations and the like to stand as guarantee for applicants. Also very relevant is the need to verify and monitor the kind of businesses the loans are to be deployed.

    It was in an apparent move to check these sources of abuse that the government warned that those who will supply false names and wrong addresses or divert the loans to frivolous activities such as weddings would be made to face the law. That is the way to go otherwise the good idea may be defeated by some of our ruinous dispositions and attitudes to anything that is of the civic realm.

    No doubt, there is the urgency to get the youths engaged through such intervention loans if we are serious in reducing the debilitating unemployment rate in the country. With the daily laying off of workers on account of the technical recession which our economic managers have admitted, governments both federal and state must seek out other alternatives of aiding the unemployed to engage in some form of self-employment. That will also involve conscious and concerted efforts to provide such supportive infrastructures as power, water, durable roads among others. At present, the current state of these social infrastructures is a serious disincentive to investment.

    Ours is a county where many are qualified to work and are prepared to work. Yet they cannot find any work to do. That is the irony of our situation. And we can continue with such a foreboding scenario with dire repercussions. The Lagos State government should work with great zeal and focus in determining artisans and traders genuinely intent in improving their fortunes and avail them of the loans.

    The initial disbursement of N6.25 billion should serve as a pilot scheme and experiences gathered from its implementation brought to bear in enhancing the overall success of subsequent disbursements. Closely linked to this is the ban on street trading which the state government has moved to enforce. A recent interview by some reporters on why street trading flourishes, highlighted such factors as the poor state of the nation’s economy, spiralling inflation, lack of sufficient capital to start off business, inability to pay for shops that are usually out of the reach of many, among others.

    The loans when properly managed and harnessed, will also partly address street trading which was outlawed since 2003 but has not been fully implemented because of the abject poverty in the land and the repercussions of having toexacerbate the situation. It was in an apparent realization of the yawning gap between the ban and the material conditions of the people that reservations have been made on its full implementation now.

    The government appears not unmindful of these reservationsas it has gone ahead to engage the public on the evils of patronizing street hawkers. The state Commissioner of Police, FataiOwoseni took up the challenge to sensitize the public on the dangers inherent in patronizing these street hawkers when he recently addressed the media.

    After enumerating the dangers associated with street trading such as robberies, sale of harmful and substandard goods and exposure to accidents, he admitted “We know the mood of the society and we want to balance our enforcement and that is why we are doing a lot of public enlightenment”. He has said it all.

    Owoseni raised another valid issue when he urged street traders and hawkers to form a formidable front and meet the government to create corner shops for them. That initiative should rather be taken up by the government as it will enhance the overall success of any eventual and full implementation of the ban on street trading.

    With the creation of the corner shops that are within the reach of the poor, youths who are lucky to benefit from the loans will have little problem adapting to the competitive business environment. By the same token, traders driven out of the street will find alternative and affordable places to do their business. So the corner shops are two sides of the same coin as they will not only enhance overall success of the utilization of loans but the crusade against street trading. Should we wait any longer to have them on stream?

  • How we lost our way

    How we lost our way

    Fifty years ago, Nigeria was on edge. Like the sky before a cloudburst, civil war hovered. But now it reads like a thriller.

    Then, however, danger skulked. Soldiers hid under an inky night, bullets flew out of stealthy corners, officers intrigued as their men had their hands on the trigger, and politicians feared and retreated.

    In Ibadan, where Awo tenanted his genius for democracy and as a model for governance, things were falling apart. There were two soldiers, one a host, the other his boss. They had a night together before they said their final goodnight. They were not, in the language of Poet Dylan Thomas, going “gentle into that goodnight.”

    Aguiyi-Ironsi was the boss and head of state. He always dangled a live crocodile, mythicised as a counterfoil against the evil eye and enemy’s reptilian plot. Some said the little croc guaranteed his disappearance when intrigue darkened around him. His host, Adekunle Fajuyi, the governor of the Western Region, was playing host, ensuring that Ironsi had a good time with his cavalcade.

    But a man known as Theophilus Danjuma had other plans. He crashed the party, and eventually, Nigeria’s. Not that things were squeaky clean in the country. Pogrom had sullied the northern landscape with the Igbo and southern minorities dying like flies from machetes, pickaxes, bonfires and guns of zealots. That night set us one major foot onto the bloody puddle of a 30-month civil war that claimed millions of lives.

    That night, both host and boss were arrested by visitor Danjuma and his men. They had come to kill Ironsi and spare Fajuyi. But Fajuyi, a man of honour that he was, would not go gentle. He, too, had to die. If he were alive, the narrative would implicate him in Ironsi’s death as traitor and conspirator. Ironsi was executed and Fajuyi also killed. They could not, in Thomas’ words again, “rage, rage against the dying of the night.”

    In spite of that foul night, Ironsi, also known as Ironside, has no memorial to his name. He has not been called hero even in most historical literature. You are not a hero because other soldiers killed you. You are a hero because of the values that oozed out of your pores as you expired. Some have therefore called him a villain.

    I am not about to follow that path. Ironsi came on the scene because of the failure of the Nzeogwu-led coup of January, 1966. It was tagged an Igbo attempt to foist ethnic hegemony on the rest of the country. From being a popular effort, it turned out a tinderbox. Why did they kill non–Igbos like Balewa, Sardauna, Akintola, Omimi ejo and leave two Igbo premiers in the Midwest and Eastern regions untouched. Why did they leave out Ironsi unscathed? He was asked to try the coup plotters. He did not. If he did not, why did he promulgate Decree 34 that called for Unitarianism in a country of strict regional fidelity?

    Some have said he was naïve, and he meant well. His kinsmen dominated the civil service. Of the major universities in the country, Ibadan, Lagos and Nsukka had Igbo vice chancellors. Balewa trusted key ministries with the Igbo. They had the railways, the employment power. If that was the case, why would Nzeogwu obstruct a free-flowing system for his kinsmen?

    Some of the answers we may never have, especially since they had claimed they wanted to bring Awo out of jail to steer the nation’s affairs as the head of state. Moments like this make the call for the study of history to be restored in our educational system rather than the tentative way we have it today.

    The brilliant writer and journalist, Chuks Iloegbunam, is an authority on Ironsi. His book, Ironside, tackles some of these issues. On my regular television show on TVC on Saturday morning called The Platform, he addressed why Ironsi did not try the coup plotters. He noted that the Supreme Military Council had it in its minutes. That document has not been made public, although Hassan Katsina, Northern Region governor and an instigator of northern hate, had reportedly said so. If such a document is made public, it will do well to exculpate Ironsi from some of the charges. We will yet want to know why he temporised and made no effort, in spite of the clamour of those days, to say it himself and in clear terms.

    One irony of the day, though. Ironsi was slaughtered by Danjuma and his men for Decree 34. Yet, in the long shadow of military that lasted many years, Nigeria ran a military rule in the spirit of Decree 34 with Danjuma as a mainstay. So, were Danjuma and his fellow mutineers not hypocrites and vermin of the hegemony they accused Ironsi of? I say, yes indeed. They did not kill Ironsi because they wanted a federal system. They had an opportunity to install it. But they mounted a grey wall of hegemony. While it was wrong for Ironsi to upset the federal applecart began with the Richards Constitution, Danjuma and his cohorts only marched us to the bloodiest era of history with their night of infamy. If Ironsi was no hero, Danjuma was worse. Ambiguity clouds Ironsi’s story. T.Y. Danjuma’s stale was clear-eyed regionalist. He did not spin a patriotic yarn.

    Yet, I should say that explains the swagger of the Kaduna Mafia for most of our history. Before its decline, they were deft handlers of power. Reviled and despised by the South, they showed a subtle hand. In their appointments, policies and symbolisms, we saw northern control with ‘respect’ for the rest of the country. Not like today, where Buhari has shown little subtlety. If the Igbo triggered the pogrom because of the mistake of a few of them, they compromised the flowering of the Igbo in the country in a time of peace. That was a lesson, I think, the Kaduna Mafia learned when they held unquestioned sway until IBB bungled June 12.

    The greatest villains, though, were the January coup plotters who would not allow democracy stumble and learn. If they did not breach the system, we probably would have found a way out of the impasse. No doubt, it all began with the imbroglio of the Western Region. The NPC/NCNC alliance at the centre had choked the AG and a sense of unease had enveloped the country.

    Before the coup, the political society was looking for ways out. If the most wronged region, the West, was not thinking of secession, perhaps the East was having a good time. Yet, Nzeogwu and co. popped our innocence and, in Achebe’s words in A Man of The People, “lit the tinder of unrest in the land.”

    We cannot forget Fajuyi. Some have tried to dilute his heroics by saying he never wanted to die. I stick to his yarn of sacrifice. Professor Bolaji Akinyemi’s essay in this newspaper testifies to the man’s effacing sense of honour.

    Given unanswered questions, Ironsi may not have a national monument, nor should as yet until the clouds clear. Fajuyi’s case was that of personal honour, not national unless he represented the Yoruba at that moment. Like Awo in personal honour and infectious vision and policies as premier, Fajuyi might have externalised the Yoruba as an exemplar of cooperative elan. We may never know. Such individual acts are engrafted on souls of others. Yet, the circumstances problematise his heroism.

    At the bottom, we see how our soldiers ruined us, and how we lost our way and never returned.

  • Idris and Arase’s 24 cars

    Those highly enthused by the anti-corruption crusade of the Buhari regime would have been taken aback by the allegation that immediate past Inspector-General of Police IG, Solomon Arase went away with 24 vehicles of the force contrary to extant regulations.

    This is more so, given that the former police boss was one of the arrow heads of the anti-graft campaign. If after a few weeks of his retirement, such weighty and damaging allegations are being levied against him, not a few would be at great loss as to what has become of that key crusade.

    His successor, Ibrahim Idris had while addressing the media alerted that his predecessor took away 24 cars while departing from his position. He did not stop there. He further alleged that some of the departing Deputy Inspectors’ General of police,DIG’s went away with seven and others eight vehicles contrary to their entitlements.

    Hear him: “A week before I was announced IG when you look through my office window you could see so many cars. But the cars all disappeared when I came in. I discovered that the last IG went away with 24 vehicles including two BMWs. The DIGs some took seven, others eight. And they left me with an old vehicle”.

    Idris said he wrote Arase reminding him of police rule regarding the number of cars he is entitled to and asked that he return the excess wondering what need he had for such high number of cars. He also gave indication of his intention to probe vehicle purchases and promotions within the police force on account of observed irregularities.

    But Arase has countered the allegations saying he neither made away with such number of vehicles nor received a letter from Idris on the matter. He said all matters relating to the deployment of the vehicles in question are contained in his handover notes to Idris wondering why he was not contacted for clarifications if the need arose.

    For these procedural flaws, Arase views the allegations by Idris’ as a figment of malice; a hasty voyage into media propaganda. As things stand, it is the words of Idris against those of Arase.

    On their face value, it is difficult to establish which of the personages to believe.Idris claimed the vehicles he saw through his window a week before his appointment, especially the two BMWs that are assigned to the IG disappeared immediately he was appointed. He fingered his predecessor for collecting 24 including the two BMWs while the DIGs collected between seven and eight only to leave him with an old vehicle which President Buhari even noticed and askedwhat he was doing with such an old car.

    But Arase has said nothing of such happened querying what need he has for 24 cars when he is not operating a car mart. The same feelings were shared by Idris when he asked during his brief to reporters what need an individual has for 24 cars. It would therefore appear both of them are on the same page in the thinking that an individual has no need for such number of cars.

    If there is any shred of truth in this conclusion, it then means that something must have gone awry somewhere. It is either the facts of the matter have not been properly presented or somebody somewhere failed to do his job properly. This is especially so given that Arase has said very unambiguously that all details pertaining to the deployment of those vehicles are well documented in the handover notes he gave Idris while leaving office.

    He went further to contend that nobody reached him for clarifications assuming some ambiguity arose from the handover notes. And to drive this point closer home, he wondered why Idris who is privy to his phone number and other details did not call him for clarification before placing the matter within the public domain.

    Viewed along this line, Arase has a valid point. Idris should have taken the pains to get in touch with him to shed more light on some of his findings on the alleged disappearance of the cars. Had he done that, we would have been saved the embarrassment of the current recrimination between the two key persons.  Arase should have been given the benefit of doubt until he is unable to respond to inquisition or mails sent to him on the issue.

    Even then, it is still doubtful whether the resort to media hype was the most appropriate handle on the issue. I am afraid, it is not.The inability of Idris to seek such clarification only to rush to the media with such weighty and damaging allegations is at the root of the stench of a rat which Arase smelt in the matter. And it is difficult to fault him on that.

    For now, allegations and counter allegations have been traded. The integrity of the two persons has been put on the line as the public have been sensitized to the dispute. Arase has been accused of some misconduct bordering on appropriating government vehicles illegally. It is a very serious offence especially given the anti-corruption campaign of the current regime.

    But he has spurned the allegation claiming that everything pertaining to the allocation of the vehicles is available to Idris courtesy of the handover notes. Given the dimension that matter has taken, the onus of proof now lies on the shoulders of Idris. He must come public with details of the vehicles and those they were allocated to in the handover notes.

    He should furnish the discerning public with credible evidence as to the source of the claims he bandied on the illegal appropriation of the vehicles by Arase and other senior police officers entitled to vehicles on retirement. Was his ‘discovery’ of the illegal acquisition of the cars based on hearsay, mereconjecture, or a whiff of mental estimate based on the vehicles he saw from his window before appointment? Or was it a product of careful appraisal of extant documents relating to their allocation?

    These posers have been raised in view of emerging media speculations that the two BMWs were actually undergoing maintenance at the premises of the command’s private technicians and that one of them had indeed been returned to the force after repairs. If this is true, why was this fact not available to theleadership of the force before it went public with allegations capable of damaging the image and reputation of the former IG?

    It does appear the police boss acted in a hurry by going public with the matter when all issues relating to the allocations were yet to be properly verified.And since the issue has gone public, every detail of that allocation to departing senior police officers and other formations as contained in the handover notes must be made public.

    On balance however, there is everything to suggest that the allegations by Idris were done hastily. We say so because of the short interval between when he took over and the time he addressed the press. This point is given further credence by hisdecision to investigate vehicle purchases within the establishment in the last three years. If he had such intention, the proper thing would have been to wait for its outcome before deciding on the next line of action. That is where he missed it.

    Perhaps, the new police boss reacted the way he did out of the frustration of being left with one rickety car that embarrassed the president. Even at that, he should still have exercised some caution in going public on the issue. This way, he would have saved himself the burden of having to prove Arase guilty of the alleged offence publicly or tender serious apology to him in the event of the allegations lacking in merit.

  • Tenants in chief

    Tenants in chief

    The one stands as though about to fall. The other seemed to have overcome the storm of its early days. But now, both are in the eye of a cyclone.

    It began with the Oloye Bukola Saraki who played the comedian of the television series, Eleyinmi. To be fair to him, he did not think Eleyinmi when he hid his haughty hands in his voluminous agbada. His comic majesty thought it natural. A big man with royal hubris should not show his hands to mortals. To be fair again, this column cautioned him out of that hubris. He obeyed and freed the hands out of the suffocating clutches of his showy damask. He then felt free to wear a western suit. I had feared he would sew himself a suit with overlong sleeves. That would have been a fashion tour de force, a sartorial first for a lawmaker. Well, there is no telling what a royal impresario can do.

    To everyone’s relief, we know his hands are mortal just like the ones writing these lines. So, cut the Oloye some slack. He has some capacity for humility. He shows us his hands now. Pride, however, remains a granite part of his political being. For all the charges against him and his colleagues in the upper chamber, he acts the peacock part. Hence a moral weight hangs over the Senate today.

    He carried a train of drooling senators with him to court, when he was not playing court to them at home as the oloye of Nigeria’s legislature.

    Yakuba Dogara seemed to have transcended the low script. Once his triumph as speaker was complete, he draped himself with a sort of parliamentary dignity. He spoke the right things, had the right airs, sported the right suit. He sounded not only patriotic, but also pious. He revved up his homage to Oyedepo’s church. He gave the impression of a big tent leader. He also shielded his chamber from the turbulence of the Senate. He did not have a spectacular first year, but a quiescent one. No brilliance, but silence. Compared to the puerile tempest of Oloye’s ambience, Dogara was a good tenant of the lower chamber.

    Until last week, it seems. First he fired Abdulmumin Jibrin, the Kano legislator who headed the Appropriation Committee. The charge? He padded his budget proposal with a princely N4 billion. The man had some pride. He pre-empted his firing by resigning. He was replaced, for fairness, with another Kano man. As Nigerians say, nothing spoil. But not for long. Jibrin boiled over later. He charged back. If he was ‘fired’ over N4 billion, we should go back to our math lessons in school. Four times 10? Yeah, that is his reply. Dogara and his team had padded their constituency projects 10 times over his puny proposal, if it was true.

    Here we go. Where was the Dogara of the pious air? The Dogara of baby face. The Dogara of the calm waters, of impregnable dignity. The Dogara who took on the anti-corruption frock when he shocked us with the news of a man who domiciled over a billion Naira in the belly of a farm.

    He has to face charges. He said he was innocent. He charged back that Jibrin had no moral fibre to attack him over attempts to introduce an immunity clause for lawmakers.

    Suddenly, the Winners Chapel man looked sanctimonious. His press release was more insistent on defending the immunity clause than the impunity of N40 billion. We see here that the two-chamber legislature has become a burden on this democracy today.

    The lawmakers who should be seeking ways out of the ennui of the day are fighting for their moral well-being. One has to show it is not involved in forgery. The Oloye has been mocked in public for stating in his assets declaration that he owned a mansion that did not exist. He knew he would own the house before he declared, a prophet of his own prosperity. By implication, he wrote a prophecy in his assets declaration.

    The lawmakers turned into a stinking muck. The first story was the presidency’s stumbles. Buhari’s budget was flayed for inconsistencies of figures, for fabulous padding, for illiteracy. Like Shakespeare asked, when correction lies in the hands that committed wrong, to whom shall we complain?

    What moral right will they latch on to when a minister of education has turned standards in our unity schools into a thoroughfare of mediocrity? Or why people now steal food just to survive, or why so much division is tearing apart our fragile being as a people, or whether we should tackle head-on the frailties of our constitution?

    As many have called the Oloye to step down as his case plays out in court, Dogara has no moral right to retain his seat as speaker until a thorough investigation into Jibrin’s allegation is done. Jibrin also ought to step aside as a lawmaker until his matter is resolved. That is the proper thing to do. But Nigeria is not proper, and both men will continue to tug at each other’s sleeves in the course of their tour of duty that ends in three years.

    Ironically, Jibrin and Dogara were in the same camp in the battle for speaker. They were apparently strange bedfellows. The N100 billion constituency project is not the job of lawmakers. They are not project executors. They are advocates of good work in their constituencies. But to execute belongs to ministers and directors-general. This drama exposes the corruption of the Tenants of the House, apologies to Wale Okediran whose searing novel unveiled the fetid lies and greed of our democracy from the lawmaker’s standpoint.

    They are not good tenants. They have abused the landlord like the one mocked in Graham Greene’s A Heart of The Matter. The reason neither Oloye nor Dogara will step down reminds one of the novel of Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck on pre-Mao feudal China where a man rises from a humble estate to be a great lord. The novel, The Good Earth, ends on a tearful note. In his hoary years, the lord hears his sons plot to sell the land. He faints. He knows only the land all his life. The difference with our lawmakers is that they have no investment in this house. The house belongs to the people.

    We are the landlords and they are like “ghosts unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass,” in the words of Melville.

    But the landlords – we, the people – are impotent. We own the house. But we have no keys. If not, we would have yelled like the Poet Byron, “O man! Thou feeble tenant of an hour… corrupt by power. Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust.” They won’t quit. By our impotence, we have made them tenants in chief.

  • INEC and Abia stalemate

    Even if the smoldering crisis generated by Justice OkonAbang’s ruling, which sacked Governor OkezieIkpeazu of Abia State is under considerable control, the role of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC in facilitating that pass, will unlikely go down well with many.

    For, much of the confusion that trailed that ruling would have been stymied had the commission trod very cautiously in a manner expected of that supposedly impartial body. At issue was the indecent haste with which it issued the Certificate of Return to the beneficiary of the judgment, UcheOgah. Not just that, it went further to lie on the pendency of the notice of appeal and stay of execution of that court judgment.

    Initial comments from the commission had vehemently denied that Okezie filed a notice of appeal and a stay of execution, which legal experts said were the conditions that could bar that electoral body from executing that judgment.

    But the Attorney-general and Commissioner for Justice of Abia State came out swiftly with evidence that both the appeal and motion for stay of execution were duly filed and served; furnishing the name of INEC clerk that received them, the time and date they were received. Apparently, embarrassed by this disclosure, the commission was later to reverse itself, accepting that there was actually a notice of appeal but surprisingly feigned ignorance of the subsistence of a motion for stay of execution.

    But for the court judgment from the Abia High Court in Osisioma restraining the Chief Judge of the state or any other judge from inaugurating Ogah, he would have been sworn-in when he stormed the seat of government in Umuahia to claim the mandate given him by the court and aptly facilitated by INEC.

    Issues have been raised regarding the propriety of the order from theAbia high court. Governor Okezie has also been accused of judicial ambush and sundry tactics to stall the swearing-in of Ogah. We shall return to this later.

    On their part, the AbiaState government has also accused INEC of duplicity and compromise especially given its initial denials of the existence of the notice of appeal and stay of execution until the claims were roundly proven to be false. These denials and the hasty handing over of the Certificate of Return to Ogah have largely been interpreted by that government as evidence of INEC’s hidden motive in the matter.

    They found it curious that though the appeal and motion for the stay of execution were duly filed and served the electoral body on June 28, it still went ahead two clear days after, to issue the certificate of return to Ogah. This was further confirmed by counsel to INEC when he told Justice Abang’s court at the resumed hearing that “by issuance I meant that it was signed on June 28, but the actual presentation of the certificate was on June 30”.

    The government has also accused Ogah of attempting to assume the mantle of governance in an election he did not contest; vaulting ambition and seeking ascendancy into that office through the back door.

    It is difficult to exculpate INEC of allegations of complicity in the matter. It had no sufficient grounds rushing the issuance of the certificate of return when the matter was pending in court. So the Abia State government is on a solid footing to accuse it of bias in the instant case. It ought to have waited for the legal processes to have run their full course before action.

    And given what we know of these election cases, it does not take a genius to come to terms with the realty that the incumbent would definitely challenge the ruling. So INEC had no business embarking on that precipitous and pre-emptive voyage in utter disregard of its prospects for chaos.

    INEC’s position on the matter was further trivialized by its national commissioner in charge of the South-east, Lawrence Nwuruku when he said he was simply obeying court order by hastily presenting the certificate of return to Ogah and that if another court issues another order he would also obey it.It is not just a matter of obeying court order as the propriety of executing that judgment when it has already been challenged in court to the knowledge of that electoral body. That is the issue to contend with.

    It is wrong for Nwuruku to have presented the commission as a robot just obeying court orders without recourse to other developments that may impede their execution as this case has proven. Nwuruku also displayed crass ignorance of the inherent danger in the action when he said that if Ogah is sworn in and another court rules that another person should be sworn in, they will again swear that person in. It is not just as simple as it has been presented given its prospects for anarchy.

    And if one may wish to ask, was the opinion of the legal department of INEC sought in this matter? We raise this poser because, in matters of this nature in the past, INEC is known to have exercised considerable discretion on the appropriate recourse. Why that caution was thrown to the winds in the instant case, is at the root of the allegation that the electoral body had more than a passing interest in the matter.

    Ikeazu succinctly captured the contradiction in the whole process when he asked: so if it were in a matter of capital punishment, I would have been executed before my appeal is heard? That is the crux of the matter and the point where INEC got it all wrong. It should have allowed the legal process to run its full course.

    Moreover, the course of democracy, law and order in Abia State would be at great jeopardy if we accept Nwuruku’s position that Ogah should be sworn in and if the appeal court rules to the contrary, we should have Ikpeazu re-sworn in. That obviously, is nothing than an invitation to disaster. The proper thing to do is for the status quo to be maintained pending the determination of the appeals up to the Supreme Court.

    With that singular action by the electoral body, we have inevitably been entrapped to a situation where a governor is sitting in office while another person with a court judgment and a certificate of return is unable to assume office, a standoff of sorts with wider repercussions for peace and orderly conduct. INEC is largely culpable for this sordid state of affairs.

    So the matter is not as such with the ruling byJustice Abang as the indecent haste with which INEC aidedOgah to assume the mantle of leadership. It does not also have much to do with disclosures that the case, instituted in 2014 had suffered frustrations up to the Supreme Court before it was ordered for re-trial and assigned to the present judge. All those were legal processes conducted within the ambit of the law.

    The thrust of this piece is not the propriety of the judgment delivered by Justice Abang. That is the matter for the appellate courts to handle. No attempt is either being made to encumber Ogah from seeking the enforcement of his rights. If that right is propelled by ambition, so be it. But the proper things must be done before he can lay claims to such rights.And in the pursuit of that right,Ikpeazu’s own right to have his appeal determined must be respected.

    If it took the resort to self-help or judicial ambush for that to happen, it would seem the end has justified the means. If there is anything like judicial ambush in legal lexicon, then the judicial system that allows it has itself to blame.

    But more fundamentally, the judiciary must rise to the challenges of the suspicion that it is increasingly lending itself to manipulation by politicians to satisfy theirselfish ambitions. Such accusations have been quite rife before now and are being freely traded by parties in to case. The judiciary must not only remain an impartial arbiter but must be seen to be so.

  • A school as morgue

    A school as morgue

    The crisis stirring the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife reminds me of one evening at the Oduduwa Hall in the 1980’s when I was a student. I cannot recall the reason for the gathering, but Professor Wole Soyinka, not a Nobel laureate then, rose to speak.

    It was the first time I had heard of the “university idea.” He observed that OAU, then the University of Ife, was losing its way. His concern was not about egotists jousting for leadership or a febrile issue of student discontent. He was disappointed that where lawns should green and trees blossom, buildings were sprouting widely. For a student who was studying his homage to nature in his play, Madmen and Specialists, the evening was all too poignant.

    He was also disappointed that some campus high rollers did not even understand the simplicity of the “university idea.” He mocked them by alluding to those who accused him of “obscurity and impenetrable densities.” Yet, the Ife top brass ought to hang their heads in shame for breaching nature in the pursuit of the soap bubble they see as architectural bliss.

    Today, the soap bubble is the rule of law. The result is thousands of students idle at home. Ambition has shut the horizon. Egos are clashing. Greed is in high places. The university idea is hibernating. I cannot escape the irony. This is OAU, the place of culture and learning. It is the same school that has twitted an inane establishment, revolutionised student unionism in the country, installed an academy of conscience, held to account the brutal ecstasies of past military regimes and tamed the flamboyant corruption of democracies. Chinua Achebe once called it the seed bed of African renaissance.

    Jesus would have yelled at them over the recent crisis: physician, heal thyself. How come the struggle for who becomes a vice chancellor has transmuted into a template for paralysis? In the past, we have seen fragile egos go sore, juju placed on roads, death threats skulk rivals, orations of meaningless acidity, money exchanging hands, et al. But often, a certain code of civility undergirded the apparent barbarities. Students still attended classes, the registrar still paid salaries, lecturers still laughed and guffawed over beer at the clubs, campus nights maintained the contradictory rhythms of lucubration and romance, aluta cohabited with the evangelicals.

    At OAU, it is now graveyard. Why? The soap bubble of the rule of law. The story seems a bit straightforward. To pick a vice chancellor, the university top council advertises. This they did. They were supposed to draw up a shortlist. This they also did. In fact, it was done by the body called Joint Council of and Senate Selection Board, (JCSSB), which comprises persons from both the Senate and Governing Council of the university.

    In the course of making a shortlist, members of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) suspected foul play. They would not allow the process to continue because they thought it was not going to be a contest but a coronation. They took the matter to court, but the JCSSB, went along with the process by also securing a court order. What it means is that the matter was still brewing in court while the process continued.

    Both SSANU/NASU and the JCSSB were in their rights. The process therefore continued. The law was followed. A shortlist was made, and a final decision favoured Professor Ayobami Salami. But the opposition was not happy for the following reasons. Two of the top three candidates at the final interview were not from Ife. Three others from OAU were shortlisted but decided not to show up at the final interview. They automatically disqualified themselves.  Only Salami came from Ife. The others were from outside. Did the law forbid that? Is the university idea not about merit? Maybe the others believed the board had decided on Salami. The other point was that one of the shortlisted candidates was not healthy because he had a stroke. That is a valid point. I still wonder how the council would defend that. He was not even physically present at the interview, so he performed it over the phone. In any case, he never was made the vice chancellor. Again, if they wanted somebody from Ife, they have it in Salami. Some on the short list were about four OAU professors.

    To make it more absurd, the minister of education had accepted Salami as new VC. The same VC now dissolved the governing council because the process was said to have been flawed. This same education minister has stumbled several times on his throne. The same man who cannot distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate and dissolved university boards unilaterally. His is the minister of board dissolution. He forgets that Salami had gone through all the processes: academic, health, SSS, etc. he was found sound enough.

    If those who oppose him felt things did not work according to due process, why did they not follow their own lead and wait for the court to take its course?

    How does the dissolution of the board de-legitimise Salami’s pick? The board was legal when it decided. It cannot be illegal in retrospect and that makes the education minister’s decision untenable. The governing board members as well as the senate who picked Salami may have choreographed the process to pick their anointed. It may be so. It may be fair.

    It is obvious that if it is a matter of the rule of law, the SSANU/NASU coalition would have yielded. They wanted something less noble than the rule of law. The snag about the rule of law is that it can be manipulated. But to paraphrase Apostle Paul, we can do nothing against the law but for the law.

    That means everything should be done according to law. Meanwhile, we need the minister to step up and invoke the necessary steps to get the students back to the classroom. It is clear that it is not the principle of law that is at play, but group interests. One group beat the other in the fight for campus supremacy, and the losing side is calling for the rule of law. As I have often said, the rule of law makes sense in the context of justice.

    The injustice here is against the students whose future is truncated by juvenile academics and other staff. All those who carried symbolic coffins around the campus and created a mournful air should realise that Ife is a school, not a morgue. Presently it is a school as morgue where ideas and learning are waiting for the breath of life.