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Delight played with shadows on the face of Abraham Lincoln as he walked into a knot of reporters.
“Boys your troubles are now over,” he said memorably. “Mine have just begun.” The 16th president of the United States had to contend with a turbulent stewardship. The South rumbled with racial prejudice. The North puffed with the law. In between, Lincoln became statesman, general, arbiter and reconciler. He fought to weld a nation. In his triumph, he gained his people.
Winning an election is often a big fight. But after the victory, the elected become almost like a new bride in the house. After winning her as a bachelor, you have to win her as a husband.
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode found this as he tried to settle down as the helmsman of Lagos State, the alpha precinct of the nation. So, while he was reorganising the civil service, putting his men in office, and fleshing out a vision, two mighty bears growled into place in the city.
Traffic went out of control. In Lagos, where traffic snarls, hoodlums gnarl. One monster mounts another on top of the hapless citizen. The underbelly of Lagos began turned a boiling room. The commercial hub was not only a place to make money for the creative and sublime. It is the spring of the artiste; the lowborn and the derelict can turn into saints and martyrs. It is also the platform that lifts the cunning into a hero, for the deranged to offer cure for sick. In Lagos, money scrunches and blares. It is Nigeria’s big bright Babylon.
Hence as the elections came earlier in the year, a distorted narrative sprang up. The lofty doings of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola fell into the mischief of a new narrative. If he did well by turning Lagos into a place of better, disciplined traffic, he became vilified as the terror who brought bribery and tyrants to the streets. If he curbed the flurry of gangsters who robbed and raped, he was the one who made Lagos into an emergency of blood-red villains as law enforcers.
Ambode’s candidacy became framed as a continuation of Fashola’s tyranny. The okada riders fumed. The market women fulminated. The taxi driver grunted. Some tribes differed because of work to sanitise markets and neighbourhoods. They made Fashola into a burden on Ambode.
In the end, Ambode prevailed with a cliffhanger after the PDP and Jimi Agbaje manipulated the fallacies into fact and minted false hopes.
Governor Ambode played the conciliating husband after the wedding, and suddenly the bride accused him of holiness. We were in the terrain of hosanna today, crucify him tomorrow.
So, by pouring scorn on the Lagos State Governor, they were actually indicting themselves and apologising for voting the way they did. It was teething lesson in governance. It is a good thing it has happened. And Lagosians and Nigerians now know that there is virtue in discipline. That Fashola was not wrong and Ambode is now right.
He has released the men of LASTMA and police on the streets and the evidence is beginning to show. The husband is getting a good grip of the bride. The traffic problem has been like this always towards the end of the year, but it coincided with the teething days of the governor. That is what is called a double jeopardy.
Some of the culprits have had his attention. Oshodi, for instance. In the past couple of weeks, it has eased, especially towards the late evenings. Before that, the yellow bus drivers hogged the road and waited to fill up before moving. All commuters were held hostage. Now, the police stand, gun in hand, in menacing duty. The buses are now coy.
The Economist magazine furrowed many brows in its characterisation of Ambode. Writing in a sardonic style, its story fell short of its cherished promise of promoting liberalism and free market. It would have compared traffic in London to Lagos and how technology has been the fulcrum of the handling of modern traffic. It made no reference to suggested innovations. It just went on a free fall of prejudice, contradicting itself. It called for law and order and condemned it in Fashola’s era.
Nothing tells the story of the traffic situation than Governor Ambode’s encounter with one of the offenders of Lagos traffic. Two Sundays ago while the governor was driving around town to see things for himself, a yellow bus hurtled towards him. It was driving on a one-way lane, against the rules.
The governor stopped his car, stepped out, and confronted the driver. The picture was famous on the front pages of a few dailies. The driver walked out surprised to see the state’s first citizen. Governor Ambode asked him why he was violating the traffic law.
All the driver did was to plead for forgiveness. He said he was heading for church and he had to take that route with his fellow churchgoers in order not lag behind the grace of God.
Now this was typical Nigerian. He had sinned against heaven and against man. So, too, the churchgoers who tagged along. They did not give unto Caesar what was Caesar’s. If they did, they would have abided by the traffic law. They did not give unto God what is God’s. If they did, they would not have sinned against Caesar by violating the law of the land.
No one will cavil at Ambode at election time or at any other time by railing at the virtue of enforcing discipline. By endorsing discipline now, Lagosians, including artisans, okada riders and peddlers of market chaos, have shown remorse at their own past ill grace.
If Ambode had continued with the measures he inherited, they would have accused him of perpetuating tyranny. Early on, he would have been held hostage. This is liberating moment, an epiphany in discipline.
Because of this important distraction, few have seen some of the capital things Ambode has done. Lagos today is the most active in infrastructure work in Nigeria, with work going on in a flurry in many parts from Mile 12 to Yaba to Ikorodu Road to Ipaja to Victoria Island.
In his play, All is Well that Ends Well, Shakespeare dramatises two lovers that never begin well but end well. Some have called the play a tragedy and others comedy. Modern critics call it a “problem play” because it dances on a perilous border between laugh and cry. Ambode has somehow with the early problems nudged the city to the early cracks of a laugh by helping to make Lagosians vote for discipline over chaos. Added to this is his foray into technology to fight the mighty bears. For instance, the use of helicopters helps to locate and isolate traffic and criminals and fight them from the air.
Now Governor Ambode has to figure out how to make LASTMA incorruptible.
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Category: Monday
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All is well
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Museum of endorsements
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As the polls for Kogi and Bayelsa governorships loom, news reports show a trend. We read about whole communities declaring for a candidate. I wonder whether such reporters spoke to whole communities. The worst culprit has been the imperial-looking, walking-stick Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State. He probably mistakes his walking stick for a police baton, given the way he governs. And he was a policeman. Sometimes though he poses more like a headmaster. These reports are clearly orchestrated. But this trend began decades ago. As a student, I often wondered how a reporter knew that a whole community endorsed one person without any scientific proof. It is often done by a call or a news release signed by a fawning soldier of the candidate. Reporters and editors should be wary of such reports. Some newspapers reported similar enthusiasms in the just-concluded elections, and the real results turned to be the opposite. Such reports about endorsements will eventually end as collections in a museum of lies. This is a parody of the tale in Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s work, The Museum of Innocence. -
Lagos-Ibadan Expressway: The Fashola factor
Like a winding way, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway presents twists and turns. Another development has further complicated the ongoing reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and reinforced earlier complications. In the news is a new concession claim that is surprising and thought-provoking.
An October 22 report said: “The Ministry of Works has said that the contractor handling Section II of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway reconstruction and expansion project, Reynolds Construction Company, RCC, was facing challenges of finance, adverse weather and impatience of motorists. Mr. Nelson Olubakinde, the representative of the Ministry, told newsmen in Ibadan: “The construction company (RCC) is facing challenges of finance, weather, especially rain, and impatience on the part of road users often resulting in accidents within work location.”
The report also said: “Olubakinde, however, said that the construction effort was under Public Private Partnership, PPP, arrangement with Motorway Assets Limited as leasee, while the ministry was the guarantor.”
The confusion was compounded by a November 11 report which said: “Oyinloye was quoted in a newspaper report on November 4 as saying: “Motorways Assets Limited has been given consideration for the project. The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission has to give the concession certificate, while the lenders and investors have to ensure that all the details are properly worked out. We have now got all the relevant approvals.” Mr. Adekunle Oyinloye is Managing Director of the Infrastructure Bank Plc.
The question is: How did MAL get into the picture? It is noteworthy that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has moved from controversy to controversy, especially following the Goodluck Jonathan administration’s 2012 termination of a concession agreement with Bi-Courtney Highways Services Limited (BCHSL), which was supposed to reconstruct and manage the toll road. The past government alleged that the company failed to make progress on actualising the objective of the concession four years after the agreement signed with a preceding administration.
It is two years since the Jonathan administration in July 2013 rearranged the reconstruction, following a N167 billion contract, awarded to Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Reynolds Construction Company Limited. Under the new arrangement, two sections of the expressway will be reconstructed: Section I (Lagos to Sagamu Interchange) and Section II (Sagamu Interchange to Ibadan).
The 127.6-km-long Lagos-Ibadan Expressway dates back to 1978. Apart from connecting Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, and Lagos State, Nigeria’s economic capital, the road is the busiest inter-state road, and it is a main link to the northern, southern and eastern regions of the country.
According to Bi-Courtney, “We are in court because the alleged cancellation of the concession did not follow due process. Apart from that, the so-called contract involving the two new companies handling the project was awarded arbitrarily without a bidding process.” The company said: “BCHSL won the concession to reconstruct and manage the toll road for 25 years. It’s a Design, Build, Operate and Transfer (DBOT) arrangement. According to the concession agreement, the road will be expanded to 10 lanes from Lagos to Sagamu and six lanes from Sagamu to Ibadan. Because of this expansion, structures that fall within 60.35 metres from the median on both sides of the road will be demolished, and government will compensate owners of the affected properties.”
The company proudly argued that it rebuilt the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA2) in Lagos “against all odds”. “It is the first airport in Africa to be owned by a private company on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis, the first of its kind in Nigeria, and it was delivered far ahead of schedule,” Bi-Courtney said.
The company’s response to the allegation of non-performance blamed work delay on the Jonathan administration. In the period of three years and six months that the company had the concession, it was slowed down for two years and 10 months. According to the company, the design process which was expected to be completed within four months took 18 months as a result of bureaucratic bottlenecks at the Ministry of Works. The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) corroborated Bi-Courtney’s position.
From the look of things, the announced cancellation of the concession by the Ministry of Works on November 19, 2012, was the culmination of a chain of unprogressive manoeuvres resulting from behind-the-scenes influence. While the delay lasted, Bi-Courtney said, “We were advised by the ministry not to do any serious works on the road other than palliatives”. Before the concession was terminated, the company claimed it “had completed the patching and overlaying of bad portions of the highway, preparatory to full-scale reconstruction”.
It is interesting to note the new language describing MAL as “leasee” and the reference to Public Private Partnership (PPP). The old understanding was that the contract involving Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Reynolds Construction Company Limited is not a concession unlike Bi-Courtney’s, with the implication that the federal government is expected to fund the road rehabilitation and operate the toll road. With MAL in the picture now, has the picture changed?
Of course, it is open to debate whether adopting the concession model for the rehabilitation of the expressway promises greater socio-economic benefits than the old way of doing things. However, the attraction of the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) approach, which the concession concept represents, cannot be reasonably discounted in a modern economy, considering reported examples in Western Europe and the U.S. where private investors are involved in infrastructure development based on concession agreements.
The PPP appeal is highlighted by a recent report: “Contractors handling over 184 federal road projects have abandoned the various sites due to lack of funding from the Federal Government and the huge debt owed them by the Federal Ministry of Works.” The Lagos-Ibadan dual carriageway was listed among the roads affected by the funding problem. According to the report, “The contractors said they were owed over N600bn, adding that although part of the sum was owed by state and local governments, over 80 per cent of the amount was owed by the Federal Government.”
This kind of abandonment seems less likely under a concession arrangement that requires the concessionaire to raise funds for the concerned project, rather than wait for government funding that may make a mess of the project, particularly in the context of dwindling government revenue.
Against this background, the appointment of ex-Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola as Minister of Power, Works and Housing, may prove to be a clarifying factor concerning the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. He has a track record of progressive performance. Fashola was quoted as saying: “Let us design and build roads that last and houses that will stand the test of time. We want to know if some of those problems are man-made or systemic…We want information on what has been done, what remained to be done, and what are the future plans, we want to continue from there.”
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Yakubu’s INEC
The role of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC in stabilizing democracy in this country came under focus last week when President Muhammadu Buhari swore in its new chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and his national commissioners. Apparently drawing from our unsavory electoral experiences, the president had charged the commission to abhor external influences in their duties as they will be held accountable for their actions.
Buhari who promised not to interfere in the affairs of the commission said the change mantra of the APC will be all embracing in electoral matters such that it will give boost to the conduct of free and fair elections.
The president’s promises are as heart-warming as they are equally refreshing. No doubt, one of the greatest challenges to the sustenance of enduring democracy within these shores has been the glaring inability of electoral umpires and politicians to abide by the rules of free and fair competition. This has over time resulted in the subversion of the pristine values on which the wheel of democratic governance revolves.
Before now and especially during the regime of Obasanjo, the management of elections had left so much to be desired. Rigging, falsification, outright writing of election results and all manner of malpractices were the order of the day. The bastardization and corruption of the electoral process came to an all-time high that the electorate began to lose confidence in its capacity to reflect the true will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. The conduct of the two elections that were supervised by that regime shook peoples’ confidence in their capacity to approximate the collective will of the people and cast serious doubt on the underlying philosophy behind representative democracy.
So much damage was wrought to the electoral process that the future of democracy was put in serious jeopardy. The Yar’Adua administration had to contend with public disenchantment and cynicism on the continued relevance of voting during elections when such votes will count for nothing in determining those to emerge from the exercise. This in turn, threw up a crisis of legitimacy. Yar’Adua fought to contend with the situation as it posed obvious threats to the future conduct of elections. His successor, Goodluck Jonathan was left with no option than to make the conduct of free and fair elections a cardinal goal of his regime apparently to gain legitimacy and restore peoples’ confidence in the electoral process.
He made considerable progress in that direction as the 2011 elections came out a substantial improvement on the ones before it. Jonathan showed serious commitment to the conduct of free and fair elections as evidenced in the technology-driven innovations of the electoral body to enhance the overall credibility of elections. For the first time in the management of elections in this country, card readers were deployed to stave off the stuffing of ballot boxes by ensuring that only those duly accredited to vote actually voted at those elections.
The 2015 elections, despite shortcomings arising from the refusal of politicians to play according to rules, was devoid of any grand plan by the government in power to manipulate the process as was previously the case. Perhaps, that in part, accounted for why the Jonathan government lost power to the opposition.
Even Buhari had admitted Jonathan had an option to manipulate the process but opted out in the overall interest of the country. It was for the same reason he received accolades from the international community as his action brightened the prospects for the deepening of democracy in the country. The outcome of that election was very symbolic given that it represented the first time in our political annals an incumbent will concede power to the opposition at that level.
As a beneficiary of this goodwill, Buhari does not seem to have an alternative than to improve on the records set by Jonathan in restoring some modicum of credibility to the management of elections. That is why his promises not to interfere in INEC’s affairs and also to reflect the change philosophy of his party in all electoral matters are very timely. We say so because, in a couple of week from now, that commitment will be facing its true test. Elections are at the corner in Kogi and Bayelsa states.
Their handling will serve as a litmus test to the commitment of the Buhari regime to institutionalizing orderly succession through the reflection of the collective will of the people in the final choice of their representatives. That is the challenge before Buhari and the new INEC. The way it is handled will point the direction to the future of democracy.
It is true that the management of elections is the sole responsibility of the INEC. But it is no less correct also that the overall success of that electoral body will depend on the support and cooperation it gets from the government. There is therefore a whole world of difference between promises and giving effect to them when the need arises. Buhari should therefore move beyond promises to initiate actions that will imbue confidence in the electorate that INEC will remain an impartial umpire in electoral matters.
One issue that will continue to create concerns for political observers is the tendency for people to gravitate to the winning party. This has raised genuine fears of a possible slide to a one-party state. These fears cannot be wished away especially given the awesome powers at the disposal of the central government.
Not surprisingly, governments at the centre had through sundry contrivances encouraged this tendency. That is the danger created when undue emphasis is placed on compensation to those who voted the governments in power especially in a clime the same government controls virtually everything.
Unfortunately, Buhari was the first to be publicly identified with this centripetal viewpoint which Nasir El-Rufai has also referenced upon in respect of the sharing of the perquisites of office in Kaduna State. Such a disposition has all it takes to increase the slide towards a one-party state that may sound the death knell to democracy. There is no reason for every voter to vote for the same political party. It is not intended to be so and the electorate must not be coerced into it. All parties should be able to win elections in their areas of strength with the right ambience provided by the electoral body. That is the objective our leaders should seek to approximate.
But the buck for whatever finally transpires during elections will eventually stop at the table of Yakubu and his lieutenants. Buhari has told whoever cares to hear that he will not interfere in the affairs of the commission. He has promised change in its activities. He will be judged by these commitments. The new INEC management must take copious notice of these promises and conduct itself as an impartial referee despite the challenges it will encounter in the hands of government officials.
But the government still shares vicarious responsibility in the overall management of elections. The role, manner of deployment of security personnel and the ferrying of logistic support during elections are areas government still has much work to do. Before now, allegations have been traded on the use of sundry security personnel to intimidate voters and manipulate the outcome of results. It will be interesting to see what the situation will be under Buhari and the new INEC chief.
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Unwarranted Chiefs
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I wonder what the British colonialists would say today. Better still, if I exhume the partisan bones of the Aba Women’s Riots of 1929, I would seek their opinions about the wave of imperialist Ezes. In the past few years, Ezes are cropping up outside Igboland. It has raked up controversy around the country. In some parts, it has raised a mild dust. In others, the dust swirls have blinded some eyes like prejudice. At present, it is in Akure, where the locals or Yoruba are charging the Igbo of creating a parallel king. It makes Akure a two-kinged town. One crowns the son of the soil, the other an interloper royal. During the last gubernatorial election in Lagos State, it proved to be such a pest that it provoked the top Lagos king to evoke a tempest in the lagoon. This hubbub is out of sync with the long-held view that the king has no value for the Igbo. They run a republican milieu where individual enterprise trumps communitarian virtue. Hence when the white man came after “pacifying” the natives, he decided to introduce a peculiar and self-serving administrative style dubiously called “indirect rule.” The sapience of Professor Tunji Oloruntimehin challenged our colonised historicism and demonstrated that it was not indirect rule. The use of the word “indirect” was a ploy by the British to decorate their primitive system of over-lordship with the halo of humane detachment. Our historians fell for the bait. So, as they would have us believe, it was not the British who ruled but the existing institutions. They merely interacted with the heads of the kingdoms, extracted taxes and levies, vilified their customs, humiliated their gods, changed their ways of life, scorched rebellions, despatched the upstarts like Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart. Of course, if they were ruling indirectly, did they defeat the kingdoms indirectly? They pummelled the kingdoms with superior firepower and with the furious servitude of local fighters called the West African Frontier Force and Senegalese Sharp Shooters. After defeating the kingdoms, they claimed to introduce an indirect rule? Professor Oloruntimehin’s thesis is vindicated by the resistance in Igboland who had no kings. The Igbo example exposed the hypocrisy of the British moral subterfuge. If they wanted the locals to take care of themselves, how come their appointment of warrant chiefs roiled the East? Buoyed with colonial power, the warrant chiefs puffed like kings and wrung their “subjects” with the will of a foreign kingdom and a foreign god. That is the irony we see today with the Ezes. In the East, chiefs are mere ciphers. Outside, they are becoming not just kings but, in a way of speaking, shadows of imaginary emperors. They act as though conquering monarchs. They are misnomers of a vassal chief who represent an emperor in the capital. But there is no Igbo capital, and no Igbo king. They take a sliver of the physical swath of another king’s territory. They carve up, though informally, areas where many of them live, and appropriate it. But the more potent threat is psychological. The real Igbo know that they mean nothing in actual sense back home. But when they are factored into the politics outside, they become substantial. They are republicans at home. But abroad, they become royalists. That was the story of Lagos State during the last election. Jimi Agbaje rode the crest of the royalist mimicry in a democracy in a cynical quest for power. It became so heated in the last election that those PDP fellows, who ran local elections, whether for the House of Representatives or the House of Assembly, saw themselves as ambassadors of ethnic virtue. They ignore their rudimentary mission as glorious errand men of the community with all the ethnic mix. Even when Lord Bourdillon in the Constitution early in the 20th century enacted the House of Chiefs, it was to recognise the historical role of the institution as a buffer of democracy. Not in the sense in which a king is artificially concocted for insular gains. Even today, we recognise traditional institutions because we emote over it. It is not rational choice, but an emotional tug. As Oscar Wilde says, we are not rational beings but sentimental. It is little paradox that when Nnamdi Kanu and his men are pursuing a xenophobic Biafra, the Ezes are pushing the other way. It was just like the Ojukwu contradiction of declaring independent Biafra and still pushing to take over Lagos. They portray the nation the way Poet Whitman called America: “Do I contradict myself; yes I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.” Or the presidential candidate George McGovern who framed his campaign in the 1960’s to caution American imperialist impulse: “Come Home, America.” One big feature of this phenomenon is that we are finding it difficult to let monarchy cohabit with republicanism. Yes, we have chiefs everywhere. The vanity is palpable. Succeed as a politician, or businessman, even in the more rarefied area of intellectual pursuit, and your fulfilment rings hollow until you are called a chief, especially with a sonorous title. The mimicry of chieftaincy’s glorious past was unveiled in the last election when former President Jonathan hopped from palace to palace in the Southwest for the ‘whip’ of anointing. The British have lived with democracy and royalty. No clash, but mutual embrace. We deceive ourselves that the royals are in decline. But more and more accomplished men bow out of their cathedral offices to the crown of an antiquated honour. Symbol here trumps substance. But it is not all symbol. Some of the kings are contractors and power brokers, or so they are made to be. Just like Jonathan did, and failed. Some said, they helped him to make the presidential election close. No statistics yet on that. When royals rub shoulder with the icons of democracy, they ultimately fail. That explains why the English monarchy maintains its humble grandeur as a ceremonial upper room in spite of the higher realms of Downing Street and Houses of Commons and Lords in shaping the nation’s course. Napoleon Bonaparte pitted republicans against fighting royalists when the Corsican rascal took over not only France but much of Europe. The royalists could not abide their age-old system of entitlement and official nobility falling to ordinary persons. In spite of his victory, the Corsican brute is believed by the latest test on his hairs and historical research that revanchist royalists poisoned him with arsenic in St. Helena at the age of 52. But royalists and royals do not belong in today’s world of individual élan and capitalist zest. The best form of royalty is excellence, not entitlement. As Gianni Versace, the fashion mogul, once put it: “In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do.” Versace was fashion royalty. Let us not focus on royalty as though they tell us what matters. They are a grand relic, artefacts of amusement. Let us be royal mathematicians, royal moralists, royal governors, royal writers, royal scientists, etc. Let us be adjectival royals and forget the nouns. Or let us embrace the nouns only as metaphors of excellence. Let us see the Ezes as unwarranted chiefs. They are fads of fancy and opportunism and desecrators of the originals back home. The royals who cannot be royals at home are counterfeits. They walk red carpets outside but are carpet baggers. On royalty, Shakespeare said in Richard II: “Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm from an anointed king.” We should modernise that quote and give the balm to the high flyers in the professions and public service. -
A for Autism
There is only one reason my wife isn’t here,” the celebrator said. It was his 70th birthday. Before this pregnant utterance, I had wondered whether his wife was at the event at MUSON Centre, Lagos, in July 2014. When he gave the reason for her unavailability, I was struck by his openness. His wife had to provide care for their autistic son, so she couldn’t be at the celebration, he explained to his guests in Agip Hall. He added that he planned to devote his post-retirement years to speaking for Autism. It was good talk.
It’s a little over a year since the celebration and Professor Emeritus Olatunji Dare has shown that he wasn’t just talking but meant every word he said. He launched a campaign in his October 27 back-page column in The Nation titled “On a personal note”. Dare said: “At a ceremony in July 2014 marking my 70th birthday, I pledged that after one more year on my faculty job at Bradley University, I would devote the rest of my days to raising awareness of autism and use the standing that I have earned through my professional work in classrooms and newsrooms at home and abroad to help raise funds to look after the needs of the autistic in Nigerian society. As if to confirm that autism is far more widespread in Nigeria than is generally supposed, four people walked up to me at the end of the ceremony that they had autistic children. I have since learned of a young family that has two children, both autistic.”
It was striking that Dare not only remembered his words but also kept his word. It reflected reliability. What may be regarded as his mission statement said: “My goal is to assist the organisations already on the ground to help raise the level of awareness of autism and situate it in the national policy dialogue, culminating in a National Summit on Autism in 2016; in short, to help build a national constituency for the autistic in Nigeria. This column signals the start of that project.”
Perhaps Dare’s autism project actually started 35 years ago. According to him, “My son Gbolahan was diagnosed with autism in 1980, shortly after I commenced doctoral studies at Indiana University, on leave from the University of Lagos, where I was a journalism instructor. He was two years old at the time. One week of tests at the Children’s Hospital, Indianapolis, confirmed the diagnosis.” By his account, Dare was “shattered”. Who wouldn’t be?
In the years it took to arrive at this juncture, Dare was able to make a name for himself by his impressive work in classrooms and newsrooms. After a teaching period at the University of Lagos, and a stint as Chair of the Editorial Board and Editorial Page Editor for The Guardian, Dare taught journalism and international communication for 19 years at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, USA, until his retirement in May. “This institution is better for what you have contributed through your talents, energy and dedication,” Bradley University President Joanne K. Glasser said as Dare was named Professor of Communication, Emeritus.
Dare was probably describing his own torment in the face of his son’s autism when he said in his column: “…I have found cases upon cases of the condition, and bewildered parents unable to fathom the present and fearful of the future.” It is cold comfort that, as he noted, “There are different, often overlapping forms of autism.” His words: “The wide variation in symptoms among children with autism has led to the concept of autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. And the severity varies considerably. At one end are those who cannot perform the most basic functions; at the other are those, the so-called idiot-savants who can perform the most astonishing feats of memory or execution but can do nothing else. Between these extremes lie gradations of autism in its many guises and disguises.”
Talking of the range of autistic possibilities, a visit to Modupe Cole Memorial Child Care and Treatment Home School, Akoka, Lagos, is sufficient to get the picture and to get Dare’s message. It is a place that prompts reflections not only on the state of the specially challenged children within its walls, but also on the wall that separates the autistic world and the world outside it. The school’s motto, “God is Able”, is not just a reflection of the challenging circumstances of the children; it is also an expression of faith, which parents and carers need to cope with the children’s special needs.
Ultimately, this state-run school is a space of life and offers useful lessons on living that transcend the locale and the limitations of children with special needs. There is no doubt that the diversity of disabilities on display in the school compound can be mercilessly distressing. For instance, this reality is reflected by the following information in the Minutes of the school’s Parents Forum General Meeting held on Thursday, 19th June, 2014, under Principal’s Address/Report on Activities in the School: “Still on the attitudes of parents toward their children, she mentioned that, on the day the school vacated, a parent came and told the caregiver to prepare her child for her to take him home for the holiday. After a while, she cleverly left the boy and never came back till now.”
Abandonment happens, especially concerning children who are extremely dependent on others or cannot help themselves in any way. Possibly, it was maternally impossible for Dare’s wife to be with him at his 70th birthday programme at MUSON last year because of the degree of their son’s dependence on caregiving. It must be silver lining that Dare has other children. In a published interview to mark his 70th birthday, he answered a journalistic question: “Is any of your children into journalism?” Dare’s answer: “No, unfortunately. I think they have watched me struggle to put food on the table, watched me scrape and scrounge and they have watched their mother too who was a high school teacher. They have watched both of us struggle financially and I think they vowed that no, they are not going to be into that kind of thing. Our oldest son is an accountant and financial analyst with one of the big banks, another one is a school administrator in a university in Atlanta and our only daughter is a medical doctor. But our daughter, the medical doctor, is the one who is literarily-inclined. She reads voraciously and writes very well and even tries her hand writing some detective fiction, mystery novels and that stuff. So I do have one soul mate in the family.”
This is the mind that has to cope with an autistic “adult child”. Dare should be commended for his courage, the courage of acceptance, which must have essentially informed his disclosure and publicity for autism. Perhaps the most haunting line in his column was: “bewildered parents, unable to fathom the present and fearful of the future”. It is noteworthy that the United Nations General Assembly unanimously declared April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day “to highlight the need to help improve the quality of life of children and adults, who are affected by autism, so they can lead full and meaningful lives”. The day has been observed since 2008.
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One crisis to another
The National Assembly is increasingly acquiring the unenviable image of an institution in a crisis of relevance. That would seem to be the reading of the bitter disagreements that have dogged its affairs since inauguration. Early signs of schism appeared as both chambers prepared to elect their leadership. Attempts by the ruling All Progressives Congress APC to get its members support its preferred candidates as both the president of the Senate and speaker of the House of Representatives met brick walls.
As events turned out, both Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara who subsequently emerged were not the choices of the party leadership. They emerged contrary to party preferences and permutations. The APC was seriously embarrassed by its inability to rein in its members such that saw to the election of Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP as Deputy Senate President.
Various meanings have been read into the issue. Even those pencilled down as principal officers did not eventually make it as Saraki defied party directive on that. Dogara, after much hesitation, aligned with his party on the matter. The APC found itself handicapped in wielding the big stick for fear of the likely consequences of the action. It has since come to terms with that reality.
But trouble is yet to be over in both chambers as another round of crisis is threatening to tear members apart. This followed the sharing of the 96 standing committees by Dogara. In the sharing formula that he unveiled, the APC is heading 48 committees as against 46 by the PDP. Also both the Social Democratic Party and APGA were assigned one slot each.
Saraki has on the side of the Senate, unveiled 65 standing committees with APC getting 41 slots while the rival PDP had 24. Whereas the sharing formula in the Senate has yet to attract adverse reactions, the House of Representatives has been very volatile. Saraki may have learnt from the criticisms that trailed the sharing by Dogara. With the bitter criticisms Dogara has faced since that exercise, he may have opted to play safe given his utter disregard for his party’s preferences in the appointment of the principal officers of the party.
At the last count, two APC members have rejected the chairmanship and deputy chairmanship positions respectively assigned them by Dogara citing sundry reasons. There are speculations that more will follow suit as pressure mounts on the speaker to reconstitute the committees.
Those who have expressed views on the matter are piqued that the APC has no clear edge as a majority party over the PDP. They reason that the sharing formula runs contrary to extant practices in the sharing of committee positions between the majority party and the opposition. They want the committees reconstituted to reflect the majority/minority status in the house.
There are others not happy that all top and juicy committee positions were given to the PDP. They accused Dogara of compensating the PDP members for supporting his election into the speaker-ship position. Yet, there are some others who contend that the committees assigned to the PDP were very critical to driving the change philosophy of the APC.
For now, it is not clear what Dogara intends to do about the welter of protests that have trailed his sharing of committee positions. But if his immediate replacement of Garba Datti who rejected his chairmanship of the House Committee on Solid Minerals Development is anything to go by, the matter seems foreclosed. How this will affect the smooth running of the house in the days ahead is a matter for the future.
No doubt, the APC members are within their right to seek a clear edge in the composition of the committees given their status as the majority party. That is politics. This is more so when the current composition of the committees in the house appears out of tune with the ratio that had previously guided sharing between the majority and minority parties. If that is the grouse of the lawmakers, it is difficult to fault them. From the list released by Saraki, the APC commands a preponderance of the committees. For now, it is very unlikely that APC senators are going to react the same way house members did.
However, some of the issues that have been canvassed to support the raging anger over the sharing of house committee positions do not seem to derive from altruism among members. The immediate impression one gets especially when such terms as juicy and key committees are applied is that the bickering is all about who gets what.
Though overt references have not been made to this for very obvious reasons, but the body language of those who have complained so far, indicate that their grouse is more with what they intend to get from heading the committee rather than the altruistic motives under which they have sought to hide. That is the interpretation of their contention that Dogara, through the sharing of the committee positions, has compensated those who helped him emerge as speaker.
The word compensation, immediately connotes the impression that those so appointed, stand to gain material benefits from the positions they have been assigned. This inference is clearly not in doubt. And that is where the main reason for the agitations is exposed. If the PDP house members stand to benefit through their headship of key committees, there is nothing to suggest that their APC colleagues given the same opportunity will not avail themselves of the perquisites which those offices offer.
That seems to be the major issue to the disagreement rather than the selfless promptings that have been copiously canvassed. It is not surprising some have hidden under the cover of the argument that the headship of key committees by PDP members will stall the driving of the change mantra of the APC. It is curious how that will happen.
If previous handling of oversight functions is anything to reference upon, they have largely served the selfish interests of our legislators rather than those they act on their behalf. It has been an avenue to fleece the nation. There is no guarantee that the situation will be different irrespective of the party that controls a preponderance of the committee slots. What will make the difference is the credibility and integrity of their headship. That seems a better approach to the argument.
More seriously, we must tread very cautiously the way opposition is perceived in the current dispensation. The festering feeling of total exclusion for those who did not vote for the government in power will serve no useful end. It may turn out polarizing the polity as those excluded invent other ways to vent their grievances and frustrations. Once a government has come to power, it should take every section as its constituency. That is why statements from key leaders of this regime which show disdain for those perceived not to have voted for them must be totally discouraged.
Above all, our legislators must come to terms with the fact that the business of lawmaking has suffered seriously since their inauguration on account of avoidable disagreements. They must now settle down work as a team and confront the daunting challenges of the ordinary people irrespective of party affiliations. We have had enough of this fretting over who occupies what position. Our common problems know no party boundaries.
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No time for remorse
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Dele Giwa rolling in his grave
When an investigator sounds like he needs to be investigated, it calls into question the integrity of his investigation. Chris Omeben, a former Deputy Inspector-General of Police who investigated the murder of Dele Giwa, the founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch, sounded amateurish as he rationalised the failure of his investigation.
It is 29 years since the colourful high-profile journalist died from injuries inflicted by a parcel bomb he received while having breakfast in his residence in Ikeja, Lagos, on October 19, 1986. He was 39. Omeben, on the eve of his 80th birthday on October 27, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that his efforts to interrogate who he regarded as a “principal suspect” came to naught on account of interference from “high places”.
According to Omeben who was in charge of the Research Department of the Police CID when Giwa was killed: “They said somebody brought a parcel and his son, Billy, received the parcel and took it to his father (Dele Giwa), who was having his breakfast that morning. On the breakfast table was a man called Kayode Soyinka, he was there; Dele was there and then the son, Billy, handed over the parcel. And as he did so, I heard Soyinka left the table and went to the adjacent room. It was while he was there that the parcel detonated. Dele was injured and eventually died. The metal partition separating the dining room and the kitchen was destroyed. Beyond that, everything in the kitchen was destroyed. If metal could be mangled this way by the bomb, what of human flesh, what happened to Soyinka? Nobody could give me an answer. My conclusion was that Soyinka knew what was coming and he left the room to hide behind the wall.”
He continued: “I took note of all these, went back to conduct an identification parade. We had an identification parade and got people of different physical attributes to be identified by the day watch. Eventually, when one of those paraded was said to bear a resemblance to the person that delivered the bomb, in spite of my insistence to have the man quizzed, we could not because interference now came from high places to protect the man. The man was said to be related to the wife of a governor at that time and as a result of his connection, we came to a dead end on that lead.”
At this point, Omeben’s narrative took a convenient turn that introduced a twist. Who was the military governor whose shadow is still powerful enough to prevent disclosure of his name? Who was his wife? Who was the protected man? The failure of an investigator should not mean a failure of investigation.
By Omeben’s account, the dead end did not lead to the death of investigation, but perhaps it led to a dearth of investigation. He added that he focused on Soyinka, but didn’t get the cooperation of his bosses at the media company when he sought to question him. According to Omeben, he told them: “I have enough evidence to quiz Soyinka now. Please, Ray Ekpu can I have Soyinka now?”
He went on: “They resisted till today. Till today, Soyinka never appeared before the police. They started to insinuate that the assassination was masterminded by Babangida, Akilu etc. They said Akilu ought to have been investigated. As a matter of fact, I had interrogated Akilu and he told me that, yes, they had invited Dele Giwa some few days before the assassination over a negative statement he made about Nigeria in a New York newspaper. He said they had to invite him to tell him that he was wrong for portraying the country in a bad light in the international press. Akilu insisted that the invitation was not enough to accuse the government of complicity in the assassination of Dele Giwa. He satisfied me with his explanation. Togun also absolved himself with his explanation. The parcel bomb was said to have the Federal Government logo on it, which to me was not enough evidence. It was more of a circumstantial evidence. I can prove it! But for me to satisfy myself, I said please gentlemen, can I have Soyinka? Nobody! Soyinka ran away to London; that was my principal suspect!”
Soyinka’s response makes Omeben’s narrative suspect. A report quoted him as saying: “It is a lie that they have been peddling to protect Babangida, Akilu and Togun through the years. They started it from day one when that incident happened, they changed the story…I was the first person police interviewed on the spot on that day in Lagos. My survival was divine…I was the first person to be interviewed in the hospital where Dele’s body was next door to me. The second interview took place at Newswatch office on Oregun road. He said I ran away from Nigeria, I didn’t run away, I was in Nigeria till Dele was buried; I attended the burial with my wife…After the incident, it was about a month before Dele was buried and I was in the country throughout… So, I didn’t run away.”
It is worth mentioning that there is a third narrative, which is relevant because of its revelatory quality. A 360-page book entitled Honour for Sale, described by the author, Major Debo Bashorun (retd), as “An Insider Account of the Murder of Dele Giwa”, is thought-provoking. Basorun served in the General Ibrahim Babangida regime as Press and Public Affairs Officer (Military Press Secretary) to the Military President of Nigeria between 1985 and 1988.
He dropped a bomb in the prologue to his autobiographical book launched in Lagos in November 2013. He said of the explosive volume: ”It is a laborious attempt at documenting over twenty-one years of a kaleidoscopic but exciting career – a gaudy reminder of the sweet days at the pinnacle of power and how a miscalculation on the part of the powers-that-be led me to uncover the truth that, in concert with his Intelligence Chief, Colonel Haliru Akilu, Babangida has not come clean with the Nigerian people – nay the world – concerning the duo’s roles in the mindless assassination of a foremost Nigerian journalist of his time, Dele Giwa.”
Basorun also said: “I am hopefully looking forward to the day when General Ibrahim Babangida, Colonel Haliru Akilu and myself would be brought before the people’s court to answer all we know pertaining to the cruel murder…” The question is: Will that day ever come?
In 2001, Babangida rigidly refused to appear before the Human Rights Violations Commission, popularly known as the Oputa Panel, concerning the Giwa murder. He betrayed desperation for silence by going to court. With Col Akilu (retd) of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in his regime and Lt. Col. A.K Togun (retd) who was the Deputy Director of the State Security Service (SSS), he obtained an order barring the commission from summoning them to appear before it.
It is puzzling that the three men rejected what was a golden opportunity to prove their innocence. An astounding travesty of justice followed with the reported comment by the commission’s chairman to the effect that while it had powers to issue arrest warrants for the trio, it decided against such a move “in the over-all interest of national reconciliation.”
When the 30th anniversary of Dele Giwa’s murder makes the headlines in 2016, will there be a clarifying narrative? Shouldn’t investigation of the murder be reopened?
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Ajimobi’s victory
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