The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Desperate situation, desperate solution!

    Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose took the bull by the horn when last week, he banned grazing and rearing of cattle in the state. In their stead, he wants all those interested in cattle farming to get their own private ranches. A bill will soon be sent to the State House of Assembly to make the movement of cattle from one location of the state to another a criminal offence.

    Apparently irked by incessant attacks in the state by suspected Fulani herdsmen which peaked with killings and maiming in Oke Ako in the Ikole Local Government of the state, Fayose promised to confiscate any cattle seen anywhere in the state, except the ranches created for them by their owners.

    For those who have followed the murderous activities and criminality of the herdsmen in parts of the country and the seeming inability of the federal government to find a handle to them, Fayose’s therapy would seem a desperate solution to a degenerate problem.

    Before now, tempers have been high across the country due to the relative ease with which heavily armed Fulani herdsmen attack, kill and destroy villages ostensibly to settle disagreements with their host communities. From Benue to Kaduna, Enugu to Oyo states, their activities have left in their trail, sorrow and awe as host villagers are murdered and rendered refugees in their ancestral homes by an invading insurgent group that operates with near invincibility in the face of the inability of law enforcement agencies to apprehend them.

    Day after day, week after week, the scourge has refused to abate despite the outcries of the most vulnerable communities of the herdsmen onslaught. As things stand, it would seem the fear of Fulani herdsmen has taken the toga of the beginning of wisdom. Why not? Not with the dexterity and near invincibility with which they operate. Not with the inability of the local population to match the superior gun power of the invaders. And when you add these to the inability of law enforcement agencies to apprehend them in action or abort their plans, the situation becomes that ugly. Not unexpectedly, this has encouraged the herdsmen to take laws into their hands in the style of the atavism of the state of nature.

    Even in cases where villagers had prior information of impending attacks and promptly reported to the law enforcement agencies, nothing was done to forestall them. That was precisely the case with the killings in Enugu State where even after the governor was given copious assurances that security agencies were on top of the situation, the worst still happened.

    Events in the latest attack in Ekiti State curiously followed the same predictable pattern. There were reports that even when the villagers reported the attack as it was going on, no respite came their way as the police refused to go into the bush with them.

    Given the foregoing, the frustrations that led Fayose to these rather drastic measures can be understood. It is a desperate effort to protect his people from the frequent killings that are now consequent upon cattle rearing and movement of cattle from one place to another. It also underscores most poignantly the inherent contradiction in the seeming high premium cattle breeders now place on that animal over and above human life.

    If the measures succeed to checkmate the clashes between his constituents and the herdsmen thereby saving valuable lives, the end has justified the means. It is not a matter of whether one likes Fayose or not. We all do not have to like him anyway. That is hardly the issue now.

    We may also not like the messenger. But it is not a matter of taking the message and discarding the messenger. No! Both the message and the messenger are very relevant and useful in the instant case. After all, is it not said there is sense in nonsense?

    The measures stand as Fayose’s solutions as chief security officer of the state to the clashes between the herdsmen and the local farmers. They may seem radical; they may appear harsh and capable of creating difficulties for genuine cattle breeders on the short run. There is also the difficulty of immediate enforcement in view of the fact that the herdsmen are already in the bushes in the state. For now, that is his response to the wanton slaying of his people by an invading insurgent group that places higher premium on cows over and above human lives and it cannot be faulted. Those who criticize his approach to this debilitating problem should come forward with their own solutions. He could ill-afford to sit by while his people are slaughtered by an invading insurgent group that has scant regard for human lives.

    He wants to get at the source of this crisis and stem subsequent attacks. And in this, he sees controlling the movement of cattle from one place to another as the appropriate starting point.  He is interested in saving lives and any other consideration should count less when it comes to the first law of nature – self preservation. Those were the issues of prime concern to the governor especially given suspicions that there are other motivations for the resurging onslaughts of the Fulani herdsmen.

    It is difficult to fault the decisions irrespective of the difficulties they will create for cattle breeders in the interim. There could be the issue of where breeders will house their cattle between now and the time such ranches are established. All these immediate problems are to be admitted. But they have arisen because those whose duty it is to provide solutions to the drift to the precipice have failed to take action. They have become relevant in the face of the failure of the state to rise to its basic function of guaranteeing law and order.

    So it is not enough to fault the strategy adopted by Fayose. He saw a yawning vacuum and sought to fill it. Those who created that vacuum should take vicarious liability for whatever shortcomings there are in Fayose’s therapy to the looming conundrum these attacks have come to represent. It may turn out the most dramatic way of drawing attention of the authorities to the potent danger in the senseless killings by Fulani herdsmen across the country.

    And if the measures succeed in challenging the federal government to the reality of finding lasting solutions to this debilitating ill, then they have achieved their purpose in a teleological sense. Responses from the government have centered round the creation of grazing reserves. It has set aside N940 million in the current budget for the creation of such reserves across the country. There have also been denials over a purported bill before the National Assembly for the creation of grazing routes.

    But whereas grazing reserves can be created for states in the north that are traditional cattle rearers, it makes no sense to talk of such reserves in the south. For Oyo State governor, Abiola Ajimobi, his state has no land for gazing reserves. Not only is the proposal against the Land Use Act, Ajimobi contends that it is also against the “law of natural justice to grab someone’s land to cater for another one’s cattle”. He spoke for many.

    The other idea of grazing routes is also a contradiction of sorts as evidently dramatized in a recent interview by the Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbe. He underscored the contradiction in the proposal when he said you cannot create a grazing route to someone else’s farmland. So we are left with the ranches which Fayose prescribed for those interested in cattle breeding in Ekiti State.

    More seriously, this government must act quickly to diffuse the time bomb which these attacks have become. Resurging feelings by communities that they have no alternative than to resort to self-help in the face of the inability of the government to rein in the insurgents can only lead to anarchy. Fayose’s action should be a sufficient signal to the degenerate level the situation is inevitable sliding.

  • When bell rings twice

    When bell rings twice

    Not many thought the first year of Muhammadu Buhari would look like this. The price of pump price at 145, the naira at 350 to a dollar, not a single road tarred, the 2016 Budget in baby steps, no minister has received a tranche for work, salary backlogs now a routine, herdsmen as killer squads, Biafra on the rampage, Niger Delta brigands reborn,  a labour strike, the President has only visited one state on official trip, his plane has landed on four continents, the change mantra muted.

    Yet, if you go to the streets, there is no rage or less rage or impotent rage, but a sense of paralysis. The average Nigerian, including those who did not vote for Buhari, are not willing to pelt indignation. They feel poor, even poorer. Power that spewed out radiance in the first few months of his administration has returned to its habitual epilepsy. Jobs? Where are they? The welfare scheme and food for students? Not on the cards today. Many cannot pay rents, many squeeze out meals, wards cannot face their principals for lack of fees. Patience is tested everywhere. Those who are asking for it are also being asked for it. Yet, Buhari is Teflon, rising somewhat above popular anger.

    Much of it, ironically, can be attributed to Buhari himself. The people at the hem are not yet angry with the man at the helm. For two reasons, mainly. One, his biography has proved compelling, even in office. No one thinks him a thief. No one thinks him contemplating thieving. Added to that, he turned the EFCC into a vault of revelations. This man stole that, that smaller man stole that bigger sum. The newspapers became headlines of statistical horror of billions of naira and dollar. All the peacock men in the Jonathan era, who suffused us with righteous rhetoric, of brokered ethnicity and marketed shoelessness, have become the fingers of impunity or retreated into priestly or pastoral silences.

    Perhaps for the first time since independence, we have an elected president whose finger is not suspected of pecuniary mischief. He might have flown to Asia, Europe and the United States, and slept in the luxury of jet and high-flown hotels. He is not in any suggestion of a narrative of stealing.

    We also know that integrity is good, but no matter how good, it will not put food on the table. There lies the moral dilemma of the Buhari era so far. We pine for holiness; we want the sort of character that John Milton painted of the Christ in Paradise Lost. But Christ can be boring if he does not change water to wine or give us fishes that defeat the appetite. The alternative is to call for Satan, and the sins multiply. Hence, Satan was a more colorful and majestic character in Milton’s epic than the beautiful blandness of his Christ. We had a lot of Satan of greed in the last dispensation. That accounts for the Buhari appeal.

    This is perhaps the first time that the war on corruption is fought with palpable sincerity. Paradoxically, it is also the first time it is pursued with epic naivety. The battle seems more about the optics so far, about the stunning figures, about the pruned dignity of the culprit in court, of the stories of vomiting and chewed statements, of court orders ignored and obeyed, of a puffing Eleyinmi as Senate President and a bragging Fani-Kayode clutching the air of the moral superior. Of course, a stooping former soldier is almost numbed over charges that he played charity with government money. Money to save lives in battle was diverted to save the office of the shoeless maestro.

    But then, Buhari wanted to roll back Boko Haram, and he has. Once the pious upstarts planted righteous flags and choked cities and towns and its shadow threatened Kashim Shettima’s position as Borno State governor. Shettima told us more than anyone was ready to say about the ragtag army of bigots, that they were better armed and motivated. Now, Boko Haram is a puny blood fest, harassing only intermittently with suicides. It is a mark it cannot hold out for too long.

    So, Buhari governed gravely, and he changed the moral tone of government. He also nipped the greatest existential threat to our nationhood in the past three decades. For one year, we can say he did well and, some may say, even very well.

    But very well does not put food on the table. It does not seem now that many know well what the blueprint is for the economy. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo articulated this at The Nation newspaper’s First National Conference on the Economy.  Since then though, he has made references to it in snippets.  But, it will not resonate until we start seeing steps.

    No matter the high moral tone of the economy, and a sense of tranquility, if the economy is not handled with deliberate urgency, the austere image of the president will get a beating from the hungry and disaffected. This may be the flipside of the election that brought George W. Bush to office. Bill Clinton was credited with the biggest economic expansion in U.S. history with many jobs available. But his party’s nominee Al Gore, who was his vice, lost out because of Clinton’s moral baggage. The people chose character over prosperity. Of course, when they lost prosperity under Bush, they gave a black man, Barack Obama, the task to carry both the moral and economic burdens. Just like Larry Mamutry’s novel, Lonesome Dove, where the black man serves as the moral restraint for the white man, Obama becomes what sociologists have called the “magical negro.” He takes the fall for the Caucasian predatory excesses. Buhari should learn not to be a fall guy of his own integrity.

    As noted last week, he can take advantage of bellwether minister Babatunde Fashola (SAN), whose ministry can galvanise activity with works and housing and power projects. That was how FD Roosevelt jolted America with the New Deal, which some critics called the “raw deal” then. Other ministers, too, can follow suit at various levels.

    His first year is noted for some notorious silences. The Agatu-Fulani herdsmen saga, Ese Oruru, labour strike, pump price hike. He has visited many places, but only Cross River State in Nigeria for business. His voice roared over Biafra agitation, Niger Delta Avengers and the Shiite group up north. No problem with that if the same decibel of rhetoric flogged the herdsmen. He has clutched endlessly for reasons. A leader is empty without empathy. He needs to connect on an emotional level, especially at a time when many are hurting. Life and death, says David, are in the power of the tongue.

    The second year often is time to settle down to substantial work. As John Donne wrote, ask not for whom the bell tolls, Mr. President, it tolls for thee. A year from now, the bell would have rung twice, where will his tenure be?

  • Bring back the other girls

    Interestingly, there are people who think the publicised May 17  rescue of one of the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram terrorists may well be a stunt to credit the President Muhammadu Buhari administration with an important achievement ahead of its first anniversary on May 29. These doubters provide a significant sign of the government’s public rating close to a year after the wind of change that blew the Goodluck Jonathan administration out of power.

    This thinking that the Buhari government may have stage-managed the report of teenager Amina Ali’s return amounts to not only a discredit to the government’s credibility, but also a dishonour to Buhari’s advertised integrity. It is food for thought that things have come to such a pass, considering the high public optimism that greeted Buhari’s ascendancy.

    It is clarifying that news of Amina’s rescue was corroborated by Chibok Girls Parents Association Chairman Yakubu Nkeki, and the spokesperson of the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) advocacy group, Sesugh Akume.

    It is enlightening that Presidential Villa watcher Olalekan Adetayo in a report captured what he called “A presidential treatment for a rescued captive”: “A presidential jet was sent to Borno State to bring her. She came with her mother, her brother and her baby. She arrived the Villa in a convoy of vehicles under tight security. She was driven straight to the forecourt of the President’s office through the Service Chiefs’ Gate. Only privileged few persons are driven through the gate that is reserved for the high and mighty.”

    Adetayo also reported: “Amina… was accompanied by the Borno State Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima; the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali; the National Security Adviser, Babangana Monguno; and the Chief of Defence Staff, Gabriel Olonishakin, among other top government officials.”

    Buhari perhaps needed the photo opportunity more than Amina. Pictures of the President carrying Safiya, Amina’s baby girl, helped to project a powerful message about state capacity. It is noteworthy that the latest official information indicated that the military had recaptured 20 villages from the Islamist terrorists in 22 days under Operation Crackdown, and had rescued 150 civilians, including Amina.

    Although Buhari spoke with reassuring optimism on the possibility of bringing back the schoolgirls abducted in Chibok, Borno State, over two years ago, there is no question that it will take more than positive thinking and expression of hope to get the girls back. “Amina’s rescue gives us new hope and offers a unique opportunity to vital information,” Buhari said.  Borno State Governor Shettima sang the same tune, saying, “… 218 girls are not accounted for, but a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, the recovery of Amina Ali, is a sign of greater things to come…”

    Apart from Amina’s case, the question concerning the fate of the victims of the outrageous kidnap of April 14, 2014, remains tragically unanswered. Out of the 276 seized students of the Girls Senior Secondary School, Chibok, 57 managed to escape. It is a cause for concern that only Amina has been rescued out of the remaining 219 girls, despite an international campaign that resonated across the world, involving United States First Lady Michelle Obama and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

    Lamentably, the strident demand for action, particularly political action by the political authorities, which was formulated as #BringBackOurGirls, has not yielded any significant progress in locating and returning the girls. This amounts to governmental failure.

    Indeed, the unresolved kidnappings call for political will and fresh creative approaches.  As things stand, there is a seeming paralysis that hinders the desired action to get the girls back. In this matter, the government of the day must demonstrate that it is conscious of its institutional and moral responsibilities.

    Notwithstanding initial footdragging by the Jonathan administration that was in power when the terrorists struck in Chibok, and the associated complications, President Buhari must rise to the challenge.

    It is heart-warming that Buhari said: “Although we cannot do anything to reverse the horrors of her past, the Federal Government can and will do everything possible to ensure that the rest of her life takes a completely different course. Amina will get the best care that the Nigerian government can afford. We will ensure that she gets the best medical, emotional and whatever care that she requires to get full recovery and be integrated into the society.” This is a promise that must be kept.

    Importantly, the occasion also yielded what may be considered as a policy position on girl-child education. It was positive that Buhari made a fundamental assertion: “The continuation of Amina’s education so abruptly disrupted will definitely be a priority of the Federal Government. Amina must be able to go back to school. Nobody in Nigeria should be put through the brutality of forced marriage. Every girl has a right to education and their choice of life.” Buhari should take a further step on this issue by officially intensifying the promotion of girl-child education and discouraging forced marriage across the country.

    This is where Mohammed Hayatu comes in. He is the suspected Boko Haram terrorist who was found with Amina and who claimed to be her husband. Lagos activist lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) was helpful in defining Hayatu’s status. Falana argued: “The captured terrorist who was arrested with Amina is not her husband but an abductor and a rapist. The media should therefore desist from further referring to the criminal suspect as the husband of the girl…The Attorney-General of Borno State should proceed to charge the terrorist with abduction and slavery, torture and rape without any further delay.”

    It is a thought-provoking irony that Baby Safiya bears a name that is contradicted by the circumstances of her birth. Safiya is a Muslim name meaning “pure”. The terrorism that resulted in Amina’s abduction and her subsequent violation by an alleged member of a violent group was not a reflection of purity. It is equally important to protect this baby from possible stigma, and help her to rise above the unfortunate context of her birth.

    The celebration of Amina’s rescue and return is not inappropriate. But the other Chibok girls still missing deserve to be brought back too.

  • A matter of conscience!

    Inherent contradictions in some of the issues relating to the current increase in fuel price from N86.50kobo to N145 were last week, brought to the fore by frontline rights activist, Senator Shehu Sani.

    In a statement, Sani had condemned in very strong terms what he perceived as orchestrated campaign of calumny by the federal government against the Nigerian Labor Congress NLC for speaking out the minds of poor Nigerians against the fuel price increase.

    Commending the NLC for leading mass protests against fuel price increases in the past, he argued that it would be hypocritical to condemn the labour body for its principled stand on the issue now. “Our quest for justice and equity must not depend on the government or persons in power but must depend upon the matters of principles at hand. Those who stood against increases in the price of petroleum products yesterday and stood for it today have betrayed the very principle which they claim to represent”, he further contended.

    Sani’s thesis is quite unassailable. And it is at the heart of the plethora of policy failures that have been the sad tale of governments on these shores over the years. Because of the dangerous politics we play in this country, many very well intentioned policies and programmes of the government have not been allowed to see the light of the day. Most often, criticisms of such policies are based on the quarters they are coming from rather than their larger heuristics for public good.

    Thus, it is not strange to find a policy option which attracted trident opposition during one regime being hailed shortly after a change of guards even with the objective conditions remaining the same. That has been the uncanny dilemma thrown up by the recent increase in fuel price by the Buhari regime. Curiously, the prevailing conditions and arguments for such a price regime have remained largely the same.

    When in January, 2012, the Jonathan regime came up with an increase of N141 per litre of fuel, hell was let loose. The nation was virtually brought to a standstill as organized labour, opposition political parties and diverse civil society groups mobilized to oppose such increase given the deleterious consequences it was bound to have on the lives of the toiling masses that are usually at the receiving end of such policies.

    That government was forced to drop the astronomic price increase despite the weighty arguments on which it had premised the adjustment. Before then, both Jonathan and Obasanjo had variously spoken of the looming danger of a revolution, if no conscious efforts were made to create job for the teeming army of the unemployed.

    Jonathan went further to predict that the nation would be broke in the next one and a half years if fuel subsidy was not removed. He justified the removal on the grounds that it will open up vast opportunities for Nigeria’s school leavers and population of unemployed graduates in the new refineries and petrochemical industries that will emerge after deregulation.

    He also sought to take responsibility for his action when he said “even if we deregulate and I am shamed; posterity will be there to judge me, that I did the right thing and I will be vindicated when Nigerians start enjoying the benefits of my decision”.

    In an article in this column shortly before the price increase of January 2012, this writer had taken up the arguments canvassed by Jonathan to persuade the public to accept the price increase. His prediction of the possibility of a revolution coupled with the financial mess the nation was inevitably heading to, were issues that came under serious focus.

    For a man that was rather considered weak to have spoken in such strong terms on the imperative of deregulation, with a promise to embark on a programme of carefully selected social relief interventions to ameliorate its pains, I had argued that the scenario presented a game situation with two options- to deregulate or not to deregulate. And since it was a matter of rational choice, rational calculation, the choice Jonathan should opt for is that which will minimize his losses in the event of the worst outcome. The scenario was that of a choice between going broke with the prospects of a revolution on the one hand if we fail to deregulate and excruciating hardship for the vulnerable population on the other if we deregulate. Given the above, the rational option for Jonathan then was to deregulate. If he deregulated, he would have saved the nation the pains of bankruptcy and revolution. Thereafter, he could sit back and put in place all those social intervention palliatives that will reduce the pains of deregulation.

    We then concluded that irrespective of the genuine reservations we had on fuel subsidy removal, Jonathan should be allowed to take responsibility on this singular issue if he is so convinced and rise and fall together with its outcome. These issues have been brought to focus given the furore generated by the recent fuel price increase and the defence of same by persons who hitherto opposed the idea.

    Today, the policy has received endorsements even from those who hitherto opposed it. Those who were known to have hailed organized labour for stridently opposing such increases in the past are now either equivocating or inventing subtle way to frustrate extant agitations against the current price increase.

    The same arguments are being recycled with nothing new to add. We have now been told by the government that the price increase or subsidy removal is inevitable because the nation is broke; the same prediction Jonathan made out four years ago. Issues like this are not likely to go down well with people of principle. That is the matter the likes of Sani have found difficult to contend with, his political leaning notwithstanding.

    He finds it hard to reconcile why the labour body is now being divided just to cripple the momentum of their opposition against the price increase even when the masses will be worse for it. He cannot find sufficient justification why those who stood against the price increase yesterday will today be singing a different tune.

    It is an issue of conscience; an issue of morality we must fight hard to justify. And the degree of success made in this direction will be a pointer to some of the systemic dysfunctions that have over the years held this nation down. It is the sincerity or lack of it in the way the political class perceives policies and programmes of a government that may not be in their good books, for whatever reasons.

    So at what point should national interest come in? For how long shall we continue to pander to the selfish predilections of a political class that says one thing today and entirely another tomorrow? For how long shall we continue to sacrifice issues of national interest and principles on the altar of some selfish, parochial and ill-defined exigencies?

    These were some of the issues that pricked the conscience of Sani. And in this, he is with many. Sani is an apostle of conscience; a man of principle. He is the type of man this nation direly needs. He may not really be against the arguments being put forward to support the current price hike. But his worry is that they are issues that have before now been copiously canvassed and rejected. Why all of a sudden, they have become a matter of popular appeal is what he needs to be convinced of.

  • Away from crisis

    Away from crisis

    We should not dwell heavily on the cause of our woes. We should not bellyache over the corrupt doings of the Jonathan years overmuch. We should not carp on the wasted opportunities with the Naira and our foreign reserves. The Naira, now fallen, preened on sunnier days and our foreign reserves rolled in buxom times.

    But we cannot escape it when we say that elections have consequences. That Jonathan mattered and now matters. When we vote, we do it on sentiments. Sentiments, as Oscar Wilde says, propel us more than reason. But we voted a man for his so-called humble looks and his backwaters roots. We are now in the backwaters of inflation, joblessness, hunger and desperation.

    Democracy is not always about wise decisions. It can be foolish. The Algerians and, recently, Egyptians voted in a set of brooding fanatics into power and had to fret until they were ousted. Novelist Mark Twain once said that “if voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” We are now suffering the maelstrom of electoral delirium.

    Today, the price of fuel is N145 because we erred. We can blame Jonathan all we want. But we must be careful not to wash ourselves clean.

    Now that we have to face the task of bringing our economy to a softer place, we must also keep vigil. We have to watch out for profiteers and cynics. But more importantly, we must understand where we are and how we ought to move from here.

    As the fuel price was raised, a few issues hit the nation’s jugular. One, it came as a surprise. Fuel stations had become limp lines of vehicular frustrations. Some were buying fuel at whatever price when they could afford it. They just wanted fuel. Whether at N180 or N120 per litre, they gulped the rare fluid. Others had no choice. They borrowed Job’s virtue and lingered on fuel stations for interminable hours. Some of them were not rewarded when the fuel stations dried up and they had to try their lucks elsewhere.

    The announcement of the fuel price hike was greeted with revulsion, and then many discovered that they no longer had to queue. They had relief, not joy. Relief can be more potent than happiness. To escape a doom may soothe the soul more than enjoying a boon. Many of us could not fill our tanks, but we had enough fuel to move around and hustle until we could afford another time at the fuel station.

    Nigerians understood the desperation, hence the call for strike had no emotional following. But the other snag was that the fuel was suddenly available. What does that tell us of the fuel marketers? They won. They browbeat the government to raise the price of fuel.

    Or shall we say they had to browbeat the federal government to do what they had to do. The federal government was spending over 70 percent of its foreign exchange to import fuel. It had about $800 million a month of forex, but spent about $600 million to import fuel. What was left for other urgent matters of state? Mere pittance.

    So, the marketers did not win, but they were crooked. I think the Buhari administration should have taken this decision long ago, very early in its administration. But something critical was lacking: communication skills.  The President lamented very early on that the Jonathan administration wrecked our purse and we had nothing. I wrote in this column that it was not his job to lament but to take action. We would have gotten over this matter of fuel adjustment long ago.

    The other issue is that the fuel price hike came with disconnects on a number of levels. There was little communication between the government and the people, between the government and labour and between labour and the Nigerian workers. This slew of disconnects reflected in the past week. Some asserted that the palliatives already existed in the budget, so was the hike premeditated? Why did the administration not dare into the fray rather than do it sneakily?

    The problem, I think, is that the government should not have used the term palliatives. Minister Lai Mohammed struggled to convey the logic in his rounds in the media because some coordination did not take place. He did not use the word palliatives and he, in fact, noted that it was not about palliatives but a decision the government was compelled to take in the light of a battered foreign reserve.

    The government already had a welfare plan in its budget, and it could have easily argued that the welfare package was in itself prescient because the administration anticipated the hurly-burly of the economy. The administration should have buoyed the fuel hike news with figures of how much it had saved and how the money saved would be ploughed into the economy. That is the definition of a psychological palliative. It’s like having a baby and losing one on the same day. It is expected, however, that President Buhari will unveil he figures in his May 29 broadcast.

    One of the headaches of the past year has been the budget delay and absence of implementation of government projects.

    Buhari should have deployed the administration’s bellwether Babatunde Fashola (SAN) into the fray. His ministry holds a critical key. It will do the works. That’s how economies come back to life. With projects unleashed, lots of money flow into the system, and many get jobs because many contracts are awarded. Franklyn Roosevelt did it in the Great Depression on the inspiration of the genius of economist John Maynard Keynes. Big works pull demands and fill them. It can happen here. Fashola has spent some of the past year articulating his plans on power and infrastructure, but absence of money has allowed a sort of ennui to creep into the Buhari mainstream. Other ministers, like Rotimi Amaechi, whose rail projects will open dams of money could have helped.

    Times of economic woes are not about actions alone, but also about inspired rhetoric. Roosevelt said during America’s worst economic times: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It injected a tonic into the American psychological bloodstream. That is what we expect at this time. The Jonathan damage cannot be cured overnight. We voted him, so, we voted for our woes. We should be ready for the consequences. But, the Buhari administration must learn to embrace us and soothe us with not only steps of concrete action but also words that inspire. Good words are like medicine, says David in the Proverbs.

    John F. Kennedy did this in his time. He said: “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognise the opportunity.” Words like these brought America from crisis to catharsis. We need them now.

  • Fantastically wealthy

    There is no question that Senate President Bukola Saraki is rich. But there are certainly questions arising from his prosperity-status. When an individual is stinking rich, the wealth may well be stinking. Or, put differently, when an individual is filthy rich, the wealth may well be filthy.

     Saraki’s lawyer, Paul Erokoro (SAN), reportedly described him as “extremely rich”. Erokoro made Saraki’s riches public during his ongoing trial for alleged false assets declaration before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Abuja. Saraki didn’t need to become Kwara State governor in 2003 to make mega money, his lawyer argued. He was already rolling in money by the time he became a governor, his legal representative stressed.

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

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

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

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

    Indeed, this is a rich collection of vehicles, and the logical question should be how Saraki acquired the vehicles, or how he acquired the capacity to acquire the vehicles.

    The report added: “The lawyer was however silent on the source of his client’s wealth and how he came about all the property and cash he claimed to have possessed before he became governor in 2003.” Silence will not answer the loud questions Saraki needs to answer to clarify his claims: How did Saraki come to be so rich?  What super explanations can explain Saraki’s super wealth?

    It is noteworthy that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said its findings “showed that the defendant/applicant abused his office, while he was the governor of Kwara State and was involved in various acts of corruption as the governor of the state”. The anti-graft agency also said: “The defendant/applicant borrowed huge sums of money running into billions from commercial banks, particularly Guaranty Trust Bank, and used the proceeds of the loan to acquire several landed properties in Lagos, Abuja and London, while he was the governor of Kwara State”.

    Consequently, Saraki is facing charges “ranging from anticipatory declaration of assets to making false declaration of assets in forms” he had filed with the Code of Conduct Bureau while he was governor of Kwara State. Saraki was also “accused of failing to declare some assets he acquired while in office as governor, acquiring assets beyond his legitimate earnings, and accused of operating foreign accounts while being a public officer”.

    It is important to note that the EFCC said: ”Asset declaration form is not just any document. The person declaring his assets is expected to go before a high court judge to swear an oath. They swear to affidavit, so it is believed that all he swore to, and appended his signature to is the truth.” If so, it may well be that Saraki is yet to tell the whole truth, meaning that he would need to say how he made so much which enabled him to acquire so much.

    It is relevant to consider Saraki’s trajectory before his trial. His profile said: ”Abubakar Bukola Saraki was born on 19 December 1962 to the family of Olusola Saraki, a senator (1979 – 1983) and a one- time Senate Leader of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and his mother Florence Morenike Saraki. He attended King’s College, Lagos from 1973 to 1978, and Cheltenham College, Cheltenham, London, from 1979 to 1981 for his High School Certificate. He then studied at the London Hospital Medical College of the University of London, from 1982 to 1987, when he obtained his M.B.B.S (London). He worked as a medical officer at Rush Green Hospital, Essex, from 1988 to 1989. He was a director of Societe Generale Bank (Nig) Ltd   from 1990 to 2000.”

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

    This background gives no clue as to how Saraki could have made what he claims to have made before he became a governor.   Perhaps more important than how much an individual has, the question of how such an individual came to have so much should be beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The clarification of the sources of personal wealth is so crucial that it must not be a subject of speculation.

    Saraki currently belongs to the All Progressives Congress (APC) which he joined from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but his Senate presidency is seriously imperiled, following an understandable backlash occasioned by his opportunistic subversion of his party’s calculations for the federal legislature. He may yet learn that party supremacy is supreme.

    In the final analysis, an individual’s fantastic wealth cannot be left to the public imagination for explanation. This is the reality Saraki must face.

  • Sheriff’s PDP congresses

    Sheriff’s PDP congresses

    If feelers emanating from the congresses of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP are anything to go-by, history is fast repeating itself. There is now a groundswell of evidence that the PDP may have failed to learn from history. And the indiscretion of repeating historic mistakes could this time around, come with very devastating repercussions.

    That appears to be the current pass the party has irretrievably been entangled given the outcome of its congresses which commenced throughout the country in the last few weeks. Reports from across the country, speak of disregard for the rules guiding free and fair congresses, imposition of candidates, writing of results and the usual impunity that was the undoing of the party at the last national elections.

    In Ogun, Imo, Anambra, Ekiti and Plateau states parallel congresses were held due largely to the inability of the congress committees to unite the people and come up with a generally acceptable guideline for the congress. There was also the issue of the vaulting desires of selfish politicians to undo others, take advantage and control party structures.

    For most part, congresses were conducted in utter disregard to extant party guidelines. In Imo state for example, there were reports of shoot-out and hijacking of election materials for eight local government areas in the Imo West Senatorial constituency. Many prospective candidates were shortchanged as only one form was distributed for each elective position.

    This in effect, shunted out all other candidates who desired to take a shot at any elective office of their choice. In many other states, the story was the same depending on the peculiar circumstances of the area. Generally, the congresses fell short of the standards of practice expected of a party that lost the last general election due largely to its inability to accord internal democracy a pride of place within its scheme of affairs.

    Having bungled the conduct of the ward congresses, subsequent ones were predictably bound to run into troubled waters. That accounted for the avalanche of parallel congresses in many states. In some, the congresses were conducted in three different places by three different factions indicating how deep differences among members had sunk.

    It was on account of these disagreements bordering on scant regard for rules that concerned PDP stalwarts led by former governor of Niger state, Dr. Babangida Aliyu called on the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff to postpone the national congress to avert a looming danger. They had also complained about the manner in which the zoning of party offices were altered by a poorly attended National Executive Committee NEC of the party contending that it was inconsistent with original party principles

    Their views were summed thus, “the procedure and conduct of the congresses nationwide were flawed with resultant disagreements and disaffection” Despite these observations which came shortly after the bungled ward congresses, the party has refused to accede to popular feelings, trudging on as usual as if the views of the people count for nothing in the exercise of that elementary civic duty.

    From all indications, the party is repeating the same mistakes that led to its implosion and defeat. Many of its former governors who defected on the eve of the last elections, had issues with lack of internal democracy and unbridled impunity in the running of the party affairs. There were issues with the bravado and arrogance of the party leadership. They operated in such a fashion that suggested they could do away with the people and still win elections.

    There were even suggestions that the party would be in power for the next fifty years or more. With that mindset, it was not surprising why the party treated its members as items it could dispense of at its whims and caprices. But all that have come to naught. All those vaulting optimisms have been flatly deflated by events of the last elections. The party is currently entangled in a huge crisis of survival and relevance.

    For a party that found itself in the current pass; a party faced with serious image deficits, the minimum expectation would have been to pause for a while, pose certain questions and seek answers to them. The answers it will get would definitely advise against treading that familiar path that led to its down fall. But that did not seem to have happened.  Maybe it failed to do some introspection; it did and got the wrong answers or it did not believe in the outcome of the results it got.

    Whichever way, the repercussions of repeating the mistakes of the past are bound to be more destructive this time around. They could even destroy the party and alienate those who hitherto believed in it. That is the stark reality which that party must come to terms with.

    At the center of this mess is the ambition of Sheriff to metamorphose as the substantive national chairman.  To have an easy sail, he is said to be nonchalant to raging complaints from across the country on the manipulation of the results of the congresses to produce a list that is likely do his bidding.

    And in this devious objective, he has found accomplices in chameleons within that party who are not amenable to changing their colors. The party seems to be living in the past when it could do anything and get away with it. Then, it was in power and the allure of the center recruited an army of supporters including fortune seekers for it. Then, it could deploy the coercive apparatus of state and perquisites of office to sway support in its direction.

    Today, the situation has substantially changed. The PDP has neither the largesse to disburse nor coercive apparatus of state to compel followership. Its strength should ordinarily lie in a re-invented party that will command the respect of party men and women; a party that respects rules and regulations, a party in which the sovereignty of members in electing their leaders will reign supreme. But that has failed to happen.

    Events of these congresses have shown the party towing same familiar but ruinous path. From all indications, the party is drawn to a very long and fierce battle among its members given the parallel congresses in various states. There have been instances of litigations and more are to follow.

    In the face of these disagreements, nothing encouraging seems forthcoming from the national leadership as if it comfortable with the situation. There have been no visible signs from Sheriff to put the PDP house in order except the cancellation of the congresses in three states. Matters are not remedied by suspicions that he has a hand in the impunity and subversion of internal democracy that has marred the congresses in some states.

    The PDP is in dire straits. It has no need for the luxury which the current disputations represent. It has no need for the acrimony within if it wants to survive as a party. It is not just enough for some of its governors to be pontificating on how they are going to recapture power come 2019.  The starting point is to get the congresses to satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of members by being truly free and fair. In its absence, the PDP may as well brace up for further implosion and obvious relegation to irrelevance.

  • Wanted: A readers’ commune

    If we don’t create, we die. If we don’t recreate, our species die. Those were my thoughts when I sat on a panel last week to discuss the fate of writing in Nigeria. The discourse was organised by the Association of Nigerian Authors.

    Others on the panel, including the ebullient Kole Omotoso, projected a pessimistic tone. The Nigerian writer was a lost cause. In his well-manicured, hoary beard and confident diction, Omotoso noted that Nigerian writers, including novelists, playwrights and poets, did not pay attention to details, including punctuation, and could never compete. Hence those who made waves were the same Nigerians who were discovered or lived in the western world.

    Others moaned over piracy, bookshops that fleeced writers and publishers that leeched their writers. I thought that this was no time to weep. They all said the truth, I said, including novelist Omotoso and author of Just Before dawn. But only a version of the truth.

    “I am not here to bury the writer,” I intoned, “but to wake him up and out of his slumber.” I noted that we needed a historical perspective on the creative life of a nation. The first generation of Nigerians, including Soyinka, Achebe, Clark and Okigbo, thrived on a colonial boon. They worked on the infrastructure the white installed for everything else, including roads, power, education, health care. We became independent in the afterglow of British help.

    So, the writers were discovered and projected by the white man. It was easy to write and get an airing. I alluded to a recent interview on BBC’s Hard Talk with writer Ben Okri. The host referred to the view advanced by novelist Tricia Nwaubani that the prominent African writers soared on western endorsement alone. Good luck to you, no matter your quality of output, if the west did not see it, you will shine in self-congratulation in your unlighted, suffocated cocoon. Okri denied it and said Achebe, Soyinka and others did not thrive on western accolade. He also said it was not the west that made him and he was doing well as a writer in Nigeria.

    I have never heard anything more fraudulent about Nigerian literature. Okri, who has made himself a pariah of Nigerian letters by voting himself more as a Briton, manifested such damnable disingenuousness that it is necessary to expose him. He should tell us why he never comes to Nigeria to engage. He should describe the infrastructure of writing, discovery of writers and marketing in the 1950’s and 1960’s and tell us whether it was mastered by the British and other western poachers, including Uli Beier. They decided what was great art and what was not in their own lights.

    Later we had the African Writers Series (AWS) that Achebe edited. It was a forum created by the white man to stir African letters. Omotoso told me that before he finished his PhD, he had published two works. He said also that, in the age of the Internet, it was easy to access information. I replied that the AWS was an easy platform for the western poachers to know what was happening in African writing. Once you were in, you could savour a fair play.

    I noted at the conference that we no longer had such an easy infrastructure. Hence we have the ennui of today. For most writers who want to be read, the task is hard. Even critics and professors of literature have to enjoy a sort of western bear hug to be regarded as top flight in the ivory tower.

    What does that mean? It shows that the west has to decide what is important not only in style and content, but what issues we should take seriously. In the Hard talk interview, Okri caviled at what he thought was the tendency of African literature to journalism because of its political overtone. This is sheer hypocrisy. This is the author of Famished Road who confessed to family anxiety during the 1960s pogrom when his half-Igbo mother had to be hidden from the menace of marauding bigots. He is an alien to his African soul. If someone writes to capture such malady, he would say it is not great art. He wrote a piece saying that African writers are afflicted with the “tyranny of subject,” and that we should look away from such subjects as slavery, colonialism, poverty and war. We should shy away from writing about heavy subjects like suffering. I know Dickens, Austen, Balzac, Tolstoy, etc. They all focused on heavy subjects of suffering.

    I think Okri has been too colonised. I don’t think Okri is an African writer. He is a writer from Nigeria toadying up to his western masters. He is no longer our writer, but theirs. Some have argued that we use the white man’s language and they know what is good and bad. That is surrender. We have appropriated the language and good Nigerian English should not be dictated by the English.

    I agree, as Omotoso noted, that our writings published here have imperfections. But this is a world in which the writer is on his own. I suggested that we should establish the readers’ commune in Nigeria. I suggested to ANA to work with corporate Nigeria, local governments, state governments and the federal government to set up readers’ clubs in each local government. Young Nigerians and some of the old will be encouraged to meet once a month with a selection of a Nigerian writer. Each cell can organise itself idiosyncratically, as a debating club, recitation competition, political group, etc. But everything can surround a prescribed text for the month.

    I salute the efforts of the NLNG, Etisalat, GLO, Nigerian Breweries, etc for their investments in a literary Nigeria. But they encourage writers to win prizes. We need a more grassroots approach to literature, especially from the reader’s perspective. During his lecture on Biodun Jeyifo’s 70th birthday, Professor Dan Izevbaye noted that some of the new writings are hard to get, including playwright Sam Ukala’s Iredi War that won the NLNG drama prize.

    While the corporate sponsors have done well by way of nudging writers out of silence, we need to create an infrastructure to evangelise them among our people. Or else our letters will be fodder for the west only.

    If we have readers’ cells everywhere, we can encourage publishing in bigger scale because we will be “forced” to read them, and an industry will emerge. Our imperfections can be gradually removed through competition and reward. If no one takes local output seriously, we should make our industry compelling. The world may be forced to pay attention. After all, novelist Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize even though he was unknown outside France.

    We cannot allow others to tell us how to articulate our own experience. This happens in other arts. Fela and Sunny Ade often adapted their rhythms and beats to western sensibilities when they performed in Europe and North America. Recently I attended the Asha show in Lagos. The greatest artiste of this generation lives in France and her song has changed somewhat. She is still great but she lacks that power of utterance that resonates like the chant of an African goddess.

    The arts are not alone. We struggle with political system. Presidential or Westminster? Even in currency, we are trying to change masters from the American dollar to the Chinese Yuan. Globalisation should not obviate identity. The BREXIT debate in Britain is about that among other things.

    If we cannot be bold enough in other spheres, the literary world can be a start.

  • Ambode goes global

    Ambode goes global

    Barely a month of launching his Lagos Global, the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has earned what is at once an accolade and a job. He has been appointed vice president of Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CEIC).

    This is a move that affirms the status of Lagos in the line of investment and in a globalising world. As the helmsman of the alpha state in the country, the governor has staked out an opportunity to lift Lagos by selling its virtues.

    One of such virtues is security, a thing that he has built a sure template for. Governor Ambode has not only provided vehicles and gadgets but also illuminated the city. The infrastructure work around the state, especially in rural areas to connect the mainstay of the city will also sell Lagos as a hub of opportunity. The rail project is ongoing as well as plans to make Lekki the top deep-sea pot.

    This elevation was announced just as the governor inked a public private deal with a United States firm, Medpark International Consortium, to build a massive medical park to be located at Ikoyi. It will accomplish at least two goals. One, it will stanch what has become Nigeria’s medical tourism. Two, it will provide jobs and help flower an economy. It is intended to be completed in 2018.

    His new position as VP of the CEIC will only enhance his Lagos work.

  • Shettima’s warped argument

    Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima must have shocked many when he sought to absolve Fulani herdsmen from the series of criminal activities associated with them around the country. The governor who addressed the press on behalf of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) faulted what he saw as the increasing profiling of all criminals as Fulani.

    Hear him: “We want to unequivocally condemn the recent killings in Enugu and other parts of the country. But we equally condemn the politicization or permit me, the ethnicization of the whole crisis. It goes beyond Fulani. If anything happens, they say Fulani herdsmen. To me, it is an insult”.

    He drew a parallel with kidnapping to illustrate his point, arguing “kidnapping in the country originated in the South-east, were they called Igbo kidnappers?

    Not unexpectedly, his statement has been interpreted as a veiled attempt to absolve Fulani herdsmen from the murderous activities and sundry criminality that have come to be associated with their activities. The uproar generated by Shettima’s rationalization was such that the deputy governor of Benue State was put under pressure to deny that the NGF absolved Fulani herdsmen from the killings that have left that state a former ghost of itself.

    It would have been suicidal had he been associated with the interpretation which Shettima’s views on behalf of his colleagues seemingly conveyed. Shettima and his colleagues may not have deliberately set out to absolve Fulani herdsmen from the killings in Enugu, Benue and other parts of the country. It would have been absurd and insensitive for them to have done so. They seem concerned on the way and manner Fulani herdsmen are being linked to all manner of criminal activities in parts of the country.

    They fear that some of the criminal activities attributed to Fulani herdsmen may not have been actually committed by them. That could be possible. There is also the suggestion that it is not just the Fulani race that is in the herdsmen business as some other groups are also into it and could be part of those involved in the killings and criminal activities. This point was further openly canvassed by northern senators when they addressed the press on the festering crisis. Senator Abdullahi Adamu who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, had said that he had seen some herdsmen who are of the Igbo and Yoruba stock. That appears in tandem with the analogy of Shettima when he claimed that kidnapping originated from the South-east yet nobody has termed all kidnappers as Igbo.

    But that is where Both Shettima and Abdullahi run into troubled waters. The first problem with their analogy is that they twisted the facts about the origin of kidnapping in the country. Kidnapping never originated in the south-east as has been erroneously bandied. The first reports on kidnapping in this country involved militants who took expatriates of oil companies for ransom.

    It was a protest against the despoliation of the oil producing communities by oil companies without regard to their sufferings. Definitely, this did not take place in the south-east as the theatre was always in the high seas and the creeks. The south-east does not have the advantage of such seas and therefore the Igbo could not have been the initiators of kidnapping as Shettima would want us to believe.

    It is true that the devious technology was later copied by sundry criminals in Igbo land and elsewhere and executed in the most embarrassing manner. It is no less correct that the kidnapping bug later infested all ethnic groups and spread like wild fire. Today, Fulani herdsmen are fully into it. So it is not possible to profile all kidnappers as Igbo as other ethnic groups are fully into it.

    But unlike in the case of the herdsmen, we are yet to know of any other ethnic group that is largely in that business. The association of the Fulani with the business of herding is legendary. It is a cultural thing. They control cow rearing almost 100 per cent. If you find any other person outside the Fulani race in that business, they are doing it at the behest of their Fulani masters.

    So when crimes are committed by herdsmen in parts of the country, they are easily traced to the Fulani cattle tenders. It has nothing to do with wrong profiling, politicization or ethnicisation. It is the reality on the ground. By that, no attempt is made to categorize the Fulani race as criminals. Nobody in his right senses would venture that. For when we talk of criminals in the society, either of the Igbo, Fulani or Yoruba stock, they are deviants consisting of an infinitesimal percentage of these populations. So it is not possible to label the Fulani race as criminals because of the activities of the few criminals from that race. That is a trite point Shettima should have taken for granted.

    Beyond this however, it is a different ball game altogether whether this is the right time for such trite arguments. At a time many lives have been lost and property of inestimable value destroyed by the herdsmen in parts of the country; at a time tempers are very high and the nation drifting to the precipice on account of the failure of the state to rein in the herdsmen, raising such arguments amounts to insensitivity to the pains of those who have lost loved ones and properties to the senseless invasion of their communities.

    It is crass insensitivity to the current mood of the nation for the governors to have condemned the killings with the right hand and the alleged labelling of the Fulani as criminals with the other. Such, is least expected of that distinguished meeting of governors. It is not for nothing that that statement has been interpreted as tacit support for the activities of the herdsmen.

    Given the current challenges posed by the activities of the herdsmen, the governors should have come out with concrete suggestions and measures to at least, temporarily halt the smouldering inferno. Sadly, rather than do that, their position has further given vent to suspicions that there may be more to the activities of the herdsmen than ordinarily meets the eyes. That the people of Benue State felt so concerned with the position of the northern governors that they had to confront their deputy governor on the matter shows how intemperate that statement was considered.

    The position of the governors is a sad reminder to the ambivalence of the northern elite at the budding stages of the Boko Haram insurgency. At a time they ought to have spoken out and condemned in very strong terms, the activities of that fundamentalist religious group, many were found equivocating and rationalizing until the scourge got out of hands. One is afraid both the northern governors and their senators are treading this devious and very familiar path again. Then, we were even treated to such arguments as the Boko Haram serial killers were not Moslems. Yet, they professed that faith, abducted the Chibok girls and converted them to the faith. We were also told by no less a body than the Northern Elders Forum that most of the crises in the north were being instigated by people from outside the region. No less a person than the former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako even alleged that Boko Haram was a contrivance to depopulate the north. Today, we now know better.

    Today, we are again being told that there are Igbo and Yoruba elements into cattle rearing. Even if it is possible to get some other tribes in that business, to what extent does that detract substantially from the fact that it is an age-long business of the Fulani? Does that safely exculpate the Fulani herdsmen or their armed militia from the attacks they are known to have been associated with? It does not.

    Instead of wasting valuable time on issues of this nature, both the northern governors and their senators should come out with measures to end these senseless killings by the herdsmen. Disarming them should be the starting point. Then, the profiling associated with their activities which is being complained of, will fizzle out unilaterally.