The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • An opportunity

    An opportunity

    In response to last week’s In Touch, the scribe of the herdsmen sent me a text message. Sale Bayari wrote in a conciliating tone. He also had a request. He wanted me to contact the Edo State government so that the herdsmen could secure 25 hectares of land for ranches. He thought I hailed from Edo State. I am Itsekiri from Delta State.

    My first reaction was that he has abandoned his esoteric thesis about Nigerian cattle being not suited to sedentary life. Two, we can now start a conversation about how to get the herdsmen into the 21st century. I had a phone conversation with him and a civil one. In spite of the rhetoric that has inflamed conversation about this matter, I thought this is an opportunity for leadership.

    The next day, the amiable governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, travelled to the Southeast with an olive branch. With the off-the-cuff orator and Imo State Governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha with him, Governor Shettima interacted with stakeholders in the Southeast. He is the head of the Northern Governors Forum. He helped distinguish the Fulani herdsmen and interlopers. He met with the Southeast leaders in the aftermath of the butchery of citizens of Enugu State. According to reports, it was a warm meeting, with affecting speeches and sense of harmony.

    Less than a week later, some elders of the South issued a statement rejecting a grazing bill. The meeting signposted men like Alex Ekwueme and Edwin Clark who abraded the dialogue. They came to fight. In my television show on TVC on Saturday morning, a caller who lives outside the country waded in and ruled out the possibility of giving “our lands” to strangers.

    I understand the rage and the imperative of vengeance. I saw the gore and pain in searing pictures. The herdsmen of slaughter, or whoever they were, were barbarians. No one should wish anyone their company, and it is not possible to wean them from jail if they are caught. And they should be caught, if our law enforcement agencies rise up to this epic challenge.

    Yet, it is a great time to translate the anger to opportunity. The fact that the herdsmen are now at peace with the concept of ranches should stir our spirits. It can promote not only peace but also understanding. It will bring not only harmony but also prosperity. It may be our modern-day model for unity, potentially the best in our history. It is where commerce meets community.

    Some have raised the question of land sovereignty in the call for ranches. Some have said no one should give their lands to Fulani herdsmen. It is the land of their fathers. It is the epaulette of personal and family pride. They would rather leave it in its primeval lushness than violate it with the paw and groan of a foreign cow. It is the place where the community finds solace. It bristles with history, its decades or ages of struggles, sacrifice and raconteurs of glory. In the land, they worshipped, they conquered; families were born and raised in prosperity and joy. To give the land away is to hand the soul of the family over to the enemy.

    Such sentiments are important. Oscar Wilde noted that humans are not rational beings, but sentimental. But a lofty sentiment beckons: the sentiment of coexistence. I don’t think the Fulani herdsmen want the lands for free. No one should ask anyone to handover lands of such great family heritage to prosper others.

    The impression that has helped to fire resentment is the feeling that state governments will take away lands from the right owners and give them to the herdsmen. That is against the very principle of sovereignty, justice and fairness. If you want my land, you must first ask my consent. No government has brandished ideas of land seizure.

    First, we must understand the advantages. The lands that will be handed over after consent of the owners will do one great thing: stop the herdsmen as wanderers. They become ranchers. It will be a great cultural shift.

    Two, it will mean that whoever owns the ranch will be known to the law. It is like any business. It will be registered. The staff will be known not only to the neighbours but also the law. Three, the farms and locals will be immune to the encroachment of strange men and their animals. They can no longer hop on locals with arms or clubs, rape women and kill those who resist.

    This will ensure security, which is the first quality of coexistence. But with this removal of unease, prosperity can follow. Just as it happens in the developed societies, parking plants can be established. That is an opportunity for a new and flourishing time. A parking plant will encourage employment of a variety of skills. Such personnel as transporters who ferry the meat, veterinarians who ensure the health of the meat, health workers of different sorts, examining the water, the environment, the quality of feed, etc. There will be engineers, technicians, salesmen, suppliers of parts and animal needs, etc.

    The parking plant will employ also many hands, from slaughtering to cleaning to packaging to transporting. This will encourage other businesses because the staff will have to establish families, worship, shop and have health care. A wild and barren expanse of land can grow as we have seen in the United States into a ranch town. The police will have to expand and have stations there and the government presences that a growing and potentially vibrant community attracts.

    The larger advantage is that it will be a great experiment of coexistence. Whether in the rural parts of Oyo, or in the rural retreats of Delta or somewhere outside Enugu, it will force us to learn to understand one another.

    The problem is not so much that we want beef. It is at what cost? We cannot continue in this atmosphere of adversity. We have to confront the issue about being neighbours. There is too much misunderstanding in this country.

    As Mahatma Ghandi once said, the enemy is not hate. It is fear. We are afraid to live with one another. Once we rise above fear, we break barriers. I am not envisaging El-dorado. I am only proposing a template for better understanding. Cyprian Ekwensi wrote in his Burning Grass, a tale about Mai Sunsaye, a Fulani herdsman and how a foreign girl tore the family apart. It was a story of romance and he wandered about in search of the love of family and the peace that eluded jealous brothers. They eventually find peace and union. It is a tale of compassion and harmony.

    We can make that true. We need only to try.

  • Herbert Macaulay: 70 years after

    Seventy years ago, on May 7, 1946, Herbert Macaulay, the acclaimed nationalist widely acknowledged as the ‘Father of Nigerian Nationalism’, made his exit at age 81. He was born in Lagos on November 14, 1864. His father, Rev Thomas Babington Macaulay, was the founder and first principal of the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, established in 1859. His mother, Abigail Macaulay, was the daughter of Bishop Ajayi Crowther, the illustrious 19th century cleric who in 1864 was ordained as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church at a ceremony in England.

    Herbert Macaulay studied Civil Engineering in Britain. He qualified as a civil engineer in 1893. Indeed, he is recognised as the first Nigerian with such a professional qualification. He proudly attached the letters C.E. (Civil Engineer) to his name, and also practiced as an architect.

    In 1923, he launched the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), regarded as the first political party in Nigeria, following the amendment of the Nigerian Constitution in 1922, which allowed elected representatives for the Legislative Council and also created a   municipal council in Lagos.  The NNDP dominated the political space for many years, and Herbert Macaulay, who was known as Mr. Democratic Party on account of his pivotal position in the party, earned the unchallenged appellation ‘Leader of Nigerian Politics’. When the political situation took a new turn and the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) successfully challenged the dominance of the NNDP, Herbert Macaulay’s patriotic spirit promoted inter-party cooperation   as a necessity in the struggle for political freedom. The formation of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in 1944 led to a political merger that saw Herbert Macaulay emerge as the party’s first President.

    In 1927, Herbert Macaulay and his friend, John Akinlade Caulcrick, a medical doctor and politician, bought The Lagos Daily News, a newspaper founded in 1925 by Victor Babamuboni, a Lagos bookseller and printer. Herbert Macaulay was a keen monitor of the issues of the day, and expressed his views vigorously in pamphlets and newspaper articles. For instance, he criticised the government’s policy on the liquor trade, the water-rate scheme, the plan to build a separate church for white government officials, and the press law, among others.

    Herbert Macaulay’s pamphlet in 1908 criticising the Lagos Railway prompted Governor Egerton to propose a law that would restrict the press. The pamphlet, titled ‘Governor Egerton and the Railway’, focused on corruption among white officials of the Railway. The power of the pamphlet drew attention to Herbert Macaulay.  He also regularly launched attacks on the colonial administration through critical newspaper articles.

    Herbert Macaulay fought various battles against the British colonial government. He was an anti-colonial combatant by conviction and choice, for he could have followed the comfortable path of collaboration with the colonialists if he wished. His background and education placed him among the elite of Lagos society. He actually belonged to the circle from which the colonial government nominated African representatives to the Legislative Council.

    But Herbert Macaulay was not the personality-type that appealed to the British administration, which regarded him as too principled, too critical, too independent, too bold and too assertive.

    In style and manners, Herbert Macaulay was so polished that the people of Lagos referred to him as Oyinbo Alawodudu (white man in black skin). He was noted for his handle-bar moustache, well-cut suits and long bow ties. He described his moustache and bow tie as “parallel and inseparable”. He was known as ‘The Wizard of Kirsten Hall’.

    But Herbert Macaulay was a remarkable grassroots politician. He played important roles in the celebrated Apapa Land Case as well as the equally celebrated Eleko case, which ended in favour of indigenous interests and gave a big boost to his image as a champion of justice. Herbert Macaulay was known as ‘Champion and Defender of Native Rights and Liberties’.  No other politician of his time could match his rapport with the common people.  For instance, he cultivated the friendship of Madam Alimotu Pelewura, the powerful leader of the Lagos Market Women’s Association, and could easily count upon the support of thousands of market women in Lagos. The masses composed songs in honour of Herbert Macaulay.

    A July 1931 edition of West Africa painted a pen portrait of Herbert Macaulay: “He has a voice and a laugh which would be passports anywhere. The quickness, the energy, the comprehensiveness, with which he can write an article – or a book, if need be – or make a speech, or organise a demonstration, are incredible.”

    In my search for Herbert Macaulay’s writings, I found a seven-page piece handwritten by him. He was at the time President of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons and described himself as having “experience of a period of over half-a-century as a West African journalist in practical politics, and as the Proprietor and Controlling Editor of The Lagos Daily News, the first daily newspaper printed in Lagos”. The piece was titled:  ”The Government of Nigeria and the Press”.

    Herbert Macaulay said: “We have been taught to realise the incontrovertible fact that from the moment that the invention of the art of printing added a new element of power to the inhabitants of this world, the human brain, not armament, the thinker and not the soldier, books and not kings, governors, Residents or Commissioners were to henceforth rule the world in a most especial sense…”

    He continued: “In confirmation of this, we have the declaration of the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Beaconsfield who was Prime Minister of all England in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880 that: “The Press is not only free; it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy. It was not granted by monarchs, it was not gained for us by aristocracies; but it sprang from the people and, with an immortal instinct, it has always worked for the people.” Therefore, despotism in any shape or form and the Freedom of the Press cannot possibly exist together…It was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, who declared that: “A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” As an institution of the greatest possible value, the Press in Nigeria should take its place as one of the chief bulwarks of the freedom and liberty of the people of this vast territory…”

    At Herbert Macaulay’s funeral in Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe, who succeeded him as NCNC leader, referred to him as “my political father”. Azikwe said in a graveside oration: “He has left an imperishable legacy, the struggle for the attainment of social equality, economic security, religious tolerance and political freedom.” This struggle continues today.

  • Before we are overrun

    When recently I wrote on the “impunity of the herdsmen”, one had thought it would be pretty long before again, commenting on the potent danger which senseless killings by Fulani herdsmen has become to co-habitation and national unity. But that would not be.

    Not with last week’s attack on the Ukpabi Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Local government Area of Enugu State. Not with the complications surrounding the attack that left in its wake 48 innocent villagers killed, 60 houses and shops razed down with 56 injured.

    Not with the fact that reports of the impending invasion by Fulani herdsmen were in public domain and even published in the media before the mayhem was eventually unleashed on defenceless villagers in the characteristic style of the insurgents. All these make it a very high risk for us to continue to ignore, treat with levity or paper the worrisome dimension which the orgy of violence that has now become the trademark of the herdsmen has become.

    Security reports had filtered earlier that Fulani militia numbering about 500 were offloaded from two lorries in nearby Kogi State in preparation to attack the community. Following that report, the state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi convened a security council meeting where the matter was tabled. But the security chiefs gave copious assurances that they were equal to the task and would foil the attack.

    The militants eventually struck, overpowered the entire village without resistance and unleashed an unrestrained orgy of violence that left in its wake shock, sorrow and awe rendering the experiences of that rural community during the civil war to a child’s play. The invaders deployed sophisticated weapons such as grenades, AK 47 riffles and other dangerous weapons shooting and indiscriminately cutting down and killing those they could find.

    The villagers are now so frightened that they could be so mercilessly mowed down in their ancestral homes by invaders with nobody to their rescue. They are so scarred and frightened that they are now at the mercy of the Fulani attackers who could still strike as it pleased them. They are counting their losses, picking the pieces and unable to come to terms with the reality of the senseless killings and destruction of properties. On issue was a suspected loss of some cows by the herdsmen.

    Many have been rendered homeless and help is nowhere in sight. Life has become a similitude of the Hobbesian state of nature where the law of the jungle reigns supreme. Life for that community is now nasty, short and brutish. Yet, we claim to be in a civilized society that came into being through a covenant between the people and the sovereign. That covenant or social contract requires the citizens to surrender the atavism of the state of nature to a sovereign who will in turn protect them.

    But what we find in the unrestrained insurgency of the Fulani herdsmen is a scandalous failure of the state to protect its citizens. It is the failure of government; a failure of the social contract basis for the existence of modern governments. It is a collective shame that Fulani herdsmen could operate with such impunity that has continuously defied the government of this country.

    And what is there left in a government if it cannot protect lives and property? What moral justification does such a government have to command the loyalty of the citizens in the face of the relative ease with which Fulani marauders levy war on parts of the country and go scot-free?

    What are the options? To allow a relapse to the state of nature as the Fulani herdsmen’s devious onslaughts suggest; allow the law of the jungle to hold sway or take decisive action to restore order and discourage the increasing resort of the herdsmen to armed banditry and serial killings?

    President Buhari must come to terms with the drift to the precipice right away. Though he has asked the Chief of Defence Staff and the Inspector-General of police to halt the menace of the herdsmen, it is regrettable that a group that has scant regard for human lives was for a long time, allowed to hold hostage sections of the country in the fashion of a standing army of occupation. Tempers are now very high and motives are being imputed into the relative ease with which the herdsmen who value cow more than human lives have serially operated in parts of the country unchallenged.

    Questions are increasingly seeking answers as to the sources of the grenades, sophisticated riffles, arms and ammunitions the herdsmen put into advantage when attacking host communities. It is increasingly assuming a big puzzle the sophistication and dexterity with which the herdsmen defeat villagers in their ancestral homes and whether conquest mentality for religious or political motives is not behind it all. It is also curious why such armed bandits could easily pass through the security checkpoints undetected. And when they were offloaded in Kogi State, nobody made any effort either to search or arrest them. We need to get at the root of this seeming complicity on the part of the security agencies.

    In their characteristic manner, the police downplayed the number of death and the incalculable damage to property and announced that normalcy has returned to the area. It said it has commenced full investigations.

    But what manner of investigations are we talking about when the mortal harm has already been inflicted? What can such an investigation achieve when the security agencies had prior knowledge of the impending attack but failed to prevent it? The investigation that will make sense now is the unraveling of the reasons behind the failure of the security agencies to nip this singular attack at the bud given that security reports on its imminence were available to them.

    It will also interest the public why security operative did not quickly deploy to the area, cordon and search for arms and ammunitions. There is the need to know on what basis the security chiefs hinged their assurances to Ugwuanyi that they were on top of the situation- an assurance that has turned out a colossal disaster.

    This is perhaps, the first time an attack of such destructive proportion would be carried out in Igbo land by Fulani herdsmen or their hired militia. Not unexpectedly, tempers are now very high. The people are very livid with anger and not likely to take the matter lightly. They suspect that the orgy of violence that left communities in nearby Benue State a ghost of their former selves is about to be replicated within their soil. They are worried that Fulani militias now operate as if they have monopoly of the means of violence.

    Concerns are mounting as to whether any other ethnic group could venture into Fulani soil, attack and kill their people and get away with it the way they have done. The people of Ukpabi Nimbo, some of who may have fled the north due to sectarian strife, cannot understand why the insecurity that compelled them to flee those areas has now been brought to their backyard by the same people. Such realization is bound to ruffle feathers; it is bound to challenge their collective will to protect their inalienable right to life.

    And if every community resorts to self-help in defending themselves; if they resort to self help in seeking remedy to loss of property, then society would have relapsed to a verity of the state of nature. That would amount to a failure of the government. That is the foreboding prospect that has been brought to the fore by the unrestrained escapades of Fulani insurgents that convey the miserable impression that they have become law unto themselves. Enough of that rubbish now! Buhari must rise to this challenge before we are overrun by Fulani insurgents or take full responsibility for the looming state of anomie.

  • Playing the patriot

    Evidently, writing a book about patriotism doesn’t make the author a patriot. So Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu’s book, Who will love my country: Ideas for building the Nigeria of our dream, launched in Abuja on April 27, doesn’t make him a patriot.

    The event was a stunt that showed a stunted actor. It was an opportunistic show and the central character was a puny opportunist. The drama was contemptuous of collective intelligence, and was contemptible in several respects.

    The title of Ekweremadu’ s book reflects his self-concept.  He probably thinks himself a patriot, and imagines that he has ideas worth selling to Nigerians. But are his ideas worth buying?

    Ekweremadu may be dressed in borrowed robes, but the hood doesn’t make the monk. His self-projected patriotism is unsupported by the intensely controversial manner he acquired his office. Convoluted circumstances  brought him to the helm of affairs of the 8th Senate, resulting in a queer combination and cohabitation:  Senate President Olusola  Saraki of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a party elected to power on the premise of progressivism, and Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu of the unprogressive Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The Senate is still struggling with the burden of strange bedfellows.

    By exploiting fissures within the ruling APC to gain a seat that should normally be occupied by a member of the ruling party, and thereby helping to institute an odd and odious partnership at the head of the Senate, Ekweremadu sacrificed patriotism for opportunism.  His self-serving move, which amounted to a victory of sorts for his party, was bound to have consequences for the Senate.

    In this case, realpolitik cannot be an excuse for unpatriotic conduct.  Saraki’s individualism and his anti-party manoeuvres, which gave him the Senate crown, were guided by realpolitik; just as Ekweremadu’s ambitious subversion of convention.

    With the initial complications within the APC further complicated by the PDP, the country would need genuine patriotic thinking and action to escape serial governmental crisis.

    Something thought-provoking happened about a week before Ekweremadu’s book launch, which may not be unconnected with the event.  The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on April 20 denied naming Ekweremadu as its anti-corruption ambassador. The EFCC said in a statement that some reports in the print and online media had claimed that “the anti-graft agency has decorated the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, as “Anti-Corruption Ambassador.”

    The EFCC further said: “According to a statement issued to the press by the Special Adviser to the Deputy Senate President, Uche Anichukwu, the purported decoration, was carried out by the EFCC National Assembly Liaison Officer, Suleiman Bakari, who was quoted to have said: “On behalf of my acting chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa Magu and the entire management and staff of the EFCC, I decorate you as an Anti- Corruption Ambassador and formally present this frame, as a token of our appreciation to your person and office, and as a symbol of the institutional partnership between the EFCC and the National Assembly”.

    The anti-graft agency continued: “The EFCC totally dissociates itself from the purported action of Suleiman Bakari as he acted entirely on his own. He clearly acted outside his brief as a liaison officer as the management of the Commission at no time mandated him to decorate Ekweremadu or any officer of the National Assembly as Anti- Corruption Ambassador”. It added: “Members of the public and stakeholders in the fight against corruption are enjoined to disregard the so-called decoration”.

    However, the EFFC should go beyond its denial. The fight against corruption demands that it should get to the bottom of the matter. The public should know how it happened that an EFFC official allegedly named Ekweremadu as the agency’s anti-corruption ambassador, if it happened. The matter calls for serious investigation.

    This background suggests that Ekweremadu’s book and the presentation may have indeed been part of an elaborate image-laundering design. Within a week, Ekweremadu’s name was strongly linked with anti-corruption and patriotism, as if there was a need for him to project those positives.

    Considering that the Senate President is currently facing corruption-related charges before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, as well as charges related to unpatriotism before the court of public opinion, it is possible that the Deputy Senate President was under pressure to distance himself from those uncomplimentary realities.

    It is interesting that Saraki tweeted: “Last night, I attended the dinner for Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu’s book  launch .” This demonstrated that what unpatriotism   joined together, let no book put asunder.

    It is curious that the Muhammadu Buhari presidency joined in the apparent image-laundering project of a top member of the opposition who helped to cripple the ruling party in the Senate through unconstructive political conduct.  President Buhari’s representative, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had no business being at the event to endorse Ekweremadu’s claim to patriotism. The President said at the event: “He (Senator Ekweremadu) demonstrated in the book that Nigerians can only build a Nigeria of their dreams if they make bold efforts to love her above their individual selves and narrow interests.” Buhari was not only talking about Ekweremadu; he was also talking to Ekweremadu.  But was Ekweremadu listening?

    Buhari also said: “Our mantra is change, starting with individual attitudinal change. That explains why this Administration will soon launch a major campaign, tagged ‘CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME’, aimed at getting Nigerians to realise that the change they so much desire starts with them. If we all change our ways for the better, the society itself will change.”

    The question is: Do individuals like Saraki and Ekweremadu understand what individual responsibility means in this context? They are probably too self-absorbed to realise that by remaining in the positions they reached through unpatriotic means, they are no better than enemies of change.

    A report said Ekweremadu, in the 158-page book, “reflected on the need to shrink the 36 states to six geopolitical zones, a holistic approach to the fight against corruption decentralised policing, fair distribution of resources among others.”

    It is easy to theorise about patriotism. What Nigeria needs is practical patriotism. Those who pay lip service to patriotism do a disservice to the noble idea of a patriot. Patriotism is about doing, not talking.

  • A time to learn

    A time to learn

    It was a day for accolade. It turned out, ironically, as a night for introspection. Ben Murray Bruce tried to play the common sense card. As senator, he has craved the spotlight. In diction, in boast, in effort to play down his patrician status and, many will say, in vanity.

    He was talking up our history at the Silverbird Man of the Year night. He said, as he noted in last year’s event, that we have perished our memory. The young do not know the past. The old cannot remember our landmark events. We are plunging blind into the future. We need to play up our past. We need to do that now.

    He gave an inspired speech. I associated with him. I have campaigned quite a few times for this. We are a rudderless people without history. When we understand our past, the resources will abound to tackle our heres and nows.

    But Senator Bruce was about to be bruised that night, softly. The man of the year, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, injected him with a little dose of commonsense.

    He said he agreed with Bruce, but he was acting impotent when he had the power to act. If he was still campaigning for the position of senator, he would have made a mammoth sense. But he was not campaigner Bruce, but Senator Bruce.

    “Sponsor a bill,” encouraged Tinubu, and he stretched his hands to the right and called out the name of Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola. He would support the bill. He then referred to his wife and senator, Oluremi Tinubu, who would prop up the bill with her voice and brio. He assured Bruce that he would rally the forces of intellectual progress in the upper legislative chamber for the cause.

    “I am anxiously waiting for the bill. Over to you, Senator Bruce. We want it to be introduced so we can have the young study it in primary and secondary schools as a compulsory subject. In universities, we want all history departments to be restored as independent units rather than combinations with international studies, which is meaningless.

    We don’t have to go the past to grasp the value of the past. Look at some of the contemporary concerns. Look at the corruption war. We have been in this matter for long, since the First Republic. Nzeogwu and company despatched our first political elite in a putsch by lashing out at the fetid pool of corruption.” But he lamented the tragedy, and he noted that they were 10 “percenters.” What did that mean? The politicians and contractors stole 10 per cent of contract money, but allowed 90 per cent for proper work. In today’s terms, they were saints. Today, at least in the era that ended with Jonathan, they stole over 100 per cent in many instances. The evidence was ghoulish. Contracts were awarded but not implemented. The same people asked for review after a year and got more money and did nothing. The historian will have to tell us how we grew from petty thieves to shameless robbers. We can learn from that how to cauterise the malignant growth.

    The Boko Haram matter is seen as recent by many. But those who know our past will say that the seeds had been germinating before independence in the imperfections of its feudal nights and manifested in the First Republic, especially when the pogrom hit the Igbo and southern minorities. It grew gradually. Who has tracked this trajectory and shown us how to reverse the perverse train? Historians, of course. History feeds all disciplines. Those who acclaim science and technology also are inspired by the history of inventions and discoveries from Faraday to Steve Jobs.

    I spoke to a student who made a first-class in history and international studies recently, and she had only a vague knowledge of the civil war. If a first-class student had a fragmentary knowledge of our most sanguinary chapter, our bloodlust of brothers, imagine the young men of IPOB and MASSOB who know little about that time of crushed bones and seared consciences. The first-class student confessed she was more interested in the international aspect of the studies.

    Today, we are assailed by the herdsmen. Before we saw them as a metaphor for bloodshed, the herdsmen were mere curiosity to southerners. They and their cattle were mysteries. We saw them roll past on roads, in the aisles of forests, on lush grasslands. It was a mystery that overwhelmed poet J.P. Clark in his famous poem, Fulani Cattle. He wondered: “The whip no more/on your balding mind and crest/arouses shocks of ecstasy.”

    But it is not the whip that arouses shock today, but guns and the omen of death rather the “secret hope or Knowledge…” that imbues the cows with the courage that leads them “not demurring or kicking…to the house of slaughter.” Clark wrote this about an idyllic vista. Today, the slaughterhouse has changed. The abattoir has been redefined in homes and farmlands and bush paths and human alleys and streets. I received a response in the form of a full-length article to my column last week from the National Secretary General of the Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDAN), the umbrella body of the Fulani herdsmen. His name is Sale Bayari.

    This newspaper published it last week in full. His arguments were self-serving. He said the Nigerian cows are of the breed not suited to a sedentary condition. They have to roam to survive. That is an anachronistic view of biology. All biological beings survive. Even humans remain in prisons for life and do not die. Nature is about adaptability and not surrender. Americans who now build ranches once roamed as I traced last week. History has shown that this is possible. In his article, he should have followed the path of the Northern Governors Forum who argued that the guys doing the slaughter are not Fulani but infiltrators. Governor Kashim Shettima made this point. This brings a new dimension to the story.

    What it means is that we have a bigger trouble on our hands. We hear that many of them do not speak Hausa and they come from outside the country. So why did GAFDAN scribe not make this point? Secondly, who are these infiltrators? Are they new incarnations of Boko Haram? If true, what is our security branch doing about this? Why did they not know this? More, if it is true, why have the members of GAFDAN not alerted the world and openly separated themselves from the hordes of slaughter?

    If it is true that other incidents were perpetrated by feral interlopers, the Agatu slaughter was undoubtedly the work of Fulani herdsmen. GAFDAN confessed it butchered the Agatu men and women and children as vengeance. This calls for a serious investigation.

    It is time for ranching, not grazing reserves if the reserves will divide us. The lands belong to locals and locals should not be coerced to give up their lands. It will trigger the conscience of sovereignty. Ranches with parking plants are possible. We need imaginative leadership to effect this. Civilisation is about bending nature to human will. Just as the cattle should adapt, so should our agricultural lands. If we have better organised farms, herdsmen will not have excuses for predation. Herdsmen versus farmers is a collision of wild anachronisms, the sort of metaphor that Jack London graphically paints in his immortal novel, A Call of The Wild, about human savagery by the agency of dogs.

    The story is getting to the heart of the Nigerian fibre, and it is time for all to allow commonsense prevail over a fighting sectarianism or ethno-religious bias. It is good that efforts are now being done by north and south governors to close ranks. But nothing will happen until the bad eggs are fished out and punished according to the law.

    We are making history, whether good or bad. Someday, a generation will have to learn from these times.

  • El-Rufai’s religious preaching bill

    Much as Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State tries to explain the rationale behind the bill to check the activities of preachers, it would appear the controversy generated by it will continue to linger for a longtime to come. For, there are grey areas in that executive bill that raise suspicion on the capacity of its implementers when passed into law, to be fair to all the religions.

    Titled “A bill for a law to substitute the Kaduna state Religious Preaching law 1984”, it seeks among others, the establishment of two committees, one from the Jama’atu Nasir Islam (JNI) for Moslems and the other from the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for Christians. It also proposes the setting up of an inter-faith ministerial committee to exercise supervisory control over the JNI and CAN committee.

    Both the JNI and CAN committees are to issue licences to preachers as approved by the inter-faith ministerial committee and renewable after one year. Other key aspects of the bill relate to restricting the playing of cassettes, CDs, flash drive or any other communication gadgets containing religious recordings from accredited preachers to one’s house, inside the church, Mosque, or any other designated place of worship.

    It also makes it an offence for any person to preach without licence, play a religious cassette or use a louder speaker for religious purposes after 8pm in public places. An offender shall on conviction be liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine of N200, 000 or both.

    The Catholic Bishop of Kaduna, Most Rev. Dr. Matthew Man-OSO Ndagoso, is of the opinion that the bill is unnecessary as our laws can handle issues it seeks to tackle.

    For the chairman of the JNI in the state, Alhaji Ja’faru Makafi, the bill is nothing new as preaching activities have had a long history of regulation in the state. He said it was for this reason that the regime of Ahmed Makafi had to drop similar idea when he was reminded that there were existing laws regulating preaching.

    Thus, the bill appears an avoidable duplication of existing laws guiding the practice of religion and therefore patently unnecessary. Apart from this, there are aspects of it that are largely vague and suspicions are that in their implementation, the Kaduna State government may likely come out in its true colours.

    The first has to do with the setting up of the two committees for JNI and CAN that are to be supervised by an inter-faith ministerial committee. The bill should have gone further to specify the composition of the inter-faith committee. This is especially so because given the very sensitive nature of religion on these shores, there is every reason to expect some friction when it comes to the composition and chairmanship of the committee. The direction it tilts will be a mirror to what may follow thereafter.

    There will be friction over the propriety of the inter-faith committee to determine which preachers to issue licences and which of them should not be accredited to propagate their faith. Such issues are very hard to regulate. Moreover, the criteria for the issuance of such licences have not been spelt out. Is it going to be based on large followership, popularity, record or rigorous religious training?  Or is it going to be biased in favour of well established faith organizations? What future is there for the budding ones?

    And where is it written that these criteria are all there is for purposeful and effective evangelical work?  It would seem the inter-faith committee is ab initio handicapped in the assignment the bill seeks to carve out for it. It will also amount to serious intrusion into the activities of the two religions by the government. There must be a point beyond which the government cannot intrude in religious affairs. Setting up an inter-faith committee to regulate what Christians and Moslems do would amount to an action taken too far.

    There are also serious issues with the proposed trial of preachers without licences in the sharia and customary courts. The controversy that will arise from this may make nonsense of anything to be achieved by that piece of legislation.

    If at all, preaching should be regulated in the manner being proposed in the bill, it ought to be left for the two religious bodies.  But it is not all religious sects that belong to CAN and JNI. And that further constrains the attempt to regulate. You can neither regulate nor issue licences to faith based organizations that fall outside the ambit of these two religious bodies.

    But then, there is the more fundamental flaw in the reasoning that the cause of religion is better served when preachers are armed with a licence from the government. Its corollary is that issuing licences to preachers constitutes both the necessary and sufficient conditions for peaceful co-existence among members of the two dominant religious groups. There are no facts to support this thinking.

    Moreover, some of the preachers who command large following today and have performed well in their missionary work are neither known to have undergone formal training in their missionary work nor certified by such bodies as JNI or CAN before they commenced preaching. So the contention by El -Rufai that the bill “seeks to ensure that those that preach religion are qualified, trained and certified by their peers to do so” cannot be stretched too far.

    In fact, if such regulation had been in force, many of the religious denominations that abound today would not have been allowed to spring up. That is the simple fact and that is why the feeling is strong that the bill is meant to limit religious freedom.

    There are also issues with limiting the playing of cassettes, CDs and flash drive to one’s homes and inside the churches and mosques. The inevitable impression is that much of the religious disharmonies we have had in that state derive in the main, from unrestrained spreading of religious messages through these medium. This cannot be supported by the genesis of the various religion-induced riots that had in the past, led to the destruction of lives and property of inestimable value not only in that state but other states in the north. It cannot also be achieved by making it an offence for any person to preach without licence or limiting the use of loud speakers for religious purposes in public places after 8pm.

    Such regulation will no doubt, come into conflict with the mode of evangelization of most Christian dominations. The issue is not as much with the playing of religious cassettes or spreading religious messages after a certain period of time. It has not got much to do with what preachers do during their public outings.

    We need to look beyond these if we really seek the right handle to the cycle of religious violence that has been the sad lot of some states in the north. The Maitatsine riots of the 80’s; the series of religious violence of the past and the Boko Haram insurgency have little to do with some of the issues the bill seeks to regulate. Neither is the bill designed to check the future emergence of weird fundamentalist ideology nor the selfish manipulation of the down-trodden by the elite that give rise to such riots. Such indoctrination is implanted within the four walls of these religious bodies rather than outside of it.

    El-Rufai should drop that superfluous piece of legislation and channel his energy to improving the material conditions of the people of that state. With improved education and material conditions of living, the ease with which politicians manipulate the masses for self-serving ends in the guise of religion, will wane very considerably. And that is the real issue.

  • Cowboys and herdsmen

    Cowboys and herdsmen

    As a boy, I was a fan of the western, or what we know here as the cowboy drama or movie. I did not only watch their heroics, I played them. I was Michael Landon who played Little Joe in the Family Cartwright show called Bonanza. Dan Blocker was too fat and impetuous for me. Lorne Greene was too old and hoary. When I didn’t play Little Joe, I eased into the equine razzle-dazzle of Buffalo Bill, Jr, starring Dick Jones.

    I also gathered their picture cards attached to every chewing gum item I bought. I did not only admire the dynamics on screen, I also loved their names, including those I never saw on screen, like Bob Big Boy Williams. They spun tales of the west, of the good guys versus the bad, of horse ride fights, bull fights, gunfights on plains and craggy highlands, of bar brawls and chivalry. They had guns, rode horses and, lasso in hand, controlled a herd of cattle. Their fashion fascinated me. Their hats with the wide, floppy rims; their bandana, the boots, their tops that came across as a cross between a soldier and civilian attire. The good guys were often winsome like Little Joe.

    I loved their confidence. The cowboy was debonair before he felled his foe. So, you saw him as a noble figure.  The Indians were for the most part the bad guys, hooting, tactless, ungainly, their faces tarred, dark and ugly and inevitably doomed.

    The image lingered in me for years even after I stopped watching the westerns. It was at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife when I studied American history under Professor Richard Olaniyan that I came to understand that I was fed a myth by Hollywood. The story of the cowboy as hero and vanguard of high values was part of the American tendency to romanticise the past. I began to repaint the Indian in my consciousness and asked their forgiveness. I learned of President Andrew Jackson, who drew a trail of tears with the slaughter of Indians. His face is being replaced by Harriet Tubman, a black abolitionist, as part of the American quest to restore truth to history.  From my studies, I knew that the cowboy was only a little different from the Fulani herdsman.

    The herdsman wields a long stick and hides his head in a low-crowned wide-rimmed hat. His dressing is sparse. The American counterpart mounts a horse with stirrups and bridle and lariat. Both graze and move in sprawling expanse of plains and grasslands and travel miles under a benevolent sky and surly cloudbursts or dry heat.

    But the challenges coincide. You don’t have the cowboy today in nearly the profile and dynamic of the 19th century, except as symbol or romantic culture.  They had problems of cow thieves, as the Fulani have. They fought to preserve and protect their animals. They had to fight locals along the way.

    They provided meat for people and communities faraway. In the late 19th century in the aftermath of the Civil War, they travelled north where beef was scarce and expensive. It was big business. In Nigeria, the herdsmen travel south.

    But the contrast begins here. Because the American cowboy confronted locals, they did not persist in fights of proprietary claims to grazing routes. They understood that the lands did not belong to them. So as communities sprouted, they adapted by charting new routes. Eventually, modernity caught up with them, and the open-range culture of grazing over wide swaths of territories became an anachronism. First they took their cows to railheads. Later they had grazing reserves with stockyards and parking plants.

    Two intertwined things happened in the American case. One, a respect for the rule of law. Two, there was no resort to impunity by insisting that a century-old path ought to be sustained in spite of modernity.

    The American cowboy bowed to the rule of law. Another man’s farmland is not my territory. They also understood that the law would catch up with them if they insisted. Those who stole cattle also had to face the consequences of the law. No one, not the cowboy, or the land owner, had a right to take the law into their hands.

    Today, Americans consume more meat than Nigerians, and if you travel through the country you won’t see men on horsebacks herding cows over long distances. In 1997, an American family, John and Denise Enssling, took me to the state of Wyoming to see The Cheyenne Frontiers Day, a show to dramatise the western, the sort I saw on television as a little boy. It was a great experience and I saw where myth met reality. I bought myself a cowboy hat.

    Our herdsmen ought to come to the 21st century. They still walk about in the expired glory of a lost era. They are enchanted with the big sky and other people’s farmlands. To live in the past and kill to retain that past is no more than barbarism. That is what the herdsman represents today. Modernity has come. It is time for the state to stanch the blood flow and lust for the flesh of innocent women. Like Boko Haram, they now have access to sophisticated weapons. Here is the irony. They clack modern guns but act like old goons, plundering, maiming, raping, killing.

    We cannot excuse the stealing of their cattle. They provide meat for everyone. But if one steals your cow, it is not an excuse to rape his wife or wipe out whole communities. The story of Agatu is important. The herdsmen say the Agatu people killed their herdsmen and the police did not do anything about it. Why did they not go to the court?  The Gan Allah Fulani, which is the herdsmen umbrella body, justified the Agatu killings because it still does not understand that this is a country of laws. That society ought to be held to account by the Buhari administration. The promise to build reserves for them was only philosophical, only a sop for us. Buhari ought to come out and condemn the herdsmen in clear and unambiguous terms. It is moral cowardice not to do so. People are dying, daughters are being defiled, families displaced. If Buhari could condemn El-Zakzaky and his Shi’ite men on television, we expect no less from him, especially since he is widely recognised as their patron. A policy statement can be anaemic if it lacks a moral tone.

    It is a moral challenge to his administration. The promise of a grazing reserve is fine, but it cannot work if we don’t provide for meat packing plants. It was perhaps that example that spurred Obafemi Awolowo to propose transporting meat across long distances. The herdsmen are illiterate. They need to be saved from themselves and we need to be saved from them. The IPOB incident in killing seven herdsmen in Igboland cannot also be justified. You don’t kill criminals to make a point. It makes you a criminal too.

    The absence of Buhari’s intervention and personal voice is interpreted as a tacit encouragement. If a patron keeps silence, the tyranny goes on. He needs to urgently counter this impression. I know he can. The world is waiting.

  • Policing the police

    How many of those seeking positions in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) are driven by passion for policing, and how many of them are simply following their existential passion? This question, which may be difficult to answer categorically, is critical to the success of the ongoing effort to fill 10,000 vacancies in the country’s police force.

    It is thought-provoking that a statement by the Head of Press and Public Relations Unit of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Ikechukwu Ani, said: “The Police Service Commission as at 7.30am today, Tuesday, April 19th, received 705,352 applications from applicants who are seeking employment into the recently advertised 10,000 vacancies into the Nigeria Police Force. A breakdown of the applications showed that 202, 427 applicants have successfully applied for the position of Cadet Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), 169,446, for the position of Cadet Inspector and 333,479 for the position of Constable.”

    Given the number of applicants in relation to the number of vacancies, it remains to be seen how a police force battling integrity-related challenges will conduct itself in an exercise that requires zero-level misconduct. It is noteworthy that the PSC Chairman, Mike Okiro, according to a report, “warned its workers, who would be involved in the screening of candidates, to avoid any act that would compromise the integrity of the exercise”. The report added: “He said any worker involved in any misconduct during the exercise would be sanctioned in line with the public service rules and may be prosecuted for sabotage. The PSC chairman urged candidates to desist from indulging or inducing the commission’s workers as anyone caught would be arrested and prosecuted.” Correct talk; but easier said than done.

    Apart from the issue of ensuring the integrity of the recruitment process, there is the question of putting the centres where the recruits will be trained in good condition. It is striking that a report quoted the Commandant, Police Staff College, Jos, Plateau State, Mr. Joseph Mbu, as saying that the police colleges were in no shape for the kind of professional training the recruits would need.     Mbu, an Assistant Inspector General, said: “Our police colleges, both senior and junior are in very bad state. Most of the structures you see there are dilapidated and the issue of poor staffing is also there. Recruitment exercise into various cadres in the force has begun, but the major lacuna will be where to train the recruits. We need good facilities and atmosphere to make them better policemen. You cannot start exposing recruits by making them pay money indirectly for one thing or the other when, ideally, the government is supposed to provide everything for them. So, I appeal to the president to set up a special committee to examine our colleges with a view to putting them in good shape before the training for the new recruits commences.”

    The example of the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos, will suffice. Built to accommodate 700 students, the number of occupants it housed as at January 2013 was reportedly over 2,554. A police trainee in Lagos was quoted as saying:  ”The recruitment of new officers is a very welcome development as far as many of us are concerned but the fear we have is that the facilities here at Ikeja would not be able to accommodate even 100 people more because everywhere is filled already. In fact, many of us are just trying to cope with the situation because it is not conducive for us at all…Personally, I am worried because I know how much we would suffer if more people are posted here. It is a very big source of concern for many of us.”

    Also, a female trainee at the Police College, Ikeja, said: “We are not saying the police authorities should not recruit more people into the Force, our major concern is how this place would accommodate us if new intakes are posted here. If the authorities can use this opportunity to improve on the existing infrastructure, it would be very good. In fact, it will make many of us happy because we are passing through a lot of challenges at the moment.”

    Against this background, there is no doubt that those who are eventually recruited through the ongoing process will face infrastructural challenges as well as instructional challenges. It is clear that the Federal Government needs to act urgently.

    Police training is too important to be neglected or left to suffer the consequences of neglect. It goes without saying that the police cannot be properly trained when the facilities for their training are improper. The Inspector-General of Police (IG), Mr. Solomon Arase painted a picture that showed just how under-policed the country is. He said in an interview: “When you say the number of policemen we have is 370,000, you have to take into consideration that we have traffic wardens, civilian staff, medical doctors, engineers and drivers. If you put those ones together and minus it from the 370,000, it will come down greatly. So, it leaves us with few operational policemen who we can give firearms to.”  Considering that Nigeria’s population was estimated at 178.5 million in 2014, the extent of the existing policing gap is extensive.  There is perhaps a more fundamental issue that must be addressed to achieve reasonably adequate policing across the country. Arase tried to dance around what may indeed be the primary problem. He said: “On the recruitment of new 10,000 policemen that was ordered by the President, we want the recruitment to be state-based because we want to encourage community partnership. If we want to encourage community partnership, for instance, somebody from Kano who understands the language and culture, as a constable, he will be able to serve better and gather information in that area after training instead of taking somebody from Lagos who does not understand the culture to go and dump him in Kano and then take a young boy who has not passed through Kaduna before to be dumped in the South-East. So, we want to discourage those things and ensure that it is local government and state-based by the time we recruit.”

    The truth is that no matter how hard the authorities may try to invent a substitute, there may be no real substitute for state police properly so called. It would appear that the concept of state police goes with federalism properly so called, which makes Nigeria’s version of federalism an oddity. The recruitment of 10, 000 new police personnel and the associated circumstances will further highlight the need to think and rethink state police.

  • The Iceland example

    The Iceland example

    Senator Bukola Saraki began by hiding his hands in his voluminous agbada in the fashion of the Village Headmaster virtuoso known as Eleyinmi. Those were his first days as Senate President, and this column chastened him out of that ostentation. He learned and placed his hands where they belonged afterwards – outside.

    Now, it is clear he was not only acting, he was hiding something. He had hidden them out of an instinctive impulse for surreptitious dealing. We are witnessing two acts that bear Saraki’s sneaky signature, one in the Senate, and the other offshore.

    One came from the #PanamaPapers. He has tried to finagle himself out of the charge of wrongdoing. He has tried to make it a matter of his wife, who is also under the gun. This is the same man whose, shave with the Code of Conduct Tribunal has taken a turn for the controversial. It is not about Saraki now. It is about the immensity of the Senate as a sort of priestly chamber of our democracy.

    The man who is arguably our number three citizen cannot be seen to be sullied not only by corrupt dealing or the suggestion of it. Especially with the PanamaPapers scandal. If the Panama scandal were scooped in Nigeria, he might have argued that it was all part of a vast conspiracy of detractors. Just as Vladimir Putin has said in a briefing to his fellow citizens. The beefy despot of Russia said it was the United States that was responsible for the leak and it was all apocryphal. He did nothing wrong.

    Saraki and his men are doing same in the Code of Conduct matter. They are pointing fingers at a cloud of conspirators. They forget that the best way to clobber his charges is to clear self rather than embark on a judicial rigmarole. He thinks he can con Nigerians to accept his innocence by flooding the courts with his tribe of swooning senators. Reports say the last time he appeared in court, only a handful of senators obeyed their feet to the court. Are they beating a cowardly retreat? Well, other appearances will clarify the matter.

    Yet, on the Panama matter, the Icelandic Prime Minister has bowed out of office. Not out of breach of the law but out of honour. Spanish industry minister has also resigned. The idea of offshoring money does not minister grace to the ears. It is a way of doing financial transactions in the dark, away from the prying eyes of the law or society. As Jesus said, men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

    British Prime Minister David Cameron, tar-brushed as “dodgy Dave,” by an elderly lawmaker, has been under pressure from the parliament and the public to come clean on his account. No one has been clear, including T.Y. Danjuma and David Mark, as to what their fingers were doing with the Panama papers. Only Ibori, now in Jail, can be excused for now. Our nation loves to smell like filth.  Somebody said the other day that, in a former generation, the Panama papers would have turned our universities into a cauldron of protests. Our students are now quiescent like a kennel without dogs. For irony though, the generation that erupted against our maggoty governments were in the cradle with Bukola Saraki.

    A young professor, Gabriel Zucman, last year published a book, The Hidden Wealth of Nations, in which he estimated that offshoring deprives nations of $7.6 trillion. The 28-year-old professor of the University of Berkeley noted in the book that 10 per cent of the world’s financial wealth breathed quietly in those offshore accounts. The World Bank has noted that offshore accounts engender inequality among nations because about 30 per cent of the clandestine money hails from Africa and Latin America. No wonder economist Thomas Pickety, known for his groundbreaking work, Capital In The Twenty First Century, wrote a foreword to Zucman’s book and described it as “the first serious economic research in this area.”

    Saraki was still in the throes of this shadow of iniquity when the Senate initiated another round of folly. This time the Senate is trying to rush through a bill on the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Ordinarily, will it not show how bold our lawmakers are? At the time Saraki is under trial, the lawmakers who marched beside him in solidarity to the court are the same people plotting to change the law to set him free.

    They want to take the CCB from under the office of the secretary to the federal government. Reason? They believe they cannot coerce Babachir David Lawal to cower to their machinations. Two, they want to use this change of law as a preface to changing the criminal code act that was a great legacy of the Jonathan era, in spite of its serial bumbling.

    They have argued, through a few of their decorated thugs in the Senate, that it was not inspired by their boss. Are they kidding us? Do they take us for fools? Why was Saraki absent at the deliberations? And his poodle and deputy said it was a noble endeavour and the Senate would go along with it.

    The act is desperate. They want to find a sort of way out for Saraki. The former Eleyinmi has not spoken, at the time of writing, on the subject. Without a doubt, this is a law to consecrate corruption. It is a law to corrupt the law. It may be the worst wanton act of lawmaking since the third-term bill. Even the third-term bill was an effort at effrontery for a temporary act. This is intending for the long haul. The point is to allow us return to the era of everlasting litigation, whereby a corruption case can remain in court forever through the devious art of adjournment. So, in Saraki’s case, the matter would be in court through not only his tenure as Senate president and a second term in the same position but forever. Their action recalls Mark Twain’s assertion that “No one’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

    The case would go to President Muhammadu Buhari’s desk. He had better not sign but consign it to the dust bin, or else he would have condemned his own anti-corruption war to the garbage bin.

    Given this shadow hanging over Saraki, it is only an act of honour for him to step down as Senate president. Trent Lott resigned as U.S. Senate leader when he associated himself with Strom Thurmond,  the Dixiecrat and white supremacist. He had grown too small for his office. It was not illegal to remain Senate leader. But he had fouled the sacred air of the office.

    The rule of law is nothing without the thumb of honour. The law makes sense if we imbibe it more than recite it. The letter kills. Hence in the Old Testament the law killed 3,000 people. The spirit gives life. Hence also 3,000 people were saved in the Day of Pentecost thousands of years later.

    The law was made for us and not the other way round. Hence The Iceland PM resigned. That is why Saraki should follow the Iceland example.

  • Beauty can be beastly

    It is a thought-provoking irony that the anniversary of an incident of extreme ugliness was exploited for the promotion of beauty. On April 14, the second anniversary of the outrageous seizure of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, by Boko Haram extremists, First Lady Aisha Buhari launched her  book, “The Essentials of Beauty Therapy: A Complete Guide for Beauty Specialists”,  at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential  Villa, Abuja. Her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari, was on a one-week official visit to China.  Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was the event’s Special Guest of Honour.

    The timing of the event was intriguing because it was insensitive. Mrs. Buhari’s book launch was evidence that beauty could be beastly. It was not the kind of therapy needed. It was therapy that was nontherapeutic. According to a report by Aso Rock watcher Olalekan Adetayo, “when Mrs. Buhari’s gorgeously dressed guests were driving or being driven in their posh cars into the Villa premises, armed security operatives were barricading the seat of power in order to ensure that activists campaigning for the rescue of the girls did not have access.”

    Of all days, why did Mrs. Buhari choose that day for her book presentation?  Her speech on the day spoke volumes for her superficiality. Her performance lacked a sense of occasion.  She said ”My natural passion for beauty and fashion developed the unique interest to work, teach and mentor young ones on beauty and fashion. In my over 10 years in the beauty industry, l have trained, mentored and empowered hundreds of young Nigerians in different areas such as facial, skin and body care.”  Mrs. Buhari exposed an emphatically shallow level of empathy by linking her show with the victims of the Islamist terrorist group that has terrorised the country’s Northeast since 2009. She declared: “I am dedicating this event and the proceeds from the sales of the books to be used to empower the mothers of the Chibok girls. Others are Buni Yadi boys murdered in their sleep in 2014 as well as support the malnourished children in the different Internally Displaced Persons camps and other children in such situation across the country.”

    Mrs. Buhari’s promotional enthusiasm on the occasion was pathetically uninspiring. Her words had a hollow ring: “As a mother, my heart is always with the parents of these children; I bear their pains and believe that this is one of the efforts to console them. The parents of these children brought to this event to witness this event are an indication that at individual level a lot can be done to alleviate their hardship.”

    The problem with this particular individual and individualistic effort to soften the tragedy of terrorism is that the donations were wrapped in secrecy. It is fascinating that the men and women of power and resources who attended the event didn’t say how much they were giving in support of Mrs. Buhari’s self-defined cause.

    Understandably, there are speculations that this monetary silence might have been influenced by the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption image. Indeed, the Vice President was quoted as saying: “The President and I are on half salaries. The President is very strict on money issues. So, don’t expect me to make a large donation.”  Also, a report said: “The book presenter, Senator Daisy Danjuma, also failed to make her donation public… The Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who spoke on behalf of the 36 state governors, also followed the same line. Although he promised that state governors would make the books available to all the local government areas in the country, he did not announce how much they would pay.” Mrs. Buhari’s book reportedly had a price tag of N20, 000 per copy at the event.

    The question is: Doesn’t this unavailability of monetary information related to the book launch encourage public suspicion? At the end of the day, only the organisers would know how much they made from the event, and whatever they eventually give publicly, in connection with the advertised cause, may not be a true reflection of what they received privately. Wouldn’t that look like corruption? Like beauty, or even ugliness, corruption has many faces.

    There is no question that Mrs. Buhari’s book launch was lamentably opportunistic. The Chibok kidnap anniversary was not an occasion to be manipulated for personal purposes dressed as public purposes. The spotlight on beauty was symbolically faulty. When the world was focused on a hideous crime against humanity, which is what the girls’ abduction represents, it was ugly to trivialise the anniversary by highlighting cosmetology.

    No application of cosmetics can beautify the unattractive reality of the Chibok multiple kidnappings. Out of the 276 seized students of the Girls Senior Secondary School, Chibok, 57 managed to escape. It is a cause for concern that 219 girls are reportedly still missing, despite an international campaign that resonated across the world, involving U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

    Fundamentally, it is a failure of government that the strident popular demand for action, particularly political action by the political authorities, which was formulated as #BringBackOurGirls, has not brought the desired success. Notwithstanding initial footdragging by the Goodluck Jonathan administration that was in power when the terrorists struck in Chibok, and the associated complications, President Muhammadu Buhari must rise to the challenge. It is remarkable that the latest video attributed to Boko Haram coincided with the second anniversary of the Chibok abductions, and suggested that some of the caged girls were still alive and together. Undeniably, the unresolved kidnappings call for vigorous political will and creative dynamism. In this matter, the government of the day must demonstrate that it is conscious of its institutional and moral responsibilities.

    It is food for thought that on the same day Mrs. Buhari launched her beauty book in Abuja, a more soulful and soul-lifting expression of humanity was unmistakable at the scene of the horrendous happening of April 14, 2014.  Parents of some of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls and a team of Federal Government and Borno State officials led by Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima marked the sad anniversary on the school premises where the drama began.

    It was a poignant moment when one of the parents, K.K Yakubu, read lyrical lines: “We don’t know whether you are dead or alive, whether you have eaten or not, whether you are forced to do things you wouldn’t want to do or not, but we miss you and pray for you.” There was a spark that should spark action in the country’s power loop. This was a moment of true beauty as well as a true moment of beauty.